Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
The Fruitage of Spiritual Gifts - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    The Testimonies and Bible Study

    The Testimonies and Bible study belong together, and each one has a definite place in relation to the other. The Bible comes first and is basic. We are not to study the Testimonies as something above the Bible; we are to study them to get light on the Bible. We begin with the Bible, and it is the Bible which we try to understand, assisted by the Spirit of prophecy writings. Someone has said that the Testimonies help us study the Bible as a telescope helps us to study the stars. I venture to say that no Adventist minister will fully understand the Bible message for our day and how to give it without a continuous study of the Testimonies. They are a divine exposition of the Holy Scriptures.FSG 402.2

    However, as before mentioned, it is not pleasing to God that ministers preach from the Testimonies. It is helpful to quote short statements here and there in a sermon, but to take certain statements from the Testimonies and make them the foundation of the sermon is not using them as the Lord has directed us. It is almost an indolent way of doing as the minister can read from another, which is easy, and not think for himself, which is hard. Mrs. White herself always used the Bible in her lectures. She read her texts and then expounded them and spoke as the Lord directed her. We are to do likewise in our preaching.FSG 403.1

    Some commentaries are most helpful, yet there is in this age no Bible commentary that compares with the Spirit of prophecy writings. Many years ago a tent effort was conducted by two young preachers—C. W. Flaiz and A. F Ballenger, both names well known in Adventist history. They took turns in the evening meetings. It so happened that Elder Flaiz, who was a most efficient preacher and strong leader in the church, preached on the first part of Daniel eight Elder Ballenger the next night was to speak on “The Sanctuary and 2300 days,” of that chapter. Ballenger said to Elder Flaiz that he had never preached on that topic and did not think he understood it. Elder Flaiz offered to take the service that night, but to this A. F. Ballenger would not agree. Then Elder Flaiz advised him to take The Great Controversy and other such books and read up on the matter. “No,” was the reply, “I do not need those books. I will go to the city library which has some good commentaries that I have already read and I will read what they say about the sanctuary of Daniel eight.” He read all day in those Catholic and Protestant books and his evening sermon was a complete failure. After the meeting at night he said, “Our understanding of the sanctuary question is entirely false, as I found by studying those commentaries. I feel called to give our church the true light on the sanctuary, and it is very different from our old doctrinal teaching.” The aftereffects of his study and preaching of what he found in the commentaries is known to all. Those books were his ruin. We have known a good many ministers along the way who, neglecting the Testimonies, have read extensively in other religious books from many churches, and without a single exception we have seen them grow weak in their preaching, and some have been entirely spoiled. They turned to ethical preaching or other forms of the loose, modern thought, and in time failed not only in our church but in others.FSG 403.2

    No book has ever been criticized and attacked as has the Bible. Ingersoll laughed at the “mistakes of Moses,” Nobody now remembers what he said they were. Scientists, so-called, have ridiculed the story of creation. Today the old theories of creation and matter are obsolete. Other doubters have discovered contradictions and inconsistencies in Holy Writ. The objections to the Scriptures today are different from what they were a hundred years or even fifty or twenty-five years ago. The Bible, like some massive rock, stands unchanged, but the hailstorms that strike vary and melt. As it is with the Bible so it is with the messages from the Spirit of prophecy. Scoffers and skeptics invent objections to find fault. The questions raised today are not at all the same as those I first heard, and the cavils of tomorrow will no doubt be different. But the Testimonies remain the same eternal truth.FSG 404.1

    An objection heard widely years ago, but forgotten today, was that the Lord’s messenger states that at the very last God will make known to His people “the day and the hour of Jesus coming.” (Early Writings, 285.) It was claimed that this statement contradicted the Bible teaching that no man knows the day nor the hour except the Father only. (Matthew 24:36.) We think that instead of contradicting the Scriptures these words confirm the saying of Christ. In harmony with the Bible the Spirit of prophecy writings make plain that the second advent is not an event that lasts but a moment of time, as if Christ descends from heaven, gathers His own, and then in an hour or two disappears again, as some seem to have imagined. We read that after the resurrection of the righteous and the translation of the living “we all entered the cloud together, and were seven days ascending to the sea of glass.” (Early Writings, 16.) In another earlier vision Mrs. White, telling about the coming of Christ to this earth, says:FSG 404.2

    “I saw a flaming cloud come where Jesus stood. Then Jesus laid off His priestly garment and put on His kingly robe, and took His place on the cloud which carried him to the East, where it first appeared to the saints on earth—a small black cloud which was the sign of the Son of man. While the cloud was passing from the Holiest to the East, which took a number of days, the synagogue of Satan worshiped at the saints’ feet.”—To the Little Remnant Scattered Abroad (broadside, 1846).FSG 405.1

    The fact is, the second coming of Christ, that overwhelming, glorious appearing, which the entire universe will observe, is an event that will require some time how long is not revealed. During those days just before His appearing, “everything seems turned out of its natural course. The streams ceased to flow.” (Early Writings, 285.) “The derisive jests have ceased.... The clash of arms, the tumult of battle.... is stilled.” (The Great Controversy, 642.) In this time there will be many thunders and mysterious voices understood by the redeemed but not by the wicked. Among them will come these words from the Father about the exact day and hour that the Savior will appear. This surely harmonizes completely with the Word of God.FSG 405.2

    In The Great Controversy, 635-646, we find quite a detailed account of the things that will happen while Christ is near the earth, “in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and the angels are gathering together “His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” (Matthew 24:31.) No one could possibly think that all these events will happen in a moment of time.FSG 406.1

    Mrs. White wrote about animals and plants before the Flood. People know almost nothing about conditions at that time, yet they wonder and question whether she is right. She wrote on some of the prophecies and on the early advent experiences, and some shallow-minded doubters raise an objection because they wish to strike at the visions. I am glad to state that as a matter of fact there has been and is remarkably little opposition to the messages given through Mrs. White, and the few objections which have come have died of themselves. However, I have met those whose chief life purpose seems to have been to discredit the Testimonies. Their shallow criticism was all negative. It explained nothing and helped nobody. Like all revelations of truth, some may find certain statements in the Testimonies hard to understand and still harder to follow. That is true of the Bible as well. People who try to obey the Word of God are seldom bothered much about what some call “the contradictions of the Bible.” What superficial readers call contradiction, studious minds who love the Savior find precious truth for their souls. If there are a few textual difficulties, these never weaken faith in the inspiration of Holy Writ, and anyway, these so-called discrepancies are easily explained to those who think with reason. The less we stop at difficulties and the more we meditate on the mysteries of the Bible and the Testimonies, the clearer will be our perception of truth. It is still true that anyone who will follow in his life the divine messages of the Spirit of prophecy will know that they are from the Lord. Of them it is also true that “if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” John 7:17.FSG 406.2

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents