Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Mark A. Kellner/ANN Staff]
If a Seventh-day Adventist Christian is wondering about the seeming delay in Jesus’ promised return, a check of the Bible book of Joshua might counter any doubts, says Roy Adams, an associate editor of the “Adventist Review,” the official church paper. Just as Joshua led the Israelites to the fulfillment of their 40-year journey to the Promised Land, Christians can still count on Jesus to keep His promise to return for His followers.
Adams recently published his fourth book, “Crossing Jordan: Joshua, Holy War and God’s Unfailing Promises,” which discusses themes in Joshua and their relation to God’s pledges to His people. The book was released by the Review & Herald Publishing Association of Hagerstown, Maryland, United States.
“I just like the compact nature of the book,” Adams says. While some areas, such as the apportionment of the Promised Land among the Israelite tribes may seem a bit obscure, the overall theme of God’s promises, he says, is totally current.
For Adams, whose early years were spent as a member of the Anglican Church on the Caribbean island of Grenada, those “unfailing promises”
became important early in his life. He and several members of his family decided to become Adventists, a move which angered his father.
“Dad was not pleased with the move,” Adams recalled in an interview.
“Until his death, he was angry with us over this.”
Eventually, his father cut off financial support for his son’s education, and Adams had to rely on promises such as that found in Joshua 1:5, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Adams was able to continue his education — “The Lord was faithful,” he recalls — and he ultimately became the first candidate to finish a doctoral degree in Systematic Theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. He says the early experience in learning to trust God cemented his interest in the Joshua story.
Adams is particularly fond of a statement Joshua — whose Hebrew name, Yeshua, is the same Hebrew name for Jesus — made in chapter 23 and verse 14: “…not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed.” He says this still applies: that as Adventist Christians and others await the return of Christ, today’s “swollen Jordan river” will be parted by God, so that His people can enter the Promised Land.
“The book of Joshua holds a very strong message” for Adventists today, he says. He hopes readers will have an open Bible nearby as they read “Crossing Jordan,” which he says can also be the basis for small group Bible studies and a sermon resource for pastors.
Copyright © 2005 by Adventist News Network.
