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Kettle Falls SDA Church

Eugene Prewitt: How to Learn to Think for Yourself Without Becoming Rebellious

Eugene Prewitt

Thinking Makes the Man

Tricks of the Devil

Determining Your Own Values

Disillusioned with your Parents

Diseases of the Maturing Mind

There is a type of common speech mistake that people make.

I'm 1 of those people and I make it commonly.

And that is when I am thinking about 1 thing while talking about another thing, 1 of the words that fits in well with what I'm thinking ends up replacing the right word for what I'm saying.

Can any of you understand what I'm talking about, this kind of mistake?

And 1 of the most common ways that happens in my teaching is between the books of Daniel and Revelation.

Particularly between Daniel 12 and Revelation 12.

You don't need to turn to either 1 of those.

But you understand, Both those chapters have 12.

And in my mind, Daniel and Revelation are very related to each other already, So those chapters are in such a similar box that often when I'm intending to say Daniel 12, I say Revelation 12.

And often when I'm intending to say Revelation 12, I say Daniel 12.

There is another book like that that I often mix up with Revelation.

I mean that often when I'm intending to say Romans such and such, because I'm so often thinking about Revelation, I say, revelation such and such.

And I usually don't catch that I did it either until my students say it doesn't say that and then we figure out what's going on.

And the reason I told you all that is because That obviously happened when I was typing the scripture for this service.

I was thinking Romans and I typed Revelation, and so you heard a most interesting scripture, Revelation 14, verse 4 and 10 through 12.

I almost wanted to preach on it when I heard it.

But if you would turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter 14, I want to show you what I intended to type.

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?

Yes, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand.

And verse 10, But why dost thou judge thy brother?

Or why dost thou set at naught thy brother?

For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

For it is written, as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue confess to God.

So then, every 1 of us shall give account of himself to God.

Today we're talking about in this particular sermon how to arrive at your own set of values in such a way that they'll be the right set of values, in such a way that you won't end up being rebellious, in such a way that you'll end up being content when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

And before I go into methods that are so related to arriving at a correct set of values, I want us to catch this idea in verse 4.

That is that It is inappropriate for me to evaluate your standing before God on the basis of your conclusions.

And it is inappropriate for you to evaluate my standing before God on the basis of my conclusions.

I want to say this in a different way where you can see it as it is in the passage.

Martin Luther and Karlstadt debated over 1 issue I mentioned last evening, and that was the Sabbath.

Martin Luther was wrong and Karlstadt was right.

But it would be wrong to conclude from that that Martin Luther was not consecrated.

And in fact, it might even be premature to conclude from that that Karlstadt was consecrated.

I would like to create in your mind an understanding that there is a disconnect between accuracy of conclusions and the consecration of the heart.

Consecration leads to accuracy, but it often does it on a very slow and laborious journey.

And accuracy sometimes comes through some other means than consecration.

For example, believing what someone told you that happened to be consecrated.

Or growing up in a home that happened to teach you the right conclusions.

That there's quite a disconnect between being accurate and being consecrated.

It might be interesting to you to know that John Bunyan, the 1 who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, the 1 that Elmight writes so glowingly about in the Great Controversy, that he wrote quite a number of books.

And 1 of his books is about the seventh day Sabbath.

The entire book is written to show that it's no longer binding on us on this planet.

It's quite a well-written book, and I think I'd almost say I don't recommend reading it.

But I cannot, on the basis of reading that book say that John Bunyan was not a consecrated man.

Do you understand the point I'm trying to communicate to you?

It's this point in verse 4, who art thou that judgest another man's servant?

It was the Lord Jesus that he had a duty to serve, whether he served him or not, that was his duty.

And that's what the verse is saying, is that every man has a duty to serve the Lord Jesus himself.

And I cannot, by looking at how, it's none of my business to evaluate how well he serves him.

I just hope that you can see that I'm not making this up, that it's in the passage.

Who are you that judges another man's servant?

Does the passage say that everyone is gonna stand?

It doesn't, but it says I'm not the 1 that can figure out who is which.

So we're gonna start with the last trick of the devil and move into how to form your own values.

The last trick of the devil is related to this very point.

I can think of 2 stories in my own short life related to this.

I was in Maine and I met a lady who at 1 point had been studying with Jehovah's Witnesses at 1 time in the week and with Seventh-day Adventists at another time in the week.

She was learning a lot from both camps and some of the things they have in common, right?

There are some things in there in common.

And then, unfortunately, her house burned to the ground.

The Adventist church offered something like some clothes and a few hundred dollars, and the local Watchtower Society rebuilt her house.

That was nice of them to do that, don't you think?

I'm sure there was some sincerity in that service.

And God doesn't overlook the sincerity of even erroneous people.

But it was a mistake on the part of that sister to conclude that the Jehovah's Witnesses were right because they were nice.

That is what she concluded when I met her.

The second story happened in the Bahamas.

She had just joined the Seventh-day Adventist church, but while she was there, she began studying with members of the Shepherds' Rod, who were also Seventh-day Adventists.

They were part of the same denomination, but they had different views than the others in their church.

And while that was going on, a hurricane came to that island, it was 1 of those ones we heard about here in this country.

It took the roof off a lot of homes, and the local Seventh-day Adventist church wasn't able to help her out particularly.

A lot of them were suffering, and that was what they concluded, as far as what they could have.

Can you understand their perspective if a lot of people lost?

I'm not saying that they were mean, but listen carefully.

But the shepherd's rod persons that she was studying with put a new roof on her home.

And can you just understand that that just doesn't follow in terms of logic.

But it's very difficult for young people and also simple-minded adults to understand So that it becomes a very normal trick of the devil to bring a young person who has learned a great deal about values into contact, often with a sincerely consecrated, very sweet and kind person who knows very little about values.

And often in this scenario, this young person contrast the sweetness of his previous teachers with the sweetness of his current teacher.

And concludes on the basis of the sweetness that his current teacher is more accurate than his previous teacher.

We should be willing to confess and to be repentant and sorry for the fact that we might fit into the category of being less sweet.

And it is just a normal trick of the devil to lead some people to focus all their building on accuracy and lead others to focus all their building on sweetness Such that this clamp ends up being right but not sweet, and this clamp ends up being sweet but not right.

And that just really works to the devil's advantage.

And I hope that you and this congregation would conclude to work to the end of being right and sweet at the same time.

It would just so undermine many of the devil's efforts on this planet.

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Series

Eugene Prewitt: How to Learn to Think for Yourself Without Becoming Rebellious

Determining Your Own Values

Transcript

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