Fresh Manna 2021

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Strong Tower Radio

Salvation

Sean Reed

Salvation Day Part 1

♪ Fresh manna fell to the ground as a gift from God while the Israelites were in the wilderness.

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the master baker himself.

How the Israelites must have anticipated the taste and smell of each morning's delivery.

Just like the Israelites, you too can experience the taste and smell of fresh manna.

Today you'll be listening to Sean Reid, pastor of the Holland Seventh-day Adventist Church.

As we prepare to open God's Word, let's just pause for a moment and ask the Holy Spirit to be close and speak to our minds.

Dear Heavenly Father, today we know that you want to speak to us and you use the words of Scripture to do that, but I pray that you would also work on our hearts to be open and receptive to whatever message you know each 1 of us individually needs.

Thank you that you're a God who does communicate to us.

A young man named Cameron was standing on a train platform in New York City when he had a seizure.

And in the disorientation of experiencing a seizure, he stumbled onto the train tracks.

And just at that time, a train was coming down the tracks, and Cameron was in a terribly dangerous situation.

Well, standing on the platform along with Cameron, a man who didn't even know him, named Wesley Autry.

Wesley was a construction worker, he was 50 years old, And as soon as he saw Cameron stumble onto the tracks, he recognized something was amiss.

And so he immediately jumped off the platform where his 2 daughters were standing with him, and he grabbed Cameron, and he barreled him over off the tracks into a little trough, a little ditch that was beside the tracks, just in time as the train went whizzing past.

Remarkably, neither of them were injured.

Well, Wesley's heroic and brave rescue of a man he didn't know captured the attention of the entire city.

The city gave Wesley its highest award for civic achievement.

Donald Trump, who was just Donald Trump back in 2007, gave Wesley $10, 000.

Disney gave him a free trip to Disney World.

The Metro gave him a year's free supply of MetroCards.

They want that kind of person traveling, just in case.

A local deli named a sandwich after Wesley.

And when a newspaper reporter asked him, Why did you jump off the platform, put yourself in danger to rescue someone you didn't even know?

Wesley said, I just did it because I saw someone in distress.

I just saw someone in distress and somebody needed help.

You know, we live in a world right now where everybody around us needs help.

Many don't even realize the danger that they're in, but everybody needs help.

If we think about ourselves, we need help.

We need physical and spiritual and mental and emotional help.

We are living in the midst of a great battle between good and evil, we need help.

And we're blessed to have a God who notes our moments of distress and is able and capable and willing to intervene and deliver us.

Over the next 4 Sabbaths, we're going to be focusing our attention on those days of salvation.

4 stories in the Bible where God intervenes in a moment of distress and delivers his people.

And we'll be looking at lessons that we can apply to our lives during times of great distress.

You know, look at the world around you and regardless of what your political position might be, you know we live in a world that is falling apart.

Look at the world around you, whatever your economic situation in life may be, you can look at the world around you and realize that we're living in a world that is in chaos and turmoil.

And every single 1 of us, regardless of our experience in life, whether we've lived a life out there away from God or a life in here walking with God, we have been through moments in our lives where we desperately needed deliverance.

And the reality is, we need God's deliverance every day.

Over the next 4 weeks, we look at stories in the Bible that speak of God's desire to save us, and share with us lessons for how we can open our lives up to experience God's deliverance.

Let's begin with a story near the beginning of the Bible.

You maybe have a clue as to what story it might be.

That's right, let's go to Genesis chapter 6.

It's not just a story of Noah, it's a story of his family, but it's not just a story of his family, it's really a story of how far a world can fall from God's holy ideal and plan.

You know, you think about the genealogies that is shared with us in Genesis chapter 5.

That brings us from the time of Adam down to Noah.

As we read the stories in the Bible we think, wow Noah lived so long after Adam and he did.

But remember people were living for extraordinary lengths of time and while Noah never would have personally known Adam, Noah's father Maybe as a small boy was bounced on Adam's knee.

Noah himself could have known Enosh, Adam's grandson.

Noah was not all that far removed from the creation of the world, from the story of the fall, from the sad story of Cain murdering his brother Abel, Noah would have been able to see the grandson of Adam.

Noah heard the stories, and there was something about Noah's heart that he was inclined not just to listen, but to follow the will of God revealed through the great stories of the creation of the world and the promise of how God would deliver his people 1 day.

Go with me to Genesis chapter 6 beginning in verse 5.

Noah is recognizing God's work and plan and involvement in the world around him, and God is noticing and recognizing what is happening in the world.

This world that he had created so lovingly and graciously and filled it with bountiful blessings and now is a place that as God looks at it in Genesis chapter 6 verse 5, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart.

The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land.

From man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them." God is having creator's remorse.

You've probably had buyer's remorse once or twice or maybe a few times would be more than that where you've gone and made a purchase and you're excited about it you know this is going to transform your life and revolutionize your experience and then you get it home and a few days later you're beginning to wonder if that was really a good choice.

You know, there used to be a time when you bought something, you were stuck with it.

Now, you buy something, you can have it for a year and a half and decide it wasn't quite meet your expectations and you take it back to Walmart and they'll give you your money back.

I remember as a kid standing in line at Walmart at customer service and the man in front of me was returning a pair of shoes and he said the shoes just didn't last.

And the lady at customer service asked him, well how long have you had the shoes?

An incredibly organized man, if nothing else.

Byers' remorse, it appears from Genesis chapter 6 that God is having creator's remorse.

He's noticing the wickedness and evil in the world that he has created, and God says, I am sorry that I have created this world.

It's because, he says, that the intents and the thoughts of mankind's heart is only evil continually.

Now, did this wickedness catch God by surprise?

But did God just happen to notice 1 day that down here on this earth, things had gotten out of hand and he thought, oh my, I never anticipated this.

We have a God who sees the end from the beginning.

God knew exactly the trajectory that this world was on once sin had entered this planet.

Sin by the choice of Adam and Eve to disregard God's instruction and to do things their own way.

But it reaches a point evidently the sin and evil in the world that God is unable to tolerate her to allow it to continue any longer and God has a plan to deliver the world from the evil of the created beings And as God is looking around in the world, we find this statement in verse 8.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

As God looks at the world he has created and the evil that it is filled with, there is a bright spot, because Noah finds favor in God's eyes.

What does it take to find favor in the eyes of God?

We know that Noah found favor in God's eyes.

Salvation Day Part 2

It was fresh from the ovens of heaven, baked by the Master Baker himself.

I read recently a short column by David Smith.

David Smith is the president of Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee.

He's retiring in a couple months here at the end of the school year.

Smith shared an experience that he had had early in his teaching career.

He was a teacher at a Seventh-day Adventist boarding academy, and for 4 years, he was the class sponsor for a freshman class that became a sophomore class, that became a junior class, that became a senior class.

And 40 years after that class graduated, he was invited to join them for a class reunion, a 40-year class reunion.

And he wondered, in preparing to attend that reunion, what it was going to be like.

Because 40 years before, that class was known for being filled with bright, intelligent, fun-loving kids, but spiritual commitment was not central to their identity as a class.

And he wondered, where will those kids be now 40 years later.

Over that weekend spent with this class at their 40-year reunion, as they shared stories of how God had worked miracles of grace in their lives.

As they shared stories of how God had brought them back to walking with Jesus.

There had been years of wandering and straying from his side, but Adventist education had provided them with something to come back to.

In partnership with their churches and their families, those godly, loving, committed Seventh-day Adventist teachers had instilled in those kids' lives something that the Holy Spirit was able to tap into over the years of wandering and bring them back to walking with Jesus every day.

That's the power of God-centered, Christ-focused Christian education.

It gives kids something to come back to, even if intervening years may be filled with wandering from the Savior's side.

Our story this morning, in Daniel chapter 3, is a story that reminds us of the power of early training to know and fear and follow the Lord.

We're 2 weeks into a four-part series titled Salvation Day, as we're looking at stories in the Bible of God intervening and delivering His people, and we look at those stories for lessons that we can apply to our lives today, especially in those moments, those times when we need God's deliverance.

I appreciate it, Joyce, your children's story, and your sidekick did a marvelous job of not popping those balloons until the appropriate time.

This idea of, in the midst of temptation, God delivering us, this way of escape that he provides for us is God's deliverance, not just preserving us from the experience of temptation, but through temptation giving us a way of escape.

You can find those stories throughout the Bible.

You can look back at your experience and find those moments of salvation day in your life when God delivered you.

But as you turn with me to Daniel chapter 3, that's where we find our story this morning.

Let's ask that God would speak to us through His Word.

Dear Heavenly Father, this morning we thank You that You are a God who delivers, You are a God who intervenes in our lives, and we ask that You would do that for us now by opening our minds and hearts to Your Word.

It's 1 of those exciting stories in the Bible.

It's a story of these 3 young men who are captives in a foreign land, well, their days of captivity have seemingly passed.

They're now rulers, or at least government officials, over the province of Babylon.

You know how Jerusalem had been defeated, God's people had turned aside from following the Lord, they had neglected and ignored his instructions, they had refused to listen to his prophets, and by doing so they had shunned God's ability or God's promise of deliverance for them.

And so Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar had come, the armies of Babylon, and they had defeated Jerusalem.

They'd hauled the royal family and the treasures of the temple away into captivity.

Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego except those are their Babylonian names I always forget there is it's Hananiah Mishael and Azariah Daniel Hananiah Mishael and Azariah were these 4 Hebrew young men who were led away into captivity, they were...

Well, the king attempted to indoctrinate them in the pagan philosophies and customs of Babylon, but you know the story in Daniel 1, how They purposed in their hearts ahead of time that they would not be defiled with the king's meat or the king's drink or the king's customs or the king's teachings.

What a testament to the value of godly education.

God sustained them, and they trusted in the Lord because they had a foundation they could build their lives upon that even if they were snatched away from their homeland and all the positive influences of family and church and godly community, they had God.

And they knew Him, and they trusted in Him.

It's wonderful to have something, a foundation provided by Adventist education, by Christian education, by a godly upbringing.

It's wonderful to have that to come back to later in life, even if we might stray.

What much better is to simply never stray?

To live out that godly instruction to stick close to God throughout one's life, and these young men purposed in their hearts to stick close to their God, and they did.

They had seen God's power to deliver them.

It started out by God arranging things when they took a stand for Him to be able to follow what they knew to be God's guidance as it came to what they chose to eat and drink.

In Daniel chapter 2, their very lives were at stake when Nebuchadnezzar, in a fit of rage, had ordered that all the wise men of Babylon should be destroyed.

And they had seen how in answer to their prayer, a night-long prayer meeting of those 4 young men, God had given Daniel a dream that revealed the interpretation of the king's dream, and they were spared.

So they knew that God was able to deliver them.

They had seen that when they chose to put God first, even in the midst of trouble and trial and persecution and at the very threat of death, God comes through.

And now in Daniel chapter 3, they face a test.

You see, Nebuchadnezzar had had that dream in Daniel 2 where God had revealed to him the great span of human history from the time of Babylon on down through to the second coming of Jesus Christ, still in the future.

It was that image of a head of gold, a chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay mixed together.

And through Daniel, God had revealed that the head of gold represented Babylon, the chest and arms of silver represented the nation that would defeat Babylon, and we see from Daniel chapter 5 that this was the Medes and the Persians, and then following them would be the Greeks, you can see that in Daniel chapter 8, and then their legs of iron representing the empire of Rome, and then those feet of iron and clay Rome divided, some strong, some weak.

And as Daniel had shared this message with Nebuchadnezzar and touched Nebuchadnezzar's heart, And he responded favorably.

But Nebuchadnezzar began to think a little bit.

And he thought, you know, this is great to be represented by a head of gold.

I mean, it's better to be the head and not the tail.

And as he thought about this, he realized that, well, it would be wonderful if that whole image had been gold.

Instead of silver and brass and bronze and iron and clay mixed together, I mean, gold is just much better.

And that's exactly what Nebuchadnezzar set out to do on the plain of Dura.

Daniel chapter 3 reveals to us, he decided to build a whole image of gold.

The Bible says 60 cubits, a cubit's about 18 inches or so.

You could see it from a little bit of a distance.

Just imagine it on the Plain of Dure, this 90-foot tall image.

I think it might have looked a little bit like Nebuchadnezzar himself, don't you think?

This image of gold, 90 feet tall, it would have been a sight to see.

Last year, I think it was last year, down in Berrien Springs, the village Seventh-day Adventist Church, Pastor Ron Kelly had arranged for this replica of the Daniel 2 image, so head of gold, chest of silver, the thighs of brass, bronze, legs of iron, feet of iron and clay that was carved out of a tree.

Some guy out west had used a chainsaw and carved a Daniel 2 image, and they hauled it out on a flatbed truck and stuck it up, and that was pretty cool.

People paid attention to it in the Berrien Springs area and noticed it, and then they had an evangelistic series, and that was a great witnessing opportunity.

But just imagine 90 feet tall, all of gold, and Nebuchadnezzar views this as making a statement of the perpetuity, the unending nature of his kingdom.

But Nebuchadnezzar wasn't simply satisfied to make this dramatic statement.

Salvation Day Part 3

Have you ever found a contradiction in the Bible?

Where you read this passage and it says or promises 1 thing, and then you read this passage over here, and it seems to say or promise something different.

Or maybe the contradiction has been between what you see God assure in his Word and then the experience in your life that seems so different from what God has promised.

We all have those moments, those moments of crisis in our lives, a crisis of faith where we feel, Even if intellectually we know God hasn't abandoned us, we feel as if He has.

Over the past several Sabbaths, we've been looking at salvation days in the Bible.

Moments when God intervenes to deliver and save His people.

And we've noted again and again that God always delivers His people, but sometimes we have those experiences where God doesn't come through.

At least, He doesn't come through before the destruction descends upon us, before the heartache rends our lives in 2, before...

How do we respond when we fail to find a salvation day when we so desperately need it?

Take your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Daniel.

And as you turn there, let's pause a moment again and ask for the Holy Spirit to teach us.

Dear Heavenly Father, this morning, as we open your word, we know you want to speak to us.

And we ask that you would indeed do that for us this morning.

Daniel is 1 of those books just full of stories of God coming through, of God intervening, of God delivering His people.

We looked at the story of the 3 worthies there in Daniel, chapter 3, as they are on the brink of destruction.

They are in fact cast into the fiery furnace and God waits until the moment they're in the flames to save them.

This story in Daniel chapter 9 may not immediately seem as if it's a Salvation Day story where God intervenes and delivers his people, but it is.

Daniel is God's prophet, God's messenger.

Just imagine what that must have been like.

We read the Bible and God speaks to our hearts.

We study scripture and God opens our minds to wonderful truths, but what would it be like if God spoke directly to you?

His voice, not through the words of Scripture, but God's voice directly speaking to you.

You've probably imagined what God's voice may sound like.

When I was a student at Southern Adventist University, I thought God's voice probably sounded like Gordon Beets.

He was the president of the university when I was there, he had a very rich resonant voice.

After moving here to Holland, Gordon Beets is out.

I think God's voice sounds a lot like Dr.

But just imagine being Daniel and God speaking directly to you, having these visions that are recorded in the book of Daniel.

Visions that Daniel didn't always understand, in fact, usually he didn't, but then he would call out to God and God would send the angel Gabriel to come speak to him.

Imagine Gabriel standing in your living room explaining the Bible to you.

And in Daniel chapter 8, Daniel had 1 of those visions that really threw him for a loop.

He wasn't sure how to understand it or what to make of it, and he called out to God, and God sends the angel Gabriel to explain the vision to him, and he does.

He explains and he applies the vision to Daniel, the whole thing, except for 1 little part.

1 little part that leaves Daniel confused and distressed and somewhat disoriented, but he doesn't get an answer, he doesn't get an explanation.

And that 1 little part has to do with a period of time.

I told you to go to Daniel 9, but Daniel 8 is very close, so I don't think you'll begrudge me going back a page or 2, Daniel chapter 8 and verse 14, in the vision, he hears a holy 1, an angel speaking.

He said to me for 2, 300 days, then the sanctuary will be cleansed.

That's the only part of the vision that Gabriel does not explain to Daniel.

Because when we get down to the explanation in verse 26, As Gabriel is speaking to him, he simply says, the vision of the evenings and the mornings are the vision of the days, the 2300 days, which has been told is true, but keep the vision secret, for it pertains to many days in the future.

Well, that doesn't tell Daniel much, does it?

The explanation is, it's true, and it has to do with the future.

Is it hard to keep something a secret that you don't know?

And in verse 27, Daniel was exhausted and sick for days.

I got up and carried on the king's business, but I was astounded at the vision.

What was it that Daniel did not understand?

He understood about the goat and the ram and the fighting and the 4 horns and the little horn, he understood all about that from the Daniel chapter 8, but the 1 part he didn't understand was this time period of the sanctuary being cleansed or restored after 2, 300 days.

He thinks about it, he prays about it, he studies it.

It's a decade between the 2, and notice what Daniel is doing in Daniel chapter 9.

In the first year of Darius, the son of Uhazuerus of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, 70 years." Daniel is studying.

Daniel is in captivity, even though he is a ruler among his people, among the Babylonians, and now the Medes and the Persians.

Series

Salvation

Salvation Day Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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In a Little While

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Salvation Day Part 3

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The Personal Christ

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Salvation Day Part 2

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