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Preachers Collective- North England Conference of SDA

Clive Coutet

Endurance of the Saints

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the time where you can speak about your Word.

I'm thankful, dear Lord, that you've given me a message and laid it on my heart.

And I just pray that you use me abundantly.

I pray, Lord, you forgive me for any unrighteousness.

And I may come to this place right now spotless, ready to deliver a message and be used by the Holy Spirit in Jesus' full majesty.

I have a very good friend who's into canvassing.

And he told me this story once, where he knocks on this person's door and a Satanist opens the door.

And He was sort of taken aback, obviously you would be, you're trying to speak about Christ.

And they ended up having a good conversation.

Now, he managed to find out that this Satanist actually used to be a Christian.

And he asked him the question, why did he switch over from being a Christian to a Satanist?

He said, I was tired of the devil constantly being on my back, So it was easier for me to switch allegiances and I was happy, merciless.

Here are they that just keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

The word I was looking for, hit the nail on the head, was endurance.

The Greek word actually translates to endurance.

And I love the way the ESV Bible, I tend to read the King James Bible, but when I'm looking up texts I like to look in different places.

And the ESV, which is the English sounding version, says, here is the call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

I know that's been the theme for this week, identity.

And Pastor Philpott spoke to me and he said to me he wanted the theme of the 3 angels message in identity.

And this 1 text, Revelation 14, 12, sort of summarised the whole of Adventism to me personally in this message.

Now, I looked up in the Congordance and this is what it said.

Well, I actually looked up the word patience, which led me to endurance.

The characteristic of a man who has not swerved from his deliberate purpose, by even the greatest trials and sufferings.

Now, there's no greater person for me that went through endurance.

He's my favorite Bible character in the whole Bible, and he had a horrible beginning of life.

Come from a big family of brothers, grown in a pit, sold as a slave, working in a prostitute's house, and then what happens?

If you think about your life, would you have ever thought that you would face the trials you've gone through or maybe even through right now?

If you take a step back like, you know, 5 years ago I got married and it's the happiest day of your life.

But with marriage, with anything in life, it's not always rosy.

Situations come about and it tests your endurance.

But I'm thankful 5 years coming up this year, I'm thankful.

He was sort of the boss out of all the servants.

And here you have this wife of his master, Potiphar.

Now, praise God I have the most beautiful wife in the world.

Praise God I have the most beautiful wife in the world.

Now I can imagine that Potiphar, right, the Spirit of Prophecy says that Joseph was finely built.

I'm not finely built, I'm just saying, okay?

But Joseph, I'm thinking of the Anthony Joshua muscles, you know, the cut body, you know, as he's working about.

And what you would have been doing is looking.

And I know you guys know what I'm talking about.

So here you have Joseph, who's hard at work, going about his daily business, Okay?

As Christians, we sometimes are focused on what our tasks are.

But here, you have the devil eyeing you up.

Now that just comes with being a Christian.

Job went through it, countless other people went through it.

Now he was trusted by his master and his master, I mean I don't know about you but I wouldn't leave my wife with another man, you know, if he's working for me.

But Joseph was so trusted, he, the character of God shone out from him that Potiphar was like, In that moment, what do you think was running from Joseph's mind as Potiphar approached him?

In our minds, when a temptation comes, what goes through our minds?

The same temptation that Joseph went through is the same temptation that we go through in our daily life.

It could be not waking up and studying our Bible because the Jews were more important.

The Spirit of Prophecy says, very interesting, it says his whole future life depended upon the decision of the moment.

With principal triumph, would Joseph still be true to God with inexpressible anxiety that angels looked upon the scene?

Now imagine Joseph became 1 of the right-hand men in Egypt, But that could have all been different if he had submitted to Potiphar.

And as Christians, sometimes we've got to run.

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Endurance of the Saints

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