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

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Christ our Righteousness

Royce Snyman

Christ Our Righteousness - Part 1

Christ Our Righteousness - Part 3: From 1900 until 1950

Christ Our Righteousness - Part 4: From 1950 until Now

Christ Our Righteousness - Part 5: In these Last Days

Father in heaven, as we continue our journey in time, reviewing some history today, we do so in the light of the Word of God, asking that you will give us understanding once again.

Pray, Father, that you will remind us of your Word and the fact that you do not change.

We human beings may be confused, but we know that God, our Father, Jesus our Savior, and the Holy Spirit are not confused.

So we pray, Father, that You will be with us today.

Enlighten our minds, and We thank you for hearing our prayer.

We're going to be focusing again on some history.

But the history that we're going to look at in the next 2 days is going to be something that we need to look at very, very carefully.

I wanted to remind you that the caution that I have given you is that though we're talking of time, we're especially concerned about the Bible.

And it may be the teaching of the Bible, but it is the Bible that determines whether it is or it is not.

Somebody may claim to be teaching the Bible.

The only way you know is by comparing scripture with scripture.

There is a lot of confusion in Christianity today and some of that confusion is also in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

You and I will only know for sure what truth is when we for ourselves study the Word of God.

Today we're going to be focusing on teaching, on the teaching of the early Adventist church about Christ our righteousness from 1900 until 1950.

Now when I say early Adventist Church, it's going to be a little later than what we have been talking about more recently.

I want to make a couple of observations as we start.

Come on in, there are more chairs and there are ways of us being able to adjust that as well.

So Chuck, I really appreciate your help and if you see that we're running out of chairs or anything like that, be sure and let us know.

And even fill in some, there's some down there as well.

I wanna make 2 observations as we get started today.

1 is that we tend to focus on differences.

You know, I am truly grateful to be part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

I am truly grateful to be part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't grown up where I did.

I had to make decisions along the way just like you did, but it's easy to get confused and into the stream of life and not take the time to figure out where we're supposed to be, but we can't afford to do that forever.

We have to be very, very careful, but I am so thankful that there is so much in the Seventh-day Adventist Church that we agree on.

And even though in the next couple of days we may be talking about some of the things that we have differences on and where there is discussion going on, don't lose your focus on Jesus, and don't lose your focus on the fact that we may talk about something here or something there and then forget about there's so much that we all agree on and there's no confusion on.

Secondly, we must be students of the scriptures.

We, you notice that I've emphasized it in bold, we, that is you and me and all of us, must be not only students of the scripture, but we must have a personal relationship with Jesus.

The scriptures are our only safeguard in these last days.

I want to place some emphasis on that today, so I'm going to take a section out of the book Great Controversy and we're going to read through it today.

It's in your notes and it'll be on the screen.

It is vital that you and I recognize that in these last days if we're not students of the Scriptures, we are likely, and very likely, will be deceived.

It's going to take me a little bit to do it.

As I get a little farther in it, I may just hit some highlights.

But on the first couple of sections at least, I want to read here from Great Controversy, page 593 and paragraph 2.

All right, I don't want you, I mean when I said together, don't read it out loud with me, follow in the notes, we'll come to places where we'll read it out loud.

But here's what it says, those who endeavor to obey all the commandments of God will be opposed and derided.

In order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed in his word.

They can honor him only as they have a right conception of his character, government, and purposes, and in that act in accordance with them." Now read this sentence with me please.

None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand throughout the last great conflict.

I'm reading now, to every soul will come the searching test, shall I obey God rather than men?

The decisive hour is even now at hand, are our feet planted on the rock of God's immutable word?

Are we prepared to stand firm in defense of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?

Revelation 12, 17, Revelation 14, 12, and don't forget that the 2 are connected, and I don't mean the 2 verses, I mean the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

There's a lot of confusion out there in relationship to the faith of Jesus.

Going on a little farther, I'm gonna read, here we are, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Ignorance, that's from Psalm 16, ignorance is no excuse for error or sin.

When there is every opportunity to know the will of God.

A man is traveling and comes to a place where there are several roads and a guide board indicating where each 1 leads.

If he disregards the guide board and takes whichever road seems to be him to be right, he may be ever so sincere, but will in all probability find himself on the wrong road.

Now folks you and I are going to have to face a reality.

Tomorrow it will become crystal clear what that reality is.

There is, There are 2 roads out there today within the Seventh-day Adventist church.

And you and I will see as we begin to discuss this today that As you look at these roads, it's very clear that 1 of those roads is the road that will lead to the kingdom of heaven, but they both don't lead to the kingdom of heaven.

That's where you have to be a student of the Word of God and get it figured out.

But you and I have to realize that just like I believe that the Bible teaches that when Jesus comes again, We are going to be caught up together with Him in the clouds of glory and we're going to be taken to heaven.

What a wonderful day that's going to be, I believe that.

But there's a lot of Christianity today who believes in the secret rapture and that some people when Jesus comes the second time are going to be whiffed off to heaven when everybody's going to be left behind.

I'm going to tell you that you can believe both of those sincerely, but 1 group is going to be tremendously surprised, Worse than surprised, they're going to be left behind, excuse the pun, intended.

So you and I need to understand how challenging this really is to you and to me today.

Going on, she says, we should exert all the powers of the mind in the study of the Scriptures, should task the understanding to comprehend as far as mortals can the deep things of God.

Yet we must not forget that the docility and submission of a child is the true spirit of the learner.

Scriptural difficulties can never be mastered by the same methods that are employed in grappling with philosophical problems.

We should not engage in the study of the Bible with that self-reliance with which so many enter the domains of science.

But with a prayerful dependence upon God and a sincere desire to learn His will.

We must come with a humble and teachable spirit to obtain knowledge from the great I Am.

Otherwise, evil angels will so blind our minds and harden our hearts that we shall not be impressed by the truth.

If you have been listening to Brother Sliger in the morning, this morning he made it very clear that we must be connected with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must understand that we are in a war and this war is for us to be destroyed, that's Satan's goal, to be saved, that's God's goal.

He wants to save us because we're living in the last days.

Now we have chairs in here that people can sit up there, we can bring chairs down here so people can see the screen, and even come down here in front if we need to.

So I just want to make sure that anybody can see the screen and participate and gets the materials as well.

Yeah, the sign-up sheets, so sign-up are around here as well.

So is anybody who hasn't gotten the sign-in sheet yet?

So I'm just going to set it up here in case we need it.

I'm going to let you read the next paragraph on your own except for the last sentence I'm going to read it that begins, an understanding.

An understanding, and I'm down here by the way, of Bible truth depends not so much on the power of intellect brought to the search as in on the singleness of purpose, the earnest longing after righteousness.

She says, we are living in the most solemn period of this world's history.

Series

Christ our Righteousness

Christ Our Righteousness - Part 3: From 1900 until 1950

Transcript

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