Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Morning Plenary

Steve Wohlberg

Bible Light about the Holy Spirit

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you brought me and my family here safely after a long trip.

And I'm sure others, they probably have stories to tell of getting here and different things that have happened.

So we are at the beginning of camp meeting, last night, the first meeting, and now this morning.

And we just pray, we pray for the Holy Spirit to be here with us.

Lord, send the rain, send the power, send your presence.

Help us to understand Jesus and the Bible.

Bless this whole week, everything that happens in all the division meetings, all the different meetings, all the speakers, all the music, everything that happens.

And bless these morning meetings, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Luke 11, 13, Jesus said, If you then, being evil.

I think generally we do not consider ourselves, sometimes I say God is more loving than we realize and we are worse than we realize.

We need more than we realize because naturally we are evil.

We have tendencies toward selfishness and pride and darkness that we generally are not aware of.

Jesus just speaks to us straightforward here.

He says, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children." So even though we're bad, we can still do good things with God's help.

I'm a parent and those of you that are parents, you know that you love to do good things for your kids.

That's what Jesus said here, if you then being evil we still know how to give good gifts to our children how much more Shall your heavenly Father, we have a Father in heaven who is not evil, who is perfectly good, how much more shall your heavenly Father give, and what will He give?

He will give the Holy Spirit to them that do what?

Jesus is telling us that God longs to give us the Holy Spirit.

Just as happy as we are to give good gifts to our kids.

Our Father is longing to give the Holy Spirit to all of us.

What does he say in this verse we need to do?

In other words, we need to open our mouths and we need to pray and talk to God and say, dear God, please give me the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead, According to the book of the desire of ages, the Holy Spirit is mentioned all throughout the Bible.

In Genesis chapter 1 verse 2 at the very beginning of time it says the Spirit of God moved upon the surface of the waters.

God said let there be light and there was light.

In the days of Noah, in Genesis chapter 6, the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with man.

He was striving with people before the flood, urging them to get into the boat.

In the book of Matthew when Jesus was baptized it says that he came up out of the water and the Holy Spirit came down upon him like like a dove and lighting upon him right after his baptism, it says Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

In the book of Revelation, there are 7 churches where Jesus gives messages in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3 and at the end of every single 1 of those messages Jesus said, he that has an ear let him hear what who?

At the end of the 3 angels' messages in Revelation chapter 14 verse 12 it talks about those who keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus and right after that the next verse says that there's a voice from heaven speaking to John, and the voice said, Right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from hereafter.

And then it says, Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them.

So I've been convicted about that that at the end of the Holy Spirit, at the end of the 3 angels messages, the Holy Spirit speaks.

At the very end of the Bible, the last chapter, Revelation 22, verse 17 says, and the Spirit and the bride say, come, that him who hears and whoever's thirsty, let him come.

So from the very first chapter of the Bible to the last chapter of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is mentioned again and again and again.

In fact, the Bible itself is a Holy Spirit book.

It says that men who wrote this book, they didn't just follow their own opinions and their own interpretations, but they wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

It's called Satan's War Against the Godhead.

It deals with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the battle that's going on inside of our church and around the world concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So anyway, if you're interested in this book, there's a lot of light in this book and here's a quote from Acts of the Apostles page 52.

It says, The nature of the Holy Spirit is a mystery.

Men cannot explain it because the Lord has not revealed it to them.

Men having fanciful views may bring together passages of Scripture and put a human construction upon them, but the acceptance of these views will not strengthen the church." So God is concerned about strengthening His church.

God wants to build up His church, not tear down His church.

And then it says, Regarding such mysteries which are too deep for human understanding, silence is golden.

So my conviction is that the Lord doesn't really want us to spend a lot of time debating about the Holy Spirit.

He doesn't want us to try to dissect Him, to try to figure out His nature, to try to figure out all the fine intricate details about his existence.

Jesus doesn't say in this verse that we should be trying to define him.

We should ask the Father to give us the Holy Spirit.

So I wish that there was a whole lot more praying for the Holy Spirit than debating about the Holy Spirit.

If I think about my life, there's, you know, in every life there's monumental moments, right?

1 of the most monumental moments for all of us is the day that we were born.

That was a big moment when I came out of my mother, popped out.

Another, I think the biggest moment was when I accepted Jesus into my heart When I was 20 years old in 1979, grew up in a secular home, secular Jewish home in the Hollywood Hills, lived a wild teenage life, didn't know anything about the Bible, didn't know anything about the story of Noah or Moses or the 10 commandments, nothing.

Didn't go to the synagogue, didn't go to church, got involved in a wild life of drugs and alcohol and just a lot of stuff.

And when I was 20 years old, long story short, I learned about Jesus and I accepted him into my heart.

I said, Lord, come in and get me out of all this.

Another huge moment was when, in the year 2000, in Doug Batchelor's Church in Sacramento, I said, I do.

I do before an altar and I became the husband of Kristen Renee Demarest who is now Kristen Wahlberg.

Another big moment was 2004 when Seth was born.

Gigantic moment in my life when I saw him come out and he was all bloody and he was screaming and I was right there in the room and he was yelling and howling and they put him right next to me on a little table, this naked bloody screaming baby.

And I looked at him and I said, Seth, Seth, it's your daddy.

John Wesley Taylor

Improbable Hero

Josiah, the last good king of Judah, dies in the Battle of Megiddo, fighting against Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt.

Now, for the story tonight, Context is key.

The setting is what today we call the Middle East.

The small kingdom of Judah is caught up in the titanic struggle of empires.

To the north, the empire of Assyria, and to the east we have the emerging empire of Babylon.

The king of Babylon, Nabopolazar, has his eyes on Assyria, and he begins to exert pressure and invades Assyria and captures the capital of Assyria, Nineveh.

Down in Egypt, Pharaoh Necho II is worried because he has a strategic alliance with Assyria, and there's this increasing threat, So he plans to go and help defend the new capital, well the provisional capital of Assyria.

It had been Nineveh, but Nabopolazar, the king of Babylon, had overrun the capital of Assyria, Nineveh, and so they had moved the capital to Haran.

And so King Necho wanted to support the Assyrians in Haran from the invasion of the Babylonians.

So he makes plans to have this expedition, a military expedition to go and assist the Assyrians to defend the city of Haran.

To do so, his army would need to march through the small kingdom of Judah.

In Judah, Josiah is king, And as Pharaoh Necho II begins to march along the coast, heading up towards Assyria, and his fleet is accompanying him in the Mediterranean to supply the troops with food and other things they were going to need, Josiah, king of Judah, was not at all pleased that this army was moving through his territory, and so he makes plans to go out and fight against Necho II.

When Josiah makes that determination, Necho hears about it and he sends a message to Josiah, and this is what he says.

What quarrel is there, King of Judah, between you and me?

It is not you I am attacking, but the house with which I am at war, the Babylonians.

God has told me to hurry, so stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you." Josiah doesn't pay any heed to that message.

He takes his army, they march northward, and they engage the Egyptians on the plain of Megiddo.

Now, Josiah endeavors to disguise himself in battle so he won't be personally attacked.

However, 1 of the Egyptian archers takes aim randomly, releases that arrow, and it hits King Josiah fatally.

He is taken back to Jerusalem where he dies.

At that point, there is a person in Jerusalem by the name of Jeremiah, and Jeremiah writes out some laments in honor of good King Josiah who has died and the Bible says that all the male and female singers commemorated Josiah in the laments.

We might describe it as a royal succession because you see Josiah had 4 sons.

You can see them here on the screen, Johannan, Eliakim, Shalem, and 15 years later, Mataniah.

Now, we're not sure exactly why, but Johannan, the eldest, does not ascend the throne.

Perhaps he died before his father, or perhaps he was also killed in the Battle of Megiddo.

The fact is, the crown passes to Shalem, and Shalem becomes king.

And it sometimes happens today in some places, and for example with the Popes, when they became king they would take a new name, and so Shalem takes the name of Jehoahaz.

Now Jehoahaz only reigns for 3 months because what happens is that King Necho, having been defeated in the Battle of Haran, heads back, his tail between his legs, but he wants Judah to know that he is still a force to be reckoned with.

And so on his way back to Egypt, he stops by Jerusalem and he imposes on Jerusalem a tribute, a tax that they would have to pay to Egypt.

Translate that into currency, that would be 3.5 tons of silver.

As well as 1 talent of gold, that's 70 pounds of gold.

Not only that, he decides to take Jehoahaz with him back to Egypt where he dies, and in his place he installs the second son of Josiah as king, and he takes the name Jehoiakim.

Now Jehoiakim will reign for 11 years as king of Judah.

About 3 years later, the Egyptians again, seeing the pressure of the Babylonians against their allies, the Assyrians, the allies of Egypt, head up and already they have taken over Haran, and now they meet again, the Egyptians and the Babylonians, at the Great Battle of Carchemish.

Again, the Egyptians are resoundingly defeated, and this time there is no more Assyria to block the way.

And so, King Nebuchadnezzar sends his troops from Babylon to invade Jerusalem, to invade the kingdom of Judah and lay siege.

That army is led by the crown prince of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and he is successful in his attack on Jerusalem, and they take with them as trophies some of the princes of Judah, among them Daniel and his 3 friends.

While they are beginning to assemble these hostages, if you will, to take them to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who's the crown prince, receives word that father, King Nebuchadnezzar, has died.

And so Nebuchadnezzar sprints back across the desert, directly east, back to Babylon to claim the throne.

In 601, the Babylonians endeavor to invade Egypt, but they are repulsed with significant losses.

And Jehoiakim now decides to switch allegiance from Babylon to Egypt and he stops paying tribute to Babylon.

Not a wise move because Nebuchadnezzar sends his army back again, this time 598 BC, And we don't know for sure if King Jehoiakim dies just before Nebuchadnezzar's troops arrive or if he dies during the beginning of that siege.

But Whatever the case is, his son Jehoiachin is made king, and he only reigns for 3 months and 10 days.

Because At that point, the Babylonian troops take possession of the city, take Jehoiachin to Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar installs as the puppet king of Babylon in Judah, Mataniah.

Mataniah, in March 16, 597, Jehoiakim has taken prisoner 10, 000 of his subjects, the treasures of Solomon's temple are taken as loot to Babylon, and now Mataniah is installed as the puppet king under the name Zedekiah, and Zedekiah will reign for 11 years as a vassal of Babylon.

This is quite intriguing, but the best is yet to come.

Remember the 1 who wrote the laments about Josiah?

He has now received a call from God to serve as God's prophets.

And as God's prophet, 1 of the things that he does is he writes a letter to the exiles of Babylon, these who have been taken captive, these 10, 000 people who somehow were thinking that they would quickly return to Judah because some false prophets were prophesying that they were going to be released shortly to return to Judah.

Jeremiah writes a letter to them and in that letter he advises them not to expect to return immediately to Judea, as these false prophets were announcing, but rather to settle in their place of exile and seek the peace and prosperity of their captors.

A few years later, in 594 BC, some of the surrounding puppet kings, the kings of Edom and Moab and Ammon and Tyre and Sidon.

They come and they talk to King Zedekiah, the vassal king, and they say, "'Let's rebel against Babylon.

He puts it on his shoulders, and he tells Zedekiah the king, remain submissive to the king of Babylon, or you will be destroyed.

Sadly, King Zedekiah, influenced by some of his princes and these other surrounding kings decides to revolt against Babylon.

He enters an alliance with the Pharaoh of Egypt, now a different Pharaoh, Pharaoh Hopra.

And Pharaoh Hopra, well that alliance is rather short-lived because Nebuchadnezzar hears about it, is not pleased at all, sends a massive army to invade Judah for the third time.

This time they impose a 30-month siege on Jerusalem.

Partway through that siege, Pharaoh Oprah from Egypt decides that he needs to come to the rescue of Judah, and so he marches out of Egypt with an army.

The Babylonian army that has been besieging Jerusalem breaks the siege and they march down and fight against the Pharaoh from Egypt.

During this lull in the siege, the prophet Jeremiah decides to go to a town nearby belonging to the tribe of Benjamin.

He gets to the gate of Jerusalem, and 1 of the sentries by the name of Uriah detains Jeremiah as he is leaving Jerusalem to go to Benjamin, and he accuses him of deserting, defecting to the Babylonians.

Jeremiah is brought back before the princes in Jerusalem who throw him into prison and the scripture says he is there for many days.

While he's in the prison, King Zedekiah is concerned because the Babylonians defeat the Pharaoh of Egypt and they return and besiege the city again.

And so King Zedekiah secretly sends to the Prophet Jeremiah, and he asked the prophet Jeremiah, is there any word from the Lord?

Jeremiah says to King Zedekiah, you shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.

But then Jeremiah goes on to say, what offense have I committed against you, against your servants, or against this people that you have put me into prison?

Where now are your prophets who prophesied to you saying the king of Babylon will not come up again against this city or against this land Please let my petition be accepted before you and do not make me return to the prison Lest I die there so kings at a kaya grants that Jeremiah the prophet can live in the courtyard of the guard and furthermore he states that they should give him daily a piece of bread, until there is no more left in the city.

While he's there in the courtyard of the prison, Jeremiah again receives word from God and declares that the city is doomed.

He urges the people to surrender to the besiegers and save their lives.

In the city of Jerusalem, there are 4 powerful princes, pro-Egyptian princes, who when they hear what Jeremiah is saying are not pleased.

In fact, they come before the king and accuse Jeremiah of sedition, that this man should be put to death.

King Zedekiah, weak and vacillating as he was, says, "'Look, he is in your hands, for there is nothing at all the king can do against what you say.'" So the 4 princes take Jeremiah, and they throw him in the dungeon of Malachi.

The cisterns were built in that time with a narrow opening at the top and they were like bell-shaped and they were used to store water particularly during the dry season of the year.

This cistern, however, was no longer filled with water but rather the bottom was covered with slime.

And so when they throw Jeremiah into that dungeon, that cistern, Jeremiah sinks down into the mire.

They have not killed Jeremiah directly, but effectively they have executed him because there is an extreme famine in Jerusalem.

There is no food, and it's just And it's just a matter of time until Jeremiah dies.

This is when someone else enters the picture.

Actually, ibed means servant and melik means king.

So ibed melik simply means servant of the king.

So it really wasn't his name, it was just what they called him.

But there were probably many servants of the king, So to distinguish Ibn Malik from the other servants, he is referred to as Ibn Malik the Kushite.

Bible Light about Jesus Christ

We need the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us.

We need his power, we need his love, we need his forgiveness, his grace, his mercy, and his goodness.

And so we just pray that for this morning meeting that we will open our mouths wide like little birds and we will be filled by you through the Holy Spirit revealing the pure truth of Jesus to us in Jesus name Amen.

As I was thinking about the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus to us and I thought about food, I was thinking my goal here at this camp meeting is to give you organic food without any chemicals, no pesticides, no pollution, no toxins, to give you the pure Word of God.

John chapter 17, if you know this chapter, It starts in verse 1 where the Bible says, These words spoke Jesus and he lifted up his eyes to heaven.

So in John 17 we have a long prayer that Jesus prayed to his father.

He was getting ready for the cross, getting ready for the final scenes.

And so he prayed this long prayer before he died.

He prayed for his disciples, he prayed for us, and the focus as you keep reading this chapter, we're not going to read the whole thing right now, but if you read the whole chapter, Jesus spends a lot of time talking about unity.

About how just as he and the Father are 1, that he wants his people to be 1.

Jesus is very concerned about unity as we get closer to the final crisis.

Just like in John 17, His disciples were getting closer to their big crisis, so we are getting closer to the final crisis.

And I have a strong conviction that God wants his people to be united.

Now in verse 3, Jesus makes a very powerful statement.

That they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.

Now I want to make a number of comments on this verse.

This verse is talking about eternal life and Jesus said that eternal life comes through knowing God.

Knowing God is more than just knowing about God.

Now, it's very unfortunate, and I'm just going to spend a little time on this, that this verse that I just read is creating quite a bit of controversy in our church.

I don't know if you are aware, how many of you are aware of that?

Let me just see some hands, ok a few of you are in some places, some churches, some circles.

This verse is unfortunately contributing to division instead of unity.

Some people when they read verse 3 they conclude that the Father Alone is the only true God, not Jesus.

Because Jesus said, this is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God.

I saw 1 particular website and there was a big graphic of this verse on that website.

And when it referred to God or the Father as the only true God, the words were big.

But then when it referred to Jesus Christ, the words were small on the bottom of the graphic.

Yes, that's right, it does say, it does say, and.

It says that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Whom you have sent.

And as you look at this verse carefully, what Jesus is saying here is that eternal life comes from knowing both the Father and the Son.

He said this is life eternal that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

My conviction is that when people read this text and apply the 1 true God only to the Father and not to the Son that that is a misinterpretation of the verse.

And I will explain this and prove this as we go along.

And that's 1 reason why I wrote this book.

Never had a book actually that I've written that after we signed off on the manuscript and everything was ready to go and the book was printed at 1 of our major publishers, that when we actually got the book, it had all kinds of issues, punctuation issues, formatting issues, various issues, verbal issues, that were not in the approved manuscript when it was printed.

And I thought, well, the devil doesn't want this book in print.

They're at the ABC if you're interested in getting this book.

It goes into these issues and it's at the campus bookstore.

For those that are maybe watching this on YouTube, it is available from White Horse Media as well.

It deals with the issue of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And the question is, who is the Son in relation to the Father?

As the verse says, this is life eternal, Jesus said, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

So let's go to John chapter 1, and we're really going to focus mostly this morning on the book of John.

When you compare Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there are features in the book of John that are not in any other gospel.

And John was really the, he was perhaps the closest to Jesus of all of his disciples.

When you read the book of John, he refers to himself as the 1 whom Jesus loved.

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