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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Bryan Choi Weekend

Bryan Choi

01 The Two Sieges

Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for this time that we can come together.

We ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us and to give us wisdom.

Lord, we're living in very interesting times, and your word is a light that guides us.

And so, Lord, we pray for the Holy Spirit to give us understanding, help us to have a fruitful time in your word.

So The message today for tonight is entitled the 2 sieges.

And I'd like to direct you to the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 24.

You probably know this chapter very well.

It's a chapter where Jesus talks about what will take place at the end of time, the signs and the signs of his coming.

If you look at Matthew chapter 24, and we're going to start with verse 1, you're going to notice that Jesus and his disciples are actually looking at the temple in Jerusalem.

And it says, and Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple.

And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things?

Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here 1 stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.

Now during the reign of Herod, Jerusalem was not only greatly beautified but it was also had these towering walls and fortresses that added to the natural strength of its architecture.

And just by looking at how well built and fortified it was, Jerusalem seemed to be rendered apparently impregnable.

And for Jesus to say, or for anyone to say at this time that This building the temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed it would be like what many people would call a conspiracy theorist a crazed alarmist and the disciples knowing this They decide to help hold their peace and they waited until they were in seclusion on the Mount of Olives to ask Jesus, tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming?

And Jesus throughout the chapter refers to many signs, but tonight we want to focus on 1 particular sign.

As Jesus in Matthew chapter 24, verse 15, he references the book of Daniel.

And Matthew chapter 24, 15 says, when you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet Stand in the holy place Whoso readeth let him understand So apparently when Jesus is saying when he's talking about the abomination of desolation, he says that it is something that you can see.

You can see it, you can visibly behold it, you can visibly and physically see and observe the abomination of desolation.

So what does the abomination of desolation do?

And so what is the abomination of desolation and where is the holy place on which it stands?

If we just use scripture and compare scripture with scripture you'll see Jesus also referencing this in Luke chapter 21 verse 20 and when Jesus says and when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." So in other words we see as we compare scripture to scripture we get more information.

We see that it has something to do with armies surrounding, in fact specifically surrounding Jerusalem.

So when we put these verses together what Jesus is saying is that when you shall see Jerusalem surrounded, compassed about with armies, then you know that the desolation of Jerusalem is nigh.

And Jesus says further on in the verses, he says, flee when you see this thing.

So when you see, according to Matthew 24, 15, the abomination desolation standing in the holy place, and according to Luke 21, 20, you see Jerusalem compassed with armies, know that the desolation is near.

And so when we're talking about armies, we're talking about Roman armies.

When Roman armies go to war, they bring their pagan idols or images that's on their standards and that were, those were their gods.

They were, they were by holding those standards saying that we will conquer you in the name of our pagan gods.

And when the Jews see those idolatrous standards, there are clearly abominations, which the Roman armies are holding them with the intent to destroy and decimate.

And so we see that the armies with these idols and these standards are the abomination of desolation.

Well, they're standing in the holy place.

Many of us probably kind of think immediately, oh, that must mean the sanctuary.

But this is not to be confused with the sanctuary, the holy place with the sanctuary or the temple of God.

If Jerusalem, think about it for a minute.

If Jerusalem is being compassed with armies, the armies are outside the city.

They have to be if they're surrounding the city.

So Jerusalem, we need to understand, is on the mount, Mount Zion, which is considered the holy mountain.

And if you remember in Exodus chapter 19, where God appeared to the children of Israel and he fenced off a place where they were not to come near or touch the mountain.

And the armies are here, as Jesus described, standing in the holy place outside the city.

And the book, Great Controversy confirms this.

In page 25, it says, when the idolatrous standards of the Romans should be set up in the holy ground, Which extended some furlongs outside the city walls then the followers of Christ were to find safety in flight So very clearly we see that the holy ground is the outside the mountain where the city of Jerusalem rests upon but we see that at this time the Roman armies surround the city with their idolatrous standards in place.

And so Jesus says, when you see these things, well, let's go to the verse, verse 16.

It says, when you see these things, he says, flee to the mountains.

So Jesus is saying, when you see the abomination of desolation, standing in the holy place, flee to the mountains.

But the question is how can you flee to the mountains when the armies have surrounded the city?

But Jesus gave this prophecy in AD 31 And we see that the Roman armies led by Sestus came in 66 AD and encamped around the city to besiege it.

Then for some apparent reason, they retreated and abandoned the siege.

Perhaps they were given new orders or they were called to help reinforce troops in another battle, whatever the case may be, they left.

That provided the window of opportunity for the Christians to flee.

And then in 70 AD, the armies returned, this time led by Titus, and they destroyed the city and those in it.

So this already took place back then in 70 AD.

So the question we have tonight is what does this have to do with us?

What benefit can we get from this prophecy?

You know it's true that this prophecy referred to their time, but based on Matthew 24, Jesus made it very clear, based upon the question of the apostles, that this prophecy also has a dual application.

1 for the destruction of Jerusalem and 2 for the end time.

So this prophecy has a secondary meaning intended by Jesus and history repeats.

The major characteristics that we can observe, the abomination of desolation.

The word desolation, we know as we studied and compared the verses has to do with armies.

Armies have this power to destroy and decimate and lay to waste.

And the idea of desolation, these armies have to do with a political power.

Armies are connected with a political power, political entity.

So that's desolation, connected with armies, connected with a political power.

Is that, When you use that word, is that dealing with political context or dealing with a religious context?

Well, it's clearly religious because it's connected with things that God hates.

The word abomination means a detestable thing.

And so we see here that desolation connected to armies refers to political powers.

Abomination is connected to a religious context.

And now they are paired together The abomination of desolation so in the future We can expect to see a political power in connection with a religious power And we call this the union of church and state.

And where else in the Bible do we see an image that is being set up And where we see a union between a political power and a religious power.

If you look at Revelation chapter 13, 14 through 15, it talks about the second beast.

We know the second beast is the United States of America.

And it says the second beast deceived them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast Saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

What is the image of the beast as mentioned of in Revelation chapter 13?

The image of the beast, just giving you the final answer, the image of the beast is none other than the union of church and state.

It's a union of church and state that is taking place.

So in the future, we can expect to see a union of church and state.

And when they unite, they're going to attempt to take over, to take control of that which is considered to be holy.

Now, some of us may think, you know, we know that, that the union between this political and religious entity is that they're going to bring about the Sunday law, the national Sunday law.

I'm gonna wait till the national Sunday law, then I'll get ready.

When Jesus tells the Christians when they see the abomination of desolation surrounding the city of Jerusalem, that they should flee.

We see that great controversy mentions a man who continued to go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, declaring the woes that were to come upon the city.

03 The Cleansing of Two Temples

Well, let's have a word of prayer everyone Heavenly Father Lord, we are so grateful for another opportunity for us to study your word and to understand what implications the Word of God can have for us during the times that we're living in.

And Lord, we pray that you'll please guide us.

We need the Holy spirit to be with us and to give us wisdom to understand these things, but also more importantly, to put them into practice.

And so Lord, we pray for your guidance and we pray for your instruction.

Speak through me I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, well let me go ahead and share my screen and my screen and title for my message today is entitled the cleansing of 2 temples And so we'll get that up momentarily.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and start with a prophecy that's well known in Daniel chapter 8, verse 14.

We all know this as a 2300 day time prophecy.

And in Daniel 8, 14, it says, unto 2300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

And so this is, we know, to be speaking of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, as mentioned in Hebrews chapter 8 and 9.

And the heavenly sanctuary involves the blotting out of the sins of God's children from the books of record above at the close of the investigative judgment.

But while God has a sanctuary in heaven, God also has a sanctuary on earth.

In 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, you know that text very well, which says, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

And 1 Corinthians 6.20 also says, what, know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God and you are not your own.

So we see that God calls his people, his temple, his sanctuary.

And the blotting out of the sins in the sanctuary in heaven is the bookkeeping record of the actual blotting out of the sins of God's people from their hearts and lives down here below.

Now, when the sanctuary is cleansed up there, you can be sure that it is because the sanctuary is being cleansed down here.

And Jesus is going to purify his church today, just as he purified the temple of Jerusalem at the beginning and the end of his ministry.

And that brings us to the first angel's message, Revelation chapter 14, verse 7, which says, Fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and the earth and the sea and the fountains of waters." We see that this message is the present truth in the judgment hour and at the time that Jesus was to enter the most holy place in heaven to cleanse the sanctuary and enter into the work of investigative judgment preparatory to the blotting out of those sins, this message must go out to all the world.

Fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of his judgment is come.

This message can only be given to this last generation.

And Revelation 14 is the counterpart of Daniel 8 14.

We see in Daniel 8 14 it gives us the time.

In Revelation 14 6 through 7 it gives us the message for that time And the time is none other than 1844, the time for the cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven and on earth.

So as a result of this message, What kind of people will it produce?

We see Revelation chapter 14 verse 12, it tells us, here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

These people are ready for Jesus to come.

Revelation 14 14 tells us that Jesus comes on the clouds with a sharp sickle in his hand and in verse 15 he reaps at the time of harvest.

And we know that the harvest represents none other than His coming, His second coming.

In Matthew chapter 13 verse 38 we see that the good seed represents the children of the kingdom and verse 39 of that same chapter says that the harvest is the end of the world.

So then at the harvest time, with the crop fully ripe and mature, with God's children like him in every way, Jesus comes.

And you probably know that well-known quote from Spirit of Prophecy that says, when the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in his people, then he will come to claim them as his own.

So this message will draw people out from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

So that includes Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and other world religions that are out there in the world.

That's pretty amazing if you think about it.

They will be drawn, this message will draw people out from every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, and also secondly, it develops them and presents them at the coming of Jesus without fault before the throne of God.

Jesus is finishing his work in heaven and he is finishing it here on this earth at the same time.

And knowing that the time is high time to wake out of sleep and share in these closing movements.

And we see the first angel's message primarily focuses upon the true worship, re-focusing upon where the worship should be to God and God alone because of his creative power and because we're living the judgment hour and he's the 1 that's going to judge all those on earth.

In the second and third angels message the emphasis is on false worship, exposing the false worship and the false systems of religion that are here on this earth that many people are bowing down to and following according to what they say.

And so we see that the second angel's message in Revelation chapter 14 verse 8 is speaking of Babylon.

Babylon represents today the great world combination of error and falsehood, false religion, claiming to speak for God but really speaking for Satan, A false system of worship that eclipses Jesus and everything he is to the sinner.

Against that we are warned by this message.

We also see the third angel's message tells us that these judgments are going to come upon those who worship the beast and his image and on all those who receive his mark.

The beast and his image seek to enforce their mark upon the minds and the consciences of men, and God warns us against that.

We see that this crisis is fully pictured in Revelation chapter 13.

We see Revelation 13 speaks of a sea beast, which is the symbol of the papacy.

And we see that the great power that rules from the Vatican.

And the image of the beast represents the union of apostate Protestantism in league with papal Rome, both uniting, resulting in persecution against God's people.

Both unite in persecution against the people of God.

We see in Revelation chapter 13 verse 17 it says that they will allow no man to buy or sell save he to have the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name.

Given the times that we're living in, does that seem far-fetched?

Does that seem that that is far from ever possibly happening?

I think the times that we're living in shows us with the economic crisis and all the things that are taking place Coin shortages and things like that.

It tells us that this can be very real This can come to pass We also see furthermore that Revelation 13 verse 15 says that there will be a death decree ultimately and all hell is moved against the development of the people who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

This indeed is a crisis both in the government of God and in the government of hell.

This is a crisis at the close, just before Jesus comes.

Every soul in this world will either be in the little company who keeps the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, or they will be numbered among those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark on their right hands or on their foreheads." We also learned about, on our first night, about 2 sieges.

We learned about the first siege that took place in 66 AD which is when the Roman armies were led by Sestus.

They came and encamped around the city to besiege it but then for some apparent reason they retreated and abandoned the siege.

Perhaps they were given new orders or they were called to help reinforce troops in another battle, but whatever the case may be, they left.

And that provided the window of opportunity for the Christians to flee to the land of Peoria.

But we see it wasn't long before the Roman army under Titus came back.

And this time the siege was carried out and over 1 million Jews perished by crucifixion, starvation, inner conflicts within the city and many other ways.

The fate of that city illustrates a microcosm of what will take place in the world.

The doom of the world is foretold in a microcosm illustration of that account.

However, not 1 Christian perished in the siege of that city, and not 1 of God's children upon whom the seal of God is placed is going to perish in the doom of this world.

Because they watched for the prophetic signs.

They watched for the prophetic signs and they moved accordingly under the leadership of Jesus.

And we need to know what is soon coming to pass and we need to know the signs and the signals.

We see that the last prophetic date is 1844, that end of the 2300 day time prophecy.

In Revelation chapter 10, it speaks of an angel who took his place with 1 foot on the land and 1 foot on the sea and with his right hand to heaven, he swore that there should be time no longer, no more prophetic time.

Because, listen carefully, because God's prophetic clock has struck the hour of the final movements.

And from 1844 and on, not a matter of days or weeks or months or years, but rather it's dependent on a development of a people.

And when those people are developed, when their characters are perfected, then the crisis at the close breaks with all the force of a great hurricane or tornado and there's something which is about to take place which inspiration has said is to be a sign just as definite and clear and plain as the sign when the Roman armies were around Jerusalem.

And there are some things that we need to know when we see what is happening.

People today try to spend time with current events.

And it's important for us to be mindful what's going on, but people will have the internet, the radio, television, newspaper, I don't know if people read newspapers anymore.

But every 1 of these things can tell you something only after it's happened.

Those things just report after the fact that these things occurred.

But how much better is it that we have the Bible and the spirit of prophecy and the events that are revealed Before they come to pass, all is there.

And so why is it that multitudes are paying no attention to these prophecies, which are the unveiling of the schedule of future events with which you and I want to be familiar with?

Let us fill our minds with Daniel and Revelation.

Let us know that the events are soon coming to pass.

How many messages are there in Revelation chapter 14?

02 Appropriating the Righteousness of Christ

It's such a privilege for me to not just, I have a triple blessing today because I just was at 1 church service at my first church and the second church service at my second church, and now here I'm here with Advent Hope for the third.

And I'm just happy to be here, and I'm really glad that we were able to spend this time together.

I just want to share my screen here just a moment.

So today the topic is appropriating the righteousness of Christ How can we appropriate the righteousness of Christ in our lives?

And so I'm praying that this will be very practical I know the whole topic of righteousness by faith has been covered many times by many speakers.

Some probably can explain it better than I can, but I decided to approach it from a different perspective.

As opposed to just describing it and theologically explaining it, I'd like to just, by God's grace and by God's help, present this from a practical standpoint.

And so I hope that it can be helpful for you.

So without further ado, let's have a word of prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to guide our time together.

Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the Sabbath.

We thank you that we are reminded every week who our Creator is and how we're dependent upon him for our life and for our wellbeing, but also for our spiritual life.

For the Bible tells us that the Sabbath is a sign that you are the 1 that can sanctify us.

And so Lord, we pray that you'll please fill us with your Spirit, open our hearts and minds to the truth of your Word.

Lord, especially use me as a vessel to speak your words and put your words in my mouth.

Lord, I pray that you'll please, by God's grace, allow me to bestow a blessing through the study of your word.

We thank you for hearing this prayer in Jesus' name.

Okay, well, you know, we are living in interesting times, and we talked about that last week, not last week, last night.

But I just want to share with you a little testimony before we get into today's message today.

Before this whole coronavirus pandemic came about, the Michigan Conference, we had a series of evangelistic meetings called Jesus on Prophecy.

It was actually led out by our assistant ministerial director, Wes Peppers, and he spearheaded that Jesus on Prophecy series which we did last fall.

And it seems like so recent, but yet it's been a year now.

But we had a series here at the Ann Arbor Church where we had guests that came in and they were interested and intrigued with the message that we had to bring through those series.

And many people came and guests came, some of them continued coming, others dropped off.

But there's 1 particular couple that came to the meetings and they were sitting in the front nearest to the stage where we had the setup with the projector and everything like that.

And they would come regularly to these meetings.

And they would miss like 1 or 2 nights, but for the most part they were there and it was really exciting to actually see that they were responding positively to the messages and they were taking it all in and you know after that I was doing follow-up with all these contacts and, you know, over time, people kind of, some people stayed with the follow-up Bible studies, others just kind of dropped off.

And, and the, this couple just kind of, you know, faded away, so to speak, you know, we didn't get in contact with them, for some time a few months after that.

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Bryan Choi Weekend

02 Appropriating the Righteousness of Christ

Transcript

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Recorded

Parts

01 The Two Sieges

40m

03 The Cleansing of Two Temples

26m

02 Appropriating the Righteousness of Christ

52m

Sound Doctrine