The Peril of Kingly Power

It has ever been the object of Satan to induce men to look to other men rather than to God for their leadership. There seems to be, in every organization, those who are anxious to submit unwaveringly to those who have authority and power. Knowing that these two groups complement one another, Satan continually seeks to effect an allegiance that will cause men entrusted with leadership responsibilities to believe that autocratic power is vested in them by God, and others to believe that such power is God-ordained. The latter, with great reverence and respect, believe that God requires them to be unwaveringly loyal to such individuals. Too often, they equate loyalty to God with loyalty to leaders. Quoted to support such a dangerous belief is the response of David when urged by his men to kill King Saul.

“And he said unto his men, ‘The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lords’ anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.’” 1 Samuel 24:6.

The issue which led to David’s response must be examined. He was refusing to do physical harm to the anointed of the Lord. This must not be interpreted to say that men should blindly follow leaders who, though anointed of the Lord, have turned their feet away from the pathway and direction of the Lord’s counsel. We must rather follow the response of Peter and John when they were confronted with the choice between God-given responsibilities and the direction of human leaders.

“We ought to obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29.

We should not forget that blind loyalty to the Lord’s anointed led men to cry, “Crucify Him!” These men believed that such loyalty to leaders constituted loyalty to God. What a deception! Yet are we different? Those who would show true loyalty to God and His anointed must place loyalty to their God as paramount.

While all respect and due courtesy pertain in our relationship with those who have leadership responsibility, it is dishonoring to God to blindly follow them or support them if they deviate from His express Word.

Perhaps the book Testimonies to Ministers, more than any other book, has been used to explain the relationship of leaders to the flock of God, and to warn against the dominating spirit which is apparent in the world.

Leaders are no less likely to reject God’s counsel than are lay people. Testimonies to Ministers offers considerable counsel to leaders whose domineering influence has brought great anguish to the membership of the church.

“For years the church has been looking to man, and expecting much from man, but not looking to Jesus, in who our hopes of eternal life are centered.” Testimonies to Ministers, p. 93.

“Let me entreat our state conferences and our churches to cease putting their dependence upon men and making flesh their arm. Look not to other men to see how they conduct themselves under conviction of the truth. … Our churches are weak because the members are educated to look to and depend upon human resources.” Ibid., p. 380.

“For years there has been a growing tendency for men placed in positions of responsibility to lord it over God’s heritage, thus removing from church members their keen sense of the need of divine instruction and an appreciation of the privilege to counsel with God regarding their duty.” Ibid., pp. 477-478.

The Lord has also given other strong counsels relevant to this issue of kingly power.

“If the heart of the work becomes corrupt, the whole church, in its various branches and interests, scattered abroad over the face of the earth, suffers in consequence. “Satan’s chief work is at the headquarters of our faith. He spares no pains to corrupt men in responsible positions and to persuade them to be unfaithful to their several trusts.” Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4, pp. 210-211.

“Jerusalem is a representation of what the church will be if it refuses to walk in the light that God has given. Jerusalem was favored of God as the depository of sacred trusts, but her people perverted the truth, and despised all entreaties and warnings. They would not respect His counsels.” Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, p. 67.

Unquestionably, James White and George Butler conflicted deeply concerning the correct role of the church. James White ever urged a decentralized approach where man looks to God rather than man for strength and for direction in spiritual matters. On the other hand, Butler believed that a centralized authority would bring spiritual strength, unity, and doctrinal purity to the church. Butler’s conclusion is a strange one when we consider that the centrality of authority in the pope by the Roman Catholic Church has brought exactly the opposite result.

As early as 1873, ten years after the formation of the General Conference, Butler wrote,

“There never was any great movement in this world without a leader, and in the nature of things it is impossible that there should be.” Review and Herald, November 18, 1873.

On the other hand, James White wrote,

“In the discussion of the subject of leadership, we propose to bring out evidence from the words of Christ, and from the teaching and practices of the early apostles, that Christ is the leader of His people, and that the work and office of leadership has not been laid upon any one person, at any one time, in the Christian age.” Review and Herald, December 1, 1874.

The whole concept of decentralization is intimately linked with the issue of religious liberty. Much has been made of the eighteen talks given by E. J. Waggoner at the 1888 General Conference Session. These certainly were central to the message that was to be given, and is still to be given, to the world. However, much less is made of the fifteen talks given by A. T. Jones on religious liberty. These themes of Christ our Righteousness and religious liberty were inseparably linked, because freedom in Christ is inimical to religious oppression. Men and women must not place their eternal destiny in the hands of a man or a church, but in the hands of God. Such a concept in no wise undermines the divine role of the church in the life of God’s people; it places the church in its proper role under the authority of God.

Not long after the 1888 conference, A. T. Jones preached thirty-one sermons in Kansas. Fifteen of these sermons were on religious liberty, eleven were on church governance, and five were on justification by faith. This gives some idea of Jones’ linkage of righteousness by faith, religious liberty, and church governance.

In his June 4, 1881 editorial, James White had written,

“The minister who throws himself on any conference committee for direction, takes himself out of the hands of Christ.” Review and Herald, January 4, 1881.

The conferences were not established to exercise dominion over the ministry, nor over the local churches, but rather to plan and expand the work of God in various regions and areas. Furthermore, the conferences were to act as counselors, not as dictators to the people of God. Sister White clearly expressed the relationship between the 1888 message and church governance.

“Now it has been Satan’s determined purpose to eclipse the view of Jesus and to lead men to look to man, and trust to man, and be educated to expect help from man. For years the church has been looking to man and expecting much from man, but not looking to Jesus, in whom our hopes of eternal life are centered. Therefore, God gave to His servants a testimony that presented the truth as it is in Jesus, which is the third angels’ message, in clear distinct lines.” Testimonies to Ministers, p. 93.

When men reject the full light of God’s revealed will, they inevitably try to exert power and domination in an attempt to get allegiance in spite of apostasy. Sister White predicted the impotency of the church because of its failure to accept the 1888 message in all of its fullness.

“The peculiar work of the third angel has not been seen in advance of the position which they occupy today. … It is not in the order of God that light has been kept from our people—the very present truth which they needed for this time. … If the leading men in our conferences do not accept this message sent them by God, and fall into line for action, the churches will suffer great loss.” Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, pp. 714, 715.

Recognizing the terrible effect upon the laity as a result of this rejection of the message of 1888, Sister White wrote,

“They began this satanic work at Minneapolis. … Yet these men had been holding positions of trust, and have been molding the work after their own similitude, as far as they possibly could.” Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 79, 80.

“The men in responsible positions have disappointed Jesus. They have refused precious blessings, and refused to be channels of light. … The knowledge they should receive of God … they refuse to accept, and thus become channels of darkness.” The Spirit of God is grieved.” Manuscript 13, 1889, pp. 3, 4.

The tragedy is that these respected leaders had been placed in such a position that their wrong influence molded the ministry of younger men, so that a chain of apostasy commenced. The young men learned from the older men, and as the young men became more experienced, they, in turn, influenced the younger men following behind them.

“Our young men look at the older men that stand still as a stick and will not move to accept any new light that is brought in; they will laugh and ridicule what these men (Jones and Waggoner) say and what they do as of no consequence. Who carries the burden of that laugh, and of that contempt, I ask you? Who carries it? It is the very ones that have interposed themselves between the light that God has given, that it shall not go to the people who should have it.” Sermons and Talks, p. 124.

“The Devil has been working for a year to obliterate these ideas (1888 message)… How long will the people at the heart of the work hold themselves against God? How long will men here sustain them in doing this work? Get out of the way, brethren. Take your hand off the ark of God, and let the Spirit of God come in and work in mighty power.” Ibid., pp. 126, 127.

Thus Satan used the leading men to pervert the minds of the younger ministers and, through them, the laity.

Already, a pattern of dependence upon humanity rather than upon the Word of God had shown itself within the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Leaders naturally tend to support and approve of those workers who look to them for leadership and counsel, seeing them as loyal and faithful. In reality, these workers may represent that group who have lost their confidence and loyalty to the Word of God and the truth of the gospel as a result of placing their loyalty in fallible, erring men. Once this situation commences, it is a most difficult process to reverse, for indeed the continuation of such a process leads to more and more error as one generation passes the torch of imperfect principles to the following generation. Once we have left the mountaintop of truth, the trend always progresses downhill, each generation taking the apostasy a little further than the generation before. This is exactly how Satan would have it. Every member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church must of necessity put his trust wholly and only in the infallible Word of God, whether he be the General Conference President or the newest member of a local congregation. By so doing, individuals have a safeguard that Satan cannot penetrate.

Yes, the men of experience have an important role. It is their responsibility to counsel and guide, not according to their own ideas, but according to the Word of God, asking those who are younger, either in years or in the faith, to consider this or that passage of Scripture or counsel from the Servant of the Lord. In so doing, they turn men and women back to God and His Word rather than encouraging them to follow their often-fallible concepts of truth and righteousness.

We would be misleading if we did not point out that we see the same pattern followed a hundred years ago being repeated in the contemporary Seventh-day Adventist Church. We can easily imagine the reaction of the leaders of last century to the following counsel of the Lord, but we would act differently?

“There is manifested on the part of men in responsible positions an unwillingness to confess where they have been wrong; and their neglect is working disaster, not only to themselves, but to the churches.” Review and Herald, December 16, 1890.

“If you indulge stubbornness of heart, and through pride and self-righteousness do not confess your faults, you will be left subject to Satan’s temptations. If when the Lord reveals your errors you do not repent or make confession, His providence will bring you over the ground again and again. You will be left to make mistakes of a similar character. You will continue to lack wisdom, and will call sin righteousness and righteousness sin. The multitude of deceptions that will prevail in these last days will encircle you and you will change leaders, and not know that you have done so.” Ibid., 1890.

By 1894 Sister White was giving even stronger counsel. Surely she wrote the following statement largely because of the leaders’ rejection of God’s message.

“It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the papacy.” Signs of the Times, February 19, 1894.

A little later in the same year, she wrote,

“Let us, then, remember that our weakness and inefficiency are largely the results of looking to man, of trusting in man to do those things for us that God has promised to do for those who come unto Him.” Review and Herald, August 14, 1894.

Even stronger statements followed. By 1895 Sister White had given this sobering message:

“The spirit of domination is extending to the presidents of our conferences. If a man is sanguine of his own powers and seeks to exercise dominion over his brethren, feeling that he is invested with authority to make his will the ruling power, the best and only safe course is to remove him, lest great harm be done and he lose his own soul and imperil the souls of others. ‘All ye are brethren.’ This disposition to lord it over God’s heritage will cause a reaction unless these men change their course. Those in authority should manifest the spirit of Christ. They should deal as he would deal with every case that requires attention. They should go weighted with the Holy Spirit. A man’s position does not make him one jot or tittle greater in the sight of God; it is character alone that God values. The goodness, mercy, and love of God were proclaimed by Christ to Moses. This was God’s character. When men who profess to serve God ignores His parental character and depart from honor and righteousness in dealing with their fellowmen, Satan exults, for he has inspired them with his attributes. They are following in the track of Romanism.” Testimonies to Ministers, p. 362.

“Finite men should beware of seeking to control their fellowmen, taking the place assigned to the Holy Spirit. … That which makes me feel to the very depths of my being, and makes me know that their works are not the works of God, is that they suppose they have authority to rule their fellowmen. The Lord has given them no more right to rule others than He has given others to rule them. Those who assume the control of their fellowmen take into their finite hands a work that devolves upon God alone. That men should keep alive the spirit which ran riot at Minneapolis is an offense to God. All heaven is indignant at the spirit that for years has been revealed in our publishing institution at Battle Creek. Unrighteousness is practiced that God will not tolerate. He will visit for these things.” Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 76, 77.

In 1901, Sister White added these words:

“There are to be more than one or two or three men to consider the whole vast field. The work is great, and there is no one human mind that can plan for the work which needs to be done.” General Conference Bulletin, April 3, 1901

As late as 1909 we have this counsel:

“I have been shown that ministers and people are tempted more and more to trust in finite man for wisdom, and to make flesh their arm. To conference presidents, and men in responsible places, I bear this message: Break the bands and fetters that have been placed upon God’s people. To you the word is spoken, ‘Break every joke.’ Unless you cease the work of making man amenable to man, unless you become humble in heart, and yourselves learn the way of the Lord as little children, the Lord will divorce you from His work. We are to treat one another as brethren, as fellow laborers, as men and women who are, with use, seeking for light and understanding of the way of the Lord, and who are jealous for His glory.” Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 480, 481.

Centralization of power and the increasing domination of leaders over workers, and, in turn, pastors over members, unquestionably have sped the flooding of apostasy into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. God is calling for His people to reorganize according to His pattern, so that the light of truth may be able to shine with all its glory at the end of time. Not only does the Seventh-day Adventist Church need repentance and reformation in the area of truth and righteousness, but it also sorely needs reformation in the area of church administration and authority.

Reference: From, Organizational Structure & Apostasy, by Colin & Russell Standish, chap. 2, ©2000, Hartland Publications. To obtain an eBook to go: https://hartlandbooks.com/e-book-organizational-structure-apostasy/