We don’t know what April 8, 2024 will bring.  None can be sure whether the path of the pending solar eclipse over towns named Nineveh and Jonah is anything but a coincidence.  And none can be sure when Ellen White’s prophecies of fireballs destroying buildings, in Nashville or elsewhere, will come to pass. 

But at the bottom line, God isn’t waiting on natural or man-made disasters so that Jesus can come.  Rather, He is waiting on the spiritual preparedness of His people, who through His grace will reproduce the character of Christ in their hearts and lives (I Thess. 5:23; II Peter 3:10-14; I John 3:2-3; Rev. 3:21; 12:17; 14:5,12). 

Too many of the striving faithful in modern Adventism lost their way, not so long ago, through bitterness.  It is a path none dare traverse again.  It is a trap that will extinguish godly zeal, suffocate love for the erring, and obliterate the patient spirit which God’s Last Generation Christians must cultivate and possess (Rev. 14:12).

“When one clearly sees a duty, let him not presume to go to God with the prayer that he may be excused from performing it.  He should rather, with a humble, submissive spirit, ask for divine strength and wisdom to meet its claims.”

Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 441.

“And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.

“Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother” (II Thess. 3:14-15).

Reflections on the limits of science, technology, and the human character made evident by the revival of the space exploration program.