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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Fundamentally Flawed? Considering Challenges to Truth

Jeff Horn

Trinity

Dear God, we're just happy to be gathered here this evening.

It's the Sabbath, and we ask for your spirit to bless us, God, as we learn about the Godhead that we see presented in Scripture.

And there's so much that we don't know, God, we cannot wrap our minds around it.

And sometimes we need to be careful that we can't make it into something that we can totally understand God, because we can't.

But help us to understand what you have revealed, God, and leave the rest alone.

Okay, Fundamentally Flawed, Considering Challenges to Truth is our title and this evening we're going to be talking about the Trinity.

I want to give a brief outline so we can keep on track.

We're going to first lay out what the Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in our, and that's kind of why this is called Fundamentally Flawed because each of our topics this weekend are going to deal with fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Then we're gonna talk about what the anti-Trinitarian, some major challenges that they present to those beliefs.

What we said is often known as the 1 true God movement.

We're first gonna, next we're gonna look at the Godhead in the Bible, briefly, very brief overview.

And then the history of the Godhead history, sorry, I put that in there twice, the history of the Godhead in Adventism.

Okay, so our second fundamental belief is called the Trinity, and this is what it says.

There is 1 God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of 3 co-eternal persons.

God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all and ever-present.

He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through his self-revelation.

God, who is love, is forever worthy of worship, adoration and service by the whole creation.

All right, so that deals with the triune God.

Our fourth belief, the third belief deals with the Father.

We usually don't have issues with the deity of the Father.

Fundamental belief number 4 relates to the Son.

God, the eternal Son, became incarnate in Jesus Christ.

The character of God is revealed, the salvation of humanity is accomplished, and the world is judged.

Forever truly God, he became also truly human, Jesus the Christ.

And then finally, belief number 5, the Holy Spirit.

God the eternal spirit was active with the Father and the Son in creation, incarnation and redemption.

He is as much a person as are the Father and the Son.

He draws and convicts human beings, and those who respond, he renews and transforms into the image of God.

Okay, so these are the beliefs related to the Godhead that the church has today.

Now these beliefs were not always stated so clearly if we go back to the early days of our church.

And so we're gonna come back to that, the church piece of it, but first I want to talk about some challenges that are commonly, that you're going to see commonly now with the 1 True God movement or anti-Trinitarians.

Okay, first of all, I'm going to take just a quick moment here.

Each of these 3 topics has become very personally relevant for me because we've had challenges basically in my local church and people very close to me in each of these topics.

And so with this 1, last spring, I started hearing some rumblings and there started to be some DVDs passed around my church.

I was given 1 at 1 point and they turned out to be of this 1 True God movement.

And then there were speakers saying things in Sabbath school that were starting to undermine Jesus and his deity.

And so by the time we really realized what had happened, this thing was starting to spread.

We probably should have acted quicker in hindsight, but by the time it was all said and done, We had lost 3 of our 6 elders at my local church.

We lost 7 of our 14 board members, and we lost 11 members in total that resigned from Adventism out of, and this is a church that has about 50 attending on Sabbath.

And so it was literally half of our leadership of the church left over this issue.

And so I don't just speak about this from a factual data standpoint, although there's gonna be a lot of that, but it really was, it tears you apart when it actually comes to your local church and you see it.

So I want, when any of you end up in a different setting and that comes in, I want you to be able to deal with it quickly and concisely.

So what is going to be said, what's been said to me, is that the Trinity is a Catholic belief that's been sort of imported later into Adventism after our foundations, And so why would we do that, right?

We don't want Catholic beliefs, not to mention that we do share many beliefs with Catholics, but that's what's put forward.

They'll say the triune God is not in scripture.

The word Trinity is not in the Bible, and that's true, but the concept is there, we'll talk about that.

They'll say, and there is a heavy reliance on the pioneers, the pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, almost as if they are on the same level like inspired writers.

And they'll say the pioneers rejected the Trinity.

Along with that, Ellen White rejected the Trinity.

And then what it comes down to is the SDA church has abandoned our holy and pure foundations, and so therefore the SDA church is an apostasy and now they're calling a remnant out of the remnant into the 1 True God movement.

Okay, so let's start talking about this first from scripture.

You know, Deuteronomy 6, 4, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is 1.

And this is the Shema, very popular for the Jews, of course.

Well, it's interesting, if you look at that word, there for 1, it's the same word that's used, for example, in the story of the Tower of Babel.

And the Lord said, indeed, the people are 1, and they all have 1 language.

It means to be 1 in purpose or 1 in nature, if you will, okay?

And so the Lord our God being 1 in purpose, we have no issue with that.

That's what we believe about the triune God, Okay?

Briefly in the Old Testament, and I wanna say this about the Old Testament.

I think what we can clearly draw from the Old Testament is that God consists of more than 1 being.

And once you've established that God consists of more than 1 being, why would you have a problem with there being 3?

If you say, well, there must be at least 2, why can't there be 3?

You know, and the Holy Spirit becomes an issue we'll get into later.

But I think you have a harder time pinning down the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.

He's there, but less clearly, much more clearly in the New Testament.

But from the Old Testament, you can conclude God is more than 1 being, certainly.

Second verse of the Bible, Genesis 1-2, the Holy Spirit is there.

The Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

And here you have the Holy Spirit acting in a way, doing things that people do.

The challenge that comes in, and I meant to mention this earlier, the challenge that comes in with Jesus is usually that he was begotten at some point in eternity past, who knows how many millions of years back, but at some point, the Father brought Jesus forth from his being, and Jesus then became his own separate being.

So that means he hasn't existed all the way back.

Okay, he was he was somehow in the Father's being and then he was brought forth.

The Spirit, the Holy Spirit is said to be just the impersonal force of God's will.

Sometimes, there's different variants of this.

Sometimes it's the force of Jesus' will, sometimes it's the Father.

The will of the Father and Son is just an impersonal force, not a being.

But here we see the Holy Spirit doing something that beings do, it hovered over the face of the water.

Genesis 126, let us make man in our image.

If it's let us, there has to be more than 1, right?

Jesus has been down investigating the situation, if you recall, with a couple of angels.

And the Lord calls down fire and brimstone from the Lord.

So there's 1 Lord on earth, Jesus, and there's 1 Lord up in heaven, and 1 is calling fire and brimstone down from the other.

Isaiah 6, 8, whom shall I send and whom will go for us?

You can see names here that can be used appropriately for the son.

Testimony

Dear God, thank you for being with us through this weekend.

And as we consider just 1 more topic here, that is the spirit of prophecy, God, you've given it to be a guide and a blessing to us in the last days of earth's history.

And so we're not surprised to see attacks on this at all, but just help us to understand the reasons for our faith, God, so that we could explain those and share those, and your Spirit could work on hearts, God.

The timer is off for today, so I have as much time as needed this time.

I wanted to start off with something here, maybe a little bit different.

Lewis's trilemma, where he poses, you know, what are you going to do with Jesus because of who he claims to be?

You know, either he's a liar or he's a lunatic or he's Lord.

You know, those are your options based on the claims that he made.

I want to suggest something maybe a little bit similar, not to put Ellen White on the level of Jesus at all, but I want to share the statement that she makes.

So while he's working on this, I just want to say, whenever people come with attacks on Ellen White, talking about this and that about Ellen White, whether it's ad hominem, something about her character, or she says this, I don't even really get into that with somebody because any of our beliefs can be defended from the Bible.

Okay, what belief is it that you're having a question about?

Because Ellen White is just shedding additional light, you know, making it more clear in our modern day language, etc.

So when people want to just start arguing about Ellen White, I really don't even go that direction.

Okay, so Ellen White on her writing, she says, Sister White is not the originator of these books.

They contain the instruction that during her life work, God has been giving her.

They contain the precious comforting light that God has graciously given his servant to be given to the world.

From their pages this light is to shine into the hearts of men and women leading them to the Savior." Okay, so she claims, this is her writing in third person, she is not the originator of these books.

Well, you know, what options do we have then if she's claiming a divine source?

You know, those are really our options here.

Adventist beliefs, so our 18th fundamental belief.

The scriptures testify that 1 of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy.

This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church, and we believe it was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G.

Her writings speak with prophetic authority and provide comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction to the church.

They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.

Let's take just a couple of minutes here for a little background.

She was injured as a young girl, a serious injury that she sustained from that rock-throwing incident which cut her education short, made life very challenging to her in numerous ways.

And as a teenager, she became a Millerite believer in the movement of 1844.

During her life, following 1844, actually by the end of that year, she started receiving prophetic visions and dreams, and over the course of her ministry, she received over 2, 000 of those type of visions.

She helped found publishing houses, wrote books, established churches, schools, health centers, and hospitals.

In fact, it was over 40 books and 5, 000 articles that she wrote, 60, 000 pages.

And keep in mind, this was with very little formal education.

She's the world's most translated female author of all time.

I actually heard that might have just been passed by somebody.

I can't remember if this was a, who's the Harry Potter person?

Anyway, so, but until recent days, and maybe she still is, but I did hear that recently.

She helped the Seventh-day Adventist Church grow from 50 people to 140, 000 in her lifetime, and now over 20 million members.

But there's been many attacks and continue to be attacks leveled at her.

If we read from Matthew chapter 5, we read, blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.

For so they persecuted the prophets." This is what's always happened to the prophets.

"'We have found Paul to be a troublemaker who is constantly stirring up riots among the Jews all over the world.

He is a ringleader of the cult known as the Nazarenes.

Do we get accused of being a cult now with Ellen White being our ringleader?

You know, I think that certainly happens.

Paul answered this way, "'These men cannot prove the things "'they accuse me of doing, "'but I admit that I follow the way "'which they call a cult.'" And so I think that it's the same thing for us.

You know, If you're gonna call being true to scripture and believing in the marks of the remnant church, if that's gonna be what you call a cult, then that's up to you, but we're following the word of God.

I worship the God of our ancestors and I firmly believe the Jewish law and everything written in the prophets.

Jesus himself, of course, was called the Prince of Demons.

All right, so we're gonna consider, and just, you know, so many charges get leveled out there, it's easy to throw this accusation or that out there.

I'm gonna try to categorize them into some major ones and we'll consider just a little bit here.

So the first 1 we're gonna look at is the charge of plagiarism that Ellen White pulled extensively pulled her writings from other writers without giving them credit.

Charge number 2 that she gave failed prophecies thereby making her a false prophet.

Number 3, that there's factual errors in her work, again, proving that it's not inspired, so the critics would say.

And Number 4, that she contradicted the Bible.

Of course, if you contradict the Bible, you can't be a prophet of God.

All right, so let's spend some time on these.

Most of these, again, kind of date all the way back to D.M.

Canwright, a guy that we talked about in terms of his sanctuary challenges this morning.

They've really been, a lot of them have been responded to, but they're kind of being repackaged and recycled.

I like this statement from the great controversy.

While God has given ample evidence for faith, he will never remove all excuse for unbelief.

All who look for hooks to hang their doubts upon will find them.

And those who refuse to accept and obey God's word until every objection has been removed and there is no longer an opportunity for doubt will never come to the light.

People take this approach with the Bible, and they say, no, I'm still not totally sure here or there, and they'll hold on to that.

And if that's the approach they're gonna take, if they're looking for those hooks to hang their doubts upon, they'll find them with the Bible just like they will with the writings of Ellen White.

The charge is basically that Ellen White extensively copied from other authors without giving credit.

2 books primarily come into scrutiny here, others as well.

But the 2 main ones are typically the Great Controversy and then a book called Sketches from the Life of Paul, all right?

Here we have the percentage of borrowed material, and I wanna say here, you can see they're very specific.

This is actually from Herbert Douglas' Messenger of the Lord book.

Different people could come up with different numbers.

The reason for that is it's very hard to even know what do you consider borrowed or not.

You know, how similar does a sentence or a paragraph need to be before it's borrowed?

I mean, everybody who writes has ideas from other authors in their minds that come out in their own words.

So you can see the great controversy and the sketches from the life of Paul at the high end of this list.

What we want to do is consider how this worked in the Bible.

Tabernacle

Dear God, we just ask your spirit to be here this morning, God, and may the points that are brought forward not be mine, but may they be clear and speak to the minds that are here.

And then at the conclusion of this, God, may our hearts be touched by this message that you've given us, this precious message in the sanctuary, God.

The sanctuary is the plan of salvation laid out in simple kindergarten terms for us to understand.

And we have a fundamental belief that relates to the sanctuary and specifically the cleansing of the sanctuary, which is the peace that usually comes under fire.

It's that what we call the investigative judgment.

There is a sanctuary in heaven, the true tabernacle that the Lord set up and not humans.

In it, Christ ministers on our behalf, making available to believers the benefits of his atoning sacrifice offered once for all on the cross.

At his ascension, he was inaugurated as our great high priest and began his intercessory ministry which was typified by the work of the high priest in the holy place of the earthly sanctuary." And it continues.

This is, I believe, our longest fundamental belief, by the way.

In 1844, at the end of the prophetic period of 2, 300 days, he entered the second and last phase of his atoning ministry, which was typified by the work of the high priest in the most holy place of the earthly sanctuary.

It is a work of investigative judgment, which is part of the ultimate disposition of all sin typified by the cleansing of the ancient Hebrew sanctuary on the day of atonement." So that is a mouthful.

We're going to spend a bit of time talking about what that means and some challenges that are raised.

Raymond Cottrell said about 20 years ago, this doctrine, which is the sanctuary, has been the object of more criticism and debate by both Adventists and non-Adventists, remember this is an internal and an external attack, than all other facets of our faith combined.

So it's a strong statement and maybe a hard 1 to quantify, but it's probably true.

This has been a hot topic pretty much since the beginning of our movement.

And I want to just lay out briefly, these are some of the internal issues that we've had.

It's almost every generation or so, every 1 or 2 generations, another serious challenge is mounted against the sanctuary message.

As early as the 1860s, so right from the very founding of our movement, you had 2 guys by the names of Snook and Brinkerhoff.

They kind of sound like they're rascals, and they were.

It was actually the Iowa conference president and the secretary of that conference, and they started to question the validity of 1844 and the 2300 days.

They actually ended up founding what would become the Church of God Seventh Day, which is still around.

It has an offshoot movement, which is the Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God.

This is a movement that's typically a feast-keeping movement And so this movement traces its roots all the way back to the Adventists Snook and Brinkerhoff.

All right, and along each of the way, each of these challengers had defenders that would defend our sanctuary message.

I'm not going to spend time on the defenders this morning.

At the turn of the century, right before 1900, you had a guy named Canwright that many of you have probably heard as well, because Canwright, a lot of the charges for our afternoon topic, the spirit of prophecy, a lot of the attacks on Ellen White, come from Canwright as well.

And then there was another guy named Albion Ballinger at the time that brought forward challenges and related to Jesus.

A lot of this relates to Jesus going straight into the most holy place at his ascension, which we will talk about.

In the 1930s and 40s, you had Fletcher and Conradi come forward.

Andreasen defended the sanctuary very strongly at that time.

And then in the 70s and 80s, probably the most famous name in this topic we know of, Desmond Ford put forward his refutation of our two-phase sanctuary ministry of Christ and Robert Brinsmead learned from Desmond Ford and took those ideas forward.

Dale Ratzlaff, I think he actually recently passed away, but Dale Ratzlaff ran his proclamation magazine trying to tell Adventists the sanctuary is wrong.

And we still have these challenges coming up today.

Okay, so each of these topics has become very personally relevant to me because I've dealt with it in a local church context, okay?

We talked about what that was last night.

Series

Fundamentally Flawed? Considering Challenges to Truth

Trinity

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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