"Just Another Skin on the Wall?"
1993 Annual Council Sabbath Sermon
(Scripture reading--Rev. 12:17; 14:6,7,12,14)
By R S Folkenberg

An Episcopalian rector was traveling on foot one hot, summer day through the mountains in a southern state of the United States. Thirsty and tired, he chanced across an old cabin tucked away along that wooded trail, and so he stopped and asked for a drink of water.

In the course of his conversation with the good woman of the house, the pastor inquired if there were any Episcopalians in the area.

The woman of the house stared at him for a while. Then without speaking, she arose, motioned for him to follow, and led him to the back porch of the cabin. You see, mountain people earned money by taking animal hides, drying them and selling them. She pointed to the wall was covered with the skins of all kinds of wild animals. Pointing at the skins, she turned to the rector and drawled: "Thar's all the different kinds of critters the old man's rifle has ever killed. Look 'em over and see if you can find an Episcopalian among 'em."

We smile at the story, but I have a serious question for you this morning: Are we as Seventh-day Adventists "just another skin on the wall?" Like the Episcopalians? Or the Lutherans or the Baptists or the Methodists?

In the great proliferation of post-Reformation Protestant churches is our church simply another voice in the cacophony of ecclesiastical voices trying to be heard above the din of a dying planet?

I feel compelled to share with you a troubling piece of journalism that appeared in the August 9, 1993, issue of the international weekly news journal NEWSWEEK. The article is entitled, "Dead End for the Mainline?" In it writer Kenneth L. Woodward has charted the growth--or rather the lack of it--of seven of the major Protestant denominations in the United States.

And what is so troubling are the tumbling graphs included in the article that point out a declining membership that is shrinking all seven mainline churches (Presbyterian Church, the American Baptist Church, the Lutheran Church, along with the United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Episcopalian, and Disciples of Christ churches.) All seven major denominations actually are declining in membership.

Our first reaction when learning of their sad fate might be to thank God that the church we love and serve can boast at this Annual Council of a membership graph that is steadily climbing!

No downturns for us, we proudly congratulate ourselves. And of course thank our Lord for the unprecedented growth that we are reporting here in Bangalore:

But let me interrupt our glowing reverie for a moment to return to the seven declining mainline denominations in the United States. Could it be that we, too, in spite of our success stories, are not immune to such a disaster.

The NEWSWEEK article reports one Lutheran pastor as saying, "People today aren't interested in traditional doctrines like justification, sanctification and redemption." And as a result, mainline pastors and parishes are scrambling to disassociate themselves from what they consider stale traditions and doctrines and teachings that have been handed down through the centuries.

Can you believe it? A Lutheran pastor, who is the inheritor of Martin Luther's great Reformation, has concluded that people no longer are interested in the great themes of salvation! So what does he feed them from week to week? Exactly what he believes his "market" wants to hear. Never mind the dusty old doctrines of salvation. And all the while the graphs and charts keep plunging.

It is evident that a market-driven message inevitably leads to a shrinking mission, vision and membership. On the other hand, only Biblical preaching, gospel preaching, and preaching our distinctive, end-time message will protect Seventh-day Adventists from the same malaise.

Martin E. Marty, eminent church historian at the University of Chicago, has warned:   "To give the whole store away to match what this year's market says the unchurched want is to have the people who know least about faith determine most about its expression" (Newsweek 8/9/93, p. 48).

The reason I refer to this current demographic research at all is because quite frankly I wonder at times if the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the church we love and serve, faces the very same danger as the rest of Protestantism!

Are we, too, threatened with growing distractions that threaten to lead us into an eventual abandonment of our message and our mission?

While we bask in the glow of charts and graphs that are very much upturned of late, could it be that if we are not careful and do not heed the warning indicators that flash in front of all of us today--could it be that we too some day will face the same scenario as we see on those seven tumbling graphs?

Let me ask you a question. Can we really place confidence in the notion that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is God's last church on earth? I mean, whether you're in Bangalore or Beijing or Budapest or Boston, don't you think it smacks of spiritual elitism for any of us to openly declare that our denomination is THE church that God has chosen to be the LAST TRUE CHURCH ON EARTH?

Oh yes, all of us as ministers and members alike, have memorized the apocalyptic words of Revelation 12:17: "And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

But let me ask you, preachers and fellow believers--when was the last time you and I pulled out our yellowed sermon notes on that familiar prophecy and preached our hearts out over it?

Could it be that more than a few of us have quietly, perhaps even subconsciously, allowed the loudest or at least the most persuasive voices in our midst to set our thematic agendas for our own preaching and leading? Voices pointing out that with billions on this planet yet to be reached with the simple message of Jesus we hardly have time to worry about preaching the message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to all of them? "What they need is Jesus, not the Three Angels' Messages," these voices cry out.

And of course, who could, who would even dare argue with that cry. As the old gospel hymn proclaimed, "What the world needs is Jesus, just a glimpse of Him."

Why our Lord and Master Himself, in the most clarion and crimson of all His descriptions of the cross, cried out in John 12:32 just three days before His death: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all [people] unto me."

There can be no equivocation and no question that the Seventh-day Adventist Church must be foremost in lifting up the incarnated, crucified, risen, ascended and soon-coming Jesus before a dying civilization!

Why even Ellen White herself championed that call over and over again to the church. She wrote in Gospel Workers: "Of all professing Christians, Seventh-day Adventists should be foremost in uplifting Christ before the world.... The sinner must be led to look to Calvary; with the simple faith of a little child he must trust in the merits of the Saviour, accepting His righteousness, believing in His mercy" (Gospel Workers pp. 156,157).

The Seventh-day Adventist Church must stand at the forefront of all the global movements to bring Jesus to a dying world!

But I am troubled by the voices that have somehow disassociated the Jesus of the four gospels with the Jesus of the Three Angels in Revelation 14.

The first angel that streaks across the midnight heavens with the urgent cry of the "everlasting gospel" is not announcing an end-time message contrary to the Jesus of the gospels. For the eternal gospel of Jesus is in fact the glorious truth that He who is the Lord of salvation is also the Lord of the Sabbath: "Worship him who made heaven and earth," the angel cries. "For the hour of his judgment is come."

He who is Lord of the salvation truth is Lord of the Sabbath truth and Lord of the sanctuary truth. The Seventh-day Adventist Church does not call the world to choose between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of the Apocalypse.

And it is this same Jesus who Himself declared to Peter and the disciples, "I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18). Christ is the great Builder of the end-time church, a community of faith He continues to fashion today out of "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (Revelation 12:6).

God today continues to build that remnant community of faith to share His passion for a dying world. Why, if every individual Seventh-day Adventist--or every Seventh-day Adventist congregation--or every Seventh-day Adventist conference chose to live unto themselves, we can only imagine the dysfunctional collapse that would break up this global movement. The fateful words that conclude the tragic book of Judges would become true all over again, "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25).

No, Jesus has raised up this church to be a united movement with a passion "to seek and save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

Let me speak frankly about some of the other pressures that threaten the accomplishment of the mission our Lord gave us.

Let's first consider NATIONALISM or REGIONALISM? This is the spirit of pride that is only natural for all of us as members of our cast, race, language groups, or tribe. But what happens when we allow such attitudes and feelings to dictate our own involvement in the shared mission of the church? What happens when political persuasions, cultural biases, and ethnic differences are allowed to sway the church and its leadership?

What would happen, for example, if the Tamil Adventist built a wall of ethnic separation from Telegu Adventists or Malayali Adventists or Punjabi Adventists?

First, what kind of a picture of Jesus would that portray?

And, second, how could the church possibly hope to reach India if it allowed ethnic prejudices or parochial interests keep it from joining forces and resources with all other Seventh-day Adventists to preach the gospel in this great land.

And while I've chosen an example here in India, I have a feeling that we all could apply the same concept to very real situations in all the areas of the world represented here today.

This is simply evidence that the Seventh-day Adventist church also faces the substantive distraction of "regionalism" or "nationalism" today. Increasing preoccupation with regional, racial, ethnic or national needs can easily distract and stagnate the church in any country.

I ask you: How could Jesus' vision of an end-time Remnant Church, equipped and energized by the Holy Spirit for God's final appeal to earth possibly come true, if we allow self-interests to hold us back from a shared global commitment that is critical to accomplishing our mission?

"Shared global commitment" means "shared resources" with sister nations and churches around the globe. It means asking, "How can we who have the three-angel's messages do more to reach those who don't have the peace of the gospel, wherever they live, in Judea--next door, in Samaria--my region or country, or in the farthest corner of the globe?"

The glorious truth of the gospel is that we are all first of all children of the same heavenly Father, sons and daughters of the same God.

Transcending all our tribal, ethnic, racial, or caste distinctions we are a Remnant Family. A family that requires that we be, first, foremost, and above all, children of the living God, and, a distant second, a member of the society in which we live. We must never let the second undermine or dominate the rebirth made evident in the first!

We will only survive the coming crisis as we are bound by the heart of Jesus to one another globally. If our people could testify to the world, "I am first of all a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, and then I am a Zulu or an Indian or a Russian or a Japanese or a Brazilian or an American"--then our shared testimony would be a truly united effort to reach the world one last time for our returning King!

But not only does NATIONALISM threaten to distract us from our vision and mission as a church, so does FACTIONALISM. I think of the theological factions that are rending the Body of Christ around the world.

My heart aches as the mounds of mail cross my desk. Magazines, letters, Xeroxed missives by the pound--some of them from sincerely concerned members, but too many of them seem to be churned out by angry hearts.

My dear friends, I know I'm preaching to the converted now, and I know that you share my pain for the cause of Christ. But we must earnestly join our hearts together in prayerfully seeking the guidance and intervention of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, I fear that THEOLOGICAL FACTIONALISM will irreparably rend the mission and vision of the church in some of our homelands.

The only effective antidote to factionalism is:

  1. an emphasis on the authoritative message of scriptures--with a new zeal for Bible preaching,
  2. pleading with the Holy Spirit to pour out His power without measure, and most important,
  3. a focus on Jesus, in our own leading, preaching, and writing.

The words of Jesus ring true today: "When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to Me."

There can be no other antidote for the spiritual illness evident among the remnant church, than the persistent and passionate exaltation of Jesus. He alone can draw our factious hearts back into a shared communion and purpose with Him. And so I earnestly invite you to join me in exalting Him in all that we do and say.

Let our Sabbath sermons, devotionals and editorials be God-given opportunities for each of us to lift up this same Jesus!

A second type of factionalism is ECCLESIASTICAL FACTIONALISM.

Political maneuvering, jockeying for power and control, coalition-building, demeans our Lord and His church and makes the word "Christian" repulsive to member and public alike.

Simply putting the word "church" in front of politics in no way sanctions or sanctifies the carnal ambitions of ego-laden hearts.

The renewal of a Christ-centered focus is the antidote for the ECCLESIASTICAL FACTIONALISM that threatens to distract us from our mission.

I am convinced that such ecclesiastical factionalism can only be eradicated from the Body of Christ...

  1. when the servants of Christ begin to take the time to gaze long and hard upon Jesus.
  2. when we watch Him on the eve of His death, stooped over and stripped to the waist, bowing at the feet of His fighting and factious disciples, washing their hearts by His self-denying humility.
  3. When we gaze on this same Jesus day after day in our time for personal devotion and prayer, only then will we learn the meaning of servant leadership, and only then will we live out the life of the Son of Man who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).

It is gazing upon Jesus that we as leaders of this church will learn the lesson that "whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all" (v. 44).

When the Seventh-day Adventist Church becomes known globally as a people and a movement bathed with the Spirit of Jesus, then and only then will our vision and mission be ignited with new fire that can burn away the distractions that sap our energy.

How did that hymn go? "O for that flame of living fire/Which shone so bright in saints of old;/Which bade their souls to heaven aspire,/Calm in distress, in danger bold./ Remember, Lord, the ancient days;/Renew Thy work, Thy grace restore;/And while to Thee our hearts we raise,/On us thy Holy Spirit pour." (William H. Bathurst, 1831.)

Earlier, I said that some today seem to question whether God has a true, remnant church. But God has given us the answer. It's found in the story of the noon meeting at Jacob's well. You remember the story well, don't you?

The disciples have hurried off down the dusty road to find some fast food in the nearby village of Sychar. Jesus, famished, thirsty, sweaty, and weary from the morning journey, sits all alone beneath the sweltering sky on the edge of that mossy well that Jacob had dug.

And then she appeared. A woman with three strikes against her: first, she was a woman; second, she was a Samaritan woman; and third, she was a Samaritan woman of ill-repute. No respectable Jewish man would possibly give her the time of day.

But then there was Jesus. And in a classic manifestation of love's gentle strength, Jesus turned a quiet wish for water into an eternal gift of life.

You remember that the woman tried to sidetrack him into theological controversy. It is in that context that Jesus couches a categorical declaration about God having a true church. Read His words with me in John 4:22: "Ye worship ye know not what: [but] we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews."

Did you catch it? Jesus plainly is declaring to the woman at the well, "You Samaritans don't know what you worship. But we Jews know what we worship, for you see, salvation is from the Jews."

It was God who designated the Hebrews as channels for His work. Jesus' words testify to the reality of a sovereign God who in His infinite grace has chosen throughout the course of human history to entrust the very message of salvation to a chosen community of faith. God chose a people, endowed them with particular advantages, then held them to a level of responsibility commensurate with their special benefits.

To every voice today that would challenge the notion that God would proffer the gift of salvation to the world through a particular community of faith comes Jesus unequivocal declaration to the Samaritan woman, "Salvation is from the Jews" (NRSV)!

God has always had to start somewhere. And where He has started has always been with a generation of men, women and children--a movement like the children of Israel. A people raised up at strategic times in God's prophetic plan to share with the surrounding world the Good News of Christ.

  1. For that reason God called Noah, Abraham, Joseph and Moses.
  2. For that reason God raised up the Jewish nation.
  3. And without hesitancy, for that reason Jesus can look the Samaritan woman in the eye and declare that salvation comes from the Jews.

Of course, we know salvation is from God. But you and I know what Jesus meant. God chose the Jewish people to be His movement to seek and save the world.

Just as surely as God raised up a people in preparation for the Messiah's first coming, it could be expected that He would raise up a community of faith to save an end-time generation before the Messiah's second advent.

The Apocalypse describes their character and dedication, these proclaimers of the three angel's messages. It was not their merits that led to His choice, but He delights in their commitment to His work--their absolute dedication to the Savior.

My fellow Seventh-day Adventists, with deep humility but with earnest conviction, I believe today that our church has been raised up by this same Jesus to be the Remnant movement predicted and prophesied in Revelation 12.

I did not say, nor do I for a moment believe that all Seventh-day Adventists will be saved or that only Seventh-day Adventists will be saved.

However, I do humbly recognize through the words of Jesus in John 4 and Revelation 12 that the church we love and serve is the church God has chosen to be His end-time vehicle of salvation to a dying civilization.

Please don't misunderstand me--God was very clear with ancient Israel, and He wishes to be just as clear with us today. You remember the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 7:7,8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you...hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen."

There was nothing special or admirable or commendable in Israel that led God to select them to be His chosen vehicle of communicating salvation to the world. "You were the least of all the people," is God's unmistakable point.

But that is the ringing assurance of the gospel--that God takes what the world regards as weak and ineffective and insignificant and transforms it by His grace into a mighty demonstration of His glory and power (see I Cor. 1:27-29)!

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, just like the children of Israel, was the least among all the peoples. Yet the story of this prophetic movement is the chronicle of God's miraculous and supernatural interventions from 1844 to 1993, so that He has raised up, like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Great Disappointment, a global community of faith.

With humility, and yet with a very certain sense of wondering gratitude, my heart bows before the realization that our church is the only one on earth that is seeking to articulate the Three Angels' Messages to every nation and tribe and tongue and people! LeRoy Edwin Froom was being more than poetic when he described the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a "movement of destiny."

We are that apocalyptic and prophetic movement. We are not just another skin on the wall. By the grace of Christ and the calling of God, we have a rendezvous with destiny. But it is not our destiny. It is His destiny. If ever there were an hour for every member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to seize that destiny for Christ, IS IT NOT NOW?

(ILL) I want to end with a story that happened not very far from us here in the city of Bangalore. Over on the eastern coast lies the great seaport city of seven million called Madras. And in that city there lived a high-caste Hindu family.

On March 10 of this year the man of the house ate an afternoon dinner and then stretched out on the floor of his apartment to sleep. While he slept he dreamed that there was a knock on their door, and when he opened it he saw two elderly men dressed in white. They asked him, "Son, may we come in?" But as they stood there, it seemed to the man as if the two strangers were reticent to enter his home. And the thought struck him, "Maybe they won't come in because of my pooja" (which is the sacred room that houses the idols and portraits of Hindu gods and goddesses). And so in his dream, the man called to his young son and told him to remove all the idols and pictures from the pooja. And with that, the dream ended and the gentleman awakened.

So strong was the impression of the dream to him that he immediately called for his son and ordered him to do what he had just done in the dream--remove all the family gods.

That was March 10. On July 8, three months ago, the same gentleman saw a poster advertising the opening night of the "Here's Hope Campaign," an evangelistic series conducted by a joint effort of the South Indian Union and the Pioneer Memorial Church at Andrews University. And so he showed up that opening night of that campaign. Before leaving at the conclusion of the meeting, the gentleman stopped one of the evangelistic team and asked for prayer.

After the prayer, the man returned home, went to bed, and dreamed another dream. And in the dream there was a knock at the door. And there they were, the same two men dressed in white that he had seen in his earlier dream in March. They were holding something in their hands. He looked down and immediately recognized it. It was the "Here's Hope Campaign" Bible he had received that very night!

That Hindu gentleman never missed a night during that entire Campaign. And as the result of two angels in a dream, that man and eight other family members were baptized into Jesus Christ and have joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Madras.

What does it mean? It simply means that God has all the supernatural power necessary to save a lost world, the 900 million of India included.

That He has raised up the Seventh-day Adventist Church to join Him in that mission is sufficient reason for all of us to bow in grateful praise and humble prayer before Him now. Our mission and our message and our church belong to Jesus. No wonder it is our highest calling and our grandest destiny to lift Him up before this end-time world! "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

Let us join together in that prayer.

Copyright © 1993 by R S Folkenberg