“In the matchless gift of His son, God has encircled the whole world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air which circulates around the globe. All who choose to breathe this life-giving atmosphere will live, and grow up to the stature of men and women in Christ Jesus” (God’s Amazing Grace, p. 238).
Several years ago there was an interesting lawsuit in an ecologically aware town in California. Someone was in their house smoking, but the windows were open. A woman walked by, smelled it and sued the smoker for violating a city ordinance banning smoking in public places. In essence, the woman was demanding that everyone in the world was responsible for providing a healthy atmosphere for her. Psychiatrists would call her a “narcissistic co-dependent”. As the center of her universe, her narcissism told her she was worthy to demand that the entire world consider and meet her needs. As a co-dependent she believed she had no responsibility to clean her “atmosphere” by simply walking past the window to avoid the fumes. The world, not her, had to change.
Like the woman in the lawsuit, it is possible for us to have a self-centered attitude toward the instructions regarding healthy living God has given our church. While God wants us to live as healthy as we can on this polluted earth, it is our spiritual atmosphere that is most important. We have no record that Christ ever refused ministry to avoid contamination by the pollution of this earth. Occasionally His Father removed Him from dangerous situations, but of Himself, He lived in the same conditions as the people of His time, traveling as directed by the Holy Spirit. Scripture never records that He “got out of the cities” to live in a more healthful environment. Ellen White counseled that in the last days, if possible we are to leave the big cities, but she also made exception for ministry. Common sense should tell us that if our primary commission is to spread the gospel to the world, we must interact with the world, pollution and all. In conducting public work, especially in our health institutions, she advised us to “act so that the patients will see that Seventh-day Adventists are a people who have common sense” (Evangelism, p. 540).
“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish (2 Cor. 2:14, 15, KJV).
It is dangerous to refuse clear guidance from the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit arranged circumstances so someone needed to move to a polluted inner city for ministry, is that person entitled to resist because they want to “get out of the cities”? Of course not. Paul tells us in the text above that we are to be a sweet savour of Christ. That means in this world which is polluted. Part of the sacrifice many missionaries are called to make is to live in countries where the sanitation and climate are not ideal.