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

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Plenary

John Bradshaw

Kia Kaha

Mark Finley

Hope Beyond Tomorrow

Lightened With His Glory

Jesus Wins, Satan Loses

Pentecost Repeated

Shields of Brass

The Black Wall Street

Three Secrets of Lasting Peace

To Hope Again

The Second Coming

I had the joy of talking to each of my children, and what a blessing.

I just felt impressed to do this before I preached tonight because I know that there are parents here tonight that you've raised your children for God, you've raised them in Sabbath school, some have gone to Adventist elementary schools and academies and colleges, and Some have made choices that have disappointed you and have walked away.

You've wondered, what did I do wrong in the raising of my son or my daughter or my child?

If you go down that road, you ultimately blame God, because you have to ask what mistakes did God make in heaven?

Was there something wrong that God did there?

Or what mistakes did God make in the Garden of Eden that Adam and Eve rebelled?

When you give the power of choice, there is always the possibility that the wrong choice will be made.

You see, you can be an Adventist evolutionist without knowing it because evolution says that we are largely shaped by our heredity and our environment.

And the gospel says that heredity and environment plays a part in our choices, but ultimately God gives to every 1 of us the power of choice.

Now I want to read to you a very familiar Bible text, and I want you to see it for the depth of its meaning before I preach.

This is going to be an encouragement to somebody tonight.

These next 3 minutes may be more encouraging than the whole sermon.

Now don't fall asleep during the ceremony.

But I want you to turn to Proverbs 22, verse 6.

Many Adventist parents read this and they feel guilty.

But I'm going to help you understand the background of that passage, and it's going to give you hope rather than guilt.

You've read it before and it says, train up a child in the way he should go and when he's old, he'll not depart from it.

So many parents say, look, my child made choices to go astray and I must have not trained them up the right way.

It comes from a Hebrew word that has its origin in an Aramaic expression.

And the expression does not say train up at all.

When a Hebrew mother was teaching her child to nurse, if the child had a difficult time nursing, the mother would take her finger and put a little fig paste in honey in that finger and put it in the child's mouth and the child would begin to suck.

And what this text is really saying is this, place a taste in your child's mouth when they're young for spiritual things.

And no matter what choices they make in life, that taste for spirituality will always be there.

So whatever your choices your kids have made, If you did the best you could as parents, and you prayed with them, and you brought them to Sabbath school, you have placed within their heart a spiritual longing and a spiritual taste.

And they may make choices, but that spiritual taste is always going to be there, And the Holy Spirit's going to work on that spiritual taste to lead them to make a choice for Jesus and His kingdom.

So this is a wonderful promise, because it's promised for parents who've done the very best they could with their kids.

What parent has never made mistakes with their child?

But you have placed a spiritual taste in their mouth.

That spiritual taste is still there today on this Father's Day.

Father in heaven, I want to thank you for every godly parent that's here.

Sure, they made some mistakes, but they put a spiritual taste in their child's mouth, and that spiritual taste is still there.

That spiritual longing is still in their heart.

And Lord, I pray that you would nurture that spiritual longing, just like that baby who had that longing to nurse at her mother's breast.

Just like that baby who had that taste in their mouth, that sweet taste.

Lord, I pray that our children, every single 1 of them, wherever they are tonight, they would have that spiritual longing, that spiritual taste that would be nurtured by the Holy Spirit and that you would lead them closer to you and save them in your kingdom.

On those rare occasions where my wife convinces me to go shopping, I often get lost.

My wife and I have been married for 52 years, and she knows that shopping is not my most favorite thing to do.

I would not say that she is an expert shopper either, but there are those times when shopping calls and it becomes a necessity.

And at the times I accompany her to the mall, I often get lost.

Now, when I get lost, my wife knows where to find me.

There is something about books that fascinate me.

Books have this magnetic draw that brings me in.

And book titles particularly fascinate me.

And I was in a bookstore and looking over book titles and eventually I came across a book title and here was the title that really captured my attention.

It was called Outnumbered, Incredible Stories of History's Most Surprising battlefield upsets.

The book was the story of military wars that should have been lost, but they were won.

It talks about Hannibal's armies of 55, 000 that came across the mountains of northern Italy and attack the invincible Roman army of 80, 000 and how Hannibal armies won.

It talks about the battles of Alexander the Great in fighting the Persians where he never should have won, but he won.

As I thought about that book title, my mind began to be stirred.

And I thought about the fact that in this life as Christians, we are often outnumbered.

The forces of hell are marshaled against us.

The devil in all his evil angels throws every temptation after us.

But thank God, though we may be outnumbered, victory in Jesus Christ is certain.

The theme of the last book of the Bible is Jesus wins and Satan loses.

The heart of this battle is found in the book of Revelation and it's found in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation the 12th chapter is the hinge upon which the entire book of Revelation turns.

In Revelation chapter 12 you have 4 episodes.

These episodes take you down the corridors of time.

They describe an intergalactic struggle, a Star Wars controversy, A cosmic controversy between good and evil.

And in 4 episodes, 4 DVD snapshots, in 4 vignettes, in 4 chapters, Revelation 12 takes you from the fall of Lucifer down through the centuries to the birth of Christ, down through the Middle Ages, down to Satan making war on the remnant.

And in these 4 great battles, these 4 great universal struggles, where Satan marshals all his forces against the people of God, and the plan of God, and the purpose of God.

In every 1 of these instances, Jesus wins and Satan loses.

And the purpose of Revelation 12, that introduces Revelation 13, the chapters on the beast, and the chapters on the final conflict when man cannot buy or sell, and when it introduces Revelation 14, that comes to the triumph of the gospel and the 3 angels' message, and Revelation 15 and 16, the 7 last plagues, and Revelation 17, the women that rise upon the scarlet-colored beast, and Revelation 18 where it talks about the Babylon is fallen and Revelation 19, the coming of Christ, and 20, the millennium, and 21 and 22, the new heavens and the new earth.

The reason why Revelation 12 is so strategic, because it writes indelibly upon our mind that whatever conflict we go through, whatever trial we go through, whatever difficulty we go through, however dark the last days become, in Jesus, because of Jesus, and through Jesus, we indeed will be victorious.

Revelation chapter 12 introduces us to the theme that Jesus wins and Satan loses and Christ is victorious.

We begin with Revelation the 12th chapter.

And we look at that chapter in fairly extensive detail tonight.

Revelation chapter 12, we begin with verse 7, and war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought.

But they did not prevail, neither was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

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Plenary

To Hope Again

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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