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Manchester South SDA Church

Identity Theft

Adam Ramdin

1. Origin, Purpose and Destiny of Adventism in Revelation

2. He Says She Says

3. Reformation & The Remnant

4. Lessons From 1888

5. Pioneer Stories

6. The Missing Part

My great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was about 44 years old when he went on a boat from India to the island of Mauritius.

Now if you understand, if you know British history, you know that slavery was abolished in the British colonies in 1833.

And then what happened in a lot of the British colonies is then, they then brought in Indian indentured labor, as they called them, which was kind of a nice way of saying, essentially, they were almost like slaves as well, but it wasn't quite a slave.

So that's why you've got a lot of Indians in different parts of the British Empire in areas where there's no real Indian heritage.

So you find different islands in the Caribbean, you've got Indians in some of the African countries, and Mauritius as well.

And so Indians went to Mauritius around in the 1840s.

And my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddad was 1 of them who went there.

But he was in his 40s, and it's strange because Most of the Indian indentured laborers who were then sent around different parts of the empire to work were in their 20s.

They were strong men in their 20s and they would go to work.

So why did this 1 and a few others in their 40s get sent?

And so when we are looking into the family history, we found out a little bit of history because it was kind of an anomaly that someone in their 40s would go when everyone else was in their 20s.

Come to find out that my great-great-great-great-great-great granddad was a little bit of a rebel.

Maybe it helped to explain a little bit as well, was a little bit of a rebel and he was a dissenter.

Which is a posh way of saying he was rebelling against the British Empire in the city in which he lived.

And he was organizing or involved in some insurrection or rebellion, and his punishment in his older years for doing so was to get sent to work in the sugar cornfields, sugar cane fields of Mauritius.

Hence, my family has a heritage in Mauritius.

Interesting little fact of history, or fact of our family's history, and It helps to explain in some ways a story as to, you know, that's in our family heritage.

If we were to sit around here and tell some of the stories in our family heritage, there would be some interesting stories that we could share.

Some very, very interesting stories that we could share as we start to unpack our family heritage and where we come from.

Stories are important in the Bible as well.

In the Bible, the book of Daniel is possibly 1 of my favorite books in the Bible.

And I like Daniel because as a book, some of the Prophecies in Daniel are some of the most powerful prophecies in the Bible.

But the book of Daniel is almost split in half in terms of content.

Half of the book of Daniel is prophecies, but then the other Half of the book of Daniel is prophecies, but then the other half of the book of Daniel is stories.

As children growing up, we're very familiar with Daniel 3.

We're very, very, very familiar with Daniel chapter 6.

Because even though there's no prophecy or doctrine overtly in there, these stories have powerful moral lessons that we learn from a young age if we grow up in a Christian home growing up.

And we teach those lessons to our children.

And tonight I just want to share with you some of the few stories in our heritage that I believe are interesting and bear lessons for us today as Adventists.

Because it's easy for us today to sometimes think, well, you know, we're here in this little corner of the globe, but where do we come from?

We looked yesterday at some of the doctrinal background, yesterday and the day before, some of our doctrinal heritage, some of our uniqueness in terms of doctrine.

Today I want to look at a slightly different angle, maybe not so much doctrine heavy.

A deist believes in God, the existence of God, but believes that God is an impersonal being.

And the way God relates to the world is the same way that you relate to your wind-up alarm clock at night, if you still have 1 of those.

Meaning you wind it up at night, and then you set it there on the side and it ticks away.

A deist believes that God just wound up the world, the creation, and left it.

Uninterested and uninvolved in the affairs of men.

William Miller was on the battlefield when he was fighting the British in 1812 when a cannon landed about 3 meters from him and went off.

And in his mind he started to think, well, maybe, maybe God is involved in my life.

And he was fighting there in the Battle of Plattsburgh in northern New York State, And they were fighting the British troops who had just come away from a battle with Napoleon in Europe.

The British troops were career soldiers, paid soldiers, they were very highly trained, had all the latest equipment and gear, and he was fighting with fellow farmers and other people who had volunteered for the army.

And yet they beat the British at the Battle of 1812.

Defeating the British, along with that cannon landing about 3 meters from him, got him thinking that maybe God was more than just an impersonal being, and maybe God was actually intimately involved in the affairs of men.

Otherwise, how could they have won that war?

And it started a process of him giving his life to Jesus, a process that never, never finished until the day he died.

William Miller then started to study his Bible.

And as he was studying his Bible, he came across the passage of Daniel 8, verse 14.

And after he had discovered the meaning to that text, he felt the urge to preach, but he didn't want to preach, and he resisted that urge to preach for Approximately, it was about 15 years.

But eventually, he said a prayer, if I get an invitation to preach, I will preach.

The door knocked 5 minutes later and he went to this grove and as he was there pacing up and down his daughter ran back in the house and she said to mommy she said mommy mommy something's wrong with daddy something's wrong with daddy well something was wrong with him he was under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and as a sign says he went in a farmer and came out a preacher.

You see there's a there's kind of almost a principle that we find from this story something about what God is looking for in the lives of us today And it's also what God is looking for us for it's also what God wants us to look for in other people in The early days of the Adventist Church God didn't seek out the most educated He didn't seek out the most wealthy What God needed was honest men and women who when they saw something was right, they changed their lives accordingly and changed their beliefs.

You know when we do evangelism at church, we shouldn't pray God fill the church.

God can fill the church can fill with whoever you want But pray God give us honest people Give us people that when they see something is right change their lives accordingly There's that story of the of the 1 Adventist who went to a town in Michigan, and when he went to the town in Michigan, he said to the, I forget exactly who he was talking to, but he said to the first man he met, he said, who is the most honest man in this town?

And he said, the most honest man in this town is a man by the name of David Hewitt.

So he went to see David Hewitt because he was the most honest man in town.

And when he went to see David Hewitt, he said, David Hewitt, I've got something to share with you and he shared with him the truth on the Sabbath and when David Hewitt saw the truth On the Sabbath David Hewitt said huh?

I will keep it If people came to your workplace and they asked your boss who's the most honest person in this workplace?

Would your name be the first 1 on their lips?

If people came to your street and said, who's the most honest person on this street?

God's looking for honest people, honest people who will see and change.

You know it's interesting our church started in the northeastern part of the United States of America.

This is a picture of the Portland Headlight Lighthouse that sits just outside the city of Portland, Maine.

Ellen White was baptized in the sea not too far from this place in her teenage years.

It was not too far from here where Ellen White received her first vision.

Also not too far from here where she met a man named James white.

At the young age of 19 and he was 26, they stood in front of a Justice of the Peace whose name was Charles Harding and they both got married.

Very few friends, no money, very little possessions.

They went back to live in the family home after they got married.

But both of them had a deep conviction that God wants us to be together for the purpose of ministry.

Prior to that time, Ellen White had started traveling, and James White, seeing her traveling, didn't think it was right for her to travel as a woman on her own, so he accompanied her on some of the trips where she went.

But that kind of has its own complications as well.

And so for the purpose of missionary expediency, they got married.

And As they were married in their early years, it was very, very hard.

In the early, or the mid to late 1840s, James White, there wasn't a church then.

There wasn't any of these things that we have today.

It's fascinating when you think you just got a few scattered believers and all they've got is a conviction that what they believe is right.

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Series

Identity Theft

5. Pioneer Stories

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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