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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Mark Howard

Looking Unto Jesus

Father in heaven, Father, we are so grateful to be in your presence today.

And when we think about our busy schedules, Father, help us to realize how busy your schedule must be and yet you have cleared off a day on your calendar to spend with us every week.

And this is a special time, it's sacred time, it's holy time.

And we value it and we just pray that you would give us ears to hear now and hearts to respond to what your Spirit has to speak to us this morning.

Now I began with a message last night that this will loosely tie into because it's Visitor Sabbath, a number of you who weren't here last night.

We'll pick up on the theme again this afternoon.

This morning I'm gonna talk to you about looking unto Jesus.

And I'm gonna start with a polarizing question.

So that means I don't want an answer for it.

I just want you to think about it, stew over it, whatever you're gonna have to do.

Oh yeah, that's a polarizing 1, you know that.

Let me ask it this way, in light of our special music, can we have clean hearts?

When you think about it, you might read a difference into it.

I want you to go to Revelation with me, chapter 14.

You know, we can read a lot into what we would call perfect.

Maybe let's just put it this way, can God deliver us completely from sin?

Now we're going to build into this throughout the day today.

You'll see where we're going after a little bit this morning.

Revelation chapter 14 verse 6 is where we find the first of the 3 angels' messages in the book of Revelation.

We looked at this last night a little bit, the first angel's message in verse 6 says, I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the what?

The everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth through every nation, tribe, tongue and people.

Now there are people today who actually believe that at the end of time there are going to be angels flying through heaven and preaching the gospel.

I'm going to tell you that Jesus said different.

That Jesus in Matthew 24 said that you and me are going to go and preach the gospel, and what I believe Revelation 14 is telling us is that the angels of God will be directing the work, but human agencies will be carrying it out.

A lot of people don't understand, or maybe haven't connected, and we looked at this last night, that Revelation 14, 6 is only the fulfillment of what Jesus spoke in Matthew 24 when he said, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness unto all the nations and then the end will come.

Revelation 14, we see the gospel, the everlasting gospel being preached to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people all the world.

And if you go ahead to verse 14, the Bible says, then I looked and behold a white cloud, and on the cloud sat 1 like the Son of Man, having a golden sickle, or having a sharp sickle in his hand, wearing a golden crown, and he's coming to reap the harvest of the earth.

And so Seventh-day Adventists, if you're new to the Seventh-day Adventist church, you may be visiting here today, we believe that these 3 angels are the manifestation of this gospel message that goes to the whole world just prior to the coming of Jesus.

And we believe that giving the message is the responsibility of every Christian who knows the gospel.

But as you go through these messages, There are 3 of them, as I mentioned.

Verse 12, the third angel's message, ends like this.

It says, Here is the patience of the saints, here are those who what?

Keep the commandments of God and the what?

Now This is confusing to some people in Christianity today because I've had Christians say, well, I thought because we have faith in Jesus, we don't have to keep the commandments anymore.

These are the ones, the Bible tells us, right here at the end of time, who keep the commandments and they have the faith of Jesus.

And if they didn't have the faith of Jesus, I would suggest they couldn't keep the commandments.

Here are they, in other words, who have the character of God in them.

Here are they who obey God with their whole heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Well, you know, we get into discussions and this is what people will challenge me and talk about that and say, wait, wait, wait a minute preacher, we can't be perfect.

Look, I've got all these weaknesses and I've got all these urges and you don't understand my background my history and I mean you know there's always going to be some little vestige of sin somewhere.

I haven't met a person yet who thinks we're going to be sinning in heaven.

Have not met 1 single person, Christian that is, who thinks we're going to be sinning in heaven?

I have not met 1 single person, Christian that is, who thinks we're going to be sinning in heaven.

For some reason they believe that God can somehow stop it there, but he can't stop it here.

Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, it's because I have, you understand, I got these weaknesses, I got this sinful flesh.

Maybe you've been in these discussions, maybe you've said those things.

My question to you this morning is this, who is the focus on when we talk like that?

We are limiting the Almighty by our unbelief.

I'm not talking about what you're doing or I'm doing or what we can do this morning, but we have got to ask ourselves, what can God do and what has God promised to do?

What we're talking about this morning is a faith experience, the kind of faith experience that God's people must have at the end of time.

This subject is what's summed up in that last part of the third message, here are those who keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus.

1 of the founders of our church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, A woman by the name of Ellen White wrote an article, wrote a letter to somebody, some people had written letters to her and said, hey, this idea of justification by faith, righteousness by faith, how does this tie into the 3 angels' messages?

And this is what she says, several have written to me inquiring if the message of justification by faith is the third angel's message.

And I have answered, it is the third angel's message in verity.

It's the gospel message, righteousness by faith.

That's what we're going to talk about here this morning.

In a lot of discussions that I've been in, righteousness by faith comes out to be the equivalent of quantum physics.

And by God's grace, it will not be that this morning.

I mean, there are aspects of this plan of salvation of God that we could study throughout the eternal ages and still our mind will wrestle over how the almighty God could come into humanity and take upon himself our sin and why he'd even be willing to do so and our minds will reel at that for eternity.

And yet there are elements of it that need to be understood very clearly by us right now.

You go through the T's in the New Testament.

They're all kind of grouped together there.

Right after the T's you come to the book called Philemon and then you come to the book of Hebrews.

If you go to 1 Peter, 2 Peter or the book of James, you've gone too far.

We're going to Hebrews chapter 12 and we're going to verse 1.

Hebrews 12 and verse 1, the Bible says here, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and these are just the men and women of faith that have gone before us that are talked about in chapter 11, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us do what?

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Looking Unto Jesus

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