Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Mark Howard

Satan’s Last Deception

What the Bible Says About Prophets

Ellen White or Sola Scriptura

Can a Plagiarist be Inspired

Reading Ellen White - Part 1

Reading Ellen White - Part 2

Heavenly Father, we are thankful again to be in this setting where we can study together, we can fellowship, we can learn a view.

Father, we pray for the outpouring of your Holy Spirit upon us to give us understanding, Lord, not just an intellectual understanding, but a practical 1, Lord.

Help us to put into practice the things that we're learning here and draw us closer to you, for this is our prayer in the name of Jesus and for his sake.

We are talking about the gift of prophecy in the Adventist Church, specifically the ministry of Ellen White, and a lot of questions that are related to that ministry.

And I had shared a trend in our church that I feel is moving away from, what do I want to say, that's moving towards reducing the authoritative role of Ellen White's ministry.

And I had cited a number of different authors, some inside the church, some outside the church.

I just want to reiterate again today, I am not trying to read into the motives of these individuals, and I believe there are many people who are trying to clarify Ellen White's gift, but I think they're doing it unwittingly in a way that's actually weakening it, not strengthening it.

So we touched on that yesterday, and it's interesting.

1 of the things I shared is the viewpoint or mindset – I've heard this over the years now, over and over, that Ellen White should not be presented from our pulpits, that she taught that and it just shouldn't be the case.

Pastors should not be bringing up Ellen White.

And in fact, and I said that that was a false statement, And so somebody messaged me and this is what they sent.

This is a statement from Ellen White and I'm reading just a portion.

It says, the words of the Bible and the Bible alone should be heard from the pulpit.

And we're going to explore this a little bit more tomorrow.

This is a good example of 1 of those situations where you take a statement, let's just take it at face value.

If that's absolutely true, then the pastor shouldn't be doing any talking.

He should simply be reading from the pulpit.

Well obviously that's not the meaning of it.

There is an importance for the Bible to be heard from the pulpit.

We're going to talk about that in the relation to Ellen White's writings tomorrow and then the following morning, where are we?

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we're going to be talking about the whole plagiarism thing.

If so how does that relate to her gift and and how could she be a true prophet and a plagiarist at the same time and all these things?

Which she wasn't a plagiarist but we'll get into that.

But anyway, today we're talking about what the Bible says about prophets.

And I want to refer you to a statement by W.C.

White, the son of Ellen White, in a letter he wrote to L.E.

He says, "...the foundation by which to fix faith "'in the messages which God has sent, ' speaking about his mother's writings, "'sent to his people, will be more readily found "'in the study of his dealings "'with his prophets in past ages.'" And I have put it this way, I believe that understanding what the Bible teaches about prophets would settle a lot of our questions.

I read critics' questions, I hear questions among Seventh-day Adventists, and I think a lot of them stem from the fact that we don't ourselves really realize how prophets operated in scripture.

And scripture has to be the foundation of our faith.

So today we're going to begin by talking about what the Bible says about prophets.

According to the Bible, first question we're going to look at is, what is a prophet?

Now this, because of the nature of the time that we have, I'm really disappointed this morning that this year we've reduced seminars by 15 minutes.

I could use that extra 15 minutes this morning.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive comprehensive Study and I'm saying that because there's always somebody who wants to tag me out and they'll say well You only brought up a couple verses that's because we didn't have 6 weeks to study this topic We had an hour this morning to do it.

But in light of all that, I still believe we're going to be able to establish things pretty clearly from scripture.

I'm going to have you go with me to the book of Exodus as we answer this question.

According to the Bible, what is a prophet?

And if you've done any study on this topic, this may be a little bit of a review.

But we're going to actually work on looking at 2 things today.

We're going to lay a biblical foundation for the gift of prophecy and then we're going to look a little bit at biblical inspiration or the gift of inspiration, how inspiration works.

Now we're in the middle of a thought here, but this is when God had called Moses and sent him to go to Pharaoh.

He didn't, he felt incompetent and he wanted somebody else to go and so the Lord said, I'll send your brother.

This is what we're picking up on in Exodus 4 verse 14.

The Bible says, so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, is not Aaron the Levite your brother?

I know that he can speak well and look he's also coming out to meet you.

When he sees you he will be glad in his heart." Now notice verse 15, now you shall speak to him and do what?

In his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach you what you shall do.

Verse 16, So he shall be your what's the word Spokesman to the people and he himself will be as a mouth for you and you shall be to him as God.

So here the Lord says I'm going to go ahead.

I'll use Aaron and Aaron will be your spokesman.

Now hold on to that thought and go just a couple chapters to the right to chapter 7 and look what it says there in verse 1.

Similar thought expressed only different words being used.

Exodus 7 verse 1 the Bible says, So the Lord said to Moses, See I have made you as God to Pharaoh and Aaron your brother shall be your what Prophet what was he in verse in chapter 4?

Spokesperson very simply stated a Prophet is a spokesperson for God I say that because if you ask a person on the street today what a prophet is, a prophet is somebody who tells the future.

But you know not all Bible prophets told the future.

Interestingly the Hebrew word, if you look at the screen here, the Hebrew word for prophet is the word nabi.

And a prophet is simply a spokesperson for God.

So both Old Testament and New Testament words that are employed for prophet is that the prophet is a spokesperson.

Let's just verify that as we go to Jeremiah chapter 1.

When God called Jeremiah to the prophetic ministry, You'll just see that it confirms what we've looked at here.

And let's pick up there, once I get to Jeremiah 1.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 1 verse 4, Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born.

Now there's this interchange that goes on just like with Moses but I want you to notice what happens at verse 9.

The Bible says in verse 9, then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said to me behold I have put my words in your mouth.

Okay this is just fits with what we've talked about.

It doesn't matter what age a prophet operates in, any prophet God calls is called to be a spokesperson for God.

Okay, now I want to go to this next question.

This is an interesting 1 as we look at it in scripture.

Who is credited for being the voice of the prophets?

In other words, the prophet is a spokesperson for God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

We might right away say, well the Holy Spirit, because it's a gift of the Spirit.

But I want you to look at what Scripture has to say.

First of all, we're going to look at Revelation 12, 17.

That's a well-known verse for Seventh-day Adventists.

Revelation 12, 17, still going to look it up.

Question is, who is credited for being the voice of the prophets?

Revelation 12, verse 17, the Bible says, "'And the dragon was enraged with a woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of who?

Series

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

What the Bible Says About Prophets

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Mark Howard: White Out? Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

By a Prophet - God is Still Leading His People

1h

Mark Howard: White Out? Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Betrayed with a Kiss

1h

The Bible or Ellen White?

Part 1: The Prophetic Gift and Ellen White

56m

The Spirit of Prophecy Matters

1h 5m

Ellen White? Why Should I Care?

02 How Inspiration Works

52m

A God Worth Knowing

17 A Voice of Reason

1h 8m

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Reading Ellen White - Part 1

58m

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Satan’s Last Deception

48m

Ellen G. Why?

1h 12m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

24 The Sanctuary and the Testimony of Jesus

55m

Prophetic Movement at End Time

1h 3m

What Jesus Said

22. Prophets and Psychics

1h

Sound Doctrine