Sermons at Camp Meetings by CLARENCE SANTEE

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 24, 1916

Sermons at Camp Meetings

By CLARENCE SANTEE

CLARENCE SANTEE

The sermons preached at our camp meetings have a more far-reaching influence than many realize. It has been my lot to follow camp meetings by series of tent meetings. I have carefully noted the influence of the camp meeting on the community, and the nature of the sermons that exerted that influence.

The conditions at the camp meeting are usually these: Seventh-day Adventists who have been instructed in their faith for years, come together in numbers from five hundred to fifteen hundred. They are prepared to hear the strongest and most positive statements and assertions upon the doctrines of greatest controversy, often without the carefully prepared proofs that would be given under other circumstances, toned to the perception of those who have never heard these things; and our people readily respond with hearty “Amens.” This encourages the speaker, and other unguarded statements follow. These are listened to by an outside attendance of from fifty to one hundred and fifty or two hundred. The next meeting is attended by the hundreds of our own people, and the changeable outside attendance is not noticeable. A few of these usually express appreciation, while the larger number come and go in silence.

Those who work from house to house after the camp meeting has closed, find more nearly the influence of the sermons preached than any can who attend only the camp meeting.

When a tent is pitched in a new place for a series of meetings, we carefully lead those who have never heard these views, which to them often at first seem to be impossibilities, step by step until they can see clearly the connections and the ultimate truths. Can we expect more from those who for the first time hear these truths on the camp ground? If not, then should not the preaching be of such a nature as would lead people to accept Christ as their Saviour, believe the Scriptures, and cause them to desire a better understanding of the views of this people?

In a meeting following what is called “a good camp meeting,” I found a large per cent of those who had attended, hard to reach because of one or two sermons to which they had listened. Our own people did not need them, and the others were not prepared for them.

When the points of greatest difference are presented in sermons, such as the Sabbath or the nature of man, it should be with great care, leading the people only far enough to cause them to desire more. Strong, radical sermons, heard for the first time, are certainly “strong meat” rather than the “milk” which the Lord counsels to be given to those who are but babes.

A minister may close the ears of ten or fifteen by a strong sermon at the camp meeting, and among the hundreds present it is not noticeable. But if the same mistake is made by the minister who holds a series of meetings with from forty to seventy-five in attendance, he will spend sleepless nights seeking God that he remove the results of that mistaken sermon and his own unguarded course, that the hardened heart may be won back.

Following a camp meeting, he, at times, finds the same condition, but he may not have been the cause. It calls for the same seeking of God, that the results of the unguarded course of some other may also be removed.

If no words were spoken that would cause a smile at the evident weaknesses so palpable in other beliefs; if the strong points of difference between Seventh-day Adventists and others were carefully presented, with the life of Christ as the central thought, using the strong, plain texts, so positive in themselves, as suggestive for thought, and not as texts to prove a lack of common sense in the objector who does not at once accept, I feel sure that the field would be left many times in better shape for an abundant harvest.

A man came to Christ for sight. Christ’s first effort only caused the man to see “men as trees walking.” A later application was necessary before he could see clearly. Unless we are assured that we can do better work than Christ did, would it not be well to leave the patient at the first application in a good condition for the second?

Lodi, Cal.