"Every Member Ministry"

Sabbath School Today

With the 1888 Message Dynamic

Evangelism and Witnessing

Lesson 2: "Every Member Ministry"

We work hard, energetically to proclaim the gospel. But is there a yet-untried method of soul-winning? Not merely by pushing electronic buttons, but that has such a built-in power pack that common people who believe the message can watch conversions take place?

If you attend church, you've heard the pleas: "Do more, work harder, win souls! Look how the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons go door to door; why don't we do more?"

In one large Conference in North America, the cost of each baptism in Net-96 was estimated at $10,000. Of course, the eternal salvation of one soul cannot be computed in dollars. But is this what Jesus had in mind when He said, "Go ye ..."? Is there a more effective way to finish the "great gospel commission"?

Who doesn't long to see far greater efficiency in soul-winning?

When one reads the letters of the apostles in the New Testament, there seems to be little pressure put upon the early Christians. Paul commends rather than prods the Thessalonian Christians: "Not only did the message about the Lord go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere. There is nothing, then, that we need to say" (1 Thess. 1:8, GNB; emphasis supplied). An evangelist's or church administrator's dream! No need for high-pressure promotion.

Was the Gospel of the Thessalonians Self-propagating?

It seems that it did have its own built-in power pack. It motivated people even to the point of being thought extravagantly zealous: "If we are out of our mind ... [or] in our right mind, ... Christ's love [agape] compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves" (2 Cor. 5:13-15, NIV).

In other words, they sensed a motivation fueled by something special they saw in the sacrifice of Christ. Once you grasped what had happened, you just couldn't sit still. The tongue-tied had to talk, and the timid grew bold (Isa. 32:4; Zech. 12:8). You saw the Messiah to be the second Adam; He died "for all." That meant--if He had not died, you would be dead. Since He became corporately one with the human race, "all died" in Him; from now on nobody could go on "living for themselves." You could no longer think that you belonged to yourself, or that anything you possessed was yours. With one divine sword-stroke, the Gordian knot of human self-centered concern was cut. The cross did it.

A new purpose for living took over: if you believed this self-propagating gospel, you just had to live "for Him who died" for you, and it wasn't fear or hope-of-reward that moved you. Materialism, sensuality, all self-centered motivations, were transcended by this phenomenal new reason for living. You saw yourself eternally in debt to the Son of God. And the idea caught on, because there were honest hearts everywhere. Jews and Gentiles came out of nowhere, ready to respond.

This understanding of what the cross meant first burst on people's minds at Pentecost. "You denied the Holy One and the Just," cried Peter. "You ... killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. ... Repent therefore and be converted" (Acts 3:14, 15, 19). And they did repent, and they were converted. "The truth in agape" compelled multitudes to respond--3000 in one day.

This was "the former rain." Today we await "the latter rain." That self-propagating gospel at Pentecost accompanied Christ's beginning work in heaven as High Priest. Now His closing work in the cosmic Day of Atonement will be accompanied by a fully developed "everlasting gospel" that will "lighten the earth with glory." The same cross-exalting motivation will fuel that final burst of soul-winning.

Says John in Revelation: "I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, 'Babylon the great is fallen.' ... And I heard another voice from heaven saying, 'Come out of her, my people ...'" (18:1-4). The call will be accompanied by a second-time-in-history power--the first, at Pentecost.

Ellen White in vision witnessed what will happen this second time around: "The light that was shed upon the waiting ones penetrated everywhere, and those in the churches who had any light ... obeyed the call ... A compelling power moved the honest [compare that with the word "compels" above in 2 Cor. 5:14]. ...

"Servants of God, endowed with power from on high, with their faces lighted up, and shining with holy consecration, went forth to proclaim the message from heaven. Souls that were scattered all through the religious bodies answered to the call, and the precious were hurried out of the doomed churches, as Lot was hurried out of Sodom before her destruction." [1]

In 1888 the Lord "sent" us "the beginning" of that message. Ellen White called it "the light which will lighten the earth with its glory." Had it been accepted, "then the strong, clear light of that other angel who comes down from heaven having great power, wouldhave filled the earth with his glory. ... Heavenly messengers have grieved, impatient at the delay. ... Angels of heaven were seeking to communicate through human agencies--justification by faith, the righteousness of Christ." "The loud cry of the third angel has already begun in the revelation of the righteousness of Christ." [2]

Shall the Seventh-day Adventist Church disregard the authenticated "beginning" of that final message, which was "in a great degree" rejected and "kept away from the world"? [3]

That same writer tells how the first Pentecost relates to the future second one: "A work is to be accomplished in the earth similar to that which took place at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the days of the early disciples, when they preached Jesus and Him crucified. Many will be converted in a day; for the message will go with power. ... The theme that attracts the heart of the sinner is Christ, and Him crucified. On the cross of Calvary, Jesus stands revealed to the world in unparalleled love [agape]. Present Him thus to the hungering multitudes, and the light of His love will win men from darkness to light, from transgression to obedience and true holiness. Beholding Jesus upon the cross of Calvary arouses the conscience to the heinous character of sin as nothing else can do." [4]

It meets exactly the heart-longing of every honest-hearted soul in "Babylon" (and there are many!), so that "the truth is seen in its clearness, and the honest children of God sever the bands which have held them. Family connections, church relations, are powerless to stay them now. Truth is more precious than all besides. Notwithstanding the agencies combined against the truth, a large number [will] take their stand upon the Lord's side." [5]

--Robert J. Wieland

(Compiled by Paul E. Penno)

Endnotes:

[1] Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 278, 279, emphasis supplied.

[2] The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, pp. 673, 1070-1073, emphasis supplied.

[3] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 234, 235.

[4] 1888 Materials, pp. 1073, 1074.

[5] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 612.

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