SPECIAL SEE PAGE 6 General Confernce REPORT ExecutiveAn informative publication for members ofCommittee the General Conference Executive Committee Newsletter as a service through the offce of the Chair AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 Adventists, being called out as FGod’sor remnant Seven churcht- isd aoney of our 28 Fundamental Beliefs, (#13), and is core to our identity and mission. Today, however, some may wonder if being the “remnant” is still relevant. Others may identify the concept with exclusivity, elitism, and pride. But when we recognize it is God who calls and identifes His remnant, and that it is only through His power that the remnant can carry out His mission, then we realize that pride has no place, and that all are welcome to become a ARE WE REALLY part of His remnant people. In this issue of the Executive THE REMNANT? Committee Newsletter, Clifford BY CLIFFORD GOLDSTEIN, EDITOR, ADULT BIBLE STUDY GUIDE Goldstein, editor of the Adult Bible Study Guide and well-known Adventist apologist, examines uppose you were a Jew Suppose, for whatever reason, the concept of the remnant in the living in ancient Israel, First you became upset with the Old and New Testaments, and its Temple period, and were fed up Seventh-day Adventist Church? application for today. with how compromising and Where would you go? May God bless us as we consider Sworldly the church had become. That is, if you are not willing to this important I mean, they were actually give up the seventh-day Sabbath, Fundamental worshipping idols in the temple you have pretty much wiped out 99 Belief. grounds! (See Ezekiel 8) per cent of your options. If, at the —elias Where would you go? same time, you are not willing to brasil Babylon? Assyria? believe that evil Uncle Willy (may de souza, Or suppose you were a Jew he rest in peace) is burning in hell director living in the Second Temple right now, or that sweet Aunt Sally biblical Period, which had become so (may she rest in peace) is enjoying research legalistic that they actually the bliss of heaven, then you have institute accused Jesus of violating the wiped out 99 per cent of the one Sabbath. (See John 9:16) percent of your options left. Where would you go? Again, I ask: Where would you Greece? Rome? go? EDITORIAL Well, what about today? —continued, next page 1 No question, the difference then, about Noah getting drunk and between the religion of ancient that whole ugly incident. It still Israel and the pagan nations didn’t change the fact that they had around them was greater than the present truth). difference between the Seventh- Abraham was probably the day Adventist church and the other holiest, most faithful of any of the Protestant faiths around us. That’s remnant, and he had more light, true, but the difference is still more truth, than the pagans around great enough, the truth still stands him. But he, too, wasn’t perfect. GOD HAS out clearly enough—that, indeed, Then the children of Jacob, the there’s really no other place to go. twelve sons. We know the story ALWAYS HAD here. Some were better than others, THE REMNANT but they were hardly all perfect, someone—a group Hence, welcome to the Seventh- hardly all holy, hardly all saints. day Adventist Church, the remnant Though again at least they had of people—to“ carry church. knowledge of the true God, which Why are we the remnant? is why they are traced through the His light, His truth, Well, if you study biblical Bible as a remnant. to the world. history, God has always had a Then we get to the nation of group of people who He had Israel. Look at their teaching. Ten entrusted with more light, more commandments. The Genesis truth—“present truth” (2 Peter creation account in contrast to 1:12)—than anyone else around pagan myths. The sanctuary service, them. Not because He loved them in contrast to pagan sanctuaries, more, or thought they were better where they held sexual orgies than everybody else, but because in and sacrifced children. They some way or another they showed understood the state of the dead. some kind of openness to Him— They had a health message (for and to the light, the truth, that He instance, the Egyptians would wanted to give. And that light, that use human excrement in medical truth, more than anything else is concoctions while the Jews buried what made them the remnant. theirs outside the camp). They You see, God has always had had some understanding of the someone—a group of people—to Great Controversy. They had the carry His light, His truth, to the Spirit of Prophecy manifested all world. Whether or not they were through their history. And they had faithful to the truth that they had knowledge of the Messiah’s coming. (often they weren’t, unfortunately) Now, I can go on and on about is another matter entirely. The point all their apostasy, all their rebellion, is that they still had more light, all the evil that was done by some more truth, than anyone else around of the them. The Old Testament them—and that light, that truth, was is flled with a lot of stories about carried on. that. But it doesn’t change the fact that they had been given more light, more truth, than any of the other OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY nations around them. Period. For example, Noah and his Having this truth might not have family had present truth. It’s going saved all of them, but that’s not the to rain; get on the boat. (Read, point. The point is that they had 2 these truths, truths that no one else testimony of Jesus is the spirit of did, at least to the degree that they prophecy,” (Revelation 19:10). did. And that distinguished them as “Here is the patience of the God’s remnant. Where saints; here are those who keep the would I commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY go“ if I The commandments of God, Now, let’s transition to the left the which includes the Sabbath, and the early church. They, like ancient Seventh-day Spirit of Prophecy. Israel, had a mission to spread the That’s us, yes. knowledge of the true God to the Adventist But, look at us. Look at some world, only now with the added Church? of the struggles and problems we light, the present truth message of have. Look at the crises in our Jesus as the Messiah, who died for history. Look at the challenges the sins of the world. we have today. But can we, with And yet, look at what it was like. Then we get into the long period all these problems, still be God’s If you read in the New Testament of papal supremacy and so forth remnant church? alone, in New Testament times, the that we all know so well. There Of course we can. And that’s time when Paul and the apostles were always those who preserved because the remnant is determined were still alive, what do you fnd? some modicum of truth and by the truth it possesses and There was fornication—a man faithfulness though a great deal was proclaims. sleeping with his father’s wife (1 lost. But that doesn’t mean we can Corinthians 5:1). Ethnic tension become proud and say, “We have it between Greeks and Jews (Acts THE FINAL REMNANT all together—we have the truth!” 6:1). Ethnic bigotry even among Now, we come down to the end Listen to what Ellen White told leaders, such as Peter not wanting times, to ourselves, the Seventh- the remnant people at the General to eat with Gentiles (Galatians day Adventist church. We have a Conference Session in 1901: 2:11-14). There were backsliders, few texts that help defne us as the “Every soul in every conference, busybodies, tattlers, gossipers, remnant church of the last days. in every part of the Lord’s vineyard, all found in the early church. “And the dragon was wroth with has the privilege of knowing the Theological battles over the law the woman, and went to make war truth. But truth is not truth to those and the keeping of the law. Nasty with the remnant of her seed, which who do not practice it. Truth is only battles, in fact. Outright heresy as keep the commandments of God, truth to you when you live it in the well. “O foolish Galatians, who has and have the testimony of Jesus daily life, showing the world what bewitched you” (Galatians 3:1). Christ” (Rev. 12:17). those people must be who are at last 1 Some taught the resurrection was The remnant of her seed? Which saved.” already past. John warned about seed? The seed of the woman. Just because you’re part of antichrists already among them; You can go back to Genesis 3:15 the remnant doesn’t mean you battles over the nature of Christ, for that: “And I will put enmity are saved. That’s never the case. with the Gnostic heresy. between thee and the woman, and But these truths remain the truth, All this within the church, between thy seed and her seed; it present truth, regardless of what the new remnant church of the shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt those possessing it do with it. New Testament. But despite their bruise his heel.” I have often said that, however problems, there were still those And there’s more.