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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty Weekend

Norman McNulty

Justification By Faith For Our Time

We're going to get into the message for this evening.

Father in heaven, I thank you so much for giving me a safe trip out here to Loma Linda today.

And I thank you that we can meet together this evening during these Holy Sabbath hours.

And I just pray that you would place your Spirit upon me and give me the words to speak that will not just be another nice message, but that it will actually truly touch each of our hearts as we prepare for the soon coming of Jesus.

The title of the message this evening is Justification by Faith for Our Time.

You know, justification by faith is a topic that never grows old when you keep digging into it.

And 1 of the reasons why I am so interested in digging into this topic is because of its close relationship, its integral relationship to the third angel's message.

And especially with the times that we're living in now, the third angel's message is the message that we should be hearing in Seventh-day Adventist churches and pulpits as we prepare for the coming of Jesus.

And so this is what I'm going to be focusing on tonight.

I'm going to start with a familiar statement from Review and Herald, April 1, 1890 by Ellen White.

And the statement says, several have written to me inquiring if the message of justification by faith is the third angel's message, and I have answered, it is the third angel's message in verity." So if justification by faith is the third angel's message in verity, I want to know what it is.

And the quote goes on to say, the prophet declares, and now Ellen White quotes Revelation 18 starting in verse 1, and after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was lightened with his glory.

Brightness, glory, and power are to be connected with the third angel's message, and conviction will follow wherever it is preached in demonstration of the Spirit." So here's something that I can take away from this statement.

Number 1, justification by faith is the third angel's message in Verity.

Number 2, when justification by faith is experienced, the loud cry will be given because the latter rain will be poured out.

So if you want to experience the outpouring of the latter rain, and if you want to be part of the loud cry experience, justification by faith is absolutely essential.

Justification by faith is at the heart of the third angel's message.

And justification by faith will be experienced by those who give the loud cry message.

And Ellen White says that brightness, glory, and power are to be connected with the third angel's message and conviction will follow wherever it is preached in demonstration of the Spirit.

Now I'm going to say something and I'm going to prove this as we go through this presentation this evening.

1 of the reasons why I believe that the latter rain has not been experienced, and the reason why the loud cry has not been given, is because justification by faith itself is not understood, and it's not experienced.

And a lot of times when justification by faith is preached, only part of justification is taught, therefore God's people aren't really understanding justification by faith and they're not really experiencing it.

And so in order for us to experience the latter rain and the loud cry and to be part of the closing work, we don't want to just know about justification by faith, we want to experience, but in order to experience something, you have to know what it is.

Now, this next statement is also familiar.

This is Testimonies to Ministers, page 91.

So I'm giving you a couple of Ellen White statements to warm up, but then we're going to open up the Bible and look at some passages of Scripture.

The Lord, in His great mercy, sent a most precious message to His people through elders Wagner and Jones.

This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Savior, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

It presented justification through faith in the surety.

So here's this most precious message, and it presented justification through faith.

It invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God.

Now here is 1 of the distinctions that you see with justification by faith as defined by God's servant as a most precious message, and that is that those who receive the righteousness of Christ will demonstrate in their lives obedience to all the commandments.

And 1 of the reasons why justification by faith is misunderstood many times in Adventism today is that it's often taught that you can experience justification while living a disobedient life.

Now, it's important, though, to keep our eyes on Jesus as we talk about justification.

They needed to have their eyes directed to His divine person, His merits, and His changeless love for the human family.

All power is given into His hands that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of his own righteousness to the helpless human agent.

This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world.

It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice and attended with the outpouring of his spirit in a large measure." So here's 2 different statements.

1 is from Review and Herald, April 1, 1890.

The other is from Testimonies to Ministers, page 91, that connects justification by faith with the loud cry message of Revelation 18 and the outpouring of the latter rain.

And the latter rain is poured out on God's people who experience justification by faith.

And when I look in the Bible in Acts chapter 5, it says the Holy Spirit is given to those who obey Him.

So 1 of the challenges that we have, number 1, do we believe that justification by faith leads to obedience?

And point number 2, if we believe that, are we experiencing that?

Because those are 2 key points that will lead to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Now let's look at a few Bible passages as we define justification by faith a little bit further.

Starting in Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 4 verse 3 says, For what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

Now to be counted righteous in the Bible means to be justified.

You are declared righteous, you are counted righteous, you have righteousness imputed to you.

That's what Romans chapter 4 verse 3 means.

So Abraham believed God, it was counted to him for righteousness, that's justification by faith.

Now notice what verse 4 says, "...now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt." Now this has sometimes been a problem in Adventism where Adventists feel like, man I've been so bad in the past, I'm going to have to really work hard to make up for what I've done before God will accept me.

No, that's like you're paying off a debt.

You can't work to pay off the debt of the sins of your past.

You have to accept by faith the grace that God is offering to you when he offers forgiveness to you.

Now I realize this seems pretty basic, But you know how many Adventists struggle with the idea that God just takes care of your record and you don't have to work really hard to make up for what's happened.

Now we may say, oh I wouldn't do that, but then we do that.

Going on in verse 5, it says, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

So again, imputed righteousness, that's justification by faith.

Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes righteousness without work, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Now what Paul is describing here is the experience of forgiveness.

And listen, if we didn't have the forgiving grace of God, we would all be doomed to eternal loss.

Because the Bible makes it very clear in the chapter before that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And so there's nothing that any of us can do to undo the fact that we've all sinned.

The only thing that can undo that is the blood of Jesus.

And by faith we accept the grace and the rich free gift that He's offering to us by offering that forgiving grace to us.

That's a key element of justification by faith.

We accept the justifying grace, the forgiving grace of God.

Romans 3.24 says that we're justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

You don't have to crawl up the stairs in Rome to get the justification.

But it takes faith to believe that God can forgive someone as sinful as you or as me.

Because I know what I'm like disconnected from God.

You know what you're like disconnected from God.

You know, and here's the thing, who you really are isn't what you look like when you show up here.

Who you are is what you think about when nobody else knows what you're thinking about.

What you're thinking in your mind about that person that gets on your nerves.

What you're thinking about when someone walks past you.

And for men, like if a woman walks past you, where does your mind go?

Women, you may have different things that you think about when someone goes past you, whatever it may be, but who you are is the way you think right here when nobody knows.

And so sometimes the devil wants us to think, man you're really bad.

There's no way that God could ever forgive such a rotten, filthy mind like yours.

And that's where faith comes in, where we believe that God will forgive the way we've been in the past.

LMY has a statement, Faith and Works, page 103.

Pardon and justification are 1 and the same thing.

On the Border of the Heavenly Canaan

So it's so good to be with you and I'm gonna offer a word of prayer and we'll get into our message for this morning.

So let's pray father in heaven We thank you so much For the Sabbath day We thank you for this opportunity to worship you and to come together And Lord, I pray that if we are wandering That we would come home today It's getting late in the day in earth's history to be wandering far from me.

We're thankful for your amazing grace that you are always ready and waiting to receive us.

So Lord as I speak now I pray that you would give me the right words to speak and that what I say would be just what each 1 of us needs to hear and that the Holy Spirit would guide what is said.

So thank you for this opportunity that I have today to be with my friends here at Advent Hope.

And I just pray that you would speak through me now, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 37, which I alluded to briefly last night, it says, for yet a little while, and he that shall come will come and will not tarry.

The title for the message today is On the Borders of the Heavenly Canaan.

The last time I spoke here at Advent Hope was in 2018 in person.

I did speak on Zoom about a year ago or so.

But this is a different world that we are living in today, as we all realize.

And the way we think, the way we do everything has changed significantly over the last year and a half.

And there's, I realize there's sometimes different opinions even about the pandemic itself, but whether or whatever you think about the pandemic, everybody would have to admit that the world is a different place.

And as Seventh-day Adventists, this really shouldn't necessarily surprise us, right?

You know, at Seventh-day Adventists we have been preaching for over 170 years that Jesus is coming again and that he is coming again soon.

So it shouldn't come as a significant surprise that things in the world around us would begin to fall apart, that the fabric of our society would start to unravel, that the world that we live in, that we had become comfortable with, is no longer a place that we really should feel a place worth trying to settle into for the long haul.

This is a sign of the coming of Jesus and any time we see signs of the coming of Jesus, it should not surprise us.

You know, I was a little bit thankful to fly out to California yesterday for more than 1 reason, 1 of which is that it was another tornado day in the region that I live in.

And once you get to about November, December, every week or 2 or 3, you have a tornado day.

And some of you may have seen on the news that a long track tornado went through Kentucky, Western Kentucky, probably about 100 miles from where I live.

And estimates suggest that in 1 town alone, perhaps 100 people are dead.

And, it's in the same conference that I'm a member in.

We see the pandemic that we're living in.

And these are signs that we've always understood remind us that this world is not our permanent home, that heaven is the home that we are looking for.

And yet I have to say to myself and to each 1 of you here today, it's so easy to get comfortable on this earth.

And yes, we see the signs around us, and yes, we understand that Jesus is coming again, and that his coming could be very soon and yet a lot of times we can say well we've seen other signs too.

And so I want to challenge you today in what I'm talking about.

I believe that we are on the very borders of the heavenly cane, and yet the reality is that Jesus could have come a long time ago.

And I'm going to take you through a few thoughts today.

This first statement comes from Evangelism, page 696.

It was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus delayed.

Now here we are in the year 2021 and we see these signs, we see the pandemic that we're living in right now, and there's other things that are happening in the world around us that we could discuss.

And yet, way back in 1883, we are told it was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus delayed.

So it really shouldn't be a surprise to us that we see signs of the coming of Jesus.

Then she makes a comparison, and this is what I'm going to do over the next several minutes, and this comparison relates to the children of Israel as they went through the wilderness.

God did not design that his people Israel should wander 40 years in the wilderness.

He promised to lead them directly to the land of Canaan.

And if I recall, I think if you walked the distance, it would have taken roughly 2 weeks, something like that.

He promised to lead them directly to the land of Canaan and establish them there, a holy, healthy, happy people.

But those to whom it was first preached went not in because of unbelief.

Their hearts were filled with murmuring, rebellion, and hatred, and he could not fulfill his covenant with them." You know, it's kind of hard to understand how could you be murmuring and complaining and have a spirit of rebellion and hatred when you see the the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, when you see the Red Sea parted, when you have manna provided for you on a daily basis, you've come out of slavery, and you're still not happy, man.

I just get so frustrated with the children of Israel.

It's like for 40 years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan.

I mean, they had the land of Canaan right in front of them, what was wrong with them?

The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

You know, we look at ancient Israel and we're like, wow, you know, if I had seen the Red Sea parted, if I saw the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, if I had manna provided from heaven every day and water gushing out of a rock, I wouldn't have complained.

I wouldn't have been rebellious towards the leadership of Moses.

I wouldn't have been this, that, and the other, and yet we are told way back in 1883 that the same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

And as someone like all of the rest of you who is living in the year 2021, somehow I don't think that we've gotten better since 1883.

Unbelief, murmuring, rebellion, and then she goes on to say worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord's professed people.

You know, isn't it nice that Adventists don't fight with each other?

You know, 1 of the most frustrating things to me about this whole pandemic has been the way Adventists fight with each other on social media about COVID-19.

And We say that we're preparing for the coming of Jesus, and yet we have people fighting with each other, calling each other names, saying, you're going to get the mark of the beast if you do this, or you're going to be that if you do this.

And then we say that we're on the very borders of heaven, and Jesus must be coming soon.

And yet the same sins that delayed ancient Israel into the earthly Canaan are happening here among God's people today.

And I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that some of the division that I see in the church today about COVID has probably been about as bad as any issue that has divided the church in my lifetime.

And everybody who has a strong opinion about COVID is thinking about the people that they disagree with right now and how bad they are.

What about the strife among the Lord's professed people?

What about the unconsecration and the worldliness?

Are we really different than the world around us, or have we assimilated into modern culture so that while we may come to church on Sabbath and enjoy hearing good messages that remind us of the coming of Jesus, when the rest of the week rolls around, we're really no different in our purposes and goals.

So I have some questions to ask myself and to ask you today.

How much do I, how much do you, how much do we really want heaven right now?

I mean, you know, I've maybe met a stray person in the Adventist church that 1 time when I was a kid I met a fellow kid, we were probably in second or third grade, who they really didn't like their parents and this and that and the other, and they're like, I don't wanna go to heaven, and that was a little bit weird.

That's probably about the only time I've ever heard somebody say, I don't wanna go to heaven, where they meant it.

I think every Seventh-day Adventist that I've ever met wants to go to heaven.

But how much do you want heaven right now?

I mean, it would be nice someday, sure, I mean, after retirement.

How much do you really want heaven right now?

And the deeper question behind that is, how much does Jesus really mean to me, you, us today, right now?

Would you be willing to go through every possible trial and crisis and whatever it may be so that you can be with Jesus in person sooner rather than later.

Are we so scared of the time of trouble that we secretly hope, or maybe sometimes not so secretly, that we secretly hope that the final events come to our children or our grandchildren after we've passed off the scene.

It's like, yeah, I want to go to heaven, but I'm okay if I'm laid to rest, and then I'll raise my children and my grandchildren to have the character that is needed to go through the final crisis.

So I can kind of have my cake and eat it too.

I'll be raised in the special resurrection because I died in the faith of the third angel's message.

For those who have that special experience, praise the Lord.

The Lord says, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.

The Great Controversy Unmasked

So the title for the message this afternoon is The Great Controversy Unmasked.

And I'm going to take you to Revelation chapter 16, and we are going to pick it up in verse 12.

And before I do that, I'm just going to say a word of prayer myself, just so that I always like to pray as I begin a message.

So let's just ask the Lord to be with us as we begin our meeting this afternoon.

Father in Heaven, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you for the beautiful Sabbath that we've had.

I just pray that you will speak through me this afternoon, that what is said will make sense and will be helpful to all who listen.

So Revelation 16, verse 12 is the beginning of the sixth plague.

Now, the 7 last plagues Now, the 7 last plagues occur after probation has closed.

And you go through the plagues, and you see in the first plague that a grievous sore falls upon those who had the mark of the beast.

In the second plague, you have the sea turning into blood.

In the third plague, the rivers turn into blood.

In the fourth plague, you see scorching heat.

In the fifth plague, or actually, the fourth plague, you have the sun scorches men with fire, yes, and that's the scorching heat.

And then the fifth plague is the darkness.

And then the darkness becomes so intense that the darkness leads to cold.

And it says, the men nod their tongues for pain.

And so by the time the sixth plague is poured out, in chapter 16, verse 12, it says, this plague is poured out upon the great river Euphrates.

Now, the River Euphrates is the river that flows through Babylon.

Now, we don't believe that this plague is referring to the literal river Euphrates, and that the literal river Euphrates that flows through the modern country of Iraq is going to dry up so that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.

And there's this application to the fall of ancient Babylon when Cyrus diverted the river Euphrates.

And that led to the fall of ancient Babylon.

And Cyrus and Darius were the kings of the east that came and led to the fall of ancient Babylon.

But the kings of the east this time are referring to the Father and the Son, who are the kings of the East.

And we understand that the coming of Christ is from the East.

Now, in the very next chapter, we are told what water symbolizes in chapter 17, verse 15.

So the river Euphrates dries up, but the river Euphrates, what does water represent?

And a river in Bible times or historically, a river is the source of support and life to the territory through which it flows.

So the River Euphrates represents the source of support and life for Babylon at the end of the world.

And when the River Euphrates dries up in the sixth plague, what's happening is after 5 plagues, the people who have received the mark of the beast, because they've wondered after the beast, they followed the message of Babylon, they've experienced what Babylon wants them to experience, they've honored Sunday, they've worshipped on Sunday, and so they've received the mark of the beast, and now they're receiving the plagues, and at the beginning of the sixth plague, the source for Babylon is drying up, meaning that the people are saying, hey, we're on the losing team here.

We thought that we were saving ourselves because we wouldn't be able to buy or sell and we might lose our lives.

So we either got the mark of the beast in our forehead or in our hand.

Or in the hand, we didn't really want to, but we did it anyway because the hand represents your actions.

What your hand finds to do, do it with your might.

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Norman McNulty Weekend

On the Border of the Heavenly Canaan

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