<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Tim Howe

The Essence of the Gospel

What I'd like to talk with you about today for the next few moments is the essence of the gospel.

Our Father, we're thankful that we can be together in your name as your children called to be here.

We pray that you will send your spirit to be among us, that we may understand your word more clearly for having been here, and in the understanding of it, may be more like Jesus.

When I was growing up, my father's mother, my grandmother, liked to tell me stories about when she was little, growing up in the South, and 1 story that was recurrent among her repertoire was that of the Indian princess, Artemisia, who she informed me I was a descendant of.

Now this was very interesting to me as a child to think that I was a descendant from an Indian princess.

She also told me that there was some government money that was due for the land that this Indian princess had given up, and that she was working on getting that money.

1 of the last things that she did before she died was hand me a stack of papers.

And she told me that if I would just be diligent and follow through with this, there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.

My other grandmother, routinely after listening to these stories and my retelling of them, would remind me that there was no Indian princess that I was descended from on her side.

But nonetheless, I had a noble ancestry there as well.

You see, I was descended from John Alden of Mayflower fame and Priscilla Mullins.

Maybe you in California are unaware that Mayflower was a boat.

But nonetheless, in The East where I live, if you can claim descendants from someone on the Mayflower, then, you know, whether you're really not someone, you can claim that you were or you were descended from someone that was.

And You know, I went off to school and off to college with that certain foundation that I was someone.

And then I met my wife-to-be and listened to her mother tell stories about their ancestry And I found out that she was descendant from the Earl of Marr.

Now, I didn't even know who the Earl of Marr was, so I didn't want to appear either too prideful of my own heritage or ignorant of hers.

So I looked him up, and I found out that she was descended from the oldest peerage in all of Scotland and probably all of Europe to boot.

You know it's a little humbling to lose that sense of being someone special, but I decided right then that since I was outclassed if you ain't got it you should marry it.

As I told my sons, and they all followed my counsel, Gentlemen, marry up.

Why is it that we are so caught up in stories of our ancestors?

I'm sure you can think back to something that your mother or grandmother or great uncle told you about your rich heritage and ancestors.

I would submit to you that written into the genetics of each of us is a sense that somehow we are more than is apparent to the casual observer.

We just have that inner sense that, you know, I'm more than what I may appear to you.

And we all want to tell our story and convince someone of this.

You know, God created man in his own image.

And I'm reading from Patriarchs and Prophets here.

There is no ground for supposition that man was evolved by slow degrees of development from the lower forms of animal or vegetable life.

Such teaching lowers the great work of the creator to the level of man's narrow earthly conceptions.

Men are so intent upon excluding God from sovereignty of the universe that they degrade man and defraud him of the dignity of his origin.

He who set the starry worlds on high and tented with delicate skill the flowers of the field, who filled the earth and the heavens with the wonders of his power, when he came to crown his glorious work, to place 1 in the midst, to stand as a ruler of the fair earth did not fail to create a being worthy of the hand that gave him life.

The genealogy of our race as given by inspiration traces back its origin not to a line of developing germs, mollusks, and quadrupeds, but to the great creator.

Though formed from the dust, Adam was a son of God.

And we have that sense within us that we too are something more than is apparent to the casual observer.

But if we look around us, we see people like ourselves that act in ways that certainly obscures that noble ancestry.

God's Word tells us, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which God had made.

And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Adam and Eve, doubting and disobeying God, became subject to the deceiver, the serpent, the devil, Satan himself, and they passed this inheritance to their children.

David in Psalm 51.5 said, From when my mother conceived me, my nature was turned to evil.

And Christ, speaking to the Pharisees and to us as well, said, "'Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.' He was a murderer from the beginning and a bode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.

And in Romans, Paul writes, there is none righteous, no, not 1.

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable.

There is none that doeth good, no, not 1.

Is there then any hope of recovering our lost connection with our real original father.

Is there any way to go home to regain that noble heritage?

The parable of the lost coin tells a story of our loss as individuals, but in Christ Object Lessons we read this encouraging paragraph.

The coin, though lying among the dust and rubbish, is a piece of silver still.

Its owner seeks it because it is of value.

So every soul, however degraded by sin, is in God's sight accounted precious.

As the coin bears the image and superscription of the reigning power, so man at his creation bore the image and superscription of God.

And though now marred and dimmed through the influence of sin, the traces of this inscription remain upon every soul.

God desires to recover that soul and retrace upon it His own image in righteousness and holiness.

Degraded though we may be, we still have that sense that there is the mark of the Creator on us.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even as many as believed on his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Power, that the image of God may be restored in us.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

For ye have not received the spirit of bondage, again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.

Separated, yes, but through the Spirit brought near.

God Himself is the justifier of them which believe in Jesus.

And whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Great as is the shame and degradation through sin, even greater will be the honor and exaltation through redeeming love.

To human beings striving for conformity to the divine image, there is imparted an outlay of heaven's treasure.

The excellency of power that will place them higher than even angels who have never fallen." What an inheritance.

In Romans 1, verse 16, Paul said, for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth." Now, I don't know about you, but I do know about myself.

If I'm going to get back to those noble roots that ancestry is a son of God I need an infinite power and Paul says here, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is.

I was At Southern Adventist University in 2011, the weekend of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding, I watched the college students as they watched the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

The girls were mostly into the dresses and the ceremony.

The boys' chief interest seemed to be in trying to determine who was royalty or high-born by how they carried themselves.

After careful observation, they became quite good at discerning who was and who was not royalty.

Can someone look at your physical characteristics, the way you walk, the way you hold yourself, the way you talk and tell that you are a child of God?

Back to Menu

The Essence of the Gospel

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

The Nature of Present Truth

45m

Why Am I a SDA?

5. What’s Wrong with Being a Cultural Adventist?

49m

Jesus’s Second Coming & Heaven

36m

Not Just Any Church

1h 2m

Revelation Made Simple

11. Why So Many Denominations

57m

The Rise of the Remnant

59m

Called to Bless

1h

The Everlasting Gospel for These Last Days

03 From Questions on Doctrine to Desmond Ford

56m

Powerful Secrets in Genesis

Powerful Secrets in Genesis- Part 1

51m

Plenary

08 A Reed Shaken by the Wind: John Baptist

47m

Why Am I a SDA?

3. What Makes You So Special?

43m

Plenary

What About the Few

1h 45m

Sound Doctrine