<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

University SDA Church of Los Angeles

Dwayne Lemon

Persuaded

Let me say good evening and happy Sabbath to everyone.

I'm trying to get used to the weather change because I'm coming from Georgia where it is sweltering hot and then now I'm here in California, Santa Barbara where it's kind of cold tonight.

But I'm grateful to God that he blessed all of us to be here.

I'm trusting that you all have come with an expectation to draw closer to Jesus.

If there's any other reason you're here, then you're in the wrong place.

We're all here because we know that there's somewhere in our lives where we don't have the connection with Christ as we should.

But by the grace of God tonight, we wanna have it.

And what I wanna let you know is that if you do not have an opportunity to hear the voice of Jesus tonight, It will not be because Jesus is not speaking, but it will be because perhaps we did not have ears to hear.

And so it is that tonight we want to make sure by the grace of God that every single 1 of us, whatever the distractions are, whatever's pressing on your mind right now that's distracting you from possibly hearing God speak to you.

I'm going to encourage you that you make a very special prayer in your heart to say, Lord, please give me ears to hear that I can be focused, that when your spirit speaks to me that I'll be able to hear you and that I'll be able to follow you and do your will.

I promise you, Christ is going to speak to our hearts tonight.

There's something very special Jesus wants to say to each and every 1 of us, and I'll be honest with you, this is a phenomenal environment to do it.

This reminds me of just the stories that I read of old where God's people would come together in mountains and wilderness and tight places where they would come together to study the Word of God.

That they can better understand God's will for their lives as they knew that they were called to do a very special work in the final generation.

And So it is that tonight we're going to do the same thing.

So before we go into our meeting tonight, I want to invite each and every 1 of us to bow our heads as we approach God's throne in prayer.

You've blessed each and every 1 of us to make it safely through another week.

You've watched over us, you've cared for our lives, Lord, and you've granted us various provisions that you allowed us to be here tonight.

And every single 1 of us, we've come here with a great expectation.

We want to hear not the voice of a man, but we want to hear the voice of the only man that counts and that is the man Christ Jesus.

We pray that he would truly be the 1 to speak to our hearts in a very marked manner so that we will be able to say that we have heard the voice of our Shepherd and as faithful sheep we will follow him wheresoever he may lead and so Lord God whatever distractions that would plague our minds and Cause us Lord not to commune with heaven.

Please remove them We pray that you would bind every demonic spirit that would try to hinder us from receiving the blessing that you have in store for us on this, your Holy Sabbath day.

And Father, we're praying and we're even giving thanks because we know that you have heard the prayer of faith and therefore we accept by faith that you have already answered and have already supplied the blessings we need most speak to our hearts tonight we ask for we ask it in Jesus name amen now I want to let you know if you don't have a Bible you're already crippling yourself And the reason why I say that, and if you don't have it tonight, I understand it's kind of dark, so therefore you're not going to be able to get it tonight, but come tomorrow, make sure you never come here without your Bible.

The last thing you want to do is to hear the opinion of a man, is that right?

We've been hearing the opinions of men all our lives.

And the Bible says in Jeremiah 17, verse 5, it says, Cursed be the man that puts his trust in man and maketh flesh his arm.

So the last thing we want to do is put our trust in what a person says.

But the Bible also says in Jeremiah 17, 7, it says, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is.

So every single 1 of us tonight, we literally stand between the balances of curses and blessings.

If you choose to hear the opinions of men and to embrace that as truth, the Bible promises you a curse.

But if you choose to hear the words of God and embrace that as truth, the Bible promises you a blessing.

And I believe every single 1 of us came for a blessing, is that right?

So therefore we want to make sure that we're studying the Word of God.

Now, you're going to do the best that you can with the amount of lighting that we have, but I want to draw your attention to a very specific point.

You're going to turn your Bibles to the book of Luke chapter 4.

For those of you who have your Bibles with you, we're going to the book of Luke chapter 4.

I was at a church and I was actually speaking the Word of God to a group of individuals.

And what happened was there was an elder that was there, And as the elder was listening to me, he said, listen, you know what?

I appreciate the things that you've shared.

Do me a favor, come by my church and I want you to talk to my young people.

And it turned out that he had over 90 young people in his church.

So here it is, I came out there and I saw these brothers and sisters.

Now this was in the African-American community and this is where a lot of individuals were plagued by the things that typically plague the youth in the African-American community.

And the reason why I'm saying that is because there were individuals who had their pants hanging off their backside.

Pants hanging off their backside, big old afros and just walking in looking like they could care about nothing.

And I'm watching all these brothers come in and they're looking at me like, what in the world are you going to teach us?

And here it is that I'm coming to this Bible study, I see them coming in, I see the young ladies, they got skirts real high, cleavage low, just, you know, acting like a whatever, I don't know what it is that was on their minds, but it seemed like the last thing in the world that they were interested in was anything that had to do with God.

They didn't want to study, but nevertheless they came to the class.

So here I am standing before up to 90 plus young people and I'm saying to myself, Father, I'm going to need a special blessing from heaven to talk to these brethren.

And here it is that as I was talking with them and I started to find out, I said, listen, what's on your minds?

You know, the elder brought me here to study with you.

And they began to share with me, well, we got questions about this and we have questions about that.

And I said, well, let me ask you a question.

As they started sharing with me what was on their minds.

I said, what do you think it was that made the ministry of Jesus so powerful?

I said, you do agree that Jesus' ministry was powerful, right, now would we agree that Jesus' ministry was powerful?

So therefore, what was it that you think that made Jesus' ministry so powerful?

This was the question that I asked them and I'm asking you tonight.

What would you say if someone asked you and said, do you think the ministry of Jesus was powerful?

Now, if the person then said, What was it about Jesus that you think made his ministry so powerful?

He had a way to reach every individual's minds to meet their needs.

To add to everything you just put, I'm going to show you 1 of the most foundational reasons why Jesus' ministry was so powerful.

And when I shared this with them, I said, and as you find out what made Jesus' ministry so powerful, maybe you might discover why your ministry is so weak.

And they literally are looking at me and I got their attention now.

I said, look, this is a keep it real generation.

What you're gonna find out by the conclusion of this weekend, ladies and gentlemen, is time is almost finished.

And the last thing in the world that I'm gonna do is come here to give you some type of flowery, smooth message to make everybody feel good in their sins understanding that we are not prepared for the things that's getting ready to come into this world and take the majority of the people in this world as an overwhelming surprise.

By the grace of God we have to enter into an experience with Jesus that's so real that it won't just last for a weekend but it'll last for the rest of our days.

And here it is that the Bible says in Luke the fourth chapter.

If you're in the Luke the fourth chapter I'm gonna ask that you let me know by saying amen.

In Luke chapter 4 Jesus made a very powerful statement as he was coming to the church, and it starts in Luke chapter 4 and verse 16.

Back to Menu

Persuaded

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

God in Harm’s Way

39m

The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker- Part 4

30m

Dwayne Lemon Revival

How to Have Religious Liberty Before Religious Liberty

1h 24m

The Plan of Salvation

01 The Plan of Salvation

1h 8m

Rise Up and Build 2008

The Pavement and the Proposal

1h

Dwayne Lemon Revival

The Wake Up Call

1h 19m

I Did It My Way

38m

From Pews to Priesthood

47m

The Ten Commandments By Philip Mills

The Safeguard of the Mind

43m

Prepare to Meet thy God

2- The Experience We Need Through Prophecy

1h 31m

Plenary

Building God’s Church

2h 4m

Twin Cities

A Citizen of the World

49m

Sound Doctrine