Good morning and Happy Sabbath. Welcome this morning - this beautiful Sabbath morning - to study with us at Sacramento seventh day adventist church. The central church right here in Sacramento, California. A very special welcome to you who are joining us right here in our sanctuary with us every Sabbath morning as you do so faithfully and especially to those of you that are joining us across the country and around the world this morning, live streaming on the internet from wherever you are. Radio, television, however you're joining us, welcome and I know that you will truly be blessed.
So, while you're at home, get out your hymnals and sing with us this morning. Hymn #438 you will see your Lord a-coming. This comes as a request from elizabeth in Alabama, g. Baker in ArKansas, marie, ania, and antonia in australia, lionel in belgium, valencia, abelino, and ameidi in belize, ismenia in brazil, bernadine in cameroon, lory in Canada, jim, dianne, jamie, buffy, and nilda in florida, rollie in Georgia, fiona in Massachusetts, jack in Michigan, errol in netherlands, arnold in New Jersey, Samuel in new zealand, David in new jersey, sherrine, sillon, and joyce in trinidad and tobago, and olga in Virginia. Hymn #438 you will see your Lord a-coming.
We'll sing the first, the third, and the last verse. We just learned that song this morning. Love it. Isn't that a great song? Thank you for that request. If you have a special request - a new song that you want to teach us on a coming Sabbath morning - I invite you to go to our website at saccentral.
org and there you can click on the 'contact us' link and you can request any hymn in our hymnal that you'd like to sing with us on a coming Sabbath. Our next song we're going to sing is #476 burdens are lifted at calvary. This comes as a request from Augusta in Alabama, jizelle and patrick in antigua and barbuda, nola in australia, ralph, birdie, and carmetta in bahamas, monse in California, vuyani in england, randy in ghana, justin, hezron, sandesh, sonal, satish, and Esther in india, daryl in Maryland, donald in Mexico, una in New Jersey, beth and sheba in New York, sandie, vern, jamie, jenny, and jared in north carolina, gabi, Joel, and anna in south korea, Michael in tanzania, and lovely in Texas, and kurby in Connecticut who just happens to be my daddy. So dad, pull out your hymnal this morning and sing along with me this Sabbath morning one of your favorite hymns, burdens are lifted at calvary. #476 - We'll sing through 3 verses.
Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, you truly do lift our burdens and we have a lot of them here because we live in this sin-sick planet. But you are about to take us home. So, we thank you for the promise that you have given us that you are coming soon and that we can live eternally with you, and Lord, we are so grateful and that's what brings us here every Sabbath morning - because we have nowhere else to go but at your feet. So be with pastor fessenden this morning as he brings us Your Word Lord.
Just open our hearts and our minds so that we can walk closer to you and that people will not even be able to see a difference between us and you. So help us to just be like you Lord. You promised us that we can be through your power and through your spirit and we claim that promise this morning. We pray these things in your name, Jesus, amen. Our lesson study this morning will be brought to us by pastor Luke fessenden.
He's our online membership pastor, so if you have any questions and want to meet with pastor Luke and do some studying, you just get to him through online. Welcome to central study hour. We're happy that you're with us here in Sacramento and wherever you are viewing around the world. We pray that you have come for a blessing. If we come looking for a blessing, the Lord should give us - he will give us.
If we come with a heart desiring a blessing, no matter who is preaching or teaching or sharing, God can and will bless, right? Today we're wanting everyone to be aware of a very special link that we have: Bibleprophecytruth.com, Bibleuniverse.com - there's actually two. There are more than two. They have more than two dozen, actually, but the one that I was given for today is Bibleuniverse.com and I punched it in yesterday and I saw that it answers many, many Bible questions. It has daily devotions, even music. I even clicked on a hymn and heard a beautiful song.
Bible study guides in six languages. There are many other - storacles in even seven languages. And then you can send in prayer requests. Yesterday - last week - pastor mike got an introduction to this series that we're starting now. By the way, there are 14 Sabbaths this quarter, did you find that out as you looked in your bulletin - looked into your lesson quarterly? This quarter starts on a Sabbath and ends on a Sabbath, December 31.
Christmas and new years is Sunday this year. And so, there are actually 14 and the first lesson was getting us acquainted with Paul, who he was and where he was from. This one today is actually - there's six chapters in Galatians. Well you say, 'well, if they do two chapters' - I'm sorry, 'two weeks for each chapter, there would be 12 and last week's would be 13.' Well, some of the chapters are not going to have two Sabbaths and some of the chapters have more than two Sabbaths. It happens that this week's lesson, which is Paul's authority and the Gospel that he is proclaiming, is chapter 1.
And starting the third lesson next week, it'll be beginning with Galatians 2 and, so, we're going to do a quick overview of Galatians 1 and you can see by the topic here that it's Paul's authority and his - the Gospel that he's proclaiming. The memory verse that's written in the quarterly for us - Paul is saying, "for do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still please men I would not be a bondservant of Christ." He's saying, 'if I'm trying to please humans, I'm not God's servant.' We know that in the Bible it makes it clear that our thoughts are not God's thoughts, right? His ways are higher, his thoughts are more noble. And the Bible makes it clear that "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" and so, what Paul is saying here is, 'if I wanted to really please men, I wouldn't be sharing this Gospel.' So he's almost saying it's going to bring up controversy, right? And he's dealing with a group here in galatia, where he and barnabas have established churches years before. He is hearing that false prophets have come in and they've separated the group. There's dissention in the camp.
And this book of Galatians, Paul is being a pastor, but he's also being an administrative pastor saying, 'this is right and this is wrong.' He is showing the churches which way they need to go and not to listen to these false proclaimers of truth. We don't like controversy, do we? If you do like controversy, I guess working in our academies for a few years, once in a while I came across students who seemed to love controversy. They seemed to be devil's advocate in the classroom and then picking on people out in the - outside of the schoolroom. And I remember one that seemed to always be in a tiff. And I said, 'you know, I think you should join the military.
' And he did. Not necessarily on my counsel, but his nature was, you know, 'I'm ready to take on anybody. I'm ready. I'm number ten at all times.' And, this book, Paul seems to be saying, 'this church needs straightening out and I'm going to help you straighten out.' Monday's portion - I'm sorry, Sunday's - the second page, there's a text that I distributed that I would love for the person who got the slip to share. And it's 2 Peter 3:15 and 16.
Okay, Michael, I'll get your name right this week. 2 Peter 3 verses 15 and 16. "And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all the epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures." Hmmm. Speaking there was Peter and he is actually condoning and he is putting his stamp of approval on Paul, correct? But he is also admitting that he's not easy to understand. Not always too clear, you have to study and then some people say, 'well, he's hard to understand.
' So they just write him off and they ignore - but they'll ignore the Scripture anyway. And Peter is really putting his stamp of approval on Paul. And Paul, in this book, is spending much time telling the people in galatia that his authority is God. His authority is from the Lord. From God The Father and from Jesus The Son.
He is making it very clear all through this book and he even mentions further on, in another lesson, that he and Peter did have a little disagreement, but as you read through it, it wasn't going to be any knock-down-drag-out, but he reprimanded Peter for the way he was acting around the gentiles when the jews were there. But, they might not have made a good pair to go together. They were different personalities. Personalities probably would have clashed, but their faith would not have clashed. And Peter is saying, 'we believe the same God.
We have the same Lord and Savior and we teach the same teaching.' But he says, 'I must admit, he's a little difficult to understand.' And the comment we get from our head pastor here is that he makes the message very clear. I'm getting that constantly. Daily I get that. We love watching central study hour and the preaching, because we can understand it.' Pastor Doug is not Paul. That's kind of what it's saying, isn't it? Pastor Doug wants to make things clear and he wants the pastors here to make things clear and not beat around the bush and leave you wondering at the end, 'now what were they really trying to say? What was the point of that?' Today, we're going to nail down the fact that Paul is verifying his authority being from God.
And he's verifying that Jesus - actually, this book is one of the greatest on righteousness by faith. He's focusing all that on not what you do or what you ask the gentiles to do, it's coming right back to Jesus' death and resurrection. He mentions that a couple of times in this chapter. Monday's - Paul's calling. Notice that it gives several other verses there that begin one of his books.
By the way, you know that Paul wrote 13 of the 27 new testament books. And the other books were written basically by people that had not just known Jesus but had spent time with Jesus, right? Three and a half years some of them. Here he is saying that he was - in Galatians he's saying, 'I am a believer in God and a follower of God, not of men.' He adds 'not of men.' The others - he identifies himself, who's with him, and he says, 'grace and peace from God.' But here, he puts some on. 'I'm a servant of God, not man.' And he keeps that separation in Galatians. It's a longer introduction and it is trying to show them that he is the real messenger from God.
And that's what Paul is doing here. Tuesday's - his Gospel. His Gospel is grace and peace. He uses that in all of these others too. And then he comes to even a doxology in verse 5 of Galatians 1.
It says "to whom be glory forever and ever, amen." And you say, 'wait, he's saying amen right as he's beginning this book. What does amen mean? Let it be. So be it. Amen. I agree.
Right? And he is saying just as he's beginning this, 'the words that I say are accurate and true. Believe me.' Then - grace and peace. Do you know what grace is? People say, 'well, grace is something that God gives us.' Right? That we don't really deserve, like mercy and grace. God will give us grace. It says, "where sin abounded, grace.
.." What? "Abounded more." In other words, the more sin, the more grace God has to give us, right? Because we don't deserve it but he will give it to us. And then peace. This is really a heavy-duty word - peace. There are two verses that always jump in my head when I think of peace. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.
" That means, if we keep our focus on God - and so Paul is starting right out saying, 'it's God. It's God. It's not me. It's not man. I wasn't appointed by any man.
' And he makes it very clear in chapter 1, 'I wasn't a disciple, I wasn't an apostle. When Jesus was on earth I wasn't even a Christian.' And he says, 'no man had anything to do with this.' And it even says, 'after he was converted on the road to damascus he spent three years and he kind of had a preparation for the ministry.' And he says, 'I didn't even bother with the disciples. I didn't go to Jerusalem. I didn't get their okay. But I did see Peter.
' And this is in this chapter. I hope you read the chapter, I'm summarizing it today. He says, 'I spent 15 days with Peter and James, the brother of Jesus was there.' Well, step-brother. And some of the new translations will put step-brother, because Joseph had four sons before Jesus. And those are recorded by name in Matthew 13, verse 55.
And one of them was Jude, which we believe wrote the book of Jude. Another was James, that's mentioned here, that also probably wrote the book of James and may have been the first general conference president in antioch and that's also in the book of acts. You have to really go into acts to get a lot of the background of where Paul is in his Galatians book here. But, another peace one, "great peace have they which love thy law." Some say the law is done away with. It says, "great peace have they which love thy law.
" We know the law is love God, love man. And when you love God, love man you have peace, right? "Great peace have those that love thy law and nothing shall offend them." That means somebody could come right up and swear and spit in your face and you just feel sorry for them, right? Nothing shall offend them. They're not offended because really, if we are Christian and represent Christ, who are they really upset at? They're upset at Jesus. They're upset at what Jesus did. In the middle of Tuesday's it says, which aspects of the Gospel does Paul include in Galatians 1:1-6?' It says, "he gave himself for our sins.
" He will take our sins from us and then it says, "he will deliver us from this world." Oh, I like that one. He will take us out of this world. It doesn't say at the same time. Many people wish that right after they're baptized they can keep going. Come up and not stop.
But, satan has other plans to try to discourage. But then God's power is mightier and he has plans above satan's plans. Praise the Lord. Wednesday's lesson - 'no other Gospel.' Paul makes it very clear in this chapter that there really is no other Gospel but the Gospel of salvation through Christ and that God The Father is the creator of all and The Father of all. In about every book, Paul is identifying himself when he writes to them.
He says, 'Paul and barnabas' and whoever else. And then he will say something about 'from the Lord.' And he usually will say, 'I pray for you often.' Or' I'm remembering you in my prayers' and my thoughts have been with you.' Galatians 1 he doesn't do that. Paul was so upset with what some individuals were doing in those churches that he jumps right into it. He jumps right into it. He doesn't waste time talking in the preamble, he just goes right in and he misses thanking them for anything, he just says, 'I've got to get right to it.
' Have you ever had something so much on your mind that when you see somebody - you might not have seen them for years and all of a sudden you blurt that out instead of even saying, 'hi.' It's easy and it happens more frequently, I think, the older we get. We get something on our mind and we have to do it or else we'll forget it. And so, you've got to get right into it. And Paul is kind of saying, 'I've got something that I've go to unload and I can't wait.' And in verses - in the middle of the page - what strong words does Paul use that demonstrate the degree of his concern about what is happening in galatia? In verses 6 through 9 he says, "there's people there troubling you.' He makes it right out. He's not behind any bush here.
And he says, 'they're perverting the Gospel that I preach to you. They are giving you a different Gospel.' And so, he tells them right up front - and they say that good teaching is to tell the class what you want them to know when the class is over and then to teach it and make sure they know it. And then quiz - oh, there's the quiz part - quiz them at the end to see if they did and ask them if they understood or 'how do you understand what we've tried to present today?' So Paul is saying, 'the Gospel has been perverted. What I gave you is not sound right now. Some of you are believing something that's different from what we preached.
' And he even said in one of the earlier verses that, 'don't believe anything that comes that's different than what I've preached to you, even if it's an angel from heaven.' Did you get that? That's in verse 8. "But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we preached to you before, let him be accursed." Now, some say, 'how could it be? An angel from heaven wouldn't have a different Gospel, would it?' Kind of his point. A true angel would not have a different doctrine, but, does satan disguise himself as an angel of light? And he says, ' even if an angel appears to you from heaven and you say, 'that's an angel from God' and he's got a different message, don't believe him. It's not God's angel. Thursday's lesson - moving right along - I have good reason for it.
Don't be concerned, I'll still be short of time, I'm sure. The origin of Paul's Gospel. It says, the troublemakers in galatia were claiming that Paul's Gospel was really driven by his desire to obtain the approval of others. He was pleasing people. Well, they didn't know Paul, did they? Paul's messages are very, very direct and very straight and, yes, there may be some theology that you have to really study at, but when he says something, he says it and he doesn't apologize for it.
And so, if he was wanting to please man, humans, he could have spoken just the words that they wanted to hear. Itching ears you know. He could have said, 'well I know these people are this so I'm just going to give them what they want.' And, there are churches that actually choose their own pastors and they want a pastor that will scratch their ears when they itch, right? And I praise God that in most cases in our church organization the conference is well aware of what the churches' needs are and they will try to get a pastor that can help meet those needs and not just soothe them. And so, Paul didn't come in just trying to please them. Paul was saying, 'I have a message from God.
' Just read the account of Paul's conversion in acts 8 and 9 and see how he was - he was headed to do damage to Christians and he was struck down blind for three days. And then it said he got his sight back but, probably not % - we think that's probably that thorn in the flesh, because he constantly is praying about the thorn in the flesh. And the Lord didn't heal him, did he? Corinthians 12 he said, 'I prayed three times that God remove that thorn in the flesh and God said, 'no, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness.' And then Paul said, 'I glory in my tribulations. I'm thrilled and I'm happy that I have that thorn in the flesh.
" We need to say that, right? If God doesn't heal us we say we're going to be stronger spiritually because of it. And the reason why we really, really think - and I'm going to jump into a lesson a few ahead now because some of you are looking and saying, 'is that real?' I'm reading your expressions. You didn't say that. But in Galatians 4, verses 12 through 15, this is a few chapters ahead. "Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as you are.
You have not injured me at all." He's kind of softening things a little bit in this chapter, isn't he? "You know how through infirmity of the flesh." There it is, thorn in the flesh. "I preached the Gospel unto you at the first." When I first came. Remember? I wasn't in perfect health. I had a thorn in my flesh. "And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not.
.." In other words, you didn't hold it against me. You tolerated me. "Nor rejected me..." - You didn't reject me. "But you received me as an angel of God..." He's complimenting them here now, isn't he? "Even as Christ himself." You treated me just like I was the Savior. In other words, you almost worshiped me.
"Where is then the blessedness ye speak of? For I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me." Now, that's pretty clear. His thorn in the flesh was, no doubt, poor vision, right? And where could that have begun? Very likely the whole experience to recall his conversion experience. It's a memory - it's like a scar - it's a memory of how we met the Lord. It brings us back to our first love. Just like the laodicean message - I'm sorry, the first church in ephesus - they lost their first love.
They needed to get back to their first love. And so, is it possible that our trials and tribulations could be a reminder from God of our first love? Come back to it. And Paul is saying that he was ordained by God on that road to damascus. And then, it goes through in that acts 8 and 9 and it shows that a man by the name of annanias was given a vision that he was to go into damascus and ask for this particular Saul. By the way, Saul and Paul are the same person as you know.
And we don't know anywhere in the Bible where God changed his name from Saul to Paul. It appears that both names were his name. He could have been Saul Paul. One name was very accepted among the Hebrews and another name very accepted among the Romans and he was a pastor to the gentiles, right? And so he used Paul most of the time. When he was working with the gentiles it was, 'Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul.
' Up until then, when he was around the jews it was 'Saul, Saul, Saul.' And so, he was touched when annanias came and God said to annanias, 'touch this man's eyes.' And it says the scales came off of them. A miracle. Those miracles can still happen today when God knows it's best for the Spiritual well-being of that person, right? It can still happen. Now, God revealed himself to Paul in a different way than he revealed himself to me. And I don't know if anyone here has had a damascus-road experience, but God has made it clear in His Word that he does speak his message through human beings.
We've got three texts we're going to look at right now that have been distributed. Numbers 12:6 is the first one. And I would like the person who has that to identify themself. There it is. Numbers 12, verse 6.
"And he said, hear now my words: if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream." There it is. God's going to send messages through humans by visions and dreams. That's very clear. Amos 3:7. Who has that one? Raise your hand - and we've got - right down here.
"Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants, the prophets." There it is. God is not going to do some traumatic thing without notifying human beings through a prophet. "Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants, the prophets." Pretty clear. Next one is 2 Peter 1:21. Who has that? 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 21.
"For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." That's what Paul was saying - that he was moved by God. He says, 'I'm not doing it by the will of any man. No human has told me what to say. It is God's will through the Holy Spirit.' Thank you. So, God is saying that things that happen on this earth, the big earth movers, shakers, are going to be announced ahead of time.
God's people are going to know about them ahead of time and just think, in Daniel and Revelation, we can think of many things yet to happen, correct? But they can happen fast and none of us know if we'll be around tomorrow and so we don't say, 'well, we'll delay.' But, looking back over the last years of earth's history and what happened with the u.s.s.r. And how that divided up and then the wall in germany, those things happened very rapidly. And we're told the last movements would be rapid ones and so, we aren't looking at time, we're looking at the events and these events can happen rapidly. So God says he's going to tell people. He also said that there's going to be prophecy right up through 'til the end of time.
Now, he didn't say they were going to be consecutive, but he says there's going to be prophets and there's going to be - you know, you find that in the old testament and the new testament. You find that in Joel 2, where young men and old men, and young women, and women, they'll be given visions and dreams. There are four places in the new testament where it identifies God's gifts to the church on all four lists - prophecy is there. And when we come to the next few texts we're going to read, we'll see that John says something about prophets as well. So how do we know if a person - now they can read Galatians, when they got those - that letter from Paul and started reading it, some of them could say, 'well, who does he think he is?" I mean, anybody can say God gave them that message, right? But he was giving his credentials about his conversion experience and the fact that he had met with Peter and he'd gotten, kind of, Peter's blessing and even - he didn't name drop, I don't think, when he used James the brother of Jesus there, but we have a filtering, a screening process that God has given us in his word and there's a four-test evaluation of a person that may come forward and claim they have a message from God.
And I'm going to go through those right now and I'm going to have those four places read. Jeremiah 28:9. Jeremiah 28:9. "As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent." Thank you. That is 100% accurate.
Right? The prophet has to be % accurate. That's the text. Jeremiah 28:9. What they say must be 100%. What a tough screen, right? No error - margin for error there at all.
Let's go to Isaiah 8:20. Isaiah 8:20. Isaiah 8:20. To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to tHis Word, it is because there is no light in them. There it is, folks.
To the law and to the testimony. To the law of God and to the testimony of his prophets. If they're not in harmony with Scripture they're not of God. Matthew 7:20. Matthew 7:20.
"Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. In other words, they are going to practice what they preach. They are going to be 100% pure. And 1 John 4, 1 through 3. There's three verses here.
Believe not the - every spirit, but try the Spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh of God. And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." Thank you. Now there is the cincher, the fourth one. They must accept Jesus as the Messiah.
The one who came to pay the price for our salvation. They have to accept Christ as the Messiah. Notice what John said at the beginning. Not every spirit that is around is a true spirit. Right? And it says, 'test the Spirits.
' Now, some say, 'well after the Bible was put together - after Christ went to heaven, everything is fine. Everything has been presented that the world needs to know. We don't need another prophet and there shouldn't be any more prophets.' Well, of course, I said before that prophets are mentioned as being needed as time goes on, but it shows that there were going to be true and false prophets. If there were never going to be any more prophets, John would have said, 'believe no prophets other than the ones that have already written.' Right? But it says, 'test the Spirits.' In other words, there's going to be true and there's going to be false. Now, how can we apply this lesson? We need to test.
If somebody came here and said, 'I got a message from the Lord and I need to share it today and dr. Derose I know you're all prepared and ready to preach today, but, you know what, God gave me a special message last night.' What would we do? There is that screening process, right? And even before the seventh day adventist church was organized in 1861, there was a problem within the camp of the new believers. And it was in jackson, Michigan, and dan palmer was one of the first adventists in jackson, Michigan. He was the church leader and at his home they would often meet for their worship services. And this one time in 1855, jan loughborough was there along with Ellen white.
She was going to preach on Sabbath and this was about the middle of the week. And then there were a couple of pastors from the area that were there, by the last names of case and russell. Case and russell were not sure about this lady and her visions. They had serious questions. And the reason for this mid-week meeting was not a prayer meeting.
One of the ladies of the church had said something that, apparently was said in a very poor manner and nasty, and they were meeting to see whether they should discipline her, so she must have really done something out of line. Well, these two pastors, case and russell, they stood up and condemned her in front of the group, which was not a big group. And then, as they were in prayer at the end, Ellen white went off into vision. And when she opened her eyes she said, 'this lady didn't do things right and, you know, the church will deal with this.' And then she couldn't remember the rest of the vision. Now, this doesn't sound like a prophet of God or a prophetess, does it? But, there was a purpose for this, because while she was in vision, case and russell checked her over.
They said, 'hey, you have questions about her, check her over.' There was no breath, yet she was strong in vision. And they said, 'supernatural. Supernatural.' And then, they said, 'oh, this has to be supernatural.' And then, when she shared the testimony that this lady was in the wrong, she did it in a very gentle manner, they publicly said, 'folks, we believe firmly that Ellen white is a messenger of God.' She confirmed it right there. And then, Friday night before she was to preach, she got another vision and the last part of the first vision came back to her. God deliberately didn't have her share it that night.
So in the church the next day, this was probably at the same house, she said, 'the Lord showed me that vision again, and the last part is very, very clear. This sister did make a mistake, but she was not treated properly by these two pastors.' She said, 'they're the ones who need to be reprimanded.' And the lady stood up and came forward and hugged her and they cried and she said, 'I'm very sorry church for what I've done.' And she gave her heart anew to the Lord and made everything right. And those two men stormed out and said, 'she's not a messenger of God.' And they said, 'we'll start our own group.' And so they started a paper, the messenger party, and, as they were starting their group, James white got sick. He was sick quite a bit. He did the work of about four men, they said.
It took about four people to replace him when he passed. He was general conference president ten years over three different time periods. Most people don't know that. And he finished being general conference president a year before he died in 1881. They were married 35 years and he left her a widow 34 years.
Did you know that? I mean, she was a widow almost half of her life after she was married. And so, James white heard that they had published something about him in their magazine, so he got their magazine and it said, 'this is evidence from God that the whites are not on their side - he's sick - he's going to die. And James white was a little feisty, like Paul was I think. James white immediately got better or felt better. And he said, like whitcliff of old - this is what he said and is recorded in volume 1 of the testimonies, page 96.
"I shall not die but live and declare the works of the Lord and I may yet preach at their funeral." Well, these individuals created quite a stir, because they still were connected in name - even though it wasn't seventh day adventist - with these new advent believers, right? That kept the Sabbath. And they continued publishing their work and the leadership wanted to probably take them on. And Ellen white says, 'no.' Kind of like the counsel that was given in acts. If they're of God you can't stop them. If they're not of God they'll die out on their own.
So Ellen white made this prediction. "They will argue amongst themselves. They will dwindle and end up without any followers and our Numbers will double." In 1858, three years later, that's exactly what happened. The membership of the review and herald went from 1,000 to 2,000 and that group was no longer. Now, there are many others that have happened since then.
Messenger party - that has always bothered me because in Canada - and some of my friends in Canada will get to watch this one - the canadian union paper is called the messenger and I said, 'oh boy. I wish that' - it's a good name though because messenger means from God. But, I'm going to share another one, if I can abbreviate it in the few minutes that we have. As you know, Ellen white died in 1915. Months after, in June of , a lady by the name of margaret w.
Rowan came forward in los angeles saying, 'God has given me the prophetic gift.' Well, the brethren checked her over. They checked what her prophecies were and what her - and after several, they shook their heads and they recommended that she just not do any proclaiming of that whatsoever. She continued though, because she had some followers. And followers can be very encouraging and supportive and so these followers encouraged her to 'hey, you've got messages, go ahead. Keep sharing.
' So she shared and shared and finally, in 1919, she said, 'God just gave me a vision and he showed me that Ellen white was shown that I was to follow her. And it's in the file for 1911.' Remember, she died in 1915 and this is 1919 now. 'It's in the 1911 drawer of - it's in there. I saw it in vision.' And wouldn't you know that willie white, who was one of the ones who was in charge of her writings, they went to elmshaven and st. Helena where all of the archives were then.
Spirit of prophecy - they pulled out the drawer. They had classified this, and you know as well as I do, if Ellen white had been shown the name or told the name of anyone to follow, she would have made a deal about it, right? So they went looking and sure enough, in that drawer, there was a piece of paper with a signature that looked identical to Ellen white's. The paper - a little bit different, but the handwriting looked identical. And it said, 'after me there shall follow one the name of margaret w. Rowan.
And they scratched their heads and they said, 'where did this come from? We've never seen this before.' And they had all sorts of questions on that. Well, what had happened was margaret rowan had been disfellowshipped and now she was really kicking up her heels, you see. And she was - then she started making - there's still a question. She's no longer a seventh day adventist. Then she's predicting that the Lord is coming February 6th 1925.
I'm sorry, probation ends. the Lord was going to come February 6th '26 - a year later. Well, it didn't happen, but adventists were given credit and so the seventh day adventist church had said, 'no, this lady is not a seventh day adventist, she's just using our name, but that's not - we do not teach or believe that. We do not believe she's getting messages from God.' Well, it became obvious when February 6th came, that she was not a prophet of God. She didn't pass the test of 100%, right? She was not 100% accurate.
About a year later, a dr. Fullmer came forward. He'd been a follower of hers and he said, 'listen, back in 1919, right after she was disfellowshipped from church, I was on a tour through elmshaven and I slipped that phony document in there.' And he confessed to doing it and they - then the church knew, well that makes sense. He said the whole thing was phony. Now, naturally, margaret rowan wouldn't appreciate - that was one of her staunch supporters.
She still had a few, but not many anymore. Several months after dr. Fullmer had disclosed the truth, he was called to take care of a sick person at midnight in a little - it's called a motor court - we call them motels. But they were in cottages and one of the cottages - he was to come and to provide medical assistance. And as soon as the door opened, he got clobbered with a pipe and he fell and the neighbors heard the commotion and they called the police.
And when the police came there they found margaret rowan and two associates with not only a pipe but a burlap sack and a shovel. And they admitted that they had plans to kill him. They were all three sentenced to one to ten years in prison. Margaret rowan and her two associates spent time in san quentin. "By their fruits ye shall know them.
" Today, individuals come forward that claim they have special messages. I've heard d.a. Delafield and ron Numbers tell that they have to screen. It used to be they'd all go to the e.g. White estate to get screened.
Now, they're asking each conference and union to deal with it at their level. By the way, when this group - the messenger party back at the time of Ellen white - when they left, here's what Ellen white stated in page 122 of volume 1 of the testimonies. I see this as the way God is telling us to go. "A place is now open for all such, where they can go and find pasture with those of their kind." If they don't like God's teaching in this church then go to their own farm, right? Now these words may surprise you. "And we should praise God that in mercy he has rid the church of them.
God has given many of these persons up to their own ways to be filled with their own doings." And then, down a few paragraphs she says, "I saw that God has given these people opportunity to change. He has enlightened them as to their love for self and their other sins, but they would not heed it. They would not be reformed and he mercifully relieved the church of them." And then this statement also, in testimonies, volume 5, page 293. "There are a thousand temptations in disguise prepared for those who have the light of truth and the only safety for any of us is in receiving no new doctrine, no new interpretation of the Scripture without first submitting it to the brethren of experience. Lay it before them in a humble, teachable spirit, with earnest prayer.
And if they see no light in it, yield to their judgment. For in the multitude of counselors there is safety." And that's a quote from Proverbs 11:14. Well, our time is up. Reminder, Bibleuniverse.com for your answers to Bible questions, to download daily devotionals, to read daily devotionals. If you go on there, you may have a hard time getting off for an hour or two, because it's just loaded with beautiful spiritual things.
Until next time, God bless you. Virtually everyone on the earth, regardless of religion or nationality, recognize that there is some form of battle raging in the world around us between the forces of good and evil. A colossal struggle between light and darkness, truth and error, oppression and freedom, right and wrong, and, ultimately, life and death. Journey back through time to the center of the universe. Discover how a perfect angel transformed into satan, the arch villain.
The birth of evil. A rebellion in heaven. A mutiny that moved to earth. Behold the creation of a beautiful new planet and the first humans. Witness the temptation in eden.
Discover God's amazing plan to save his children. This is a story that involves every life on earth. Every life. The cosmic conflict. If God is good, if God is all powerful, if God is love then what went wrong?