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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eugene Prewitt

Some Roots of Modern Movements in The Church

Our Father in heaven, I ask that You would use our last 40 minutes here efficiently, that You'd give me wisdom to know what to share and what not to share and how to proceed.

And I ask for that gift in the name of Jesus.

So in this last period, what's in your bulletins, I'm going to talk about how a number of movements that are going on in the church, how they got started, the history of them.

I am going to get to that in just a minute, but I feel like I need to tie up a couple loose ends.

I mentioned to you about Ford arguing against the translation of the word for… that we call cleanse in Daniel 8.14, saying that it should be translated otherwise.

And I told you that he objected to the connection that we make between Daniel 8 and Daniel 9.

The only way I can tie that up without using up the 40 minutes is to say that If you email me or look at my website, you'll find that I've dealt with those issues.

I could say that if you want to get a second opinion of how to translate the Word in Daniel 8, 14, you could just try looking at 15 or 20 different translations of the Bible.

You know, they were all made by different scholars, and the vast majority of them side directly with the scholars that translated Daniel 8, 14.

I think it's a safer method than to trust scholarship as it were today, because it seems like in so many ways that scholarship has an agenda.

And since you can't test them, I mean, since we can't follow them because we don't know what they know about the languages, we either have to become dependent on them or find some way to bypass them to know what is true.

And I find when we go back to the people who weren't involved in the controversies, when they were just trying to give the best translation they could find for the verse, that they did a good job.

Conradi was a… I mentioned he was a high-position, gifted man, and he was taken somewhat off guard by World War I.

Our church ran into a war, the Civil War, before we had ever formalized a position on what to do about combatancy.

You all knew that, I think, that when we hit the Civil war running, this was not 1 of the issues that had come up in our first 20 formative years.

And in fact, our initial responses to the issue of combatancy were varied.

Surprisingly, The strongest rebuke given to anyone on the issue of combatancy was given to pacifists.

The pacifists had written to the governor there, and they had said that they would face a firing squad before they would take part in military service.

And you can read Ellen White's rebuke of them.

She indicates in that rebuke, among other things, that they wouldn't be as brave as they think they would in front of a firing squad.

But if they had done that, it wouldn't have been the first time people had gone to death for something other than what God was asking them to go to death for.

So if you're interested in a Bible study on combatancy in Scripture, I have an article called The Draft, and you can read that.

It's not that I think I'm the best writer in the world.

It's just that when I'm the 1 talking and I'm thinking I could say it, but I don't have time, I refer to the things I wrote.

Does that make any sense to you what I'm saying?

Just so you understand where I'm coming from.

So I wrote a study on that, but if I could bring up a few observations.

Do you remember what Jesus said, that if they compel you to go a mile, go with them twain." That's fascinating because the they that compel you to go a mile in that context are members of the local military.

They compel you to go a mile, and should you do what you're compelled to do in that situation, according to Jesus?

And would you be guilty if you volunteered some additional service to the military, according to Jesus.

He said, if they compel you to go a mile, go with them twain.

You know you're not even guilty if you volunteer some additional service.

Don't think I just said you can go kill someone in the military.

You remember what Jesus said in that same sermon in Matthew 5?

He said that His Father sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

That very idea tears up at its roots the thought that I am responsible for all consequences of what I do.

I mean, if it's true that when I buy something from Walmart, I'm responsible for what Walmart does with that money, then God is responsible for the evil going on in this world.

He gives the unjust an ability to live, but still their decision to be unjust is their decision.

And they are responsible for the decision.

And when you go and give fomentations to your neighbor, you don't even have to try to figure out whether or not he's gonna be a good boy when you get done.

If he is a bad boy, that is his choice, and you're only responsible to try to do good where you can do good.

So if anyone ever tells you that you should boycott some organization because at the head of that organization that sells the best price this or that, they're spiritualist, I hope you know that that's just senseless.

They might be spiritualists, but they're not 1 bit more wicked than the materialists running all the other organizations.

You're responsible to use your money well and to make sure you're doing the best you can, and it just really isn't your responsibility what other people do with their own powers of decision.

It is your responsibility, however, whether or not you kill somebody.

I mean, what did John the Baptist say to the soldiers that came to him that wanted to be baptized?

And I think it's as simple as pie in that respect.

So I didn't really intend to get on the issue of combatancy, but I guess I got on it anyway.

Except for that it's about the topic of karate, because during World War I, karate faced this issue and he did not understand it the same way I do in any sense at all.

If he'd had more confidence in Ellen White during that time, he might have understood it better.

But by then, he had already given up on that aspect of Adventism.

Kenradi was nearly relieved of all responsibilities whatsoever in this issue because the German government dissolved the Seventh-day Adventist church in Germany.

Would you do that if you were the German government?

I mean, the Adventist church was a foreign entity, and aren't you a little worried about foreign entities?

Aren't those easy ways for spies to get in from other countries?

And so it was dissolved, But it was at the pleading of Conradi, what he said is that the Adventist church in Germany is a nationalistic church.

We support our government, according to Romans 13.

And so he was given a chance, and he nearly lost his head over it, because what happened is the report came back right away that many Adventist young men, and it was just young men, Many Adventist young men in Germany were refusing to take up arms.

That's not what Conradi said the young men would do.

And you see how it made Conradi look kind of bad.

So Conradi, the best thing I can say is he did it to save his skin, circulated a pledge requiring everyone to sign it via the church elders that they would agree to support their government in the war effort and there were several other things they'd have to agree to do.

And you know, if I'd been there, I couldn't have signed it.

It's already happened to me once in my life that something has been circulated for me to sign, with the understanding that if I wouldn't sign it, I would lose my job.

And when I read it, you know, for example, what I do with my tongue, I can't give that to you because it belongs to God.

And if I promise you I won't do something with it, and then he asked me to do that very thing, I really compromised myself.

And that's the same reason I could never join the military as a volunteer.

It's not that I couldn't volunteer to carry their stuff around, but I could never join them because what I commit to do is to do whatever they tell me to do.

And if God asks me to go somewhere else, I'm not at liberty to just go do it.

So many Adventists would not sign that document, and Conradi, to save himself and others, arranged to have them disfellowshipped.

And just think for a minute, if you were a member of those disfellowshipped bunch, how would you feel now about your Seventh-day Adventist church?

I guess it would depend about how long you'd been a member, but you know, almost everyone in Germany was a new member.

Is that making sense to you when I'm communicating?

It was like it was a new work that was going on there, and first generation Adventists, the whole bunch of them.

And eventually the question came up to them, should we organize or not?

And they did organize, and that was the beginning of the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement.

Now, it has splintered twice since then, and I don't think I have time to get into any of that.

Some Roots of Modern Movements in The Church

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