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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Anthony Baca

Behold, He Comes

Father in heaven, thank you for the privilege that we have to think on spiritual things today.

I invite you to be with my mind as my thoughts are still organizing.

I ask that you would be with my friends here today.

I pray that angels of light would walk up and down the aisles, I pray that your Holy Spirit would rest upon this room.

I pray that angels of darkness would be banned from this place and that you would set up angelic sentries to guard this room, Lord.

That we would have a divine focus and that we would learn whatever singular thing it is that you brought us here today to learn of you.

Speak to us, touch our hearts, touch our minds.

You guys love that song, How Deep the Father's Love?

And I think it hits in a special way because it reminds us of something of God, and that is just how much He actually loves us.

So today's presentation and discussion and thoughts to consider, I wanna share Psalm 113 to begin.

It says here, if the foundations are what, what can the righteous do?

And I think sometimes as seasoned Christians, as we grow in our Christianity, and I know some people here are baby Christians, and I love you guys so much because you remind me of me when I was a baby Christian.

It's just like everything was I still remember learning everything for the first time.

Like the first time you learn like you know about Hellfire, State of the Dead and all these things like these are revelations to me at first.

And as you grow in Christianity it's almost like easy to forget how important or how life-changing the foundations of our faith were.

I mean, even just realizing for the first time ever that God loved me enough to die for me.

The first time that thought became real changed my life.

And how often I think it is easy in our faith to to grow to such a depth of knowledge and, you know, Greek and Hebrew and exegetical studies and commentaries and all these other things, that sometimes I think we neglect the foundations of our faith.

Like the thing that was the foundation, the cornerstone upon which our faith really stands.

And if that foundation gets destroyed, if Satan chisels away at our foundation, what can the righteous do?

In other words, you can know every Greek and Hebrew word there is to know, but without your cornerstone, what good would it do you?

Many of you are probably familiar with, there we go, Matthew chapter 25.

Are you guys familiar with Matthew chapter 25?

In fact, I'm preaching on it this afternoon for those that are free from 1231.

If you want to hear another sermon, I am preaching in this afternoon on that, this particular parable, which I think is what spurred these thoughts on in my mind.

And It's such an interesting chapter, Matthew chapter 25, because it's answering the question given in Matthew chapter 24.

In Matthew 24, the disciples asked the question.

They said, what will be the signs of your coming and of the end of the world, right?

The disciples want to know what will it be like before Jesus returns again?

And he gives Matthew chapter 24, which I think we're very intimately familiar with.

It describes everything that will kind of happen in the secular world around us before Christ returns.

And if you have a Bible with red lettering, you will notice that Matthew 24 bleeds directly into 25.

It is the same thought, which means Matthew 25 is still answering the same question.

The difference is Matthew 24 are the signs in the world, Matthew 25 are the signs in the church.

I'll challenge you to study it with this perspective in mind.

Matthew 25 are the signs in the church amongst God's people.

And we're not gonna have a study on Matthew 25.

Like I said this afternoon, you're more than welcome to come if you would like to hear that.

But I want to share with you a quote today.

In the parable, in Matthew 25, you have those 3 separate parables.

1 of them are the wise and foolish virgins.

It says here, speaking of the virgins, the class represented by the foolish virgins are not what?

They are attracted to those who believe the truth, but they have not yielded themselves to the Holy Spirit's working.

They have not called upon the rock Christ Jesus and permitted their old nature to be broken up.

The class represented by the fullest virgins have been content with a superficial work." My friends, that is a scary quote, is it not?

Because that is not saying that the 5 wise were Christians who love the Bible, and the 5 foolish were people who didn't like the Bible.

All of the virgins, including the foolish virgins, were not what?

When you read the passage, you might think they're hypocrites, but they were not hypocrites.

It means I literally have a pocket Bible that fits into my pajamas.

And as a cold porter and as I was on ministry, you know, Alexander the Great always had a dagger under his pillow.

And actually at 1 in the morning, it did come in handy.

So I will tell you this, When you have the word of God ready, God will call you to use it, amen?

They're attracted to those who believe the truth.

They don't like hanging out with worldlings, they like hanging out with advent hopers, amen?

They don't wanna go to the club, they wanna go to a Bible study, amen?

Come on now, you're like, man, this is my type of people.

And I think it's so easy in our minds to think foolish virgin is lost worldling.

The reality of what I'm seeing in this quote is if you put a foolish and a wise virgin side by side, you cannot tell the difference by looking at them.

You couldn't tell the difference by talking with them.

You probably couldn't tell the difference even by how they externally live their lives in the public.

You could not tell, because they are not what?

They really genuinely do appreciate and care about the truth.

God is not satisfied with the superficial Christianity, my friends.

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Behold, He Comes

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