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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jeff Horn

Rediscovering Our Roots, Motivated for Mission

Dear God, we just want to ask your presence to be here today.

This is your message, and it's powerful, and it's compelling, and it's clear, but I may not be able to present it that way on my own, so I ask that you would just speak through me and give everybody attentive and clear minds that we could understand and that we would be motivated for the mission that you have for each of our lives.

Okay, the message I have today is called Rediscovering Our Roots, Motivated for Mission.

When we talk about our roots, I wanted to ask a question first.

What Bible verse do you think was the impetus behind the Millerite movement that of course became grew into Adventism?

If you were to pick 1 verse, what verse would you pick?

Okay I think I'm hearing mostly a consensus.

If you think of 1 verse today, if you think of Adventism and you think of 1 verse that might encapsulate or represent Adventism, what verse would you pick?

What, you think of a specific verse in there?

I heard Revelation 14, 14, 6 through 8, so first angels message, okay, yep.

Their confidence culminates in the first 7 chapters and ends up talking about the high priest.

Okay, so talking about the high priest, sure.

Okay, so what I wanted to point out is if we think about how we started as a movement and we think about our movement today, the critical verses that first come to mind probably come from Daniel and Revelation, right?

So if we're talking about our roots, those are the 2 books that I'm gonna suggest that we look at today, and that's what we're gonna go over.

So the title again is Rediscovering Our Roots, and then our objective is to be motivated for mission.

What we're going to do is we're going to look at the purpose of prophecy and we're going to use that then as a framework to look at Daniel and Revelation.

Of course it's going to be a high-level view, right?

There's so much you could go into, but it's gonna be high-level.

And I've heard it said that Daniel is kind of algebra to prepare you for the calculus of Revelation.

And I think then I would say the sanctuary is maybe like basic math.

If you don't have a foundation in the sanctuary, you're gonna end up kinda lost in both books.

So we're not gonna look at the sanctuary today, that's kind of prerequisite.

So if you haven't refreshed on that in a while or studied that, you know, go through the last part of Exodus and Leviticus, that's gonna be the groundwork that you're gonna need.

So we're gonna look at the major time prophecies that are introduced in Daniel and expounded on in Revelation.

So if you're talking to somebody that, you know, may be familiar with the Bible but not super familiar with Daniel and Revelation in particular, you can't sit down and, you know, bring out all these charts like, you know, these sloppy ones that I drew on the board, right?

You just have a minute or 2, what are you gonna tell them about Daniel and Revelation?

And then how does this all tie together and how does it drive our mission?

I'm curious, were any of you here, and do you remember a guy from Michigan named Aaron Cruz that spoke here about 2 years ago?

Okay, so I really liked, His message was called this title that you see, Purpose of Prophecy, and he used 3 Cs is how he described it, and we're gonna kinda use that framework as we go through today.

The first thing is prophecy gives us confidence.

When people see, you know, when they look, they're introduced to the image in Daniel, let's say, it's not just that they're seeing, you know, an image and nations and things like that.

You know, they start to see when they see that history has followed just as predicted, something starts to change inside of them, right?

They start to more think about, if God knows the future before it happens, what else does he know?

He probably knows what I'm going through and what I'm thinking, right?

So it gives people confidence in God's divinity and in the truthfulness of the Bible.

It shows the time that we're living in in terms of earthly history as well as spiritual history.

So this is, we're gonna spend a little bit more time on this 1 just to develop it a little bit, but really prophecy is calculated.

I mean it's specifically to introduce people to Christ and not just introduce but those of us that already have been introduced to him to increase our love for him as we learn more about him and what his plans for the future are.

So once we understand, we call these the 3 C's of the purpose of prophecy, once we understand these 3 C's I think it'll really motivate us to complete the mission that we have as Seventh-day Adventists.

Okay, so like I said, we'll talk about the purpose of prophecy and how it relates to Christ just a little bit to set this up.

In Daniel, Daniel says in chapter 2, but as for me this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but that you may know the thoughts of your heart.

Okay, so this is of course talking to Nebuchadnezzar.

Says that you may know the thoughts of your heart.

If you look in Luke 2, it says, "'Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, "'Jesus' mother, "'Behold, this child is destined "'for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.

The purpose of Nebuchadnezzar, the dream that he had, and that prophecy and the purpose of Jesus looks pretty similar, doesn't it?

It's to reveal the thoughts of our hearts.

And so, you know, I think there's a sentiment, you know, I don't have any quantitative data on this or anything, but people kind of, I hear criticisms of, you know, why does the Adventist Church do these prophecy seminars?

Shouldn't we, instead of scaring people with beasts and images, shouldn't we maybe just tell them about Jesus first, tell them about Christ?

But I think rightly understood, the purpose of prophecy and the purpose of Christ are ultimately 1 in the same.

The purpose of both is to shine light and really into our hearts, which without that light are completely dark.

Ellen White says, The truth for this time is broad in its outlines, far-reaching, embracing many doctrines, but these doctrines are not detached items.

They are united by golden threads, forming a complete whole, and notice this, with Christ as a living center.

So the truth for this time certainly includes prophecy, right?

I mean you might even say it's specifically prophecy, and Christ is the living center of this.

And then 2 Peter 119 is I think probably the most straightforward passage about this topic, says, and so we have what kind of word?

We have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." And the morning star there, of course, is Jesus, right?

So again, the purpose of the prophetic word is to have the morning star, the light of Jesus, rise in our hearts.

Okay, 1 more statement from Ellen White, Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers.

She says, When the books of Daniel and Revelation are better understood, believers will have an entirely different religious experience.

They will be given such glimpses of the open gates of heaven that heart and mind will be impressed with a character that all must develop in order to realize the blessedness, which is to be the reward of the pure in heart." Powerful statement.

All right, so first, let's talk about Daniel a little bit using our context of the 3 C's or our framework of the 3 C's.

Confidence, how does Daniel give us confidence?

Well it shows that God knows and controls the future, right?

He predicted it accurately thousands of years before it happened.

Daniel, we're gonna look at this a little bit more, but Daniel repeatedly focuses on the end of time or the last days, and it shows us that we're living in that time right now.

And Christ, there's many, many things here that we could glean out of Daniel, but here's a few.

And this helps if you understand the sanctuary first, but judgment is going to be rendered in favor of the saints.

Christ is going to come to earth, which was a future event when Daniel was written, to make reconciliation for us, and that he's ultimately going to defeat sin.

So we have, you can see, I put on the board here a couple of charts, which hopefully you have with handouts in your bulletins as well, the same thing, except for they're nice and square in your bulletins and they're not up here.

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Rediscovering Our Roots, Motivated for Mission

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