p. 228 | Our Faith and Hope by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 1, 1878

Our Faith and Hope.

By James White

SERMON ONE.

TEXT: "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear." 1 Pet. 3:15.

THE text first suggests a preparation of mind and heart. "Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" are the words of the apostle. To sanctify is to set apart. We are to set apart the Lord God in our hearts as the supreme object of our love and worship. The first commandment demands that we should have no other gods before the living God.

The text also suggests a preparation of mind by study. "Be ready" says the apostle, "be ready always." This is the duty of the minister in the pulpit, at the wayside, or when mingling with his friends at home or abroad.

But this epistle is addressed not only to those who are especially called and prepared to preach the gospel, but to the whole church of Christ. The apostle addresses his epistles as follows: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied." 1 Pet. 1:1, 2.

The most important book to study is the sacred Scriptures. Next the writings of truly learned and good men. The more the minister knows, if it be sanctified knowledge, the better can he do his duty as a minister of Christ. The learned Adam Clarke said that a Methodist minister should know everything. We do not, however, regard it absolutely necessary that a minister should be very learned to qualify him to preach the gospel. Christ chose as his first apostles a large proportion of ignorant and unlearned men. There was but one Paul among the early apostles. He was a profound scholar. He says, "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." 1 Cor. 1:26.

The apostle charges Timothy in the most solemn manner to preach the word. He says, "I charge thee, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." He in this solemn charge arraigns his son in the gospel before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, and in view of the solemn judgment, to preach the word of life. He also appeals to him in the following language: "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

Timothy was acquainted with the word. Paul continues: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 2 Tim. 3:14-17.

The apostle also charges his son in the gospel: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 Tim. 2:15.

The people demand reasons. Assertions without reasons would do better in the dark ages of superstition and error. The spirit of the age leads men of mind to investigate; and it is of the highest importance at the present time that in matters pertaining to eternal life men should investigate closely. Various novices in the things of the Spirit of God can make assertions, but it is the duty of those who hold, and especially those who teach the last message upon which the destiny of the millions hang, to study the reasons which constitutes the basis of their faith and hope.

Seventh-day Adventists, who have the work before them of meeting the popular theology of the age, have felt the importance of education, hence have established a College at Battle Creek, Michigan, the first object of which is the better cultivation of the minds of our young men to enter the ministry. We do not hold that it is necessary in every case to spend four years in taking a collegiate course, and then to study theology three years more, making a seven years' drill which is supposed to be necessary by our more popular churches. But a few years devoted to the study of those branches which will discipline the mind, and acquaint them as far as possible in the languages in which the holy Scriptures are written, is highly important to the men who go out to preach and to meet the talent of the popular clergy. A few such men as writers, as editors and critical debaters and reviewers seem indispensable to a cause like this; while the majority of our preachers may be men of sanctified common-sense, taken from the farm, the workshop, the counter, and the school-teacher's desk and may be giants in the word of God by setting themselves apart to the ministry and the cause of God. The apostle says, "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect." 1 Cor. 1:17. Paul was one of the most eloquent men of his age, and although before Felix he used language which led the governor to state that much learning had made him mad, yet when preaching the gospel, he clothed the word in language that the common people could understand. The Bible is one of the simplest books in print. There are very few words hard to be understood in the blessed book of God. Who ever thought to take a copy of Webster's or Worcester's dictionary with them as they sat down to read a chapter in the Bible, that they might learn the definition of the hard words? No one, from the very fact that the hard words are not in the Bible. The truth of God, clothed in the simple words of the Scriptures, is most powerful.

There is a fitness in things. We never like to see the figure of the cross upon which Jesus died in agony, whether it be brought out with the brush of the artist or the skill of the one who uses the simple fabric, ornamented with artificial roses, and hung with ribbons. Rather let the representation be brought out in plain, simple colors, more fitly representing that cross on which the Redeemer gave his life for a lost world.

The people are becoming tired and disgusted with the popular style of preaching. It may be learned; the speaker may be eloquent; but his sermons are simply philosophical addresses. They please, but do not touch the heart. The people worship in a stylish church, dressed in all the fashions of the age, and the minister, as described by a delicate pen, "walks all around the ten commandments with a velvety tread, without touching the sins of the people."

There is nothing that so leads men to settled infidelity concerning the Scriptures as this fashionable preaching, differing so widely from the plain language of the Bible, and also from old-fashioned religion as exemplified in the lives of Luther, Whitefield, and the Wesleys. The present is an age of fables. Paul, pointing down the stream of time to our day, says: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Tim. 4:3, 4.

True, there were false teachers in the days of the apostle, and there have been ever since his day; but the apostle points forward to the time when these teachers should abound. He even uses the figure of heaps, as though there were very many of them. And he has not cited our minds forward to the time when they should abound without definitely locating this period. This he has done in the following language: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false-accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such turn away." 2 Tim. 3:1-5.

The apostle states that teachers of fables will abound in the last days. These days, he says, will be perilous. He does not refer to the perils upon land or sea, the failure of banks, and the present perilous condition of the public confidence; but the perils are in matters pertaining to eternal life. For after enumerating eighteen sins, he locates them with the sins of those who have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. The apostle does not here oppose form, for in another place he says: "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Rom. 6:17. He does not object to the form, for he thanked God that the church at Rome had been obedient to the form delivered to them. He objects only to the denial of the power of godliness. J. W.