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Corporate Repentance - Robert J. Wieland

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confidence in the nearness of His coming. This will<br />

be clear as we go on.<br />

The Spiritual Crisis Of the Seventh-day<br />

Adventist Church<br />

Roland Hegstad, for many years editor of<br />

Liberty, said that Adventism is "not attracting our<br />

own youth because all we're doing is asking them<br />

to come play church with us" (Adventist Review,<br />

February 27, 1986). Christ's Laodicean message<br />

presents to them no spiritual challenge, for if we<br />

have already repented, we must by now be "rich<br />

and have become wealthy, and have need of<br />

nothing," except to carry on business as usual and<br />

work harder.<br />

Can we have a reasonable hope that we will see<br />

the Lord's return? Did He deceive our pioneers by<br />

telling them it was "near" when all along He knew<br />

it would be delayed at least 140 years and no one<br />

knows how many more? Is the Calvinist idea true,<br />

that the sovereign Lord has predetermined the time<br />

of Jesus' second coming with no special<br />

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