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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Stephen Bohr: Ready for His Appearing

Stephen Bohr

Three Inseparable Doctrines

It's nice to see such a large group of God's people out this evening on a Friday evening.

I know it's not easy to get out on a Friday evening because the week has been long and we have lots of things to do in preparation for the Sabbath.

But of all of the meetings that I attended when I was a student and when I was a teacher in our college in Columbia in South America, Friday evening was my favorite because the week had ended and now I had a chance to unwind.

And you know this is a nice place to unwind.

It's amazing how tranquil Loma Linda is on Friday in spite of the fact that the city has surrounded Loma Linda.

You know as I was sitting in my car I got here a little bit early I was amazed to see 2 raccoons walk across the lawn right out here you know on this busy thoroughfare I don't know if you've seen but they they seem to be husband and wife because they were walking just in step together and I said wow you know even the raccoons come out on Friday night because the people are all hiding but anyway it's nice to be here with this group what we're going to do this weekend is study some very important subjects relating to final events and the preparation for the coming of Jesus.

I know that probably some of you have seen some of the presentations, perhaps all of the presentations on 3ABN, Cracking the Genesis Code, And because I knew that probably there were some people here who had watched Cracking the Genesis Code, I've chosen 4 subjects that are not in that series so that we don't have a duplication of material.

Before we get into our study this evening, which is titled, 3 Inseparable Doctrines, we want to ask the Lord's guidance.

And so I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray.

Father in Heaven, we thank you for the wonderful hours of your Holy Sabbath.

How great it is to just finish all of our endeavors, all of our work, and just bask in your presence.

We ask, Father, that as we open your holy word this evening, that your Holy Spirit will come to be with us and explain that word to us and plant the seed of truth in our hearts, that that seed might germinate and it might grow and it might bear fruit in our lives we thank you father for hearing our prayer for we ask it in Jesus name amen by the way the titles of the presentations tonight of course 3 inseparable doctrines.

Tomorrow morning during the worship service, the title is Hidden Sabbath Truths.

We're going to discuss some issues relating to the Sabbath, which I have found in no book other than Patriarchs and Prophets and yet I'd read Patriarchs and Prophets for for 30 years and I had never seen the things that I'm going to share with you tomorrow morning until March of this year When I was on my way to Panama And I'll just give you a little inkling about what we're going to discuss You know I've always wondered why God didn't give Adam and Eve a direct command to keep the Sabbath in Genesis 2.

Now I know we can prove that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance but it would have been nice for God to, I think anyway, for God to put there in Genesis 2, Adam and Eve keep the Sabbath and all of your descendants keep the Sabbath.

But there's no direct command in Genesis 2 where God says to Adam and Eve keep the Sabbath.

And another interesting thing of the creation story is that the seventh day, according to the record, does not have an evening and a morning.

And that's been, both of these arguments have been taken by Dale Retzleff and others to prove that the Sabbath is not a creation ordinance and that because it had no evening and morning, God's rest is open every day of the week.

But I believe that what I'll share with you tomorrow is going to be, in the good sense, revolutionary.

It's going to give us very biblical solid arguments as to why God in fact God could not have ordered Adam and Eve to keep that first Sabbath.

God couldn't have done it And I'm going to explain to you the reason why.

I believe that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance.

But actually God did not command Adam and Eve to keep the first Sabbath, but to keep the second 1.

And I'll also give you the reason why the evening and morning isn't mentioned.

It's very, very simple right there in Genesis and right there in Patriarchs and Prophets.

And for years and years I've read the Bible, I've read Patriarchs and Prophets and I've never seen it.

And I've read dozens of books on the Sabbath and you know the only book where where I've ever found it is in the writings of Ellen White.

Then in the afternoon first session at 03:00 I want to present a subject which is titled reflections on Daniel 11 and I want to share with you a different approach to study Daniel 11 Instead of studying Daniel 11 40 to Daniel 12 and verse 2 we're gonna do in a reverse order we're gonna start at Daniel 12 verse 2 and we're gonna work backwards and there's a very special reason for that You see Ellen White doesn't quote any of the verses from Daniel 11, 40 to 45.

She doesn't even use the language of those verses.

So people assume that she had nothing to say about Daniel 11, 40 to 45.

However, she does have many quotations of Daniel 12 and verse 1 and Daniel 12 and verse 2.

And so if you know where her quotations are for Daniel 12, 1 and 2, you're going to know where she's commenting on verses 40 to 45.

It's a deductive approach to Daniel 11 rather than an inductive approach to Daniel 11.

And I think you're going to marvel at how the Bible and the spirit of prophecy are so much in harmony.

You know, the more I study, the more I admire the spirit of prophecy because it's so much in harmony with scripture.

And then our final study tomorrow is titled The Holy and the Common.

And basically I'm going to study with you 2 stories from the Old Testament and how they're fulfilled in the book of Revelation.

The first is the story of Nadab and Abihu.

And the second story is the story of Belshazzar when he took the holy vessels and put wine and drank wine from them.

Both of these stories present 2 different sides of 1 coin and they present 2 2 heresies which are going to exist in the world in the Christian world at the end of time and so we'll be discussing the holy in the common in our last study tomorrow afternoon Lord willing There are 3 doctrines that the Seventh-day Adventist Church holds which are inseparably linked or connected.

These 3 doctrines are the state of the dead, the judgment, and the second coming of Jesus.

If you get 1 of these wrong, you're going to get the others wrong.

If you get all 3 of them right, you're going to be on the right track to know how Jesus will come and the preparation that we need in order to be ready for his coming.

And so I would like to discuss this evening how these 3 doctrines are linked or interconnected, how they relate to 1 another.

And to begin I'd like to invite you to turn in your Bibles with me to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7.

This is a verse we usually use to discuss the state of the dead.

And by the way we're going to use the Bible a lot so I hope you'll bring your Bible because we're going to study from scripture and I'll have some quotations as well from the spirit of prophecy.

Of course this verse is speaking about the creation of man notice what it says and I'm reading from the New King James Version and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground what what aspect of man was composed of dust it's physical nature right physical body composed of dust Now in the head of that body was the brain.

The brain is a physical organ also right?

It controls and regulates and directs all of the activities of the body, correct?

It's the command center of the body, if you please.

So God created this body out of dust, this physical organism.

He placed in the head of that organism a brain to coordinate all of the activities relating to the body.

But even after God created the body and he placed the brain in the head of that body, The body was lifeless.

And so the last part of the verse continues saying, 08.21 And breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

08.22 Now the word breath here is the Hebrew word neshama.

08.23 There's another word in Hebrew for spirit.

It's the word ruach by the way, they are interchangeable to a great degree in the Old Testament and the reason we know that is because Here it says that neshama is in the nostrils but there are other texts that say that Ruach is in the nostrils as well and we use our nostrils to what?

In other words what God did was that he energized that body, he gave the body the vital force to function.

He gave it the electrical current if you please.

And then we're told, and man became a living soul or became a living person.

So reviewing, God made a physical organism composed of dust actually it was wet wet dust it was clay according to Isaiah 64 and verse 8 God is the potter we are the clay.

He placed in the head of that body a brain and of course the brain was to gather all of the input from outside and then he energized the body and when he energized the body man became a living soul or a person now I'd like to ask a question that probably you already know the answer to because we find a text that's normally used by Adventists when we discuss the issue of death.

What happens with the body when man dies?

And what happens with the spirit, with the Ruach?

And as a result, what happens with the individual, with the person?

They cease to exist Partially true that they cease to exist Now here's the question I want to ask you Let's take Adam Was Adam a different person in many ways the day he died than the day that he was created?

Because during 930 years through his 5 senses he gathered a lot of input to use computer language.

Let me ask you did he have a much more complex personality and self-identity the day he died than the day that he was created.

He had memories, feelings, emotions, actions, words he spoke, thoughts he thought during those 930 years all of that was input now here's my question what happened we know that his body when Adam went to when he died his body went and what disintegrated what happened to his brain his brain disintegrated also What happened with the vital force which energized his body?

What happened with the 930 years of self-identity that Adam formed while he was alive when Adam died?

Has anybody ever asked you that question?

I can see by your reaction that nobody's ever asked me that question.

Okay, the body disintegrated and he quit breathing, But what happened to the 930 years of self-identity that he formed while he was alive?

The fact is, folks, that in heaven, God, all during the life of Adam was keeping an exact copy of Adam in written form.

Every detail of Adam's life was recorded in heaven as he lived and when he died God closed the book In other words Adam Physically died but through his records he lived on.

Hidden Sabbath Truths

I praise the Lord that he's given us music.

You know, it's a language that can express things that words can't.

And that's why in the Bible, most of the praise scenes that we find in Scripture are connected with music, good music.

Before we get into our study this morning, I would like to invite everyone to bow your heads with me and we're going to ask the Lord's guidance as we study together.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this beautiful, sunshiny Sabbath day.

We thank you, Lord, for the air, the fresh air that we breathe.

We thank you for the privilege of being gathered here, your people, on your Holy Sabbath.

We thank you, Father, for your Word, which is a sure guide in a world which is confused.

And as we study about 1 of the great doctrines of Scripture this morning and what it means to us personally, we ask for the guidance of your Spirit.

Give us clarity of thought and give us tender hearts to receive the seed of truth.

We thank you, Father, for hearing and for answering our prayer, for we ask it in the precious name of Jesus.

I've been a Seventh-day Adventist all my life.

I guess you could say a Seventh-day Adventist from birth.

My father was a pastor for 41 years before he decided to retire many years ago.

All of my education I've done in Seventh-day Adventist schools, primary, secondary, college, and postgraduate.

I've served as a minister for close to 35 years and 6 of those years I had the privilege of teaching theology in our university in the city of Medellin, Colombia.

The reason why I mention all of this background is because all throughout the course of my life, not only since I started studying theology, but since I actually started getting into the study of scripture, I've had 2 questions as I've read the book of Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2.

And these 2 questions have basically perplexed me for many, many years, until March of this year.

Now, in March of this year, I was traveling to Panama to organize a trip, a mission trip that our church was going to take in the month of August.

And as I was traveling I always take good reading material.

I had patriarchs and prophets with me and of course I had my Bible and I was reading the chapter in patriarchs and Prophets on creation.

And as I was reading this chapter on creation, I came to probably 3 lines that I had read many times before, but I had not really discerned what those lines were really saying.

And that sent me on a journey, on a research journey, and I want to share with you this morning the results of the studies that I've done since the month of March on these 2 perplexing issues concerning the Sabbath.

Now I'm going to tell you what those 2 issues are.

Issue number 1, when you read Genesis chapter 1 and the first few verses of chapter 2, you discover that the text tells us that every day of creation had an evening and a morning with the exception of the seventh day.

It does not say that it was the evening and the morning of the seventh day.

You know I frequently thought maybe Moses just forgot to put that in there.

But then thinking it over I said no no if God wanted it in there it would have been in there.

There has to be a different reason than just that Moses forgot to put that there was an evening in the morning of the seventh day.

Why doesn't the Bible say that it was the evening and the morning of the seventh day.

The second question which perplexed me is the absence of any direct command in Genesis 2 for Adam and Eve to keep the Sabbath.

Now I know that indirectly we can prove that the Sabbath was made originally for the human race.

For example, Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

So that tells us that the Sabbath originally was made for man.

We all know the manna episode where you know manna didn't fall on the Sabbath and that took place before the 10 Commandments were given on Mount Sinai so it shows that the Sabbath pre-existed Mount Sinai.

We all know the text in Genesis 26 verse 5 where we're told that Abraham kept my commandments and my laws so God had commandments and laws before he gave the law on Mount Sinai.

So I knew that there were indirect ways of showing that the Sabbath was originally made for man.

Nevertheless, throughout the course of the years, I thought how wonderful it would have been if God had just told Moses, hey, put in there, in Genesis chapter 2, Adam and Eve, keep the Sabbath.

And all of your descendants are to keep the Sabbath from this point on.

But really when we read Genesis chapter 2 we discover that every time we are told that God was the 1 who rested on the seventh day.

Never are we told that Adam and Eve rested on the seventh day.

By the way, the 2 points that I'm going to cover this morning, these 2 perplexing questions, which I believe through the grace of God I've been able to find the answer for are 2 of the main arguments that are used by the enemies of Adventism today against the Holy Sabbath.

Perhaps you've heard about Dale Retzlaff.

He publishes a newsletter, I guess you could call it, that comes out every so often called Proclamation.

And 2 of his main arguments against the Sabbath, he used to be a Bible teacher at Monterey Bay Academy in the Central California Conference, and he's left the church and now his lone mission in life seems to be destroying the Seventh-day Adventist Church, particularly the theology of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In his book, Against the Sabbath, these are 2 of the main arguments that he brings out.

The Sabbath had no evening and morning, which means that the rest of God is open for us to enter any day of the week.

And secondly, you can't prove from Genesis that God commanded man to keep the Sabbath.

You only have that command when you get to Exodus chapter 20.

Now as we examine the story of creation in Genesis chapter 1, particularly the first 6 days of creation, we discover that these days are God-focused.

God is the subject of the story of creation.

We find expressions such as these more than 30 times just in chapter 1.

In other words, the center of focus in the first 6 days of creation is God.

God is the 1 who worked the 6 days of creation.

Notice Genesis 1 verse 31, the conclusion of the first 6 days of creation.

There we find the same emphasis that the first 6 days are all about God because God did all of the work.

It says there in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 31, then God saw everything, Now notice this, that He had made, who made it?

God that He had made and indeed it was very good.

So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So you notice that when the sixth day ends everything that exists was made by God.

God is the subject of the first 6 days of creation.

But God is no less the subject of the seventh day.

Notice Genesis chapter 2 and verses 2 and 3.

And I want you to notice the number of times that God is emphasized as the subject.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done, then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made.

Somehow I think God wants us to know that he was the 1 who did it.

Do you know the number of times that the pronoun is used here and that the word God is used in 2 verses?

We're told that it was God who worked 6 days, He did it all, and on the seventh day it says here that it was God who rested.

Now we need to understand what the word for rest it is here.

There are different words for rest in the Hebrew.

The word that is used here is the Hebrew word Shabbat, where we get Sabbath from.

Now Shabbat in Hebrew does not mean the quality of rest that takes place.

You can look up the word Shabbat in the Old Testament.

You're going to find that the word Shabbat is not talking about the manner of rest, how 1 rests, what 1 does while he rests.

The word Shabbat simply means to cease, to stop, to suspend.

So what these verses are emphasizing is that God at the end of the sixth day, Shabbat, at the end of the sixth day He ceased His work of creating.

It's not saying anything about the manner of his rest, how he rested on the seventh day.

It's simply saying that when the seventh day began, God ceased.

Allow me to read you a statement by a scholar.

This individual is well known, Vines Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words.

He says this about the word Shabbat, the writer of Genesis 2 verse 3 is not stressing rest from work, but rather God's ceasing from his creative work since it was complete.

So in other words the word Shabbat, the word rested does not mean the quality of God's rest on the seventh day.

Reflections on Daniel 11

Well, it's not so much because of what I might say, but because of your capacity to assimilate after lunch.

But we will try and keep you awake, Lord willing.

It's wonderful that so many of you came out this afternoon.

No better place to be at Loma Linda University than here to study the Word of God.

Father in heaven we thank you for the awesome privilege of being here this afternoon once again to open your word And Father we ask that as we open up the pages of your holy book that your spirit will be with us.

Help us to have clear minds that we might be able to think the thoughts of God.

We ask Lord that you will bless those who are on the way, bring them here safely.

And we ask that as we study about the great events soon to break forth in this world, that you will teach us how we can be better prepared for these things which are going to overtake the world as an overwhelming surprise.

We thank you, Father, for the privilege of approaching your throne in prayer.

And we thank you especially because we know that you hear us, that you will answer this prayer for we ask it in the precious name of Jesus.

White, as far as I've been able to determine, in the 100, 000 plus pages that she wrote has only 3 primary references to Daniel 11.

In actual fact the first statement which I'm going to read as we begin our study this afternoon, does not even mention Daniel 11 by name, but we know that she's alluding to Daniel 11.

The second quotation, she actually mentions something about the prophecy of Daniel 11, but it's just a general statement.

In the third statement, Ellen White actually quotes some verses from Daniel 11.

There's only 1 quotation in all of the writings of Ellen White where she actually quotes verses from Daniel 11.

Now what I'd like to do is read these 3 statements.

The first of them, as I mentioned, does not directly mention Daniel 11, although we know that she is talking about Daniel 11 because of the content of the quotation.

I know it's difficult to calibrate a wireless microphone particularly when I'm the speaker.

We're deadly enemies, wireless mics and I.

The first quotation is in Testimonies to Ministers page 112.

This is the very general statement where she doesn't mention Daniel 11 directly.

She says this, the light that Daniel received from God was given especially for these last days.

The visions he saw by the banks of the Ulai, which vision of Daniel 8 was given by the river Ulai?

So she says, the visions he saw by the banks of the Ulai, that's Daniel 8, and the Haidakel.

And the Heidekkel, see she's indirectly referring to Daniel 11 here, the great rivers of Shinar are now in the process of fulfillment.

Which prophecies are in the process of fulfillment?

She says are now in the process of fulfillment and then she says and all the events foretold will soon come to pass.

As I mentioned she doesn't mention Daniel 11 directly here, but she speaks about the vision next to the Heidekel.

And we know that the vision next to the Heidekel was the vision that includes primarily Daniel 11.

Now she doesn't say in this statement where we are in the process of fulfillment.

She simply says that all of the events foretold in this chapter will soon come to pass, but we don't know where we are in the process of the chapter.

So now we need our second statement which is a little more specific.

It's found in volume 9 of the Testimonies, page 14.

And this is going to add something to the first statement.

She says, the world is stirred with the spirit of war.

The prophecy of the 11th chapter of Daniel has nearly reached its complete fulfillment.

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