Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Christ and the Heavenly Sanctuary

Mark Howard

01 Sanctuary 101

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

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

Gracious Father in heaven, we are so thankful for your many blessings to each and every 1 of us.

We thank you for the privilege of being here at Camp Meeting, for being able to fellowship with like-minded believers, to have our hearts stirred by gospel-focused preachers, and having the Spirit of God enlighten our understanding in spiritual things.

Now as we study the subject of the sanctuary, we pray that you would guide us in a very personal and practical way in this topic.

Bless each 1 who's here and those who are Watching online, perhaps later Lord, watching recordings, that we would gain a clear understanding of the significance of this Bible doctrine for those of us living in these last days.

We ask and pray these things in Jesus name and for his sake.

I want to start off so I think in the seminar booklet, this is called the topic today is sanctuary 101.

I think we called it that And I've renamed it to Sanctuary 201.

If you know anything about college, I don't even know if they do that with college classes before, but the 201 was a little more advanced.

Not that we're gonna be real in the weeds, but what we're gonna cover today is kind of a setting a tone for the week, and it's more of a big picture of the subject of the sanctuary, maybe beyond what you, some of you have studied at any rate, but I think you'll be able to follow it.

I want to start out with a statement in the book Great Controversy that you may be familiar with.

It says, the subject of the sanctuary and the what?

We'll be talking about the investigative judgment specifically later this week, but I want you to notice that The word subject is singular.

And we'll expound on that again later this week.

It's not the subjects of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment.

When we're talking about the investigative judgment, that's a verbiage we use in the Adventist Church for the subject of the sanctuary.

The subject of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment should be clearly understood by the people of God.

All need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of who?

Now without going into it a lot at the moment, I want to tell you that when we're studying the subject of the sanctuary, the focal point is the work of the high priest.

It's what's happening within, it's not the structure itself so much as what's happening and what's being taught about the work of our great High Priest through the sanctuary service.

All need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of their great High Priest, otherwise it will be what?

It will be impossible for them to exercise the faith which is essential at this time, or to occupy the position which God designs them to fill.

That's a pretty intense statement, isn't it?

Like you've got to understand this personally or it will be impossible for you to have the faith to make it through the last days.

It will be impossible for you to be able to carry out the mission that God's entrusted you with as a follower of Jesus Christ as the Seventh Day Adventist Christian.

I want to start out with that so that you're thinking to yourself, like this is not just any old doctrine.

And Saints you have to understand if you didn't understand it to this point, that this is the doctrine that is unique to us as Seventh-day Adventists.

The teaching of the Sabbath was not unique to us as Seventh-day Adventists.

You go back to our pioneer stories and you realize that there were the Seventh-day Baptists and we gleaned from them.

Of course, you know, it's in Scripture, but I'm saying from movements of Christianity.

It wasn't the Adventists who said, hey, let's start keeping the Sabbath.

But it was Seventh-day Adventists who understood the significance of the sanctuary.

And this draws a fair amount of heat from other people who are not Seventh-day Adventists.

They say, ah, it's a crazy doctrine, and it's a misapplication, and there's different things that people say about it.

And 1 of the reasons for that, as we'll see here shortly, is that the sanctuary and its services, as taught in the Scripture and designed by God, were intended to teach the subject of the atonement.

And the truth of the matter is that the way the sanctuary teaches the atonement is not in harmony with a lot of the way evangelicals view the atonement.

But it's not for me to superimpose upon the Bible what I think it ought to teach about the plan of salvation.

It's for me to draw from the Bible and let the Bible teach me what the plan of salvation is and that's exactly what we're going to see in the sanctuary.

This is what our schedule looks like today.

Tomorrow, Pastor Cameron will be presenting the subject, The Journey of the Lamb, just walking through the service of the sanctuary and drawing some some things from that.

On our third presentation, let's see, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, he lives, and Cameron will be talking about the significance of the living Christ.

We praise God for the cross of Christ, But the ministry of Jesus did not end on Calvary, and he'll be fleshing that out a little bit.

On Wednesday, the topic is the day the devil dies.

And again, Pastor Cameron is going to be sharing on that topic.

It's coming down to some of the conclusive work of the sanctuary and then on Thursday and Friday I'm going to be talking specifically about the subject of the investigative judgment, where we get the term from, explaining some of the misconceptions that people have had over the years, and trying by God's grace to give some clarity to what the investigative judgment really is about, why it's so important, kind of drawing back in that statement that we just looked at in concluding our series.

So that's what we're looking at this week.

So I'm gonna start here with the Sanctuary 201.

I want you to go in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews and we're going to begin in chapter 9.

Now incidentally, I probably should have said that I did a seminar here last year on the sanctuary, And there are going to be some overlapping things, but there are a lot of things, most of what's going to be covered this year is not what I covered last year.

1 of the things we did was went over the 2300 day timeline, and if you were hoping that we would go over that here, we're not going to, but you can access last year's presentation if you want to get into that.

Hebrews chapter 9 and looking at the first verse here it says, then indeed even the first...

Now I better say this up front that I believe the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Hebrews.

I'm not going to get in a fight with you about it, but you'll just hear me say on a regular basis, Paul said, Paul said, and look what Paul said here.

And I've had certain people say, well I'm not sure if Paul wrote that.

You can think whoever wrote it, But we're still talking about the book of Hebrews, so don't hold that against me.

So this is what I think Paul said here in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 1.

He says, then indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary for a tabernacle was prepared.

And you understand that the first sanctuary was a tent that was built in the wilderness under the guidance of the Lord.

He gave Moses instruction, showed him a blueprint.

Later on when they settled in the land of Canaan, they built a temple.

The temple that was made of marble was the same thing as the sanctuary made of canvas and goat's hair and all the other things that went into that.

It's the structure, so it was originally a temple.

We're talking about, we would say, the temple later on.

But Paul goes way back to the to the first model, if you will.

The first Part in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary.

And behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the what?

Now we would call that first part the holy place, and we'll see that as we go on, and then the second part, the most holy place.

And he goes on to tell us what's in each apartment of the earthly tabernacle, and he tells us some of the work, which I'm not going into all that.

After he explains all that, he says to us, it was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed a service perfect in regard to the conscience, concerned only with foods and drinks, etc." 0 in right there on the beginning of verse 9, Paul as he's describing this structure and its services said it was a, it was symbolic.

That's what it says in the New King James Version.

I believe the King James says it was a figure.

And if you've studied this before, you know that the Greek word that's used there, that's translated, I'm getting my versions mixed up again...

And you don't have to be a Greek scholar to be able to deduce what that word is usually translated as.

What do you think the Greek word parabola usually is translated as in the New Testament?

Listen to you Greek scholars out there, all of you.

Parable, and of course, and so, and what is a parable?

A parable is a story that's trying to illustrate a greater point.

Now that's the word the apostle chose when he's trying to describe the sanctuary.

He said the sanctuary and its services, it was a parable.

Kameron DeVasher

02 The Journey of the Lamb

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day of life you've given us.

Thank you for the opportunity to know you, to learn more about you through your word.

And Lord, by your grace, become like you.

So again, yesterday, Pastor Howard presented Sanctuary 201.

And in that presentation, that overview message, he made many important points, but 1 I want to hone in right now.

And that is that the sanctuary was intended to be more than merely a model.

Now we typically, he talked about type and anti-type, how there's the sanctuary structure, the building, the furnishings, and it reminds us, it teaches us, it's a scale model of, the Bible says, what is in heaven for sure.

It is a type, but more than merely a scale model, it's actually a parable.

If you recall, he talked about that word being a parable.

It's a process, a narrative by which we understand God's process better.

And it's not merely the story of how man can be saved and returned to heaven.

It's actually broader in its scope than that.

It touches on the entirety of the great controversy.

This is a map of how God deals with sin and is going to restore his universe to order.

So today, in a message entitled, The Journey of the Lamb, we're going to be looking at that central figure in that typology, which is of course the Lamb.

The Lamb is all the way through the offerings, the sacrifices, all the way through those services.

It's central to the truth of the sanctuary.

So we're going to be following the journey of the lamb as the scripture outlines it for us.

So, it should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway, just to be clear, that all the sacrificial lambs and offerings presented in the sanctuary represented whom?

So every lamb sacrifice, every offer given was a representation, was a foreshadowing of Jesus himself.

So Jesus is that true lamb that all those types pointed forward to.

Now what may not be so obvious, however, is that Jesus was the lamb long before he was a man.

We're going to think about this and want to show it to you from scripture.

Okay, so for example, let's look at 1 of many texts and again get your Bibles ready.

We're going to follow it up with other ones.

We're going to see in the Bible itself right in our own hands, but it tells us that in 1 Peter chapter 1, he speaks of how we are, quote, not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, which he seems to be implying all those ceremonial laws which are to point forward to Christ, but it's not like the offerings given, the silver, the gold, the furnishings, or even the lamb sacrifices had any inherent power.

Is anyone saved through the type of the lamb?

No, they're only saved through Jesus Christ who himself is the lamb, right?

So all of those things don't actually do the saving, they point forward to the Savior.

Okay, so again, we are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by traditions from your fathers, but with the precious blood of whom?

Christ, and a comma, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." So Christ is that lamb without blemish and without spot.

But notice what else it tells us about Christ as the Lamb.

Quote, he indeed was foreordained, let's look at this, foreordained when?

Before the foundations of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

So do you notice that there are 2 phases of his Lamb work?

There's the foreordained, when it was a plan, and then there was the manifestation when the plan was activated.

So he says Christ is that lamb that all those things pointed forward to but in Christ we have to realize that he was first for ordained and then was manifested.

So let's dig into this a little bit deeper.

The Apostle Paul, we're going to go through some of these very quickly.

But let's, for instance, go to Romans chapter 16, verse 26.

This idea that God had a plan for Christ to become the Lamb long before the earth began is repeatedly invoked in the scripture.

For example, Romans chapter 16 verse 26, We're going to go through these rather quickly, like I said.

The Apostle Paul invokes the term mystery and he talks about how it was this plan or God's manifold wisdom that he kept hidden in himself.

Notice this, now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret when?

Since the world began, but now made manifest.

Peter talked about it in 2 phases, foreordained and then manifest.

Now it's talking about it was a secret about Jesus Christ, but then was made manifest.

It had an early stage where it was merely an idea before it was actually activated.

We can see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 7 where the Apostle Paul speaks of quote, the wisdom of God, which he goes on to call the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages.

Ephesians chapter 3 verse 9, along the same line says, quote, The mystery which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God.

Again, Colossians chapter 1 verse 26, speaking of the ministry of Jesus, it refers to, quote, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations.

Way back in time, before the earth was formed, there was the concept of the Lamb, the manifold wisdom of God that according to Paul, he kept hidden in himself." Now, I don't know about you, have you ever had an idea that you didn't express out loud?

A dream, a plan, some sort of scheme, a strategy, something you had in mind, maybe some business venture you didn't want to say yet, you didn't want to jinx it or say, but you've got this idea in your mind, but you don't tell anybody about it.

Apparently, God had the plan for Christ to be the Lamb in himself without telling anybody.

Thus, for example, when John in the book of Revelation speaks of Jesus.

He calls him quote, the Lamb slain from when?

Was Jesus actually physically slain at the creation or even fall of man way back in Eden?

No, but was he for ordained, was he planned to do that from then?

So before Christ became the Lamb in person, He was the lamb, if you will, on paper.

It was the hidden wisdom of God that he kept secret.

Why wouldn't God just go ahead and showcase Jesus as the Lamb, the Savior of the world, as soon as the plan was hatched?

So, what is the thing that it was a response to?

So until sin broke out, until sin existed, there was no need for a plan of redemption.

But was God prepared in case such an emergency should arise.

Yes, that God in his infinite wisdom had a lamb in a glass case, tucked away in his heart, didn't tell anybody about it, but he was ready before the emergency was needed.

So repeatedly, whether it's the Apostle Peter, whether it's the Apostle Paul, or the Apostle John, they all speak of the Lamb having been slain or foreordained before the foundation of the world.

Now, as we mentioned, since it is a contingency plan, it is a response, Then there was no need to explain it to people or announce it or activate it.

It just could stay right there hidden in God's heart and we don't know for how long.

But we do know that a time came when sin did break out in God's universe.

All we know about heaven was that everything was perfect until 1 day it wasn't.

Go to Isaiah chapter 14 if you would very quickly.

By the way, anytime we look at a text, I'm probably going to urge you to do it very quickly because we're on the clock today.

03 He Lives!

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for the opportunity of life even in this world, but the promise of eternal life to come, Lord, all because of our Creator and Redeemer, Jesus.

Help us to see Jesus more clearly today and understand His work more carefully and closely as by Your grace we prepare to see Jesus soon and very soon.

Yesterday was the journey of the Lamb, and we simply chronicled all the Bible evidence about the history and trajectory, the chronology of the Lamb of God and how Christ was the Lamb long before he was incarnate.

He was a lamb on paper in his very heart as a plan.

And then it was activated when man fell into sin.

And as the sanctuary services outline, Christ was born and raised in the camp.

He moved into the courtyard in his public ministry, took on him our sin, culminating in his death in Calvary, then moved into the heavens, and continues to minister on our behalf even to this day.

We're gonna pick up the baton exactly where we left off yesterday, dive deeper into those themes today in this message entitled, He Lives.

But we're going to begin our study in the book of Acts.

So please take out your Bibles and go to Acts chapter 1.

Again, we're going to have some of the slides, some of the information on the slides, but of course, you always want to double check with scripture and have it in your hand.

Look for context, and of course, the technology could fail at any time, but we still have God's word right in our hands.

Acts chapter 1, Jesus' final days with his disciples after his resurrection, but before he ascended into heaven.

Acts chapter 1 begins, we're gonna start with verse 4.

It says, and being assembled together with them, he commanded them, and I know this is the book of Acts, so we're thinking go into all the world, right, The Great Commission, right?

But what is his first command before go to the world?

Being assembled together with him, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for what?

The promise, the promise, he said, of the Father, which he said, you have heard from me.

He goes on to say, for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, how long?

If we had the time in this series, we could talk about the services of the Old Testament sanctuary and how there were those feasts of the Lord that were to be kept throughout the calendar year.

Each of those, we're looking forward to certain elements, certain phases of Christ's work on our behalf.

And here, the day of Pentecost, of course, was almost there, 50 days or the Feast of Weeks, 7 weeks after the Passover where Christ was the antitypical lamb of God who was slain, then on the day of Pentecost, 50 days later, he would be the first fruits that would be representative of the great harvest to come in heaven.

So Jesus is standing here at day 40, just a few days, not many days before the day of Pentecost when he knew he had a divine appointment in the heavens and he's spending the last few minutes with his disciples.

Saying, you're going to go to all the world, but wait first for the promise of the Father, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

And so they, as good Christians do, obeyed.

When he had spoken these things while they watched, I like to do this in evangelistic series, read these few verses here and count on your hand the number of references to visibility that are included here.

Now when he had spoken these things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, 2 men stood by them in white apparel who said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into where?

This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.

Gaze, stare, look, see, saw, all over the place, it's language of visibility.

When Christ returns, as scripture says, it will be in like manner, will it be visible?

Absolutely, There is no such thing as a secret, invisible coming of Christ.

When Christ returns, not only by the way will it be visible, it will be personal.

This same Jesus who you saw will so come in like manner.

I don't know if you've ever been, in fact I know you've been young before.

In your youth, have you ever played with a balloon and it got away?

Or you try to see an airplane going across the sky taking off and try to see how far you can see before it completely just disappears?

Right, you're straining your eye, you're squinting, you might be looking at, and here these disciples are, they've spent this time with Jesus, and now, only in the last few days, have they fully understood his mission and message, and in fact, it wouldn't be till the Holy Spirit comes later on that they even grasp all of it.

Series

Christ and the Heavenly Sanctuary

06 Living in the Day of Atonement, Part 02

Transcript

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