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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Anthony Baca Weekend 2019

Anthony Baca

The Intention of the Bible

A Deeper Look:  The Intention of Scripture

Father in heaven, thank you again for the time that we have to come here and to study your word.

And we invite you through the third person of the Godhead to be our special guest.

The place where we would be standing and sitting would be holy ground that would not be taken lightly.

That we would recognize that we are coming into the presence of the king of the universe.

And that there would be a solemnity of mind and of heart as we listen for that still small voice to speak to us through your word today and give us an experience that we are all searching for.

I pray this Lord because you said that we can't ask anything if it's according to your will and I believe that that prayer is according to your will.

That you will not only hear us but that you will answer it.

So we thank you for the fulfillment of that prayer, Lord, as we now seek earnestly for the blessing you have instored.

So let's begin with a quick review from this morning.

So this morning we looked at a concept of the title was the intention of scripture.

And the ballpark picture that I tried to illustrate from scripture today is that God's intention of scripture is to give you a revelation of Jesus in every story, in every passage.

Yes, even those obscure Old Testament passages that we have, we're so confused when we read them, Jesus is in there too, amen?

He is in there And God doesn't just give that arbitrarily, but God gives this picture of Jesus in these passages so that through beholding Him, it would shed light on God's character, light on the knowledge of the glory of God, which is what we saw in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 6.

And that as it would shed light on God's character and we would understand his character more, we can then take that story and bring it into our own experience.

And that was kind of the focal point is the Bible has to come alive.

It can't be treated like a math book or a science book and the sense of just learning information to regurgitate with the right answers.

God is desperately seeking to have an experience with you.

He wants that word to be living and abiding within you.

To where when you speak of the stories of the Bible, you speak with conviction, because it's almost like it's your own story now.

When you speak of Elijah, when you speak of the disciples, when you speak of any of these characters, you speak from 1 who has walked with them side by side because you've experienced God in the way they have.

That's what God is seeking for us to have through Scripture, and this is what brings the Bible to life.

And so we talked about that this morning, and so this afternoon we're gonna take a deeper look now and apply that concept and how we view and understand certain things.

I've had the experience of being an evangelist.

I love preaching public evangelistic campaigns.

So if I say anything that almost sounds contradictory to that, That's not true.

However, I've learned a lot of things through trial and error as a young evangelist, and I'll be sharing some of those stories.

So our 3 points today are, number 1, how do we view prophecy with this understanding that it's Christ-centered, revealing his character as the primary focal point.

How do we then view prophecy, such as particularly books of Daniel, Revelation, and you can apply that to books like Ezekiel, Isaiah, etc.

Number 2, How do we view our fundamental beliefs?

How do we view the different doctrines that we believe as our core doctrines with this concept in mind?

And then number 3, we're going to summarize and tie everything all together.

Prophecy, I love, now again, I love prophecy, so if it sounds like I'm speaking contrary to that, that's not true.

It's 1 of my favorite books in the Bible.

However, in my experience with prophecy, and maybe you can relate to a degree with this, I found that often when we speak of prophecy, the emphasis is on events and dates and things of this nature.

That tends to be the primary emphasis and in fact if you sit through an evangelistic campaign on the 2300 day prophecy, Daniel chapter 9 verse 24 to 27, if you sit in an evangelistic meeting, the primary focus of that presentation is the dates, right?

It's the math and the dates and that the investigative judgment began in...

And so That seems to be the primary focal point.

Or, when we look at things like the trumpets, the 7 trumpets of Revelation, and yes, we are going to take a peek at the trumpets this afternoon.

When you look at things like the trumpets, typically, what I have found is there is a little debate and discussion over the interpretation of the trumpets.

If you're a revelation person who loves to study, you might have found that to be true.

That there's kind of division over interpretation of the trumpets?

No matter who I hear present on the trumpets, what's the main focal point of the trumpets as presented?

Historical events or future events, depending on how they're explaining it.

It's events that occur and that take place.

And it's not that prophecy should be void of these things, because that's the very nature of prophecy, right?

That it's saturated with events and dates and things.

First John chapter 4 verse 8, as we began on this verse, I believe summarizes much of what we talked about this morning.

Does anyone know, pop quiz number 2, what Jesus' favorite subject was to discourse on?

Yes, but even more specific, more specific, she says, the paternalness of God.

There's something about this talking about who God was that was just His favorite thing to talk about.

So, as we go to 1 John 4, verse 8, though it is a very common and almost cliche verse, I hope with that in mind it's a very important verse because it says here in 1st John chapter 4 verse 8, he who does not love does not know God For God is what?

And so here we see this, again, summary of this morning, a benevolent, beautiful, merciful, loving God.

Now, if, or since this is who God is, and if the burden of every passage is to reveal God, then every prophecy should show God is?

It sounds simple, But I'll be quite honest with you, I've sat through prophecy seminars and presentations before and sometimes you don't really leave thinking, wow, like feeling like, wow, God is love.

I used to leave thinking like, man, that was like more numbers than my math class I got to memorize.

Or I used to leave thinking I have no idea what that was even about.

Or I used to leave thinking like wow so much stuff happened in history it's amazing it's crazy so many so many things happened in history.

But I couldn't say very often looking back on my experience as a young Christian, when I would leave prophecy meetings, that I would leave the seminar, the presentation, saying, Wow, God is love.

And then I then became a Revelation teacher, and I would give lectures, and after my own lecture, I would look back on my lecture and say, I don't think my student can leave saying, wow, God is, I must have an incomplete understanding of prophecy.

And then I thought to myself, well, isn't prophecy supposed to be there to urge us to make a decision to follow God?

Isn't that how we view prophecy many times?

I was at a particular church as an evangelist, and there was a, the pastor asked me, or he mentioned to me, he said, you don't need to cover the 2200 prophecy in your presentations and I was kind of taken aback.

I was like actually I do it's an important concept He said oh, we don't need that another prophecy just to scare people to accept Jesus You have plenty prophecies that will scare people to accept Jesus And I remember I thought to myself, I kind of smirked and kind of giggled, but it's because I, and part of me realized that that was true.

That as an evangelist it's really easy to get up front and to really kind of drive that home, and then I read this quote from FH page 159.

The shortness of time is urged as an incentive for us to seek righteousness and to make Christ our friend.

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Series

Anthony Baca Weekend 2019

A Deeper Look: The Intention of Scripture

Transcript

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