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Cedar Lake SDA Church

The Everlasting Gospel

Mark Howard

1. The Goodness of God

Father in heaven, oh Father, you're so wonderful to us.

You are our heavenly Father and you've invited us to call you by that name.

In fact, Lord, in scripture, you even encourage us to call you by the name Abba, which is even a closer and more endeared term.

You've portrayed yourself as such a wonderful, loving Father throughout Scripture, and I pray this morning that your Spirit would be present to help us to understand what that means to us here today.

Father in the words of Moses, show us your glory.

I want to start today in the book of Revelation.

Revelation chapter 14 is where we as Seventh-day Adventists see our marching orders as it were.

Revelation 14 and you probably don't even need to turn there to know what it's talking about in fact you shouldn't.

Revelation 14 and verse 6, the Bible says, then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having what?

The everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water." Now I'm not going to read through all 3 messages, but if you jump ahead to verse 14, just following the messages given a little earlier.

It says, Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud and 1, I'm sorry, on the cloud sat 1 like the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp, what?

And another angel came out of the temple crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, thrust in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

So he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth and the earth was reaped." Now this picture is Jesus sitting on the cloud coming back to reap the harvest of the earth.

Now the reason I bring that up is when you go to Matthew 24 And you're looking at the signs of Jesus coming.

Jesus says in Matthew 24, and you've heard me say this before, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness unto all the nations, and then the end will come.

Now we come to Revelation and we see the gospel being preached to every nation, tongue, and people, nation, tribe, tongue, and people, all the world, as a witness to all the nations and right after what happens.

In other words, what Jesus foretells in Matthew 24 we see here in Revelation, this gospel message that goes at the end of time.

And the Bible calls it the everlasting gospel.

It tells us there's only 1 way that anybody has ever been saved.

Now, you may say, of course, that's, yeah.

But you'd be surprised maybe to find out that there are people today in the Christian church who believe that God saves different people different ways.

There are those who believe that the Jews in the Old Testament were saved by their commandment keeping and that they still have to keep the law, but in the New Testament we don't break the law, we believe in Jesus.

And so there's a difference in how people are saved.

The Bible says it's an everlasting gospel and if you go with me to the book of Acts chapter 4, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Acts chapter 4.

Peter, the apostle, is speaking And he says in verse 10, Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of whom?

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole.

This is the stone which was rejected by you builders which has become the chief cornerstone, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is No other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

1 gospel through Jesus Christ all the time.

So the Bible gives the everlasting gospel And in that context it says to fear God and give glory to Him.

Now a lot of times when we think of glory, we think of a dazzling brightness.

Some of you who have done a little study on this word in scripture realize that the Bible often employs the word glory to talk of what?

And I want to show you a place in the book of Exodus.

Now this is what I referred to actually in my prayer.

The Bible says, So the Lord said to Moses, I will also do this thing that you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name.

And Moses said to him, please show me your glory.

Then he, God, said, I will make all my glory, all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Now we fast forward a little bit to this actual event where God shows Moses His glory.

The Bible says in 34 verse 5, just go 1 chapter forward, verse 5, Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and by no means clearing the guilty.

In other words, when God proclaims his name, isn't that what Moses said?

And God says, okay, I'll show you my goodness.

Those are all synonymous in the usage here.

In other words, God is showing the goodness, his goodness, his character to Moses and in the context of Revelation when that Gospel message is going and it says, fear God and give him glory, It's highlighting God's character, God's goodness.

And a core of the Gospel message is the goodness of God.

Now I want to talk about that goodness of God, that character of God.

Look at the statement on the screen from the book Christ's Object Lessons.

It tells us here the gospel invitation is to be given to all the world, to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.

The last message of warning and mercy is to lighten the whole earth with its Glory.

Now notice this other statement a little bit further along in that same book.

It says, it is the darkness of misapprehension, that's a misunderstanding, of God that is enshrouding the world.

Men are losing their knowledge of His what?

It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

At this time, that is our time, a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power.

Into the darkness of the world, He sheds the light of His glory, the light of His goodness, mercy, and truth.

The last rays of merciful light, The last message of mercy to be given to the world is a revelation of his character of love.

That's what we're seeing there in Revelation 14.

You talk about love in this generation, you can get any number of things.

You know, I love my socks, I love pizza, I love Fritos, and I love Jesus.

We talk about our God as an awesome God, right?

And then we say, oh man, I just got this new pen, this new gel pen, it's awesome.

Now it dawns on me that if the gel pen is in fact awesome, then I probably ought to come up with a different adjective to describe God.

I mean, it's like, oh yeah, I love this and I love...

We need a revelation of what this character looks like.

And we're going to go to the scripture and look at that.

Now I'm going to break down God's character into 4 parts.

We're going to look at God's forgiveness from a human perspective and I need to clarify that not from a divine well from both.

We're going to look at those 4 components of God's character.

We're going to use these terms, either conditional or unconditional.

2. Another Gospel

We are in a series on the everlasting gospel.

You may remember in the first part, we talked about the goodness of God.

You know, Seventh-day Adventists, we believe that we have a commission in Revelation chapter 14, and in that commission, starting with chapter 14, verse 6, it says, "'I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, right?

To every nation, kindred, tribe, and people, or tribe, and depending on what translation you're reading.

And the first thing that it says in that message is, fear God and give him glory.

In part 1 we talked about the glory of God representing the goodness of the character of God.

And how an essential part of the gospel message is understanding God's goodness.

And what we covered in there was that God has a love that we would call unconditional, that he doesn't love us because of what we do and how we perform, but because of who he is.

We learned that the wrath of God is not upon people or against people, but against sin.

That God has to destroy sin in order to save sinners.

And that he will do that and so right now what he's trying to do is separate his people from sin so that when that sin is destroyed the people aren't.

And so we learn that and then we learn that God's forgiveness is not like man's forgiveness.

When we get in a situation where we're asking forgiveness from another human being, oftentimes, in most cases anyway, what we're asking is that that person would stop being angry with us.

And I mentioned in part 1 that we tend to look at God that way sometimes and we think that asking God forgiveness is asking Him to stop being angry with us, but that's not forgiveness in the Bible.

Bible forgiveness isn't asking to change God, but it's asking God to change us, literally to give for our sin.

God gives the righteousness of His Son for our sin.

With all those elements of the goodness of God and that powerful core of the gospel, I mentioned at the close of that message that while that is an important truth, it's not all there is to the gospel because there are going to be people who are lost who God loved unconditionally.

There are going to be people who are lost who God did not have an attitude towards, who God was not intending to pour out His wrath upon.

Knowing the goodness of God in and of itself is not all there is to the good news.

Now today the message is called Another Gospel and before we get into it I want to kneel and ask God to bless our time in His Word.

So I invite you to bow your heads as I do so today.

Father in heaven, Father, we thank you so much for the privilege of being in your presence today.

We thank you so much for your unconditional love.

We thank you so much for the power of your forgiveness.

We thank you, Father, that you have not appointed us to wrath, but to receive salvation.

Now this morning I pray that your Holy Spirit would open our understanding.

As your people here at the end of time with an important message to proclaim to the world, the everlasting gospel message, I pray you'll give us clarity of understanding.

For Father, we ask and pray it in the name of Jesus and for his sake, amen.

I want to invite you to turn with me to the book of 2 Corinthians 11.

2 Corinthians 11, in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians.

We're going to the 11th chapter, starting in the first verse.

The Apostle Paul says here, Oh that you would bear with me in a little folly, and indeed you do bear with me.

For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I have betrothed you to 1 husband that I may present you as a chaste or pure virgin to Christ.

But I fear, lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Did you know not every Jesus that you hear about is the same guy?

Apostle Paul says there's such thing as somebody preaching another Jesus.

So they might use the name of Jesus, But it might not fit the character of the 1 we read about in Scripture.

For he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different what?

A different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it." Now, the words here in the New King James may be a little bit confusing.

I'm going to read what the New Century Version says here.

He says, you are very willing to accept a spirit or gospel that is different.

In other words, when he's saying, you may well put up with it, what he's saying is I'm concerned about you, you guys don't have enough discernment to know when somebody comes and preaches a different gospel, you're gonna go along with it and think it's the same thing that we've been preaching.

So he's concerned that they're going to be deceived as the serpent deceived Eve.

Now I'm working on a sermon, I've been thinking about how the serpent deceived Eve.

And basically what he did was got Eve to trust in his word instead of God's word.

Listen carefully, to believe in His words instead of God's words.

So I'm working on a sermon called Unrighteousness by Faith.

You know what righteousness by faith is, but it's interesting that it was her belief in the serpent that led to unrighteousness.

So you're going to obey whoever you believe.

Whether, what does Paul say, we serve, we're servants of the 1 we obey, whether of sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness.

So he's concerned here that they may follow Another gospel.

And the reality is, just like the name of Jesus, you can use the word gospel and throw it around and we can all talk about the gospel and you can talk to your other Christian friends about the gospel.

We can all be saying gospel, gospel, gospel and talking about entirely different things.

Today, I want to talk about the gospel and I'm going to give a little Adventist history lesson.

Some of you maybe do and some of you maybe don't.

We have a Seventh-day Adventist, and there have been a lot of discussions and debates about the gospel.

I certainly don't want to get into all of that.

But there are some points that I think are important for us to understand getting into our topic today.

And I want to go back to an era in the 1950s when certain Adventist leaders met with certain evangelical leaders to try to remove the stigma that was on Adventism because, let's face it, our belief system is not what the Orthodox Christian belief system is.

And of course, 2 of the individuals that were met with was a man by the name of Donald Barnhouse.

Now, Barnhouse was the editor of the leading Christian, Evangelical Christian magazine.

Now when I use that word, evangelical, I just want to touch on the idea here.

If you look up the word in the dictionary, evangelical just means you believe that we ought to share the gospel.

But evangelical in this term is a word that these leaders used of themselves to describe the basic framework or belief system of the fundamental Bible-believing Christian.

So Donald Barnhouse was the editor of Eternity Magazine, a leading evangelical magazine, and then there was a man by the name of Walter Martin, and Walter Martin was the author of a book called The Kingdom of the Cults.

And in his first version, he had included Seventh-day Adventists in that book.

Now I want you to put yourself in that place, and these men, and I'm not giving you all the background of how this came together, but they want to meet with you as Seventh-day Adventists and say, hey, could we ask you some questions about your faith?

And depending on how our conversation goes, we're gonna decide where to put you in this new edition of Kingdom of the Cults.

Well, who wants your church to be called a cult, right?

So let's go ahead and meet together and they figured we'll meet and diffuse The concerns of these evangelical leaders.

Now here's the problem that I think in retrospect we understand more clearly.

You can't place Adventism in an evangelical framework.

Well, let's give 1 very glaring obvious reason.

They don't believe the law is binding upon the Christian and we do.

You think that changes your belief system a little bit?

Furthermore, the men that we met with were Calvinists.

God already determined who's saved and lost.

You don't have a personal choice in the matter.

How are you going to fit how we believe into that framework?

They also believed in the doctrine of original sin that says that we're guilty because of what Adam did, not because of what we do.

Seventh-day Adventists don't believe that.

So, you know, there are some complications here.

They believed in 1 saved, always saved, right?

They believed the law wasn't binding upon the Christian.

All of these things, how do you take Adventist belief system and put it in that framework?

Now, we can't fault them for attempting it, and I don't, but I want to tell you that we've got to process through because there's been some aftermath to this.

We've got to process through this a minute.

3. The Lord Our Righteousness

We are in a series on the everlasting gospel, and the message today is entitled, Christ Our Righteousness, taken from our scripture reading there.

I want to revisit a little bit about what we talked about last week.

Last week's message was a little more theological.

We talked about imputed and imparted righteousness.

We talked about justification and sanctification and these kinds of things.

And 1 of the things we talked about was an interesting and important piece of history for us as Seventh-day Adventists.

And I mentioned that in the middle of last century, about 1950 or so, in Adventist history, we had an experience where we had some Seventh-day Adventist leaders who met with some evangelical leaders.

And the long and short of the meeting was that they attempted to explain Adventism within the context or in the framework of evangelical Christianity.

And the challenge with that is that it can't be done.

And the reason it can't be done, I gave a few reasons last week.

First of all, the leaders that our leaders met with believed in, they were Calvinists, so they believed in predestination.

Seventh-day Adventists don't believe in predestination.

Predestination says that God has already determined who's going to be saved and lost and wherever you end up, you end up, you have no choice in the matter.

And so to try to fit in a view of the gospel in a context that doesn't give free choice is impossible.

They also believe in 1 saved always saved, which goes along, not everybody who believes in predestination does, or in those terms, but it's kind of hard not to at any rate.

But 1 of the most obvious things that's different is Seventh-day Adventists believe that when Jesus died on the cross, rather than dying on the cross to do away with the law, he died on the cross to magnify the law.

So Seventh-day Adventists believe that the law is still part of Christian living, where the evangelical leaders did not.

We're told in inspiration that the commandments of God, the law of God, I'd rather, let me back up.

We're told that the gospel is the divine remedy for sin.

If you take the law out of the picture, the gospel becomes a remedy or a cure for a disease that doesn't exist.

If the gospel is to save us from sin, but there is no law, the Bible says very clearly in Romans 4, 15, where there is no law, there is no transgression.

And so what it does is you take the law out of the picture and it confuses the matter.

Rather than the gospel being, as we looked at last week, the power of God unto salvation from sin.

Because there's no sin, the gospel becomes about forgiveness, and forgiveness becomes about appeasement, rather than a gift from God for transformation.

And then Jesus becomes the Savior from the penalty of sin, but He's not the Savior from the power of sin.

And this has very much influenced even our church today.

And 1 of the probably the most obvious areas is a downplaying of the part of righteousness that's called sanctification.

Now you don't have to get lost on all these terms, but we'll get into it a little bit further here.

Now I did share these last week, and I wanna revisit a couple statements I shared with you last week.

Christ's subject lesson, page 128, says this.

No man can rightly present the law of God without the gospel, or the gospel without what?

The law is the gospel embodied, and the gospel is the law unfolded.

The gospel is the fragrant blossom and fruit which it bears.

Again, just saying, the law points out our need for the gospel.

The law shows us our sin, which is why we need to go to Christ.

The next statement here from Evangelism 231 says, both the law and the gospel are blended.

Now it's interesting, it talked about the law and the gospel, and the gospel was the law embodied.

But the clearest embodiment of the law we have is in Christ, isn't it?

And the thing about this is the law, when you come, now you can read through, we can take the 10 commandments out, and I wanna get us past that.

When we talk about the law, we're not talking about a checklist that we go through and say, okay, got that, got that, no, I don't do that, don't do that.

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The Everlasting Gospel

1. The Goodness of God

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