 |
My Second-Favorite Name
Column by Pr. Larry Kirkpatrick published on GreatControversy.org May 13, 2004
My favorite name of all is, of course, the name of Jesus. His name means salvation. He is love and law enfleshed. He is God. He is man. He is mine! He paid the highest price He could for me. It seems a poor bargain, but He shall in the last day look upon the travail of His soul and be satisfied (Isaiah 53:11). I cannot explain it, but I can accept it, for He is wiser than I; He sees farther than I, He reads through all the pale fog into majesty, and divines purposes higher than I can conceive. I will trust Him and leave it with Him.
But there is a second-favorite name I have—second-favorite religiously. It concerns that which is the one object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme regard. We are told:
During ages of spiritual darkness the church of God has been as a city set on a hill. From age to age, through successive generations, the pure doctrines of heaven have been unfolding within its borders. Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the one object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme regard. It is the theater of His grace, in which He delights to reveal His power to transform hearts. (Ellen G. White, Acts of the Apostles, p. 12).
My second-favorite name is “Seventh-day Adventist.”
Perhaps it is because Jesus divinely selected the name with a pointed purpose:
No name which we can take will be appropriate but that which accords with our profession and expresses our faith and marks us a peculiar people. The name Seventh-day Adventist is a standing rebuke to the Protestant world. Here is the line of distinction between the worshipers of God and those who worship the beast and receive his mark. The great conflict is between the commandments of God and the requirements of the beast. It is because the saints are keeping all ten of the commandments that the dragon makes war upon them. If they will lower the standard and yield the peculiarities of their faith, the dragon will be at peace; but they excite his ire because they have dared to raise the standard and unfurl their banner in opposition to the Protestant world, who are worshiping the institution of papacy.
The name Seventh-day Adventist carries the true features of our faith in front, and will convict the inquiring mind. Like an arrow from the Lord's quiver, it will wound the transgressors of God's law, and will lead to repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I was shown that almost every fanatic who has arisen, who wishes to hide his sentiments that he may lead away others, claims to belong to the church of God. Such a name would at once excite suspicion; for it is employed to conceal the most absurd errors. This name is too indefinite for the remnant people of God. It would lead to the supposition that we had a faith which we wished to cover up. (Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 224).
It is at once obvious as we look more broadly at the context that our selected name must not be one that is “too indefinite.” The reason given is that too indefinite a name gives an appearance of evil. What evil? The supposition that we have a faith which we wish to cover up. Rather than a vague, indefinite, cover-up name that covers up our faith, we want a name that “carries the true features of our faith in front, and will convict the inquiring mind.”
By contrast, a name that hides our faith cannot convict of anything other than our cowardice. But if we think we are passing through to the other side of this contemporary Red Sea passage, we have to become something other than we are. We need to be living representatives of the name God has selected for us.
One hymn marks this well!
Once to every man and nation
comes the moment to decide
In the strife of truth with falsehood,
For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah,
Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the chance goes by forever
'Twixt that darkness and that light.Then to side with truth is noble
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses,
While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.
By the light of burning martyrs,
Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track;
Toiling up new Calvaries ever
With the cross that turns not back;
New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above His own.
(SDA Hymnal #606 “Once to Every Man and Nation”)
Well may we ponder what microscopic cross we actually are bearing when we tell the truth in public and call ourselves what we called to be: Seventh-day Adventist. Can we truly do God's work by hiding the divinely-given name He calls us by? How can any other name not lack conviction, not be too indefinite for us?
My second-favorite name is Seventh-day Adventist. I want to honor this name. I cannot choose cowardice no matter fancy reasoning that claims to know better than God what will and will not convict and work evangelistically. God is my evangelistic expert. That is how I keep abreast of truth. I fear some among our people are falling behind. Truth is streaming gloriously onward, but some are on point of stumbling and loosing sight of the mark and of Jesus, and falling off the path and down into the dark and wicked world below. (Ellen G. White, Early Writings, p. 15). Let us pray that this will not happen. The city is just coming into sight!
