Prophecy Burn-Out

So, yesterday in Sabbath School class, a relative newcomer said that he was not too excited about going over the day/year principle yet again.  He couldn’t understand why we kept going over this thing again and again and again.  He simply believed it because he understood it to be true from the study of the texts presented.

How many times have I wished that all members of our church had the simple faith of a child, or a new believer, such as this man!  It was very simple in his mind, and in fact, he consented to belief in the day/year principle weeks ago.  So, as we struggle internally over disputes of doctrine, we may find that we loose the new-comers because we simply overstate our position.  In our attempt to “prove” our point, we are creating prophecy burn-out for another group of incoming Adventists.

Interestingly enough, I watched the Pioneer Memorial service yesterday on SafeTV.  Dwight Nelson did a brief promo spot for the two prophecy series coming up from his location.  He is conducting one addressing the recent evangelical interest in the Middle East, due in part to the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.  Then, Doug Batchelor will be conducting another one at Pioneer Memorial called “The Most Amazing Prophecies”.  So why do we continue to pursue prophecy evangelism if some new-comers are experiencing prophecy burn-out?  As Dwight Nelson put it, we have a young generation of Adventists today who are prophetically illiterate.  The baby boomer generation decided that they had had enough of teaching prophecy (and obedience to the law), and so today we have many, many members of the church who don’t know anything about prophecy or the keys used to unlock it (not to mention the cheap grace that is permeating the church today).  His point was that we needed to get back to our prophetic roots, as a movement, and not just another denomination.