Frank Fournier

Eden Valley SDA Church

For The Sake Of Goodness

Have you turned with me to Exodus chapter 33?

We're told in Sons and Daughters, 259, paragraph 3, that in the last days 1 interest will prevail, 1 subject will swallow up every other subject, and that subject, of course, is Christ our righteousness.

That message, according to Ellen White, will be found, is found in Revelation 14, verses 6-12.

These are the 3 angels' messages and these 3 angels' messages, when internalized, will form, will develop the 144, 000.

The 144, 000 will have the name of God in their foreheads.

They're going to have His character internalized.

And when they do, the Lord is going to use them to enlighten the whole world with the glory of His character.

This is just a sequence of how things need to happen.

This is what is coming for God's people in God's church, and I'm just simply praying in my heart that you and I, all of us, can be partakers of that experience when the time comes.

How glorious is it going to be for God's people.

But here's the question, are you like God yet?

This is going to happen, but how is it ever going to happen?

The longer I am a Christian, the closer I come to Jesus, the more faulty I appear in my own eyes, and I am not looking at a deception here.

And so, when, how is it going to come to the place where I'm going to be so much like God that the world is enlightened around me?

That people can see and say, Whoa, this guy is just like Jesus.

Now we're told in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, and you know it by heart, that by beholding, we become changed.

Therefore, how we view God, How we see God, what we think God is like, is reflected in who we've become.

And you are a little image of the God you worship.

You are a little image of the God that you aspire to become like.

Not a very perfect image, is it, for most of us?

Some people who are harsh have a harsh God.

Some people who are permissive have a permissive God.

Some people who are easygoing must have an easygoing God.

You know, how is it, How is it that we come to the place where we actually reflect God as He is?

Well, in any case, Moses wanted to be like God, wanted to see what God was like.

I don't know how many times I have wished that I could sit across the table from Jesus, from God, and say, okay, listen here, I need to know something and I just want it straight, okay?

He's always asking me to just simply trust me, trust me, I'm God.

Well, Moses was like that, I think, that day.

Except that Moses could get closer to God somehow because in verse 18, we're in Exodus chapter 33, Moses said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.

I just need to know what your makeup is all about, okay?

Now, have you ever noticed that if you should ask a person to tell you about themselves, that they seem to accentuate the positive and to minimize the negative?

Well, I don't know that I have never met a person.

I mean, I don't know that I've ever met a person that wasn't like that.

It's amazing how we like to accentuate the positive when thinking about ourselves.

It's not quite the same when we think about somebody else though, is it?

Do you think that when God speaks, He means exactly what He says and He says exactly the way it is?

And if he was thinking about himself, do you think he'd maximize all his qualities?

You know, it just brings to mind in Numbers 12, verse 3, you don't have to go there, but it says there, and it's written by the hand of Moses, and Moses says, Moses was the meekest man that lived on the earth.

Well Moses was writing under inspiration and I wonder if he kind of told God, now wait a minute, I don't want to say that.

I'm not going to say I'm the meekest man that walks this earth.

You know, I'm inventing a conversation here that probably never happened.

I don't know, but I can imagine God saying, hey, wait a minute, I'm God.

And so in verse 19, He reveals Himself as He is.

Verse 19, And He said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I am gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." I want you to notice in this verse that there is an approach to writing which is called parallelism.

And so there are 2 parallel phrases in that verse that reflect each other, but with different words.

He said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee.

Then he said, I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee.

And so we could see synonymously here that the name of the Lord and goodness are the same.

God is simply saying, here's my character, I am good.

Now when you get a picture of an individual that is good, what kind of picture do you have in your mind?

Have you ever thought, have you ever met a really good person?

How would you define the way that individual is?

Have you ever met a truly good individual?

The Pure Shall See

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to John chapter 3.

You've noticed in our bulletin that the title for this morning is, The Pure Shall See.

So obviously I'm concerned with the way that we see things.

And I believe with all my heart that I'm not the only 1 that's concerned with that.

That God Himself also is concerned with the way we see things.

It's Nicodemus coming to Jesus during the night and having an interview with him.

And finally, Jesus going right to the point, putting his finger right on the issue.

He knows how to push buttons and he's going to push 1 right now in verse 3.

Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, solemnly, solemnly, truly, truly, I say unto you, except a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." And when Jesus said here, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven, is that he cannot discern what it takes to get there.

He cannot understand the principles involved in the kingdom of heaven.

And if you think I made that up, I'm going to read it to you from First Selected Messages 4.12.

It says there, you must have the divine mold before you can discern the sacred claims of the truth.

In other words, you must be born again in order to be able to discern spiritual things.

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned.

And if you want to see, to enter into the kingdom of heaven, you must be born again.

So apparently, we don't see very well sometimes.

We especially don't see if we're not born again.

If you'll turn with me to 2 Corinthians, and I hope that you're not adverse to using your Bibles because we're going to see quite a few verses today.

We're just going to march through the Scriptures 1 by 1.

Talking about Christians, talking about people who are born again.

And we could say it in the vernacular, we live by faith and not by sight.

I don't know if you've ever realized that.

We live in a world full of scams, ponzi schemes, con artists and tricksters.

You might look at something and think you know what you're looking at.

You think You have a grasp on the reality, and what you're looking at is not real at all if you don't live by faith.

If you are not born again, it's easier, of course, to be deceived.

Now we go to 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17, and we begin to see how easily we can be deceived here.

The Apostle Paul says, for our light affliction.

Now, it's interesting to me that the Apostle Paul seems to be lumping together all the afflictions that the human family might experience and call it light.

Well, are your afflictions light by the way?

And isn't it amazing as human beings that when we are afflicted, we never look at them as being light.

And oh Lord, if only You would get rid of this thing for me.

And the Apostle Paul comes along and he says, light affliction.

Why would he call all our afflictions light?

Because, friends, if we could see as God sees, and apparently here, the Apostle Paul got a glimpse of what God could see in the light of our afflictions.

I think if we were to compare our afflictions, whatever they might be, to what the Lord has in store for us because of those afflictions, we would see as the rest of the verse says that they lead to an eternal weight of glory.

For our light afflictions, which are but for a moment." Oh, Lord, it's been 5 years!

And the Lord says, it's a moment in time.

It is because we can't see the big picture.

For our light afflictions, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Ah, friends, listen.

There are present realities which we can see.

Well we think we know what we're looking at, and there are eternal realities.

They are invisible, but they are the reality.

You know, When we went through hell here together, and I'm speaking to people who were here at Eden Valley during the years 2006 and 2008, we could easily see the mess we were in.

We could easily see my incompetence at that time and my failures and some of the strange decisions that I made at that time.

We could see that, but we had no way of seeing what God was going to do in the light of all that and with all of these things which seemed to be so negative.

Now I tell you what, I wouldn't want to go through any of that again.

But on the other hand, I would not exchange that for anything else in the world because the Lord has accomplished such wonderful things for us after putting us through the ringer, you understand.

In 6 BC, this is 6 Bible commentaries, page 1099.

Watch what the prophet says, I have been shown that in the future, not now, in the future, I have been shown that in the future, we shall see.

But in the future, we shall see how closely all our trials...

Every 1 of them, All our trials were connected with our salvation.

Do you know that God is working out your salvation?

Do you curse the trial that you're under?

Do you pray and plead and wish that God would take it away so that you could have some peace already?

Mark Finley

Warrenton SDA Church

Preparing for the Overwhelming Surprise

My topic this morning is the overwhelming surprise.

Let's pray as we open our Bibles together.

Father in heaven, we've come to a point in the service where we're going to open your word.

As we look out over the world, the situation in our world is incredibly crucial.

We're living in a very dangerous world, but a world that God is still moving in.

And we pray that as we open your word that you would touch our hearts.

Give us the message that we need for our hearts today.

Strengthen us as we study together in Christ's name.

The year was 1969, and the place was a little town called Pass Christian, Mississippi.

Hurricane Camille was hurtling down upon that city, and police chief Jerry Peralta was concerned.

It was late, the sun had set and he knew that there were still some people along the coast in a group of apartments.

And it was his responsibility to get them to evacuate as quickly and rapidly as possible.

So Jerry Peralta pulled up to a place called the Richelieu Apartments.

And what he was unaware of at the time was a group of about 20 people were having a hurricane party.

And he pulled up and saw a man on the balcony of 1 of these apartments with a bottle of beer in his hand.

Peralta, the police chief, looked up and he said, look, it's time to evacuate.

It's time to leave." And the man said, are you going to arrest me if I don't leave?

Somebody else joined him on the balcony and they began to mock the police chief saying, look, we're having a party and we're not going anywhere." Little did they know that that hurricane would be the strongest hurricane that ever hit the American coast up until that time.

Hurricane Camille packed winds of 205 miles an hour.

Those apartments were just 250 feet from the coast.

And when at 10.15 PM that evening, the hurricane hit the coastline, The waves were 22 to 26 feet high, totally demolished that apartment.

And every 1 of those 20 people died instantly in their hurricane party.

Were they simply thinking this storm is not going to be as intense as we anticipated?

I wonder what was going on in their minds.

No doubt they thought they could ride out the storm.

No doubt none of them had any idea of the intensity and the fury that the storm was packing.

We are facing another storm, a storm that's coming to burst upon this world relentless in its fury.

Is it possible at times that we are overconfident?

Is it possible at times that we don't understand the fury of the storm that's coming?

The Apostle Paul talks about what will soon break upon this world as an overwhelming surprise.

I'd like you to take your Bible and turn to 1 Thessalonians 5.

Those who stayed in the Richelieu apartments that day neglected the plain warnings.

They overestimated their ability to ride out the storm.

They knew the storm was coming, but they had little idea of its intensity.

They listened to weather reports and watched the news, but they didn't have any idea of the fierceness of the storm.

They failed to prepare, and they lost their lives.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5 describes another event that's coming.

Now another word for safety there in the original language is security.

So these people are saying peace, they're saying security.

Now remember those 2 words, We're going to come back to them later in the message this morning.

When they say peace and security, the people in the Richelieu apartments didn't understand the intensity of the storm.

They said that police chief Jerry Peralta, who was giving the warning, that he was a wild-eyed fanatic.

When they say peace and security, then what happens?

Sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape." Verse 4, But you, brethren and sisters, are not in darkness, so this day, the coming of Jesus, should overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day.

We recognize based on the biblical prophecies that a storm is coming relentless in its fury.

We recognize that this world will be faced with overwhelming events.

Verse 6, therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

If you analyze this passage, it's saying 3 things.

First, events are going to take place in this world and they're going to come rapidly and suddenly that the world does not expect.

Secondly, as Bible-believing Christians, we should not be surprised.

And thirdly, it's not only important to live with a sense of urgency of Christ's coming, it's important to prepare for His soon return.

Now Ellen White, in the eighth volume of the Testimonies, writing counsels to the church, on page 28 puts it this way, transgression has almost reached its limit.

Did sin reach its limit in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah?

So, she says, transgression or sin has almost reached its limit.

Are political leaders confused in what to do about the situation of society?

A great terror is soon to come upon human beings.

We who know the truth should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as an overwhelming surprise.

So will there break upon this world very soon an overwhelming surprise?

But we are not children of the darkness as Bible-believing Christians.

So, although we don't know exactly when it will come, we see the events shaping up, and we know that an overwhelming surprise is coming upon the world.

Now this morning, I want to explore 3 things with you.

First, the coming revival in the people of God.

Jonathan Zirkle

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Balaam’s Stumblingblock

My message today is entitled, Balaam's Stumbling Block.

If you could turn to Numbers, chapter 22.

There's a couple of really, really interesting prophets in the Bible, and I think Balaam is perhaps 1 of the most interesting ones.

He's probably an Ammonite, and he's definitely not from the area where all this story takes place.

He's from Mesopotamia, and it's just interesting to see God use different prophets that aren't Israelites.

And you can see that he's kind of a reluctant guy and maybe not of the highest virtue.

So hopefully you're in Numbers chapter 22 and let's start reading in verse 1.

Then the children of Israel moved and camped in the plains of Moab on the side of the Jordan across from Jericho.

Now Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites, and Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were many, and Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel.

So Moab said to the elders of Midian, now this company will lick up everything around us as an ox licks up the grass of the field.

And Balak the son of Zippor was among the Moabites at the time.

So Israel's just about ready to go into the promised land, and they've just fought an incredible battle.

The Lord's just been with them, and they've just really, really decimated the Amorites.

And so they're there, and the Moabites are concerned.

And so going on in verse 5, it says this.

Then he, that's Balak, sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor at Pether, which is near the river in the land of the sons of his people, to him saying, Look, a people has come from Egypt.

See, they cover the face of the earth and are settling next to me.

Curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

For The Sake Of Goodness

30m

The Pure Shall See

31m

Preparing for the Overwhelming Surprise

57m

Balaam’s Stumblingblock

48m

Christ, Israel’s Messiah

21m

Owning Your Life- Part 2

30m

Owning Your Life- Part 1

30m

Man of Mystery

14m

A Tale of Two Drugs

30m

God’s Eternal Purpose

16m

The Problem with Government

30m

The Three Worlds of Holy Scripture

18m

Sound Doctrine