ASI 2019: Business Unusual

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Unusual Faith and Witness

Steven Grabiner

Revelation’s Final Generation

K Lenart

How to Give Bible Studies

Elvin Adams

Principles and Practice of Health Evangelism

There's a large conversation taking place in the church over, let's call it, last generation theology, final generation.

Herbert Douglas called it the great controversy theme.

And there are a lot of different conversation partners in this conversation.

2 primary ones are these books, a book by George Knight called End Time Events and the Last Generation.

The thrust of that book is a bit of a historical look at where we got to where we are today, how we got to where we are today, theologically.

And then he critiques the last generation concept.

And then this other book, God's Character and the Last Generation, published by Pacific Press, they both are.

The second book on the screen is written by mostly all teachers, scholars at Andrews University at the seminary.

1 of the contributors teaches at the university and not the seminary.

And the authors in that book critique last generation theology.

Let me say that again, I believe that all those teachers there have as their great desire, and as they said in the very beginning, to help people be ready for Jesus coming.

However, some of their criticisms of last generation theology I think are unfounded.

And so I've written a review of that book.

You could go to that Dropbox if you'd like, and you could download my review of that book, try to be fair with him.

I'm not really gonna be talking particularly about that book, but those are some of the conversation partners that are going to be part of our conversation, our study, this afternoon, this morning.

And what we are going to study this morning is the book of Revelation in relation to those people that will live to see Jesus come.

What does Revelation say about those characteristics, those people?

And so to begin with, let me say that if we think of last generation theology, There's the good, the bad, and the ugly.

There are different views about this concept.

Actually, really I'm working on an article for the Adventist Theological Society trying to draw sides together and find common ground.

Because really, I think there is a lot of common ground, but there are certain expressions that are used or certain ideas that are attributed to people that maybe they don't really hold.

And so I think that if we looked as to how we can come together, we'll find much more common ground.

So that's the good part of this idea that there's going to be a final generation.

I probably should ask, you all believe that Jesus is coming, right?

And you also then believe that there will be people that live to see Jesus come.

Now that group of people, I don't care what you say, is going to be unique.

We all believe, all, vast majority of Seventh-day Adventists believe Jesus is coming.

I would say all Seventh-day Adventists believe Jesus is coming and that there is going to be people that live to see him come.

But what makes that group distinct or different?

What will the experience of that people, that group of people be?

So the last generation theology, there's a good side of this.

Then there's the bad and the ugly side of it, and maybe these are what some of the critics are saying.

As a pastor, I've talked to other pastors, and several of my other pastor friends tell me when they find out I'm supportive of this concept, They're like, yeah, but people that believe in last generation theology are so critical and so undermining and they're so focused on, you know, minutia.

But you know, there are Seventh-day Adventists like that on all spheres.

There's a lot of Seventh-day Adventists in that area.

And if you happen to visit, you know, a restaurant or anything like that and you ask how the Adventists tip, a lot of times you'll get like, oh, yeah, they're not the best.

We're really, we should be quite generous because God's given us an abundance of things, right?

So let me give you an example of the bad.

This is from George Knight's book, End Time Events and the Last Generation.

He first of all believed that You had to have a certain preparation to live to see Jesus come.

And then he wrote, after 8 years of striving, I was up.

In other words, he hadn't achieved whatever he thought he should achieve.

Beyond that, I haven't even met 1 sinlessly perfect Adventist.

If you're thinking that the last generation is going to reach a level of absolute sinless perfection, you are deceived.

The only absolute, God is absolutely perfect.

We will have a fallen nature until Jesus comes.

But that does not mean that that fallen nature will control.

And there's a huge difference there, as we'll see as we continue.

But Knight was going through this tremendous struggle personally.

In fact, he left the church, he went out into the world, and then he finally came back into it.

So, I would say that's kind of the ugly side of this teaching, where people become critical, they become judgmental, the focus more...

A friend of mine just wrote me a letter, he used to work at an institution in another continent and in that institution, you know, the standard of living was that you would never use oil.

Never mind that you would be a vegan, but that you would never use oil.

So that's the ugly side of last generation theology.

And the good side is that there's going to be a group of people that reflect Jesus.

And their character is going to be winsome and loving, and they're not going to be participating in sin because they realize how horrendous sin is.

So again, this is all kind of an overview.

Again, this is from the book God's Character, page 18.

The authors in that book repeat this frequently through the book, which was 1 of my major critiques of the book.

The authors say that last generation theology advocates perfectionism, which maintains that humans can become absolutely sinless.

So there's that thought again that you can become absolutely sinless.

Now I've read a lot of authors that promote this and heard different speakers, and I don't know anybody that says you can become absolutely perfect or sinless.

I would suggest that a group of scholars writing a scholarly book should be able to quote those people in the book, but to simply say this creates this false tension.

You know if I say, oh last generation theology teaches you're going to be absolutely sinless, well how does that make you feel?

That you're going to be absolutely perfect?

This is Herbert Douglas in his book called Fork in the Road, which is a review of the republication of questions on doctrine and the influence that book has had in the church.

Douglass says this, perfection refers to the pattern of those who increasingly reflect the life of Jesus.

That's, Douglass would be considered a last generation theology proponent.

He's saying perfection is every day becoming more and more like Jesus.

So, when you're first converted and you have this small experience, you're absolutely perfect.

But then, day to day, you grow and grow into the image of Christ.

I think that's a very fair working definition of perfection.

So this is some of the background again, a little bit more background for us.

Series

Unusual Faith and Witness

Revelation’s Final Generation

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Sanctuary: How Sinners Can Safely Approach a Holy God

05-The Day of Atonement, Part 2

1h

ASI 2010 Plenary Meetings

Expounding the Faith

1h 30m

ASI 2011 Plenary Meetings

Beyond the Righteousness of Angels

46m

Cosmic Conflict

4. Martian Men and Venusian Women

1h 5m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Composite Christian: Character Development

04-God vs. Satan: Patmos

49m

Plenary

ASI Members in Action

1h 58m

Personal Spiritual Enrichment

Making Sense of the Former and Latter Rain

1h 25m

WYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

Likeness of Man

34m

Minor in Size, Major in Message

Minor in Size, Major in Message- Part 3

1h 17m

Keeping Focus

Keeping Focus Part 3

48m

It Happened Because of Prayer

Give Him Not Silence

42m

ASI 2013 Plenary Sessions

To Jesus by Night

2h 28m

Sound Doctrine