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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jim Howard

The Gospel in Prophecy

My name is Pastor Jim Howard, and as was stated, I work at the General Conference over in Maryland.

I am the Associate Director of Sabbath School and Personal Ministries there.

I'm excited to hear about what you're doing here at Advent Hope.

Anyway, a little bit about my background before I really dive in deep into the sermon so you give you a setting for the sermon.

My parents were Adventist but they left the church before I was 10 years old and I was converted personally by reading my Bible at the age of 22.

And now, only just a few years later, here I am with you.

And I Really thank the Lord for the experience, even though there was some challenges there that I had in my early experience.

Thinking back to those early years as a Christian, I remember some of my family really were digging into studying prophecy, But I wasn't really all that interested to be frank with you.

The Lord had revealed himself to me in powerful ways through his word.

He impressed my heart with eternal realities, impressed my heart with his love for me and I just wasn't all that interested in what they were studying.

I want to be clear about my conversion too here.

My conversion did not happen by watching any sermons.

I didn't go to any evangelistic meetings.

I didn't have a Bible worker come to my house and study with me I didn't even have Bible guides that I went through.

I just read the Bible and That's not that's just to say something about what I believe about the power of the Word of God.

It has converting power and yet there was 1 thing that I have to admit I had many people today don't have that sort of was influential I believe in my own conversion experience.

It wasn't a great memory that's for sure because at the time that I read my Bible looking back to my 10 years or almost 10 years as an Adventist child, if you will.

I only really remember 3 things from that time.

1 was I remembered us being around the campfire at Vesper's time singing.

I remembered 1 of my Sabbath school teachers had a seizure.

That's pretty unforgettable, so I remembered that.

And I remembered the sketch of Lazarus coming forth from the grave in my Good News Bible.

Anybody here ever have a Good News Bible?

It's got those little sketches in it, little line sketches.

And something in my heart really loved that Bible.

Even, it kind of warmed my heart, it had a yellow cover.

I don't know, this is my childhood Bible.

But more importantly than any of that, And this gets to the 1 thing I had that many people don't have.

I was inclined at the age of 22 when I opened the Bible, I was inclined to believe that it was true.

So I had no real background or remembrance of anything.

I didn't really know much of anything that was in the Bible.

But I was inclined to believe when I opened it that it was true.

So even though my life was worldly, even though it was far from God, I had the advantage of an openness to the Bible before I started reading it, which is something I thank my parents for, even though they made many mistakes along the way.

I can assure you that my mother came back into the church.

My dad became a believer, didn't fully come back in the church, he's passed away, but mom is as active as could be in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and I'm thankful for that.

But even in those early years, just my experience gave me that openness to believe that the Bible was true, and it kept me in a good position to experience my conversion at the age of 22 when I read my Bible.

So back to my lack of interest in prophecy.

You have to understand that when I first came into the church, the church that we decided to check out, see my parents had left the church, but when my dad said he would be willing to take us somewhere, he took us to an Adventist church because he still believed that the seventh day was a Sabbath.

Well, this Adventist church was kind of not a normal Adventist church.

It was a mission church intended to reach young adults.

But it was sort of also intended to reach burnt out Adventists.

Come to find out it was run by people who were burnt out Adventists.

So they didn't believe half the things that Adventists believe, et cetera.

And 1 of the things that they questioned was prophecy.

And so instead they were studying this guru, his name was Larry Wilson.

And he taught that something major was going to happen based on his Jubilee charts, something major was going to happen in 1994, i.e.

And so there was all this study of this Larry Wilson that was going on in the church and I just wasn't that interested.

I wasn't quite getting it to be frank with you and everything else was so exciting in the Bible that I just kind of you know didn't worry too much about it.

But then not too long after that I came of course to understand and be exposed to the Adventist understanding of Bible prophecy and I mean it blew me away.

I could not for the life of me figure out why these people left something that was so clearly true and powerful and life altering to study these Jubilee charts.

I couldn't quite get it, but some people do it.

Bottom line is the Lord made a believer out of me and it that study and understanding of the prophetic message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is what anchored me from then until now to be to be honest with you.

But since that time, you know, I've become a pastor and then a conference administrator, now I'm working at the General Conference, and I've discovered that many people in our church are experiencing what might be termed prophecy fatigue.

I Get it, you know, it just seems not relational it seems very Mathematical.

I mean, maybe there's a lot of doctors here.

You probably like it but But for a lot of people it just you know, you start talking about and their eyes roll back in their head Just like in a calculus class, you know, it's just like oh the beasts the you know, whatever it just it's it doesn't sound like the love of Jesus and I've had more than 1 elder come up to me when I've come into a new district and Said hey, we need to have some evangelistic meetings or whatever I've had more than 1 elder come up to me when I've come into a new district and Said hey, we need to have some evangelistic meetings or whatever I've had more than 1 elder who has come up to me and said pastor Do you mind if we do something on the gospel instead of something on problem?

We've worn that thing out Can we not do something on prophecy?

Well I am of the conviction and this is what I'd like to speak to you about today that we must preach the gospel as Jesus and the Apostles preached it as the Bible and the spirit of prophecy present it.

It is not the gospel or prophecy, but it is the gospel in prophecy that is especially attended with the power of God.

And that's what I wanna talk to you a little bit about today.

For starters, let's consider a text that you're familiar with.

This is 2 Peter 1 19 which says, "...and so we have the prophetic word confirmed which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." I'll be having you turn to some texts and others I'm just gonna rattle off just so you know.

But that particular passage I love it It talks about the prophetic word confirmed and it says it's like a light that shines in a dark place Whenever I read that you know what comes to my mind some of you may have read the book desire of ages And in the book desire of ages It talks about Jesus in this incredible way in several places where it says that He it was some he does some incredibly Supernatural type of thing and she says his divinity flashed through his humanity.

It gives you this picture that like his humanity, which you know was veiling his divinity, just couldn't contain it in that moment.

And it was just boom, so clear to everyone that this is the Son of God.

Prophecy, when it's understood, it's like, boom!

You get a picture of the supernatural God.

And Jesus actually says this in, let's turn to this 1 actually, in John chapter 13, where he gives a pretty clear picture of the power of prophecy and what the purpose of it is.

Jesus says, Now, he there is in italics in your Bible that's because it's added it's okay An okay ad I guess it's saying something similar, but it it's interesting when you read it without that right?

That you may believe that I am Okay, because I am is the name of God So Jesus is basically saying here I'm gonna tell you before it comes to pass so that when it comes to pass, not that you might believe that I'm Jesus of Nazareth who was born as a baby in a manger, etc.

What this is saying is that you may believe that I am the divine Christ.

And this is a supernatural revelation that he's talking about.

By the way, you need supernatural revelation in order to be converted.

Remember when Peter said in answer to Jesus' question, who do people say that I am?

He said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father in heaven You see it was supernatural revelation That helped him to see Jesus as the Christ the Son of the Living God and that has this converting power.

There has to be supernatural revelation in order for us to experience conversion, and that's the beauty of prophecy.

That's what Paul was saying, is that prophecy has this ability to reveal the divine Christ.

So with this in mind let's remember also how it is that Jesus and the apostles preach the gospel.

For starters I'm going to read to you a quote from the book, The Desire of Ages.

Ellen White says, The burden of Christ's preaching was, that time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Now in quoting this she's quoting from Mark chapter 1 verse 15 the words of Jesus then she says this this is incredible thus the gospel message as given by the Savior himself was based on the prophecies.

So when Jesus preached the gospel, what did she say?

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The Gospel in Prophecy

Transcript

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