Jermaine Gayle

Week of Prayer

University SDA Church- East Lansing

The Prayer of Jacob and the Time of Trouble Part 1

The Bible says in Genesis chapter 4 and verse 8, now you know this story.

Now Cain talked with Abel, his what everybody?

And it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and did what?

This my friends is the first hate crime in the Bible.

More on the side of Cain, in that he could not stand his brother Abel, for some reason which we're going to reveal in a few minutes.

Just 4 chapters, by the way, in the first book of the Bible we find these just a few verses after sin had placed its ugly grip on God's creation, we find the first hate crime.

Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.

If you haven't, now I'm going to bring it to your attention.

Notice that the word brother is repeated how many times?

Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his what?

In case you didn't get it the first time Moses wants you to know that they're brothers and not only that when God spoke to Cain the Lord says to Cain where is your brother Abel?

Again that response where is your brother?

In other words, there's a family relationship that God is expecting to function properly, but somehow there was a breakdown in the family circle.

Cain's response was, why are you asking me?

In other words, is it my responsibility to protect him, to love him, to take care of him, to watch over him?

Somehow Cain expected his relationship with his brother to be different than what God required of him.

This was the quintessential breakdown of what happens when 1 fails to love God supremely, which eventually leads to 1 failing to love his brother as himself.

Can you imagine the feeling of Adam and Eve when they learned that Abel, their son, was dead because of Cain?

And can you imagine when they found out that Cain himself had to be banished as well?

The loss of 2 children as a result of hatred.

The Bible tells us in the book of 1st John, the book of 1st John, the Bible tells us there, in this the children of God and the children of the 1.

The devil are manifest, whoever does not practice, what's the word friends?

Righteousness is not of God nor is he who does not love his what?

You see how closely related the word righteousness and loving your brother is?

There are many folks who want to be righteous but have no love in their hearts.

There are many who claim to be righteous but they have no love for the person sitting beside them in the pews.

So, and then John goes on, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should, what friends, love 1 another.

Now John is not writing this message to the people on the streets.

He's not hitting up the blocks in Chicago.

And he's saying you ought to love, what friends, 1 another.

Especially as we get close to the end of time.

I'm going to talk about some of these things here that might shock you.

Then he says, not as Cain, who was of the what?

Cain was of the wicked 1 and murdered his brother.

Evil and his brother's righteous if you are not trending towards righteousness you will eventually become Cain exactly, exactly His heart was only concerned about himself, nobody else.

His heart was not big enough to fit even his brother into it.

And Abel, you might remember, Abel understood something about the sacrificial system.

Brother was disobedient through and through.

He wanted to worship God on his own terms.

Abel wanted to worship God the way God prescribed.

And as a result, a conflict ensued between the 2.

Now John goes on, he takes Cain's example and he says, whoever hates his brother is a what, friends?

Just hatred alone in your heart is sufficient for us to be condemned.

I'm going to tell you right now that our society is not trending upwards, it is trending downwards, friends, because there is more hatred in our society than ever before.

We have more canes than we have ables in our world.

And this is a clear sign that, friends, we are approaching the end.

Jesus tells us in the book of Matthew chapter 10 verse 36, and a man's enemies will be those of his own, you see that friends?

He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Jesus understands something that the gospel, the more you subscribe to it, the more you will not be liked.

And if you live to be liked, the less you'll subscribe to the gospel.

But we live in a world where everyone lives for the likes, the clicks, the thumbs up, the heart emojis, the smiley faces.

But friends, that is a dangerous trend to live towards.

Jesus understands that the gospel has within its nature this whole concept of righteousness brings with it the ire of Satan.

He hates that which is righteous and He's going to come after you.

And so friends, sin never likes God's kingdom.

You know there's a war between good and evil.

A war between righteousness and unrighteousness.

And Christ says that this unrighteousness versus righteousness will penetrate not just society the church but it will also penetrate your own households Jesus understood that The gospel by its nature polarizes not because of it, but because of men's response to it.

Because the gospel is the gospel of peace.

But friends, the devil does not respond with peace to those who want to follow Jesus.

So the disciples were expecting that Jesus had some kind of a message to, you know, help them get along with society.

Hey, hey, you know, they're expecting Jesus to give them a kingdom.

They're expecting to sit on the right, the left, and they had really good spots in their minds and Jesus told them, well hey, hey brothers, you're expecting glory, but not right now.

I Sat Alone

Cut By Criticism

Joy In An Unlikely Place

Life Between the Call and Crown

Words of Wisdom for Workhorses

Enemy Territory

Jesus On Religion

Jesus on Exclusivity

The name you might recognize, Kyrie Irving.

If you're someone who watched basketball or engaged in that kind of sport, you might see or have seen some of the discussions as it relates to anti-Semitism.

And what happened with him was that he had shared a tweet, I think it was, with a documentary that had some pretty harsh things to say and as a result of it a whole conversation started and in the conversation Kyrie Irving, in fact, it was so difficult at some points that he was asked not to play in the NBA as a result of his sharing that tweet.

News kind of went around for a while and Kyrie tried his very best to calm the nerves of everyone and he finally sent out a tweet and in his tweet he made a claim he stated I am an omnist I am an omnist therefore I cannot be anti-semitic Now this time together we're not talking about Semitism or anti-Semitism, but I want to focus on that word omnist.

Actually, a lot of people are claiming omnisim nowadays.

The term omnisim came about by an English poet back in the year 1816.

The poet had coined the term omnism to describe a book or a story that he had framed, a philosophical...

That includes all components of all religion.

And the word omnism or omnis means to believe in all religions not just 1 and so the the the poet created this this book it's not actually a good book for you to read I don't recommend it even though I'm a reader I probably would not read this book.

I'll share some of the concepts as was recorded in an article that had mentioned or tried to explain what the author's point was in his book.

So the poem, it was written in, published in 1839, and it's called Festus.

The author was a man by the name of Bailey.

He said in this poem, he talks about the story of redemption.

But the way that he mentions the story is actually very unique.

As I said before, it combines a lot of different philosophies and different religious ideas.

In his book he says, Lucifer is no longer the biblical Satan that we read about last night.

In fact, Lucifer is not an enemy of God, but a friend of God and used by God to do his work.

It paints the picture, Lucifer is a forgiven individual who takes this individual Festus on a journey.

Lucifer is the 1 guiding Festus, and he is guiding Festus toward God.

Lucifer takes Festus into the heavens, eventually, and into hell.

And the author essentially states that there's no difference between heaven and hell there's no difference between Lucifer and God all are the same all religions are the same it's not worth reading in It's not worth reading.

In his poem, he states that evil is good and Lucifer is God's right-hand man.

Evil is not a threat to God's sovereignty, but an expression of His sovereignty.

Most importantly, what the poem highlights is the issue of tolerance.

We tolerate everything, we tolerate everyone.

And obviously there's nothing wrong with the term tolerance but we have to ask ourselves by what means.

And I remember years ago I saw this video, it was of a guy, he was proposing to the girl of his dreams.

They're on this beautiful hillside, it was just lovely and whoever it was that was recording this event might have been very surprised by what happened next.

The gentleman got down on 1 knee and he asked the girl, will you marry me?

And she responds, yes I will if I can bring along Steve, Joe, Joseph, Tim, and a few other names.

Can you imagine a kind of relationship like that where everyone comes along for the marriage, for the journey.

By the way, those names may not be totally accurate, but I do remember her mentioning some names.

But just imagine that kind of relationship.

Is there anything wrong with the term exclusivity?

Is there anything wrong with a term like that?

Now, Part of the problem, I believe, why we're heading this direction as a society is because we really don't know what God stands for anymore.

We really have no knowledge of what the Bible teaches.

And so we make these claims out of pure ignorance and speculation.

We quoted some of the study and research from the Barnard Group last night, and there's another 1 that was done.

And there was a statement that was used in 1 of their surveys, and The survey had a statement that the statement goes, God helps those who help themselves.

And the question was, where did this statement originate?

About 56% of Americans stated that this statement originated from the Bible.

If you actually dig deep into history, the statement actually originated with Benjamin Franklin, not from the Bible.

In fact, the statement goes counter to Scripture because we are not saved by works, We're saved by faith.

There are other statements that are accused to be biblical.

I have an article in my hand, it's from the Los Angeles Times, and they mention a few others where people actually mention that there's another statement that they claim to be biblical.

It says, every person has the power to determine his or her own destiny.

But where in the Bible can you find such a statement?

The same article went on to suggest that about 80, well actually 65% of Americans say Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists pray to the same God with different names.

Everyone believes in alternate truths or multiple truths.

And so we claim or we state it another way, this is your truth or my truth and your truth is different from mine, but it's all very true.

And it's actually motivated and inspired by what I shared before, this idea of omnism.

There's another word that you should be familiar with, and the other word is syncretism.

So omniscient and then there's syncretism.

Syncretism is the idea that all roads lead to the same place.

And a lot of celebrities actually make this statement too.

In fact, Steve Harvey was 1 who went over to, I think, 1 of the Muslim countries and there he stated that as he worshipped in 1 of their synagogues or mosques, actually I should say, that he is praying to the very same Christian God in the mosque.

You see it's a lot of the popular people who are making these claims.

I mentioned Kyrie Irving and then Steve Harvey and then there are a number of others.

But going back to this idea of omniscient and Satan being a friend of God, if you look at Scripture, you find a very different view.

We talked about, maybe 2 nights ago, the fact that Revelation 12 and verse 7, that there is a war between Christ and Satan, between good and evil, between righteousness and unrighteousness.

Jesus, if you'll turn with me in your Bibles to the book of John, John chapter 8 is where we're going.

We're going to spend most of our time in the book of John, and we really want Jesus to clarify this idea, this thought of exclusivity.

Is Jesus wanting you to have him in addition to everything else?

Or does he make more of a serious claim on your life?

John chapter 8, the Bible tells us in verse 42, there were some people who made some religious claims.

They claimed to be representatives of God.

And Jesus seems, in our modern day, when you read this text, He actually seems to be more intolerant than tolerant.

Jesus said, "...if God were your Father, you would do what?

For I proceeded forth and came from God, Nor have I come of myself, but He sent me.

Jesus on Justice

They're telling me you have to go without your presentation today for now.

So we'll just go ahead without the slides, like back in the day.

It was a global map that captures sort of the percentage of religious affiliations across the globe.

In that map, it depicts to you that actually the largest body of believers globally right now are actually Christians.

Following the Christians, the other large body of believers are the Muslims.

And then the other groups are kind of in subsets, all combined together on this map.

And really they say that Christianity accounts to about 31.5% of the world's population.

What is the call that makes Christianity so attractive?

And would Jesus be proud of our present progress?

Now it's interesting because on the map it actually also shows you that there is also a subset within Christianity.

The map actually representing Christianity on it has really those regions of the world that represent Christians are in red.

But then they break down that subset into sort of a bright red and a darker red.

The darker red means that In these areas, Christians seem to be more knowledgeable of Christianity and more knowledgeable of the Word of God.

And by the way, the areas or more serious about their belief in God, The areas that are darkest in red are areas like Africa.

It seems like Christianity is waning in America, doesn't it?

I was actually on the phone with him earlier today and I was asking him about Africa.

We were having a really good conversation and I asked him, I just decided to jump out on a limb.

I asked him, I wanted to know how many churches he pastored.

And he told me that in his first district, he pastored between 8 to 10 churches.

In the West, we have more pastors than we do in Africa, but somehow it seems that there is something that is vastly different.

Recently, a man by the name of George Gallup, You probably know him by his polls and his statistics, usually called the Gallup Poll.

He concluded in a statement by saying, Americans revere the Bible, but by and large, they don't read it.

And you think about it, whenever we have an inauguration of a president, what do they do?

They hold the Bible out, the president puts his hand on the Bible, right?

And we have in our court proceedings, when a witness goes up on the stand, before they sit down, before they give their testimony, they have to swear on the Bible to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the...

But he says, Americans revere the Bible, but by and large, they don't read it.

And because they don't read it, they become a nation of biblical illiterates.

Another statistician discovered that Americans actually, when you boil down the statistics, it's about 78% of Americans who don't read the Bible.

So when we do a quiz like what we do each night and you win a gift, We can say it's different here.

George Gallup said in addition to what he stated about biblical illiteracy, he says many Christians cannot identify more than 2 or 3 of the disciples.

According to data from the Barner Research Group, 60% of Americans can't even name 5 of the 10 Commandments.

No wonder people break the 10 Commandments all the time.

Or they don't care, which is another view.

Before the Apostle Paul told Timothy to consult the witness of Scripture, and we read this in 2 Timothy 3 verses 15 and 16 when we talked about this important witness of the Bible, and it's unfortunate that this witness is being ignored more and more in our world and in our time.

He mentions that in the last days, something significant would happen.

There would be a significant shift in society.

If you Turn with me to your Bibles to the book of 2 Timothy 3.

We're going to be reading a couple of verses, verse 1 through 5.

There the Apostle Paul talks about some of the factors that we would see, some of the condition or conditions or some of the aspects of the type of people that would live in these last days.

He says in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verses 1 through 5, But know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come.

Perilous times will come, difficult times.

What would be the Reasons, what are the reasons for our perilous time that we're living in?

For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, Proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." And then he adds, having a form of godliness but denying its power.

I don't know about you but when I read this if we were to put a checkmark beside each of these characteristics I would imagine that we would check all of them off because we can see the condition of the world around us reflecting these very sentiments.

Paul would later say in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 and verse 8, mentioning a particular example that should be considered, he says, now as Janus and Jambres resisted Moses, So do these also resist the what?

Not only do they have a form of godliness, they also despise what is true.

They resist and fight against what is actually true.

It's another to deny what it says or refuse to believe, refuse to mold one's life according to his teaching.

So we go from just ignorance of the scriptures to total obliteration of it in our minds and in our society.

In fact, The way that people read the Bible nowadays is they read it with a certain kind of view.

They read it in order to confirm what they already live, What they already want to be confirmed.

So they don't read it with any measure of humility, but rather they read to substantiate the lifestyle or the way that they want to go about living.

I don't know if my presentation is working yet.

I had a picture on the screen that I thought was actually very curious.

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Presenter

Jermaine Gayle

All Recordings

The Prayer of Jacob and the Time of Trouble Part 1

54m

I Sat Alone

43m

Cut By Criticism

44m

Joy In An Unlikely Place

31m

Life Between the Call and Crown

49m

Words of Wisdom for Workhorses

46m

Enemy Territory

31m

Jesus on Exclusivity

46m

Jesus on Justice

56m

Jesus on Suffering

55m

Jesus on Shame

36m

Jesus on Doctrine

44m

Sound Doctrine