ASI 2015: Lift Him Up

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Morning Devotional

John Bradshaw

Occupy

Gracious

Look and Live

Our Father in heaven, we are thankful that we can gather here today, this morning in this place in your presence.

As day has broken, we thank you that your promises that the Son of Righteousness shall arise on us with healing in His wings.

So bless us this morning, this day, this week.

Strengthen us for when we walk from here down into the valley.

Be not frustrated by the limitations of fallen humanity, but speak all the same.

We pray in Jesus' name, please join me in saying, Amen.

My brother believed that he was the last 1 in the door.

When he was baptized, he was convinced that Jesus' return was so close that he had made it to the baptistry just in time.

That was the year in New Zealand where we are from that the labor government was voted out of power.

Prime Minister Bill Rowling, who was born, interestingly enough to me, the year my father was born and who died the year my father died, was replaced as Prime Minister of New Zealand by a human lightning rod named Rob Muldoon.

That same year, Harold Wilson was Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister of Canada.

Australia had 2 PMs that year because there was an election.

And in the United States, the president's middle name was Rudolph.

When Gerald Ford was president, my brother believed he was the last 1 in the door and that Jesus was going to return any day now.

A quart of milk in this country cost then 46 cents.

You could buy 10 first class stamps for a dollar and a gallon of gas cost 57 cents.

And my brother believed that he had given his heart to Jesus just in time to be ready for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But he was wrong, wasn't he, About the timing of all of this.

What he didn't know is that Jesus wasn't going to return in 1975, but in 2015.

After all, the Supreme Court has just made some game-changing decisions.

That's surely a sign of the end, isn't it?

And the Pope is coming to the United States in just a couple of months.

The Pope comes to the United States and Jesus comes to the United States just shortly thereafter.

That's going to open the floodgates, surely.

Those among us who have the gift of prophecy see the return of Jesus in every current event, in every earthquake, in every major disease outbreak such as Ebola and SARS and MERS.

Every time there's a presidential election, the drums start beating.

There is proof emailed to you, proof that you cannot speak against.

Soon they may be saying, She's going to be the 1 who will usher in the mark of the beast and earth's final events.

I want to suggest something to you this morning and it's something that you already know.

Just like my brother didn't know when Jesus was coming back, we don't know either.

Other than to say, Jesus is coming back soon.

Now I'd like to take you with me in the Bible to 1 Thessalonians 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 and I'll start reading because time is the enemy this morning.

Paul wrote, But of the times and seasons brethren you have no need that I write to you.

Why did he say, But of the times and seasons you have no need that I write to you?

Because he had just got through writing 1 of the most sublime passages in all of the Word of God.

1 Thessalonians chapter 4, we pick it up in verse 15 where he wrote, Paul wrote, For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent, shall not go before them which are asleep.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up, we which are alive and remain shall be caught up, together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and So shall we ever be with the Lord then he wrote that wonderful PS Wherefore comfort 1 another with these words Paul has just spoken with confidence about the return of Jesus.

He has just said, hasn't he, that Jesus would come and that he would come in a certain way.

He would come back literally, really Him.

He would come back with a shout audibly, a trumpet blast.

You would hear that if you were sleeping.

He would come cataclysmically He said he didn't say that Jesus would come with fervent heat or that the earth and all of its works would be burned up Peter wrote that later, but Paul essentially said the same thing.

He said when Jesus comes back graves would be open The dead would rise therefore mausoleums would be rent asunder Certainly, that would be so Grave markers would collapse and some of those things are impressive.

I remember visiting the burial place of Abraham Lincoln.

And I marvel because you know that at 1 stage grave robbers had tried to get Lincoln's body and so whoever it was in charge at the time it looked as though they tried to make sure that Lincoln wouldn't come up in the resurrection because he's buried beneath concrete and steel and this and that, but even Lincoln, we hope and pray, he's gonna come up from that grave in spite of man's inventions.

And what a turmoil that is going to cause.

Paul said, the dead would rise from their dusty beds, an upheaval of a significant nature.

If he had been preaching this, you would have expected his congregation, irrespective of their cultural background, to say, Amen and Hallelujah.

You know he did because he spoke Suggesting these words would offer comfort comfort to the grieving After this convention, I'm going to a little town Place where I once passed a most wonderful church And I'm going to conduct a funeral service, at least participate in 1.

As sweet a lady as you would ever know got up 1 Sabbath morning, walked from the bedroom to the living room, stood at the window and looked out, sat down in a comfortable chair and went to sleep.

And you know that this coming Sunday I'm going to read from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 about the comfort that we have in these words.

These words don't wipe away our tears, but they offer hope.

Paul's words didn't bring anyone back from the dead, but they remind us that 1 day soon Jesus' words are going to do that very thing.

Grieving parents are still weeping themselves to sleep and asking themselves and God, when will we see our precious baby again?

There are those who are going through days in a fog asking God, When will I see my spouse again?

And when you add to that our particular theological slant, We just cannot help ourselves.

Series

Morning Devotional

Occupy

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Bits & Pieces

38m

Get Ready!

44m

The Inevitability

53m

Keys of Revelation

15. The Return of the King

1h

Lets go Home

37m

Ron du Preez: The 'Day' that Changed the World

The Rapture or Ripoff: What Got Left Behind in 1844

52m

Jesus On Prophecy

Hour of Judgment Part 2

46m

Michael Shall Stand Up

52m

On Worship

1h 18m

Plenary

Who Shall Be Able to Stand?

29m

SWYC 2006 Plenary Sessions

The Final Conflict

1h 10m

Eric Walsh Weekend

03 Who Is the Man of Sin?

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine