<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>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eugene Prewitt

Ellen White and New Believers

In our previous evangelistic series in Arkadelphia, I think that the hardest message for our visitors was the 1 in the Mark of the Beast.

Chad has a biblical approach to the issue of the mark of the beast that just strikes me as the most sensible I have seen in an evangelistic campaign.

That is, he doesn't even get to those quotes from the Romanist church until he's established very well the metaphor of the seal and the forehead and the hand and its connection with the law of God.

It's like a Bible study instead of a historical expose.

So it just went over almost without a blip in our meetings.

We didn't really lose people there, but we lost them 2 nights later.

Over the question of Ellen White, which was the same sermon as identifying the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

That was the approach that Chad took to Revelation 12, 17, that once you identify Ellen White in verse 17, then you've just identified the Remnant Church.

Well, Tim came to my house the Sabbath before last Sabbath.

He's been to the Adventist Church 2 weekends in a row now.

And when he came to, and I live right by the Adventist church, like an eighth of a mile walk.

When he came to my house, into my living room, he did what I do when I visit your house.

I go to your library and look at your books.

He went to my library and looked at my books, at least the ones in my living room.

In my living room, I just have 1 bookcase.

And the only books in it are a bird book and Ellen White.

And I think I either need to keep people like Tim away from that bookcase, or I need to do something different?

Because do you realize that the question of Ellen White is a very difficult pill to swallow for persons who are critical thinkers?

For the type of contact who has never really been studious, never really been inclined to study the Bible seriously and comes to an evangelistic campaign, that man, because you make friends with him and you're close to him, he loves you and he wants to be with you and he accepts the truths and he loves Jesus and he's baptized.

And for that man, Ellen White isn't a real, necessarily isn't a real roadblock.

But for the man who before you even meet him has been studying his Bible for many years, the man who's been careful in how he's evaluated various doctrinal issues that have confronted him in the past, that man has come across what Jesus said, and Jesus said, beware of false prophets.

That man is cautious, and when he comes to this issue of Ellen White, it is appropriate for him to treat this issue with a great deal of caution.

Do you follow what I'm trying to communicate to you?

I know that you do an evangelistic series here every year.

Do you do it every year or is it every other year?

So every year, let me just give you an idea about something.

In our church plant, Our church is already a church.

It's been that way for 3 years, but we call it a church plant still.

We never want to lose the church plant mentality.

And we say to our Sabbath school teachers, we don't want you quoting Ellen White as an authority in Sabbath school.

We say to our preachers, we don't want you quoting Ellen White as an authority in Sabbath school.

We say to our preachers, we don't want you quoting Ellen White as an authority during church.

If you want to do that, we have prayer meeting, we can have Vespers programs, we can have afternoon meetings, but we want to make Sapa School and Church a place where anyone can invite their neighbor or friend or relative for their very first ever visit to an Adventist church and that visit cannot have too many strange surprises.

Does that make any sense to you what I'm trying to say?

Your church should be a safe place for new believers.

Now I don't even know, there might even be 2 or 3 of you here that aren't Seventh-day Adventist.

And if so, well you're getting a very frank approach to how I feel about these things.

And if you are, you're getting a frank approach anyway.

What I'm trying to communicate to you is that since we found our beliefs on the Bible, we do not want to create confusion by the way we talk.

Last Sabbath, at our fellowship meal, we were sitting there eating, and I don't know how it came up, but somehow it came up the question of whether or not humans in the resurrection will have wings.

The Bible, just so you know, doesn't address that.

The Bible doesn't say anything about humans having wings in the resurrection.

And so when it came up, I was sitting right by Tim.

That was on purpose, right, not accident, because we need to surround these people when they're visiting our church.

We don't just let them go sit wherever they want to by themselves.

I was right with him, and this question came up, and I quickly replied that The Bible doesn't say anything about that.

But since it does indicate we'll be able to get along and get around quite well That I that we will be going to heaven, for example, that it won't surprise me if we have some means of quick locomotion.

What I was trying to show is that my view on this is founded on the Bible.

But A lady who was sitting right next to me, piped up.

But in Ellen White's writings, there's abundant evidence that there'll be wings.

Why, she even saw little children winging their way up.

Tim took it really well, but it wasn't the best.

And the first thing I'm trying to share with you right now is about making your church a safe place for new and not yet believers.

Even that little thing that a lot of people do, they say 1 of my favorite authors says such and such, and then we give a quote, a reference at the end that's like in code.

You know, people only need to hear that twice before they realize something's up.

Does that make any sense to you what I'm saying?

It really isn't so subtle as we think it is.

Brothers and sisters, the Bible is not deficient.

We really can make solid Sabbath school teaching by using it all by itself.

We really could preach the word and it would not be a loss.

So what do I expect Tim to accept before he can join the Seventh-day Adventist church?

I'll tell you, I don't think that I can demand that he accept that Ellen White is a prophet.

But turn with me in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4.

The baptismal vows say something about that.

Ephesians chapter 4, and we're going to look at verse 11.

And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

Pastors and teachers being 1 gift there as opposed to 2.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

I expect him to accept what this passage says, that the gifts of the Spirit are present in the church until Christ's second coming.

Now I don't expect him to believe that every gift is always present.

Like you don't believe, for example, that there's a prophet right now.

But I don't think that even those of you who do believe that believe that there was 1 every moment for the last 160 years.

I mean, even Victor Hutef didn't get on the scene until like 18 years after Ellen White died.

That was just in case there's a Shepard Rods person here, I'm trying to show that they're not being consistent.

But what we believe from Ephesians 4, verses 11 through 14, what we believe from this passage is that when God gave the gifts to the church, he gave them for the purpose of building up the church, helping the church, keeping us from being easily deceived, the gifts were given for a purpose.

And 1 of the purposes was to bring us to the full measure of the stature of Christ, to bring us to a unity of the faith, that's the purpose.

And how long have the gifts been given until the purpose is achieved?

So I expect from this and several other passages that Tim will acknowledge that the gift of prophecy did not end in the first century.

I can prove that from the Bible, that the gift of prophecy is available if God chooses to give it.

In the Old Testament, were there prophets continuously or did prophets come and go in the history of the Old Testament?

You know in the Old Testament, the prophets came and went.

Sometimes there were multiple prophets, sometimes there was 1, sometimes there was 0.

And so when we say that the gift of prophecy is continuous through the ages, that doesn't mean that at any given year that there must necessarily be a prophet, but that the gift of prophecy is available that God can give it when he chooses to give it, how he chooses to give it.

And then I think you know Revelation 19, but I mean Revelation 12, let's look there first.

Revelation 12, in verse 17, some people here in California have opined that to claim to be the remnant is an arrogant, egotistical thing to do.

I think it proves they don't comprehend the word.

Back to Menu

Ellen White and New Believers

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

The Bible or Ellen White?

Part 1: The Prophetic Gift and Ellen White

56m

What Jesus Said

22. Prophets and Psychics

1h

Mark Howard: White Out? Whatever Happened to the Gift of Prophecy?

Ellen White vs. the World Wide Web

1h

The Spirit of Prophecy Matters

1h 5m

An Unknown Evangelist - Ellen White

51m

Sabbath School: ALIVE

ALIVE - Part 2

58m

Ellen White Under Fire

1h 3m

A God Worth Knowing

17 A Voice of Reason

1h 8m

Sabbath School: ALIVE

ALIVE - Part 3

54m

Toleration, Liberty, and Personal Freedom

06 Toleration, Liberty, and Personal Freedom

1h 1m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Revolutionary Apologetics - The Adventist Edge

Jesus’ Apologetics on Prophets: EGW Outside Adventism

1h

Prophetic Movement at End Time

1h 3m

Sound Doctrine