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Post Falls SDA Church

Willard Santee

Jesus is Knocking

Before we get into our study today, I'm going to invite you to pray with me if you would right now.

Father, please open our eyes again and open our hearts in Jesus' name.

Early on in the Advent movement or the Millerite movement of the 1830s and 1840s, there were individuals that saw revelation as a revealing of specific churches of whom they were 1.

Toward the latter part of the 1830s and the early part of the 1840s, there was a group of individuals who felt they were part of a special church outlined in Revelation.

In fact, they saw themselves as a group of Philadelphian saints.

In this particular group, there were a number of early Advent believers and I'm speaking specifically of Seventh-day Advent believers.

They had come from the Baptist faith, the Methodist faith, the Presbyterian faith, the Congregationalist faith, but as they began to move together in a unit, as a group, as a body, they pulled away from the mainline Protestant faiths and became known as a movement, an Advent movement, which later took on the name of Seventh-day Adventist.

And it's that movement in particular that saw themselves as the Church of Philadelphia, which happens to be the sixth church there outlined in Revelation.

And in chapter 3, they saw themselves as this wonderful church of Philadelphia, which simply means a church of what?

Now I find it remarkable as I look back at the history, the early history of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, because they had broken away, as I mentioned a moment ago, from their fellow churches, their fellow Christian peers.

And it wasn't all because they chose to withdraw.

It was because many of their peers chose to cut them off from fellowship with them because this little group of Seventh-day Adventists continued to believe in the Second Coming or the advent of Jesus Christ.

The others who after 1844 did not believe in the literal visible Second Coming of Jesus Christ basically closed their doors to that Seventh-day Adventist movement, if you please.

It wasn't all the fault, may I say, of the Seventh-day Adventists to sort of withdraw from the evangelical Christian family.

It was sort of that the evangelical Christian family withdrew from them.

But having said that, I still come back to a very simple little point.

If the early Adventists, Seventh-day Adventists, were truly Philadelphia, known as a church or a movement of brotherly love, wouldn't you expect them to go back and work with their fellow brethren?

That would really be the ideal thing and extend the hand of fellowship and try to get back in and work with them and love them and share with them the good news that God had revealed to that special little remnant church.

And yet there was a discord, a dissonant, if I may use that word, discord between the 2 groups.

Early on within the Advent movement there was such a discord that there were some individuals that wanted to debate, wanted to argue certain theological points that they were convicted on and that the Bible even supported.

1 of those issues was the Sabbath truth that had been given through a Seventh-day Baptist woman and when they saw the Sabbath truth of the seventh day they immediately embraced it and began to debate with their Sunday keeping peers in the Christian faith So what I'm saying is this This group of Philadelphia brotherly loving people, even though they call themselves Philadelphia and loving people, had sort of a bad attitude, at least some did, toward their former peers.

And they rented halls and began to debate certain theological truths based on God's word.

And I might say historically, beloved, I'm not always pleased at what I read.

For some of our debaters were less than kind to those who couldn't defend their position on certain doctrinal truths.

We even developed a philosophy during those early years that we have the truth.

Beloved, when you have something that's that precious, it's something you should want to share with others, not debate with others over.

We also came into a deeper understanding of a number of things.

What Jesus began to do in 1844 in reference to the great heavenly sanctuary truth.

There were many wonderful truths that God was revealing to this Philadelphia church, if you please, this Philadelphia movement, but we were less than kind the way we used it to debate with those not of our faith.

And then came a time when we developed a little printing press and began to print.

And we had a magazine that we put out for ourselves called the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, for we were heralding the Sabbath truth with great urgency and we were God's little remnant flock and We were pleased to be such.

But it was in that review and herald 1 time that an editor by the name of James White picked up his pen and began to write, I perceive that we as a group, as a movement, have moved from our Philadelphia position of brotherly love into Laodicea, a church of lukewarmness.

It was quite an article that he wrote just sort of letting the Advent movement know from his perspective that we no longer had that love for others that we once had prior to 1844.

Well, it was such a reaction that it really was written down in history because I understand over 200 individuals actually wrote the review, wrote the editor and said, we agree with Elder White.

Something has happened within our movement, within our hearts.

We no longer seem to have the same love and compassion that we once had.

And there was a repentant attitude, at least in those letters that came back to the Review.

Now you say, well 200, Pastor, that doesn't sound like very many letters coming back.

When you realize that we were only a few hundred strong at that particular time, remember 1888, just 40 years after the Advent movement began, we had only about 2, 000 Seventh-day Adventists worldwide in 1888.

40 years of ministry and we're only 2, 000.

So when you go back to that early first part just a few years after 1844 and 200 Adventists right back to the Review You can imagine that is a lot of Adventists.

That's a lot of people writing back because of 1 article.

What it was simply saying, beloved, is that God's Spirit was moving upon the editor that wrote that article.

And a revival and reformation began as a result of his presentation in the Review.

And individuals began to realize that they were truly Laodicean.

No longer Philadelphia, filled with brotherly love, but had moved into a lukewarm, lethargic condition.

A revival began, and Ellen White, James' wife, picked up her pin and responded to the revival that was begun.

Even stating that her husband's comment that we were no longer Philadelphia but had become the seventh church of Laodicea was correct.

God recognized that we had moved from our sweetness into a bitter experience.

It was a sad experience, but the revival had begun and it continued for some weeks, even a few months it continued to move and hearts were touched and souls were changed and God's Spirit came into his church once again and lives became vibrant and they became concerned about their fellow man and they began to love 1 another with that same love they had prior when they were Philadelphia.

It was a wonderful thing to see, but it was short-lived.

Later Ellen picked up her pen, and you can read this in Testimonies of the Church, where Ellen tells us as a church that God was working mightily upon us as a people.

And had we responded adequately to the message that was given to the Seventh Church of Laodicea.

In fact she leads us to understand that the latter reign was poised to be poured out as that movement of revival and reformation began.

The great laws that would soon be enacted in this nation that would restrict our religious freedom were also being moved to the surface, ready to be enacted upon the world.

Satan, if you could have seen behind the curtain, Satan was alive and well, moving to annihilate this little group of people who were in great revival and reformation.

And he was trying to counteract, he was trying to get them off track, their eyes off Jesus in the most holy place and what he wanted to do in their lives.

Jesus was excited at what he saw and Satan was terrified by what he saw.

And now it's all history and we can go back and look at it.

Ellen tells us, unfortunately she tells us, of the things that could have been, things that might have been, had we continued the Reformation and Revival, had we continued to put Jesus first, had we continued to focus on Him.

But it wasn't long before Satan had come within that Laodicean movement and had taken our eyes off of Jesus.

And we began to focus on ourselves again, on 1 another again, upon church leadership again, upon administration.

And what might have been never became a reality.

And now over 160 years, we look back on some of those events and we still have the message that was given to them and some of us perhaps today would do well to dust it off and look at our history so that we in our generation don't repeat what happened in the past 4 generations now.

In a little book called Early Writing, some of you might have this little book.

On page 270, I read these words, still applicable to us in our generation if we will heed the counsel.

It says, I saw that the testimony of the true witness, may I suggest that's Jesus?

The testimony or the counsel of the true witness to the Laodiceans, that would be us, spiritually speaking.

Ellen says, I saw that this counsel or this testimony of the true witness to the latest scenes has not been half-heated.

You see what she said is that character development to that early Advent movement As that revival waned and finally dissipated, she said what happened is that character couldn't be produced, developed, perfected in a few short weeks or even a few short months.

In other words it takes time to develop the Christlike nature that God wants to develop in His people, in His church, and we gave up short of the mark.

And no generation since that first revival has ever gone beyond what they had.

Well, how long should it take for a revival to take care of the dross that's within us, to change the old nature into a new nature.

It only takes a few moments to be born again, but how long does it take a baby to grow up?

It takes a few weeks, maybe a few months, maybe even a couple of years.

Mervyn Maxwell, former historian from Andrews University, whom I had the privilege of sitting under, that shared with us some of the history I'm sharing with you this morning.

And he shared with us as he went back and took a look at the testimonies that were written for us as a church.

And he wrote down the date that the Review and Herald article was sent out by James White.

And then when Ellen White endorsed his article saying it was true we had moved from Philadelphia to Laodicea.

He wrote the date down when the revival began within Adventism.

And then he wrote down the date where Ellen makes the statement, all this might have been and Christ could have come ere this.

From the time the revival started until Ellen put down her pen and said all of those things might have happened and God would have had a people ready for translation.

A little over 3 years and God could have had a people that would have been ready for His second coming so that all of the final events of earth's history could begin to happen rapidly and Jesus could come back for His remnant people.

And in the midst of the revival, it began to wane and fall apart.

And Satan came back and reigned within the human heart.

And Christ moved off the throne of our hearts.

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Jesus is Knocking

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