Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Emerging Church Symposium

Jonathan Zirkle

Evolve - Part 1

Dear Lord, I ask that you would send your Holy Spirit to be with us here today.

Lord, please help me to speak your words and not my own.

Help us to learn the truth and may we be forewarned and forearmed.

I put together this slide as kind of a summary, a way to kind of visually represent what we're going to be going through.

There's a lot of things represented here.

Some of these things you may recognize some of them you you may not All of this goes into what's going on with the emergent church what we'll be talking about today is the theology of the emergent church and It really goes back quite a ways.

I could have started this presentation all the way back in the Garden of Eden or even before.

And we'll bring a little bit of that in as we go.

But mainly I'm looking at the 19th and the 20th centuries.

And if you look at this slide here, you can kind of see the main themes that we'll be talking about.

Let's see how many of these things you can recognize.

That's Sigmund Freud with his glasses on up there.

I guess it's a little hard to see the pointer here.

And you know, 1 of the things that really got all this kicked off was good old Charles Darwin down here.

And what's going on here is that Darwinism comes along and out of Darwinism comes along the enlightenment thinking, well actually Darwin is after the enlightenment, but building on the enlightenment, building on the work of Darwin, you have the likes of Karl Marx.

Same thing that comes along soon after that is Sigmund Freud's psychology.

You know, that unleashed a firestorm upon the world.

I have over here the French Revolution to represent the Enlightenment.

I think it's important for us to remember, you know, as Americans we're poorly educated in the French Revolution.

We think oftentimes that the French Revolution is some kind of a continuation of the American Revolution.

The American Revolution, and I love talking about religious liberty and American freedoms and things like that, and I wish I was giving a presentation on that today, but the American Revolution was based on the working out of Protestant principles and ideals in government.

The French Revolution in some ways looks similar because they have this separation of church and state that the American Revolution had, except it wasn't really a separation of church and state.

The French Revolution was more of a revolution against the church.

And it's really the working out of atheistic principles and ideals.

And so it's a very different thing than the Protestant ideals that were worked out in our country.

And so from these Enlightenment ideals you have these great thinkers, but then from there we moved on and things moved on.

And I have represented here the New Age movement.

If any of you have studied the New Age movement, what I'm going to say today may not be as unique or exciting.

It just may be some little bit of old hat.

And you know, out of all of that, we have like the hippie movement and the free love movement.

All of these things are intertwined and related.

And Vatican II comes along and adopts much of this and it creates a situation where ecumenism is big and works with the Catholic theology.

And they adopt a lot of these different ideas, but we'll eventually get to talk a little bit about Kellogg and How he relates to all of this But probably the most important picture I put up there is the 1 in the top corner there.

And the reason why I put that there, that represents higher criticism.

And if you look at what's going on with the Emergent Church, If there's 1 thing that's at the core of the emergent church, it's higher criticism.

Because you have to do away with the Bible as a clear, thus saith the Lord, in order for any of this to go forward.

So anyway, these are the subjects, the big subjects that we'll be talking about.

Ellen White had this to say, as in the days of the apostles, men tried by tradition and philosophy to destroy faith in the scriptures.

So today by the pleasing sentiments of higher criticism, evolution, spiritualism, theosophy, and pantheism, the enemy of righteousness is seeking to lead souls into forbidden paths.

This is truly the world that we live in today.

To many the Bible is as a lamp without oil, because they have turned their minds into channels of speculative belief that bring misunderstanding and confusion.

The work of higher criticism is dissecting, conjecturing, reconstructing, is destroying faith in the Bible as a divine revelation.

It is robbing God's Word of power to control, uplift, and inspire human lives.

I think It's worth to take just a moment to remind ourselves what higher criticism is, how it got started.

It got started over in Europe at a place, University of Tübingen.

And at this location, the academics said, you know, we don't believe in the supernatural anymore.

And so they attempted to read the Bible as a book that was, every time it talked about anything supernatural, well then that was kind of like a fairy tale.

And so, as you read the Bible more and more you start to realize that It's all about God working with man and the supernatural is throughout and What higher criticism did is it started taking bits and pieces out here and there, and before it was all done, it basically robbed almost the entire word of any meaning, of anything more than some kind of a myth or a fairy tale.

If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 16, I want to read a text here Revelation chapter 16 we'll be looking at verses 13 and 14 and the Bible says this and I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon and Out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet so I'm guessing most of us are good Adventists here.

We should be able to answer this question.

What is the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet?

And the false prophet being apostate Protestantism.

And if you look at this passage here, there's kind of a false trinity made by these 3 characters.

And if you look at these frogs, Let's look at the frogs for a second.

Well, it's sort of a counterfeit 3 Angels message.

And you look at the frogs, they're all the same.

We don't get any description of them being 1 different from the other.

And I believe it's proper to read this as this false trinity, they're all saying the same thing together.

And then looking on, reading verse 14, it says this, for They are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty.

So just as the 3 angels are sent out to gather God's people and bring them together, these 3 frogs, these 3 spirits are sent out to deceive and to bring Satan's people together.

Now, As I was looking at this and thinking about this, there's 3 frogs and they all look the same.

And they're coming out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.

And so as I was looking at this, I started to realize, you know, if you can find something that the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet are all saying, you may be looking at those frogs.

And I believe with what's going on in the emergent church today, I truly believe that what we're seeing is the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy right here.

And so with that, let's keep going along.

I'd like to start with a man by the name of Jürgen Moltmann.

He's a professor emeritus of systematic theology at the University of Tübingen.

Juergen Moltmann is 1 of the favorite theologians of the emergent movement.

And I'd like to just introduce a little bit of his theology to you today.

He's made significant contributions to a number of areas of Christian theology, including systematic theology, eschatology, and the theology of creation.

Now if you look at those 3 things, those are really big and actually near and dear to Seventh-day Adventists.

As Seventh-day Adventists, we probably have 1 of the most well-developed systematic theology of any denomination.

And you know, systematic theology, that's 1 of those big words.

Well, a systematic theology is a theology that kind of gives you that big overarching picture.

It's that big paradigm that all of your theology fits into.

And at Seventh-day Adventist, we have a couple of those.

Now, this guy is an expert in systematic theology.

Evolve - Part 2

Dear Lord, I just ask that you would send your Holy Spirit to be with us here right now.

Lord, I ask for your help as we give this presentation.

Please let it go smoothly and let it be to your glory.

Please help me to speak your words and not my own.

Okay, so this is part 2 of the presentation we made this morning.

Just as easily can be called coexist or evolve.

And this morning we saw that at the root of the emergent church is evolution.

And it's the ultimate ecumenical movement.

I have this quote from Solomon, the wisest man.

He said this, "'The thing that hath been is that which shall be and that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the sun.

1 of the things I would say is I've researched this and studied this out, I've realized that Solomon is right.

I remember the first time I read that, I thought, boy, that can't possibly be true.

I mean, look at all the wonderful things we have with technology and things like that.

And in the morning presentation we talked about Revelation 16 verses 13 and 14, and I have part of it here.

In the book of Revelation we see this, it says, I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

For they are the spirits of devil working miracles.

And we saw that these are a kind of a counterfeit 3 Angels message.

I'd like to remind you of some of the things that we covered.

Just read a little bit about what we saw as far as those 3 frogs are.

This is Ken Wilber, a Buddhist, and so therefore he would be the dragon and he says this, are the mystics and the sages insane because they all tell variations on the same story, don't they?

Interesting observation he makes because all he really needed to do was read Solomon.

Maybe just maybe an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity.

A cosmic consciousness that is spirit awakened to its own true nature.

And then here we had Teilhard de Chardin who's saying exactly the same thing.

This cosmic body of Christ extends throughout the universe and comprises all things that attain their fulfillment in Christ so that the body of Christ is the 1 single thing that is being made in creation.

And I want you to pay special attention to this because what he says here, you're going to hear stuff similar again.

I felt that every tree, every blade of grass, and every pool of water become especially eloquent with God's grandeur.

Somehow they seemed to become transparent or perhaps translucent is the better word, because each thing in its particularity was still utterly visible and unspeakably important.

These specific concrete things became translucent in the sense that a powerful, indescribable, invisible light seemed to shine through.

It was the exuberant joy of simply seeing these masterpieces of God's creation and knowing myself to be among them.

It was to be 1 of them and to feel and know that we, All of these creatures, molecules and phenomena were together known and loved by God, who embraced us all in the ultimate capital W, We.

And so you see Ken Wilber, the pantheist.

You see Tihar Deshardan, pantheism, same thing as Wilber said.

And then here you see McLaren, another pantheist.

And then we went through this, this is the great chain of being.

This is an old pagan doctrine from the medieval time.

You see Baphomet at the base of this and then moving up all the different levels of matter and life to the angels and ultimately to God.

And the emergence believe that this principle is what's working its way out in the cosmos.

It starts with Big Bang, then it goes to the origin of life, then it goes to higher life forms, then it goes to primitive man and on to spiritual man, and ultimately to God, divine consciousness emerging.

If you're a fan of Teal Hard, that would be the cosmic Christ.

If you're a fan of the pagans, it would be, what was that?

Divine consciousness emerging, something like that.

And then we saw how this coming together was all through mysticism, and we're going to talk more about mysticism as we go this afternoon.

But ultimately, every religion has some form of a mystical inner, and they believe that that leads you all the way to the same truth.

And so what we're talking about today is really the ultimate ecumenical movement.

Ellen White says this, we have nothing to fear for the future except as we forget the way has the Lord has led us and is teaching in our past history.

You're thinking, what does this have to do with our past history?

Well, if you know Adventist history, you'll realize it actually has a lot to do with our past history.

And so we're gonna go over some of that right now.

John Harvey Kellogg in the Alpha of Apostasy.

You know, Kellogg is quite the character, and I love going on the internet because you can find all kinds of interesting pictures of him.

You know, he liked to ride bicycles a lot, and he would ride, and he would have his secretary follow along so that he could dictate while he's out riding his bike.

The other thing you'll notice is he's often wearing white.

And the reason why he liked to wear white is because he believed the sunlight could make it through his clothing and that that was a healthier way to live.

Ellen White said, be not deceived, many will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.

You know, when I think about that seducing spirits, I think of those 3 frogs, because what do they do?

They go out to seduce the nations and to deceive them.

She says, many will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

We have now before us the alpha of this danger.

The omega will be of a most startling nature." And you know, Dr.

Kellogg and the apostasy that he brought into the church is the alpha that she's referring to here.

And it's instructive for us to learn a little bit about it so that the omega is something that we can recognize.

So John Harvey Kellogg's a young man, he was dedicated to the Lord.

He was out with his friends and 1 of his friends had a compound fracture, I believe, of his leg and it's a big bloody mess.

And the doctor is called and he watches the doctor set the bone and it's just ugly, right?

And He goes home and he tells his mother all about it.

And he says, mama, I will never be a doctor.

And they knelt down and they prayed together.

And From that moment on, John Howard Kellogg felt that his entire life was dedicated to the Lord.

In 1855, James and Ellen White relocate to Battle Creek and James starts the steam press.

This is the first time Adventism has kind of like settled down because before this, it was always itinerant preaching going on.

But James and Ellen White come to Battle Creek, and they start the press.

In 1856, the Kelloggs move to Battle Creek, and they start a broom factory.

I used to remember, was it 15 of them or something like that?

Well, anyway, I have this picture, and luckily you don't sit too close to the screen.

You can't recognize the faces there because that's not the Kelloggs.

But I wanted to show about what kind of size family we're talking about here, and that's not their broom factory, but it is a broom factory.

And you can imagine the Kelloggs moving to Battle Creek and starting a broom factory back in the 1850s.

1864, John Harvey Kellogg is starting to grow up and he gets his first job, at least his first job outside of the home, working at the Steam Press.

And the thing about John Harvey Kellogg is that this guy was a voracious reader.

He liked to read everything and he was known for reading everything that the press printed.

1866, 2 years later, the Whites start the Western Health Reform Institute.

They start this because James has been suffering from a lot of maladies and he's not getting very good health care.

Diamond Garcia

Poisonous Frogs - Part 1

Lord, as we open your word this morning and learn more about you ultimately and learn more about the problems facing your remnant church, I pray for your spirit to be here with us, Lord, in Jesus' name.

If you have your Bibles, please open to the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 16, as we look at the 3 unclean spirits of Revelation.

Revelation chapter 16, should be on the screen for those of you who don't have your Bible.

And it says this, Revelation 16, verse 13, and I saw 3, what?

Unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

So basically we're told in the last days that there are how many unclean spirits?

And these 3 unclean spirits come out of 3 places.

Yes, out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast power, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

Now notice these unclean spirits are not the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.

They are coming out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet.

So these are the teachings you could say of the dragon, the teachings of the beast power, and the teachings of the false prophet.

So let me ask you, who is the dragon, who is the beast, and who is the false prophet, in order to identify what these 3 unclean spirits are?

For every truth that God has, Satan has a what?

For the Sabbath day, he has started the Sunday worship movement years ago, which will ultimately be the great test of loyalty in the last days.

For the true gift of tongues, there's gibberish, my clicker working here, for the true right of baptism, he has instituted sprinkling and many other scenarios, for the true Lord's Supper, the Holy Eucharist and transubstantiation through the Roman Catholic Church.

For God, the Holy Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, he has instituted the dragon to replace the father, the beast to replace the son, and the false prophet to replace the Holy Spirit.

The false trinity in a relation for every truth that God has, Satan has a counterfeit.

For the trinity, He has the false trinity, the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

She says, Through his subtlety he gives to his soul destroying errors the what?

It is because they are a counterfeit of the truth that spiritualism, theosophy, and the like deceptions gain such power over the minds of men.

He pretends to be the savior of man, false Jesus, the benefactor of the human race, and thus he more readily lures his victims to destruction.

Come this afternoon at 3.30 and I'll be going over what Ellen White meant there by the word theosophy because that word theosophy has a direct relevance to this emerging church movement in the year 2016.

She also says, the exercise of force is what?

Contrary to the principles of God's government, he desires only the service of love.

Love cannot be commanded, it cannot be won by force or authority, only by love is, I'm sorry, it says only be loved, only by love, typo there, is love awakened, to know God is to love him.

Jesus on earth only exercise the forces of love, never force during his ministry.

He healed people, he showed the people who the father really is because that was the primary mission of his ministry here on earth.

In fact, let me ask you, what was the primary reason why Christ came here to earth?

You know, I speak in many different conferences, and I hear over and over, Oh, Christ came just to die for our sins.

But the primary reason why Christ came was to show us the Father.

Let's turn it in our Bible to John chapter 17.

John 17 verse 3 and it says this, and this is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.

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Emerging Church Symposium

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Recorded

Parts

Evolve - Part 1

1h 5m

Evolve - Part 2

1h 15m

Poisonous Frogs - Part 1

1h 4m

Poisonous Frogs - Part 2

58m

Overturning Sola Scriptura - Part 1

1h 13m

The Serpent’s Whisper

1h 10m

Overturning Sola Scriptura - Part 2

1h 12m

Questions & Answers

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine