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The Truth Cannot Be Contained!
A column by Larry Kirkpatrick published on GreatControversy.Org on June 10, 2004.
GreatControversy.Org (GCO) continues to grow. Interest in present truth is great and is increasing. Let me encourage you.
We have been diligently at work to expand this ministry. Although little of it will be seen yet, it is coming along.
First, we are hundreds of pages into a major writing project which we will be telling more about in months to come. Already this volume is considerably larger in size and scope than our previous book, Real Grace for Real People. The book contains considerable material on Revelation 14 and on the nature of Christ's humanity.
The mailing list has grown as more and more participants are involved in sometimes vigorous but friendly discussion. You can join the GCOList by starting here: Join GCOList. I don't even begin to know how many countries are represented. The latest to join is from Slovenia. Truth-loving people from all over the map are here. At GCO.
Behind the scenes we have been expanding the ministry for some time. We have been growing a group of associated workers. Presently we have five participants on staff ranging from one person in his 20's to our oldest, who is all of 44. Educational range is in the tradition of GYC; everyone has a four-year degree or more. Our youngest participant just received his Doctor of Medicine degree. This doesn't mean we're any better than anyone else, but it does suggest that everyone involved has a certain measure of acquired knowledge, skill, and stick-to-it-iveness. What do you get when you put two theologians, two techies, and one MD together? A group which has fairly good spectrum of academic backgrounds and perspectives. I well recall the warning I received while in my first year of college at WWC: “Larry, if you do not change your views, your pastoral ministry will be to little churches out in the sticks for all your years and you will not make any impact on the church. You need to change your way of thinking.” Well, many of the churches I have shepherded have been “out in the sticks,” and those members have been top-grade Christian people! Those were good years, and I wouldn't hesitate to work in the backroads again. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. But serious Adventism is marching forward. Among our supporters are persons all over the educational and socio-economic range. We are beginning to storm the gates of the isolated liberal college enclaves. This website is continuously being hit with document searches from every English-speaking Adventist college and university in the world. Your beliefs are having an impact on church members and others throughout the world.
We continue to publish materials from laymen, church officers and elders, pastors, medical doctors, and even sometimes something from a conference president. The website touches issues that are touched in but few other places. And more is coming…
As we have grown and interest has grown, we have had to become more organized. We are presently working out a mission statement and goals and expect to soon have new information for you about the increasing work of this ministry. Developing some of these things has taken careful thinking, some serious time and energy. See what you think of the current draft:
Mission Statement
GreatControversy.Org (GCO) promotes and defends the Third Angel's Message of Revelation 14 through publishing and presenting present-truth on the internet, in print, in seminars and convocations, and by other means. We seek to meet the challenge presented by those winds of doctrine that, if left unaddressed, would strip away the distinctive, God-given Seventh-day Adventist identity and prophetic calling of this people. In place of weak and watery substitutes, we present Heaven's message of authentic victory over sin in this life and the preparation of a people hastening the coming of Jesus Christ.
Goals
- To champion the preeminence of present-truth in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
- To stand in defense of the distinctive truths, prophetic message, and lifestyle of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as set forth in Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy.
- To promote, in an appropriate and responsible manner, accountability on the part of the leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
- To publish a variety of items, often with a focus on in-depth analyses, aiding church members in giving the Third Angel's Message in word and action, and to make numerous resources freely available to all through the internet.
- To facilitate networking among those who are equally concerned regarding the challenges faced by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and wish to actively contribute to the meeting of those challenges.
- To conduct research on theological topics as they relate to Seventh-day Adventism.
- To persist in being in support of the Seventh-day Adventist Church without compromising truth for error.
- To uplift Jesus Christ with His forgiving, converting power as the only answer for all the woes of mankind.
The truth cannot be contained. Maybe where you are, all you can see is apparent decline in the church. Friend, God still has His hand on the wheel. His truth is marching on. His work is going forward. Today He is using simple means to perfect His work of righteousness.1 Now is no time to abandon the church. Liberalism is in decline. Its advocates are graying. Its ideologies are bankrupt. God's blessing is on faithful proclamation of the third angel's message. Let each of us pray that we will find the wisdom to live and give Heaven's message for this hour, and neither faint nor fail.
Not many years ago, Review editor Roy Adams disparaged those holding like views to ourselves when he wrote, “We are simply dreaming if we think that the dissident movements among us will simply collapse before our eyes if we wait long enough.”2 He also at that time stated, “I believe that the moment to strike is now…”3 What he saw as dissidents were mostly serious Adventists whose crime was to uphold present-truth, to take seriously the teaching of the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy writings concerning what kind of people Jesus would grow for the end-time. The attack by an (even then) out-numbered group of liberals in the church upon standard Adventists failed. Time is no friend of error, but it is always a friend of truth. What Adams did then was assure that he himself could never be seriously considered for editor-in-chief of any denominational publication meant to appeal to a church with wide-ranging viewpoints. We can do nothing against the truth but for the truth.
The message I want to communicate to our readers is this: Don't give up. The third angel's message outlasts every false innovation. Those who are in opposition to the third angel's message have not prevailed and will not. It is alive and well, just not always in the places we might have expected it would be. For every book of a new order coming off the presses today, so too from the presses come the numerous volumes from the pen of Ellen White. If time should last, 50 years from now, the others will have come to nothing, but hers will have been continuously replenished, renewed, and lived-out by the faithful. I dare say, the others will be long out of print, and the presses will be churning out Mrs. White's books just as steadily as before.
God's hand is on the wheel. Now is a fascinating—and if we are willing, an encouraging time—to be a Seventh-day Adventist. The hour in which we live is heaven's opportunity. Please pray for GCO as we go forward, taking an enlarging role in meeting the needs of God's people in this hour of confusion. We solicit your prayers.
Endnotes
- Ellen G. White, Testimonies to Ministers, p. 300.
- Roy Adams, The Nature of Christ, (Hagarstown, MD: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1994), p. 15.
- Ibid., p. 9.
