Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Established in the Present Truth

Mark Howard

A Complete System

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2023 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Gracious Father in heaven, we are thankful for a beautiful day here on this Michigan campground and we ask, oh Lord, we ask for the Spirit of God that He would give us understanding in the truth and impress it upon our hearts that we would not simply be formalists who have a head knowledge of things, but that we are transformed by your word.

We ask these things in the name of Jesus and for his sake, for the glory and upbuilding of his kingdom.

So just briefly, I want to review, and I mean very briefly, yesterday again we talked about sound doctrine and how doctrine is the foundation of every belief system, and certainly it's the foundation of our belief system.

And I shared this quote yesterday from Selected Messages.

I want to share it again, volume 2, page 87.

Ellen White says here, the truth for this time is broad in its outlines, far-reaching, embracing what?

And sometimes it can seem that those doctrines just aren't even connected at all.

She continues, but these doctrines are not detached items which mean little.

They are united by golden threads, forming a complete whole with Christ as the living center." In other words, they fill in the picture of God for us.

The truths we present from the Bible are as firm and immovable as the throne of God.

Now, 1 thing I realized I didn't do yesterday, preachers get to preaching and sometimes we just that's evidently that's what I did because I started talking about a time when I did some training here in Michigan and the pastor had asked me, let's focus on the practical soul winning nuts and bolts, having conversations, etc.

And let's not get into the doctrine because our people know the doctrines and you may recall me saying that.

And I told you that I managed to fit the doctrines in anyway, and I had a person come up to me and say, I've grown up in the Adventist church, and I've never heard these things when I talked about the law of God.

And I told you that I was puzzled by that because I know that they heard it because it's in the curriculum.

I mean, you don't go through Adventist schools without getting the law of God repeatedly in the curriculum.

And so I wrestled with that for some time, and what I didn't share with you is my, at least my, what I've concluded, and that is sometimes in the way that we teach or we learn.

I think that we teach in our church too often as though you guys already know this but, Because the way we taught our classes on doctrines was, this is how you give a Bible study, this is how you meet objections on this, this is how you share this topic with somebody who doesn't believe it, who may not even want to believe it.

And I'm afraid that we don't do that so much and I mean I think the adult equivalent is the Sabbath school quarterly I know seven-day Adventist and I look I'm in the Sabbath school department I think there are good things about the quarterly, but the quarterly is not the lesson book for Sabbath school The Bible is a lesson book for the Sabbath school and what many people do is instead of studying the Bible passages the lesson is based on, they read the quarterly.

And I think that's how we do with our doctrine sometimes, and so we know certain things that we believe but to explain it especially from scripture sometimes we fall short at that and so I meant to make that point yesterday so I want to dig into some a little bit of a little deeper into our I wish I could go through all of our doctrines this week.

Well, we're going to focus on the present truth.

Now go with me to 2 Peter 1 and verse 12, if you will.

2 Peter 1 and verse 12, you'll see that Peter employs this phrase that was also employed by the pioneers of the Seventh-day Adventist movement.

2nd Peter chapter 1 and verse 12, The apostle says, for this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in what?

Now the way Peter used this phrase, present truth, was to refer specifically to the events that had just taken place, the long-foretold coming of Christ, crucifixion of Christ, resurrection of Christ.

The concept of even the word present is communicating a truth that is especially relevant for the time that you're in.

Now, for Seventh-day Adventists, the pioneers of our movement, they understood the present truth as having special reference to our unique Adventist message.

Now somebody could say, well isn't that something?

You know, Peter thought it was about the cross, but Adventists think it's about these unique doctrines.

So before you judge too harshly, just hang on for a minute.

I want to show you a statement from the pen of Ellen White, and if you've done any reading in historical Adventist writings, you'll see that that was a phrase that they used to refer to the message that they felt God did.

3 angels' messages, the truths connected with them, the present truth message.

And time doesn't permit me to get into a bunch of quotes on that, but I want you to notice this statement in the book Early Writings.

In this section, this chapter, incidentally, who here has read the book Early Writing?

I just want to tell you short, short, short testimony.

When I came into Seventh-day Adventist Church, I was not interested in Ellen White.

And I got to tell you, I grew up in the Adventist Church, maybe that was part of it.

Wasn't interested in Ellen White, wasn't interested in reading Ellen White.

I was interested in prophecy, and somebody tricked me into reading early writings.

And if you have not read that book, oh, I knew halfway into it, it's like, no, no, no, this is from God.

And that's all the testimony I'll give on that, but in that book.

There's a section called the messengers and In this section Ellen White is Sharing what the burden of the message of God's messengers will be at the end of time.

There are many precious truths contained in the Word of God, but it is present truth that the flock needs now.

In other words, it's been said, like for example, you can imagine Noah preaching, right?

He's building the boat, the flood's coming, and he gets out and the masses of people come to hear him, and he says, today we're going to start a six-part series on the family, but he never says anything about the boat.

Well, a series on biblical principles for the family would be great, but it would be kind of important to tell the people a flood's coming, right?

And so the concept of present truth is that the Bible's full of precious truths, but God forbid we don't tell people the truths that are going to prepare them to meet the Lord when he comes.

And so we have seen this as a burden of our message.

Now notice, it is present truth the flock needs now.

Such subjects as the sanctuary in connection with the 2300 days the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus are perfectly calculated who calculated these truths by the way the Lord himself are perfectly calculated to explain the past Advent movement and show what our present position is, establish the faith of the doubting, and give certainty to the glorious future.

We would say assurance today, that hope that we hang on to in difficult times.

She says, these I have frequently seen were the principal subjects on which the messengers should dwell.

And so if we're going to talk about our doctrines, I was thinking what doctrines would I focus on?

Well, I would be remiss not to focus on present truth.

And we're told an inspiration, the sanctuary in connection with the 2300 days, the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Now as soon as I say sanctuary, how many of you think of something like that?

You're like, okay so it's a timeline and we're going to spend all week going over a timeline.

It is unfortunate that Seventh-day Adventists who know anything about the sanctuary basically know about maybe colors and tent stakes and a timeline.

You'll find that in Scripture and in the writings of the spirit of prophecy, the burden of the New Testament writers was not on the fabric that the curtains were made of.

It was not on the material the altars were built of, but the work that was going on inside that building.

Go with me to Hebrews chapter 9 for a minute.

Look at this in the writings of the Apostle Paul.

I'm telling you this because that's where we're going to go.

We're going to talk about the work going on there.

I really think that is, and I think you'll understand this, Lord willing, by the end of today, but certainly by the end of the week, that this is the burden of our message, what's going on in that temple.

Now, if you go to Hebrews chapter 9, and I believe we have good evidence that the Apostle Paul is the author of Hebrews, but it says in Hebrews chapter 9 verse 1, then indeed even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.

For a tabernacle was prepared, a tent, talking about the wilderness tabernacle, the first part which we would call the holy place, he actually goes in to say that, so I should just keep reading.

The first part in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary.

The second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all.

I want to pause here and tell you something very significant.

I'll say it again this week, but time doesn't permit me in this message to tell you about my family's leaving of the Adventist church during the Desmond Ford crisis.

You remember the attack on the sanctuary.

It could have been cleared up with just 1 main understanding That I'm going to share with you right now Verse 3 is the only place in the Greek language in which the New Testament was originally written that can be legitimately translated most holy place.

I say that because when you go on and even Hebrews 9 it talks about it we're in the most holy place all over the place we're all the time as translators have put it in some translations But the only place the New Testament brings up the term is right here.

The holy place, the first apartment, he says in verse 2, and in verse 3, behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, the most holy place.

Which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant, verse 5, and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat." Now notice this sentence, of these things We cannot now speak in detail.

It means the same thing as I meant when I just told you time does not permit me.

Because it's not the burden of my message.

I want you to notice that these few verses are all put in the whole book of Hebrews where Paul's talking about the sanctuary are the only ones he's talking about the building.

The rest of the book spends the time talking about the curtains and the goatskins died in the furniture other than right there.

Because the burden of his message is what is happening in that sanctuary?

Because that priestly work is pointing us to what Jesus' work is today that we wouldn't know without this model.

What did Jesus do when he went up to heaven in AD 31?

You ever talk to your Christian friends about that?

We were saved at the cross, it's all done at the cross, and I can't wait till we go to heaven to be with Jesus.

Sound Doctrine

Gracious Father in heaven, Father, we thank you so much that we can be gathered here in your presence and with the presence of your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, whom you've given to guide us into an understanding of the truth.

Lord, not just a theoretical understanding, but a real living understanding and application of the truth.

And I pray this morning and throughout this week that through this time we have to study here as well as in the other seminars that you would bless us with a deeper experience, a richer experience with you.

And Lord, I ask these things not because we're worthy, but you've invited us to ask and to ask in the worthy name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

All right, 2 Timothy chapter 4, starting in verse 1, the apostle says, I charge you, therefore, Timothy was a young ministerial apprentice, and Paul's giving him direction on how to minister effectively.

I charge you, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.

Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure what?

Sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves what?

They will keep up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned to fables.

The time will come, he said, when they will not endure sound doctrine.

Now the word doctrine means teaching, and when I was asked to take over this morning session, the administration said they really wanted to strengthen, you know, our theme is with all boldness.

And many of you know that I've been involved in evangelism training for years, training people and sharing their faith.

And, you know, a lot of times in a training seminar you give people tips on how to start up conversations with strangers and that kind of thing.

But my own personal conviction is that 1 of the main reasons more Seventh-day Adventists don't share their faith is because they're not very confident in their faith.

Because they're not very enthused about their faith you say well how do you how can you be so sure because I've had people share with me all kinds of craziness that I wouldn't share with anybody just because they're excited about it it could be a shoe sales you mean some TV show or movie they saw, it could be any number of...

Because we, when we are enthused about something, we tell people about it.

Now, enthusiasm is a part of it, but I think another part of it is certainty and confidence and so the boldness with all boldness well we need a confidence in our faith if we're going to share our faith and so administration said I think we want to do something to review doctrine in fact what they asked me to do initially was something that we've done in our manual sessions called our Bible boot camp.

And other ministries have done something similar to that, Bible boot camps, where you get in and you and you go over the doctrines.

Well, when we do that in our manual sessions, we like to take a two-hour block to go over each doctrine.

We've got 1 hour for 5 days a week, so how much are we going to cover?

That was what I asked them, and as I thought about it, the Lord helped me settle into what I was going to present, and I'll unfold that as we go.

I will tell you though in that in the light of what I'm saying that doctrine you know I came into the Seventh-day Adventist church I mean I can't give you my whole testimony now but my family my mother and father were first generation Seventh-day Adventist and so I was born they became seventh-day Adventist before I was born.

They ended up getting divorced and my mother ended up leaving the church.

I lived with my mother, so for a long time I was out of the church until my mid-20s.

And That's been a while ago, unfortunately.

And so I came in, in fact, I was baptized on April 2 of 1994.

And from that time at least, doctrine has not been a good word in the Adventist church.

There's been a feeling that doctrine is, in fact, let me make sure I have this right as I was pondering it and put it in my notes, that doctrine, we've gotten bad press on doctrine.

There's been a trend to view our doctrines as either too strict or too narrow or too exclusive or simply cold and impersonal.

You know we've got all this the facts all these facts about stuff like death and health and which day you should worship on.

And let's be clear, I don't know that any Adventist would say doctrine is bad.

I don't think we would say that, but what we typically hear when we hear things like we need to preach more Christ and less doctrine, what's usually meant is we need less teaching on Adventist distinctives and more teaching on God's love and mercy and forgiveness.

Well, I'm not gonna totally disagree with that, but I will tell you that I feel there's been a trend to view our doctrines in that narrow way and taking more relational approach to religion.

And that relational approach, from my experience, in many places has eclipsed our teaching of doctrine to the point that younger generations don't even understand Adventist doctrine.

You can argue with me, but I'm a pastor and you're not.

And it's not just the younger, but I'm just saying of all people the younger generations I mean let's be clear if you ask a young Adventist what happens when you die they'll say oh you go to sleep you know but if you ask him to explain it forget about it and the truth is when you don't study it a lot, you don't hear it a lot from the pulpits, even those of us who are adults say, well, I know it's in there somewhere.

And we begin to lose an understanding of our beliefs.

I was reading in an article in the Adventist Journey, Some of you may have read this, just the June edition, this month's edition.

And there was an article in there called, Where Do I Belong?

Where leaders talk to collegiate age Seventh-day Adventists and asked them about how they felt about the church and I thought this was interesting I'm taking this from the article it's on the screen students are seeking a stronger integration of faith and learning in the classroom I'm not saying it's not taught in the classroom, and we're going to get to that in a minute.

It goes on to say, Student leaders also expressed that at the local church level, they and their peers craved what?

Deeper spiritual connections and cohesion in the biblical teachings presented.

These are collegiate aides saying, hey, we don't feel we're getting a whole lot of the biblical foundations for our faith.

I'm still reading in the article, 1 said, many are feeding the youth and young adults baby food, but we need solids now.

Time does not permit me to go into all of this, but I will tell you that there are many Seventh-day Adventists from past generations who had a bad experience with Adventist doctrine, and so now we've gone to shielding our young people from that bad experience, and in doing so we've kept them from it.

From the Adventist doctrine, from learning why we know.

So you have a whole generation, in fact generations plural, that know little of why we believe what we believe.

So I did a training in a church, I'll leave the place nameless, and I remember we were doing, we were going to do a week-long Emmanuel training an intensive where we met every day from morning to evening Sunday through Sabbath it was a week-long in fact I think we started the Thursday before it's like a 10-day training and so I worked with the pastor on what to cover and this has been many years ago and the pastor said to me you know I want to I want to focus on the practical training I want to really have some hands-on stuff and getting out door-to-door he said our people know the doctrines I don't want you to focus so much on the doctrine.

But he just thought, we all know this stuff.

What they need is to know how to share it.

And I remember thinking, if they knew it, you wouldn't have to twist their arms so hard to share.

Now that was just a personal conviction so what I did is I worked with this pastor I did everything that he asked me to do but I found some slots to squeeze in some classes on Adventist doctrine.

And I remember, I'll never forget this experience, I was going over, it was a class of all things on the law.

Like, I mean, what Adventist doesn't know the 10 commandments?

Like we're gonna do a class on the 10 commandments.

And I remember going through that class And this lady comes to me afterwards, and she says, what you're sharing is absolutely incredible.

I went to Adventist Elementary School, I went to Adventist Academy, I graduated from Adventist College, and this is new to me.

Now, I mean, listen, you've got to be where I was then.

You gotta like, come on, wait a minute, okay?

In fact, those of you who are teachers here, you're like, come on, we have it in the curriculum.

It had to happen in their education because it's in the curriculum.

And having similar encounters over the years what this is what dawned on me.

I'm afraid that what has happened see here's the thing saints we fall into this trap where I'm afraid that Seventh-day Adventists today don't know the difference between legalism and formalism.

So for example, and those of you who, if any of you, how many of you here watch Talking Points, the program Cameron and I do, you'll always hear us throwing out these parenthetical statements these Saving face caveats where we have to anytime we talk about obedience We have to put the little plug in saying now hold on a minute just so you're clear We know we're not saved by our obedience You know why we do that Because we've been preaching along Cameron's right over there We've preached around the world for many many years and inevitably anytime you talk about obedience we'll have people come up and and we'll get emails we'll get texts we'll get people come up and say hey listen don't you understand the gospel we're not saved by obedience so we throw those little disclaimers in but listen the challenge what a lot of seventh day habits don't understand is oh you talk about obedience that's that's legalistic no Legalism is when you think you're being saved by that.

But what our church has suffered from is more of what I would call formalism.

Formalism is when you keep doing church but you forget why you're doing it.

You at 1 time, when you were baptized, you studied the Bible, you had daily devotional time, you obtained your personal faith from a personal experience with the Lord, but after years in the church, well, the personal study time kind of got less and less, and your activity in church got less and less, and you used to get up and go to Sabbath school and you went to prayer meeting, but nobody else does that, so why should I do that?

And then over time, you just go through the motions.

And so Let me, you know, when it comes to doctrine, I've had people say, well, the problem is we need to put more Christ in the doctrine.

Adding the word Jesus a thousand times to your sermon is not going to make it any more Christ-centered if you are a formal Christian.

What makes things Christ-centered is the person sharing it being Christ-centered.

If you have Jesus in your heart, whatever you say and share can't help but be Christ-centered.

And so what we've tried to do in the church is we just will talk more about Jesus, we'll put it in the script, but putting Jesus in the script doesn't put him in the doctrine.

So when I came into the church some 30 years ago 20 years ago 20 some went back in there.

The first church I attended was a in those days.

They called them celebration churches They were they were they were they were not your traditional churches There was more singing and there was more this and that, and I'm not trying to deride it, but I will tell you that it was very, the church I started going to was very down on doctrine.

Well, I chose it because it was close to the house like so many people do when you choose a church.

The Law of the Lord is Perfect

Oh gracious Father in heaven, what a precious system of truth we've been entrusted with.

And Father I pray as your people that you would bless us today with an outpouring of your Holy Spirit.

We thank you for your presence in all the meetings and with all the speakers in all of our youth divisions.

Oh Lord, we need the Spirit of God among us and I pray that our minds and our hearts would be tuned to your word and your frequency to be in harmony with your will this morning as we study we ask and pray these things in Jesus name and for his sake amen Now very briefly I want to pick up with a review from yesterday.

Yesterday we began talking about the present truth and I shared with you this statement from the book early writings page 63 Ellen White says there are many precious truths contained in the Word of God But it is what it is present truth that the flock needs now such subjects as the sanctuary in connection with the 2300 days, the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus, I have frequently seen were the principal subjects on which the messengers should dwell.

So yesterday we spent our time talking about the sanctuary in connection with the 2300 days.

And if I were to boil it down, we're going to get back into it, we looked at some of the framework, but if I were to boil it down I would say this.

The cleansing of the sanctuary that we as Seventh-day Adventists hold as a part of present truth is simply about God getting rid of sin.

And let's be clear about something from the sanctuary.

You can have your discussions in your Sabbath schools and with your people who want to be naysayers But if you study the sanctuary and you tie the type to the anti type The priest put away sin before he finished the job with that's what finished his job Jesus is our high priest and he's going to finish his priestly work before he comes.

And if the role of the priest was to put away sin, and that's what Jesus is doing in heaven, it's going to have to happen before he comes.

I've had people say, no, it can't happen before he comes.

You need to study the type that God gave.

And we'll unfold that further, but that's what the sanctuary was about, was God getting rid of sin.

Now, the final part of getting rid of sin was putting it on the head of the scapegoat which takes place after the coming of Christ and after the Millennium and we'll get into some of that detail later but today I want to look at the other part of this particular statement the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus as I said the title of the message is The Law of the Lord is Perfect.

Now I have to tell you that it's an odd time to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

When you talk about the law in Adventist circles today, it's almost taboo.

You can't talk about the law because that's legalism, isn't it?

I mean, even among Adventists, you can't.

I was asked earlier, yeah, it was this year, to speak, was it this year or was it last fall, maybe last fall, I lose track, but I was asked to speak to a group of high school students at our high seat event and so I I said to the first of all I had a lot going on I wasn't sure I could do it but I told the person who asked me let me pray about it and the Lord's gonna have to give me clarity on what to speak on.

Well, I think he asked me on Thursday and Sabbath afternoon it came to me the whole series that I was gonna do came to me And it was on the law of God.

And I have to tell you as an Adventist minister, I thought, now I'm gonna have to go tell a youth guy, yeah, I'm gonna speak to the youth about the law all weekend.

I'm gonna tell you already I knew it was gonna go like a lead balloon.

Now, our youth leaders in our conference, I mean, we got solid people, and I appreciate it.

And I shared with them, and I said, look, you might want to get somebody else, but if I speak, this is what the Lord said.

If you're going to speak, it's going to be on this.

And they were totally open with it, and I think things went well.

And I'll explain a little bit further, but my point is this, that it's awkward as a Christian that you have to apologize for talking about the law of God.

We ought to be the greatest proponents of the law of God.

Now you say, but pastor, Don't we have in our history where Ellen White said that we preach the law, the law, the law, and we need to preach Christ?

Series

Established in the Present Truth

The Law of the Lord is Perfect

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Creating Joy in Everyday Life

02 Creating Joy in Everyday Life

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Plenary

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04 Is It Time to Fast

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05 Building a Culture of Mentorship in the Church

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Sound Doctrine