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It Is Written

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

Mark Finley

Eric Flickinger

01 The War Behind All Wars

02 The Central Issue: Love or Selfishness?

03 Light Shines in the Darkness

04 Standing for the Truth

05 Faith Against All Odds

John Bradshaw

Money, Money, Money

06 The Two Witnesses

07 Motivated by Hope

08 Light from the Sanctuary

09 The Foundation of God’s Government

10 Spiritualism Exposed

11 The Impending Conflict

12 Earth’s Closing Events

13 The Triumph of God’s Love

Welcome to Sabbath School brought to you by It Is Written.

We're glad that you could join us again as we continue our journey through the theme of the Great Controversy.

This week is week number 7, Motivated by Hope, a very encouraging lesson that kind of gets us over the hump of our 13 lesson study.

Father, we want to thank you for guiding us thus far as we've been looking at the great controversy, the challenges that we face today and how we can learn from the past to give us hope for the future.

We ask that you'll bless our time together today and encourage us and strengthen our walk with you.

Well, we're grateful once again to have with us the author of this quarter's Sabbath school lesson, Pastor Mark Finley.

It is always a delight to be at It Is Written, a ministry that I love, that I spent many years at, as you're well aware.

And I just appreciate John and you, Eric, and the evangelistic heart and ministry that it is written as.

Well, we do absolutely have that and you set the precedent many years ago and we continue to carry that torch by the grace of God.

This week, lesson number 7 is motivated by hope.

You know, if you take a look at the Bible, there are 2 great centers in the Bible, 2 great subjects or points to which everything else kind of directs.

And that's the first and the second coming of Christ.

When we look at that and the importance of it, in the first paragraph here of this week's lesson, you draw us to something significant.

Share with us a little bit more about that and why you called this lesson Motivated by Hope.

You know, somebody said you can go through anything if you know there's light at the end of that tunnel, if you know that there is hope at the end.

Somebody said that what oxygen is to the body, hope is to the soul.

So hope lifts our vision from what is to what will be.

And when you see the challenges in our world today, wars and rumors of wars and famines and earthquakes and pestilences and rising crime and violence, You can often become discouraged as you look around you.

But the Bible talks in Titus chapter 2 about the blessed hope.

And it's that hope of the coming of Jesus, hope of a better world.

In that first paragraph of Lesson 7, we point out that the Second Coming of Christ is 1 of the central themes of the entire Bible.

It's the golden thread that runs through the Bible's sacred pages.

1 scholar has estimated that there are 1, 845 references to the second coming of Christ in the Old Testament, and that in the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are 300 references to the return of Jesus.

Once in every 25 verses, the Bible in the New Testament speaks about the coming of Jesus.

The New Testament has 27 books and 23 of them feature the second coming of Christ.

So the second coming of Christ is a major mountain peak theme along with the cross at Calvary of course in the entire Bible.

And we can understand why that would be hopeful if we look at the world that we live in right now and the history of this world, we've got to have something to look forward to.

And that second coming of Christ is very much that for us today.

You talk in this week's lesson about William Miller and his role in the Second Advent movement.

There were other people who were talking about the second coming of Christ as well, but William Miller kind of, I don't know if we could say he was on a pinnacle, but he was up there sharing this, and he's a significant figure in history.

In the early 1800s, the common belief was that there would be a thousand year millennium on earth.

So preachers of the traditional churches were preaching that this millennium would take place very soon on earth, a thousand years of peace.

As the result of that, People did not have the passion, the urgency, to prepare for the second coming of Christ.

There's gonna be a thousand years of peace on earth, and that will be a joyous time.

As Miller began to study the Bible passages, for example, he studies John 14, verse 1 to 3.

And as Miller studied these, and you know this passage well, Eric, you've preached on it numerous times, but Jesus says, let not your heart be troubled.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place where I will come again.

Maybe you can read for us 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13 through 18.

So as William Miller studied these things, he came to the conclusion that Christ's coming would not be coming to the earth to establish a thousand years of peace, but coming to take his children home.

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore comfort 1 another with these words.

As Miller read these prophecies, studying the Bible chapter by chapter, verse by verse, his heart was thrilled.

He'd read Matthew chapter 24, the signs of Christ's coming, Luke 21, the signs of Christ's coming.

And he was particularly impressed with the need for preparation for the coming of Christ when he read passages like Titus chapter 2, verses 11 to 14, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works." When Miller saw passages like this, he sensed the need for repentance, the need for confession, the need for consecration, the need for godly living.

And so, as he began to preach about the coming of Christ, He preached not only about the timing of the coming of Christ, but he preached about the need for godliness, the need for spirituality.

And revival broke out throughout America.

But I think the significance of Miller's preaching was the fact of the urgency of the coming of Christ.

So it was not something that was viewed as far off or insignificant, but it was something that was very real and soon, in fact, very, very soon.

If you knew something was coming very soon, you would take it much more seriously as well.

And that's 1 of the great elements that Miller added to this.

You've mentioned, Pastor Mark, several times about William Miller coming across this verse and that verse as he studied.

Share with us a little bit more about how William Miller studied that allowed these verses to really come up and catch his attention.

The deists believed that God started the world, maybe created it, but he kind of wound it up like a clock and just lets it run so he was not interfering with the world.

Miller had a unique experience in the War of 1812 where he was almost killed, a shell blow up and exploded by him.

And it led him to begin to think about the fact that God had a purpose for his life.

So that led him to begin to study the Bible.

As he studied, as he called himself, he said he was a gentleman farmer.

You know, he considered himself really not to be a theologian.

But he took a notebook and he took a concordance and he began to study.

What he didn't understand, he would write down and look for other Bible passages that helped to explain that.

He believed that the Bible should be its own interpreter and that the Holy Spirit would guide him as he put the text of the Bible together.

And as he did that, he came up with truths of the Bible.

Now, did everything that William Miller say or teach or write, was it all 100% accurate?

There were some things that he did not fully understand at the time he wrote, but the essence, the essence of what he studied, the essence of what he wrote was indeed inspired by God to prepare people for the coming of Christ.

So that's something that we can still latch on to today, that we can learn from today.

We may not understand everything perfectly ourselves as we study through the Bible.

But if we can get the big pieces, that'll help us to understand the other pieces that come together.

Yeah, the big picture of William Miller was that there was not gonna be a thousand years of peace, that Christ was leading his people to prepare for his soon return, and God was calling them to godliness and holiness and commitment and repentance and confession and sanctification.

So the result of William Miller's preaching was tens of thousands of conversions.

He may not have had every nuance of prophecy right, but the thrust to prepare people for the coming of Jesus was there.

Series

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

07 Motivated by Hope

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Salvation and the Sanctuary

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57m

Christ Over Crisis: The October Dilemma Pt.1

51m

GYC SE 2012 Seminar: The Purpose of the Sanctuary

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God’s Prophetic Movement, Message, and Mission and Their Attempted Neutralization by the Devil

1h 11m

The Future of Adventism: Will Our Biblical Foundation Give Way to Culture?

2. The Future of the Everlasting Gospel

1h 16m

Revelation’s Vacation of a Lifetime

54m

Antichrist: The One You've Never Known

Antichrist, Episode 3: Order

31m

God is Love?

11-The Day the Devil Dies

1h

Plenary

Wake-Up Call

1h

The Characteristics and Titles of Jesus

Jesus: The Promise Keeper

45m

Plenary

Hour of His Judgment

1h 3m

Last Day Events

A World in Crisis

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine