Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

From Moses' Exodus to Christ's Advent

Royce Snyman

From Moses’ Exodus to Christ’s Advent- Part 1

Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity to share your word and to learn together today.

Lord, we know that there is so much that we need to know in preparation for your return.

Lord, we really want to be ready when Jesus comes.

We want to represent you right in this time between now and when He returns.

We want people to be ready also that we know that we love when you come.

And I pray, Father, that you will bless our discussion and our learning now through the working of your Holy Spirit.

I had the privilege as a young man at Pacific Union College back in the mid-1970s to not only be a student of theology there, but also to be a member of the Pacific Union College Church, and the pastor at the time was a man by the name of Morris Vendin.

How many of you have heard of Morris Vendin?

And I think many of you will know that he recently passed away.

And Morris Vendin was a teacher of righteousness by faith.

Now there's a lot of discussion about what form righteousness by faith should look, take, and so on and so forth.

And it's not particularly what I'm sharing with you today.

What I'm sharing with you today is related but indirectly related.

The Bible talks about righteousness by faith, right?

What I want to share with you is that there are some parallels in the Bible that are times ignored in our study of the Bible, and for that reason, we miss out a lot on what God is trying to teach us and what he wants us to know and what he wants us to learn.

In the process, we're finding we're not going to be ready for the return of Jesus because we're focused Not on the things that are important that the Bible makes clear to us are important But the things that we think are important and that's not the case That's my little personal connection with Morris Vanden He came out with a book not long after that entitled, From Exodus to Advent.

Okay, all right, Steve, you've seen it, good.

A fascinating study and he himself, I'm going to actually read a part of the introduction because I can't just relate it, you have to hear what he has to say about it, and his introduction to why he wrote the book.

And it goes back a step farther from him.

I'm gonna back up for a moment and I'm gonna share with you this little bit.

Now I don't know that this book, I don't think this book is in print anymore.

I don't think you can get this book anymore.

And from what I'm able to tell, Amazon has all that kind of stuff.

I don't know if they have some of these kinds of books or whatever, but you go and Google it and it's probably out there somewhere in 1 form or another.

But this is what Morris Vendin says at the beginning of his book, and I think this is the part that is a fascinating setting for this.

He says, have you ever wondered how long it will be until Jesus really comes again?

How long can we keep saying that His return is right upon us?

Or is God's final conclusion to His great plan contingent upon what we do?

Will there come a time after which God will wait no longer, regardless of what we do?

What is the purpose of church organization?

How does God look at offshoots, fanatics, fringe movements?

Is the God of the Old Testament as much a God of love as the God of the New Testament?

Is the theme of salvation by faith in Christ only a New Testament concept?

So he asks all these questions and then he shares the foundation for what he wanted to share at this time.

Now I graduated in 1977 from Pacific Union College.

I also was married in 1977 to my present wife.

I also joined the Michigan Conference at that time.

All of those, if you do the math, add up to 39 years of time.

So it was shortly after my wife and I were at Pacific Union college.

When I was in college, that was Morris Venden, our Bible teacher walked into the classroom 1 day carrying a pile of syllabus type books, thick, mimeographed, obviously unpublished.

He told us that they would be of benefit to us, and I, along with the rest of the class, bought a copy." Now, how many of you remember the mimeograph days?

So you can just, you almost smell that stuff, can't you?

And came in, it's not a published book obviously, it's 8 and a half by 11, you know, somewhat like what I just handled you today, except you're not getting the whole thing.

He had this whole thing handed to them, or at least held up before them and then encouraged to buy it.

And if you look at the material that I gave you, the first page indicates that this material was written by Taylor G.

Carried the title, The Exodus and Advent Movement in Type and Antitype.

At first glance, it appeared exceedingly dry.

My copy ended up on the bottom shelf and stayed there for years.

But 1 day, prompted by a growing interest in the subject of salvation by faith, I took the book from the shelf, dusted it off and began studying.

I discovered it to be a most fascinating study, for we as a people are repeating the history of ancient Israel.

His study answers the questions of why we are still here, what will finally bring us to the heavenly Canaan, and what is God's purpose for His Church.

We also find a great emphasis on the mighty love of God and on the teaching of salvation through Christ alone in the Old Testament.

The syllabus that I have is no longer available." That was 1980.

But there are such things as Google and technology out there today, and the computer provides an opportunity for you to be able to find this material again, in spite of the fact that you would think it might be lost.

He says, I'd like to suggest though, that if you wish to pursue the study personally, that you read the following material, the first 5 books of the Bible, Patriarchs and Prophets, the chapters that deal with the exodus from Egypt to the entrance into Canaan, and the book Christ Our Righteousness by A.

Daniels, using mostly inspired material, shows how we too have journeyed in a spiritual wilderness.

To admit that we have aimlessly wandered, trying to learn our lessons of faith and trust, is an ego-deflating experience to our denominational pride.

Perhaps as a church we have been slow to face that possibility, but let's not get bogged down in the problem of thinking about the church as being some giant impersonal movement.

Therefore, when we discuss the church, we're talking about ourselves.

We must get rid of the idea that when we study this subject, we're taking pot shots at our leaders.

For too long we have thought of the church as being a group of administrators.

We are the church." Interesting introduction to this idea of what He's trying to lead us to and what He wants us to be able to understand.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, I'm using my electronic version, I hope that's okay.

I don't particularly care for it, but it kind of works for me right now in what we want to do.

And I want to look at 1 Corinthians 10, because 1 Corinthians 10 sets the stage for us in what we want to share.

And Morris Vanden uses it, and so does Taylor G.

And then we're going to take a look at this material that he gave to, that I've given to you today and I'll explain a little bit more of that.

Make sure that the sheet gets all the way around that gives you an opportunity to sign your name and give your address because I want to make sure that I have that from you.

We're going to look at 1st Corinthians chapter 10 and we're going to look at the first verse to start with there.

This is what the New King James Version says of this, in this passage.

"'Moreover, brethren, I would not, "'I do not want you to be unaware "'that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea." Now, you all know this passage very well.

Someone who has this, read verse 2 for me, please.

All were baptized in the mountains and in the cloud and in the sea.

From Moses’ Exodus to Christ’s Advent- Part 2

Father in heaven, as once again we take up our study, we pray that your Holy Spirit will be present here and that from our time here we learn more about you, but more also about ourselves.

In the time in which we live and the issues that we face in this day and age.

May the exodus, the type, help us to understand the anti-type, the last days in which we live in the Advent movement.

A couple of general comments as we're beginning our study today, and that is that as we go through this study in the next few days that remain, ask yourself some key questions in relationship to being a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.

You know, a lot of people will accuse you because you're a Seventh-day Adventist that you're a legalist and that you don't really believe in righteousness by faith, you believe in righteousness by works, that you see salvation in the Sabbath.

By keeping the Sabbath you are earning your way to heaven.

As you study the experience of the Exodus, and we're going to look at some of that a little bit today, but not only today, but as we continue on, keep asking yourself, where is the message of righteousness by faith in this study?

Where is the message of righteousness by faith in this journey of the children of Israel out of Exodus?

I'm going to give you an overall blanket statement.

Did the children of Israel get themselves out of Egypt or did someone else get them out of Egypt?

The change of being from captive in captivity of the Pharaoh, no it's different material.

The captive people in Egypt had the experience of being slaves.

And when Moses tried to help them get out of Egypt, the first time, you remember the first time?

He fell flat on his face and he had to run for his life and it took him 40 years to get that out of his system.

So you start to, as you look at this, you begin to realize that this whole movement of the children of Israel of Exodus, in the Exodus and coming out of Israel, was a movement that demonstrates that we do not save ourselves and that we're dependent upon God at every stage.

So look at the details as we go through this and ask yourself, what does this teach me about my relationship with Jesus and righteousness by faith?

And then also ask yourself the question, if I'm not saved by myself and by my own actions, Where do my actions fit into this situation?

Why is it that I should respond to God and if I don't respond What is the end result of that?

And you're asking these questions because you want to say, wait a minute, what is God telling me about the last days?

Remember what happened after the children of Israel got out of Egypt?

Immediately after they got out of Egypt, what was the next thing that happened?

What's going to happen at the end of time?

You know, we were close to being out of Egypt, but we had to come out of somewhere before that, and we'll talk about that.

You begin to look at these parallels, and you begin to realize that there is a deeper lesson that God is trying to teach us.

It's not just about coming out of Egypt, it's not just about plagues that hit Egypt, this is not just a history lesson, it is an illustration of God's working in our lives and what he's trying to get out of us.

And it's going to come clearer as we get into our study today.

So the first chapter that we're going to look at today is the Law and the Sabbath.

And I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Exodus chapter 4 verses 22-23, the first passages that are there.

A lot of passages in here, I hope you'll go back and as you review this material you look at all the Bible verses but the time doesn't allow us to do all of that, we have to kind of work our way back through it.

Exodus chapter 4 verse twenty-two and twenty-three.

And as we did yesterday, let's do some reading together here.

Exodus chapter 4 and we're gonna look at verse twenty-two and twenty-three.

So someone read verses twenty-two and twenty-three of chapter 4.

4 and we're going to look at verse 22 and 23.

So someone read verses 22 and 23 of chapter 4.

And I say unto thee, let my son go, that he may serve me.

And if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even my firstborn.

Kind of an interesting perspective here, right?

If you please, God is laying down the law to Pharaoh, isn't he?

He's reminding him that, You know, you think you're in charge, but I'm the 1 who's really in charge, right?

And what I'm telling you, Pharaoh, is to let my people go.

And then he says if you refuse, there are going to be consequences.

Again Exodus, this time chapter 9 verse 1.

Then the Lord said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh and tell him, Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews.'" What does he say?

See, The children of Israel had a problem.

Typically a slave has to do what in relationship to the master?

And typically, the slavery, a person who was involved or captured in slavery, had no life of their own, no control of their own, right?

Every breath they took, every job they did, every moment they spent was dictated by the master.

They didn't have the opportunity to make any personal choices.

And that's the key to what we're looking at today.

The slavery that they were involved with led them into not just physical slavery and captivity, but they also were enslaved to the world.

The notes there from our lesson, and I'm gonna hit again some of the highlights, in the first paragraph under those Bible verses, the second sentence says, while in bondage, they were serving man instead of God and were therefore guilty of idolatry.

Now you and I are privileged to be in the United States and slavery more or less is banished and gone, although you hear a lot now today about slaves, women being brought into slavery, sexual slavery, All that kind of thing that seems to have a resurgence.

But aside from that, we basically are free people, right?

The truth is, most of us have to answer the question, who are we really serving?

And when we get into slavery, we realize that the world we're living in right now is, we're enslaved, enslaved to the world.

You know, I don't worship it, but I'm just saying there are a lot of things that control our lives, right?

But while in bondage they were serving man instead of God and therefore guilty of idolatry.

Now, naturally the experience of being slaves left them in a very difficult position because they weren't able to make choices.

When they came down from the north and came into captivity, I should say, but came into Egypt originally, who was leading the way?

Joseph led the way into Egypt, but He came as a slave, didn't he?

And he didn't have a lot of choices about what was going on, but he stood up for God.

But eventually God stood up for him, used him in the way that he had intended to in bringing him there in the first place, and was able to save Him and His family from the famine that came, right?

So that's when the people came into captivity, all of which was, as we talked about yesterday, no we didn't talk about this yesterday, we're going to talk about it later, all of which was predicted in prophecy and they were there for a period of time, they were going to be there for a period of time.

God used that as an opportunity to save them from that family, brought them into that place.

There's a lot of questions we can ask about why didn't God just feed them where they were and all of it.

God is always trying to spread the gospel message.

He's always trying to get the word out to everybody.

There's all these kinds of things that are going on.

We like to second guess God, but God is in charge.

And God has a reason for what He's doing and what He's trying to accomplish.

But here they are in captivity and they came down as Sabbath worshippers, correct?

They came down as commandment keepers, correct?

But when they got into slavery and the world got control of them and Pharaoh got control of their place, the Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, what began to happen to them?

From Moses’ Exodus to Christ’s Advent- Part 3

Father in Heaven, today, once again we take up our study of your Word.

We are so grateful for the parallels in Scripture that connect us from the past to the present and even into the future.

Thank you for prophecy and how you have seen these things before they came and how the things that lie ahead of us you also want us to not only know about but be prepared for and especially in our relationship with you.

So guide our conversation today, we pray, and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, we've been taking our journey here a little bit in the Exodus and the Advent movement, And we're looking at the parallels and the types between the past and the anti-type and the present, and using those nice theological terms, basically the symbols and what the symbols mean in terms of fulfillment.

1 of the points I would like to make as we start off today is that it is fascinating that God is so precise.

The world out there tends to think that, you know, God just takes anything and everything and He just kind of floats along with the flow of things and, you know, if this happens to happen then, that's fine, and if it doesn't, you know, I mean, that's the way a lot of people think of God.

But when you study the Bible out, God is precise.

When you get into the New Testament and you hear the New Testament writers saying things like, when the fullness of time was come, and then you begin to recognize how precise that was, we're not talking about within a few hundred years.

We're not just talking about within a year or so.

When you take the prophecy of Daniel chapter 9, and you recognize that the children of Israel had had this prophecy for so many years.

For so many years they had this prophecy of the 490 years and its connection also with the 2300 days.

You all know what I'm talking about, right?

If I'm confusing you, come talk to me afterwards.

But with the 490 year prophecy and The precision with which the angel Gabriel identified for Daniel what God's people could expect and how that the time was cut off from the command to restore and to build Jerusalem until the time when the Messiah would come and the details in relationship to that and how precise that was, you realize the children of Israel should have known.

They had the prophecy and God fulfilled the prophecy just the way He said it was going to happen.

So much so that the Messiah, the 1 who was going to be cut off as spoken of in the prophecy of Daniel 9, was cut off on the Passover.

He was precisely in the year, in the 3 and a half year period of time, at the Passover, on the very day.

All of these things even tie us back to the Exodus.

Luke was a physician and his details are important to us.

Because he not only wrote down the gospel story and he basically says, you know, he got this information and kind of compiled it, that's my summary of this.

But then he happens, happens, the details he happens to pick out are the ones that identify the precision of God.

He tells us it was in during the reign of Caesar Tiberius.

Okay, He tells us all of these kinds of things, these details.

So we can actually go back through archeology and history and identify the very year these things happened, the very time these things happened.

So Jesus not only was baptized on time, but he also died on time and was resurrected on time.

And all of this should tell us something about how God works.

So when we are dealing with this whole issue of the Exodus and the Advent movement, don't take it lightly that God cares about the details and takes the types and the anti-types and shows us the kinds of things that will happen along the way.

Now, be careful, I'm not trying to tell you that he's going to be precise in terms of telling us when he comes, because he clearly said, Jesus said, no man knows the day or the hour, right?

So don't fall into that trap, don't get into it.

All I'm saying is, is we look at some of these parallels, and we see the precision at which God connects the past with the present.

Yeah, we want to have you, want to make sure you do.

Alright, we're going to use the 1 from last time because I didn't get all the way through what I intended to do.

And it's a really good thing because the copy machine just broke.

And I was able to make enough I think to get us through today.

But the really bad news is this copy machine broke and we think it's old enough that there are no parts.

So I don't know what they're going to do to solve that problem.

I've got a printer and there are other devices around here that make it work for us so that we've got all we need.

But I want to start today with kind of picking up from where we left off.

And just for those of you who are new, just a little clue into what we're doing here.

We are using a document that was written by Taylor G.

Bunch, a Seventh-day Adventist minister who lived quite a long time ago, but was a pastor of the Battle Creek Tabernacle, and he wrote a 250 page manuscript, and that's why you're seeing it in manuscript form.

And he didn't type it quite like this, somebody's retyped it.

At any rate, he shared this information as a study on a Sabbath afternoons for a period of time.

It might have been a Vesper or something quite like that.

And Morris Vendon, some years later, got a copy of it given to him by a professor when he was in college.

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