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NEC Youth

Eugene Prewitt

2. 2520 is Not the Problem

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would bless our Sabbath school time, that by your Spirit you would make a difference, that you'd help us to understand the Holy Bible, And I ask for these gifts in the name of Jesus.

When I was 21 years old, which was half a life ago for me, I was a single staff member in a little school with a similar feel as peace.

It was Ouachita Hills Academy, a little school in Arkansas.

And there were several other single staff.

Now you know if you're at an institution that has married staff and single staff.

The single staff are kind of like a social club.

I don't know if you can sort of imagine that.

But like they hang out together, they have special meals together.

It's kind of an enjoyable thing to be part of that single group of staff.

There was a young lady there, 2 of them, 1 named Michelle Ardoin and 1 named Amy Sager.

But Amy was A bright red-headed young lady who was a new Adventist was on fire, would volunteer for outreach things.

I guess she was probably even then like 8 or 9 years older than I was, so today she'd probably be in her mid-50s.

Michelle was more soft-spoken, but she was full of zeal, very careful about how she lived her life.

She dressed well, she ate well, she was at the prayer meeting, 1 of those people.

And since they were the 2 single ladies, they had a bond together with each other.

I think they even lived together in the same apartment.

And anyway, it was just a nice atmosphere.

But then, by means I don't know, Amy and Michelle became interested in a prophet in France.

The name of the lady, I think, although I'm sure I'll slaughter the pronunciation of her name, but a 21-year-old American memory of mine that has gone through the process memories go through has left her name something like Janine Satron.

And Janine is, or was, I don't know if she even lives, but she was a false prophet.

1 that had all kinds of interesting and fascinating things to say.

And these 2 young ladies, as they took an interest in Janine, that became the burning fire of their being.

That is, what was important to them is that you would also know about this prophet, that you also would care.

It became their passion And just as they'd had a passion for the 3 Angels' Messages, now they had a passion for something else.

Of course, that was inimical, like it did not harmonize with the mission of the school.

And so they both left their employment at the school.

And I just haven't seen them since that time.

But I remember that it hurt to see zealous Adventists lose their zeal for the 3 Angels' messages and develop a zeal for something other than that.

I think maybe some of you have had an experience like I had as a young man, that you've known someone who previously had a helpful zeal and now still has a zeal but not of the same bent or quality.

Maybe that was like a dozen hands out of maybe 90 of us or so that are here.

I want to talk to you about that this morning.

And my thesis statement, if there is such a thing, this morning it's gonna be that the 2520 is not the problem.

Day 2A, I guess this is day 2 and this is the first presentation.

The 2520, what I'm referring to is a period of 2, 520 years that a number of our pioneers thought was a prophecy from Leviticus 26 and or Daniel chapter 4 and or Ezekiel 38 and or a few other places.

They thought this was a period of 2, 520 years of special scattering or captivity of God's people that would end, some would say, in 1798, some would say in 1843 or 1844, some would use, most today would say 2 of those dates, 1798 and 1844.

Anyway, it's an idea that here in the UK there are probably now maybe a thousand people who really zealously believe in this time prophecy.

And for them, if you meet 1 of them in your churches, they may want to have a study with you about this time prophecy.

To them it is so important that you understand it and that you buy into it and that it become valuable to you.

What I'm telling you this morning to begin with is it's not a problem.

The 2520, I don't believe in it, but you could believe in it and you and I could work together happily doing the work of the 3 angels' messages and I would have no trouble with it.

It didn't slow him down from preaching the 3 Angels' Messages.

He's the 1 who discovered the sanctuary message about Christ going into that most holy place in 1844.

It didn't slow him down from giving the 3 Angels' messages.

And he was a zealous promoter of the 3 angels' messages.

He's the 1 who taught the Sabbath, the James and Ellen White.

What I'm saying is, this idea, the idea that this is a prophecy, William Miller had the idea, and it did not even prevent him from being God's leading man in teaching about Daniel 8.14 and about the fact that we should get ready for the judgment hour.

I don't wanna say that William Miller preached the 3 angels' messages, but he preached 2 of them.

He preached mostly the first, The hour of his judgment is here, but in the last 2 years before 1844, he was preaching Babylon is fallen.

James White did for some portion of his life.

Hiram Edson did, maybe for his whole life, maybe not, and it just didn't cause them issues.

Can you understand when I tell you that I don't think this is the problem?

But I do think that the people who are teaching this today have a problem.

And what I want to do for you this morning, 2 steps, is first explain to you a little bit about the history of this movement and why I don't believe there's any such time prophecy, and then to tell you what I think the real problem is so you can avoid the real problem.

Once upon a time in a land not so far away, there lived a man named Isaac Newton.

Isaac Newton, I wrote it in my notes where he was born, but I'm not sure I can find it fast enough to make it, oh, Lincolnshire.

Lincoln, do you say shire or shire, anyway.

Apparently it was at Cambridge that the Apple experience happened, if it ever really happened, that's about where it happened.

Did you know Isaac Newton wrote more about prophecy than he did about physics?

Isaac Newton wrote quite a collection of documents on Daniel and Revelation.

He laid down principles of interpretation, many of which are very sound.

He made observations about the connection between symbols, like the idea that the beast is a nation or the water is people.

The day for your principle, Isaac Newton didn't come up with it, but he surely systemized it.

That is, he did the kind of careful research and documentation that it was hard to argue with him in win.

Isaac Newton wrote a lot about prophecy, And if you ever end up doubting that the historical school of interpretation, you ought to find, I think Google Books will help you with this, Isaac Newton and read him.

Fast forward a few hundred years, I guess not few, 2.

200 years, you have a young man, William Miller, who grows up in a Baptist, like they didn't use the word fundamentalist back then, but it was a fundamentalist Baptist environment and it did not convert him.

Some of you know young people like the young William Miller who liked to talk about religion.

William Miller liked to talk about the Bible for the sake of making Christians look foolish.

But the deists are the ones who believe or believed that there was an intelligence that created this planet, that made things the way they are, but that intelligence has a lot of things to do, and once it created this planet, sort of let it go, the way you might make a treehouse when you're young, but you don't pay any more attention to it.

That's the deist idea, that God created everything, but he's not paying any attention any longer, that he sort of left us on our own.

And when you have the deist idea, it helps harmonize some otherwise incongruous thoughts like how could God be so powerful as to create these things and yet let suffering go on the way it does?

2. 2520 is Not the Problem

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