Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

On the Outskirts of Jerusalem

Phil Mills

An Unconquerable Power for Good

Being Dead, Yet Speaketh

Satan’s Methods, Jesus’ Methods

Follow Up

True and False Disciples

Dear Lord, thank you so much for another time we can study your word.

I pray that you will fill our minds with a deeper understanding and appreciation for Jesus.

Fill our auditorium with the Holy Spirit, we pray in Christ's name, amen.

There's Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana, Google Assistant, all voice activated, but this voice activation is not new.

Everything in the world, everything in the universe God made, voice activated.

By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth.

For he spake, and it was done, he commanded, and it stood fast." Why?

Ecclesiastes 8, 4, where the word, say it with me, where the word of a king is, there is power.

In Genesis, God said, let there be light, and there was light.

And so on through all the days of creation, as each part was created, God spoke.

God's word brought order from chaos, beauty from ugliness.

The dirt became man, and a rib became woman.

By God's Word, the ordinary became extraordinary.

And that's what God wants to do in our lives with his word.

Our study this week has taken us to the outskirts of Jerusalem.

In our first study we saw Martha opening her home to Jesus.

If you didn't get the handout for the first lecture, we have 1 here.

Although she welcomed Jesus to her house, the first time he visited she worried about what she had to offer Jesus instead of appreciating what he had to offer her.

She became overwhelmed, irritated, impatient.

She began to feel that the little she had to offer Christ was more important than the much he had to offer her.

And we learn from Martha that it's not enough to invite Jesus into our home.

The purpose of his visit is companionship with us.

He doesn't come for us to wait on him, he comes to wait on us.

He doesn't come to add to our burdens, he comes to take our burdens.

Martha lost the companionship of Jesus when she neglected to cast her burden on the Lord who cared for her, and then he and his disciples just became 1 more burden.

Have you ever seen people who are burdened down with all the things they have to do for the church or for Jesus.

That's losing the companionship of Jesus.

Without realizing it, what was the testimony that Martha gave the world about inviting Jesus into the home?

He absorbs others' attention so they don't help me and they become useless.

Whenever we complain, that's really what we're saying.

Martha serves as a warning, how easily we can complain even when Jesus is present.

On Monday, we saw how God's Word can change us as we sit at the feet of Jesus, morning by morning.

Power to change lives come from sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Yesterday, we looked at what happens when Jesus comes into our lives and into our homes.

But who are His friends and how can we become them?

If you have your Bibles, turn to John 15, 14.

And there we see how do we become 1 of Jesus' friends?

Proverbs 22, 11 says, "'He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips, the king shall be his friends.'" So if we do what Jesus commands, when we do his sweet will, he abides with us still.

This afternoon, we will move on in our study.

We'll be looking at the various passages and comparing them.

As we learn to study, you have the handout.

Let me just hand some to you to give to anybody that doesn't have 1.

The reason why I think this will be easier than looking it up in your Bible, because we'll have them there so you can see the similar passages side by side.

We want to learn to listen to the voice of God and see how that voice activation activates our lives and changes us.

Notice Luke 7, 36, verse 36 there, You see there at the top, you see the 4 books and then the verses underneath, and I've tried to line them up.

Then 1 of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went to the Pharisee's house and sat down to eat.

And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood at his feet behind him weeping.

And she began to wash his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head.

And she kissed his feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil." Meditating on Scripture is like looking at 1 of those computer-generated pictures that looks like it's just dots and colors.

And then you look at it, and you look at it, and you stare it, and you move it this way and that way until finally a three-dimensional picture emerges.

And that's how Scripture is as we meditate on it.

We've been meditating on stories from Bethany.

And just 1 small city outside of Jerusalem, the suburbs of Jerusalem.

What Jesus did in this village impacted all of Jerusalem.

This community served as a basis for Jesus in his bigger ministry that he had, and a key home there.

The story of Bethany is the story of 2 homes which opened their doors for Jesus.

Martha learned her lesson, and the next time we see Martha, we saw this yesterday, she wasn't complaining about Jesus being present.

She was longing for his presence, longing for him to be there.

And during those days with Lazarus dead without Jesus, Mary and Martha represent those who know Jesus and are his friends.

Those who welcome him into their homes and into their hearts.

Martha and Mary represent Seventh-day Adventist.

They keep the Sabbath, they're longing for Jesus to come.

They represent those who see the coming of Jesus as a solution to their problems.

They represent those who often speak to each other and their desire of their desire to see Jesus.

If only Jesus was here, this or that would not happen.

Though Lazarus had been dead for 4 days, it's never too late for Jesus to solve the problem and Lazarus was resurrected to the amazement of the funeral mourners and the comfort of the sisters.

And the resurrection of Lazarus is the context of our story this afternoon.

Lazarus was raised in late January or early February of AD 31.

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Series

On the Outskirts of Jerusalem

Satan’s Methods, Jesus’ Methods

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Ripples from the Alabaster Box

1h

The Alabaster Box

1h

The Shadow’s Light

Don’t Forget Where you Came From

55m

Meeting the Master Gardener

First the Blade, then the Ear

1h 2m

What Can We Learn From Mary Magdalene?

56m

Hungering for More of HIM

08 No Regrets

51m

Surety in the Last Days

1h 11m

Plenary

The Message of the Cross

38m

The Church

The Church Shaken, but Not Shaken Out Part 2

42m

His Crowning Miracle

41m

Mary’s Two Penetrating Questions

27m

Sound Doctrine