By John Thiel, mp3

Scripture reading: John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

We are Christ’s disciples by continuing in the word of truth. Truth is very much connected with our relationship with Jesus Christ. If I will have a deep relationship with Jesus I will have a deep relationship with truth, because

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The man Christ Jesus is integrated with the study of the truth. We cannot separate a relationship with God from a clear foundation of truth. It is an integrated whole. Truth is a relationship matter with God.

If I will be a disciple of Jesus and have a relationship with Him, it will be a relationship with truth. To the Jews who believed on Him, Jesus said,

John 8:31 …If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed;

It is impossible to believe in Jesus, to be a follower of Jesus, if we do not continue in His word.

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 

It is the truth that makes us free, but He also connects Himself with that truth:

John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

The study of truth is a study of Jesus Christ; and for us to be free from our captivities, whatever they may be, we need to have a relationship with Jesus, but not segregated from absolute truth. There are many people who think they are having a relationship with Jesus, and they may well do, but they don’t continue in that relationship by continuing in the word. It is His warning, His challenge. He says, You believe in Me? Then you must continue in My word to be My true disciples. So it is quite an affectionate bonding between person and truth that is embraced in those words of Jesus.

Those who are truly converted to Christ [must] keep on constant guard lest they shall accept error in place of truth. {CTr 235.4}

To be truly converted to Christ we must be on guard that we don’t slip away from that conversion by accepting error in the place of truth.

Those who think that it matters not what they believe in doctrine, so long as they believe in Jesus Christ, are on dangerous ground. There are some who think that they will be just as acceptable to God by obeying some other law than the law of God—by meeting some other conditions than those He has specified in the gospel—as if they obeyed His commandments and complied with His requirements. {CTr 235.4}

This is the big dilemma that I have experienced in the ranks of Christianity today. People can accept certain things, but then when I share other things that are written from plain Bible and Spirit of Prophecy readings they say, No, no, that’s not necessary. They will not comply with His requirements and teachings.

But they are under a fatal delusion, and unless they renounce this heresy and come into harmony with His requirements, they cannot become members of the royal family.{CTr 235.4}

This is a frightening reality. But you see this poetic fancy that the Spirit of Prophecy talks about – people get in a wonderful emotional relationship with Jesus and yet don’t stand on the pure truth. It is called a fatal delusion. These last days in which we are living are days of conflict in the ranks of Christendom today – conflict over truth. And it is this conflict over truth that Jesus warns God’s people about. Even among those who claim to be preaching the second coming of Jesus there is a conflict of doctrine. Sadly this is what we see in the ranks of Adventism today. There are so many different winds of doctrine claiming to be Adventists. What follows is Jesus’ warning in reference to Seventh-day Adventists, people who are expecting Jesus to come soon. He is here talking about His coming and people getting caught by surprise:

Matthew 24:45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? 46 Blessed [is] that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. 47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

Here are the faithful servants who are giving the correct spiritual food in the time of the end. But what is another company of servants doing?

Matthew 24:48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; 

Notice that he is not preaching it. He is a servant that is preaching the coming of Jesus, but what is he saying in his heart as he is preaching that? My lord delayeth his coming. And what does he do with the fellow servant who is preaching meat in due season – true doctrine? It says he “shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken.” That is a symbolic meaning of partaking of the false doctrines, drinking and eating false spiritual food. He eats and drinks with the drunken, and because of that,

Matthew 24:50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for [him], and in an hour that he is not aware of, 

Jesus here places every believer living in these days into an awareness that you have to be very careful that you don’t fall under a false doctrine. He tells us that there is a ministry that is giving meat in due season, while their fellowservants in these last days are eating and drinking with the drunken, eating meat that is confusing. Not only is it confusing, but it actually creates conflict, because the evil servant begins to smite, to make war with the faithful servants.

In this kind of representation for these last moments of earth’s history when people will be confused by false doctrine, is there a complete system of truth by which the faithful servants are identified? Can we identify the faithful servants in contrast to the servant that says in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming, and eats and drinks doctrines that make drunk and confuse? By God’s grace we have the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy by which we can identify the system of truth that is essential and that is meat in due season.

The subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844. {GC 423.1}

Since 1798 it had been the time of the end, so now, as the doctrine of the three angels’ messages was being proclaimed prior to 1844 and ever after, what did that doctrine of the sanctuary, the key that unlocked the disappointment of 1844, provide?

It opened to view a complete system of truth, connected and harmonious, showing that God’s hand had directed the great advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of His people. {GC 423.1}

According to that, the time of the end would be a time, as Jesus said, like the days of Noah, which would catch people by surprise if they were not watching; and ever since 1844 we are able to identify who Jesus says are the faithful and wise servants who give meat in due season. Who are they? The believers who came through the disappointment of 1844 and who were given the subject of the sanctuary. In that sanctuary study there is a view of a complete system of truth, connected and harmonious. No eating and drinking with falsehood there. It is all a complete system of truth, “showing that God’s hand had directed the great advent movement” and revealing what? It revealed present duty – meat in due season – truth that opens to us the exact discipleship activity that will make us free, the practising of the duty within the truth. That is visible for us to recognise the faithful and wise servants.

[Back in 1844] the people were not yet ready to meet their Lord. There was still a work of preparation to be accomplished for them. Light was to be given, directing their minds to the temple of God in heaven; and as they should by faith follow their High Priest in His ministration there, new duties would be revealed. Another message of warning and instruction was to be given to the church. {GC 424.4}

This is the message for the last days; and the faithful messengers (the faithful and wise servants) are clearly brought to view here. They are the people who were preaching that old Adventist message after 1844, still having to study more. They “were not yet ready to meet their Lord. There was still a work of preparation to be accomplished for them.” And new duties would develop before them in their study of truth for the last days. Why? So that they might be able to follow their High Priest in His ministration in the sanctuary above. A relationship with Jesus, the High Priest, was involved. He gave His life for us, and now He is in heaven, and He has moved in the sanctuary, and they were to follow Him. There are duties and truth to understand, meat in due season.

Unfolding of the System of Truth

How did this system of truth come to them? and how long a period of time did it take for them to know all those duties? Sr. White here points to the truth that was being established in the early Adventist church:

We are to be established in the faith, in the light of the truth given us in our early experience. At that time one error after another pressed in upon us; {GW 302.2} 

The wicked servants who were also claiming to be “Adventist” people were bringing in error.

…ministers and doctors brought in new doctrines. We would search the Scriptures with much prayer, and the Holy Spirit would bring the truth to our minds. Sometimes whole nights would be devoted to searching the Scriptures, and earnestly asking God for guidance. {GW 302.2} 

These people really meant to follow Jesus correctly in truth.

Companies of devoted men and women assembled for this purpose. The power of God would come upon me, and I was enabled clearly to define what is truth and what is error. {GW 302.2} 

The truth came to them as they studied under the onslaught of ministers and doctors who were bringing in error, and they were seeking God for the pure doctrine. They wanted to really present the pure truth in these last days, that whole system of truth. It is absolutely essential in our relationship with Jesus to have the pure truth, and that is what they were seeking.

As the points of our faith were thus established, our feet were placed upon a solid foundation. We accepted the truth point by point, under the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. I would be taken off in vision, and explanations would be given me. I was given illustrations of heavenly things, and of the sanctuary, so that we were placed where light was shining on us in clear, distinct rays. {GW 302.3} 

We do not need to be in uncertainty. What was the teaching of the early Adventist church? Where did it come from, and how did it come? As they were studying and they came to difficulties, Sr. White received visions, and then the truth was clearly brought to their attention. And what the Adventist church developed point by point was clarified through what the Spirit of Prophecy gave. So when we want to find pure doctrine, we don’t just refer to what the pioneers taught without a firm comparison of what they taught with the Spirit of Prophecy. This is the foundation of truth that was established.

Many people today will refer to pioneers who had written articles, and they think they have the pure truth there; but many of the pioneers had views that were very personal. But if we want to find absolute clarity, what must we do? The Holy Spirit gave Sister White the clarification of it. So before we jump to conclusions that the pioneers taught that, we must compare it with what E. G White was shown in vision. That is how the platform of truth was established.

Establishment of the Platform

Over what period of time was this platform established? How long did this point-by-point collection of doctrines take?

I am instructed to say that these words [1 John 1:1-10] we may use as appropriate for this time, for the time has come when sin must be called by its right name. We are hindered in our work by men who are not converted, who seek their own glory. They wish to be thought originators of new theories, which they present claiming that they are truth. But if these theories are received, they will lead to a denial of the truth that for the past fifty years God has been giving to His people, substantiating it by the demonstration of the Holy Spirit.–Letter 329, 1905. {1SM 162.1}

It was the Holy Spirit in the Spirit of Prophecy that substantiated what was truth. And that which cannot be substantiated by the Spirit of Prophecy is something that has been put together by certain of the people who want to be originators of new theories, and they present these theories claiming them to be truth. What was the period of time during which the Holy Spirit led the pioneers on in this truth? The false theories would lead to a denial of the truth that for the past fifty years God had been giving to His people. This letter was written in 1905. So if you want to find the perfect platform of truth that was established and that is security for our faith, you go back fifty years. According to the Spirit of Prophecy, that period from 1905 back is the fifty years during which this truth was established.

What influence is it would lead men at this stage of our history to work in an underhand, powerful way to tear down the foundation of our faith–the foundation that was laid at the beginning of our work by prayerful study of the Word and by revelation? Upon this foundation we have been building for the past fifty years. {1SM 207.3}

In 1844 the foundation of the sanctuary message came into being, and upon that foundation it took fifty years to build the entire system of truth.

Do you wonder that when I see the beginning of a work that would remove some of the pillars of our faith, I have something to say? I must obey the command, “Meet it!” . . . {1SM 207.3}

You can study the writings of E. G. White and see where she had, under inspiration, to meet the errors. We have there wonderful counsel. The true faithful and wise servant is clearly portrayed here, and it begins to be opposed by the unfaithful servant that says, My Lord delayeth His coming. And they want to have some proud belief that they have established some new theory that can be verified as truth, when the Spirit of Prophecy says, No, sorry, that is not the truth.

There have been one and another who in studying their Bibles thought they discovered great light, and new theories, but these have not been correct. The Scripture is all true, but by misapplying the Scripture men arrive at wrong conclusions. {2SM 102.2}

The Bible is all true, but they misapply it, and false doctrines arrive.

We are engaged in a mighty conflict, and it will become more close and determined, as we near the final struggle. {2SM 102.2}

Tell me, where are we today? Are we in the final struggle? It’s a battle today to uphold the original beliefs that have once been firmly established. There is always someone who comes up with a ministry that has a variation to that which has been established.

We have a sleepless adversary, and he is constantly at work upon human minds that have not had a personal experience in the teachings of the people of God for the past fifty years. {2SM 102.2}

It took fifty years to establish it, and those people who arrive afterwards are being worked upon by the adversary. And that includes me and any of the ministries of today – we were not there in the experience of the rising of this foundation. We “had no personal experience in the teachings of the people of God for the past fifty years.” What then are we told to do? We should go back to that.

Some will take the truth applicable to their time, and place it in the future. Events in the train of prophecy that had their fulfillment away in the past are made future, and thus by these theories the faith of some is undermined. {2SM 102.2}

You listen to some of these ministries, and that which has already been established as being in the past is put into the future. You hear this in their doctrines.

From the light that the Lord has been pleased to give me, you are in danger of doing the same work, presenting before others truths which have had their place and done their specific work for the time, in the history of the faith of the people of God. You recognize these facts in Bible history as true, but apply them to the future. {2SM 102.3}

They don’t argue with the truthfulness of those facts in prophetical history, but they apply them in the future. So what are these ministries doing? They say, Oh yes, the pioneers were right there, but now there is another application for the future. But Sr. White says, I have been shown you are wrong.

They have their force still in their proper place, in the chain of events that have made us as a people what we are today, and as such, they are to be presented to those who are in the darkness of error. {2SM 102.3}

There must be no alteration.

The true workers of Jesus Christ are to cooperate with their brethren who have had an experience in the work from the very rise of the third angel’s message. {2SM 102.3}

What did they do? We are to connect with them. We didn’t make the experience; they did, and we are to identify with them.

These followed on step by step, receiving light and truth as they advanced, bearing one test after another, lifting the cross that lay directly in their pathway, and pressing on to know the Lord, whose goings forth are prepared as the morning. {2SM 102.3}

They wanted to believe in Him and they pressed hard to study the pure truth; and what are we to do, we who have come long after those fifty years?

You and other of our brethren must accept the truth as God has given it to His students of prophecy, as they have been led by genuine, living experience, advancing point by point, tested, proved, and tried, until the truth is to them a reality. From their voices and pens the truth in bright, warm rays has gone to all parts of the world, and that which was to them testing truth, as brought by the Lord’s delegated messengers, is testing truth to all to whom this message is proclaimed. {2SM 102.3}

When I read this my soul thrills. How secure we can be. How absolutely sure we can be that we have a platform that we can stand on. When I was thrown into this kind of confusion by so many Adventist ministers preaching different teachings and doctrines, I asked the Lord, Where am I? But the Spirit of Prophecy directed me, and I categorically stood on the platform. This is absolutely essential. It was an experience of doctrinal discovery to them. It is an experience that you and I will make if we will connect ourselves in living terms to the doctrines of the original platform of truth.

Important Truths

How important are the truths that have accumulated over those years?

In the future, deception of every kind is to arise, and we want solid ground for our feet. {CW 53.2}

Solid ground – it’s good to know that you’re not on wonky ground. Where can I get it?

We want solid pillars for the building. Not one pin is to be removed from that which the Lord has established. {CW 53.2}

How did He establish it? Through these brethren studying together and then getting it clear from the Spirit of Prophecy. Not one pin is to be removed from that.

The enemy will bring in false theories, such as the doctrine that there is no sanctuary. {CW 53.2}

That was one of the doctrines that were firmly brought into focus through the Avondale College by Dr. Ford, when I was doing my nurse’s training. I heard this doctrine, that there was no two-apartment sanctuary in heaven, and I was amazed.

This is one of the points on which there will be a departing from the faith. Where shall we find safety unless it be in the truths that the Lord has been giving for the last fifty years?– Review and Herald, May 25, 1905. {CW 53.2}

Those point-by-point, testing messages that gave our pioneers their experience under God’s direction through the Spirit of Prophecy, and which were then put forth as the doctrinal foundation of the Seventh-day Adventist people around 1905, when they had it all there together, this is where our safety lies. This letter also was written in 1905.

I will now spend a few moments to enumerate some of the truths that were firmly established in this platform of truth over those fifty years. If you have any problem with it, just go back to their writings and you will get it just as I will simply portray it now in my own words from what I have gained through laying down my own opinion and just following what the Lord has directed we should do. We have here eighteen points.

I. The Heavenly Sanctuary

The sanctuary in heaven is the real one that the Hebrew sanctuary was a copy of. The two-apartment sanctuary of the Hebrews in the wilderness was a copy of the two-apartment sanctuary in heaven. This has been altered in many people’s minds. There is indeed a heavenly sanctuary, which was portrayed as a miniature here on earth during the Mosaic dispensation.

II The Day of Atonement

The Day of Atonement of the Hebrew sanctuary was a typical service, a prophetic service; it pointed to the literal Day of Atonement, when Jesus our High Priest moved from the first-apartment service into the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary in 1844. This is the foundation doctrine that was given.

III The Health Reform

The health reform was brought about point by point over fifty years. They were still eating pork when Sr. White first received the message and when they were first trying to get it all together. But they were not ready for Jesus to come; they had to be given new duties. One of those duties was to change their diet. And where in the Bible does that come from? Where do we find that in the day of atonement God would call for a change of diet, that they were no longer to eat meat, but that they were to eat the healthy foods? You can find it in Isaiah 22.

Isaiah 22:12 And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:

God says that He has called for fasting, because on the Day of Atonement it was a day of fasting. And what were they doing? They were eating meat and drinking wine, and saying, Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die. And he said to them, This is a sin that I will not forgive you; when I have called you to fast you were not following the health reform. This is the doctrine that was firmly established within the ranks of those fifty-year people.

IV The Dress Reform

This is another doctrine that was established. With the garments that people wore at the time, when the dress became very corrupted, God gave the dress reform message. In speaking on this subject Sr. White referred to the high priest in the sanctuary. The dress reform then became part of the test of fellowship before people could be baptised.

There should be no carelessness in dress. For Christ’s sake, whose witnesses we are, we should seek to make the best of our appearance. In the tabernacle service, God specified every detail concerning the garments of those who ministered before Him. Thus we are taught that He has a preference in regard to the dress of those who serve Him. Very specific were the directions given in regard to Aaron’s robes, for his dress was symbolic. So the dress of Christ’s followers should be symbolic. In all things we are to be representatives of Him. Our appearance in every respect should be characterized by neatness, modesty, and purity. But the word of God gives no sanction to the making of changes in apparel merely for the sake of fashion, that we may appear like the world. Christians are not to decorate the person with costly array or expensive ornaments. {6T 96.2}

You want to read the rest of it. These were the directions that Sr. White was given as a preparation for baptism. The dress reform was a very important message.

V The Law of Ten Commandments – The Sabbath

As the pioneers developed their understanding it came to the Sabbath question, and they became Seventh-day Adventists, because they established that particular element in the very early part of those fifty years.

VI Organisation

When there was a rebellion during the Hebrew wanderings in the wilderness they were arguing against the government of Moses and all that God had instituted in this regard. So in order to settle the argument they were told to give their twelve rods, and overnight it was Aaron’s rod that budded. That, according to the Adventist development of doctrine, meant that organisation was in God’s order; so they established the importance of organising themselves as a body of believers. That doctrine of true organisation in itself was established very carefully over the years.

VII Atonement Not Finished

The atonement that was made at the cross was not completed in the lives of God’s people. The atonement would continue to be established in every believer. Today you have the false doctrine that the atonement was completed at the cross, but this was not the doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventist church. The day of atonement itself, which began in 1844, was because the atonement for the sinner was not completed at the cross. What Jesus did at the cross was completed, but not for the sinner. That is why the work of the atonement since 1844 came into focus.

VIII The 1888 Message – The Nature of Christ

Jesus, when He came to this planet, did not come with sinless flesh. He came with a flesh that was a sinful flesh, and He suffered the terrible temptations that come upon human beings from within, from the flesh. Jesus came to show us how by the doctrine that was taught and developed point by point on the nature of Christ.

IX The Godhead

The subject of the Trinity that the Catholic Church upholds was rejected very early in the piece by the pioneers. But they went further in the early years in reference to the three beings of the Godhead – they claimed that there was only one God and that was the Father; that Jesus was not God, but merely the Son of God; and that the Holy Spirit was the spirit of God and of Jesus, but not a separate person.

This doctrine had been held in the early years of the pioneers, but as the years developed and point by point was revealed to them through the Spirit of Prophecy, by the time we got to about 1890s, under inspiration the Spirit of Prophecy clarified the three beings of the Godhead as different to the doctrine of the Trinity, but yet God made it clear that there were three Persons; that the Father was God; that Jesus was as much God as the Father was, that He was termed as the Son of God, not by birth, but by decree, and that He existed with the Father from eternity. And the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person was clearly delineated under inspiration from the Spirit of Prophecy (See Evangelism, p. 615.1). So the doctrine of the Godhead became clear in the ranks of Adventism over those fifty years.

X The Sealing of the 144,000

The Adventist pioneers understood the 144,000 to be a literal number; they taught it that way. They taught that it was the people who were under the three angels’ messages. They taught that the winds of destruction were being held back ever since 1848 so that God’s people could be settling into the truth, both spiritually and intellectually, so that they could not be moved, and so that they might make up that literal number of 144,000. That is what they taught, that was their doctrine. It was established and taught through their books.

XI The Seven Last Plagues – Armageddon

They taught very clearly that Armageddon would be a literal warfare of a plague dimension. They taught that this was the melting pot of the wicked world in which the grapes would be trodden underfoot and the blood would flow because of the destruction of the wicked through warfare. Any young person who was called into the war was warned and told that Adventists could not participate in war, because Armageddon is the end result of war.

XII Daniel 11 – The King of the North

The king of the north is not the papacy, even though James White at one stage taught that it was. As the truth was being established point by point, the doctrine was that the king of the north was Turkey, the headquarters of the Muslim world, of the Ottoman Empire, a topical place, not a symbol. It was taught to be an actual place, and that this had everything to do with the development into Armageddon as well.

So the idea that the king of the north is the papacy was not the doctrine of the early Adventist people over those fifty years.

XIII The Lord’s Supper

The communion service of the Lord’s Supper was for members only – it was called closed communion. They would not have communion service with those who did not believe their doctrines; those people would first have to be baptised, and then become members of the church, to be able to partake of the Lord’s Supper. The Spirit of Prophecy makes that very clear. For us today, it is only those who can stand on the same platform of early Adventism that would therefore be subject to the communion service.

XIV The Restoration of the Marriage Institution

The idea of divorce and remarriage was not just openly received carelessly. They were restoring the marriage institution, so that marriage was to be a decision for life. In their experience of declaring this doctrine and making it absolutely clear, there were however statements from the Spirit of Prophecy that clarified that the party who was not at fault was able to remarry again if the other party had committed adultery and married someone else. Under such circumstances the faithful party could remarry again, but it was not given as a loose open-gate to divorce and remarry again, like we see it today.

XV Wedding Rings

The Adventist people did not wear a wedding ring; they regarded that as a fashionable thing.

Not one penny should be spent for a circlet of gold to testify that we are married. {TM 180.2}

XVI War

There was to be no participation in the army, neither as Medics or arm-bearers. They could not participate in war, because if they did they would be part of a killing machine. So they were exempt from that. They were recognised by the government of the United States of America as being like the Quakers – they would be passive, non-participant in the army.

XVII Politics

There was no political engagement. They would not vote or join unions. This was another very definite point of their faith.

XVIII The Daily and the Transgression of Desolation

One of the prophetic pictures of prophecy as they studied it was the prophecy of Daniel 8 – the daily and the transgression of desolation. The teaching was that this prophecy was fulfilled in the past, that paganism gave way to papal Rome. That is what the daily is. There was daily persecution under pagan Rome, and then papal Rome took its place.

This is one of those doctrines that were changed by certain individuals who reapplied the word “daily” to the papal activity. They began to teach that this referred to the daily sacrifice that the papacy turned against in the heavenly sanctuary. This is not what this is about. The daily represented pagan Rome, and the abomination of desolation was papal Rome.

The Demise of Original Adventism

When did the demise of these doctrines start to happen in the ranks of the Adventist church? When did the false doctrines start creeping in? This letter was written on August 4, 1903:

After I received word in regard to the excellent meeting of confession and unity that had been held in Battle Creek I was writing in my diary and was about to record the thankfulness I felt because a change had come, {8T 231.2}

The church had already been deteriorating by that time. They had many problems. And at the turn of the century they had these meetings, and she heard that a wonderful meeting of unity had been held. So she was about to write how happy she was that things were now recovering in the Adventist church, but her hand was arrested,

…and there came to me the words: “Write it not. No change for the better has taken place. Teachings that are turning souls from the truth are being presented as of great worth. Doctrines are being taught that lead into bypaths and forbidden paths; doctrines that lead men to act in harmony with their own inclinations and to work out their unsanctified purposes; doctrines that, if received, would destroy the dignity and power of God’s people, obscuring the light that would otherwise come to them through God’s appointed agencies.” {8T 231.2}

That is why Sr. White wrote that we are not to deviate from the truths that the Lord has given over those past fifty years, because those deviations were then coming in. She was told clearly in that vision that no change for the better had taken place. The church was going downhill in regards to the doctrines that they used to hold; new doctrines were coming in. And what Jesus warned of in Matthew 24 regarding the evil servant who would begin to say in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming, and to smite his fellowservants, there it began, and the conflict in Adventism took its course.

Truth Triumphant

But truth will triumph, and we just need to make sure that we will become attached to that truth that was established; as Jesus said, You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

The truth will triumph and we mean to triumph with it. {3SM 178.3}

The truth will triumph; we just have to make sure we’re part of it. It is the love of obedience to God that will motivate the church. It is the love of God that will cause us to be part of the triumphant truth.

The truth will triumph, but who of those that have had such great advantages to know the truth will triumph with it? {18MR 156.1}

That’s the big question: Who will triumph with the truth?

Truth will triumph gloriously, and those who have received the truth because God has revealed it in His Word will triumph with it. {1888 170.4}

Very few people today know what these doctrines are anymore. This is why we have gone through them here. If you want to check them out, go carefully through the Sabbath school lesson The Platform of Truth, and you will see them delineated there, as well as how to defend them.

May God bless us as we study carefully to make sure that we are standing on that platform of truth that will triumph, so that we will be on it as it triumphs.

Amen.