Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category
March 6th, 2009 | 
Author: by Jerry Ousley
I remember back in the eighties applying for a certain job. In those days jobs weren’t easy to find and when a company advertised that they were interviewing for a position, whether people had the qualifications or not, they showed up. I had a job at the time but I wasn’t satisfied with it and I wasn’t really making much money at it. A position became available with a prominent company. It was one noted for easy work and big pay. Everyone I knew wanted to work at this place and when someone was fortunate enough to land a job there they felt like they were riding high in the saddle and they had finally made it to the big time.
Actually, there were several positions open that day and literally thousands of people had showed up for that handful of jobs. There were a lot of disappointed people because even though many had responded to the call for employment, only a handful was chosen. I was one of those not chosen.
In Matthew 22 Jesus had been telling the story about a king who had thrown a big wedding party for his son. A lot of the guests that had been invited refused to come stating that they basically had more important things to do. The king was furious and so, determined to fill up the house with wedding guests, he sent his servants out to invite anyone they could find who wanted to come.
However, I suppose that even though these newly invited guests were just common people, being dressed for the wedding was still a requirement. When the king came in to see the crowd of people he saw a man there who didn’t have on the proper attire. The king walked up to the man and asked him why he hadn’t come dressed for the wedding and Jesus said that the man was speechless he couldn’t think of anything to say, which also meant that he didn’t have a good excuse. Because of it the king had him thrown out. Jesus actually stated that the man was bound hand and foot, taken from the party and thrown into outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. This treatment sounds a bit extreme for someone who didn’t show up dressed for the occasion, but Jesus was using it to illustrate what happens to one who doesn’t come properly attired to the invitation of Heaven. Read the rest of this entry »
by: George Knight
Selected excerpts – -
If I were the devil, I would put my best energies into getting the church to reject the ideas and plans of the coming generation. And that shouldn’t be too difficult, since in most areas they don’t dress like their elders, sing like them, or even think like them. When I get older people to frown on guitars, I will at the same time help them forget that early Adventists didn’t even allow organs in their churches…
If I were the devil, I would get the church to think small. This tactic is closely related to that of frustrated young people, because the young have not yet discovered that everything is impossible. I know Adventists who can give 110 reasons that almost anything that is suggested can’t be done. And they usually buttress their argument with Bible verses and Ellen White quotations taken out of context…
If I were the devil, I would downplay the importance of new technologies in finishing the church’s work. New technology has tremendous power for both good and evil. Too often we have left the field to the devil. H.M.S. Richards once told me that he had to fight the brethren at every step. Radio in 1930 was too new, too radical, too innovative, too untried, a “waste of the Lord’s money…”
If I were the devil, I would make pastors and administrators the center of the work of the church. It must have been the devil who gave us the idea that the pastor should do all the preaching, give all the Bible studies, be the church’s primary soul winner, and make and carry out business decisions for the church…
If I were the devil, I would create more administrative levels and generate more administrators. In fact, if I were the devil, I would get as many successful church employees as far from the scene of action as possible. I would put them behind desks, cover them with paper, and inundate them with committees. And if that weren’t enough, I would remove them to so-called higher and higher levels until they had little direct and sustained contact with the people who make up the church…
If I were the devil, I would make Adventists fearful of the Holy Spirit. Too many of us fear Pentecostalism when we think of the topic of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, we need to remember the Bible teaching about the necessity of the Spirit in Christian work, and Ellen White taught that the reception of the Holy Spirit brings all other blessings in its train…
If I were the devil, I would encourage the denomination to keep playing the numbers game. The worst thing that ever happened to Adventists was learning how to count. We count numbers, churches, institutions, money, and everything else. While numbers may have their proper place, they have very little to do with the reality of a finished work…
If I were the devil, I would get Adventists fighting with each other. Any old topic would do—worship styles, theology, dress standards. Anything would do for my purposes if I were the devil. After all, if Adventists were busy shooting all their bullets at each other, they wouldn’t have many left over for me…
The complete article can be found here.
by Paul George
Matthew 6:9
Most people focus on prayer only in response or reference to how it works; prayer for us has become a means to an end and that end is usually a selfish one. Prayer is some sort of a last ditch effort, it is kind of like a spiritual insurance policy, you are glad you have it; you hope you never have to use it. However, prayer is more than that; prayer is more than just the privilege of communing with God. Prayer is and always will be first recognition of God’s majestic glory and an act of submission to it. All our petitions, all our passions, all our supplications, all our requests, all our needs, all our trials, our problems are all subject, to God’s will. Unfortunately, most people think of prayer as an effort to bring God into line with their own desires, and this is a very predominant movement today in the church.
The Pharisees, the scribes, and the Jewish people who followed their teaching had taken prayer from what God intended it to be, and they made it into a man made perverted traditional exercise by which they drew attention to themselves. They used their prayers hypocritically to show how spiritual they were. They assumed that in their prayers they were informing God of things He did not know. They created a prayer that was illegitimate, perverted, substandard, non scriptural, and Jesus then in confronting them sets the record straight. He says, you are not praying according to God’s standard, now let Me set it right, here is how prayer ought to be verse 9, “Pray then in this way; first, Our Father.”
“…In the decades following his death and the passage of civil rights laws, America has often pondered whether Dr. King’s dream has been or will ever be realized. Many have questioned whether the dream has died or is on life support, sustained only in the minds and speeches of a few idealists. Others believe that the nation needs to wake up from the dream and ingest a generous dose of modern reality, which may demand the dream’s abandonment…
“…President Barack Obama and a new generation of leaders must undertake the moral responsibility of reviving King’s dream amid these stark realities of contemporary America. In order to be effective and generate the necessary broad-based support, these issues may be best addressed in a manner that de-emphasizes race. This is particularly true in today’s fragile economy, which has been color-blind in its devastation fueled by sub-prime improprieties.
“Though the dream lives on, it has suffered a painful existence. Pragmatism suggests modified solutions to the lingering inequality in education, health, housing, and employment. Our leaders must be prepared to meaningfully address such issues as racial profiling, the disproportionate number of incarcerated minorities, teen sexuality and pregnancy, high drop-out rates, low test scores (particularly among Black male students), drugs, guns, gangs, the digital divide in technology, and the need for self-respect and respect for others…”
Read the full article
An article in the blogosphere, written by Steve Parker, asks if we, Seventh-day Adventists, are the only members of the Remnant church, the elite group of individuals that God has chosen for the last days. In it, Parker offers a contemporary adaptation to the Bible story found in Luke 18: 9-14.
Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to church to pray. One was a Seventh-day Adventist, and the other was a non-Adventist Christian. The Seventh-day Adventist stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a Christian like everyone else. For I am part of the remnant that believes in the seventh-day Sabbath and has Ellen White as a prophet. I’m certainly not like that non-Adventist Christian. I keep the Sabbath, and I give you a tenth of my income.’
“But the non-Adventist Christian stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Seventh-day Adventist, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
One reader of the article responded by saying, in part, “…I sense need of caution here…If there is nothing special about our faith, what’s the point of even being a [Seventh-day Adventist]? What do we have to offer? I believe there is much to value about our message, yet struggle with how it is often delivered by ‘the faithful’.”
As an elder of this congregation, and a leader of one of our community outreach ministries, I also struggle at times with how our message is delivered. It’s the age old battle between the “liberals” and the “fundamentalists” that keeps this point of contention brewing in perpetuity. When frustrated by the argument, and/or the attacks from those that disagree with my efforts, and those of my local church to reach out to the community and share Him where they are, I remind myself of the words of Paul, in Romans 14:1 (NLT)
“Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong.”
Pastor Shawn Brace, in his response to the article, offers an ideal conclusion.
“There is no room at all for denominational arrogance. Any type of grace that God bestows on us should be received with humility and love…I believe, [that as Seventh-day Adventists] God has blessed us with a tremendous opportunity to not only herald the fourth commandment and the three angel’s messages, but to be the epitome of love.”
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Tags: Adventism, Christianity, Discipleship, Seventh-day Adventists | 
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