Michigan Virtual Camp Meeting 2020: Forward to the Finish

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Restore

Dennis Page

01 Attention, Affections, and Affairs- First Comes the Covenant, then Comes the Marriage

02 Blind Man Sees in Color

03 What’s in a name? The Restoration of Integrity in the Christian Life

04 Restore- How to Live Free in a World of Entanglements

05 Promise Seeker- Honoring Authority in a Dysfunctional World

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome again to Restore10.

I hope you've been blessed, encouraged, strengthened, and challenged.

You know, as I was reflecting on yesterday's meeting, it is so evident that God does not just want to restore 1 or 2 or 9.

He wants to bring a complete restoration to humanity.

And everybody and anybody that's willing to put themselves in His hands, because He's the 1 doing the work.

Remember, in the first commandment, as we looked at that, He wants to restore faithfulness in our life, but that was laid on the foundation of His faithfulness, His commitment, His devotion.

And He said, I will give you a new heart, and I will take away the stony heart, and I will give you My Spirit so that you can walk in My ways.

Yesterday we looked at the second commandment, and God would give us a word picture of what His glory is, His holiness, and we would see different attributes as He proclaimed His name.

He would demonstrate that and how He interacted with the Israelites.

He demonstrates that and how He interacts with us today.

And He wants to restore holiness in our lives.

And you know, every law, every bit of the law is absolutely essential.

It will bring, when you come to know God as he would have us know him, it will bring a revival of faith in our lives.

I wanna share this quote with you before I get into the message this morning, or this afternoon.

It is only as the law of God is restored to its rightful position that there can be a revival of primitive faith and godliness among God's professed people.

Now I've heard this term primitive godliness before but I have not heard the term primitive faith.

Now the reason why we're doing this seminar is that there's a burden on my heart that people would know God.

There's a burden on my wife's heart that our youth, and myself as well, that The youth would know God.

There's not a Christian in the world today that's gonna fully, completely, and totally surrender to a God they do not know and understand.

There may be some submission, but there will not be a full and complete submission and that's what God needs in order to transform the whole life and so What's in a name?

When I go and I'm looking at buying some tools, I used to be a carpenter and build, when I go to look at a tool, I look at the name brand.

I look at the reviews, if it's not a tool, a name I'm familiar with, I'll look at the reviews, I'll talk to people and see what they think about it.

I'm looking for something that's trustworthy.

There's many people and companies that they go to great lengths to build up their name and to protect their reputation.

And when their name comes up in a conversation, they want people to say good things about them.

Yesterday we discovered that is in the name, what's in the name is God's character.

And so this morning I invite you, or this afternoon, I keep saying this morning, this afternoon I invite you to kneel with me, I'm gonna pray 1 more time before we open the word of God.

Gracious, loving Father, we thank you for this opportunity to bow humbly before you and to open your word and break the bread of life, to look at this third commandment and what you would have us understand in regards to this particular attribute of your life, of who you are.

Father, I know you wanna revive us and you wanna bring a revival of primitive faith and godliness in our life, and it's something that we need as a people, as a church.

So we're asking that your spirit will be with me, that Christ would be lifted up, and that Father you speak to the hearts of your people today.

Open your Bibles with me if you would please to Joshua chapter 9.

The Israelites had now got, had crossed the Jordan, the Jericho had been conquered, Ai had been conquered, and they're progressing into the land of Canaan, and the nations around them are quite concerned.

And there's a particular nation, a group of people, the Gibeonites, that realize as they hear the stories of what happened to the Egyptians and how they came across the Jordan and what happened to Jericho and Ai, these people came up with a very, very crafty plan.

And they would approach Joshua and the leaders of the camp, and they would make up a story to convince them that they came from a land very far off.

And Joshua and the princes bought into it.

They were a little suspicious, but eventually they were persuaded, and they bought into it.

And verse 15, I wanna start there and go down through a few verses here.

And Joshua made peace with them, and he made a league with them to let them live.

And the princes of the congregation swear unto them.

And it came to pass at the end of 3 days, after they had made a league with them, that they heard that they were their neighbors, and that they dwelt among them.

And the children of Israel and as the children of Israel journeyed and they came unto the city of the third day, and now their city were Gibeon.

And you know, they were coming to conquer this city.

And they would discover that the group that had come to see them were of these people.

And the children of Israel smote them not, because the princes of the congregation had sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel.

And all the congregation murmured against the princes.

But all the princes said unto all the congregation, we have sworn unto them by the Lord God of Israel.

They swore by the name of the God that was leading them, the 1 they claimed to live for and live by.

Even though there were people in the camp that were quite upset and would have it another way, they were not gonna go against their word.

They were not gonna take God's name in vain.

And so you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless." You see, they were not only supposed to as they swore by that name, but they were to live up to everything that God had revealed to them about Himself.

The Israelites, the leaders would stay true and faithful there.

You know, there was a provision made, God had made provision that if anybody of the surrounding nations, if they would turn away from their wicked ways and their false worship, and they would come and want to join themselves with a camp, with Israel as a nation, he made provision for that.

You can read about it in Leviticus 19.33.

And so, this commandment, it not only forbids false oaths and common swearing, but it forbids the use of God's name in a light or careless manner without regard to its awful significance.

You know, when we take God's name upon our lips, it means something, it's supposed to mean something.

It's interesting, the Israelites and even the Jews at the time of Jesus, they would take extra precaution.

And even today, there's a very, very careful way.

Some don't even want to utter the name because they consider it so sacred.

But their lives, their lives do not harmonize with the character of God, with what their profession is.

He said, these people draw near to me with their mouth but their heart is far from me.

And when God would proclaim His name to Moses, He was doing it because He wanted them to know that, look, this is not just who I am, but this is what I want you to be.

It's not just about taking God's name, taking the name Christian, but it's about living the life.

Jesus would proclaim in his prayer in John 17, 26, I've declared thy name unto them.

How did Jesus declare his Father's name to all those around him?

It's the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.

Moral uprightness, the state of being whole or undivided, incorruptibility.

You see integrity, biblical integrity takes us 1 way.

It is something that Jesus demonstrated throughout his whole ministry.

There was no distinction he made between race, color, rich, poor, no matter what class.

Jesus came to minister to all and he gave us a beautiful example.

This here comes from Prophets and Kings, page 369.

All men are of 1 family by creation, and all are of 1 through redemption.

Christ came to demolish every wall of partition to throw open every compartment of the temple courts that every soul may have free access to God.

It did not matter what nation you belonged to, when the Roman centurion came and he asked for help, Jesus would give it to him.

When the Canaanite woman would ask for deliverance for her daughter, Jesus would do it for her.

It was about revealing the heart of His Father to all races, all nations, all kinders, all tongues.

My mother taught me some very good principles growing up.

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Restore

03 What’s in a name? The Restoration of Integrity in the Christian Life

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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