FYI 2009: Awake!

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Florida Youth Initiative

FYI 2009 Seminar by Dwayne Lemon

Dwayne Lemon

How Close is Close?

Let me say a pleasant good morning to everyone.

I'm thinking, it's amazing, I'm thinking between last night and this morning's devotion, they really prepared a nice segue for our discussion this morning.

We're going to be dealing with practical Christianity in light of last day events.

And that's what our whole entire series is about, practical Christianity in light of last day events.

And you will understand why this subject is so imperative for the Christian.

There are going to be many quotations that I'll be sharing with you both from the Bible and from the spirit of prophecy.

There'll be references that I'll even be giving from history and current events.

So that's the reason why I want you to make sure you have a pen and paper handy, because this is gonna be something that by God's grace, you will be well-informed Christians.

And as a result of that, you will know how to take these theoretical truths and allow it to assimilate into a daily practice in yours and my life.

This morning's topic, this first session, we're dealing with how close is close?

And I'm really glad for Brother Ong's presentation this morning because he kind of helped us to see somewhat of where we are in time and in prophecy right now.

So what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and we're going to delve even deeper into many different principles.

We have a short period of time and we have a lot to cover.

So by the grace of God, we're going to get started.

I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to pray.

As much as you are able to, I invite you to kneel with me as we have a word of prayer.

Our Father in Heaven, Lord, we realize that 1 of the great secrets to the power of Jesus' ministry is that he was always aware of where he was in prophecy.

And Father, we desire as men and women of God that we too might walk with that same power that Jesus had so long ago when He walked this earth.

And Father, we realize that if we look carefully at His pattern, We will see that as he was aware of where he was in prophecy, if we are aware of where we are, that we, by your grace, will continue to live a life that is pleasing and holy in your sight.

And we will do it with a greater sense of urgency, realizing that truly the coming of the Lord is soon upon us.

May we yield to the voice of your spirit.

And may you do as you have promised and guide us into all truth.

For this is our prayer and our thanksgiving that we give, asking it with the forgiveness of our sins, in Jesus' name, amen.

I'm going to invite you to turn your Bibles to the book of John chapter 14.

We all have a Bible in here, is that right?

We would dare not come to a class where we are seeking to awake and not have the chief tool that's going to help us to awake, and that is God's Word.

So therefore, I wanna make sure we all have our Bibles, and I'm gonna invite you to turn your Bible to the book of John, chapter 14.

I want you to see what God's Word says so that way we can all carefully understand the points that Jesus is making.

In John the 14th chapter, when you get there I'm gonna ask that you let me know by saying amen.

In John chapter 14, I want you to see what Jesus says.

It says in John 14 starting at verse 1, and I'm gonna ask if we can all read it together.

I will be reading from the King James Version.

The Bible says, Let not your heart be troubled.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, " what does he say?

"'I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also." Jesus makes it very, very clear.

He says, yes, it is true that I have to go away.

But then he goes on and he follows through by saying, but I'm coming again.

And He says, and I'm not just coming again simply to say, look, I'm here.

He's saying, look, I'm coming again because I'm coming back for you.

You are the apple of God's eyes, Zechariah tells us.

His focus in the work in the sanctuary above is so that 1 day he is going to be reunited with his people.

It is the longing of Jesus' heart to be reunited with you and I, not through burning bushes, not through the written word, not even through God's men servants, but God wants to get back to the point that he can speak to his people face to face again.

Now considering this point, I want you to capture something.

If I would ask you the question, what really is the purpose of prophecy anyhow?

I mean we're talking about coming events, we're talking about how close is close, we're talking about the second coming of Jesus, but my question is this, as we study prophecy, Revelation 17, Revelation 13, Daniel and Revelation and all these different books.

What is really the purpose of prophecy anyhow?

The purpose would be for God to reveal himself to his people.

What do you think is the real reason why God gives us prophecy anyhow?

Now I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to give you a biblical explanation on why God gives us prophecy.

And I'm going to ask you to turn your Bibles to the book of 2 Peter chapter 1.

If you don't get this, you see, it's imperative that we understand, yes, it is true, God wants to reveal himself, and yes, it is true, God wants us to be prepared for his coming, but there is something even higher that Jesus wants to bring out and it's found right here in the book of 2nd Peter chapter 1.

In fact, if you miss this point, you miss everything.

And this is the reason why there are so many individuals who named the name of Christ, but they are not living their daily lives as Christians, even though they are incredible students of Bible prophecy.

It's found right here in the book of 2 Peter chapter 1.

When you get there, let me know by saying amen.

It says right here in verse 19, look at this, it's very clear.

The Bible says in 2 Peter 1 and verse 19, it says, let's read it together.

Sure word of prophecy where unto you do well that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until something happens." What happens?

So prophecy is designed to function as a light that shines in a dark place until something happens.

Now the first examination that you want to find out is, has my study in prophetic lines caused the day star to arise in my heart?

Now, I would ask people, and I typically do this in a class, I do not want us to get comfortable with Adventist lingo.

As it has been echoed already between last night and this morning, sometimes we get very comfortable using Adventist lingo.

What I mean by that is sometimes we say things like 1844, 1260, 1798.

We understand that when we say these things, they have certain types of meaning, but I wonder sometimes if we really know what we're talking about.

So therefore, when we say, oh yes, this day star represents Jesus, my question to you is, where in the Bible does it tell us that?

Because if we don't really have a text on it, then the question is do we really believe?

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

So therefore, if we really don't have any word to back up what we believe, are we really exercising faith or could it be that we have presumption?

And God is not gonna save not 1 presumptuous soul, but God is gonna save faithful people.

Help! Jesus, Where Are You?

For those of you who may not have been here for our first study where we talked about how close is close, we were simply talking about how we see that we really are living in the end times.

And therefore, God wants to show us something very, very powerful from his words so that we can know how to live practical Christian lives day by day by God's grace.

Once again, we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna start with a word of prayer, and then we're gonna begin.

It's my habit to kneel, brothers and sisters.

You don't have to, but it's my habit to do so, so let us pray.

Our Father in heaven, We are once again thankful, Lord, for the privilege and the opportunity to study your word.

We are thankful that you are teaching us how we can live practical Christian lives day by day, even in the midst of living in the very last hours of earth's history.

We pray for the outpouring of your Holy Spirit through the early and latter rain, that we might truly understand your work.

And Father, we pray that as we behold Jesus and see where he is, may we be with him also.

This is our prayer we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

We want to let you know that they just put this up here.

If you do have questions, because we're going to have a question and answer session, we'd like to have you for now, you can just tear a piece of paper out of your notebooks and you can go ahead and write down your questions and you can put it right here in this box and that way we can make sure all questions are addressed.

So we want to go ahead and let you do that.

The purpose of the plan of salvation, what say ye?

Why do you think God has given us the purpose of the plan or what really is The purpose of the plan of salvation, what say ye?

Why do you think God has given us the purpose of the plan or what really is the purpose of the plan of salvation?

These might sound like very elementary questions but you'd be amazed.

Sometimes we forget the simplicity that we find in Christ.

Let's go to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, I want you to see what God's Word says so that way we can just rightly understand, Lord, what is it that you're saying to us so that way we can make sure we rightly understand your Word of truth.

It says, and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of what?

God wants to reconcile us to himself, and then we are given.

Once we are reconciled, once we come back to God, and we are connected with God, then we are better equipped now to be an instrument of reconciliation to others.

It's hard to connect somebody to somebody you don't know.

I don't know if you ever tried that before.

But if you don't know the person, it's very difficult for you to try to get somebody else to know the person.

But when you have the connection, then it's a lot easier to do that.

Alright, so then therefore, that implies something.

If we are being reconciled to God, then that means that at some point in time in our walk of life, we were what?

And where in the Bible do we know that sin has separated us from God?

In Isaiah chapter 59, starting at verse 2, God helps us to see why we were separated from him.

This is the reason why there's a ministry of reconciliation.

The Bible says in Isaiah 59, we'll start at verse 1, then we can go ahead and take it down to verse 2.

In Isaiah 59, verse 1, the Bible says, let's read it together.

It says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save.

Neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear.

It says, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear.

The mission, the purpose of the plan of salvation is that we might be reconciled to God.

And the only way we can be reconciled to God is that the thing that separated us from God must be removed.

If we are going to be reconciled to God, we have to accept the fact that therefore, at some point in time in our lives, and perhaps even now, we are not with him.

But the goal of God is that we might be reconciled, which means that we have to remove the thing that separated us from him.

Husband and a wife, you know, they have a happy marriage, they have children, and let's say it's a husband and wife in the church.

And then 1 day, 1 of the spouses gets weak.

The spouse comes to the other spouse and confesses and says, look, you know what?

But I'm coming to you and I'm asking you to forgive me, and so on, and you know, I want to get a new start on life.

Well, that spouse makes the decision to say, okay, I'll accept you back into the relationship.

Follow me on this story, because I need your input.

The spouse says, yes, you can come back home, and we can go ahead and try to rebuild this marriage.

What I'm going to do is, since we have a basement in the house, I'm gonna let the other person that I committed adultery with, I'm gonna have them come and live with us for a little while.

And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna spend 3 days a week with the other person so I could wean them off of the relationship, and I'll spend 4 days with you.

If you were that other spouse, how many of you would go for that?

All right, let me ask you the question again.

The person says, all right, fine, no 3 days.

I'll spend 1 day a week with the other person and I will spend 6 days a week with you.

If they made an arrangement like that, would that be a better arrangement?

They said 1 day a week with the other party, 6 days with you.

Now What Do We Do?

I'm sure there may be some others on their way, but we're going to go ahead and get started because this study I need every minute I can get.

In case you haven't noticed what we've been doing is we're kind of building up a momentum.

Now for those of you who were here from the very beginning obviously you are the most informed as it relates to what we're teaching on practical Christianity in light of last day events.

We started with how close is close, and we got a chance to just see a lot of events taking place, the rapidity of those events, and how it's showing us that we are closer than we've ever thought before.

Then after that, realizing how close we are, yet seeing that many of us, unfortunately, are experiencing this Laodicean disease, this disease where we think more of ourselves than we should and we're not allowing ourselves to be sanctified by obedience to God's truth Therefore we realize we need help And that's why the next study was called Help Jesus, Where Are You?

Because we need the help that can only come from Jesus Christ because he's really our only help.

And we saw that Jesus, he is no longer in the outer court, he's no longer in the holy place but he's now where?

He's doing the work of the blotting out of sin.

And therefore, we are now at the point where we understood according to Great Controversy page 488 that Christ's position and work must be clearly understood by the people of God.

But now I wanna show you some other points that I think are most important because it's not simply enough to know Christ's position and his work, but I'm gonna show you something that maybe you never even considered this before.

As we go deeper and deeper into our understanding of what is it that constitutes practical Christianity in light of these last day events.

So what we're going to do is we're going to have a word of prayer and then we're going to immediately go into our study.

So let us go ahead and let's have a word of prayer.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you so much, Lord, just for the wonderful fellowship that we are having throughout this weekend.

We thank you for all of the messages that are being given and we thank you Lord that we see a resounding sound that Jesus is being lifted up and he's coming soon.

But Lord we realize that before Christ comes, Jesus said that there will be a crisis, that we must know how to face it so that we might be truly prepared for the coming of the Lord.

Father, I pray that you will help us understand some gems of truth as we delve into your Word to understand our position and our work.

For these and all of the blessings we ask, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, what we're gonna do is we're gonna go ahead, and I wanna invite you, in fact, let's go ahead and I'm gonna read a quotation to you first.

In this very same book, Great Controversy, if you don't have this in your library, I'm going to encourage you to put it in your library.

This book has been relevant to God's people from the day it was written.

But it is most relevant, especially to us now.

So therefore, I want to really encourage you, if you don't have this book in your library, please have it in your library, and don't let it just sit there to look pretty.

Don't let it collect dust, but study it, and make sure your lives are in line with the principles that come out of it.

Now here's something that's very interesting.

I read to you from Great Controversy, page 488, And when I read it, I stated that the subject of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment should be clearly understood by the people of God.

It says all need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of their great high priest.

But now what I wanna do is I want you to understand this.

Now, would we agree we need to understand the position and work of our great high priest Jesus Christ?

Well, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to read another quotation to you from page 423 of the very same book, Great Controversy, and is relevant to the study that we're doing right now.

In Great Controversy, page 423, it says, the subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844.

It says, it opened to view a complete system of truth.

So that's why I told you I said the sanctuary message, it gives the complete gospel.

It says it opened to view a complete system of truth, connected and harmonious, showing that God's hand had directed the great advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of His people.

Before we talked about the position and work of who?

He's in the most holy place, and what's his work?

He's doing the work of the blotting out of sins in the most holy place.

It says, this time the sanctuary doesn't just simply reveal God's work and His position, But it also said, showing that God's hand had directed the great Advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of his people.

So that means that there's not simply a position and work of Jesus Christ as it relates to the sanctuary, but there's also a position and work for you and I.

And I wonder, how many of us know what our position and our work is?

And you see, if you and I don't know our position in our work, could it be that we will find ourselves like Samson, blind going around in circles?

And the blind leading the blind, the Bible says they end up falling where?

Now, brothers and sisters, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna show you something that echoes the very same point.

In fact, I'm going to show you where the servant of the Lord got that point from.

Let's go to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

I'm going to show you exactly where she got that point from.

And this is what I love about the spirit of prophecy.

The spirit of prophecy is a magnifying glass.

And I love that because when you really think about the work of a magnifying glass, does a magnifying glass put something that's not there, there?

Does a magnifying glass take away something that was once there and then take it away?

The purpose of a magnifying glass is to simply make clear that which was already there.

And so it is that the spirit of prophecy you will find when we read quotes from any of the books of the writings of Ellen White, what we're really doing is we're reading points that came from the Bible magnified.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, let's go ahead and start at verse 1.

And I want you to see what's happening here.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, starting at verse 1, it says, moreover, brethren, it says, I would not that you should be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.

But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

Now these things were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.

Now, actually, verses 7 through 10 tells us the sins of Israel of old.

It goes through all of these sins that the children of Israel did back in those days, everything from fornication to complaining and so on and so forth.

Now, verse 11 summarizes the explanations from verses 1 to 10 in this manner, and I want you to see how verse 11 brings this out.

It says, Now all these things happen unto them for what?

And samples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.

They said all these things were written for ensamples.

Now, if you got yourself a good Bible, then that means that you more than likely have a cross-reference right in the middle, and it more than likely will have a word written there to tell you what that word, and samples, means.

And if none of you have it, Well, that means you probably have an okay Bible.

The word, and samples, what do you think that word means?

Did it say anything in your cross-reference?

Series

FYI 2009 Seminar by Dwayne Lemon

How Close is Close?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

FYI 2009 Seminar by Dwayne Lemon

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