<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>

Living Hope SDA Church

Christian Martin

No Consecration, No Salvation

Let's pray together as we open the Word of God today.

Our Father, our King, our Lord, our Savior, our Friend.

We've come here today, Lord, to not only be in each other's presence, but so much more than that, Lord.

We've come here today knowing that we'll find ourselves in your presence.

And because we are, we do ask that your Holy Spirit would speak to us in a way that is clear.

Speak to us, Lord, in words that make sense.

Convict our hearts, do whatever it takes, Lord.

Because we don't want to go back out these doors the same way we came in.

Rather, we want to go out of here, Lord, feeling even closer to you, consecrated to you, Lord.

So we thank you that you have brought us here.

May now, may you take this time, Lord, to reveal your will to us.

Nowadays, there's several reasons why you'd want to be a reporter just outside of the White House.

If you don't see what we see, take a closer look.

Over the last several days, US envoys have held rounds of Talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

The concerns with Iran center on preventing them from developing nuclear weapons.

And apparently the President of the United States is not thrilled with the progress.

And just yesterday, Friday, just less than 24 hours ago, when asked by a reporter how close he was to deciding whether or not to launch a military strike, he said, I'd rather not tell you.

When you say something that people are anticipating to know about, and your response is simply, I'd rather not tell you, well that's exactly what ignites a whole stream of rumors that spread far and near.

You have your Bibles, whether you have it in digital form in your devices or you have the book itself, open it to Matthew, rather.

And we're going to begin by looking at verse 6.

We're going to a chapter that's well-known.

Many of you may know why Matthew 24 is well-known.

We have various chapters in the Bible that have its own particular content, and they're famous for that content.

Well, Matthew 24 is well known for a very specific content.

It reveals the response Jesus gave to his disciples when they asked him, What signs, what should we be looking for that indicate that the end, the world is near?

And this is the response that Jesus gave them.

Matthew chapter 24, 1 of the signs that he gave is mentioned in verse 6.

And you will hear, you will hear of wars and what else?

And so last night, there was a lot of rumors going around, but little did we realize that approximately 8 to 10 hours later, upon awakening, we would discover that the rumors have escalated to something more than just mere rumors.

We're out in, we are in now an all right war.

And that's what we're seeing, not just in the Middle East, but we're seeing increasing global tension.

We see the reality of nuclear weapons in the hands of more and more nations.

And all of these things are fitting the environment that Jesus describes in Matthew 24.

And in this particular case, we quickly escalated from rumors to major combat operations where casualties are possible.

But Jesus says something else, something important, something more than just the mere signs.

He says, as you see these things, see that you are not troubled.

But he then says, but the end, but the end is not yet.

In fact, come down to verse 8, Matthew 24, verse 8.

All these things, all these are the beginning of, what everyone?

And something that we have to understand, And if you're hearing this for the first time, is something noting very carefully.

If this is something that's not you, well, it's good to reinforce what Jesus is saying.

Because in this verse, it's interesting that the Greek text, when you look at the original manuscript, we discover that in verse 8, the original Greek text literally reads, all these are the beginning of birth pains, Birth pains with more to come.

So what Jesus is saying is this, everything that you're noticing, I want you to see them as if they were birth pains.

The pestilences and the diseases and all these things, they're birth pains.

This is not what ultimately you want to see yourself focusing on.

These are just indicators of the final event and telling you that it's getting closer and closer.

You know, over the last few weeks, There's a dear couple in our church here at Living Hope, Aaron and Charity Baker.

When the last few weeks, my questions via text to them came constantly throughout the last several days.

And they kind of seem to say the same thing again and again and again.

You see, the due date that they had shared with me when they were last here at Living Hope was determined to be February 9th, the 9th of February.

And that date was kind of special to my family and I because that's Heidi's birthday.

So we were like, hey, we're gonna have another February ninth baby.

And we, you know, we were happy about that.

So on the 9th of February, of course, we were anticipating hearing the news.

Well, the baby did not come on the day it was due.

And for the next several days, I found myself asking the same question, but in various different ways.

And I asked the question, I still have them on my phone.

I asked that question on the 11th, on the 14th, on the 16th, on the 18th, on the 20th.

And their text responses were as follows not yet, still waiting alas, we are still waiting good morning, still waiting Good morning, we're 41 weeks and still waiting.

Well, we had a good checkup yesterday, but no, no labor yet.

That's right, still waiting and so on and so forth.

And these were happening with each and every coming day, days turned to weeks.

And as all this communication was happening, Let's make 1 thing perfectly clear.

The coming of the baby was never in question.

Back to Menu

No Consecration, No Salvation

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Got Oil?

46m

ASI 2010 Plenary Meetings

First Things First

1h 43m

The Issachar Factor

1h

The Wedding Crashers

35m

Crisis of the Empty Lamp

43m

A Teenager Sailor Finds Jesus

1h 12m

The Forgotten God

39m

InVerse 3rd Quarter 2024: Stories that Transform

12 Filled with the Spirit

29m

Self

35m

No Big Deal - Til It’s Gone

42m

Hostages No More

40m

Sound Doctrine