Lest We Forget We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history. LS 196 We are living in a time when foundations are being tested. Every wind of doctrine (Eph. 4: 14) is testing us to see upon what we are established. When the wind turns into a flood, it will be shown in a final way whether we have built on the Rock or on the earth without foundation (Luke 6:49). Scripture tells us that the Rock we need is Jesus Christ (J Cor. 3: 11 ;10:4). Built on Him we are secure. We need then to know Him (John 17:3). But the stability of the person of Christ is fully seen only with an understanding of His sayings which He personified (Luke 6:47), the foundation principles of the Christian church (Heb. 6: 1,2). So this Person and His principles are inseparable, both being dimensions of the Whole Being that He is. It is in this way that we are told both to build on Christ and to build on His teachings. Christ in His wisdom shared that founding position, which He had as the chief cornerstone, and upon which He built His church (Matt.16:16-1 8), with other godly men, the apostles and prophets (Eph.2:20). The apostles were those who met two criteria. First they must have seen Christ, not just casually or figuratively, but deeply and in a literal way. It was thus that Paul could claim to be an apostle though not numbered among the twelve (I Cor. 9: 1; 15:7-9). They were eyewitnesses in a special sense. Secondly, as the word implies, they also were commissioned in a special way to go and tell what they had seen. The prophets were individuals who in a similar special way were spokespersons for God, sent with messages to those who believe (1Cor. 14:22), those who had accepted the gospel that the apostles preached. So it was the ministry of these, first apostles, second prophets (1 Cor. 12:28), duplicating the ministry of Christ, that demonstrated their position as co-founders of that which Christ was building upon Himself and them. A parallel process was seen in the establishing of the Seventh-day Adventist church out of the advent awakening of the early 1800s. There were godly men and women who by faith saw that God was leading them in spite of the disappointment they had experienced, who were eyewitnesses of the genuineness of the work that the Lord had wrought from the beginning of the movement. Out of the large group professing a belief in the second coming of Christ, this remnant came, little companies of seekers after truth [I MR-52 (Letter 38, 1905)], who searched the Scriptures as for hidden treasure, looking beyond the foundation truths of Christianity to find the foundation truths for the last days. Out of these came those who are identified as pioneers in our work (RH 5/25105), or, as we like to call them , apostles of the advent. It is of interest and importance to note that she whom the Lord chose as a messenger did not contribute of herself to this process of discovering the pillars of present truth for our time. She relates that she could not understand the reasoning of the brethren, that her mind was locked , but that when the others in their search for truth came to the point in their study when they said, We can do nothing more, the Spirit of the Lord would come upon me. I would be taken off in vision, and a clear explanation of the passages we had been studying would be given me. The Lord did this to confirm His order of using first apostles in laying down truth, and second prophets to confirm and instruct in the process. Of what importance then are these first apostles of Seventh-day Adventism? We have the words of the messenger easily available to us, for which we must ever thank God. But how important is what the apostles of the advent left for us? The messenger tells us how God feels about this question: We are to repeat the words of the pioneers in our work, who knew what it cost to search for the truth as for hidden treasure, and who labored to lay the foundation of our work. They moved forward step by step under the influence of the Spirit of God. Let that which these men have written in the past be reproduced. The prophets confirm the words of the apostles. We hear God calling us all to complete the affirmation of this dimension of our foundations by doing what was stated, repeat the words of the pioneers. Let us rise and reactivate their voice, for the storm is rising that will sorely test our establishment upon the truth they uncovered.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 02:56:34 +0000
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