Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Morning Devotional: It's War Time

Jason Sliger

It’s Wartime - Part 1: Life is War

It’s Wartime - Part 2: The Weapon of War

It’s Wartime - Part 3: Wartime Communication

It’s Wartime - Part 4: War in a Garden

It’s Wartime - Part 5: The Weapons of Our Warfare

It’s Wartime - Part 6: The Perfect Battle

It’s Wartime - Part 7: Sheep among Wolves

It’s Wartime - Part 8: Marching Orders

The blessings have been abundant throughout this week, and for that, we are very thankful.

But Father, we are tearing a little longer because we know you have other blessings for us to equip us to be more like Jesus.

Father, this morning as We open up our Bibles in family worship.

We again invite the sweet presence of Your Holy Spirit to take the words of life, to apply them in our hearts right where they need to be.

Thank You, Father, for Your faithfulness.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the fifth chapter, We find there the greatest sermon that has ever been preached by the greatest of all preachers I refer to as the Prince of Preachers, Jesus Christ Himself.

And as He stood on that grassy hillside, surrounded by the throng of people eager to hear the words from this new young upstart, this new religious leader who was gaining in popularity, Jesus begins his sermon on the mount with a list of blessings.

Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 6, blessed are the meek for They shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Blessing after blessing after blessing.

We love to talk about the blessings of God.

We want to share them with other people, how God blesses His people, and He does.

But it's the next 2 verses that grabbed my attention.

"'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Blessed are ye, blessed are they which are persecuted." Now, I have to be honest with you this morning.

I've never gone to a church service and heard somebody say during the praise time, I'm thankful this past week that I was persecuted." All right, we don't hear that kind of thanksgiving on Sabbath morning.

Usually it goes something like this, I'm suffering some sort of discouragement or difficulty or persecution, please pray that God will take it away.

But could that means of discouragement, trial, or persecution be the very thing that God wants to use to bless you, and yet we pray that God might remove it.

I believe that there are times when God removes times of difficulty, but We need to leave that up to God to decide whether or not it is in our best interest or not.

Blessed are ye, and men shall revile you and persecute you.

The Zariah of Ages, page 306, writes some very interesting words here.

It says, it is fellowship with God that brings them, God's people, the world's enmity.

How many of you are thankful for fellowship with God?

That human beings, fallen, sinful human beings can have fellowship with God, but we're told that those who have this fellowship bring upon them the world's enmity.

World is not our home, and those within it.

It goes on, they are bearing the reproach of Christ.

They are treading the path that has been trodden by the noblest of earth, not with sorrow, but with what?

Each fiery trial, " listen to this, each fiery trial is God's agent for their refining.

Each is fitting them for their work as co-laborers with Him.

Each conflict has its place in the great battle for righteousness, and each will add to the joy of their final triumph.

Brothers and sisters, when the fiery trials come your way, recognize that this is God's way of refining you, that 1 day you will have triumph in your relationship and in your walk with the Lord.

God uses these things to fit us to be co-laborers together with Him.

We need to be careful when we ask God to remove fiery trials in our lives.

We just found in our study so far, specifically in our study together yesterday, how Jesus went through this time of intensified battle in the last 48 hours of His life.

His entire 3 and a half years, indeed His entire life here on this earth, was 1 battle after another.

It had only intensified as things went along.

And I can assure you that the battle that he won in the wilderness fitted him to win the battle in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Each fiery trial is God's appointed agency to refine you.

Go with me in your Bibles if you would to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 10, just a couple of chapters over.

Some very interesting words here in light of what we've just read about those who are blessed when they are persecuted.

Jesus sending out His 12 disciples to preach to all the world here in Matthew chapter 10.

He says this, verse 16, "'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." How does Jesus send us out?

What an encouraging speech to give at an ordination, isn't it?

Thank you for becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, now I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves." But in that 1 little phrase that we oftentimes hastily read and continue moving on because it makes us uncomfortable, in that little tiny phrase we find Jesus defining the identity of His followers.

And He's also defining the identity of those, listen to me carefully, that Jesus is sending them to.

And I don't think we need to spend a whole lot of time describing what happens when sheep are in the midst of wolves.

However, I find it interesting that Isaiah describes a very similar situation in the life of Jesus in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 7.

He says that He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter.

You see, Jesus is not calling you and me to do anything that He Himself has not already done.

He is not calling us to do anything that He Himself has not already done.

He is not calling us to do anything that He Himself has not already set an example of how we can do it.

But He is telling us, I am sending you out as sheep amongst wolves.

And Jesus himself was a sheep among wolves." Maybe you've heard this statement before, that the safest place to be is in the center of God's will." Now I want to challenge that statement this morning in a reverent way, because physically speaking the safest place is not always in the center of God's will.

Spiritually, the safest place is to be in the center of God's will.

And unfortunately, I think that this phrase that was born out of persecution, The 1 who actually penned those words was Corrie 10 Boom.

A woman who was acquainted with much persecution in her life, harboring 800 Jews, her and her family, Watching her father and her sister die in a concentration camp and her herself suffering tremendous physical suffering.

She was the 1 who said, the safest place to be is in the center of God's will.

That statement was born out of persecution, but I think unfortunately Christianity today has hijacked this statement and turned it into some sort of cliche that means that we all of a sudden become bulletproof.

What if the safest place to be is for you to be a sheep in the midst of wolves?

Are you still willing to be in the center of God's will?

Somehow we have come to the point where we think if it's dangerous, or if it's risky, if it's unsafe, If it's costly, it must not be God's will.

And I want to tell you something this morning, brothers and sisters.

I'm thankful to the bottom of my heart that Jesus did not think that way.

Because if that's the way Jesus had thought, He would have never come to this world of sin and suffering.

To embark upon the greatest of all mission trips to save lost humanity, we need to change the way that we think And ask God to help us to find the blessings even in suffering.

Jesus sent his disciples not as sheep amongst sheep.

We can all eat our same grass, veggie links, and all that fun stuff.

We can all talk the same way and dress the same way and say amen the same way.

It's a very comfortable place to be sheep among sheep.

But this is not the way that God has called us to live our lives.

And that's why we should not live in places where there are dense populations of Seventh-day Adventists.

Series

Morning Devotional: It's War Time

It’s Wartime - Part 7: Sheep among Wolves

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

A Sheep Among Wolves

52m

Plenary Session

A Touch of Faith

1h 57m

Acts: First Generation Lessons for Last Generation Believers

6. Cutting Timothy

55m

Does God Have Favorites?

36m

Blessed to be a Blessing

48m

The Parables

The Grand Banquet

46m

Your Son, Your Only Son

48m

Plenary

Stewards of the Master’s Gold

1h 41m

Cutting Timothy

47m

Life of the Apostle Paul

Hold Nothing Back - Part 19

39m

Sacrifice

Sacrifice: Leftovers or Copper Coins

40m

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

02 The Central Issue: Love or Selfishness?

33m

Sound Doctrine