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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

20/20 Vision

Father in heaven, thank you Lord for this time.

Thank you Father that we can come and study together once more.

And I pray Lord that you'd speak to our hearts.

Softly and tenderly Lord, I know that the Holy Spirit is working.

And I pray that you'd convict us, that you'd lead us and you'd draw us our hearts and our eyes and our thoughts, even our ears, heavenward, that we would hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us this evening.

I'd like to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 26.

Matthew 26, and we are looking at the time that's leading up to when Jesus is about to stand before the judgment seat of Caiaphas and even Pilate.

Ellen White asks us to meditate upon these closing scenes and there is much that we can learn and even as I just share a little tidbit here for all of you, May this strengthen us in this new week.

The Bible says this, Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than 12 legions of angels?

But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled that thus it must be?

Jesus has just finished praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's been wrestling in prayer, whether or not to proceed with that great sacrifice for the whole world or not.

And just as he wraps up, he hears the noise of the mob coming and Judas is coming with this throng, this great multitude, the Bible says.

And Peter wanting to defend his master and show his zeal he takes a sword from where he got it we have no idea but he takes his sword and he aims for the neck of the person and of course in the mercy of God an angel deflects it and he cuts off the ear.

There's no way that Peter's swordsmanship was that accurate to be able to cut off just a little bit of the ear, but it was only by the grace and mercy of God that this man was left preserved alive, then Jesus says, look, I don't need your help.

If I really needed it, I would have just prayed and God would have sent more than what, 12 legions of angels, just like that.

For how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?

Friends, for the sake of our salvation, for the sake of the fulfillment of prophecy, Jesus did not call angels to aid him.

The Father was ready at His command to send those angels, and it would not have been morally wrong, but He did not do it.

There was a bigger picture that the disciples and the rest of the world were not seeing.

That they only just saw the here and the now and the present and those disciples were blinded by their own desires and their own ambitions and their own interpretations, so to speak, of prophecy and the Messiah.

And sometimes to a great extent we still are as well.

We are so short-sighted, so near-sighted that we don't see far into the future and we don't understand the dark mysteries of God's will and how He leads each and every 1 of us.

Maybe if we were in Christ's position today we might have been tempted to ask why.

Jesus chose the blood-stained path that would lead to the cross for the sins of the whole world and it was not an easy decision as he had just been sweating great drops of blood, had to pray this prayer 3 times if we were in that position.

And we had this power at our disposal and we did not see the future as Christ saw, we would have been tempted to ask, why God?

Why would you allow these sorts of things to happen to me?

God, why don't you help me today when I'm in trouble?

Why don't you help me when I call upon you?

Why don't you come at a time when I need you the most?

Jesus says he could, but the scriptures, they need to be fulfilled in your life.

Following God, friends, sometimes is a mystery.

He knew His purpose for which He had come to this earth.

It takes, sometimes we call it chance, but according to the Bible, we call that providence.

But when we follow God, friends, it even still then sometimes is a mystery as to why things happen to us.

Isaiah 55, verse 8 and 9, a scripture song, 1 of my favorite.

It says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Friends, following God is a mystery sometimes.

And no, it's not guesswork whether or not we should go down a certain path.

But do we know the end from the beginning?

Can we discern His way so clearly that we can know for certainty that this is what should happen?

1 Corinthians 2, verse 16, Let's turn the Bibles there.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct him, but that we have the mind of Christ.

But you know friends, even if we do have the mind of Christ, still there will be things that will be mysteries to us.

Who really has the total mind of Christ to understand all things today?

He doesn't ask us to discern all the movings of His works and His Spirit.

It's really impossible for us to understand all the mind of Christ and especially the mind of God.

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man No, not the angels which are in heaven neither the Son, but what?

It's very interesting that Jesus is doing the judging but yet the Father is the only 1 that knows when He's gonna wrap up this whole work.

And yet even the angels in heaven, beings that have never sinned, they don't understand totally the will of God.

They don't know when the Father is deciding to come to this earth for a second time.

No man and no angel knows the day nor the hour.

We know when it's close, but Friends, we have no idea.

There are some things that we will just never know in this lifetime.

And even as we choose to follow God today and say, God, I'm committing my life to you 100% this week.

It is impossible to understand totally how God leads.

And they don't know everything that's going to take place and when.

But yet, they trust the Father enough to hold on and to obey His every word.

For faith is that very thing that helps us to cling onto God in the unknown.

For if we know it, if we can see it, if we understand it, then it doesn't require faith on our behalf anymore.

But even the angels don't have the whole picture of God's plans.

Only as they obey does it, even to them, get revealed step by step.

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20/20 Vision

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