WYC 2011: Alive Again!

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GYC West

Media and Current Controversies: The Character of God

Steve Wohlberg

The Character of God - Part 1

Dear Father in heaven, Father we pray for the Holy Spirit to be with us.

Lord please give me the strength, strengthen my voice.

This is my fifth talk today and I'm a little bit worn out but I pray that you'll just give me energy and help me to share what I know about this subject in a simple and clear way.

Please bless us now we pray in Jesus name.

I also don't have any slides from my computer to go along with this topic so it's just me and my Bible.

Verse 1 says, I looked and lo, a lamb stood on Mount Zion and with him 144, 000, having his Father's name written where?

It's a prophecy about God's final people that are prepared for the second coming.

They have the seal of God in their foreheads.

And they have the Father's name written in their foreheads.

Now, I think you could probably answer this question for me.

When the Bible talks about the father's name, what is that talking about?

Does it mean just, you know, proper pronunciation?

And I'll show you a verse on this in a little while that proves this, that when the Bible talks about the name of God, it is specifically talking about his character.

And when this verse says the 144, 000 have his Father's name, the Father of Jesus, his name written in their foreheads.

Basically, it means that the character of God has been written in their minds.

God's character has become part of their characters.

And that means that what God is like is now woven into what you are like.

And God's ultimate goal is to accomplish this.

If we're gonna be prepared for heaven, we're in Revelation 14, 1 for those of you that just came in.

If we're gonna be prepared for heaven, God's ultimate goal is to have us reflect his character, to reveal his character through us.

We have to discern what his character is like and then it can then be written in our foreheads.

If you were the devil and if you knew that God is trying to develop a final generation of people that are going to reflect the character of God and have the character of God written inside their minds, and then once that final generation of people is developed, we're at the end of the world.

If you were the devil, then what would you be trying to accomplish?

The development of the character of God and his people.

And God's character can't develop inside of people unless they discern his character and see what his character is like.

I mean, how can we become like something that we don't understand?

So God, his program is to reveal his character to his people.

And to have that character written inside of our souls, and then to have that character revealed through us.

It's a little bit like Something my son said to me some time ago.

Here's my little boy and he came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth.

My little boy ran in and he saw me brushing his teeth and he looked at me and he gave me the greatest compliment that I think a father can ever receive from his son.

He looked at me and he said, Daddy, I want to be just like you.

And then right as I thought about that, my mind thought about God.

And I thought, Lord, help me to be like you.

Because if my son wants to be like me, Lord, I need to be like you so that what he becomes like is good.

And that's really what our heavenly father wants.

He wants us to look to him and say, Father, I want to be like you.

And the issue of the great controversy, at the heart of the issue, is the character of God.

God made us in the Bible, it says in Genesis 1, he made us in his image.

He made us to see and reveal and reflect his character.

And Satan has been attacking that purpose ever since the beginning.

And he wants to prevent the 144, 000 from having the restored character of God in their foreheads, in their hearts.

Here's a statement from the Great Controversy, page 569.

1 sentence, and it has burned into me, this 1 line.

Now it doesn't just say it's something he's trying to do, but it says it's something he's trying to do all the time.

His constant effort is, listen to this, to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy.

That's what Satan is constantly trying to do, misrepresent God's character, misrepresent the nature of sin, and misrepresent the real issues.

Because he does not want us to understand those real issues.

Now, 1 of the ways, or probably the main way, that Satan seeks to misrepresent the character of God is by leading us into extremes, leading us into imbalances concerning who the Lord really is.

It reminds me of a little article I read some time ago.

I don't know if any of you have ever been on a cruise, but This was an article about a cruise ship that sank.

People go on cruises and they hope it's going to be a good vacation.

This came out of the Fresno Bee in 2007, a few years ago.

And it happened in Athens, Greece, or at least off the coast of Greece.

It says here, cruise captain blames currents.

A cruise ship captain indicated, no, indicted on negligence charges after his vessel foundered on a volcanic reef and sank in the Aegean Sea, blamed strong currents for the accident.

1, 500 people approximately were on board.

There were just 2 people that were missing.

They found everybody else or got everybody else off the ship.

And I don't know what happened to those 2 French tourists who showed up missing.

But I thought about that and I thought, the reason why that ship sank was because of strong currents.

A current that moved that ship toward the reef.

And as I think about the subject, I'm convinced that there are strong currents that are moving in this world.

And some of them are moving in our church.

And those currents are moving to lead us to extremes or to an unbalanced view of the character of God.

That's what the devil is trying to accomplish.

Now probably The classic biblical description of the character of God and the balanced view is in the book of Exodus chapter 34.

The Character of God - Part 2

Dear Father in Heaven, Father thank you for the chance, God, again to be here at this conference and to open the Bible and to share these truths.

Lord, you know probably better than anybody that I am not worthy in myself to teach your word, but Jesus is my righteousness.

Jesus is worthy and you've called me to Share these truths all around the world.

And we pray that you will help us, help me, help everybody here.

May the Holy Spirit guide us and instruct us and teach us.

All right, yesterday we talked about the issues of the character of God.

And the imbalances, some of the currents that are even within our own church that are looking at the character of God in an extreme way, in a way that I believe is unbalanced and actually a perversion of the truth that is described in the Bible.

Now yesterday we looked at Exodus 34 and talked about the description of God's character that it is a blend of mercy and justice and that really at the heart of who God is, is love.

The Bible says in 1 John 4 that God is love.

And I stated yesterday that my deepest conviction is that all of the manifestations of God's mercy are a manifestation of love.

The manifestations of God's justice are rooted in his love.

And when we deal with these issues of the character of God, his mercy, his justice, how these come together in the plan of salvation, there's no place in the Bible that these issues become more acute, more important for us to understand correctly than in the 3 angels' messages.

We read yesterday that in verse 1 it talks about how the 144, 000 are going to have the name of God written in their foreheads, which tells us that they are going to have God's character that is going to be accurately written and reflected in their lives.

Now the third angel's message in Revelation 14 is the most solemn message in the Bible.

Here you've got on the screen a picture of the 3 angels.

I think we all know this well, that the 3 angels really represent God's final message to the world.

Revelation chapter 14, verse 6 and 7 is number 1, verse 8 is number 2, and then verses 9 to 12 is number 3.

We know that these messages represent the last message to the world because in chapter 14 verses 14 to 16, we have a picture of the second coming.

And so the 3 angels give their messages right before the second coming.

I've also done a lot of study on this and this is just a separate thought, but in Matthew 24, verse 37, Jesus said, as it was in Noah's day, that's gonna be the same, it's gonna be the same when he comes.

And when Noah built the ark in his day, does anybody remember how many stories that ark had?

And Noah called people to come in to the 3 story ark so they could be protected when the flood came.

And Jesus said as it was in Noah's day, it's gonna be the same at the end.

And Revelation 14 has basically a 3 story message, kind of like the 3 story ark.

And God is calling people to come into this message and to understand it.

And this message really reflects the mercy and the justice of God rooted in His love.

Now in chapter 14, verse 9, we have the warning of the third angel, the last of the 3.

And verse 9 says, the third angel followed them saying with what kind of a voice?

A clear voice, loud doesn't mean that people are gonna be shouting.

It means that the message is gonna be clear and powerful and penetrating.

The third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if any man worships the beast and his image and receives his mark." Now notice where does the mark go?

And then it describes what's going to happen to those people.

We already read in chapter 14 verse 1 that the 144, 000 have God's character in their foreheads, in their foreheads, His name.

In 14.9 it warns about not getting the character of God in your forehead.

It warns about having the mark of the beast in the forehead.

When you study the forehead in Revelation, it's used many times, and it's very clear that the forehead represents the mind, and that 1 of these days, everybody's gonna get something in their foreheads.

Here's a picture of somebody, this is trying to illustrate getting the mark in the forehead, and then there's the other person, the happy person, and that represents that person getting the name of God in their foreheads.

If you look at chapter 22, Revelation 22, verse 4, it talks about the saved of all ages, God's people of all ages, who are with Jesus in heaven and in the new earth.

And verse 4 says, they will see his face and his name, which again is his character, shall be in their foreheads.

So what this is telling us is that eventually everybody is going to have something in their foreheads.

God's people are going to get the name of God in their foreheads.

And Satan's people are going to get the mark of the beast in their foreheads.

So everybody is going to get something in their foreheads.

And it really impresses me that the battle that we're in is a battle that's going on right between your ears, in the back of your eyes, in your head.

I mean, where does the battle take place in you?

Everything that you do is rooted in what's going on inside your mind.

The Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

So we have to guard our minds, we have to protect our minds, and we need to understand the truth of God in our minds and have the character of God in our foreheads instead of the mark of the beast.

These are the issues that are described in Revelation.

Alright now let's go back to chapter 14 and let's take a closer look at the third angel.

The third angel in verse 9 followed them saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, Then verse 10 says, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.

Those that get the mark in the mind, get the wrath of God.

And verse 10 says that this wrath is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation.

And He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." You can read Genesis to Revelation And you will never find a more solemn passage than what we just read.

They're very powerful words, descriptive words.

And we need to try to make sense of these words.

The same shall drink the wine of the wrath of God.

I've done a lot of research in this, and as I talked about this yesterday, there are different views in our church about the wrath of God.

There is a movement within the Seventh-day Adventist church.

And many of the people that are involved in this movement are very, very sincere.

And they're just, they're as convinced as convinced can be that when the Bible talks about the wrath of God, what it really means is that God simply withdraws his hand and allows natural consequences to run their course.

That's the way they interpret the wrath of God.

And they base this on a number of verses, 1 of which is in Romans chapter 1.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with these issues, but in Romans 1 it talks about the wrath of God being revealed from heaven in verse 18, and then it talks about how because of the sinfulness of humanity God gave sinners up to certain things, to their wicked ways and it mentions I think 3 or 4 times in Romans 1 that God gives them up to this, he gives them over to this, he gave them over to this, he gave them up to their sexual sin, etc., etc.

And people look at Romans 1 and they look at verse 18 that talks about the wrath of God being revealed from heaven, and then they look at the other verses about God giving them up, and they come to the conclusion that that's what God's wrath means.

It doesn't mean that God really has any particular wrath at all.

It means that he just sadly turns his back and allows natural consequences to take their course.

Now, just for the record, I don't believe that is a correct interpretation of Romans 1.

I think they're, without knowing it, they're really twisting the Bible.

When it talks about God giving them up to sexual immorality, probably the best example of that is in Genesis 19, when it describes God giving up the Sodomites to sexual immorality.

I mean, he definitely did that, wouldn't you agree?

That when Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, were doing what they were doing, that God gave them over to sexual sin.

But that was not equivalent to his wrath.

His wrath was not allowing them to do what they did.

His wrath occurred when the fire came down from heaven and fell and destroyed those cities.

And so people aren't looking at Romans 1 carefully enough when they really, when they come to this conclusion.

And I'm going to go back to this verse in verse 10 and look at some of the details here and then we're going to go to the life of Christ And I think it'll become more clear what this wrath of God actually is.

Character of God - Part 3: The Beast Within

Lord, we pray in your name that you will be with us.

Thank you for everything that you've done for us.

Thank you for helping in the last meetings that I've had.

And Lord, I know that you're going to be here again today.

Please talk to us and make this message very plain to us, so that we can see the importance of having your character in this battle that we're in, In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, let's go to Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis chapter 1, start at the beginning of the Bible.

This was on the sixth day of creation week, right before God made the Sabbath.

In verse 26, The Bible says, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.

It's very clear that God's purpose in forming human beings is so that we would reveal his image, which really means his character, his likeness.

So that when people look at us, God's plan is that they will see a reflection of him.

Now in order for people to see a reflection of him, we need to be like him.

And we need to, especially down here in our fallen state, down near the end, We need to have a correct understanding of his character, so that we can then reflect that character to the world.

And in the last couple of meetings, we've talked about the controversy that is going on within the Seventh-day Adventist Church dealing with the character of God.

And what I see as imbalances, which are actually perversions and deceptions about the character of God.

We've talked about how his character is a blend of mercy and justice rooted in love.

And by the way, I don't know if I've mentioned, but I've written a book on this, which is called The Character of God Controversy.

And that book is available from White Horse Media.

It was co-authored by me and a doctor in Loma Linda called Dr.

We have the same burden, same passion, same concerns about these different things that are happening in our church.

People often misinterpret God's character and they don't see him as a God of love.

And then there are other people that misinterpret his justice and they don't see him as a God of justice.

And really the bottom line of some of these occurrence within the church is that for many people, they cannot see that God's justice is really just.

They don't see God's justice as being good.

But in my mind, it's the devil that's bad.

The devil is the evil 1 and God is the good 1.

And if God in his goodness chooses to let justice come upon the devil, because the devil's bad, is that good or bad?

If God chooses to actively get rid of sin, because it's bad, and get rid of evil, that is a good act on his part.

And for some reason, these days, it's very difficult for some people to see God's justice as being just.

They have to make God's justice be something else in order for it to be just in their minds.

I think that God is just and we can look at what the Bible says and whether God allows consequences to run their course as a manifestation of his justice or whether he chooses to actively put down rebellion and to punish sin, whatever he chooses to do, He's good in doing it.

And as we'll see tomorrow, all of these issues about the character of God also affect our understanding of the plan of salvation.

We not only need to see God's justice and his mercy and his character, but we need to understand that in Gethsemane and on the cross.

And how that also helps us to understand righteousness by faith.

The sanctuary service reveals God's mercy and his justice.

And so I'll talk more about this tomorrow.

But anyway, here we read in verse 26 that God's plan originally was that we would reveal and reflect His own image, His own character.

Really, when you get to the heart of the great controversy, it's about the character of God and what is revealed in humanity.

And when Jesus was here, He revealed the character of God in his humanity, and it was a wonderful revelation, a beautiful revelation, and that's the revelation that God wants as much as possible to duplicate inside of our lives.

Now, let's go to the book of Daniel, and let's have a Bible study about character, And let's look at it from the perspective of the symbols that are used in the prophecies.

In Daniel chapter 2, and I'm just gonna walk you through these briefly.

And I've just learned this from my own Bible study.

I've been an evangelist for Amazing Facts.

I was 1 for 6 years, traveled around the country and went to other countries, went to Canada, went to New Zealand, I've been to Pakistan, been to Russia.

The first meeting I ever had with Amazing Facts overseas was with Joe Cruz.

Joe used to be the director of Amazing Facts before Doug.

And the last crusade that Joe ever had was in Russia.

And I was just a new Amazing Facts evangelist.

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Media and Current Controversies: The Character of God

Character of God - Part 3: The Beast Within

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Recorded

Morning Devotional: The Faith that Works by Love

The Faith that Works by Love- Part 2

32m

Self-Centered Christianity

33m

Legally Unrighteous

39m

On the Outskirts of Jerusalem

Follow Up

57m

Path to the Heart

5-Jesus, Not Condemnation

26m

WYC 2012 Breakout Sessions

Overcoming As Christ Overcame, Part 2

53m

Mystery of Godliness Vs. Mystery of Iniquity

1h

The Cancer that Feeds on Goodness

50m

Eugene Prewitt: Of Minneapolis and Modern Times

How to Prepare Yourself to Accept God’s Messages, Part 2

1m

Turning Stones Into Bread

1h 13m

Seminars

Beholding Christ in Service: Reflecting His Character in Our Work

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine