ASI 2012: It's Time... To Be About Our Father's Business

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ASI 2012 Plenary Sessions

Frank Fournier

It’s Time... To Afflict Our Souls

Allen Lloyd

Increasing Your Capacity to Learn, Retain, and Apply Knowledge

John Bradshaw

Doubtless

ASI Members in Action

Abraham Lincoln, Ellen White, Emotional Intelligence & True Leadership

Steve Wohlberg

Christ Our Righteousness in the Last Crisis

Chad Kreuzer

It’s Time... To Overcome

Self and Salvation - The Two Emotional Attributes Necessary For Salvation

Phil Mills

Friends Forever

Shawn Boonstra

My Father’s Business

Ted N.C. Wilson

ASI Presents

Steven Grabiner

He Shall Reign Forever

Here we are at our last meeting from the opening night where Brother Frank shared with us that it's time to be about our Father's business, taking us into the heavenly sanctuary.

Throughout all the meetings this week, I think we've had a rich blessing.

I know that I've been richly blessed by hearing the variety of speakers.

I've heard that some of the seminars have been great.

So it's a rich blessing for us to be together tonight.

And I'd like to invite you that claiming the promise of God that as he has blessed us throughout the entire convention, he's going to bless us again.

So I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray.

Heavenly Father, as the Sabbath draws to a close, as we begin to enter into another week, as this ASI convention draws to a close, we once again come before you realizing in a small measure our great need and yet confident that you will supply that need.

As we open your scriptures 1 more time tonight we invite your spirit to speak to our hearts.

And again, we claim the promise that because you've blessed us in the past, we know that you'll give us a rich blessing now.

All week long, again, our theme has been, it's time to what?

And what I'd like to study with you this evening is what, from my perspective, the conclusion of God's business in this universe.

And from the inception of sin into this universe, it's been God's business to clarify the issues in the great controversy.

From the origination of sin in the divine councils in heaven, however long that was past before the creation of this world, Satan has been trying to obscure and misrepresent who God is.

Satan has laid charges before the heavenly universe, before the council that meets in heaven over God's rule, over God's justice, over God's mercy, over who God is.

And from that time it has been the Father's business to clarify the issues in the great controversy.

And so tonight I'd like to study with you the conclusion of those issues and many of the texts we'll look at, I believe will be familiar to many in this crowd.

And yet, they are full of importance for us.

So I'd like to invite you tonight to turn with me to the book of Revelation.

I have a special place in my experience, an interest in the book of Revelation.

I grew up in a Jewish home, did not grow up as a Christian, really didn't know very much about Christianity growing up.

And when I was around 17 years of age, I guess it was just 17, I decided that I was going to hitchhike across the United States.

I went with 2 friends of mine and somehow in my backpack was a Bible.

And it was a Bible that in the back of the Bible had an annotation of the different books in the Bible.

And so it described the Hebrew Scriptures which I was acquainted with.

But then there were little summaries of the New Testament books of which I was not acquainted.

And I remember thumbing through that annotation in the back and reading what it just said about the book of Revelation.

It said, you know, mysterious book, very hard to be understood, great perplexity.

And so I thought to myself in my young 17 years of age arrogance, I'm going to read the book of Revelation and understand it.

And so I proceeded to open the book of Revelation.

I was hitchhiking from New York to California.

And somewhere as I started opening the book I turned to the first page, the revelation of Jesus Christ, I'm not sure what that means, talking about the things that must take place, must shortly come to pass.

And then I started moving in and there were beasts and dragons and lamb and a lion and it was really way perplexing.

And so I closed the book of Revelation I decided I'd start reading the Gospels which was probably a good decision for me to begin at the beginning.

But since that time and since my conversion, I've had an interest in the book of Revelation.

And those of you that have studied the book of Revelation and an audience like this, I'm sure that many who have, we realize it's full of symbols and allusions.

But I'd like to look at a verse with you this evening that to me is 1 of the most perplexing verses in the book.

It's 1 of the most thought-provoking verses in the book of Revelation.

1 of the most enigmatic verses in the book of Revelation.

The symbolism is not so perplexing, but the meaning certainly draws our attention.

So if you have your Bibles, whether paper or electronic, turn with me to Revelation chapter 20, the end of the book of Revelation.

And as you're turning, I'd just like to share a concern that I have that as we read Revelation, sometimes we become so focused in trying to discern the meaning behind every symbol that we miss the meaning of the book.

In other words, sometimes we don't see the forest for the trees.

And the purpose of the book of Revelation is to give us a deeper religious experience.

And so as we read Revelation, and it's important for us to certainly understand the historicist context and the interpretation that makes the Seventh-day Adventist Church what it is, but beyond that or fuller than that or in harmony with that, however the right way to say that is, the book of Revelation needs to transform our experience.

So Revelation chapter 20, Before we read chapter 20, we perhaps should set the context, the setting of Revelation 20.

It's the end of the book, and it's the final climax.

Revelation 19 describes the return of Jesus Christ.

First, Revelation 19 in verse 11, It says, and I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he who sat on it has a special name.

He's the 1 who we can depend on what he says.

He is the faithful representation of who God is.

And the great controversy, time to be about our father's business, time to bring the great controversy to a close by the revelation of who God is.

And then it goes on to say, continuing in verse 11, and in righteousness, he judges and wages war.

War is a major theme in the book of Revelation.

From the beginning of the book to the end of the book, there's a controversy over who rules.

That's evidenced by 1 of the major, I don't want to say prop, 1 of the major objects in the book of Revelation, which is the throne.

It towers all throughout the entire book of Revelation.

And the throne, God has a throne, 24 elders have a throne, you and I if we're faithful will sit on a throne.

The redeemed sit on a throne, but who else has a throne in the book of Revelation?

Chapter 2 in King James it's called Satan's seat.

Revelation 13, the dragon gives his seat in the King James.

And the throne in the book of Revelation is contested territory.

Satan is vying for the rulership of this world.

In The book Mount of Blessings, page 18, Ellen White tells us that righteousness is love, the very light and life of God.

Everything that Jesus does is a manifestation of God's love.

On the 60s and 70s when I grew up there was a slogan that said, don't make war, make...

Some of you are old enough to Remember, don't make war, make love.

When Jesus wages war in love, how can that be?

Satan is trying to paint the character of God with his own, the strokes of his own character.

Series

ASI 2012 Plenary Sessions

He Shall Reign Forever

Transcript

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