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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dave Fiedler - Adventism: Past and Future

Dave Fiedler

Consecration and Fanaticism

Okay, well if you look at the first slide, this is something that...

It just sounds boring And you know, there are poor misguided underprivileged souls Who think that Adventist history is actually boring and the fact is?

I am not interested in history for the sake of history.

There are all sorts of little isolated tidbits of history and there might be interesting, you know, some particular individuals life story from, you know, wherever, whenever.

But you know, I just don't have enough time in my life to deal with all of that.

And so I go looking for history that has some value to it.

Remember his famous comment, history is bunk?

I Kind of agree with him, you know, despite the fact that I teach this stuff Well, then I went and I wrote a book and Adventist history right there in this in the subtitle, you know, and I tried to dress it up, but it still sounds kind of boring, you know.

In some small circles of Adventist society, I've come to be known as kind of an Adventist history guy, you know, and that's fine.

But it's boring and it doesn't really strike the core of why I have any interest in it in the first place.

I am really only interested in history as a way to understand at least the present and hopefully the future.

Futury is probably not going to make the cut into the dictionary anytime soon.

And I got to thinking about it and it just didn't seem like it was appropriate for a university audience.

And so I came up with a an alternate title.

If it makes you feel better, we can go with this.

And that's more or less, you know, accurate if you can decipher it all, you know.

What I want to look at this weekend, just select selected episodes from Adventist history.

There's a bit of a chronological flow to them, but they're somewhat disjointed.

I just picked the ones that I liked, actually.

Ones that, to my mind at least, hold greater than average merit as an avenue of trying to understand not just the future but specifically the closing events of Adventism I Really worry when we lose sight of the concept of closing events, you know, it's it's like I Don't want to I don't want to die before the jobs done You know, we've got to have a we've got to have a closer on this operation, you know, so that's what I'm after To begin with though, I like to start off with this quote.

The Lord directed Moses to recount to the children of Israel his dealings with them and their deliverance from Egypt, and their wonderful preservation in the wilderness.

He was the call to mind, their unbelief and murmuring when brought into trial, and the Lord's great mercy and loving kindness which had never forsaken them." It's an interesting balance there.

This would stimulate their faith and strengthen their courage.

You know, I have my little problems with some presentations on Adventist history.

There are some presentations which are focused so solely on the unbelief and the murmuring that if I shared that perspective, I might also share the conclusion of some of these dear souls that the church is hopelessly lost and wandering around forever and ever and ever and ever in the wilderness of sin.

And some people have ended up with that conclusion.

And then there are others that focus so much on the Lord's great mercy and loving kindness that it just seems to me that they're missing the opportunity to learn something.

I'd like to try and strike the balance and actually stimulate faith and strengthen courage.

While they, the Israelites, would be led to realize their own sin and weakness, they would realize also that God was their righteousness and strength.

It is just as essential that the people of God in this day should bear in mind how and when they have been tested and where their faith has failed.

You know this is this is not quite your you know power of positive thinking and just you know everything's wonderful have a happy day approach.

Where they have imperiled His, that would be God's cause by their unbelief and also by their self-confidence.

God's mercy, His sustaining providence, His never-to-be-forgotten deliverances are to be recounted step by step.

As God's people thus review the past, they should see that the Lord is ever repeating his dealings.

That gives me hope that there's value in history.

Have you ever had a teacher that never reviewed anything before the test?

It's like, you know, they lecture 1 day on something totally new and they test you on it the next day and move on to another totally new topic.

Now maybe that's the way they do mid-school.

I haven't gone through mid-school, so I don't know how that works.

Most of us like, well I won't say like, but most of us do a little better with our learning if you have a little repetition to it.

Now what to me that means is that if I can if I can submit my mind to the Lord's leading, probably more than anything else, I should be able to find episodes in church history, specifically Adventist history, that foreshadow events to come.

That's the premise I'm working from here.

If I'm wrong on the premise, then I hope you enjoy the stories but That's the premise.

I'm working from I I really believe that God is working with this church heading in a certain direction and You know, it's like the children of Israel you go round and round, you know, it's really easy And I'm not trying to do this in any sort of a dogmatic or whatever sort of a way.

But you know, it's not hard to construct pretty close to 40 year cycles through Adventist history.

You know, 1844, you can toss in 1856, 57 as a interesting opportunity, but you can jump straight up to 1888, 1927-1928, there was a bit of a revival there again on the subject of righteousness by faith.

Jump from 28 to the late 60s, early 70s, there was a sort of a revival.

I don't know how many of you would have been around to remember that.

But you know, there was sort of a revival.

And you know, if you go from the late 60s, 40 years, it starts to get interesting.

I'm not saying that the Lord works, you know, in some sort of a rigidly mathematical manner, but it's interesting.

And I do believe that He's taking us around and around and around.

And, you know, if we can't look at our past and see some similarities of this occasion to this occasion to this occasion, I think it means we're missing the lesson.

Well, the most famous statement probably within Adventism on Adventist history comes from Life Sketches, page 196, the nothing to fear.

You know, we have nothing to fear for the future.

Except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us and his teaching in our past history.

When Ellen White wrote that, was it like 2 sentences later, she says, having traveled over every step of the way You know she lived through it I Didn't wasn't my fault.

If I'm going to get anything out of those years, I think I'm going to have to learn about them.

Just kind of the hard cold facts, As near as I've got it figured.

We're going to sort of start at the beginning here.

William Miller sort of started this whole Adventist thing in certain ways.

Of course, hey, I'm not saying that it was all brand-new doctrine.

It's amazing how little Miller actually contributed to theology that sprang out the whole Adventist church.

Basically Miller did 1 thing effectively.

If you want to kill the Adventist Church immediately, split Daniel 8 and Daniel 9.

And we can all be Baptists or whatever else.

The Alpha and Omega of Apostasy

I invite you to take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 78.

Psalm 78, verse 2, And onwards I will open my mouth in a parable.

I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done.

I like to see in this a call for a recounting of sacred history, ancient sacred history and much more modern sacred history.

And that's what I hope to accomplish some this morning.

But drop on down, if you would be so kind, to verse 7.

"'The purpose of all this is that the children to come, the generation to come, might know the teachings of the Lord, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.

And verse 8, and may not be like their fathers.

A stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright and whose spirit was not faithful to God.

The children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle.

Let's turn back in the day of battle when the Lord has given me the weapons I need.

Let's bow our heads for a short word of prayer please.

Father we thank you that you have equipped and provided your people with all that is necessary.

And Lord we would ask that as individuals you would equip and provide us that we have such a rich heritage such a rich accumulation of theology and practical experience and history and yet we as each individual needs to learn it for ourselves in some way we pray that you would help us to do that.

I ask that you'll be with us this morning.

May they be a blessing to someone, I pray.

Well, I did not put this title in the bulletin.

They asked me for a title for the bulletin.

I gave them a much more mundane 1 because I didn't think this would look very dignified.

If you were here last night, you understand...

You will understand that Adventist Futury is an update on the concept of Adventist history.

I'm not that interested in history for the sake of history.

I like to see history used as a tool for the future.

And being on a university campus with much more highly educated individuals, I thought that we could use this as a subtitle.

Eschatological precursor events as presented within the milieu of 19th and early 20th century Seventh-day Adventism.

There is much in our past that is there to teach us about the future and specifically the final events.

I am just entirely convinced that the Lord has been running dry rehearsal after dry rehearsal or dress rehearsal or whatever they call them.

Trying to get us ready so that we know our lines, basically.

Sunday sacredness, immortality of the soul.

Okay, well, I think there's more depth to this than we may have given it credit for sometimes so let's see what we can get squeezed in in the next half hour.

Little by little, Satan has prepared the way for his masterpiece of deception and the development of spiritualism.

He has not yet reached the full accomplishment of his designs, but it will be reached in the last remnant of time.

Says the prophet, I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs which go forth under the kings of the earth and the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

Except those who are kept by the power of God through faith in his word The whole world will be swept into the ranks of this delusion The people are fast being lulled to a fatal security to be awakened only by the outpouring of the wrath of God The point has been made countless times and I don't know where what rock you would have been hiding under within Adventist circles if you hadn't heard it, but, you know, look at television.

Look at the TV Guide maybe or something else.

That's as close as you need to get, okay?

It is swamped with this supernatural garbage.

My all-time favorite, and I'm sure I'm several years out of date, you know, but I just, the irony of it, I couldn't believe.

A few years back, they came out with a television program about a reformed vampire named Angel.

And this is what kids are growing up with This is what they know.

Well Spiritualism, you know the story Hydesville, New York the Fox family moved into the new house.

And Maggie and Katie heard the wrappings on the wall.

What you may not realize is that by the mid-1850s, Spiritualism was the most rapidly growing quote unquote religious movement in the United States It took off it was incredible by 1857 there were over a hundred magazines devoted to spiritualism in regular production Yeah, some of them were you know a little less regular, but you know basically it was it was a it was a big thing Now it wasn't sophisticated spiritualism.

This was American frontier spiritualism that, bear in mind, you didn't have movie theaters, you didn't have HBO, you didn't have...

Well, let's go over to Fred's house and float tables.

There wasn't a lot of philosophy involved in that branch of spiritualism, but it took off and it was very rapidly developed.

Adventism ran into it in a big way for the first time in the case of Moses Hall.

Moses Hall in the 1860s, early 1860s, was a powerful Adventist evangelist.

In some circles, he was probably more highly regarded than James White.

He worked in tent evangelism a couple of years at least with John Loughborough 1861-62.

He was up in Michigan with the tent and there was quite a series of events.

They went to the city of Charlotte or town, I don't really know how big it was.

And there, Hull was challenged to a debate on the question of the immortality of the soul with a Methodist minister.

The poor minister didn't have a clue what was coming to him, you know, because Hull had the Bible.

And the minister was completely defeated.

He says, wow, I never heard anything like that before.

They came to the city of Lowell at Lowell.

They were challenged to a similar debate by a gentleman by the name of S.P.

Leland didn't have a clue what was coming to him, because he was expecting the usual stuff of, when you die, you'll go to heaven.

And that's what he'd heard from all the other Christians.

And all of a sudden, here's Hull, who has the Bible.

And Leland was trying to claim that spiritualism was harmonious with Christianity.

Leland was wiped out, so to speak, in the debate.

And he actually, as a result of that, he became a Christian.

Not a Seventh-day Adventist that I know, but he gave up spiritualism.

He says, wow, I really thought it was in harmony with the Bible.

Pawpaw at that time, and somebody told me once, and I'm in no position to judge, but They said it still is a center of spiritualism.

But they came to Papa and he was again challenged to a debate by a spiritualist.

Medical Ministry

Before I jump into this afternoon's topic, I thought maybe just a quick word or 2 further about about the Omega.

I, you know, 1 of the last things that I want to do is try and pretend that I know something when I don't.

And I don't feel like I know details about the Omega and I don't want to to promote something that I don't don't think I know.

I did I did want to point out the 1 What should I say kind of a common theme that I think is helpful at least.

And that is in in several of those quotes Ellen White spoke of how this work that was going on and that was influencing the mind of doctor kellogg and of others associated with him was similar to the work that lucifer had done in the courts of heaven and that's interesting you know that that's an interesting thought what What was it he was doing in the courts of heaven?

But I do know that 1 of the first arguments that Lucifer raised in heaven was that angels were holy in and of themselves and consequently they did not need a law to govern them.

Theosophy New Age whatever this kind of thing promotes a concept of divinity within.

Logically enough once you've decided that divinity is within you rather than.

Those religions and that approach to spirituality becomes a more a matter of developing that which is good within me than it is to looking to Christ or to anyone else for assistance.

Sad to say I think there are many things that contribute to that.

Anything that serves to take our eyes and our attention from God's.

Established word and will is directly or indirectly contributing to or preparing us for a more marked departure where we say I am sufficient to determine what I want to believe or what I want to do or how I want to be saved.

I personally I think there's going to be more to it than that but I'm not a prophet and my dad wasn't a prophet so I'm not the son of a prophet.

So I'm not going to pretend that I know in detail beyond that but The core I would guess take it as a guess the core similarity that I might was talking about there is is The the sense of independence I can decide this regardless what God thinks.

And the sooner and the more completely we realize that we are utterly dependent, the sooner and more completely we will be happy accepting it and fulfill the role that God has given us.

So that's, I don't know if that's helpful to anyone, but I just thought I would toss that out.

That's not really all that we're going to talk about, But we're going to start with malaria.

And we're not talking some sort of a spiritual malaria, we're talking about malaria, malaria.

David Paulson was a physician who was largely trained by, associated with, he was kind of like the second in command under Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium for quite a while.

When Kellogg went off to Europe for 7 months, I believe it was, once to get some further training and do some other investigating of things over there.

David Paulson was the guy that he left in charge of the sanatorium.

And some of you may remember the story recounted by A.G.

Daniels in his little account of how the denomination was saved from pantheism.

It was David Paulson who was, And we'll come to that story later on today.

But you know, David Paulson was the 1 who went walking at 1903 and the meeting there at Carroll House in Washington, D.C.

Went walking back home after the meeting was over with A.G.

Daniels and poked him in the chest and said, if you don't get out of the way and let the teachings in Living Temple carry through, you will be rolled in the dust and there'll be another man leading this denomination.

So Paulson was a fairly strong Kellogg supporter at that particular point.

Now, 1 of the great things about history is that good people can make stupid mistakes and still be saved later on.

I need to remember that because history without charity is Pretty depressing.

And we need charity in our assessment of others today.

You know, there are good men who make mistakes.

Now, we can't condone the mistake, But we need to be willing as far as possible to believe.

If you have any reason to believe that a person is sincere and trying to do what's right, you've got to be able to cut them some slack.

And it helps me to recognize that someone like David Paulson could be advocating a living temple, thinking he was doing the right thing, find out he was doing the wrong thing, and then get his life back on track.

Okay, well anyhow, This particular story comes 4 years later.

Paulson had been, I think he'd gone for some further training or something.

He was up at the University of Michigan and he was taking a class along with a gentleman by the name of Daniel Kress, also a physician.

And let's see, we can pop this up, there we go.

That's his wife, Mary Paulson, she was also a physician.

But David Paulson and Daniel Kress were taking this class during the summer up in Michigan and back in those days they had what they called malarial summers.

Well, at the time, the favored treatment for malaria was quinine.

And some of you would probably have a much better grasp of this than I do, but basically you've got these little plasmodium critters that get in your bloodstream and wreck all sorts of havoc and The the idea with the quinine is to get enough of it in there to kill them without killing you.

And there's you know you got a little margin of error there and you try not to go too far.

And this was their their best their best treatment or their favorite treatment.

Had a question to deal with in their minds.

And they said, you know, Spirit of Prophecy has not spoken favorably of quinine.

And they opted, and whether this was bravery or foolishness or audaciousness or the Lord just chose to bless them, you know, the details you might have to work out for yourself.

They opted to use a hydrotherapy method in treating malaria.

Well, this elicited a good deal of scorn from some of their other classmates, 1 of whom was a, Paulson describes him as being a great proponent of quinine.

He was also very good at certain microscopic work which was necessary for verifying the presence or the lack thereof of this plasmodium in your blood.

And so they set up kind of a little controlled experiment.

They agreed that, well, uncontrolled experiment, but anyhow, they agreed that the patients that came to their clinic that summer, they would alternate.

Every other 1 would get quinine and the other guys would get the hydrotherapy treatment.

He says, We carefully took the temperature every 15 minutes.

As soon as there began to be the least rise of temperature, that was a notification to us that the chill was approaching.

We at once put the patient into a hot blanket pack, bringing on profound perspiration, and thereby, if we had hit it right, we invariably prevented the chill.

We took him out carefully and provided it was the alternate day variety of malaria, we gave tonic treatments, be hot and cold, alternating.

The following day we again instituted the temperature taking program.

Series

Dave Fiedler - Adventism: Past and Future

Consecration and Fanaticism

Transcript

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