To Provide Information 
To Promote Thought
To Portray God in a Believable, Meaningful 
Fashion for this day
To Prepare us to Stand Individually

1. To Provide Information:

We believe that we have been entrusted with very valuable and vital information about the DRAMA OF THE AGES. Particularly as it focuses in the last period of this earth's history. And even though we have been entrusted with this information, I don't believe that too many Adventists really have it at their fingertips, in an organized fashion that they can use. This class was intended to provide some of the pertinent information that will help us to understand, very rationally, the events and the issues as they take place. There are some books that you can secure that will provide the basic modicum of information:

 
Chaij:  Preparation For The Final Crises  
Olsen:  The Crises Ahead  
White:  The Great Controversy; Early Writings; 
        Testimonies, Vol. 5; Selected Messages, vol. 2; 
        Patriarchs and Prophets. 

I entreat you to give this serious consideration. I hope you will read this material and I hope you will re-read it. As you go over this, I hope that you will note the specific events that are described and what they mean to you. As much as you can, get information.



2. To Promote Thought:
   We’re not interested simply in finding out and listing a number of events sequentially and saying; "Now this is what is going to happen next." I am interested in helping to discover the basic issues that are involved, because it is very easy to forget facts, but if they have some larger meaning to you, and if you can begin to see the flow of history and what these events mean and particularly what they mean to you; then, as the bible says, "The word becomes flesh."


3. To Portray God in a Believable, Meaningful Fashion for this day:
   We have been talking about God for so long in the terms of what He is going to do in the Final Drama, that I think we have lost the real picture of God; that God is really a living God and He is participating in the final events of mankind. I think it is very difficult for people to appreciate God in terms of the catastrophic events that are predicted. – “What are you doing all this for God? - What do you have in mind? - What is happening in all of this chaos?” - I think sometimes that one of the central facts of the universe is that there is a God, He is a wonderful Person, and he has not lost control. And so often, when we consider eschatological matters we become concerned with our own hides and ask, "Where should we flee and how soon should we hide?” And we really don’t stop to think what is going on with God. What would He have us to do? What kind of a Person is He? What would He like to have us represent about Him?


4. To Prepare Us To Stand Individually:
   To help us to live by our own individual faith. Not only an individual preparation for our own lives, but that we might have something to say, provocative, meaningful, worthwhile, to those who are going to be asking questions.

It has been a problem of futility, it seems, in God’s people over the generations, that they have become preoccupied with chronology. The sequence of events, in which they chart those events. In Matthew, this is what the disciples wanted to know about the destruction of Jerusalem. They wanted to pinpoint that event. Now while we can know specific events that are going to take place, we have not really been told a tremendous amount of detail about the specifics OF the events that are going to take place in the Political, Religious, and Sociological scene.

I don’t think that God wants us to be so oriented toward an event, a thing in history. If we get that way, I’m afraid that we would sort of bide our time until we catch some specific event and the we would begin to vibrate and wake up and then behave. I don’t think that is what we should be after, but I think that there are basic kinds of activities that are going to take place in the Religio-Political World that we have a certain amount of specificity, but it is not going to be something that is going to appear on the front page of our local newspaper, or the New York Times, and when we see that happen, then we are supposed to do this.
We are given enough pinpoints of history that we might understand the basic issues that are involved. Now let’s get whatever specifics are given to us, but let’s not make them individual cul-de-sac’s, so that every time we see an event it becomes a sort of dead-end and wait for that event. I want us to ask; "What does it mean?" For example: we talk about the 7 Last Plagues, yet I don’t think we can pinpoint exactly what those particular plagues are, or exactly when they are going to take place. But I think that we can know quite a little bit about it so that we can understand what is involved.
Particularly so that we can appreciate the kind of witness we are to manifest, and I would like to suggest that even after the close of probation we have an opportunity to witness; we will talk about that at another time.

I think the problem here is that we don’t become inordinately concerned simply with pinpointing events, apart from the larger issues of the Great Controversy. But on the other hand, let’s utilize the specifics that we have been given, not as individual cul-de-sacs, but as a means to a larger spiritual ends and a greater understanding for the issues.

Why should this be so important to Christians? Why does this line of study seem to be more important to some Christians than others? Denominationally, the study of Eschatology has had more emphasis, in the past, in the Seventh-day Adventist group than others. It is something about which all Christians should be concerned and study. But there is something unique about the SDA message and this is what I want to bring out in these studies. I think it is something to be aware of in terms of this particular message, which is really their contribution to the world religious thought. They do not worship a different God than other persuasions. But what they do have that is different is what I would call, "a distinctiveness op the message."
This really has to do with the Clarification of History and how that reveals the truth about God. It centers in what has traditionally been termed, The Sanctuary Message, which is another way, if you look at it practically, of saying; "God, what are you doing with our world? What are you doing up there? Look at what is happening down here! Where are you God? What does all this mean?"

Now, if it were possible, and we assert that it is, to understand what God is doing with His world and what He has always been doing, so that really these events that we see happening around us, and that will happen, do not seem like so many disconnected and tragic events, but they have a particular meaning that has to do with a God who has not lost control and is moving History to a climax. Now this is what the Seventh-day Adventist Message is all about. I want you to pay attention to this phrase, it will be used again; "The Clarification of History". It is an understanding of the issues in the great Controversy as they come to focus in this time, such that ultimately, if the world has a chance to understand, they will have an opportunity to make a decision intelligently.

I believe the genius of the SDA movement, is not they have discovered another God, but that they have discovered a purpose of History, that I don’t think any other movement has espoused in the same way. I would like to go a step further. The study of Eschatology puts Seventh-day Adventism on the line. If you want to know the validity of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, here is where it will be ultimately tested. Are they (we) giving a meaningful interpretation of history? Is it going to fill the bill? Is it going to answer the questions people are going to ask? Do we have an adequate reading of what’s going on in history? If we do, then we have a mission to clarify what is happening and what it means, in terms of what people are asking. Any time you have a crises and people flounder, invariably, and this is a very deep psychological factor of our nature, if we find someone who has a smile on their face, and they don’t look like their mind is out to lunch, we’re going to say; "What have you got going for you? Things are falling apart." We will invariably look for someone who has some kind of stability.

Think of the Apostle Paul. How could a fellow like this be put in a Rack, in a dungeon ,at a 45 degree angle, with his ankles in stocks, in a Philippian jail, and everyone around him is cursing because most people died if they stayed in this condition very long, when he and his companion Silas start singing. Now, all kinds of questions were asked. How could a person in these circumstances sing? Either he has flipped out or he doesn’t know what is happening, or maybe he has become hysterical. Either that is what is happening and Paul just doesn’t know what the problems are, or he has a fantastic grasp of the solution; he knows something that the other people don’t know. And what happens? In a crises situation you go to a person like Paul. And then what does Paul say? "I don’t know!" NO! HE tells something that is meaningful to him, he givers an interpretation of what is happening, he clarifies the issues. That is what Seventh-day Adventism is all about. And it is also my belief, that if you really want to test the validity of Seventh-day Adventism, this is where you put it on the line. If you really want to find out if E.G. White is a prophet, this is ultimately where you can test it. This is what it all leads toward. This final clarification of history - when people start raising and asking questions. God has to have interpreters. What does it all mean?

What is the central issue in the Great Controversy that is going to come to a focus in this time? This is the question that we will be attempting to answer throughout these studies. But there are a number of issues involved and each will have to be examined; The Sabbath, Freedom, God’s Character, Satan’s charges against God.
We have spoken here several times about something called The Great Controversy. Many have had a difficult time trying to visualize the concept of a war in Heaven. But from Isaiah in the Old testament and Revelation we get a picture of a war in Heaven between God and His angels and Lucifer, who became Satan and his followers. This war began before the creation of this earth. One chose to question God in this creation. And he said; "I can do a better job," and in reading Isaiah 14:12-14 you see where Satan made the proposition: "I can do a better job, let me run things. I will exhault myself to the most high, I will stand upon the Mount of Assembly." [Note this expression, we will come back to this later.]

This expression was used to refer to all of the major assemblies of Israel. Whenever God’s people got together, they were referred to as this congregation. When Jerusalem was later built and the Sanctuary was part of the temple structure, it was on a hill, Mount Zion, Mount of Olives, this crest of mountains upon which the city was built. Anyone entering the city from all around could see it. Whenever God’s people got together, they congregated around this Mount and this place was referred to as The Mount of the Assembly. Now Satan says; "I can do a better job, in which everyone is free. The whole method of running the Universe is suspect. I can do a better job." What was God’s platform? You’ve got to be like Me! This is the only way the that the Universe can co-exist. If we are made in the image of God then that sounds reasonable, but Satan says, "No way! No one can be like You. You can’t run a universe on the basis of being loving. That’s a restriction!" And here is where the issue over the Law came into being. This elemental moral law; Be like God. Be loving. Satan says that is too restrictive; "If you go with me, you can truly be free." And then he made this charge: "No one is going to serve You because they love You. No one is going to serve You because of Your character. Every person in the universe, given the option, will do their own thing." And God said; "That’s not so." And Satan responded; "It is so true. I have a third of them on my side now and the only reason I don’t have the rest, is because they are chicken!" Satan also charged that God didn’t trust His beings and was holding back on their ability to be creative like God.

And so it was at this time that God created an independent race that had not seen what had gone on and He made them very much like God. Male and Female, with the capacity to enter into a creative process. Neither the male nor the female was complete of himself or herself, only together were they in God’s image. Everything on this earth was designed to answer the charges that Satan made against God. Now the first question was; "Is this first, pure, pair going to make good choices? How are they going to evaluate the issues that have been raised?"

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