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Mills River SDA Church

Brian Hindman

First Things First

Well, because I love God, I love His precious message to us, which is found in the Scriptures, the Word of God.

John 14, verse 23, Jesus says, If a man love Me, He will keep my words, and my Father will love Him, and we will come unto Him, and make our abode with Him." So, if a person loves God, they will keep His words.

Well, I don't think I need to tell you that we're living in a time when there is a lot of things that are being said that go against the Word of God.

Now, more than ever, it behooves us, it is incumbent upon us to dig deeply and to spend much time in prayer and study in the Word of God, that we might know what is truth for ourselves.

Ellen White says that God will reveal His truth to each 1 of us as much as He will reveal it to anyone else.

Whether it's a pastor, or conference president, or any other official, those are people that God, I believe, has appointed and given ministry talents for those positions, but He will give His truth and speak His mysteries to each 1 of us as much as any other person.

I hope you believe that this morning, because God is awesome and wonderful.

Well, this morning in my own personal reading, I wanted to just share with you a couple quick statements before we get into our subject this morning of first things first, and I know the hour is already beginning to become late, but let me please just share with you, this is bonus material, Bonus material from the Spirit of prophecy.

You know the signature of the Seventh Day Adventist Church I believe is Revelation 12.17.

I believe that is our signature identification verse more than maybe any other verse in the Scriptures.

And it simply says, I hope we all know it by heart, and the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, number 1.

And number 2, they have something, they have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

And I hope that you put the Spirit of Prophecy, the testimony of Jesus Christ on a high position in your own study and daily devotions with God.

Well, this is a statement from Signs of the Time, March 30, 1904, paragraph 5, and I'll just read 1 sentence, Our sanctification is God's object in all His dealing with us.

Our sanctification is God's object in all His dealing with us.

And if you want the reference I can give it to you afterwards everything God does in relating to us and dealing with us is with the object of our sanctification and To break down a big word sanctification I believe is character development our development of character that we might have the character of Christ, that we might become like Him is the object that God has in all of His dealings with us.

And now this is a connected statement, I was just happening to be reading several different things and I made a connection.

This next sentence is from Fundamentals of Education, page 432, paragraph 3.

Don't panic, I'll give this to you if you want afterwards, you can see me at the door.

Ellen White says, there is no sanctification aside from the truth, the Word.

There is no sanctification, that is character development, aside from the truth, the Word of God.

So, I hope that you have a love and a desire to study the Word of God this morning as we realize that God's object is to lead us and draw our minds to a study of His Word, because we're told in 2 Timothy 3.16 that we have all things that we need.

The man or woman of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works by a knowledge and a study and then a practical application of the Scriptures in our lives.

Well, this morning as we begin our subject, first things first, I would like to just consecrate myself to God.

So, if you'll bow your heads with me for just a moment.

Our Father and our God, I just pray, Lord, that You will speak Your words this morning as we look across scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, and look to see the message You have for us, the order that You've given to us in Your Scripture, and then also the present truth message that we need to understand for this time.

Lord, I pray that You'll forgive me of my sins, and I want to consecrate and rededicate my own life to You, and just ask You humbly to take my life and let it be, Lord, consecrated fully to Thee.

I accept Jesus as my own personal Savior as I speak before Your precious people, and I pray this in the name of Jesus, amen." All right, I hope you brought your Bibles, and I hope you love to study the Bible.

Let's go to Isaiah 41 in the Old Testament.

We'll start there, Isaiah 41 and verse 14.

And it simply says, Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel.

I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy 1 of Israel." Notice the term used here to describe God's people, a worm.

Is God being mean to describe His people as a worm?

What is the comparison, what is the contrast between a worm, a simple earthworm, and the holy 1 of Israel who is speaking to his people?

I think I want to put a thought in our minds this morning that God is very holy.

And we as His people need to approach Him in a very humble and reverent, holy manner.

The difference between a worm, the contrast is an infinite one." So, how holy exactly is God?

Let's turn now in our Bibles, let's go back to the book 1 Samuel 6.

1 Samuel 6, and we're going to look at a story, the end of a story in which the Israelites had taken the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark which contained the 10 Commandments, and they had taken it out into battle thinking it would help them win in battle, a military battle against the Philistines.

And as they did this foolishly, because of their own sinfulness and their recklessness in carrying the Ark out into battle, God suffered the Ark to be captured by the Philistines.

And some of you probably know what happened.

The Philistines as they had this Ark at first they had sought to acquire the Ark because they thought it had magical powers.

And if they had that connected with their own God's powers they would become great in all the land.

Well as they took it and put it in the temple of their god, Dagon, who is the fish god.

It was broken down, the altar was broken down, the hands and feet and head were broken down facing the Ark of the Covenant.

And after they had this Ark with them for several days, a plague broke out.

And Terrible sickness and plagues broke out to the point where they moved the ark the Philistines from city to city Trying to see if the plagues would would stop or go away.

Well, eventually they decided this is not going to stop, we're going to have to send this ark back to Israel.

And so they came up with a plan, and the plan was let's take and put a new cart and a new oxen that have never been yoked together before, and we'll put the ark on the oxen and we'll see where it goes.

And we will know if it goes right to the nearest city of the Israelites, we'll know the plague is from God.

And so they did this and sure enough the 2 cows they began to turn, even though they had young calves, they turned away and started going right to the nearest town, which was Beth Shemesh.

And I want to pick up the story here, 1 Samuel 6 verse 19 and 20.

As the ark returns to Israel from the Philistines, let's notice what happened here as the Israelites then chose to do something very foolish.

1 Samuel 6 verse 19, And it says there, And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, they actually opened up the cover of the ark, and looked in.

He, referring to God, smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord.

Even he smote of the people 50, 000 and threescore and 10 men.

And the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." Now that's a lot of people.

Now if you have an NIV Bible it will say 70 men.

But if you have a King James or a New King James it will say 50, 000 and 70 men.

And in case you're wondering, I actually looked up several different Bible sources, and also in the Spirit of Prophecy and the Servant of the Lord, the Spirit of Prophecy says over 50, 000 people were killed among the Israelites, which is far more than were killed in battle against the Philistines because they dared to look into the sacred covering of the ark.

Over 50, 000, now verse 20, and the men of Beth Shemesh said, who is able to stand before this Holy Lord God?

And to whom shall He go up from us?" Now, listen to this statement from Patriarchs and Prophets describing this encounter of what just took place.

Ellen White says, this is Patriarchs and Prophets page 589, "'All Israel had been taught to regard the Ark with awe and reverence.

When required to remove it from place to place, the Levites were not so much as to look upon it.

Only once a year was the high priest permitted to behold the Ark of God.

Even the heathen Philistines had not dared remove its coverings to look inside.

Angels of heaven unseen ever attended it in all its journeyings.

The irreverent daring of the people at Beth Shemesh was speedily punished.

50, 070." Now, these are God's people, so they had an excuse, right?

God will excuse wrongdoing when it's His people.

Does God expect more of His people when they know that people are not ignorant that they should not be looking inside the ark?

They knew better, but they chose to do so anyway.

Now let's turn back to another story as we're beginning again to look at first things first, Leviticus chapter 10.

Turn with me to the book of Leviticus chapter 10 and we're going to read a short few verses about the sons of Aaron named Nadab and Abihu.

They had been privileged to witness the glory of God along with the 70 elders on the mount there at Mount Sinai.

And they were next to Moses and Aaron, the highest regarded among God's people.

So these are not just God's people, these are the ones who officiate, the leaders, the priests.

And let's notice this short story here, you probably know it, Leviticus 10 starting in verse 1, And Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered what?

Strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not." Now I'll just tell you that strange fire refers to the fact that they took common regular fire that they kindled themselves, rather than the fire that was taken from the altar of incense which was kindled directly by God Himself.

The priests were to offer incense at the morning and the evening sacrifices.

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First Things First

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