Continuing the Vision

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Uchee Pines Institute

Mark Finley

Every Wind of Doctrine Part 1

The title of my presentation this evening is Hope's Grace-Filled End Time Message.

The Jewish nation and Jewish people have a single text that is the essence and foundation of their very faith.

Every single Jew looks to Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, as the foundation of Judaism.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord.

From the time that Jewish children are brought up at 345 years old, in fact when they're just born, the mother will hold the Jewish child in her arms and begin to sing Deuteronomy 6 verse 4 to them, hear O Israel, the Lord our God is 1 Lord.

And throughout the centuries of their exile, whether they are exiled in Babylon or not, the chanting of the Shema reminded the Jews of the spiritual vision and path that united them as a people.

During the Second World War, Jewish mothers continually taught their young children to chant the Shema before going to sleep.

And you remember the story of the Holocaust where in Nazi Germany, these children were rounded up with their adults.

They were sent off to places like Ravensbrück and Dachau, and they suffered the terrible indignities of the German concentration camps.

Many Jewish parents knew that their children would be killed unless they did something significant.

During that time, there were Catholic orphanages throughout Germany.

And so many Jewish parents took their Jewish children, gave them to Catholic priests to be raised in the Catholic orphanages, and the parents were taken off to these prison camps, and many of the parents, most of them, never returned.

During the Holocaust, some of these parents in Europe placed their children in these orphanages for 1 reason, to save their lives.

After the war, many of the leading rabbis wanted to get the children back.

They were Jewish children in Catholic orphanages.

When they went to the Catholic orphanages, the Catholic priest said, we don't have any Jewish children here.

There are none because they have Polish names, they have German names, they are really our children.

So we don't have any of your children here.

1 of the leading rabbis when he came to the orphanage with the American soldiers now, simply said to the priest, look, I understand, and the priest said, you can't come in.

The door of the orphanage is shut to you.

And he said, would you just allow me at supper time tonight after supper, when your children are going to bed at night, could I just walk through for my own satisfaction?

As the rabbi walked through the orphanage, this leading rabbi said, we're going to come back in the evening when the children are going to sleep.

And he chanted the Hebrew words of the Shema.

He began to chant, the Lord our God is 1 Lord.

And these children stood up and they began to cry and they said, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama.

He said, that one's 1 of mine, that one's 1 of mine, that one's 1 of mine.

And the Catholic priest had no recourse, he had to give the Jewish children back, which he did.

If Deuteronomy 6, 4 was so embedded in the consciousness and the minds of these Jewish children, what is the Adventist Shema?

If our children were taken from us and we were denied access to them, what text would we walk through the orphanage singing?

You see, many of those children began to repeat the words of the Shema because they knew them, because from the time they were the youngest children, they were embedded in their consciousness.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church and the 3 Angels' messages in Revelation 14 are our Shema.

They define who we are as a people as much as Deuteronomy 6, 4 defined who the Jewish children were.

And so tonight let's review those 3 angels' messages and let's see if we can discover something deeper.

Let's go beyond the surface of those messages and let's particular focus, since this is a health institution, you would expect me to take a little detour sometime in the presentation and share with you how these 3 angels' messages relate to our health message.

We find our unique prophetic identity outlined in Revelation 14, verse 6 to 12.

And if you have your Bible, you may want to turn to it and follow along as we go on on the screen and I'll come back to the text from time to time.

We find our unique prophetic identity outlined in Revelation 14, 6 to 12.

It's here we find our passion to proclaim the gospel to the entire world.

Revelation 14, we begin with verse 6, read it either from your Bible or from the screen with me.

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, 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 and the sea and the springs of waters." Now you're going to notice 3 things about verse 6.

Ellen White makes this comment, in a special sense, Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and lightbearers.

To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world.

On them is shining wonderful light from the Word of God.

Seventh-day Adventists believe that we were divinely raised up by God to herald a unique prophetic message that is to go to all the world at any time.

Ellen White continues, Evangelism, page 119.

They have been given a work of most solemn import, the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels' message.

There is no other work of so great importance.

They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.

If God pictures an end-time message to prepare the world for its final harvest as being carried by 3 angels in mid-heaven, is that an important message?

If God pictures through the prophet to the last generation a message of great importance and nothing else is to absorb our attention, Is that a message of extreme importance?

Now notice here this 3 angels message, Revelation 14 verse 6 says, I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those that dwell on the earth.

There are 3 things about that text when it says I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

The angel does not float through heaven, he flies in mid-heaven.

It's a message that must go quickly, rapidly, speedily to the ends of the earth.

It's the angel has the everlasting gospel.

It's to be preached and proclaimed to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

So here you have given to us by God a message that is urgent, a message that's eternal, and a message that is universal.

Now let's spend a little time unpacking this idea of the everlasting or the eternal gospel.

Everlasting speaks of the past, the present, and the future.

So the gospel is an everlasting gospel because it takes us into the past, into the eternal realms of heaven.

It is a everlasting gospel because it not only speaks of the past, but of the present.

Not only of the present, but of the future.

The plan of our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam.

It was a revelation of the mystery which had been kept silent through times eternal, Romans 16 verse 25.

It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne.

In the great controversy between good and evil, in the intergalactic war between Christ and Satan, in this Star Wars controversy, the devil has claimed that God exacts love and does not give love.

The devil has claimed that God is a vindictive tyrant, a wrathful judge.

But yet, before the creation of man and before the fall of man, in the councils of eternity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit met.

And there, Christ made an eternal decision that he would come forth indeed to redeem the human race.

It's amazing when you actually think of that, that Christ would answer the controversy between good and evil, that Jesus would come, that he would tabernacle in human flesh, he would be born of a virgin, He would face temptation in common with all humanity.

The Jews would turn their backs on his overtures of love there at the cross.

In fact, his disciples would forsake him and flee.

Second Corinthians 5 verse 21, he who knew no sin would become sin for us.

Galatians 3, cursed verse 13 is everyone who hangs on the tree.

Hebrews 2 verse 8 and 9, that he would taste death for every man.

So there on the cross, Jesus did not experience merely the first death, but he experienced the second death.

See, if Jesus only experienced the first death, there's no salvation for you or me.

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Every Wind of Doctrine Part 1

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