General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 59th Session

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General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Yes, Creation!

Kwabena Donkor

Evolutionary thought, Spiritualism and the End of Time

Lee Spencer

How Many Dinosaurs Were On the Ark?

Ariel Roth

Some scientific data that favors a recent creation

Stan Hudson

The Biblical creation is central to the local church

Greg King

Is Biblical Creation Passé?

Nikolaus Satelmajer

Rollin Shoemaker

Sabbath and Creation

Paleontology and the Bible: Science in action

John Baldwin

Why Does a Good Creator Permit Evil?

JoAnn Davidson

...and it WAS good

Jim Gibson

Lions in the Garden of Eden

Richard Davidson

Does Genesis Really Teach a Recent, Literal, Seven-Day Creation Week and a Global Flood?

Tim Standish

DNA and Design

Jacques Doukhan

Creation, the Heart of SDA Theology

How to share creation in outreach on secular campuses

Do millions of years solve the problem?

Ed Zinke

Theistic evolution and the end of Adventism

Ronny Nalin

Dealing with uncertainty

Ted N.C. Wilson

God’s Literal, Six-day, Recent Creation--The Church’s Position

Creation and Evolution: A brief history

Clifford Goldstein

Seventh-day Darwinians

Standish and what a privilege it is to be here this evening.

I am so proud of our Geoscience Research Institute, also our Faith and Science Council that is organized by the General Conference.

These organizations, along with our Biblical Research Institute, form the core of defense for God's great Word of God.

I want to pay tribute to those who have worked on this, especially Dr.

I haven't had the opportunity to be here in person, but I have gotten rather first-hand reports about what a blessing the presentations have been in yes creation.

It is of course 1 of the most important topics and on Sabbath I will try to share a little bit more about that in the sermon that I have prepared.

I just came from an event, and I'm sorry to be a few moments late, although it seems as though I got here in time.

We had a special farewell dinner for Pastor Matthew Bediaco, our outgoing Secretary of the General Conference, a wonderful man of God, and I hope you will keep him and Elizabeth, his wife, in your prayers, as they continue to serve the Lord, that God will use them in a continued way to uphold truth.

This evening, I just want to share for a few moments a prepared script on creation.

It is more of a meditational kind of approach than perhaps a scholarly paper which you have heard undoubtedly the last number of evenings and days.

We have some wonderful scholars who have researched in such a powerful way creation as it relates to scripture and to science.

This evening I want you to understand that from the administrative standpoint of the Church, certainly with the team that we are building by God's grace for this next quinquennium, that the Seventh-day Adventist Church will stand firm for those things which we have understood to be the pillars of our faith.

And that we will not flinch, regardless of what may happen.

We will keep our eyes focused upon the author and finisher of our faith.

And the Lord will guide his people through in spite of the attacks that will come.

What I'm going to share with you tonight is not necessarily the officially voted position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, but I would say it is the officially understood position on the part of all of us.

And I want to share it with you as we begin.

In fact, I invite you now to come on a trip with me out of this world, beyond the familiar solar system that some of you who are amateur or professional astronomers may see past the expansive nebulas past the vast super galaxies through the constellation of Orion to the very center of the universe, to heaven itself, the throne room of God Almighty.

The throne room is opulent, but not ostentatious.

Revelation 4 tells us about the marvelous throne room of God.

Verse 2 of Revelation 4 tells us of the God who sat on the throne.

Verse 3 tells of a rainbow around the throne that looked like an emerald.

Verse 4 tells of 24 elders seated around the throne.

Verse 5 tells of the power of that throne room with lightning and thunder and voices.

And verse 8, they tell of a sea of glass, like crystal, before the throne.

And 4 beasts looking like a lion, a calf, a man, and an eagle.

Each beast full of eyes and continually saying, day and night, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come.

Verse 9 goes on to say that those beasts are constantly giving glory and honor and thanks to God.

They fall down before God and they worship Him, throwing their crowns before this magnificent throne.

Why are they continually saying, holy, holy, holy?

Verse 11 powerfully answers those questions.

It says that God is worthy to receive glory and honor and power because he has created all things for his pleasure.

What an incredible creator, what an incredible God.

I praise God for the intellect and articulation of those who have presented papers based on their faith in the biblical account of creation during Yes Creation series.

When you study the Bible and the natural world, you learn many wonderful things, including the strong evidence for God as the Creator.

Unfortunately, there are those who dismiss Genesis chapters 1 to 11 as allegorical, nice stories, but only symbolic.

As I mentioned the other day on the floor when we introduced the motion in order to endorse the 2004 Annual Council Statement.

I wanna tell you this evening that I believe, as the Bible indicates, that God created this world in 6 literal, consecutive, contiguous, 24-hour days of recent order.

Admittedly, we don't have all the answers.

I wouldn't even present myself as a trained theologian.

But we have numerous answers and evidence for biblical creation and a global flood.

Evidence which you may have heard in these series of presentations.

I much prefer to believe in a loving God who took time to create us in His image than to believe in a detached, ambiguous and meaningless evolutionary process, even if it is called theistic evolution.

The greatest evidence of all is the Word of God, a faith in the account outlined in the inspired Word that gives us an understanding of what God did for us during that marvelous recent creation, and of course what He did for us on the cross, what He is doing for us as our High Priest in the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, and what He will do for us in the future as our coming King.

God is our mighty creator and provides us with assuring promises of his presence and creative power in so many portions of scripture.

Listen to just 3 places in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 43 verses 5-7 Fear not, for I am with thee, I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west, I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back, bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth, even every 1 that is called by my name, For I have created him for my glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him.

Again God proclaims his creative power in Isaiah 44, verse 24.

Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens along, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." Again in Isaiah 45 verse 18, God reiterates His supremacy as the Creator.

For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it, he created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited.

In order to have us remember that He is the Lord and that He made the earth and all living creatures including us, he gave us the crown of the week, the seventh-day Sabbath, a day to remember him.

The very Sabbath on which we worship him in about 2 days is the same literal seventh day sequence that he created recently ending the literal week of creation.

The Fourth Commandment found in Exodus 20, verses 8-11 is so explicit regarding God's creative power and action.

It is plain for all to see and is why we have the Sabbath, to help us remember the Creator.

Carefully ponder the words that God himself gave us in that fourth commandment.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

6 days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God in it thou shalt not do any work thou nor thy son nor thy daughter thy manservant thy maidservant nor thy cattle nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

For in 6 days the Lord made heaven and earth the sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day.

Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Patriarchs and Prophets, page 48, indicates that God saw that a Sabbath was essential for man even in paradise.

He needed to lay aside his own interests and pursuits for 1 day of the 7, that he might more fully contemplate the works of God and meditate upon his power and goodness.

He needed a Sabbath to remind him more vividly of God, and to awaken gratitude because all that he enjoyed and possessed came from the beneficent hand of the Creator.

So that's why, end quote, that's why we are Seventh Day Adventists.

We honor that commandment to remember who our Creator is.

The Creator who created this earth in, as I said, 6 literal, consecutive, contiguous, 24-hour days of recent origin.

The Sabbath will also be a sign or a seal by God of those who are his people in the very last days of Earth's history, just before Christ's soon coming.

The Sabbath is so crucial to who we are and why we worship God.

The Sabbath is a sign of God's everlasting love as our Creator, as our Redeemer, and as our soon-coming King.

God tells us in Ezekiel 20, verse 12, I gave them my Sabbaths to be a sign between me and them that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctified them.

So be happy and rejoice in the Sabbath that will soon come in 2 days.

And it will come again at the end of every new week because it tells us where we have come from, why we are here, and where we are going.

It is at the core of the great controversy theme since it identifies God as the omnipotent ruler of the universe and our own personal lives.

What a magnificent God, controls the universe but is interested in your very personal needs and wants.

The Sabbath, as a sign of God's creative power, is totally integrated into the last great proclamation to the world by God's remnant people the seventh day after this Church, as it proclaims the unique 3 angels' messages entrusted to the Church found in Revelation 14.

The first angel in verse 6 shares the everlasting gospel, the righteousness of Christ and His saving power.

It is to be shared with the world, indicating in verse 7 that we should respect God and give Him glory, for the hour of His judgment is come, and that we are to worship God who made heaven and earth and sea and fountains of water.

The first angel makes it plain that we are to turn people back to the true worship of God, a worship on the seventh day of the week which commemorates his literal work of creation, culminating those 6 days with the day on which we are to remember that creative event.

The second angel in verse 8 tells the world that the truth of God has been corrupted.

God wants us to remember Him as the Creator and we do so every week with the Sabbath.

The third angel in verses 9-11 tells the world to worship only God, the Creator, culminating with that beautiful description in verse 12 of God's people at the end of time who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Series

Yes, Creation!

God’s Literal, Six-day, Recent Creation--The Church’s Position

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Everlasting Gospel for These Last Days

01 Earnestly Contending For the Faith

1h 1m

Norman McNulty Weekend

The Great Controversy Unmasked

51m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Law, the Sabbath and Worship in the End-time Crisis

04-An Anchor for the Crisis Ahead

57m

The Synagogue of Satan

51m

Identity Crisis

42m

ASI 2011 Plenary Meetings

God’s Remnant Church - Finishing Strong

52m

Brief Thoughts on the Final Test

15m

Eric Walsh: The Dragon's War on the Remnant

The Dragon’s War on the Remnant Part 4

52m

Faith of our Fathers

Things Old and New

41m

WYC 2010: Morning Devotions

Revelation’s 411 Foundation

45m

SWYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

Will The Real Gospel Please Stand Up?

51m

His Truth Is Marching On

49m

Sound Doctrine