Norman McNulty

God's Character and the Final Generation

Last Generation for Christ 2019 Weekend

P. Gerard Damsteegt

Larry Kirkpatrick

Dennis Priebe

Mike Thompson

Sacramento Central SDA Church

Panel Q & A

We've quoted quite often from Christ's object lessons, page 69, when the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own.

Are you aware of anything in the context of where this statement is in COL page 69 that suggests that it cannot be taken literally as it reads, that the character of Christ will be literally reproduced in His people?

The context of that statement is clearly connected to Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23, with the fruits of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

And so all of that is part of the character of Christ.

So it's a reproduction, it's not simply a reflection, and it is being like Jesus in all of its fullness as he was on this earth.

And of course it's not the only statement in Ellen White's writings, is it?

Any other gentlemen, you want to say anything?

I would like to take language simply as it reads.

When something happens, then something else happens.

I see it as the context that I brought out in Acts chapter 3, Peter's sermon.

And in its broadest sense, it is certainly the restoration of the image of God in human beings.

You know, this is 1 of the goals from the whole gospel, the plan of salvation, the restoration.

And of course, with this image of God is the restoration of the image of Christ, the character of Christ.

They're intimately related to each other.

And that can be taken at face value to be a reality which is described here in COL 69.

Yeah, that is 1 thing that is often used.

Also, with Matthew 5, 48, they try to rip that out of the context, try to make it say something that is not.

That's 1 thing that this book here does quite often.

The 1 that Pastor Kirkpatrick mentioned too, when it ignores a plethora of statements in the spirit of prophecy.

It takes 1 and doesn't expand upon it, and it ignores a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Now this whole thing here of reflecting and reproducing the character of Christ and overcoming sin, my first experience in this discussion, which took place many, many years ago, I just have 1 simple challenge, and that is this.

I'm looking for 1 scripture, just 1 scripture, or 1 statement in the spirit of prophecy that tells me that I cannot overcome sin.

I threw that challenge out there some 26 years ago when I first began doing this.

It says, Christ is waiting with longing desire.

So Christ is not waiting for the longing desire for us, for the manifestation of himself in his church.

So church is also something spiritual, I guess.

When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in his people, then he will come to claim them as his own.

It is the privilege, I guess that's a spiritual word also, it's the privilege of every Christian not only to look for, but to hasten the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then Ellen White quotes 2 Peter 3, 12.

So I guess the whole 2 Peter 3 is saying something else.

Where all who profess His name bearing fruit to His glory, how quickly the whole world would be sown with the seed of the gospel.

Quickly, I guess that means slowly, quickly the last great harvest would be ripened and Christ would come to gather the precious grain.

I just think that this is very clear passage.

If the character of Christ has already been vindicated in Christ's victorious life and death in His humanity.

Why has God allowed sin to continue for another 2, 000 years?

Why didn't Jesus just go back to heaven and then return immediately for his people.

God wants to show, demonstrate to the whole world and the universe that if you let Satan continue to go, what will happen?

And therefore the 3 and a half times, the 1260 prophetic days, the 1260 years is a demonstration of the viciousness and destructiveness of Satan.

The end of the 1260 years in 1798, now you have the period of the restoration of the gospel.

And then Christ is there to demonstrate to the world, after Satan has demonstrated his tactics, what can be done with the human race who are faithful.

So Satan tries to destroy the faithful, and he nearly finished everything, now God will demonstrate just the opposite.

A generation of the 144, 000 that has perfectly followed Jesus wherever he goes.

And that I think is the great demonstration that if Satan is in control, he will destroy God's people.

When Christ is in control, he will demonstrate to the world that not only 1 person, not only Jesus himself, but sinful human beings at the weakest point at the end of time can demonstrate what the power of God is.

Even though Jesus in His humanity, which was fallen like ours, vindicated the character of God, lived a sinless life, therefore was able to offer Himself as a sinless sacrifice to provide an atonement.

But this life, this world has gone on for another 2, 000 years.

If Christ fully answered all the charges of Satan against God's character at the cross, if God won the war, Why isn't it over?

If God did accomplish everything He needed to accomplish at that moment, then He is responsible for the horrors and the atrocities that the last 2000 years has brought us.

And I consider that an unacceptable solution.

Numbers 13 and 14 record the experience of the children of Israel in the wilderness, and there was a delay in arriving back where God wanted them to be.

I mean, there are a lot of Bible examples of speeding up or delaying the second coming or delaying rather God's purposes in different cases.

And God didn't just short-circuit everything and force it to happen anyway.

God, you know, we are on limited time, but God's got quite a bit of time to work with.

When you look at Isaiah of ages 672, or rather 762 and 763, you know, that after Jesus died on the cross, the devil brought forth new charges.

There were some modified charges going on.

He said, no, we're going to…we're going to solve…we're going to answer this too.

So I think that part of our answer is we're not talking about a handful of Ellen White statements that have been ripped out of their context or that we wish it were this way or we wish it were that way.

We have a lot of Bible evidence for this in the history of the children of Israel in numbers where they were to go in the promised land, they didn't go.

Then you have Esther, you know, that Queen Esther went into the king and sped up the deliverance of her people who were about to be killed based on the decree.

So these are things that there are actually several different texts in the Bible, several different Bible stories that would help us understand that God has a purpose and He's going to…He's moving through that purpose, and the slower downer thing is not God.

The slowing down seems to be that we're a little bit comfortable here in our air-conditioned cell phone world.

So God has a purpose and He's going to linger on quite a bit further if we don't get around to it and it'll be another generation.

Why should it be the next generation when it can be our generation?

Yeah, I suppose we could say that, looking at how Satan likes to argue the point, Jesus came down in our humanity, he succeeded.

Suppose the devil might say, yes, but you know, That was Jesus.

Let's see the same thing replicated in his followers.

Do you think that might be a factor while we're still here?

God is waiting for this last generation to demonstrate what Jesus did.

I'd like to read here, Desire of Ages, page 761.

End Time Soul Winners

The title for this last presentation is End Time Soul Winners.

You know we've heard a lot this weekend about correct theology and that's very important.

It's important to understand who we are, what our purpose is as a Seventh-day Adventist, and how God has called us to live in these last days.

And part of that has to do with evangelism within the framework of biblical Adventism.

This is the often missing piece in character development.

Now I'm going to read to you a statement.

This is from Selected Messages, Volume 3, page 259.

And this is sometimes used as a justification to not do evangelism.

God calls upon the workers in this mission to elevate the standard and to show them the regard for his requirements by honoring the Sabbath.

From this place the publications are sent out and the laborers go forth to proclaim the commandments of God and it is of the greatest importance that a right influence be exerted by this church, both by precept and example." Now listen to this, the standard must not be placed so low that those who accept the truth shall transgress God's commandments while professing to obey them.

Better, far better, would it be to leave them in darkness until they could receive the truth in its purity.

Sometimes we hear of stories of evangelism that is being done improperly.

And I 1 time lived somewhere outside of the United States where an evangelistic crusade was done where the only thing basically the converts were learning was maybe about the Sabbath and the state of the dead perhaps, but we received stories that within a few weeks after their baptism, they were calling their new Adventist pastor to perform last rites for their grandparents that were dying.

And so that's obviously not the type of evangelism that God is calling us to do.

There's obviously examples we could think of here in North America as well.

So there are times when it would be better to leave people in darkness until they could receive the truth in its purity.

But I believe that sometimes we have this mentality of not doing evangelism as an excuse for our own lack of unfaithfulness and our lack of surrender.

We say, well, If we bring them in, they're going to come into a place that isn't really ready to receive them, so let's just not do evangelism.

But that's not what God has called us to do.

Many have been discouraged from doing evangelism in the church because it has been done in an improper way.

Perhaps we are focused on making sure our church has its theology correct and we will engage in evangelism later.

Now clearly more work needs to be done in educating churches to do evangelism properly, but that doesn't mean we don't do evangelism.

Now, evangelism rightly done is the final and vital piece to last generation theology.

Revelation chapter 14 verses 6 and 7 describing the first angels message says that the everlasting gospel is going to be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

Now let me say something to you very clearly here.

That does not simply mean speaking to fellow Seventh-day Adventists, right?

That means taking the true gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

And then Jesus says in Matthew 24, verse 14, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations and then the end shall come.

Now here is 1 of the keys that perhaps we haven't understood.

The proclamation of the gospel alone is not the entire witness that the gospel needs to be in order for the end to come.

Let's just say hypothetically, and we live in a technology age where it is now more possible through technology to get the gospel to the remote corners of the earth than it ever has been.

And let's just say for hypothetical sake that 1 of our leading evangelists, let's just use Pastor Doug Batchelor since he's not far from here, let's say we could get Pastor Batchelor onto every screen or television or phone or whatever it was throughout the world and he gave an exposition of the true biblical gospel.

There was no error in it and he preaches the true gospel and there was no error in it and everybody heard it and he did it as well as it could be preached, would that lead to the end of all things?

The answer is no because it's not simply a proclamation that needs to be taken to the world, it's a demonstration.

And that's 1 of the reasons why we're having this symposium this weekend is because that in order for the gospel to be rightly Demonstrated we need to have a right Understanding of what the true gospel is so that we really can believe that we can be like Jesus through his grace and strength so that when we share Jesus with others they are not hearing simply about Jesus, they are interacting with Jesus through us.

That is what will lead us to the end of all things.

In Revelation 18, 1, I talked about this last night, the earth will be illuminated with the glory of God's character when the latter rain is poured out and people will see this is what it means to be like Jesus.

That is what proper evangelism will do in the framework of last generation theology.

Listen, if all you gain from being here this weekend is a walking away to say, okay, now I understand the correct theology.

I'm not going to be deceived and it will keep me from doing bad things.

But then you don't go out with a heart motivated to share Jesus with others.

I'll be honest with you, it's not going to do you a lot of good.

There has to be more than an intellectual understanding of what right theology is, and that is crucial.

It's important because correct theology is under attack in the church.

But then again that is not enough there has to be an experiential change in response to the true gospel that will lead to the gospel being taken to the world as a witness.

Now notice this statement we've heard this already This is the desire of Ages 633.

Before the fall of Jerusalem, Paul, riding by the Holy Spirit, declared that the gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven.

So, you know, the disciples of that generation, they accomplished the gospel commission by taking the gospel to every creature which is under heaven in the known territory that they had.

Notice what she says, so now before the coming of the Son of Man, the everlasting gospel is to be preached to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.

God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world.

Now, some people use Acts 1731 to say that God has already appointed a time when probation will close and things will wrap up, but Ellen White tells us what that text means.

Notice what she says, Christ tells us when that day shall be ushered in.

He does not say that all the world will be converted, but that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.

Now notice this, by giving the gospel to the world, it is in our power to hasten our Lord's return.

So it's not simply enough to stop doing bad things.

The character of Christ being perfectly reproduced in our lives doesn't simply mean that we stop doing bad things.

It means that we will give the gospel to the world the way Jesus reached people while he was on this earth.

That's part of character perfection, is being a soul winner and an evangelist the way Jesus was.

By giving the gospel to the world, it is in our power to hasten our Lord's return.

We are not only to look for, but to hasten the coming of the day of God.

Had the Church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and great glory and we have to ask ourselves the question are we giving the true gospel to the world not simply as a proclamation but as a witness in our lives.

Now let me ask you a few penetrating questions.

How many Seventh-day Adventists, including yourself, do you know that are truly excited about evangelism?

How many Seventh-day Adventists do you know that are actively engaged in evangelism?

How many people have you heard that say soul winning and evangelism are not their gift?

Do you know that I would venture to say that 99% of the churches that I visit and speak at, that is the mentality of the church members?

Other people may have that gift, but it's not me.

But the reality is that if you have Jesus in your life, you're going to be a soul winner.

You may not be speaking in front of a thousand people at an evangelistic crusade, but you will be soul winning and Jesus found the one-on-one audience as he did with Nicodemus, the most effective form of soul winning, anybody can do that.

Now, we're good at little cliches such as this, I'm a silent witness.

Preach the gospel, use words when necessary.

And listen, if we're honest with ourselves, our silent witness of preaching, in quotes, the gospel without words is so ineffective that many don't even know that we're Christians.

Listen, there is a time and a place to be a silent witness, sure.

But there is also a time to speak words or people won't hear the preaching of the gospel.

There has to be the invitation, come and follow me.

You can't just be a silent witness your whole life and say, I was a silent witness for Jesus.

Well, yeah, you were a silent witness and it didn't go anywhere.

I've heard some say, I'm not into evangelism now, but when the loud cry goes forth then I will become active and soul winning in evangelism.

That's like saying I'll surrender my life to Jesus when the Sunday Law is passed.

You really think that you're going to suddenly have a switch flipped in your brain and suddenly become interested in something that you didn't enjoy doing prior to the outpouring of the latter rain?

No, the latter rain is simply going to accentuate and empower that which was already in development.

So if there's no evangelistic desire and soul-wanting desire in your heart now, you're not suddenly going to go from no growth, 0 growth to best soul 1 of the world's ever seen.

When we love Jesus we will share Jesus And when we have a converted heart and a surrendered heart, people will see it.

This is a powerful statement from medical ministry, page 49.

Christ was a seventh-day Adventist to all intents and purposes.

The question is are you a seventh-day Adventist to all intents and purposes?

When the character of Christ is perfectly reproduced in your life, you will be a Seventh-day Adventist to all intents and purposes.

Why Jesus Waits

The presentation for this evening that I will be sharing with you is entitled, Why Jesus Waits.

It's hard to believe that we as a people have been here since 1844, 175 years.

The pioneers who were alive on October 22, 1844 surely could never have dreamed that we would be here on this planet 175 years later.

And the question we need to be asking ourselves is why is Jesus waiting?

And why are we still here as Seventh-day Adventists when we have been given a commission to take the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

And I want to take you to Matthew chapter 25, a very familiar parable.

And in this parable, Jesus actually prophesies of the reality that there would be a delay prior to his coming.

In Matthew chapter 25 verses 1 through 6 we read this powerful parable in which Jesus describes the condition of seventh-day Adventist just before he comes back.

Starting in verse 1, then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto 10 virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

Now I'm going to go through this quickly, but it's pretty obvious what Jesus is describing here.

His kingdom describes his church, which is described as a virgin or 10 virgins, meaning that there are more than 1 person in this church, and it's a pure church, and they took their lamps, meaning they have the Bible, they believe in the truths of Scripture, and based on their study of Scripture there is an expectation that the bridegroom, Jesus, is coming again.

So they believe in the second advent and they are seventh day Adventists And we see in the following verses that some are wise and some are foolish Those who are wise have the Holy Spirit those who are foolish do not the wise are converted the foolish are unconverted.

Pretty basic and we understand that, but notice verse 5.

It says, while the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.

Now in the Greek, the word for tarried is the Greek word chronizo, which means to be delayed.

So Jesus actually prophesies in this parable that there will be a delay before his coming and he says that his church will be asleep.

You know so many times we say it will be so nice when Jesus comes back, we'll get away from this world of sin, suffering, and pain, and yet sometimes we don't look at it from God's perspective that maybe it's us that are delaying him, rather than he just sitting there waiting for no clear apparent reason.

Here we see from Scripture that there is a delay.

Some have suggested that Jesus will come at an appointed time, and when he decides to come, he will come and there is no delay, but scripture makes it very clear there is a delay.

Now, I want you to go to James chapter 5 verses 7 and 8, which tells us very clearly what Jesus is waiting for.

Be patient therefore brethren under the coming of the Lord.

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for until he receive the early and latter rain.

Be ye also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." Now notice the husbandman here is Jesus and he is waiting for the precious fruit of the earth.

He's the 1 that's waiting for the fruit to ripen.

And in order for the fruit to ripen, there needs to be the outpouring of the early and the latter rain.

Now we understand prophetically that the early rain was poured out at Pentecost, and the latter rain will be poured out just before Jesus returns.

Now I'm gonna take you now to Jeremiah chapter 3, to a verse that is not often discussed when describing God's last day people relative to the outpouring of the latter rain.

And in Jeremiah chapter 3, and actually we'll start in verse 1, it says, they say, if a man put away his wife and she go from him and become another man's, shall he return unto her again?

But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return again to me, saith the Lord.

So God says, you've been out in the world, you profess to follow God, but you're actually out in the world playing the role of a harlot, but he says, return again to me.

And then verse 2, lift up your eyes into the high places and see where thou hast not been lying within.

The ways hast thou sat for them as the Arabian in the wilderness, and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withholden and there hath been no latter rain.

Back to Menu

Presenter

Norman McNulty

All Recordings

Panel Q & A

1h 14m

End Time Soul Winners

29m

Why Jesus Waits

54m

6. Gospel Clarity for the Last Days

1h 15m

5. From Questions on Doctrine to Desmond Ford

1h 14m

4. Confusion on Ecclesiology and Church Authority

1h 14m

3. Confusion on Prophecy

1h 14m

2. The Third Person of the Godhead

1h 15m

1. The Everlasting Son

1h 14m

The Value of Heresy

36m

Service or Business?

47m

How YOU Can Bring Closure for Jesus

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine