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Preaching End-time Events
Two Poles of Tension
[This article was written by the author some 20 years ago, but its principles are timeless. Footnotes and text have been updated.]
Presenter: Kevin D. Paulson
Location: Internet
Delivery: 2008-03-24 01:25Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2008-03-24 01:25Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/rar/pauk-pete.php
It has been said that the Seventh-day Adventist Church was conceived in crisis, and that we’ve been in crisis ever since. For not only did the Great Disappointment fail to terminate Adventist preaching on the coming of Christ; we have also continued—despite repeated delays and the lengthening of time—to say He is coming soon.
Like so much of distinctive Adventism in the past several decades, the preaching of last-day events has seriously declined in much of the church’s First World community. Two major factors are the likely problem here: (1) the general Laodicean climate in which worldly preoccupations cause such preaching to be viewed as a bothersome disruption of life’s pleasant routine; and (2) friendlier relations with the popular Christian world, making less palatable the proclamation of our historic mark-of-the-beast message.
Both factors involve diminution of our mission as God’s end-time remnant. As the church experiences greater comfort with the world, both religious and secular, the resulting loss of purpose saps our vitality, drains our resources, and sunders the confidence of laity in leadership.
Moreover, the general absence of solid preaching on the signs of Jesus’ coming has given birth to aberrations which step outside both the limits of inspired counsel and the wise assessment of known facts. The neglect of vital doctrines and lifestyle principles often leads to their returning to the church with a vengeance. Examples would include attempts to reapply a number of biblical time prophecies, placing their fulfillment sometime into the future. Or the occasional, ill-founded predictions of Sunday legislation presumed to be imminent within weeks or months.
Older generations of Adventists can doubtless recall other misjudgments in prophetic understanding—such as the belief that World War I was Armageddon or that America’s first Roman Catholic President would become the Antichrist. (One academy teacher of my acquaintance spoke of elderly church members who went out and voted for John Kennedy in the 1960 election so Jesus would come back soon!)
Satan is a clever strategist. He knows that such excesses provide an easy target for those wishing to discredit all but the most mundane preaching on end-time events. This is especially true as signs of the last days increase to the crescendo we find in our world today. One pleasing theory I have heard from time to time says the specific symbols in the books of Daniel and Revelation are really not important, that all God is trying to say is that many things will happen before Jesus returns and most of them will be bad, but that Christ will prevail at the end. One is, however, hard-pressed to believe God would consume so many chapters in His Word with intricate and potentially confusing symbolism, in order to say what could easily be stated in a few short verses. The detail of these prophecies makes it clear God intends specific meanings to be sought and found.
An even stranger notion is that this subject really ought to be left alone, that all it does is make children tremble in their beds and have nightmares about the coming persecution and the time of trouble (1). All that matters, say these anti-doomsayers, is a personal relationship with Christ. But if one is truly in love with the Lord Jesus, would not evidence of His soon return be cause for rejoicing and considerable attention? If long-separated lovers are about to be reunited, wouldn’t their pending reunion be the most pleasant prospect to talk and think about? The only cause for unhappiness at such a moment might be if one’s heart had been given to another. I have long wondered if the reluctance of certain ones to preach the soon return of Christ has less to do with fear of ill-conceived calamity-howling than the fact that the world has become, for too many of God’s professed people, a most comfortable and enjoyable place to be.
The Readiness of the World
Careful students of Bible prophecy in the Seventh-day Adventist Church recognize the existence of two poles of tension in a properly balanced emphasis on last-day events. One is the readiness of the world, the other is the readiness of the church. When either of these is forgotten or neglected, confusion and possible embarrassment are the result.
Clearly, as we read the Gospels, Christ expects His people to watch for evidence of His approaching return:
Now learn a parable of the fig tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors (Matthew 24:32-33).
Moreover, He intended these signs to be cause for rejoicing:
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21:28).
Ellen White, as we would expect, agrees with our Lord:
As we near the close of this world’s history, the prophecies relating to the last days especially demand our study (2).
Prophecy is fast fulfilling. More, much more, should be said about these tremendously important subjects (3).
Great pains should be taken to keep this subject before the people. The solemn fact is to be kept not only before the people of the world, but before our own churches also, that the day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly (4).
Many discredit the hope of a soon Second Advent with the claim that Christians have expected Christ’s immediate return for two thousand years, that to figuratively bring people ‘to the edge of the cliff’ so many times tends—after a while—to dull their responsiveness to similar appeals. Some years ago the editor of a liberal Adventist magazine wrote of the church’s need to get beyond “breathless expectancy” and instead develop a faith ‘which can grow and serve for hundreds of years’ (5).
Such thinking represents half-truths which, typically, convey the effect of an untruth. Undoubtedly there have been Christians in every age who have believed and taught the Saviour’s imminent return. However, a significant number of Christian thinkers through the centuries have found a biblical, prophetic basis for concluding Jesus would not come in the immediate future. Many of these interpreters held to a prophetic timetable nearly identical to that preached by classic Adventism.
In The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Leroy Froom gives evidence that the apostolic fathers—Christian leaders living close to the time of the original apostles—believed they were living in the time of the fourth beast of Daniel 7 (pagan Rome), that erelong Rome would be partitioned into ten kingdoms out of which would arise the little horn power, followed by the second coming of Christ (6). Irenaeus, a later church scholar, even equates Daniel’s little horn with the man of sin in 2 Thessalonians 2 and the beast of Revelation 13 (7). Tertullian, another early church leader, clearly held that pagan Rome’s dominance of world affairs was delaying the march of final prophetic events (8). Secular historian Stephen Williams notes another church leader at that time, Hippolytus, as holding similar views (9).
In later centuries Martin Luther placed the timing of the last judgment a full three hundred years from his day (10). One is amazed how close he came to hitting the mark!
But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that one could legitimately find reason for the hope of a soon Second Coming in every age of the Christian era (as, indeed, some have). This hope still would not annul the fact that the world’s crises in our present age far exceed anything imagined in earlier times. When Adventist evangelists first preached the end of the world, no one had heard of nuclear weapons, global warming, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The capacity for instant communication through 24-hour news, text-messaging, cell phones, and the Internet, has vastly heightened the increase of knowledge and thus the dissemination of evil. Combine with these the threat of global terror, genocide, climate change, and world hunger, and one understands why many non-religious experts wonder how long normal life will last on earth. (An article several years ago in Discover magazine, published by cable television’s Discovery Channel., spoke of how “natural disasters have increased fourfold since the 1950s,” with scientists still unsure as to the reason (11).)
Previous generations may have each had their “signs of the times,” but who can objectively deny that today’s signs are infinitely more compelling?
Invariably, one hears nowadays in certain Adventist circles that such talk constitutes scare tactics—the effort to frighten the church into harmony with God. Certainly the question of style—the care and manner in which such information is publicized—is extremely crucial in this regard. To predict the pending collapse of the economy in six months or a national Sunday before the end of the year, is not at all to be confused with the balanced presentation of inspired counsel on the soonness of the Advent, coupled with credible historical and journalistic verification of fulfilled and fulfilling prophecy. The former truly qualifies as dangerous sensationalism, while the latter represents the church’s God-ordained duty. And just as some believe any form of physical parental discipline constitutes child abuse, there are those who believe any effort to connect Bible prophecy with history or current events constitutes sensational preaching. It is fair to say that much of what can rightly be dismissed as sensationalism is a reaction against the dire neglect of end-time preaching in much of the contemporary church.
As we noted earlier, those craving comfort over conviction will always find unwelcome the topic of Jesus’ coming and the signs which betoken it. The responsibility of leaders and laity alike is not only to resist this ease-loving religion, but to present the subject of last-day events to the church with a care that eschews both sedation and sensationalism.
The Readiness of the Church
But not only is the readiness of the world important to the timing of Jesus’ return; the readiness of the church is of far greater significance. Sadly, the world has always been more ready than the church! The first three verses of Revelation 7 give the real reason for the delay of the final events:
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the winds should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads (Revelation 7:1-3).
Elsewhere in Scripture this sealing imagery is linked with the Holy Spirit’s presence in the heart as the guarantee, or earnest, of His work in us (see 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30). We also read that the Spirit’s inward presence enables us to be “filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). No wonder Ellen White declares:
Those who receive the seal of the living God, and are protected in the time of trouble, must reflect the image of Jesus fully (12).
In Revelation 10, verse 7, we read, “But in the days of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” The following chapter informs us that the sounding of the seventh angel takes place when “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 11:15). In other words, the sounding of the seventh angel takes place when Jesus is about to come back. And during this time, it is declared, “the mystery of God shall be finished” (Revelation 10:7). The New Testament defines this mystery as “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26, 27).
What Revelation is telling us, in essence, is that that the failure of God’s last-day people to allow the full accomplishment of the Spirit’s sanctifying work is ultimately responsible for the delay of Jesus’ coming.
The harvest principle behind the delayed Advent is more fully explained by Jesus in Mark, chapter 4:
And He said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground: And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself: first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come (Mark 4:26-29).
John was shown this principle in action in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation:
And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap; for the come is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped (Revelation 14:14-16).
Elsewhere in the New Testament total sanctification is upheld as a prerequisite for the coming of Jesus:
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? . . . Wherefore, brethren, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless (2 Peter 3:11, 12, 14).
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure (1 John 3:2, 3).
Speaking of God’s last-day church, the prophet Zephaniah wrote: “The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid” (Zephaniah 3:13). John the Revelator obviously borrowed this theme when writing of the 144,000 translated saints: “And in their mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before the throne of God” (Revelation 14:5). These words call to mind another Bible passage:
Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in His steps. Who did not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Peter 2:21, 22; see also Isaiah 53:9).
One shudders at hearing certain modern Adventists ridiculing the idea of “little christs” walking around in the last days. From what we find in the above verses, it would seem such persons are laughing at the Word of God itself.
Ellen White thus marches in lockstep with the Holy Bible when she declares: “When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own” (13). Once this condition is met, the other promise made by our Lord concerning the timing of the Advent can also be fulfilled: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14). Only when the witness of the church becomes fully and finally credible—when at last the two l’s, life and lip, are matched—can the preaching of the gospel bring at last the world’s conscience to the judgment bar of God.
Ellen White speaks of how the perfection and proclamation of the last generation saints will blend together:
The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the wold, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them. The light of the Sun of Righteousness is to shine forth in good works—in words of truth and deeds of holiness (14).
Strangely enough, those conservative Adventists who have flirted with indiscreet predictions, the manipulation of the prophecies, and time-setting—while not rejecting the harvest principle of Advent timing—have nevertheless neglected to recognize its ultimate, decisive role in the eschatological calendar. It is never wise to preach the imminence of catastrophic events without simultaneously acknowledging God as the absolute Lord of history, that He will not—as Revelation says—permit the world’s final dissolution until His people are ready.
Being aware of the pace of world events in the light of prophecy can help us get ready, as we learn how the stage of history is being set and that we—God’s people—are the only missing factor in the eschatological equation. But we must also remember that the capacity of such events to arouse a sincere response diminishes with their growing intensity, which is why a close of probation is ultimately necessary. (It helps us understand why God couldn’t leave the ark door open until just after the rain started.) But at the bottom line, God is not waiting on the pope, the United Nations, fanciful combinations of unnamed men, the world economy, or the U.S. government. God is waiting on Seventh-day Adventists.
Conclusion—Two Poles of Tension
Two poles of tension. Two issues of readiness. Both are essential to the proclamation of the straight testimony, to the world as well as the church. If either is lost sight of, the true force of Adventist eschatology is lost and the door is opened for the cause of God to suffer needless confusion, ridicule, and shame.
Endnotes
- Chris J. Blake, “Let’s Stop Talking About It,” Adventist Review, May 17, 2001, p. 29.
- Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 133.
- ________, Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 335.
- Ibid., p. 336.
- John McLarty, “Timeless Adventism,” Adventist Today, Nov.-Dec. 1999, p. 2.
- Leroy E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Publishing Assn, 1950), pp. 216, 217.
- Ibid., pp. 246, 247.
- Ibid., pp. 257, 258.
- Stephen Williams, Diocletian and the Roman Recovery (New York: Methuen Inc, 1985), p. 165.
- White, The Great Controversy, pp. 303, 356.
- Joseph D’Agenese, “Why Has Our Weather Gone Wild?” Discover, June 2000, p. 76.
- White, Early Writings, p. 71.
- ________. Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69.
- Ibid., pp. 415, 416. GCO
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