12 April 2001 Editorial:
You Have a Voice

Larry Kirkpatrick

In Adventism "all ye are brethren." Our form of church governance recognizes the fundamental equality of every church member. The Holy Spirit is not promised to one group or ethnicity above any other. He does not come in the form of a dove and rest merely on the "educated" among us. He is for all, the Bible He inspired is for all, and in the Master's design, every human being was designed to have ears to hear and a voice to speak. Your God made you; gave you a mind. And you have a voice.

Shameful it is that in some sections of the church this is not understood. For example, we have word that in Australia the churches union magazine, The Record has refused to accept any further paid advertisements for Adventist Affirm's book Prove All Things. Guess the truth hurts so much that it must be silenced. Many other things, some questionable are advertised but now not Prove All Things. This is just one more example of an unfortunate reality among us: while we have a voice, some so insist that we shall not use it, that they seek to silence that voice.

Brothers and sisters, don't let them do it. This is our Father's church and it is ours. He gave us a voice. The truth is to be shouted from the housetops. And it will be. But when the distinctive features of the message this church was founded on are muted, are minimized, smoothed-out, and yes, undermined, precisely then are we are most responsible to keep on speaking it. A hell-bound world shall hold us responsible if we do not.

Institutions tend, unless the greatest care is exercised, to corrode. That which once was an agency to forward the truth could become the means of hiding it. Periodically we must admit, although embarrassing it is, that we need to make changes, that we need to--once again--start afresh and publish the truth no matter how it may offend those settled and content and feeling that we needlessly trouble Israel. They want us to be mature, recognize that we've traveled an actually prosperous road in departing from the heritage that founded this church. They philosophize that fundamentally it is better for experts like them to lead and help the church avoid the embarrassment potentially caused by the common member speaking plainly of what we believe.

By this elitist attitude they encourage members to lose all confidence in the church and its guidance, and lose all opportunity to influence their brothers and sisters to be wise in their witnessing. Then they blame them for being overly bold. There is a better way. The church must publish what is right and then God will take care of the rest. If the leadership will lead aright, God will take care of the rest. If however the Adventist message in its fullness is refused from being published, or persistently it is laid in the dust by so rewriting it that it is unrecognizable as the truth for this time, then it will come to the people in other ways. But it will come. We have a voice.

We must be more ready to use it. By regular mail, by email, by telephone, by face-to-face visits with responsible persons in church leadership, we must be forthright about not only problems but solutions. And we mustn't be too quick to accept the rejection of our "old-fashioned" solutions, either! The third angel's message must be given, or the stones will cry out. Perhaps they already are.

Never forget "all ye are brethren." Never forget that having a voice, having a brain, hearing God through the words of inspiration makes you responsible. The old song has a line that says "let freedom ring." Jesus said He came to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18). This we must do.

Adventists understand what the acceptable year of the Lord is. It is the time when deliverance arrives, when the death-blow is struck, when Messiah defeats Satan, when the gospel is preached to the poor. Such a time rightly is linked with key movements of Jesus in the plan of salvation. He came to earth in human flesh and conquered; He went to heaven to minister as our great high Priest; He made a momentous transition from the holy to the Most Holy place in heaven in 1844 and as we now function in the period when the sanctuary is being cleansed--when the investigative judgment is going forward, we know that it is time for light to shine in the darkness. Christ within must be revealed to those to whom Christ is outside. And we stand commissioned to do that.

You have a voice. What do you say?

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Last Modified 12 April 2001