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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Herbert Douglass Weekend 2006

Herbert Douglass

Six Risks in the Plan of Salvation

I've been instructed a number of times from people here and people who knew me elsewhere.

Telling me what I ought to do this weekend.

And last weekend especially, this young, well, his wife and he are in residency work up in Sacramento.

And he said, make sure that you tell them the guts of Adventism.

And in other words, no generic Christianity.

And I thought that was pretty good advice.

So what I'm going to do tonight is give you an overview of what I think is the most important thinking pattern that Adventists can get into.

And the deeper you go, the sweeter it gets.

And after about 10, 000 years, you'll still be learning more about what I'm talking tonight.

I'm still in kindergarten so you have to help me along but the longer we live in on the other side everything I say tonight will be just simply questions that you're going to ask Paul and ask Noah and ask the good Lord to go even deeper.

Because I'm talking about a subject tonight that makes all the difference in the world as to why Adventists think differently.

We do theology differently, and I'm going to talk about that tomorrow more specifically.

You know, I'm going to share something before my wife tells somebody, but I've never been in this situation before, ever.

This morning I got up, went out to my daughter's swimming pool, and sat down to work over my notes for this weekend.

And I opened my release, and the sermon book, it wasn't there.

And they went through all the normal helpers, you know, how to get my book down here before tomorrow morning.

You know, I've been living off some simple words in Proverbs 3.5.

Rest in the Lord with all your heart and rely not upon your own understanding or misunderstandings or whatever you've messed up.

And that's been working pretty good for years.

Because we all can talk about so many interesting subjects.

You'd be, You'd be, I think, satisfied with a lot of subjects we can talk about.

But there's only 1 subject that separates Adventism from all other Christian groups, And that is the great controversy.

No other church or philosophy has a grasp even of what I'm talking about when I say the great controversy theme.

Not about the fifth book in the conflict set.

Not about the fact that good and evil is going at each other, you know, ever since the beginning.

No, and I'm not talking about God being against evil.

Adventists look at it altogether differently and that's why we must do theology differently and we'll talk about that tomorrow more specifically.

Because That's the only way we're going to stay together until we quit tomorrow afternoon.

And as we go tonight, I'm not going to have time tonight to answer questions, but tomorrow afternoon, please have them ready because that's why I'm here.

I don't want to leave anybody with a doubt as to what I meant, because that's what all preachers and teachers do.

You run along so fast and you don't quite say what you ought to say or wanted to say, and so you need some questions somewhere to find out if you're making any headway, you know.

I want people to know at least what I'm trying to say.

When I say 6 risks in the plan of salvation, these are not exactly risks on the part of God.

But from the human standpoint, they were colossal risks.

And that's the only way we can think, anyhow, as a human being.

God, how in the world did you get yourself into this jam?

If you knew it all in advance, why did you put up with this?

Well, humanly speaking, that's the question we ought to ask.

And he's ready, he's anxious, because the whole point of the Great Controversy is to get people asking why he did what he did, And not to be caught up in listening to Satan's reason as to why God did what he did.

And the issue in the great controversy is God doing his best to settle the questions that Satan has aroused throughout the universe.

Everyone in this room has had questions about God sometime in his life.

Oh, for instance, this tragedy over there in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania this week.

In his note to his wife, that young adult that mowed down these 6 or 7 young people, He said to his wife, I have been angry at God ever since he took away our little child.

Well, that may be a reason why he did what he did, but it shows his attitude toward God was not so great.

And when people shout Allah, Allah alaykum, Allah akbar, That's their opinion of God.

God is on my side as I kill these infidels.

And the more infidels I can kill, the better off we're all gonna be.

I have a great future with 70 virgins in heaven.

I'm suggesting that if we had a few hours together and we had a little, you know, just a symposium of everyone in this room talking about what God is like to you.

I am sure there would be at least 10 different definitions as to how you look at God.

And so that's why I thought a long time ago that if I wanted to make any sense out of my life and if I wanted to do any good to anybody else I better talk about God and what he means to me and why I think that way about him and how it fits into making this whole universe, never mind this world, the whole universe secure sometime in the future from anybody not being sure if they can trust God.

And I'm telling you, the church that I love has a number of problems in answering how to look at this God that I'm talking about tonight.

Every single division in the Adventist Church and every single division in Christianity generally is over what people think about God.

I know we can argue about this and that in this scripture and that chapter.

Overall it's how you're thinking about God.

That was the theme of that book that the doctor told you about, God at Risk.

And the subtitle of that book, the kicker, is the cost of freedom in the Great Controversy.

That's what drove me on to writing those pages.

In fact, often I would write with my t-shirt on.

Just kept reminding me what the book was all about, and I'm going to get in the sink here somewhere.

Now you see this picture, I guess that's as bright as it's going to be with those lights on like that.

And if you folk are starting to fall asleep after 90 minutes, he is going to tell me that that's it for tonight.

And so I'll finish it up tomorrow afternoon.

Because you have to have the whole picture if it's going to make complete sense.

Because the evidence picture does not stop just halfway over anything.

How We Can Tell When Jesus Will Return

In fact, unparalleled times, unprecedented times.

In fact, we're living in times that were predicted many years ago.

And as I said last night, and I'll be saying more this afternoon, because after all we are kind of shut in here a little bit with time, only Adventists know what I'm talking about.

Only Adventists know how the end will come.

Many many people talk about the return of Jesus.

In fact, the books about the return of Jesus on the bookshelves and in the supermarkets and everywhere are talking about the return of Jesus but not like you and I understand the return of Jesus.

We're not the only ones talking about the end of the world But we're the only ones who know how it's going to end and we are the only ones who know when It will end and this afternoon we'll talk about how I know when Jesus will return and how you know as well.

And then only Adventists know how it all gets sorted out when he comes.

I assure you no other group of people know how it will all end with who is where?

Those are simple questions and I say again only Adventists know what I'm talking about.

I don't want to say this boldly, it's not audacious, it's the simple facts not because we thought it up but because it was given to us.

Because we just have to read the Bible as it was meant to be read, as we listen to the messengers of the Lord throughout these pages, and the messenger of the Lord that God has given to us.

To get us into the harbor as our harbor pilot, we'll never find the port unless we live in carefully to the messenger of the Lord.

Now, when people don't see this big picture, they forever are oscillating back and forth between a certain measure of peace and anxiety.

You do it, we all do it, we know what it's like.

The anxiety of just plain living in this crazy world where you have to pay the rent.

Living in this world where pensions are not what they used to be.

The personal anxiety of watching a loved 1 die.

Maybe you haven't seen it, but many people in this room have watched a loved 1 die.

Someone very close to them, their own health not holding up like they thought they would.

We all think that we're invulnerable, that we're impervious to these problems.

But after you hit 60 and 70, you begin to look back, and anxiety is everywhere.

Too many admins are concerned about who's going to be elected next month.

But we have an interesting fellow over there in Iran.

And I remember listening to his speech a year ago, October 28 in the United Nations.

Now, this year he had another 1 last month.

He stood up to all that marvelous, I don't know where he gets that platform, pizazz.

He talked, and this is what he said afterwards, and I'll tell you what he said in the meeting.

He told the people that for 28 minutes, I talked to the United Nations, to the world, and nobody blinked.

And his crowd around him said, and he had an aurora, he had that flash of light around him.

And he said in that address, I am just preparing the way for the 12th Iman, who is related to Mohammed.

He is alive today, but the Iman is waiting for his time.

But before he comes, it'll be an awful time of bloodshed and horror and war, but out of that, he'll have the peace that the whole world is looking for.

That sounds so much like an Adventist scenario, except it's upside down.

We have a police plan coming too, and it's going to be an awful time before he comes." And now last month, of course, we heard again his...

We are living in fascinating times that no 1 in this room has ever seen even 25 years ago.

25 years ago, you would not have dreamed what you now are listening to.

You would not have seen even the internet.

The internet, never mind TV, has brought the world together like your next door neighbor.

Nobody knew what even the word sounded like.

And these are times made to order for Seventh-day Adventists because we don't have to be anxious about any of these areas for so many reasons.

Because Adventists alone have the antidote for all these anxieties.

Seventh-day Adventists arose on time, on time, to be a movement, not a church.

Every movement that arises, whatever the movement may be, crazy as some of them are, has a message and a mission.

The Adventist movement has a mission and message that is absolutely, when we keep on understanding what it is, that is so different than any other movement.

But when it becomes a church, we become satisfied with our records.

We even are so pleased that we've done so much in 100 years.

Of course, some of the centennials are not just 100 years, 150.

And I'm asking the people, it's wonderful.

The Adventist movement is healthy when it remembers its twin mission, to prepare a world for the return of Jesus and to prepare people to be translated.

Not to live 10 years longer, if they just get more exercise and eat right, but to be translated.

That was what Adventists talked about 100 years ago.

When was the last time you even heard that?

The Adventist movement is healthy when it remembers its message embodied, at least in 1 encapsulated chapter of Revelation 14.

The good news that God has provided everything necessary to change rebels into willing sons and daughters who can be trusted to keep on being willing for the rest of their lives as time goes on and on.

They've been so settled into the truth that their habit patterns will never again say no to God.

I don't have to think every time I'm brushing my teeth.

I'm doing the same way every day, 2 or 3 times a day.

I put my feet in my trousers, 1 foot at a time.

When I work on my computer, thank God for habits.

I don't have to think again where all the A and B and Cs are.

If they so sink into your grooves in your neural pathways, that's good news.

And of course, we often can develop bad habits, and they're just as grooved.

What I'm trying to say is that the end of all of our adverse thinking is that rebels will not stand on the sea of glass.

If you keep that in your frontal cortex, right behind, about an inch behind my finger, Rebels will not stand on the sea of glass.

That will help you every day with all your decisions.

What kind of light are you trying to make believe it's not there.

Or, how kind of like, I'll do that next week, or I'm not old enough, or I haven't, well, I'm not ready yet to get into all that light.

Those boutons are developing, And you can't get rid of your boutons.

You just better get more positive boutons, overcome them.

The early Christian church, whoa, whoa, whoa, mistake, erase.

The early Christian movement knew just about what I was talking about.

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Herbert Douglass Weekend 2006

Six Risks in the Plan of Salvation

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Six Risks in the Plan of Salvation

1h 30m

How We Can Tell When Jesus Will Return

37m

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