Have you ever wondered why God used prophets and apostles in the Old and New Testament to lead and guide his people during the time the Bible was being written, but then all of a sudden stopped?
Partial Episode Transcript: To Listen the full episode click HERE
I know I have?
I mean we have the clear word of the prophets not only predicting and proclaiming the first coming of Jesus the Messiah – and what he came to accomplish on our behalf but even a stronger call to look for his second coming or the “day of the Lord” as many of them called it.
But if the day of the Lord is almost here, shouldn’t we also expect the voice of the prophet to reappear as well joining in and encouraging the church in the last days to stay faithful to God and to avoid the many traps and deceptions set by the enemy of souls to lead us astray?
One text that is unavoidable in the book of Revelation in describing God’s last day remnant people is Revelation 12:17
“And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Revelation 12:17 NKJV)
So here we have a description of the Remnant of the last days as those who keep the commandments of God – now we have already talked extensively in this podcast about the importance God places on his law in many of our earlier episodes – particularly episode 13 – but what about the Testimony of Jesus?
Notice the Remnant don’t just keep the law of God but they have an experience with Jesus as well. The Apostle Paul’s prayer for “Christ in you the hope of Glory” is manifest in such a powerful way in them that Revelation 19:10 further unpacks the Testimony of Jesus calling it the Spirit of Prophecy.
We will be talking about the Remnant more in future episodes – but for now I wanted to get some historical perspective on whether or not we begin to see a people organizing together around 1844 who were looking forward to the coming of Jesus, keeping the commandments of God, guided by the spirit of prophecy?
Why? Because that is when the time prophecies all came to an end/
So, in this episode I had the privilege to interview Dr. Michael Campbell who besides being a full-time religion professor at Southwestern Adventist University somehow finds time to contribute to lengthy scholarly projects like The Ellen G White Encyclopedia and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism but also writes books that can be read in a few hours like 1919: The Untold Story of Adventism’s Struggle with Fundamentalism one of my favorite reads from last year. And if that weren’t enough he also hosts a popular Podcast called Sabbath School Rescue where you can tune in for weekly discussions on the Sabbath School quarterly.