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, bless us as we once again study your Word this Friday afternoon, our final study.

We thank you for hearing and answering this prayer.

We've been studying a, just for an introductory thought every morning, where the word of a king is, there is power.

Where the word of a king is, there's power.

And we looked yesterday at the fact that there's voice-activated systems.

And notice how specific God's voice-activation system is.

When he said, Lazarus, come forth, you know there were other dead people.

This was Lazarus was buried where there were dead people.

And there are several resurrections that he is involved with at different times, very specific.

For example, Jesus will call forth in a special resurrection all those who died in the faith of the third angel's message.

And so he has some voice trigger, and what if there's some mistake and some others come up?

Sometimes when I ask Sari to do something for me, she gets it wrong.

But God's voice activation system never gets it wrong.

Jesus is going to call forth the most bitter opposers to his truth just before he comes because God wants them to see the exaltation of the Son that they despised.

And so he has a command, voice command, and what happens?

He'll call forth the righteous dead at the beginning of the millennium.

And he calls forth the wicked dead at the close of the millennium.

John 5, 28 and 29, the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth.

Not at the same time, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and a thousand years later those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

Now at creation, all of creation was voice-activated, and the default for humanity, Adam and Eve's created default was automatically to respond to the voice of God.

But God gave them the possibility to override his voice commands.

And with sin, the default is now to ignore, neglect, or reject God's voice-activated commands.

Responding to the voice of God is the difference between those who are saved and those who are lost.

Jesus told the disbelieving Jews, rulers of Israel, that were sitting in the judgment on him, you have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form, but you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe.

He said in another place there in John, my sheep do what?

Now, My wife has thought maybe I was having some ear difficulties.

And so we went through all the testing and the audiologist turned to my wife and said, I'm sorry, ma'am.

This is a problem that we cannot fix with a hearing aid.

There is no hearing aid for the hard of listening.

But the problem is we have, we have here, we have the heart of listening to the voice of Jesus.

If they were Jesus' sheep, they would recognize, respond to His voice.

We were reading in our worship time together this morning, worship, my wife and I, and this is what it said, Review and Herald, 1127, 1900.

It was actually in Last Day Events, but I always like to go to the original.

We're going through life last day advance.

An ordinary mind trained to obey a thus saith the Lord is better qualified for God's work than are those who have capabilities but do not employ them rightly." So what we need is not just training, but hearing the voice of God.

Education, as valuable as it is, can only give external qualifications.

What God is interested in is what he alone can do, and that's change our hearts inside and outside.

And we've been looking at the outskirts of Jerusalem where God took ordinary people to do extraordinary things, and we see that an ordinary mind trained to obey a thus saith the Lord is better qualified for God's work than are those who have capabilities but do not employ them rightly.

Dear folk, if you are learning to recognize and follow God's voice, day by day, you are being trained for usefulness for the Lord.

And if day by day your ears are hardening, you're getting harder and harder of listening, then you will not be able to be useful in God's work, and that's what we want.

You remember what Ellen White says in Volume 5 of the Testimonies, I believe it's around 581, many are going directly contrary to the light which God has so graciously sent to his people because they do not read the books.

See, If we don't avail ourselves of the Word of God that He's given, it's as if He didn't give it.

And 1 of the things that I love is that everything is on audio now.

So you can, I don't have time to read very much anymore, but I can listen, and as I go to sleep, as I'm exercising, as I'm doing things, as I'm driving in my car, I'm going through the spirit of prophecy, book after book after book?

And I discover I need more than 1 time to listen to them.

But we've been looking at the stories from Bethany, the suburb of Jerusalem.

Before we leave, we must turn the spotlight on another individual who made important decisions at Bethany.

If somebody could pass anyone out that need it.

This is from Wednesday, If you have it, fine.

If you don't, I have plenty because we'll be comparing some things.

We turn the spotlight on this person who made these important decisions in Bethany, but refused to respond to the voice of God.

We'll begin with the Gospel of John and review the familiar story.

We'll begin in the last column, or if you have your Bible, you can turn to John 12, either way.

We'll quickly get oriented in those first few verses of John 12.

The time is 6 days before Christ's last Passover, a week before the...actually, 6 days before the crucifixion.

This was on a Sabbath and he was crucified on Friday, so that'd be 6 days.

Mary anointed Jesus' feet with a very costly perfume.

Now I begin reading with the very last part of verse 3.

The house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.

I always knew that Jesus loved beautiful colors.

He liked color so much that he wanted to share it with us and gave us eyes to see color so we could enjoy it.

Heaven has a traveling choir that has sung on earth at Jesus' birth at least once has sung, the traveling choir.

Jesus loves beautiful music so much that He wanted to share it with us, and it gave us ears to appreciate it.

Series

On the Outskirts of Jerusalem

True and False Disciples

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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