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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Alistair Huong

Lessons on Fanaticism

I think it's been a while since I've been a speaker at Avon Hope, and it's certainly the first time in this building.

But familiar faces, new faces, it's always a joy here at Avon Hope.

And I'm going to skip all the warm fuzzies at the beginning because I want to make the most of our time together.

So why don't we bow our heads together for prayer?

Father, this morning as we discuss and study together a topic that perhaps is a little uncomfortable or strange and new, I pray that you will help us to not only hear your words, but to be touched, to be transformed, to be armed, and to be ready for the conflicts that will surely come.

May you be our teacher today, we pray in Jesus name.

I guess you can see the screen, the title of our message, Lessons on Fanaticism.

Why is this even something that we ought to spend any time discussing?

Well, let me just share with you 1 passage that gives us sort of the backdrop of where we're headed.

Second Selective Messages, page 14, paragraph 2.

It says, every phase of fanaticism and erroneous theories claiming to be the truth will be brought in among the remnant people of God.

Is this just a minor possibility or is it pretty certain that we should expect fanaticism and erroneous theories?

Some messages I've heard have been described this way, they are like seat belts.

Or maybe the better question is, when do you put on a seat belt?

Do you wait till the moment right before impact and you strap yourself in and say, OK, I'm ready?

You put on the seat belt ahead of time in anticipation that something might happen.

And so this message today is probably best described as a seatbelt sermon, or a lecture, or talk, or whatever, presentation.

Because whatever situation we may find ourselves now, if we are faithful and if time should last, I believe, as has been mentioned in this passage by inspiration, we should expect fanaticism.

We should expect to have to face it and to deal with it.

And I say it's better that we are prepared for it, rather than to be caught without our seat belts on.

When I look through history, I'm not an expert by any means, but with my basic understanding of history, 2 things seem to accompany every genuine revival.

It seems like every time there's a movement of faithfulness among God's people going back to being faithful to God there accompanies that the fires of persecution and if you read the book great controversy, it tells us why persecution largely sleeps today.

The condition of God's people is not where it probably should be.

But we're not talking about persecution today.

The second thing that seems to accompany every revival is fanaticism.

This is my hunch, which I believe will become evident through the study today, is to illustrate this way.

Our human experience, our spiritual experience, can be likened to a pendulum.

The little tick-tock thing on the bottom of a grandfather clock, right?

And often when we are steeped in worldliness and we care nothing for spiritual things and nothing for God.

Our pendulum is way over here on 1 extreme.

But then maybe there's a trigger, maybe it's a week of prayer, maybe it's some life-threatening experience, maybe it's something that brings a heart melting.

This experience where all of a sudden, this pendulum starts to swing and we're swinging towards God, we're swinging towards God and we want to land where he wants us to land, but we've got what's called momentum.

Momentum and it swings this direction And what does Satan have to do but to just give it a little nudge?

He just sends a little breeze blowing this way, and all of a sudden, we swing clear over here to this extreme, which I call fanaticism.

And that's why it's very easy for fanaticism to creep right into what is otherwise a genuine and true revival.

Now of course, we can harness that momentum to do powerful things for God.

But why does Satan care about fanaticism?

It seems like, well, the more warm-hearted, the more on fire they are for Jesus, the better off, right?

It says, on the road of truth, there are parallel ditches on either side, worldliness and lukewarmness, and then fanaticism or extremism on the other.

And even though we may study the Bible, if we go way out over to the other wrong extreme, it's deception still the same.

And the second thing that fanaticism tends to do is that it brings discredit to the truth.

So those from without looking in, they see such craziness.

They say, why would I want anything to do with that?

So there are 2 things that fanaticism causes to Satan's advantage.

It discredits the truth to those without.

Notice this next passage found in First Selected Messages, page 180.

Satan's object is accomplished just as surely when men run ahead of Christ and do the work he has never entrusted to their hand as when they remain in the Laodicean state.

We talk a lot about Laodicea and rightly so.

That's the message that is found for this period of church's history.

But to beware at the same time of not running beyond Christ, running ahead of him, because Satan's object is accomplished just as surely.

He has never entrusted to their hand as when they remain in the lukewarm state.

Lukewarm, feeling rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing.

The 2 classes are equally stumbling blocks.

Maybe we should try to define this thing.

Looking at a secular definition, New Oxford American Dictionary, a fanatic is a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause.

Excessive, Single-minded, zeal or zealous, extreme.

This sort of sounds like what we should be.

And isn't it the truth that at the end of time God's people, those who love and are devoted to Jesus, single-mindedly, obsessively, excessively, they're gonna be called fanatics?

When the whole world wanders after the beast, when you can't buy or sell, and this Lonely group of people say, I'd rather serve God than die.

Well, sure enough, if you study the spirit of prophecy, that's exactly what the world will call God's faithful people at the end of time.

So Should we be afraid of labels just for the sake of being afraid of being labeled?

But what I'm trying to discuss today is that there is a true fanaticism, which is a problem, and the mistaken fanaticism, which is actually true loyalty to God.

So here I've just listed some of what I believe are characteristics of what fanaticism looks like, specifically within the remnant church.

I'm not talking about political fanatics.

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Lessons on Fanaticism

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