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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Daniel Calaguas

Mrs. White & Modern Adventism

And I think 1 of my goals here this morning is to make this something that is relevant to us.

And I want to enter into kind of the Sabbath school vibe, you know, and I think it's perfect because this is the hour of Sabbath school.

And it's actually a perfect environment to discuss these things, I think.

And 1 of the things I'll say is that whenever a discussion about Unwike comes up, it can be a bit controversial.

I hope that today we can shed a little bit more light rather than heat.

I think what would help too with the relevance of what we're talking about this morning is talking a little bit about who's presenting to you.

So we all live in modern Adventism, you know, we're not in the 1800s, 1900s.

And some of us here have been in Loma Linda for a long time.

And I happen to be a Loma Linda lifer, and maybe some of you have heard that term before, and maybe some of you are Loma Linda lifers.

It's a bit of a, it's not quite a pejorative term, but it's close to being 1.

It kind of gives this connotation of, like a sheltered connotation, institutionally inbred connotation, and that's okay.

And Some of you know what I'm talking about.

I was born in the third floor of the Vintage Hospital and dedicated at the university church and went to school at the academy for elementary years and high school years.

Went away for college for a little bit to San Diego and then I actually started coming to Advent Hope when I was in San Diego and it's been the better part of 18 years coming here.

And came back from medical school and graduated in 2013 and then stayed on as a pediatric resident and then stayed on as faculty.

And I think that when you grow up in Loma Linda, you don't realize that you're growing up in an Adventist Mecca.

You know, people from all over the world, and all over the nation, they come just to visit Loma Linda because it's an Adventist Mecca.

They'll tour the campus, they'll go to the hospital and look at the cafeteria and they'll go to the university church.

And this happens on a regular basis, you know, and growing up you don't realize that.

And I think that 1 of the things that's so unique about our county is that time and time again, year after year, it's kind of known as a county that has a large saturation of Adventist people.

I think in our county alone, there are like 60 Adventist churches.

And then in just the local area, just the neighboring cities around Loma Linda, there are like 30.

I took a little bit of, I went to Google Maps and kind of just looked at just a 5 by 2 mile area.

You can kind of see how there are so many different churches just in this space.

I took particular interest in New Jersey Street, which is competing for the holiest street in the area because there are 3 churches, almost 4 churches, within just like a half a mile radius.

And then you look at kind of where we are.

Here, the green square is Avent Hope, and we are a part of the Loma Linda University Church.

And we are part of the church, and although we are part of it in proximity, we're actually closer in proximity to the Campus Hill Church.

And I don't know how often that happens, It just kind of speaks to the saturation that is here in Loma Linda.

And I think what is so interesting is that all of these churches, I've had the pleasure of, there's Campus Hill.

I've had the pleasure of, most of them I've had the pleasure of visiting, and they each all have their different vibe.

And I'm sure many of you have visited many of the churches around the area too.

And we kind of give each other that look like, why aren't you at Advent Hope today?

So you know the vibe there, and each 1 is so different, and it depends, you know, like some churches are bigger, some churches are smaller, some churches have a cultural ethnic background, others demographic is different, and it all contributes to the vibe of that church.

And what I would say is that in Loma Linda in particular, you have this spectrum of Adventist people and this spectrum of Adventist, I would say, belief.

You know, I think as Adventist people, we all are united under a belief system and we all have the same beliefs, but I think within those beliefs there are nuances of thought, okay?

And I guess what I would say, and here's kind of the point of this introduction, If you think about it, just the way I've observed, there are many things that contribute to where someone is, I guess, in Adventism in their worldview.

There are many things that contribute to that.

But I think 1 thing that, 1 variable that significantly affects someone's worldview or avenous worldview is how that person relates to the writings of Ellen White.

And the writings of Ellen White, they don't confer goodness and they don't confer evil, but they certainly influence somebody's thought.

And said in a more provocative way, I would say that, you know, How much, what, how does someone, what authority does Ellen White's writings have in somebody's life?

What authority do the writings of Ellen White have in somebody's life?

And the answer to that question determines so much in terms of just worldview, okay?

And so that is the perspective that we're coming into when we're talking about Mrs.

And I hope this is something where we can just gain some perspective and we can see and we can ask ourselves each individually, where do we stand on that issue, I guess?

And it's with that platform that we'll, maybe let's have a word of prayer and then we'll kind of dive into this.

Dear Lord, thank you so much for the Sabbath morning and I pray that in a special way that you would give us all clarity and you would help this to be something that is concise and effective and spirit-filled.

In the Bible, you'll notice that there is this pattern that kind of comes up.

And we'll go through this pattern together.

Basically, you have like a time prophecy.

It doesn't happen with all time prophecies, but there's a prophet that precedes that time prophecy, like a proclaiming prophet, and then there's a prophet at the end of that time prophecy who kind of is associated with the fulfillment of that.

So we'll kind of look at a few examples and plug it into this formula.

I'm just gonna flash the text up on the screen.

Basically, in Genesis 6-3, it says, "'And the Lord said, "'My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be in 120 years.

So there's this period of time that God gives, and it's 120 years, and he's speaking to Noah.

And we know this as like, kind of 120 years of probation before the flood comes.

There's a statement from the Review and Herald and kind of confirms that.

It says, God determined to purify the world by a flood, but in mercy and love, he gave the Antediluvians a probation of 120 years.

And then it mentions some names who were helping with the message, okay?

I want to go through another statement talking about Enoch, and Ellen White mentions that Enoch was the first prophet among mankind.

So 1 of the things that we can do is we can plug this into kind of this pattern and see if it fits.

So we have this time prophecy of 120 years and you could argue that the prophet that comes prior to that 120 years, let's say is Enoch, just for example.

And in a way, he kind of was a prophet in an interesting way.

Not only did he speak, but he also had a son, Methuselah.

And many of you know that Methuselah, the characteristic feature of him was that he was like the longest living human being.

And 1 of the meanings of his names is that when he dies, it shall come.

Like when he dies, it shall come or his death shall bring.

And it's interesting because people maybe will look at Methuselah and will say, we are a little bit cautious of this guy because when he dies, something is gonna happen.

And we know that this eventually, his name became eventually associated with the flood because when he died, you'd argue that the flood came.

And it's a beautiful object lesson about how God, in a way, like extended probation, waiting in his long suffering, used the longest living human being to allow people to come to the knowledge of the truth of the flood.

And then at the end of the prophet that is associated with the fulfillment of the flood is Noah.

So let's go to another example in Genesis 15, 13.

The Lord is talking to Abram and he said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger "'in a land that is not theirs, "'and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them "'400 years.'" Okay, so what event, this 400 year prophecy, what event is this talking about?

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Mrs. White & Modern Adventism

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