The life of Enoch teaches one of the most important lessons in all the Bible. That to be readmitted into heaven, we must learn how to walk with God.

The life of Enoch teaches one of the most important lessons in all the Bible. That to be readmitted into heaven, we must learn how to walk with God.

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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Daniel Vis Weekend

Daniel Vis

01 The Final Warning Revelation 18:1

02 Walking with God

03 Walking with God

All right, good evening, everyone, or good afternoon, I guess I should say.

Super glad to have 1 last chance to share with you a little bit.

Looking forward to sharing a few thoughts transitioning from this idea of walking with God, which we've been talking about, to, as Josie said, working with God.

If we really are as close to the end of time as we say we are, we think we are, I'm sure many of us believe we are, if we really are close to the end, then something has to happen.

There is a big job, there's a big work that's still left to do.

I mean, we have barely made a dent in our world in terms of evangelism, and the work is nowhere near close to being finished.

So we have to find a way to get that job done.

And I wanna talk a little bit about that tonight.

You know, I mentioned this morning, I think, that there were a number of statistics I could have shared just to sort of illustrate the situation.

And these are just a few, they're kind of random statistics, I'm sure you have your own, but do you know that 85% of the churches in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination have either plateaued or in decline?

85% of our churches are either barely holding their own or they're going backwards.

In terms of our overall growth, we're not even keeping up with the basic population rate of growth in this country.

It takes an average of 100 people in the United States, 100 Adventists to win 1 person to Christ every year.

And half of those are gonna be gone within 12 months.

So really it takes 200 people to win 1 person that's gonna survive and stay.

Do you realize, and this was a statistic that really shocked me, that in our community, if we were to survey, I don't know maybe it's different here in Loma Linda, but nationwide if you do a survey, only 14% of the people that are surveyed are going to say that the Christian church in their community is actually a force for good.

About 30% say it's neutral, doesn't make any difference 1 way or the other.

More than 50% of the people surveyed say the Christian church is a negative force in their community.

Did you know that atheism is growing 15 times faster than Christianity in this country?

So definitely I think there's some reason to think that we should revisit this question, what is it really gonna take to finish the work, because we're not getting the job done.

And if we are close to the end, then I believe God's gonna have to show us what has to be done in order for the work to be finished.

This was really the question I wanted an answer to.

Lord, if there's something that we're not seeing, not doing, something we need to understand, Lord, just show it to us because we are too close to the end to keep going the way we're going.

Okay, there's a few less here than there were this morning.

Just more of the same is not going to cut it.

I'm actually not gonna share the main thing that the Lord put on my heart when I spent those years in North Dakota, but I have a number of burdens.

I just wanna share a few of them that might be helpful in terms of ministry.

Maybe I'll come back another time and I'll share something else next time.

I want to invite the Holy Spirit to be here.

I'm going to kneel and we'll pray that God will help us tonight.

We plead with you to send the Holy Spirit to be here in our midst.

I pray that you would be with my mind, with my words, that I could be a vessel that you could speak through, there'd be no impedance of any kind on my part to your Holy Spirit communicating with your people here.

I pray that each ear would be open, each heart would be receptive, that you would interpret this message to each person just the exact way it's needed.

That could be a blessing for all of us here.

I ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit now in Jesus' name.

So I kind of want to do just a little bit of a mix and share just a few miscellaneous things, not necessarily a single message.

But I think this topic of evangelism is important.

We call it outreach, witnessing, ministry, evangelism.

And the reason we have all these different words is because this is an important topic.

And so I think it's important to look at this topic.

We also have other words, we talk about things like finishing the work or the loud cry or the great commission or the final warning.

And on and on, we have all kinds of phrases.

We're all talking more or less about the same thing.

How is this work gonna be finished, taking the gospel to the whole world?

If you look for each of the Gospels, they all pretty much end the same way with a commission, with a challenge to take the Gospel to the world.

If you go to the very end of Matthew 28, you have this verse that says, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.

Go make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things.

Go make disciples, baptize them when they've made that decision to follow Christ, and then teach them how to live the Christian life.

If you go to the Gospel of Mark, it ends with almost the same words.

It says, go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.

And we know the significance of that message, right?

The gospel, because the very next verse says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be, well, they're not gonna be saved.

In Luke chapter 24, we know exactly what the message is that we're to preach, that Jesus, that he died, that he was resurrected, and that through him, in his name, repentance and remission of sins is to be preached in all the world.

Jesus died for our sins, and by coming to him, we can have those sins forgiven, pardoned, and as a result we can be filled with the Holy Spirit.

In John chapter 20, this is maybe the most interesting of all of the Great Commission verses, at least that's how I kind of categorize them.

In John 20, 21, Jesus said, as my, he's talking to his disciples, and he said, as my father has sent me, so send I you.

So we have our model, we have our example.

And by the way, when Jesus said, as my father has sent me, so send I, do you know what he did in the very verse before?

In verse 20, he says, he showed them the wounds in his hand and in his sides.

And then he said, as my father has sent me, so send I you.

Think about the impact that had on the disciples.

And of course, almost the very last thing that he said, if you go to the book of Acts in chapter 1, when you see him just about ready to ascend to heaven, he says that you're going to receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you will be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts.

It's going to be a global message, just power source.

So we know all of these different things about the Great Commission, yet somehow we are not getting the job done.

Now you would think, at least I would think, that with the message that we have, it is so clear, so compelling, so it answers the most profound questions of life.

The Adventist message is so powerful, you would think that people would be banging down our door to get to the message.

And sometimes we say, well, it's because they're not spiritually hungry.

Series

Daniel Vis Weekend

03 Walking with God

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Daniel Vis Weekend

02 Walking with God

35m

Working with God

36m

The Sanctuary, God's Answer to the Sin Problem

Why Jesus Waits

1h

Plenary

As a Witness

50m

Spiritual Gifts

40m

Sealed With That Holy Spirit Promise

47m

Plenary

The One Thing Jesus Can’t Give You

55m

Acts

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Part 1

31m

Experiencing the Revival

1h 16m

The Three Angel's Messages

12 The Faith of Jesus

1h 25m

Why God Won’t Leave

54m

God's Love Stories (Noon Meetings)

12. Demon Possession in India

1h 41m

Sound Doctrine