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Restoration Ministry

Restoration 2003: From Eden to Eternity

Ralph Henderson

An Issue of the Heart

Good morning I'd like for you to again bow your heads with me as we seek the Lord just 1 more time before we open his word Loving Father in heaven we come before you this morning Lord again.

We ask for your presence Lord I pray that you will especially speak through me this morning.

Let there be no self in the way this morning, Lord, but speak to me the things that I need to hear.

Speak to us the things that we need to hear.

Soften our hearts and our minds that we will be receptive.

For Lord, we want to spend eternity with You and we know that You have a plan for our salvation.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name and for His sake.

This past week and a half, we have been listening to Peter Gregory as he has shared and unveiled the great controversy as it has progressed through time.

And I know that if I were to ask for a show of hands this morning, that every hand would quickly go up if I said how many believe that we are in the midst of a great controversy.

I know that if I were to say how many of you believe that we live in the last days, again those hands would go up quickly.

But I don't want you to raise your hands right now, but I want to ask you 1 question very seriously.

How many of you live like you believe you live in the last hours of earth's history?

The great controversy is not taking place all around us, the great controversy is taking place within each 1 of us.

It's very obvious, not just in the things taking place in God's church, but in the things that are taking place in the world.

Jesus told us in Luke 21 verse 26 that in the last days men's hearts would be failing them for fear.

And further on down in verse 34 He told us, He warned us to be careful, to be watchful, lest we be overcome with surfeiting, drunkenness, and the cares of this life.

And as we look all around us today, my brothers and sisters, I believe that we can see these things taking place.

We can see people who are being overcome by the cares of this life.

In Matthew 24, Jesus said 4 times to be careful that we be not deceived.

And the fourth time he made that statement, he said to be careful because if possible, even the very elect would be deceived.

Now, I think that If we look at Bible prophecy and we follow it on down through time, we believe that we, the Seventh-day Adventist church, are the remnant church.

We believe that we are God's elect people.

So I believe that we could say that this statement is speaking directly to us.

Jesus says, Be careful because if possible, even the very elect will be deceived.

You see, I believe that God's church in these last days is truly the remnant church, is truly His elect people.

I believe that God's church in these last days has the truth.

But my brothers and sisters, I believe there's big problems.

And I want to just share with you how I believe those problems have taken place.

As we look back over the course of the history of this church when it first began, we realize that this church was brought together from a culmination of people coming from all walks of life, various denominations, bringing God's Word and the truth all together in 1 place.

But as time progressed it seems that 1 very important factor began to be eliminated from a message that was being given to the world And that factor was the factor of a decision of heart.

You see it seems that we went through a period of time where the doctrines and the truths that we had to give seemed to be so important that we forgot the very basic and most important issue of all, and that was complete and total surrender to Jesus Christ.

And so we came into a group, we came into a generation of the do's and the don'ts.

A generation of parents who raised their children telling them, don't do this, don't do that, we don't do this, we don't believe in that, we don't do this.

And children growing up feeling as though they were being pounded with something that was missing.

And so they grew up and they had children.

And when we grew up, we grew up and our parents did not want us to live in that atmosphere.

Our parents did not want us to feel that they were telling us, don't do this, don't do that.

And so now we've swung to the other end of the pendulum.

Now we've swung to the point where we're over here on the far side and we don't want to tell anybody anything that needs to be done.

We don't want to point out any sin because we need to learn to be loving and accepting.

And so we live in this circumstance today.

I remember a few years ago as I sat in a church office, a very clean-cut gentleman with a beard came in to visit me.

And as he walked into the room, I thought, now what could this brother want today?

No 1 knows the church is open, I just happened to be here for a minute.

And he walked in and he had an agenda that he wanted to share with me that day.

He wanted to let me know that I was on the way to being lost because I didn't have a beard.

Because all of God's true men wore beards.

And He told me that, you know, brother, you look like a woman.

Now I sat there and I didn't want to be offended at that, but I was kind of thinking to myself, isn't this interesting?

My salvation is dependent on whether or not I have hair on my face.

And I thought about how we've come to a point where we have 2 opposite sides.

We have a group of people who are so hung up on doctrine and truth and giving them the way that should be that they're so far out there in left field that every time they come into a conversation with someone, they can't help but try and correct that person's life.

What's the problem with that aspect of the truth?

The problem with that aspect of the truth, my friends, is that the problem is we go home to our homes if we're living that way.

But you see, the real truth, the real influence of Jesus Christ has not penetrated into our hearts.

And then we go home behind closed doors where those people don't see us anymore.

We come into the realm of family and suddenly the real us begins to appear.

The 1 who has not gained the victory over their temper, their impatience, their appetite, and on and on.

The other group who's so tired of having somebody tell them what to do all the time, that They don't want any rules anymore.

We just want to come together and praise God.

And so we come together and that's all we're worried about is praise Jesus.

We want a Savior but we don't want a Lord.

Now you know the things that I'm sharing with you today are very, very basic and fundamental.

And in fact, some of the things that I say today might step on your toes.

And I hope that I have prayed and asked the Lord enough that as I say it, I'm not offensive.

And as I say it, you don't feel like that I'm looking directly at you and pointing out your sin.

I preached a sermon a few years ago that was broadcast on television.

It was a sermon that had to do with the health message.

I know how the message of God can penetrate our hearts when the truth really strikes home.

I said that sometimes, men, when we stop taking care of ourselves, we have what I call the chest of drawers syndrome.

That's when our chest and our upper body mass slips down into our drawers.

Now, I want you to know that I received a few weeks after that sermon a very pointed letter from a man who somehow thought I knew who he was and where he lived and my sermon was directed directly at him.

You see sometimes the truth, it really cuts.

Sometimes the truth really hits home and sometimes we don't like it.

I remember sitting in a congregation a few years ago and the pastor began to preach a sermon and he was a very loving man but his truth was very cutting and you know sometimes we go to church and we're listening to the sermon and we're thinking of so-and-so that we sure wish was here today that so they could hear this or or somebody else that this applies to.

But have you ever been in that moment, in that time when you sat in that congregation and that sermon was preached and without ever pointing or looking in your direction, you knew that sermon was directly for you.

I sat there that day and as that man spoke, suddenly I started looking around to see if people were noticing me.

Because I was really beginning to feel that he was talking directly to me.

And I began wondering if everybody was noticing my response and how I was beginning to shrink down in my chair.

But brothers and sisters, sometimes we need the truth.

You see, we've come to a point where we wonder what happens.

We go out and we present evangelistic series and we bring people into the church and 6 months later they're gone out the back door.

Could it be possibly that those people have been convinced, yes, yes, you're right, your doctrines are right and we're convinced and because of that we want to join your church.

But no one's ever taught them how to have a real experience with Jesus Christ.

No one's ever shared with them the importance of how to surrender to God.

Let Every Man Be Swift To Hear

It's good to be with you here again this morning on our last Sabbath together.

And you know, as we have gone through this entire series, I hope that there are a couple of very valuable points that you have recognized.

Number 1, that we need to maintain our focus on Jesus Christ.

Number 2, that when we maintain our focus on Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that by beholding we become changed.

And as we behold Jesus Christ, and as our characters are formed into His likeness, then we will begin to reflect Him to those around us.

And many souls will be brought to the Kingdom because of our lives.

And that's my prayer for each 1 of us today.

And I'd like for you to turn with me again, if you will, to James chapter 1 and let's look again at our Scripture today.

We're wanting to look at this chapter and this few verses and to understand how these verses can relate to all that we've been talking about these past 2 and a half weeks.

James chapter 1 and we want again look at verses 19 through 21.

James says, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." Now I want you to keep that in mind, but I'm going to take you back a few years, quite a few years when I was first attending Pacific Union College.

My goal there was to become a physical education teacher.

But there was 1 slight problem that I had when I first started going to Pacific Union College and that was that I wanted to play really more than study.

Now there's probably no 1 here that's like that.

You've all possibly gotten past that stage.

But when I first got there, That was kind of what was going on in my life.

I needed to get a job so I could have, you know, money for the essentials that I would need.

And so I went into this community work service office that they had.

And they had jobs available for college students So I went in and I I sat down and I began talking with this lady I said I'm looking for some work something that you know I can fit into my schedule She said I have the perfect job for you She said this will fit into almost anyone's schedule, and she said it's at the bakery I said oh, okay bakery that sounds okay, and and she said now the job is 4 hours a day, but you'll be able to work that into your schedule.

And she said, well, you start at 4 in the morning.

That's not morning, that's the middle of the night.

I said, what other jobs do you have there?

And there was another place that she said that would perhaps fit my schedule or my needs better.

She said there's like a community services office.

And people in the community who have work for different individuals, she said you can go over there and work 2 hours for this person or 3 or 4 for this person, and they generally pay you quite well.

So I thought, okay, this is good, this is good.

So I went over, and this 1 lady needed a hillside to be cleared of some weeds and debris and things I thought piece of cake I Went over and I found out that the the weeds that were on the side of the hill were poison oak and so after after I did my job and cleared the whole side of the hill with poison oak, I began noticing just a few days later that I was itching.

And after my entire body was almost covered with poison oak, I decided that that perhaps wasn't the thing for me.

And so then I moved on and then the last job that I had was I worked at a nursery and I don't know how many of you've ever done production work But production work assembly line work is very boring And you're doing the same thing over and over again, and I went into this nursery thinking that well This couldn't possibly be something like that But in reality it was this nursery was the nursery that supplied all of the vineyards With their little baby vines when they first started But I learned what grafting was all about.

I took the base vine that was supposed to be a stronger breed.

You know, they were always trying to produce better grapes, stronger vines that would produce more, and so they would graft different vines together.

And my job was to take this vine that had been cut down the middle, and then there was another vine that would be centered in between those 2, and it had to be placed just right or the graft wouldn't take.

So it was quite a tedious thing to make sure that it went right down in there and then you would staple the 2 outer sections of the bottom vine together.

And you know, as I was looking at this text, I began to think about that last statement there in verse 21.

Receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

You see, in order for you and I to be saved into the Kingdom of Heaven, I think we have to discover that there is something that has to take place within us.

There is something that has to go on inside of our hearts.

You see in verse 21, James says that we are to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity.

Now I don't know about you, but when I first read that word superfluity, I wondered what in the world does that word mean?

Superfluity means an excess, an oversupply, and then I like this part, something unnecessary.

Now isn't it wonderful to know that God is wanting you to eliminate from your life something that's unnecessary.

So it's not something that you will miss if you give it up.

It's not something that will cause you any loss if it's forgotten.

It's something that's totally unnecessary in your life.

And God says to lay aside, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.

You see, God is calling us to give up something.

In order for you and I to obtain eternal salvation, yes, it is going to cost something.

We are going to have to give up the world." And he goes on and he says, "...and receive with meekness the engrafted word." God wants for Jesus and us to be grafted together.

He wants for us to be as 1 as Peter spoke about last night.

But I want us to take a little deeper look at these verses this morning and I want us to go back up now to verse 19.

And I want you to just think about verse 19 as we just read it and realize this, that if there were no Bible, if this was the only text in scripture that God had given man, what a different place the home, the church, and the world would be if we simply followed this 1 verse.

James says, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

You know, there were some statistics that I heard years ago, and I don't remember the exact numbers, but whenever there is a group of any size that has come together for a church service of any kind.

There are statistics that say that that morning a certain portion of those people had an argument before they came to church.

But a certain portion of those people had an argument before they came to church.

A certain portion of those people lashed out at someone that morning.

A certain portion of those people had an argument before they came to church.

A certain portion of those people just before they got out of that car, they had a terrible argument or discussion And then immediately as soon as the doors were closed, the church face was put on and they came in.

A certain portion of those people came in hurting because someone else was thoughtless and careless in the way they expressed themselves.

So this morning as we sit here, I don't know who you are, but I know that you do.

And I know that each 1 of us battles, each 1 of us, no matter what our walk of life, no matter how high we have attained on that spiritual ladder, we battle with the issue of self.

And so now we look at today and we see that Paul is giving us some keys to how we can be more like Jesus.

And the first 1 that he says is, let every man be swift to hear.

You see, I think that we would recognize that life is built on relationships.

And an important part of those relationships is obviously communication.

In fact, some relationships are broken or made by communication alone.

So when we think of these things, we recognize that communication obviously takes 2 things, listening and speaking.

But there is a saying that says that God gave us 2 ears and He gave us 1 mouth so maybe we should listen twice as much as we talk.

In fact, a story is told that a young man once came to Socrates and he was going to learn how to give a sermon.

He was going to learn the power of oratory.

And as he came and he was introduced to Socrates, almost immediately after the introduction he began talking incessantly.

Finally after some time, Socrates immediately stuck his hand over the young man's mouth and said, Young man, I'm going to have to charge you twice as much.

And he said, because first I'm going to have to teach you how to hold your tongue, and then I'm going to have to teach you how to use it.

Listening is a very important aspect of our relationships with each other, But it's even more important in our relationship with God.

You see, in order for us to be good listeners for 1 another, we must be a good listener to God.

In the world in which we live Today, there are so many distractions the devil uses to try and draw us away so that we don't have time to listen to God.

But I want you to understand that we must practice the art of listening to God as He speaks.

You see, we live in a world where Christianity seems to be a powerless, a powerless form of godliness.

People claim to be Christians, yet there is no power in their lives.

And we ask ourselves the question, what is missing?

Could the fact be that we don't take the time to listen to God?

We have not learned the art of listening for what our Savior wants to say to us.

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Series

Restoration 2003: From Eden to Eternity

Let Every Man Be Swift To Hear

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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