THE need for more expository sermons anchored in the scripture text, highly informative, and preached in the power of the Holy Spirit is sometimes painfully apparent. Such sermons should be heard by audiences attending our evangelistic meetings and also by Seventh-day Adventist congregations gathered to hear our preachers on the Sabbath day.
A few days ago on a Sabbath afternoon my wife and I visited for three hours in the modern home of a Southern Baptist lay preacher. He and his alert wife had come to believe the Advent message, but there was a stumbling block in the way. It is extremely difficult for these Christian people, who give evidence of having been born again in Jesus Christ, to accustom themselves to promotional talks and mission reports in our Seventh-day Adventist churches when they have been brought up on expository sermons in their own evangelical churches.
"Oh," Dave assured me, "there have been exceptions. I have heard a number of excellent sermons by Seventh-day Adventist ministers, rich in Bible quotations and some marvelous explanations, and my wife and I have thrilled over these messages."
"We also love the Sabbath school and the Bible lessons," said Betty, his devoted wife, "and we appreciate the friendship of the kind Adventist people, but we miss the preaching based on the Bible text."
Dave went on with a pained look on his face. "I just can't tell you what it is like when I leave the church service on the Sabbath. I feel so letdown and disappointed. I feel I haven't been fed.
"Now," he continued, "I am persuaded that you are teaching the truth. You have made this clear to me in the Bible studies you have given. [He hasn't heard an evangelistic series by an SDA evangelist.] Your books [and he pointed to The Great Controversy, by Ellen White] are filled with the truth, but I feel that I can get more good just by staying home on the Sabbath and reading The Great Controversy than I would receive if I went to the Seventh-day Adventist church and listened to the sermon during the eleven o'clock hour."
I could see that this earnest man wanted to talk, so I just let him go ahead. I want to share with you what he said because I think it has meaning.
"You have taken away from me some of my former beliefs," he stated, "but you haven't substituted in place of these any thing much insofar as the Sabbath sermons are concerned."
Well, Dave and Betty continued to talk, getting some things off their chests, so to speak, and I listened. But when it came my turn to say something, I justified the mission reports and the promotional activities on the grounds that these endeavors were a part of the evangelistic thrust of the Advent Movement. "They are essential," I said sincerely, "to keep people in formed. But it is possible that even these good things can crowd out evangelical preaching."
I must confess that I agreed with Dave and Betty that there could be and that there ought to be far more expository sermons, Scripture-saturated messages, preached on the Sabbath from Adventist pulpits. I am wondering how many preachers who read these lines agree with me.
In recent years especially I have found tremendous spiritual satisfaction in preaching sermons based upon great themes developed in well-known Bible chapters such as John 2, 3, 4, and 9; 1 Corinthians 13; et cetera. How fascinating it is to take these rich segments of Scripture and verse by verse bring out the thought so richly permeating the sacred text.
I am sure the practice of Ellen White in preaching so many sermons about Christ and the Holy Spirit and a holy life, using the book of John, especially John 14, 15, 16, has influenced my mind and heart in this direction.
I have found that Seventh-day Adventists appreciate Bible-seeded-and-rooted sermons. We will have more appreciative and spiritually enriched audiences if we feed them with the fruit born on this tree.
This past summer at the camp meeting in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, I was privileged to speak at the eleven o'clock hour on the Sabbath. My text was the book of Esther. I narrowed down my introductory verse of Esther 4:14, "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" But the book of Esther itself, chapter by chapter, was the basis of the message. Parallels were drawn between Esther's and Mordecai's time and the final days of human history when Adventists will become Mordecais at the gate when in God's providence the people of the Lord will escape the wrath of man as Israel did in the time of the wicked Haman. What a theme of triumph and spectacular deliverance!
To take the experience of a great Bible character or group of characters; to take that story and make it the theme of the hour and to apply the lessons to modern times and needs, represents a thrilling encounter with the Spirit's guidance. It is also glorious adventuring in Scripture exposition. More important, it is God's way to convert men with the Word of God. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Peter 1:23).
While attending the Potomac camp meeting not long ago, I was privileged to speak to the juniors on the Sabbath. With God's help, I tried to develop the story of the book of Esther and applied the lessons to the 1960's and 1970's and to the immediate future when Seventh-day Adventists will occupy the position of Mordecai, the Jew at the gate; Mordecai who refused to bow down to the king's commandment, who chose to worship the Lord and the Lord alone.
I sensed that the Lord's angels were hovering near. God's presence was manifest in the audience. The juniors paid rapt attention, held by God's Word and power. When the gospel invitation was extended, those juniors came forward and gave their hearts to Jesus. Many decided to become baptized Seventh-day Adventists. Scores made life's most important decision. It was a tremendous experience and a thrill to see those young people decide to take their position with Esther and Mordecai and God's remnant church.
Perhaps the really pertinent reason we do not preach more strongly Bible-punctuated sermons is that we are not great Bible students. I must confess to a lack of Biblical knowledge myself, but I hunger and thirst for more and more of the Word.
Mind and heart must be supersaturated with the Scriptures if we are to stand in front of the people and develop the lessons of the Bible in a forthright, powerful manner, witnessing meanwhile the conversion of sinners. Lack of Bible study is one reason why we do not always preach as effectively as we should directly from the Word, repeating the Scripture words with frequent quotes from memory.
Ellen White was led to instruct our ministers concerning their public evangelistic efforts as follows:
"Those who stand before the people as teachers of truth are to grapple with great themes. They are not to occupy precious time in talking of trivial subjects. Let them study the Word, and preach the Word. Let the Word be in their hands as a sharp, two-edged sword. Let it testify to past truths and show what is to be in the future.
"Christ came from heaven to give to John the great, wonderful truths that are to shape our lives and that by us are to be proclaimed to the world. We are to keep abreast of the times, bearing a clear, intelligent testimony, guided by the unction of the Holy Spirit." --Evangelism, p. 151.
The same involvement in the Word of God and the great themes of prophecy and redemption should be apparent in the Sabbath sermon or in the evangelistic message. I listened for years to the pastor of one of our great churches preach on the Sabbath day. His messages were strongly Adventist in character, based on the Word of God; not Bible tinctured but Bible saturated. People didn't always agree with him. He had an inclination to be controversial. But basically he was a solid Bible-inspired preacher. I could tell he enjoyed preaching the Word of God. Everyone appreciated his messages. He was a man of the Book.
Ellen White wrote: "When at our large gatherings, make all the discourses highly [reformative. Arouse the intellect." --Counsels to Writers and Editors, p. 126. Convey information about the kingdom, the conditions for entry, and the factors that exclude people for eternity; challenging sermons that stir the intellect as well as the spirit. These are needed today needed more than sermons rich with quotes from Time and Life and other news weeklies or from popular contemporary theologians. The success of H. M. S. Richards through the years is linked with his knowledge of and reliance on the Holy Scriptures. When I was preaching on the signs of the times once at the Lynwood camp meeting, he said to me, "Most people know what's going on in the world. They have newspapers, radio, and TV. What they want to hear is the Word of God." It was good counsel.
It is well known that the Voice of Prophecy speaker reads the Bible through every year and often in a concentrated reading of one month. This is good, not because Elder Richards or any other preacher does it. It is the right thing to do. It is the thing that you and I should do. Thank God for men who show us the way.
Christ needs to become personal to us as He is revealed in the Word. Why do we deny ourselves the privilege of becoming great Bible students and the joy of being stirred to preach great Bible messages? This is a strange infatuation with ignorance, an odd and bizarre spell that can only be broken by stirring ourselves up through self-disciplined mental effort to give priority to that which matters most and to becoming the men of the Book God expects us to be and that our people are waiting for us to become.
