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The "Why" Of Success

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Dec. 25 - The "Why" Of Success(4)

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Choose able men from all the people, such as fear God, men who are trustworthy and who hate a bribe; and place such men over the people as rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, of tens. Ex. 18:21, RSV.

The children of Israel didn't make it to Canaan without organization. In fact, no task of great magnitude can be accomplished without it. A third element that led to the evangelistic success of Seventh-day Adventism was an organizational structure sufficient to carry on the mission and meet the challenges of its message.

It was the lack of sufficient organization that spelled the demise of the spiritualizers and caused the lack of growth of the two Church of God Adventist denominations. Without sufficient organization they could not concentrate their resources for mission or maintain unity. Costly schism was the result.

It is at the point of viable organization that the Advent Christians and the Seventh-day Adventists also parted ways. The Seventh-day Adventist Church was the only one of the Adventist denominations to place significant authority at any ecclesiastical level above that of the local congregation. Clyde Hewitt, in bemoaning the plight of the Advent Christians, indicates that the lack of a "strong centralized organization" is one reason that "contraction threatens to overcome expansion" in their denomination. As a result of their congregational structure, Hewitt points out, the Advent Christians were unable to mobilize for united action. Had they had proper organization, he suggested in 1990, the Advent Christians might be "a growing and not a dying denomination."

By way of contrast, studies of Seventh-day Adventist organizational structure indicate that the denomination's structure was consciously designed with mission outreach in mind in both 1861-1863 and 1901-1903.

The worldwide commission to the church at the end of time to take the message of the three angels of Revelation 14:6-12 "to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" demands an organizational structure sufficient for the task.

The mission of Adventism is not merely to local congregations or communities, but to all the world. We can thank God that He has given us a structure equal to the task. Perhaps we don't always appreciate it as we should. But both Bible principles and Adventist history demonstrate that it didn't come about by accident.


 

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We need to understand better than we do the mission of the angel visitants. It would be well to consider that in all our work we have the co-operation and care of heavenly beings. Invisible armies of light and power attend the meek and lowly ones who believe and claim the promises of God. Cherubim and seraphim and angels that excel in strength--ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands--stand at His right hand, "all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." Heb. 1:14(COL 176).

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