p. 11 | W. E. HANCOCK by W. E. Hancock

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1915

W. E. HANCOCK

By W. E. Hancock

The Motives of Service — No. 2

W. E. HANCOCK

Theories and Doctrines Inadequate Motives

ORTHODOX theories and doctrines may be adequate for sunny weather experiences; but when disaster, sorrow, and disappointment come, something more than theory and doctrines is needed. Job's friends tried to defend a well-established belief that calamity and sorrow were visited upon men because of their sins. They failed to consider the facts of experience which proved the falsity of this theory. But Job refused to belie the manifestations of God to him through personal experience, or to accept an idea of God which denies the plainest facts of life, even if that led to the rejection of an accepted belief. He said to his friends, “Will ye speak unrighteously for God, and talk deceitfully for him?” To prop up a cherished theory by denying God's providences in the world of life and experience is not an evidence of faith, but rather the attitude of a fearful mind.

If we find our cherished ideas in contradiction to the plainest manifestations of God's providences, we need not lose faith in God nor in his revealed truth. It is best to revise our ideas. It is never necessary to deny facts in order to defend truth, nor to sustain truth by questionable means. To doubt a supposed truth which requires such an attitude to defend it, does not imply a lack of faith. It may be the beginning of a deeper and larger faith.

The Absence of Doubt Not an Evidence of Faith

The absence of doubt is not always an evidence of genuine faith. Job's friends seemed to have implicit confidence in their theories; but they certainly had not true faith. True faith does not fear intellectual criticism or the trials of human experience. The man of faith is he who, in sorrow, darkness, disappointment, and seeming abandonment of heaven and earth, holds fast to the God whom he can no longer see, feel, nor understand. It is he who, like Job, can see the beliefs of his early days and of his present friends shattered, and still rely upon the eternal fundamentals, as shown when he said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” He whose experience is founded upon the eternal truth need not be disturbed by the intellectual agitations of any time. Knowing God, and gaining the faith which is the strongest motive of Christian service, is not accomplished by intellectuality, but by an inner experience of truth.

The Time to Examine Our Motives

There are no people who need more to have the deepest and most enduring motives of service than do Seventh-day Adventists. We believe and teach the most extensive and explicit system of doctrines found among Christians today. We believe that God has called us to evangelize the world in a very short time by teaching these doctrines. We feel invincible against polemic attacks upon our doctrines, and are astonishing the world with our missionary propaganda. But we need to take heed. Invincible doctrines and missionary enthusiasm cannot be substitutes for personal experiences. We have not yet passed through Gethsemane nor mounted Calvary in our experience. It is time for us to test the motives of our great zeal, of our unparalleled sacrifices in modern times for the propagation of the doctrines we teach, and of our great missionary undertaking. Whether we do it now at the height of our prosperity or later under trials and disillusionments, our motives are sure to be tried before we experience a second Pentecost and see our hopes realized.

The Danger of Trusting Appearances

On what do our faith and confidence rest? Is it on the invincible doctrines we teach? on the hope of the speedy termination of our work by Christ's return to earth? on our unprecedented missionary operations? We need to inquire whether our willingness to give for world-wide evangelization and the support of missionaries at home and in the foreign field is the result of a temporary inspiration attending large and successful operations, or whether it is based on a deep consciousness of the nature of sin, from which the world is suffering.

If our hopes, our experiences, our zeal, and our profession rest merely upon the interpretation of doctrines, however beautiful, they will be found wanting in the testing time before us. A trust and confidence that go no deeper may be followed by a collapse of faith in God and his truth.