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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

I Will

We'll ask the Lord's blessing to be with us.

Father, this morning, we come into your presence again.

We're not just sitting in this room now alone, but in our hearts and in our minds, we're taken to the secret place of the Most High God in Psalm 91.

And we are hidden away with Christ in these moments.

In this hour of worship, Lord, we are hidden in Your bosom.

And I pray, dear God, that through the music and through the ministering of the different avenues of the worship, the different opportunities we have to lift our voices in praise and Thanksgiving before you, I pray today that it would be our hearts most earnest desire to experience you to be transformed by the Spirit of your grace.

We pray, dear Father, that you would be in our midst, that you would speak to us by your Spirit and through your Word today, that you would transform us, and that because of your faithfulness, we would also be found faithful in whatever we are, whatever you call us to be.

Give us a sense that you're drawing near.

May we have confidence and assurance and the promises of truth.

And Lord, may we yield our lives, which are so often weighed down with sin, may we yield them today unreservedly to you.

And may you be the center of all that we are.

And may our lives be only focused upon bringing glory to your name.

We lift up those to you who are sick, who are troubled this morning, and may we be united together and 1 by your Spirit.

In Jesus' name we ask, let all God's people say, Amen.

Story of a young man who I met a number of years ago.

He was the son of a pastor, and growing up in the church, as many young pastors' kids do, we ought to pray for our pastor's children, amen?

I'm just talking about mine, but I'm talking about your former pastor and your future pastor, and we ought to pray for all of our children, amen?

But the devil loves to make a special target on the lives of pastor's children.

This young man grew up in the church and had many battles that very few understood.

And as he got into his teenage years, he become very rebellious, very much against his parents and the church scene.

And by the time he was 18 years old, he left the church and was gone.

But this young man began to move into an apartment with his friends.

He began to live the party life, and he was drinking every day, and he was smoking every day, and he was just using his livelihood to spend on whatever he wanted.

And his life, naturally, just like the prodigal son, began to be empty.

And he began to wonder, is there more to life than this?

And he was very angry and he was very bitter with his father.

And he went to his father and he said, Dad, all my friends, when they are becoming of age, their families are giving them stuff.

They're giving them cars, they're giving them apartments, they're giving them large sums of money.

And his father said, well, son, you know that I'm a humble pastor, I don't even own my own apartment.

Or rather, we have a apartment, that's all that we have.

And his son said, I want you to give me something or I'm going to kill both of you.

So his father said, son, all that we have is this apartment, but here, take it, it's yours.

We'll move out, we'll give it to you, we'll move in with somebody else, you can have the apartment.

So he moved into the apartment, and he began inviting his friends over, and every night they would have parties, and they would be drinking and doing their thing.

And 1 night, after everyone had left, everyone was gone out of the apartment.

And there he was drinking his beer, and he was smoking his cigarette.

And as he sat there, suddenly, the doorway filled with light, the door that would go into his apartment.

And there, standing in that light, he saw the outline of a face.

And he knew from the brightness of it that it had to be Jesus.

He couldn't quite see the face, he couldn't see the features of the face, but he knew that this was a power that was greater than an angel.

And he fell down flat upon his face, and he said, Lord God.

And the voice spoke to him from that person, believing it was Jesus, and said, if you knew how soon it was to the end of time, to my return, You would turn away from these things and you would turn your heart to me.

The young man just laid there trembling and in a flash, because of the power of the Holy Spirit, the quickening of the Holy Spirit, this young man began to see himself as he truly was.

He began to see his own self-righteousness.

He began to see all the barriers in his life between him and his God, and he said that that person just stood there what seemed like several minutes, and he was just quaking.

And the arm of that person stretched out and said, if you will come back to me, I will receive you.

And when he said those words, the light was gone, the person was gone, and all returned as it was.

Guess where that young man was the very next Sabbath?

Right there in the front row of the church.

He gave himself back to the Lord Jesus and he gave his testimony about what had happened.

Friends, I don't know about you, but I truly believe Jesus is coming soon.

This week, this Sabbath, today, this moment, we are 1 week closer to the return of Christ than we were last week.

And we're 2 weeks closer than we were the Sabbath before.

And friends, the day's gonna come when there will only be 1 more Sabbath before Jesus returns.

I don't know when that'll be, but that day's going to come.

And if you look at the world, it's coming soon.

Isaiah had an experience that every single 1 of us must have.

The Bible says, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.

Above it stood seraphim, each 1 had 6 wings.

With 2 he covered his face, with 2 he covered his feet, and with 2 he flew.

And 1 cried to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke." Listen, friends.

If an angel were to appear to you and I today, What do you think your response would be?

If you could think of 1 of the holiest people in Scripture, who would it be?

And an angel appeared to Daniel and he fell down to the ground because of his unrighteousness.

Even though Daniel was probably the most holy person we know outside of Jesus and the Bible, still Daniel fell down at the sight of an angel.

The righteousness is so great, the brightness is so great, that even Daniel bowed down his face in shame and the conviction that he himself was unworthy.

Now, you take that angel who makes Daniel shame his face, and this angel stands in the presence of God, this seraphim, and they, as bright and as glorious and as beautiful as they are, they also cover their face in the presence of the Almighty God.

Because of His righteousness, because of His glory, because of His exaltation, because of His beauty of character, because of His purity of character, even the angels standing in the midst of the presence of God Almighty must also hide their face.

We cannot even begin to fathom the glory and the righteousness that exists in the face of God.

The words of Scripture, as beautiful and inspired as they are, can't even begin.

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I Will

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