When I joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church more than 32 years ago, I came in riding on a whirlwind of end-time prophetic adrenaline rushes. My first study on America in prophecy, for instance, was the same week the pope (John Paul II) made his historic visit to the White House. Back then, end-time events, which seemed to unfold one after another at amazing speed, increased my faith and filled me with zeal.
More than three decades later, though I am still interested in end-time events, they alone are not enough to sustain me spiritually. They never should have been
enough to begin with, anyway. Prophecies might be exciting, but from a human perspective (the only one we have), they can surely seem to take a long time to play out.
We need something else. And the one thing that never fails to astound, excite, and revive me is the Cross. The Creator of the universe, the One who made everything that was made (John 1:3), shrank down, took upon Himself our humanity, and bore in Himself the punishment for our sins.
How do we wrap our minds around this when we can’t even comprehend the universe itself, much less the One who created it? I do not think we can. Instead, all we can do is fall to our knees and worship.
And yet, that is what we believe, the foundation of our belief. Sure, what the pope does can, from a prophetic point of view, catch our attention. But nothing can revive us as does the Cross and what it tells us about our God.
Clifford Goldstein is Editor of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide.
