GYC Conference 2024: Wherever He Goes

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The Everlasting Gospel for These Last Days

Norman McNulty

01 Earnestly Contending For the Faith

02 The Righteousness of God Revealed

03 From Questions on Doctrine to Desmond Ford

04 The Latest in New Theology

05 Christ in You: Illuminated With His Glory

It's great to be with you here at GYC, and I appreciate you coming out to this seminar on contending for the faith.

We're going to be looking at the gospel issues for these last days.

So I'm going to have a prayer and then we are going to get started.

Father in heaven I just thank you so much for bringing us to GYC.

We thank you for the blessings that we've been receiving already.

And Lord, I just pray in a special way that you would speak through me now that What is shared would be clear and that you would be glorified through what is presented So I pray these things in Jesus name.

Amen So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Norman McNulty.

I'm a neurologist practicing in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, I graduated from Loma Linda about 20 years ago.

And I went to the first GYC's way back in the day and now I'm old enough that I'm bringing my oldest daughter to GYC.

And we have some important things to be looking at over the next 5 sessions, because we are living in very momentous times.

And The reality is we are living in unprecedented times.

And as Seventh-day Adventists, we want to be standing with God for what he wants us to be standing for.

And so we are going to be talking about what it means to earnestly contend for the faith.

Now I'm going to start, this is a picture of the San Joaquin Valley, and I got this from a book by a good friend of mine, some of you may know Lewis Walton, I have this book here in my hand, it's entitled In Name Only.

Lewis Walton is a family friend, he wrote this book, it was published this year, and I have a special appreciation for him and his family because his father was responsible for bringing my father into the Adventist faith.

So I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Brother Walton's father-in-law.

And he tells this story of flying home from doing a set of religious liberty meetings up in northern California way back in 1986 when I was 9 years old.

And he's flying back over the San Joaquin Valley And he writes this in his book of some of the thoughts that are going through his mind.

He's thinking about how the 4 angels are holding the 4 winds, but how sometime soon Jesus is going to come back and he gets this sense of inspiration.

And I'm going to put this quote up on the screen from his book, pages 8 and 9, where he has this sense of urgency where he says, maybe the time has come when we can finish the work.

And notice what he says, but we won't of course.

We will find ourselves in a new century, so we get to the year 2000.

In a time of uncertain food supply of once beautiful cities, a wash and use needles embracing crime, of a resurgent right that urges a mixture of religion and politics opposed by an angry left we're seeing as believing leaving themselves vulnerable to the supernatural." Now notice what he says next.

He's like, in us we will find ourselves questioning the spirit of prophecy, the 2300 year prophecy, our role in the 3 angels' messages, even an imminent advent.

And that's the question that we should be asking ourselves this morning.

It's the question that we should be asking ourselves going forward.

What has happened to God's last day church?

Are we as Seventh-day Adventists any different than the world around us.

You know, sometimes I wonder if we fight amongst ourselves as much as secular politicians are fighting with each other.

Are we committed to the real message that God has given to us as Seventh-day Adventists, or have we become so mixed up with the secular world that the secular world influences how we relate to each other in the church.

So we're going to be talking over the next several sessions about earnestly contending for the faith.

And the question is, what are we fighting over and what should we be fighting for?

And so we go to this very famous verse in Revelation 12 17.

I think we probably all know this verse by memory.

If you have your Bible I invite you to open, but Revelation 12, 17 says, "'And the dragon was wrath, or enraged with a woman, "'and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, "'which keep the commandments of God "'and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.'" Now, a lot of what we are going to be looking at over the next 5 sessions relates to what is in this Bible verse because the terms of engagement in this battle that Satan is fighting against God's last day people has to do with the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

If you want to know what the war in heaven was about, it was about the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

And if you want to know what the war is about in God's last day church, it's about the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

And as Seventh-day Adventists, these are the things that we should be willing to die for.

The commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Because Satan is targeting the woman, the church, that keeps the commandments of God and has the testimony of Jesus Christ.

I want to read an interesting statement to you, Review and Herald, May 6, 1909.

Ellen White says, I have been shown that evil angels in the form of believers will work in our ranks to bring in a strong spirit of unbelief.

Let not even this discourage you, but bring a true heart to the help of the Lord against the powers of satanic agencies.

Now we have to remember, yes, Satan is a powerful supernatural being, but You know how much power Satan has against the faithful child of God who's connected to the Lord?

We can, by the grace of God, through the power of God, defeat every device of Satan.

But we have to realize that Satan is working through people in our ranks.

And we see how he works through people in our ranks when we see what Satan is targeting.

And what Satan is targeting are those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The subject of this great controversy war.

That Greek word for war in Revelation 12 17 is the word polemos.

Those of you who have studied these things know that know about this, but it's an important point.

This is the root word for the word polemical, or being argumentative.

Yes, there may be, in some sense, physical conflict as we get towards the end, But this war is a war of words.

And it's the same word, this word war against the remnant is the same word when it says in Revelation 12, 17, there was War in heaven.

Now remember, we're earnestly contending for the faith.

When we see that there's war against the remnant church, you know, it's interesting, you look at Revelation 12, 17, it says there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels.

The word is war, it's a polemical war, it's a fight, it's a war over words, but if you just kind of casually read Revelation 12 7 you might think that it was a physical conflict in heaven.

Now the speaker last night, Cameron DeVasier, did a beautiful job painting a picture of what the war in heaven was about.

And you don't see specifically or explicitly what the war was over until you get to Revelation 12 17 where God has a people and you see Revelation 12 17 is this grand climax where we start off with a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and then she brings forth Christ, who is this man-child who is caught up to God and to his throne, and then the woman flees into the wilderness.

Well, the woman who is the church who birthed Christ is the woman that Christ came to save, and she is the object or the the battlefield where Christ has a people on the earth who stand for what the government of God stands for in heaven.

So it would make sense that if there was a war in heaven and there is a war against the woman, the remnant, in Revelation 12, 17, that the battle or the terms of the engagement would be the same.

And what the war in heaven was about was the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Now, we don't have Jesus, other than the 33 years and his teachings in scripture, we don't have him here on this earth in person.

The angels had the testimony of Jesus in person.

Satan fought against the law of God and the testimony of Jesus in heaven, and that's what he's fighting against on this earth.

So we have the privilege of being God's end time remnant church, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

It also should make you realize that we then become a target of the dragon.

I'd rather be a target of the dragon than to be his ally.

And if God is on my side, Satan, you can come after me all day long, I've got Jesus with me.

Because the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus are the identifying marks of the people who Satan targets and they are the identifying marks of the woman, the remnant of her seed that represent the body of Christ.

Now let me say something very clearly, When you study the book of Revelation, there are not 8 churches.

We are the end-time remnant church and we are also laity see and you know I've been a Seventh-day Adventist my entire life.

And I could tell you plenty of stories of the enfeebled and defective aspects of the remnant church.

We could have a field day if we wanted to, but you know why I don't do that?

It's because this is the body of Christ and this is the object upon which Christ bestows his supreme regard.

Series

The Everlasting Gospel for These Last Days

01 Earnestly Contending For the Faith

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Citizen of Heaven or Emergent on Earth?

55m

Norman McNulty Weekend

The Great Controversy Unmasked

51m

Eric Walsh: The Dragon's War on the Remnant

The Dragon’s War on the Remnant Part 4

52m

End-Time Events & Religious Liberty Implications

The False Prophet Speaks As a Dragon: Revelation 13

1h 1m

Identity Crisis

42m

Faith of our Fathers

Things Old and New

41m

Alistair Huong and Norman McNulty: The Book Of Revelation

Revelation 14:6-8: The 1st and 2nd Angels’ Messages

38m

Music and Worship: The Chief Battleground of Satan, Part 2

1h

Adventist or Fragmentist: Avoiding Apostasy 101

What lens are you using?: The key to avoiding apostasy

1h

Battles in the Brain

Battles in the Brain, Part 3

42m

Earth’s Final Call: Why the Three Angels’ Messages are Relevant Now

51m

Conservative but not Converted

43m

Sound Doctrine