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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Chris Buttery

Who & What Are the Seventh-day Adventists?- Part 2

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 and Mike Thompson.

Amazing Revelations await you in God's holy word, the Bible.

Welcome to the second part of the presentation, Who and What?

Now, if you missed the first part of this presentation, go to our website, www.saccentral.org.

There we discussed how we are Bible-believing Christians.

We looked at our name, our history, and our worldwide mission.

In today's presentation, we're going to take a look at our distinguishing doctrines, what we believe about the second coming, death, hell, judgment, and the 3 angels' messages of Revelation chapter 14.

So sit back, open your Bibles, and let's go to part 2 of the presentation, Who and What?

We also believe in the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

John chapter 14, verses 1 through 3, you remember what Jesus said?

If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

Now if Jesus said it, then we ought to believe it.

As a matter of fact, it is said that the return of Christ is mentioned over 2, 000 times in all of scripture.

Paul called Christ's return the blessed hope, and it has been for all Christians through all time.

Now, the second coming of Jesus will be the most incredible event in the history of the world.

David wrote in Psalm 50 verse 3, Our God shall come and shall not keep silent, a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around him.

And then Paul wrote those interesting words in 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 16 and 17, where he says, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God.

If you want to know God's favorite instrument, now you know, the trumpet of God, and what will happen?

The dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Now Jesus said, for as the lightning shines out of the east, even unto the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and I'm reading here from Matthew chapter 24 verses 27, 30, and 31.

All the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his elect from the 4 winds from 1 end of heaven unto the other.

When Jesus returns, God is going to do something with those dying, decaying bodies.

What does he say in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 51 to 53, I'll read this for you.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality.

Before Jesus swindles us off, takes us off, raptures us up, catches us up into the air to take us to heaven, he's going to give us brand new bodies that will not know pain, that will not know wrinkles, that will not know gray hair, that will not know glasses and earpieces because we can't hear.

We're gonna have brand new bodies that will never grow old, that will never tire.

That we will, it will be like we are young people forever.

We have a lot to look forward to when Jesus returns, amen?

So Seventh-day Adventists believe in the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

We also believe, and related to this topic, and this is our next distinctive belief, we believe that the dead sleep.

Now it seems that more and more churches are beginning to believe the same thing.

Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7, notice how we were made on the sixth day of creation.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul or a living being.

Now go over with me to Ecclesiastes chapter 12.

At creation, God took the elements of the earth, formed and made us and molded us, and then fashioned us, and then breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and those 2 elements combined make us a soul, or a human being.

It says, then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit, or ruach, which just simply means breath, or life, will return to God who did what?

At creation, man was made from 2 elements, dust and breath, and he became a living soul.

Living soul minus breath equals dust, or the grave, that's right.

Over and over again, the Bible writers refer to death as a sleep.

When we're looking at our kids as they're sleeping, we say to 1 another, boy, those kids are dead to the world.

Jesus taught death as a sleep, as did the many different Bible writers.

John chapter 11, verses 11 to 14, he said, "'These things he said unto them.

"'After that he said to them, "'Our friend Lazarus sleeps.'" Now, Lazarus had just died.

He was going to come and raise him back to life.

So Jesus is talking to the disciples, and he tells them, Lazarus is sleeping, that I may go wake him up.

Then the disciples said, Lord, if he sleeps, he will get well.

However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought he was speaking about taking rest in sleep.

Then Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

In Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 5 and 6, the Bible writer says, for the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything.

They have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished.

Listen to what Jesus said in John chapter 5, verses 28 and 29.

Jesus said, do not marvel at this for the hour is coming in which all who are in the grave will hear his voice and come forth.

Those that have done good to the resurrection of life and those that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

According to Jesus, folk are in the grave until they are called out in 1 of 2 resurrections.

And we know that the righteous are going to be raised when?

We read that in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 16.

"'The dead in Christ shall rise first, ' you see." The Bible says the dead know not anything.

Jesus said they are in the graves, awaiting, asleep, waiting for 1 of 2 resurrections.

Now, related to this, and we're gonna keep moving a little quickly here, if the deceased are not in heaven, then are the deceased sinners in hell.

Seventh-day Adventists are not the only ones who teach that hellfire isn't burning now or that it is at the center of the earth or that it will burn forever.

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Who & What Are the Seventh-day Adventists?- Part 2

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