I remember looking at a TV show a while ago where someone thought that WWII was still going on. The warrior was in a cave with his last orders from command and never received notice that the war is over. Sometimes in our churches it seems that many are just like that warrior. I hear people fighting “those who emphasize jewelry, makeup, and movies” going on in some contexts. They wonder why Adventists spend so much time teaching and emphasizing the doctrines. They wonder why your average Adventist can cite 1844 but can’t tell you about the Jesus they love. People of this mindset seem to assume that we are living in an era where doctrinal understanding flourishes while love and knoweldge of Jesus languishes.

Over on SoulPreaching.Com, I have a series on relevance in preaching. This applies to Adventists as well. Adventists used to speak about the concept of “present truth.” This is the idea that just because something is true, it is not necessarily the most important thing to present right now. Thus an idea must be both “true” and “relevant to the present time” to be worthy of our intense consideration.

Preachers often have to think about what they need to preach. Some of the more diligent ones put together a sermonic calendar where they decide what they will address in the coming months. One of the basic decisions is whether you will preach the fundamentals of Christian faith such as grace, love, forgiveness, etc, or whether one will preach sermons on the fundamentals of Adventism like sanctuary, state of the dead, sabbath, etc. And so some weeks we preach grace, forgiveness, and other fundamental sermons that must be preached in a well rounded sermonic calendar. However, the question become when do we preach sanctuary, state of the dead, and the like?

Is Adventism primarily a package of beliefs or a mindset? It would seem that the dominate view is that it is simply a package of beliefs. These beliefs are either important or not so important or kind of important depending on who you ask. This package includes the sanctuary, state of the dead, and Sabbath. Some lament the objective fact that many are no longer preaching sermons on these doctrines. However, when you dig a little deeper and ask them what kind of sermon they are referring to, it seeems as though they mean Sermons that didactically defend or teach these doctrines.

Herbert Douglass, in the book Fork in the Road has written a helpful summary of why Calvinism and Adventism cannot be unified on the idea of what the Gospel means. You may not know it, but Calvanists are the big wigs in the evangelical world. From popular scholars like R. C. Sproul to pastors like D. James Kennedy and John McAurthur. Certainly there are some who disagree on certain tennents of the Calvanistic cause, but the ones who are running the show in the Evangelical world are Calvanists.

There seems to be an awakening of interest in Adventist evangelism today. This awakening demonstrates itself in a few ways. There is the Amazing Facts-like camp that seems to be taking the fundamentals of traditional Adventist evanglism (message centered, talking about the doctrines, demonstrate how the doctrines fall out from following Jesus all the way). Proponents of this methodology seem to believe that it is our job to proclaim the three angels messages to all the world. They attempt to update the methodology with the times, but only in line with Ellen White’s books like Evangelism and Gospel Workers. They are promoting a life-cycle approach now. Related to this is the current resurgence in Revelation Seminars. While some do not have the full life-cycle which causes them to not retain many of the converts, they do experience at least some growth.

When done correctly, the people who join them become ministers in the system. They go and run meetings and work for the spreading of the message. However, we have seen mostly that those who join are not becoming ministers, but simply stay here for a brief period of time before leaving.

Inside of our church there is a move towards “practical” preaching. Here we tell people how to live a good life down here. We may talk about how to pray to move the hand of God. We may hear talks about how to have a happy family. Others give seminars on how to be successful in business. All of these things are good in their sphere, however, in all to many cases they are presented in such a way that we hear nothing about the end. We live a good life and then die waiting till the second advent of Jesus which will wake us up.

There is a great call today for mega-churches. Many people assume that the seeker-sensitive methodologies that generate so-called Mega churches are what is needed in our beloved church to hasten the second Advent of Jesus Christ. We have gone from believing and teaching that God who believed that God will have a people through whom God’s character will be vindicated to being a people who have a lot of people sitting in our seats. We talk about “relevant” ministry. All true ministry should be relevant, but does relevance mean that people like what they hear? Is it our job to be a mechanism for change or simply a cheap knock off of what people will get in the world.

The one who makes the rules runs the game. This is the simple fact of life. At some point, we as a people have decided to allow people who are not connected to this movement and do not understand our message to make up the rules.

Uncritical Acceptance

They tell us that “seeker-sensitive” methodologies should rule all that we do. And then instead of looking at this in light of the principles of our own movement, we simply uncritically accept them. When they tell us that we should be seeking to reach the “unchurched” we accept that terminology even though God has given us the “third angels message” which is to be preached to all the world (churched and unchurched).

God has given the Seventh-day Adventist movement a message. It has been called the three angels message. Here we have been given a special message for the end time to prepare a world for the coming of Jesus. More specifically, we have been called to give a message that will prepare a people for translation. This message has different lines according to Revelation 14. It includes a reminder of Christ as Creator. We have seen how the emphasis on Sabbath specifically pushes this important point.