Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

From Mormonism to Adventism

Cody Francis

A Pivotal Year

My Journey Out of Mormonism

A Counterfeit Movement

The Confusion of Mormonism

Reaching Mormons

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

So we come to you asking for your wisdom, for your grace.

We pray that you will be with us today, and may we learn and grow, and may our commitment to you deepen.

All right, so we looked at kind of the pivotal year of 1844 in this country and in the history of this world We looked at that on Monday then yesterday we looked more specifically at my journey my experience and my family's roots in the Latter-day Saint movement and how that progressed and how the Lord led me out of that, primarily through friendship evangelism.

We'll unpack that more on Friday when we look at tips and ideas in reaching out to those in the Mormon faith.

And so we're going to continue that, but we're also going to be looking at what I'm going to call a counterfeit movement.

And so in this counterfeit movement, the main idea that I want to be presenting is that the Mormon movement was a counterfeit, or is a counterfeit, to the Remnant Church.

And I want to look at some of the reasons why I believe that, And then I also want to look at not just some of those reasons why, but why I no longer am in that movement and why I believe we're a part of, we need to be a part of the Remnant Church, what I believe is the Remnant Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And so as we look at that, I wanna make some comparisons and some of the history to begin with.

All right, so when we look at the history of Mormonism and when we compare it to the history of Adventism, we see some striking parallels here.

And so I want to look at William Miller's experience of the Advent movement in the United States, and then look at how that parallels, how that corresponds with Joseph Smith's experience as well.

So William Miller was significantly older than Joseph Smith, about 20 some years older.

And of course we're familiar with his life story, at least I hope we are.

If we're not, we can read Great Controversy and lots of other excellent resources in regard to that.

He was raised in the church, and then in the War of 1812, he recognized that they had to have been saved by a providential hand.

And so, after the War of 1812, as he was thinking about it, he gave his heart to the Lord and found that even though he had all these deistic reasons, he found that the Bible met the needs of his heart.

It presented Jesus, and Jesus was what he needed in his life.

And as he was converted, then he began to study.

And as he studied, we know that the topic that particularly fascinated him, He had determined to go through the Bible without commentaries, just studying and comparing verse with verse in order to understand the Bible.

And as he is studying, he comes to the conclusion, particularly from the book of Daniel, that Jesus is coming soon.

At first he begins to say in about 25 years or something like that, and then he pinpoints it down first to 1843 and then later to 1844.

And so in 1818, just 2 years after his conversion, he was convinced in his own personal study that Jesus was coming soon.

Now, he wrote that out in an essay, first of all, in 1822.

Now, he did not start to preach about it yet.

He wasn't sharing, he just was writing out some of his thoughts.

And so he wrote out some of his thoughts there from the book of Daniel, from his evidences, from history, from scripture, And pointing to the fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 8, 14, that Jesus was going to come, and of course as he thought, going to cleanse the sanctuary of this earth with fire at his coming.

And then in 1831, he first began to preach.

And we know the famous story of how he wrestled with the Lord and said that he wasn't going to go preach.

And then he made an agreement with him that if he was asked to preach, if someone asked him, had never asked, Nobody had asked this farmer to preach before, but if someone asked him, he would go share what he had been studying.

And he had peace for about an hour, and then his nephew knocks on the door and says, we need someone to come and to preach.

My father wants to know if you can share some of the things that you have been studying.

And as the story goes, he goes out into that grove of trees and wrestles with the Lord for an hour before he surrenders and comes back and says, I will go.

And so then he begins to share his findings from scripture.

And as he does this, he begins to get more and more, and of course, the message begins to permeate through the North Atlantic states, and then Josiah Himes comes on board and becomes, there's a lot more publicity that goes along with this message until we culminate in 1844.

And of course he was disappointed then, it was the bitter disappointment of his life and but he was not, did not give loose heart that Jesus was coming.

He always believed that Jesus was coming soon.

He could not explain why it didn't happen like he thought, but he was determined to live for today and believe that Jesus was going to be here very soon.

And of course, William Miller then dies in 1849, not a Sabbath keeper, but a ardent believer in Jesus' soon coming.

And in early writings, we're told that the angels still watched the spot where he was buried, waiting for that second coming.

Now this was William Miller, very Bible-based, and the Bible was in fact the major component.

That was what he was preaching, that was what he was studying, that was what he was sharing.

You can see at the Center of Adventist Research, at the basement in the library at Andrews University, the James White Library, they have William Miller's Bible there.

You can see that the book of Daniel is probably where it's the most worn.

But after the book of Daniel, they point out that the Gospels are the second most worn part of his Bible.

He was preaching Jesus and prophecy combined and that was a part of the power of the message.

Now Joseph Smith was born in 1805 and then we find in 1820 he has his first vision.

As he was 14, he describes it later on, that Jesus and the Father both appeared to him, and as he was struggling in his mind, what church should I join?

And the answer they gave was, don't join any church because they're all wrong.

Notice that in 1818 William Miller is convinced of the second coming, the nearness of the second coming from his studies of scripture.

In 1820, right around the same time, Joseph Smith's visions begin.

1823, Angel Moroni's first visit to Joseph Smith.

1827, he is directed to and receives, according to the story, the golden plates from the hill Cumorah, there in New York.

And then in 1830, the Book of Mormon is published.

Very interesting, the church is also organized, Church of Christ, or I believe that was the name of it, as it began in 1830 as well.

And so you have the Mormon movement beginning really in 1830.

I mentioned in 1831, my 4 times great-grandfather was baptized as a Mormon, and there were only 600 members at that time.

So 1830, 1831, very few Mormons, but that is right when 1831, right when William Miller begins to preach and to share the Adventist message.

So you can see these movements are, they're developing in tandem, and they begin to be promoted about the same time as well.

There's, I just referred to that, 1830, the church is organized.

And then in 1844, Joseph Smith is killed.

And so what you have actually is, in both the great, in the Advent movement, you have a great disappointment taking place in 1844.

And in the Mormon movement, there's also a disappointment that takes place with the death of their prophet and priest and founder and president of the church there.

Now as I mentioned, I believe that this is a counterfeit remnant or a counterfeit to God's last day people.

Now let me go over some of these aspects.

The Latter-day Saint movement believes that they are restoring the true gospel.

So they believe that the gospel, the apostolic gospel, was lost over time and that Joseph Smith was come to restore the true faith.

Now, do we understand that the apostolic purity of the Christian faith diminished over time and was lost in the Dark Ages to a certain extent as well?

When we read in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 about there must be a falling away first and the man of sin be revealed, There's a falling away from the truth in God's word, right?

And then as we study and as we bring out, there was a restoration of the biblical apostolic truth.

And so the Mormon church is referred to as a Restorationist church.

Because they were believing in the restoration of the gospel, the pure gospel, that had been lost through time.

The Adventist churches also would be classified as a Restorationist.

There's a few others as well, Campbellite and a couple others in that category, that believe there's a restoration of the truth that has been lost.

And so they believe that Joseph Smith has brought a restoring of the true gospel.

Now, I think it's important, I think it's interesting to note at least, that to look at some references of this and try to understand what it is that was being restored or was thought to be being restored during this time.

These are some, this is actually from the churchofjesuchrist.org, their website, Restoration of the Gospel.

The fullness of the gospel has been restored and the true church of Jesus Christ is on the earth again.

It is not the result of a reformation with well-meaning men and women doing all in their power to bring about change.

It is a restoration of the church established by Jesus Christ.

It is the work of the heavenly father and his beloved son.

So they believe that their church is a restoration of the church of Jesus Christ and it's not done by man.

So what they're saying there is it's not like the Reformation where Luther and Melanchthon and Knox and all these individuals came along and were discovering truth from the Bible and seeking to reform the church.

No, they're saying what happened here is that wasn't good enough.

Jesus came and restored the church personally through his messenger, through Joseph Smith.

Series

From Mormonism to Adventism

A Counterfeit Movement

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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06 The Third Angel’s Message

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04 The Naked Truth

59m

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The False Prophet Speaks As a Dragon: Revelation 13

1h 1m

Plenary

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1h 2m

Plenary

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1h

Adventism: The Answer to Modern Atheism

03 Evolving Evolution and Creation’s Case

53m

The Three Angels' Message

05 The Second Angel’s Message

48m

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Sound Doctrine

58m

Prophetic Preaching and Persuasive Appeals for Decision

03 When to Preach Persuasive Appeals for Decision

58m

The Great Controversy to 2021

01 The Core of War

1h 3m

Sound Doctrine