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Post Falls SDA Church

Willard Santee

Working Together

Before we get into today's message, I'm going to invite you to pray with me right now.

Father, please bless every heart who waits before you today.

Give each of us a nugget that we can take home saying, I'm glad I was there because I have a part of Jesus.

May He be the center of today's study and may He be the 1 that makes it plain in our individual hearts as to what we need at this time in earth's history.

Want to thank Elder Michael for reading our scripture this morning of Psalm 119.

Oh let me not wander from your commandments.

Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you." What a prayer.

I will delight myself in your statutes and I will not forget your word.

That's why the psalmist said, I've hidden it in my heart.

We're going to read another statement about that word in John today, so look for it as we get to it in just a little bit.

We're going to talk about that, hiding in our heart.

We have a tendency to forget God's Word when tradition takes hold of our lives.

Sometimes we intend to do what's right, we want to do what's right, we endeavor to do what's right, we even go about doing what's right, but sometimes tradition takes over and the doing simply becomes a ritual, a religious ritual.

Well, I remember what the author of Hebrews said, that we should not forsake ourselves, the assembling together as the custom of some is.

And especially as we see that day, that day approaching.

Because God wants us to assemble together to gain strength from 1 another spiritually so we can come back again and fortify our mind with the truths of God's Word.

In other words, as God's Word is preached to the people, it goes into our hearts, it changes our lives, it solidifies us, it makes us the men and women that God would have us to be in a world that's gone mad.

But we don't live in a society that demands milk today.

Today if we're going to stand out here in this whirlwind of a society in which we live, we're going to have to stand against the wind.

This is not a day to go back and hovel into our little mountain retreats and wait for the Lord to come.

This is a day when we need to fortify our mind with the truths of God's Word that we might be able to stand in the last great conflict which 1 day will come.

And for some of us it may come sooner than others.

Some of us are going through conflict even now as I speak, but I want you to listen, because beloved, the picture is bigger than most of us have thought, and we're in a greater crisis than many of us have ever dreamed.

And as my son said to me not long ago, he said, Dad, I fear that we have been lied to.

I'd like to share with you something very personal today.

It's something that breaks my heart, but yet it's reality, it is the truth.

And I almost think today that there is probably a hidden woe to those who share statistics that are not positive, that are not upbeat.

But what I have to share today are statistics that are reality that may bring us back as a people to seriously take a look at where we are.

I want you to take your Bible this morning and turn with me to the book of Acts chapter 3 before I share some statistics with you.

And I want to lay just a little nugget before you to think about, which sort of sets the stage for today's presentation.

Acts chapter 3, you might remember the story.

It was Peter on the day of Pentecost and he was preaching under the power of God's early reign, Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit had filled 120 individuals in an upper room and the Jews had come to Jerusalem for a very special weekend.

It was a high weekend and Peter waxed eloquent under the Holy Spirit and began to speak.

And over 3, 000 individuals accepted the Lord Jesus Christ that day from Judaism.

And then many of those individuals turned to Peter and said, what should we do?

How do we relate now that we crucified our own Messiah?

Verse 17, chapter 3, yet now brethren, Peter says, I know that you did it all in ignorance, as did also your rulers, you put your own Messiah to death.

But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

So even though you were guilty of what you did in spilling innocent blood, it fulfilled prophecy And in so doing you have a Savior that died for the world.

Isn't that nice how God can even bring order out of chaos?

But Now notice in verse 19, there's a key here.

Now that you have recognized your sin, repent of that sin and be converted, be changed over.

Let a new heart come into you, new thinking come into your mind that your sins may be what?

Blotted out, covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.

For you see, Jesus has died now, his blood has been spilled.

And we can claim the blood of Jesus Christ to blot out our sin.

But interestingly enough, for Seventh-day Adventist, it has an even greater significance, that verse.

Please oblige me, those of you that are not Seventh-day Adventist today or visiting with us of other faiths, we're delighted that you're here.

Just listen in on an Adventist sermon today, okay?

So thanks for coming and listening in on our study today.

Verse 19 to a Seventh-day Adventist would have this little twist to it.

Verse 19, "...repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out in the investigative judgment." See, Jesus cannot come back to this earth, I'm suggesting, until He has judged this earth and determined who's going to be saved and who's going to be lost.

Why would He come back here if he is not sure who he is going to take to heaven.

Therefore sometime before Jesus returns, he has to be involved in a judgment of who is going to be saved and who is going to be lost.

Because when he comes back, he brings his rewards with him, does he not?

And so as Seventh-day Adventists, we have a unique little insight here.

We would see this as sins being blotted out according to the old sacrificial system of how the Jewish economy worked.

The sins would be blotted out sometime on that great day of atonement.

Happened once a year when the high priest would take the blood of that special goat that symbolized Jesus Christ and would take the blood of that goat into the most holy place of the sanctuary and sprinkle it on the mercy seat of God.

Many of us have forgotten all about it because we're not into the Old Testament much.

But beloved, Jesus was a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

And so for Seventh-day Adventist, we see this as an interesting blotting out of sins in the investigative judgment.

So before Jesus comes, He wants to blot our sins out.

But then notice what else it says, Peter speaking, Repent, number 1, be converted, number 2, that your sins may be blotted out, number 3, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

Now beloved, if you understand Joel 2, you understand what the refreshing is.

The refreshing here it's talking about is latter rain.

Working Together

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