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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

Mistaken Suppositions

Lord, thank you once again for the Sabbath.

Thank you for this time that we can come to study once again together as well.

And thank you, Lord, for sustaining each and every 1 of us.

As we're about to open your Word, I pray that you'd guide us through those words.

Speak to our hearts, O Lord, and also pray that you please continue to sustain this connection so that we can study and worship together online, together here in unity as well.

Please turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 2.

Luke chapter 2, and we're going to start in verse 41.

Jesus at this time, he's still a young boy.

He is 12 years old and he's gone up to Jerusalem with his parents Joseph and Mary.

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.

And when he was 12 years old, speaking about Jesus, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast.

And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem.

And Joseph and his mother knew not of it.

But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey, and they sought Him among their kinsfolk, an acquaintance.

And when they found Him not, they returned, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking Him.

And it came to pass that after 3 days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions.

Jesus, whom was born to Mary, not Joseph, but Mary, as a miracle birth, a miracle child, notified and instructed by the angel that clearly this was the Son of God.

If anybody in the whole wide world as parents needed to be careful, it would have been Joseph and Mary.

How could it have been possible for them to lose the Son of God, their only son, their baby child, well, not quite a baby, but their little child, and lose him for 1 whole day.

They went a day's journey and only then they started looking for Jesus and could not find him.

And friends, what they lost in 1 day, it took them 3 days to recover.

They went a day's journey but it took them 3 days to find Jesus.

And friends, it is possible that we, when we don't spend that 1 day with Jesus, that 1 day that we're separated from Him, that 1 day that sin captivates us and captures us.

And sometimes even for us, it's even longer than that.

And yet 3 days of agony, of searching with tears and bitterness and remorse and prayers.

3 days it took them to come back to find Jesus.

Friends, you see that word there in Verse 44, but they supposing, that word suppose means to assume, to speculate, to guess.

And you know friends, sometimes we can think that Jesus is with us when He really isn't.

It's possible that there are those who think that Christ is present when in actual fact He is absent.

It takes carefulness to make sure that we don't assume, that we're not presumptuous, that we don't speculate or guess, for our relationship with Jesus Christ should not be left to guesswork.

I'm not just talking to lay members, to church members that people are just coming once a week to church.

I even speak to those that are preachers like myself.

Look at what the pen of inspiration says.

In Testimonies for the Church Volume 1, page 434, paragraph 1, Ellen White writes, the reason why our preachers accomplish so little is that they do not walk with God.

The more closely you watch your own heart, the more watchful and guarded you will be, lest By your words or acts you dishonor the truth, give occasion for the tongue of slander to follow you and the truth, and cause souls to be lost through your neglect of what?

Self-examination, of heart study, and of vital godliness.

The Holy Department of the Minister of Christ should be a rebuke to vain, frothy professors.

The beams of truth and holiness shining from your serious, heavenly conversation will convict others and lead them to the truth, and those around you will be compelled to say, God is with this man of a truth.

It is the carelessness, the looseness of professed ministers of Christ that gives them so little influence.

There are many professors, but there are few praying men.

If our preachers were men who prayed more in secret, who carried their preaching into practice in their families, who ruled their houses with dignity and gravity, their light would indeed shine to those around them.

And so this evening, friends, I'm not just talking about lay members.

I even am speaking to myself as a preacher.

For there are many preachers who are a day's journey from Jesus." And she tells us that we got to be watchful.

She tells us that we got to examine ourselves to make sure that we're not assumptions, that we're not presuming, presumptuous, we're not assuming that Christ is naturally with us.

Friends, we got to check our heart every day.

For if we would pray more in secret, then the outward life would show even to the whole world that Christ is truly with us.

We could have more courage and boldness to present our prayers before Christ.

So there are those, friends, that think that Christ is present when in actual fact He's absent.

Friends, even before we finish the Sabbath tonight, this evening, can you have confidence to say in your heart with me that Christ has been with you?

That He's been in all your conversations throughout this day?

That He's with you in the secret conversations that you have between husband and wife?

That He's with you in your interactions with your friends?

He's there at the family table as you eat with your mother and your father?

Is He there in your associations throughout this past week, in your studies or in your work?

Can you have confidence to know through the fruits of your life that Christ is with you?

We got to be careful that we don't assume to Suppose that he is with us because that 1 day of separation can cause 3 days of crying and tears and agony.

Friends, it only takes 1 small sin to separate us from Christ and cause a big gulf to be set between us.

But now I want you to turn to me in your Bibles to another story.

We got to be so careful that we don't assume automatically that just because we went to church, just because we listened to a sermon, that Christ is with us.

For the Bible says that what the ways of man seems right in our own eyes but those ways are ways of death.

Matthew chapter 20 and we're starting in verse 11.

The Bible says, her, and seeth 2 angels in white sitting, and 1 at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?

She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing, but she didn't know that it was Jesus.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?

The gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master.

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not, for I not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Friends, this was Mary, the 1 who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and with that precious ointment.

The 1 that stood at the cross, weeping and looking at his nail-pierced hands and feet.

And yet when she came to the tomb, looking for His body and did not find it, She thought that someone had taken away her master's body.

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Mistaken Suppositions

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