In the southern most large island of the Philippines, Mindanao, in the largest city in that part (a city with a population of one to two million people), there was a Seventh-day Adventist Church—a conference church with about 700 members.  A school was associated with this church.

I do not know the particulars about this, and I really don’t want to know, but there were eight individuals that the conference wanted to have disfellowshipped from this church.  There was some difference of opinion that these eight individuals had with the conference administration.  When the names of these eight individuals were given to the 16-member church board, the board studied the situation and voted 16 to 0 not to disfellowship these individuals.  They felt there was no cause.

Now, if the vote had been 7 to 9, or something like that, you know what would have happened.  People on either side of the vote would have tried to influence those on the opposite side to change their votes.  We’ve seen that kind of thing happen many times.  But this was a vote of 16 to 0 to not disfellowship these eight individuals. 

A short time after the church board voted, the conference decided that if the church would not disfellowship those eight people, they would just disfellowship the entire church of 700 people.  By disfellowshipping the whole church, the eight people would automatically be disfellowshipped along with everyone else that did not go along with the conference’s decision.  So they disfellowshipped the entire church!

When the people came to the church, they found that the church doors were padlocked, the building was surrounded with barbwire, and guards with rifles guarded it.  The people who were members of that church were not allowed in it.  They were told that they were not members any more, that everyone in this church had been disfellowshipped.  So, the church just fell apart.  There was no place to meet, so some of the people just met at home.  This happened over a year ago. 

A short time ago, some people in this church contacted Steps to Life and asked us to send someone to meet with them.  The church had dwindled from 700 attending members to approximately 200 that still get together and worship.  They have all been disfellowshipped, so I would say it is an independent church.  They said, “We want help.” 

Now, we don’t appreciate this when we live in the United States and when we speak English, but something we have to remember is that people who speak and read other languages in the world, for the most part, do not have access to the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy, as we do.  I personally think that this is something I don’t want to answer for in the Day of Judgment.  That is one of the most awful developments that happened in Adventism—that we have been so unfaithful in our stewardship.  You see, friends, the reason that God gave to us the Spirit of Prophecy—the writings of Ellen White, the gift of prophecy—was to bring us back to Bible truth and help us to get ready for the Second Coming.  If we have something that would bring us back into harmony with Bible truth and help us to be ready for the Second Coming, but we hold it in and don’t get it to the world, what have we done?  We have done something that could cause millions of souls to be lost.  It is a very, very serious development, and I personally believe that you and I are obligated to do everything that we can to reverse this problem and to help people of other languages get these books translated and printed.

A few years ago, Brother Harold Cortez and I were together in Guatemala, and we asked the brothers there whether they had this or that book.  They had hardly any books but someone there had a paperback copy of The Desire of Ages in Spanish.  The people said that they don’t have paperback books available to them; all they have are hard cover books, and those are too expensive for them.  Hard cover books in a poor country could cost half a month’s wages to buy one book.

If it cost you a half a month’s wages when you are earning $3,000 a month, you could perhaps come up with the money.  But when you only earning $40, you don’t have much disposable cash with which to buy books.  You are on a subsistence type of living.  This is the situation in South America; this is the situation in Africa, and this is the situation in Europe. 

If it is the Lord’s will, my wife and I are gong to be speaking at a camp meeting in Germany soon.  I wasn’t in the office when the invitation call came, so I called them back to find out what they wanted, and they said, “We would like for you to send us all the Spirit of Prophecy statements that you are going to be using in your preaching.  I thought this was a very strange request.  I thought, this is Berlin; this is Germany; this is not a third world country; surely these people have the Spirit of Prophecy.  No, they don’t.  Large portions of the Spirit of Prophecy writings are not available in German.  The same is true in French, and of course, you know what the situation is in Spanish.  These are major world languages.  Spanish, German, and French are all major world languages.  We are not talking about a language like Danish where there is only maybe ten or fifteen million people in the world that speak it; we are talking about a language which hundreds of millions of people speak.  And we don’t have the Spirit of Prophecy in these languages.

We need to pray about this friends.  One of the reasons that our brethren and sisters are in so much trouble, when they get in crisis situations, is because they can’t go to a CD-ROM, as you and I can, to check out what the Lord through His servant says about different situations.  The majority of the Spirit of Prophecy isn’t even in their language.  Often they will have Steps to Christ and The Great Controversy or The Desire of Ages.  What would you do if that was all you had, and you didn’t have the Testimonies for the Church?  I could just scarcely believe it!  I was told that in these other languages they don’t have Testimonies for the Church—and that was given to help us get ready for the Second Coming.

So the people in the Philippines asked if we could send someone.  Pastor Mike Baugher and his wife Judy went there, and they tried to minister to these people, to help them, to give them materials, and to help them organize their church.

When they arrived, they learned that the conference had taken over the church building; they had the title to it.  But they did not have title to the school building, so they couldn’t take it over, but they have taken these people to court and it is believed the conference will probably get access to the school building and force the historic, independent group out.  Then, of course, they will again have no place to meet.  They are very concerned as to what will happen to them if they have no place to meet.

In the Philippines, the average wage is much lower than wages in the United States, but at the same time, property is very expensive.  So Pastor Mike Baugher was trying to figure out how to help this group.  They started looking around, but property was just too high.  The cost to buy property and build a building on it would be prohibitive.  But, they found a Catholic Church that was not being used and is for sale.  Of course, if they bought a Catholic Church, they would have to take the images out of it, but that could be done, and they can buy this Catholic Church for $35,000, which is very reasonable.  If they bought land and built a building on it, they would have way more than $35,000 in it by the time they got done.

This group does not have the money, and they could not even borrow the money that they need at the present time to buy that.  They do not have the income level.  Just to give you a little example, there are two attorneys in this group of independent Adventists.  (This is one reason they are pretty sure that the conference will get control of the school building, because Pastor Mike inquired from one of these attorneys and he explained the issues.  I don’t understand the legal situation, but it is quite certain that the conference will be able to get control of that school.)  Pastor Mike wanted to find out, without being terribly nosey, what people earn in the Philippines?  This is not a low-paid attorney; this is a high-paid attorney, but when Pastor Mike asked him what a person in his line of work earns, he said that he earns the equivalent of US$400/month.  Do you know of any attorneys in California who make $400/month?  The janitors make more than that in California.  But that gives you an idea of the wage level in the Philippines.  There are a lot of people there who are only earning $100 or $200 a month—or even less than $100 a month sometimes.  When you have people like this, it is hard to raise money in order to buy property.  Poor people never own there own home.  They can’t make enough money to save enough money to own their own home.

But they would like to buy this Catholic Church.  Pastor Mike came back to Steps to Life and said that we should appeal to people in the United States and the Lord might touch somebody to help these people to buy a church.  So we wrote this up in LandMarks magazine and put it in our newsletter.  At first it seemed like nothing was happening, but in the last little while there have been several individuals who have written and called us and said that they think they should help these people acquire this church.  We are not to the halfway mark yet, but several thousand dollars have been raised to help these people buy this church.  I want to appeal to you to keep this project in your prayers.  We are not doing this for anything for ourselves.  We just would like to see God’s work go forward in this area.

When you have a million and a half people in a city plus other smaller towns on the island, you are dealing with a sizeable population.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Lord had a light—a bright shining light—of the third angel’s message shining in this area of the world?  That is what we would like to see.  We are praying about this, and I would like to appeal to you to pray about it too.  If the Lord impresses you to help, that is fine, but whatever you do, please pray that the Lord will help us to help them so that they will be able to have a place to meet and to worship.

I have seen pictures of the inside of the Catholic Church, and it will more than house their group.  They could grow some and still have room to meet in this church.  They have about 200 people in their group, and this church will hold way more than 200 people.

* * * * * * * * * *

We could go into the meaning of different words and phrases and clauses and go into language and semantics and grammar and all of those things.  That would not be wrong, either; there is a place and a time to do research in the Bible.  But I want to study with you some of the practical consequences—the practical results—of finding the truth about Daniel 8:14, and then what actually is the consequence of following where that truth leads you.

Before I do that, I do want to answer one objection that our opponents have.  They act like this is the most unanswerable objection there is, and the answer is just as simple as a grade school child could enunciate it.  I was disappointed about 25 years ago, when this erupted into a controversy among our Adventist theologians, to find out that we had theologians with doctor’s degrees and who knew Greek and Hebrew but who couldn’t figure this out.  It is not complicated; they just hadn’t properly studied in Daniel 8.

The objection is made that the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8 doesn’t have to do with God’s special people, but it simply has to do with the little horn power.  The problem is, these people have never figured out what the little horn power involves.

Let me just explain it to you very briefly, and you can study it more yourself.  Remember Daniel 8:14 is talking about something that has been always or continually or a continuance.  That is what that word tamiyd means—always or continually or a continuance.  And it says that has been always and continually it is to go on, and it is going to be even more that plus.  A desolating rebellion is going to go on for 2300 years.

Now let us look at a bigger picture.  Let’s look at the whole great controversy, taking place over a 6,000-year period.  If you look at the great controversy, you will see that it is divided up spiritually into two components.  There was a 4,500-year period, when we had the continuance in rebellion, which was almost universal in the ancient world.  The Old Testament documents it over and over again and so does the New Testament.

Then the continuance in rebellion was taken away by the little horn power, and it was replaced by a depopulating or a desolating rebellion, which, as Ellen White says, “is the apostasy of the latter time.”  Do you remember when Ellen White said, concerning the Papacy, that the Papacy was exactly what prophecy said it would be, “the apostasy of the latter times”?

When you have a judgment that deals with the desolating rebellion and that deals with the continuance of rebellion, you have a judgment that will deal with the great controversy over a 6,000-year period.  It’s the whole thing.  So when it talks about the judgment in terms of the little horn, that is not a complication at all, if you understand what it says the little horn is going to be about and what it is going to do.  You can study that out more for yourself; that will give you a start.

I want to study with you now the practical consequences—the results—of accepting what the Bible teaches in Daniel 8:14.  What happened with the Adventist believers in the nineteenth century?  Who found out what this was talking about, and who first figured it out, and who accepted it?  When they accepted what Daniel 8:14 was teaching, they found the truth about the sanctuary, which they hadn’t known before—neither had the rest of the Christian world.  When they found the sanctuary, they found the truth about the Ten Commandments.  When they found the truth about the Ten Commandments, they found the truth about the Sabbath.  And then they found the truth about the Judgment in Revelation 14, and they found the messages in Revelation 14:6–12, and they began to understand what that was all talking about.  They began to understand what was going to be the end of the wicked and the other people—the other churches, which included the Baptist Church, the Christian Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, and, of course, the Catholic Church.  These other churches that didn’t accept what Daniel 8:14 taught and what the Three Angels’ Messages taught; they rejected that, and they did not come to truth.  They still haven’t come to the truth today about who and what the heavenly sanctuary is, the position of the law and the Sabbath in God’s government, and what’s going to happen to the wicked, and the judgment. They didn’t understand any of that, and they still don’t.

The result of the study of Daniel 8 led to a separation.  In fact, it was a forced separation, because the Adventists were disfellowshipped from all these different churches.  Remember the story when Ellen White’s family was all disfellowshipped from the Methodist Church in 1842?  They didn’t leave the Methodist Church by choice.

William Miller had received a license from the Baptist Church to preach.  The Baptist Church later on rejected his preaching, but he didn’t leave; he was forced out. 

All of these people accepted—and friends I still believe what they accepted—what we have been studying about the central pillar and the foundation of the Advent faith.  Ellen White says it was founded on that text in Daniel 8:14.  These people that had studied this were forced out of all these other communions, but as they met together and studied and prayed, the Lord drew them together.  He drew them together so much that in the Adventist Church there was more unity than in other Protestant or Catholic churches or in Islam or in any other religious group.

You probably heard the story that happened some years ago—quite a few years ago now—when Elder H. M. S. Richards, Sr. was traveling.  I believe it was in India, and he was traveling by a small plane.  There were several other people on the plane, which was one of these bunny-hop planes where you go here and here and here.  Every time the plane would stop, the people would deplane, and there would always be people to meet Elder Richards.  It was obvious that he was an American, but there were always people to meet him at each stop.  After a while the other passengers asked how it was that people all over the world seemed to know him.  Well, it was because he was an Adventist.

In 1947, my parents went as missionaries to Burma.  When we got off the ship at the dock, it was humid and hot there.  It gets hotter there than it does in Southern California, in my opinion; it’s humid.  One minister that I heard preach said that when he got off the conveyance over there in India, it was 118 degrees, and it was just beginning to warm up for the summer, so it was hot!  I don’t think that my parents had ever met any of the people that we met there before.  I don’t think that they actually knew any of the missionaries that were there in Burma—now Myanmar—when we landed, but we had friends instantly.  Why? Because we were all Adventists.  That is the way God designed it to be, and that the way it should be.

The devil has been working ever since that time—between 1844 and 1863—to break down the unity that Adventists have, because Adventists have more unity than any other Christian church.  One of the ways he has been most successful, of course, is by bringing in the New Theology.  The New Theology attacks right at the foundation—right at the central pillar—of the Adventist faith.  If the foundation, the central pillar, is knocked out, the unity will break down; everything will go awry.  That is why this foundation has been so much under attack, and that is why you need to know why you believe what you believe.  You need to know what these scriptures mean in Daniel 8 and 9, as well as Revelation 14.

We as Adventists have a very exciting future.  Did you know that, in the future, we are going to have again even more unity than they had back in the 1850s and the 1860s?  That is a promise.

Ellen White wrote, “His transforming grace upon human hearts will lead to unity that has not yet been realized, for all who are assimilated to Christ will be in harmony with one another. The Holy Spirit will create unity.”  Lift Him Up, 296.  Isn’t that exciting? 

Let me tell you, friends, when I was a boy, we did have it. My parents went in the mission fields, and I know that is true.  As late as the 1950s, the people that were in the mission fields still had it.  I don’t know what was happening all over the United States in the 1950s—whether we had it any more here, but the people that were working in the mission fields still had the kind of unity that had been in Adventism for over a hundred years.  We are going to have it again, and I want to be part of it.  There is going to be a people in Adventism again that will have more unity than there has ever been.  It is upon these people that there is going to be another Pentecost, and the latter rain is going to fall on them.

This is right in harmony with what we have been studying about in Daniel 8:14, because it is in context with what is going on in the heavenly sanctuary. Ellen White wrote this in the December 14, 1886, Review and Herald: “Every act, every word, must stand the test of the Judgment.  Set your houses in order.  Set your hearts in order.  Make thorough work while Jesus is ministering in the sanctuary.”  You see, that is talking about cleansing the heavenly sanctuary.  “When we will bring our hearts into unity with Christ, and our lives into harmony with his work, the Spirit that descended on the day of Pentecost will fall on us.”  Ibid.

Let me ask you something, would you like to get out of this world?  Are we ever going to get out of this world if the latter rain doesn’t come?  No, we are not.  If the latter rain doesn’t come, friends, you and I won’t be here, but our descendents will be here—our grandchildren, our great grandchildren.  A hundred years from now they will be here, because we are not going to get out of this world until the latter rain falls “to ripen the harvest.”  Ibid., March 2, 1897. 

But when is the latter rain going to fall?  Well, we just read it.  It says, “When we will bring our hearts into unity with Christ, and our lives into harmony with his work, the Spirit that descended in the day of Pentecost will fall on us.  We shall be strong in Christ’s strength, and be filled with the fullness of God.”  That is going to happen! 

Let me ask you another question so that you don’t get the wrong idea from what I just said.  I stated it in a hypothetical sense, and I don’t want you to get the any idea that I’m saying that Christ might not come for a hundred or two hundred years.  I don’t want you to get that idea at all.  It is like it was at the first coming.  There comes a time when the fulfillment of prophecy can not be delayed any more.  Is that true?

Study the first coming of Christ.  Remember the Pharisees came to Jesus on what we call today Palm Sunday.  That was the triumphal entry.  The children were crying “Hosanna to the son of David,” and it says that the Pharisees were grievously offended.  In the King James, it says, “they were sore displeased.”  Matthew 21:15.  In other words, they were really offended; they were really upset.  They came to Jesus, and they said, “Won’t you rebuke these people?  Won’t you rebuke your disciples? Make them stop!  It is too much commotion.”

Do you remember what Jesus said to them?  He said, “If these hold their peace, immediately the stones will cry out.”  Luke 19:40.  Why?  Because the time had come, and it could not be delayed any more.  Prophecy had to be fulfilled.

We are approaching a period in earth’s history when it is not going to be possible for the coming of the Lord to be delayed forever.  I will tell you why.  Ellen White said that if Jesus didn’t come, the time would come that the human race would become extinct.  If His coming were delayed too long, the time would come that Jesus would return to this world, and there wouldn’t be anyone here.  Prophecy couldn’t be fulfilled if Jesus came back and the human race was extinct.  That can’t happen.

I used to wonder what in the world Ellen White was talking about when she stated that the human race would become extinct.  Are we going to drop atomic bombs on each other and wipe each other out?  Thirty years ago, I was studying in the School of Health at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California.  I had a physiology teacher by the name of Dr. Burnell Baldwin, and one day he made this statement: “The gene pool is deteriorating.”  The gene pool is all the genes of the whole human race. 

I talked to my mother about that.  My mother became a registered nurse in 1940, and she was active as a nurse until the 1990s.  She is still working, but she is not working as a nurse right now.  She is helping me, and I’m praising the Lord for her help.  Some of you might have talked to her, if you have called Steps to Life.  She answers the phone.  My mother told me that when she was first a nurse they didn’t have neonatal intensive care units.  But she said that they didn’t need them, because there was maybe only one baby in five hundred that would have needed that kind of thing, and that one baby in five hundred that would have needed neonatal intensive care unit died because such a thing didn’t exist.  She said that for the most part they didn’t need them, because back in 1940s, when babies were born, they were much healthier and livelier than the babies that are being born today.

In Wichita, and almost every large city, there are a number of fertility clinics.  Now, that is interesting to me, because when I was a boy, I didn’t know about fertility clinics.  I didn’t see fertility clinics all over every town, and I did a lot of traveling when I was a boy.  We traveled in all the big cities.  My father went to all the big Adventist convocations and meetings and general conferences and youth congresses.  So I’ve been to lots of big cities, and I don’t recall, as a boy, ever seeing these fertility clinics.  I got to wondering and asking what is going on at all these fertility clinics.

I was told the reason for the fertility clinics is that today approximately 25 percent of all married couples cannot have children unless they get some help.  If we get to the point where we can’t reproduce, where is the human race headed?  It is headed to extinction, and that is exactly what Ellen White said.  If Jesus didn’t come eventually, the human race would become extinct.  We are on a dead-end road, and the Lord can not postpone His coming forever.  Do you understand that?

But before He can come, the Holy Spirit has to be poured out, and before the Holy Spirit can be poured out, there has to be a group of people that has harmony and unity among them.

I want to read to you several statements about this from the pen of Ellen White.  First of all, did you know that there was a time when we didn’t have the problems—the differences in Christianity or in the Adventist Church—we have today?  Ellen White wrote about it: “The differences that now exist among Christians did not exist in the days of Christ or His apostles.  When the gospel was preached after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, union prevailed; the believers were all of one heart and one mind.  For a short time there was a difference of understanding in regard to circumcision, as to whether admission to the church should be granted to uncircumcised Gentiles; but this matter was soon settled, and through the divine illumination and sanctification of the Spirit the believers were perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.  This was and always will be the fruit that is borne under the influence of the Holy Spirit.”  Manuscript Releases, vol. 14, 176.  They had harmony and unity!

In our evangelism, I’ve had people come to me and say, “Well, I don’t want to join your church.  I don’t want to join any church.  I just want to have what I see in the New Testament where all the people were just Christians.”  I have to be very sympathetic towards people like that, because what they want is really what should be.  But it’s not.

This desire for harmony and unity is throughout the world.  It’s throughout Christendom.  People want it so bad, that a lot of people in the world are willing to do just about anything to get it.  The devil knows that, so he has created a counterfeit, and the counterfeit is what we call the ecumenical movement.  You can read about it in the Book of Revelation.  In Revelation 17, it shows very clearly that there will be an ecumenical movement in the last days.  Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 also state that there is going to be an ecumenical movement in the last days.

The problem with the ecumenical movement is this; the ecumenical movement does not bring Christiandom back into harmony with Bible truth.  I would be all for an ecumenical movement and would join with people of any denomination or church to get it if the premise was let us all get back to Bible truth.  Let us study the Bible and follow what the Bible says.  That would be different.  But that is not what we see.

The ecumenical movement is based on getting together on what things we have in common and what things we don’t have in common we will just lay aside.  We will just forget about them and pretend they don’t exist.  So we have people in the ecumenical movement that think you have to go and confess your sins to a priest.  Then we have other people in the ecumenical movement that believe it would be wrong to go and confess your sins to a priest.  What kind of unity is that?  You see, that is a veneer.  It is a unity that is a veneer, but underneath there is no real harmony and unity.  It’s a phony; it is a fake; it’s a counterfeit.

We have people in the ecumenical movement that say, “The only head of my church must be that Bishop of Rome.”  There are other people in the ecumenical movement that say, “The Bishop of Rome cannot be the head of my church.”  How do you have unity in that kind of a situation?

But there is going to be a group of people that come into perfect unity and harmony, and they are going to receive the latter rain.  When the latter rain is poured out, friends, it’s not going to be very long from that time until the Second Coming.  We have to get ready.  Before the latter rain can be poured out, there has to be a people that are living in harmony with divine counsel, who are in harmony and unity.

Ellen White wrote about it in Testimonies, vol. 6, 292: “We are nearing the end of this earth’s history, and God calls upon all to lift the standard bearing the inscription: ‘Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.’ ”  That is Revelation 14:12; that is the end of the third angel’s message.  That is the result of accepting the Three Angels’ Messages.  “He calls upon His people to work in perfect harmony.”  Ibid.

Now, let me ask you something.  Would God tell us to do something if it was impossible to do it?  When God says that He’s calling on you and me to work in perfect harmony and unity, if we are not in perfect harmony and unity, what should we be doing?  We should be praying every day and saying, “Lord, help me to come in perfect harmony and unity with the people around me with whom I’m working.”

“No word is to be spoken to discourage any, for this grieves the heart of Christ and greatly pleases the adversary.  All need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit; all should refrain from censuring and disparaging remarks, and draw near to Christ, that they may appreciate the heavy responsibilities, which the co-workers with Him are carrying.  ‘Press together; press together,’ are the words of our divine Instructor.  Unity is strength; disunion is weakness and defeat.”  Ibid., 292, 293.

I want to tell you, friends, that is one of the primary reasons that the devil has been so successful against the revival and reformation movement in Adventism.  People looking on—even people in conference churches—are saying, “That can’t be of the Lord.  Look at how those people are fighting with one another.”  Friends, there is something wrong.  The in fighting has to quit, because if it doesn’t, the Lord is going to separate us from His work.  Do you realize that?  It is very serious for Christians to fight with each other.  Very, very serious.

I will read you another statement from Testimonies to Southern Africa, 57: “The Lord would have His church purified from all contention and strife.  Every phase of character is to be in harmony with the character of Jesus Christ.  Unity will then be seen as a sure result.  Divisions are the fruit of Satan’s work.”   

Let me ask you a question based on that sentence.  If I’m in a church and we have divisions in that church, what does that mean?  That means that Satan is working in our church.  Well, would you like the devil to stop working in your church?  If the devil is going to stop working in your church, what has to happen?  See, as long as we have the divisions, that is a proof that the devil is successfully working in the church.  When the Holy Spirit comes in, that is going to stop—when we all humble ourselves and pray, “Lord, help me to become Christlike.”

Here is another statement about the same thing from the same book: “All our work in this world is to be done in harmony and love and unity.  We are to keep the example of Christ ever before us, walking in His footsteps.  All are to be united in love, in meekness, in lowliness of mind.  Organized into a society of believers [that is what the church is], for the purpose of combining and diffusing their influence, they are to work as Christ worked.  They are ever to show courtesy and respect for one another.”  Ibid., 89.

We should all know if we are an apostolic church.  You know, the Catholics make a great deal about whether you are apostolic or not.  The problem is, they don’t know what apostolic means.  Apostolic means that we teach the same doctrines and we work in the same Spirit as the apostles.  But if we teach the same doctrines, if we work in the same Spirit as the apostles, when the church comes to that point and we are in a church like that, we will know that nobody in that church, behind our backs, will censure us, criticize us, be disrespectful of us, or be uncourteous either to our backs or to our faces!  We will feel comfortable in that group, because we know that those types of things won’t happen.  Wouldn’t that be a nice church to belong to?  That is the way the church is going to be in heaven.

When we go to church in heaven and we get acquainted with different people, we’ll never have to worry about whether somebody is going to be disrespectful, discourteous, censuring us, or talking behind our backs.  We are not going to have to worry about that.  The church that goes up there is going to become that way down here first.

That is something that we need to pray about.  The devil is working 24 hours a day in every Adventist church to try to get the people at each other’s throats, to be discourteous to one another, to be disrespectful to one another, and to be talking about one another behind their backs, because that stirs things up.  That creates division in the church, and then the Holy Spirit can’t be poured out and the church becomes weak.  Then we wonder why is the church so weak?  Why don’t we have the Holy Spirit in us?  Why don’t we see the work of God done with power here?  Well, just because the devil is working.  We are allowing the devil to work by the way we’re talking bout each other, and dealing with each other, and treating each other.  Notice that Mrs. White says that if we work as Christ works, we will always show courtesy and respect.

I’m going to read you a statement now that, unless you have faith, you’ll be tempted to say that you don’t see how that could ever happen, but it is in the Spirit of Prophecy, so I know it is going to happen.  I don’t have any question about that.  But the question is, when it happens, am I going to be part of it?  This is really unbelievable, but it is true, because Ellen White wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  “Those who are working for God should put away all unkind criticism, and draw together in unity. . . .  [Christ] desires the union between those who work for Him to be as close as the union between Him and His Father.”  Upward Look, 366.  Christ desires the union between His followers to be as close as what? As close as the union between the Father and the Son!

I don’t know how to talk about that.  I don’t know how to describe that.  I don’t know how to say anything about that.  It is just something in my mind, and I say, well, that is what it says.  That is what it says so that is what it is going to be.  Friends, we need to face reality, too.  Right at the present time we are a long ways from that.  But that is going to happen to some group of people, and I would like to be part of that group.

Why are we in the situation we are in?  Ellen White told the General Conference in 1895, “Who are feeling a burden to come into perfect unity?  Who will deny self, and make any and every sacrifice to his own ideas and preferences, that he may be in harmony with his brethren?  It is the lack of the grace of the Holy Spirit which makes the professed followers of Christ so decided and unyielding, so determined to please themselves.”  The General Conference Bulletin, 337, 338.  It is the lack of the grace of the Holy Spirit that makes us so unyielding.  You know what unyielding is don’t you?  You’re not going to change your mind.

I remember several years ago now, on a Sabbath afternoon at a camp meeting in Tennessee, a man came up to me and wanted to talk to me.  This man was utterly confused about the issue of the Godhead.  This is a way that fanaticism often happens; a person takes a text and reads into it something that it doesn’t actually say.  He wanted to tell me about the Greek word lambano, and actually I already knew it, because I had learned it in my first year of Greek class at Walla Walla College.  But he wanted to inform me that, in John 10:17, 18, Jesus wasn’t saying that He could lay His life down and He could take it again.  He said the word lambano means either to take or receive and He was just saying that He could lay His life down and then He could receive it again.  Well, the trouble with his teaching, first of all, was that he couldn’t prove it.  The word lambano can mean either to take or to receive.  It can mean either way, and you determine the meaning by the context.  The problem is the context shows that it could not mean receive.  The context shows that the word in this text means take.  Jesus was saying, “I have the authority.”  It doesn’t take any authority to receive.  “I have authority to lay my life down and I have the authority to take it up again.”

You can read about that in The Desire of Ages, 785.  Ellen White is very clear that the resurrection of Christ was performed by His own divine power.  He wouldn’t do it until the Father gave the command, but the resurrection of Christ was performed by His own divine power.  By the way, Jesus Himself said that He was going to do that.  “Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple and in three day I will raise it.”  John 2:19.  Where it says, “I will raise it,” is not the Greek word lambano.  That’s not a word that you can interpret or translate any other way.  It has to be translated “I will raise it up.”  There is no other way to translate that, so there is no ambiguity in this text.  You can’t translate it two ways; you can only translate it one way.  He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I myself will raise it up.”  There is no other way to translate that.  So there is no ambiguity in this test.  You can’t translate it two ways. 

“The Jews said, forty and six years this temple was in building, and you will raise it in three days?  But He was speaking of the temple of His body.”  Verse 20.  So, Jesus Himself here predicted three years before the crucifixion that, “I will raise myself, after you kill me I will raise after you destroy this temple.  After you kill me I will raise myself up in three days.”

Now, you see, the trouble we get into is that I had this information right when this man at the camp meeting came and talked to me; I had already studied this out.  I had this text; I knew it; I could have quoted it to him; I could have showed it to him.  But as I listened to him and started reasoning with him, I found out that his mind was not subject to the weight of evidence.  So, I said, “I’m wasting my time.  I will not try to force you to believe something you don’t want to believe.”

Did you know that very often Jesus got into situations where He could have told people something that would have solved all kinds of problems for them, but He said that they weren’t ready to receive it, so He just quit and didn’t say anything?  That happened over and over again, and friends, we are never going to receive the Holy Spirit if we don’t get over that attitude of mind.  Regrettably it is all through historic Adventism.  We have some praying to do. 

Let us just think through the future.  Suppose that we are all taken to heaven, and you go up to somebody in heaven and you start to show them something from the weight of evidence, and they won’t believe it, because they believe something else.  And they are not going to believe the evidence no matter how much evidence you give them.  Do you suppose that is going to happen in heaven?

When are we going to get over that sort of thing?  We are going to get over it here.  We must have enough humility so that we accept the weight of evidence when we see where the weight of evidence lies.  Now, if I’m deceived on something, God doesn’t hold me responsible for that.

A lady I was giving Bible studies to—she is a Seventh-day Adventist now—was very worried about her dead husband.  She asked me, “What is going to happen to my husband?”  You see, we had studied about the Sabbath, and she knew about the Sabbath.  She said, “What’s going to happen to my husband?  My husband was a faithful Sunday-keeper his whole life.  He never kept the Sabbath.”  I asked her whether he knew about the Sabbath, and she told me that neither of them had known about it.  She had only learned about it during our Bible study.  He was already dead.  I assured her that in that case her husband could be given eternal life even though he wasn’t keeping the Sabbath, because to him it was a sin of ignorance, and he didn’t know any better.  I also told her that she could not be given eternal life if she broke the Sabbath, because now she knew better; she knew where the weight of evidence lies.  Her husband didn’t know.

You see, here is a trick that people play on themselves—don’t ever play it on yourself.  When we are going to have evangelistic meetings, people actually say, “I’m not going to those meetings, because I might find out something that I don’t want to know, and I don’t to find out.  And as long as I don’t know it, the Lord will not hold me responsible for it.”  You know what is written down on their page up in heaven?  It is written down that on such and such a day this person decided that they didn’t want to know more truth, because then they might have to follow the truth.  Are they going to be taken to heaven in that state of mind?  Is somebody going to be in heaven and when the Lord calls a meeting they will say, “I’m not going to go to that meeting, because I might find out something that I don’t want to know”?  They are not going to heaven with that state of mind.

We have a lot of praying to do folks.  We need to face the fact that we are not going to heaven in the state of mind we are in now.  It’s the state of mind that there is in historic Adventism that results in all this in fighting and all this dissention and all this division.  If we have the mind of Christ, this will disappear.  Our greatest need is unity and perfect oneness in God’s work.

Ellen White wrote, in the February 7, 1900, The Signs of the Times: “Strange, eventful history is being recorded in the books of Heaven.  Everything in our world is in agitation.  Events are changing to bring about the day of God, which hasteth greatly.  The world is filled with storm and war and variance.  Under one head, the papal power, it has united to oppose God in the person of His faithful witnesses.  This union is cemented by the great apostate.  All jealousy, evil surmising, and evil speaking are of him, and tend to produce discord and disunion.  Then shall God’s people be at variance with one another?  In the general discord there should be one place where harmony and unity should exist because the Bible is the guide.”  This statement is directly related to Daniel 8:14 and shows why we should have perfect harmony and unity among us.

Why is it that harmony and unity should exist among us?  Because we have decided to live according to the Bible.  I tell the people in our prophecy seminars, “We are going to study this subject tonight.  If you understand this different than I present it, I want to tell you before I get started that I’m willing to change my mind on anything that we study, if you can show me from the Bible that I’m mistaken.  I’m willing to be changed.”  Is that all right to have a mind willing to be changed if they can show me from the Bible?

You see, if we decide that we are simply going to follow the Bible, following the same Book ought to bring us into the same practice, into the same belief, into unity.  The Bible, if we follow it, should bring us into unity, shouldn’t it?  It did in Adventism in the 1850s and 1860s.  It brought more unity and harmony than there was in any other Protestant church.

But people are confused.  They are confused by Catholic theology and by the ecumenical movement.  They think that the way to get unity and harmony is for everyone to become part of one organization.  When I was a boy, we never imagined in our worst nightmares that anything like that would ever happen in Adventism, but it is.  Some people say it is the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventists.  Some people say it is the Reform Church of Seventh-day Adventists.  Other people say it is the ecumenical movement.  Whatever it is, some people say, “Just join the Catholic Church.”  By the way, there are a lot of Protestants doing that today, because they think that will bring unity and harmony.  They may not believe what the Catholic Church teaches, but they think that by belonging to the organization will somehow bring unity and harmony.

We just read what it is that will bring unity and harmony.  It is when we are all following Bible truth and filled with the Holy Spirit.  If we receive the Holy Spirit, we are going to have unity and harmony.  Ellen White wrote: “Humble yourself before God.  Come into right connection with Him by yielding to the creating power of the Holy Spirit.  Then will be seen in the church the unity that is of value in God’s sight.  There will be sweet harmony, and all the building, fitly framed together, will grow up into an holy temple in the Lord.  The church will have that faith that shows that it is genuine because it works by love and purifies the soul.”  Manuscript Releases, vol. 2, 19.

Oh, friends!  When are we going to have another Pentecost?  I’m not a prophet, but I read the Spirit of Prophecy, and because I read the Spirit of Prophecy, I know a little bit about what is going to happen.  There are going to be groups of people that come into unity and harmony.  Maybe we are going to get a lot smaller before it will happen, I don’t know.  Maybe the Lord will have to shake us some more, but there is going to be a small group of people comprised of little groups of people all over the world.  There may be only two or three or six in your town that are going to come into unity and harmony.  When that happens, when those people come into perfect unity and harmony, the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out like Pentecost.

When Pentecost was poured out, there weren’t a lot of people.  There were only 120, and that was from the whole world.  Now this time it is going to be a lot bigger, but it is not going to be all in one place.  That time it was just 120 in one place.  This time it is going to be a lot more than 120, but they are going to be scattered all over the world, so where you are, there may be only two or three or six. 

When that happens, God’s work is going to be finished very, very rapidly.  I don’t know whether it will be days, weeks, or months or how long it will be, but it won’t be very long; I can tell you that.  The rest of the world is going to say it is impossible that all of us could be wrong and that little group of people over there could be right.  That is what they are going to say all over the world; you can read that in the Spirit of Prophecy.  They are going to say that to us during the time of trouble.  They’re going to say to each other, as did the people in Noah’s day, that it is impossible that the whole world could be wrong and those eight could be right.  They are going to say that about you and me, too.

I don’t care what they say.  I just want to be part of the group that receives the Holy Spirit.  I’d rather be with two or three or six and be receiving the Holy Spirit than to be in a church with 10,000 or 20,000 that is not receiving the Holy Spirit—or worse yet receiving the wrong spirit.  And I want to tell you, friends, that is happening all over today, and we are going to see it happen a lot more.

Let me tell you what is just around the corner, not because I’m a prophet, but because I have read the Spirit of Prophecy.  In these churches that think they are receiving the Holy Spirit—and let me tell you this could happen in some Adventist churches, too—they are not.  Does the Bible talk about that?  It does exactly talk about that in II Corinthians 11:4:  “For if the one who comes preaches another Jesus, which we have not preached, or you receive another spirit which you have not received, or if you receive another gospel, maybe you will put up with it.”  What is Paul scared of?  He is scared that these will receive a different Jesus.  That has to do with the nature of Christ, by the way, and the nature of the Godhead, too.  It has happened in many churches.  He is also afraid that they will accept a different gospel.

I’m sorry to tell you, friends, that there are Adventists today that have accepted a different gospel.  That is called the New Theology.  They might receive a different spirit.

What is around the corner?  What is around the corner, friends, is that these people that have received a different spirit, thinking it is the Holy Spirit, are going to start to see miracles.  When the miracles are worked, it is going to take the whole world captive, except for just a few people here and there.  I want to be part of that few people.  Do you want to be part of that few people?