"Raising the Right Arm" Prophecy & Medical Ministry Camp Meeting

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Uchee Pines Institute

Dave Fiedler: Core of the Controversy

Dave Fiedler

Lucifer - Try Something New

The city work is important because that's where the people are.

And because the city work is important, medical missionary work is important, because that's the way to do the city work.

And because the medical missionary work is important, we need to understand its setting and grasp how important it is.

Because the reality, I would say, is that we don't.

And the only place that you actually see the total importance of anything, the big picture of the great controversy.

That's 1 setting in which everything assumes its respective weight and value.

So, this morning I'd like to cover a topic that's, I'm guessing you don't hear a lot of sermons on Lucifer.

But you know, you're not going to understand the great controversy without some comprehension of Lucifer.

There are echoes for our day, in ways that we little imagine, I think, at this 0.1 of the more admired traits, if you listen to the business world, or a lot of different arenas of human endeavor these days, 1 of the things that is considered really great and wonderful is the ability to innovate.

Seems like we're always being told we need to think outside the box, you know.

Apparently, we're all in boxes and we need to learn how to think somewhere else because we're just a bunch of losers, I guess.

And yet, there's a downside to innovation.

Lucifer was, in fact, the first great innovator.

Basically, what he said to the angels was, let's try something new.

I've got a new approach, so let's start at the beginning.

Every good story starts at the beginning, but the Bible actually gives us 3 different beginnings and we're looking for the middle beginning as it turns out.

The first beginning, the 1 that we might most readily think of is actually the third.

That's when God created the heaven and the earth.

If there's a third beginning, then there has to be 2 before it.

And the first 1 is in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, that was time immemorial.

And it's the 1 in between, the 1 in between that we're really interested in, and that was when Jesus was talking about this, he said to a group of Jews, he was addressing, he said, you are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand the truth, for he is a liar and the father of it." This is the beginning we're talking about.

It's not the same as the beginning of Lucifer, because Lucifer was created sinless.

This second beginning, this middle beginning, is very closely related to the second mystery.

We'll get this stuff out of the way here, it won't take long.

The first mystery is the good 1, the mystery of godliness.

The second mystery is the bad 1, the mystery of lawlessness.

1 of the interesting aspects of these 2 mysteries is that the first 1 was hidden from the beginning of the ages.

Now what makes that so interesting is that the first mystery, the mystery of godliness, is God's design to respond and deal with the mystery of lawlessness, but the antidote was created or planned prior to the disease, if that makes sense.

That's just a simple example that it's really hard to catch God flat-footed.

He's ahead of you, he is ahead of the game, and That's actually very, very good.

This is what we want to look at, the bad mystery.

Let's take a look at this a little more closely.

You're probably familiar with these verses from 2 Thessalonians 2.

The mystery of lawlessness is already at work.

Coming of the lawless 1 according to the working of Satan, power signs, lying wonders, I'm kind of skimming through here.

Because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Now, there's an interesting little detail down near the bottom of this passage.

If you read the authorized King James from like 1611, the wording is a little different.

It says that Those who did not receive the love of the truth end up believing a lie.

My Greek vocabulary is about half a dozen words, so All I can do is report that which those who are supposed to know tell me that they know, and that is that the Greek there is much more specific.

In English, we call these things articles.

Remember your articles, The only difference between a and an is whether the next word starts with a vowel, basically.

But the difference between a car and the car is the difference between the indefinite and the definite article.

In the Greek, this is the definite article.

Well, that means it's in some way or another a particular lie.

It's the difference between, oh, there goes the car and there goes the car.

Now, I don't know, you know, you can imagine for yourself what might make the car the car.

Maybe it's your car, maybe it's his car, maybe it's the car that just ran over the dog, or whatever it is.

Well, Jesus tells us the devil was a liar from the beginning and by this time he's told Lots of lies.

1 that we often think of is, you shall not surely die, right?

And on earth, you know, yeah, you could go with that.

Some people get annoyed with me on this point, but I will warn you when I don't have a thus saith the Lord.

So some things here are thus saith Dave, and you can know how authoritative that is.

It has no authority whatsoever, but it is my best understanding.

If you have a better understanding, praise the Lord, send me an email.

I don't find a specific, thus saith the Lord, But when I go looking for the lie, here's my best guess.

Because of the way it's worded, those who don't receive the love of the truth receive the lie.

I expect it to be something very, very foundational.

It's something right at the heart of the issue.

So let's go back and look at Lucifer at the beginning and see if we can spot something here.

Isaiah 14, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

Well, this is what scripture records Lucifer as saying.

In 1 sense, the whole package here is a lie, because it's not going to end up that way.

But we could also just call it boasting, groundless boasting.

I'm going to suggest that the lie is often overlooked.

And I'm going to suggest that this is not Lucifer saying, I will be.

It's hard, because the English language only gives you so many words to use.

It's not Lucifer saying his intention so much as his argument.

Christ - Let Me Show You

Father, we are thankful that we have Jesus' example of lifting our voices in song.

And though some of Our skill may be less than his and less than anyone else, for that matter, perhaps, but nonetheless, Lord, we're thankful for the privilege of having hearts of happiness, hearts of love and gratitude, and we say, Alleluia to Jesus, because that all comes from Him.

So, we pray that you'll be with us now, as we continue our consideration of medical missionary work in the Great Controversy, in Jesus' name, Amen.

What did we talk about yesterday, or who did we talk about yesterday?

We'll be back on slightly more common ground this morning.

What we're doing is we're continuing the narrative.

There are some interesting things about this whole process.

Well, okay, I want to catch the subtitle here in a second here.

So remember yesterday, the subtitle was, try something new.

And mathematically, it worked out just as well as God's idea.

God has suffered, Heaven has suffered, angels have suffered, and The question is, what do we do now?

And so our subtitle today kind of captures that.

Well, We closed yesterday with these accusations.

And remember, I asked you, you've been busy, so I'm going to guess that you really didn't sit down and spend 20 minutes trying to think, well, What would I do if I were God?

It's kind of interesting, we have the assurance that the Lord has a thousand ways to supply our need, of which we know nothing.

So how many ways would he have of solving his own problem, do you think?

And this gets so interesting and so intricate and so precise.

Ellen White has all these comments about, this was exactly what was needed and 1 step less would have been insufficient and it could not have gone 1 step more.

Wow, that's a pretty high level of precision.

And there's interesting twists and turns in the whole thing.

You may be familiar with the chapter, It is Finished in Desire of Ages.

It's on the right-hand side, so it's an odd number.

It's 683 or something like that, I don't remember.

Anyway, it's on the right-hand side, in the chapter I just finished, where Jesus dies.

It says, Satan saw that his disguise was torn away.

How did we go 4, 000 years and now we've, wow, Congratulations, we've managed to figure out that Lucifer is a murderer.

It's like there were some murders along the way, I'm pretty sure of it.

It's because of the basis of the whole argument.

Lucifer had the perfect dodge for 4, 000 years.

He could say, you know, you can quibble about how we execute someone if you want.

You know, I mean, we've got lots of alternatives.

We've got, what, lethal injections and gas chambers and hanging and firing squad.

There must have been a few others along the way.

You can quibble about how we do it, but don't blame me.

It's God's law that says sinners have to die.

I don't like the law, told you that a long time ago.

For the first and only time in all of eternity, an innocent individual died.

You remember that statement, it goes on, it says that the last link of sympathy was broken at that point.

That's not the kind of sympathy, I don't think.

I don't think it's that kind of sympathy.

I think it's more like, I can sympathize with that position, an intellectual sympathy, I think.

But maybe there were still angels or unfallen beings who were...

If they hung on to their faith in God that long, but they were still feeling sorry for Lucifer after 4, 000 years.

So there might have been a range there, who knows?

We might have thought that there were lots of things he could do.

You know, or, you know, you could roll back the operating system, right?

Just, you know, Kind of wipe out all the hard drives and take it back to 3 months before, but no, nobody started sitting yet.

Actually, when Ellen White talks about this, she spends most of her time talking about the things that God couldn't do.

How should the universe know that Lucifer is not safe, a safe and just leader?

They cannot see as God sees, beneath the outward covering.

Kellogg - Lend to the Lord

Dear Father, we thank you for everything that you've done, for all that you have done has been good.

Help us to understand that when things look otherwise, when the devil would eclipse our view of Christ.

We ask for your blessing and your guidance.

If we could have the projectors on, you know, I will confess right at the beginning here that 1 of the hardest pieces of wisdom that the spirit of prophecy has imparted.

1 of the hardest ones for me to abide by is the caution to not try to put everything into 1 sermon.

And I have tried, but I know there's a lot, so I'm going to go quickly today.

This is actually 1 that I didn't get in yesterday.

Remember, we were talking about the substitute and the surety and the whole concept that we're in a war.

Every eye in the unfallen universe is bent upon those who profess to be Christ's followers.

Here in this atom of a world, an earnest warfare is going on, a battle in which Christ, our substitute and surety has engaged in our behalf and conquered.

He engaged in our behalf and conquered, now we, Christ's purchased possession must become soldiers of his cross and conquer in our own behalf, on our own account, through the power and wisdom given us from above.

The influence of the cross of Calvary is to vanquish every earthly and spiritual evil power and we need to know the plan of the battle that we may work in harmony with Christ.

We've got to figure out what's going on, or we'll be at best innocent bystanders and more likely, what is that?

That was, should have been in yesterday's.

Now, remember we started off with Lucifer, Lucifer's rebellion, and then we spoke of Christ's response, which was a refutation of the accusations of Lucifer.

I'm building a historical model here, which you haven't seen all of yet, and I don't intend you to see all of just yet.

But we're going to make a jump which may seem to you to be somewhat, Why do you do that type of thing?

But we're going to jump to the story of Dr.

Kellogg and specifically a particular span of his life.

This is the span that I colloquially refer to as the good Kellogg.

Before the good 1, there was the unconverted Kellogg.

So we'll be looking at the good Kellogg and the key thought today is lend to the Lord.

Well, okay, in all of Seventh-day Adventist history, there is no 1 who is more colorful, shall I say, than Dr.

Now Ellen White stands in a unique position, of course, as having been the servant of the Lord, the messenger of the Lord.

But Once you move past that unique position, there is nobody in all of Edmund's history that is half as interesting as Dr.

This guy was amazing, intelligent and dedicated, and he had many good qualities.

And, intelligent and dedicated, he had many, many good qualities.

I'll tell you 1, because I won't have time to get them all in, but to tell you what, every morning, Dr.

Kellogg would get up, crack a dawn, and sometimes before, and he'd go out and in front of his house, there was a large cobblestone paved circular area.

And he'd get up, he'd get dressed, take a cold rub down probably, I don't remember exactly his schedule, but anyhow, and he'd run outside, and he'd jump on his bicycle, and he would pedal furiously round and round in circles to get his exercise.

Why not just ride 5 miles down the road and 5 miles back?

There was a reason to this guy's madness.

In the middle of that circle was a stenographer taking dictation the whole time.

Kellogg wrote something like 50 books, I think it's 54, something like that, in his lifetime.

Several of them are well in excess of 1, 000 pages.

When Kellogg dictated a book, by and large, he just went to the press with it.

He would dictate all the commas, all the semicolons.

How many of you actually know how to use a semicolon?

That is the coolest thing you can do, the simplest thing you can do to make your writing look intelligent, is figure out how to use a semicolon properly.

I'll just give you a hot tip there, if you want to impress an editor, figure out what to do with a semicolon someday.

But Kellogg would dictate this stuff and it was ready for the press.

We're going to see that because God had special plans for John Kellogg.

He had special plans for the Adventist church.

He had special plans for the plan of salvation through John Kellogg.

Kellogg has done a work that no man I know of among us had qualifications to do.

My dear brother, as I have before written you, I know that the Lord has placed you in a very responsible position, standing as you do, as the greatest physician in our world.

They didn't agree with Kellogg on everything, but in their histories, they will chalk him up as being the single most influential physician of the western world for a period of about 40-50 years.

Kellogg, with earnest and tiring energy, has testified by his works that he believes the word of God and that he is not content to be merely a theoretical believer.

He is not content to be merely a theoretical believer.

His work in the medical missionary line has had the appearance of being disproportionately large.

But he has seen the feeble efforts made by the churches whose practice has not been proportionate to the light, and he has undertaken to educate his students to do service for the Lord.

In this, he has only tried to walk in the light.

He has been doing the very work the Lord has specified should be done.

Now this was 1897, a couple of years later, the medical missionary work employed more people than the church did.

Because everything else was disproportionately small.

That became an issue in different ways, but we'll talk about that later.

We're looking at the good stuff right now.

This is not a fanatical and superstitious work.

Alpha - Anything but God

Thank you for all that you have blessed us with, and especially this week, these meetings, this fellowship.

We pray that it will be profitable, that we will take what we've gained and what we've learned and that we will be a blessing to others.

That we would not make the mistake of hoarding the blessings we've received, but that we would give them away and thus increase their value to ourselves and to others.

We started off with Lucifer's rebellion in heaven, and Then we progressed to Christ's response in his incarnation.

Yeah, not, well, what should we say, 1900 years later, Dr.

Kellogg grasped the genius, shall we say?

When used in that way, it does not mean super intelligence, but it means the very heart and soul of Christ's ministry.

He grasped the genius in that sense and contributed, he was not the sole contributor, but he contributed to the beginning of the loud cry.

Unfortunately, as we'll see in our session today, Dr.

Kellogg was very mortal, very human, had his own weaknesses.

And unfortunately, his weaknesses And unfortunately, his weaknesses were cultivated to a degree that I can hardly fault him for.

What I'm saying is he bore more tests than I have ever had, so who am I to throw rocks at him?

Series

Dave Fiedler: Core of the Controversy

Christ - Let Me Show You

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Living in the Day of Atonement

1h 1m

Power of the Everlasting Gospel

The Covenant’s Promised Blessings!

1h 18m

The Great Controversy, The Great Explanation

The Great Controversy Part 3: Wrapping the Package

57m

Dee Casper's Weekend

03 The Hour of His Judgment has Come

1h 13m

Faith That Endures

Truth is Quiet and Easily Ignored

1h

Daniel 2

Daniel 2: Part 2

54m

Revelation Made Simple

2. The Angels of Revelation at War

47m

Keys of Revelation

4. God on Trial

59m

Practical Christian Living

Part 2 - Understanding Personal Problems

1h 14m

ASI 2011 Plenary Meetings

Marred in Our Hands

36m

In Such a Time as This

Why Jesus Waits

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine