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The Last Leg (Part 2 of 2)
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church, California, USA
Delivery: 2006-01-14 22:35Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2006-01-14 22:35Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/rar/kir-tll2.php
Is Christianity Really True?
Look out into the world. See suffering, violence, death, senseless destruction. See a forest of churches and religious groups, each urgently pitching their recipe for what people should do today. Is salvation really something for sale to the highest bidder? Has Christianity so much in common with eBay? How do we—Seventh-day Adventists—differ from other groups? Why should what we have to say be viewed as being any more legitimate, or true, than what you might hear over at “Bud’s Little Neighborhood Shop for Psychic Readings”?
Here are six quick points in answer.
- The core ideas of Christianity have affected countless people for millennia. There are other religions out there, by the bushel. But Christianity includes the biggest ideas and the most noble vision of what man may become.
- Christianity is a linear religion; it sees history not as an endless cycle of repeating script-items, but as a string of events, each flowing logically from the one before it; a grand arc reaching from Eden lost to Eden restored.
- Christianity acknowledges man’s awful situation after the damage we receive from the Fall, and offers hope of change now.
- Christianity deals in prophecy. The Bible not only tells our history, points us to our real roots, but also includes the predictive element. It begs us to put its God to the test, to compare prophecy with history, to see if something is operating that cannot be explained purely on the basis of Social Psychology.
- Christianity dares to tell the us the truth about our future even as it dares to tell us the truth about our past. We are fallen beings. We are sinful by nature. But God has not abandoned us. He promises that He can restore us.
- The Bible’s end-time scenarios in particular are lacking in political-correctness. Where there is a truth, there is always a lie standing right next to it. When God has truly called people up to a line above the world, beyond the common, against the grain, there will be a concrete jungle filled with other, lesser proposals, seductions designed so that you can rationalize living down in the defiling smog of earthliness while embracing a few select practices that offer you the illusion that you are a spiritual person.
Yes friends, let the buyer beware. Satan saw you coming and he is waving clever offers at you, to keep you out of help’s way. God is today looking for a people who will be bold in His name, who will cast aside their tart little sins and receive instead priceless peace. God is searching for some brave souls who will rise above mediocrity and compromise and take Him at His word. He is looking for a people He can teach; a people who are not all caught up in their own imagined brilliance and expertise; an army whom He can use; a company of believers through whom He can finish the mystery of God (Revelation 10:6).
The Embarrassment of Adventism
More than a century and a half ago, He called this church into being, this organization, this people. He swung the great cleaver of truth and cut us out from the world. He armed us with His apocalypse, His revealing of the end-times. He committed to us unpopular truths. The angel came down from heaven with the little book open in his hand (Revelation 10:1, 2) and the truths of Daniel and Revelation especially were committed to us. He appointed us to live them and give them to planet earth.
But God’s truth was not good enough for some of us. The familiar pattern that has destroyed several who have walked before us almost has been repeated in us. The reformers used of God to found this movement did the gospel work, but faltered at certain points, eventually aged, and died. The next generation came on board. But many lacked the reforming experience. Then later, their children inherited the torch of truth, and many of them said, “what is this?” And with each step away from the love for Jesus and His truth that animated our religious forefathers and that had led them to step out from among their contemporaries in advocacy of the unpopular light shining from heaven, the common, low-level faith on the other side of the fence passing for popular religion began to look more and more attractive.
They began to pine for the comfortable religion, the out-of-date religion, the very brand-names that had in the previous century turned their backs to the God of heaven who sent His Son Jesus.
Jesus had come on an expensive mission. He did not come with a bulldozer to widen the narrow way, to put in an eight-lane freeway on the way to heaven. So today the world is pandering to Christians, hankering for their dollars. It’s schlock. I looked up “schlock.” Definitions found? 1. Cheap, trashy. 2. Something of cheap or inferior quality. 3. World-renowned and totally useless. “Schlock.” The kind of Christianity many have known is only schlock. Its famous. But useless. It has little power to change lives. It is same-old, same-old.
Somewhere along the way, some Seventh-day Adventists (I’m telling you the truth now), decided that the truth was not good enough for them. So they made up their own version and sat down on the corner with all the other religious brand-names to pitch it as “new and improved.” And everything stayed pretty quite until God came along and upset the apple cart, broke up the party, and threw His divine monkey-wrench into the works, and out popped the networked world. And suddenly, truth that men had quietly retired received the divine impetus. God was on the move. Now He could use willing Seventh-day Adventists as He had always wanted to. Present truth could not remain buried. God would have His way. Providentially a situation had developed where there could be a breakout.
LGT14
And that brings us to just the past few years. Many among God’s people today are embracing truths they’ve long been kept in the dark about. The old paths are being restored. The bankruptcy of certain years is being seen now (by some) as bankruptcy. We no longer wait for the cavalry to come galloping over the hill to save us with the latest books and programs. Now we watch for God’s leading. He guides us. Now we make our own. Seventh-day Adventism is being renewed from its own grassroots. And so the power of Christianity is braking out again. We live in the hour!
Last week we shared as I outlined the work that some workers have done to produce the 14 points of Last Generation theology. We unveiled this latest book, Cleanse and Close, a concise restatement of the theology undergirding the successful accomplishment of the church’s mission. The title for the book was taken from two points distinctive to Seventh-day Adventism: the cleansing of the sanctuary (Daniel 8:14) and the close of probation (Revelation 22:11, 12). We have also introduced a new website to specifically address these topics which we feel help point us more decidedly to Christ. We call it http://www.lastgenerationtheology.org.
Last week we covered the first eight of the 14 points. This week, we share the last six. Let’s wade right in. Let’s give the handouts right now. You have a sheet with all 14 points on it. Let’s address the rest of the list.
Atonement
9. Jesus is Currently Making the Final Atonement. Jesus’ atonement was promised in Eden. With His incarnation and then death as our Substitute on the cross, His atoning work was begun. He rose from the dead and went to heaven in A.D. 31 to represent us before the Father, who received His sacrifice for us. Through that sacrifice we can be right with God as soon as we accept His gift of forgiveness and heart cleansing. In A.D. 1844 He entered the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, commencing the closing phase of His atonement. Today, Jesus is making the final atonement.
We move into the message here with the atonement. The atonement was not completed on the cross. A perfect sacrifice was there offered by Christ. But the atonement was no more completed at the cross than the sanctuary service was completed when the sacrificial animal had been offered on the bronze altar in the courtyard.
Still the blood must be transferred into the sanctuary. Still the Day of Atonement must come. Still there must be a qualified High Priest who can legitimately stand in solidarity and identification with man as representative of the fallen race. Still there must be a cleansing of the sanctuary. Still there must be an annual removal of sin from the community in order that the camp might be restored to cleanness at last. Remember, the necessity of a system for disposing of sin is only current in a world where the disposition of sin remains unresolved, where choices are still being made to rebel against the government of God. Once that rebellion is ended, no sanctuary is needed in that respect—exactly what the Bible foretells:
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it (Revelation 21:22).
Where the common view of Christendom is that everything was resolved at the cross, you and I say, no, there was something more. Some think that the Bible story ended at the cross. But Scripture presents to us a two-fold crushing of Satan, first by Christ at the cross (Genesis 3:15), where Jesus crushes Satan’s head, and “Yet Satan was not then destroyed” (The Desire of Ages, p. 761). But at the last Christ does indeed destroy Satan, bringing down all his serpentine claims—and does so through, in the very end, His saints (Romans 16:20). Under their feet, Satan’s kingdom is at last deconstructed.
But some ask why Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, the example of His life, is not sufficient. Why must we add, so they suppose, to God’s plan of salvation? But apples and oranges are being mixed when this question is asked. This is not about saving ourselves; Jesus does that. We are adding nothing to that. But for God there is a second question. It has to do with the successful vindication of His character in the great controversy war. Elder Priebe has set forth the very point: “To silence the last lingering question that perhaps Jesus was sinless because He was God, the final generation will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that men and women with fallen natures can live without sinning” (Dennis Priebe, Face-to-Face With the Real Gospel, pp. 89, 90).
You see, Satan can raise the question, “Why yes, Jesus overcame, but is this any surprise? He was God. He had enormous advantages. This conflict is not over whether God can obey God; it is over whether man can obey God. How do we know that Jesus did not use some of His powers to save Himself, without disclosing it? How do we know that Jesus did not use some secret, insider knowledge to overcome that we don’t know about? Jesus’ example proves nothing.” He can raise this charge. It is proven spurious by the Bible, but he can raise the charge, he can insinuate and inculcate doubt. But when you and I, garden-variety, plain-jane, John Doe humans overcome—it is entirely clear that it is not just God overcoming in some sneaky way. No doubts, even tiny ones, are left over what has happened. This is why God chooses to commission us into this role as His witnesses.
The atonement began with Jesus’ promise to come to earth, was powerfully advanced when Jesus did so come, took a humanity degenerated by thousands of years of decline wrought by sin, overcame, and went up on the cross and made sacrifice of that life. But even then the atonement was not completed. Jesus immediately must fill the role of heavenly High Priest.
As outlined in the book of Hebrews, today He intercedes for us, offers power from above to break up our destructive habit-patterns, so that they may be overruled, taken down by God’s empowering grace, put out of commission. Yes, we live in the anti-typical day of atonement, and the atonement is presently under way. Jesus is, right now, making the final atonement. Christianity is not just about what Jesus did for us at the cross two thousand years ago, but what Jesus does for us today in 2006 in our present lives.
Next comes the tenth point.
10. Cleansing in Heaven Connected to Cleansing on earth. Neither Luther nor the Millerite Adventists living in 1844 finished the Reformation or understood the angel messages of Revelation 14 and 18. The cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary is connected to the cleansing and purifying of lives on earth. The sanctuary is cleansed when God has a people who have become so settled into the truth that they will never again be moved to doubt Him or to disobey known duty. The torrent of sin that has needed forgiveness is dried up. Christ’s presence remains with those who have chosen Him. The Holy Spirit empowers obedience even after the ministry of forgiveness is closed.
The Reformers were giants. Without them, where would the Protestant Reformation have been, from whence would the move to restore truth have sprung? We owe a debt to these, many of whom were burned at the stake, paying for their promotion of truth with their lives. But do you know? God unfolds the full catalogue of truth to no one. We all work together. God wants to use the strengths He has given to His church, one a worker here, one a worker there. Don’t misunderstand; today even, there is much to learn. We don’t know it all. But we must be faithful where it comes to what God has revealed.
Never forget the truth of Deuteronomy 29:29:
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Neither you nor I are responsible for “the secret things,” the things which God has not revealed. But “those things which are revealed” what? “Belong unto us and to our children forever.” A perfect sacrifice was offered for us at the cross so that a final atonement could be completed.
Remember, there is a connection between the sanctuary in heaven and the people of God on earth. What is the connection? The sanctuary system was all about the removal of sin from God’s people. Why? Because God wanted to dwell with His people. And their sin-impacted, broken-up natures stood in the way of that. So He devised a system by which past sins could be forgiven and future lives could be conducted under His power to keep men from sinning.
On earth, the sanctuary was where God’s people went in order to be reconciled with God. The whole concept was sin removal, sin discontinuation. And just so today. The sanctuary in heaven is all about sin removal from God’s people on earth. The cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary is connected to the cleansing and purifying of lives on earth. The sanctuary is cleansed when God has a people who have become so settled into the truth that they will never again be moved to doubt Him or to disobey known duty. God is ready today, brothers and sisters, to provide to us the help that we need to be changed. And to Him be all the glory.
But now the 11th item on our list:
Delay and Hastening
11. Delaying the Second Coming Through a Half-Gospel. Jesus’ Second Coming could have occurred within the generation that proclaimed the 1844 messages, but the same sins that kept ancient Israel out of the promised land have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. Unbelief, worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord’s professed people have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years.
Here, we acknowledge an incredible thing. Not the wickedness of the world, but the attitude of God’s people has delayed the Second Coming of Jesus. Heaven is not waiting for Satan’s sold-out followers to become more evil. Heaven is waiting for those who claim to be Jesus’ followers to become more Christ-like.
The world has watched and the unfallen angels have clocked many hours seeing just how evil people can be who turn from God to self and who sink down into Satan’s plan of self-destruction. God is not waiting for another war to see how ugly and skewed people’s characters can become. God is waiting for Christians to be Christians.
Back when He delivered His followers out from the slavery of Egypt, He commissioned prophets to record of what they did, because they were to be our examples. First Corinthians 10:1-11 explains this divine plan:
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
The record of what happened to the Hebrews in the wilderness was preserved for us, as example. What did they do? They were being led by Christ Himself, but many were overthrown. They lusted after evil things, they lugged their idols through the Sinai, they indulged in sensuality and illicit sex. All this, while the presence of God lingered above the camp. Their sins were high-handed. But we ourselves are guilty of many transgressions.
What should have been a passage of just a few weeks become a 40-year ordeal. When God said they could go in and claim the land, they refused and rebelled. So God sent them back into the wilderness where a generation was laid to rest. What was the blockade? The sins were unbelief, worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord’s professed people. But the very same sins that kept ancient Israel out of the promised land have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. We are the modern Israel. The Second Coming is the parallel event for us. But our contentedness—and with what?—has left us lingering here in this old desert of earth decade after decade. Here we still are. As Israel of old lingered in the desert playing with sin and God refused to grant them entry into Canaan, so we, these past 162 years have done the same. Not Satan, Not God, but God’s people have themselves delayed the Second Coming of Christ by repeating the mistakes of that people.
With recognition can come repentance, and with repentance can come hope. Which leads into our next point.
12. Hastening the Second Coming and Embracing the Harvest Principle. Heaven has put it in our power by consecrated, Christ-reflecting lives to hasten Jesus’ return. God will wait for the maturing of Christian character in a significant number of people as the chief condition determining those events, such as the latter rain, loud cry, sealing, and Sunday law, which affect the time when probation for the world shall close, and thus the time of the Second Coming.
Just as we may slow the arrival of the Second Coming through disobedience, so may we speed up or accelerate the time of the Second Coming, by embracing God’s cures. We must look and live; we must let Him direct our faith to the place of hope. And we will never be the same! Turn to 1 Peter 3:11-13 and notice with me what saith the Blessed Book:
Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The Word of God points us to the fact of earth’s imminent dissolution, and says that we can hasten that day, and that since we can hasten that day, we should hasten that day. How? By living lives that testify to the goodness of God—lives that vindicate His character.
Remember, how do God’s people overcome in Revelation 12, the war chapter? Verse 11: “And they overcame him [Satan, the Accuser] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” Jesus crushes Satan at the cross; Jesus crushes Satan again in the end-time under the feet of His faithful followers. Their lives produce the testimony proving to the universe that God delivers on His promises; God changes those who trust in Him; salvation comes through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Heaven is waiting for the fruit of the gospel to be revealed in the lives of those who claim to be changed by it. God invites the universe to look closely. Our lives are subject to a fruit inspection.
We live here in this crazy state of California. Now many times I have crossed the border here from Oregon. And if you are entering from the Oregon border you are not allowed to bring fruit into this state unless it is California fruit you bought in Oregon. The fruit must pass inspection; it must have the right sticker on it, the right seal if you will. Then it can pass the border.
Friends, the contest is on. It is the mark of the beast versus the seal of God. Are you letting Jesus grow His fruit in the garden of your life? Where is your heart?
Now, at last, our final two points:
Great Controversy and Decision Time
13. Character Witnesses to the Great Healer. More than forensic declarations only, the gospel is primarily concerned with telling the truth about God as our Best Friend. He is more concerned with our healing than with legal pronouncements. In the great controversy, His character witnesses tell the story of their deliverance.
We talked about this in some respects already. The testimony of our lives has something to say about the life that is lived in God; and the life that is lived in God is either a testimony to a good God or to a God who has misrepresented the facts to us, who promises He will help us but who refuses to.
The gospel is not only about counting people right, but making them right. Here, the California border fruit inspection illustration breaks down. God does not look merely at the labels. Nor the onlooking universe. Much more, they are checking for truth in advertising. What is under the label? The universe wants to know. Sin must not rise up again. Ever. So the inhabitants of heaven are all from Missouri. (Missouri is the “show me” state. See Why is Missouri Called the “Show Me” State?)
The gospel is not about some lifeless, cold, indifferent legal plan. The gospel is not about saving men and women by getting them the best lawyer. It is about healing them by getting them the best Physician. Our lives have something to say about the God we claim to serve.
It is true Paul warns that when we fail we must “let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). But it is equally true that the Scripture insists “Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 43:10, 12; 44:8). In what way are men and women to be His witnesses? Verse 43:12 says it is because He has saved. When has He saved? “When there was no strange god among you.” That is, God’s power to change people, heal them, restore them, transform them, is demonstratred but only when we let Him be God, only when we surrender to Him fully, and when neither we ourselves nor any creepy notions from schlock Christianity interpose between us and His power to save. Jesus did not die on the cross merely bring us all wounded up and bleeding into the kingdom, just as broken and sin-inclined as ever before. Isaiah 53:10, 11 says, When Jesus died on the cross, there was a crucial purpose and a delightful reward for Him. By His knowledge—the experience of Jesus—He would be found able to transform many people and bring them into peace with His kingdom of unselfishness. If your best human friend died to save you, wouldn’t that be an incredible thing? You would be supremely humbled. But Jesus is your best human Friend. And He did die to save you. No wonder you long to testify of His goodness. And the universe, they are ready to see, and rejoice. What then will be the word of our testimony? Finally, the 14th point in the list: God has big plans. But He has small people. More often than not—much, much more often—we have been the tail and not the head. Just like Israel of old. But God isn’t through with us yet. God stands ready to work through a repentant people. He will not force us to be saved or compel us to serve Him or manipulate us robotically to remove our choice and make us into good people against our will. He is not that kind of God. He respects free choice. So He grants us His truth. His church, worn and scarred from mighty battles over truth, embarrassed and unfaithful as she has often been, remains the apple of His eye. In the book of Hosea, God’s prophet is required to take a harlot for a wife. God’s people have been just as unfaithful to Him. And still He loves, still He waits, still He empowers and grants her that she, His privileged bride, shall have opportunity and of her own free choice, make herself ready (Revelation 19:7, 8). And in earth’s last days, Jesus and His bride the church both call. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Revelation 22:17). There is unison, harmony, beauty, marriage, at last. All wrinkles and spots have been removed (Ephesians 5:25-27). Her robes have been washed white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14), her garments are clean and white (Revelation 19:8). She has secondary virginity. The big question is not for the angels. It is not for God. It is not for the fallen angels. It is—strictly—for us. Will we have this man to be our lawfully wedded husband? Will we receive Jesus as Savior and Lord? Will we cooperate so that our robes of character may be washed by His gospel (Titus 3:5)? The universe wants to know. It may be that when people are being persecuted for their faith, being tortured, killed, and maimed, and we see them stand for truth and die, that we think of that as the time of greatest intensity; that we easily assign them, in our hearts, to the category of spiritual heroes. But I want to suggest that the most challenging reformation of all may be when truth is neglected and treated with indifference; when people are not dying for it but lounging lazily in the sun. There is a movement, a revival on, even now, and no mistake. Praise God! But still too few hearts are given to Jesus. Most of those around us are doing Sominex. The most challenging time of reformation of all may be when others are sleeping on every side, and we realize that God is calling to a higher line, and we find that we must go there seemingly alone. It is when we see in our own lives great dark plague-spots and realize that it is now or never, that we must address these issues or sink down into lostness forever. When we have no earthly help—that is when it is hardest to be a reformer. When we embrace God’s power and in its fullness go forward in reform anyway, we will at last understand by experience what it means to stand for Jesus. Because I want to be wholly the Lord’s, I embrace Christianity, Seventh-day Adventism, the Third Angel’s Message, the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, the LGT14. I want to live according to God’s package. Brothers and sisters, let us join hands on the last leg of the journey, finish the Reformation at last, and walk into the end-times where we will meet Jesus face to face. Maranatha! GCO
© 2006 by GreatControversy.org. GCO grants permission to individuals, wholeheartedly encouraging them to copy and reproduce documents and files appearing on this site, in an unaltered state, and for non-commercial use, unless otherwise noted. All other rights reserved. Other groups or entities wishing to reproduce these materials are encouraged to contact us with reproduction requests.Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him (Jesus); He hath put Him to grief: when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My Righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.
Decision Time for Planet Earth. In spite of past insubordination, we believe God stands ready to work through a repentant people. He is using Seventh-day Adventists to prepare the willing for translation. No added Fundamental Belief statement is needed to teach LGT. When Adventists embrace the truths they now have they will become the five wise bridesmaids. Adventist truths enflamed by the transforming Spirit will produce the light that will say to the world, “Behold your God!” The character of God will be demonstrated more clearly and winsomely by the followers of Christ than ever before on Planet Earth. It will be decision time for all, everywhere.
Conclusion: The Most Challenging Reformation of All
