Ever since my high school typing class, we used this test message: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”. It was devised by Charles E. Weller in the early 1900’s as a skill test for typewriters. One hundred years later, this test message takes on new meaning and urgency as our world nears its conclusion. Would you have ever guessed that we might actually be alive to witness the prophetic end of world events and the return of our creator and Savior Jesus?
Mechanical typewriters are now museum pieces, but there was fierce competition for the layout of typewriter keyboards not long before Charles Weller’s test message. Washington State University professor Dr. August Dvorak developed a faster more efficient keyboard layout to compete with QWERTY keyboards (which we use today). My father Lyall Young was close friends with Dr. Dvorak, so I got to go to his house and marvel at his inventions. He even wrote the entire Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin… by hand.
My father’s generation and ours have witnessed the advent of jet propulsion, computers, space travel, nuclear weapons, and most recently Artificial Intelligence (AI). Today, we are already using AI to help us think and to foresee outcomes at lightning speed, but AI is also being groomed to think for us and to force evil outcomes on us at lightning speed. Jesus foresaw all this ahead of time, so He has given us the Bible and the Holy Spirit to guide all of us every step of the way through this impossible time. Jesus Himself said it best as He was about to ascend to Heaven: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1: 8).
EG White also commented on Jesus’ powerful words: “Thus Christ gave His disciples their commission. He made full provision for the prosecution of the work, and took upon Himself the responsibility for its success. So long as they obeyed His word, and worked in connection with Him, they could not fail. Go to all nations, He bade them. Go to the farthest part of the habitable globe, but know that My presence will be there. Labor in faith and confidence, for the time will never come when I will forsake you.” (Desire of Ages pg. 822)
Indeed our SDA denomination includes a growing global outreach, but for those of us who are limited to the local community, we already have a significant field for outreach right under our noses. With the “shaking” coming shortly to our doorstep, we won’t have to go out and search for new converts, because they will be coming to our church searching for truth and to see Jesus reflected in us. Let’s rephrase Charles Weller’s message: ‘Now is the time for all true Christians to come to the aid of the lost, even inside the local churches.’ But what will those searchers find if they walk into our church right now? According to the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, the “shaking” will already have taken place prior to searchers coming to our doorstep; so first there will be an exodus of those who don’t obey Jesus’ word and don’t work in connection with Him. “This is a terrible ordeal” [and] refers to the “shaking” of the church, where sinners are sifted out and separated from the true believers in the time before Christ’s second coming, as described in Ellen G. White’s writings. This purifying process is necessary to remove the unfaithful and leave only those who have overcome through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. (Selected Messages 2 Page 380 & Last Day Events Page 18).
NOW IS THE TIME! Where will you stand?