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
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)