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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Roger Seheult

Righteousness by Faith: The Present Truth

I hope you were listening to those words because they have a lot to do with what we're going to talk about today.

Dear Heavenly Father, please be with us now as we open your word and we magnify the name of Jesus as we learn about his faithfulness.

Please be with us today, in Jesus's name, amen.

You're going down the freeway of life and you're in a hurry.

There's a lot of things to do, a lot of places to go.

You've got a lot of things to do for the Lord, don't you?

You see a little white sign go by real fast.

If you're living in Southern California and going on the 10 freeway, if you're not doing 80, they're passing you up.

Then all of a sudden, you see a flash of red and blue.

Sure enough, behind you are the flashing lights, and it's not an ambulance.

It's our state troopers here in California.

We call them the California Highway Patrol, and you make your way over.

You're just about to get off on Anderson Street, but you've got to pull over a little bit sooner than that off to the shoulder.

And sure enough, it's exactly what you thought.

You're shaking, you don't know what to do.

You know you've got absolutely no excuse because you're going way over the speed limit.

And the officer gets out of the car, you see him approaching you, you kind of look at him again, he looks a little off, not your typical officer.

And he hands you, after you're done, he asks you for your registration, your insurance.

You show it to him, because you're an upstanding citizen.

You've got the right sticker on it, you've got your car insurance.

And he says, you know, I'm gonna have to give you a ticket.

And of course you say, I was probably going around 80, because you're honest.

And on the ticket, instead of your name being on the ticket, it says, Jesus Christ.

And he says, don't worry, I've already appeared before the judge in AD 31.

You broke the law, but I'll take the penalty.

So he gives you the ticket, He goes back into his vehicle, and you still can't believe what you've just experienced.

How many of you peel back onto the freeway and go 80 miles an hour?

How many of you get back on the freeway and you start to look for the signs?

Because what do you want to do when you see those signs?

Question, did the sign cause you to obey the sign?

Do the 10 Commandments have any power to save your soul?

The words written by God with his own finger on tablets of stone have absolutely no power to save you.

An interaction, a personal interaction with Jesus Christ in your car.

Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

Ellen White, it is the province of the law to condemn, but there is in it no power to pardon or to redeem.

Without Christ, the law itself was only a condemnation and death to the transgressor.

It has no saving quality, no power to shield the transgressor from its penalty.

The transgression of God's law made the death of Christ essential to save man and yet maintain the dignity and honor of the law.

Christ took upon himself the condemnation of sin.

He who knew no sin became sin for us." Folks, did he take down the sign with the speed limit?

Did he say, I'm going to let you go with a warning?

Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as he deserves.

He was condemned for our sins, in which he had no share, that we might be justified by his righteousness, in which we had no share.

He suffered the death, which is ours, that we might receive the life which was His.

With His stripes we are healed." This, This interaction is what saves.

I pray that you get pulled over by the cops.

Because unless you get pulled over by the divine cop and understand what you have done and what he is doing, you will never have righteousness.

Because 1 day, there's gonna come a time when that sign will come down.

And there's no, the sign will always be there, but you won't need to see it because there's no cop.

The question is, is what's gonna happen to you in that day if all you're doing is following signs?

Well, as he pulls out, you get on the road and you are making sure you set your cruise control to 54 and a half miles per hour.

You're making sure that you're going a safe speed and it's well below 55.

Just as this is happening, someone pulls up, someone's whipping down the freeway at 80 miles an hour, and they come across the scene with the cop car who's now also pulling out, the sign, and you coming out at 55 miles an hour.

They slow down and they are going exactly the same speed as you are.

Can you tell the difference between these 2 people driving the cars?

From anybody looking on the outside, they look like they are identical.

And yet, how many times do we look at people's works in the church and make determination about who's the wheat and who are the tares?

This is the reason why God could say of David, he was a man after my own heart, even though he murdered and committed adultery.

Once the sign was pointed out to David, he went the right speed.

If we were to choose between Caiaphas and Aaron.

Caiaphas, who was a staunch defender of the faith, who kept the Sabbath, who was behind all of the laws to make sure that we kept all of the laws, versus Aaron, who made the golden calf and led his people into apostasy.

And so what do we have in the church sometimes?

We think that by adding more signs we can make people more righteous.

We could even make signs that say, slow down, do this, do that.

Making sure that you're behaving the way that I think you ought to be behaving, that's going to lead us to righteousness.

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Righteousness by Faith: The Present Truth

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