Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Book of Acts
Lesson 4. The First Church Leaders
When we were little tikes in Sabbath School, we used to have a saying which we thought was funny. The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection from the dead, that's why they were called "sad-you-sees." Why didn't they believe in the resurrection? Because they didn't believe in God's promise, His everlasting covenant.
The resurrection was clearly taught in the experience of their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. When Stephen stood before the Sanhedrin, he started his powerful speech with God's promise to Abraham and continued throughout his lengthy recorded sermon with allusions to the covenant (Acts 7). Our Sabbath school lesson (page 33) asserts Stephen's sermon was a "covenant lawsuit" prosecuted before the Sanhedrin.
Stephen's allusion to God's resurrection promise to Abraham did not go over the heads of the Sanhedrin. For example, Stephen commenced with God's command to Abraham to "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee" (Acts 7:3). Abraham journeyed with his family and brought his deceased father into Canaan and God gave "him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet He promised that He would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed [Descendant, Christ] after him" (vs. 5). Abraham owned nothing in Canaan, not even a burial plot for his father. It's obvious from these words that God never intended to give Abraham just a tiny little space in the Middle East. God promised the whole earth in righteousness to Abraham and his descendants.
When Abraham died, he still did not own Palestine, but he believed God's promise: "By faith he [Abraham] sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles [nomadic tents] with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:9-10). "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (vs. 13).
E. J. Waggoner remarks on this passage that the patriarchs "plainly declared, says Paul, that they looked for a country, and we have already learned that that country was the whole earth; and since they were not disappointed because the country was not given to them in their lifetime, it is evident that they understood the promise to embrace the resurrection from the dead." [1]
Paul testified of his faith before King Agrippa: "And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts 26:6-8).
God's promise contains the hope of the resurrection in order to dwell in the new earth in righteousness. "Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13).
But all of this is so much familiar ground. It was when Stephen spoke of "the coming of the Just One" (Acts 7:52), that the Sanhedrin lost it and murdered Stephen. Stephen virtually said that God did not dwell in their temple (vss. 47-49). It was anything but righteous. God's covenant with Abraham promised him a coming "Seed" [vs. 5, Descendant] in Whom the Holy Spirit manifest full and complete righteousness. God dwelt in "the Just [righteous] One" who the Pharisees and Sadducees murdered (vs. 52).
God gave Abraham "the covenant of circumcision" (vs. 8) because he was willing to receive the Holy Spirit's gift of "righteousness by faith" in his heart. It was this gift of God's Spirit which the teachers of the law refused at Christ's coming and thus committed the unpardonable sin and murdered the righteous One. Because they refused to believe God's covenant they did not recognize the promised "Seed"--their Messiah. Thus they were "uncircumcised in heart" and rejected their righteousness even though they claimed to "have received the law" (vs. 53). In resisting the Holy Spirit and rejecting their Messiah they manifest Old Covenant unbelief in their hearts.
"They were cut to the heart" (vs. 54). In other words, the Holy Spirit got through, but it did them no good. They rejected the message and the messenger.
When Stephen testified, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (vs. 56), he virtually was saying, "I see the resurrected One standing vindicated at God's right hand," and that sealed Stephen's fate.
One of the key themes of the 1888 message is the good news of God's everlasting covenant. The New Covenant was God's one-sided promise to Abraham and his descendants to give them the entire earth made new for "an everlasting possession" and the righteousness necessary to inherit it "in Christ." The Old Covenant was the promise of the people at Mount Sinai to perform faithful obedience: "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do" (Ex. 19:8). That Old Covenant became the fundamental thesis of Israel's understanding of God's truth which culminated eventually in the murder of their Messiah. Thus Israel's history demonstrates that the covenant "from mount Sinai ... gendereth to bondage" (Gal. 4:24).
All efforts to fasten Old Covenant "promises" on children and youth are bound to "gender to bondage" in their spiritual experience. Ellen White says, "The knowledge of your broken promises and forfeited pledges weakens your confidence in your own sincerity, and causes you to feel that God cannot accept you." [2] God doesn't ask us to promise Him righteousness; He asks us to believe His promises to us.
--Paul E. Penno
Endnotes:
[1] E. J. Waggoner, "The Hope of the Promise," Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, vol. 4, no. 10 (May 15, 1889), p. 154.
[2] Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ, p. 47.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/dGK6ZcX_5KI
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
Sent from my iPad
Friday, July 27, 2018
Thursday, July 19, 2018
Lesson 3. Life in the Early Church
Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Book of Acts
Lesson 3. Life in the Early Church
In the space of a few weeks the most significant events in human history had happened: Jesus completed His ministry, was crucified, was resurrected, and had ascended to heaven. His confused and frightened followers huddled together as Jesus had instructed them to do. They used their time wisely, probably searching the Scriptures then available to understand how Christ had perfectly fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies. We can almost imagine the men who walked with Christ on the Emmaus Road repeating everything they could remember of how He had explained the Scriptures to them.
No matter how compelling, the method of using various texts to prove theological points, argument alone is inadequate. Preaching never reaches the heart without the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that and told His disciples "I will not leave you as orphans" (John 14:18, New American Standard Bible; "comfortless" in the King James Version). Jesus promised, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you" (John 14:16, 17). Ezekiel had predicted this centuries before: "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances" (Eze. 36:27).
The Ezekiel passage defines the process of God's way to achieve righteousness in sinful humans and shows the essential role of the Holy Spirit in this process. Thus, Pentecost fulfilled both the Ezekiel prophecy as well as Christ's promise that the Holy Spirit would go from "abides with you" to "will be in you."
The early believers had achieved a level of unity during their study time in the upper room waiting for Pentecost. However once the Holy Spirit was given, more study was necessary to fully understand Christ's mission, even though most of them had witnessed what He had done. As our lesson notes (page 24), the character of worship in the early church was based on their Jewish origins. Especially for those living in Jerusalem, going to the temple to worship would have been logical. God gave them time and circumstances that allowed them to devote study to the grand implications of the cross and how the Jewish sacrificial system fit into this picture.
The practice of Judaism had become so formalized that adherents had lost sight of the significance of the sacrificial system. It was not seen as a system designed to typify the ultimate sacrifice of Christ, but as a means of manipulating God. The Jews believed that the act of bringing a sacrifice was what saved, not the ultimate Sacrifice to which it pointed. Their ancestors had made that old covenant mistake centuries before when they told Moses at Saini that "everything you say we will do," the implication being that then God was obligated to do what He promised.
The ingrained thinking of the early Christians had been formed in Judaism and needed clarifying. They needed to understand that the sacrificial system was never given as a method of "works righteousness," but was meant to constantly remind people of their need for the living sacrifice that Christ made with His own body. Their misunderstanding of Christ's mission was grounded in their misunderstanding of God's promises made to Abraham.
"God promised a great household to Abraham. But this house was to be built upon the Lord, and Abraham so understood it, and began at once to build. Jesus Christ is the foundation, for 'other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' 1 Cor. 3:11. The house of Abraham is the house of God, which is 'built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.' Eph. 2:20." [1]
In His promises to Abraham, God also promised that Abram would inherit the land. It was one of the most valued promises to the Jews who were attacked through the centuries by nations wanting to take their land. It was convenient to forget that they failed to follow God's directive to completely clear the land on God's schedule. Instead, they compromised and intermarried, placing obstacles in the way of following God's commands completely.
There is another aspect that is more subtle, but is important to all Christians including those of our day. The disciples had asked Christ when He would be "restoring the kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6). By this it can be fairly implied that they included both Abraham's posterity and the land God promised to him. But Abraham had been dead for a long time, and therefore could not benefit from any fulfillment of the promise unless he and his sleeping progeny were resurrected.
"What does this demonstrate?--Simply this, that the promise in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, that Abraham and his seed should possess the land, had reference to the resurrection of the dead, and to nothing short of that. ... Even if Abraham be left out of the question, yet the fact remains that the promise to the seed must include all of the seed, and not a part merely. ... In thus referring to this promise, which was well known to the Jews, Stephen showed them most plainly that it could be fulfilled only by the resurrection of the dead through Jesus. ... If he [Abraham] had expected to receive it in this present life, he would have been disappointed if he had come to his death without having it fulfilled. But God plainly told him that he must die before it was fulfilled. Therefore since Abraham believed God, it is very clear that he understood about the resurrection, and that he believed it. The resurrection of the dead, ... was ever the center of the hope of the true children of Abraham." [2]
God explained to Abraham that Israel was not to possess the land of promise until the iniquity of the Amorites was not then full. "That shows that God would give the Amorites time to repent, or, failing that, to fill up the measure of their iniquity, and thus demonstrate their unfitness to possess the land. And that teaches us further that the land which God promised to Abraham and his seed could be possessed only by righteous people." [3]
This complex but important concept needed to be understood by the early believers, and especially those of our day. The early believers were partially motivated by a sense of urgency since they believed Christ's return was to happen very soon. They were eager to study and understand so the message could be given to the entire world.
The message was that of the cross of Christ and the principle that righteousness could come only through the faith of Jesus accepted by His followers. That fire, kindled at Pentecost, began to dwindle as the years came and went and people were distracted with the routines of living life and the hostility that the message always produces in some. The Lord rekindled the fire by sending the 1888 "messengers" (A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner) with their greater understanding of righteousness by faith, and for a while people were again interested in studying the message in its many facets, but the passage of time tends to dampen fervor.
The early pioneers of the message of righteousness by faith in the Seventh-day Adventist Church are all sleeping now. Yet, God waits to return. Why? If God was unwilling to take the land from the pagan Amorites in Abraham's day and the pagan Romans in the apostolic time, perhaps He is waiting for all those that will come to repentance to have the opportunity. Just as it was not the will of God that Israel should wander 40 years in the wilderness before entering the promised land, it is not His will today to delay His coming. But in mercy to the world, Jesus does delay His coming that sinners may hear the message of the gospel of righteousness by faith and if they are willing, come to repentance.
"For forty years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan. The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. In neither case were the promises of God at fault. It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years." [4]
"Had the purpose of God been carried out by His people in giving to the world the message of mercy, Christ would, ere this, have come to the earth, and the saints would have received their welcome into the city of God." [5]
Like the early church believers, it takes time and effort to study the various facets of the message given by the 1888 "messengers," but the salvation of souls is what is at stake. Let us continue studying this "most precious message" so the world can hear it, come to repentance, and Christ can end the delay.
--Arlene Hill
Endnotes:
[1] E. J. Waggoner, The Everlasting Covenant: God's Promises to Us, p. 54; Glad Tidings ed., 2002.
[2] Ibid., pp. 56, 57.
[3] Ibid., p. 58.
[4] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book one, p. 69.
[5] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 450.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/BkwEtimpAYI
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
Sent from my iPad
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Book of Acts
Lesson 3. Life in the Early Church
In the space of a few weeks the most significant events in human history had happened: Jesus completed His ministry, was crucified, was resurrected, and had ascended to heaven. His confused and frightened followers huddled together as Jesus had instructed them to do. They used their time wisely, probably searching the Scriptures then available to understand how Christ had perfectly fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies. We can almost imagine the men who walked with Christ on the Emmaus Road repeating everything they could remember of how He had explained the Scriptures to them.
No matter how compelling, the method of using various texts to prove theological points, argument alone is inadequate. Preaching never reaches the heart without the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew that and told His disciples "I will not leave you as orphans" (John 14:18, New American Standard Bible; "comfortless" in the King James Version). Jesus promised, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you" (John 14:16, 17). Ezekiel had predicted this centuries before: "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances" (Eze. 36:27).
The Ezekiel passage defines the process of God's way to achieve righteousness in sinful humans and shows the essential role of the Holy Spirit in this process. Thus, Pentecost fulfilled both the Ezekiel prophecy as well as Christ's promise that the Holy Spirit would go from "abides with you" to "will be in you."
The early believers had achieved a level of unity during their study time in the upper room waiting for Pentecost. However once the Holy Spirit was given, more study was necessary to fully understand Christ's mission, even though most of them had witnessed what He had done. As our lesson notes (page 24), the character of worship in the early church was based on their Jewish origins. Especially for those living in Jerusalem, going to the temple to worship would have been logical. God gave them time and circumstances that allowed them to devote study to the grand implications of the cross and how the Jewish sacrificial system fit into this picture.
The practice of Judaism had become so formalized that adherents had lost sight of the significance of the sacrificial system. It was not seen as a system designed to typify the ultimate sacrifice of Christ, but as a means of manipulating God. The Jews believed that the act of bringing a sacrifice was what saved, not the ultimate Sacrifice to which it pointed. Their ancestors had made that old covenant mistake centuries before when they told Moses at Saini that "everything you say we will do," the implication being that then God was obligated to do what He promised.
The ingrained thinking of the early Christians had been formed in Judaism and needed clarifying. They needed to understand that the sacrificial system was never given as a method of "works righteousness," but was meant to constantly remind people of their need for the living sacrifice that Christ made with His own body. Their misunderstanding of Christ's mission was grounded in their misunderstanding of God's promises made to Abraham.
"God promised a great household to Abraham. But this house was to be built upon the Lord, and Abraham so understood it, and began at once to build. Jesus Christ is the foundation, for 'other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' 1 Cor. 3:11. The house of Abraham is the house of God, which is 'built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.' Eph. 2:20." [1]
In His promises to Abraham, God also promised that Abram would inherit the land. It was one of the most valued promises to the Jews who were attacked through the centuries by nations wanting to take their land. It was convenient to forget that they failed to follow God's directive to completely clear the land on God's schedule. Instead, they compromised and intermarried, placing obstacles in the way of following God's commands completely.
There is another aspect that is more subtle, but is important to all Christians including those of our day. The disciples had asked Christ when He would be "restoring the kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6). By this it can be fairly implied that they included both Abraham's posterity and the land God promised to him. But Abraham had been dead for a long time, and therefore could not benefit from any fulfillment of the promise unless he and his sleeping progeny were resurrected.
"What does this demonstrate?--Simply this, that the promise in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, that Abraham and his seed should possess the land, had reference to the resurrection of the dead, and to nothing short of that. ... Even if Abraham be left out of the question, yet the fact remains that the promise to the seed must include all of the seed, and not a part merely. ... In thus referring to this promise, which was well known to the Jews, Stephen showed them most plainly that it could be fulfilled only by the resurrection of the dead through Jesus. ... If he [Abraham] had expected to receive it in this present life, he would have been disappointed if he had come to his death without having it fulfilled. But God plainly told him that he must die before it was fulfilled. Therefore since Abraham believed God, it is very clear that he understood about the resurrection, and that he believed it. The resurrection of the dead, ... was ever the center of the hope of the true children of Abraham." [2]
God explained to Abraham that Israel was not to possess the land of promise until the iniquity of the Amorites was not then full. "That shows that God would give the Amorites time to repent, or, failing that, to fill up the measure of their iniquity, and thus demonstrate their unfitness to possess the land. And that teaches us further that the land which God promised to Abraham and his seed could be possessed only by righteous people." [3]
This complex but important concept needed to be understood by the early believers, and especially those of our day. The early believers were partially motivated by a sense of urgency since they believed Christ's return was to happen very soon. They were eager to study and understand so the message could be given to the entire world.
The message was that of the cross of Christ and the principle that righteousness could come only through the faith of Jesus accepted by His followers. That fire, kindled at Pentecost, began to dwindle as the years came and went and people were distracted with the routines of living life and the hostility that the message always produces in some. The Lord rekindled the fire by sending the 1888 "messengers" (A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner) with their greater understanding of righteousness by faith, and for a while people were again interested in studying the message in its many facets, but the passage of time tends to dampen fervor.
The early pioneers of the message of righteousness by faith in the Seventh-day Adventist Church are all sleeping now. Yet, God waits to return. Why? If God was unwilling to take the land from the pagan Amorites in Abraham's day and the pagan Romans in the apostolic time, perhaps He is waiting for all those that will come to repentance to have the opportunity. Just as it was not the will of God that Israel should wander 40 years in the wilderness before entering the promised land, it is not His will today to delay His coming. But in mercy to the world, Jesus does delay His coming that sinners may hear the message of the gospel of righteousness by faith and if they are willing, come to repentance.
"For forty years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan. The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. In neither case were the promises of God at fault. It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years." [4]
"Had the purpose of God been carried out by His people in giving to the world the message of mercy, Christ would, ere this, have come to the earth, and the saints would have received their welcome into the city of God." [5]
Like the early church believers, it takes time and effort to study the various facets of the message given by the 1888 "messengers," but the salvation of souls is what is at stake. Let us continue studying this "most precious message" so the world can hear it, come to repentance, and Christ can end the delay.
--Arlene Hill
Endnotes:
[1] E. J. Waggoner, The Everlasting Covenant: God's Promises to Us, p. 54; Glad Tidings ed., 2002.
[2] Ibid., pp. 56, 57.
[3] Ibid., p. 58.
[4] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book one, p. 69.
[5] Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 450.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at: https://youtu.be/BkwEtimpAYI
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
Sent from my iPad
Friday, July 13, 2018
Pentecost
Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Book of Acts
Lesson 2. Pentecost
"Pentecost" is a big word to Christian people. It came 50 days after Christ's resurrection. The disciples met together to pray and study for 10 days previous, so that by the time that the Day of Pentecost arrived, they were finally in total harmony and unity, in "one accord" (Acts 2:1).
A great blessing came on that day. The true and genuine "gift of tongues" was manifest so that everyone from all parts of the world who were gathered in Jerusalem heard the glad tidings in his own language so he could clearly understand it. The Holy Spirit was given in a fullness that has never since been equaled.
What was it about the message of Pentecost that had such tremendous power that 3000 were converted, truly converted, in a day? There is one "great truth" that shone clearly on the Day of Pentecost that even the apostle Paul did not preach. Speaking to that great crowd of thousands of people from many nations and languages, Peter boldly declared that they had crucified the Son of God: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). A few days later he told them, "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, ... and killed the Prince of life" (3:14, 15). Nothing in Paul's epistles is quite so strong, so directly confrontational!
The greatest "evangelism" of all time was what happened at Pentecost. It was not emotionalism, and what brought the deep conviction of truth on people's hearts was not the miracle of the apostles' speaking foreign languages--a "sign and wonder" indeed, but not the real thing that did it: the apostles proclaimed what had happened when the Son of God died on His cross.
They didn't "mince words," or say it daintily: "You murdered the Prince of life, the Son of God!" They laid the guilt of the ages upon the souls of those Jews and Gentiles. There was no political making friends and influencing people, no attempt to make the message palatable, to "win" the top leaders by psychology. It was the most direct super-confrontation that has ever been between lowly people and religious society leadership (read it in Acts 2:23, 36; 4:10; 5:30, etc.).
When, at Pentecost, Peter said, "God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), immediately came the heart-broken cry, "What shall we do?" (vs. 37). Then when Peter and John healed the paralytic, Peter again said, "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, ... and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead" (3:14, 15). You couldn't yawn and sit on the fence when you heard a charge like that! Then Peter and John told the rulers and leaders of the nation, "Ye crucified Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead" (4:10).
Ordinary people like the apostles could never have galvanized themselves to tell it like they did had it not been for the 10 days of repentance they spent beforehand. They had knelt very low in self-humiliation; what fools they had been! The Holy Spirit had eleven men in whom self had been "crucified with Christ." This made it possible for the Son of God to be exalted in them.
What happened on the day of Pentecost was a repentance deeper than has ever been known. The murder of the Son of God is the greatest sin ever committed; repentance for that sin is the greatest a human heart can ever know.
A repentance like that of Pentecost is what Christ calls for today. It will come, like a lost vein of gold in the earth that must surface again in another place. Our idea of repentance can produce only what we see today--hazy, indistinct devotion; lukewarmness. Like medicine taken in quantity sufficient to produce a concentration in the bloodstream, our repentance must be comprehensive, full-range, in order for the Holy Spirit to do a fully effective work.
This full spectrum of repentance is included in "the everlasting gospel." But its clearest definition has been impossible until now, as history reaches the last of the seven churches. The original word "repentance" means a looking back from the perspective of the end: metanoia, from meta ("after"), and nous ("mind"). Thus, repentance can never be complete until the end of history. Like the great Day of Atonement, its full dimension must be a last-day experience. We have now come to that moment in time.
But what about "1888"? The little group who went through the Great Disappointment of 1844 were deeply beloved of Jesus in a special sense. They refused to give up their faith, confident that the true Holy Spirit was in the Midnight Cry through the Great Disappointment. They were especially dear to His heart (Jesus describes them in His message to "the angel of the church of the Philadelphians," Rev. 3:9, 10).
When new truth came to them (the heavenly sanctuary and the opening of the second apartment), they believed; there was an endearing love for that "little flock" in His eyes. When Rachel Preston brought them the seventh-day Sabbath-truth, they welcomed it; no resisting and fighting it (as "they" did other "most precious" truth forty-plus years later). Then when the first principles of health reform came, again they eagerly accepted. Through the early history of this people, a special heavenly love affair was developing. Not since Pentecost had Jesus found such a group of believers loyal to Him.
The 1888 idea lifted the cross of Christ higher than it had been displayed since Pentecost. Ellen White said, "Great truths that have lain unheeded and unseen since the day of Pentecost are to shine from God's word in their native purity." [1] The Sabbath and the cross finally came together.
But here the Song of Solomon 5:2-8 comes on stage. [2] The Lover has come "home" to His beloved after a long trip; tired, lonely, hungry, wet from the rain; He longs to be with her intimately. He "knocks" (the Hebrew says banging on the door). The woman whom He loves disdains him, she is too relaxed, gone to bed for the night; why does He bother her now? (The world is too comfy a place as it is, says the church of the Laodiceans.) Finally, she forgets about her own selfish comfort and thinks about Him out in the darkness, hungry and alone; she belatedly gets up and goes to let Him in, but when she opens the door, He is "gone."
We've been looking for Him for well over a hundred years (cf. 6:1). Increasingly, thoughtful people see here the story of "our" disdaining Him in the "most precious" message of the beginning of the latter rain. In rejecting the message, says the Lord's servant, we disdained Christ [3], just as "the woman" did her Lover in Song of Solomon 5:3.
Christ's pathetic appeal in His message to "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" [4] ("be zealous therefore, and repent," Rev. 3:19) demands attention.
--From the writings of Robert J. Wieland
Endnotes:
[1] Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, Aug. 17, 1897, emphasis supplied.
[2] There seems no reason to include this book in the Bible unless it speaks of Jesus and His love for the church. Jesus described it as "scripture" in John 7:37, 38 (SS 4:15). Paul quoted it in reference to the church in Ephesians 5:27 (SS 4:7). Scholars have long recognized that Jesus quoted the Septuagint version in Revelation 3:20, "I stand at the door and knock."
[3] The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, pp. 398, 399.
[4] Ellen White identifies this as the Seventh-day Adventist Church (op. cit.).
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at:
https://youtu.be/MdIrRel4XH0
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
Sent from my iPhone
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Book of Acts
Lesson 2. Pentecost
"Pentecost" is a big word to Christian people. It came 50 days after Christ's resurrection. The disciples met together to pray and study for 10 days previous, so that by the time that the Day of Pentecost arrived, they were finally in total harmony and unity, in "one accord" (Acts 2:1).
A great blessing came on that day. The true and genuine "gift of tongues" was manifest so that everyone from all parts of the world who were gathered in Jerusalem heard the glad tidings in his own language so he could clearly understand it. The Holy Spirit was given in a fullness that has never since been equaled.
What was it about the message of Pentecost that had such tremendous power that 3000 were converted, truly converted, in a day? There is one "great truth" that shone clearly on the Day of Pentecost that even the apostle Paul did not preach. Speaking to that great crowd of thousands of people from many nations and languages, Peter boldly declared that they had crucified the Son of God: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). A few days later he told them, "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, ... and killed the Prince of life" (3:14, 15). Nothing in Paul's epistles is quite so strong, so directly confrontational!
The greatest "evangelism" of all time was what happened at Pentecost. It was not emotionalism, and what brought the deep conviction of truth on people's hearts was not the miracle of the apostles' speaking foreign languages--a "sign and wonder" indeed, but not the real thing that did it: the apostles proclaimed what had happened when the Son of God died on His cross.
They didn't "mince words," or say it daintily: "You murdered the Prince of life, the Son of God!" They laid the guilt of the ages upon the souls of those Jews and Gentiles. There was no political making friends and influencing people, no attempt to make the message palatable, to "win" the top leaders by psychology. It was the most direct super-confrontation that has ever been between lowly people and religious society leadership (read it in Acts 2:23, 36; 4:10; 5:30, etc.).
When, at Pentecost, Peter said, "God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), immediately came the heart-broken cry, "What shall we do?" (vs. 37). Then when Peter and John healed the paralytic, Peter again said, "Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, ... and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead" (3:14, 15). You couldn't yawn and sit on the fence when you heard a charge like that! Then Peter and John told the rulers and leaders of the nation, "Ye crucified Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead" (4:10).
Ordinary people like the apostles could never have galvanized themselves to tell it like they did had it not been for the 10 days of repentance they spent beforehand. They had knelt very low in self-humiliation; what fools they had been! The Holy Spirit had eleven men in whom self had been "crucified with Christ." This made it possible for the Son of God to be exalted in them.
What happened on the day of Pentecost was a repentance deeper than has ever been known. The murder of the Son of God is the greatest sin ever committed; repentance for that sin is the greatest a human heart can ever know.
A repentance like that of Pentecost is what Christ calls for today. It will come, like a lost vein of gold in the earth that must surface again in another place. Our idea of repentance can produce only what we see today--hazy, indistinct devotion; lukewarmness. Like medicine taken in quantity sufficient to produce a concentration in the bloodstream, our repentance must be comprehensive, full-range, in order for the Holy Spirit to do a fully effective work.
This full spectrum of repentance is included in "the everlasting gospel." But its clearest definition has been impossible until now, as history reaches the last of the seven churches. The original word "repentance" means a looking back from the perspective of the end: metanoia, from meta ("after"), and nous ("mind"). Thus, repentance can never be complete until the end of history. Like the great Day of Atonement, its full dimension must be a last-day experience. We have now come to that moment in time.
But what about "1888"? The little group who went through the Great Disappointment of 1844 were deeply beloved of Jesus in a special sense. They refused to give up their faith, confident that the true Holy Spirit was in the Midnight Cry through the Great Disappointment. They were especially dear to His heart (Jesus describes them in His message to "the angel of the church of the Philadelphians," Rev. 3:9, 10).
When new truth came to them (the heavenly sanctuary and the opening of the second apartment), they believed; there was an endearing love for that "little flock" in His eyes. When Rachel Preston brought them the seventh-day Sabbath-truth, they welcomed it; no resisting and fighting it (as "they" did other "most precious" truth forty-plus years later). Then when the first principles of health reform came, again they eagerly accepted. Through the early history of this people, a special heavenly love affair was developing. Not since Pentecost had Jesus found such a group of believers loyal to Him.
The 1888 idea lifted the cross of Christ higher than it had been displayed since Pentecost. Ellen White said, "Great truths that have lain unheeded and unseen since the day of Pentecost are to shine from God's word in their native purity." [1] The Sabbath and the cross finally came together.
But here the Song of Solomon 5:2-8 comes on stage. [2] The Lover has come "home" to His beloved after a long trip; tired, lonely, hungry, wet from the rain; He longs to be with her intimately. He "knocks" (the Hebrew says banging on the door). The woman whom He loves disdains him, she is too relaxed, gone to bed for the night; why does He bother her now? (The world is too comfy a place as it is, says the church of the Laodiceans.) Finally, she forgets about her own selfish comfort and thinks about Him out in the darkness, hungry and alone; she belatedly gets up and goes to let Him in, but when she opens the door, He is "gone."
We've been looking for Him for well over a hundred years (cf. 6:1). Increasingly, thoughtful people see here the story of "our" disdaining Him in the "most precious" message of the beginning of the latter rain. In rejecting the message, says the Lord's servant, we disdained Christ [3], just as "the woman" did her Lover in Song of Solomon 5:3.
Christ's pathetic appeal in His message to "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" [4] ("be zealous therefore, and repent," Rev. 3:19) demands attention.
--From the writings of Robert J. Wieland
Endnotes:
[1] Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, Aug. 17, 1897, emphasis supplied.
[2] There seems no reason to include this book in the Bible unless it speaks of Jesus and His love for the church. Jesus described it as "scripture" in John 7:37, 38 (SS 4:15). Paul quoted it in reference to the church in Ephesians 5:27 (SS 4:7). Scholars have long recognized that Jesus quoted the Septuagint version in Revelation 3:20, "I stand at the door and knock."
[3] The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, pp. 398, 399.
[4] Ellen White identifies this as the Seventh-day Adventist Church (op. cit.).
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at:
https://youtu.be/MdIrRel4XH0
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
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Thursday, July 5, 2018
Lesson 1. You Will Be My Witnesses
Sabbath School Today
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
The Book of Acts
Lesson 1. You Will Be My Witnesses
The "grandest" thing that ever happened in the Seventh-day Adventist Church is introduced to us in the next 13 weeks of Bible study. Wednesday's lesson "Preparing for Pentecost" alludes to it.
"Grandest"? Well, that depends on how you think of the Day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts. Heaven came down and the apostles "were all filled with the Holy Spirit." The great gospel commission to all the world began. That light has shown throughout the long centuries since. It was "the former rain" of the Holy Spirit.
Ellen White said the message "the Lord in His great mercy sent" in 1888 was Pentecost repeated. The message itself was the initial "showers from heaven of the latter rain," "the beginning" of the Loud Cry yet to "lighten the earth with glory," the fulfillment of Revelation 18. [1]
"Another angel" must come down from heaven having "great power."
If you had lived 2000 years ago, you wouldn't want to sleep through the great Day of Pentecost, would you? Our problem now is that "we" did not receive the Latter Rain when God tried to give it to us. We still await its coming.
But the message has been preserved in the archives, and thousands worldwide are discovering why Ellen White was overjoyed to hear it.
The intimate revelation of Jesus in Acts will be the essence of the "most precious message" that Ellen White said will in a phenomenal way "carry the truth to the world as the apostles proclaimed it after the day of Pentecost." She says it will be "the light that is to lighten the whole earth with its glory." [2] That's far greater than all our evangelistic efforts combined—thus far in our denominational history.
That final message that will bring to a glorious close the gospel proclamation to "every nation, kindred, tongue, and people," will transcend the fear-curdling impact that we have always assumed will scare people at last to "come out of Babylon." That great and seemingly impossible "if" of John 12:32, 33 which has for nearly 2000 years limited the best efforts of the church of all ages to truthfully fulfill Christ's commission, will at last be bridged in the repentance of the ages: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all [people] unto Me. This He said, signifying what death he should die."
Thus the message of Revelation 18 will be a "lifting up" of Christ as crucified and dying. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). This is what Ellen White says in direct context with the 1888 message: "The theme that attracts the heart of the sinner is Christ, and Him crucified. ... Present Him thus to the hungering multitudes, and the light of His love [agape] will win men from darkness to light, from transgression to obedience and true holiness." [3]
As the "remnant" church of Revelation 12:17 and 14:12 finally receives the "most precious message" which "the Lord in His great mercy sent" to us in 1888, every Seventh-day Adventist church in the world will be transformed and acquire the reputation of being the place to go to hear Christ uplifted. It will be a new public image that replaces our old reputation of being the church where "we have preached the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa," says Ellen White. [4] Implicit in the next 13 weeks of Sabbath School study is a revelation of that heart-gripping truth.
In the "Disciples' Mission" (Monday) the early Christians did what the modern term calls "evangelize," that is, they told everybody they met about Jesus. That word is often misunderstood today—assumed to mean "get people to join your church, increase the numbers of its membership." No; the word actually means "tell good news." And the people already in church often need to hear and understand what the good news means, just as much as people outside. And people outside most of the time won't be interested in joining the church unless you can tell them what the good news is and why the Lord Jesus ever established a "church."
Jesus explained the "core message" they were to tell. "Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:46-48).
The message will create and establish for every one who believes the seemingly elusive relationship ("fellowship" is a better word) with the Lord that our Sabbath School Quarterly speaks of so often. That relationship is not something that we acquire by our works of Bible study, prayer, and witnessing. Rather, the fellowship is given to us; it comes through beholding the Christ who suffered and rose again.
There is a corporate sense in which the world church "shall look upon [Him] whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him" until it can be said truthfully and in finality, "in that day there shall be a fountain opened ... for sin and for uncleanness" (Zech. 12:10-13:1).
Such repentance includes the actual "remission of sins," that is, sending them away (Luke 24:47). The New Testament word for forgiveness means a separation from sin, a deliverance from its power. True repentance thus actually makes it impossible for a believer in Christ to continue living in sin. The love of Christ supplies the grand motivation, a change in the life (2 Cor. 5:15).
You find a kind of joy in the experience: "The sadness that is used by God brings a change of heart that leads to salvation—and there is no regret in that! But sadness that is merely human causes death. See what God did with this sadness of yours: how earnest it has made you. ... Such indignation, such alarm, such feelings, such devotion" (2 Cor. 7:10, 11, Good News Bible).
Peter manifested genuine repentance. We can identify with him, for he failed miserably, yet he accepted the precious gift of repentance which Judas refused. After basely denying his Lord with cursing, Peter "went out and wept bitterly" (Mark 14:71; Luke 22:62).
Repentance is to never cease with us. Always afterward tears glisten in our eyes as we think of our sin in contrast to the Lord's kindness to us. In addition, tears of contrition are happy tears. The tempest of contrition always brings the rainbow of divine forgiveness. Even medical scientists recognize there is wholesome healing therapy in tears of contrition, for men as well as for women. We ruin our health and shorten our lives when we resist or suppress the tenderness, the melting influence of God's Spirit that tries to soften our hard hearts.
--Paul E. Penno
Endnotes:
[1] See The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, pp. 1336, 1337, and Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, pp. 91, 92; 1888 Materials, p. 1478; Review and Herald, Nov. 22, 1892.
[2] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book one, pp. 234, 235.
[3] Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, Nov. 22, 1892.
[4] See for example, Review and Herald, March 11, 1890.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at:
https://youtu.be/FDU9WaAEwN0
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
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