GYC Conference 2023: But If Not

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The White Elephant in the Room

Joakim Hjortland

Pink, Ellen, and a Joyful Christianity

I think people are still on the way in, but we'll slowly but surely get started over here.

So I want to welcome you to this seminar.

We have some really interesting, powerful, important things to talk about, to study here together today.

I'm Joakim, from Sweden, based in Sweden, also from Norway.

The Main thing I do right now, I'm involved with like 7 different ministries or so, but the main thing is as the director of AFCO Europe.

Been running for 3 years now in Sweden, so that's a blessing to work with a mission school there.

US, where you are from the US, I guess most of you maybe.

I have a guy from Sweden here, that's good.

Someone else, I guess everyone based in the US maybe.

I was there 1 time, actually, they had this Afco branch in Kenya for a while, so I was there teaching for a week, Rongo.

It was only a week, but they gave me a Kenyan name while I was there as 1 among Omondi Yeah So anyway, that's nice.

Well Will I will show you a picture here.

Kind of getting started slowly but surely.

It's like 10 minutes from my parents' place.

I was just there for a few days over Christmas.

And it's actually quite cold when I was there.

It was like minus 16 Celsius, which is about 3, 4 Fahrenheit.

And yeah, I really like, well, any of you tried cross country skiing?

I used to play a lot of football, sports, adventure.

But anyway, it's a nice way to experience nature and get some exercise as well.

So yeah, that's just literally actually the day before I flew over here.

This picture is from, so it's a bit warmer here, which is also nice.

So yes, we are coming into the white elephant in the room.

And yeah, I guess let's have a word of prayer and then we'll get started after that.

Dearly Father, thank you for the blessing to be here at UIC and to study these things.

We pray that your spirit may guide speak to our minds speak to our hearts today.

As we study this topic, Help us to understand what you want to tell us and how you want us to view these things.

And I know that when we view it like you want us to view it, we'll be greatly blessed in our lives.

So we pray and we thank you for guiding us as we study.

The writings of Ellen White is a wonderful and crucial gift for these last days.

If we only believed Ellen White, studied her writings and apply them like we should, we wouldn't be here.

In a short time, we would finish the work and go home.

And we are getting into our, before we get into our first presentation, I just want to briefly mention 4 reasons why this is a good topic to study.

Confusion, it's a lot of confusion on this topic, and that's 1 reason why we need to study it so we make sure we understand it correctly.

Crucial, it's a very important, we're going to understand that more as we move forward.

It's a crucial topic, it's a very important topic to rightly understand.

It's easy to fall into a spiritual ditch.

Ellen White says that there is a human tendency to run into extremes.

So that's 1 reason we want to make sure we understand some of these things we'll be talking about.

And blessing, it's a great, great blessing when we rightly understand this topic like we should.

So those are some reasons to study this topic.

Another, yeah, I'm very passionate about this topic.

It's 1 of the main topics I've been teaching at different mission schools.

And yeah, I wrote a book some years ago on this topic, A Prophet for this Generation.

1 benefit to be here in person and not just listen online is that I will, during the seminars, I will give out a couple of these books as well.

So if you're here, you have the chance to get your copy of this book as well, where you can get even more in-depth on this topic.

So usually when I teach this topic at AFCO Europe, different places, I usually have about 20 class hours for this topic.

Obviously, we don't have that amount of time today.

So what I'm trying to do, so we'll try to use the time well, and try to use the time well, and at the same time not to speak too fast and put too much into the presentations.

And that's my temptation sometimes when I preach and teach.

And I'm trying to basically share some of the highlights, some of the most important parts of my 20 class hours that I usually have based on the feedback I've gotten, what people usually seem to enjoy and find useful and important.

So that's kind of the plan to share some of the highlights starting off this morning with the presentation Pink Ellen and a Joyful Christianity.

Paul said the following, 2 Corinthians 4, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

1 of the main reasons why many people don't want to have anything to do with God, don't like kind of, and Christianity and the Bible is that Satan has managed to paint a twisted picture of God, of Christianity, of true religion.

He has managed to blind their eyes, to paint a twisted picture.

But not only that, I believe this is also something he's doing in the lives of Christians and Adventists in different ways.

And 1 reason why we sometimes hesitate to surrender fully and completely to God is that we somehow have maybe bought into a little bit into the lies of Satan in different ways.

And this is a method, this is a tactic that Satan has used all up through history from the very beginning, right?

In the Garden of Eden, Genesis chapter 3, now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And he went on, then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

The first lie in history, usually when someone asks you, what is the first lie in history, we usually say, state of the dead, right?

But Together with that lie, coupled with that lie, is this lie, which is basically a lie about the character of God.

It's a lie that God, you know, he holds good things away.

God’s Fascinating Prophetic Pattern

Our second topic, a very interesting 1, the fascinating prophetic pattern.

We're going to, for this afternoon, the third and the fourth seminar, I have some handouts we'll be using.

For this 1, I don't, so I just need to listen a bit extra carefully.

It should be okay without it, but it's always good to take notes.

Can be helpful as well, or really listen to the recording afterwards if you want to hear it again.

But let's pray first of all, and then we'll jump into the presentation.

Dear Heavenly Father, we pray again that you may guide us with your spirit, help us to understand how you want us to view these things.

We pray that you may speak to our minds, to our hearts, strengthen us, strengthen our faith, inspire us as we study.

If we only truly believed in Ellen White, read her writings and apply them like we should, we wouldn't be here.

This is what we're talking about here, has a big potential for good.

Now, a short description I wrote some years ago for this presentation goes like this, just to give you a taste of what we'll cover here.

When God gives time prophecies, he uses a special modus operandi.

Understanding this pattern for doing things births a detailed expectation for an end time profit.

Fascinatingly, it seems like the devil understood what God was about to do and therefore brought about a host of counterfeit movements at the very same time.

In short, this intriguing study will strengthen your faith.

So that's a little teaser what we'll be looking at in this presentation.

But before we do that, since we are, again, usually I have 20 class hours, we have 5 sessions here, so I'm trying to just give you a few highlights.

So I would like to, before we jump into this presentation, I would like to spend a couple minutes to think about this question.

What are some reason, I will only share like kind of 1 reason in this presentation, but what are some reasons to believe that Ellen White was inspired by God?

So I would like us to take a couple minutes, 1 or 2 minutes, just in groups of 2 or 3.

Talk about that, discuss that, think about that.

What are some reasons that we have to believe that Ellen White was truly a prophet of God, that she was inspired by God?

Turn to someone next to you, groups of 2 or 3.

What are some reasons to believe in her inspiration?

All right, if you had more time, I will give you more time.

But maybe you can throw out, give me a few of the reasons you mentioned.

Some reasons to believe she was a prophet?

So we even have scientific proof to trust her inspiration, basically.

And I don't think Satan likes to do that.

And the Bible talks about lifting up Jesus, the divine human nature of Jesus has 1 sign, and 1 biblical test for our prophet, yeah?

That's true, you can really sense how many people have, like, man, this must be inspired, yeah?

That's 1 of the best things sometimes, you just invite someone to read, like, for themselves.

Many critics, or even skeptics, even Adventists that are skeptical to her, they haven't even read her, or like almost nothing themselves.

And it's like, well, you should start with actually reading.

There are so many people around the world, and even some of our best evangelists, they were, Ellen White was instrumental in reaching them and then they have reached so many people.

If she was a false prophet, Satan should find another 1 because she's converting way too many people for Jesus, you know.

Jesus said, by the fruits you shall know them.

So I like to, when I teach, when I have like a whole day, I would share 9 reasons.

You mentioned many of them, just to run through them quickly.

She fulfilled the competence of the prophetic sandwich.

Jesus said, Matthew 7, by the fruits you shall know them.

You see testimony of that, both from her enemies, even her critics even testified to that you see the fruit in the church You see the fruit in converted lives You see even studies showing the benefits of those Antis to read Ellen White versus antis who don't there are a big big difference in every category readers of Ellen White score better As she passes the other test of a problem, other biblical test of a prophet, her scientific foreknowledge, even scientific proof to believe in her inspiration.

Her great insights, you see how it makes so much sense, the biblical insights, different insights, fulfilled prophecies.

She knew things that she impossibly could have known.

There's some really interesting stories from her time, like when she knew things about people that she impossibly could have known, in addition to the Bible insight and the health insight, you know, just personal information she couldn't have known.

Very interesting stories, miracles in connection with her vision, including holding a 18 pound Bible, like for half an hour straight out, like the strongest man in America could hold it for 2 minutes.

And she can normally, she's like 40 kilo, 158, like 5 foot 2 inches tall, little lady, clearly supernatural.

And hundreds and hundreds of people witness those things when she was in vision.

And finally, the quadrilemma I like to put it like this is the only good alternative.

CS Lewis said about Jesus, I said something similar about the white, either she was a lunatic, a liar, tool of Lucifer, a messenger of the Lord.

And when you look at those 2, it's clearly supernatural.

Either she's a tool of Satan or a tool of God.

And when you look at the facts, when you look at her claims, when you look at her character, when you look at the testimony of neighbors, of critics even, even her strongest critics, when she died, testified, dear, a noble Christian woman died, he said.

The newspaper, glowing reports of her life.

So anyway, we have really, really good reasons to have strong confidence that she was a prophet of God so anyway that's a little warm-up.

What we are going to talk spend the rest of the time in this presentation is I like usually I call it the prophetic sandwich.

I guess this is technically more a burger maybe but in America you like burgers so well I guess that's fits right.

So basically it's a very fascinating thing and If I had a whiteboard I would write up the next thing here but I put it on the screen instead for the sake of time as well.

We're going to see that God has a certain pattern of doing things in salvation history in terms of giving prophecies.

That is very interesting and thought-provoking.

We'll look at 6 components that we are going to see again and again after Salvation History.

First 1, so it starts with, he raises up a prophet.

Then he gives that prophet a time prophecy.

And by the end of the time prophecy, he raises up another prophet.

So prophet, time prophecy, another prophet by the end.

Another thing you see in connection with this pattern is that the mission and messages of the prophets are linked to the time prophecy.

So it's a link between the mission and the messages of the prophets.

Yeah, their mission and message is connected with the time prophecy, what the time prophecy is about.

We also see that there is a message of judgment connected with all of this.

And finally, the last thing in the pattern here is that God leads out a remnant, a remnant people.

So these are 6 components And we're going to look at what is like 5 examples of this quite briefly.

I had to move a little bit faster than I usually do.

And the simple version of it, and that's kind of where the prophetic sandwich comes from, is that you have prophet, time prophecy, prophet.

A Lesser Light? Why Care?

Dear Holy Father, thank you that you are our God and wants to speak to us and guide us and bless us in so many ways.

We pray that you may help us to understand the things we are studying.

And there are many misconceptions, misunderstandings, and Satan is doing what he can to hinder us from receiving the blessing you intend for us.

I ask pray that you may help us to, yeah, to view these things as you want us to view them and help us to focus as well as we study.

You see that there is busy days here, lots of program.

We just had food, but you can help us to get what we need to get and Think that you will guide us with your spirit.

Amen The writings of Ellen White is a wonderful and crucial gift for these last days If we only believed in Ellen White, read the writings, and applied them like we should, we wouldn't be here in a short time.

So we're talking about some very important things.

Welcome, welcome in, we're just getting started.

So yeah, by the way, well I guess I introduced myself a little bit.

So I'm based in Sweden, involved in many different ministries.

The main 1 is AFCO Europe, serving as the director of the mission school over there.

It's not a very common name in the US, quite common in Scandinavia.

But it basically, well, it is a biblical name.

You could say it comes from Jehoiakim in the Bible, that you might have heard of.

You read about him in the beginning of the book of Daniel.

He was the king in Israel when the Babylonians came.

And if you remember, you might remember his stories, his story.

So basically, he's the guy, King of Judah.

Yeah, when when Nebuchadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem in 605.

And, and Yahweh came is the guy that cut the prophetic message of Jeremiah that have been painstakingly written down.

By hand, He cut it with a pen knife, threw it into the fire, and destroyed the messages of Jeremiah.

And I hereby want to take the opportunity to, on behalf of my namesake, to publicly apologize for what he did there, which was not very good.

And actually it's quite interesting, very interesting, let's read this in 2 Chronicles 36, 16 and 17 it says, but they mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

Therefore, he brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, which is the Babylonians.

In this verse, we are told 1, not the only reason, but 1 important reason why they were taken into captivity.

They mocked the messenger of God, they despised the words, they did not receive the prophets like they should have.

And that's, it's an important lesson, powerful lesson for us to learn from there, a relevant lesson.

And I think, again, as I said, if we truly receive the prophets like we should, God will do amazing things.

So now I want to read a little quote here.

According to 1 study, there are several similar studies, but according to 1 study in a trans-European division, less than 60%, so that's the Adventist division that I'm part of where I'm based in Sweden, less than 60% in my division of the members of the Adventist church in that part of our world church, less than 60% wholeheartedly embraced the teaching that Ellen G.

White was an inspired messenger to the 70 Avenue Church.

So A big percentage of the members don't really have confidence that she was truly a prophet.

Furthermore, 25% of the members of the Adventists in this region say that they never read her writings and another approximately 45% read her less than once a month.

That makes a total of just under 70%, almost roughly 70% of the members who read White's writings less than once a month, Practically never.

So about 7 of 10 Adventists in the Trans-European Division, they basically never read Ellen White.

And a lot of them don't really, they have very little confidence, if any confidence at all, that she was a prophet.

Unfortunately, this is not only a problem in the Trans-European division, but many parts of the Western world, including here in the US also, percentages might not be exactly the same, and obviously it's a problem also other parts of the world church also.

It's not for nothing that her books have been known as the little red books.

Might have heard that, the little red wordplay here.

The little red books or maybe even the unread books.

It's not for nothing that they have been known like that.

But unfortunately, it's not only neglect that is a problem.

The only problem is not that people neglect to read these messages, but 1 important problem, 1 important issue on this matter, and that's 1 of the things will help address a bit, I guess today you could say, is confusion.

Now, 1 Wikipedia article put it like this, I thought it was quite interesting.

I don't have the title of the article here.

I have it in my book, but I didn't get to put it on there.

1 Wikipedia article put it like this, Seventh-day Adventist believed church co-founder, Ellen G.

White, was inspired by God as a prophet and is understood to be a manifestation of the New Testament gift of prophecy.

We believe officially as a church that she had the biblical gift of prophecy, right?

Then it goes on to say, her inspiration is considered authoritative, yet not infallible by church scholars today.

Her works are officially considered to hold a secondary role to the Bible.

But in practice, there is wide variation among Adventists as to exactly how much authority should be attributed to her writings.

Have you heard different ideas in regards to this?

Probably every church you would find, every church you would find a number of different ideas.

For example, people say things like, you know, she was a prophet, but what she wrote here is not really inspired.

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Series

The White Elephant in the Room

Must Know: How to Read Ellen White

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

Pink, Ellen, and a Joyful Christianity

56m

God’s Fascinating Prophetic Pattern

56m

A Lesser Light? Why Care?

53m

The Last Deception in God’s Church

1h

Must Know: How to Read Ellen White

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine