ASI 2019: Business Unusual

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Unusual Faith and Witness

Steven Grabiner

Revelation’s Final Generation

There's a large conversation taking place in the church over, let's call it, last generation theology, final generation.

Herbert Douglas called it the great controversy theme.

And there are a lot of different conversation partners in this conversation.

2 primary ones are these books, a book by George Knight called End Time Events and the Last Generation.

The thrust of that book is a bit of a historical look at where we got to where we are today, how we got to where we are today, theologically.

And then he critiques the last generation concept.

And then this other book, God's Character and the Last Generation, published by Pacific Press, they both are.

The second book on the screen is written by mostly all teachers, scholars at Andrews University at the seminary.

1 of the contributors teaches at the university and not the seminary.

And the authors in that book critique last generation theology.

Let me say that again, I believe that all those teachers there have as their great desire, and as they said in the very beginning, to help people be ready for Jesus coming.

However, some of their criticisms of last generation theology I think are unfounded.

And so I've written a review of that book.

You could go to that Dropbox if you'd like, and you could download my review of that book, try to be fair with him.

I'm not really gonna be talking particularly about that book, but those are some of the conversation partners that are going to be part of our conversation, our study, this afternoon, this morning.

And what we are going to study this morning is the book of Revelation in relation to those people that will live to see Jesus come.

What does Revelation say about those characteristics, those people?

And so to begin with, let me say that if we think of last generation theology, There's the good, the bad, and the ugly.

There are different views about this concept.

Actually, really I'm working on an article for the Adventist Theological Society trying to draw sides together and find common ground.

Because really, I think there is a lot of common ground, but there are certain expressions that are used or certain ideas that are attributed to people that maybe they don't really hold.

And so I think that if we looked as to how we can come together, we'll find much more common ground.

So that's the good part of this idea that there's going to be a final generation.

I probably should ask, you all believe that Jesus is coming, right?

And you also then believe that there will be people that live to see Jesus come.

Now that group of people, I don't care what you say, is going to be unique.

We all believe, all, vast majority of Seventh-day Adventists believe Jesus is coming.

I would say all Seventh-day Adventists believe Jesus is coming and that there is going to be people that live to see him come.

But what makes that group distinct or different?

What will the experience of that people, that group of people be?

So the last generation theology, there's a good side of this.

Then there's the bad and the ugly side of it, and maybe these are what some of the critics are saying.

As a pastor, I've talked to other pastors, and several of my other pastor friends tell me when they find out I'm supportive of this concept, They're like, yeah, but people that believe in last generation theology are so critical and so undermining and they're so focused on, you know, minutia.

But you know, there are Seventh-day Adventists like that on all spheres.

There's a lot of Seventh-day Adventists in that area.

And if you happen to visit, you know, a restaurant or anything like that and you ask how the Adventists tip, a lot of times you'll get like, oh, yeah, they're not the best.

We're really, we should be quite generous because God's given us an abundance of things, right?

So let me give you an example of the bad.

This is from George Knight's book, End Time Events and the Last Generation.

He first of all believed that You had to have a certain preparation to live to see Jesus come.

And then he wrote, after 8 years of striving, I was up.

In other words, he hadn't achieved whatever he thought he should achieve.

Beyond that, I haven't even met 1 sinlessly perfect Adventist.

If you're thinking that the last generation is going to reach a level of absolute sinless perfection, you are deceived.

The only absolute, God is absolutely perfect.

We will have a fallen nature until Jesus comes.

But that does not mean that that fallen nature will control.

And there's a huge difference there, as we'll see as we continue.

But Knight was going through this tremendous struggle personally.

In fact, he left the church, he went out into the world, and then he finally came back into it.

So, I would say that's kind of the ugly side of this teaching, where people become critical, they become judgmental, the focus more...

A friend of mine just wrote me a letter, he used to work at an institution in another continent and in that institution, you know, the standard of living was that you would never use oil.

Never mind that you would be a vegan, but that you would never use oil.

So that's the ugly side of last generation theology.

And the good side is that there's going to be a group of people that reflect Jesus.

And their character is going to be winsome and loving, and they're not going to be participating in sin because they realize how horrendous sin is.

So again, this is all kind of an overview.

Again, this is from the book God's Character, page 18.

The authors in that book repeat this frequently through the book, which was 1 of my major critiques of the book.

The authors say that last generation theology advocates perfectionism, which maintains that humans can become absolutely sinless.

So there's that thought again that you can become absolutely sinless.

Now I've read a lot of authors that promote this and heard different speakers, and I don't know anybody that says you can become absolutely perfect or sinless.

I would suggest that a group of scholars writing a scholarly book should be able to quote those people in the book, but to simply say this creates this false tension.

You know if I say, oh last generation theology teaches you're going to be absolutely sinless, well how does that make you feel?

That you're going to be absolutely perfect?

This is Herbert Douglas in his book called Fork in the Road, which is a review of the republication of questions on doctrine and the influence that book has had in the church.

Douglass says this, perfection refers to the pattern of those who increasingly reflect the life of Jesus.

That's, Douglass would be considered a last generation theology proponent.

He's saying perfection is every day becoming more and more like Jesus.

So, when you're first converted and you have this small experience, you're absolutely perfect.

But then, day to day, you grow and grow into the image of Christ.

I think that's a very fair working definition of perfection.

So this is some of the background again, a little bit more background for us.

K Lenart

How to Give Bible Studies

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the time together.

As we want to study how to reach people and how to give Bible studies, we ask you that the Holy Spirit will be here and that He will teach us.

So yesterday, when you hear the introduction to this seminar, I said that many people are active in church, but there are some people who never brought people to Christ.

And my question which I raised yesterday on stage was, what brings people to Christ?

What do you think brings people to Christ what did you say?

Friendship, trust, relationship, Love Holy Spirit Personal testimony I can't hear you Yes, they have to send the need What brings people to Christ?

If you pull All this together, this is very good, I think.

You know, before this ASI meeting started, I had a Tuesday and Wednesday to look around in this city.

And what I see, we are not so much into it in Europe.

But many in the States are quite into baseball is that right yes so you can teach me a lot of things about baseball tell me what is all about in baseball and 1 2 words don't make a sentence What is all about baseball?

You know what I have been taught here in Louisville?

I want to show you that I was really impressed.

If you think about Christianity and you think about how to give Bible studies, it's all about the?

So when I went to this museum, they showed us how they make from normal wood, this kind of sticks, and they showed us the history, and they even see, for those people who are sitting here, you see the lines here, and they showed us, you don't hit the ball here, you hit the ball here.

So they make, they try to be very experts how to hit the ball best, right?

I'm not a pastor and I'm a lay person in baseball because I have no idea but it was so interesting to listen that you're in the States experts how to make this wood and The players we are very famous in TV.

They told us they are coming here to Louisville and they are looking to the woods and they are collecting the woods and only 10% what all of their making they're making a lot of bets like this every day only 10% goes to the best players.

So they became specialized how to cut the wood, how to dry the wood, how to make it so that finally in the game the ball will be hit.

And I like that so much because it's a beautiful example for us.

If we become experts, all about the word, right?

If we become experts about the cross, I will tell you, you will bring fruit 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold.

You know, when I was translating Steve's wife, Karen Lewis, you might have heard about her.

She is probably the best student from Mark Finley.

She was in Austria and she was teaching my church how to give Bible studies.

And she was talking and she said, I was just translating, and she said, when our church studied more about Christ's righteousness, more about the cross, our church started to grow.

And I was translating and needed to translate the next sentence, the next sentence, but I couldn't stop thinking about this 1 sentence, Because this is so interesting.

So if you want to grow and your church want to grow and your youth group want to grow, I think it's all about the?

Yes, if you forget anything about this workshop, it's all about the?

So today I want to give you several things.

I would like to talk with you about some history, not church history, about a bit of history, what I have learned the last couple of years.

So I started to give Bible studies when I was 15 I want to talk with you about principles how to give Bible studies and How to learn to give Bible studies because I'm sure if you improve how to do it, this will be amazing.

I keep this workshop, 1 topic if they invite me, I say my topic is how to give Bible studies.

And I love to share that with you because I'm so excited because I know if you come here and you go home some of you will start to give Bible studies not all but some and this is worth coming from Europe to the States amen okay my history and maybe you can learn here and there some principles also from the history.

I went to high school in Germany and I was touched when I was 14.

So God came into my life and He asked me if He exists.

Because I wake up in the morning, I woke up in the morning and I say, does God exist?

I asked my friends, not all 500 on the high school, but most of them I asked they said no God doesn't exist So I said, okay if God exists he is big enough Major enough to tell me and I said God if you exist show me So that was my first prayer.

I prayed And as I made experiences with God, as I was thinking, how will he reveal himself to me, There was 1 thought coming to my mind and the thought was in the Bible.

So I had a dog and when I had to go out with the dog, I put this Bible behind here and I was going out with the dog, I let him run and I was starting to read in John.

And I have to tell you, I have to confess to you, I didn't understand a lot.

But if you are not aware of the Bible, if you don't know the Bible, if you want to reach secular people, you have to know this first principle.

Even if they read 1 sentence and it sounds English, in my case it sounds German, they say, can I read it again?

They read 1 word and they say I have no clue, no idea.

So I had to read it but I tell you something I didn't understand a lot of in John because it starts very interesting but you know what?

Elvin Adams

Principles and Practice of Health Evangelism

Heavenly Father, we are thankful for the truth that you have given us.

Most of all, we're thankful for the salvation that you provide through Jesus.

We ask that you would be with us in our discussion today.

May we see more clearly the ways in which you would have us interface with the world to save them using the health message.

What I want to do to start with is to discuss since 6 of the fundamental principles of health evangelism.

The first question to ask is where should you be doing health evangelism?

Should you be doing it in a hospital setting?

Should you be renting conference centers at hotels or motels?

Should the primary location be in medical practice or a dental practice?

Perhaps you should consider better living centers.

The primary location for health evangelism really should be the local church.

Now some will object and say, well, you know, my church is kind of small and we're really not on the main track and it's a little hard to get to and my church doesn't have a good reputation in the neighborhood and people aren't, you know, aren't likely to come out to my church.

Or you might say, I'm a member of ASI, I'm not part of the church organization, the official organization.

But I would just point out this quotation, enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the 1 object upon which God bestows in a special sense, his supreme regard.

Yet the church is the theater of His grace in which He delights to reveal His power to transform lives.

We want to transform lives, and God likes to do that in His church.

And the church is so important to God that when he knocked Saul off of his horse and Saul said, what do you want me to do?

And then of course he had to contact his church and tell them to go get Paul, but they were connected with the church.

And when the angel appeared to Cornelius, the angel could have explained the gospel to him in a way that Peter never could.

But the angel said, send for Peter, go to my church.

And so if Jesus and the angels send people to the church for answers, We should do the same.

The church is extremely important in the work of God.

There are many advantages to using the church.

The church is designed for group meetings.

The church is not threatening to people during off hours.

If you invite somebody to come to Sabbath worship, they'd be very uncomfortable.

But if you invite them to come to a weight management program on Tuesday evening at 07:00, they'll say, sure, that's not a problem.

You don't have to spend a lot of money underneath where it says inexpensive is the word cheap.

And we need to get them there as quick as we can.

And when you start doing health programs in your church, it changes the reputation of the church.

People say, you need help with weight, go down to the Adventist church.

You need help to quit smoking, go down to the Adventist church.

Need to learn to exercise right, go down to the Adventist church.

The best way for us to improve the reputation of our church is to start doing something useful for the community within our premises.

We put church members to work that way, and we have 50, 000 churches.

The Lord gave me light that every place where a church was established, medical missionary work was to be done.

And in every church, the medical missionary work is to occupy its rightful place as it ever should have done in every church in our land.

There is a message regarding health reform to be born in every church.

These seem to me to be very plain statements, and I think we may have not understood them.

Even church plants, churches are to be organized, and in no case are these churches to divorce themselves from the medical missionary work.

So when you have a church plant, put them to work right away.

The medical missionary work should be part of the work of every church in our land, disconnected from the local church.

It would soon become a strange medley of disorganized atoms.

So what this is saying is you take health evangelism out of the church and then it starts to look like this.

The primary institution for health evangelism is the local church.

We're back to these 6 fundamental principles.

Number 2, Who is to do health evangelism?

We need them too, but the primary person is this guy, the local church member.

We've come to a time when every member of the church needs to take hold of medical missionary work.

We've come to a time when every member of the church should take hold of medical missionary work.

We talk about every member involvement, and every member involvement is a great thing, but there are a lot of members who aren't comfortable giving Bible studies or approaching their neighbors in a spiritual sense, but if we were to put them to work doing some health work for their neighbors, they would find that ever so much easier and it would not be threatening to them.

Church members don't know it, they don't live it, they don't show up, and they are generally bad examples.

Notice this, no church can flourish unless its members are workers.

The individual members of the church should feel a responsibility resting upon them to overcome their own defects, and by doing so, encourage others to overcome.

At the last weight management program I did in my church, just before the hurricane hit last fall, my star church member, who weighed, I think, 325 pounds, I volunteered to be a group leader.

They all lost weight, but she lost 40 pounds, and she's kept it off since then.

When you take imperfect church members and give them a work to do for others, they shape up.

I went to a church once that was on the fringe of Adventist respectability, and there are churches like that, and they had a mantra that they had worked up, which was, your sin is none of my business and my sin is none of your business.

And they repeated that every week as part of the church service.

And to me, that describes the situation perfectly.

When we're together, we kind of overlook each other, but when we start doing something for other people, we can't kid ourselves anymore.

When we start working for other people, we have to shape up, and we realize we need God every day, too.

And I like to throw imperfect people into the health evangelism equation because they do shape up.

And as they help other people, they are blessed themselves.

And the advantage is we got 21 million members.

So principle number 2 is church members are the primary practitioners of health evangelism.

And The third principle is what information should we give them.

And fundamentally, we should give them valid scientific information.

And that information should be based on large population studies.

Series

Unusual Faith and Witness

Revelation’s Final Generation

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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