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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

The Power of Perspective

Mark Howard

Two Altars

I am so glad to be in, at least for today, I understand, sunny Southern California.

Ryan, let me just tell you, you did a great job.

Nearly 25 years in pastoral ministry, when it comes time to actually get into the message, I know what to do, but I always bumble through all the, do we kneel here, do we stand here, and oh, did I forget to introduce that person, so you did a great job, I appreciate that.

I always love to come out here and see old friends and make new friends.

And today, I'm sure, will be no exception.

And so there's the donut, there's that gracious, that lovely couple that came up and so graciously said, hey, come over any time for free food.

You know, if you do the math, I'll let you guys work that 1 out.

And hey, I'm for donuts as much as an ex-guy, so I'm not trying to come down on anybody.

This morning, our study, well before I tell you this morning's study, let me tell you about this afternoon's study.

This afternoon is going to be more of a Bible study.

I recently did the morning devotional presentations for GYSC.

If some of you aren't familiar, that's called Generation of Youth for Christ, and they meet every year about, you know, Christmas time, holiday time.

And 1 of the presentations, I dropped an idea from 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and I remember talking to leaders afterwards there really wasn't time to get in and expound on it because it was just a piece of the message.

And I told 1 of the leaders afterwards, it was a solid point, but if anybody went to 2 Corinthians 3 to find it for themselves, they'd never get it out of there.

Most people wouldn't, because it's a very kind of confusing, but 1 of the most awesome passages in Scripture.

So we're gonna look at that this afternoon for those who are interested.

They are related and before I go further I want to pray and ask God to bless our time in his Word.

So I'm gonna invite you to bow your heads while I do that.

Gracious Father in heaven, we are so thankful for the Sabbath day and the opportunity and privilege we have to come into your presence, to experience this worship together, the fellowship, to connect with people that will help to keep us accountable in our faith.

And I pray, Lord, this morning that the spirit of truth that you promised would be present to give us understanding in your truth, not just theoretically, Lord, but a true heart religion, where We ask and pray it in Jesus name.

But now I have to tell you this this is just a few days ago.

I got a call from a pastor friend of mine who wanted to let me know that there was a couple in his church that I know that just decided that they no longer want to be Adventist.

I wish I could say that's the first or the only such call I've ever received.

The reality is I've had many such calls and typically when this happens it's because the what we might call the rules of Adventism get to be too much.

The pressure gets to be too much, there's too much to live up to, At least that's how the story goes and people do the prodigal son and bail out.

You're probably familiar with that, that in the book Christ's Object Lessons it tells us that the reason the prodigal left home is because he was weary of the restraint of his father's house.

The fact is that the rules of it, what's fascinating about the prodigal son is at the end of the whole thing he realizes the rules weren't as bad as he thought they were.

But typically when people reach this breaking point, that's where they go, down that route of the prodigal son.

And I hope and pray that they finish their story like the prodigal did, and they come back.

Maybe you have been there, or maybe you are contemplating it.

Maybe the pressure, you have felt the pressure to perform in your Christian experience.

And you've contemplated, is this really what Christianity is about?

And some people don't leave the Adventist church.

Now personally, I've always believed in the high standards we hold as Seventh-day Adventists.

Incidentally, I've told people, if you're gonna play church, and I'm not wanting to intimate that this is what this particular couple was doing, but I've told people, if you wanna play church, don't choose the Adventist Church.

Because the Adventist Church does tend to be stricter for lack of a better expression.

1 of the reasons for that is because we do try to live according to Scripture.

Now I know that sounds like I'm thumbing my nose at somebody, I'm really not.

Let me take 1 of the most controversial doctrines in our church, Christian dress, ornamentation, jewelry.

If I bring that up, oh that's it, you can bring that up anywhere and there's a firestorm and we feel like, oh Adventists, we're so particular.

What many people don't understand is this was a consistent teaching of Protestantism in the past.

Every Protestant church taught what we teach about that subject and others.

And I praise God that the Seventh-day Adventist Church has attempted to say, hey, if we see it in the Bible, we want to follow it.

And so, there's a lot of churches that don't do that.

And people say, hey, I'll just find a church that fits whatever.

So if you're going to play church, don't do it in the Adventist Church.

But I thought to myself, I've always believed in the high standards of the church and I've never come to that breaking point.

Why didn't I become overwhelmed and discouraged?

Well I suppose in in 1 sense I could think, You remember the words of Peter in John chapter 6?

Jesus said, do you guys want to leave also?

And Peter said, Lord, where else would we go?

But I believe the reason, at least for me to a great degree, has to do with something I learned very early on in my experience and that's the something I want to share with you this morning.

I want to start by going to the book of Genesis.

We're going to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 21.

Now right after the fall of Adam and Eve, Genesis 3 and verse 21, the Bible says, also for Adam and his wife the Lord made what?

Now they were caught in their sin as it were.

First of all, there's several questions here.

You know, there wasn't a little corner shop in Eden.

It was like, hey, I think they got leather garments there.

There wasn't, Adam and Eve didn't go out and hunt down animals.

There had to be an animal that they got the skins from.

I personally believe it was a lamb and I base that on scripture.

Revelation 13, 8 calls Jesus Christ the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.

We know that an animal died, it was a sacrificial animal, and the skins of that animal was used to cover their nakedness.

Again, Adam and Eve were not, they didn't go out hunting the animal, Adam and Eve did not suggest the idea to God.

God himself was, and don't miss this, from the very beginning, God was the initiator in salvation.

He wasn't waiting for man to come to him and get all repentant and say, okay, no, we really messed up and we...

Two Covenants

Where I come from we call this a Vespers service.

Sometimes people say, Vespers, that's Friday night.

Really it could be any night of the week.

As we're closing out the Sabbath today, I would like to turn our attention to a couple passages of Scripture.

I'm assuming most of you were here this morning.

I'm not gonna actually do a lot from this morning, but this morning I talked about how I got a call just this last week from a pastor friend of mine, and he had a couple in the church that had decided that Adventism was too much for them, and they were going to no longer be Adventists.

They were studying into things, And ironically, has anybody ever had this happen to a friend of yours?

Perhaps maybe even you yourself at 1 time and maybe you're on your way back, which is praise the Lord.

There are a lot of passages in scripture, especially in Paul's writings, which Peter points out that can be confusing.

And for a preacher, It's more helpful to present things in a very simple way, and sometimes it's easier to do that without going to the passage.

And I fear that too often in the Adventist Church, we really aren't familiar with the passages anymore.

And so I can give you an argument from Scripture, I can throw a couple texts in there and say, this is what it's saying, and you're like, amen, pastor, without really studying for yourself.

And then some person comes to you and says, well, you know, the Adventist church is wrong on that.

And they begin throwing texts at you that you hadn't studied those either, but they sound awful convincing.

And it was interesting as I was talking to my pastor friend that this particular couple is bringing to him certain passages and in essence, in his words, studying more than they've ever really studied before.

Unfortunately, they often are studying the books of somebody else and their take on certain things and that comes back to, too many of us don't really spend time studying the Word.

And so I want to look at a couple passages.

This afternoon We're building on what we looked at this morning.

Only I'm not gonna be looking at, or let me say it this way.

We're gonna be spending the bulk of our time in a couple passages that we typically don't spend as much time in because they tend to be more confusing and it takes more energy to go through them, and so we just don't.

I think we can make it practical, but listen, we've got to understand the scripture that we're basing our belief system on as much as it's, oh, practical and easy to understand, we've got to know where we get it from the Bible.

I'm going to be clear with you that if you don't know that, the devil's going to bring somebody in your pathway that's going to bring all kinds of fancy sounding scripture arguments.

It's going to sound like scripture arguments and you're going to be swept away with it.

Based on at least my 25 years of ministerial experience and a boatload of others.

So This afternoon, I want to start with a word of prayer, and then we are going to open our Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians 3.

Heavenly Father, I want to thank you so much for the privilege that we have of studying your word together, and more than this, Lord, that you have promised every sincere seeker the spirit of truth to lead us into an understanding of the truth.

So now Lord, as we open your word, we pray that you would bless our time together.

As We're closing the hours of the Sabbath.

May the subject that we study this evening, along with what we learned this morning, draw us closer to you and help us to be better witnesses for Christ.

All right, now, When we talk about the covenants, how many of you have ever had somebody challenge you on Sabbath keeping and say, you know, something to the effect that, listen, I know you guys feel passionate about the Sabbath, but as Christians living today, we are under the new covenant.

We're not under the old covenant anymore.

That is a mainstream evangelical idea that the difference between the covenants is that the old covenant taught the 10 Commandments, but the New Covenant doesn't.

And in fact, I suppose, I was about to say we're not gonna go to the main passages we usually look at when we look at the covenants, but then I kept myself from doing that because the first place I wanna go tonight is, or this afternoon, is to the book of Hebrews chapter 8.

And in Hebrews chapter 8, just to be clear, Paul talks about the new covenant, but he's quoting from Jeremiah.

And these 2 passages, Jeremiah's passage and Paul quoting Jeremiah are the main, and I don't have the count in front of me.

I'm going to say there's maybe 8 passages in the scripture that use the terminology New Covenant.

At least 3 of them are, this is the New Covenant in my blood at the Last Supper.

So, for as far as explaining the new covenant, there are 2 passages, Jeremiah and Hebrews.

Now that's important for a Seventh-day Adventist because most of your evangelical friends think the new covenant is exclusively New Testament.

And they don't realize that the new covenant came from the Old Testament.

Now Hebrews chapter 8, let's go to verse 6 and notice what he says there.

And I'm in Hebrews 1, so I need to go to Hebrews 8.

Bible says in verse 6, but now he, speaking of Christ, has obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as he is also mediator of what kind of covenant?

A better covenant which was established on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second." So right there, it's very clear that there was a fault with the old covenant.

And our Christian friends will say, well, fault was the law.

He says in verse 8, "'Because finding fault with, ' speaking of who?

Now, if you know anything about the Old Covenant, and I'm going to take some things, we'll just, I'll ask you instead of us digging into all the different passages, but where does the Bible tie the old covenant to?

There's an event that the old covenant is tied to.

If you don't get it, we're going to look at it in 2 Corinthians in a minute.

That's where the old covenant is tied to.

And at Sinai, when God presented the law to the people, what was the people's response to that?

That's what Jeremiah was saying when Paul, quotes, because finding fault with them, he says, "'Behold, the days are coming, ' says the Lord, "'when I will make a new covenant with, ' notice who he's making it with, "'the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

This is another very fascinating piece about the covenants.

God did not make a covenant with the Gentiles, he made it with the Jews.

And so any person who's becoming a part of Israel becomes part of spiritual Israel.

So again, this is a mind-blower for your Christian friends.

They're like, no, God made the old covenant with the Jews, new covenant he made with the Gentiles.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord." So there's the finding fault with them, they didn't continue.

Now verse 10, "'For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days says the Lord I will put what?

Evangelical Christian your Christian friends.

They thought the new covenant didn't have the law in it.

And yet, what's the first thing the Lord says?

I'm gonna make a new covenant, and when I do, this is what I'm gonna do in that new covenant I'm gonna put my laws in their hearts and write them in their mind rather and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they should be my people, et cetera, et cetera.

So just to be clear, the common understanding in Christianity is that the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is that 1 has the law and 1 does not.

But scripture does not teach that at all.

Scripture is very clear that both have the law of God.

So if that's the case, what's the difference with the 2?

Well, you get a little bit of an idea in the finding fault with them, but we're gonna pick up on that difference in the other passages we look at today.

And we're gonna start in 2 Corinthians, pardon me, chapter 3.

Series

The Power of Perspective

Two Covenants

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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