Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Pastor Aymond Burdett.
I want to take you back to part of my life where we used to live in a little house, a suburb called Kungamaya. Kungamaya in indigenous language means house on a hill. It was in this house that a lot of the battles took place between me and my wife in our relationship.
But particularly as we came to Goddesse, there was many battles took place in that house, that blessed little place. I remember one time that there was three seventh day adventist pastors at our front door wanting Nicky to go to Mammal Arthur College. And that was all part of our journey with God.
And this precious gift, the testimony of Jesus, has blessed me as I reflected on it over the last few weeks, because I was living like a heathen, even though I was brought up in the SDA church, this gift of Jesus had a profound effect upon me. And around the age of 30, you would have seen me on my back veranda reading the great controversy with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. This book gripped me.
And as I read this book, Nikki was sleeping down the other end of the house. I was at one end and she was at the other end. She had one of our little babies.
And I used to get up very early in the morning at 304:00 in the morning. So I would go to bed to get some sleep. But as I would read every night, the great controversy.
And one night after reading great controversy, I went to sleep. But in my dream I had a real nightmare, a real nightmare that was very real. And I'm not bragging.
At that time I was a concreter, I was younger and very strong. I'd worked from the age of 14 in sawmills. I had worked with the largest chainsaw in the world, a 90, which made the little other chainsaw sound like a little baby when you use them.
It was 13 hp, very big change, which are so big that most people will not use them anymore because they're far too heavy. And so I worked very hard for 16 years, very hard labour. And I could give big blokes a hard time when it comes to hand wrestle.
But in this dream, this black figure came up from under the bed and grabbed me by the throat. I remember that I could not even budge that grip on me, not even one millimetre I knew it was supernatural. And I cried out, Jesus.
Jesus. And straight away it broke away. I woke up breathing, panting, really out of breathe.
I was gripped by this book. My mind was being opened up to the great battle between Christ and Satan. And I remembered it when I finished reading this book that pointed me back to the Bible.
The great battle between Christ and Satan. That I knew that myself and my family could not get out of what was coming upon this world. That we all have to make a decision.
The lesser light leads us to the greater light, the word of God. Amen. It helps us understand what is happening around us.
Let's pray. Father in heaven, we just want to thank you this morning for the gift of prophecy, the testimony of Jesus. And, Lord, I pray that you open our hearts and our minds this morning to see how important this truth is, this gift that you have given to your people, not only for this church, but for the whole world to bless them.
And, Lord, one of the reasons that Nikki and myself are not dead today or broken is because of this gift and because of you, and because of the word of God. Father, we thank you for the sanctifying power of the word of God. We thank you for Jesus, for the Holy Spirit, for all that you've done for us, that you may be glorified and lifted up, Christ, that we may know that we have a friend, that we have a helper, someone who loves us, who does not like anyone to suffer.
That you have brought all this to us to bring us closer to you. Lord, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
When we think about the Bible, there are many ancient prophets that God has spoken to his people throughout history, his messengers. And from the third chapter of Genesis, we understand that they would hear. Adam and Eve would hear the sound of the Lord walking down the garden towards them.
And so we see this picture that Adam and Eve would have talked to God and Eve face to face. But sin had separated God from Adam and Eve and all of humanity and from our Lord. And so God raised up prophets down through the ages to speak to his people.
And prophets, or messengers, are a spokesperson or a mouthpiece for God's people. The Bible says in acts, God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world has begun, since the fall. And so this tells us, despite the fall, despite paradise being lost, that God still loves us.
Amen. That God is still speaking to his people through these men and women. Amos tells us that surely God does nothing unless he reveals these secrets through his servants, the prophets.
And as we look at some of these prophets were raised up. Noah was raised up before the flood, before Exodus, Moses was raised up. During the captivity, Jeremiah was raised up.
Also Daniel and Ezekiel. And before Christ's ministry, John the Baptist was raised up to pave the way for Christ's ministry at the first advent, before the greatest event ever. I asked you this morning when you think about this, the second coming of Christ, surely God raises up someone as a messenger before the greatest event, the second coming of Christ, because the Bible says, for prophecy never came by the will of man.
But holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And as you look at this list of prophets here on the screen, what is the one thing they all have in common? Even Nathan or Elijah and John Obed, every single prophet here never wrote one line of scripture. I want you to notice that today, every single one never wrote one line in the word of God, John the Baptist.
For I say unto Jesus, when he was thinking about John the Baptist ministry, this is what he said. For I say to you, among those born of woman, there is not one greater than a prophet, John the Baptist, but he is, at least in the kingdom of God, is greater than him. And so when we think about Jesus ascending to heaven, Paul here in Ephesians four, he's telling us that when Jesus was ascending to heaven, Jesus would have been thinking about his fledgling church.
There would have been only eleven disciples, and Jesus had just given them the gospel commission. Go into all the world and teach them and baptise in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, as he ascended to heaven, he himself gave them to be what, to be apostles.
He gave them gifts for people to be apostles, to be prophets, to be evangelists, pastors and teachers. These are gifts that Jesus gave as he ascended towards heaven. He knew that they needed his gifts to do the gospel work upon the whole entire world.
So, pastors, our gift, evangelist Jeff Yordan will be a gift to us next week. Prophets, our gift teaches our gift from God. And we give gifts to those who we love.
Amen. We give gifts to those people that we love. Jesus gave these gifts to bless and to expand his fledgling church.
Then the Bible says in verse twelve why God gave these gifts to equip God's people for the work of ministry and for edifying the body of Christ. Edify means to instruct. It means to make somebody more morally stronger or more stronger in their spiritual life, like edifying our children by daily reading the word of God or children's stories.
To them, the Bible said that we should no longer be tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men or the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. Beloved, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age. And this story that I shared with you this morning reflects what we are battling against.
It is very real, the war that we're in between Christ and Satan. So when we look at history, both men and women, throughout the Bible, God raised them up as prophets throughout the ages to speak to his people. And here, some of the women, Miriam, Anna, one in the New Testament.
And we think about Philip the evangelist. According to the Book of Acts, he had four daughters. He all prophesied for God and his people.
So how do we identify a prophet, a true one? There's plenty of false prophets out there. I don't have to tell you that. You see it all the time in the news.
But a true prophet of God will always be in harmony with the word of God. Amen. That is number one.
They will always be in harmony with the word of God, to the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak to this word, it is because there is no light in them. That's what the Bible says.
And it's very interesting. When you go back to verse 19 and verse 18, you see full on spiritualism happening in Isaiah's day. The very thing that we battle against today is happening in Isaiah's day, to the law and to the testimony.
If I do not speak according to this word, it's because there is no light in those people. Secondly, these prophets should have dreams and visions. That's how God talked to his people.
Numbers twelve, six. If there is a prophet among you, I will make myself known to them in a dream or in a vision. I will speak to them in a dream also.
The predictions of a prophet should always come to pass. That's how we know they've been sent by God, that God has truly sent them according to Jeremiah 28 nine. Fourthly, they must edify the church.
They're there to build the church up. They're there to edify, correct the church, to encourage the church. But he who prophesies edifies the church.
God's people, most importantly, a true prophet of God will always exalt Jesus Christ. Whenever you see a cult leader, they never exalt Christ. They always exalt themselves.
Is that true? You see it every single time. A true prophet of God will always and every time exalt Jesus Christ. Very, very important.
The Bible says every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. They've been sent by God. The other thing is, they will always bear good fruit.
You will know them by the fruits. Matthew seven. Jesus teaches us, when it comes to deception, when it comes to wolves in cheap clothing, you will know them by their fruits.
Their words will lead you closer to God. Their words will glorify Christ and the Father in heaven. And so we could ask the question some people would say, are there really prophets in the last days? Well, when you look at Joel chapter two, the context of Joel chapter two is particularly when a dark day came in 1750, and when the dark day came when the stars were fallen in 1833.
So Joel's setting of this verse here is in the 18 hundreds. And it says, and it shall come to pass, that afterwards that I'll pour out my spirit. On what? On all flesh.
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall join dreams, your young men shall see vision. And I believe that God will do this big time just before Jesus comes. Amen.
This is going to be very real when just before Jesus comes, God is going to prepare his people, he's going to prepare the world, and this is going to be a big part of it just before he returns. But I believe this started particularly in the 18 hundreds. That's the timeframe of Joel chapter two.
Particularly, he says, also on my men's service and on my maids service, I will pour out my spirit in those days. You know, it's interesting that the dragon, the serpent, was enraged with the church. And he goes to make war with this one church, the remnant of the seed, those who not only had the commandments of God, but who had the testimony of Jesus Christ.
And you know, when you look at history, it was a year in 1848 that when 77th keepers got together, this 70 got together. How do we take this message to the world? How do we do this? I got together, study about this. How are we going to do this? In 1848 was the very year that Phoebe started as well.
Spiritualism, at the very same time, just down the road, 15 minutes drive away, was also the birth of modern spiritualism. You know what? Within no time, there was 40,000 mediums and millions of people who were getting into this, communicating with the dead. The Bible says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
It's a gift of prophecy that Jesus has given to his church. And when we look at Bible prophecy, 1798, it was after 79 at this church, this woman, this movement rises up after the dark ages, right on time. Daniel said that after 2300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed, the truth shall be restored to its rightful place.
All the Bible teachings shall be restored. We're talking about 1844. The longest time period comes to an end in 1844, the longest Bible prophecy finally come to an end.
It was just two months after the great disappointment of 22 October 1844. Jeff will be sharing a bit about 1844 next week. That the gift of prophecy.
I'm not going to say I believe. I know. I've done my homework.
The gift of prophecy was manifested upon a young 17 year old woman two months after the disappointment in the month of December. Alan Harmon had 2000 visions ranging from a few minutes to up to 4 hours, lasting without breathing. And for the first 30 years, often her visions were in public for 30 years to establish her amongst God's people.
God done this on purpose. Sometimes before just a few people, sometimes it was like two or 300 people. This established her amongst her people as being supernatural and that this was coming from God.
And one of our pioneers, John Lofbo, who the only one that I know of who went through the disappointment as a twelve year old who outlived Alan G White by about seven years. And he was in company with Alan White over 50 times when she went into vision, he saw this 50 times in public. In vision, she would stop breathing.
And when you go to Daniel 1017, you see that Daniel as he's going into vision, he tells us that no breath was left in him who wasn't breathing. It was supernatural. Her eyes would be open.
The colour of her face would be normal. Even doctors would examine it. I'd put a candle in front of her and there'd be no breathing.
They knew that this is from God, that it was not normal. And for the last 40 years of ministry, in her ministry, she received prophetic dreams, given often dinner night to help edify the church and to direct God's work. And I want you to think about a 17 year old girl who had just been through the disappointment two months before.
She was the weakest of the week. And this is what she fought after she was being called. After I had the vision and God gathered, he told me to deliver it.
But she was so young, she was so weak. In fact, the doctor said that she'd only had a few months to live. She was called just six months after Joseph Smith was assassinated by the mob.
Another prophet who. One who claimed to be a prophet. You think about the context of this calling, of her ministry, given a few months to live, we have to remember the context of her calling after the great disappointment of 1844.
This gift of prophecy was not given to a seven day Adventist. It was actually given to a millerite lady called Alan Harmon. I want you to think about that.
Who later became a seven day Adventist. She was a millerite at that point, an Adventist, who later becomes a seven day Adventist. So God's people of all denominations, I want you to think about the context of when this gift was poured out.
What was happening in the northeast of America at that point of time. God's people from all different denominations were scattered everywhere, in northeast America especially. And they were trying to make sense of why Jesus did not come in 1844.
Why? And there was no organised church. Even though William Miller had almost 1000 ministers preaching the same message in America, they had joined in proclaiming this message of Jesus seeing return. There was no dedicated pastors, there was no education system, there was no healthcare system, there was no official publications.
That's why the gift of prophecy was so vital at this point. And the fascinating part of this history, the one thing that helped a lot of these Adventists and milorites come together, was they were studying this Sabbath truth. They found this 7th day Sabbath truth, and they were coming together and studying this point, but they later became 7th day Adventists.
And last Sabbath, I was convicted. That history is going to repeat again, it'll be very similar, that while there's going to be great deception and great multitudes, who are going to be deceived by the miracles and the signs and the wonders, just before Jesus comes, there's going to be another lot of people who are from all denominations, who are studying the light of this 7th day Sabbath, this day of worship. Amen.
I believe we're going to see the same picture globally in the future. These are the two main churches that came out of 1844. Disappointment.
I want you to notice the Advent Christian church. After the disappointment, they had about 30 to 50,000 members. The seven day Venice church.
After disappointment, they had about 50 to 150. In fact, in 19, 1848, it seemed to be that they only had about 70 sabbath keepers at that point, not 50,050. They actually fitted inside this church.
You think about that. 1848, they fitted easily inside this church. That's all they were today.
This is the latest stats I could get. 2014, the Adriatic Christian Church had 82,000 members working in 25 countries, out of 232 that the United nations recognised. Over here.
We'd be pushing 22 million by now, working in 212 countries out of 232 countries. Why such a difference between these two churches that both come out of the 1844 disappointment? I look at this chart. This is the growth of our church.
You see how it's very slow here, but it just explodes. It's incredibly steep. The growth of the Seven Adventist church, it tells me that God's hand is over this movement.
Amen. That God has breathed life into this movement. Around 60 years ago, an Advent Christian church pastor said to one of our pastors talking about this church here, a pastor from this church approached a pastor from this church, FD Nichols, and he said, your church has better men than us.
They're more visionary. They're more future minded. They raised up publishing houses.
They raised up education. They raised up the missionary work. And your men were far more better than our men.
And Fd Nichols was really interesting, what he said. He said, we are no better than you. Our leaders are no wiser than yours.
We have no more vision than your people. We were flesh and blood, just like your people. But we had a singular woman amongst us who marked out the way that we should do our education, the way that we should raise up our hospitals, the way that we should do the global mission.
And she was specific, she was determined, and she was clear. And it's interesting, one day that Butler, the general conference president, this is going back in her very foundational days. Butler wanted to know the answer to this doctrinal problem that they had at the general conference session.
And so he wrote a letter to Egy and said, I want you to answer this question. Whatever you say, that settles it. And she refused to answer him.
This is general conference president. And he was getting upset. He refused.
She refused to answer him. You know why? Because the answer always has to come from the word of God. Amen.
She refused to do it. She knew how to go forward. She knew that Avondale was a place to buy.
Everybody else was saying that a bandicoot couldn't even live in that place. That is the most useless land. That story happened over and over again.
We would get the properties for a 10th of the price, or 20% of the price of what they were, because God was going ahead and using her to guard our church. History and hindsight teaches us and bears witness to that fact. God here needs to be glorified.
Amen. I stand here by the grace of God. Amen.
I. You are here by the grace of God because of his love. And when I think about this, these last few weeks, that every 7th day Adventist church is a theatre of his grace.
Amen. Within every SDA hospital, there are hands of healing. Every SDa le have feet that will bring glad tidings to the households.
Every SDA teacher is installing eternal principles in our children. Every SDA pastor, every member are called to be vessels of grace, ambassadors of the everlasting gospel, becoming life changers for other people. This gift is not just for God's people.
This gift is for the world, for God's people everywhere. Beloved. This gift is that we may let our light shine, that we may glorify our father in heaven.
Did a stats show, did I back up? That she was led by God, that she had been a blessing to our church, that this gift of prophecy was a real gift from Jesus. In America, in the USA, the SDH, it has the biggest protestant hospital system in the United States of America. The biggest.
We have the biggest protestant education system in the world. God's hand, 198 hospitals. You think about it, we're only about 159 years old, if that.
When you really think about it, the leading us news report listed ten things that you need to do to live to 100. This is secular, this is not adventist, this is not seven day Adventist. They said there is ten things that you need to do to live to 100.
There are leading people in this field. They said, if you want to live to 100, number eight says live like a seven day Adventist. Can you believe it? That's what they said.
This is one of the world's leading papers, the US News and World Report, telling the world, if you want to live a long time, if you want to live to 100, number eight rule is that you live like a seven day Adventist. They go on to say, did seven adventists teach that their bodies are unknown from God, that they need to treat them right? There's no more drinking, there's no more smoking, there's no more drugs, you eat well. Plant based diet is promoted, and not too much sugar.
The focus is on families, the focus is on the community. What a testimony the gift of prophecy is to our church. In fact, when our church was first forming, there was three of our great leaders at Battle Creek.
And every one of some were sick, very sick, because of broken health principles. And that's one of the reasons why she was given the first health vision, to help our own people, to look after ourselves. The wonderful gift that Jesus has given us, when you look at education, it is phenomenal.
This boggles my mind. How does an organisation have 159 years, have so much education right across the world? How did that happen? It exploded across the world. The Bible says, do not quench the spirit.
Do not despise prophecies. Test all things and hold fast what is good. Beloved, do not believe in every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God.
Don't take my word. Do your homework. Read the spirit of prophecy.
Ask yourselves the question. Two questions. Does this lead me to the word of God? And secondly, does it lead me closer to Jesus Christ? Three of the books that really helped me with steps of Christ, desire of ages and a great controversy.
Beautiful books. We need to test everything. There's a lot of deception out there.
When you look at how it all starts around about the time of when this movement, this last movement that God raises up before the world, all this other deception comes and starts at the same era, the same time. Nikki and I had many times, many times, we had Jehovah witnesses in our house studying. We had Mormons.
Nikki went to the astro malls. He even went to spiritualism meetings, which I never even attempted to think about. We need to do our homework.
Where are these people from? We have to test, we have to measure it against the word of God. And so when we look at some of her statements, she says, I recommend to you, reader, dear reader, the word of God as a rule of your faith, and practise by that word meaning God's word. We're going to be judged.
At her death, a secular newspaper wrote this. No SDA connections. She showed no spiritual pride.
I've changed that one. I couldn't even understand what I was saying. I had to look it up.
She showed no spiritual pride. She sought no corrupt money or gain. She lived the life and did the work of a worthy prophetess, the most admirable in american successes.
This is a secular newspaper writing about her just as she died and reflecting on her work of the last 70 years. They knew, but do we know? Do we believe? Do we cherish this precious gift from Jesus? The Bible says, believe in the Lord your God and ye shall be established. Believe his prophets and you shall prosper.
She gives a reason why her ministry had to happen. Little heed is given to the Bible, and the Lord has given a lesser light to lead men and women to the greater light. That's the whole reason why she was raised up, because we need to be led back to the word of God.
Our minds need to be open more to the word of God. And that's why it came. It was a gift given to the last day movement.
Cling to your bibles as it reads. Stop your criticism in regard to it being valid and obey the word and not one of you will be lost. Not one of you will be lost.
She didn't hold up her writings. She didn't hold up one of her books. She said, not one of you will be lost.
If you keep to this word here, where there is no vision, the people will perish. And the reason why God has blessed us as a church so much. I've been to other church members of other denominations as an alle.
I've been in their houses and talking to them and they're saying, I can't believe how good your church is, what you do. I wish my church done this. Why? Because God has led this movement, this divine blueprint that God has given.
All these prophecies were fulfilled. Abraham was told that they will come out. Moses, who was told that they should be captives.
Daniel prophesied that the messiah will come. And he came on time. Jeremiah, 70 year prophecy.
John the Baptist prepared the way Christ, when he came to be baptised. He said, the time is fulfilled. He came right on time.
Daniel marked out the 2300 days. And when we look at Joel, chapter two, it was very much fulfilled in 1844 onwards and very interesting. When you look at Jeremiah, he was called at the age of.
I just realised this, 1718, very young. His ministry went for about 40 years. When you look at Daniel, who was called at the age of 17, we know that his ministry was about 70 years.
Because of the two world kingdoms, the museum, Persia and babylonian kingdom. Alan Wyatt was called at the age of 70. You see a divine blueprint here.
God's hand is over it. Very similar the way he done it. Saints, I hope and I pray that you recognise that God has spoken to his prophets in the past.
Amen. We believe because of the words of Daniel. We believe of the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
We believe because all these prophets have spoken and history has confirmed it. I recognise that God has promised to speak through the prophecies in the last days. I pray that that will be true.
And I believe that God's last day church will be blessed by the gift of prophecy. I want to close with a story, a very quick one. I was cleaning through my office and I come across a story that just boggled my mind.
Joseph was a lutheran pastor and one day a coal porter came to his house and sold him the book, the great controversy. And so he got the book and he put it in his library and he forgot all about that book. And then a few months later, he had a dream.
And in the dream, the man said to him, you need to read that book, you need to read all of that book, the entire book. And Joseph woke up that night, and he was disturbed. He couldn't remember the name of the book, but he knew it was a big brown book.
And so he got up in the middle that night. He went to his library, and he's looking down through the library, right through, and he found the book at the very end of the library. It was a big brown book called the great Controversy.
He started reading this book. When his son came up, he was still reading the book. This book really challenged him.
He actually bought the book because he wanted to use it for sermon material for his lutheran church. But as he went through the book, it started to confront him about why he was worshipping on Sunday rather than the Sabbath. And he started to get upset.
He actually threw the book in the bin. It frustrated him so much. But you know what? He'd go to preach, and he would preach loud and long, but all he could hear was remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
God was telling him, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He would go nuts. Can you imagine it? Can you imagine it's time to preach? And all you could hear was remember the Lord's day to keep it holy.
And so he was so frustrated. One Sunday after he preached, his wife says to him, joseph, are you all right? Are you okay? And he shared with her the whole story, what was going on, and he started praying, him and his wife, what they should do. And you know what? He was so frustrated, he said, lord, I'm going to do a test, like a Gideon's test.
I'm going to put two bowls of water in my office. I'm going to put Sunday on one. I'm going to put Sabbath on the other.
One Saturday on the other bowl. And, lord, if your day, the day that's holy, that's not holy, I want to have two cockroaches in that bowl. This is a true story.
And they wept. They put the two bowls on his office desk. He went to sleep.
He couldn't sleep. And he was, you know, he was stirring and tossing all night. One bowl had Sundae, the other one had seven days Sabbath in the bowl.
He said, lord, I want two cockroaches in a day that's not God's day. Can you imagine? The next morning he ran down to his office and there was two cockroaches in the Sunday bowl. Two bugs saved a soul.
Amen. Two bugs. You think about that.
Two cockroaches in the son of Baal and you know what? It touched him so much that he said, lord, they were weeping. He said, lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? How do I serve you? And God gave him a vision that he was going door to door selling the great controversy and other books. And that's what he did.
He left his pastorship, he left his church. He loved, he left the people that he loved because he was faithful to God. Amen.
And he went door to door selling books, just like Bruce does. Amen. How beautiful are the feet of those who have glad tidings.
May God bless you all.
This message was made available by the Victoria Park Seventh-day Adventist church. For more resources like this, visit their Youtube page at https://www.youtube.com/@VicParkSDAChurch/videos
