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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Chris Buttery

Who & What Are the Seventh-day Adventists?- Part 1

For millennia, people from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds have found direction and encouragement in the inspired pages of the Bible.

In his day, Jesus directed listeners to search the prophecies of Scripture to find Him, the only way of salvation.

2, 000 years later, as we stand on the break of eternity, we know less need the purpose and hope God's Word provides.

Sacramento Central Church brings you Receiving the Word, timely Bible messages presented by pastors Chris Buttery As a pastor, I often get asked the question when people find out and discover that I'm a pastor, what church are you affiliated with?

What church do you pastor, you preach at?

And I tell them I'm a Seventh-day Adventist, some people know who that is, some people don't know what a Seventh-day Adventist is, and so I'm asked, what's that?

Another question I get asked often is, why are there so many different denominations and yet just simply 1 Bible?

These are good questions and they are ones that we can find answers to.

Today I'd like to satisfy the curiosity of some and help those who are sincerely seeking questions and answers to the question, who and what are Seventh Day Adventists?

Now, naturally, I won't be able to share everything there is to know about Seventh Day Adventists in this short time.

What I hope to do is to highlight some key teachings and share something about our mission.

Now, my mom's dad used to call Adventists, seventh-day bike riders, and he got us mixed up with the Latter-day Saint missionaries, you know, who go home to home and they ride their bikes, you see.

Others have suggested, oh, you're the group that doesn't do blood transfusions, or you don't celebrate anyone's birthdays or holidays, and I have to kindly remind them and tactfully remind them that they got us mixed up with the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Essentially, Seventh-day Adventists are Bible-believing Christians.

We believe the Bible to be our only rule of faith and practice.

And we agree with the apostle Paul when he wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy, and if you have your Bibles, feel free to turn there with me.

2 Timothy chapter 3 and verses 16 and 17, words that we're familiar with.

We agree with Paul when he wrote to Timothy these words.

He said, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.

That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Seventh-day Adventists take the Bible seriously.

And I believe that we'll see that by the time we're finished here today, discovering who and what are the Seventh-day Adventists.

We don't view the scriptures like a person who is eating out views the buffet table before them, you see.

Just because certain Bible teachings appear to be pleasant or agreeable, while others might be distasteful or less palatable doesn't mean that we can pick and choose what we want to believe from the Bible.

Seventh-day Adventists take a high view of the Scriptures and what that simply means is as Jesus advised, we seek to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Jesus said that, and Matthew recorded that, in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 4.

Seventh-day Adventists, we live, seek to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

We don't believe that the Old Testament is less important than the New Testament, or vice versa.

Actually, we can learn much about the Old Testament from the light that shines in the new.

And we can understand so much better the New Testament when we have a grasp on what the Old Testament says.

For example, in the book of Revelation, 2 thirds of the book of Revelation, that's a New Testament book, 2 thirds of the book of Revelation are either direct quotes or allusions to stories, people, experiences, or Bible verses from the Old Testament.

So if you're gonna understand, in this case, the book of Revelation, you're gonna have to have a grasp of what section of the Bible?

If you wanna know the New Testament, you've got to understand the Old.

If you wanna understand the Old, then you've got to also understand the New.

So we believe that The Bible is the inspired Word of God.

As a matter of fact, the official church statement, let me read that to you here.

It says this, The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, are the written Word of God, given by divine inspiration through holy men of God who wrote and spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

In this word, God has committed to man the knowledge necessary for salvation.

The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of His will.

They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God's acts in history." End quote.

That's the church's official statement with regards to how we view the Holy Bible, the Scriptures.

Seventh-day Adventists are Bible-believing Christians.

Seventh-day Adventists believe that God exists as verily as a sun, as the sun shines in the sky.

Now while there is only 1 God, as opposed to polytheistic religions, Christianity is a monotheistic religion, believes in the 1 true God, we accept the biblical assumption that God exists as 3 co-eternal persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And while the Bible doesn't mention the word Trinity, although it actually uses the word Godhead instead, we can know, even though the word Trinity's not used, we can know that the 3 persons exist.

And we can know that they have a special interest in each 1 of us.

They have done everything they can to seek to save us.

Along with most Christians, Seventh-day Adventists believe that there is only 1 way of salvation, and that is through Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.

Speaking of himself, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He is the way because as a man, he lived a life of perfect obedience to the law of God and left for us a perfect example.

He said, here is the way you need to live.

He is the way because he died for the sins of the world and he freely offers forgiveness and pardon for all.

He is the way because he rose and the third day and he conquered the grave and all those who go down into the grave, if they trusted in him, will 1 day rise as well.

That's why Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is the only way of salvation.

So Seventh-day Adventist Christians are Bible-believing Christians.

You know, it wasn't too long ago that I understood that the CEO for Krispy Kreme Donuts, you know what his last name was?

And this is the truth, his last name was Livingood, and I'm sure that he was owning a big enterprise like that with a lot of hungry people who enjoy donuts.

When you think of a name for a church, you'd probably be thinking of a name that might easily roll off the tongue or a name that maybe catches people's attention.

Names like the Church of Christ or the Church of God might appear to be relatively decent names, although those ones have been taken.

Why do we carry the name Seventh-day Adventist?

Well, essentially, it's a descriptive name that speaks to 2 prominent teachings, not our only teachings, but 2 prominent teachings of our church.

Seventh-day simply refers to the fact that we are Sabbath-keeping Christians.

We seek to honor the Creator by remembering the seventh-day Sabbath as expressed in the 10 Commandments.

Now, the word Adventist, Advent or Adventist, Advent simply means the arrival of a notable person or thing or event.

In this case, it refers to the return of Jesus Christ.

In a nutshell, Seventh Day Adventists are Sabbath-keeping Christians anticipating the soon return of Jesus Christ in the clouds of glory.

Now you can see up here, this is our logo, and the green unfilled pages represents the Bible.

We stand on the Bible, that's the basis of our faith.

Then of course you have the cross, which is the center of our faith.

Without the cross, you and I could never be saved.

And then you've got these 3 flames going around the world, and that represents our worldwide mission, and then of course the 3 represent the 3 angels' messages that this church proclaims.

The 3 angels' messages are found in Revelation chapter 14 and we'll talk about that in just a little bit.

Now some people like to know, okay I know your name but where'd you come from?

Well, historically, the Seventh-day Adventist Church grew out of the second Great Awakening of the 19th century.

This revival enrolled millions of new members in existing evangelical denominations.

The foremost figure of this movement in the United States, because this was a global movement really across Europe and South America and elsewhere, but the foremost figure of this movement here in the United States was a Baptist farmer by the name of William Miller, who along with others around the globe believed that Jesus was going to return around the middle of the 19th century.

These folk were sincere and earnest Christians that were sadly disappointed when Jesus didn't return as they expected.

So some of the Millerites, and the word Millerite is simply the name that they were given because they were followers of a man by the name of Miller.

So these Millerites continued to study the Bible to find why Jesus hadn't come, what was the error, where did they make their mistake?

Now of course they discovered that Jesus said, no man knows the day or the hour of my coming.

And they also discovered that what they had experienced wasn't in vain, but that God had a plan for this little company back then.

And then in 1863, the Seventh-day Adventist Church was organized and grew very quickly.

Today our membership stands at just over 18 million members in about 230 countries around the world.

So we have the name, Seventh-day Adventist.

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Who & What Are the Seventh-day Adventists?- Part 1

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