With a scripture reading in Indonesian, a prayer in Russian and music performed in Spanish, the Friday evening program at the SkyDome celebrated once again the cultural diversity of the thousands of Seventh-day Adventists gathered in Toronto for the ten days of the 57th Adventist World Session.
The evening’s speaker, Pastor John Nixon, was introduced by Pastor Alfred McClure, retiring president of the Adventist Church in North America. “Our speaker holds one of the key posts in the whole of the Adventist Church–local church pastor,” said McClure to the applause of the estimated 40,000 people present. Currently serving as pastor at Oakwood College, Huntsville, Alabama, Nixon has been an Adventist minister in the North American Division for the past 24 years.
The certainty of the second coming of Christ was the theme of Nixon’s sermon. “Jesus is coming again,” said Nixon, “But it is not enough to know Christ is coming, we must actually know the one who is coming.”
Warning against complacency, Nixon urged those present and those watching by satellite in more than 150 countries around the world, to catch a glimpse of the real Jesus.
“Jesus has not embraced middle-class values just because we have embraced middle-class values,” said Nixon. “He is still the Jesus who preached that the first shall be last and the last, first. He is still the Jesus who defied corrupt church authorities. The Jesus who is coming is still unorthodox, unpredictable, uncontrollable and unsafe. And this is the Jesus who is coming whether we know him or not.”
“Doctrinal superiority is not the secret key to heaven’s gates,” warned Nixon. “What must be known first and foremost is not a set of facts. The knowledge that saves is a personal knowledge, and the person we must know is Jesus Christ.”
Calling for balance in the presentation of the Christian message, Nixon said that “Every doctrine, every teaching, that is not built on Jesus is unbalanced.” |
