Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

True and False Religious Liberty

Jonathon Cherne

01 The True Image

02 The Counterfeit Image

03 Pray for America Again - True Revival

04 Make America Pray Again - Counterfeit Revival

05 Current Religious Liberty Issues in America

Father in Heaven, thank you Lord for waking us up, a new day.

Lord, thank You for Your love and Your grace, Lord.

We don't deserve it, Lord, but we're so grateful for it.

And Father, Lord, we just ask that as we open Your Word, as we look at some of the things that are happening around us in this world, Lord, that You just help us to have the wisdom and knowledge of Your Holy Spirit, Father, and that You guide my thoughts, Lord, and may my mouth speak the things that You would have me speak, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Okay, so a lot of people have asked me before you know how come you know you spend so much time talking about religious liberty and things that are happening in this world, should that be our focus?

And you know, so I try to do a balanced approach.

That's why my talk yesterday was focusing on the image of Christ, and today we're going to get into more of the image of the beast.

But while we're supposed to keep our eyes on Christ, there are some statements both in the Bible and Ellen White that tell us we need to be watchful, right?

So the Bible says in Matthew 24, it says, watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.

And so, you know, Jesus was telling his disciples to keep watch, and then he gave a lot of signs of things that would happen there in Matthew 24 that they were supposed to be watching for.

And so we must keep our eyes on Christ, but we also must be aware of the things that are happening around us.

This is a quote from Signs of the Times, and it says, God would have us study the events that are taking place around us.

So we're supposed to study those things that are happening around us and it says and to compare them with the predictions of His Word in order that we may understand that we are living in the last days.

And so we're supposed to be aware of the things that are happening around us and study them, but study them when looking through Bible prophecy.

And so we're supposed to compare them to what we have learned in His Word and see, okay, is stuff happening?

Where are we at in the timeline of Bible prophecy?

So today we're going to do that, we're going to look at His Word, and then we're going to look at some of the things that have been happening in this country and try to see His prophecy being fulfilled.

The last sentence there says, "...the diligent student of prophecy will be rewarded with clear revelations of truth.

For Jesus said, Thy word is truth." So if we're diligent, God promises us a reward.

In fact, it's sinful to be indifferent to the things that are happening around us.

You know, we need to be obedient and be watchful, and I have a quote here for you.

There are in the world today many who close their eyes to the evidences that Christ has given to warn men of His coming.

They seek to quiet all apprehension while at the same time the signs of the end are rapidly fulfilling And the world is hastening to the time when the Son of Man shall be revealed in the clouds of heaven.

Paul teaches that it is sinful, she says here in Acts of the Apostles, page 260, to be indifferent to the signs which are to perceive the second coming of Christ." And so I just find that a little fascinating that for us to close our eyes and to ignore everything that's taking place would actually be sinful.

And so we're supposed to keep our eyes open.

We're supposed to be aware of what is happening around us, not so that we fall into fear or anxiety, but so that we can warn others and help them prepare for the soon coming of their maker and savior.

So that's why we need to be studying and looking at the things that are taking place.

Now I need everyone to, anyone who has their political glasses on, you take those off.

We're just going to lay them aside, okay?

We're going to be talking about some things that might seem political, but I need you to now grab, everyone have their purse here, and grab your bag, grab your prophetic glasses and put those on, okay?

So we're gonna be looking at things prophetically.

So I'm going to be talking about certain politicians and parties and things in this presentation through, though, the Bible prophecy, okay?

And so I don't want you to be looking at this with your political glasses on.

We need to have our prophetic glasses on.

I might step on some toes, hopefully not, but let's look at it through the Bible and through Bible prophecy.

There is a true image and a counterfeit image.

And we talked about how Satan counterfeits everything that Christ does, right?

Satan has his counterfeit trinity, has his counterfeit image to the true image.

He has the counterfeit 3 angels message with the 3 messages like frogs coming out of the mouth.

And so Satan counterfeits because he uses counterfeit so that he deceives because the way to get deception is for something to look so close to the real thing that you can't tell a difference and you're tricked and you go for the counterfeit.

Remember that's what he did with Eve in the garden.

She thought she was talking to a servant.

Had she known she was talking to the archenemy of God, she would have never talked to him, but he looked just like that beautiful, magnificent creature that God made that she was tricked and thinking, wow, you know this serpent ate that fruit and can talk now.

You know, if I eat it, what I could do, right?

And so Satan uses counterfeit, something that looks just like the real thing, but isn't, in order to deceive us so that we give our allegiance to Him instead of Christ.

So the true image is the image of Christ.

That's what we all want, is Christ's image.

And we saw that yesterday from Colossians chapter 3, that character of tenderness and kindness and long-suffering, forgiving 1 another, we talked about, but most of all love.

You know, that's the character, that's that true image that we want is the image of Christ and it's formed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so God's Spirit working in us is what gives us that character.

It's not something that we can attain of ourselves because we are all sinful beings, right?

Our righteousness is as filthy rags, Isaiah says.

And so it's only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can have that character.

And we saw there in Colossians 3 that the chief attribute of that character is love.

Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments.

And so it's a love for God that produces obedience.

And so that's the true image, and then there's also a counterfeit image.

And that's what we're going to be talking more about today.

And this counterfeit image is the image of Antichrist.

And we know from Revelation chapter 13 that it is the beast from the sea that rises up, which represents the papacy, the Roman Catholic Church system, that points people, instead of to Christ, it points people away from Christ and points them to a man or to a system.

And then that image is formed by man's power.

We see there in Revelation 13, we're going to look at that in just a minute, the United States of America.

So I assume we all have an understanding of what the different beasts are.

You know, the first beast and the second beast are in Revelation 13.

So if you don't have that understanding, you can study that later, you can get with your pastor or something.

And so the counterfeit image, it looks like the true image.

You know, it's an image of gold, just as we are supposed to be gold tried in the fire.

And Nebuchadnezzar had his image of gold up.

It's also formed by, though, man's power, the United States of America, in this case, and its chief attribute we saw is Love.

And so it's a false character, it's a counterfeit character of Christ.

It has the same chief attribute of love, and we saw that here in this quote from Ellen White in the Great Controversy, it says, "...love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God, but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil.

God's justice, His denunciation of sin, the requirements of His holy law are all kept out of sight.

And so you see here Satan has his image, 558, Great Controversy 558, Satan has his image that looks like it's made of gold, right?

And its chief attribute is love, and so it looks very similar to what the real image is.

But it's not a love that produces obedience.

And Paul talks about this in Thessalonians.

If you have your Bibles, you can turn with me there.

It says, "...let no 1 deceive you by any means.

For that day will not come..." Talking about the coming of our Lord Jesus from verse 1.

It says, "...that day will not come unless the falling away comes first.

And the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition.

And so it says that this man of lawlessness will be revealed.

Series

True and False Religious Liberty

02 The Counterfeit Image

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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04 Politicizing the Sunday Law

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God’s Great Objective

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