ANOTHER new year! How many more our mortal eyes shall see we do not know. One thing certain, we are still in the land of the enemy and awaiting final deliverance.
More than four years ago a stirring call was made for reformation and revival. Through the intervening years this appeal has been restated, re-emphasized, and revoted. As ministers we have been urged to enter upon this experience and then, by our own lives and through our ministry, to lead our congregations to the same fount of forgiveness and refilling.
We have seen some marvelous evidences of God's answer to our prayers as the work has gone forward in several areas with new power. We have experienced great revivals at Camp Berkshire and other ministerial gatherings and retreats; spiritual outpourings have come to churches, to academy and college campuses, and recently in rich measure to Andrews University. In these we rejoice, but we see in them but omens of a great tempest of power that must yet sweep through our ranks. We are quick to confess that the great out pouring of the Holy Spirit, destined to exceed even that of Pentecost, is still a future hope.
But how much longer must we wait? How much longer must God wait? Cannot this new year, 1971, be THE YEAR OF THE BIG CHANGE? The final movements are to be rapid ones. Changes are taking place today with unprecedented rapidity. Not only are the changes rapid ones, but the rate of acceleration increases with every passing day. Some of these changes are for the better, some represent the sinister forces of evil at work. But the one great change that must come, is that change in our lives that will permit our being used more fully by God for the accomplishment of His purpose to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Resolve to Study the Word
The new year is a time for resolutions. What resolutions might we adopt that will help with this preparation? Brethren, I suggest zeroing in on one basic consideration. This has to do with the strategic position the Bible must occupy if such a change is to come. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a genuine revival that is not accompanied by a renewed emphasis upon, and study of, the Word of God. This was true of the great reformations of Bible times; it has been true of the great revivals of Christian history in both the Old and the New World. Before the Seventh-day Adventist Church can ever enjoy the renewal of spiritual power it seeks there must be a hungering and thirsting for the Word. There is no substitute for this. Here is the source of power and change.
This pursuit is not to make a god of the Bible, but to recognize God in the Bible. We are told: "The creative energy that called the worlds into existence is in the word of God. This word imparts power; it begets life. Every command is a promise." Education, p. 126.
This is the power we so desperately need and it is to be found in the Word. "Accepted by the will, received into the soul, it brings with it the life of the Infinite One. It transforms the nature, and re-creates the soul in the image of God." Ibid.
Consider these words carefully. Read them again. Are they true? Do we really believe them? Of course we do. Still, as we visit among theological students in our colleges and at the Seminary, with interns, or with seasoned workers at our ministerial gatherings, the one great need usually ex pressed is that of finding the necessary time to spend in Bible study and personal devotion. How can we explain the pittance of time given to those power-packed pages, except that Satan knows that as long as he can keep us from them he can keep us in impotence.
It's time for a change, and what better time than at the beginning of this new year. This change should not only lead us into a more intimate fellowship with the Word, but should involve our transmit ting this sense of urgency and necessity to the laity of the church. What better thing can we do for our congregations than to lead them to this source of blessing and power. How few there are who really fol low a regular plan of personal daily Bible study.
Increased Study—Deeper Prayer Life
One natural result of increased Bible study will be a deeper prayer life. This logically follows. The study of God's Word awakens us to our needs, and this in turn leads us to our knees.
This fact was illustrated very well in the life of that great man of faith, George Müller. For at least ten years his practice had been, upon first arising in the morning, to give himself to prayer. But then a change came. Writing of this he says:
Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord. . . .
The first thing I did, after having asked in a few words the Lord's blessing upon His precious word, was, to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the public ministry of the word, not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon, but for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that, though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer, but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less into prayer. Quoted in Harold Calkins, Master Preachers, pp. 30, 31.
There is a very intimate relationship be tween prayer and Bible study. Prayer with out Bible study leads to fanaticism; Bible study without prayer leads to cold formalism.
Devise Various Study Plans
Various plans for daily Bible study have proved helpful. For many years I have been reading the Bible through rapidly each year, beginning January 1. This over all survey is usually completed within a month to six weeks. During the balance of the year I concentrate on particular books, using various translations. It has been most rewarding to discover how much can be gathered from the Word, even if just a few minutes each day is given over to it. The disciplinary feature of regularity is of primary importance.
A well-proved method is through regular study of the Sabbath school lesson. The Sabbath School Department is giving renewed emphasis to this aspect of study during the current quinquennium. Superintendents and Sabbath school councils should seriously consider their part and should also make it a special consideration in the training of the teachers. Sabbath school teachers are counseled to immerse their own hearts in the Word until they "burn with the vivid truths therein revealed" (Counsels on Sabbath School Work, p. 18).
Especially should there be inculcated in the hearts of the children and youth a love for the Bible. This can also be encouraged through the MV Society. A worthy goal, also old-fashioned, would be for every society to lead its members into reading the Bible through during 1971. This is not often given the emphasis it should have.
An extra incentive for Bible reading among the young may be found in the use of some of the modern translations. While conducting a series of evangelistic meetings in the Rockford, Illinois, church last fall I met also with the children in the church school. As a special gift we presented each with a copy of Good News for Modern Man. Their response was enthusiastic and with few exceptions each began at once to read it through. (See Shop Talk, page 42.)
Seek for God
It is important that the study of the Bible be more than a daily routine or a formal indoctrination course. It must be a seeking out after God, the outgrowth of an earnest desire to know and to do His will. As we read and meditate on its sacred pages we will be "charmed with its beauty, admonished by its warnings, . . . and strengthened j by its promises" (ibid., p. 39).
How pertinent is the counsel: "The destiny of earth's teeming multitudes is about to be decided. . . . We need to humble our selves before the Lord, with fasting and prayer, and to meditate much upon His word." The Great Controversy, p. 601.
This is not an option with us. It is an obligation. We are not to choose whether or not we will be faithful in this. We must meditate on the Word and imbibe its spirit and power. To measure up to the demands of this hour without this is as impossible as it is to live without partaking of food, or without breathing.
With the advent of the new year, let's get back to the Bible. Then in answer to our earnest and more intelligent prayers we might well expect 1971 to be the year of repentance, reformation, and true Pentecostal revival. At that time we will be prepared to receive the spiritual resources so necessary for the still unfinished task of worldwide evangelism.
