In a recent devotional reflection I came across the following thought-provoking passage:
“In the last solemn work few great men will be engaged… God will work a work in our day that but few anticipate. He will raise up and exalt among us those who are taught rather by the unction of His Spirit than by the outward training of scientific institutions…. God will manifest that He is not dependent on learned, self-important mortals” (Ellen White, Last Day Events, p. 204).
We perhaps should define the group here designated as “great men.” This cannot refer to the great men or leaders of the secular world, seeing these have little to no interest in, but will mostly oppose, “the last solemn work” that involves lighting the earth with the glory of God. The term is evidently applicable to those who have been at the front of the gospel work – those who have received the highest training and been privileged to occupy positions of trust in the Lord’s vineyard. We are told here, by testimony of none other than the Holy Spirit, that He will not be forming partnership with the majority of these prominent and privileged persons in the closing work of the gospel. As He has often been obliged to do, he will again bypass the “learned” and “self-important” ones among us and will equip “those who are called the common people” (ibid.) to finish His work.
What seems to be the issue with most of today’s great men, or religious philosophers in the Adventist Church (the abbreviation Ph.D. actually means Doctor of Philosophy) is that, more often than not, their methodologies and reasoning often tends to lead away from the plain teachings of the Scriptures while claiming to uphold and affirm them.
Great discernment is here required because the distinction is not always readily detected. Jesus declared in Matthew 5:19,
“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
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Maranatha!
Don R West
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