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The Meaning of It All

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Dec. 19 - The Meaning of It All

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And when in time to come your son asks you, "What does this mean?" you shall say to him, "By strength of hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt." Ex. 13:14, RSV.

And what does it mean? That was the question of the Jewish Passover with its strange meal and the spreading of blood on the doorposts. God was concerned that His ancient people not lose contact with His leading in their past.

The same God rules today. And "we have nothing to fear for the future" except we "forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history" (LS 196).

We have spent nearly one year meditating upon that history. So far we have seen Adventism birthed by the movement of William Miller, struggling to find an identity in the post-1844 period, flexing its youthful muscles in the 1850s through the 1870s, transformed and reoriented by the 1888 message, and advancing on into maturity in the twentieth century.

To put it mildly, the denomination is all but unrecognizable from its early years. In fact, even the past 60 years have reshaped it in ways that the leaders of the 1940s could hardly have envisioned. And the coming decades will undoubtedly do the same-- probably even more so.

From a handful of scattered believers with no structure of institutions, Seventh-day Adventism has become a worldwide church of some 16 million people with an accelerating growth curve.

Starting out as a frowned-upon minority, in some nations today it is a leading or even the dominant denomination, though in most countries it still has and probably always will have minority status.

But why are we here? The answer is obviously not to create a strong denomination that is socially aware and provides a comfortable place of fellowship for its members. Those are good things, but not sufficient. The reason Adventism exists is to prepare people for a better world and to preach God's final messages to the world before the Second Advent.

During the last few days of the year we will meditate upon the meaning of Adventist history, including the questions of "What happened to all those Millerites?" and "Why" did Seventh-day Adventism succeed where others failed?

God's people still need to ask the Exodus question of "Why."


 

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Christ desires nothing so much as to redeem His heritage from the dominion of Satan. But before we are delivered from Satan's power without, we must delivered from his power within(COL 174).

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