Tekoa Conference 2018: The King is Coming

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Tekoa Missions

Dave Fiedler

Alpha: Anything But God

Father, we thank you for the privilege of gathering together.

We thank you for the information, the instruction, the stories that you preserved, both of our own denominational history, of what we commonly term sacred history in the past, and of the far distant past prior even to the creation of our world.

Lord, help us to be wise, to be prudent, to consider the instruction you've given and to make adequate preparation for our own soul's safety as we move forward, we pray.

Okay, well we've talked about Lucifer's beginning of the rebellion, talked about his accusations, we've talked about the work of Christ in responding to those accusations.

Kellogg and the unique role that the Lord intended he should play.

And His contribution, his role is at his part in bringing on the beginning of the loud cry, the beginning of the revelation of the righteousness of Christ, not simply the proclamation.

I don't know, it's a bit of a touch of a ring, maybe we can back it down a little bit.

I hesitate to raise my voice very high with the setting right there.

I'm going to do it at some point, I'm afraid, and it's going to shatter things.

There are lessons in his decline and apostasy which are important.

We have not commonly given attention to them in our treatment of our denominational history.

We've just seen it as something that just kind of happened.

And that's hardly the picture at all when you get into the reality of the history.

So I want to look quickly here this morning at the causes that led to Dr.

Kellogg's apostasy and then the effects of that apostasy, some of the techniques, some of the details of that, and then try to squeeze in yet a look at what we might expect in the future.

So, the Alpha of Apostasy, the tagline I put on that 1, anything but God.

Actually, you could almost say everything but God.

1882, This is 1 of the earliest statements that I've used in these presentations.

Kellogg's reconversion or conversion, whatever it was, in 1888.

He had been at this point the medical director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium for 6 years.

Ellen White writing, she says, I speak to every member of the church.

In Christ's name, guard your thoughts, control your feelings, let your speech be such that heaven can approve.

No longer be so sadly deceived as to think you are doing God's work and God's will in persecuting your brethren with your tongue, with your strong prejudice and jealousies?

Why do you delight in making your wicked speeches and indulging your wicked feelings against Dr.

Would you crush him to the earth with your suspicions prompted of Satan?

Would you feel great pleasure in seeing the Health Institute go down?

Well, I don't know, a variety of reasons.

1 perhaps is he was dealing with fairly personal topics.

Your lifestyle, diet, dress, habits, things like that.

He was not always as cautious, perhaps, as he might have been.

It was hard, people weren't always listening.

How do you get the attention of someone who's not paying attention to the lesson of the day, right?

You can try mild measures, you can try more harsh measures, you can, you know, what do you do?

Sometimes he probably offended people, perhaps needlessly so.

I won't say that the man was perfect by any stretch.

Another aspect that frankly I think is, was the, a part of it, is that Dr.

He'd gone to medical school, which made him a uniquely qualified individual within the Adventist church.

He was clearly the most well-educated in terms of the world's perspective.

Our ministers were basically apprentice individuals who had served under a previous minister.

They weren't highfalutin in their knowledge, you know, whatever.

There's both good and bad in formal knowledge.

Don't ever think that ignorance is a virtue.

Don't ever think that human knowledge in and of itself is a virtue.

They are talents and opportunities that the Lord gives different ones.

If you have a more formal education, use it for God's glory.

But don't think that it makes you special.

If you don't have a formal education, don't hold it against those who do.

Lord's called you to do a different role.

Play your role faithfully, support those, encourage those, maybe win enough confidence of those who have that education that you can actually correct them.

There's a quick aside that I'll mention here.

You know we've been told that Christ's method alone gives true success in reaching the people, right?

He mingled among men as 1 desired their good, he ministered their needs, he won their confidence, then he made them follow me.

How do you know when you've won someone's confidence?

Are you going to jump the gun if you don't know?

So how do you know if you've won their confidence?

When they start asking questions, That's close.

The word confidence comes from the word confide.

When they are willing to confide in you, you have their confidence.

That's actually not an easy thing to win.

Confide means, well, break it down, con is with, fide is faith.

To Confide is when I have enough faith in someone to tell him or her that which they could use against me.

When someone trusts you like that, then you're in a position to Influence them.

May I suggest medical mission at work as a good option.

There's something about having saved someone's life that tends to win their confidence.

Kellogg has needed the sympathy and confidence of his brethren.

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Alpha: Anything But God

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