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

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior

David Shin

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 1: Back to the Father’s House

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 3: Sanctified in the Holy Place

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 4: Glorified in the Most Holy Place

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 5: Sanctuary Under Siege

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 2: Justified in the Courtyard

Our Father in Heaven, Lord, we have been blessed at this camp meeting.

I know I've been blessed as we have reflected on you and experienced this wonderful time of fellowship, community, and time in your word.

And Lord, this morning we pray for your Holy Spirit to be in me, be with us.

Lord, We know that you have chosen the weak things and the foolish things of this world, so that no flesh can glory in your presence.

Lord, you know that my heart's desire is that this truth about the sanctuary would be made clear and that it would be applied to every heart today that you would transform us in spirit and in truth for we ask these things in the precious name of Jesus amen I want to begin this morning by sharing a few quotations from the book Great Controversy, page 423.

And this quotation was introduced to me in a new way when I was taking my studies.

When it outlines a system of truth, Here it is, Greek Controversy, page 423.

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 and 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 in this quotation that Ellen White states that it opened to view a complete system of truth.

So what the sanctuary does is it provides a framework for understanding the work and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to this earth, died on the cross, was baptized, and the courtyard represents his ministry here on earth, and then we believe that at his resurrection, he went into heaven, into the holy place, to minister as our high priest in the heavenly sanctuary.

And then from 1844 to this present day, he's ministering in the most holy place on our behalf in the heavenly sanctuary.

Now, I want to read another quotation here from 489 of Great Controversy.

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

So, when you think about what she's saying here, the sanctuary provides a map, as it were, a context for understanding the work and ministry of Jesus.

As we stated, His life on earth, the courtyard, and then in heaven, if you look at the model of the sanctuary I have on the screen, he fulfills the holy place ministry, and then he goes into the most holy place ministry.

So it provides a context for the movement of Jesus in the plan of salvation, and also our own personal individual journey in the plan of salvation.

1 other quote I want to share with you that was revolutionary to me.

This is from 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.

We've heard of the pillars of the Adventist faith, sanctuary, state of the dead, second coming, spirit of prophecy.

But here she states something very unique and profound.

She states that the sanctuary, specifically 1844 in the 2300-day prophecy, is the central pillar of our faith.

And as we noted in an earlier presentation, if you remove the central pillar, the whole structure crumbles, and the same goes for Seventh-day Adventism.

Now, I did mention yesterday that 1 of the challenges that we are presented as a church in our fracture and in some of the theological divides and challenges that we have is the birth of the Adventist intellectual.

Do you remember when I said that yesterday about the Adventist intellectual and the explosion of Adventist universities around the world.

Now I want to add to that that Ellen White states that we should go as high as we can when it comes to education.

I praise the Lord for Adventist education.

I praise the Lord for my seminary education and for my graduate studies.

It cuts both ways, and much of what I presented this week has been as a result of some of the brightest and finest of Adventist scholarship.

1 of the tasks that has been given to me is to take these brilliant scholars and to take them in a package that is understandable and can be followed by the masses.

Now, what I mean by it cuts 2 ways is that education is never a replacement for conversion.

Education is never a replacement for the Holy Spirit.

Now, ideally speaking, we can have the Holy Spirit and education, and you have the example of Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament and made significant contributions theologically.

But education, without the Holy Spirit, according to Paul, he says that knowledge puffeth up.

And there's a challenge that we face as a people that the more highly we become educated, there can be a temptation, can be a temptation to depend on our education rather than the Holy Spirit.

And This is the challenge that we face as a church as more and more of our people are seeking terminal degrees.

Now, I owe these next 4 or 5 slides and the latter part of my presentation this morning to 1 of my major professors, Dr.

Richard Davison, who's done tremendous work on the sanctuary.

So I want to give credit where credit is due and encourage you to read his work.

Now Richard Davison states that it seems like in every era or every 40 years, there is an attack on the sanctuary message.

If you look on the screen, there's a slide that lists the first era that came up immediately in the 1960s.

On the left-hand side, you see the detractors, B.F.

Brinkerhoff, were the individuals that doubted that Jesus went into his final phase of ministry in 1844 and doubted the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary.

And the defenders were James White, Uriah Smith, and J.N.

So this was the first time that the sanctuary came under attack.

Richard Davidson, This was the second time at the turn of the 20th century.

The detractors were Dundee Canwright, J.H.

Kellogg wrote The Living Temple, which had pantheistic beliefs, which stated that God was in everything, in the plants and objects, and that we were all the temple.

He had a very eminent view of God, and so the sanctuary idea was really muddled Because the idea that God is ministering in heaven or the idea of the Shekinah glory abiding in a place did not coincide well with the idea of pantheism or panentheism.

The other name I had on the screen was Dudley Canwright.

He was a prominent preacher that went into apostasy, and many of Canwright's writings today are used by ex-Adventists to undermine our beliefs.

The other time that the sanctuary came under attack was the 1930s and the detractors were L.

Fletcher and the defender in this case was M.

Andreessen who wrote the book The Sanctuary Service.

Now I want to spend a little bit more time on the 1980s.

The most prominent name up there is Desmond Ford.

Yet others, Robert Brimsby, Dale Ratzlab, and Raymond Cottrell.

The defenders in response specifically to Desmond Ford was DARCOM, which is an acronym for the Daniel Revelation Study Committee, which was a response to Desmond Ford specifically.

Now Desmond Ford was professor of theology at Avondale, And then as a result of some of his teachings, he was transferred from Avondale College to Pacific Union College because the brethren were having some challenges with his teachings at Avondale.

And they assumed that bringing Desmond Ford from Avondale to Pacific Union College would make him a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond, if you understand me, and the brethren would be able to work with him and just deal with some of these challenges they were having.

1 of my professors that I had in undergrad was a colleague of Desmond Ford at Avondale, and he stated that what the Brethren did not understand was that bringing Desmond Ford from Avondale to Pacific Union College was making a big fish in a big pond.

My professor stated that Desmond Ford had the closest thing to what you would call a photographic memory.

If you remember my earlier statement, they didn't have CD-ROM back then and when they would try to come up with a, or find an Ellen White quote, rather than going to the Ellen White Index, they would go to Desmond Ford, and he would be able to picture the page of the Spirit of prophecy in his mind and quote you the passage almost verbatim.

He passed away this year, incidentally, and Desmond Ford gave a sermon on the campus of Pacific Union College that troubled the brethren and they gathered together at Glacier View.

And in 3 days, I believe it was, he produced a document that was over 900 pages long.

And his argument in the 900 pages, according to Richard Davidson, were so compelling that my professor, Dr.

Davidson, said that he almost left the Seventh-day Adventist Church as a result of Richard, Richard Davidson left the church as a result of Dr.

Those 900 pages and the arguments that Desmond Ford gave, Adventism had never had to grapple with before.

There were whole churches that left the denomination as a result.

About one-third of the Adventist ministers in Australia turned in their credentials and walked out the door.

Desmond Ford, after Glacier View, He had his credentials taken away and he left the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The fallout of what took place in 1979 and 1980, I don't know if we will fully grasp the magnitude of what took place then until eternity.

Ellen White states that sometimes the Lord allows heresies to come into the church so that our people will be forced to go back to the Bible.

You know, you can do nothing against the truth.

You study the truth, it will only affirm you more.

And the Daniel Revelation study committee that in the decade after the Ford fallout went back to revisit and look at the arguments that Desmond Ford made in regards to the legitimacy of the heavenly sanctuary.

Is our belief that Jesus in 1844 transferred his work from the holy place to the most holy place a biblical idea or is it as Desmond Ford said grounded and founded upon heavenly geography and has no biblical merit?

What the Devon Review and Study Committee found in their study is that our belief as Seventh-day Adventists in the investigative judgment is rock solid.

Series

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior

Sanctuary, Salvation, & Our Savior - Part 5: Sanctuary Under Siege

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

In Defense of our Sanctuary Message

42m

How YOU Can Bring Closure for Jesus

1h 4m

Part 5 - Crossing the Jordan

1h 9m

The Science of Surrender

56m

Evening Plenary

05 Not Just Another Church

1h 11m

Empowered by His Spirit

39m

Acts

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Part 1

31m

The Close of Probation

The Close of Probation- Part 1

28m

End-Time Events & Religious Liberty Implications

Illuminated With His Glory: Revelation 18

1h 2m

WYC 2012 Plenary Sessions

Repentance and the Latter Rain

1h 19m

Acts: First Generation Lessons for Last Generation Believers

1. Cut To The Heart

51m

God's Love Stories (Noon Meetings)

12. Demon Possession in India

1h 41m

Sound Doctrine