This month features excerpts from an article in the July 28, 1932, Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, in which F. M. Wilcox provides a general outline of the Seventh-day Adventist message and its presentation.
God has a message for this day and generation.* He has had messages for the world in the various periods of the past. As God’s messenger, Noah warned the antediluvian world of the coming flood. Through Jonah Heaven gave the message of the overthrow of Nineveh. John the Baptist was made the forerunner of the Messiah. To Luther and his associates in the sixteenth century was given the message of Christ’s righteousness and warnings against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church. Through John Wesley God sent a message to the world of His free grace.
Similarly, He has given to Seventh-day Adventists a message for this day and generation.
This message is comprehensively stated in Revelation 14. It is based upon definite time prophecies which find their fulfillment in that period of the church immediately preceding the second coming of Christ. And what does it involve? It is the message of the everlasting gospel in its prophetic setting of the last days. It is the message of Christ, the center and embodiment of that gospel, as represented in His various offices and attributes. This message proclaims Christ as Creator and Redeemer, as Lawmaker and Judge, as Prophet, Priest, and King, as the God-man, forming the one connecting link between heaven and earth. It presents the message of love as revealed in His incarnate life, His sacrificial death, His resurrection power, the ministry of His priestly grace, the regenerating, life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and to lost mankind extends the gracious invitation, “Come unto Me, and be saved. Find in Me hope and peace, light and life.”
The message for this hour is the message of Christ’s righteousness in contrast with the righteousness of human achievement, His law as the standard of righteousness, His life as the expression of that law, the judgment already in session as the determining test of character, His coming in glory as the consummation of the Christian’s hope. Christ is set forth as the one and only true God, to whom worship and glory should be rendered, His Sabbath as the test of allegiance in contrast with the blasphemous claims of antichrist, the worship of the beast and his image and the reception of his mark. This message announces the sad fall of Babylon, the apostate church, and calls God’s children to separate from her communion. It develops a people who keep the commandments of God and have manifested in their midst the Spirit of prophecy. . . .
THE MESSAGE AND ITS PRESENTATION
This is the message in its general outline which Seventh-day Adventists have been commissioned of High Heaven to give to the world. They should give it faithfully and unfalteringly; they should give it pointedly and uncompromisingly; they should give it lovingly and winningly.
Next to the great principles of the message itself is the manner in which the message is given. It should be presented in a well-balanced and symmetrical manner. Presented in a cold, logical manner, this message will appeal to the head, but have little effect upon the heart. Those who receive the message under this style of preaching become cold, logical formalists, intellectual debaters, but lack that Christian fervor and tender love which should characterize those who receive the greatest message ever given to man. Presented in a harsh, critical manner, it will have the effect of repelling rather than winning. Preached in an indifferent manner, it will be counted of little importance by men. Given in a one-sided way, with emphasis upon one or two features and neglect of other features equally important, it will make its recipients one-sided in their experience, extreme in their positions.
THE MESSAGE ONE WHOLE
Every feature of this great message of God for today should be presented in its proper setting as a part of the one message. This will give to each particular truth an added appeal. There are many phases of God’s great message for today being presented as independent truths, entirely divorced from the framework and spirit of the message; but we cannot believe that this is in God’s order. There are those who preach that the seventh day is the Sabbath, and they preach it earnestly and conscientiously; but they make little headway, for the reason that their preaching of the Sabbath truth is divorced from the setting in which God designed it to be placed at the present time. There are some in the world who stand for the principles of religious liberty which constitute a part of this message, but these principles, divorced from the particular message of which they are a part, make but little appeal.
The same is true of the preaching of the coming of the Lord. Many in the various church communions of the world believe that the coming of the Lord is near; some advocate it, basing their argument upon the conditions now found in the world which constitute true signs of that great day; but their preaching has little point for the reason that it is not given in association with the other truths which constitute the great message for this time. There are many in the world standing for the principles of health and temperance. Much excellent literature has been printed by various orders and organizations relating to this subject, and undoubtedly much good has been accomplished. The appeal is made justly upon the scientific basis, and this is proper, but how much added emphasis would be given to the proclamation of these principles if, united with the scientific reasons, the principles of health could be presented as a part of God’s saving, gospel message.
We have been exhorted by the Spirit of prophecy to pull in even lines. We must be careful to do this in the days to come. There are many noble causes in the world seeking our support, and as far as consistent we should give them our support; but in doing this let us bear in mind that God has called Seventh-day Adventists into existence for a specific purpose, and that is to give to the world the message which we have outlined above. Upon no other church has He laid this responsibility. We cannot afford to be recreant to our sacred trust. We cannot afford to permit our time or means to be employed in any line of endeavor or in the promotion of any cause, however good, which will lead us to forget this responsibility or to slacken our efforts. . . .
Christ constitutes the great center of the redemptive scheme. Every truth of the Word of God centers in Him. The sole objective of God’s message for today is to bring men and women to a saving knowledge of the gospel as it is in Christ the Lord. The Word of God is the revelation of Christ and His character, of His great love and supreme sacrifice for the children of men. The prophecies of that Word reach their grand and final climax in His second advent, as He comes to consummate the great plan of salvation. The law of God is Christ’s law, the expression of His divine will for His children. He is the great central figure of the sanctuary service, as represented in type in the old dispensation, and in His heavenly ministry in the Christian dispensation. Immortality is the gift which Christ bestows upon mortal, dying men as a result of their saving faith in His sacrifice in their behalf. The Sabbath of the fourth commandment is the day of rest which He gave upon the completion of the material creation. It constitutes, as well, a sign of re-creation, of the sanctification which His grace works in the heart of the believer.
Thus it is that every principle of the gospel message for this hour has Christ as its great center, and the conversion of men to Christ as its grand objective. There is danger, however, that some will lose sight of the Christ of the message in this concrete form; they present Him as merely a lofty ideal, quite dissociated from this concrete expression of His character and of His gospel. . . .
Thank God that He has given us a knowledge of His truth for this time. May that truth sanctify our own hearts; and then in His fear, guided and directed by His Holy Spirit, may we give to others the message whose saving power and sanctification we have experienced in our own lives.
* Francis M. Wilcox, “God’s Message for Today,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, July 28, 1932, pp. 2, 5.
