GYC 2018: To The End

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The Wheel of Faith

C. Damon Snead

1. The Juggernaut of the Judgment

This message was presented at the GYC To The End in Houston, Texas.

For other resources like this, visit us online at GYCweb.org.

Father in heaven, we are grateful to be able to take a little time and stop and ponder some of these great themes that you have for us in the gospel message.

We ask that you would lead and guide and direct and bless us and direct the things that we need to understand.

We pray with a portion of your Holy Spirit upon us.

I'm pastor at the New Start program in Weimar and we have about 20 to 30 and so I every morning at 7 o'clock I'll have a small group.

When you got 30 people only about half of them are going to show up at 7 in the morning.

I spoke a little bit about it last night, and it was difficult for me because It's an 11-part series.

And so when we get done, Mary will be, she'll tell you some ways that you can get the rest of it.

But I had a hard time choosing which 11 because it's boiled down to the fundamental principles of the everlasting gospel.

So I chose to leave the last 2 out, which is how the Sabbath and the law relate to the gospel.

And then the first 2 I talk about the love of God, which is step number 1 if you're in Steps to Christ.

And then I talk about how it's in the Old Testament, how it's revealed through Ezekiel 16.

And then I talk about how it's revealed at Calvary.

So we're going to have to start with that knowledge already.

So in our second lecture today, I'm going to really be tight to get the, I couldn't, I couldn't choose between them.

They're just, you can't go without either 1 of them.

So I came down to the 6 and I chose these 6 a couple of months ago.

And I'm glad I did because listening to the theme for the session, which is everyone is talking about going out and doing missions, doing work in your local town and receiving the Holy Spirit.

That's been the steady idea and thought process.

And so I got to thinking about the 6 that I chose.

They're so important because you cannot receive the Holy Spirit.

You'll never have the desire to go out and do missions or do your work in your local town or, or be this in your family without these first 6 steps.

In fact, the Holy Spirit that we're looking for, the latter rain that we're looking for, only comes when we have the first idea of the gospel, those first 6 steps that we must take, then the Holy Spirit will come automatically and the work will automatically come in our life.

So that's why I chose these 6 And I'll pray that you'll be blessed by that.

So when I'm talking about the will of faith, that's what I'm referring to.

It's really a rubric just to be able to teach.

When you're in Steps to Christ, and that's what I use as my parameters, because when you're talking about the gospel or righteousness by faith or the 1888 message, there's all those pitfalls, all those controversial topics that people get into, and it ruins the discussions.

So when you stay in Steps to Christ, you stay out of those ditches.

And so the Will of Faith is based on Steps to Christ, the first 8 chapters of Romans.

Acts chapter 2 is the most terse place where you can find the gospel laid out step by step.

The whole thing is right there really in 1 verse.

And so we're going to refer to that and then some places in Galatians and some other quotes from Ellen White and selected messages in other places, but generally the quotes are all taken from Steps to Christ.

And so we're going to have to start with the knowledge that God's love was revealed at Calvary.

And usually I do a whole lecture on the cross and really what was paid for, for our ransom.

And more particularly, he died the second death or he had the experience of the second death and so from there we go into today's topic.

In Ezekiel chapter 16 it's usually where I spend an entire lecture because it's It's the John 3 16 of the Old Testament.

And Ezekiel 16 is all about the story of God's love for mankind told in a parable of a child that is thrown out into an open field.

And God comes along, he finds this child and he raises it and he clothes her and he feeds her and she becomes extremely beautiful and her fame goes out and there's this great relationship between God and this woman and then the woman turns her back on God, breaks covenant with him and she becomes a prostitute and she becomes this terrible person and in Ezekiel 16 God tells her what she deserves, what should happen for breaking the covenant is death.

But then he comes in verse 63, and I like to pick up on this, verse 63, that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your shame, when I provide you an atonement for all that you have done says the Lord." So in Ezekiel we start that idea that God is going to provide an atonement for mankind.

And so the cross is obviously when we think of the Atonement we think of Calvary.

We think that He came and He paid the penalty for for our transgression, He died for our sins, but the death of Christ is only half of the Atonement.

And if you only understand the Atonement in terms of Calvary and you don't understand the other part of it, you really don't understand the Atonement.

And if you don't understand the Atonement and what He's done for us, then you can never truly receive the Holy Spirit.

Because when we get there tomorrow afternoon, the very thing that we need to receive the Holy Spirit is based upon what we're going to talk about today.

So I'm going to come back to this topic tomorrow afternoon and when you get this topic, man, you're going to understand this is what I need to receive the Holy Spirit.

And then we're going to talk about the second lecture and our first few lectures tomorrow.

We're going to talk about how to receive this, how to engage it, how it can actually become part of what we are, how we can have a true experience of the gospel, not just an intellectual idea of the gospel, but how we can experience it.

And we experience it, believe it or not, on this side of what we would call the Holy Spirit, and or what we would call sanctification.

This side of the gospel, what we would call justification, is how we engage God so that we can receive the Holy Spirit, be sanctified, go out and do our work to the end of the world.

And so that's why I start here with this second idea, the atonement, and I want to go to a scriptural text that brings out these ideas about how God would provide the atonement outside of Calvary's cross and paying for our sins through his death.

Right, so this is 1st John chapter 2, verse 1.

And John says, My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin.

And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

Now there's a lot of technical words there, but these words are all outside of Calvary.

The Advocate, Jesus Christ, righteousness, and propitiation.

We're going to look at those words and those terms in light of the atonement and find out how deep they have and the meaning that they have For you and I today, so I want to look at that In and I told y'all yesterday or last night when I introduced this quickly, we had 45 seconds, so I was like how am I going to introduce this?

Because the gospel is really the third angel's message, right?

The 3 angels' message has a prophetic side, but we're also told in great controversy it's the gospel.

And we usually hyper focus on the prophecies.

But there's also in context of the prophecy, the reason why prophecy is given to because the gospel's got to go forth.

And so when you look at Revelation chapter 14 verse 6 and 7, usually we focus on verse 7, which says this, saying, with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made the heavens the earth the seas and the springs of water.

And so we usually focus on the judgment and we think of the 2300 years we think of 1844 but that's prefaced with verse 6.

Then I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

So there's something about the gospel that has to do with the judgment.

There's something about the judgment other than just the mathematics of it, figuring out 1844.

There's something very profoundly important about the judgment that the gospel takes care of that those words in John have everything to do with our advocate, propitiation, righteousness, and Christ.

And that's what the atonement is all about.

And if we understand the atonement then we can understand how to really receive the Holy Spirit which is what we're all wanting and why we came to GYC in the first place.

So when we look at Revelation 14 verse 7, it's telling us that there's a judgment coming.

There's a judgment looming for all of mankind and I think that we've probably had that preached to us enough to understand the importance of it, right?

In other words, there is a court case coming for every mankind.

The finest lawyers are not going to be able to deliberate for us.

The evidence is going to be pure, perfect, and pristine.

The judge is going to be perfect in his deliberation.

The jury, the on-looking witnesses, are going to have a perfect, complete, total knowledge of the case of every man, woman, and child that's ever lived on planet Earth.

2. The Fisherman and the Flute

Our Father in heaven, what a wonderful privilege it is still to this day, 2, 000 years later, to still talk about the righteousness of Christ.

Lord, help us now move a little bit deeper into the waters with your Spirit and your presence.

Now in order for me to stay out of the ditches of righteousness by faith, and you notice I never introduce it as righteousness by faith, but this is what it is.

I mean, the gospel is righteousness by faith, but when you moment you say, I'm going to be talking about righteousness by faith, you get into all the ditches.

So to avoid that, when I put this together, I used steps to Christ as my boundaries.

Because in 1892, when this was written, she pulled it from different works and because of all the controversies over it.

And she said, these are the pillars right here.

So she wrote this to keep us balanced and to get out of the different issues that the truth gets lost in.

Even the lectures that I won't cover here, I'm still going right down through these chapters.

So I'm going into chapter 2 next, and if you're sneaking ahead of me you kind of know where I'm going, but we need to move.

Here's the problem with righteousness by faith.

Intellectually, theologically, and academically, scholastically, grammatically, linguistically, all these ways we can say what I just said is true.

That is a Protestant Calvin Luther spirit of prophecy, Adventist understanding of the gospel.

But we've got to get it from the head, right?

From thinking, OK, in the judgment, I'm going to cry out for his righteousness.

There has to be a heartfelt response to that.

There has to be a crying, like Paul said in Romans 7, oh, wretched man that I am, that crying out to be covered because you know your righteousness is not right.

There is a heartfelt thing that has to be happening here that causes you to want that righteousness.

Otherwise, if it's just intellectually in my head, because I can pass the test, because now I know how to define Logosio my Dakaio, right?

If we don't make that move into from in here, I know I see his righteousness and it moves my heart.

Unless that happens, then we're not really going to be covered.

So Steps to Christ, chapter 2, is for that purpose.

Because it's only when I need and want that righteousness will I be able to receive the credential of it, which gives me that sanctified experience we're all trying to get to.

So chapter 2 of Steps to Christ takes us right there and I'm going to get right into the topic.

There's a reason why she calls it, After she talks about Calvary and the cross and the great love of God, there's a reason why chapter 2 is entitled The Sinner's Need.

The chapter is designed to open our heart to some uncomfortable realities and truths.

Right after he's talking about the cross, he's all about God's love, he goes straight into the sinner's need.

The truth about what we are, that as we begin to wrestle with that, it begins to open the heart and then all of a sudden that righteousness that we're looking at, that we're seeing, we start realizing how much I really do need it.

And if you go to Revelation chapter 3 verse 15, 16, and 17, you know you've got all those negative condemnations against us.

The bad adjectives, miserable, wretched, poor, blind and naked.

But right there in Revelation 3, 17 is chapter 2's title.

What is like the big thing that God says against Laodicea?

He calls him this, but He says, this is your problem.

Look at 17, it's what Steps to Christ chapter 2 is based on, Romans chapter 2, they have no what?

And we, like that just go right over my head.

But an entire chapter in Steps to Christ is based on it.

And God at the end of time says, hey, this is the huge problem.

So Paul is going to bring us back and the Gospels and actually all the Old Testament, the prophets were always trying to get the people to confess this and to understand that and in today's society we have an enlightened Adventist body that are on the road to spiritual heights and we are growing and we are becoming, I mean look we are a church that teaches a good message on sanctification, no problem, but when we can get too caught up in sanctification And that can become a problem because then we can start to feel in above our raisin.

So I'm going to start with this quote from a book called Heavenly Places.

Listen to this, only by the light shining from the cross of Calvary can we know to what depths of sin and degradation the human race has fallen through sin.

Only by the length of the chain let down from heaven to draw us up again can we know the depths to which we have sunk.

And it is only by keeping the unseen realities in view that we can understand anything of the wonderful theme of redemption.

If we could compare in another place, she says this, if we can compare ourself to Adam in his purity, the race would be unrecognizable today, and that was in 1840s.

And when you think about this statement, it is powerful.

What kind of condition did mankind find themselves in that would cause Christ to become a child, to become a seed, to become a man, to become a human to save us?

And even more condemning is the fact that it doesn't bother me no more.

The fact that when I hear the story of Calvary, when I hear the cross, when I read Desire of Ages, I read it it's like I'm reading a book of literature and it doesn't touch my heart.

There's something wrong when I don't weep over Calvary no more.

And what is wrong is what chapter 2 is all about and it's something that we've got to get to if we can confess and admit and understand.

Man, now we're on our road to taking the third step.

It's a great biblical truth that we're messed up from the floor up.

1 of the great men of the Bible, the oldest piece of written literature that we have is Job chapter 14 and in verse 4, when God comes down and confronts him after his complaining, he says in verse 4 of chapter 14 who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean because I get it Lord I'm nothing in Romans 7 verse 18 that great dictum of Paul for I know that good itself does not dwell in me that is my sinful nature For I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out." Jeremiah the great weeping prophet.

For 1, 500 years he had studied the history of his people.

All the beautiful things that God did delivered them magnificently.

Manna, thunder from the mountain, his own voice, the plagues, the fire at night and the cloud during the day and his voice.

And yet 1, 500 years Jeremiah weeps because his people even in the light of God's own presence, still can't get it right.

And he says, for the heart is deceitful above all things.

Isaiah, the great gospel prophet, when he was confronted with an image of God, who is more righteous than Isaiah?

And this is what he said of himself, then said I, woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.

He took 1 look at the glory of God and said, Oh, shh, I can't go there.

Who could be more perfect in his character and being than Daniel in that great prayer of chapter 9 right before God reveals to him the 2300 year vision.

Daniel says this, O Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us, shame of face.

To us, including me, Daniel, shame of face is all that I can stand in your presence.

How does the condition of mankind, even the very best of us, and yet it nearly every session at New Start, at least every other session at New Start, when I do this lecture, someone will come to me.

I had a lady came to me the first time I probably the second time I gave this lecture this woman came to me and she said you know you were doing pretty good until now she says you made me feel like a dirty rotten sinner you know I didn't say it but I was thinking well you are And then she gave me this litany of things, and I'm feeling her, I know what she's trying to say.

And she used to give me this litany of things that she does, and she was raised in the church and she goes, I'm a pretty good person.

I don't feel what you feel and I'm thinking that's a problem.

You really are not in touch with what we are even in a very ontological reality of myself.

Not just you know my life that you see but the very reality of humanity, of what we are in the eyes of God.

When he wrote this in Job chapter 9, listen, it's 1 of these strange things that he says, but he's really honest about it.

You know, this is where he's really in his agony.

4. Graveyard Dead!

For other resources like this, visit us online at gycweb.org.

If you're following along again in Steps to Christ, you're going to go to chapter 5, and it's a little tricky because that's the title of consecration.

But if you read there, she's following right along in Acts chapter 2.

So in Acts chapter 2, we're going to get our next step.

Now unfortunately most people never take this next step.

And this is profoundly important that you understand this.

Most people settle for this idea of looking at what God has done for us.

Yeah, I feel the need coming to Him conviction and repentance but the Holy Spirit comes and brings sorrow for sin but we go back to sin sometimes and sometimes we do good for a little while but we go right back to it.

Now I don't mean like like sin stopping sinning everything right now I'm talking about individual sins that God brings to your life and sometimes we return back to those We in and sometimes we were in for a little bit right and then we're back out and why does that happen?

And If we can take this next step that will happen and God can get on to something deeper in your life and deeper and deeper and deeper we go until we don't even recognize who we are no more.

That's what this next step is all about that we've got to learn to take.

God does his job, but we have a problem of not following through and this step will help us to follow through.

I call it really the ultimate form of repentance.

We've got to cross through this door to get to the other side where things are of a different character, where we can have new power, new understandings.

I call it the Christian blind spot, the Adventist blind spot right here.

And to introduce it, I'd like to introduce it with a opening line from my favorite novel.

I love to go through it every Christmas time.

It was called The Christmas Carol, And it has a perfect setup because in the novel it tells you that unless you understand this opening statement, you cannot understand the rest of the story.

And so in our story with the gospel, unless you understand this, The gospel doesn't work very well.

I'll read to you the first line, Marley was dead to begin with.

The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.

Scrooge's name was good upon change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Our next step has everything to do with being dead.

Romans chapter 6 says it this way, Paul has spent 5 chapters telling us about justification by faith.

And in chapter 7 and 8 he's about to go into what it means to be sanctified, the process of it, how it happens, when it takes place, but chapter 6 is the pivotal doorway.

It is right in the middle of his discussion between justified and sanctified, and you've got to go through chapter 6 to get to chapter 7 and 8.

In fact, chapters 1 through 5 don't mean much until you've accepted chapter 6.

And chapter 6, verse 2, he begins this very way.

Verse 1, actually, what shall we say then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

That's why the title of this sermon is called Graveyard dead.

Listen to this, there is no safety for 1 who has merely a legal religion, a form of godliness.

The Christian's life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature.

There is a death to self and sin and a new life altogether.

You must experience a death to self and must live unto God.

Pride, self-love, selfishness, avarice, covetousness, love of the world, hatred, suspicion, jealousy, evil, surmisings must all be subdued and sacrificed forever." In other words, there must be a death of Curtis Damon Sneed.

I've got a check out of the old man and we're gonna look at that so our next step on our wheel of faith is simply death to self.

Now the Bible is clear what that was supposed to be.

In Romans 6 verse 3 we should have understood this when we were kids taking our Bible study lessons.

And he tells us in verse 3, Or do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus, we're baptized into his death?

That's right where Acts chapter 2 goes, very next, right?

After you repent, then he said, be baptized.

Baptism was supposed to primarily be in its first function, death to self.

In fact, when Jesus asked John, Nicodemus in John chapter 3, he tells him, you know what we got to do to receive eternal life.

Well, the only reason why 1 would need to be born again is if there's a death to self.

Series

The Wheel of Faith

4. Graveyard Dead!

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Plenary

Dead Know Nothing

1h 13m

Plenary

Wake-Up Call

1h

FYI 2009 Plenary Sessions

From World-class Dancer to Word of God Preacher

1h

The Man And His Mission

49m

The Eleventh-Hour Labourers

44m

Help our Unbelief

54m

Evening Plenary

03 Your Problems Solved

51m

Plenary

Remnant Surrender

2h 4m

The Sabbath

The Sabbath and the Economy Part 2

55m

A Beginning With No End

Tell Me Why

1h 4m

1. Die

55m

SWYC 2006 Plenary Sessions

The Loud Cry

1h

Sound Doctrine