“Go Forward” Church president affirms foundational Adventist beliefs Newly elected GC president Ted Wilson’s sermon on the second Sabbath of the fifty-ninth General Conference session addressed issues such as the authority of God’s Word, belief in the inspiration of Ellen White’s writings, creation, music, and unity in diversity. This is a greatly condensed version of his message to the 70,000 attendees in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome. To read Wilson’s full sermon, go to adventistreview.org/wilsongcsermon. —Editors. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is on a heaven-directed journey, and we are almost home. I believe with all my heart that Jesus is coming soon. I appreciate the wonderful spirit and enthusiasm of our worldwide family of faith. And while we are all proud of our respective nations and cultures, I praise the Lord that there is a culture of Christ that binds us together and supersedes all others. Chaotic World; Solid Word Signs of Christ’s coming are increasing in frequency and intensity. Destructive events in nature, the great confusion of world politics, the pervasive and compromising activities of ecumenism, the dramatic increase and influence of spiritualism, the deterioration of world economies, the disintegration of societal and family values, the disbelief in the absolute authority of God’s holy Word and the Ten Commandments, rampant crime and moral decay, wars and rumors of war: all point to the climax of earth’s history and the Lord’s return. What a blessing to know that even amid the uncertainty of the world around us, we can rest with absolute confidence in the unchanging Word of God. Throughout the course of human history and against relentless attack, God has preserved His holy Word. The Bible contains an accurate account of our origins, a reliable record of our salvation, and a glorious glimpse of our soon-coming deliverance. As Seventh-day Adventists, we accept the Bible as the foundation for all our beliefs and see in its pages our unique prophetic identity and mission. With the power of His truth, God has carved out of this chaotic world the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We are to be a peculiar people, God’s remnant people, to lift up Christ, His righteousness, His three angels’ messages of Revelation 14, and His soon coming. As God’s remnant people, identified in Revelation 12:17 as those “who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ,” we have a unique message of hope and a mandate to proclaim God’s grace to the world. One of the identifying characteristics of God’s last-day people is that the members of His church accept and believe all ten of God’s commandments, including the fourth commandment to remember the Lord’s holy Sabbath day. The observance of the Sabbath is not only a sign of His creatorship in the beginning, but will be the sign of God’s people in the last days. Salvation We rely wholly on Jesus and our relationship with Him for our salvation. We do not obtain salvation through works, but through the grace of Christ. Grace is the promise of God’s pardon and the provision of God’s power--—justification and sanctification. You cannot separate what Christ does for you (justifying you daily as if you had not sinned) from what He does in you (sanctifying you daily as you submit to Him and allow the power of the Holy Spirit to change your life to become more and more like Jesus). It is this marvelous, powerful, redeeming grace we have been called to proclaim to a sin-sick world. “We have no ground for self-exaltation. Our only ground of hope is in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us [justification], and in that wrought by His Spirit working in and through us [sanctification] (Steps to Christ, p. 63). The Spirit of Prophecy Revelation 12:17 tells us that God’s remnant people will “have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Revelation 19:10 explains that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The same spirit that moved the holy men of old has again, in these last days, raised up a messenger for the Lord. The Lord has given us one of the greatest gifts possible in the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy. Just as the Bible is not outdated or irrelevant, neither is the testimony of God’s end-time messenger. God used Ellen G. White as a humble servant to provide inspired insight about Scripture, prophecy, health, education, relationships, mission, families, and much more. As God’s faithful remnant, may we never make of none effect the precious light given us in the writings of Ellen G. White. Our Need of Jesus When we use the term “remnant church,” or “remnant people,” we must never use it in a self-centered, exclusive manner. We are to be the humblest people on earth, recognizing our complete need of Jesus our Savior and praising Him for calling us into this mighty Advent movement. Through Christ’s atoning sacrifice and high priestly ministry we can “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). When we lean completely on the everlasting arms of our Lord, He will work through us in a mighty way to give the final message of mercy to a dying world. Ellen White makes clear that “a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs” (Selected Messages, book 1, p. 121). As we connect with Christ daily and allow Him to work through us, we will be used by the Holy Spirit to proclaim His grace and to hasten the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Egyptians were pursuing the children of Israel at the time of the Exodus, the Israelites felt trapped by the desert to their right, the mountain ahead of them, the Red Sea to their left, and the approaching army of Egypt behind them. They failed to put their trust in the power of God. All they could see were the barriers. What barriers are you facing today? Mountains of secular doubt in the Bible? A sea of family and personal conflicts? Forces of negative social change? Regardless of your circumstances, God has a way forward. Ellen White writes in Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 290: “Often the Christian life is beset by dangers, and duty seems hard to perform. The imagination pictures impending ruin before and bondage or death behind. Yet the voice of God speaks clearly, ‘Go forward.’ We should obey this command, even though our eyes cannot penetrate the darkness, and we feel the cold waves about our feet. The obstacles that hinder our progress will never disappear before a halting, doubting spirit.” So look to the Almighty God, who can take you through anything you will face in the future. Never lose your full confidence and trust in Him. Always obey His command to “Go forward.” Go Forward, Not Backward Go forward, not backward. Do not succumb to the mistaken idea of accepting worship or evangelistic outreach methods merely because they are new and “trendy.” We must test all things according to the supreme authority of God’s Word and the counsel with which we have been blessed in the writings of Ellen G. White. Don’t reach out to movements that promise you spiritual success based on faulty theology, but look to evangelistic methods and programs that are based on solid biblical principles and the Great Controversy theme. Go forward, not backward! Use Christ-centered, Bible-based worship and music practices in church services. While we understand that worship services and cultures vary throughout the world, don’t go backward into confusing settings where music and worship become so focused on emotion and experience that you lose the central focus on the Word of God. All worship, however simple or complex, should lift up Christ and put down self. Go forward, not backward! Don’t succumb to loose theology that wrests God’s Word from the pillars of biblical truth and the landmark beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The historic biblical beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church will stand secure to the end of time. Selected Messages, book 1, pages 207, 208, reads: “What influence is it that would lead men at this stage of our history to work in an underhand, powerful way to tear down the foundation of our faith—the foundation that was laid at the beginning of our work by prayerful study of the Word and by revelation? … Messages of every order and kind have been urged upon Seventh-day Adventists, to take the place of the truth which, point by point, has been sought out by prayerful study, and testified to by the miracle-working power of the Lord. But the waymarks which have made us what we are, are to be preserved.... He calls upon us to hold firmly, with the grip of faith, to the fundamental principles that are based upon unquestionable authority.” Go forward, not backward! Stand firm for God’s Word as it is literally read and understood. We must always humbly recognize that we are finite, fallen creatures observing the works of an infinite, omnipotent God, and there are things in both nature and Scripture that we do not fully comprehend. But that which the Lord in His mercy has given to us in clear language to be taken as fact simply because He said so must not be shrouded in skepticism. Don’t misinterpret the first 11 chapters of Genesis or other areas of Scripture as allegorical or merely symbolic. The Seventh-day Adventist Church teaches and believes in the biblical record of Creation, which took place in six literal, consecutive, contiguous 24-hour days. If God did not create this world in six literal days and then bless the Sabbath day, why are we worshipping Him on the seventh-day Sabbath as Seventh-day Adventists? To misinterpret this doctrine is to deny God’s Word and the very purpose of the Seventh-day Adventist movement as the remnant church of God. Don’t go backward to atheistic or theistic evolution; go forward to the prophetic understanding that loyalty to God, the Creator and Redeemer, will be seen in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath as the distinguishing characteristic of God’s people in the very end of time. Again we read in Selected Messages, book 1, p. 170: “Do not overstrain the meaning of sentences in the Bible in an effort to bring forth something odd in order to please the fancy. Take the Scriptures as they read.” Go forward, not backward! Let Scripture be its own interpreter. Our church has long held to the historical-biblical, or historical-grammatical, method of understanding Scripture, allowing the Bible to interpret itself. The historical-critical method of explaining the Bible, however, puts a scholar or individual above the plain approach of the Scriptures and gives inappropriate license to decide what he or she perceives as truth based on the resources and education of the critic. This type of approach leads people to distrust God and His Word. Go forward, not backward! Accept the Spirit of Prophecy as one of the greatest gifts given to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, not just for the past but for the future. While the Bible is the ultimate authority and final arbiter of truth, the Spirit of Prophecy provides clear, inspired council to aid our application of Bible truth and is a marvelous blessing to direct God’s church in the last days of this earth’s history. Coming Again Jesus is coming soon! Soon we will see in the eastern sky a small, dark cloud about half the size of a man’s fist. It will get larger and larger and brighter and brighter. And there seated in the middle of millions of angels will be the One we have been waiting for: not the humble broken Lamb, not the ministering High Priest, but the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ our Redeemer! We will look up and say, “This is the God we have waited for.” Christ will look down and say, “Well done, good and faithful servants. Enter into the joy of your Lord,” and we will rise to meet the Lord in the air to go home to be with Him forever—the beautiful end of the Advent journey! Accept Christ’s marvelous grace in your life. “Go forward” by renewing your commitment to Him and proclaiming God’s grace and the three angels’ messages.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:29:18 +0000
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