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Eden Valley SDA Church

Frank Fournier

The Pure Shall See

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to John chapter 3.

You've noticed in our bulletin that the title for this morning is, The Pure Shall See.

So obviously I'm concerned with the way that we see things.

And I believe with all my heart that I'm not the only 1 that's concerned with that.

That God Himself also is concerned with the way we see things.

It's Nicodemus coming to Jesus during the night and having an interview with him.

And finally, Jesus going right to the point, putting his finger right on the issue.

He knows how to push buttons and he's going to push 1 right now in verse 3.

Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, solemnly, solemnly, truly, truly, I say unto you, except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." And when Jesus said here, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven, is that he cannot discern what it takes to get there.

He cannot understand the principles involved in the kingdom of heaven.

And if you think I made that up, I'm going to read it to you from First Selected Messages 4.12.

It says there, you must have the divine mold before you can discern the sacred claims of the truth.

In other words, you must be born again in order to be able to discern spiritual things.

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.

And if you want to see, to enter into the kingdom of heaven, you must be born again.

So apparently, we don't see very well sometimes.

We especially don't see if we're not born again.

If you'll turn with me to 2 Corinthians, and I hope that you're not adverse to using your Bibles because we're going to see quite a few verses today.

We're just going to march through the Scriptures 1 by 1.

Talking about Christians, talking about people who are born again.

And we could say it in the vernacular, we live by faith and not by sight.

I don't know if you've ever realized that.

We live in a world full of scams, ponzi schemes, con artists and tricksters.

You might look at something and think you know what you're looking at.

You think You have a grasp on the reality, and what you're looking at is not real at all if you don't live by faith.

If you are not born again, it's easier, of course, to be deceived.

Now we go to 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17, and we begin to see how easily we can be deceived here.

The Apostle Paul says, for our light affliction.

Now, it's interesting to me that the Apostle Paul seems to be lumping together all the afflictions that the human family might experience and call it light.

Well, are your afflictions light by the way?

And isn't it amazing as human beings that when we are afflicted, we never look at them as being light.

And oh Lord, if only You would get rid of this thing for me.

And the Apostle Paul comes along and he says, light affliction.

Why would he call all our afflictions light?

Because, friends, if we could see as God sees, and apparently here, the Apostle Paul got a glimpse of what God could see in the light of our afflictions.

I think if we were to compare our afflictions, whatever they might be, to what the Lord has in store for us because of those afflictions, we would see as the rest of the verse says that they lead to an eternal weight of glory.

For our light afflictions, which are but for a moment." Oh, Lord, it's been 5 years!

And the Lord says, it's a moment in time.

It is because we can't see the big picture.

For our light afflictions, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Ah, friends, listen.

There are present realities which we can see.

Well we think we know what we're looking at, and there are eternal realities.

They are invisible, but they are the reality.

You know, When we went through hell here together, and I'm speaking to people who were here at Eden Valley during the years 2006 and 2008, we could easily see the mess we were in.

We could easily see my incompetence at that time and my failures and some of the strange decisions that I made at that time.

We could see that, but we had no way of seeing what God was going to do in the light of all that and with all of these things which seemed to be so negative.

Now I tell you what, I wouldn't want to go through any of that again.

But on the other hand, I would not exchange that for anything else in the world because the Lord has accomplished such wonderful things for us after putting us through the ringer, you understand.

In 6 BC, this is 6 Bible commentaries, page 1099.

Watch what the prophet says, I have been shown that in the future, not now, in the future, I have been shown that in the future, we shall see.

But in the future, we shall see how closely all our trials...

Every 1 of them, All our trials were connected with our salvation.

Do you know that God is working out your salvation?

Do you curse the trial that you're under?

Do you pray and plead and wish that God would take it away so that you could have some peace already?

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The Pure Shall See

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