Tuesday, December 6, 2022

SDA Issues: Lessons from Adam, Eve & Ancient Israel

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,...
Revelation 14:6
 
“We are well aware that some members of the church consider the success of the Advent Movement to be assured. 
They think that the church cannot possibly disappoint God. It cannot possibly fail to meet God’s time schedule for the proclamation of the gospel message to all the world. 
It cannot possibly delay the coming of the Lord. But such thinking ignores the lessons of sacred history. 
*Adam and Eve interrupted God’s plans and delayed the fulfillment of God’s purposes for the earth. 
*Ancient Israel failed to fulfill their God-given mission, rejected the Messiah, persecuted the apostles, and lost their special place as God’s chosen nation. 
Q: By what sort of reasoning, then, do we think that we today cannot fail?  
Q: Has God given us such an ‘exclusive’ on the proclamation of the three angels’ messages that He would let His purposes fail rather than assign the task to someone else? 
We ask these questions because we believe the time has come to consider carefully whether as a church, we are fulfilling God’s purposes. The time has come to ask ourselves whether we are making the kind of decisions that will hasten the coming of the Lord.
 (Review and Herald, November 23, 1972)