This morning I received this video on my cell phone, which the sender recommended as a good reflection.
The short video takes up the old and persistent message that no one needs to "cross the sea to be a missionary" and that the best and wisest thing to do is to join a college, get a job, and take advantage of evangelistic opportunities that come along the way. The video portrays a wise lady who teaches all this to an unsuspecting young man, who almost did the folly thing of dropping out of school to become a missionary.
Then, a curious argument: Jeremiah 29, which contains a message from God to the people of Israel who are about to enter Babylon, to remain there in exile for seventy years. The Israelites are told, once settled in their new exile home, to marry, work, and get on with life as usual.
The final reflection is: just as the people of Israel were told to go on with life in Babylon and glorify God there, God's people today, who are immersed in the Babylon of universities and businesses, must carry on with their lives there and just take advantage of the evangelist opportunities that arise.
First, let's consider the wise little sister's message to the inexperienced young man: "don't come up with some new fashion... finish high school, go to college, get a job (the video only mentions highly educated professions such as teacher, phisician and entrepreneur) and wait for opportunities of evangelism." I have a good reason to believe that this wise little sister is not Mrs. Ellen G. White, who was clear about traditional schools:
“A return to simpler methods will be appreciated by the children and youth. Work in the garden and field will be an agreeable change from the wearisome routine of abstract lessons, to which their young minds should never be confined. To the nervous child, who finds lessons from books exhausting and hard to remember, it will be especially valuable. There is health and happiness for him in the study of nature; and the impressions made will not fade out of his mind, for they will be associated with objects that are continually before his eyes.” Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 179
Furthermore, she did not want just a few, but ALL youth to acquire a preparation for service in the cause of God: “I have a deep interest in the youth, and I greatly desire to see them striving to perfect Christian characters, seeking by diligent study and earnest prayer to gain the training essential for acceptable service in the cause of God. I long to see them helping one another to reach a higher plane of Christian experience.” Messages to Young People, p. 15
I want readers to ask themselves: the best way to really prepare a young person for the cause of God is to keep him in a city, put him to work in a company during the day (how many of them do something that elevates the minds of the young people to God?) and shove it in a classroom at night?
How about if the advice to the youth were: "Pray intensely that your parents understand the need to live in the country. There you can be closer to God and learn how to manage the soil, as well as other crafts that will be much more than enough for your livelihood (I don't know if a young Adventist just graduated in electrical engineering would have such a guaranteed livelihood...) Properly prepared and attached to God, look for a place without adventist presence and go fishing for souls that never had the chance to embrace the truth (although the young adventist in electrical engineering college had a chance or two to defend creationism against an atheist fellow.) The adventist little sister in the video has only one fact in her favor: the Adventist Church doesn't have real training centers for young people who want to be missionaries.
Finally, let us consider the message of Jeremiah 29: Does it defend the adventist little sister's point of view?
The people of Israel had failed to be a blessing to all nations (Gen. 12-2) and now HAD NO OPTION but to spend seventy years in Babylon, as God had determined. Clearly, if someone is destined to spend seventy years in a place, the best he or she can do is try to live there as best as they can. The options that the people of Israel had were: to live badly and far from God in Babylon for seventy years or to live well and close to God in Babylon for seventy years. God strongly indicated the second option.
I ask: ARE God's people today CLOISTERED in Babylon AGAINST IT'S WILL?
“By giving the gospel to the world it is in our power to hasten our Lord's return. We are not only to look for but to hasten the coming of the day of God. 2 Peter 3:12, margin. Had the church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and great glory.” The Desire of Ages, p. 633. Since 1844, what has held God's people to Babylon is primarily the lack of sanctification: “If all who had labored unitedly in the work of 1844 had received the third angel's message and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work would have been completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of His people.” Testimonies for the Church 8, p.115 And the second thing is contempt for world mission (the two things always happen so closely together, that it's hard to believe they're not just one thing):
“It will not tarry past the time that the message is borne to all nations, tongues, and peoples.”
"It [the coming of the Lord] will not be delayed beyond the time when the message is carried to all nations, tongues, and peoples." The Review and Herald, June 18, 1901 Pastor Herbert Douglass concludes: "Adventists believe that Jesus could have returned in the time of any generation since 1844 - long before the population explosion, the ecological imbalance, the nuclear weapons, the energy crisis, Adolf Hitler, World War II and the modern state of Israel , to mention just a few of the events and conditions that many have pointed to as evidence that we are in the last days."
Por que Jesus ainda não voltou? p. 16.17
We can also add Covid-19 to Pastor Douglass' list... Anyway, why am I quoting all these texts? Just to demonstrate that the adventist lady in the video could perhaps be right in the Babylon of israelite captivity, but not today. A 15-year-old hebrew young man who had just arrived in exile should surely get used to his new home and try to give his best at that place, from which he could only leave when he was 85 years old (great were the chances that he would die there). The young adventist today is given the promise that captivity will end as soon as the gospel is preached to all nations... He or she is not stuck in Babylon for a predetermined amount of time. He or she is not under an unbreakable curse. God is not asking him or her to prepare for a long stay in Babylon. On the contrary, God is asking him or her to get ready to go. We are not arriving at Babylon, but leaving Egypt.
How is it possible to believe that a sincere christian youth will accept to just stand by and spend their strength trying to convince atheist fellows in college (who resolutely reject the gospel over and over again) or with co-workers who a thousand times callously received the good news of the gospel? How can you expect an adventist young person, after knowing that half the people in the world have never heard about Jesus, will accept the idea of evangelizing people who have already had 10 or 15 chances to hear about the good news?
Satan should not be able to deceive adventist youth for long. It will come to light that many cities around the world (where young adventists study and work) are sufficiently evangelized and that nobody will be able to convince the youth to continue in those cities handing out glasses of water to drivers in traffic lights and calling it evangelism.
In fact, that video I received this morning was a good reflection on what not to say to a young person...
A big hug to everyone! Lucas "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come." Matthew 24:14
Comments