<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Collegedale Korean SDA Church

Kurt Osena

Seeking His Face: Without the Veil

We're gonna get right into the message this morning because I have a lot to cover.

But the message this morning is entitled Seeking His Face Without the Veil.

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful Sabbath morning.

And if it brings a smile to my face, I know that it brings a smile to your face as well.

Father, I know that it warms your heart when your family gets together to worship you, to study the Bible together, to pray together.

I believe, Father, that not only are you excited about this event here this morning, but even the heavenly angels are rejoicing.

Father, it is my sincere prayer as we get into this morning's message, as we open up your precious word, I pray for the convicting power of your Spirit to be in this place.

I pray that every word that proceeds out of my mouth, Father, may be not my own words, but may be words that are perfectly guided by your hands, or by you.

I pray for your Holy Spirit, Father, to move our hearts, to help us see where we are weak, so that we may depend upon your strong and mighty arm.

And Father, as we talk about seeking your face, I pray that as a result of this morning's message, that when we leave from this place, that we would have a strong urge and desire to want to get to know you more as a friend.

That we would strive to seek after your face every time we wake up in the morning or before we go to bed or just throughout the day.

Father, I pray that as we leave from this place, our passion for you would grow.

Father, I pray that we would be able to seek your face with no hindrance, that there would be nothing that is before our eyes.

But Father, I pray that you would get us to be able to see your glory, because we know that as we're going to be looking at this sermon, we know that your glory changes.

And so Father, I pray for every single soul in this room that you would speak to our hearts and that you bless us I pray in Jesus name Amen in my early stages of ministry I had a very good friend of mine who's actually going to be getting married next weekend.

He's his best man and I'm looking forward to being able to go to his wedding.

But as I was thinking about my friend and some of the early experiences that we've had in ministry, I couldn't help but remember a time when I was at La Sierra University with my friend.

You see, we were having Bible studies every week, And there was this Bible study that was held every week here on the La Sierra University campus.

And young people would just fill this room, and we'd get excited about the truth.

And I remember this 1 particular night, we left this Bible study together, and we were so excited about about what we had just learned that we were just going back and forth telling each other all you remember this verse you remember when he talked about that idea or that concept do you remember that appeal you remember the challenge that he gave to us?

And we were just so excited about the study.

And we were so excited that as we were walking, or at least maybe I was a little more excited than my friend, I turned to my friend David, and I said, David, we should do something about this.

He's like, oh I'm on board for that, brother, let's pray.

We need to pray that we we do something with the knowledge that we have just received.

I said, no, no, no, let's just not pray like we usually do.

Yeah, He looked at me just like you guys are looking at me right now.

He looked at my face and said, Oh, I'm crazy.

I said, No, David, let's pray for an angel.

You know, let's pray that God delivers us a message.

Just like he delivered messages to various people in the Bible, let's pray for an angel to give us a particular message.

And so David, I guess, responded well and he's like, okay, brother, let's do it, let's pray.

And so we try to find the nicest place that we can pray and we found these steps.

It was under these trees, It was just a nice place.

And so we knelt down there and we started to pray.

And I started off and I just started to pray to God and say, God, we want to be specific in our prayers.

We want to specifically ask that you would send us an angel, that you deliver us a message, that you would encourage us so that we may be more excited about going out there and preaching the truth.

And I was praying this prayer with earnestness and sincerity.

And after I was done, my brother started praying, and he started praying with earnestness as well.

Started asking God, God, show us an angel.

Let's give us a message that we need to hear.

So we prayed and the moment he said amen, we look up and there was no angel.

And I look at my friend and we just kind of look at each other with blank stares.

You know, God says, if you ask, you shall receive, right?

We prayed just almost on the brink of tears.

God, just just give us a message that we need to share with people.

And so we got up from that experience a little confused, a little dumbfounded, And we started walking.

But you know, as I was walking, it was as though the Spirit was talking in my mind.

He was saying, Kurt, you know not what you're praying for.

In my mind, I was like, what does this all mean?

What do you mean I don't know what I'm praying for?

And he started enlightening me with passages in Scripture, and he was reminding me of experiences where the angel would go before certain individuals, certain individuals like Zachariah or Mary or the Prophet Daniel or the Prophet John and he was reminding me of all those events and you know what was interesting?

Yes it is true that they all received the beautiful message.

Yes it is true that they were able to be right there with the angel.

But you know in every experience that I had just mentioned here, every time the angel came before the people, do you know what he had to say?

Which implies that every time an angel comes before a person, they are always terrified, they are fearful, Many of them fall to the floor because they do not know what is before them.

And God was saying to me that evening, "'Kurtz, you and your friend "'know not what you are praying for.'" And I was thinking about that.

I was thinking, man, how low have we gotten as human beings to where we can't even enjoy the presence of angels right away?

How is it possible that we who have been created in the image of God, when we see angels, we are fearful of them, we are scared of them, we just fall, and our face is flat if we were to experience an angel.

You know, I came to a realization, or what was coming to my mind as I was thinking these thoughts, I realized, man, if we are so afraid just to see an angel, what if God were to show himself to us?

What if God were to reveal himself to you or me in our own room or in this church?

Would we be a people that would be so excited when we have smiles on our faces to see the great God that we serve?

Beloved, I believe that's probably what would happen.

We would all fall flat on our face, scared and terrified.

You know, as I was thinking these thoughts, I asked the question, how is it that we can get to a point where we would enjoy the presence of God?

How can we get to the point where if God were to come, we know He's coming, amen?

We believe that as Seventh-day Adventist Christians that Jesus is coming again the second time.

We will see his face if we just hold fast to our faith, but how is it that we can get to that point?

Well, we'd be so comfortable to see the face of God.

We'd be so comfortable to be in the very presence of angels.

I Want to unravel this dilemma this conundrum Let us turn our Bibles to Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus chapter 33, we're gonna pick up in a story where the children of Israel have just committed a grievous sin.

You see, the children of Israel, as they were waiting for Moses, 1 day, they decided that they wanted to worship a golden calf.

They worshiped this golden calf, And obviously God was not happy with that, He was not pleased with that, and we know that God doesn't want anyone to worship any other God but Him, amen?

Back to Menu

Seeking His Face: Without the Veil

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Morning Devotional

Faith and the Final Crisis

59m

What If It's Better?

What If I Fail?

49m

Restoration 2009: Expect It

The Pearl of Great Price

31m

The Way of Love

The Way of Love- Part 4

46m

What Can I Give Him?

32m

The Mount of Blessings

The Righteousness of the Pharisees

37m

Anticipation

Pt 2-The Holy Spirit and the Cross

1h 13m

Just This One Time

48m

It Is Finished

50m

Infidelity: A Moral Crisis Amid the Pandemic

58m

The Close of Probation

The Close of Probation- Part 2

31m

Nyse Collins and Phil Mills - Our Bodies, His Temples: "Being" a Living Sacrifice"

The Bible, Health, and Holiness

49m

Sound Doctrine