Fred reviews the rise and progress of the Adventist church from 1844 through 1890.

GYC Northwest 2018: Return. Receive. Run.

<p>Fred reviews the rise and progress of the Adventist church from 1844 through 1890.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Northwest

Adventist History

Fred Bischoff

Adventist History- Part 1

Well I think it's 9.15 we can get started.

What I've given you in the little syllabus or handout covers 80 years of Adventist history but there's some other introductory material as well as reference material.

So, I don't think we're going to go through all 25 pages.

Usually I spend about 10 hours going through this, and we have 3.

So we're going to have to summarize and hit the highlights.

I'm working with Adventist Pioneer Library, which is a ministry or service of Lightbearers Ministry in Oregon.

If you don't know about us, we're on the web.

Sometimes people think because we've published a lot of the pioneers, we've read them all, we know it all, we don't.

History is a huge, history is a huge complex thing.

I've become convinced you need a tour guide.

There's too much to see, there's too much to look at, there's too much to read.

You need a tour guide to guide you through it.

And so we need His help this morning too.

I can try to help you with some things, but only the Holy Spirit can really bring it home to you and to your heart, which is where it needs to be.

More than up here, it needs to be in this part of you that we tend to think about.

So let's begin with prayer and ask him to be with us.

Father, thank you for the opportunity to do what we're going to do today with your blessing, with your mercy, To go through and review some history.

We ask for your spirit to guide us to Explain to us the simplicity That's in Christ the battle that the universe is in and also to make application to our own hearts and lives.

What do you want me to do as an individual?

We thank you for who you are, and the fact that you are leading, you are guiding, and that you have promised a future that is much, much different than what we have here.

Guide us in understanding the principles involved, the details of the history, that we may learn, and as we heard earlier this morning, that we can understand what it means to return.

And as the motto for the meeting say, to receive what you have to give us, to understand what you have already given us, and then to run with that and be a blessing to others, to hasten your kingdom, teaching us what our mission is today.

If you go to page 15, I'm going to use that as a way to sort of preview and to summarize what we're going to do.

We have 3 hours and we have about 15 pages.

So that means about 5 pages an hour or about a page every 10 minutes or 12 minutes.

That's just sort of giving you a summary of what we have.

We're going to look at the introduction, I would say, is pages 1 and 2.

And that will be a setting for what the Advent movement is all about.

We're focused on that part of history, helping it to come alive to you.

Then The next section, actually in hour 1, we want to do that, plus pages 3 to 5.

And if you look at The dates on those pages, those are actually going to be the 1830s to the 1850s.

That's what we're going to be doing in that section.

This will be Hopefully the first hour we can do that.

In the second section, we're going to be looking at the 1860s, and the 70s, and the 80s, and what took place during those decades into actually, this is not a good 1, let me just switch over to another 1 here, 1860s, to actually, if you want to look at the actual page 6 covers 60s to the 80s.

And then, if you look at page 10, we're already down to what dates?

And that's going to be our second session, second session together.

Our third session is going to be pages 11 and 12, which is going to be 1904 to 1910, and then we're going to do pages 13 to 15, which is a summary.

Okay, just a preview for where we're headed.

Hopefully you like a story And a story has a timeline, right?

Doesn't mean you have to tell the story always in order.

Sometimes you'll do what we call flashbacks, or you'll get to a point and you'll need to cover something in more detail that wasn't covered before.

1 time not too long ago I went through and I decided in the Bible to put the big pictures of the Bible in order.

You know, here's the kings of Israel and Judah, and here's the prophets that prophesied during their things.

And then I realized a lot of the books of the Bible are names of prophets, right?

And so I began to highlight the books of the Bible as to where they fit in that.

And I finished with that thing and I thought, why didn't I do this years ago?

All of a sudden I know where everything fits now.

Or if I don't, I can go back at what I did and say, oh, there's where that prophet was.

Apparently he spanned a long period, longer than I realized.

And maybe I need to expand his part on that timeline as to whose reigns he overlapped and who he ministered to.

But it begins to become meaningful when you see the sequence of events that are there.

I don't know how many of you are into genealogy, trying to figure out your own family timeline.

Find out some things maybe you didn't know.

I believe that the more we learn about our history, whether it's our church history, or the world's history, or our family history, what are the lessons that we can learn?

You may find the strengths and the weaknesses of your family.

And if anything, you should find out more about your need for God, What the role is there.

So in diving into this to start with, the importance of the past we cannot underestimate.

Actually the past is our identity And the statement that I would focus on, although it's just 1 brief incomplete sentence, is the 1 there, third item under the importance of the past, we have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall forget.

Not what you need to do in the future, because you may not even know that yet, but you forget the way the Lord has led, past tense, right?

Not too many people that I know know the background for that statement.

The letter was sent from Australia to the church headquarters and they read the entire letter at the general conference session of 1893.

And what was she reviewing in the letter?

How the early Adventist believers in the 40s and the 50s and these what we're going to look at in the story here, how as they they came to understand what had happened in this Millerite movement and expecting Christ to come and in finding out more about the Bible teachings and explaining the prophecies more how they were led to...

There was enough of them eventually and they had assets.

They owned a place with a printing press and they were publishing things and they finally were led to organize and form a publishing association and then conferences of churches.

Adventist History- Part 2

Father, again, thank you for the opportunity to come together to review these details of history.

Help us to know how to hit the highlights in a way that makes sense, pulls the threads together, and actually leads us to study more in depth, more about the story, more about how you have been leading your teachings and what your intent is.

And help us to enter more into an understanding of why we're still here.

We're back in 1844 still and the Third Angel's message has begun to sound.

Right after the disappointment we have another event that we highlight here and that is Ellen Harmon at this Point.

She's 17 years old and she has her first public vision.

I like to tie that together with the Midnight Crike as we already mentioned in that vision, she saw a bright light at the beginning of a path.

It's that journey metaphor that the word waymark's coming from, which was another synonym for the landmarks.

And she is given that vision to encourage the Advent people that they're on a journey to heaven, right, to the city.

They thought they were going to get there because they thought Jesus was going to come and they were at the end of the journey, But it's like there's a journey ahead still and Jesus is guiding you.

And when they denied the light that was behind them, What happened?

For then the light went out and Then they couldn't see the path.

They couldn't see Jesus and what did they do?

They fell off the path into the world Well another metaphor just a symbolic way of saying if you don't acknowledge the light God has given in the past, how are you going to walk into the future with more and more and more light, right?

You're going to lose sight of that and you're going to lose the journey at some point.

How many people know people that have lost that journey?

They didn't walk in that light and looked for more light that's coming.

So that's 1 thing I would highlight from that vision.

The other thing would be, let's don't forget we're dealing with these 2 principles.

And this 1, these are not impersonal things.

It is intensely personal, not just you and I are persons, but the 1 who originated it is a personal God.

And unless you learn that and walk with him, have a relationship with him.

The devil is excellent at depersonalizing things, and so the truth is actually embodied in a person.

So this vision that Ellen Harmon gets as a teenage girl, is this something that she's cajoling up in her own mind?

Is she under the influence of, as people tend to say, some neurologic disorder, or worse than that, some supernatural evil power?

What does the Bible call the spirit of prophecy?

When Jesus came to his disciples in Luke 24, we talked about this to begin with, what turned these men around, the survivors, from being confused and in hiding to becoming deeply, much more deeply converted, unified and bold.

It was the testimony of Jesus united with Scripture.

He just didn't say, here I am, I'm alive, believe in me.

He took them back through all the spirit of prophecy teachings from the Old Testament.

He showed the consistency of what he had been giving the prophets in the Old Testament through that spirit of prophecy.

And he basically said it's being fulfilled, but it's all about me.

And so when Ellen Harmon is getting messages, is it Ellen Harmon or is it the testimony of Jesus?

Is he coming not in person but through a messenger?

And is he helping us to understand Scripture?

How then in everything it's concerning Jesus.

And so I would submit to you, as we look through this history, you're gonna find that a lot of our history details is built on things that she wrote.

Not because she's the only 1 that lived then or wrote about it, but because what she wrote is a unique perspective on our history.

It's something that she herself as a human being could not have been able to do.

Look at the testimony of those who were there alive when she was alive, who examined her, not just her physical demonstration in having visions, but tested her in terms of biblical accuracy, the fruits of that, and all of that.

He saw something, he said, that was humanly impossible.

And we neglect God's gifts at our own peril.

And so we're going to lean a lot on what Jesus had to say about our history because he's speaking through a messenger.

And God help us to be willing to grasp the significance of that.

When we quote Paul, we're not really quoting Paul.

We're quoting the spirit that was speaking to Paul.

He was putting it into his own words, but God was giving him the ideas.

Her writings do not become part of scripture, but there's a lot of other non-canonical prophets in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Their works were not in the Bible, but yet they were messengers of God.

So let's not miss an understanding of that.

So what happened there in, I put it in 44, but actually it's the next 5 years basically, very rapidly out of the understanding of the Third Angel's message, there were a whole series of landmarks that became clear to these people as they studied.

And this is based on a statement I've given you.

Hopefully the reference actually to this is back, I believe it's on page 3.

The landmarks are succinctly outlined in the LNG White 18th Materials, page 518.

So if you actually want to know where these came from.

Second coming, the cleansing of the sanctuary.

In other words, this prophecy in Daniel 8, when it said the sanctuary would be cleansed, what is that really all about?

So they begin to understand the sanctuary services and the symbolism of that and what the cleansing was all about.

She said, transpiring in heaven, but having decided relation to God's people on earth.

And now they realize it was taking place in heaven, but it has a decided relation to God's people on earth.

With this, all 3 messages together is considered, she's listed them as a Landmark, 3 Angels' Messages.

By the way, the messages are not simply in historical sequence that we see.

These are the order in which they came, but they are cumulative.

They start as a solo, then there's a duet, and then there's a trio, and then there's a quartet.

In other words, they join each other, and they continue to sound.

First ones continue to sound as they continue.

The third angel's message highlights 2 specific things that became very important and are still very important.

Last verse of the third angel's message, those that endure, the implication is they endure the fall of Babylon.

Faith in Jesus and the commandments of God.

Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

So they began to look at that, but of these 2, which 1 did they seem to emphasize?

Okay, so this 1 I put in here, they neglected this 1.

Not that they denied it or totally ignored it, but there was a neglect and that will come out a little bit later in the history.

There was 1 of these commandments in particular they became aware of the importance of?

Adventist History- Part 3

Father, thank you for the opportunity again to come together to continue our review of history.

May your Spirit take the elements of the past, bring meaning, and show us their connection to your heart and your plan, and guide us individually in what we need to do with this information.

We give this time to you in Christ's name, Amen.

We have in our pioneer project digitized a large amount of the Pioneer materials.

The portion of the materials that we have not digitized as much as the books and pamphlets are the periodicals.

The bulk of what the Pioneers I think published were in periodicals.

So pray for us if we need to do more of that that we can get that done we are spending a lot of time right now bringing some of the pioneer materials back into print and You'll find that at our exhibit.

I actually have a little flyer that shows the titles that we've done in English, as well as a page of the ones in Spanish and Portuguese that we've done.

So we're trying to make it available as widely as we can.

I do believe that with technology and what God has enabled in the last decades, that it's clearly part of the Daniel 7 and Revelation 20 picture.

That judgment involves the opening of books.

I like to say the official records, the complete records are all up there And we will all have access to them at some point, but before the second coming, those of us on earth don't have access to it.

There's others that are having access to it right now, and that will be the initial determination of who's going to spend eternity with God and who's not.

But we're gonna have access after the second coming and apparently there's gonna be a reopening of the books at the end of the millennium.

And there's gonna be a panoramic review of history much better than I can give here.

And at the end of that what's going to happen?

And that's going to be an amazing event that's going to be burned into the memory of the universe forever.

But it's the uplifting of the cross that's really going to make the difference, I think.

It's not just what you did or what you did, it's what Christ did and what you did in light of that, right?

So may we understand as much of the books that we need to understand before the Second Coming to understand why we're Adventists and to help others to make a decision for the eternal principle, which is what we're looking at.

By the way, we're at 1894 and we've completed our tables.

There's 6 messages, there's 7 landmarks, there's 5 ministries, they're all there.

And so what we're dealing with now is what happens to these in light of our history?

Are we able to proclaim these and receive?

Are we able to receive these and proclaim these?

Are we able to hang on to these so they don't move?

At the same time, we're digging deeper and deeper into them.

Do we understand all there is about these?

Well, there's a statement we're gonna find about the 3 angels' messages themselves.

These 3 that are highlighted as often a way to summarize the messages and how well we understood them by 1902.

Particularly if these 2 principles are all mixed up in the ministries.

Ellen White writes an article, which I think is very significant.

It's entitled Romanism, the Religion of Human Nature.

You don't have to have a Jesuit infiltrate your church.

What will destroy your effectiveness with God?

What will keep you in Babylon, which is another name for the fourth kingdom, Rome?

If you don't understand your human nature and are converted and the gospel begins to cleanse you of this satanic principle, you're going to reproduce Rome in your family, you're going to reproduce it in your local church, you're going to reproduce it wherever your influence is because it's just in your nature.

So I'm not saying the Jesuits are good people, I'm just saying they're not the real problem.

It's your nature, my nature that's the real problem.

And they've taken advantage of that and they're just manipulating it.

And so if we understand the principles and we lay the axe at the root of the tree of the principles, whether it's a Jesuit or an unconverted Adventist, we're laying the axe, as John the Baptist said, at the root of the tree.

I'm not going to take time to read these because we could read each 1 of them, but again, the word would have come if.

Prescott, at the 1895 GC session, gives a series of sermons based on the prayer of Paul in Ephesians 3.

I bow the knee to our Father in whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." Did you know there's a family in heaven and earth?

It's also called God's host, you know, the army of God.

All these things are true and picture what's going on.

But the first head of the divine human family, he was a human, Adam, and we know what he did.

And so there had to come a new head, a divine human head, right?

So it's a beautiful series of sermons on the 2 Adams, powerfully picturing that.

And we've published that series of books available.

In her diary that same month Ellen White's not in the States for the GC session but in her diary she again talks about the message the last message of warning and mercy and she's speaking of these as a whole the last message right what has happened Has been retarded in doing this work by the selfish love of money, the selfish love of ease, and the unfitness of man to do a work that needs to be done.

In other words, if you are still confused or uncommitted on these 2 principles, what are you doing with every ministry that you're involved with?

Series

Adventist History

Adventist History- Part 2

Transcript

Description

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