<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Ceres SDA Church

Anil Kanda

All right, why don't we begin with the word of prayer?

Let's ask God to bless us in a very special way to pour out his Holy Spirit here today Father in heaven, thank you again for the beautiful Sabbath for just the warmth of your presence Lord Thank you for this time that we can fellowship with 1 another, but with you especially.

Thank you for all the friends and visitors and guests that are here.

Jesus, we just pray that heaven would be opened up to us this morning.

If this is your first time here We invite you to make this church your home If you are just a visitor passing through either way we consider you family Today's sermon is called an inconvenient calling.

You know when you look out on the bullet or actually on the The sign out there it says 70 but there was just a change over the last few days the Spirit of the Lord was really leading in this direction.

There's some Bibles right in front of you.

This is going to be a time we get into the Bible, the Word of God.

Now, the beautiful Sabbath is a blessing to each and every 1 of us.

And the Sabbath day is not just a time for us just to simply set aside certain things and for us to do certain things.

God is also calling for us to have a certain attitude on the Sabbath.

The Bible says in Isaiah 58 that the Sabbath is supposed to be a time where we're not seeking our own ways, our own pleasures.

That does not mean that there should be no way we should seek or no pleasure we should have.

In fact, the Bible is telling us in implication that we should be seeking God's way and God's pleasure.

Amen and God's Word and the Bible says then you will delight yourself in The Lord the Sabbath is about relationship and God wants to bless us, you know once in a while when there's like nothing going on Sabbath afternoon, there's no outreach, there's no kind of evangelistic project happening.

Once in a while, I'll pull out a Bible movie.

And it's so interesting because I'll pull out this Bible movie and then I will spend the whole time Critiquing the Bible movie and I'll ask myself at the end of the time.

And then I tell myself this will make a good sermon illustration and You know, it's interesting when you look at a lot of these new Hollywood eyes I wasn't watching the the Hollywood eyes by movies, but the old school where you had like the jump some of the old actors that were part of these Bible movies where they still had an intermission part of that film and 1 night I was I just could not get to any I couldn't get into any sleep And so I was just thinking to myself, you know what?

Maybe I'll just fall asleep I read my Bible.

And so I was like, I'm gonna be preaching about Joshua I'll try to look for something about Joshua There's no movie about Joshua, but there was something that was made about just Jericho which included Joshua so I was like, oh a 1960s movie about Jericho, so I was watching it and it was so boring.

So I fast-forwarded to the middle and There was this really weird scene Joshua is talking to some of his men right before they go out to the battle of Jericho.

And all of a sudden he walks off in frustration.

He goes towards this altar that was built to God, and he starts screaming and he says these words.

He's like, God, give me Jericho or these people are going to kill me.

And I thought to myself, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen It's not even in the Bible.

There's nothing close to that in the Bible now pay attention.

I'm making a point here and So for illustration sake I looked at another movie last night for this very sermon and I was thinking to myself I wonder if there's any movie on Noah.

Come to find out there's a lot of bad movies about Noah.

But I was like okay I don't want any kind of Russell Crowe here, you know, we're gonna be looking for something else, okay?

So apparently there was this movie that was made, I don't know, I think it was about a year or 2, and it was made in the UK about Noah.

And I thought, okay, maybe, maybe the British will get this right.

Because what happens, halfway in the movie, Noah goes out to 1 of the cities of the wicked and he ends up knocking out 1 of the unrighteous and I thought to myself I don't remember reading that in Genesis chapter 6 And the reason I'm bringing this up is because there's an important point that needs to be illustrated 1 of the reasons why when you look at these Hollywood eyes versions of the scriptures why they are vastly different from the Bible why there is such this a delineation from what the scriptures are teaching and What Hollywood is portraying is because of this 1 fact and it's not because okay Just all the wickedness and the evil intent of Hollywood Although that may be present the real Reason is this is because biblical faith cannot be counterfeited You can't act out biblical faith You can't have Brad Pitt come in.

You can't have CGI help you with this ladies and gentlemen when you look at the Bible What you are seeing is?

People who had a very distinct Individualized faith with God that could not be copied and So what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be looking at the book of Joshua.

Everybody take your Bible, let's go there today.

And we're going to be looking at Joshua chapter 1.

Today's going to be a time where we're going to be digging into Joshua chapter 1.

Normally, I like to walk down but there's this beautiful barrier that's here.

Let's start with the very first verse because there's so much that is packed into this very first verse Joshua chapter 1 verse 1 notice how it begins after the death of who?

Now ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna bless you.

I'm gonna ask you guys a question right now who was Moses in relationship to the people of God he was a leader what else he was a prophet okay what else He what he was a kind of Christ what else He was a leader.

Tell me what he actually did in relationship to the people of God Okay, somebody just said he led them out of Egypt.

Okay, just think about this was the guy that was able to the power of God free Israel from Egyptian slavery.

When God was ready just to, you know, put the smack down on Israel, Moses interceded right under the Spirit of God as well what else the Lake Millie?

By the way, Millie is 1 of our favorite matriarchs in our church.

That woman will study the Bible with you if you need to be studied with it.

Somebody please tell me So that's all you know about Moses Okay, but what did he actually do Carmen Mendoza, why don't you tell us what he did?

That's right, he was given the law of God.

Just the very first verse of Joshua, okay?

It starts off with the death of a man who led the people of God out of Egypt The 1 who God used to destroy and flatten Egypt pretty much.

This was the guy who interceded for Israel This was the guy who was with With them in the desert for 40 years with all their nonsense.

He received the law of God and at the most inconvenient moment He dies Here they are they had been walking with Moses many of the descendants of those who passed away during the 40 years of wonderness had come to rely upon Moses in fact when you look at the book of Numbers you begin to realize that many of the children Israel the descendants begin not to fall or have mimicked some of the the you can say problem issues of the previous generation this generation that was coming out of the wilderness was more faithful and they had learned to rely and listen to the counsel of Moses and at the time they were all Ready to go into the Holy Land.

Do you know what happens at the Jordan River?

He dies Notice how the scripture begins after the death of Moses Ladies and gentlemen, when you look at many of the books of the Bible, they oftentimes begin with a tragedy.

And so the scriptures start off with this tenor, this theme, that there's this tragedy, there's this problem.

It starts with a very big problem and what you begin to see many times is how God uses men and women just like you and Begins to triumph regardless of the circumstance.

Back to Menu

70

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2025: Lessons of Faith from Joshua

13 Choose this Day!

28m

From Cover to Cover

Jesus in All the Bible, Pt. 11 – Joshua

28m

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2025: Lessons of Faith from Joshua

13 Choose this Day!

29m

Through the Bible

Joshua & Judges: Right in Our Own Eyes

31m

Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2025: Lessons of Faith from Joshua

01 Recipe for Success

27m

InVerse 4th Quarter 2025: The Book of Joshua

11 Recommitment

28m

Operation BluePrint

25m

Wilderness Wandering

Jethro and Moses

35m

How Do You Know God’s Will for Your Life

47m

Talking Points 4th Quarter 2025: Lessons of Faith from Joshua

01 Recipe for Success

30m

Sabbath School 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

02 The Burning Bush

22m

Sound Doctrine