SWYC 2012: Unless the Lord Builds the House

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GYC Southwest

Dwayne Lemon

The Call To Country Living

You know, even when I'm by myself, I always speak as if my family is with me, and I say we.

So When I say we, I'm speaking on behalf of my family and I.

We believe that the Lord is going to say something very special to us.

This is a message that really needs to be understood.

There's a lot of naysaying about country living, and it shouldn't be because it is like literally God sent a blessing to his people.

And I guess because of fears and misunderstandings, and maybe even some individuals who took fanatical positions, this message that was designed to be very beautiful has now become very ugly.

And there are a lot of people who fight against this message but it ought not be and my hope and my prayer is just that in the few moments that we have that we can get at least a glimpse of the beauty of this great call that God has made to us as his people.

So what we're going to do is we're going to first start with a word of prayer, and then after we pray, we will immediately go on to our presentation.

So if you're able to, I certainly welcome you to kneel with me as we pray, and let us go before the Lord.

Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for the privilege and the opportunity to come together and to hear a very timely message, Lord.

We know that this is perhaps 1 of the reasons, amongst others, why we see we are such an unprepared people.

And so Lord, we pray that you will please speak to our hearts in a very marked manner and that you will bless us as we seek to understand this great call that you have made upon all of our hearts, which is the call to country living.

And Lord, I pray that a great blessing will take place in all of our hearts as we investigate this topic.

Speak to us, open our eyes, and may you send your Holy Spirit, and may he come and be our teacher, we pray, for we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen.

The first thing I'd like to do is I want to invite you to turn your Bible to the book of Acts chapter 3.

In Acts the third chapter, we're going to find that God made something very plain to our hearts as it relates to his desire of what he wants to accomplish in us and through us for His glory.

Now when we look at this I want you to keep in mind that Acts chapter 3 it presents a very powerful principle as it relates to the finishing of the work.

Jesus is in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, amen?

Now, because Christ is in that most holy place, we know that he's not there just to simply forgive sins.

He's not there just to simply cover sins, but he wants to do something.

Now, I want you to look at the step-by-step process of how God shows us how sins get blotted out.

It says in the book of Acts chapter 3 in verse 19, notice what the Bible says.

It says, repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your what?

That your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until a certain time.

The Bible makes it very clear that the step-by-step process to victory over sin, the step-by-step process wherein Jesus is able to blot out our sins, the Bible says the first thing that has to happen is true repentance.

Then after true repentance is true conversion.

And it is through these 2 experiences that our sins may be blotted out, and then ultimately Jesus will be able to come, and it says that the times of restitution shall take place.

In other words, all things shall be restored.

Now, my question is, restored back to what?

So God wants to restore things back to the beginning, right?

So that means that 1 of the things that God wants to do...

Now, can we have Eden now before we look forward to this Eden soon to come?

Well, when you read the book Education, page 250, it says that when God gave the family and when he gave the Sabbath to the family, God says that the Sabbath and the family together were supposed to be an experience, as it were, Eden on earth.

So do you know that every Sabbath, do you know yesterday you were supposed to experience Eden?

Yesterday I was supposed to experience Eden and that's why 1 of the great questions you want to ask yourself is does the Sabbath seem like it was in the times of the Garden of Eden?

And you'll find that until we enter in that experience, you'll never die for the Sabbath, and you certainly won't give up your job or anything else for it.

And God wants us to understand that in the times of restitution, in the restoring of all things, He wants to bring things back to the original course before sin ever touched this earth.

And there were 2 things that were there in existence before sin, the Sabbath and the family.

And they both existed in a wonderful place called Eden.

Now, Eden, was it a city home or was it a country home?

Eden was a place where there was beauty surrounding all the wonderful things of nature.

When God made Eden, he knew that this was the environment that was most conducive for Adam and Eve in their growth processes.

Adam and Eve were made instant adults, but they still had to develop character.

And in them having to develop character, God put them in the best area that this would take place.

And that was none other than the Garden of Eden, a little country home, if you would.

God wants to restore all things, brothers and sisters.

And the things that he wants to restore, he says, listen, There is a way that we can experience it even before the reality.

The same way that we're looking forward to heaven, Adventist home tells us that we can still have a little what on earth now?

The same way we're looking forward to Eden made new, God says that every Sabbath when the family gets together, that should be a what now?

So therefore, God says that even though I have the great highest level of reality in preservation for my people, he says they can still get a snapshot of it even now.

And the same way in the earth made new, that we're all gonna have ourselves some nice properties.

You know, the Bible talks about how we're all gonna have properties.

We're gonna be surrounded by the wonderful scenes and creations and all the things of God.

God says, I want you to get a snapshot of that now.

Now, go to the book of Mark, the 13th chapter with me, and I want you to see something.

In Mark, the 13th chapter, we find that Jesus was making aware to our hearts that there was going to be all sorts of quote-unquote last day events.

And in these last day events, we are told that several things were going to take place.

Jesus pointed them out and he said something in verse 14 that we would do well to consider.

The Bible says, but when ye shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, let him that readeth understand and then let them that be in Judea flee to the mountains.

And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein to take anything out of his house.

And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his rate, his garment, but woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days, and pray that your flight be not in the winter.

For in those days shall be affliction such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be." Jesus was pointing out that an abomination of desolation was going to be coming.

And at that time, he gave several instructions of what was gonna be taking place.

Now, 1 of the problems that many individuals have when we study this topic of country living is many individuals think that because of the fact that the abomination of desolation, as we would understand it to also play a role into the issue of the Sunday Law crisis that would soon come amongst this world and certainly affect God's people, there are a lot of people who say that I don't need to try to get out of the city until when?

Now, brothers and sisters, we would do well to consider the whole of Scripture and the whole of the spirit of prophecy.

If we were to just simply approach it just from a thinking standpoint, how in the world are you and I gonna acquire property when a law is passed on a federal national level that prohibits you to buy or sell?

It makes no sense to say, I'm going to wait for a crisis to come, and then when the crisis comes, that's when I'm gonna go ahead and call a realtor and tell them to start looking for 8, 10, 20, 30 acres, and go ahead and find it for me, and then I'm gonna try to work out a deal so I can purchase it cash or use credit or whatever else.

So we find that if we were to just simply approach this with some simple spiritual logic, we would see it makes no sense to wait until a Sunday law crisis would come and then try to go ahead and get out of the city into the country.

So God wants us to understand that right now we are living in a time where we should be already preparing for the final crisis.

We should be dealing with this thing because it's a very real crisis.

Jesus has spelled out to us There's going to be some tremendous trials that God's people are going to go through.

And brothers and sisters, if we're not prepared for it, then guess what?

Those who are unprepared for the final crisis will be unprepared for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Those who are prepared for the final crisis are those who will be prepared for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The Call To Country Living

Transcript

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