The Important Factor of Love

“Wilt thou be angry with us forever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.” Psalm 85:5–7.

I have been in the ministry for 30 years, and as far back as I can remember, as we would gather< together in evangelistic meetings or in camp meetings, the theme invariably would have some form of revival and reformation included. Many may remember these things. There is nothing wrong with revival and reformation. It is a good theme, a good direction in which we need to be heading, but the question that I have to ask myself is, Why has it not worked? It seems there are basically two reasons why it has not worked: There has either been a wrong approach or we have had wrong ideas about revival and reformation.

An Approach

There are Adventists all over the world who are wanting to respond to revival and reformation. When I have traveled, invariably I come in contact with people who express their desire for revival and reformation in Adventism. They want it; they long for it; they look for it to happen. There is a great personal need for revival and reformation, but there is also a great need for the church as a whole to experience revival and reformation.

How can you approach revival and reformation if you are a member of a small historic group? First of all, individual seeking for revival and reformation needs to take place. Then, as you have influence within the group with whom you are meeting, it is perfectly appropriate that the suggestion be made that revival and reformation be approached from a church point of view. Is your group out of harmony with other historic groups or other ministries? Approach revival and <=”” that=”” from=””

The Church’s Greatest Need

“A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all of our needs. To seek this should be our first work. There must be earnest effort to obtain the blessing of the Lord, not because God is not willing to bestow His blessing upon us, but because we are unprepared to receive it. Our Heavenly Father is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him, than are earthly parents to give good gifts to their children. [See Luke 11:13.] But it is our work . . . .”Review and Herald, March 22, 1887. A lot of times there is confusion in the minds of Seventh-day Adventists as to the place of faith and works. How do these two operate? In what sphere are they to operate? Where is the balance between these two?

If you read the Spirit of Prophecy, that aspect of confusion disappears, because Sister White makes it very plain as to where our responsibilities lie and where God’s responsibilities lie. Notice what she says here. It is our work. Do we have something to do? Absolutely! Mrs. White continues, “It is our work, by confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer, to fulfill the conditions upon which God has promised to grant us his blessing. A revival need be expected only in answer to prayer. While the people are so destitute of God’s Holy Spirit, they cannot appreciate the preaching of the word; but when the Spirit’s power touches their hearts, then the discourses given will not be without effect. Guided by the teachings of God’s word, with the manifestation of his Spirit, in the exercise of sound discretion, those who attend our meetings will gain a precious experience, and returning home will be prepared to exert a healthful influence.” Ibid.

I do not think she is talking about soybeans, here. I think she is talking about something entirely different when she talks about exerting a healthful influence. Is it possible that the opposite has been taking place? What is the opposite of healthfulness? It is sickness, is it not? Has there been a sickly influence exerted as far as revival and reformation is concerned? That is probably the case, otherwise she would not have said that we need to exert a healthful influence after we have been to meetings where the blessings of the Lord have been poured out.

Reformation Must Accompany Revival

“A revival and a reformation must take place, under the ministration of the Holy Spirit. Revival and reformation are two different things. [Notice the distinction that she makes.] Revival signifies a renewal of spiritual life, a quickening of the powers of mind and heart, a resurrection from spiritual death. [Could this be directed to the condition of Laodicea?] Reformation signifies a reorganization, a change in ideas and theories, habits and practices. Reformation will not bring forth the good fruit of righteousness unless it is connected with the revival of the Spirit.” Last Day Events, 189, 190. You can have ideas and theories and habits and practices, but if they are not accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are worse than useless. It has to be connected with the revival of the spirit. The quote continues, “Revival and reformation are to do their appointed work, and in doing this work they must blend.” Ibid., 190.

Balance

As I have read the Spirit of Prophecy, I have noticed that it is always balanced. Another word that she uses here is blend. A lot of Seventh-day Adventists are unbalanced. They are not blending as they should, and as a result there is a sickliness that will not allow revival and reformation to come.

Balance, revival and reformation, has to start with each one of us. Mrs. White outlines the formula for us to use so the work of God can take place—”confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer.” All of the ingredients are there, and it becomes incumbent upon us to take all of those ingredients and put them in their proper increments so that they will work right.

I am not a cook, nor am I a baker, but I do know that in order to bake a cake you have to have certain ingredients in certain amounts in order for the formula to work right. You have to have flour, sugar, and salt . . . I do not know everything that goes into a cake, but I do know that if you leave out one of the ingredients, you will either have a flat cake, a bad tasting cake, or a heavy cake, a cake that you would not want to eat or serve. The question that we have to ask ourselves as Seventh-day Adventists, who are wanting revival and reformation to come, is, Have we left out some of the ingredients along the way? Over all the years that we have wanted to bake a cake of revival and reformation, have we left out some of the ingredients so the cake always flopped? It is kind of like Ephraim—the Bible says that he was a cake that was half-turned, doughy, without taste. (Hosea 7:8.)

Needed Ingredients

So what are the ingredients of revival? Ellen White says that revival needs to first have repentance —individual and corporate—before it can come. (See Patriarchs and Prophets, 590.) Repentance is a turning away from sin; repentance is a sorrow for sin, and repentance is a change of direction. Revival must have repentance. Revival needs to have as its focus the cross of Christ. Revival needs to have, as its theological basis, the Bible, not some philosophy, not some theory that someone comes along with that sounds great but that is only a wind of doctrine that is blowing an ill wind. We need to have a theological basis, not just a philosophy.

Revival needs to have prayer. Revival needs to have humiliation. It needs to have confession of faults one to another and restitution, as far as possible. There are some instances where restitution is not possible. The person whom we have had fault against may no longer be alive, so we have to leave that with God. But if there is the possibility that we can make restitution for wrongs that we have done, we need to do that.

When I became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, I worked for an employer with whom I had not been totally honest. I had not thought there was anything wrong with what I did. I thought if it was my due, and if I could pinch something from him and he did not know about it, that was all right. But when I became a Christian, the pastor who gave me Bible studies taught me about restitution. I will never forget the day that I tremblingly drove to my employer’s home. I told him what I had done. I told him I was willing to pay back everything that I had taken that I should not have taken. He looked at me with a smile and said, “I never missed it. I am glad you came and told me, and I am glad that you have found God.” We need to make restitution as far as possible.

One More Ingredient

We can have all of the things outlined above and still not have revival. There is one more ingredient that needs to be in the mix. That is the ingredient of love. Some say if you have all the others, you do not need love, but that is not necessarily true. Sincere Adventists, for several decades now, have felt this ingredient has been absent from the concept of revival. What can we do to change the mix so the cake of revival and reformation will be right?

One of the reasons we have left out the ingredient of love is because we have left out some of the other ingredients, in terms of having a right theological basis, including Ellen White. She says, “If you have the Spirit of Christ you will love every soul for whom Christ died. Not with a love-sick sentimentalism. Not with base affection. Nothing like that. You will love as Christ loved. You will want to carry that burden for souls, oh how carefully, that there shall not be any occasion given to the youth, or to those of mature age, that shall bring in or make occasion of their stumbling or being turned out of the way, or a channel for an impure thought. Create an atmosphere where the soul can be kept open and clean before God our Maker.” Sermons and Talks, vol. 1, 186.

So often we, as Seventh-day Adventists, have read this quotation and have gotten hung up on the negativism of the phrase “love-sick sentimentalism.” We have felt that if somehow we express the love that Christ has, and it comes through this clay channel, that it will manifest itself in a love-sick sentimentalism that we have strong counsel to avoid. As a result, we have set love on the back burner. We do not want to get caught up like other churches that only preach about love, love, love.

We do not want to be associated in that way, because actually the only thing that is important is for us to have a correct theology. A correct theology will cover a multitude of sins, right? So we have focused on, and we have magnified, our teaching as Seventh-day Adventists on correct theology—Saturday is the Sabbath; when you die you are dead; Jesus is in the heavenly sanctuary ministering, and on the list goes. We have all of the correct theology, but revival still has not come.

The Greatest of These

Ellen White has always had the proper balance to this issue. It has been there all along, but somehow we have missed it. She says, “The Lord desires me to call the attention of his people to the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. [Is it important when the Lord directs her to call our attention to something?] Read this chapter every day, and from it obtain comfort and strength. Learn from it the value that God places on sanctified, heaven-born love, and let the lesson that it teaches come home to your hearts. Learn that Christlike love is of heavenly birth, and that without it all other qualifications are worthless.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1091. She penned those words in 1904. Sixty years she had been involved in ministry, and now, as she draws near the end of her ministry, into the sunset years, she reflects back to the direction that the ministry of Adventism has taken, and the instruction that the Lord gives her is, Tell the people to read this chapter every day.

Chapter of Love

Let us look at 1 Corinthians 13. The King James Version of the Bible uses the word charity for the word love, and I have substituted love wherever the word charity appears, because that is exactly what it means.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have [the gift of ] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed [the poor], and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, [and] is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth: but whether [there be] prophecies, they shall fail; whether [there be] tongues, they shall cease; whether [there be] knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these [is] love.”

New Theology

Several years ago the new theology came into its own. There had been seeds planted early on, but under the ministry and teaching of Desmond Ford the new theology sprung into existence. Only a few rejected it. Many accepted it. The reason the new theology came into being, and was so readily accepted by most people, is that it came in a package that had three words written on it: love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Basic elements of revival and reformation! Celebration churches sprang into existence by the multitudes. Why? Because many had not felt love within their former congregations; many attended their churches for years and never really felt Christlike love from those with whom they worshiped.

So when this new concept came into being with the new theology, the people accepted the love, the acceptance, and the forgiveness. They really did not care about the theology. When people arrived at the church on Sabbath morning, they enjoyed being greeted in the parking lot by a deacon and being escorted into church. They enjoyed the accolades and praise they received and the thank you for being there. They liked being acknowledged for who they were; people fell for that head over heels.

The unbalance came with theology problems; a lot of trash doctrine came with it. But the people were not hurting for theology. They had the theology; they did not have the love. Celebration is still growing, because it is meeting the basic needs of human beings.

On the other hand, we have kept the good theology, but we have thrown out the caring and the love that should carry the balance of revival and reformation. We have overreacted and ignored love for the most part, because it is a part of the celebration acceptance, and we do not want celebration cluttering up our pure theology!

I remember early in my ministry the Brimsmead controversy. Robert Brimsmead was a man at odds with the denomination. His theology was bad. He attacked the sanctuary, and I can remember as clear as a bell that, in that critical era of the rejection of Robert Brimsmead and all that he stood for, the word sanctuary was not mentioned from the pulpit nor in the Sabbath School classes. Anyone who would even entertain this idea of the sanctuary certainly would have to be tied up with Robert Brimsmead theology. We did not want to be branded as a Brimsmead, so we just left out that part of our church belief. We certainly did not want to have any little study groups in the afternoon that would deal with the truth of the sanctuary, so we just left it out totally, and we have suffered tremendously for that.

What goes around, comes around, and if something worked well for the devil once, he will use it again. He has done exactly that with the celebration movement. It has come in with its theme of love, acceptance, and forgiveness, and it has taken that which is good and right and bound it up with a bogus philosophy.

As we stop and think about these things, I do not believe that any of us want to continue to repeat history again and again and again. If we do not learn the lessons of the past, we are destined to repeat history again. Somehow, if the awareness does not come to us that the devil would take that which is right and good and attach it to something that is extremely questionable and cause us to be in a position of rejection, we have to surmount that and get beyond it. He has stolen that which is right and good; it does not belong to him, and we cannot afford to repeat history when we are seeking for revival and reformation. We need to examine what is right and good and use it for the Lord.

Fruit of the Spirit

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:15–20.

If we are going to be fruit inspectors, at what kind of fruits will we be looking? Fruit of the Spirit. Fruit of the Spirit can be classified always as good fruit. Paul has already outlined the corrupt fruit in Galatians 5:17–21, when he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Verses 22, 23. It is interesting that Paul devotes a whole chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, to the subject of love; then as he lists the fruit of the Spirit, love is listed first. Why? Because it is the greatest. It is number one; it is first in Paul’s mind. It was not always that way, reviewing Paul’s life, but now Paul is converted, and he sees love as the important factor.

Jesus was Love

Why did the Pharisees hate Jesus? It was not because of what He did; it was because of who He was. He was love. He displayed love everywhere He went. Who would heal the people that He healed? Nobody. Nobody wanted to touch the dirty leper; nobody wanted to deal with a harlot; nobody wanted to deal with those who had corrupted themselves, and nobody wanted to deal with the poor, but Jesus did. Why? Because Jesus was love.

Matthew 9:1–13 tells how Jesus related to people. Why did Matthew record the stories found here? It was to reveal attitude. How are we relating to those who really need help? Do we pass by like the Levite and the priest? Or are we the Samaritan who will take the flask of oil and pour it into the wound. I would hope that we will take these examples and so apply them in our own lives that revival and reformation can come for us.

Neat Little Packages

Could it be that one of the reasons revival has not come is that we do not yet have all of the ingredients of revival in one basket? We have had everything wrapped up in neat, tidy, little packages, but we do not have it all together. We think that because we are so well organized and our theology is so straight that that is all in which God is really interested. But God says, I want you to give Me your heart, and I want to be able to love people through you.

Could it be that we have the correct theology, but we do not have the fruit of the Spirit? Ellen White said, “Unless this converting power shall go through our churches, unless the revival of the Spirit of God shall come, all their profession will never make the members of the church Christians.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 1, 366. Revival will not come except through the Spirit. The Spirit is going to work through the fruits!

The Answer

If you are wondering how all of this can change in your life, Jesus has the answer. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, [then] have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.” 1 John 3:18–23.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” 1 John 4:7–11.

The necessary items for revival that are on our ingredients list must begin with the important factor of love. If it does, revival can indeed take place. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? It has to start with us! [All emphasis supplied.]

Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker of Steps to Life Ministry. He may be reached by e-mail at mikebaugher@stepstolife.org