SWYC 2011: Lest We Forget

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC Southwest

Adventist History

Dave Fiedler

From Minneapolis On

Looking to Man

Costly Words

United Work or the Worst Evil

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer as we begin again.

We pray that you would be with us as we spend some time looking into 1 of the problem areas, some of the challenges, help us to grasp not just the problem, but the answer, the solution as well, we pray.

Okay, I wanted to spend some time on the general topic that I alluded to in the last session as well as this morning of the tendency of people to look to other people.

That's not something that I think has gone away.

The 1888 message was supposed to counteract that.

And it would be nice to say that it was like 1 of those diseases where you give them 1 shot and the problem is solved.

But I'm thinking it's more something like a nutritional deficiency.

You need to keep constantly eating the right stuff to solve the problem.

When Ellen White wrote this, Talking about looking, the devil has been trying to get man to look to man.

It's real easy for people to take that comment and adopt a very independent attitude.

I think virtually everyone who's ever studied the Spirit of Prophecy and had a streak of independence in them has been attracted to that statement.

You like the idea of something that gives you a little leeway, so to speak.

I'm going to, well, it's a contact lens is what it is.

Yeah, AudioVerse can edit that out too, hopefully.

There comes a point where it's easier to read the book without the contacts in.

So I think it's about 50, but it happens.

What are we talking about with this tendency of man to look to man and where does that crop up and how does it develop and what's it all about?

That's kind of the gist of what I'd like to look at here.

This is an issue which came up long before 1888.

Ellen White in volume 2 of the Testimonies, early on in Volume 2, she wrote an interesting thing where she said, people are always writing to me and asking me or asking my husband, shall we do this, shall we do that, shall we engage in this enterprise, Shall I wear this, shall I wear that?

And she said, I refuse to be conscience for you.

If your experience is founded on us, speaking of herself and her husband, you have no experience.

All who relied on others to direct them, quoting now, walking by others' light, living on others' experience, feeling as others feel, acting as others act, would fail of everlasting life unless they became sensible of their wavering character and corrected it.

James White was in many ways the acknowledged leader administratively of the church.

James was incredibly smart and he had the advantage of being married to someone who had a very close connection to the Lord and occasionally received inside information.

James saved every 1 of our institutions at 1 time or another.

They'd make this mistake and he'd run back to Battle Creek and he'd save the day, so to speak.

If he had a failing, it was that he tended to work too much and did not ever successfully cultivate a protege, somebody coming along behind him.

Some wise soul someplace made a comment 1 time, he said, No man's life work is complete until he has trained his successor.

So if you're doing something important, and you haven't trained someone to continue it on, you're not done.

James' career was interrupted by a series of strokes.

When he could no longer serve as General Conference President, George Butler served for a period of time.

Putting my explanation onto things here, and I hope it's reasonably close to accurate.

Butler saw James perhaps at his administrative worst.

After the strokes, James had a hard time being patient with his brethren.

You work in the Review and Herald office and you make a mistake and James jumps all over you, what are you gonna do?

You can't say too much, he might fire you.

And so, what happened is that The workers tended to withdraw.

I'm already putting in way too much overtime here anyhow, because this was a job that required some self-sacrifice, right?

Uriah Smith actually quit 1 time, went down to Battle Creek, got a job carving engravings for the local newspaper.

Paid twice as much as he'd gotten for being the editor of the review.

So there was some self-sacrifice involved.

And as they pulled back, James pressed ahead because he kept seeing work that wasn't being done.

This is maybe the image of administration that George Butler retained in his memory.

And when George became President, and these guys out in the West Coast started acting up.

Well, he figured it was time for the President to act like a President.

And that's why he was so perplexed when Ellen White didn't support him in that.

She wrote back and she said, "'Your position as President is the very reason "'you should show greater restraint and control "'and more carefully manifest the patient spirit of Jesus.

"'Makes it all the more important that you get it right.

We had a hard time relating that, and I think most of us would probably, too.

But what it means is that you lead by example.

As I mentioned in the last session there, Jones and Wagner were reproved.

Butler and Smith took those letters and used them for their side of things, and they were reproved.

And coming out of that whole thing, as I said, when I read through the 1888 materials volumes, over and over and over again, what I'm finding, what I'm seeing, not to the exclusion of all else, but what I'm seeing are these comments of how we aren't working together, and we aren't allowing people to develop their own personal working relationship with Christ.

Men will never develop wisdom in management, either in business matters or in spiritual things if they are educated to depend upon other men's brains to think and plan for them.

This is almost everything here from the 1888 materials.

The Lord has presented before me that men in responsible positions are standing directly in the way of the workings of God upon his people Because they think that the work must be done the blessing must come in a certain way which they have marked out and they will not recognize that which comes in any other way.

Ooh, that would be easy to find out if we looked that up.

It would be early on, because it's on page 113 in the 1888 material, so it's probably either actually before or right around 1888, I'd guess.

God has appointed channels of light, but these are not necessarily through the minds of any particular man or set of men.

When all shall take their appointed places in God's work and not allow others to mold them at will, then 1 great advance will have been made toward letting the light shine upon the world." Now, notice that, That's an unusual statement.

Series

Adventist History

Looking to Man

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Reformation or Rebellion

45m

Workshop: Dealing with Conflicts In Ministry

Dealing With Conflict in Public Ministry

1h 6m

Jesus Who?

55m

The Kings

The Kings: Uzziah

42m

Faith That Endures

Truth is Quiet and Easily Ignored

1h

Amazing Disciples

24. Keys to Success!

26m

White Out: Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Reading Ellen White - Part 1

58m

Plenary Meetings

Reading God’s Requirements

45m

Emmanuel Institute - Ignite Your Church

Ignite Your Church - Part 3: GROW-The Soul-Winning Road

1h 5m

The Alpha and the Omega

1h 11m

A Joyful Heart/Source of Resilience

Two Ears to Hear and One Mouth to Speak: How to Listen and Speak to Those that Need Ministering

51m

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2025: God's Love and Justice

06 God’s Love of Justice

26m

Sound Doctrine