Pastor David shares an apologetic presentation defending the sanctuary message from its detractors such as Ford and Brimsmead. Listen to this presentation to be more firmly established on the veracity of the sanctuary message.

<p>Pastor David shares an apologetic presentation defending the sanctuary message from its detractors such as Ford and Brimsmead. Listen to this presentation to be more firmly established on the veracity of the sanctuary message.</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>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

In Defense of our Sanctuary Message

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for Jesus as the words of that song.

We thank you for the cross and this revelation of of the heart of God And we pray that this morning as we reflect, as we study your word, that you would speak to us as we as we meditate upon heavenly themes.

May the Holy Spirit guide our thoughts and our minds.

Well, our topic today is more of a study than a sermon, and I want to begin by sharing with you 3 quotations from the book, The Great Controversy, as we frame our study for our sermon time.

The subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844, it opened to view a complete system of truth, connected, harmonious, showing that God's hand had directed the great advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of his people." Notice the book Great Controversy indicates that the sanctuary brought forth a system of truth, connected, harmonious.

And as our song indicated, Jesus, there's something about that name, the sanctuary shows us a system of following where Jesus is.

You can follow Jesus through the courtyard, on earth, at the cross, after he went to heaven as our high priest, AD 31 to 1844.

And we as Seventh-day Adventists believe that Jesus right now is in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary.

This is what makes us uniquely Seventh-day Adventist, and it was the sanctuary that helped us to understand where Jesus is.

The sanctuary in heaven is the very center of Christ's work in the behalf of men, the very center of that work.

So you have a bird's eye view of the Mosaic Sanctuary, by the way, here in September, we have a full scale model of the sanctuary coming to the Delaney Strip.

And you can see there's 3 different compartments, the courtyard, the holy place, the most holy place.

Jesus died on the cross, the courtyard on earth.

He went to heaven as our high priest according to Hebrews chapter 8 and has ministered from AD 31 to 1844 and we as Seventh-day Adventists believe that since 1844 to the present day, he's in the most holy place.

So the sanctuary is like a map that shows us where Jesus is.

1 other quote here, Great Controversy, page 409.

The scripture which above all others had been both the foundation and the central pillar of the Advent faith was the declaration, unto 2, 300 days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

Now there's different pillars in Adventism.

Sabbath is a pillar, state of the dead, spirit of prophecy, second coming, salvation.

Notice what she says about the sanctuary.

She says that the sanctuary is the central pillar.

Now when you have a structure that's held up by pillars and you remove the central pillar, the implication is that the whole structure crumbles.

And it's not by accident that it seems like in every generation, every 40 years or so, the sanctuary motif, the sanctuary doctrine within Adventism comes under challenge.

And I wanna go very quickly through the 4 eras of Adventist development.

Richard Davis, an Old Testament professor of theology at Andrews Theological Seminary.

Very early on, the sanctuary idea came under challenge.

The detractors, the individuals that doubted the relevancy of the sanctuary as a framework for understanding the movement of Christ in the plan of salvation.

The defenders were James White, Uriah Smith, and J.N.

At the turn of the century, the detractors, the challengers to the sanctuary were Dudley Canwright, J.H.

Dudley Canwright was a prominent speaker in Adventism, and then he left the Adventist faith, and much of Canwright's writings to this day are used to detract from Adventism, And then J.H.

Kellogg, prominent individual at Battle Creek wrote the book, The Living Temple, which had pantheistic or panentheistic beliefs within it, believing that God was in everything.

And so it really challenged the Adventist perspective on the sanctuary in that regard.

In the 1930s, you had the sanctuary idea come under challenge by L.R.

Fletcher and the defender in this case was M.L.

Andreessen and he wrote the book, The Sanctuary Service.

Now the last era of Adventist development in regards to the challenge to the sanctuary message was relatively recent in the 1980s, Desmond Ford, Robert Brimsmead, Dale Radslab, Raymond Contrell, and the defenders were, over a 10 year period, DARCOM, otherwise known as the Daniel Revelation Study Committee, which was responding primarily to Desmond Ford.

Desmond Ford was a professor of theology at Avondale College in Australia, and he was presenting some beliefs that the brethren had some challenges with, and so they thought they would bring him from Avondale to Pacific Union College, because the idea was that he would be a small fish in a large pond.

1 of my professors in the undergrad was a colleague of Desmond Ford.

And Desmond Ford, he said, had a brilliant memory.

He said it was essentially photographic memory.

You'd go to the Ellen White Index, you remember those?

And they said that rather than going to the Ellen White Index, you could ask Desmond Ford about an Ellen White quote and he could see it in his mind on the page and he would quote you the page number, brilliant man.

And at Pacific Union College, 1 Sabbath, he gave a sermon that really challenged the Adventist perspective on the heavenly sanctuary in 1844.

And So in 1979, the brethren met at Glacier View and Desmond Ford produced a 900 page document, I believe in a period of like 3 days, and produced this 900 page document questioning the perspective that Adventists had on the investigative judgment in the heavenly sanctuary.

And afterwards his credentials were revoked and about a third of the Adventist pastors in Australia left the church.

It was a challenging time in our church and Dr.

Richard Davidson, my professor, indicated that he almost left too with some of the challenges that were put forth by Desmond Ford.

Now this is a pretty unique belief that we have that in 1844, October 22, precise date, that Jesus moved from the Holy Place ministry to the Most Holy Place.

Now, if that is not valid, we do not have a reason to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

You know, we're in the wrong church, friends.

And for a period of about 10 years, the Daniel Revelation Study Committee responded to all of the challenges, particularly by Desmond Ford, that was put on the validity of Jesus moving ministries from the holy place to the most holy place.

And I wanna credit much of what I'm sharing today to Daniel Revelation Study Committee.

I've just taken their scholarship and made it more understandable to the laity and also my professor Richard Davidson.

Now I wanna just paint a brief picture of what took place in the daily service.

This is from Leviticus chapter 4, verse 32 to 35.

If he brings a lamb as a sin offering, then he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it as a sin offering at the place where they killed the burnt offering.

The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering, and pour all the remaining blood at the base of the altar." I want to read 1 other text here that says the same thing but shows the location of the blood being placed at a different place.

The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle some of the blood 7 times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary.

And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of the sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the meeting, and he shall pour the remaining blood of the bull at the base of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the meeting." Now what these 2 passages indicate is that there is a movement of blood.

The whole sanctuary motif is predicated on the transference of sin.

If sin can't be transferred, then Jesus can't be our Savior.

So when the sinner comes into the sanctuary, you can follow the blood here.

Alright, sinner comes into the sanctuary, he confesses over the animal his sins.

Then he with his own hands slits the animal's throat.

He doesn't catch the blood, the priest catches the blood.

And then the priest ministers the sacrificial blood on his behalf.

Now you'll notice that there's a movement here.

The sin goes from the person, okay, you following me?

To the lamb, to the blood, then the blood is taken by the priest to the sanctuary.

It's either placed on the horns of the altar in the courtyard or placed on the horns in the holy place, on the horns of the altar of incense or sprinkled on the veil.

So the sin is going from the person to the lamb, to the blood, to the sanctuary.

So in that sense, in the course of a year, the sanctuary was becoming polluted, you following me, with the record of forgiven sins of Israel.

That veil and those horns must have been caked in blood over the course of that year as people would bring their sin offerings into the sanctuary.

So in that sense the sanctuary was becoming polluted with the record of the forgiven sins of Israel.

And this is the Levitical model that is shown and which is a type of what's taking place on a much vast scale in regards to Jesus as the lamb and high priest.

So there's the trajectory, the sin goes from the person to the animal to the blood to the sanctuary and then once a year on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, they had what was called the cleansing of the sanctuary.

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In Defense of our Sanctuary Message

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