God’s goal through the ages from creation through the Dark Ages and now.

Continuing the Vision

<p>God’s goal through the ages from creation through the Dark Ages and now.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Uchee Pines Institute

Mark Finley

Revelation’s Endtime Message

It's a joy for my wife and I to be with you here at Uchee Pines.

Uchee Pines celebrates its 50th anniversary, and can you believe we have been married longer than Uchee Pines has been in existence?

I must have married my wife very, very young.

We have always enjoyed the fellowship that we've had with our supporting ministry institutions down through the years and although I serve as the assistant to the president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, my heart really, as Elder Wilson's heart is, is with our lay people and our pastors and our institutions that are so faithful to Christ and that have carried that banner and that torch of truth high through the years.

I want you to come back over the centuries, over the millenniums, to a rebellion that took place in heaven over 6, 000 years ago.

An angel created in the image of God, developed in his heart in some mysterious way, that pride that led him and 1 third of the angels to rebel.

The center in that controversy, the central issue in that controversy in this intergalactic war that developed in this cosmic controversy between good and evil.

The essence of that is, is God worthy to be trusted?

Does God have the best interest in mind for all of his created beings.

Is he 1 that wants to exact love and not give love?

That controversy was transferred to earth.

God created a magnificent earth and as he did he put all the elements in earth for those creatures that he created in his image to sustain life and health but to do much more than sustain it, to give them the most abundant life.

And it was there in Genesis that when God created this world, that he gave to his earthly creatures pure air as a gift of love that they could breathe.

He gave them the best in nutrition, and they were able to eat from the plant-based diet in Eden.

A loving creator knew the best fuel for his creation.

A loving creator gave them pure water that was unpolluted, and the brooks danced through the land.

He gave them the Sabbath as a day of rest from their useful labor that they would have in the garden.

All those essentials for wellness were given in that garden.

Lucifer came there to interrupt the companionship that Adam and Eve had with 1 another in their companionship with God.

Because within that garden, God placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And it was there in that garden that Satan came.

He came to disrupt the relationship between God and his creatures.

He came to offer them something that he claimed was better than what God gave.

Now in the Garden of Eden, God gave Adam and Eve the gift of choice.

And choice is a God-given gift at creation.

I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 1.

Because in our presentation this evening, we're gonna travel from the book of Genesis down through time, throughout the Old Testament narrative, through the New Testament narrative, and we're gonna travel to end times.

And we're going to look at what is 1 of the major themes of the Bible, if not the major theme of Scripture.

And we're looking there at Genesis chapter 1.

Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

In the image of God, he created him, male and female.

What does it mean that human beings were created in the image of God?

Well, it means somebody says physical image.

What does it mean that human beings are created in the image of God?

Were dogs and cats created in the image of God?

It must mean at least that we have the ability to think.

It must mean at least that we have the ability to intelligently communicate with words.

It must mean that deep within our hearts, God created a longing for worship.

It must mean at least that we have the ability to love.

Because creation in the image of God has to be the ability to love.

And you cannot love 1 you do not know, neither can you love 1 that you do not respect.

And so the image of God given in the Garden of Eden, God created human beings to appreciate the gifts that he had given them, to make positive choices to live in harmony with those gifts.

He created them as worshipping beings who would find their greatest joy in his worship.

Into that garden, a fallen angel came in the form of a serpent.

If God would have taken the freedom of choice away from Adam and Eve, Satan would have said, you've merely created robots.

It is like taking a computer chip and putting it in a child's head.

And then controlling that computer by programming them to obey every single day, so the child would wake up in the morning and say, Mommy, I will eat my oatmeal.

Mommy, I will help you make gluten steaks today.

You see, how would you like a child like that, that every night you programmed exactly what they would, no, raise your hand too quickly, please.

But you'd see, we wouldn't want children like that, would we?

So God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose.

That choice is the essence of being human.

Genesis chapter 2 verse 16 and 17, read it with me please.

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

God says, my way of life is better for you.

As you make choices to obey, you will be more like me and reflect my image.

The tree of life represented all that was good, positive, healthy, and life-giving.

The Tree of Life represented all those positive choices.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil represented the poor choices with their negative, unhealthy, life-destroying practices.

So before Adam and Eve, there were 2 choices.

Will I choose daily, constantly, to participate in the tree of life that brings vitalization, that brings invigoration?

Will I trust God that God knows what's best for me.

Or will I listen to the voice of the evil 1 and make those poor choices and receive negative, unhealthy, life-destroying practices?

I love the way it's put in the book of Deuteronomy.

All God's commands were given in love to preserve our health and ensure our happiness.

God's commands are never legalistic requirements given by an arbitrary God that wants to force us into submission.

He presents before us the way of life and the way of death, and he invites us to accept his way of life because his principles bring the greatest joy and the greatest happiness.

You shall therefore keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today that it may go well with you and with your children after you and that you may Prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

So when we follow obediently out of love the commands of Christ that are written both in the moral law and written in every nerve and tissue in our bodies.

When we do that, God says, I'm giving those to you that it may go what with you?

Prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God has given you for all time.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they opened a door that God wanted to shut.

After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, they were filled with guilt and anxiety because sin produces anxiety, sin produces fear, sin produces suffering and sickness and disease, and sin ultimately produces death.

The ultimate goal of God throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament period is to restore man into his image.

And the uniqueness of Seventh-day Adventist theology that is unique from all Protestant religions is this.

Seventh-day Adventists recognize that human beings have sinned and the image of God is marred in the human race.

Revelation’s Endtime Message

Transcript

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