Better Beggars: Discover the beautiful revelation of truth revealed in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, and find out how this parable holds the key to the outpouring of the Latter Rain. 

GC Session 2015: Prayer Seminars

<p>Better Beggars: Discover the beautiful revelation of truth revealed in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, and find out how this parable holds the key to the outpouring of the Latter Rain. </p>

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General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Ivor Myers

Better Beggars: The Purpose of the Latter Rain

This evening I'm going to be speaking to you a message I have entitled Better Beggars.

We're going to be talking about a few things but we're going to be focusing on the purpose of prayer.

So, we're going to jump right in and we're gonna be really going through the scriptures this evening.

Let's have a word of prayer and then we will jump in.

Heavenly Father, we want to ask in a special way that you would please speak to our hearts.

Lord, that you would give us wisdom, that you would give us understanding.

Father, we want to know what is the purpose of prayer.

Father, I ask that you would hide me behind the cross.

And Lord, please May Christ be lifted up is our prayer in Jesus name.

I hate microphones that cause me to stand still.

All right, I'm just going to leave it as it is for now.

Okay, so I believe that 1 of the greatest needs of the Adventist Church, 1 of the greatest, perhaps the greatest individual need of everyone who desires to be saved, especially in this time, is a revelation of Jesus Christ.

In fact, I believe prayer is for the sole purpose of seeking a revelation of Jesus Christ.

I want to begin with the story of a man by the name of Joseph.

And we're going to be going somewhere with this.

So let's just talk about Joseph very quickly.

You guys do remember the story of Joseph, yes?

He is 1 of the younger of 12 brothers and Joseph ends up having some dreams, prophetic dreams.

We would say that Joseph in essence was given the gift of prophecy And he foretold of certain things that were gonna happen.

And his older brothers, the ones who were there on the scene before him, really didn't like that too much.

They didn't like his prophetic interpretation.

They sell him for money and sell him into captivity.

Well, Joseph miraculously ends up as the second in command in a place called Egypt.

And the way that he got there was that Pharaoh had a dream and you remember the dream having to do with 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine and and and Joseph interprets the dream and Pharaoh is so moved that he He exalts Joseph to the highest place in the kingdom.

Now, I don't know if you're listening to me right now, but if you're listening to me, you should be like really excited right now.

And if you don't know why you should be excited right now, I will tell you soon, so fear not.

Joseph is exalted to the second in command in the kingdom and and what turns up turns out happening is that the very brothers that had rejected him now in time of famine had to come to him.

Okay so what I want to point out here is that in this story there was a time of plenty where Joseph was gathering what?

You may be wondering why I'm saying that multiple times.

Don't worry about it for right now, but bread.

So a time of plenty was followed by a time of famine.

And generally speaking, those who had not made the preparation in the time of good, in the time of plenty, suffered in the time of famine.

Yeah, so what we see here is a very powerful principle.

By the way, let me just jump ahead and do this very quickly.

Do you realize that Joseph, in many ways, being the younger brother, 1 of the youngest brothers on the scene, in many ways is like the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

You understand that Joseph is a type of Jesus Christ?

And the very ones that betrayed him and sold him for money and thought that they had gotten rid of him and his prophetic interpretations ends up as the second in command in the kingdom and beloved I believe that Jesus is gathering bread because the time of famine is coming yeah are you with me so far yeah so so now let me get back to this Adventist thing for a moment you see beloved the Adventist Church is is a pretty new church on the block.

Our older brothers have heard our prophetic interpretations and they said, oh, come on man, who do you think you are?

And so our older brothers don't like us too much, but we love our older brothers, Amen?

We're just trying to tell them what the Lord has shown us.

And so our older brothers are doing everything that they possibly can to get rid of us, not realizing that 1 day a famine is coming.

And who is God going to use in that time of...

In fact open your Bibles with me to the book of Amos chapter 8.

Amos chapter 8 and I want you to notice with me verse 11 and verse 12.

Amos chapter 8 verse 11 and verse 12 the Bible says here behold the days come sate the Lord God But I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water But of hearing the words of the Lord Beloved I believe a famine is coming what about you?

And I believe that only those who prepare in the time of plenty will be prepared in the time of famine.

I want to show you this pattern again in scripture.

By the way, it was when the brothers, Let me rephrase that, the brothers in searching for bread, Joseph was revealed to them.

In searching for bread there was a revelation of Joseph the greatest need of our church today is a revelation of Jesus Christ So what I'm suggesting to you is could it be possible that that the same search for bread that the brothers went on?

Which revealed Joseph might have something to do with how you and I might find Jesus searching for bread.

This pattern deals with New Testament times You see on the day of Pentecost God reigned down from heaven I Would call that a time of plenty Yeah Where the Word of God was flowing out of the disciples and the Word of God was being spread everywhere.

There was a time of plenty, a time that we would connect with what Daniel chapter 9 calls the 70 week prophecy, the coming of Jesus Christ.

He in fact was the bread of life but if we if the pattern is correct that time of plenty is followed by a time of famine then we can assume and we don't even need to assume but we can expect that after this time of plenty in the early New Testament Church that there would be a time of famine.

Was there a time of famine after the early church?

We know that time of famine as the Dark Ages and beloved I believe that it was because of the bread that we received during the early church period that the church in the dark ages was able to survive.

They had gathered up on the bread so that when time of famine hits, they were able to be sustained.

We're talking about prayer, so don't worry.

By the way, How many of you remember a guy by the name of Elijah?

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Better Beggars: The Purpose of the Latter Rain

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