SWYC 2008: Looking Unto Jesus

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GYC Southwest

SWYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

Randy Skeete

The Invisible Man

23 to where David said the spirit of the Lord spake by me and his word was in my tongue father Please put your word in my tongue and for your sons and daughters Lord do for them what David prayed in Psalm 119 verse 18 Open thou my eyes Open all of our eyes.

I pray that the truth may be understood, received, and believed.

Our subject for this time is the invisible man.

Our theme is looking unto Jesus and we discovered last night that by looking to Jesus we are looking to someone who is equal with God the Father, someone who is divine, someone who has all the characteristics of the Father.

We're looking to someone who alone can restrain the power of Satan, who is our enemy at every level.

But I want to remind you that Jesus at present is not on earth where we are.

What I'm saying is Jesus Christ at this very moment is both physical man and God.

When Paul writes in Colossians 2, I believe it's verse 9, in him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead, how?

Bodily, and that's about 2 decades after Jesus went back to heaven.

In 1 Timothy 1, verse 5, or chapter 2, verse 5, There's 1 mediator between God and men, and who is that?

Because of this, he cannot be everywhere at the same time.

So Christ is not on earth now, Jesus Christ is in heaven.

We are on earth and the battles we face are played out on earth.

We discovered last night that our enemy, the devil, wields the greatest power in the universe next to God's power.

And if we need help with that power, we need help that is present with us, but Jesus is in heaven.

Then when we look to Jesus, we are also looking to his agent.

Or are you watching those who are coming in?

Now you know what a human being looks like.

I don't see why you have to turn every time someone comes in.

I don't know what's funny about what I'm saying, but I really don't.

We must learn to focus because if we plan to look unto Jesus, Satan has multiplied distractions which work.

That's why so many of us are spiritually weak.

We cannot focus on Christ without succumbing to the distractions that surround us.

We cannot study the Bible intensely because we're distracted by the game that's playing in the background.

By the way, when you were seated this morning, what were you talking about?

What is so wrong with walking into a place of worship, and I'll get back to the Holy Spirit, Open the Word of God and just commune with God quietly.

Let me encourage you for the next session, which comes immediately after this 1, if there's a lull in activity from the desk, try this experiment.

So those coming in, seeing this place full and hearing silence, but seeing people reading God's Word, that really, really bothers me.

And you correctly responded, through the Holy Ghost.

Then, if the agent of Christ, who comes to us, to aid us in our battle with a power that is second only to God's power, and in the battle with Satan, a draw is not enough, there must be victory, then we can conclude immediately that that agent must have won.

Or he cannot sufficiently assist us in this struggle.

He will have to do as Gabriel did and send for help.

The Holy Ghost, the agent of Christ, must be as powerful as Christ.

Let's look at the Bible and see if we can come to that conclusion biblically and with some degree of reasonableness.

Let us identify some qualities of divinity and see if we find them in the Holy Ghost.

We're reading from the King James Version.

The Bible says, remember the former things of old.

Now God immediately separates himself from all other gods because there are other gods.

That's why the first commandment says, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

I need to be God, number 1, and God, number only in the life.

So God understands the other gods, so-called.

But He must, of necessity, distinguish Himself from other gods and He gives some qualities in Scripture that separate him from other gods.

1 of them is mentioned in Isaiah 46, 9 and 10.

Remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is none else.

Now he tells us why he is God and there is no other God like him.

He identifies the quality, declaring, verse 10, the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.

What is it that God says about himself that makes him God?

First Peter chapter 1, reading from verse 9.

God says 1 of the things that make him God is that, or 1 of his qualities I should say, nothing makes God, God 1 of his qualities is that he knows the beginning from the end.

He can tell you things that will happen long before they happen.

Dennis Priebe

Will The Real Gospel Please Stand Up?

Of you a copy of the little outline that we're going to be using this morning.

So we want to do that as quickly as possible.

Now, Our brother Randy Skeet asked us to do a favor last night, and I'm asking you to do a favor for me this morning.

Please do not believe what I say because I say it.

Because if you do, you will listen to someone a week from now, a month from now, or 6 months from now that is much more charismatic and much more persuasive than I am, and you will believe what he or she says for the same reason.

The only reason to believe in anything that I say this morning is because the Word of God says so and you know it for yourself, not because I say it.

And I say that particularly because this morning we're going to do an overview.

I am not going to open the Bible 1 time during the next hour.

I am going to share with you some concepts that I want you to think about.

And then I am going to ask you to read and study from the Word of God whether these things are so.

That's what we're going to be doing this afternoon.

We will have outlines this afternoon, We will go into the Word of God this afternoon, but the only reason to believe what I'm going to say is because the Word of God supports it, not because of any human words that we speak.

So that is the favor I'm going to ask of you.

Now, we are told that we must take the 3 angels' messages and the everlasting gospel to the world.

Are we very, very sure that we know what the everlasting gospel is?

Because if we do not share the everlasting gospel we are not bringing people out of the world we are leaving them in the world and comfortable in the world so the real question that I want to ask this morning is what is special what is unique what is different about seventh-day Adventism and it is not the Sabbath And it is not the state of man in death.

And it is not what we teach about the soon coming of Christ.

I believe and I submit to you that what is unique and different and what we are offering that no 1 else in the world is offering is an understanding of the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ.

And without that, we have no message to share.

So I want us to think about those things this morning and let us ask God to be with us.

Father in heaven, direct our minds to you this morning.

Help us by your Holy Spirit working on our hearts to understand the beautiful gospel of grace and peace.

All right, we're going to start with those outlines that you have in front of you 2 gospels 2 different understandings of salvation They both start with an understanding of sin because the gospel is about deliverance from sin.

And the real question is very precise now.

What is the nature of that sin for which I stand condemned and lost for all eternity?

If it is not taken away from me I will end up in the fires of hell.

Look at the tree, the gospel tree on the left side of your page.

This gospel says that sin, the sin for which we are lost and condemned, is not what we say, not what we do, not even what we think, But it is the sin of being born with a defective nature because Adam made a horrible decision 6, 000 years ago.

And because he made that decision, we are lost and condemned by nature, by the defective equipment that resides within us.

Now this morning I'm going to be reading little things as we go along.

Every statement that I'm going to read will be from a Seventh-day Adventist of 1 kind or another, a writer, a teacher, a minister, a layperson, whatever.

All the statements will be from various Seventh-day Adventists.

Here is 1 who believes what I've just told you.

A baby is born a sinner before it has ever committed 1 sinful act.

This sinful state that you inherit, just like you inherit the color of your hair and your eyes, this sinful state means that if a baby dies a few hours after birth, he, she is subject to the second death even though he she has never broken any commandment.

That is the implication of this teaching that sin is the nature we are born with.

And of course most Christians have solved this problem by infant baptism to remove the guilt and the condemnation from that baby who is subject to the second death.

So that's the first point of this very important gospel tree on the left side of your page.

If our nature makes us a sinner, before we've ever done or said anything wrong, if our equipment makes us a sinner and Christ is our sinless Savior then what can't Christ have?

Our nature because then he would be a sinner too and he couldn't save anybody so if Christ is to be our Savior He must be exempted from our equipment.

He must not have the same tendencies, the same emotions, the same drives, the same feelings that you and I have by birth.

He must be exempted and he takes a sinless nature.

Now these 2 points are so basic to this gospel that we're describing right here that I want to go back and look at them carefully again.

I'm born as a child, a baby into this world.

I am born under the condemnation of God's law because I have a fallen nature.

Alright, So when then will I no longer be under condemnation because of this nature?

When will I no longer be condemned by my nature?

My nature stays underwater, doesn't it, while I come up out of the water.

And we don't have that nature anymore, right?

You mean you still have that nature within you that you were born with and it still pulls and tugs at your heart?

All that happened at baptism to that nature is that it was forgiven, and you are now forgiven for that nature.

But the nature still condemns, according to this gospel.

At the close of probation, when we receive the seal of God, and from that time forth the Bible says, he that is holy shall be holy still, does that fallen nature with all of its pulls and impulses and drives that we inherited at birth, Does it disappear then?

Is it removed out of us so that there's no longer any tug from within to the wrong?

We had a problem in that area about a hundred years ago in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and some people were teaching that that's why we wouldn't sin again is because there would be no more pulls from within at all and therefore we would have freedom from sinning in our lives it's called holy flesh it's coming back my friends no we do not lose our natures at the seal of God.

Well, when do we lose these fallen natures that we inherited?

When Jesus comes and this mortal is made immortal and this corruptible is turned into incorruption.

I am still condemned but forgiven when I am born again.

After the seal of God and the close of probation, my nature is still the same nature it was when I was born, therefore I am still condemned by nature, I am still sinning by nature after the close of probation, and now I will continue to be forgiven until Jesus comes.

And therefore I am always sinning from birth to death or translation by nature until Jesus comes." That's what this gospel is teaching.

In other words, sin is as constant as breathing.

As long as you have your nature, you are sinning.

Only when you will no longer have that nature within you will you no longer be sinning.

Forgiveness is necessary from birth to death or translation, always, constantly.

Now to the second point, Christ and His nature.

You see, it really isn't about His nature at all.

What were the rules in the Garden of Eden?

Jay Gallimore

I Am a Jealous God

It's a joy to see young people anxious to see Jesus come.

I'll tell you the fulfillment of Bible prophecy that we've been preaching for the last 160 years is coming to pass in front of our very eyes.

Unfortunately in North America, and I have 3 fingers pointed at myself, okay, I'm not pointing fingers.

We're pretty much asleep while the storm gathers.

And I want to tell you that neither of these political parties is going to save anybody.

So beware how much energy you put into that.

Those are the politics of divide and conquer.

We're in restoration and redemption and saving people for eternity.

And Adventist young people need to have a passion for the lost.

How many people went to Christless graves last year in your town?

How many people went to graves as Baptist and Catholic and Methodist who could have, had they been reached, given their entire life to the advancement of the third angel's message.

I'm going to use some PowerPoint this morning.

And I love the way he has the Word of God.

And I'm not going to do something I shouldn't do, but God has raised him up, giving to us as a gift.

And you will need your Bibles this morning.

If you come to my seminar, you're going to need your Bibles.

I'm going to talk about, I'm going to take 2 times to take 5 parts of Galatians and put it in 2.

We're going to study the book of Galatians together.

But today I want to talk about, I want to talk about this morning, put this up here.

You have your Bibles turned to Exodus chapter 20.

I've got it up here and perhaps we can use this to quote together.

Usually my preaching Bible is a New King James, my study Bible is a New American Standard, and I love just for reading a New International.

But we're blessed, but you need good solid translations.

Exodus 20, verses 4 to 6, let's quote it together.

You shall not make, Come on, you can do it with me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

You shall not worship them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments." The heart of this commandment, God says, I am a jealous God.

In our society today, sometimes we don't think about that being such a good thing.

There's a bad jealousy, but I'd also like to suggest to you that there is also a good jealousy.

And I'll get into that in just a little bit, but I want to establish this fact that the Bible talks about our God being a jealous God.

And it's both in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament.

And if you have your Bibles, turn, if you would, to Exodus chapter 34.

And you'll need your Bibles in and around this because I've got just excerpts on the screen from Exodus 34.

This is the scene, of course, is the golden calf.

And Now he says, God, I'm going to need some help.

God has said, Moses, I'm not going with you.

Lord, I cannot go forward if you send only your angel.

He in essence says to God, I must have you.

But to have God himself to lead his people is a dangerous thing.

So I want to look, if you don't mind, starting with verse 5.

This is that great moment that no human being that I ever know has ever experienced, where Moses pled with God in the midst of all of this arguing and wrestling and praying and interceding, saying, Lord, show me your glory.

God says, you can't see my face because if you do, you'll die.

And there in that cleft of the rock, perhaps 2 great rocks in that cleft of the rock, God takes Moses and He puts him there.

The closest a human being has ever come to seeing the glory of God, God withdraws His hand, takes away the veil, and passes before Moses, declaring these words from the back.

Verse 6, proclaim to him the name of the Lord.

And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious and long suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sins, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations.

So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped." The gospels contained in those verses.

There's that great paradox that we will study all through the ceaseless ages of eternity of how God can not spare the guilty and yet spare them.

And that whole process is focused in His only begotten Son.

He didn't spare the guilty because the guilty had a substitute stepped in, took our blow.

Then he said, if I have found grace in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us.

You think what it might be to have the Lord Himself to lead you?

And even though we are stiff-necked people, I pray, go among us, even though, even though we are stiff-necked people and pardoned our iniquity and our sin.

Behold, I will make a covenant before all your people.

I will do marvels such as not seen before in any nation.

The last part of it says, And I like the New American Standard here, rather than the King James that I'm using, the New King James, for what I am about to do, see if I've got it right there, I thought I had it right there, is a fearful thing.

And then if you will go on with me looking at verse 11.

Take heed to yourself, unless you make a covenant with the inhabitants, they become a snare to you.

And verse 14, you will worship no other god for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.

In other words, he's simply saying this, you go into the land and you are not when you wipe out those inhabitants and you see their gods and their idols.

And let me tell you, idol worship has been designed by the devil to have a particular appeal to the human heart.

And I want to tell you that it's coming roaring back into America today.

And it's coming in ways that you don't understand.

We're going to get into some of that before I'm done today.

If you fool around with those idols, you fool around, you are going to provoke my jealousy.

And I want to tell you, you don't want to provoke God's jealousy.

SWYC 2008 Question and Answer

All right, our first question, now not all of you need to answer the question if you feel inclined to or if you feel like you have an answer or a burden to answer this question, you're more than welcome to.

The question is, can or should Adventists vote for issues and or candidates in office?

Especially with upcoming election coming along I think this is a very important question.

I will share fundamentals of Christian education, where is it, about 475 or so, that says that we cannot with safety vote for political parties.

If we elect men to office who repress religious liberty, we are guilty of the sins they commit while in office.

She didn't say don't vote, but she did give us some very important cautions.

Fundamentals of Christian education, Am I right?

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SWYC 2008 Plenary Sessions

SWYC 2008 Question and Answer

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