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The Fruitage of Spiritual Gifts - Contents
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    Chapter 7 — Why an American?

    IN FORMER YEARS WHEN the Spirit of prophecy messages came to Adventists in various countries, some would ask, ‘Why did the Lord in choosing a messenger for this generation select an American? Why not one from our country and language? Usually such inquiries have been heard only in lands where there was a tendency to make the advent movement a national church. Just now we do not hear them often, but they might come again. But really, why God chooses any nation and country as the home base for leaders and other resources in His work is not hard to understand. Moses and the beginning of Israel were in Egypt, then the leading nation on earth. Ezekiel, Daniel, and other prophets began their great work of reform in Babylon, at that time the capital of a world dominion. The Waldenses came from Italy, the Huguenots from France. The great Reformation in the sixteenth century centered in Germany, the Wesleyan revival in the British Isles. God starts and centers His work in a prominent place, with the best advantages for the promulgation of His special message for the time.FSG 86.1

    For this reason the great advent movement, or last gospel message, had its chief origin and strength in the United States of America. In this country alone there was no state church, but full religious freedom. In America, too, were financial resources and opportunity freely to train laborers. The Continental prejudices, national feuds, caste and class of Europe, had not come in to blight America. There was a freedom of research here. There was a willingness to accept new ideas and to study without fear God’s message. The English language had become the chief mission language of mankind. These and several other potent reasons that I shall mention later made America the most fortunate home base for the advent movement. Today, of course, with the United States a leading world power, the matter is clearer.FSG 86.2

    Mrs. E. G. White was an American citizen. While there is not the slightest trace of a perverted racialism or nationalism in her writings, but most decidedly the opposite, she was a loyal, devoted citizen of the United States. She calls this country the “most favored nation upon the earth...shielded” by “a gracious Providence” to receive the “choicest of Heaven’s blessings.”—The Great Controversy (1888), 398.FSG 87.1

    In America “the persecuted and oppressed have found refuge. Here the Christian faith in its purity has been taught. This people have been the recipients of great light and unrivaled mercies.”—Ibid. In scores of ways, both in her deeds and in her writings, she shows her devotion to her own country and people without in any way discriminating against others. There was also another special reason why the advent movement was best begun here.FSG 87.2

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