EDITOR’S CORNER

It’s the topic I hear coming up more than any other these days among Seventh-day Adventists. When the conversation moves beyond the casual chit-chat, this is where it often turns. Even people I haven’t thought of as particularly religious bring it up. Adventists just seem to know: Jesus is coming soon.

I’ve seen interest in Jesus’ coming before, but it has usually focused on some specific event, such as the election of a Catholic to the United States presidency (1960), or the threat of war over the Cuban missile crisis (the military blockade was imposed on October 22, 1962), or the approach of 1964, 120 years after 1844 (“As it was in the days of Noah . . . .” [Luke 17:26]). What seems different to me from any other stirring over Christ’s return that I can remember in the latter half of this century is that people recognize a convergence of factors that the Bible has told us we should expect.

Result: a quiet revolution is going on in people’s lives.

The change is as remarkable as it is unheralded. Seventh-day Adventists of my generation, the post-war Baby Boomers, have not paid much attention to the second coming as adults, despite its inclusion in our church name as one of our identifying characteristics. They have held onto the Sabbath, our other name-distinctive, as part of their heritage, even if some did not let it inconvenience them. But I sense that things are changing, as more and more blasé Adventists are waking up to the signs of the times. They are realizing that we did not follow unfounded speculations or “cunningly devised fables” when we let the Bible and Ellen G. White frame our expectation of last-day events.

It was not always so. In 1979 a man who was then a teacher at one of our colleges wrote an article for a well-known independent Adventist publication. In it he examined Ellen White’s Great Controversy end-time scenario and pronounced it plausible for her day, but in his view, no longer relevant to a changed world. Roman Catholicism, for instance, was highly unlikely to fulfill the Bible’s predictions of the persecuting Beast power. Our generation must seek its own new “beasts,” he claimed, drawing on such possibilities as communism and other oppressive social and political structures. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the Great Controversy scenario have been greatly exaggerated. Today Soviet communism appears to be dead, and papal influence is rising to take its place!

When people take the signs of the times seriously, every part of their lives feels the effect. I hear people saying, “I want to give substantial offerings to help the cause in places where the Holy Spirit is so evidently working.” When the wallet is converted, other parts of the life usually are being changed as well.

Those who live in the expectation of Jesus’ soon return cannot live careless lives, conducting business as usual. It’s time to get packed and be ready to go. We can’t take everything. And some things that once seemed important or attractive just get left behind.

In This Issue.
The second coming of Jesus is at the heart of the Seventh-day Adventist message. Our opening cluster of three articles breathes with the conviction that Jesus is coming soon. Though each of them examines signs of Christ’s coming, they do not all examine the same signs nor use the same approach; in our view they aptly complement one another. Samuele Bacchiocchi provides reasons for confidence in the return of Jesus and examines some of the “generic” signs that Jesus Himself gave. Mark Finley explores some of the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation which point to events to take place just before Jesus comes. And C. Mervyn Maxwell takes a fresh look at the signs Adventists have deemed important since the beginning of our movement.

Pastor Joe Engelkemier shares with us his observations on a movement gaining strength among Adventists which attempts to establish a timetable of last-day events based on the Jubilee cycle. Engelkemier, a pastor near Andrews, has done extensive writing and editing, most recently for the General Conference education department as revision editor for our grade school and academy religion textbooks. We have followed his article with a selection of statements from Ellen G. White on the dangers of time-setting.

Two articles carried over from our issue on worship appear here. Rosalie Lee, who wrote the recent Sabbath School lessons on the books of Samuel, draws on one of the incidents from those books to address the question of music style. Jeffrey Lauritzen, former General Conference education department director, focuses on music and young people as he shares a most unusual experience.

We just received a pre-publication copy of a book on this issue’s major topic by another of our contributors, Jan Doward. Footsteps of an Approaching God helps the non-Adventist reader understand the second coming and the preparation needed for it. It will bless your own soul and reinforce your witness. Write to Amazing Facts,
P.O. Box 680, Frederick, MD 21701-0680.

Now more than ever should ADVENTISTS AFFIRM that Jesus is coming soon!