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Muskegon SDA Church

Jason Sliger

Eyes of the Church

Father in heaven, we thank you that we can come into your presence this morning as your children, knowing that we are going to be fed as we study your word.

We've been blessed so far in our worship service 4 wonderful baptisms But now lord we want to tarry in your presence just a little longer As your holy spirit teaches us from your word guide our time together we ask in Jesus name amen in the book of Revelation There is a passage of scripture that we are all well acquainted with, Revelation 12, verse 17.

There, the Bible tells us that the dragon is angry.

He is enraged with the church, God's last day church specifically.

And the Bible tells us that he goes to make war with the remnant of the church's seed.

Now we see that playing out in our day and age today, but the Bible goes on and it gives us 2 specific characteristics that will help us identify the remnant of the church's seed.

Number 1, they have the testimony of Jesus Christ, and number 2, they keep the commandments of Jesus, All 10 of them.

Now, as we have looked at this in our Bible prophecy seminar, we have already heavily looked at the 10 commandments and the importance of their validity in our day and age.

We've looked at a little bit at the testimony of Jesus, which the Bible tells us in Revelation chapter 19 is the gift of prophecy manifested through a prophet.

So 2 things that the remnant of the church's seed would have, they would keep all 10 commandments and they would have the gift of prophecy as manifested through a prophet.

We've already covered that ground in our Bible prophecy seminar.

This morning I wanna take a look at this testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy, a little bit more in our time together.

And I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to our scripture reading to start this off.

First Corinthians chapter 12, your Bible is gonna get a little bit of a workout this morning as we go from passage to passage.

He says this, for as the body is 1 and hath many members and all that and all the members of that Body 1 body being many are 1 body so also is Christ And then he says this in verse 27.

Now you are the body of Christ and members in particular, and God has sent some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps of government, diversity of tongues.

And so he goes on to list the different gifts of the spirit.

But Paul tells us here that the church of God is like a body, A body that has many members, hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, ears, all of these different members that work together for the movement of that body.

So as God's people, He gives us different spiritual gifts.

And as those spiritual gifts come together, it helps with the movement of God's church.

Now we need all of these spiritual gifts.

And 1 of them that Paul mentions is the gift of prophecy.

Now, as you look at the body of Christ, it has many different members, what role would the gift of prophecy play in the body of Christ?

I want you to go with me in your Bibles to answer that question to the book of 1st Samuel, 1st Samuel 9 and verse 9.

What role does the gift of prophecy play in the body of Christ.

1 Samuel 9, verse 9, the Bible says this.

1 Samuel 9, 9, the Bible says this, before time in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, listen to this, come, let us go to the, what?

Seer, for he that is now called a prophet was before time called a what?

So what were prophets called in the Bible?

So in the body of Christ, I'm going to suggest to you this morning that the gift of prophecy would be like the eyes in the body of Christ.

The Bible tells us they see, they see into the future.

They know what God is going to do because God has revealed to them through the prophetic gift what is going to transpire in the future.

How many of you are thankful for your eyes this morning?

How many of you are thankful for the gift of prophecy?

We spend much time in our time studying the word of God in our Bible Prophecy Seminar, looking at the books of prophecy as God reveals to his people what will transpire in the last days.

So the gift of prophecy would be the eyes in the body of Christ.

Now I want you to turn with me to 1 more passage and then we're gonna get into our handout here.

Go with me to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs 29.

Bible says this, Proverbs 29, 18, it says, where there is no vision, the people, what?

Perish, but He that keepeth the law happy is he.

Now, many times people use this passage incorrectly.

They use it in the context of a vision in terms of where you want your life to go.

Now, you could obviously apply it that way and say we need to plan for where we want our life to go.

But the more accurate translation, according to the scriptures, the word vision there is the word that is used for prophetic vision, the gift of prophecy, if you will.

And so the Bible here is telling us that without prophetic vision, what happens to the people of God?

They come to their demise because they don't know what God is going to do, where he is going to lead them, what is going to transpire in the earth right before he comes back to take them home.

So the gift of prophecy I'm suggesting to you this morning is imperative to our spiritual prosperity and ultimately to our salvation in the kingdom of heaven.

Because it's through the medium of a prophet that God reveals how he will move.

The Bible tells us in the book of Amos that God will do nothing unless he first reveals it unto his servants, the who?

So if we wanna know what God is going to do, where he is going to go, what is going to transpire, we need to study the writings of his prophets.

Now, there is something very interesting that we find in the book of Revelation.

The Bible tells us something about the last of the 7 churches, the church of Laodicea.

It says, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear.

And then notice what it says here, and anoint thy eyes with eye salve that thou mayest want.

Does Laodicea have a problem with their eyes, yes or no?

The counsel, this is in red letter, this is Jesus talking to the church of Laodicea.

The counsel that he gives to them is to anoint their eyes with eye salve so that they can see.

I'm going to suggest to you this morning that 1 of the ways we anoint our eyes with eye salve is by studying the writings of God's prophets.

And I'm also going to suggest to you this morning that if we neglect the writing of God's prophets We are going to find ourselves in a very difficult predicament So the writings of God's prophets and Laodicea has a hard time following the writings that God has given to us through the medium of the gift of prophecy.

This morning, I wanna follow the advice of Jesus and have my eyes anointed by the writings of his prophets.

Now, what I'm going to do now is I'm gonna explain to you how this handout is going to work.

And what we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna look at 5 different scenarios of how God has raised the gift of prophecy.

So I'm gonna explain this to you first, and then I'm gonna prove it to you from the Bible in 5 different ways, okay?

So I'm gonna tell you what it is, and then I'm gonna back it up from scripture.

Well, they're gonna adjust the thing here, so I'll let them do that.

So the first thing we find is that God raises up the gift of prophecy.

And then in that message, we find that God gives that prophet a time prophecy.

That time prophecy is not present truth for that prophet.

In other words, it is not fulfilled during his time.

In that message, we're told that God will come in judgment during that time of the Bible prophecy.

And then there would be a remnant that would be called out at the end of that prophecy when the judgment comes.

Then at the end of the prophecy, God raises up a second prophet.

He gives him the same message that he gave to the first prophet.

This time, the time prophecy is fulfilled.

He's living during the fulfillment of that Bible prophecy.

So God comes in judgment at that point, and then he takes the remnant out, or the chosen people, he takes them out.

So this is a method that we find used 5 different times, probably more than that, throughout scripture.

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Eyes of the Church

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