There have always been but two classes of worshipers, the true and the false. the Bible warns that there are many who consider themselves among the true who will at last discover they have been on the wrong side. How can we be sure whose side we are on?

Hartland Spring Convocation 2023: Righteousness by Faith and its Impact on Religious Liberty

<p>There have always been but two classes of worshipers, the true and the false. the Bible warns that there are many who consider themselves among the true who will at last discover they have been on the wrong side. How can we be sure whose side we are on?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Mark Howard

Whose Side Are You On?

We are on the borders, as I mentioned last night, of the eternal world.

And I have a passion that we cross over, not generations from now.

You understand that those who went before us had to hear from the pen of inspiration that they could have gone, But they didn't cooperate with the Lord.

Well, I want to ask the Lord's blessing this morning.

Before we start to get into His Word, I'm going to invite you to bow your heads as I kneel and pray.

Our gracious Father in heaven, we thank you for the Holy Sabbath.

We thank you so much for the privilege we have of coming into your presence, for the promise of the Spirit of Truth to guide us into not just a personal understanding of truth, but the ability to share that truth with others and to help people prepare for the coming of Jesus.

Lord may this be the generation that complies with your directions, that surrenders to your will and finishes this work.

We ask and pray these things in Jesus' name and for His sake.

Now if you weren't here last night, you did hear in the introduction this morning that I currently am working in the Michigan Conference in the Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department.

How many of you know what Personal Ministries is?

Now this is kind of a trick question because I know that a lot of people that have asked don't.

So let me, how many of you, anybody here a personal ministries leader in your local church?

Now let me tell you to help these nice folks out, I want you to understand the role of that personal ministries leader.

The role, according to the church manuals, to get every single Seventh-day Adventist member, old and young, whoever has been baptized, active in the work of sharing the truth.

Now I know that a lot of people get a little bit skittish about sharing their faith, and so I'm also in the Sabbath School Department.

Some of you are aware that the director of that department is Cameron DeVasier, and Pastor Cameron and I do a weekly training on the Sabbath school lesson for teachers.

And I know some of you have referenced that to me, have mentioned that you have seen that.

But because we do that, we have to record quite a way ahead.

Next quarter is on the book of Ephesians.

So I'm sharing with you just a little thing that I stumbled across in preparation for 1 of those lessons that has everything to do with personal ministries, which is just a precursor to our message today, by the way.

Now, again, the quarterly is on the book of Ephesians.

And what's fascinating is that Paul's first visit to Ephesus, He basically comes, preaches a sermon, and then drops off 2 lay people, Priscilla and Aquila, and moves on.

And Priscilla and Aquila then continue to work there in Ephesus.

And then there's another lay preacher, to the best of our knowledge, by the name of Apollos.

And when the Apostle Paul comes back to Ephesus, there are believers there in Ephesus because of the lay people.

And what's fascinating is if you remember Ephesus, Ephesians rather, rather not Ephesians, the book of Acts chapter 19, when Paul comes back through Ephesus he finds a group of people who have been baptized, they're believers, but they didn't ever really realize anything about the Holy Spirit.

And so then Paul continues to educate them further.

Incidentally, that's because they were taught by Apollos before Apollos learned the truth more fully from Aquila and Priscilla.

I know, I'm not trying to lose you here, but here's the point.

Many of us don't witness because we say, I just don't know enough.

Apollos didn't even know anything about the Holy Spirit and he raised up a group of believers.

And so when the apostle Paul came back, he just educated them a little further and they were re-baptized, but these people were already committed followers of Jesus.

The only reason I'm sharing this is to say the work that God's called us to do is not going to be finished by ministers.

It's not just going to be finished by the pastors and the board of elders or even the personal ministries leaders.

This is what we as Seventh-day, we are not a denomination, we are a missionary movement.

So I am so thrilled with what Heartland is doing to train missionaries to put out in the field.

I'm sure some are, but we need missionary work everywhere because there are souls everywhere that need to be saved, even within our churches.

And maybe that goes a little directly, more directly to what I want to speak on this morning.

I mentioned last night that we are, oh I need to say this as well.

It's funny, I'm going to give you a little inside picture.

There may be some pastors in the audience.

My brother Jim and I were talking after his Sabbath school class this morning, but this is kind of a common discussion.

I don't know, maybe it's not common, but with a lot of the preachers I've talked to, It's like, how do you feel the message went?

Man, I wish I would have said this better.

This is something that preachers do all the time.

And so sometimes maybe where you're sitting, you're like, that person thinks he's all that and then some.

That's a different story when you're behind the scenes.

The fact of the matter is we know that, but for the grace of God, I mean, God speaks through clay.

And so because of that, we know that things aren't always said maybe the best way that could be said or as clear as it could be said.

So the beautiful part of that is we have a question and answer this afternoon.

So if there's something we didn't say right and you have questions about something that was presented, either last night or this morning or something else, this afternoon at what time is it?

And was there a place for them to turn those questions in?

It's back on the table in the corner there.

So right back in that corner, if you have a question that you want to pose for the question and answer, you can put it in that box.

Now I mentioned last night, which I didn't necessarily have to, that we are living in very unusual times.

I guess not, unusual is maybe an overstatement.

For Seventh-day Adventists, they shouldn't be unusual, they should be expected.

We also know that the final movements are going to be rapid.

And we live in a generation of third options, you know what I mean?

Like there's this side and this side but we always say, is there another option?

But I want to make something clear to you that at the end there's not going to be a third option.

There can be 2 groups and the Bible outlines it very clearly.

There are going to be those who worship Jesus Christ and those who worship the Antichrist.

Those who worship the Lord, those who worship the beast and receive his mark.

And while this is an end-time scenario, ironically, it's not a new 1.

There have always really just been 2 classes.

Shortly after the fall of man, you have a little worship experience with the first 2 children, Cain and Abel.

And we are told in Inspiration, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 72, Cain and Abel represent 2 classes that will exist in the world till the close of time.

And we can trace those 2 classes through Scripture.

I'm going to go to the New Testament today to look at those 2 classes in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, and I think in light of the fact that these are the 2 classes that exist, it's essential that we know what the 2 classes are and which side we're on.

Whose Side Are You On?

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