Is it possible that God will cast away the Seventh-day Adventist Church and use other means to bring about the end times? An obscure statement by Ellen White suggests that possibility: “In the balances of the sanctuary the Seventh-day Adventist Church is to be weighed. She will be judged by the privileges and advantages that she has had. If her spiritual experience does not correspond to the advantages that Christ, at infinite cost, has bestowed on her, if the blessings conferred have not qualified her to do the work entrusted to her, on her will be pronounced the sentence: “Found wanting.” By the light bestowed, the opportunities given, will she be judged. (Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 8, p.247)

I have been a Seventh-day Adventist for almost sixty-four years, and I have never seen this statement quoted in any Adventist magazine or book. What does it mean, “Found wanting?” It sounds like the judgment pronounced upon Belshazzar and Babylon.

This special issue of Adventist Today focuses on the future of Adventism in the United States. We have seen from Monte Sahlin’s article that our church is in decline in North America. In addition, we are now in the 21st Century, though God apparently intended to wrap world events up in the 19th Century.

I also find it ironic that Ellen White penned a very specific message to Adventists about being in a Laodicean condition, yet we act as if that is history and does not apply to us today:

“The Laodicean message must be proclaimed with power; for now it is especially applicable…. Not to see our own deformity is not to see the beauty of Christ’s character. When we are fully awake to our own sinfulness, we shall appreciate Christ…. Not to see the marked contrast between Christ and ourselves is not to know ourselves. He who does not abhor himself cannot understand the meaning of redemption…. There are many who do not see themselves in the light of the law of God. They do not loathe selfishness; therefore they are selfish”(Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, September 25, 1900).

What did Ellen White mean when she said at the beginning of that century that “the Laodicean message must be proclaimed with power”? How can we fulfill this mandate when Laodicea’s predicament concerns our inability to recognize any fundamental problems within the church? Church leaders believe, on balance, that the work is making rapid progress. While church growth is not as great as we would like, it is still satisfactory. Our great successes in Euro-Asia, Africa, Inter-America, and other portions of the world can easily lull us into a false sense of security. In other parts of the world maintenance of the status quo seems to be the main priority. Every year for more than 150 years, leaders have been saying: “The Lord’s coming is just around the corner. Our evangelistic endeavors are bringing more and more fruit.” Yet Jesus still has not returned.

Still, I hear no talk about us being in a Laodicean condition, even though we are in decline in North America in regard to the indigenous population.

The answer to our decline is found in the text in Revelation where it says that the remedy is to “buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see” (Revelation 3:18).

“Faith and love are the true riches, the pure gold that the True Witness counsels the lukewarm to buy. However rich we may be in earthly treasure, all our wealth will not enable us to buy the precious remedies that cure the disease of the soul called lukewarmness. Intellect and earthly riches were powerless to remove the defects of the Laodicean church, or to remedy their deplorable condition. They were blind, yet they felt that they were well off. The Spirit of God did not illumine their minds, and they did not perceive their sinfulness; therefore they did not feel the necessity of help.”(Testimonies, Vol. 4, p. 88.).

And where do faith and love come from? They come from making the cross our focus, our passion, our story, that which we talk about more than anything else. But Adventism does not lift up the cross in all its fullness.

Our denomination originated to reveal long-neglected truths as illustrated in this picture that James White commissioned to illustrate the mission of the Adventist Church.

It is a picture of the Plan of Salvation, from Eden to Eden. You see Adam and Eve exiting the Garden of Eden. There are Cain and Abel, the sacrificial service. Over on the right of the picture are the baptism of Jesus, the Lord’s Supper, the New Jerusalem. But in the middle is a huge tree with ten branches, one for each of the Ten Commandments. Hanging under the tree are the two sections of the commandments. Also under the tree is Jesus on the cross. It is the law tree that grabs your attention — that is the dominant motif in this picture.In the process the church forgot about making Christ central. The picture above illustrates that so well. Finally Ellen White recognized the danger, and after her husband died brought out a revision of the picture in 1881. She longed to see Jesus lifted up as the main mission of our church.

Notice that the same elements are still there: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the sacrificial service, baptism of Jesus, the Lord’s Supper, New Jerusalem. But notice the big change. The law tree has disappeared. The Ten Commandments are gone. Now Jesus on the cross dominates the picture. The law has been reduced to a mountain — Sinai — in the far background.

In 1888 the most significant General Conference session on the gospel convened in Minneapolis. Two young men, Jones and Waggoner, argued for the preeminence of the gospel, while Butler, the General Conference president, and Uriah Smith, editor of the church paper, the Review and Herald, argued for the distinctives — the landmarks, as they called them.

Ellen White tried to change the direction of the church from the first picture preferred by her husband, to the second picture with Jesus as the center. She joined Jones and Waggoner in uplifting Jesus. “My burden during the meeting,” she wrote a few weeks later, “was to present Jesus and His love before my brethren, for I saw marked evidence that many had not the spirit of Christ.”

“We want the truth as it is in Jesus,” she told the denomination’s leaders during the Minneapolis session. “….I have seen that precious souls who would have embraced the truth [of Adventism] have been turned away from it because of the manner in which the truth has been handled, because Jesus was not in it. And this is what I have been pleading with you for all the time — we want Jesus.” (George Knight, Anticipating the Advent, pp. 73-74).

There are hundreds of statements by Ellen White about the vital importance of making Jesus Christ front and center of everything that we do.

“There is one great central truth to be kept ever before the mind in the searching of Scripture — Christ and Him crucified. Every other truth is invested with influence and power, corresponding to its relation to this theme. It is only in the light of the cross that we can discern the exalted character of the law of God. The soul palsied by sin can be endowed with life only through the work wrought out upon the cross by the Author of our salvation” (Manuscript 31, 1890).

“Of all professing Christians, Seventh-day Adventists should be foremost in uplifting Christ before the world. The proclamation of the third angel’s message calls for the presentation of the Sabbath truth. This truth, with others included in the message, is to be proclaimed; but the great center of attraction, Christ Jesus must not be left out” (Gospel Workers, p. 156).

If we are not to be “found wanting” in the scales of the sanctuary, if we are to escape our Laodicean condition (which is reinforced by every article and book we publish, extolling how well we are doing), then we must become really serious about the true remedy.

The challenge is to decide what will be our focus — the distinctives or Jesus. When the world knows us first as Christian because we are “of all professing Christians. . .uplifting Christ before the world,” then it can be said that we are applying the Laodicean remedy.

Ellen White says, “One interest will prevail, one subject will swallow up every other — Christ our Righteousness” (Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Dec. 23, 1890).

Today we publicize handing out books and pamphlets on the Ten Commandments, and that is exactly how the world sees us, as Sabbath keepers rather than Christ-followers. “The message of the gospel of His grace was to be given to the church in clear and distinct lines, that the world should no longer say that Seventh-day Adventists talk the law, the law, but do not teach or believe Christ” (Testimonies to Ministers, p. 93).

So I appeal to my brothers and sisters, which picture are you in, the James White picture or the Ellen White picture? What is the burden of your witness — the law, the Sabbath, end-time events, or Jesus?

If we do not make Jesus our burden, if he does not become everything to us, then God will indeed pronounce on his church “found wanting” and will move to his next plan in completing his work on this earth.

pp.14-16 adventist today | vol. 15 issue 5