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State Line SDA Church

Norman McNulty

A Present Truth Rebuke

And before we get into the message for today, I'm just going to ask God to be with us.

So let's pray father Thank you for this beautiful sabbath day.

Thank you that we have the the privilege to worship you and I just pray in a special way today that you would pour out your spirit in this church I pray that you would pour out your spirit upon my mind and guide my lips as I speak God my tongue as I speak that what I say would be in accordance with your will and that it would uplift Jesus and that it would help each 1 of us to understand where we are in the history of this earth and what you are looking for from each 1 of us.

So thank you that we can open your word and I pray these things in Jesus name, amen.

The title for the sermon today is, A Present Truth Rebuke.

And we're going to go to our scripture reading in Isaiah chapter 58, starting in verse 1.

And It's possible when you look at this passage there's so many different ways that you could go with where this verse starts but If you stick with the context of Isaiah 58, the rebuke that God sends to His last 8 people is rather startling and remarkable.

Lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people or tell my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins.

You know, I was at a church recently where the Sabbath school teacher was complaining that sometimes they come to church And they just feel like oh I had more sins in my life pointed out I guess I better go home and try to do better.

It's like have you read the Bible recently?

Yeah, it's nice every once in a while to hear a message that is only a message of encouragement.

But when I read the Bible, God speaks to his people very clearly.

And oftentimes he speaks through his prophets with a voice of rebuke and in Isaiah chapter 58 verse 1 he is not mincing words he says cry aloud do not hold back you know 1 of the the tragedies in Adventism today is that too many ministers are afraid to tell people like it really is.

And here we are, standing on the edge of eternity, and we're more afraid of hurting people's feelings than we are of being prepared for the coming of Jesus.

And God speaking through his prophet here in Isaiah chapter 58 says, cry aloud, do not hold back.

Now, for those of you who have been Seventh-day Adventists for any period of time, if you've read the writings of Ellen White, you will know that Isaiah chapter 58 is 1 of the chapters that she refers to so many times in her writings.

I have a few statements from her for the sermon today, and if you've studied her writings, you would say, hey, how come you didn't share this statement or that statement I would say you know what that's a great quote but I can't read all of them for this sermon but she refers to this chapter many many times And you know why it's because if you study this chapter prophetically this chapter was written Especially for seventh-day Adventist just before Jesus comes back Isaiah 58 is an end time Bible chapter, so let's look at this cry aloud Spare not do not hold back lift up thy voice like a trumpet.

You know, when I was growing up, I played the French horn, and I still can to some extent.

My older brother played the trumpet and I can tell you know the French horn can play somewhat loudly but it has a more mellow tone.

My older brother when he would play the trumpet it has a much more definitive sound And that trumpet sound will cut through all the other sounds.

When we were playing in the band, you could hear the trumpet above everything else.

And God is saying, lift up your voice like a trumpet.

Speak in a way that people can hear clearly what you are saying.

Speak with your voice like a trumpet sound.

And the house of Jacob their sins." Now it's human nature to recoil when someone points out your sin, is it not?

It's like, you're not gonna tell me what I'm doing wrong.

And usually if we point out a mistake or a sin or something that is wayward in somebody's life, our human nature is to try to be as tactful as possible to lessen the blow so they might be more inclined to hear what we have to say.

But God is saying here in Isaiah chapter 58 verse 1, I want you to cry aloud in such a way that your voice sounds like a trumpet and do not hold back from pointing out the sins of my people Israel." That's what Isaiah 58 verse 1 is saying.

Now, if I hadn't read Isaiah 58 before, I might think that verse 2 would proceed immediately into the errors and the sins of the people of God.

You know if you go to Romans chapter 1 which was mentioned in the Sabbath school lesson this morning, when you get to verse 18, God starts revealing the sins of the heathen and how they're so far departed from him.

And it's a laundry list of awful things if you read Romans 1 18 to 32.

In Isaiah 58, it's like, okay, we're going to call out the sins of God's people.

We're going to lift up our voice like a trumpet.

And then we come to verse 2, and Scripture says, Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways.

I thought we were going to see the sins of God's people that we were going to call out.

But God is saying, here is the difficulty that you are tasked with.

You are to lift up your voice like a trumpet, to cry aloud, to spare a knot, to not hold back.

And here's the challenge that you have when you give this message to the house of Israel, to the house of Jacob.

This is a people that seek me daily and in fact the first word of verse 2 is yet meaning there's a contradiction yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways These are not people that are like, oh no, we're gonna hear another sermon about God today.

They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness.

Psalm 119, 172 says all thy commandments are righteousness.

This is a people who profess obedience and seek to keep the commandments of God.

It goes on to say and forsook not the ordinance of their God, they ask of me the ordinances of justice.

So if you take delight in approaching to God, this means these are people who enjoy coming to church.

Verse 2 says, These are a people who seek me daily.

These are people who are having worship time with God.

They're seeking to obey God because all God's commandments are righteousness.

They want to have the experience of righteousness by faith and they delight in approaching God when it's time to come to church when it's time to hear the pastor preach they're there to hear the Word of God delivered and yet these are the people that God says cry aloud spare not lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." And if you're looking at the first 2 verses, you're saying, God, what sins are we going to be pointing out?

These are the people who actually go to church.

I could tell you of people that I grew up with, they don't go to church anymore, they don't make a profession of God anymore.

Are those the people that we're supposed to be calling out?

God is saying, no, you're going to be calling out the sins of the people who delight to approach me, who come to church, who make a profession of keeping the commandments of God, of seeking the righteousness of God by faith.

These are the people that need to hear the rebuke.

Now God's people sense this rebuke that's coming.

In fact, these seem like present-truth Adventists if you look at this.

You know, before I say much more, It's very, very easy to set up a ministry where you can identify all of the sins in the Seventh-day Adventist church.

And you can create a ministry and make a lot of money off of it You become very popular in a certain segment of Adventism if you create a ministry that criticizes the church And When I study the Bible It would be easy to say hey look Isaiah 58 says cry aloud spare not, and show people the sin.

We're going to show the people the sins in the church.

And what they don't do then is then read the rest of the chapters and see what are the sins that God wants to be called out in the church.

God didn't call us to enrich ourselves by calling out the sins in the church.

If your ministry is a ministry of criticism, you better watch out.

But if you're giving the word based on what God says, that is what God has called us to do.

And so God's people, they sense that a rebuke is coming.

And in verse 3, they make complaint towards God.

Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not?

Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge?

Now I'm sure many of you have seen this point many times before, But where in the Old Testament were God's people called to fast and afflict their souls?

So the people who are calling out to God in complaint, saying, how come you haven't seen us fasting and afflicting our souls?

They're God's people living in the day of atonement.

And here we are saying, God, don't you See?

We're the ones who make sure that we have worship with God every day.

We have our Bible reading, we have our Spirit of Prophecy reading, we have our Scripture Memory Project, and we come to church every week.

We look forward to coming to church on Sabbath.

We make sure that we keep the Sabbath holy because we're trying by God's grace to do righteousness.

Haven't you noticed that we are striving to follow you compared to other people in the church that are more liberal than us, or to the people out there in the world who don't keep the Sabbath and they say that they're following God.

We're the people who are the people of the book.

We're the commandment-keeping people of God.

Don't you see how we're fasting and afflicting our souls?

I mean, God even called out what we would complain about.

Now, when God says cry aloud, spare not, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet.

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A Present Truth Rebuke

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