GYC 2007: Be

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Eugene Prewitt - What Could Have Been: Lessons from 1888

Eugene Prewitt

The Two Covenants and Galatians

So before we start, even before you pray, I'll have you know that the source of power in this presentation will not be PowerPoint.

I'm accustomed to preaching the word of God.

And I only made this available because I think there are some ideas here that are a bit complex for hearing with the ear.

It'd be easier to understand with a picture.

But if I conclude a few minutes in that this is a distraction, what we're going to do is stop using it.

Let's bow our heads for a prayer and we'll begin.

Our Father in heaven, I ask by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would join us here, That you would help us to understand what is true and what is right in your Bible and I ask for this gift in the name of Jesus Amen Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Jude.

We're looking at Jude and looking at verse 5.

Jude, verse 5, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Is it clear to you in this passage that the very same people that God saved were the ones that he later destroyed.

Is it clear to you in this passage that whoever Jude was writing to already knew that?

And yet Jude went forward to remind them of that fact.

Why would he remind them of something they already knew?

We knew that the people that God saved out of Egypt, he later destroyed.

When is it that that thought has an impact on my life and character?

It's not at the point that I know it's so.

It's at the point that I am thinking about it.

The truth of God's judgment doesn't affect me when it's a fact stored somewhere back in my memory.

It affects me when I'm thinking about it.

Let me show you this in 1 more passage, 2 more.

2 Peter, we're looking at chapter Verse 12, wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things though you know them and be established in the present truth.

First of all, that to know the present truth is no evidence that you don't need to hear it.

They know it, and yet Peter is going to tell them again.

Is this going to be the last time he's going to tell them?

He's going to put them always in remembrance.

Does he have an obligation to be repeating this truth to them continually?

We know he does because if he did not he would be, what does it say?

So he has a responsibility to repeat to them truths over and over that they already know.

I hope that this just shows you the truth, that the ideas of present truth only affect us when we're thinking about them.

It's not when we believe that they're facts, but when they have our attention that they change the heart.

You've heard that we would do well to spend a thoughtful hour on the life of Jesus, or especially the closing scenes.

Is it because we're continually learning some new fact or facet?

It would be worthwhile to spend a thoughtful hour if you already knew all of the facts and all of the facets.

It's because those truths don't change you except when they have your attention.

We would do well to think about the judgment.

No, but because the solemn scenes of what's going on in heaven only affect us when they have our attention.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

Jude said, I'm going to remind you of things you once knew.

Peter said, I'm going to tell you repeatedly about things that you still know.

He says, Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which Also you have received, and wherein you stand." Did they receive it the first time he told them?

They have been faithful and are currently being faithful, so What is he going to do?

He's going to tell them the gospel again.

The idea that the gospel is only for those who haven't heard it is not true.

The idea that the gospel is only for those who aren't faithful to it isn't so.

Those who have heard it and those that are currently faithful still need to hear it again.

Verse 2, By which also you are saved if you keep in memory or in mind the things which I preached unto you unless you have believed in vain.

It is a salvational issue, this idea that the truth needs to be continually revived and have our attention.

The gospel saves me while it has my attention.

When it loses my attention, it ceases to have an impact on my life.

And for this reason, the Bible is longer than 3 sentences.

You may have wondered, why is the Bible so full of stories, so full of illustrations, so full of enigmas in some cases, why did God not just plainly say the gospel in terms that could not be misunderstood?

It's because God knows that those enigmas and those illustrations keep our attention longer than plain statements.

And it's not the facts that we need so much as to have a continual guidance of our mind to these truths.

Do you follow the idea of what I just said?

So we're talking today about the covenants, and I suppose that for many we already have a decent understanding of them.

Have I proved to you already that this would be no evidence that we don't need to hear them again.

It may be interesting to you and may not be that the term new covenant or second covenant or testament is in the Bible 10 times.

That this phrase, the Old Covenant or the First Covenant, is only in the Bible 3 times.

But the term everlasting covenant is in the Bible 15 times.

All which doesn't prove anything, but it illustrates a reality.

The bible doesn't spend very much time on the old covenant in fact the old covenant did not exist for a very long time where does it give its attention?

It's to this everlasting covenant that is named the new covenant.

You can go ahead and go to the next slide.

I'm not going to spend much time here at all, but look at the upper left.

God promised to scatter his people should they be unfaithful to the covenant, to greatly summarize the history of 1, 500 years, this happened." What do I mean?

I mean that God had an intention when He made His covenant with Abraham and then a covenant with Moses.

His intention was that faithful covenant people would accomplish his work.

But if they would not be faithful to his covenant, what did he say he would do to them?

He said he would scatter them, and he did this in the judges.

And then he would bring a deliverer and the deliverer would bring them back together.

They were scattered later and brought together.

In fact, the final scattering, the 1 under Babylon, there were prophecies that God would bring them from this.

And you know, under Ezra and Nehemiah, God brought them back.

Do you know your history well enough to know, did God bring back the same people that He scattered?

You know, it was always a remnant of them.

Doubting the Testimonies

Our Father in heaven, I ask as we talk about a holy topic that you would give us supernatural understanding.

And I ask for this gift in the name of Jesus.

The handout that you have, I think you have it now, and if you don't, You don't have it, do you?

So near the back, sitting on chairs somewhere, should be some.

So the handout that you're going to have soon is called Ellen White on Ellen White.

There has been a lot that's been done in the last couple decades to make light of compilations.

As if it was never God's will that there be compilations.

You ought to know that what you have in your hands is a compilation of Ellen White's writings made by Ellen White.

And the topic of it is the nature and the influence of the testimonies.

So I'm just going to teach you a few things biblically, in fact a lot a number of things biblically, and then we're going to look at some of these.

I'm going to teach you some history about 1888.

Once upon a time in a land that was right here, there was a meeting of Seventh-day Adventist administrators, the General Conference of 1888, met in October of that year.

When the people arrived at the meeting, when the delegates were there, the General Conference President was missing.

Many of the delegates that came to that meeting came with a different view of inspiration than they had ever had previous in their life.

What had happened, Ellen White had been in California, and in California she was there with her son Willie.

She was there with these 2 young ministers, Jones and Wagner, and Jones and Wagner had begun teaching about the law in Galatians.

Not like that was the only thing they were teaching.

Not even like it was the focal point of their teaching.

Not like it was their favorite thing to talk about.

Only it was like this, that if they talked about 10 things, and this was 1 of them, this was the 1 that agitated people.

And because it agitated people, it's the 1 that got the most attention.

What I just said is a very practical lesson if you think it through.

That there might be something to say for not talking about the thing that's going to agitate people for fear it will become the main thing when you didn't want it to be the main thing.

A man in California observed what was going on, that Ellen White was on friendly relations with Jones and Wagner.

He observed that Jones and Wagner were charismatic, that they could carry audiences with them.

And he observed that Ellen White was soft-spoken and old.

And when he thought things through, what happens when you have charismatic, driven young men communicating with an easy-going, soft-spirited old lady?

And so he wrote letters to several people in Battle Creek, indicating He was indicating in those letters that Ellen White was being influenced by these men and that everyone should be on guard when they heard her because what she would teach would likely be a combination of her own ideas and ideas that came from these gentlemen.

Ellen White didn't know about it and God had not shown her about this letter.

Ellen White writes about her experience in Minneapolis that she had never been treated so rudely in her life.

That people that came, that she had been friends with for years, came and they gave her a cold shoulder.

I'll tell you 1 of the experiences that happened there.

There was a man by the name of Louis Conradi.

He had been working in Europe for several years up to that point.

He started our work in, he started our official work in Germany, though it had been started by another gentleman years before, unofficially.

While he was working in Europe, he became very perplexed by some of our doctrines, namely the sanctuary, the idea that Jesus went into the most holy place in 1844, it didn't seem to him to be biblically true.

Then there was the issue of the testimonies.

It didn't seem to him that they could be harmonized well with scripture.

And when he left Europe to come to the General Conference in 1888, he had the idea that there he would meet with faithful men who understood answers to his perplexities, that he would receive comfort and encouragement.

And when he arrived here in Minneapolis, what he found instead was that the people he looked up to had the same perplexities that he had about the testimonies.

That is, people like Uriah Smith, like George Butler who wasn't here, but like several others, Amanda and I'm thinking.

Men he had really looked up to were speaking about inspired and uninspired testimonies.

Let me just take you away from that for a minute and go to a Bible verse.

It says, Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

For so persecuted they, what does it say?

Wouldn't it be interesting for you to read the verse before this and know how prophets were persecuted?

"'Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you was it say falsely for my sake When I discovered this passage it was settled with me that the way Satan persecutes prophets maybe sometimes he has them cut in half, maybe sometimes he has them burned, maybe sometimes he finds a way to kill them, but if you're talking about the generic, normal way he persecutes prophets, it's by telling lies about their life.

Isn't it clear biblically that that's what it says here?

Wouldn't it be a natural conclusion from this verse that if Ellen White had been a true prophet, that you would have to put a wall between you and the rumor mill if you were going to know exactly what she really did teach and what she really did do.

Because what would be Satan's generic, normal way to persecute her?

To speak all manner of evils against her falsely.

And if you have an interest in history, you know that a lie in 1890, by 1920 can be a well-confirmed fact, and by 1940 it can be highly documented.

That you can find people who wrote about it from the 1890s were deluded by the original lie, and people who learned it from them who said they heard it from reliable people who got it from its source so that by the time you come to our day, you can have very well documented lies.

Turn from your Bibles to Romans chapter 3.

Romans chapter 3 and we're looking at verse 3.

For what if some did not believe, shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings." The first principle that you've seen here in that verse, how many men be liars?

Why would you want to let all men be liars in the verse?

Men are such that you might have to conclude that the whole bunch of them are dishonest if you're going to know that God teaches the truth.

But if our unrighteousness command the righteousness of God, what shall we say?

In other words, if when I sin, this makes God look better, then, what does that mean?

Is God unrighteous, which takes vengeance?

The logic of these verses, which is almost a distraction, but we're getting to our point.

The logic is that when I do wrong, if God already knew that I was going to do it, if He said that I was going to do it, then how can He condemn me if He knows that I'm stuck?

Verse 6, And not rather as we be, what is the next word?

Slanderously reported, and as some, what's the next phrase?

As some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just.

If I understand this verse correctly, there were people who heard Paul speak and they said that Paul said that the more we sin, the more God's grace helps us.

Understanding Conversion

Our Father in Heaven, I ask that by your Spirit you would join us during this hour, that you would give us more than just a smile.

We're asking that you would give us power to understand what is true, That you would give us your spirit.

That you'd take the thoughts I share that are most relevant to each 1 and impress them in such a way that they'll make an impact on the life.

I ask that you would guide my thoughts, perhaps, to plans and ideas I had no intention of sharing, if they would be the very ones you would choose to have shared.

And I ask for these gifts in the name of Jesus.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 3.

Could you 2 men pass these out to the various people that are here?

You have to give the lady in blue who is walking out credit.

Turn with me in your Bibles if you have a moment to do it to Revelation 3.

Are talking today about understanding conversion.

Revelation chapter 3, we are looking at verse 17.

Revelation 3 verse 17, the last few verses, in the last few parts of the verse, And you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and what's the Last word?

It is a simple idea to me of all the metaphors.

If the church is naked, then she is not clothed with the righteousness of Christ.

If the church is not clothed with the righteousness of Christ, she's not converted.

The wretched, miserable, poor, blind, they all mean the same thing.

It's as if Jesus says to the Church of the Judgment, You are an unconverted Church.

And He was very clear when talking to Nicodemus, that except you be born again, you shall in no case enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

So when I say that we want to understand conversion, the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to God's will, when I say we want to understand conversion, what I mean is that we belong to a church that thinks that she is converted, but is not.

She's deluded on this point, and perhaps a better understanding of what the phrase means might help strip her of her self-delusion.

Thank you, Brother Brown, for sitting there.

Can you hit the button for the next slide?

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Can you see in this verse, it's almost like I'm 2 people?

Like there's the me who doesn't want to do it, and there's the sin in me that does it.

Verse 21, I find that Allah, that evil is present with me, the 1 who wills to do good.

I want to illustrate, and it's on the board and it's over here in different colors.

I want to illustrate her to show how Ellen White and the Bible teach the same idea about conversion but how they use 2 different sets of words or phrases.

Once I understood the 2 different ways they speak, it was easy to see how they complement each other.

The words that are on the board right now are words that Ellen White uses.

She speaks about the higher powers of the mind.

She identifies those higher powers of the mind.

They are the conscience, the reason, the judgment.

Then she speaks about the lower powers of the mind, the appetites, the passions, the desires.

When we say higher and lower, we're not speaking about holy and sinful.

Who was it that gave man desires, appetites and passions?

It was no idea of God that the lower powers would be, what's the word, thought of as wicked.

But in terms of authority, they were not to be the ones directing the will.

The lower powers were created to provide motivation and pleasure.

It's easy to illustrate this with the idea of eating.

When I get hungry, I'm motivated to find food.

However, if I see a frog jumping across the road while I'm hungry, I do not have any inclination to pick up the frog and eat it.

That is, my hunger moves me to eat, but my reason, my conscience, and my judgment tell me what to eat.

That is, the higher powers were created to guide the will.

Maybe I should pick a different illustration so you could see it in another way.

My passions motivate me to find a wife, but they would be a faulty way for me to choose a wife.

God gave me my conscience, my reason, my judgment to help me choose a wife.

But if I didn't have my passions, I might never get around to doing it.

Do you follow the relation between the lower powers and the higher powers?

If we didn't have hunger, then some type of personalities wouldn't eat.

Series

Eugene Prewitt - What Could Have Been: Lessons from 1888

The Two Covenants and Galatians

Transcript

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