Phil Mills

Weimar University

Wise Rebuker - Obedient Ears

The entire world can be divided into 2 groups of people, those who are wise and those who are otherwise.

Every action of life can be divided into 2 groups, Those actions that are wise and those actions that are otherwise.

The difference between being saved and being lost is whether we are wise or otherwise.

But only a few people have enough wisdom to see the value of wisdom.

Proverbs 8, 11, wisdom is better than rubies, and all things 1 may desire cannot be compared with her.

The rich young ruler discarded wisdom and chose wealth.

And many parents and young people turn from wisdom to an uncertain search for security or wealth.

Like the rich young ruler, they turn from a call of God to sacrifice and follow what they imagine is the path to financial security.

They don't have wisdom to understand that wisdom gives the greatest security.

Why would anyone follow the example of the rich young ruler.

The rich young ruler could have enrolled in the school of Christ, but he chose instead to go elsewhere.

His mother and his aunt became Seventh-day Adventists, and Gamaliel actually considered becoming a Seventh-day Adventist, but he told his brother he was interested in politics.

He wanted to be president of the United States.

And if he became a Seventh-day Adventist, he could not be president.

He became Senator from Ohio, but it didn't bring him happiness.

5 times he went to Battle Creek Sanitarium to be treated by John Harvey Kellogg for depression.

Though he voted for the 18th Amendment to ban the sale of alcohol, he continued to serve it and use it.

In 1920, at a deadlocked Republican convention, Gamilio was nominated to run for president of the United States, and Gamilio won that election.

And Warren Gamilio Harding became the 29th President of the United States.

He served only 2 years, died in office, and his name came down associated with incompetence and corruption.

For years, he was considered the worst president that ever disgraced the office.

I'm impressed this morning to talk about wisdom.

Few people know how to gain wisdom, whether we are faculty, staff, patient, guests, our purpose at being at Weimar should be to gain wisdom.

You can get information anywhere, but you come to Weimar to gain wisdom.

This is why the disciples followed Jesus.

I would like to suggest that each 1 of us this morning have the same question to answer that the rich young ruler had to answer in many decisions of life.

This morning, I would like us to notice how we gain wisdom.

Please turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy 3.15-17.

Notice in verse 15 that the Bible is designed to make us what?

Immediately after telling us that the Bible makes us wise unto salvation, Paul tells us how.

All scripture, read it with me, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

Wisdom requires right doctrine, right beliefs.

But this tells us that wisdom also requires instruction in righteousness, that is instruction in what right doing is.

Does the Bible give us instruction in right doing?

You should leave Weimar if you are a student having learned correct doctrine from the Bible and been instructed in correct behavior from the Bible.

Doctrine and behavior are simply 2 crusts of bread.

They need a filling to make a wisdom sandwich.

Our text says that Wisdom requires 2 other blessings that God's word gives.

To have wisdom, we also need reproof and correction.

Solomon said, the rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

In the Bible, a woman represents a mother is a symbol for a church, and a home or a church without rebuke will have members that bring it shame.

Let me repeat, the Bible says rebuke gives wisdom.

We were unsure if it was septic arthritis, gout, rheumatoid arthritis, or a stress fracture.

And so an orthopedist ordered x-rays and lab tests to find out.

And now we are waiting for a special bone scan.

When we experience difficulties in our lives, there is a lab test to tell us if the cause of our problem is lack of wisdom.

The ear that hears the rebukes of life will abide among the wise.

He who disdains instruction despises his own soul.

But he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.

A wise son heeds his father's instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

Rebuke is more effective for a wise man than a hundred blows on a fool.

Rebuke 1 who has understanding, and he will discern knowledge.

But there's still another value to rebuke.

He who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy.

Rebuke and shame will come to him who disdains correction but he who regards a rebuke will be honored.

Proper rebuking actually brings us a blessing.

Those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.

This morning we are going to look at rebuke, giving it, and confession, receiving it.

The first page is entitled Wise Rebukers Obedient Ears.

Proverbs 25, 12 tells us, like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise rebuker to an obedient ear.

This last Wednesday, I was giving a Bible study to a patient And we had gone through all of the studies except Wednesday night we were to be studying about jewelry.

The woman my wife and I are studying with is a beautiful and elegant woman.

Her husband died, but every Christmas before he died, he would give her, and on birthdays, he would give her earrings and jewelry, and he would tell her how beautiful this made her.

And it's been a struggle for her to follow the instruction of the Bible.

But Wednesday night, with tears, she surrendered it all, and with tears accepted the appeal for baptism to join God's remnant people She now is wearing different earrings She is wearing the earrings that she accepted God's reproof in that area, and she now has that ornament that pleases her heavenly husband.

Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise rebuker to an obedient ear.

I would like us to look at this expression, wise rebuker.

Suppose you see a fellow member, or maybe a student, smoking a cigarette.

Some anonymous studies I did some years ago showed that about 6% of Seventh-day Adventists secretly smoke.

Or perhaps you're a student and you observed a fellow student cheating.

Or maybe you stumbled across a student looking at pornography on the internet.

Or perhaps a fellow student is complaining about cafeteria food.

Or perhaps you live in the community and see your non-adventist neighbor mowing on the Sabbath.

Or you're at work and another worker takes God's name in vain.

When you observe or think you observe a defect in another, what should you do?

Solomon says, to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to keep silence and a time to speak.

H.M.S. Richards

Voice Of Prophecy

Seven Days of the Week

Lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring, Jesus is coming again.

Cheer up your pilgrims, be joyful and sing, Jesus is coming again.

From Los Angeles, California, we present the program of The Voice of Prophecy, a voice crying in the wilderness of these latter days, prepare ye the way of the Lord.

Coming again, coming again, Jesus is coming again.

And now we invite you to listen to our broadcast and share with us the mutual blessing and inspiration of this hour together.

God won her story, counted once among the lost, yet 1 came down from heaven's glory, Saving us at all for cost.

Will you surrender to this Savior, to His step the humbly bow?

Our heavenly Father, He now, evident heaven interceding.

Our Heavenly Father, Thou art the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth.

We come to thee through thy beloved Son, whom thou hast given to live our example and to die for our redemption, who himself loved us and gave himself for us.

Take away all iniquity, Receive us graciously and love us freely, as thou hast promised in thy word.

In this troubled world, bring the triumph of human freedom, and speak peace to the tempest of war, that thy word may be proclaimed in all the earth through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God, Hold us who wait before thee, near to the heart of God.

Greetings to our radio friends everywhere.

Today's broadcast will prove different and we believe challenging.

God's Holy Word is full of truth, you know, some portions of which have been revealed to all of us and other portions perhaps concealed from some of us.

We think of the old church covenant made by Christians 3 centuries ago, I promise to walk in all God's ways, made known or to be made known to us.

And we think of the words of old pastor John Robinson to the pilgrims as they departed from Holland to find a home in the new world.

I am very confident, said he, that the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy word.

I wonder, friends, could that be equally true today?

I for light, for Bible light, should be like old King David's.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

Open my eyes that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me.

Place in my hands a wonderful key that shall unclasp and set me free.

Silently now I wait for thee, ready my God, thy will to see.

Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine.

Open my ears that I may hear voices of truth, found senders clear.

I wait for thee, ready my God, I will to see.

In the first place, the word week comes from the same root as the word 7.

It really means a period of 7 days, not 10 days or 5 days or 3 days, but 7 days.

So we see that the word week really signifies 7.

Where did the week start and who started it?

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the week being a period of 7 days has no reference whatever to the motions of the stars, the sun, or the moon.

Those who reject the mosaic recital will be at a loss to assign to it an origin having much semblance of probability." And that's certainly true.

The free running week is not connected with any natural division of time, such as the month or year.

As we trace the records back through the centuries, they lead us closer and closer to the Bible story, which is that God created all things, including man, in 6 days, and then rested on the seventh day, after which he blessed and sanctified it, thus setting it apart for a holy use.

This is clearly stated in the first and second chapters of Genesis.

It is all summed up in the first 3 verses of the second chapter as follows.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

1500 years later we find Noah measuring time by a period of 7 days, Genesis 8.10.

And nearly 700 years later still we read of a young man very much in love who had to wait 7 days in order to be married, Genesis 29.27.

Smith's Bible Dictionary, page 745, says of the week, "...its antiquity is so great, its observance so widespread, that it must probably be thrown back as far as the creation of man.

The week and the Sabbath are thus as old as man himself.

According to the Bible, the week with its 7 days was made at creation, and that's a long time ago.

Nearly 6000 years have passed since God put 7 days in the week, And the week, friends, then came into existence as an act of God over 2000 years before there were any Jews as a nation on the earth.

It has been suggested by some the Sabbath was made by or for the Jews, but you see, According to this, this idea cannot be true.

In the beginning, and in the Bible references, the days of the week were numbered from 1 to 7, or the Sabbath.

But when the people drifted away from the worship of the true God, the days of the week were dedicated by the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and others, to the sun, moon, and planets.

These heathen peoples worshiped as gods the sun, moon, and the 5 planets visible to the naked eye, which together were known as the 7 planets.

They assigned each hour of the day to 1 of these planetary gods in rotation.

The first hour of the first day, as we have it now, was assigned to the sun, so that day was called Sunday.

And so they went through the whole twenty-four hours of the day, dedicating each hour to 1 of the 7 planets in the order that they were supposed to have in their revolutions in the heavens.

And when they came to the first hour of the second day, it was found by this system to correspond to the moon.

So that day was called Moons Day or Monday.

And so on through all the days of the week, the names were given by pagan astrologers who worshipped the heavenly bodies.

And now in this modern age, these names still appear in the days of the week.

Most of them change, however, into Anglo-Saxon form.

In this broadcast we can't take time to explain in detail just how the names of the planet gods were changed to our present names, Mars Day to Tuesday, for instance, but a book by Robert Odom entitled Sunday in Roman Paganism, just from the press lately, makes it all plain and most intensely interesting.

Dio Cassius, the Roman historian, says that Pompey captured Jerusalem by attacking it on the day of Saturn, which was the same as the Sabbath observed by the Jews.

On that day the Jews would not fight, so the city was taken.

So we have the identity of Saturday with the Sabbath made certain from that time to the present, because the millions of Jews still consider the seventh day to be holy, and it still coincides with the day called Saturday in our calendar.

Another thing to remember in this subject is that Julius Caesar made a scientific adjustment to the calendar in the year 46 B.C.

And this same calendar, with a slight change regarding the months, which had nothing whatever to do with the continuity of the days of the week, is the very calendar that is on your desk or that hangs on your kitchen wall right at this moment.

And so, friends, we have the universal fact of the existence and custom of the Jews all over the earth.

We have the testimony of history and the scientific accuracy of the calendar.

To this we must add also the records and practice of the Roman Catholic Church in considering Sunday the first day of the week, the day on which Christ arose from the dead, the Greek Catholics and Protestants who also agree with this idea, and the Mohammedans who also recognize the week by observing Friday as the sixth day.

Now let us go back to the beginning and work forward to modern times.

Genesis 2, 3 we have already read, where God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it at the end of the creation week.

Now, the lives of only 2 men bridge the years from Adam to Abraham.

So the wonderful record of creation and the story of Eden would be passed on from father to son.

We are told that Adam lived 930 years, or until Lamech, the father of Noah, was 56 years of age.

Lamech lived until Shem, the son of Noah, was 93, and Shem lived until Abraham was 150 years old.

How eager the people must have been for nearly a thousand years to see the first man, to talk with Adam, who had himself talked with God, And to hear from his lips a description of that paradise in which he had lived, to hear from the lips of 1 created on the sixth day, the story of creation week, and the very words of the Creator when he set apart his rest day to a holy use.

And this knowledge was handed down through the generations.

The Cross

Steven Grabiner

East Ridge SDA Church

Cosmic Reconciliation

So if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn there With me and I'd like to begin this morning by considering a book that came out a while ago Actually, it came out close to 1900 years ago it was written in the somewhere in the year 177 to 180 AD.

And it was written by a man by the name of Celsus.

How many of you are familiar with Celsus?

Look at these, all good students, Celsus.

Well, we really don't know a lot about him.

In fact, we don't know exactly what he wrote because his book is gone.

But an earlier church writer tried to write against Celsus and so we are able to determine certain things that this critic said.

Celsus was kind of like an ancient Richard Dawkins or an ancient Christopher Hitchens.

He was thinking of ways that he could tear down Christianity.

And he wrote a book called, On the True Doctrine, A Discourse Against Christians.

And he really had basically 3 issues in his writing.

First of all was he wanted to defend the status quo of the Roman Empire.

He thought to be a member, a citizen of the Roman Empire, you should follow the religion of the state.

His second main point, which is a common critique against Christianity even today, and his second critique was that only ignorant people believe, and that if you were just more educated then you wouldn't believe.

Now Paul talks about that in 1st Corinthians as well but Celsus really tries to unpack this attack against Christianity And then his third main line of argument, pardon me, was to try to overturn philosophically main concepts in Christianity.

Well, number 1, first of all, he dismissed the idea of the virgin birth.

I'd like to focus on 1 main idea that he brought out.

And that was the concept, you and I might call it the great controversy, the cosmic conflict, the idea that there is a force that opposes God.

And he said, you know, the Christian God is really too weak to stop this being, which we would call Satan.

He again thought this was an absurd idea.

And he wrote, he raised this question, does this mean that the son of God can be beaten by the devil?

And he's got a list of arguments that he's trying to bring out.

And this was 1 of his main critiques of Christianity.

If God really is sovereign, is God sovereign?

If God was really all powerful, Is he all powerful?

Even in the crucifixion, why does the devil seem to win?

And so he raises this question about God and really it's an important question for us to think about and part of our passage this morning I hope will give us an answer to this question.

How does God relate in the great controversy?

What are the means that God uses to persuade humanity.

Celsus was trying to say, you know, if you have a God that's all powerful, he simply should exercise his authority and people would come into line.

But 1 of the truths of the Christian faith is that God gives people an abundance of freedom.

And in that freedom is the choice that we can respond to God, we can resist God.

And any parent knows as their child reaches a certain age, you know it's wonderful for Craig and Alicia, their kids are nice and small, you do this, and they're so wonderfully obedient as all young children are.

But obviously children get to a point where they make their own decisions.

And how do we as parents, how do we as friends, how do we relate to this abundance of freedom that God extends, And yet God's call to live a certain way.

I think the passage that we're gonna look at this morning helps point us about it.

There's something about the cross, there's something about the death of Christ that has tremendous persuasive power.

There's something about the death of Christ that has more persuasive power than simply demonstrating force.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Wise Rebuker - Obedient Ears

1h

Seven Days of the Week

28m

Cosmic Reconciliation

25m

The Victory

30m

Forsaken

34m

The Substitute

32m

Reconciliation

35m

God Revealed

28m

Paralysis

43m

03. Luke: Who Is Jesus Christ?

48m

The Holy Spirit, Health, and the Sanctuary

36m

True Success in Reaching People

56m

Sound Doctrine