WYC 2011: Alive Again!

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GYC West

Media and Current Controversies: The Character of God

Steve Wohlberg

The Character of God - Part 1

The Character of God - Part 2

Character of God - Part 3: The Beast Within

Dear Father in heaven, Father we pray for the Holy Spirit to be with us.

Lord please give me the strength, strengthen my voice.

This is my fifth talk today and I'm a little bit worn out but I pray that you'll just give me energy and help me to share what I know about this subject in a simple and clear way.

Please bless us now we pray in Jesus name.

I also don't have any slides from my computer to go along with this topic so it's just me and my Bible.

Verse 1 says, I looked and lo, a lamb stood on Mount Zion and with him 144, 000, having his Father's name written where?

It's a prophecy about God's final people that are prepared for the second coming.

They have the seal of God in their foreheads.

And they have the Father's name written in their foreheads.

Now, I think you could probably answer this question for me.

When the Bible talks about the father's name, what is that talking about?

Does it mean just, you know, proper pronunciation?

And I'll show you a verse on this in a little while that proves this, that when the Bible talks about the name of God, it is specifically talking about his character.

And when this verse says the 144, 000 have his Father's name, the Father of Jesus, his name written in their foreheads.

Basically, it means that the character of God has been written in their minds.

God's character has become part of their characters.

And that means that what God is like is now woven into what you are like.

And God's ultimate goal is to accomplish this.

If we're gonna be prepared for heaven, we're in Revelation 14, 1 for those of you that just came in.

If we're gonna be prepared for heaven, God's ultimate goal is to have us reflect his character, to reveal his character through us.

We have to discern what his character is like and then it can then be written in our foreheads.

If you were the devil and if you knew that God is trying to develop a final generation of people that are going to reflect the character of God and have the character of God written inside their minds, and then once that final generation of people is developed, we're at the end of the world.

If you were the devil, then what would you be trying to accomplish?

The development of the character of God and his people.

And God's character can't develop inside of people unless they discern his character and see what his character is like.

I mean, how can we become like something that we don't understand?

So God, his program is to reveal his character to his people.

And to have that character written inside of our souls, and then to have that character revealed through us.

It's a little bit like Something my son said to me some time ago.

Here's my little boy and he came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth.

My little boy ran in and he saw me brushing his teeth and he looked at me and he gave me the greatest compliment that I think a father can ever receive from his son.

He looked at me and he said, Daddy, I want to be just like you.

And then right as I thought about that, my mind thought about God.

And I thought, Lord, help me to be like you.

Because if my son wants to be like me, Lord, I need to be like you so that what he becomes like is good.

And that's really what our heavenly father wants.

He wants us to look to him and say, Father, I want to be like you.

And the issue of the great controversy, at the heart of the issue, is the character of God.

God made us in the Bible, it says in Genesis 1, he made us in his image.

He made us to see and reveal and reflect his character.

And Satan has been attacking that purpose ever since the beginning.

And he wants to prevent the 144, 000 from having the restored character of God in their foreheads, in their hearts.

Here's a statement from the Great Controversy, page 569.

1 sentence, and it has burned into me, this 1 line.

Now it doesn't just say it's something he's trying to do, but it says it's something he's trying to do all the time.

His constant effort is, listen to this, to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy.

That's what Satan is constantly trying to do, misrepresent God's character, misrepresent the nature of sin, and misrepresent the real issues.

Because he does not want us to understand those real issues.

Now, 1 of the ways, or probably the main way, that Satan seeks to misrepresent the character of God is by leading us into extremes, leading us into imbalances concerning who the Lord really is.

It reminds me of a little article I read some time ago.

I don't know if any of you have ever been on a cruise, but This was an article about a cruise ship that sank.

People go on cruises and they hope it's going to be a good vacation.

This came out of the Fresno Bee in 2007, a few years ago.

And it happened in Athens, Greece, or at least off the coast of Greece.

It says here, cruise captain blames currents.

A cruise ship captain indicated, no, indicted on negligence charges after his vessel foundered on a volcanic reef and sank in the Aegean Sea, blamed strong currents for the accident.

1, 500 people approximately were on board.

There were just 2 people that were missing.

They found everybody else or got everybody else off the ship.

And I don't know what happened to those 2 French tourists who showed up missing.

But I thought about that and I thought, the reason why that ship sank was because of strong currents.

A current that moved that ship toward the reef.

And as I think about the subject, I'm convinced that there are strong currents that are moving in this world.

And some of them are moving in our church.

And those currents are moving to lead us to extremes or to an unbalanced view of the character of God.

That's what the devil is trying to accomplish.

Now probably The classic biblical description of the character of God and the balanced view is in the book of Exodus chapter 34.

Series

Media and Current Controversies: The Character of God

The Character of God - Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2025: God's Love and Justice

06 God’s Love of Justice

26m

Cultivating Christian Character in Children

Cultivating Obedience & Self-Control

1h

Getting to Know God

1h 16m

Breakout Session 1

God’s Farm

1h

Steve Wohlberg -The Character of God Controversy

The Character of God Controversy, Part 1

48m

Cultivating Christian Character in Children

Patience, Perseverance, Initiative & Mercy

1h 1m

Cultivating Christian Character in Children

Orderliness, Diligence, Faithfulness & Generosity

55m

Patriarchs, Prophets, and Parental Christ

1h

Daniel 2

Daniel 2: Part 2

54m

Balanced Beholding of Christ

28m

The Beatitudes

Blessed Are the Merciful

29m

When God Shows Up - Advent HOPE August 2019

Abundant in Goodness and Truth and Keeping Mercy for Thousands

37m

Sound Doctrine