The plan of salvation is to reach its culmination, and the doubts and objections of Satan and his hosts are to be forever answered. The unfallen universe itself is to be reassured by watching a grand demonstration of the complete success of the plan of salvation in its final hour. Instead, there has been an imagined progress in the fulfillment of the secondary goal. But a serious problem immediately becomes evident. In the process we have largely lost sight of the primary goal in this illusory fulfillment of the secondary one.
Official reports reach ill-advised conclusions based on financial or statistical advancement.
The financial success of this vast denominational undertaking cannot be stronger than the faith and zeal which animate God's chosen people. It may be said that this is an extreme and outdated example. But it illustrates a mind-set predominant at the time, and recognizable almost everywhere today. The Author and Finisher of our faith says the opposite, however. Such was the spiritual condition of the church in the decade preceding the 1888 General Conference Session.