The Fruitage of Spiritual Gifts

The American Revival Became the World-wide Advent Church

But the revival efforts briefly sketched above would not alone have built a permanent church. Many Spirit-filled servants of the Lord have stirred the multitude by their earnest calls to repentance, but their labors ended with them or raveled out even earlier because they failed to organize or they were not working for or with some well-developed church body. This was seen in other advent groups or leaders after the 1844 movement. That the Seventh-day Adventist Church has prospered as it has and that it has kept together in a strong, orderly manner is due under God to our carefully planned and worked out and inwardly firmly cemented church organization. What would our church have been without it but a jumble of disjointed groups of adherents? And strange as it may seem to some, the fact that we have this well-built world-wide order is due almost wholly to the instruction from the Lord through the Spirit of prophecy. Today the Adventist Church is a spiritual brotherhood for all believers in every country on earth. In this brotherhood everyone has an equal vote. The decision of the body is respected, the ministry is loved, and the laws are obeyed. God has placed in His church certain “government,” but all join in directing, without reference to age, position, education, or sex Adventists conduct their councils through representative delegates, in which the majority decide. FSG 117.2