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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Shane Anderson

The Remarkable Case of Bob and Three Angels

This morning, we are going to have to move with alacrity.

It's so nice to be able to use words like that.

With great speed and enthusiasm this morning, they've only given me 3 hours to speak and I will need every last 1 of those minutes.

I'd like you to answer the question though only in the quietness of your own cranium.

What is the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church?

You think about it, hear the wheels turning, yes, just in the quietness of your own mind, what is the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church?

Now we're all okay, Okay, if you're listening to this right now, you are just fine, but I've heard that if you put 10 Adventists on a stage and press them and say, what is the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist church, 3 of them won't care, 2 of them will ask, when is potluck, and 5 will attempt some version of the Great Commission of Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 to 20.

What did Jesus say there in the Great Commission?

Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you, including this command, right?

So we are to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.

And If an Adventist entity, a church or school, et cetera, et cetera, is not about the business of making disciples who make disciples, then you can call them what you want, but you can't call them Christian.

So the Great Commission is absolutely essential to the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and if that's all there is to the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, then the sooner we lock the doors and put a for-sale sign on the lawn in front of every Adventist church and Adventist school institution etc.

The better and join up with the Seventh-day Baptists because you see the Great Commission is everybody else's mission as well.

Almost every group that calls itself Christian, Church, school, whatever it is, if they're Christian and you look for their mission statement, it always cracks me up.

Everybody thinks that they need to formulate a mission statement.

Actually, it just needs to be discovered.

And most Christian churches will have some version of the Great Commission.

We are here to make disciples of Jesus and again if that's all there is to the Adventist mission we need to stop being so arrogantly different and admit our similarities and join up with everybody else.

But I don't think we should join up with everybody else and lock the doors and put a for sale sign on the lawn.

Because you see, the Adventist Church takes the Great Commission of Matthew 28 and takes it 1 very important final step further.

Turn your Bibles please to Revelation chapter 14 and let's see I have the blue screen of death here.

Revelation chapter 14 any guesses what verse I'm going to start with.

If you said verse 18, please listen to the duration of this presentation.

This is where we find the 3 angels' messages.

3 angels' messages of Revelation 14, 6 to 12.

These are the reason that the Seventh-day Adventist Church exists.

This is our Magna Carta, this is our reason for being.

If there were not 3 angels, there would not be a Seventh-day Adventist church.

God has rarely gone through the difficulty of raising up a worldwide movement.

He made a global movement, and this is at the core of who we are as Seventh-day Adventists.

Now as I said before, if an institution is not about the business of making disciples, like Matthew 20 talks about, you can call them what you want, but you can't call them Christian.

If there is an organization that claims to be Seventh-day Adventist, but has Nothing to do with the spreading of the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14, 6-12.

You can call them what you want, but you cannot call them Adventist.

We must be about the business of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in the context of the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14, 6 to 12, or we are not Seventh-day Adventists.

We might be good, we might be doing good stuff, we might be doing helpful things in the world, et cetera, et cetera, but We cannot call ourselves Seventh-day Adventists because God is the 1 who gets to decide what we're about, not us.

I need a global movement, and I want them to take this 3 Angels' Messages and take it to the world.

Now, just in case you're wondering, the 3 Angels' Messages, this is not something that we decided was supposed to be, bless you, thank you, that we decided should be central.

Those of you that know chiastic structure, I'm sure you do, Jewish apocalyptic literature, if you wanna find out the main point, then you look in the middle, not the end.

You know, the great American novel, if you wanna find out how the story ends, then you go to the last chapter, right?

Not so with Jewish apocalyptic, you go to the middle.

So thematically speaking what is the middle of the book of Revelation?

In other words the reason that the book of Revelation was written was to showcase the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14, verses 6 to 12.

God put it here and he said, when the time strikes, when that bell rings and it's time for things to wrap up.

Get those Adventists together and have them start talking about the 3 angels.

11 out of 10 Adventists Don't know, except for those in this room.

It says, then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

Time out, Easiest question of the morning.

So whatever comes next, whatever comes in these 3 angels' messages must be by definition, God says so, not me, not you, God says they must by definition be good news.

It says this is the everlasting gospel, the eternal gospel.

It keeps going and going and going and going.

Let's see what The first part of the good news is, oh, this is exciting stuff, verse 7.

He said in a loud voice, fear God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come.

Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.

Now, let's say I'm just studying these for the first time, and I heard some guy talk about the 3 angels' messages, so I decided I wanted to find out what they are.

So, with reckless abandon, I read in my Bible the first angel, and I find out how great of good news it is.

It is such good news that I need to tell my neighbor Bob about it.

Now my neighbor Bob, you've probably met my neighbor Bob in a different form.

He's thinking about maybe some professional career later on, and I haven't seen him very much, but I'm so excited about the good news that I've just read, I wanna talk to Bob.

Yeah for like 15 years now, I'm sorry, but listen I found something.

The Remarkable Case of Bob and Three Angels

Transcript

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