Why is higher enrollment “always wonderful news for a university”? Often …

Comment on Record enrollment for LSU by Phil Mills.

Why is higher enrollment “always wonderful news for a university”?

Often short-term, and short-sighted “success” is the prelude to long-term failure and collapse. This is seen in every type of endeavor, but may be easiest to understand in the financial world. Enrollment, like income, is only one measure of an institution. And academic enrollment, like all measures of convenience and popularity, fails miserably as a reliable predictor of outcomes. The drunk who is loudly rejoicing at the party, may be throwing up at tomorrow’s hangover. Our greatest danger is apparent success. When David was winning wars and at the peak of his popularity, he suffered his greatest shame with the fatal beauty of Bathsheba.

Universities with increasing enrollment (including Southern, by the way) would do well to ponder Christ’s warning, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets” Luke 6:26.

As Christians, we do not take a short-sighted view of success. Success is measured by faithfulness to God. How often today’s heroes are tomorrows villains.

For a time David failed to take a longer term view, “For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” Ps 73:3 NKJ.

Daniel was shown a power that would be mighty, and “destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper” but would “destroy the mighty and the holy people” Dan 8:24.

The well-known and often quoted reference should never be forgotten:

“If you lower the standard in order to secure popularity and an increase of numbers, and then make this increase a cause of rejoicing, you show great blindness. If numbers were evidence of success, Satan might claim the pre-eminence; for in this world his followers are largely in the majority. It is the degree of moral power pervading the college that is a test of its prosperity. It is the virtue, intelligence, and piety of the people composing our churches, not their numbers, that should be a source of joy and thankfulness” 5T 31.3.

Phil Mills Also Commented

Record enrollment for LSU
@Susie:

It is not possible to be supportive of the Seventh-day Adventist Church while undermining, and/or blatantly teaching against the church’s fundamental beliefs. I am confident that if LSU under a pseudonym submitted to the General Conference its actual syllabi and course contents in the areas of religion and biology and petitioned for the right to use the SDA name, they would be denied.

That is an interesting and perceptive point with a lot of implications. Thank you.


Record enrollment for LSU
I was thinking about how Satan sets things up to make it appear that truth is a failure.

Just suppose that many parents and students are choosing La Sierra for its stand on evolution.

1. Over time why would these continue to support a school that is expensive and increasingly less distinct and unique. Why pay a high tuition for what could be much more inexpensively obtained in a state university. After a short high mark in attendance, there would be the inevitable plateau, then the slow fade into insignificance as the university continues either morphing into a struggling community college or a struggling “church” related university.

or

2. Suppose that Christ cleansed the school as Christ cleanse the temple. These same students may withdraw and the enrollment would decrease. Testing truths decrease evangelistic attendance. Testing truths decrease school attendance. Heaven would declare this decrease a successful pruning. Satan’s followers would declare the reforms a failure and trumpet the decreased enrollment as proof their approach is superior.


Recent Comments by Phil Mills

The Rise of Theistic Evolutionism – The Salvation of Christianity?
Those who seem to want to laud the love for the Creator by Theistic evolutionists and attack the motives of those seeking evidence for Young Earth Creation might well consider the following:

“God designs that men shall believe … because there is abundant evidence for faith.” ST 06/08/1882.

Satan blinds men to this abundant evidence. He sends men of pseudoscience to gravely pontificate that there is no evidence for a young earth creation and that all who suggest this are not scientific. If bold assertions could prove these skeptics case, the case is proved. But careful, thoughtful, scientific study shows a completely different case. However, the doubter is never disturbed by facts. Sadly, professed believers too often agree with the science “falsely so called.”


Former board member never talked with biology faculty
I wonder if “due process” was afforded those who were dropped, since that is very important for accreditation. I wonder if this is being explored.


La Sierra University Resignation Saga: Stranger-than-Fiction
It looks like old error is still being recycled.

Bob&#032Orrick: To me this implies that an organized “church of God” will not exist. This also would mean that the SDA denomination will have been driven out of existence as a functioning unit or will have fallen away from following the Lord (because of item #3 above, this seems the most likely outcome).

No need to rely on mere speculation and twisted Scripture when we have the testimony of Jesus that couldn’t be more plain to anyone who loves truth more than some favorite error.

9T 258.1 Some have advanced the thought that, as we near the close of time, every child of God will act independently of any religious organization. But I have been instructed by the Lord that in this work there is no such thing as every man’s being independent. The stars of heaven are all under law, each influencing the other to do the will of God, yielding their common obedience to the law that controls their action. And, in order that the Lord’s work may advance healthfully and solidly, His people must draw together.


The Heroic Crusade Redux
A well known and oft quoted statement deserves to be heard yet again:

SC 105.2 God never asks us to believe, without giving sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith. His existence, His character, the truthfulness of His word, are all established by testimony that appeals to our reason; and this testimony is abundant. Yet God has never removed the possibility of doubt. Our faith must rest upon evidence, not demonstration. Those who wish to doubt will have opportunity; while those who really desire to know the truth will find plenty of evidence on which to rest their faith.


Former LSU student letter reveals professor’s agenda
@Ken: How do you know the world ‘looks’ like it is 6000 years, or millions, or billions years old, if you are younger than that?

How can we know anything about history that happened either before we were born or occurred where we could not observe it? We can’t, unless there was a reliable observer who than informs us what happened. In the case of creation, that is God. He was there. He is a reliable observer. Furthermore, even if I was over 6,000 years old and was present during the creation, my observations would be of less value and reliability than His.

The mere speculations of evolutionists as to the apparent age of the earth may be convincing to the simple, the gullible, the naive but an evolutionist saying it is so doesn’t make it so. No evolutionist was there. God was.

Who is the liar? God, who was there? Or some fool who wasn’t there, isn’t very old, and doesn’t know much of anything but believes that his (or her) research shows the earth must be very old? I wish all my questions in life were this easy.