Michigan Camp Meeting 2023: The Boldness of the Cross

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

From Mormonism to Adventism

Cody Francis

A Pivotal Year

My Journey Out of Mormonism

A Counterfeit Movement

The Confusion of Mormonism

Reaching Mormons

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.

Father in heaven, we're grateful that you have given us each this opportunity to be here at Camp Meeting.

We pray that you will be with us in this seminar.

We pray that you will help us to grow in our commitment to you and to your message.

So over this week, I'm going to go through experiences, some of my experience and my journey into the Adventist movement, into the Remnant Church, and we're going to be looking at how that took place and some of the history behind this movement as well.

And so I do want to make it clear that I'm approaching this not as a scholar of the Mormon movement, but rather as someone who I'm remembering my experience, and it's been my experience and my journey, And I have consulted history to try to refresh my memory in some things as well.

But I'm not claiming to be an authority, I'm just claiming to share what I have experienced and learned and grown in my journey.

And so we're going to be looking at from Mormonism to Adventism.

All right, I want to mention that when I'm talking about Mormonism, and by the way, I should say our first for today, we're gonna be focusing on what I'm gonna refer to as a pivotal year.

I believe that when we look at the history of this, it's a pivotal year in the religious world, and we're gonna be looking at several different aspects of that, it's also a pivotal year in basically the world as a whole.

And many times when we look at this year, we kind of miss the bigger picture.

But I also want to make it clear that I want to be very respectful to everyone in any faith that they're in, especially since we're dealing particularly with the Mormon faith here.

I want to be respectful of those in the Mormon church, and I don't want to say anything that they would not agree with as well.

I want to be very factual in regard to their beliefs and how they would look at it, but I do want to compare it with the Bible.

And when I refer to Mormonism, that's not the most correct terminology, but it is the most understood terminology, so that's what I'm using.

When I refer to Mormonism, I'm referring to what would be better called the Latter-day Saint movement.

And there are 2 main churches in the Latter-day Saint movement, although there are different ones as well.

And the first 1 is the most common, what we would sometimes just refer to as the Mormon Church, the official name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

And that is what they would prefer to be referred to as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Now, when we look at this church, there's about, and the second 1 I should say, is the Community of Christ.

It used to be called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Now in my journey my family intersects both of those churches but I have more direct experience, more direct connection with what is today called the Community of Christ.

A little bit about, there's as I mentioned there's smaller groups as well, A little bit about these churches as we set the background and then I want to go into looking at the pivotal year and what was taking place in the dynamics of the world during this time.

Today there are around 17 million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I don't know exactly how many countries, but I have seen churches in many of the different countries that I've been to, the very clear to identify these churches.

In Michigan, there are 96 congregations and that accounts for about 45, 000 members simply in Michigan.

Now, I would state that their counting of members is not necessarily how we count members.

If you were born to parents that had been baptized, that would mean you were a member.

And there's a different, lots of different ways that they would calculate it's not necessarily somebody that has chosen to join the church But that is the way that they count their membership now ironically if we look in the United States there are 6.7 million members in the United States, making the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the fourth largest Christian denomination in this country by numbers.

And of course, as we're familiar with, the majority of that is focused in Utah, Nevada, Idaho and that region.

We'll talk when we get into some of the history as to why that is the case.

Now the community of Christ, when I was a member, when I was there, it was referred to as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sometimes you would abbreviate that to the Latter-day Saint Church being LDS and the Reorganized Church being RLDS.

So I'll try not to refer to those terms, but if I do, that's what I'm referring to.

This would be RLDS would be Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or currently Community of Christ.

So much smaller, 250, 000 members worldwide, most of them in this country.

In Michigan there's 58 congregations and about 14, 000 members here in Michigan.

So there are a fair number in Michigan and you will see a number of churches in Michigan and there's a reason for that.

While the Latter-day Saint church based in Utah is larger and focused more in Utah, you're going to find that the community of Christ is more in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

That is more of the area that you're going to find more dense population there.

But as I mentioned, I want to be talking specifically of a pivotal year.

And as we begin to look at that, I want to begin and think about a pivotal year in the work of God.

What is a pivotal year in the work of God?

Well, we're familiar with this as Adventists.

What is the longest time prophecy that we have in the Bible?

And so based on Daniel chapter 8 and verse 14, we understand that the prophecy was continuing from the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, beginning in 457 BC and continuing to the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry and His crucifixion, and then a transfer to His heavenly ministry.

And then we have His final heavenly ministry in the most holy place, beginning in 1844.

We're going to look a little bit more at that history as well as we go.

Probably on Wednesday, we will look at that more.

But 1844 was a pivotal year in the history of God's work.

And as we look at the history of it and as we read it in great controversy, we see that there was a tremendous revival that was taking place during this time.

It was near the latter part of what we would refer to in American history as the great in the second great awakening we would refer to it as the the advent movement and all of that and so a lot was taking place during this time now it's interesting me I hope you brought your Bibles I do want to be referring to some verses here and there.

We're going to look at more history today and then I'm going to share a little bit mostly my personal experience tomorrow.

But if you go to Exodus chapter 12, there's a very fascinating verse to me.

Exodus chapter 12 and verses 40 and 41 and notice what it tells us now this is when the children of Israel were journeying from Egypt and as they were journeying from Egypt we recognize that God was using Moses to deliver them there were the plagues Pharaoh was hindering them as they were seeking to leave, and but then God delivers them.

And notice what it says here in Exodus chapter 12 verses 40 and 41.

Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years.

And it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, and notice what it says next.

Very same day it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.

Now that is a fascinating verse to me because it indicates here that here was this prophecy that the children of Israel were going to be in Egypt for this time period and as they were there at the end of this time period after 430 years that God set them free and it says that as he set them free it says on that very same day when God's prophecies are fulfilled they are fulfilled exactly God documents and I don't know how they documented it, but when God's prophecies are fulfilled, God documents it and God makes it clear.

Now in 1844, Jesus entered the most holy place and we're familiar with some of that history, but there were other things that were taking place in the world at that time.

In fact, there were several major developments that were occurring right around this same time, leading up to it.

And when we look at 1844, it was the 1820s that William Miller in particular was studying, the 1830s that he began to share his findings that Jesus was coming soon, as he would say, around the year 1843, and then he would come to the conclusion of 1844.

And so, as it was building during that time.

And we see that there were other major events that were taking place right around that same time and there were major Changes that began to take place in the world 1 of those changes and this is what I'm going to call a pivotal year in the development in the world.

In 1844, in fact, it was on March, or May, rather, 24 1844 Samuel Morse sent Alfred Vale a message from Washington DC to Baltimore what was that message?

The first message transmitted, what hath God wrought?

Now Morse had been developing this and experimenting with it.

He had gotten a donation or he had to prove to the United States government the benefit of this device that he was promoting, of the telegraph.

He did that in 1844, and from that time, communication sped up to a great degree.

We could say to a certain extent, now you could say that technology greatly advanced, and it did, with the printing press, but it wasn't just the printing press.

Here we come to 1844 and we have communication taking place electrically through long distances.

And so in 1861, we had the first transcontinental telegraph line.

1866 was the first permanent transatlantic telegraph line.

And so you had the world beginning to be connected.

We could say to a certain extent that technology really began to break upon the world in 1844.

Now, We don't think of the telegraph as particularly high technology today.

But when you think about what was taking place before, where if someone was gone for any length of time, they could come home and they could have a family member that had been buried and they wouldn't even have known about it.

The telegraph was a major advancement, wasn't it?

Now you could receive communication Very quickly.

I know for us with text messages and the internet it seems like nothing.

But really it was major technological advancement at that time.

And I believe it's interesting that that took place right in 1844.

And Basically the world has never been the same since then.

But it's not just that, and there's many other things we could look at as well, but there were other movements that were taking place right in this year of 1844.

Series

From Mormonism to Adventism

A Pivotal Year

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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