Thornleigh Seventh-day Adventist Church (Sydney, Australia)

Home > Church Family > Sermon Summaries > 13 Aug 2005, Dr Barry Wright - God's Special Gift

God's Special Gift

13 Aug 2005, Dr Barry Wright

(Barry is Thornleigh's Church Pastor)

GOD'S SPECIAL GIFT

In our continuing quest to discover answers to many of the fundamental questions of life, it would seem that human reason and scientific investigation grope blindly alone in providing an adequate source of knowledge.

WHERE DID WE COME FROM?
WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE IN LIFE?
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

As fellow human beings we all long for certainty, and our minds are constantly reaching out for truth. We want to know there is a purpose and a plan for our lives. We want to be assured there is a wisdom greater than our own that is available to guide us into the future.

I would like to suggest to you this morning it is only in Christianity that man's need for authority and certainty can be fully met. At the very heart of the Christian faith is a belief in the existence of God - a God who is interested in us and has the ability to carry out His purposes.

I KNOW THAT GOD IS INTERESTED IN ME AND HE IS INTERESTED IN YOU, AND HE WILL GUIDE OUR LIVES TO THEIR APPOINTED PURPOSE IF WE WILL ONLY ALLOW HIM TO DIRECT THE WAY.

But, in order to have this certainty, WE MUST KNOW GOD

In Job 11: 7 we need to ponder the question of Zophar, one of Job's so-called friends, when he said, 'Canst thou by searching find out God?' Can you find out the deep things of God?

History reveals that without divine aid the human mind can no more discover the things of God than it can solve the problems of life.

WE ONLY KNOW ABOUT THE THINGS OF GOD BY WHAT HE HAS SEEN FIT TO DISCLOSE TO US.

In the book 'Christian Beliefs', author, T. H. Jemison, says that 'God reveals to us as much of His wisdom as is best for us to comprehend. (Jemison, 1959: 3).

However, it becomes our responsibility to individually determine how we will use the methods He provides (Ibid).

IN THIS WE HAVE NOT DONE VERY WELL.

There are many ways that God speaks to us.  While God reveals himself through nature and revelation, through His providence and by the influence of His Spirit, He has used more direct ways of communicating with people. For our purposes this morning I would like to concentrate on one of these forms of communication that has been often referred to as the Prophetic Channel - GOD'S SPECIAL GIFT. Amos 3: 7 tells us that 'Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.'

It is totally impossible to think about the Bible without immediately thinking of the authors of its sixty-six books. We popularly call them 'prophets' - holy men of God [who] spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost' (2 Peter 1: 21).

HOW DO WE DEFINE A PROPHET AND WHAT WAS TO BE THEIR ROLE?

Prophets have generally been defined as supernaturally called and qualified spokesmen for God. They were, in a special sense, God's official representatives. They were chiefly seen as teachers and preachers, not only of righteousness, but also of spiritual and ethical conduct. They were moral reformers bearing messages of instruction, counsel, admonition and warning to both individuals and nations. Often their work included miracles and the prediction of future events.

WHERE DO WE FIND THE FIRST MENTION OF PROPHETS IN THE SCRIPTURES?

Jude 14 tells us that a mere seven generations from Adam, Enoch becomes the first recorded prophet in human history (Coon, 1998: 16). Until the time of Moses, prophets presented their messages orally. It was because of the longevity of people's lives that there was no need to communicate in any other way. Moses, whose lifespan was only to reach 120 years, now provides an historical watershed by using the written word to share prophetic communication.

WERE ALL PROPHETIC WRITINGS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE?

While we know that many writings were to be preserved, other inspired documents were not included. Of those whose scripts were not preserved, the Bible includes such names as Jasher, Gad, Nathan, Jehu and Elijah. However, according to the Scriptures, all these men fulfilled the prophetic office.

It is also important to recognise that God was to give the prophetic gift to women as well as men. In the Old Testament we read about Miriam (sister to Moses), Deborah (Judge of Israel) and Huldah during the time of King Josiah. In the New Testament we read of Anna during the time of King Herod, and the four daughters of an evangelist named Phillip. All were considered to be of sufficient importance to be included in the biblical record as prophets of God.

In New Testament times we find that prophecy is given a prominent place among the gifts of the Spirit and the Scriptures reveal how this very special gift was to assist in the development of the early Christian Church.

WITH THE CLOSING OF THE SACRED CANON, THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE, WHAT DID THIS MEAN FOR THE PROPHETIC GIFT?

We need to go back to the Scriptures for an answer.

Let's come to our Scripture reading in Joel 2: 28-32 KJV

And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; and also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.'

As far back as eight hundred years before the first coming of Jesus Christ, the prophet Joel looked down that long corridor of time to His second coming. This prophet of antiquity '…saw God honouring the people at the end of time by a special bestowal of the gift of prophecy. Both men and women, young and old, he says, would experience prophetic dreams and visions' (Coon, 1998: 18).

The Apostle Paul's doctrine of 'spiritual gifts' provides some of the most striking evidence in favour of prophetic activity after New Testament times. Prophecy, referred to as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Eph 4, 1 Cor. 12, Rom. 12) is second only to apostleship in the merit list that is given (Ibid: 17). Additionally, the context makes it clear that all these ministries, including prophecy, would exist in the church until the end of time (Ibid).

Consequently, Paul counsels the believers of the early church in 1 Thess. 5: 19-21 to 'quench not the spirit.' and 'Despise not prophesyings.' Instead the Christian is to 'Prove or test all things' and then 'hold fast [to] that which is good.' Why? The apostle John in 1 John 4: 1 says 'Not every spirit comes from God', and 'many false prophets are gone out into the world'. However, in spite of all these problematic issues, Paul continually admonishes the Church to 'Desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy' (1 Cor. 14: 1).

Here in 1 Cor 14:1, Paul makes it very clear that the prophetic gift is not only desirable but it is necessary for the church as we come to the close of earth's history.

In saying this, he infers that the gift of prophecy was not to end with the apostolic age.

However, since New Testament times until the middle of the nineteenth century there has been very little evidence to show the existence of God's true prophets throughout this period.

WHY WOULD THIS BE SO?

'The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church' points out that, 'After the death of the apostles, prophets enjoyed respectability in many circles until about 300 AD [- the time of Constantine] (Ministerial Association, 1988: 220). After this period there was a decline in the '…spirituality of the church and its resultant apostasy led to a diminishing of both the presence and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At the same time false prophets caused a loss of confidence in the prophetic gift' (Ibid).

This was to be a dark period of history for the Christian church covering a time span of approximately 1500 years of which the 1260 prophecy is included.

It was not until the nineteenth century that we see a spiritual revival developing throughout many parts of the world, but particularly in North America. At that time, many were to seek biblical truth and looked forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ. This revival came about because of a renewed interest in the Biblical prophecies leading many to believe that Jesus was coming soon. 'Christians of all stripes believed they were on the very edge of the millennial kingdom of God'. America in the early nineteenth century was believed, by one observer of the day, to be suffering millennial fever (Knight, 1993: 15).

Charles Finney, one of the greatest American evangelists of the latter part of that century believed in 1835 that if the Church should do her duty, the millennium [sic] [as he understood it] might come to this country in three years (Ibid: 18).

                                                WHAT WERE THE MAJOR WORLD EVENTS THAT WERE TO AFFECT THEIR THINKING AT THIS TIME?

With the French revolution of 1790 still fresh in their minds, the destructive Lisbon earthquake of 1755, and the social and political upheavals taking place around them as a result of the Industrial Revolution, many were reminded of the biblical descriptions of the end of the world (Ibid: 15). As such, their minds were being turned to spiritual themes.

With the coming of the mid 1800s and the 'Great Disappointment' in that Jesus had not returned, it was again time for the Spirit of God to direct his fledgling Church. It was through this trying time that God was to give much needed instruction and counsel to those sincere seekers of truth as they looked to the Scriptures for their answers. 

It was now time for god to resurrect his direct line of communication through the prophetic channel. Just as the early church needed direction to establish itself in the world, god's church of the end time was also seen to require this support if it was to survive.

It was again time for the people of god to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

In 1842, William Ellis Foy, a young black minister in his early 20s, received two visions several weeks apart in Boston Massachusetts (Coon, 1998: 15). Foy was a Millerite, in that he believed in the nearness of the second coming of Jesus. While he did not advocate a specific date as did many of the Millerite preachers, he believed that the return of Christ was near at hand. Thousands gladly listened to his preaching whether they were Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian or of other persuasions. It would seem that God chose him to bring messages for the Millerite Adventists prior to the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844. While there was an initial reluctance on his part to tell others because of his Negro heritage and the fact that there was an element of suspicion against any person who claimed divine revelations, he eventually related the things he had seen. Because of hardship and little material gain it was not unusual for true prophets to be slow in taking up the task. After 1844, he disappeared from the public eye but continued to work in his local First Freewill Baptist Church until his death 50 years later. His visions of the new earth, the reward of the righteous and the judgement were endorsed by later prophetic views and are rich with meaning for all of us today. From the historical evidence available there is no doubt that God used WILLIAM ELLIS FOY for a period of two and a half years. On his tombstone in the Birch Tree Cemetery in Main USA is an inscription from 2 Timothy 4: 7,8 which says:

'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but to all them also that love his appearing.'

By the summer of 1844, shortly before the Great Disappointment, God was to call another man living in Portland, Maine by the name of Hazen Foss. Foss was described as a young man, well educated, well spoken, and of fine appearance, and being white he was not to face the racial prejudice that Foy was previously exposed to. He was a Millerite who believed that the second advent of Christ would take place on Oct 22, 1844. After receiving his first vision just before this time, he refused to relate it for a number of weeks by which time October 22 had already passed. It is interesting to note that this vision supported what William Foy had previously been given. In short, Foss, after being told by the Lord to relate the vision again, refused his commission, and that was to be seen as inexcusable. The disappointment of Oct 22, 1844 had left him feeling that he had been deceived and in his words he was too proud to speak of it to the people. One day after hearing a voice speak to him saying 'You have grieved away the Spirit of the Lord' he was horrified at what he had done. He said he would relate the vision, but when the time came his mind could not recall it and in great distress called out 'I am a lost man'. For those that were there to listen it was said that it was the most terrible meeting they had ever been in. He was told by God that if he would not relate what had been shown to him, the burden would be taken from him and given to one of the 'weakest of the weak, who would do the Lord's bidding (Baker, 1987: 138).

WHERE WAS GOD TO GO FROM HERE?

Ellen Harmon, a girl of seventeen, was among those who were bitterly disappointed when the Lord did not return as expected. About fifty days later she received her first vision, the first of more than two thousand visions during her lifetime (Vandeman, 1983: 6). In relating what she had seen some months later, Foss was invited to hear what she had to say. As he listened outside the door and heard her account, he recognised it as the vision given to him many months previous. The next day he made the following statement:

I heard you talk last night. I believe the visions are taken from me, and given to you. Do not refuse to obey God, for it will be at the peril of your soul. I am a lost man. You are chosen of God; be faithful in doing your work, and the crown I might have had, you will receive {Ellen G. White, Letter 37, 1890} (Neuffeld, 1966: 418).

Hazon Foss lived until 1893, but from the time he refused to relate his visions, we are told he had no further interest in religion (Ibid).

Ellen Harmon, seventeen years of age, a woman in a man's world in the mid 1800s, suffering ill-heath and weighing approximately eighty pounds, became God's third choice, 'the WEAKEST OF THE WEAK.'

Later to become Mrs. Ellen G. White, she bore every mark of a true prophet. She was to become God's messenger from December 1844 until her death in 1915, just on 90 years ago.

By voice and pen, she continually sought to uphold the word of God and lead men and women to accept Jesus as their personal Saviour from sin and death' (Ellen G. White/SDA Research Centre: 5).

The network of educational, medical and publishing institutions found around the globe today can be largely credited to the divine counsel given her through her visions (Ibid: 8).

John Harvey Kellogg, surgeon and director of the huge Battle Creek Sanitarium that reached its peak around the turn of the century, made it clear that he was able to keep five years ahead of the medical profession through his reading of the God given writings of Ellen White.

However, like the Bible prophets of old she was also called upon to correct and reprove these same individuals and institutions and these messages of reproof were not always very popular (Ibid).

As a consequence, the world has never been very good to many of its prophets. We need to be reminded that Jeremiah spent a lot of time in a dungeon because of his unpleasant predictions and Jesus called Jerusalem the city that killed the prophets (Ibid).

However, rising above all these issues, prophets were to bring a unifying effect upon the beliefs of the Church. Therefore, it is no accident that the Adventist Church around the world remains generally united in its presentation of Bible truth. These doctrines were arrived at through long sessions of Bible study and prayer by the early pioneers. It was only when they reached an impasse in their understanding of certain Scriptures that God's Messenger would confirm their conclusions or give information that would point them in a new direction. In all of this the Bible was still seen to be the great standard by which every prophet was to be measured (Ibid: 9).

HOWEVER, THE DEVIL WAS NOT TO BE IDLE

At the exact time God chose to work through the prophetic channel to strengthen His remnant Church during this period of spiritual revival, another force was also to be at work. It commenced on March 31, 1848. This power was to manifest itself in mysterious rappings or knockings in the humble Methodist home of the Fox sisters located in Hydesville, New York and became known as the 'Raps of Hydesville'. Fifteen year-old Margaretta and twelve year-old Katie Fox developed a code of communication with an unseen intelligence that indicated it was the spirit of a dead peddler whose body was buried in their cellar (Noorbergan, 1974: 14).  

This simple knock on the wall of this lowly wooden shack created a religion that was to embrace the world before the end of that century. Spiritualism, as we now call it, was born and by 1854 had extended to every part of the United States, and was active in Europe. Its phenomenal growth in the next decade saw the claimed number of psychics and mediums practicing in the US reach 30,000 persons (Ibid: 15). By the twentieth century spiritualism had reputedly spread over the entire surface of the earth and was described in the 11th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica as being similar to an epidemic (Ibid: 16).

One of the most well known of these twentieth century psychics was a woman by the name of Jean Dixon. She was born Jeane Pinkert on January 3, 1918 in Medford, Wisconsin, but her parents later moved the family to California on the west coast of the continent where they were to make their fortune in timber.

In 1939, she married James L. Dixon, a California auto dealer who later became a real estate executive in Washington DC. She worked with him in the business for many years while developing a local reputation as a psychic, giving readings to servicemen and government officials during World War II. It was during this time that she was twice invited to the White House to give consultations to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

It was at the age of 8 that her mother took her to a gypsy fortune-teller who, after reading her palm, predicted that later in life she would become a famous seer who would advise the most powerful people in the world. After receiving a crystal ball from this woman, Jean Dixon by the age of nine, was already looking into the future.

In 1952 she predicted the assassination of a young Democrat who would die in office after being inaugurated in 1960 as President of the United States. At the time of this prediction John F. Kennedy was still the senator for Massachusetts. As the United States President in 1963, Kennedy was riding in an open car through Dallas, Texas on November 22, when an unknown assailant took his life.

Other astounding claims about her ability to foretell the future were to involve the death of Nehru, that China would embrace communism, the assassination of Mahatma Ghandi, Russia's first launching of the world's first satellite and, as advisor to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, she also predicted this former movie star would be President someday.

However, it was to be in the September 1965 Swedish edition of Readers Digest that she prophesied about the return of Jesus Christ before the end of the twentieth century. While many predictions were seen to be accurate, there are also many, not listed, that were far from being true. She was later to declare in her autobiography that she had a 70-80% accuracy quotient in her predictions.

As a devout Roman Catholic, Jean Dixon, attributed her prophetic ability to God and in her biography 'My Life and Prophecies' by Rene Noorbergen in 1969 she claims that 'the same spirit that worked through Isaiah and John the Baptist also works through me' (Noorbergen, 1974: 17). Jean Dixon died on January 26, 1997 at the age of 79.

WAS JEAN DIXON A TRUE PROPHET OF GOD AS SHE WAS TO CLAIM?

Noorbergen's conclusions make it very clear that while Jean Dixon claimed to be the equal of the Biblical prophets, it was on Biblical grounds that she could not be regarded as a true prophet of God, inasmuch as she violated almost every prophetic test spelled out in the Bible (Ibid: 18).

IF WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FALSE AND THE TRUE, IT WOULD BE HELPFUL TO KNOW WHAT THESE TESTS ARE.

The Scriptures summarise them as follows: 

These first five tests, Noorbergen points out, were already sufficient to damage

the reputation of most claiming to be prophets, but crowned with the next group

of five, they were to be truly devastating (Ibid: 22).

After further applying these tests to the person of Ellen White, Noorbergen in his

Book, 'Ellen G. White Prophet of Destiny', concludes that she was indeed a

Prophet of God (Ibid: 245,246).

FURTHER ENDORSEMENT OF THIS GIFT WAS TO COME FROM ANOTHER

UNEXPECTED SOURCE

William Foxwell Albright (1891-1971) was America's, and perhaps the worlds, foremost archaeologist in the twentieth century. He earned his PhD from John Hopkins University at the age of 25, and during the next fifty years he received twenty-five honorary doctorates from colleges, universities, and seminaries of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish faiths. He wrote more than eight hundred publications on archaeology, the Bible, and oriental subjects.' In the 1950s one of his doctoral candidates introduced him to the writings of Ellen White. His curiosity aroused, this famous archaeologist undertook his own independent investigation of the life, work, and claims of this special woman of history. And in his book 'From the Stone Age to Christianity', Dr Albright named her as one of five individuals whom he considered to be an authentic 'prophet' during the past 250 years' (Coon, 1998: 54).

WHAT CHALLENGE THEN DO THESE ENDORSEMENTS PRESENT TO THE

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH AND ITS MEMBERS?

2 Chron. 20: 20 tells us to 'Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall ye prosper.' KJV

In other words 'Put your trust in the lord your god, and you will stand firm. Believe what his prophets tell you, and you will succeed' (Good News)

When Ellen White died on July 16, 1915 she was to receive considerable unsolicited editorial comment in the secular press. I share the following testimonials with you not to necessarily inspire faith, but rather to confirm it.

'The editor of the Toledo (Ohio) Blade wrote:

'Mrs. White…early manifested some of the gifts of prophecy….' These gifts were given to the Seventh-day Adventist church allowing it to prosper and grow until it has spread through many lands.

'Mrs. White was a remarkable woman. Had she lived in an earlier period of… Christianity and escaped the bigots and the fire she would most surely have been canonised. She was of the flesh of which saints are made' (Ibid: 60).

'The New York City Independent of August 23, 1915 commenting on her accomplishments concluded that: 'Here is a noble record, and she deserves great honour…She showed no spiritual pride and she sought no filthy lucre. She lived the life and did the work of a worthy prophetess, the most admirable of the American succession' (Ibid: 60,61).

As a church God has seen fit to give us a special gift. While we recognise the Church is not yet 'perfected', not come into the 'unity of the faith' and has not grown 'unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we need to make use of this gift which Christ gave unto men (Eph 4: 8-13). We need to make sure that we do not place ourselves in the same position as Israel of old in their rejection of what God had given (2 Chron 36: 16). As suggested by author Morris Venden: 'If you accept the prophets, listen to them, and follow their counsel, you will [more likely] accept Jesus and listen to Him and follow Him. If you reject the prophets and ignore their messages, you will [eventually] reject and ignore the Lord [of heaven] in the person of Jesus Christ. The people of Israel were not unique in their problems with the prophets, and we are invited to learn from their experience (Vendon, 1984: 96).

1Cor 10: 11 tells us that 'All these things happened to them as examples for others: and they were written down as a warning for us. For we live at a time when the end is about to come' (Good News).

It is my prayer this morning that we take full advantage of God's special gift to His Church - A gift that provides us with the opportunity to come into a closer relationship with Jesus as our personal Saviour and prepares us for His soon coming.

May God grant this privilege for us all is my special prayer for you this morning?  AMEN.  

 

REFERENCES

Baker, D. W.  (1987)   The Unknown Prophet. Washington DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association.

Coon, R. W.  (1998)   A Gift of Light. Wahington DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association.

Ellen G. White/SDA Research Centre  Pamphlet: Who Was Ellen G. White? Avondale College, Cooranbong NSW:

Horn, S. H.   (1960)   Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary. Washington DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association.

Jemison, T. H.   (1959)   Christian Beliefs. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association.

Knight, G. R.   (1993)   Millennial Fever and the End of the World - A Study of Millerite Adventism. Boise, Idaho, USA:  Pacific Press Publishing Association.

Ministerial Association  (1988)   Seventh-day Adventists Believe… A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines. USA: Review & Herald Publishing Association

Neufeld D. F. (Ed)   (1966)   Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia. Washington DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association.

Noorbergen, R.   (1974)   Ellen G. White Prophet of Destiny. New Canaan, Conneticut: Keats Publishing, INC.

Vanderman, G.   (1983)   A Prophet in the House. Thousand Oaks, California: Published by It is Written.

Venden, M. L   (1984)   What Jesus Said About… Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association.

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