WYC 2011: Alive Again!

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GYC West

Morning Devotional

Steve Wohlberg

Repent

All right, let's open our Bibles up to Matthew chapter 3.

I don't know how many of you know this, but I used to be a Bible teacher here.

I was very inspired last night by listening to Pastor Clark's talk.

And he was very honest and shared some things that were very personal to him.

And as a result of listening to what he said, I decided to add a whole host of things this morning that I've never shared ever publicly.

And I guess it's a little bit risky to put this onto audio verse.

But I think, well, it was so long ago that this happened that hopefully, I'm safe in sharing what I'm going to share.

But I'd like to start out with prayer, so if you want to kneel, let's kneel.

This is the morning manna time, And a good place is on our knees as we begin our Bible study.

Dear Father in heaven, thank you for this convocation here at Weimar.

Thank you for the chance that I have to be here.

And we just pray for the Holy Spirit as we open the Bible and as we think about Jesus and his power and, Lord, what you want to accomplish in our lives.

Please take what I'm going to say and may it reach many people and may it just touch their hearts and accomplish what you want it to accomplish.

And first I'll share a number of Bible verses.

It's amazing how much the New Testament talks about repentance.

In Matthew 3 we find the ministry of John the Baptist.

And in verses 1 and 2, beginning of the New Testament, it says, in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, " and what was the first word that he preached?

That's right, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

If you turn the page to chapter 4, after Jesus was baptized, chapter 4, verse 17 says, from that time Jesus began to preach.

Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Acts chapter 2 takes us to Peter's Pentecostal sermon.

Describes what Peter went through, His denial before the fire of Jesus 3 times and how he wept bitterly and how lost he felt he was.

But how the Lord used that experience to bring him to a deeper repentance, and then to change his life, and then he used him on the day of Pentecost to convert 3, 000 people.

God often, always really, has to prepare his people in order to give his message.

Acts 2, verse 38 when those that listened to Peter's preaching were convicted it talks about how they were pricked in their hearts at the preaching of Peter about Jesus and about what had happened to him.

And then in verse 38, Peter said to them, and again what's that first word?

Revelation chapter 3 verse 19 near the conclusion of the Laodicean message.

Revelation chapter 3 this is a special message particularly to God's end time church.

And I'll talk more about this on Sunday morning when I give my talk called The Straight Testimony.

But in verse 19, Revelation 3.19, Jesus said, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore, and do what?

And repent, right, be zealous, be earnest and repent.

And that is the Lord's special call to his church, to his people.

Pastor Clark last night talked about 2 keys of revival.

1 being a true understanding of the character of God.

And I'll be talking about that later on today in my breakout sessions, 3 meetings on the character of God.

Or actually, that's gonna be the second 3 meetings.

And then the second 3 meetings are about the character of God.

And I strongly believe that we need to have a true understanding of the character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

That is just foundational for our relationship with him.

And then the second thing he talked about is that we need, last night, is that we need a true understanding of ourselves.

Well, I don't know if it's more difficult.

They're both difficult unless the Holy Spirit opens our eyes.

But I'd like to build on what he said last night, and I'd like to add 2 key dimensions of repentance.

1 of them is repentance of our evil actions.

Things that the Lord convicts us about that we have done.

And the second, which is often much more difficult to discover, And that is repentance for, as Ellen White refers to it, as the deep-seated sin of the soul.

It's easier to repent of our actions than it is to really discover the deep-seated sin of the soul.

Verse 24 says, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all men, Apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves.

If God, and this is the key I want to focus on, if God, per adventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

People can become captives of Satan and be led by him to do his will.

And the only way that we can get out of this captivity is if God works, If God does something and opens our hearts and gives us repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.

1 of my books, I've written quite a few books, is called From Hollywood to Heaven.

And I'm not gonna go into a lot of details about that right now.

But just quickly, Pastor Clark last night shared his personal story of growing up in the church, and then eventually realizing that he had the deep-seated sin of his soul.

And he talked about 1 of the things, and I've heard this many times, that he often thought of as he was growing up is that the people that come from the outside often have more of a testimony because they go out and they do all these things, then they become Christians.

And he wrestled with that and just eventually discovered that he didn't need to go out and then come in, because he had enough deep-seated sin of his soul already.

And it's sad that a lot of people that do go out, they never do come back.

But when I think about my life, I grew up very differently than Pastor Chester Clark.

I was born in the Hollywood area in Los Angeles.

For the first 20 years of my life, I didn't read the Bible.

I didn't have any Christian friends, my family's Jewish.

Andy Im

The Word of God: Revival and Reformation

Did you get a good night's rest, a good night's sleep?

After 4 messages, I didn't realize How worn out you could get.

And so I needed a good night's rest and the Lord has revived me.

And I praise the Lord for that and also through my morning devotions.

How many of you are being blessed with the spirit of revival and reformation thus far during WIC?

You know, I'm going to start off with the word of prayer, and we'll go ahead and start.

We're going to talk about the Word of God and the role it plays.

I think the paramount role that the Word of God plays in the work of revival and reformation.

But before we get started with that, let's go ahead and begin with a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for reviving us.

And Lord, we also need a change in our ways of thinking, our thoughts, and we also pray for reformation.

And Lord, we invite your presence to be with us here this morning.

Also, speak to the hearts and minds of those who are listening and even as I listen to the message.

And Lord, we also just want to bless or ask for your blessings upon WIC as a whole as we continue with the conference.

The word of God, revival and reformation.

Ellen White says in First Selected Messages, and many of you know this quote very well.

She says, a revival of true godliness among us is the greatest, the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

There must be earnest effort to obtain the blessings of the Lord.

Not because God is not willing to bestow His blessings upon us, but because we are unprepared.

We're unprepared to receive these blessings.

Because if God were to bless us when we're unprepared because we're proud, we're selfish, When God gives us those blessings, we'll abuse it and use it for our own glory to enhance ourselves.

And that's why it's so important that we prepare our hearts in order to receive revival and reformation.

Another quote that we're very familiar with, a revival and reformation must take place under the ministration of the Holy Spirit.

Revival and reformation are 2 different things, They're not the same thing.

As a matter of fact, revival signifies a renewal of spiritual life.

And we need that renewal every day, every morning, amen?

A quickening of the process of the powers of mind and heart.

Reformation on the other hand, signifies a reorganization, a re-shifting, if you will, a change, an altering in our ideas and theories, our habits and practices.

Reformation will not bring forth the good fruit of righteousness unless, unless it is connected with the revival of the spirit.

So if you just reform without being revived then it leads to dead formalistic, legalistic, ceremonial acting out of good works.

But it's when we're revived that our actions, our reformation can find its true impetus, its true starting point, its spark plug in Jesus Christ.

Revival and Reformation are to do their appointed work and in doing this work they must blend together.

That's Review and Herald, February 25, 1902.

So we're going to talk a little bit about Revival and Reformation and how it finds its impetus, its spark plug, its starting place in the Word of God.

Luke 5, 1 it says, So it was a multitude pressed about Jesus.

All true revival starts with the Word of God.

And I'm going to give you some examples of how we see throughout scriptures the Word of God leading to a Revival and a Reformation.

And we'll start with Abraham, the Word of God to Abraham.

Of course, God promised that all families of the earth were to be blessed through him, and namely the Messiah would come through His line.

God also promised a territory, the possession of Canaan in Genesis chapter 13, verses 14-15.

He said, look northward, southward, eastward, look in every direction.

And in verse 14 he says, for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.

You can do that as well in the big city with the bright lights.

But here at Weimar you can actually see the stars, and what a wonderful sight that is.

And looking into Genesis chapter 15 if you want to turn there this is verse 4 and also verses 5-6 This is the promise of God to Abraham.

He said, quote, 1 who will come from your own body shall be your heir.

Then God brought Abraham outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them.

And God said to Abraham, as Abraham was looking up, and how many of you, and I mentioned this earlier in another meeting, how many of you looked up in the stars on a very, very dark night with no moon and just saw the countless innumerable number of stars in the sky and you just sat there in awe at the greatness of God.

Is it possible to even begin counting 1 little section of the sky looking up?

And as Abraham is beholding this, as he is in stupor and in awe of the grandness of God, God says to him, so shall your descendants or your seed be.

The Bible says, he believed in the Lord and God accounted it to Abraham as righteousness, as righteousness.

So you have the Word of God that initiates the revival.

And that belief in and of itself revives us by the grace of God.

Romans chapter 4 this is some of my favorite scriptures in all of scripture.

Romans chapter 4 and go with me to verse 17.

We don't have time to go through this whole passage here.

But if you come with me to verse 17 I'm going to go ahead and start and read from there.

As it is written, again Revival starts with the Word of God.

We must have the Word in order to exercise faith.

As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of Him whom He or Abraham believed, God who gives life to the dead." Is that revival?

You and I were once dead in trespasses and sin, but God revived us.

He calls those things which do not exist as though they did.

Who contrary to hope, see hope was stacked up against him.

And faith never shines more brightly than when you are in a hopeless situation because that's when God can really shine.

Or else if God would have spelled it out word by word to Abraham, Abraham come out take a couple steps to the left, couple steps to the right, and detailed every step of the way.

And he showed him and told him every single thing that would occur in his life, then it wouldn't have been faith because there would have been nothing to trust in.

It's when there is the unknown that we lean most heavily upon God.

He calls those things which do not exist as though they did, who contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that He became the Father of many nations, according to what was spoken." And what was that?

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Repent

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The Word of God: Revival and Reformation

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