As you have progressed through these studies, you have noticed how there are various aspects of Christ our righteousness that are often misinterpreted and cause misunderstanding. This chapter will deal with a conflict, or disagreement, that arises between our public relations efforts as an organized denomination and the truths of Christ our righteousness. Most probably do not realize that there is a disagreement between the two.
Let me first explain how our public relations operate. In our publications, in interviews and speeches, and in other ways, we advertise how successful we are as a people and as a denomination. We tell about how we are building more schools, hospitals, and churches, and how we are growing with more member and students. We advertise our success in the mission field and with health programs and community service work. We love to read good reports about all these things; and in fact many swell with pride when they see those reports that advertise what a wonderful work we are doing. We feel good that we belong to such a movement as this. We like to revel in the fact that Seventh-day Adventists live longer due to a better lifestyle. We like it when the world is told that we have better health, less cancer, and more endurance than the rest of the population. We announce to the world that we give more offerings, have more schools and more missions in foreign countries than any other protestant denomination.
Don’t you like hearing about all these things? Your mind is probably quite suspicious about where I am going with this; but is it not true that we say and write these things? Yes we do, and when they appear in newspapers, magazines, and on television, we say, “Yes, that is us. It is wonderful and you ought to try it. There is no one like us.” And we swell with pride.
This emphasis on the good work we are doing draws certain conclusions, one of which is that God must be abundantly blessing us or we could not do all those things. Since God is blessing us and we are doing so many right things, we conclude that we must be right with God. In order to finish God’s work, all we have to do is get more people doing the same thing we are already doing. Do not change anything because we are too successful. Just keep sending out more glowing reports. Since this is the attitude that many have, it leads to a certain conclusion in the minds of many that all is well with us and that God is prospering us. We need nothing, except more people. And that worries me because that is the condition that the True Witness (Jesus) speaks about in Revelation 3:17. We think we are blessed and rich and have no needs, but the True Witness does not think this is a good attitude. In fact, it is a detrimental attitude.
This attitude is the mortal enemy of Christ our righteousness. We think that those who criticize us and undermine our public relations efforts are against us. We think that those who advertise how good we are must be on our team and doing us a favor. But good public relations that lead us to say we are doing very well when Jesus thinks otherwise is the enemy of Christ our righteousness. Not only are they mortal enemies, but complete opposites. What we have called a blessing is really a curse in many ways.
I know you might not agree with me, and that is your privilege. I only hope you will examine some of these thoughts. The condition of being in need of nothing keeps Christ outside, according to Revelation 3:20. The absence of Christ or the presence of Christ makes an enormous difference.
It is a fact that we have grown in numbers quite rapidly, and also have increased our number of schools, churches, hospitals, projects, and missions. There has been tremendous growth and we do have great successes in many ways. Therefore, we are doing great things for Him and He is doing great things for us. Why then does the Spirit of Prophecy seem to criticize us so strongly when according to our estimation we are so successful? Those who like our public relations efforts do not like the criticism. Those who focus on the criticism do not like the public relations. We have some major differences of opinion concerning our church.
Don’t get too upset with me as I present here some Spirit of Prophecy quotations that cover a broad area of so-called criticism. I am only trying to help us see a problem that exists which creates confusion. “It is a solemn statement that I make to the church, that not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as the common sinner.” CS 41. In other words, they go to church and do lots of good things, but they are as hopeless of entering heaven as the common sinner.
“Not one in a hundred among us is doing anything beyond engaging in common, worldly enterprises.” 8T 148. That means only about one percent are doing anything for the Lord. The rest are mostly engaged in worldly enterprises.
“The new birth is a rare experience in this age of the world. This is the reason why there are so many perplexities in the churches. Many, so many, who assume the name of Christ are unsanctified and unholy. They have been baptized, but they were buried alive. Self did not die, and therefore they did not rise to newness of life in Christ.” 6BC 1075. There are many unconverted people who profess conversion.
“And what has caused this alarming condition [where those who profess to look for the return of Jesus engage in worldly pleasures]? Many have accepted the theory of the truth who have had no true conversion.” 5T 218.
“I am filled with sadness when I think of our condition as a people. The Lord has not closed heaven to us, but our own course of continual backsliding has separated us from God. Pride, covetousness, and love of the world have lived in the heart without fear of banishment or condemnation. Grievous and presumptuous sins have dwelt among us. And yet the general opinion is that the church is flourishing and that peace and spiritual prosperity are in all her borders. The church has turned back from following Christ her Leader and is steadily retreating toward Egypt. Yet few are alarmed or astonished at their want of spiritual power.” 5T 217. It does not seem to bother us that we lack in spiritual power. We are complacent and happy, and that is why we are lukewarm.
Here is a classic statement that many have read: “There is not one in one hundred who understands for himself the Bible truth on this subject [justification by faith] that is so necessary to our present and eternal welfare.” COR 87.
Do all of these statements apply only to the time in which they were written? In your estimation, are we much better than they were? About the same? Worse? What do these things mean today, if anything? If you believe that these statements apply to our day, you probably are not promoting good public relations for the church. If you do not believe these things apply to our day, you probably like to hear glowing reports of our success. Some think that those who do not give a glowing report are against the church, and that those who do are on our team. Again, I want to let you know that this public relations concept is totally contrary to Christ our righteousness, because Christ our righteousness assumes we have a tremendous need that is not being taken care of.
Does the Laodicean message, which is identified with these criticisms, have any application today? Or has it been terminated? Has it carried out its task and completed its work so you do not have to worry about it? “I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the council of the true witness of the Laodiceans.” 2SG 270. In other words, that Laodicean message will cause a shaking among us. Have you seen the shaking? Is it completed? If not, then the Laodicean message has not completed its work and still must be in effect today. Therefore, what it has to say about the church must still apply.
“It [meaning the Laodicean message] was designed to arouse the people of God to discover to them their backslidings, and lead to zealous repentance, that they might be favored for the presence of Jesus, and be fitted for the loud cry of the third angel.” 2SG 224. Have you seen the loud cry yet? Is the third angel’s message going everywhere? Then we still need the Laodicean message.
These quotations say that the criticisms of the Laodicean message are still in effect today. Why does Ellen White make such strong statements concerning the church? Why does God say those things about us when we seem to be enjoying such success? How can we have such conflicts or contradictions concerning the same movement? The problem is with what you term success and how you judge success. If success is numbers, if success is more schools and hospitals, if success is bigness, if success is materialism and wealth, if success is acclaim and prestige, then we are very successful. Our articles and statements from the pulpit quote bigness, and growth, and numbers, and acclaim, and prestige; and we say that all of this establishes that God is blessing us, that we are successful in doing a great work for Him. If that is success, then we are successful; but there are other denominations that are more successful than we are. Some churches make us look like tiny ants by their hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth and by their bigness. We do not look so successful by comparison. Yet many believe that things like growth rate are the criterion for success.
There are evidences of success other than these. The criteria we have used are the standards of the world regarding success. Apparently the True Witness, who is Jesus, has a different yardstick when it comes to measuring success. In Revelation 3:17, He points out five defects, or deficiencies, in this church. The defects are described by these words: wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Those terms cover a wide territory. In verse 18 there are three remedies for those defects, which are gold, white raiment, and eye salve. The deficiencies and remedies are all found there in just two verses. I want you to notice that the source of all the remedies is found in one statement of the True Witness: “Buy of Me.” Everything we need, everything we must have, every deficiency will be supplied in Christ. He has it all; just buy of Him. Somehow we are not responding to His knock on the door; therefore, we lack those riches that He is there to offer to us.
Laodicea’s lack of success and her deficiencies are due to the lack of Christ. He is outside attempting to obtain entrance. This is a different measure of success than we usually think about. Do you measure the success of your home by the presence of Jesus? Do you measure the success of a hospital, or a school, or a church by the presence of Christ in its members or the institution? We never talk about that. We talk about the other standards and criteria (bigness, wealth, growth) in all our articles and speeches, but Christ in us is hardly ever mentioned. We assume He must be there or we would not have the bigness and the growth, but Jesus does not equate the two. Bigness and the presence of Christ are not synonymous, for His church was exceedingly small and poor when He left this earth; yet it was successful. Look at the power of its members and their total dedication to Him.
Laodicea believes she is rich and successful and does not need anything, including Jesus; but she does not have Jesus according to the True Witness. He is on the outside trying to get in. But she says she is comfortable and satisfied and successful. This is a deception. Christians can be Christless and not know that Christ is not in them, or in their church, or movement, or hospital. Their main deficiency is the absence of Jesus.
In Christianity, there is no success without Jesus. If He is absent, there is no Christianity. We might call it that, we might try to prove it from the Bible, we might argue for it, we might show many good works, but without Jesus there is no Christianity. And it is not just thinking about Him. True Christianity and its success are measured by its likeness to Christ, and there is no other yardstick. We cannot compare ourselves with ourselves, or our denomination with another denomination. The only comparison, the only yard stick, the only standard, is Jesus. This is much different than the world’s concepts of success. The world is unlike Christ and Christ is unlike the world; therefore their standards are very different.
The True Witness says in Revelation 3:20: “I will come in to him [the one who opens the door].” Jesus is knocking, and if you hear His voice and open the door, He will come in. He is outside but He wants inside. The presence of Christ determines success.
Note these words of Paul: “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 1:27,28. These riches that we should consider as the criteria of success are contained in the expression: “Christ in you, the hope of Glory.” We do not preach about Christ. We preach Christ. That is a different idea than most of us think about.
Having Christ is having true riches. Laodicea says they are rich, but He says they have the wrong riches. All those riches we have focused on will be destroyed. Every Seventh-day Adventist hospital, every school, every church, will come crumbling down. All these things shall pass away permanently. They are not eternal success. But Christ shall never cease, and those who possess Him have more than things. He is from everlasting to everlasting. Without Him we are poor, no matter how much wealth, or education, or knowledge we have. In that sense, all who are without Christ are poor; but He has promised that He will be with us if we open the door. Nothing can take the place of His presence.
There are many texts regarding the presence of Christ. “Lo, I am with you alway.” Matthew 28:20. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” John 14:18. “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20. “I in them, and Thou in Me.” John 17:23.
Jesus, in His sermon on the mount, said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Matthew 7:7. Ellen White discussed the word “seek” in this verse: “Desire not merely His blessing, but Himself. ‘Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace.’ Job 22:21. Seek, and you shall find. God is seeking you, and the very desire you feel to come to Him is but the drawing of His Spirit. Yield to that drawing. Christ is pleading the cause of the tempted, the erring, and the faithless. He is seeking to lift them into companionship with Himself. ‘If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee.’ 1 Chronicles 28:9.” MB 131. Do not just ask Him to help you or bless you. Ask for Him. That is different from the way we usually pray.
We should desire and seek not only for His blessing, but Himself. What He gives is not as important as what He is. If you go to a wealthy man and ask him for money, and he gives you a few dollars, that is a blessing to you if you are poor. Now you have the money. But is there something better? How would you like to have him, the person who has all the money, and not just the amount you asked for? Don’t just ask for Christ’s blessing; ask for Him. Are you content with things when you may have the God of heaven as yours?
Christianity is not just receiving blessings from God. Christianity is having God all the time. He promised to be with us always, and never to forsake us because we are so precious to Him. It is not enough to know about Him; you must know Him. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.” John 17:3. It is not just receiving the truth about Jesus, it is receiving Jesus as the truth, in His very person. It is more than receiving the law on stone tablets as the standard of righteousness. It is receiving Jesus into my heart who is the very personification of the law. He is the standard of righteousness and obedience. He is the law perfectly lived out. Receive Him and you receive the law and the character of the Father. It is not receiving a principle of love alone. It is receiving Christ who is love by His very nature. It is not receiving Christ as a sacrifice who died two thousand years ago for us. It is receiving Christ in person who sacrificed for me. Receive Him as your sacrifice, as your hope, as your righteousness. We must embrace Him, and not simply accept information about Him. As we have already pointed out, it is not so much the what and the how of Christianity, but the Who. Christianity is Christ. Success in Christianity is Jesus. It is not just doing everything right. It is possessing Him in all His rightness, and goodness, and love. Laodicea has an absence of Jesus and they do not even know that they can be richer than they are. When Christ is outside trying to get in, we have no love, no hope, no truth, no righteousness. He is the only source of those things.
As long as we persist in using the world’s criteria, we will look quite successful; but when you begin to judge Christianity by the presence or absence of Jesus, then what about our public relations? We must learn that Christ is everything. The Greeks went down to Jerusalem and said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” John:12:21. They did not say they wanted to see the temple. But “His disciples came to Him for to shew Him the buildings of the temple.” Matthew 24:1. They were proud of that physical structure. But Jesus answered them by saying, “See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” Verse 2.
In the days of Hezekiah, the people were shown all the wealth, all the things that God had given them when they came over from Babylon; and when they came back to get those things they ended up being slaves. Hezekiah never did show them his God. Instead, he showed them the things that God had blessed them with; and they became envious and came back from Babylon to obtain those things, even the vessels of the temple.
When people come to our churches, they are not impressed with our carpet, or chandeliers, or pews, or even us. Many come seeking only Jesus. But we take them on a tour of our edifices and all our modern facilities. Those things do not help the people who are hurting and depressed. They do not help the guilty. They do not help those who are ready to give up hope when they feel lost. They need Jesus, not a church building with fancy carpet. They want to see Jesus in us, and not just hear lectures about Him. Many thousands have come to our churches looking for Jesus. Do they find Him? Are you sure? It seems that today the world is crying out, “We want to see Jesus. Where is He?”
Apart from Him, Laodicea looks pretty good, but not so good when He comes in. Recall our previous quote that “The church has turned back from following Christ her Leader and is steadily retreating toward Egypt.” 5T 217. Then at the bottom of the page and on over to page 218: “Have we not been seeking the friendship and applause of the world rather than the presence of Christ?” We get very satisfied when the world says nice things about us; but this, too, shall pass away. Do they find Jesus in our churches? Do we seek His presence more than acclaim and prestige and bigness? Without Jesus in my heart, there is no conversion, and I have no new covenant experience where the law is written in my heart.
This brings up another problem. The Spirit of Prophecy has much to say about our lack of conversion. Do you realize that most of us interpret and understand Christ our righteousness by our experience? We try to see how it fits into our experience, and we sometimes assume we have been converted when we might not have been; and we are told that few have been. Then our understanding of Christ our righteousness is also perverted, judging by our experience. We begin to say that Christ our righteousness must be like this because nothing else will fit our experience. Try to discuss the last dozen or so verses of Romans 7 with someone without putting it in the context of your own experience. We almost entirely interpret those texts by our experience, not by the truthfulness of it.
Christ our righteousness is determined by the presence of Jesus, not your experience. If Christ is in you, you have His righteousness; if He is not in you, you do not. I will not go into all the ramifications of that. He is the only standard of success that exists in the Christian church, and there is no other standard. The Bible promises that we may literally have Christ in us, yet how seldom we think that we may have Him. We think about so many other things. It is the presence of Jesus that determines whether or not Laodicea sees her poverty. She looks good without Him, but she looks bad when He comes in.
“The closer you come to Jesus, the more faulty you will appear in your own eyes; for your vision will be clearer, and your imperfections will be seen in broad and distinct contrast to His perfect nature. This is evidence that Satan’s delusions have lost their power; that the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God is arousing you. No deep-seated love for Jesus can dwell in the heart that does not realize its own sinfulness. The soul that is transformed by the grace of Christ will admire His divine character; but if we do not see our own moral deformity, it is unmistakable evidence that we have not had a view of the beauty and excellence of Christ.” SC 64.
When I am without Jesus, I look good to myself. As long as I can keep Him far enough away, so I never see Him, I think I look wonderful; but as soon as I am brought into His presence, I will be like Isaiah when he exclaimed, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5. When we have seen the King, we feel vile in His presence. Does that mean I am lost? Not a bit. The fact that He permits you into His presence means that you are not lost. He just wants you to discover some things you did not know. When He comes in, we look bad to ourselves; but we are blessed because Christ is there. When we look good to ourselves, we are failures because Christ is not there.
It bothers me when I hear us singing such beautiful music about how good we are. It makes many of us feel elated, and we think that God must be for us or we couldn’t be so thrillingly successful. Nothing, no matter how beautiful, no matter how magnificent, no matter how much sacrifice required to do it, no building, no institution, no organization, no group, nothing can take the place of Jesus. Nothing! There is no one like Christ, and we can never find satisfaction in institutions and things, unless we have Jesus, and know that we have Him. Then Christianity is Christianity because Jesus is there. Then the hovel or tent or cottage becomes a temple as long as Jesus is there. Poverty becomes riches because I have Jesus. Nothing can offend, nothing can upset because Jesus is there. This is the only standard of true Christianity that ever existed. You cannot find the success of the original New Testament church in things, for they hardly had a church, and they surely did not have a temple; and yet the Lord commended them.
Friend, I do not know whether you are able to think about this well. Our prejudices become strong and obliterate clear thinking about true Christian success. We feel picked on and criticized when we look at success as the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy teach it. We object, and the truth is that the critics are sometimes our best friends, and those who tell us about our good public relations are our worst enemies, even though they mean well. They are lulling us to sleep and into complacency so we will not understand we are Christless until it is too late. We wish those who sound negative and pessimistic would be quiet and let us slumber on, but that is a dangerous condition.
Jesus is so wonderful, He is so precious, He is everything, and we must go back and make sure He dwells in our hearts and that we have not walked off and left Him. The illness of the church is the absence of Jesus. But we may literally possess Him, for God so loved the world He gave Him to us. “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” John 1:12. “He that hath the Son hath life.” 1 John 5:11,12. You may have Him. God so loved the world that He did not just give us power and health and blessings of all types. He gave us of Himself in the person of Jesus. You may have Him, for God has given Him to you. If you merely accept the material things He has, He will say as a wealthy man once said to me, “You love my money but you do not love me.” Many love Jesus’ power but they do not love Jesus. They want His power to heal them or to give them all manner of things, but they do not love Him. They want Him to bring peace into the home and help them, and they love His help, but they do not want Him to stay. They want His help for more money and more education and more this and more that, but they do not want Jesus.
Jesus says we may have Him. Will you receive Him? Will you embrace Him and fall in love with Him so that you will never let Him go? Do you want Him, or do you want what He has and what He is able to do for you?
It is like a man whose plumbing gets stopped up in the middle of the night, so he calls a good friend and asks for his help. His friend goes over and fixes the plumbing, and the next day the man sees the plumber on the street and does not even say hello to him or thank him. We do that to Jesus. In my desperations and emergencies, I cry out for God to help me. Fix my emotions, fix my heart, fix my family, fix my job. And He asks, “When are we going to be friends so that we will never part? When will you want Me and not just My help?”
The Bible says, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.” Isaiah 55:6. He has been knocking a long time, and Laodicea has said, “Don’t bother us, we are doing fine.” God wants us to see that this is a strange kind of deception, this idea that Christians do not need Christ. Has a person truly discovered what Christianity is all about if they think they can get along without Jesus? Jesus has watched us going along with all our worldly ideas of success, but knowing that we have not seen Him. And all the time He is knocking because He wants to come in and be with us. What a different church, a different home, a different school or hospital we will see when Jesus comes in and abides in the hearts of our people.
Some will take all this as violent criticism and go away with a dismal, hopeless attitude. The Lord does not want that. He is asking, “How can you get along without Me? How can you leave Me outside your heart and then sing, ‘Jesus is all the world to me’? How can you call this Christianity when you do not possess Me? How can you talk about Me and not know Me?” He wants to gather us unto Himself and give us life eternal. The most pathetic person I can think of is a Christian who is without Jesus.
Many Adventists who are awaiting His return have not found Him. The Lord is not pointing the finger and finding fault and condemning. He is hurt that we could substitute all these things for the beauties of Jesus. He cannot imagine how you could love a building or an institution more than Him. He cannot imagine how you can love money or blessings more than Him. It is unbelievable to Him. He cannot imagine how you keep asking Him for help but do not want Him. Today He is knocking and asking, “When will you let Me inside and keep Me there and never let go? Christ is the medicine for all our spiritual illness.
Seek not just for His blessings, but for Jesus Himself. This is Christ our righteousness, for He is righteous. This is Christ our Savior, for He is salvation. This is Christ our love, and this is Christ our success. This is everything, for Christ is everything. And when you let Him inside, then the Christian is successful because Jesus is there.
There is nothing so precious as Jesus. May we this day choose Christ above every other thing and every other person until He is truly all the world to you and to me.