19 July 2001 Editorial:
Late Words

Larry Kirkpatrick

O.K. This editorial is several days late. Late words. Their publishing and propagation were delayed. Ah ha. We have an Adventist moment.

As a people, late words are our specialty. The work assigned us by God ought to have been completed a century ago. But we haven't given the words. Oh, they've been given to us; but we've not passed them on well. We've not lived them or given them compellingly.

We are a prophetic movement truncated. A combination of circumstances have led us toward the mainstream. Some unspoken allure has sparkled toward us and we've squinted our eyes with interest and curiosity. Institutional momentum has combined with a most un-Adventist disinterest in doctrine. The result has been a foggy spinning our wheels. We follow the slime-trail of the fads of a backslidden Christendom while time keeps on. Instead of redeeming the time we waste the time.

The time of God.

A severe charge, I know. But one that's in order. Think of it: we've been granted immeasurable light; we've been handed the very blueprints of the great controversy and our Father's forever-sin-ending solution. Our Bibles make sense from front to back, the Spirit of Prophecy writings unfold brightly, startling us but blessing us. And yet so many of us hang around the dumpsters of the fallen churches in hopes of finding some forgotten and moldy food even they couldn't stomach.

We buy their music, we purchase the\ir translations, we incorporate their fads, whether theatrics, rock and roll, clowns, magic-shows, the easter bunny, Halloween, celebration worship, liturgical dancing, Christian-cafe's so-called, or whatever. And then, after all this futility, we wring our hands and whisper to each other that we are losing the churches youth. Why yes--of course! When we stopped standing for truth they caught on. What responsibility weighs upon us as we've compromised and waffled and turned back toward Egypt. Lot's wife holds a strong lesson for us. She never made it out of sight of Sodom.

Do we begin to sense why our words are late? Have we been giving the words of others? Of Philip Yancey, Chuck Smith, or whoever else ambles along knowing nothing of the third angel's message at all? We are a prophetic people. That's our DNA. It can't be removed from us. When it goes, then we aren't us. If we are not living embodiments of the third angel's message, then our words are late. Nor is anyone going to come in off the street and help us. The message is distinct; it has a cross in it; it cuts across that which is convenient; it condemns the worldly inebriation of our generation.

Yes, our words are late. But better late than never. The message must go. Faithfully, fearlessly, truthfully, while remaining unedited and unabridged. Let this be given, and to God be the glory!

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