The Son of Man and I

on okay if everyone will please stand umas we come together uh let's just giveeverybody a welcome uh we see a lot ofnew visitors here uh could we show offhands of uh people that are joining usfor the first time this morning amenamen thank you so much for being herewhat a blessing um let's go ahead andstand and let's greet one another in thename of the Lordtesting testtest test[Music][Music]happy[Music][Music]amen and if everyone will still remainstanding while wedo thank you[Music]everybody if y'all will uh still remainstanding with usthis morning um want to welcome also ourfirsttime visitorshere and again the people that areonline as well thank you for uh W forwe're welcoming you here to the WhiteRock Lake SDA Church um we are going todo our congregational reading thismorningand we will be reading this out loudtogether and it's found in 1 John 5: 4and 5 and it reads for whatsoever isborn of God overcometh the world andthis is the victory that overcometh theworld even our faith who is he thatovercometh the world but he thatbelieveth that Jesus is the son of Godamen amen if you all will bow your headswith us for a moment of PrayerHeavenly Father we thank you Lord forthis time together we give you praiseLord we ask you Lord that you pleaseforgive us oursins Lord we know that this is abeautiful day that you've given us atime to worship you but you are lookingfor those Lord that want to worship youboth in spirit and in truth and you arelooking for the truth that is written ineach and every person'sheart we praise you and we thank you forall the blessings that you give us Lordwe want to welcome each and every personthat's here today we hope and pray Lordthat it is your word that is spoken sothat it has a sanctifying effect on eachand every one of us Lord it is your wordthat sanctifies us not ours for there'sno righteousness in ourselvesLord we ask Lordthat that you open up the heart of eachand every person here today that theirears are receptive to you and to yourword we thank you all for beinghere we want to make sure Lord that eachand every person here has a repentantheart you tell us Lord that you are notslack concerning your promise as someman counts slackness but you are lungyou are lungs suffering to us word notwilling that any should perish but thatall should come to repentance so we askLord that each and every person herecome with that spirit and choose toserve you and worship you in spirit andTruth we want to welcome each and everyperson here and we pray Godthat that you be with us during this daythat you send the Holy Spirit to speakto each and every personindividually and that you bless thespeaker and the words and you put yourwords in his mouthLord that you give us a message that weneedtoday that we need it that you give usthe present truth message that we needneed for the time that we are living inwe pray and ask all these things in thename of your son Jesus Christ[Music]amen you can remain standing As we singOur Song of adoration which will beSabbath rest holy rest and um[Music]yeah let us pray that technology uhcooperate withus we set our workaside we leave our caresbehind on thisdayof on this your holy daywe come to give you praise on this dayofholy on this day he setaside blessed and sanctifiedholyrest out of all the week the best wehave come to be blessed on this[Music]day we set ouraside we leave our cares behind on thisday[Music]of on this your holyday we come to give you praise on thisday[Music]of holyon this day he set aside all your bless[Music][Applause]Sanholy out of all the weak the best wehave come to bebless on thisday a[Music]amen you may beseated I am going to go throughannouncements just as quickly as I canuh please remember let us ensure that weleave the church clean and in orderbefore we leave each time uh that'sespecially true today okay so churchmembers help us at the end of the day aswe clean up so that we can return thechurch uh clean teachers treasures andPOA coordinators please text in givinginformation and attendance countpromptly after your classes rememberthat we're still in need of help tooperate and run the church uh we needSabbath School teachers audio visualpotla Cleanup Crew Greers potlacoordinators and if you'd like to be apart of the service as well I know thatthis is not exclusive to our church uhmany times you know people like to comeand they like to receive but many timesit's difficult to get uh people toconsistently participate so by all meansplease participate in the operation ofthe church uh deacons and deaconesses uhMinistry if you are interested inserving as a deacon or Deaconess pleasecontact the number on the screen and Ibelieve it is also on the churchbulletin as well and remember for thosewho are participating please RSVP to thechurch secretary so this a couple ofweeks ago we had a family cat meetingand Pastor Mike ortell is the one thatleted it out and he had several books uhto offer and there are only 10 left ifyou are interested just please see oneof the leaders uh so that we can get abook to you I know that he calledalready twice and I was asking about uhwhat happened to these last 10 copies sowe want to make sure uh that we get allthe funds to him that are his so ifyou're interested in this book Max thecat the seven A's of God's relationalGrace by Pastor Mike ortell pleasecontact one of the um one of the churchleaders and it's goneout Father in Heaven uh we're havingtrouble with the technology father umplease intervene father and even iffather we know that you're alwayslooking at what's happening here onEarth father may we move forward in thename of Jesus Christ we prayamen remember that you are able to giveto the church through the various givinguh Avenues uh of a papercheck somepeople do Adventist giving online if yougo to our website White Rock lak sda.orgyou hit online giving and you can givethat way we also will have cash app anduh zel uh which is wl. treasurygmail.com for zel and then for cash appit's dollar sign wrl SDA the pillars ofour faith Bible studies who isspecifically Geared for those who arewanting to ref familiarize yourself withuh our pillars of faith that happens atSaturdays at 10: a.m. in room 2114 aswell as Thursdays online so you're arewelcome to come to any of those so letme tell you what happened uh PastorConrad Vine you can come up um he wassupposed to be here I believe it wasJune the 6 or something like that and wewere in full evangelism swing and ittotally we just totally missed it uh wewere also running messiah's Mansionalmost simultaneously and and I emailedPastor uh Conrad and and I said I'msorry we're just going to have toreschedule and we set a date for todayhe told me and then the year continuedon and then I was telling the board Isaid oh no we're busy again I'm going tohave to cancel on them you didn't knowthis and then he tells me um I saidpastor Conrad um this is what's going onand uh he says I already booked mytickets so I said you know what I'mgoing to speak to the church board andwe're going to move forward and amenhe's here today so we're thankful thatwe're having a uh a Sabbath withAdventist Frontier missions with PastorConrad Vine and Pastor Leno this is theschedule for today 10: a.m. which wealready had then 11:15 a.m. which we'rein right now from 2:15 to 4:15 p.m.those who would like to join us and wehope everybody can join us uh we werehanding out some literature um for thisactual presentation at 4:30 and 6 andalso for the presentations that willhappen beginning January the 3rd throughthe 6 which which will be uh ChrisHudson Ernest Rosa and Dr Peter Mulla sosomebody asked me why do you have themboth on uh uh both on just one postcardthe truth of the matter is we weretrying to be frugal save some money sowe will be handing this invitation outfrom 2:15 to 4:15 p.m.

please come asyou exit the fellowship meal you willgrab a bag you'll get a map and you'llgo and then we will speed back here at4:30 thank you very much brother uhDanny and if you are not here during theSabbath School hour um at the back ofthe church on your way out you can Pi upan Avenue Frontier missions magazine andum I'd want to encourage you to do threethings for cross cultureal missionseither start praying start giving orthink about going there's something thatall of us can do in for the gospel to goaround the world and in the center ofthe magazine there's small envelope ifyou want to make a small donation inthat that would be wonderful um one-offdonations are great but we really prefermonthly pledges because that's whatkeeps us going month by month in themission field so um I'd like to inviteyou to pray for pastor Leno catch upwith him during the Sabbath hours todayI hear from him what it's like to be aFrontline missionary and uh when Jesuscomes Again by his grace we know fromRevelation 7 there will be people onthat sea of glass from every nationevery tribe every language and everypeople which means that no missionarieswork is ever in vain there will alwaysbe an eternal Harvest for themissionaries labor so thank you for yourtime for your prayers and for yoursupport[Music][Music]amen so these are the different waysthat you can give there will be anenvelope for you to be able to give ifyou use cash app uh their sign or theiruh address is dollar sign AFM AFMdonation as well okay because I know alot of people are into using apps youcan take a picture of that if you'd likeas well okay I'll leave it there just abrief second um and then you could alsomake checks checks made out to AFM andon the memo line or subject line you canput animists of central project okay soall the information is on there it isalso in your church bulletin as well andthey also accept credit card donationsvia the envelopes as well so pleasesupport this ministry remember that wewill have the literature distributiontoday from 2:15 to 4:15 and then againon December the 30th we will go for oneone last round okay all right the youngand heart Bible study will continue uhthis is uh next Sabbath and it'll be inroom214 we have an annual family dinner thatwe usually do in between Christmas uhI'm sorry Thanksgiving and Christmas uhit is open to our church members andfrequent attenders and that if you'dlike to participate on your way outthere's a a sign up sheet it will be atLaBella Italian Grill next Saturday at6:30 p.m. the health education classesokay uh so Marina Ortiz and her husbandCarlos Ortiz have a very important umpresentation that they will be doing onhealth education next Sabbath please bethere okay so next Sabbath there is nochurchwide potluck but when you come tothese uh individual classes by all meansbring your own mail okay so ourpresenters will be nii mck McKenzieboost your health through movement learnhow to incorporate more activity intoyour daily life and reap the benefitseven if you have a sedentary job MarinaOrtiz will be presenting the immediateeffects of exercise discover howexercise positively impacts blood flowto vital organs like your brain heartand lungs Carlos Ortiz will bepresenting understanding emotions andstress gain insight into the causes andeffects of stressas well as biblical principles forcoping and standing firm in difficulttimes especially in these times thatwe're living in we look forward to theseinspiring and informative talks onintegrating physical mental andspiritual health be prepared to receiveblessings so please join us rememberthis is next Sabbath in room 214 at 1:30p.m. so please be here we will um I'msorry this is in two sabbaths so we willannounce it one more time next Sabbathuh please don't forget that we have achurch work be on Su Sunday December the17th you see all these leaves that arestarting to fall down in the acorns wewill get together as a group the morepeople we have the faster we finish um Iremember and I'm saying this because Iknow that there's a lot of visitors lastyear or this year actually in the monthof March we had like 20 to 25 volunteerswe picked up like 64 bags and I rememberthat number because I was sore for acouple of days but um when we have a lotof people we can really move quickly uhso we'll bring blowers rakes uh bagsbring extension cords another thing thatwe discovered if you bring a dust panit's a lot easier to just grab a hole alot more uh leaves from the ground soplease help us uh by signing up even ifyou're a visitor and you want to comehelp us by all means uh we willcirculate a a sign up sheet uh aroundthere so you can please sign up for thework be remember the no potluck in themonth of the year of 2024 our nextevangelism weekend or minievangelism series will start onWednesday January the 3rd and it'll beuh uh Evangel is Chris Hudson and hewill be presenting on Wednesday Januarythe 6 the 3rd I'm sorry at 700 p.m.Friday January the 5th same time 7 p.m.and he will also present on SaturdaySaturday January the 6 11:15 and 5:30p.m. in between those presentations youwill have Elder Ernest Rosa that willpresent at uh 10:00 a.m and then at 2 pmand then Dr Peter McCulla will presentat 400 p.m. the presentation schedule isin your church bulletin it's on the Enewsletter it's on the invitation soplease bring people that need to listento these messages you have no idea howpeople sometimes they grab somethingfrom a message and a seed is planted andit makes him think and the Bible doesrequire us to reason so by all meansplease bring friends families co-workerswe're also inviting people from thepublic as well uh please bring them tothese important meetings I am the waythe truth and the life it is now timefor tithes and offerings and I am theone that does a tithes and offeringscall on the thirdSabbath so friends um what allows us tooperate the church specifically whichchurchbudget it's right there right the localchurch budget it's what pays foreverything evangelism speakers uhmaterials for Ministry etc etc etc soplease be a consistent Giver you knowmany times people uh you know we bringspeakers we've brought speakers throughthat obviously there's a cost involvedbut we do it for the education for thebenefit of your Eternal salvation soplease support these efforts through thelocal church budget may we please havethe um deacons approach as we pray uhfor the picking up of the tithes andofferings rightnow Father in heaven we continue to giveyou thanks father because not only areyou the owner of absolutely everythingin this universe uh father but you are aprovider for us father when we lean onyou for absolutely everything includingthefinancial father you just not onlyprovide but just over abundantly thatsometimes we can't even believe andfather this is why we always need to befaithful tithe and offering giversfather father you love us and you knowthatas we are faithful to you father youhave never been unfaithful to us thetruth of the matter is father that evenwhen we have been unfaithful to you youeven been faithful to US during thattime so dear Jesus please bless thegivers who are about to give right nowto this local church budget that fundsthis church and all its programs andfather bless those who are not able togive as well you know each individualheart father and their circumstances soplease father may you multiply these sothat we can further your work in thisarea and as Pastor Conrad Bine wassharing with us so that we can share themessage overseas as well in the name ofJesus Christ we pray amen[Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music][Music]hi hello good morning happy Sabbath I amI'm Schubert sappan I'm a dentist and Iwork in the Grand Prairie um I just liketo say that uh um I am to be an SDAthere's no other denomination that Iknow of that has been given the inspiredHealth message to God's Remnant churchand that's the 7 Day Adventist Churchlomalinda is uh Testament of that theyare world renowned for their medical anddental health um contributions they arealso featured in National Geographicfamous Blue Zone articles so today I amuh going to talk to you about um anxietythat's the health nugget for today andbecause of time I'm going to share mytime with uh my brother Wesley here uhabout something um so I'm going to justhit the main points so I'm going to askyou to put your ears your thinking earsand caps on okay so how many here haveanxiety going to thedentist most of us right okay notworking yeah testing is this one louderyes okay okay it's working now no I'mtalking about ohokay hello tting it close to you thereyou go okay soanxietyum there is fear and anxiety when peoplego to the dentist stress fear andanxiety seem to travel together andthere seems to be a lot of uh anxiety inthis world todayand in um well people wait until theyhave so much pain and to go to dinnerhere here's the number one mentalillness in America anxiety disorders areconsidered the most common type ofpsychiatric disorders in the generalpopulation and uh what is the literaldefinition of anxiety okay it's anxietyis a feeling of fear dread anduneasiness anxiety is also an emotioncharacterized by feelings of tensionworried thoughts and physical changeslike increased bloodpressure what we feel when we areworried tense and Afraid that's anxietyokay um it's also mental disorder that'swhat the uh psych Psychiatry um todaypeople say about anxiety so whatpercentage of Americans suffer fromstress in in this article it says thatabout 76% of adults reported that theyexperienced at least one symptom in thelastmonth people are stressed today peopleknow that we're in the final days umaren't we we are in the final daysso according to the who the World HealthOrganization anxiety and depressionprevalence increased by 25% globally theprevalence of clinical significantlevels of mental stress was 27% so itkeeps increasing during thepandemic and and that also has increaseduh by 300% from 1987 to1997 so that that tells you what that umThings Are happening in this world umfear is being uh used out there tocontrol us so the survey shows a mermajor increase in the number of usadults who report symptoms of stressanxiety depression insomnia during thepandemic so in Luke 21 verse 26 KingJames version men's Hearts failing themfor fear and for looking after thosethings which are coming to the Earth forthe powers of Heaven shall be shaken sothings are happening in this world whatis the number one cause of stress inAmerica financial problems that's onearticle says work and stress yesviolence and crime people are afraidthat things could happen to them youknow they walk out of their uh car andor go to market and they get shot orwherever so the three main causes ofstress today are money work and poorhealth those are the three main causesaccording to one study um and then theyhave these uh um cures or or treatmentsfor anxiety and what um but here's herehere's the uh sorry the symptoms forthat that you know you have anxiety likeI do now uh turning and feeling um yourstomach's churning feeling of uhlightheadedness pins and needles feelingof restlessness unable to sit stillheadaches um back ache or other aches uhfast breathing fast thumping orirregular heartbeats sweating or hotflush flashes um women are tend to getit more than men and seniors experienceit also more than younger adults and thenatural effects of caffeine stimulatethe host of Sensations such as yourheart beating faster and and breathingin rate increases so caffeine is is astimulant and it causes too too too manysymptoms and quitting caffeine can alsoreduce anxiety levels and okay so theyhave all these treatments that uh thatthey say would help your anxiety but itreally um it doesn't really help becauseaccording to some studies it anxietykeeps increasing so how do it fix youranxietyum okay they have all these things likestand up pull your shoulders back feetand you know breathe deep and but theBible says that believe in the LordJesus Christ and you will besaved says that casting all your careupon him for he carth for you the Biblehas the Cure fear thou not for I am withthee be not dismayed for I am thy God Iwill strengthen Thee I will help theeyay I will uphold thee with the righthand of thy righteousness for I the Lordthy God will hold thy right hand sayingunto thee fear not I will help and uhgoes on to say take therefore no thoughtfor tomorrow for tomorrow shall take nothought thought for the things of itselfsufficient unto the day is the evilthereofum I'm going to skip through some ofthese um and spirit prophecy also talksabout about uh anxiety and how to umgive your burdens and your yoke to Jesusand so why worry um so smile and Godloves you and as Christians we should befearless and bold not afraid to be 7thDay Adventist Christians and to hold thebanner High the Three Angels message inRevelation 14 must be preached to allthe world fearlessly and boldly I wantto introduce to you my friend WesleyWilbanks of final Day's Video who willshow you how you can help spread thisimportant message to this Dying Worldbrother[Music]Wesley he asked me to come up here atfive minutes and I did um but he washaving anxiety and I'm having a littleanxiety too but God will help us throughthis I have 10 minutes to uh tell yousomething for two hours um I'm withFinal DaysInternational and um this ministrystarted three years ago a little overthree years ago when we understood thatthere wasn't a video that had thecomplete Three Angels messages upon it CBeast lamb Beast mark of the beast notone video and we got with Dustin peslinsome of you know Dustin he's from theDallas area has hope through prophecyYouTube channel and um we seeChristopher there he knows Dustin uhChristopher worked with us help us toget the Spanish video put together butDustin has a wonderful YouTube channel awonderful guy um and he worked with usto um put together this video right herefinal days it has the complete ThreeAngels messages on it the Antichrist theUSA in Prophecy the mark of the beastseab beast lamb Beast mark of the beastand it's Christ centered we have put iton 12 different languages so far 12 moreare in the works it's in English it's inSpanish it's in um Hindi Italian and wedon't want to forget Conrad's wife it'sin Russian or hismother-in-law and um uh we are sendingthis video out on Facebook to the entireworld there are three and a half billionpeople on Facebook that's half of theworld's population the other half of thepeople live with them are on are theirneighbors many people in the world don'thave a job but they've got a phone it'sit's I don't understand it I don't seehow it works but we're in touch withthem we are sending it out on Facebook$100 sends the video to 100,000 peoplethat's for one tenth of a penny uh$1,000 sends it to a million people weare working with uh many different uhMinistries like Conrads uhawr uh uh as AP go uh out gospelOutreach we're trying to work with allof them because we want to get thisgospel to the whole world now the fruitof sending this out for $10 I sent itfor $10 to India this is Brother Raheemhe called me on the phone he said I wantto come out of Babylon people know theirBibles and we believe in the fourthAngel's message not just the first threethat the angel came down enlightened theworld with power and Glory and how arewe going to do this we're going to usethe technology that Satan uses that Goduses too and we're sending this to threebillion people on Facebook now brotherraheem's got his story and if you wantto hear it please get a newsletter thatmy wife or I are passing out at the backand one of the little cards it'll takeyou to wwwf final days.

videoo amazingfacts uh helped to put together thisvideo amazing facts India we were inIndia as a result of someone elsegetting this video and um they called uson the phone and said I have hundreds ofSunday pastors that want to hear this sowe went over there some of these membersare with awr some with another Ministrysome with amazing facts um brotherRonald Robin is with awr he was one ofthe speakers there and um we took themthrough uh the in three days we bringthe the pastors to a facility and inthree days we take them through Danielchapter 2 Daniel chapter 7 Revelation 13seab Beast 13 land Beast Revelation 14Three Angels messages Revelation 12 thegreat controversy then we teach themabout the law versus uh God's law versusMoses law and we teach them about theSabbath and then we show them the videothey don't know what has hit them theyare stunned they are amazed to hearthese wonderful truths and um after thatuh we open up the doors and they aregrabbing literature great controversieseverything out of our hands they arethrilled and happy to have learned thismessage that we are sitting on thesepeople are happy I saw it with my owneyes I was there look at these peoplelook at them they saw this look howhappy he is um I saw the light bulb comeon again and again one brother called measide and he said he said what do I needto do I said do what the B Bible saysand he said I will and I said one of TheCommandments is to keep the Sabbath hesaid well I'll keep it he said what elsedo I do I said we'll hook you up with itand he wants to follow out of thesepeople I want you to see you can't seeit on there for some reason it's blue uhwe had about a thousand over a thousandpeople come out uh70 pastors accepted the Sabbath out of175 at our first meeting we decided weneeded to come back that was 40% we didfour more meetings with about a, peopleuh at the last meeting 183 Sundaypastors wait3 Sunday pastors 144accepted the Sabbath so there was atotal of63% out of a thousand Sunday pastors ormore that accepted theSabbath I don't know what the holyspirit being poured out is going to looklike but I think it looks like that wegave these people to aw are to follow upwith because we didn't know what to dowith them we didn't have plans for it wewere just moving forward to find outwhat we needed to do and um let me tellyou that uh over 60 right now arewaiting forbaptism uh a division secretary JohnVictor is working with us to help bringthese Sunday pastors into the AdventistChurch we have three more meetingsscheduled with about um well Hyderabadwe have 500 UND Sunday pastors andElders coming down put a 300 and over ath scheduled for January February andMarch we've got thousands and thousandsand thousands of Sunday pastors waitingto hear thesemessages this is one that got the uhvideo on his phone uh he left his churchleft his payment his people divorcedfrom him but he is working and he's gota couple hundred Sunday pastors thatwe're going to go talk toum he's uh ready to be baptized as soonas we get a minister over there to do itthis guy's ready to be baptized too he'sinstrumental in bringing a thousandpastors toDelhi these people are studying withRaheem there remember he's the one thatcame out of Babylon dilb back came outof Babylon babblu came out of Babylonand I tell you what there are thousandsof more ready to come out ofBabylon amen this is brother josi nowwe're going down to Africa I got him onthe phone and anybody here that wantssome of this action just call me talk tome please I'll hook you up into aFacebook page we'll put your WhatsAppnumber on there send it to 100,000people we'll pay for it and you willhave tens and hundreds and thousands ofpeople com to your phone saying tell memore does that sound good I wanted thisall my life I prayed for it for years Iknocked on doors for years I never hadanything like this happen in my lifeevery day I can lead someone to to thetruth Amen brother josi came in I talkedto him for one hour he said I'm blownaway I'm in I'm there flipped his churchof 400 people and now he's instrumentaland working with 7th Day Adventist nowand here's brother uh Ephraim he'sinstrumental too he brought uh a bunchof people down to what we had just nowin Africa I've got two minutes left I'mwatching my clock here and um we justfinished two meetings down there inAfrica sameresults and let me show you people areintrigued they're studying they'rewriting down their Notes 3 days ofmeetings they're watching this stuff andwe're giving it to them and we'regettingfruit let me showyou I don't know what I did okay therewe go there it is okay this guy here waslooking at the decision card we give hima decision card and it says I believethe Bible and all God's Commandments andone of those Commandments is rememberthe Sabbath day to keep it holy the nextquestion is I want more informationabout the Sabbath the next question is Iwant to be part of the remnant Church ofGod the next part is I want this at mychurch can you teach this seminar at mychurch of this um card that we gave toeverybody 194 Sunday pastors we gave to135 accepted all of the truths and wantus to bring these teachings to theirchurch and this brother right here has1,700 members and 15 churches he wantsus to bring this to his church andanother Pastor has 2300 people we hadlike10,000 people that want us to bring thisinto their church and this happened lastmonth can I get a hallelujah amen and soI'm grabbing Conrad by and I'm sayingConrad I want to send this to all ofyour Miss Aries and he says okay and wewant to give it to everybody out therewe want to blast this through the worldthese people are happy and this is Isaacdanaba he got the message he and 17pastors went to the Methodist Churchthere in Africa the conference and saidwhat about this and if you want to hearthe end of the story pick up thenewsletter outthere[Music]okay so and you can go watch the videothat Dustin built it's out there it's onthe cards it's in the newsletter pleasewatch it you'll be blown away um we'regoing to be giving out these cards todaywe're going to give hundreds toeverybody to pass out and we just wantto invite you to join with us we've gotit in Spanish one last plug ChristopherI need some Spanish people to to garnishthe thousands and thousands of peoplethat we can send it to the Harvest isplentiful the laborers are few we needhelp if you want to help help us praisethe Lordthank[Music]you[Music]Clos for[Music]How Deep The Father's Love For Ushow vast beyond allMees that he should give his onlyson to make a rich histreasure how great the pain of hearingwas the father turned his faceaway as wounds which Mar are the chosenone bring many sons toGlory behold the man upon across my sin upon his shouldjust ashamed to hear my mockingvoice call Out Among the skyfirst it was my sin that held inthere until it wasaccomplished his dying breath hasbrought melife I know that it is manfin I will not bur inanything no gifts no power no ways but I will Po in JesusChrist his death and resurrection what should came from hisreward I canot give ananswer but this I know with all myheart his wounds have feed mybre I sh again from hisreward I can I give ananswer but this I know with all myheart his RS have paid my Rome[Music]thankyou could I please have the childrencome up[Music]okay we'll go ahead and get startedokay so today's story in the class wasover Daniel chapter 5 and it's basar isnow King of the Babylonian empire builtbyNebuchadnezzar he knows the Empire willfall but he seemingly does not care evenas Cyrus with an army of Ms and Persiansis besieging the city of Babylon basarmakes a great Fe tohiss that the silver and gold vesteltaken from the temple in Jerusalem bebrought to the feast and those inattendance eat and drink from them atthe height of the feasting a hand writeson the wall no one can read the wordsbelisar mother remembers Daniel andsuggests that belisar SED for him Danielcomes and explains the message God saysyour kingdom is is finished you arefound wanting and your kingdom isdivided and given to the mes andPersians and thees and Persians capturethe Babylonian Empire so because belisarprofaned the sacred things of God Godfinished his Reign the question is wouldwe be able to tell others that God isangry with them God gave Daniel theinterpretation and the courage to tellthe king and his peoplesometimes it's not easy to tell othersbut God promises to be with us okaywould somebody like to pray forus thank youhosana dear Jesus thank you for this daythank you for getting us here safely bewith us today help us to learn from yourwordand she easy and our week and throughour life and be us all in Jesus's name Iprayamen thank you[Music]h[Music]in[Music]h[Music]dear Lord as wepray take our hearts and mind faraway from the Press of the world allaround to your throne where Grace doesabound May Our Lives be transformed byyourlove may our souls be refreshed fromabove at this moment let peopleeverywhere join us now as we come to youin pray[Music]dear heavenlyfather thank you so much Lord forbringing us here to this church thankyou for waking us up today Lord thankyou for being our Defender for being ourguide for being our shield for being ourprovider Lord forbeing the lamb for us Lord thank you foryour many blessingsfor just everything that you haveprovided for us Lord we know that youare the source of everything and wethank you so much for being so good tousLord Lord we we pray that you may bewith everyone who's represented here andthe families that are represented hereLord and those that are listeningonline Lord you know our troubles youknow our worries what keeps us up atnight you know what we're going throughLord we pray that you will be with thesick Lord that you will be with thosefamilies that are hurting um those thathave lost the loved one we pray forthose that are um struggling spirituallyLord that you may be with them in a veryspecial way and help them to really makea decision for you Lord to take a standStand For You Lord we know that we areliving at the end of times and we justpray that we will make our electionsure Lord I pray that you may be with usas we go and distribute literature todaythat we may plant seeds in thisneighborhood that you will continue tobe with us in this church that we may bea beacon of light to those homes aroundWhite Rock Lake and not only in thisneighborhood but in Dallas Fort Wortharea Lord I pray that you would be withthe speakers and their Ministries Lord aspecial blessing on them on theirfamilies um I'm sure it's not easy fortheir families as they travel a lot andare all over the world Lord so I praythat you may direct them in everythingthat they do that you will give them andUS wisdom and discernment Lord to knowyour will for our lives that we mayleave the the the um distractions of theworld Lord in the past that we may befocused and renewing our mind throughthe Holy Spirit Lord because time isshort I pray that you will give us adaily um a daily Rel that you may put inus the desire to have a dailyrelationship with you Lord that we mayopen the word and learn of just thebeautiful message of redemption that youhave given us through your word Lordthat you may help us to fall in lovewith you every day and that we may notwant to put your word down help us LordLord to be transformed by yourword that we may not only love you butlove our neighbors Lord the way you haveloved us that we may have sacrificiallove for those around us that we mayhave the that Um passion to go and telleverybody about you that we may plantseeds to those people around us ourneighbors our the people in our jobs ourfamilies Lordbe merciful to those that are in theworld Lord that know about you help ourfamilies to inquire about you that wemay give a good testimony ofyou Lord we pray that you may forgiveus for the times that we have felt youfor the times that we havemisrepresented you Lord forgive us helpus to betransformed help us to be transformedthrough a daily renewing of of ourmind help us to seek oursel Lord to seekif there is any iniquity within us andmay you help us in everything Lord wepray all of these things in the name ofJesusAmen ourpray here our prayohLordin th need tous andgrant us thy peace[Music][Music]you may stand as we sing Our Song ofpreparation faith is the[Music]victory along the hills ofand press the batt there the night shallBeil theglowing against the FL BS below let allour strengthBeth is the victory weknow thatovercomes the[Music]world is the victoryFai is thevictory all gloriousvictory thatoveres theworld on every hand the we drawn up indreadAR let T of be left behind and onward tothefre salvationhelmet on each head with truth allgreat the Earth shall treble me ourTre and Echo with ourshout is thevictory is thevictory oh gloriousvictory thatovercomes theworld to him thatovercomes the white rment shallbegin before the angels He shall knowhis name confessin then onward from the hills of lightour hearts with love offlame we wish show the host ofChrist in Jesus[Music]coning faith is avictory faith is avictory oh glor isVictory thatover theworld Amen you may be seated[Music][Music]good morning happySabbath today's scripture reading isfound in Mark chapter13 vers 24 through27 please stand for the reading of God'sholy wordbut in those days after that tribulationthe sun shall be darkened and the moonshall not give her light the stars ofHeaven shall fall the powers there inheaven shall be shaken and they shallsee the son of man coming in the cloudswith great power and glory and then heshall send his angels and gathertogether his El from the Four Winds fromthe uttermost part of the earth to theuttermost part of Heaven may God blessthe reing of his holy word amenI'd like to say thank you to littlesister Lily leam that was a beautifulreading of the word of God and I'd liketo say thank you to brother me sapan forhis beautiful singing this morning it'salways a good thing to see the NextGeneration get involved in worship and Iwant to thank God for God-fearingparents who bring their children up tolove Jesus Christ it's my privilege tostand before you here this morning umit's only my my second or third time inin Dallas in my life and uh I arrivedlast night with a pastor Numa and Ithought innocently it'll be about a20-minute drive from the airport to ourhotel and then we got caught up in thedowntown Dallas traffic last night andit was quite slow but anyway we finallymade it to our to our destination as weleft the airport I said you know PastorNuma if we don't eat now we're going tobe hungry till tomorrow because even ifwe race through Dallas it's alreadygoing to be the Sabbath by the time weget to our uh resting place T night sowe stopped off at a little taco placeand um I said to the lady there werethese three um three jars of ointment onmy on my table I said what are these shesays this is hot very hot and very veryhot and so I didn't taste any of thembut um past Numa did he likes some warmfood so anyway it's a privilege to behere today I bring greetings for my wifeuh she's back in beran Springs and umshe doesn't travel with me hardly eversimply because I'm always on the roadsomewhere and somebody has to keep thehome fires burning you might say but Ibring greetings from My Wife and we havea son and her daughter and it's aprivilege to stand here today uh as wasshared earlier during the Sabbath Schooluh my name is Pastor Vine I am thePresident of Adventist Frontier missionsand we work among unreached peoplegroups and today over 40% of the worldhas yet to hear the name of Jesus and sowe have a long way to go before thegospel has gone to Every Nation tribelanguage and people and so uh when umbrother uh Danny asked me to come andshare here I wasn't quite sure what Iwas going to share about know whenyou're a when you're a pastor in a localchurch you get to know your congregationU um you know the the nuances thetexture the context and so you preparesermons that are designed for thatcongregation but in the pandemicpreaching changed in the pandemic wesuddenly went from preaching for a localcongregation and there was context andthere's nuance and um people understandwhat you're talking about and somepeople watched online and now after thepandemic a lot of people watch onlinemuch more than that actually sit withinany given congregation and so preachingum has to be uh tailored for basicallyan audience you don't know and uh sowith preaching these days it has changedand so um today I want to talk about theheart of our faith as Adventists andit's about Jesus Christ um not knowingthis congregation not knowing yourhistory not knowing your past notknowing the gifts that God has given youI I just felt impressed by the HolySpirit to preach about Jesus Christbecause he is the heart and the soul andthe basis and the center of our life andour ministry todayso I invite you to Bow your heads withme and we're going to ask again for theblessing of the HolySpirit dear heavenly father while Jesuswas on Earth he taught us that if we askfor the gift of the Holy Spirit we shallreceive and if we knock that the doorsof our heart will be open to hispresence and if we seek we shallfind so father today we're asking humblyfor the gift of your Holy Spirit to fallupon this congregationnow father we come as sinners in need ofSalvation and in need ofMercy father we have nothing to commendourselves to you we do not sit or standhere in our ownrighteousness simply as a child asks hisfather for a cup of water because he'sthirsty so we're asking you as ourheavenly father to be merciful to us andminister to our soulstoday Father speak through me and for mecleanse me and Purify Me and Bre to eachone of those who are listening todayfresh conviction and conversion and thesanctifying power of your Holy Spiritand father when we leave this placetoday I pray that our walk with Jesuswill be more precious to us that ourfaith will have deeper roots that ourwitness will burn brighter for him andJesus when you come again in the CloudsOf Glory as was read to us through ourscripture reading we humbly ask thateach one of our names and those we lovewill all be found in the Lamb's Book ofLife so father we give this moment toyour into your hands in Jesus name weprayamen so the sermon is today entitled whois the son of man and it's aninteresting uh title of the son of manbecause actually um the Jesus umpreferred name for himself was the sonof man the the D the disciples hisenemies and the demons all the waythrough the synoptic gospels that'sMatthew Mark and Luke they always referto him as the Son of God but Jesusalmost never refers to himself as theSon of God his preferredself-designation or name for himself isthe son of man so we're going to exploretoday what it means to be the son of manand you know the synoptics I call thesynoptics because um about 70% of theGreek of Matthew Mark and Luke isidentical and so they see the life ofJesus through a Comm set of eyes John isa very distinct gospel off on its ownbut Matthew Mark and Luke are called thesynoptics because they see together thelife of Jesus and so when Jesus refersto himself as the son of man we asChristians with our Bibles we know thereis one place in the Old Testament thatJesus could possibly be referring to andthat is found in Daniel chapter 7:9-14 so I I put these texts up on thescreen there and I'll good it all fitsgood so I'm just going to read out thispassage for you if you have your Biblesyou may want to read along foryourselves but when Jesus refers to himas the son of man we as Christians in21st century Dallas we almost always goback to this passage from The Book ofDaniel and this is what we read it's thepre-advent Judgment says as I that isDaniel watched Thrones were set in placeand an ancient one took his throne hisclothing was white as snow and the hairof his head like pure wool his thronewere was fiery flames and its Wheelswere burning fire a stream of fireissued and flowed out from his presencea thousand thousand served him and10,000 times 10,000 stood attending himthe court sat in judgment and the bookswere opened I watched then because ofthe noise of the Arrogant words that thehorn was speaking and as I watched theBeast was put to death and its bodydestroyed and given over to be burntwith fire as for the rest of the beaststheir Dominion was taken away but theirlives were prolonged for a season and atime so this is a picture of thepre-advent Judgment where God givesjudgment for the Saints and against thebeasts who oppose them and oppress themhere on planet Earth the pre-adventjudgment is nothing to be afraid oftherefore for th those who are in ChristJesus there is nocondemnation we come into crisis theGreek word for judgment is Crisis theGreek word for judgment is crima we getthe word criminal from that so if you'rein Christ Jesus yes yes there is aHeavenly judgment but you do not facecondemnation that is good news of thepre-advent Judgment but then the passagegoes on it says I saw in the nightvisions and behold one like the son ofman came with the clouds of heaven andcame to the Ancient of Days and theybrought him near before him and therewas given him dominion and glory and akingdom that all people and Nations andlanguages should serve him his Dominionis neverlasting Dominion which shall notpass away and his kingdom that whichshall not not be destroyed so I'vehighlighted in red for you on the screenthere uh this you can barely see it fromwhere you are but there it is one likethe son of man it's kind of cut off onthe screen but it believe me it is therein the text my version says one like theson of man now this The Book of Danielis written in twolanguages um part of it is written inHebrew and part of it is written inAramaic and there are various reasonsfor that we won't go into today butDaniel wrote this book in two languagesand this chapter is in Aramaic and inthe in the Aramaic there is no definitearticle it it is one like a son of manit doesn't say one like the son of manthere is no definite article there is nothe word the there in the Aramaic whichmeans in the Aramaic language that thestress here is upon the quality of theindividual that Jesus is like a son ofman or the better translation is onehuman in form and the point about thisis this that God chose to presentent hisson in this prophetic Vision with aspecial emphasis upon his Humanity thankyou so much uh brother Daniel forhelping out with that so in Mark'sgospel Jesus refers to him as in Matthewand Luke repeatedly as the son ofman and so we always go back to thispassage here we think well there is ason of man figure who receives aneternal Dominion in Daniel chapter 7 andactually later on in Daniel chapter 7 weread and I haven't put this text up onthe screen there um but if you look inDaniel chapter 7 you wonder what are wegoing to do when we get to heaven are wegoing to be sitting around playing ourharps on clouds and the answer isactually no and the answer there is inDaniel chapter7 I me find in my Bible here Danielchapter 7 we read there that not onlydoes the son of man receive an eternalDominion but in Daniel 7: 27 it says thekingship and dominion and the great ofthe kingdoms under the whole heavenheaven shall be given to the Saints ofthe most high their Kingdom shall be aneverlasting Kingdom and all dominionsShall Serve and Obey him so in Danielchapter 7 not only does the son of manreceive an eternal Dominion but thesaints of God sharing that Eternalrulership over the universe with himthat's an incredible promise isn't itnow why would that be because theunfallen worlds they may know that Godis love but we have experienced that Godis love there's a difference we have anexperiential knowledge of God that theunfallen worlds do not have we know thepain and the shame of sin and thebitterness of sin and we also know thejoy of forgiveness that is something thethe unfallen worlds can never haveexperienced so when God wants people whowill Faithfully represent him throughouteternity throughout the Universe he'slooking for his Saints to Faithfullyrepresent him because we truly know thatthe Lord the Lord he is merciful andgracious and that he Delights to forgivein a way that nobody else does so ifyou're a saint of God today you havethis promise that when Jesus comes againhe will be sharing in the rulership ofthe universe withyou we're not going to be sitting aroundstrumming Harps I'm sorry for those harplovers in the church today we'll beentrusted with the Dominion of theuniverse but the point about this uh fortoday's sermon is this when Jesus spokethese words in the gospels and there arefive examples in in the gospel we'regoing to look at today um he callshimself the son of man when Jesus spokethose words and called himself the sonof man his Jewish audience did not justhear Daniel 7:13-14there's a much deeper meaning to thisthat they would be familiar with that wein the 21st century simply don't knowanythingabout because in your Bible between thebook Malachi and mat Matthew uh there'sjust like one page here between Malachiand Matthew but there was actually about500 years between Malachi and Matthewthe last book of the Old Testament andthe first book of the New Testament andthose 500 years were not some kind ofvoid where nothing happened moreliterature was produced within Judaismin those 500 years than the entire OldTestament literature that the Jews tookextremely seriously let me let me justgive you some of these examples uh umdown in in the Kum down the the kumransectaries the people the Asen down bythe river the Sea of gal the Dead Seathey wrote extensive commentaries on theOld Testament and they wrote their ownbooks such as the Damascus scroll andthe war scroll and they talk about thefinal conflict between the teacher ofrighteousness and the enemies of Godthey had an apocalyptic Vision at thetime of Jesus Christ the seant wasproduced that is the Greek translationof the Old Testament and you may say whyis that important is important becausewhen Paul is writing his Epistles mostof his quotations are not from theHebrew scriptures they're from the Greekscriptures the Greek translation of theOld Testament and there are differencesbetween the Hebrew Old Testament and theGreek translation of the Old Testamentthat are quite significant to read wealso read that uh because at the time ofJesus most Jews in Israel could notspeak Hebrew they spoke Aramaic so whena rabbi stood up in this in thesynagogue as we find Jesus reading inMark 1 or Luke 4 and he was given thescroll of the Torah to read and he wouldread it in Hebrew most of thecongregation had no idea what he wastalkingabout and because of that the Jewsproduced in those five centuriesalongside the rabbi will be standinghere somebody giving a paraphrase inAramaic of the original Hebrew so likelike I'm standing here preaching andmaybe you've got somebody standing heretranslating into another language andthose translations we have them todaythey're known as the tagim they are parAramaic paraphrases of the Old Testamentwhich means that um we know how the Jewsunderstood the Old Testament from theparaphrases that we have today those theancient tarim produced in those fivecenturies there was also the writings ofthe midrash the early writings thetraditions of the Jews that Saul waszealous for that ultimately was redactedinto the talmud after the time of JesusChrist and there was a whole bunch ofother writings that Scholars now calledShu epigraphia now that's an aw a longword Shu epigraphia but what was the Shuepigraphical writing so let's imaginetoday that I wanted to write a messageto the general conference and theyprobably wouldn't listen to me given mypast but let's say I were to write amessage to the general conference and Ididn't want I know they're going toreject me because I it's who I am so Iwould write a letter A Prophecy fromJames White I would discover it in mygrandma's um shelves at home and Idiscover this prophecy by James Whitewhich I actually wrote myself but it'swritten in James White's name and it'swritten as a prophecy it's reallyhistory dressed dressed up as prophecyand I'd say to the general conferencesaid look what I found in my basementisn't this interesting that's a Sho EPepigraphical writings because it'swritten shoog graphically that means inthe name of somebody else and there wasa whole bunch of those sh epigraphicalwritings and the Jews were very familiarwith them and they they were there weremany many dozens and dozens of thesebooks now one of them was the book ofFirstEnoch you probably heard about Enochhave you Enoch was the seventh in linefrom Adam he walked with God until hewas found no more he now lives in Heavenabove and uh Jude the brother of Jesuswriting in the uh the book of Jude isjust Paul Revelation there is only onechapter and so we just read in Jude chapJude vers14-6 he quotes from The Book of Enochand he says there it was also aboutthese things talking about the secondcoming of Jesus that Enoch in theSeventh Generation from Adam prophesiedsaying see or behold the Lord is comingwith 10, thousands of his Hol ones toexecute judgment on all and to convicteveryone of all the Deeds of ungodlinessthat they have committed in such anungodly way and of all the harsh thingsungodly Sinners have spoken against himnow Jude on the inspiration of the HolySpirit quotes from The Book of Enoch andnow the Book of Enoch was not put intothe Canon of scripture the Holy Spiritdid not see fit to add Enoch toscripture so we do not view it as acanonical book it is not on a power ofthe rest of scripture but according tothis passage here Enoch did write thisbook and it's an interesting book andthe interesting thing about the Book ofEnoch is that there is a there is onecentral figure in that book and that isthe son of man The Book of Enoch is thestory of the son of man and when youread The Book of Enoch it's almost thesame as the Book of Daniel and the Bookof Revelation there are dreams andvisions and prophecies in The Book ofEnoch that we read as Adventists and wesay I bet I know the interpretation ofthat because I know what Daniel andRevelation also say it's an interestingbook for the but for the purposes oftoday in The Book of Enoch the son ofman is the Messiah of God in The Book ofEnoch the son of man is a priest in aHeavenly temple in The Book of Enoch theson of man is the Earthly messenger andthe Heavenly exactor of the greatjudgment in The Book of Enoch the son ofman is the agent of creation hemaintains Creation in its appointedorder he is the sole source ofrighteousness he inaugurates a new eraof Peace at the climax of the ages he isthe only intermediary Between Heaven andEarth and he sits beside the Ancient ofDays on his throne and the greatjudgment is held beforehimnow when Jesus calls himself repeatedlythe son of man and we only read this inthe context of Daniel 7134 14 we havelike a a fraction of the realsignificance of what Jesus was talkingabout because in the Jewish thinking inthe Jewish way of thinking the son ofman was a Divine figure he was God onEarth Immanuel as ma the gospel writerMatthew would later call Jesus this nameof Jesus we think about the son of manas a claimed to his Humanity no thetitle of Son of Man references theDivinity of Jesus Christ and so whenJesus repeatedly calls himself the sonof man he's saying something to hisJewish audience like you need to listento what I'msaying like I am the final judge I amthe only intermediary between God andman I am the bringer of the finaljudgment I will usher in an era of Peacelike never has been seen before you needto listen to me CU I am the son of manso what does Jesus have to say about theson of man in the three synoptic gospelsand we just can look through one ofthose gospels today Matthew but thepassages they all parallels there inMatthew and in Luke and the first thingthat Jesus has to say about the son ofman is this that the son of man has theauthority to forgive sin can somebodysay Amen to that okay he has theauthority to forgive sin we pick up thisstory here in Mark chapter 2 and um thisis a well-known story to us and it sayswhen he that is Jesus returned tocapernium in verse one after some daysit was reported that he was at home somany gathered around that there was nolonger room from for them not even infront of the door and he was speakingthe word to them then some people camebringing to him a paralyzed man carriedby four of them and when they could notbring him to Jesus because of the crowdthey removed the roof above him andafter having dug through it they letdown the mat on which the paralytic laynow we are mostly familiar with thestory are we not these four friends theyhave a paralyzed friend and they theybring him to Jesus but they cannot getaccess to Jesus because there's a crowdAll Around Jesus and in this story wesee that just because the crowd isaround Jesus doesn't mean they'reactually saved by Jesus and doesn't meanthey're followingJesus when when G when the when thewoman with an issue of blood snuck upbehind Jesus in Mark chapter 6 um Jesuswas surrounded by a group of people theywere all physically touching him becausehe was being jostled by the crowd um butJesus knew that not one of them wassaved cuz when he turned around and saidwhich one of you touched me they wereall touching him but only one touchedhim with faith and that's what he knewin thatmoment and so these four friends theybring Jesus their their paralyzed friendtoJesus and they get up on the roof andthey tear the roof apart and imagineyour annoyance today if the roofsuddenly opened up here and somebody letsomebody out down on a rope from theceiling those of you sitting right hereall the dust will be falling on youmaybe you be think is there some leadpaintt in this building I don't knowmaybe there's some fiberglass comingdown upon me and we'd probably all kindof scoot to one side and the jostlearound the edges would get reallyintense but when Jesus saw what they haddone he said when Jesus saw their faithhe said to the paralytic son your sinsare forgiven now it said did not saythat Jesus saw the paralytics faith hesaw the faith of the four friends whobrought the paralytic to Jesus and whenJesus saw their faith he realize thattheir faith was expressed by theirdeeds you see faith is not just knowingabout Jesus but faith is an active trustthat Jesus is sufficient for yourdeepest needs faith is expressed by howyou live your life it is not just atestimony of Faith you live your faithJohn 3:16 does not say that whosoeverhath faith in him should not perish buthave everlasting life the word for faithis pistus Paul uses the word pistus anawful lot through his Epistles but Johnuses the verb piso which means tobelieve and so Jesus says in John 3:16that whosoever believes in Him shouldnot perish but have everlasting lifethat means you live your faith for JesusChrist you do not just come to churchand have a profession of faith and goout and live a secular life we are 7-DayAdventists as well as 7th Day Adventiststhat means we live and express our faithin every day whether we're in businesswhether we're in school or in college orwhether we retired or whatever God hasplaced us to do in this world we liveour faith and when Jesus saw the faithof these four friends he rewarded themby by forgiving the paralytic Mark doesnot record whether the faith belongs tothe four friends alone or to the friendsand the paralytic what we can say isthose four friends had a living faiththey expressed in deeds and it was a afaith strong enough to intercede onbehalf of their friend as in the laterstory in these gospels of us and hisdying daughter and the syrop phenicianwoman the woman from Lebanon today and ademon-possessed daughter Jesus does notrequire the hurting party to ask forhealing in these stories Jesus acts andheals when men and women of Faithintercede on behalf ofothers this is a story aboutintercessory prayer and intercessoryprayer is just as important today asphysically bringing to people to Jesuswas back when he walked on planet Earthbecause the answer we receive is notdepends on on how we bring people toJesus but on the power and willingnessof Jesus to respond and Jesus looks downat the paralytic and instead of talkingabout his physical problems he talksabout Sin notice the text does not sayuh he said to The Sinner says he said tothe paralytic everybody can see hisphysicalproblems but only Jesus sees the heartof the problem and the Heart of theproblem is really the problem of thehuman heart is Hardness of Heart thePharisees there they had hardened Heartsyou might say they were sclerotic intheir hearts and Jesus looks at whateverybody knows is a paralytic andrather than the dealing dealing with theparalysis Jesus deals with somethingmuch more fundamental to that humanbeing and that is the question of sinyou see everybody has a uniquefingerprintyes but in God's eyes everybody has aunique configuration of sin in theirlives there's nothing more unique to youas an individual than the impact of sinin yourlife everybody struggles with sin indifferent ways everybody struggles withdifferent sins and when Jesus sees hisparalytic he doesn't deal with thesurface problem which is the physicalparalysis he deals with the deepestissue in that man's life which issin many of the scribes and leaderspresent there believe that this man'sdisease was a direct result of sin wesee that attitude later in John chapter9 that the fact that this man was aparalytic was evidence that he wasliving under God's judgment as aneternally Lost Sinner and therefore thisparalytic could have no Assurance ofGod's favor but every day with paralysishe was reminded that God was displeasedwith him and that even though he wasphysically alive he was eternally lostand he was just waiting for the day todie when his pain could be put at an endthis is a man without hope now in thisstory it seems that there is a linkbetween the paralytic sins and hisparalysis but neither the par neitherthe paralytic nor his friends even askfor physical healing when they let theman down before Jesus they are simplysilent before Jesus it doesn't say theyask for healing doesn't say they ask forforgiveness they lower the man downthrough the roof and he lies there andthe man is trusting that Jesus knowswhat he needs to be done for this manand there are times in our lives when wedon't know what to say to God when we'vemessed up and we're overwhelmed by shameand guilt and we didn't simply kneeldown beside our beds and we're justsilent beforeGod trusting that he can read the heartand he can do for us what we don't knowwe need to done for ourselves and thathe can pinpoint the the innermost issuesthat that need a resolution in our livesthe four friends are silent before Jesusbut Jesus reads the paralytics innermostthoughts and when Jesus speaks to himthe first issue he addresses is notphysical healing but spiritual healingthat is forgiveness for sin son saysJesus your sons are forgiven you everyeverybody can see the physical paralysismany assume he is condemned by Godbecause of the physical paralysis butonly Jesus can read the paralytics heartsee the paralytics deepest need and likefor many of us today was not physicalrestoration but reconciliation withGod daily assured of God's rejectionthrough his physical paralysis his was alife without hope seemingly spirituallydead and awaiting physical death andwhen Jesus pronounced answers thatparalytic forgiven it's interesting inthe story that there issilence there is no further request theparalytic doesn't lie there and say wellit's nice that you could forgive meJesus but what about my physicalproblems here he doesn't say that heknows that Jesus has forgiven him heknows that he is now reconciled with Godhe knows that there is therefore nocondemnation for him he knows that hehas the Assurance of eternal life and sohe doesn't bother asking for physicalhealing because his most serious issueissue his spiritual paralysis has beenhealed by JesusChrist his deepest need has been met theburden of Despair has rolled from hisheart the Peace of forgiveness now restsupon his face the guilty sinner has beenpardoned his relationship with God hasbeen healed he has the promise ofEternity and in verse 10 the PhariseesGrumble about this and they say does notJesus know that only God has theauthority to for to forgive sins andJesus turns to the Pharisees and this iswhat he says he says but so that you mayknow that the son of man has Authorityon Earth to forgive sins he said to theparalytic I say to you stand up takeyour mat and go to yourhomes and so the son of man demonstrateshis ability his right to forgive sins byhealing this paralytic doing somethingthat no doctor of his time could do forhim as we said a few minutes ago thereis nothing more distinctive about aperson than their sins but we now livein a country where to talk about Sin isunfashionable we no longer talk aboutSin in America do we we talk about Ihave issues I have problems I havechallenges I havedifficulties I have compulsive disordersanything but sin nobody talks about Sinanymore but as our society is turningits back on God so we also reject theconcept of sin in our Western societytoday nothing is morally wrong becauseeverything is morally relative we havesituational ethics rather than absoluteethics from scripture nowadayseverything is permissible and withoutthe moral boundaries of the TenCommandments which Christians are tokeep by the power of the in infillingspirit of the Hol the holy spirit of Godwithout the B entries of the decalog oursociety is slowlycollapsing it's true our society iscollapsing our community IES are dyingour families are breaking apart ourmarriages are collapsing and this isbecause we've turned our back not juston God but when you turn your back onGod you turn you back on the wholeconcept ofsin and as a result of our turning ourback on God we're now W witnessing anepidemic of sin in our society falsehoodthe one who speaks truth in the publicsquare is to be condemned above allothers you can say anything you want inAmerica today as long as it's a line aslong as it's not the truth but you speakthe truth and you will be destroyed inmodernAmerica we are witnessing an epidemic ofEnvy of Anger of racism and tribalism ofpersonal rage drug and alcohol addictiontobacco and violence physical sexualassault murder carjackings I sawyesterday that an FBI agent had his carum carjacked in Washington DC an FBIagent had his car carjacked it's hard tobelieve um we have burglaries break-inskidnappings hostage takings humantrafficking sexual slavery childhoodsexual abuse adultery fornication openmarriages polygamy rape the occultwitchcraft spells curses fetish worshipssexual uh Satanic ritual abuse we havethe idolatry of career money Sport andsex all of these are sins and all of thescars that you carry in your mind andbody today are the result of sin everyscar that we carry today is the resultof sin and to the extent that a societyupholds The Ten Commandments as God'smoral law for Humanity the pain of sinis minimized in that Fallen Society butto the extent that a society turns itsback on the word of God and rejects theauthority of the ten commandments so thepain of sin is maximized within thatsociety and that's exactly where we'regoing as a nationtoday the decalogue the moral law wasgiven us as a protection in our fallenstate to protect us from the worstimpact ofsin the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomychapter 5 is not called The TenCommandments it's called the 10 davimwhich means the 10 promises The TenCommandments are 10 Promises of God toyou as if if we all followed theCommandment Thou shalt notkill that would mean we would live in asociety free from any fear of physicalviolence can you imagine what a societythat would be like no fear that anybodywould ever hurt youphysically a society that upholds theseventh commandment Thou shalt notcommit adultery is a a society whereevery husband every wife would have theabsolute certainty that their spousspouse will always be faithful to themimagine what that would do for everymarriage in theland a society that upholds theprinciple Thou shalt not steal means youcould leave your wallet in therestaurant by accident and know thatwhen you come back it's still going tobe there it means you never need to lockyour door you never need to lock yourcar and all of things we do to maintainour security in our Western Society arethe end result of turning our back onGod's moral lawand it is this that Jesus came to saveus from the son of man has the authoritynot to forgive sins in general he hasthe authority today to forgive your sinandmine he knows the impact of sin in yourlife he knows the Contours of how sinhas affected you he knows the privatecherished sins the addictions the thingswe're ashamed of we don't even admit toour spouses he knows them all and he hasthe authority to set you free today fromthat burden of guiltnot just to set you free from thepresence of sin in your life but hegives you the power to set you to setyou free from the power of sin andbecause of what he did on Calvary He SetYou Free from the penalty ofsin so the first thing about Jesus asthe son of man he has the authority toforgive your sins todayHallelujah isn't it a nice thing to bedeclared innocent even when you'reguilty he has the authority to give sinnow the next thing the son of man has hehas authority over the Sabbathday we come ac across this later in Markchapter 2 it says there one SabbathJesus was going through the grain Fieldsverse 23 and 24 and as they made theirway his disciples began to pluck headsof grain the Pharisees said to him lookwhy are they doing what is not lawful onthe Sabbath day and so the discipleswere being followed by the Pharisees thePharisees were professional faultfinders they were following Jesus inorder to trip him up and catch him outwith anything he said or did and soJesus is under like 24/7 supervision allright um You I could talk about mymother-in-law at this spot but probablynot CU maybe some of you havemothers-in-law that you love but I cantell you that when a mother-in-law comesto live with you you tread carefully doyounot well most people do if you want tosurvive the experience so anyway thePharisees are watchingJesus they're looking to find fault andthey criticize the disciples forplucking the ground rain and rubbing itin their hands the Jews had hundreds ofrules about how to honor the fourthCommandment and so some schools ofJudaism said if you have a candle athome and it goes out you cannot strike aflint to get that candle going again butyou can only light it if you bringanother lit candle to it and touch Wickto Wick and then you then you haven'tcommitted broken the Sabbath day and uhso they had all kinds of rules about theSabbath they were protecting the Sabbathin their own minds and the disciples arecriticized for getting some heads ofgrain to eat on the Sabbath day andJesus responds first in M Mark 2:27 witha principle this is the principle thenJesus said to them the Sabbath was madefor my versin says humankind King Jamessays the Sabbath was made for man andnot man for the Sabbath that's theprinciple that is God gave us theSabbath as agift it's like having a weeklyThanksgiving don't you look forward toThanksgiving most people do we lookforward to the the Sabbath because it'san a time when we can be grateful to Godand we can share in the blessings thatGod has given us the Sabbath is not somuch a day for not doing things it is aday to be a blessing to other peopleMark 2:28 it says so says Jesus and thisis the authority under which he speaksthe son of man is Lord even of theSabbath now God instituted the Sabbathat Creation in Genesis 2 and ver3 andnow Jesus as the son of man presumes tohave authority over the Sabbath andtherefore he has authority over all ofGod's creation therefore he isGod and the Sabbath is a beautiful thingbecause wherever you are in planet Earthno matter what ethnic background youhave or what what your economic statusesor what language you speak whether youlive on a mountain or on an islandeverybody gets 24 hours of promise withGod just because you're rich doesn'tgive you more Sabbath and if you'reimpoverished it doesn't give you lessSabbath God has an equal desire to meetwith all ofhumanity and he wants to meet with youduring every Sabbath day it's his giftto you it's a weekly date know I Isometimes speak with missionaries and Isay to the husbands um when did you lasttake your wife out for ameal and they look kind of sheepish andratherguilty and I say like once a month andthey kind to look down like every sixmonths and they look down like once ayear and they're kind of looking downthey're shaking their head and the wifemouths at me she says nevernever all right and I tell you this ifyou want to keep a marriage alive yousets time aside for the couple in thatmarriage you've got to spend timetogether to keep a marriagealive and to keep your walk with Godalive God has already committed those 24hours for you as an individual for youto get to know him more deeply it's hisgift to you but how do we apply theprinci of the Sabbath well immediatelythere's a story and when when Mark wrotethis there was no chapters and verses sonow he gives us a story that explainshow we are to keep the Sabbath day andit Go the story goes like this again heentered the synagogue that is Jesus anda man was there with a withered handthey watched him to see whether he wouldcure him on the Sabbath so that theymight accuse him now the the word heremeans dried up or withered or stiff itwas a paralyzed hand and according tothe Pharisees if somebody had alife-threatening injury that they woulddie of you were allowed you werepermitted to help them to stop them fromdying but if somebody had a chronicinjury you couldn't do anything to healthem until the Sunday arrived so youcould save life on the Sabbath like youcould stop somebody from dying let's sayif a bull gour you then you could youknow bound up the wounds that would notbe considered breaking the Sabbath butyou couldn't then carry that man to ahospital to get help you had to waituntil the Sabbath was over so the Jewshad their own rules about what what itmeant to keep the Sabbath day and theywere watching Jesus so they weren'tlistening to what he was saying and theyweren't watching what he was doingbecause they wanted to know aboutsalvation they were watching Jesusbecause they wanted an excuse to killhim now Jesus already had a reputationin this uh beginning of the thirdchapter of this gospel they already callhim a Sabbath breaker A blasphemer AFriend of Sinners and an apostate fromreligious custom now would Jesus healthe man with a withered hand or not theywould deny Jesus the opportunity to dogood on the Sabbath while theysimultaneously conspired to kill him onthe Sabbath the hypocrisy is outstandit'sastonish so what happens and Jesus saidto the man with a withered hand comeforward now I don't know if you have aphysicalhandicap but in 2017 I was climbing inthe Canadian Rockies went up to see afossil at the the burger Shale which iskind of the it's like the death Nellevolutionary theoryand it's the heart of the intelligentdesign movement and and you go up with aguide It's a 10-m trek up and down andon the way down it was getting dark andit was raining and I slipped on a screeslope and I was sliding down and Icaught my left foot under the root of atree my foot went over the root of thetree and I was hanging down the otherside my foot was on the other the topside of the root and my leg wasshattered in many places it wasn't apleasantexperienceand uh about 6 weeks later I wasspeaking somewhere and it was summer andI couldn't I could barely stand up andthe doctors said you need to keep yourleg high in the air so when I was at achurch and they put me in a lazy boy andthey Lifted Me High onto the platform inmy lazy boy uh with my legs stucksticking high in the air so I was kindof preaching from like a like anastronaut looking up at space and it wasan awful position cuz I only had a pairof shorts on all right and I was veryconscious about sitting there andeverybody staring at me as I waspreaching up there on the platform I cantell you this um those who have aphysical handicap don't want people tostare at it they don't wantit people don't want you to comment onwhat's gone wrong with your eye or whydo you have a limp or what's wrong withyour arm people with handicaps tend tocover them up they don't want to be madea public spectacle and yet Jesus says tothis man with a M with a hand he sayscome forward so this man has to choosebecause he knows the attitude of theJews towards Jesus he knows they'relooking for an excuse to kill him hedoesn't want to become a theologicalfootball where you know is Jesus goingto heal him or not then everybody'sgoing to accuse him of being a sinner aswell and so Jesus says come forward andthen he said to the Pharisees is itlawful to do good or to do harm on theSabbath that is a question discussingthis the man with a withered hand andthe second half of the question is tosave life or to kill in the second halfof the question Jesus is no longertalking about the man with the witheredhand he's talking about his relationshipwith the Pharisees is it lawful to dogood or to do harm on the Sabbath that'sthe first question that Jesus asks andthe important thing here is that forJesus human suffering presents a moralimperative for his children to alleviatethat suffering even on the Sabbathday when good needs to be done whenthere is humansuffering there can be no neutrality onthe part of God's people and a failureto do good is to contribute to theperpetuation of the underlying evilit is th thus not simply permissible toheal on the Sabbath it is right to healon the Sabbath day the Sabbath day isdesigned by God so we have a chance tolift the burdens of otherpeople people who may never help us backpeople who have no way of repaying usbut in blessing other people we bringthe presence of God into their lives wehave the joy of service and we alleviatethe attacks of Satan on that child ofGod the Sabbath is a day to lift hishuman suffering it's not just a day togo home and sleep after thesermon it's a day to bless those who aresufferingtoday and the authorities it says therein the text they weresilent he looked around at them withanger he was grieved at their Hardnessof Heart and said to the man stretch outyourhand stretch out your hand theAuthority's response to this man'ssuffering is silence for those religiousleaders True Religion consists oftheological correctness ritual Purityand fulfilling some legal requirementthe greatest enemy of divine love ishardness of the human heart andindifference to the suffering of othersthe test of all theology is its responseto the weakest and most vulnerablemembers of oursociety as God commands the Israelitesto particularly care for the widows theorphans and the aliens within theirmidstso Jesus asks us to respond to sufferingHumanity today a litmus test of TrueReligion is how does it respond to thosewho aresuffering now in our church in 1985 weset up Adra that's the Adventistdevelopment and relief agency that's ourinstitutional response to the problem ofhuman poverty poverty enslaves people assurely as chains do poverty enslaves themind and it denies you using yourgod-given gifts because you're sofocused on just getting some bread inyour mouthtoday and so we the church establishedAdra 1985 and it's a good thing I usedto work forra for many years in CentralAsia in the Horn ofAfrica that doesn't absolve us of ourpersonal responsibility to help those inneed within our sphere ofinfluence when I was working fadra I waswalking down a foreign Capital City uhthe streets were were dark there was acivil war going on it was dangerous andthere was a beggar an old an old grandmasitt at the side of the road and shereached out to her hand to me and I waswalking down the street and in my pocketI had a $100 bill and I had five manatsfive manats was worth like$2 and they were both kind of folded upand I reached into my hand and it waskind of dark and it was kind of like athrowaway moment I reached into my handsand just handed it to her as I walked onI carried on walking with my colleague Iwas going somewhere and behind me Iheard thesegasps I looked around and she waspraising God I thought what's shepraising God for so I reached into mypocket and pulled out my $100 note ohI've got $2 left I just gave her a $100bill bymistake well when I saw her Joy itwasn't a mistake that was the kind ofcountry where people would knock on mydoor and they'd say we want the scrapsfrom your food cuttings when you prepareyour your vegetable soup I neverprepared food okay um I I I lived on thehoof you might say for many years untilI got married and entered the promisedland but you know uh guys when youraised at home it's land of slaverythat's Egypt you get everything providedbut there's rules and one day you getmarried that's the promised land andbetween the land of Egypt and land ofthe kanaan you got to go through theWilderness all right some of you knowwhat I'm talking about I was in thatWilderness experience so I pretty muchgrazed wherever Icould and um that was the kind ofcountry where people would knock on yourdoor and say if you're preparingvegetable soup just give me the cut offsgive me the the gratings and we'll boilthat for our family to eat it wasimpoverished systems do collapseovernight people are thrown on thestreet one day that's going to happen tous and so the test of all Theology andreligion in God's eyes is your responseto human suffering we may have Adra andwe may have an offering in this churchfor the Doras fund or something else orthe worthy student fund but when Godputs somebody in your life in front ofof you with a physical or otherwise needhow do yourespond go and see the pastor go and seebrother Danny go and see the elders goand see the treasurer go and see theprincipal of the school no if God putssomebody in front of you he's puttingthat person in front of you so that youcan demonstrate God's mercy to thatperson and then it's your responsibilityas a follower of Jesus to do whatever ittakes to lift that person out of theirkind ofsuffering God gives us theseopportunities the the poor you willalways have you with you says Jesuslater in in the Gospel of John preciselyin order that we may demonstrate thelove of God in a fallenworld and so the man with a witheredhand in this story is merely aporn if Jesus makes a habit of violatingthe Sabbath the authorities will have anexcuse to kill him if he does not healthe withered hand Jesus will be allowedto live if he does heal the withed handthe authorities will seek his deathand Jesus commands the man with awithered hand to stretch out your handand this is the moment this handicappedman most feared to expose his handicapto the public L imagine his hand is heldaway in his clothes and Jesus saysstretch out your hand he doesn't wanteverybody to watch his hand he's ashamedof his hand maybe people have laughed athim over the years because of his handthat hand has condemned him to Povertymaybe life is a beggar he doesn't wantto stretch forth his hand and incur theanger of the religious authorities hehas a decision to make just like thosefour friends have a decision to makewhen they bring their friend to Jesuswill they act on their faith no matterhow imperfect it may be and by the graceof God and to God's glory it says hestretched it out and as he stretched outhis hand his hand was restored should heexpose himself to Jesus and take a riskof faith and act on jesus' command onceagain in the gospel of Mark faith is nota private confession of Faith but it isa public risk that Jesus is Worthy offaith in a hostile world and jesus'compassion is H costly so the Phariseeswent out and immediately conspired withthe herodians against him how to destroyhim now the Pharisees they they theywere like the um the heroes of theCommon People 100 years before Jesuslived there was ayrian King calledAntiochus epiphanies he conqueredJerusalem and he was going to sacrificepigs in the temple and there was a partyarose in opposition to antias epiphaniesthey became known as the party of thelaw and they said we will adhere to thelaw of God not to Pagan Greek customsand they became known as the Phariseesand in one day 800 of them werecrucified by that Greek king so thePharisees in the time of Jesus were thepopular Defenders ofJudaism we've given them a bad R becauseof the gospels but at the time of Jesusthe Pharisees were the the trueDefenders of the true faith and they'paid for it with their lives in largenumbers and theherodians they're a political party theysupport Herod who's been appointed byRome so the herodians are the naturalpolitical enemies of the Pharisees thisis like Republicans and Democratspolarized oper end opposite ends of thepolitical extreme but they are unitedbecause they have a common enemy thecommon enemy is JesusChrist in this gospel here in chapterone you see the gospel in every chapterin chapter one of of this gospel Jesusis living in the in the cities andthere's a leper living in thecountryside and they meet in the middleof that chapter chapter one and Jesuscleanses leper he doesn't just heal himhe cleanses him and after that the lepergoes and lives in the cities and Jesushas to live in thecountryside so not only does Jesuscleanse the leper he changes places withaleper you following in that story youmay not think of it in those terms butin the very first chapter of this gospelwe see that Jesus doesn't just come tocleanse us of death dealing diseaseleprosy or sin but but he actuallychanges places trades places and takesour place and we receive the benefitthat he had that is living with withhuman other human beings in this chapterhere Jesus chooses to heal a man with awithered hand a man that nobody caresabout a man at the bottom of thesocioeconomic pile knowing that it willcause the elites of his Society to seekfor hisdeath they go out and they conspire howto destroy him Jesus in this story isgiving him is all the suffering Humanitymight be healed physically and Alsospiritually reconciled with God that iswhat it means for Jesus to be the lordof theSabbath so when we live as ambassadorsfor Jesus today we don't just pointpeople to the one who can forgive themof their sins we are seeking toalleviate human suffering and pointpeople to the fact there is a God wholoves them there's a son of man who'scoming again for them and they can havethat promise of eternal life as wellthe Sabbath is not just a day to go tochurch eat and sleep in your bed at homeit's a day for the love of God to shinethrough you like neverbefore then the third thing about theson of man he's the he has the authorityto forgive sin the second thing is hislord of the Sabbath the third thing hewill be killed and rise again we findthis in Mark 8:31 there's actually threePassion predictions in this gospel we'lljust look at one from now says then hebegan to teach them that the son of manmust undergo great suffering and berejected by the elders the chief priestsand the scribes and be killed and afterthree days he would rise again that isthe son of man was to go through greatsuffering and he was to be killed by thereligious leaders of the Jewish peoplethe son of man has an Earthly role thatis to suffer to die and to rise againbefore he fills his end time role as wasread for us in our scripture reading athis second coming now the necessity ofJesus as Messiah to die was a shock tothose disciples they didn't need a deadMessiah Peter and James and John andJudas when they followed Jesus theirnumber one topic of conversation waswho's the greatest in the kingdom ofGod you can imagine that James and Johnthe sons of thunder probably wantedMinistry ofDefense um Peter probably wanted to bethe Prime Minister Judas probably wantedto be the treasur of the kingdom of Godyou can imagine these discussions goingon amongst themselves they have no needfor a dead Messiah they need Jesus to bealive for their desire for politicalpower and position to befulfilled and Jesus responds to theirShock by saying this he says he calledThe Crowd with his disciples and said tothem if any that means it's not just the12 but anybody here today if any wantsto become my follower let them denythemselves and take up their cross andfollow me now I've put that in red andgreenuh this when when you read thescriptures in another language there areshades of meaning we don't get inEnglish so let them deny themselves isis technically an arist imperative itmeans that's a decision to turn our backon our fallen selves it's a that's thepoint of conversion you take up theircross that means you understand that ifI'm going to follow Jesus I'm going tobe willing to face persecution therewill be persecution for my faith it's adecision you make before it happens sowhen it happens you already know whatyour response is going to beand then he says follow me that's apresent imperative not an ARS imperativewhich means Jesus says once you onceyou've chosen to follow me and you'vechosen to pick up your cross you'rewilling to face persecution you are thento follow me every day of your lifefollowing Jesus isn't just something youdecide to do when you get baptized isnot just something you decide to on aSabbath morning it's a daily reality inyourlife the mention of the Cross wouldsound terrible to those first disciplesbecause they knew what crucicrucifiction was allabout the cross was a fearful way oftorturing somebody todeath it truly was but Jesus isaffirming In this passage here thatdiscipleship includes within it thereality of suffering and persecutionbecause you bear the name of Christ notbecause of who youare if we are to follow Jesus we willface persecution in this world Jesus isexplicit about this in John John 15 andJohn 16 the world does not hate youbecause of who you are the world hatesyou because you are a follower of JesusChrist and because you bear his name youare a witness of the power of Jesus tosave and the world does not want thatwitness to go out therefore it wants topersecute the followers of Jesus Christand we sit here in Dallas Texas we havea lot of freedoms but I can tell youserving with Adventist Frontier missionsthat persecution is the norm it is notthe exception on planet Earth today andthe fires of persecution are gettingworse and worse around theworld uh there's a the US statedepartment has its Commission onInternational religious freedom us cf.goov uh and they produce an annualreport on the state of religious libertyin every country around the world and ifyou take the time to read like the lastthree or five years reports you candownload it for free it comes out aboutevery February you will see thatpersecution and intolerance of religiousminorities in general and of Christiansin particular is getting worse and worseand worse almost every weekend as we sithere in Dallas jihadis from northernNigeria um they they come to a Christianvillage they burn the village to theground and they hack with machetes andthey shoot till everybody is dead and itdoesn't make the Evening News anywherein the world cuz we're transfixed aboutthe Vikings or theCowboys Christians are killed today withimpunity and it doesn't make thenews if other religions are attacked itmakes the worldwide news but not ifChristians areattacked and we see this in AFM we seethe reality of persecution when peoplechoose to follow Jesus it inspires asatanic hatred because Satan doesn'twant anybody to follow JesusChrist so if we are to follow Jesus I'msaying this to you not because I'm hereto entertain you I'm saying this becausewe need to know this if you bear thename of Christ you must be prepared forpersecutionand if you bear the name of Christ andyou are persecuted for the name ofChrist then there can be no other godsin yourlife and in the last three years we justcome through a pandemic where there weremandates I don't care which side of thefence you came down on those mandatesbut the bottom line was this bottom linewas this we were asked to choose betweenour conscience and our career ourconscience and our bank account ourconscience and our professionallicensing our conscience and being wellthought of socially our conscience andour social reputation our conscience andour grandparents are our grandkids isthat not true somebody say yes out thereyes yes it'strue and we talk about honoring theSabbath day the final test of humanityis the fourth Commandment the Sabbathday but we saw in the pandemic that ifif we are breaking the first commandmentyou shall have no other gods before mewe're not going to make it through tothe fourthCommandment because we'll go along withthe the coercion and mandates of thisworld because we have other gods in ourLiv life and we're not willing tosacrifice for thoseGods am I speaking the truth here I I'mspeaking the truth so while we talkabout the Sabbath day is Adventist wellright and proper the first commandmentis you'll have no other gods beforeme and if there are other gods in yourlife you're not going to survive thefinalpersecution because you want to hold onto thosegods and you don't want to give up thatcareerand you want to keep that nice housewith a mortgage that goes withit therefore you will be compelled to doto accept the mark of the beast becauseyou have false gods in yourlife that is why the first commandmentis you shall have no other gods beforeme because if there are other gods inyour life Satan can compel you to tobreak Commandments 2through1 persecution is part offollowing Jesus now Jesus says I I wantyou to denyself Jesus does not talk about denyingstuff to yourself that's like goingwithout chocolate free year he's nottalking about that he's not talkingabout the asceticism of the monks whereyou live on a restricted diet for a fewweeks or for a fewyears Jesus is not talking about denyingum yourself you know watching NFL gamesor eating your favorite food or going toyour favorite restaurant whatever YourPersonal Pleasures in life are he'stalking about denyingself and when we look through thisgospel the number one problem thosedisciples have among all otherproblems is their desire for Prestigefor power for position the ability tocoerce and force another human beingthat's the number one problem thesedisciples have all through thisparticular gospel so to denyself means that I'm going to deny mydesire for position in the kingdom ofGodnow as a pastor I can tell younominating committee time reveals thedepth of people's Christianexperience some people think they have adivine right to be the headElder now I don't know this congregationfrom ad reev I don't know anybody inthis congregation other than brotherDanny sent me a few emails so I'm notmaking any points about thiscongregation I'm talking here in generalall right there are some people whobelieve that their family has a divineright to always have the Sabbath SchoolSuperintendent job or I have a divineright to somehow always be the headDeacon or head Deaconess there are somepeople who want who have no position insociety and therefore they seek positionin the church because that's the onlyplace they can exercise authority oversomebodyelse and there are some people who playgames in order to force people out ofjobs that they want in thechurch and so Jesus says if you're goingto follow me if you're going to Bear myname you're not going to have those thatinfighting that that PO politicking thatsmearing of other people's reputationsyou're not going to be jostling forposition and Power in my church becauseI'm the king of the church I'm the headof the church says Jesus and allauthority comes from me and everybody'sjust part of the body but the head isChrist these two commands they paralleleach other the inward denial of mydesire for power and popularity andPrestige and position is mirrored by myexternal willingness to face persecutionfor the name ofChrist Jesus gives us three reasons herethree times you get the word for orbecause for those who want to save theirlife will lose it and those who losetheir life for my sake and for the sakeof the Gospel will save it four whatwill it profit them to gain the wholeworld and to Forfeit their life indeedwhat can they give in return for theirlife Jesus gives some really goodreasons as to why we need to take histeachings uh on disciples ship veryseriously and then Jesus concludes thislittle passage by talking about himselfas the son of man so he starts in Mark8:31 that says the son of man is to dieand then he concludes this passage Mark8:38 after his discussion on what itmeans to follow him with this passagehere 8:38 where he says those who areashamed of me and of my words in thisadulterous and sinful generation of themthe son of man will also be ashamed whenhe comes in the glory of his father withthe Holy Angels So In this passage hereJesus starts out by talking about theson of man in his Earthly role that ishe came to die and then he concludes itby talking about the son of man in hisend time role that means Jesus is comingagain and some people and someChristians only live their life in thelights of Calvary and the and the astime goes on the shadows of Calvary aregetting longer and longer but we'reAdventists and we live our life not justin the shadows of Calvary and that thoseShadows getting longer and longer we'reAdventists we're living in the brightever brightening door of the secondcoming of Jesus Christ which gives uslight as to how we must live our livestoday and so if you only live your lifethinking about Jesus dying on Calvarybut without realizing that he's comingagain for his own then if there's noEternal consequence for how you liveyour life then following Jesus todaybecause he died for me and all the restof it then the Christianity just becomesan ethical option in life but if werealize that he's coming again In thispassage with the clouds and the angelsand Glory then we realize that how wefollow Jesus today has Eternalconsequences it'sEternal and that desire for eternitythat God has planted in your heart isonly possible when we follow the son ofman not just because he came and liveddied and rose again but because he'scoming again and he's coming again forhisown this is the role of the son of manthe son of man has authority to forgivesin the son of man is Lord of theSabbath the son of man came to give hislife the fourth thing out of five isthis the son of man didn't just come todie but he came to give his life aransom formany now this is where Jesus really getsto the heart of thegospel and In this passage here Jesus iswalking into Jerusalem and two of thosedisciples James and John those sons ofthunder they come up to Jesus withoutthe other 10 disciples knowing about itand they said Jesus when you come in theClouds Of Glory Grant us the one of uswill sit at your right and one of uswould sit at your left hand that we wantto be the closest ones to you in theKingdom of Glory so that when Jesus whenyou come get in the Clouds Of Glory thewhole universe will see us James andJohn aswell that's quite a requestyes that's quite a request and then itsays Jesus has a conversation with themabout it we won't go into it now um buthe essentially denies some their requestbut it says when the 10 heard thisthere's the other 10 disciples theybegan to be angry with James and JohnJohn now notice this the disciples areangry because they think James and Johnhave got a better position than them inthe kingdom ofGod that they've stolen a march on themthat they've kind of got ahead of themthat they've kind of done a sneaky likeum what do you call them football like atrick play or something and they'vesuddenly they' they've got a a spiritualtouchdown here the disciples are angrybecause James and John have got ahead ofhim in the kingdom of God earlier inthis chapter um Jesus is sitting downand the crowds are bringing theirchildren to Jesus and the disciples aresaying no no no the master is too busydon't bring your children to Jesus andit says that it's the same verb Jesuswas angry with the TW and said sufferthe little children to come unto me soJesus is angry when PE when we stopother people coming to know Jesus forthemselves the disciples are angry whenthey think someone's going to get aheadof them in the kingdom of God thosedisciples have got a long way to godon't youagreemaybe somebody here is like one of those10maybe somebody here is angry thatsomebody got a job that you think youneed in thechurch maybe there's somebody here who'supset that why is he The Pianist and notme or why does he lead out the singingand not her uh why am I not asked topreach when she or he is asked to preachI don'tknow as I said I don't know anybody inthiscongregation but if the holy spirit isspeaking to your heart then listen towhat the holy spirit issaying so Jesus summons theTW and this is what he says he says youknow that among the Gentiles Those whomthey recognize as their rulers Lord itover them and their great ones aretyrants overthem greatness in among Earthly kingdomsis defined by your physical power andyour ability to coersothers the greater your ability toimpose your will on other people thegreater youare that's how Earthsocieties viewpower um my wife is Russian I read a lotof Russian literature if you wantsomething that really challenges youread some of the Russian literaturedoovi or tolto are greatexamples but there is a story um Crimeand Punishment when I got married mywife gave me a book it was called crimeand punishment she said you need to readthis it's a great novel it's one of thegreatest novels ever written and a yearlater she gave me a book by the tallstory called called the idiot I thoughtoh that's a nice book so I read thatthrough and the next year for ChristmasI got War and Peace byTolstoy I started to suspect my wife wassending me a message with a book she wasgiving me and the next year she gave meH history's 100 greatest dictators I wassure she was sending me a message so Igot her a book for for Valentine's Dayshortly thereafter called the emperorthe emper the Emperor of all maladiesthe history of the treatment of cancernow I thought it was very romantic itgift to give for Valentine's Day my wifedid not think likewise anyway I wouldrecommend the book for you the Emperorof all maldis it's the history of thetreatment of cancer it's a fascinatingstory goes all the way back to 2000 BCin ancient Egypt the firstrecords but now how did I get on tothat sometimes these things come to mymind I'm not sure where they comefrom andum sorryyeah yeah there's other books yeah I'mtrying to rewind time here 30 seconds souh anyway um yes doovi crime andpunishment in that story there's a guycalled Rodan Roman rascalov Romanovthat's the name of this character andhe's wandering through the streets of StPetersburg and he sees an old moneylender squeezing the last few penniesout of a single homeless mother with herstarving child that the mother wants tospend those Pennies on on some milk forthe child and the money lender issqueezing her demanding her money backand and the the the the storiesbasically the the philosophical musingsof this Romanov character he says wellif if I kill this money lender I helpthis mother feed her starving child butSociety calls me a murderer but how isit that who do we Define as the GreatMen of human history Napoleon bonapartAlexander the Great and so forth theyare great men precisely because they'vekilled Millions so if I kill one I'm anevil man if I kill Millions I'm a greatman in human history how does does thatworkout and that's what the the the story isdiscussing what ismorality we should read these books asAdventist because they explore complexmoralquestions and Jesus says here that thegreat rulers inhistory are those who can coers othersthey are tyrants overthem that's how the world definesgreatness but then Jesus says this I putit up in read there he says but it isnot thus amongyou that is this Jesus does not say itwill not be like this among you he usesthe present tense he says it is not thisway among you who are in My Kingdomwhich means if you call if you say thatyou're in the kingdom of God then youcannot look to coers or dominatesomebodyelse if you're in my kingdom you thereis no place for me dominating you for mecoercing you for me imposing my will onanother now the implication of this isthat if you say you're in my kingdom butyou're seeking to do dominate somebodyelse or coerce somebody else the veryAct of dominating them or coercing themactually places you outside the kingdomyou think you're trying toserve we are to respect the convictionsof our brothers and sisters we may notalways agree with them but let's justtalk turkey here I know we're Adventistswe don't always eat turkey I don't eatturkey let's talk turkey here soan wehave in England my understanding ofJesus when I was 16 is very different towhat it is now at the age of51 I recognize that God has grown me andhe's knocked some hard edges off me andhe shapedme and I'm grateful that those who were51 when I was 16 didn't condemn me tooutter Darkness cuz I saw thingsslightlydifferently in this church here we havepeople who are young in age and alsoyoung in their Walk With Jesus we havepeople who are more maturechronologically they're gifted with grayhair and they are more gifted in theirtheir understanding of who Jesus is andthose who are more gifted who've beenwalking with Jesus for longer it is notour right privilege or position in thekingdom of God to damn or criticizesomebody who has a slightly less matureview of Jesus Christ we are gratefulthey are following him and we can saythis is what God has done for me maybehe can do the same thing for you sowithin the body of Christ there is to bespace and Grace for every disciple togrow in understanding over the processof a lifetime and just because you and Idon't see eye to eye on something todayit doesn't mean that we're going todisfellowship you cuz I'll tell you asan Adventist Pastor if we were to askeverybody in this room to write downeverything they believed from scripturenobody would have the sameessay everybody would bedifferent everybody would bedifferent we can agree on somefundamental beliefs praise the Lord butoutside of that all bets are off and Ican tell you all bets are off these daysthere's all kinds of strange ideas outthere so what then is greatness in thekingdom ofGod whoever wishes to become great amongyou must be yourservant then Jesus intensifies it and ifyou want to befirst then you must be a slave ofeverybodyelse the son of man did not come toenslave or to dominate or to coerce hecame to serve and to give his life aransom formany and he asks us if we want to followin the footsteps of the son of man thenwe are to follow in what he did byseeking to serve other people not justserve them but actually to serve as aslave those around us in the Divineeconomy the values of this world arereversed Community ethos in God'skingdom is not expressed in a desire forself-aggrandisement but in selflessservice for others then Jesus comes thatfamous saying says for the son of mancame not to be served but to serve andto give his life a ransom formany now the word many doesn't mean hegave it for many but not for everybodythe word many there a whole other wordsaid but it basically means he gave hislife for allpeople the son of man did not come to beserved but he came to serve and to givehis life a ransom for many this versehere gives perhaps the clearest insightinto jesus' self- understanding what itmeans to be the Messiah together withMark 14:24 where he said this is myblood of the Covenant which is pouredout for many once again we have thatword word the syntax and the vocabularyhere are clear the son of man's death itis unique it was aransom it was vicarious that means itwas on your behalf not his own behalf itwas expiatory that means it was to paythe penalty for our sins it wasvoluntary it was not passive and it isfor all people Jews and Gentiles blackbrown and white and everything inbetween the son of man came to give hislife for all people in order to pay thepenalty for their sins that they mightbe reconciled with God theologicallyspeaking the objective rather than thesubjective understanding of theatonement is to be preferred in thisverse whereas the rulers of this worldand the great and any Empire enslaveothers the son of man's role is to setthe slaves of Satan free Earthly rulersand slave the son of man emancipates toserve others service rather thandomination are the way of the son of manand therefore service rather thandomination is the path for his discipleswhile disciples who argue aboutpositions of power and authority areplacing themselves outside the kingdomofGod I'm not beating around the bushhere if you're positioning and jockeyingand lobbying for a certain position bevery careful your your your Eternalfuture is on theline don't push forpower ask ask who can I serve preferablyin a hidden way and your heavenly fatherwho sees in secret will rewardyou but to push to be at the front allthe time to push to be the dominantfigure on the finance committee to pushfor the ability to make decisions thatmaterially affect others that can putyou outside the very Kingdom you thinkyou'reserving Jesus as the son of man did notcome to be served but to serve and togive his life a ransom for many me I'mso grateful this is what the son of mancame to do and the final lesson aboutthe son of man is this the son of man iscoming again for his own so he has thethe the son of man has the authority toforgive your his sins that means he hasthe authority to forgive your sins heretoday the son of man is Lord of theSabbath that means he's asking you tolift the suffering of humanity duringevery Sabbath day to let them see God'slove in action the son of man came todie and the response he's asking for isthat we die to self and are willing toface persecution because we bear thename of Christ the son of man came notto to be served but to serve and to givehis life a ransom for many um ourresponse to that is that um well wewe'll come on to that in a minute butessentially we do not seek power in thein God's kingdom we seek service andfinally the son of man is coming againfor his own now there are two passageswhere Jesus talks about this the firstwas read in our scripture reading butwe're not going to read that one thereright now we're going to go to the themost famous passage and that's the trialof Jesus and in the trial of Jesus thefalse Witnesses were accusing Jesus ofall kinds of things and Jesus stoodthere saying nothing it's interesting inthe trial of Jesus that you realize thatsilence is trulyeloquence the more the false chargescame against Jesus and the quieter Jesuswas when he stood there the more pilaterealized Jesus wasinnocent silence can be more eloquentthanspeaking and the chief priests arelooking for an excuse to kill Jesus andJesus gives them no excuse because hedoesn't say anything back to them andthe false U Witnesses can't agree onanything so finally the chief priest infrustration he stands up and this iswhat it says says but even on this pointtheir testimony did not agree Mark 1459-61 then the high priest stood upbefore them and asked Jesus have you noanswer what is it that they testifyagainst you but Jesus was silent and didnot answer again the high priest askedhim are you the Messiahthe son of the blessed one now literallyhe says you are the Christ the son ofthe blessed one it's an implied uhquestion but it's also the most completeconfession of who Jesus is in the gospelof Mark and in Matthew and Luke as wellyou are the Messiah the Son of theblessed one and Jesus knows this is themoment he camefor he didn't come just to heal the sickor raise Lazarus or cast out demons thisis the moment he comes forthis is that moment oftruth and Jesus said ego Amy now I'llput that in red on the screen the wordego is a Greek word we we talk about youhaving your he has a big ego the wordego means I inGreek the word Amy is the verb to be Amymeans I am so Jesus could have just saidAmy that means I am he doesn't he saysegoo Amy and we say what does that meanthat's the personal name for God all theway through the Old Testament that'sYahweh or Jehovah when God spoke toMoses in the burning bush who are you Iam that I am in Hebrew or Jehovah orYahweh in Greek it's ego Amy so whenthey say are you the Messiah the Son ofGod the first words out of the mouth ofJesus knowing that it would bring abouthis death penalty for alleged blasphemywere this ego Amy I Iand the disciples and the far Sadduceesand chief priests they know exactly whatJesus just said Jesus is the faithfuland true witness he doesn't just witnessabout who we are he tells the truth inhis own trial about who he is knowing hewill be condemned to death the moment hesaid those words I am he said and youwill see the son of man seated at theright hand of the power and coming withthe Clouds OfGlory Jesus then draws the high priest'sattention to the end of time when Jesuswill return as that son of man that wetalked about early today from Daniel7:13-14 seated at the right hand ofmajesty in the Clouds Of Heaven thoughJesus is Dishonored by the high priestthough he is slandered by the falsedisciples Witnesses and abandoned by thedisciples he will be honored by God thefather and in place of his condemnationby the Sanhedrin he will be Vindicatedbefore all men Jesus as the son of manis coming again therefore we areAdventist today this is our hope it'snot just Humanity's blessed hope as therelat in the New Testament it is ouronly hope for fallen Humanity why is thecoming of Jesus our only hope because weall have blood on our hands and so doesJesus but only Jesus is innocent of theblood on hishands the Sanhedrin mocks jesus' abilityto prophesy yet all his prophecies cometrue the Sanhedrin cannot obtain thedeath sentence they seek through theirfalse Witnesses but they can through thetrue witness of Jesus himself to hisdivinity the Sanhedrin sits in judgmentupon on Jesus they presume that rightbut one day the Sanhedrin will standtrial before Jesus when he returns asthe Endtime son of man as the bring overthe final judgment when he brings an endto our current age and users in theanticipated age to come you see if wefocus only on the present 20123 2024 ifwe focus only on building Earthlybusinesses dreams and kingdoms then thepurpose and Destiny of human historyfalls into the hands of Fallen Humanityalone and nobody can take comfort fromthat our Western world is now livingunder what we call the philosophy ofDespair at The Human Condition forWestern man today and in our PublicSchools nothing matters nothing is rightor wrong there is no eternity there isno sin and there is certainly no eternallife nothing today in our Western worldhas meaning purpose or significancewhether we live or die our hopes ourdreams and our love loves they matternot if you live today whether you dietoday if you love today if you if you ifyou do not love today if you marri todayif you get divorce today if you havehealth or if you have cancer if yourteam wins the Super Bowl or they don'twin the Super Bowl for Western ModernMan nothing hasmeaning and that is why we have adesperate search for meaning on thestreets of America today in the lgbtqmovement your identity is all importantwhen philosophically life has nomeaning unless human history in all ofits potential and its propensity to evilto impose Dominion on others to enslavethe weak unless human history in all itsself-destructiveness can be redeemedhuman life is a futile and a sortedEndeavor the realization that things arenot as they ought to be and that thingscannot be allowed to remain as they areis an eschatological longing it's ayearning that one day somebody will makeall things right and the gr the grandclimax of this Gospel of Jesus Christ ishe as the son of man is coming in thecloud of Glory to make all things rightagain the the climax of The Gospel isthere is a sure hope for human historygrounded not in logical science orliterature or politics or free marketeconomics or class Warfare or capitalismor Marxism but in the sure word of theson of man himself who will return inglory and in Justice to condemn all evilto destroy every demon and Satan himselfto end all suffering to wipe away allhuman tears and to gather unto his ownunto himself his own fraternity can yousay Amen that is the climax of humanhistory and as our sister read for us inthe scripture reading today Jesuselsewhere describes his second comingsays in those days after that sufferingthat is there will be suffering beforeJesus comes again that is tribulationsuffering and death are not the fullstop to the sentence of human history inthose days after that Suffering TheSuffering you and I go through today andwhich will get worse and worse and worseso Jesus comes again the sun will bedarkened the moon will not give itslight the Stars will be falling from theheaven and the powers in the heaven willbe shaken then they shall see the son ofman coming in clouds with great powerand Glory then he will send out theangels and gather his elect from theFour Winds from the ends of the Earth tothe ends of Heaven somebody say Amen inthose days following the distress thatwe go through today the son of man willreturn he is looking he's looking forhis own he's looking for you and he'slooking for me the Apostle Paul wroteabout it this way at the end of Hebrews9 he says so Christ having being offeredonce to Bear the sin of many once youhave that phrase the many again it's allpeople he so he appeared the first timeto Bear the sins of many he will appeara second time not to deal with sin thatwas dealt with on Calvary but to savethose who are eagerly waiting for himthe first time Jesus came was to dealwith your sin problem the second timehe's coming is to take you to yourheavenly home and that is why we areAdventists because we're looking forwardand we're working forward and we'reproclaiming the coming of Jesus you knowwhen Jesus comes again in 1 Corinthians15 we focus on verses 50 onwards thattalk about the corruptible becomesIncorruptible and the perishable becomesimperishable and the Mortal becomesimmortality and we should be changed inthe twinkling of night and we all sayhallelujah to that but earlier in thatverse in that chapter it says that whenJesus comes again he will destroy everydominion and authority and power whichis the way the Apostle Paul talks aboutFallen Angels and Demons so when weproclaim the coming of Jesus we'reannouncing to the demons theirdestruction and they're not happy aboutthat that is why when you proclaim thesecond coming of Jesus there is demonicpush back everything starts to go wrongin your life when you proclaim thesecond coming of Jesus because whenJesus comes Again The Angels and thefallen angels will burn baby burn use amodern idiom somebody should say Amenthat the source of all evil Satan willbe destroyed once and for all so what dowe say in conclusiontoday I put up there on thescreen these five roles of the son ofman he has the authority to forgivesin the only only he has the authorityto forgive sin Roman Catholics andOrthodox do not accept that they believein oracular confession OT absolvo Iabsolve you of your guilt Protestantscharismatics pentecostalists theybelieve that and so do Adventists he'slord of the Sabbath the Sabbath stillapplies Catholics Orthodox andProtestants charismatics Pentecostalsthey don't accept Jesus as lord of theSabbath but VSTdo he will be rejected and killed andrise again pretty much everybody acceptsthat but there's kind of it's ambivalentin the Catholic theology because inCatholic theology they quote from Isaiah53 which says by his wounds ye arehealed which means it is the sufferingof Jesus that is salvific not his deathand Resurrection but we'll put a yes foreverybody on that line there he giveshis life a ransom for many Catholictheology is ambivalent about thatPentecostals Protestants say yes andAdventists say yes and he's coming againfor hisown only Adventists these days arepremillennial that is Jesus is comingagain at the start of the Thousand Yearsin heaven if you ask a Catholic whathappens when you die you either go to HHeaven Purgatory or hell is that notright yes so they're ambivalent aboutthe coming of Jesus why is the coming ofJesus significant to a Catholic it's notbecause when you die you move on to thenext stage of Life anywayit's ambivalent to many Protestantscharismatics and Pentecostals becausemany Protestants these days believe thatJesus comes at the end of a thousandyears of the reign of God on Earth andtherefore they're looking to legislate amoral society around the world so thecoming of Jesus is just the conclusionof a thousand years of Protestantsimposing their views on everybodyelse and if you look at those fiveaspects of the son of man he has theauthority to forgive sin he's lord ofthe Sabbath he' be rejected killed andthen Rise Again gives his life for formany and he's coming again for his ownonly Adventists can Faithfully representJesus and all five of those truths aboutJesusChristso what are the implications for you andItoday Jesus has the authority to forgivesin including yoursin and if you're sitting today as asinner you have a sin bearing saviorand if we confess our sins we will findforgiveness from God and inner healingand peace the outcome is that we havehealing for our personal Brokenness andthe sins of OurLives the fact that Jesus is Lord of theSabbath day our response to that is wehonor the Sabbath and the maker of theSabbath by Faithfully representing Godin Humble service to the poor andsuffering particularly on the Sabbathday the outcome is healing not just formyself but for the poor the sick and thesuffering in White Rock Lake District ofDallasTexas the son of man will be rejectedkilled and riseagain our response today as by theteachings of Jesus is that we pick upourcross we're willing to face persecutionfor ourfaith we deny self we're no longer goingto seek position and power to dominateothers and we're unashamed to Bear thename of Christ the outcome of that is ifwe're no longer seeking position andpowers that there's now healing andforgiveness within our localcongregations nobody's playing powergames he gave his life ransom formany we receive his righteousness byfaith we are not saved by our goodnesswe are saved by the righteousness ofChrist we receive it today by faith andwe trust in his vicarious that means onour behalf substitutionary in our placeand atoning that is reconciling with ourheavenly father his death on our behalfand we follow wherever he leads thatbrings healing from our personal Alialienation fromGod and finally he's coming again forhisown we prepare our lives and our soulstoday to meet himagain by putting awaysin asking for forgivenessasking for the empowering power of theholy spirit that we may live lead livesof Holiness and Purity where his love isseen in all that we say and do thatbrings healing for our hopelesscondition and our culture ofDespair Jesus is the son ofman it's a name that is pregnant withmeaning it's a name that brings hope tosuffering Humanity in2023 and I chose to follow Jesus when Iwas a teenager I had a wward heart andthe preacher made an appeal and askedfor people to raise their hands or comeforward if they wanted to follow Jesusall the days of theirlife and I'm telling you here today thatwhen I chose to follow Jesus since thatmoment all of his promises have cometrue in mylife there have been highs and therehave beenlows but he has walked with me andtalked with me along life's narrow andoften painfulway and all of his promises have cometrue in mylife so I want to challenge you todaymaybe you want to give your life toJesus Christ thismorning maybe you want to say Lord I'm asinner I want you to forgive mysins Lord I live a self-centered lifegive me the grace and desire to serve mysufferingneighborLord I want to deny that yearning forpower I have and I no longer want to beashamed I bear the name ofChrist Lord I've been trusting in my ownrighteousness my own goodness I don'teat cheese I return a faithful tithe butLord as of today I'm going to trust inyour righteousness for mysalvation and Jesus when you come againin the Clouds Of Glory would you comelooking forme in my subdivision in my ZIP code Iwant my name to be in that Heavenlyregister if you want to give your lifeto Jesus today if this is your responseto Jesus in any of these ways I inviteyou to write stand today have a prayerof consecration to our HeavenlyFather if you are been caught up in anyof those dimensions of Jesus the son ofman don't Harden your heart as theApostle Paul writes today is the day ofsalvation Jesus I will in no ways castaside those who come tome let's bow our heads and we'll closeour worship service today with a prayerour heavenlyfather I thank you that Jesus was notsent into this world to condemn theworld but that through faith in him wemight receive eternallife thank you that you moved by lovefor broken and lostHumanity that your son left those courtsof Glory above forbrokensinfulhumanity and thank you thank youFather that while you see us as we aretoday you see each one of us as we maybecome by yourgrace so father today read our heartsread ourminds send your Holy Spirit into each ofOurLives convict us convert US cleanse ussanctify us and Jesus when you come inthose Clouds Of Glory please comelooking for each one of us now may theLord bless you and keepyou Lord make his face shine upon youand be gracious unto you Lord lift uphis countenance upon you and give youpeace this day and forever moreamen we ask the congregation to takeyourseats and if you want to learn moreabout following Jesus Christ pleasespeak with uh brother Danny or any ofyour elders today or with my S while I'mhere um it's the best decision that youwill evermake um I think I should finish now isthat right brotherDanny one final hymn all right I have noidea what the time is so um I'm assumingwe still have time oh it's almost 2:00oh boy oh boy I've gone on for a longtime we'll sing our final hym of Praisetogether thankyou thank you Pastor Conrad for a timelymessageamen so we're going to go ahead andfinish with our song of uh consecrationwhich is hymn number511 um and it's I know who I havebelieved uh we will ask that the uhcongregation stand as we sing uh thislast[Music]hym I know not why God's wonderous Graceto me he hasLa whyunworthy Christ in loveredeem before before hisown but Iknow I havebelieve and am persuadthat he isa tokeeped unto him againstthat I know not how hissaing fith to me hedid no howbeling in hisword peace with myheart but Iknowbelieve andpersuaded that he isable tokeep which Icommitted unto him againstthat I know not how thespiritconvincing man ofsinwe in Jesus Through the worldcreating faith inhim but I knowunel andpersuaded that he isable to keep that which Icommitted unto him againstthat I know not when my Lord may comeand night or days[Music]I walk there with for me him in theair but Iknow I havebelieve andpersuaded that he isa to keep that which un Communto him againstthat[Music]amen so father when Jesus comes in thoseClouds OfGlory I pray that each one of us will bestanding among the redeemed saying thisis our God whom we have waitedfor father whether we rest in Christfirst whether we live through this finalcrisis May our hearts be always true toyou may there be no other gods in ourlives and I pray that our walk withJesus will be personal immediate andgive us the promise today of eternallife father as we share this mealtogether we thank you for those who haveprepared it we pray your blessing uponthem and with the strength it gives usmay we bring honor and glory to you andfather in this coming week May peoplesee and hear the love of Jesus in oureyes in our voices and all that we sayand do in his holy and precious name weaskamen amen you may be seated for justsome very brief[Music]announcements so I spoke to the paacoordinators at the uh in the kitchenand uh there is food for everybodyabsolutely everybody amen and there'sactually one one