Marching to Zion I

would like to open up this evening witha few songs and then our opening song Sofor our first song tonight will be hymnnumber509 How firm afoundation[Music]509 Foundationsa of theLord laid for your faith in his exellentword what more can he say to you he havesaid toyou to Jesusthe thirdverse that deep Watchers I call thee togo the rivers of Sorrow shall notoverflow for I will be with the troubless and S to you leave thy deepestdistress last verse so that on Jesuslean forrepose I will not I will notdesert hisFL that Soul all hell shouldend to shake I'll never no never noneverfor our second H this eveningis number375 work for the night iscoming work for the night iscoming work through the morninghours work while the twoissping work mid springingflow work while the day growsbrighter under the glowingSun work for the night iscoming when man's work is donework for the night iscoming work through the sunnyno fill bright SS withlabor breast comes sure andsoon give every flying man it somethingto keep in storework for the night iscoming when man Works nomore work for the night iscoming under the sunsetSkies while their bright areglowing lightFES work till the last beamF fadeth to shine nomore work for the night iscoming when man's work isLord and for tonight's opening song Ifyou please stand with me uh for number422 marching toZion come we that love the Lord and letour Joys beknown join in US song with sweet Accordjoin in a song with sweet Accord andth around the throne and th around thethrone marching toZion beautiful beautifulZion we Maring upward to Z on Beau cityof Godlet those refuse to sing who never knewourGod but children of the Heavenly Kingbut children of the Heavenly King mayspeak their Joys abroad may speak theirJoysabroad we'reMaring to Zionbeautiful beautifulZion we're marching upward toZion that beautiful city ofGod the hill of Zion yields a thousandsacredsweets before we reach the HeavenlyFields before we reach the Heavenlyfields or w walk the golden streets orwalk the goldenstreets toZion beautiful beautifulZion we marching onward to on thebeautiful city ofGod then let our songs abound and everytear bedry we're marching through immanuel'sground we're marching through Emmanuel'sground tofairer worlds on high to fairer worldsonhigh we'reMaring toZion beautiful beautifulZion we're marching upward to side onthe beautiful city ofGod thank you you may beseated goodevening thank you uh for the songservice and um Welcome to our Sandpoint7th Adventist Church welcome to allthose that are joining usonline uh it's my privilege um actuallylet's bow our heads for prayer and thenI'll I'll introduce ElderVine Father in Heaven Lord uh it's theSabbath day and we've come here toworship you we've come here to getcloser to you we've come here to learnmore about Jesus we ask a specialblessing on Elder Vine and the messageyou've given him uh may it be a timelymessage for us to help us finish thework that you've called us to do in yourname we pray amenamenso Pastor Vine is an ordained ministeruh he was born into a pastoral familyand uh grew up with his twin brother andhis two sisters in the United Kingdom soif you hear a cool accent you knowthat's where it's from after graduatingwith a business management degree in '95he served in the United Kingdom PublicHealth Care system before he joined Adrain1996 initially he served in azerbajanand uh served with Adra all the waythrough 2002 in a variety of rolesworldwide uh he then received Seminarytraining at Newbold College in Australiaand uh that's where he and his wife Ludabegan their pastoral Ministry inLondon after then a stint in the MiddleEast Union they served for four years inuh In Minnesota where uh Elder Vine wascalled to serve as president ofAdventist FrontierMinistries he obtained his uh Doctorateof ministry and um he and his wife havetwo children now one of the thingsyou'll notice there is he's really had ahas a very International view being bornin England and served in the Middle Eastand married to a uh a Russian descent uhhis wife uh is Russian and so he'sreally got an amazing broad world viewand I think he brings that and alsoserving with Adventist fron heremissions he deals with persecutedChristians all around the world we arereally insulated in this country butthere's people you know uh that arebeing persecuted on a daily basis sothat has brought forth his passion forreligious liberty and speaking out andone of the things I want to uhappreciate about him if you listen tosome of the sermons I got these from hiswebsite but there's quite a collectionhe's spoken out on topics such asabortion secularism surv divingpersecution religious liberty gospelsame-sex marriage uh Jewish Jihadispiritual war Warfare W cliff andLiberty um transgenderism men and pornand then covid and he's taken a vocalstance on some of the covidissues um which uh I don't know I don'tthink one of many popularity contextwith the general conference where he'sgot he says he now puts us on his resumehe is the first ever uh Pastor to becondemned globally by the generalconferenceso as he said what do you do with atitle like that I guess you just add itto your resume right but like he saidhe's dealt he deals with religiouspersecution on a regular basis uhserving with AFM and um you know hisstance on these views have definitelycome at a cost to him personally as he'sbeen attacked for some of these views asI mentioned the general conference andum audio verse not publishing anythinghe says after 2001 um and that's why Ibelieve people like this are soimportant in adventism is they're notafraid to speak out on some of thesetopics that are very sensitive it's mucheasier to just kind of slide along andpreach a comfortable soothing messagebut that's not what God has called himand I praise the Lord that you've beenfaithful to that Elder Vine and so ifyou are blessed by this message I wouldjust encourage everybody to share thesemess messages on social media becausethat is a way we can kind of counteractsome of this Council culture where theytry to eliminate these voices but Ibelieve God's voice uh will speak and soElder Vine thank you so much fortraveling all the way here to beautifulIdaho and uh we uh look forward to themessage God has put on your heart thankyou Elder Ry thankyou uh thank you Dr sain and thank youfor that warm welcome and uh I want tosay thank you to everybody who met me inthe the parking lot you gave me a warmwelcome as well and it's a privilege tobe back here in the Sandpoint my um Ithink this is about my third time hereso I really didn't need a GPS to drivehere kind of followed my nose had Eastfrom span to kurlane then you kind ofFind Your Way North up a valleysomewhere and we end up in s point soI'm glad I made it here in one piece inin in in the fullness of time and Ibring greetings from My Wife and uh mydaughter of my son I son and daughter ummy son is down at Southern he's a seniorin business and finance and uh ourdaughter is doing medical laun Sciencesat Andrews so I joke with her she'sgoing to be the next doctor fouchy andshe doesn't see the funny side of thatso anyway um it's uh uh as as uh Dr sainkind of alluded to uh some of my sermonsget me into hot water um but I've I'vecomes to the conclusion that the pursuitof Truth is more important than thepursuit of a salary and the uh you mayhave an employer today but God is yourprovider there's a distinction and whenwe are true to God and we are we westick as true to the dut trick sick astrue to duties and needless to the poleum God becomes our provider not just ouremployer and so um tonight and tomorrowum we have a Q&A tomorrow afternoon Ithink at 5:00 um assuming my brain isstill functional by then but uh tonightand tomorrow we're going to be lookingat some of the teachings of Jesusbecause to follow Jesus these days isbecoming increasingly increasingly um uhfrowned upon within Western Societybecause the teachings of Jesus areexclusive and Jesus does not allow forany competition uh he is the way thetruth and the life and to follow him andhis teachings um is to deny thepluralism that that uh really is adominant our Western Society so we'regoing to look we're going to have aseries called marching to Zion I want tothank the music team ass sister Calhounuh for playing that song for us ummarching to Zion we have five talks onthis topic and I'm going to be talkingabout what it means to follow Jesus andwe're going to be looking in in somedetail at some of his teachings uh we'regoing to be looking at three chapters inparticular some discipleship teachingsfrom Jesus that relate to us today andwe're going to realize that to followJesus to say that you are a Christianhas a profound impact on your life youcannot say that you follow Jesus andlive a life that is no different to yoursecular neighbor to follow Jesusinvolves a change in almost everyrelationship that's important to you inlife and so um we're going to be lookingum at Mark 89 and 10 so if you have yourBibles you're going to want to keep themopen uh for the next uh 24 hours and I'mhoping that as we go through these uhthese these this series together thatnot only will we fall in love with Jesusonce again um but our commitment to himwill be strengthened and our faith willput down deeper roots and we willunderstand more fully what it means tofollow him in2023 and so um I'd invite you uh to Bowyour heads with me we're going to openwith a word of prayer and then we'regoing to ask God to open our hearts andour minds so shall we pray heavenlyfather as We Gather here tonight in thisbeautiful church here in sanpo Idahofather I thank you for the Freedom wehave to meet and to discuss theteachings of Jesus so openly thank youFather that we can stream this aroundthe world on the internet that we canhave Bibles in our own language and wedo not have to worry about secret policebursting in and arresting every memberpresent here tonight father for thesesmall mercies we thank you and fatherwhile we live in the light while we havefreedoms in this land I pray that wewill put those freedoms to wise use maywe be careful stewards of the time andresources you've blessed us with that wemay indeed um be unashamed Disciples ofJesus Christ in a world that says wewill not have this man to rule over usso father as I speak tonight may yourspirit speak through me and for me Lordum the words that I speak may they bemay they speak a words of edification uhto the church here and may this churchbe built up in faith and understandingof what it means to be disciple of Jesusin modern day America in the name ofJesus I ask amen all right so so um Ilike to think about things kind ofsystematically so I want to start out byasking ourselves the question um what dowe know about the gospel of Mark anywayjust in general before we kind of homein on some of the teachings of Jesusbecause it's important we have a senseof the book that we're reading um if anyof you ever read like a who done it doany of you like to read the last chapterfirst no yes yeah okay so sitting on theplane here I felt to a conversation withthe lady next to me who was reading somebook about I think it was the Osagemurders and the founding of the FBIsomething like that there was a famousseries of killings in um in IndianNative American community in NortheastOklahoma in the 1920s and she was avidlyreading this book and as a plane wascoming into land I said do you mind if Ijust take a look at that book and shesaid sure I went straight to the lastchapter and skimmed through the essenceof the story in the last chapter beforeI read anything else I want to know whatwhat the general context is I want toknow what the end is from the beginningand so we're going to ask ourselves somebasic questions here about the gospel ofMark the first is let's see if thisthing isworking all right there itisokay nextslide oh we lost it all right okay therewe are oh there I am okay that's notquite what we want to see though um allright there we are okay instroduction tothe gospel of mark thank you so much sowe're going to first talk about justvery very briefly some issues in thegospel of Mark so if I just go to thenext slide uh then we can move on to thenext slid okay you may have heard aboutthe synoptic problems any of you heardof the synoptic problem okay so if youread the gospels um Matthew Mark andLuke are very very similar have younoticed that somebody say yes yes Johnis very different okay so Matthew Markand Luke are called the synopticsbecause the word synoptic means thatthey are seen through a common eye thesin is the Greek word for together orwith so we have the word Synergy meanswhen things work together and opticthat's from the Latin word opar the verbmeans to see and so uh the synopticgospels are the story of Jesus seen froma common perspective and actually theunderlying Greek of Matthew Mark andLuke are about 70% I word for word thesame and this is an interesting questionbecause you notice in Matthew's gospelthat he will have a long story let's say20 verses for a story and Mark will havea shorter version maybe 10 verses so ifif Matthew was written first with 20verses and Mark comes a few years laterand he just gives you a 10 versedistillation of the 20 verse story thatwould imply that for Mark the mostimportant thing that you need to knoware those 10 verses he gave you and thestuff in verses of Matthew's extraneousdetail whereas if you read Matthew ifyou think Matthew um or Mark came firstthen Matthew adds a lot more detail toMark and then you realize okay Matthewlooked at Mark's gospel and said okay weshare the same basic text here but heforgot this and he forgot that and sothose are the important things so umwe're not going to delve into any greatdetail into this question here tonightother than to say that after all mystudies I believe that Mark is the FirstGospel to be written now if you askyourself the question how were the gohow was the New Testament put togetheris very clear from the evidence of theearly Church in the first and 2 Centurythat there had to be Apostolic Authoritybehind every book in the New Testamentum the gospels and all the Epistles hadto have Apostolic Authority or they hadto adhere to the teachings of theApostles so Jude wasn't an apostle perse but the early church believed thathis teachings corresponded with theteachings of the Apostles Paul isconsidered an apostlemuch of the New Testament is written byPaul even though he wasn't one of the 12and Matthew and John were were Apostlesbut Mark was not Mark was not an apostleso why is Mark included as a gospel whenMark was not one of the TW Apostles andthe answer is that overwhelmingly theearly church considered that the TheBook of Mark is actually the eyewitnessaccount from Peter that Peter neverwrote his own Apostle his own Gospel butthere are so many details in Mark'sgospel that indicate that Peter wasadding that there's extra stories andinformation about Peter that the othergospels simply do not have and so thethe overwhelming consensus of the earlychurch and if you look at papus or irusor Clement of Alexandria original Jeromeall of them refer to the fact that Markwrote the Gospel but it was reallyPeter's eyewitness account so this isthe eyewitness account of uh thedisciple who was full of um he was fullof himself he was bragging about thingshe wanted to be the top dog in thekingdom of God and we're going to see aswe go through these studies some ofthose details about Peter coming out soif we assume this gospel was written uhby Mark a young man um and it's Peter'seyewitness testimony then we look at thedating for this gospel and um uh thisthing isn't working at all next slideplease uh if we look at the date of thisgospel there's almost nothing in thetext that suggests when this book waswritten but there's a few things we canfigure out from the text and the numberone reason why we think um it's writtenin the a60s is because there is nomention of the fall ofJerusalem and Jerusalem was this likeearthshake that hit the Jewish world andJerusalem fell inad70 and if it was Peter's testimony andPeter was killed by Nero that's kind ofthe early church history and there wasno mention of of the fall of Jerusalemthen this gospel was one of the firstbooks of the New Testament to be writtenthank you Dr Surin um along with umthere we are okay along with um some ofPaul's Epistles and the book of Acts sothis was a book that was written uhwithin the living memory of those whoknew Jesus personally it's a very veryclose eyewitness account to Jesus and towhat he said it's interesting if youlook at for instance the Quran um theQuran wasn't put together for a couplehundred years after Muhammad died if youlook at the writings of the Buddha uh inIND in India the first writtenTraditions from Buddha only startedabout 250 years after he died whereasthe earliest of the gospels is writtenwithin living memory from livingWitnesses of what Jesus said and thosewere Witnesses who were willing and wereactually dying for the truth of whatthey'd heard so they were not going tocompromise if Jesus said this then hesaid this and people willing to die forit because they' heard what Jesus hadsaid now you come to the purpose of thisgospel andyou you can read the beauty of readingthe gospels is that you can read thegospels from multiple differentperspectives okay so you may read thisgospel from a political perspective letme give you an example uh the Roman uhthe Roman emperors one of their officialtitles was the son ofGod and so if you look in your Bibleslook at Mark 1 verse one it says there arevolutionary statement because this isa gospel um written uh we believe uh toChristians in Rome facing persecution byNero uh under whom Peter was wasexecuted or marted and the very firstwords of this gospel are the beginningof the good news of Jesus Christ the sonof God and you say well that doesn'tmean much to ustoday but if you hear the if you hear apiece of music in America being playedcalled all hail the chief who do youexpect to walk off from the the side ofthe step the platform the president okaythere are certain music U musical umpieces there are certain phrases usedwhen when the president of the UnitedStates makes his appearance and so thethe Caesars uh when when the the Caesarshad their birthdays it was announced asan Evangelion which is the good news weget the word Evangel from that orevangelism it was the it was the goodnews of the the birthday of Caesar whena new Caesar came to the to the thronein in in Rome as new emperor um it wasannounced throughout the Empire as the aangelon the good news of a new season Cand when Caesar arrived in town he hadHeralds went before him pronouncing thea angelium the good news of the arrivalof the emperor and so this gospel startsout with that same phrase the good newsand so to Christians in Rome used tohearing about the temp the the theImperial cult it says the beginning ofthe good news they're going to thinkabout Nero Caesar or Tiberia Caesar orcular Caesar but then John Mark saysit's the good news of Jesus Christ theson of Godnow the phrase the Son of God is a titleused by the Roman emperors at the timethis book waswritten so what Mark is saying is thisto you Christians who live in Rome underthe Imperial rule of the emperor whenthe emperor comes into town it's announcas the good news of the arrival of theSon of God I'm going to talk to youabout the arrival of another Son ofGod and you have to choose where yourAllegiance lies is your allegiance tothe Earthly state in which you live oris your allegiance to going to be to theHeavenly Kingdom and that's a choice weall have to make today is it not we'veseen that in the last three years wehave to choose where ultimateallegiances lie and it's reallyinteresting that um at the end of thisgospel just keep your fingers well keepyour fingers in Mark we're going to beflipping back and forth this isn't onthe screen but in Mark chapter 14 at thefoot of the cross who is it thatconfesses the div the Divinity of JesusChrist Mark 15mark 15:39 it says now when theCenturion who stood facing him that iswhen Jesus just died on Calvary says nowwhen the Centurion who stood facing himsaw that in this way he breathed hislast he said truly this man was God'sson or the Son of God now that Centurionhas just executed Jesus the Heavenly Sonof God in the name of the Earthly Son ofGod tiberious Caesar sitting back inRome and do you know you see the filmGladiatorsome of you saw theil some of you sawthe film gladi yes there's a scene inthe film Gladiator where he he cuts outa tattoo on his arm and Roman soldierswould often have the phrase SP pqr thosefour letters on their arms and that waslike a sign of their allegiance to Romeit stands for senatus which is for theSenate populo that means for the peoplethen qu Romano which means and for Romeso on the the arms of these Romansoldiers they have a tattoo spqr whichmeans for Senate people in Romeokay and so this this Roman Centurionwho's a professional killer on behalf ofum Emperor Tiberius in Rome the EarthlySon of God at the death of Jesus heswitches hisloyalties and he says truly this is theSon of God not the man that I've killedfor for the last 20 years and so you canread these gospels from many manydifferent angles that's you may havethere a political reading of the gospelsyou may have an end time reading aneschatological reading of these gospelsum but we're not not going to focus onthose kind of readings today what we'regoing to focus on is the question ofwhat does Jesus actually teach aboutwhat it means to follow him in themodernworld because many people claim to beChristians but many people don't reallyknow what Jesus actually taught and whenJesus gave us the gospel commission wewere commissioned to teach people toobey all things that I have commandedyou so a Christian is not just one whosits in a church from Sabbath to Sabbatha Christian is one who puts intopractice the teachings of Jesus doesthat make sense and in putting inpractice the teachings of Jesus you findinevitably that because Jesus is thelight of the world and this world isruled by the powers of Darknessinevitably by virtue of following JesusChrist you are going to come intoconflict with the powers of this worldas night followsday John 1 verse5 says and the light isshining in the darkness and the Darknessdid not overwhelm it what that versetells you is that the light of the worldthat is Jesus and then Jesus says inMatthew's gospel you are the light ofthe world as my followers so the lightof the world is still shining on planetEarth today in 2023 in North Idaho andthe Darkness did not overwhelm it thatphrase tells you the darkness is tryingto overwhelm the light but the darknessis not able to overwhelm the light thatmeans there is always a struggle betweengood and evil until Jesus comes again soif you step into the F the path offollowing Jesus Christ you are steppinginto a global a cosmic a global andCosmic conflict it'sinevitable simply by virtue of the factthat we follow Jesus Christ so um let'stake a lookat our next slidehere I'm doing really well with thishere aren'tI all right next slideplease all right let's see if thisworksno oh I've done it againall right gentlemen um so there I amagain okay soum I I like that slide it was taken umat the start of Co where I looked about10 years younger than I do today so uhanyway all right so let's uh let's comedown through these slides again so uh ifyou can flip through to about the sixthslide there and we're going to come tothe the structure of the Gospel of Markso um I I'm going to talk about thegospel of Mark for the next two days inthe sense of what means to follow Jesusin 2023 now if you come through thegospelitself um there is an overall structureto this and each of the gospels has adifferent structure and I like to knowhow things are structured because ithelps me put things in context in mymind okay so did you know that thegospel of Matthew is five longsermons there are five sermons thank youvery much thank you so let's go to thenext slide there we are okay so thegospel of Matthew is five long sermonswe are all familiar with the most famousthose sermons is known as a Sermon onthe Mount okay but there are four othersermons in the gospel of Matthew andthen the gospel of Mark has a certainstructure and so you have anintroduction and then we'll just look atsome of these examples here in yourBibles look at um Mark 1: 15 14 and 15and this is a transitional summary andyou have a bunch of these transitionalsummaries as you go through the gospelof Mark so chapter 1 verse 14- 15 itsays now after John was arrested Jesuscame to Galilee proclaiming the goodnews of God and saying the time isfulfilled and the kingdom of God hascome near repent and believe in the goodnews and then what you have throughoutthis gospel you have major sections sothe first major section is the authorityof Jesus in word and deed that's theauthority to heal the sick to cast outdemons and to call disciples then youhave a transitional summary then youhave the second major section whereJesus as the Son of God is rejected byhis own people by his family and by thereligious leaders then you have atransitional summary then you have thethird major section uh where Jesus ismisunderstood by his own disciplesactually by this stage of his ministryyou'd be forgiven for thinking thatjesus' Ministry was going to be anabject failure because everywhere Jesuswent everybody seemed to misunderstandhim we say he was the greatest teacherever but it seemed nobody got him at thetime or very very few got people got himor Rood him at the time then you have atransitional summary will come that in afew minutes then you've got the fourthmajor section which is who Christ is andthe implications for Christiandiscipleship that's the folus of ourtime this weekend then you got atransitional summary then youve got thedays in Jerusalem prior to the passionweek um that's the the wrangling withthe the Pharisees and scribes in thetemple and then you've got anapocalyptic discourse that's theparallel of Matthew 24 and 25 and thenyou have the instruction to the passionweek so that's the overall structure ofthe Gospel of Mark and we're going to befocusing on that middle section in Blackthat you see on the screen there we'regoing to be focusing on what Jesusactually has to say about what it meansto follow him in 2023 and this is reallyinteresting to me because as a pastor Iwant to help people bring their livesinto alignment with what the word of Godsays or what Jesus teaches for what itmeans to follow him because as a pastorI'm not interested in people followingme or the church Elders I want to helppeople follow Jesus more closely therabbis had a saying that was uh went Vessentially went like this may youfollow your Rabbi so closely that youcovered on that your face is covered bythe dust from his feet so you'refollowing your the rabbi as closely asyou can and so as a my job as a pastoris to help people bring their lives intoalignment with the teachings of JesusChrist not in you know we have celebritypastors and all that we don't we don'treally need those what we need is peoplewho are more devoted to the following ofJesus and putting into practice histeachings so we're going to be lookingat that Central section there so thatCentral section there you can furtherbreak it down because Mark is reallysystematic and this is like a briefsummary of the three major sections ofthis middle part of the Gospel of Markso um you can you can home in on each ofthe parts of this gospel and you canlook at it kind of analytically and lookat the structure these gospels are puttogether under the inspiration of theHoly Spirit and and you can study themand analyze them from differentperspectives and this this is what wesee the the the the the core part ofthis gospel we have three sections wehave a geographical reference which isin 827 93 10:32 then you have aprediction by Jesus of his death inJerusalem so immediately after thegeographical reference you have aprediction of his death three of themand they kind of differ in their detailswe're going to be looking at thosedetails uh one tonight and two tomorrowthen you have the disciplesmisunderstanding Jesus and that leads toJesus giving them a long teaching onwhat it means to follow him him so eachof these three sections this middle partof the Gospelhere that okay in this middle part ofthe Gospel right here this sectionhere you can break down so it looks likethis there's a geographical referencethere's a prediction of the death ofJesus by Jesus the disciplesmisunderstand him and what you're goingto see is what those disciples Misunderstand is what the same things thatwe struggle with today and then you havea teaching by Jesus on what it means tofollow him uh in relation to thedisciples misunderstanding and whatyou're going to realize is that peoplethen are the same as people today and wehave very similar misunderstandingstoday to what they had back then and theteachings of Jesus then apply to ustoday just as they did to thosedisciples back there now this passagethat we're going to look at in some inmuch greater detail this is like thegeographical full of this gospel soeverything up to826 is in the North of Israel in what wenow call Galilee and everything fromchapter 11 and verse one is that's thethe passion week in Jerusalem so thefirst eight chapters are in Galilee andthe last five chapters are in Jerusalemand you got those last five chapterscover the the passion week and theresurrection and the first eightchapters cover the life of Jesus upuntil a few weeks before the week theweek in Jerusalem and chap chter 827through 9 and 10 that's the road fromGalilee down to Jerusalem this is whenJesus is marching to Jerusalem and thedisciples are following him and uh soyou have the three geographicalreferences we're going to come to thoseand so as they're marching to Zion inthe words of our hymn that our themetune that we sang earlier today or thisevening as the disciples are Marching toZion Jesus now for the first time inthis gospel starts teaching them aboutwhat it means to followhim and we're also also marching to Ziontonight aren't we are we not we lookingto watch to the Heavenly City to the NewJerusalem and so we also want to hearthe teachings of Jesus of what it meansto be his disciple his follower as we'remarching to Zion and so this gospel isthe geographical full crim it starts inthe north verse 8:27 and it ends up withblind bmus on the on the road to Jerichothen Jesus goes to Jerusalem so this itstarts in Galilee ends in Jerusalem thispassage and it's the Jesus teachings onthe way sand it's the it's the geographical FM ofthe Gospel but it's also the heart ofthe Gospel it's teaching us what itmeans to follow Jesus today so when youcome to the the immediate context of thepassage that we're talking about uh forthe next couple of days um in chapter 6if you look in your Bibles again um Markhas certain techniques that he uses eachof the gospel writers writes in adifferent way um and I can tell you thiswhen I did my new testament studies atNewbold which is in England's brotherthe Sor not not in Australia um so uhanyway uh when I was in England doing mystudies uh whenever um in the advancedNew Testament Greek class because I didthat for two years I was the onlystudent foolish enough to sign up forthatclass and there were about 15 folks inthe Old Testament he Old TestamentHebrew classes and I for for two yearswas the only person in New Testamentstudies and I can tell you that my myteacher was a lovely teacher but she hada wicked sense of humor and she wouldsay to me you sit down opposite her inthe classroom and she would say nowclass she' say we're going to betranslating some portion of youTestament today what would you like todo and you're just sitting therethinking oh Lord may it be the Gospel ofJohn just give me John because John isthe simplest Greek by far it's likegrade six Greek you might say it's thethe easiest Greek there is and thenshe'd say let's going to turn to Romanschapter 3 and you'd feel thesenon-Christian feelings towards yourteacher because because Romans in engEnglish is hard to understand you put itinto Greek and it's almost impossiblewhy because our Bibles thankfully breakit up into verses Paul just had streamsof like hundreds of words and you got tofigure it out conditional Clausesdependent clauses and that kind of stuffbut anyway Mark is a nice person tostudy this gospel here because he hascertain techniques so in Mark 6 um yousee that in your Bibles Jesus sends outthe 12 in verse 7 and 8 do you see thatin your Bibles somebody say yes yes okayand then in Mark 6 verse 30 it says thedisciples gathered around Jesus andtaught him all they had done and taughtand Jesus come aside and rest a while soJesus sends out the disciples and 20verses later the disciples come back andthen there's 20 verses in the MiddleLight what happens in the middle thereand the answer is the story of John theBaptist and the point about it is thisthat the disciples have been sent outand everywhere they go they raise thedead they cast out demons they're met byadoring crowd crows they heal every sickperson they meet who wouldn't want to bea disciple of JesusChrist because it's a one-way ticket topopular claim into becoming a minorcelebrity but Jesus knows that this mayhave gone to their head and so does Markand so in in between the sending out ofthe 12 and by Jesus and the return ofthe twel with their stories of all thatGod had done through them Mark puts inthere the story of John the Baptist andhis death as a reminder to us that to bea follower of Jesus is not necessarilyone-way ticket to popular Applause to bea follower of Jesus means you may haveto pay the ultimateprice that to be a follower of Jesusmeans if you are to be true to yourcalling as a disciple of Jesus then umyou are willing to speak Heavenly truthto Earthly power you don't read theopinion polls before you open your mouthand you you you you gra you you baseyour life on the teachings of the wordof God and you really don't care whatSociety thinks aboutyou there's a boldness there's amilitance a militancy about your faith Ito follow Jesus isn't kind of like apart-timeoption I either follow him or I don'tand so you have this this story of thedeath of John the Baptist um it remindsus in the middle of the story of thedisciples going out and coming back thatthat to be a follower of Jesus Christmeans that some may receive Publicpublic um popular Applause but otherpeople may lose their heads in theprocess and in AFM we see this everysingle weekpersecution is the norm around the worldtoday it's not theexception and it's coming to ourShores and it's coming under the guiseof diversity and inclusion the modernday manifestation really is criticalgender Theory that's the Battlegroundrightnow and if you don't think this ishappening then ask your kids or yourgrandkids what they're picking up inschool or in social media it'severywhere about 15 to 20% of us girlsbeingtransitioned it's a horrifying statisticand you think that in one generation'stime you're going to have a hugeimbalance between the number of men whowant to marry and if 15% of your girlsare now infertile and can never havechildren you're going to have socialproblems India has those kind ofproblems China has those kind ofproblems because they've aborted so manygirls over the last 40 years there aretoo many men and too few women so youend up having bride markets and youngVillage girls being taken from Cambodiaand Vietnam and Thailand and sold intomarriages in China and in India itcreates all kinds of social problemsonce you start messing with the naturalorder of things so anyway as we gothrough this passage here Mark chapteruh 6 Mark chapter 7 um there are manymany stories about jesus' miracles hefeeds the 5,000 then he feeds the 4,000there are many healing stories but ifyou look in Mark 8 and verse21 Jesus asks them a question and youcan almost sense his exasperation withthem Mark 8:21 he says do you not yetunderstand it's like I'm feeding the5,000 I'm feeding the 4,000 you'recasting out demons you're raising thedead you're proclaiming the gospel butyou still don't get what the kingdom ofGod is allabout and so you come to this reallybeautiful story of the man who is blindnow now the road to Jerusalem startswith this blind man here in mark 8:22-26 and it ends as we're going to seetomorrow afternoon with another blindman called Blindbmus so we start with a blind man inGalilee and as Jesus comes to Jerusalemmean it's another blind man okay thatthere's like a there's a Sim parallelismor what do you call it everything's IMbalance in the gospel here okay we startwith a blind man and we finish with ablind man one of the good news of thegod part one of the good news of theGospel is that God can work throughanybody that even those who are blind ordeaf or dumb or crippled they can beused by God for his kingdom purposes andfor hisglory I noticed when I broke my leg afew years ago in 2017 um I had to becarried I couldn't walk up and down fora few months so at one church I wascarried in this um like Lazy Boybackwards up onto the platform it was sohumiliating reallywhat I realized during my like year ofwalking in a in a wheelchair and in andbeing carried around was that many ofour churches are not set up for peoplewithdisabilities and I started to connectwith the people who have disabilitiesand realized that many of them haveincredible gifts and talents but becausethey're disabled they never get a chancetoshine and in these two stories thebeginning of the road to Jerusalem andthe end of the road to Jerusalem Markgives us two Blind Men who God uses toteach some really profoundlessons I want to encourage you atwhatever Church you come from to beintentional about thinking about are weset up for the blind are we set up forthe deaf are we set up for the disabledare we set up for people who are inwheelchairs etcetc there's nothing wrong with thesepeople morally they just need to have achance to shine forGod so be intentional about these thingsbecause you never know what what hiddengems you have in your Cong ation peoplewho people think oh that's so and so hehas this problem well no he has giftsfrom God aswell and when we set our churches up inways that the those who are disabled orblind or deaf whatever the case may becan Thrive and conf function um we willall be blessed in theprocess so we have this story you see iton the screen this is the first storywe're going to look at in any greatdepth this is the start of the road toJerusalem G it says they came tobethseda that's a geographical referencethat's by the Sea of Galilee and somepeople brought a blind man to him andbegged him to touch him he took theblind man by the hand and laid him ledhim out of the village and when he hadput saliva on his eyes and laid hishands on him he asked him can you seeanything and the man looked up and saidI can see people but they look liketrees walking then Jesus laid his handson his eyes again and he looked intentlyand his sight was restored and he saweverything clearly then he sent him awayto his home saying do not even go intothevillage and so this is an interestingstory here why is this an interestingstory so this is the only story in thegospels where Jesus doesn't healsomebody the first time he toucheshim so why is it with this blind manthat Jesus can't heal him the first timehe touches him why does Lazarus raisefrom the dead at the command of Jesusand the Widow of naon rise from there atthe command of Jesus and why is thestorm um calmed on the Sea of Galileemark four by the command of Jesus butwhy does Jesus have to touch this manrepeatedly in order for this man to seeclearlyit's a good question yes why does Jesustouch this man repeatedly in order forthe man to see clearly well In thispassage here in these four verses thereare eight different words used for theword sight in English like Mark isdredging he's using his his wholethesaurus every word he can think ofthat relates to sight is used and he'srepeating the word sight sight sightsight sight in many many different waysand this comes after Jesus has just saidto the disciples do you still notunderstand so Jesus is dealing withdisciples who don't really understandwhat it means to follow him and so thenext thing Jesus does he performs amiracle with a man where the manrequires the repeated Touch of Jesus inorder to see moreclearly you followthis the passage is teaching us that thedisciples failure to see Jesus clearlycan only be remedied by the repeatedTouch ofJesus and the same for ustoday that is only when we receive therepeated Touch of Jesus can ourspiritual eyesight get ever moreclearly that we'll see more clearly nowthe touch here is not by a human teacherit's by Jesus himself which means thatwe need to be touched by God on aregular basis in order to understandJesus ever moreclearly what this passage teaches us isthat nobody is the final final or thefinished product as far as God isconcerned some people start reallycompletely blind and they've had onetouch and some people start completelyblind they've had three or four touchesand some people have been walking withGod for many years and the point aboutthis Parable is that people have adifferent understanding of Jesus Oftenby virtue of the fact that they've beenwalking with him for longer or shorterperiods oftime and the fact that somebody elsesees Jesus in a different way to youdoesn't mean that they're Wicked orhherit or an apostate it may simply meanthat you've been walking with Jesuslonger than they have or vice versa sothis passage is an invitation to us togive time and space for people to growin their understanding ofGod to allow for the fact that a newdisciple is going to see thingsdifferently to a more maturedisciple and the more mature disciplesare not to hammer the new disciplesbecause they may say to them as Jesussaid to these do you not yet understandbecause people take time it takes timeand repeated Touches for people tounderstand things does this make senseso in a church this story is inviting usto have an atmosphere of grace in whichwe give the people a time and the spaceto ask honest questions and we need tobe able to study with people to helpthem find the honestanswers so when people enter the body ofChrist we don't just put them through anEvangelistic series and leave themsitting in the corner we're intentionalabout helping them grow in theirunderstandingso we have this blind man who Jesustouches repeatedly eventually he can seeclearly and uh by the touch of Jesus soI may ask you this question um how doesJesus touch your life how does he growyour understanding of who he is so I'venoticed some people that they are mostopen to the touch of God when they forinstance go for a walk in the woodsother people are most open to the touchof God when they're listening to Coralmusic other people are most open to thetouch of God when they're reading let'ssay morning devotional other people arereally open to the touch of God whenthey may be memorizing a passage ofscripture or just reading the Bible inthe morning or in theevening but the thing is we all know howwe are most open to God's touch in ourlives and if we are to grow in ourspiritual understanding and if we to seemore Jesus ever more clearly thatrequires us to put our lives in aposition where Jesus can repeatedlytouch us does that make senseso to be a follower of Jesus in 2023doesn't mean you just come to churchevery Sabbath morning and go home andyour Bible sits on the Shelf at homecollectingdust it means that we're intentional ona daily basis about receiving a freshtouch from God a fresh Revelation afresh shaping you know Jeremiah 18 saysI am the Potter you are the clay maybethat God is going to turn us on thatwheel every single day and every time heturns us around he's going to shape usinto really what he wants us to to be soI want to challenge you tonight don'tjust read these stories and think okaythis was a guy that couldn't see clearlyat first no what does it mean for ustoday it means that we're to be askingJesus for his repeated touch on a dailybasis that means we are to structure ourlives and make this a priority in ourlives and if we don't make it a priorityin our lives we're never going to seeclearly and the more clearly weunderstand the more clearly we seespiritually the less chance we have ofrunning astray in us or running groundin our spiritual livesdoes any of this make sense to peoplehere yes so I want to challenge youtonight as you look at these storiesthey're not just stories from thesynoptics okay that was an interestingstory they have applications for ustoday Jesus wants to touch my eyesightand your eyesight on a daily basis so Isee him ever more clearly that means Imust I need I'm invited by him to makeit a priority in my life to open my lifeto his touch so that day by day I cangrow my understanding and heaven forbidadmit that I was wrong in myunderstanding or somehow incomplete tomy understanding now God has given me aFuller and a deeper understanding praisetheLord so if I want the repeated Touch ofJesus I need to be humble enough torecognize I don't have all the answerstoday and I need to grow myunderstanding and I must be looking forthat growth in order that I may for morefully represent him because as I grow inmy understanding then I can be morefaithful ambassador of Jesus in Sanountil northern Idaho in2023 does that does it make sense allrightso let's come tothis the key question in the gospel ofMark so the keyquestion is this passagehere it's not it's not written on thescreen all right okay so in your Bibleslook at Mark 827-30 this is the key question this isthe turning points in the gospel and itsaysthere Jesus went on with his disciplesto the The Villages of Cesar Philippithat's right in right near up north ofthe Sea of Galilee up near Mount Hermanand on the way he asked his discipleswho do people say that I am and theyanswered him John the Baptist and othersElijah and so others one of the prophetsand he asked them but who do you saythat I am Peter answered him you are theMessiah and he sternly ordered them notto tell anyone about him you think thatJesus would be happy that one of hisdisciples have finally got it yes Petersays you are the Messiand Jesus might have said well go aheadand tell everybody but Jesus tells themto be quiet there's a very good reasonwhy Jesus tells Peter to be quiet hereand so Jesus asks he wants them to tellhim who do people say that I am doesJesus know what people are saying abouthim yes he does so far in this gospel athis baptism uh God the father hasaffirmed him as his son in Mark 1 andMark 3 the demons have said we know whoyou are we are the Son of God or theHoly One Of God so the demons haveaffirmed the Divinity of Christ and Godthe father has affirmed the Divinity ofhis only son at the baptism of Jesus sofar in this gospel but so far um hisfamily thought he's gone crazy thePharisees and the Sadducees think thathe's motivated by Satan and thedisciples don't get him atall like nobody seems to understandJesus on from an Earthly perspective Godthe Father recognizes him the demonsrecognize him but the Pharisees es andSadducees the religious leaders thinkhe's motivated by Satan or at least theyclaim that they want to discredit himand the Pharisees just don't understandhim and his mother and his brothers andhis sister think he's gone crazy and inchapter three they wanted to lock himup so Jesus asked the disciples thequestion who do men say that Iam and the disciples give veryflattering views they said some say thatyou're John theBaptist now John the Baptist by thisstage has has been dead for at least oneand a half chaptersso what they're saying is that some sayyou're John the Baptist returned fromthe dead and John the Baptist was heldto be a Prophet by the people we knowthat because that's from the story ofHerod killing him so what the disciplesare saying here is that some say thatyou are a resurrected Prophet that's apretty exalted sat is to have yes if ifpeople if if speak if people spoke toyour pastor is called Pastor mous isthat right Pastor Michael morouse is hehere tonight oh there you are helloPastor nice to see you yes so if P ifpeople said in sampoint there's a newpreacher in s Point SDA Church his nameis Pastor Michael morous that's hisEarthling but really he's a resurrectedProphet from the past people say wow weneed to go and listen to this guy he's aresurrected Prophet that sounds reallygood and some people say I said thedisciples some people say that you'reElijah well that's an exalted titlebecause in Malachi chter 3 and 4 we readthat there is an Elijah figure who isgoing to come and be the Forerunner oftheMessiah so that so people saying he'sElijah that means that people think thatthat with with the arrival of Jesus thatthe Messiah is about to appear he's theForerunner he's the one who makesstraight the paths for the Messiah umwhen he actually arrives this is anexalted image of idea of who Jesus iswithin society and others think thathe's just one of theprophets now what you notice about allthese things is they're all exaltedtitles but none of them are correctnone of them arecorrect you see having an exaltedunderstanding ofJesus without understanding his divinityand his messiahship is a nice answer butit's a misleadinganswer he's either the Son of God orhe'snot he's either the Divine Son of Godand the son of man or he's just anotherprophet and Herod believed that Jesuswas John the Baptist returned from thedead but that didn't save him having anexalted understanding of Jesus without atrue understanding of Jesus doesn'tactually lead you toSalvation there's one and a half billionpeople on planet Earth today who believethat Jesus is one of theprophets but they do their utmost todeny hisdivinity and that holds them back fromsalvation having an exalted but anincorrect understanding of who Jesus isdoesn't get you any closer to eternallifelife and so Jesus asks the disciplethat's all very well what other peoplesay about me but he said to them but whodo you say that Iamnow this is where the rubber meets theroad for those 12 disciples why becauseit's easy to hide behind the opinions ofothers when Jesus says who do other mensay that I am it's easy for thedisciples to say oh you're John theBaptist returned from the dead oh you'rethe the the Forerunner of the Messiahcalled the Elijah figure oh you're oneof the the prophets come back from thedead from the past it's easy to hidebehind the opinions of otherpeople so now Jesus homes in it says butyou but you but you who do you say thatIam now the disciples have to say puttheir money where their mouthis now they have to tell Jesus what theyreally think about him it's not as ifJesus doesn't know what they think abouthim he knows that they profoundlymisunderstand him at this point but theycan no longer hide behind the opinionsofothers in the last 3 years it's been alltoo easy to hide behind the opinions ofothers there Comes A Time in our liveswhere we have to say thus far and nofurther there Comes A Time In Our Liveswhen we have to say okay I have nooption but to speak up at thismoment there's a town in England uh thetrans European division which based inthis town of St Albans um it's the townis known as St Albin because during thelast Roman persecution in about 315 adum the Roman soldiers were busyexecuting Christians and uh they theythey in this town I I don't know whatthe name of the town was back then butthere was a Roman Centurion was taskedwith executing some Christians so as hewas executing the Christians thedemeanor of the Christians was so movingto him that he he put down his sword andsays I'm going to join those Christiansand his name was albanus that's why thetown is known as St Albans today he thenwas executed by the other Roman soldiersbut he realized that he had he couldn'tjust hide behind the opinions of othershe had to take hisstand when Jesus says who do men saythat I am there comes a time in our lifebut we have to make that stand wherethere's nowhere to hide where you cannothide behind the opinions of others youcannot say well the church says this ormy pastor said this my parents taught methis there comes a time where you and Ihave to say this is what I believe or toquote Martin Luther here here I stand Ican do no other so help meGod and if you haven't faced that momentyet it is going to come yourway it will come yourway it may not have come in the lastthree years but it will come when you goto a Godless University campus or youare being required by your employers tostand up and cheer and applaud thingsthat go against the word ofGod that moment is going to come toeverybody in this room you can't hide ityou can't run from it the Apostle Paultalks about when that evil day comes inEphesians chapter 6 verse 13 14 whenthat evil day comes you want to be ableto stand in the armor of God as we didin our Sabbath school lesson last weeknow the point about this is that JesusPeter says you are the Messiah now it'sinteresting to note that at this stagePeter doesn't really understand whathe's talkingabout Peter thinks that the Messiah isgoing to come and wipe out the Romansand liberate Israel from the RomansRoman occupation and he's going toestablish a Jewish Kingdom the MessianicKingdom and he Petra is going to be thePrime Minister that's what he thinks andJudas thinks he's going to be theFinance Minister and James and John arejust waiting to get that inside track toget to Jesus who come that tomorrowthey're going to ask Jesus to sit at hisright hand on his left on his left handwhen he comes in glory it's anastonishing claim because that comes andPeter James and John see Jesus on themountain to Transfiguration in Mark 99and beside Jesus you've got Elijah andum Moses and the next story is James andJohn coming to Jesus and say wellactually we'd like to be at your rightand your left if that's okay with youand you can push Elijah and Moses to oneside I mean the arrogance isastonishing but the point for us tonightis simplythis when Peter confesses that you arethe Messiah it is not based on acomplete understanding of who Jesus istherefore it's a confession based on onfaith on trust that I've seen enough toindicate to me that you are the anointedof God I don't understand all that itmeans just yet but I'm confessing uh I'mconfessing your div your Divinity yourmessiahship based not on fullunderstanding but it's onfaith you think aboutthis that you can confess themessiahship of Jesus of Nazareth whenyou are a four or five5-year-old and Jesus will acceptit he doesn't say you need to have adegree in Systematic Theology and haveall your eyes dotted and teas crossedbefore I would accept your confession offaith when Peter says you are theMessiah he still understands almostnothing about what the Messiah hasreally come to do as we're going to seein in a few moments he has nounderstanding what that really means butJesus accepts that confession ofFaith so just as we saw with a man witha blind eyee eyes and Jesus has to touchhim repeatedly so as Jesus marches FromGalilee down to Jerusalem he has totouch those ey the disciples eyesrepeatedly to teach him what it means tounderstand him ever moreclearly and Jesus says to us tonight youmay not have a full understanding of whoI am you may not be able to articulate ayou know a christology or a soteriologywhich is a science of Salvation or ahamaty which is the study of sin or anecclesiology which is a study of thechurch or an eschatology which is astudy of end time vents no no you maynot be able to do any of that but hewill accept the confession that he isthe anointed one of God to deal with oursinproblem and he will then say once youconfess that I am the Messiah I willthen touch your eyes repeatedly so thatyou see ever moreclearly I will help you grow in yourunderstanding one of the beautifulthings about these teachings ondiscipleship is that Jesus never fired adisciple in the gospel he didn't makethem sit you know end of term exams hedidn't say you know you've got likemultiple choice questions you need toget 70% right you're going to getthrough to the next next teaching ofmine no Jesus never fired a disciple inthe gospels wherever they started fromhe worked with them and he gave themrepeated teachings they could understandhim ever more clearly until finally theysee him most clearly after theresurrection and we have that samevantage point today we don't see Jesusfrom before Calvary we look back onCalvary and that gives is the clearestpossible picture ofJesus but the reality is is that Calvaryis disappearing into the past and asAdventists we don't just live in in thein the lengthening Shadows of Calvarywe're living in the increasing light ofthe dawn of the secondcoming so we live looking both back andforward when Jesus asks who do you saythat I am he's not asking for aSystematic Theology he's asking for aconfession of faith and when he receivesthat conf confession of Faith as he doeswith these 12 disciples he then says I'mgoing to touch your eyes repeatedly sothat you can see me ever moreclearly when Peter says you're theMessiah and Jesus turn tells him don'tsay this to anybody you think he wouldwant them to be these evangelists yesyou think Jesus would want Peter to goand tell everybody Jesus is theMessiah but Jesus knows this is anexplosive issue back then this is liketoday if somebody said I'm notsuggesting this okay so don't say I'msuggesting this but if somebody says acertain candidate won the 2020election then that's called the big lieisn't that true yeah it's called a biglie you can't talk about these thingsI'm not suggesting he did or he didn'tI'm just using as an example the pointis certain claims are politicallyexplosive and Jesus knows at this momentin time that if Peter went aroundtelling the crowds this is the Messiahthis is the Messiah come and see theMessiah this is the Messiah he knowswhat that means what it means is thatPeter with the 12 with the 12 the totalof the 12 of them together and all thecrowds who are following him they'relooking for a messiah who's going tooverthrow the might of Rome and thathe's going to free them from Romanoccupation and make them all physicallyand financially wealthy and free fromRomanslavery and so Jesus doesn't want themto have that understanding of who he isbecause it's premature and it's nottrue and so he tells Peter don't tellanybody about what you've just saidwhy because in verse 31 it says he beganto teach them that the son of man mustundergo great suffering and be rejectedby the elders the chief priests and thescribes and be killed and after threedays rise again this is not the Messiahthat Peter's lookingfor now the word Messiah means theanointed of God Messiah is Hebrew theGreek for mesiah is Christos that meansthe anointed one in England that just wejust call it Christ okay so Messiah andChrist that's the same meaning in Hebrewand in Greekessentially and so Peter says you're theMessiah and then Jesus immediatelyteaches him that I'm need to be I'mgoing to be killed when we get toJerusalem and when it says he began toteach them that the the tense is in theimperfect which means Jesus isrepeatedly teaching them I'm going to goto Jerusalem I'm going to be handed overby the chief priests and far um Chiefpriests and rulers and I'm going to bekilled and this is not the Messiah thatPeter's looking forso what kind of Messiah are you lookingfor Peter was looking for a messiah tofix his Earthlyproblems he wanted a messiah who'd getrid of Roman taxation get rid of the taxcollectors like Matthew Levi a man whoget rid of people like zachus who was acorrupt tax collector a man who wouldget rid of the Romans who did thecrucifixions and sold people intoslavery yeah Peter wanted good thingsbut his understanding of the Messiah wasgive me a good Nation today give me agood good lifetoday like make Israel greatagain and Jesus isn't that kind ofMessiah it's really interesting to methat earlier in this gospel when theparalytic is let down from theroof and uh he lies in front of Jesusand Jesus looks at this paralyzed manand the first thing that Jesus says tothat man are son he says thy sins areforgiven theeand if you what the astonishing aboutthat story is the man doesn't say thathe says well Jesus he doesn't say thiswell Jesus he says it's nice to beforgiven but I'd like to walk again hedoesn't say that he just lies there andJesus only cures him of his paralysiswhen the Pharisees are sitting therethinking who does this man think he isonly God who can forgive sins then itsays and Jesus said well just so youknow the son of man has Authority onEarth to forgive sins then he turns tothe paralyzed man he says I say to youpick up your mat and walk the pointabout that story is that paralytic knewhis major problem was not his paralysisit was his spiritual alienation from Godand once he was forgiven that's all hewanted everything else was secondary tothat so Jesus did not come to bring ahealth and wealth gospel he came torestore us to a right relationship withGod because with that comes the promiseof eternal life so if we follow Jesustoday as did those 12 particularly thisthis stage of the Gospelbecause we think that if following JesusI'm going to get a pay rise or I'm goingto live like you know Joel Austin with amulti-million dollar house and acollection of private planes in DallasTexas all right if we follow Jesus forthat reason we're following him for thewrong reasons and he's not necessarilygoing to do that for us we follow Jesustoday because he has the authority todeal with the one thing we're allbattling which is the problem of sin anddeath and everybody else everypolitician can promise you a good lifetoday but nobody else can give you lifeafterdeath so that's why Jesus says to Peterdo not tell anybody that you think I'mthe Messiah just yet because you stilldon't getit I love this picture ofJesus he doesn't sternly rebuke JesusPeter for his lack of understanding hedoesn't say how could you stillmisunderstand me after all these thistime together just says you be quiet I'mgoing to keep on teaching about what itmeans to follow me and you willeventually see more and more clearly andwhen you can see me uh as clearly as ispossible humanly to do then I'm going tosend you out again with a gospelcommission after myresurrection and Jesus wants to do thesame for you and for me tonight he wantsus to see Ever more clearly spirituallyspeaking he wants us to understand whyhe came what he came for and what he'soffering us one of my favorite verses inscriptures this isn't in um this isn'tin Mark but go to Hebrews chapter 9 andHebrews chapter9 the last verse Hebrews9:28 Hebrews9:28 talks about Jesus in The HeavenlyHigh Sanctuary the HeavenlySanctuary but Hebrews 9:28 says this soChrist having been offered once that washis first coming to Bear the sins of menthat is of all people he will appear asecond time not to deal with sin but tosave those who are eagerly waiting forhim isn't thatbeautiful the first time he came was todeal with the sin problem the secondtime he comes is to save those who'veaccepted his offer ofSalvation so Jesus did not come to getme a better job or to get me a pay riseto get me a nicer house or a condo inMiami he came to deal with my mostserious problem which is my alienationfrom God and from myself and he came toreconcile me to God to reconcile me withmyself to reconcile me with my brothersand sisters and with my community thatthe gospel means healing in all thoserelational Dimensions that are importantto us and as he heals us from the curseof sin so we have the promise of eternallife and I say Amen to that because theolder Iget the things of this worth how of thisworld have less and lessattraction and the more and more I thinkabout eternal lifenow young people you may not think inthose terms just yet at the age of 15you think you're Invincible life isgoing to go on forever but let me tellyou after about the age of 20 men you'reon the downwardspiral okay I think men are at theirphysical primary about the age of 18 isthat right Dr sain about that onceyou've turned 18 it's all downhill fromthere one of ourummissionaries was uh in our meet we hadsome meetings last week in bar inSprings or this week in bar in Springsand on Wednesday he got a call from hisdaughter who lives uh there's a pastoralfamily I think in the upper Columbiaconference or Washington conference oneof the two and uh their granddaughterwas taken into ER on Sabbath night andshe had some symptoms and then they uhthey did some more tests and by Tuesdaynight discovered that she had stage fourterminal cancer at the age of two and ahalf two and ahalf what gives a 2 and a half year oldterminal cancer I don't knowbut it's when things like thathappen that you learn for the day whenall things are made new again when everytear will be wiped away when death anddisease and sorrow will be no more anddeath will be thrown into that Lake ofFire together with Satan the author ofall of all evil and suffering that weexperience today that's why Jesus cameto planetEarth so tonight if we're sitting inchurch and we're praying tonight forLord I want to pay rise well you know goahead and pray it whether you get it ornot is in God's hands but that's not whyJesus came he came that you and I mighthave our sin problem dealt with that thecurse of sin might be lifted from ourlives we might live with the promise ofeternallife and until we realize that we'rereally not safe to share that go toshare the gospel with anybodyelse and so Jesus sternly ordered himnot tell anybody about him so what do wesay to wrap it up for tonight wellfollowing Jesus as a disciple in 2023does not require you to have a perfector complete understanding of who heis it requires faith and a willingnessto go where Jesus leads you that may begeographically but more importantly itmeans spiritually following Jesus meansI'm willing to grow means I'm willing toput aside my preconceived ideas I'mwilling to admit that maybe I wasn'tquite right and now God is giving me adeeper revelation ofhimself following Jesusmeans that I'm willing to give Grace andspace to my brothers and sisters in myCongregation of faith for them to growas well as Jesus touches their eyesthrough their private reading of theword of God through the preachingthrough the fellure however it mayhappen maybe through a cancer diagnosismaybe through a road accident as Jesustouches their eyes so they will grow andGod will reveal himself to our brothersand sisters not at the pace that wethink is necessary but at the pace thathe knows they can accept it and growwith it because people accept and growin differentways so I want to encourage you tonightwhatever congregation you come from tobe intentional about giving people thespace and the grace and the time and theopportunity to grow in theirunderstanding and to help people to growin their understanding and if you havenew members not just to leave them afterthe Evangelistic series but to walk withthem and to befriend them and to studythe gospels side by side because I'lltell you this I hear more profoundinsights on the life of Jesus fromMuslims and Buddhists I do from manyAdventists the first time they comeacross to teaching of Jesus like wowwhere did that come from it's amazingwhat God reveals to people of anon-Christian background about Jesusthat don't that have never occurred todied in the world Adventists not becauseAdventists are bad it's simply becausewe have preconceived ideas of how Jesusmust operate we've been conditioned tothink in a certainway you and I need the repeated Touch ofJesus in our lives today so that we willsee him ever more clearly so I want toinvite you tonight to se order yourlives and to make it a priority in yourlives that you can receive the repeatedTouch ofJesus it's the number one priority inlife it's the number one priority beyondthat nothing reallymatters so order your lives in such away that God has an opportunity to touchyou and to growyou and if for instance you have amorning reading of the scripture you'renot reading the scripture in order toprove your spouse or somebody at churchwrong about somepoint and you you're not reading thescripture in order to prepare for aBible study or to prepare for a sermonthat's what you know pastors and eldersand Sabbath School teachers do no we'rereading the scripture in order that Imight be a different man or woman at theend of that scripture reading the onewho sat down to the scripturereading I'm reading it togrow I'm reading it so that God cantransform my inner heart I'm reading itso God can wash away the dross and thepride and the sin and God can createsomething beautiful in mylife so be open in your reading ofscripture and when you need when you ifyou come to the scriptures um a veryuseful thing to do is before you openthe word of God pray and Covenant withGod that whatever the Holy Spiritreveals to you about your life and yourcharacter and your sins and your need ofa savior whatever he reveals to you inthat reading of a scripture you're goingto Covenant in advance that you're goingto follow through withit because all too many people read thescriptures the make an excuse and putoff what they just read I'm not going toapply that if you want to grow Covenantwith God every time you read thescripture say Lord what you reveal to metoday I'm going to follow through withbecause if you do that on a daily basisyou start to hear the Holy Spirit evermore clearly in your life because you'relooking for and you recognize hisvoice so what can you do today to openyourself to the repeated Touch of Jesusin what ways are you as an individualmost open to his voice and to hisshaping power power in your lifescripture poetry hymns naturetestimonies sermons prayer and fastingservice to sufferingHumanity however you are most open toGod I'd like to invite you tonight tocovenants that you will reorder yourlife so that like Peter and the 11disciples you will receive the repeatedand the healing touch of JesusChrist now this is just the start of ourstudies as we go through the these twochapters here there's a lot we're goingto kind of drill down into over the nextwell tomorrow as we go through thesestudies tomorrow in the Sabbath hoursbut I want you to Covenant tonight whenyou go home Covenant that if you hearsomething that challenges you you're notgoing to fight it and you're not goingto harden your heart but you're going tofollow through with the convictions ofthe holyspirit that we're going to enter theseSabbath hours as we are now when weleave the Sabbath hours tomorrowafternoon we're going to be differentmen and womenwe want him to change our attitudes toour spouses we're going to cover that wewant him to change our attitudes tomoney we're going to cover that we wanthim to change our attitude to childrenwe're going to cover that we're going wewant them to change our attitude toposition and power and authority withinour local congregations we're going tocome to that these teachings of Jesusare really applicable to us today andthe problems that curse our homes andplague our congregations are directlytouched in these teachings of our Lordandsavior so we we've had a niceintroduction least I hope it's been nicebut by tomorrow night my prayer is eachone of us will havechanged are we're going to deal with ourspouses and with our dollars and withour children and with position and Powerin the church in a whole differentway and people are going to see in ourlives and in our families in ourmarriages and in our congregations atruer and clearer picture of the Son ofGod so we'll go on this walk together isthat okay with everybodyyes let's bow our heads and we'll closewith a prayer HeavenlyFather tonight we're asking for therepeated Touch of Jesus during theseSabbathhours father Jesus healed the paralyticby the pool of bethsaida during thoseSabbathhours he healed a blind man during theSabbathhours many of his greatest Miracles tookplace during the Sabbathhours Lord while Jesus could heal thesick there was one thing he struggledwith and that was Hardness of Heartspiritual Arthursclerosis so we're asking tonight fatherthat we will not have sclerotic heartsbut we will have soft Hearts duringthese 24 hours that you will perform aDivine heart surgery in each one ofus father we're asking tonight for therepeated Touch of Jesus during theseSabbathhour father change how we seeyou and change how we live with ourbrothers and our sisters our spouses ourparents ourchildren renew how we deal withmoney and father may we may our attitudeto position and power and the use ofauthority be fundamentallychanged so that we learn what it meansto serve rather than todominate father during these Sabbathhours touch us many times touch thosesore spots touch those sensitive spotstouch those bits that need changing themost and tonight father we'recovenanting that wherever you touchwhatever you reveal we're going tofollow through with the teachings ofJesus in our lives this is our prayer injesus' nameamen thank you Elder Vine for that umthat challenge and um were you blessedtonight amen so we'll be back heretomorrow morning at 9:30um uh El rine will have a talk then andthen he'll be here for our 11 o'clockhour and then we have lunch here so ifyou're a visitor I see a lot of visitorshere please join us for lunch tomorrowand uh we'll pick up again at 2 o'clocktomorrow afternoon and we're going toend it with a Q&A session that weprobably won't live stream so those onthe on the internet come here in personif you want to hear all right God blessyou have a good evening everybody