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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Katie Jaeger

Turn and Live

I can't really say good morning because if you look at your watches, it's afternoon.

It's just a little bit cold, so I'm shivering up here.

Well, it's probably a little bit of both.

But if I start busting out some jumping jacks, you'll know why.

For those of you who don't know, I am a nurse and I work at the hospital.

And there is 1 word that strikes terror in the heart of nurses.

Actually, there's probably several words like code or death.

But the word I'm thinking of is called floating.

Are there any nurses out there that can relate with me?

For those of you who don't know what floating is, it's when there's not enough patients on your unit or there's too many nurses and so you can't be used on your unit.

You have to go somewhere else to work to another department, which can be interesting.

And there's 1 unit, I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this, but there's 1 unit at Loma Linda that I hate to float to, I absolutely detest.

Because, and I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but I don't like going there because there's a lot of patients there who are very sick who have done it to themselves.

You know, they have, you know, liver problems, they've lived a very hard life of drinking and drugs and this sort of thing.

And so here they are, they're grumpy, mean, yellow, weak, very sick, often times they don't know who they are or where they are.

And I look at them and I think, you did this to yourself, This is the result of your own choice.

But on the other hand I think of loved ones, some of my best friends in high school, I can think of 2 specifically, who have just given themselves completely over to hard living, drinking and that sort of thing.

And I think of them when I take care of patients who are so sick like this.

I think that I need to let them know because I know the end result.

Maybe they don't know the extent their choices today will lead to if they continue down this path.

And so many times I just plead with them and tell them, please stop what you're doing, because I know where your path is leading you.

Similarly, God can see us, and he sees the decisions and choices that we make every day.

And he pleads with us because he knows the end result of what we're doing.

And this morning, I want you to turn with me to 1 of the passages in the Bible where God is just pleading with us.

And this verse always cuts me to my core because it just feels, it's so full of God's emotion, just pleading with us to turn and to change.

Ezekiel chapter 18, and we will begin in verse 30.

It reads, Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God.

Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin.

Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

For why should you die, O house of Israel?

For I have no pleasure in the death of the 1 who dies, says the Lord God.

Therefore turn and live." The title of my message this morning is, Turn and Live.

Before we begin, will you please pray with me?

Father in heaven, Lord, we come to you on this beautiful Sabbath at the beach.

And Lord, there may be many distractions here.

But I just ask that you would meet us in this place and that you would tune our hearts to sing your praise.

That we would be open to receiving the message and that you would please speak through me, that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit and that your message would be proclaimed this morning.

Recently, in 1 of my personal Bible study, my contact has been asking me a lot of questions about, well, if God is so good and so full of love, then, you know, what's up with this punitive side of him, the punishments, the retribution, the judgment?

And so, over the last few weeks, I've been struggling to lead her through a study of the character of God and who he is.

And we're not finished yet, but what I have found so far is that the problem really doesn't lie with God, because I have found a God who is so loving and who is constantly reaching out to his people, placing situations in our lives and reaching out to us and changing circumstances so that we have the most favorable circumstance to choose him and to choose salvation.

However, so many times the problem is with his people, that our hearts are not open to receiving these blessings and to receiving his salvation.

Now when I talk about this, you might think, oh, yeah, uh-huh, not me.

Those are the people, you know, the drunkards.

Those are the people who worship Satan, who defy God, the atheists, you know.

Yeah, their hearts definitely aren't open to God.

But this morning I proposed to you that the problem with our hearts and God not being right to God with God not being open to God is just as much in the church as outside of the church.

Okay The problem with our hearts is not just outside of the church, right?

It's just as much in the church as outside of the church So this morning we're going to look at a story in the Old Testament.

It's an Old Testament character who turned But she did not live in fact the mere act of her turning brought about immediate death.

This woman, I'm sure you can all understand, all know who she is right now, but she is mentioned 1 time in the New Testament in the form of a warning.

Now my Bible is broken up into subtitles within the chapters, I'm sure many of yours are too.

And the verse that we are going to read lies under the subtitle called the coming kingdom.

So the context of this verse, the context of this warning is Jesus is warning his people about his second coming, about the end of time, and he's wanting to prepare his people.

He's giving them specific instructions so that they will be prepared and make it through on his side.

So in Luke chapter 17 and verse 32, we're going to read the three-word warning that Jesus gives us.

Now this is an important message for us because we believe that we are living in the last days, correct?

And so this is a last day warning and so it's pertinent for us.

Now usually in the Bible when we hear the word remember, what do we think about?

There's a famous other place in the Bible where we know that their word remember is.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

Now there's a lot more attached to that warning than just, you know, go to church on Sabbath or don't go to school, don't work on the seventh day, Right?

We know that the Sabbath is a covenant between us and God.

It is a reminder that He is first our Creator and also our Redeemer.

And it's also going to be an end-time issue with God's people in the world.

And so that simple reminder, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, is very much important not just because of the, you know, top message, but also the underlying strings that are attached.

And so also is this warning we find in Luke.

It says remember Lot's wife, not just, oh yeah, remember that story, that lady who looked back and turned into a pillar of salt?

It says, remember God, Lot's wife, because this is an end time message, because people in the church in the end time are going to be able to relate to this same story.

So what is it about this story that is so applicable for us?

What is it about this story that is so important for us to remember that Jesus would mention it in the context of the end time warning?

Now when I say that, that doesn't mean she taught a religion class.

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