Advent HOPE - Adventist History Class

Adrian Zahid

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Almost to Canaan

Okay, we're going to be studying today 3 very real possibilities in our Adventist history in which Jesus had a very good chance of coming back to this earth.

And to start off, we'll go to the Bible to get some context of what we're studying today.

This will be found in Numbers chapter 14.

This is during the time of the Israelites.

They are standing at the border of Canaan and they received some bad news from the spies that had been in Canaan for 40 days.

And those spies brought back, 10 of them brought back bad news.

And after hearing that bad news, the reaction of the congregation was that they lifted up their voice and cried and the people wept that night and All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron and the whole congregation and said unto them would God that we had died in the land of Egypt or would God that we had died in this wilderness.

And wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey.

Were it not better for us to return into Egypt, and they said 1 to another, let us make a captain and let us return into Egypt.

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel and Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of, can't pronounce his name, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes.

And they went on to try and, both Joshua and Caleb, tried to convince the children of Israel to reconsider their decision not to go into the promised land.

However, they did not and because of the spirit that they had, because they looked to the advice of men in that situation and they refused to look to God and to believe in the promises of God, they decided that they would not go into the promised land, and as a result God had some words for them as well.

In verse 27 the Bible says, How long shall I bear, this is the Lord speaking to Moses, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation which murmur against me?

I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel which they murmur against me.

Say unto them, as truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.

Your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness, and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from 20 years old and upward, which have murmured against me.

Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to you, swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb and Joshua the son of Dan.

But your little ones which ye said should be prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.

But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall wander in the wilderness for 40 years, and bear your whoredoms until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.

Verse 34, After the number of the days in which ye search the land, even 40 days each day for a year, ye shall bear your iniquities even 40 years, and ye shall know my breach of promise." So this text is, this last text is 1 of the texts that is used for the year day principle, but it also has some other important lessons as well.

It says over here that, Ye shall know my breach of promise.

And each 1 of them will take place as God has said if the conditions are met.

And even though God had promised that He would, and He had sworn that He would bring these children into the land of Canaan, because they refused to believe Him, and because of their unbelief and their murmuring, their looking to man, God had to breach His promise.

In the same way, today we will see some periods in our early Adventist history where God was very willing to finish this all and come back.

Unfortunately, our spiritual forefathers committed some of the same mistakes.

And if we learn those mistakes, if we learn those lessons, hopefully we'll be able to avoid it in our generation today.

The events right after 1844 were chaotic ones.

Even as some of the group were starting to study the Bible and go back to lay the foundation for what they believed, relay the foundation, as we studied last week.

The events of the truth such as the Sabbath, the sanctuary message, the law of God, the state of the dead, the second coming of Christ, these type of things as they were starting to lay these foundations through the Bible.

There were some people who continued to believe the old way.

They continued to set new dates for Jesus to come.

Some of them closed their ears to the truth that was being rediscovered in the Bible.

He had absorbed a lot of shock and he was willing to follow the message, the Sabbath message and the sanctuary message.

However, his friends at the time, his younger friends, told him that it wasn't worth studying and it wasn't worth following and unfortunately even he decided to listen to the advice of his friends and he closed his ears to the message.

White says that the angels guard the precious dust of his grave and that means that he will be in the Kingdom of God.

But unfortunately, because of the advice of his friends and because he took the advice of his friends, he also was unable to catch the vision and be able to learn these truths and preach them with power.

And had he done so, he may have been in heaven today.

So, these people, however well read they were, Because they took their eyes off Jesus, they were not able to enter the kingdom of heaven at that time.

White has a few comments from that time period.

She says that there's no failure of God's promises.

God has promised, but just because He has promised, it doesn't mean that it will happen if the conditions aren't met.

She says, The angels of God, I'm reading from Evangelism page 695, The angels of God in their messages to men represent time as very short.

He's referring to the 3 angels' messages.

Thus, it has always been presented to me.

It is true that time has continued longer than we expected in the early days of this message.

Our Savior did not appear as soon as we hoped.

It should be remembered that the promises and threatenings of God are alike conditional.

So the promises and the threatenings of God are conditional.

Can somebody remember a time when God threatened to do something and then He decided not to do it?

God said that the city should be destroyed in 40 days.

The prophet came and he preached the message.

The people repented, all 120, 000 of them, and God decided to defer that destruction.

And in the same way, she says, Had Adventists, reading from the same chapter, had Adventists after the Great Disappointment in 1844 held fast their faith and followed on unitedly in opening, in the opening providence of God, receiving the message of the third angel and in the power of the Holy Spirit proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation of God, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts, the work would have been completed, and Christ would have come ere this, to receive his people to their reward.

But in the period of doubt and uncertainty that followed the disappointment, many of the Advent believers yielded their faith.

Thus the work was hindered and the world was left in darkness.

Had the whole Adventist body united upon the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, how widely different would have been our history." So this is her commentary about this time period right after 1844 when they were rediscovering some of the messages.

In another paragraph she says, God had committed to his people a work to be accomplished on earth.

The third angel's message was given and the minds of the believers were directed to the heavenly sanctuary where Christ had entered to make atonement for his people.

The Sabbath reform was to be carried forward.

The breach in the law of God must be made up.

The message must be proclaimed with a loud voice to all the inhabitants of the earth, that all the inhabitants of the earth might receive the warning.

The people of God must purify their souls through obedience to the truth and be prepared to stand without fault before His coming." So these are some of the conditions that God had for His children to follow through with.

And because they did not, in faith, right after the disappointment, go back to the Bible, study these truths and assimilate them into their lives, they unfortunately were not able to follow through and do the things that God wanted them to do.

I can say it's to our advantage that that happened because otherwise we wouldn't have a chance either.

We wouldn't have been born before the coming.

Yes, it happened to our advantage, but as you will see at the, towards the end of the class, that had it not happened, it would have been better.

But at the same time, yes, we are alive today, and the same responsibilities, the same promises are for us today as well, to take hold of these promises.

And if we take hold of them and if we follow through with them, God will be faithful.

Let us go on to another paragraph where she talks about this same experience.

She says, For 40 years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan.

The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

In neither case were the promises of God at fault.

It is the unbelief, the worldliness, the unconsecration, and the strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow for so many years." This is, The original reference is manuscript 4, 1883.

This was pulled from Evangelism page 696.

And she goes on to say that, charge it not to God.

We may have to remain here in this world because of insubordination many more years as did the children of Israel, but for Christ's sake, his people should not add sin to sin by charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of action.

So God is not at fault that we are here in this world today.

It was His intention right after 1844, in the years following that, very soon for His people to proclaim the message, to put the law of God in its right place in the minds of the people, and to present Christ to the world, and give that last message of warning to the world, and the events, the last events would have happened rapidly, and this would have been all done with.

However, they chose not to do that and so we are here today.

There was another time right after that, a few years later, when God again came very close to his people.

Elder James White at this time had been studying Revelation and it was the prevalent belief because of the unity, because of the love that the Millerites had experienced in the Seventh Month Movement, a lot of them thought that they were part of the Philadelphian Church.

Romans 8: Born of the Spirit

Dear Father, as I open the Bible today and I preach from it, I ask that you be with the listeners, that you send the Holy Spirit to guide and to direct and may this sermon be 1 that is a message that encourages and uplifts Help us to have the hope in the second coming and help us to live as sons and daughters of God.

John chapter 3 verse 5 is our opening text for today.

John chapter 3 verse 5 Jesus answered verily verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus right here explains to 1 of the premier theologians of his day what the basic requirements are for entering the kingdom of God.

Before that he said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So being born again, and being born of the water, and being born of the Spirit, that was Jesus' elaboration of the term being born again, is a prerequisite to being, to be able to enter the Kingdom of God.

Let us look at a chapter in the Bible, Romans chapter 8, to see what life is like of a person that is born again.

After you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life, what is your life supposed to be like?

And it is my prayer that as we study the Bible today that we will find that this life is possible because God has said that it is.

Romans chapter 8 verse 1 says, There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

This is Paul's opening statement concerning a life that is lived after the Spirit.

Before we go any further, I want to set down just 2 terms so that you understand where Paul is coming from.

He says, "...know ye not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?

Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life." So what is Paul saying over here?

And he's also equating baptism with death.

Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 5 and 6 says, it is a very famous text for Seventh-day Adventist.

We should know this by heart, but I will read it straight from the Bible.

It says, Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished.

Neither have they any more portion forever in anything that is done under the sun." In Paul's mind, when he says death or when he writes the word dead, what he is meaning is exactly what the Bible says about death.

There was a time when I was working in the hospital and 1 nurse put some paperwork on a patient who was dead on his chest.

And then, I don't know how this happened, but he was put in the body bag with the paper on his chest.

So, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I had to go and wake up the nurse, she was thrilled, and ask her where the paper was, and then she told me that it was on the chest of this patient.

And then I had to go down to the morgue at 2 o'clock in the morning, find the patient and fish out the paperwork.

Because in the hospital, as you know, nothing happens without paperwork.

You're not dead until a paper says that you are dead.

But when I was in the morgue at 2 o'clock in the morning, I volunteered to do this because I told my co-workers I'm not afraid of going to the morgue alone at 2 o'clock in the morning because the living know that they shall die, whether dead or not, anything.

So I went in there respectfully as possible, I fished out the paperwork and I went on my way.

But the patient that was lying there, he did not object to me taking paperwork off his chest.

He didn't say to me, why is paperwork on my chest?

Because he was dead and he no longer cares about things that are living.

So when Paul talks about, in Romans chapter 6, about dying and he talks about death and when he says, For he that is dead is freed from sin, he's talking about the life that you live after you have died to sin.

He goes on to say in verse 11, likewise reckon yourself also dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof." So he's talking about what happens when a person dies to that old self that they had and when they're baptized into the watery grave and they come back alive, they're living the life of Christ.

He goes on in chapter 7, verses 1 through 4, to explain in a different way the same meaning.

He says, talking about the law of marriage.

How that a law had dominion over a man as long as he lives.

For the woman which had a husband is bound by the law to her husband so as long as he liveth.

But if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband.

So then while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

But if her husband be dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." Is that simple enough to understand?

What Paul is saying is, just imagine this, you by birth and by your actions decided to marry sin.

And according to the laws of marriage, a husband has rights on his wife, and the wife has rights on her husband.

And so, if your husband is sin, Then He is going to do what sin does, and you're going to produce or you're going to be what sin is in your life.

But if you want to be, if you want to free yourself from that, sin does not die.

You do, For that marriage to be finished.

And in order for you to marry Christ, Christ will not marry, Christ will not commit adultery.

He, according to the law, You need to be, or your husband needs to be, your husband needs to be dead in order for you to be able to marry Christ.

And so, since sin does not die, although you don't physically die, you spiritually die to sin so that you can be spiritually married to Christ.

And then he goes on to say that if you're married with Christ, then that's what we're talking about today.

Because that is, The reality is that if Jesus is married to you, then sin no longer controls your body.

So there are 4 things that the Spirit does in us once we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and are walking in Him.

Number 1, He delivers from the power of the flesh.

That incredible power that is within us that makes us do wrong things, He delivers us from that power.

We have a choice to be able to suppress that power.

There was some time ago in March of this year, I was driving my car down Barton Road and I should say this before I tell the story.

When I was a kid I had a problem with temper, A very real problem with temper.

And the way I used to express it was when I was younger, I would internalize it.

So if I was mad, thankfully, I would go and study.

And I would just do the entire book of math.

And then go to class so that I would have mental superiority over the person that made me mad.

When I grew older and I became stronger, I realized that I could use my fists and I could use my legs in order to prove a point as well.

And so when I got mad, it wouldn't take me 2 seconds before I would fly into rage and grab your throat.

And it was so bad, it was so bad that there was a time when I just couldn't believe, I just couldn't see myself going anywhere because I could not control my temper.

Once my anger started to rise, it would just go through the roof.

But then I decided to get baptized and I decided to put away that old life, including my temper, and through the grace of God, every time I would get mad, I would suppress it by the power of God.

And I wouldn't use another channel to to Express it I would rather suppress it and each year succeeding year I would suppress it and suppress it to the point where it became a non-issue in my life by the grace of God However this March I was driving down the road doing 45 in a 45 mile per hour zone and there was this guy in front of me on a Harley Davidson.

And by his jacket I could tell he was a Vietnam vet.

And I don't know what it was with that war but somehow some of these guys feel that society owes them something that they did not get at that time when they fought this war.

And in reality society does but they have this deep seated anger at times towards other people.

And so this guy is in front of me, and I'm keeping my distance, but all of a sudden he starts to slow down, and slow really down, to the point where I can't pass him, and he stops in the middle of the road and he gets off his bike and he comes to my car and my window is rolled down and he starts to yell at me in my face and he tells me that he will break my legs if I follow too closely and I just look straight ahead I thought well should I roll up my window?

And I thought no I don't want him to bash my window, and then I'm out a hundred bucks So I thought I'm just gonna just listen to it and let it go He said what he wanted to say he got back on his motorbike, and he was gone But as he got back onto his motorbike, all of a sudden this feeling just rushed right into me.

And it was a feeling that I had not experienced in probably 10 or 15 years.

And that feeling said this, wouldn't it be nice to just pull up close to him and just give him a scare?

But once I let it open, then all of a sudden the second thought was, wouldn't it be nice to just pull up close to him and just give him a scare?

But once I let it open, then all of a sudden the second thought was, wouldn't it be nice to just give him a tap with your car?

And break his back so he won't be able to walk again.

And I was like, whoa, where did that come from?

It was my old self coming right back up again.

Because by choice, I let it rise up again.

The Bible says in verse 2, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made me free from the law of sin and death.

The Theological Development of Present Truth

I'm very glad that we are able to do this Adventist history class and that as we study this class we can see how God has led his church in the past and we can recount some of the teachings, some of the principles that have been learned, and we can learn those so that we don't have to go through those again.

Also, today I apologize, I do not have any handouts for you.

I do have this 15-page paper that I wrote on this class today.

And if you do the math, 15 times 50, it would be way too much for me to copy for all of you.

So hopefully I'll make this available online, on Audiverse, and you can find it there.

Dear Father, we ask that as we study the theological development of present truth, that each 1 of us come away with a sense of how well the foundation was laid for this church.

And that deep Bible study and prayer were some things that were commonplace in the times of our pioneers.

I want to just review really quickly with you some of the pioneer principles of Bible study.

These are principles that they held to and that they used when they studied the Bible.

And these are principles that William Miller used as to guide him in his Bible study, and later other pioneers adopted them as well.

The first 1 is all scripture is necessary and may be understood by diligent study by 1 who has faith.

Principle number 2, the scripture its own expositor.

Number 3, to understand doctrine all scripture passages on the topic must be brought together.

Number 4, God has revealed things to come by visions, in figures, and in parables.

These must be studied together since 1 prophecy complements another.

A word should be understood literally if it makes good sense.

Otherwise, 1 must discover from other passages its figurative sense.

Number 5, a historical event is the fulfillment of prophecy only when it matches the prophecy in all its details.

These principles are all built on the historical grammatical or the historical biblical method of interpretation that the reformers used and our pioneers used as well.

In 1884, Ellen White wrote that those who are engaged in proclaiming the third angel's message are searching the scriptures upon the same plan that Father Miller adopted.

After quoting these 5 rules that I just quoted to you, she added, in our study of the Bible, we shall all do well to heed the principles set forth." So these are the principles that they used to study the Bible.

And let us go into now the theological development of present truth.

Present truth is defined by certain truths in the Bible that are presently pertinent for us today.

And that these truths are central to the Adventist faith.

And as we look at these truths today, we will see how central they are and how well the foundation has been laid for them.

As Norman discussed last week, 1844, October 22, there was a great disappointment when Jesus did not come.

They just had no clue what to do, where to go.

And now they were faced with a winter and they had absolutely no direction as to where to go.

There was an editor, his name was Apollos Hale.

He distinguished 4 classes of Adventists, or Millerites, in those days.

Class number 1, those who deplored and condemned their past Advent experience and strongly objected to any further time calculations.

They completely did away with what they believed before.

Number 2, those who continued time setting, building their calculations upon anything they could find.

Group number 3, those whose confidence had been shaken so that they were afflicted with doubt.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Almost to Canaan

34m

Romans 8: Born of the Spirit

34m

The Theological Development of Present Truth

40m

The Character of God Controversy Question and Answer Session

38m

The Character of God Controversy, Part 3

56m

The Character of God Controversy, Part 2

1h

The Character of God Controversy, Part 1

48m

The Midnight Cry

43m

The Great Advent Awakening

38m

The Legacy of Greatness

44m

Teach A Man To Fish, Part 2

44m

Teach A Man To Fish, Part 1

32m

Sound Doctrine