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Muskegon SDA Church

Kameron DeVasher

Take Heed

Our message today is, of course, a sermonette.

It's a brief introduction to our communion service and the ordinance of humility and the partaking of the emblems that follows thereafter.

But we've been studying for a quarter now Adventist church history and some of the ups and some of the downs, some of the formative events that have taken place in the last hundred and plus years of formation of this remnant movement that I believe the Lord has raised up at this time with this message, with this mission to carry the gospel to the world in this generation.

And I wanted to conclude with a thought, and that's our message entitled, Take Heed.

There are many warnings in Scripture, and sometimes it's easy to hear enough warnings, you just kind of blend them away as unimportant.

Or I understand what they're talking about, just kind of put it on the back burner.

And I especially think this is the case in our society today.

I don't know if you've noticed, but we get warned about things that should just be common sense.

My wife has a curling iron, which is not news in itself, but on it, it has a tag that, I kid you not, literally says, Do not put in eyes.

You should not, apparently, you need to be warned not to stick the curling iron in your eye.

I'm pretty sure we have 1 over there where you get a box of copy machine toner.

You've seen the cardboard sun shields you put in your car so they don't overheat?

Don't operate your vehicle while this is in place.

Apparently, someone at some point thought that was a warning that we needed to tell people because there's a chance they might do that.

And of course, just several of these around, you can find in the hardware store, you got 1 of those wheelbarrow wheels, little 13 inch wheels.

It'll tell you, not intended for highway use.

In case you were tempted to take your wheelbarrow out on the road, don't do it.

And we chuckle at those because, I mean, those are real warnings that people give, but it seems like so commonsensical, why would you have to say it?

There's no risk that that's ever going to happen.

I'm not going to go in the shower with a hair dryer.

When he gives us warning, it's not because like, oh, well, everybody should just know that.

No, no, no, God has dire warnings for us, and especially as we look at church history, we're gonna see that we need to understand some things in the light of God's word.

So as we begin our message, let's begin with a word of prayer, and we'll briefly study some of the keen warnings in Scripture and what they apply for our day.

Lovely day of life at all, and particularly a day of Sabbath rest and fellowship and worship.

And Lord, as we understand that we are part of your collective people hastening your soon coming.

Help us to never get caught up in the collective movement and neglect our individual responsibility to you.

Please help us to see the warnings from your word and not only see them but take them to heart as we look to be part of finishing your work in this generation.

If you would turn to Matthew chapter 6, just see a couple examples of, And we could look up several different phrases.

You could look up beware, we could look at watch out.

But several times in scripture, you'll see the phrase take heed.

Take heed, that means be aware of, pay attention to.

This is something to watch out for that if we didn't tell you, you might not even notice.

Unlike the examples I gave you before, there are warnings in Scripture that you need to have the warning or you might not realize that you're in danger.

Jesus addresses 1 such issue in Matthew chapter 6 starting with verse 1.

Take heed, he says, that you do not do your charitable deeds before men to be seen by them.

Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Now is he saying don't do charitable deeds?

We should be zealous for good works, as the scripture says, but for the eternal reward, not for the temporal reward of recognition by men.

But apparently, and we might think, well, of course that, but It's easy to drift into those things, and particularly in the society of the time Jesus was writing in.

Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory from men.

If you had lots of wealth and you were gonna give something very big, some large thing, that you would make a production of it.

It would sound the trumpets, clear the street, and make a parade out of dum-da-da-dum.

Christ says don't do that, don't do that.

In fact he goes on to say, assuredly I say to you they have their reward, they have that trumpet and that's it.

Obviously we'd want to have the last trumpet to be our reward.

He goes on to say in verse 3, but when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret, and your father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly.

So apparently in that day and age, charitable giving was supposed to be some big show, and Christ says, don't do it like that.

Warning, you might be tempted, this might be something that everybody else is doing, but you do it differently.

Watch out, For your soul's own sake, your reward needs to be in heaven.

Go to the end of the book of Matthew, Matthew chapter 24, to the other end of the book.

Another warning that Jesus says, take heed and watch for.

When he was asked about the destruction of the temple and specifically about signs of his second coming, Jesus says in verse 4, Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no 1 what?

Now deception, as you know, only works when you think it isn't working Right.

No 1 goes around being deceived Saying yeah, I'm deceived.

I love it because as soon as you know, you're deceived you are no longer deceived So it's something to legitimately watch out for.

Take ye that no 1 disuse you, for many will come in what form?

Some even claim I am the Christ and will deceive Many.

It's like there's going to be a lot of people deceived.

Whatever the deception is, it's going to be cloaked in the garb of Christianity.

It's going to have my name attached to it, some even on behalf of me.

But don't just swallow whatever comes with the stamp that says Jesus on it, you must test for yourself.

You must filter it out by the word of God, take heed that no 1 deceives you.

Now let's go to the book of 1 Corinthians.

A similar warning is given this time not by Jesus but by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

And as we have done for this quarter, reviewed church history and seen lessons for us today, the Apostle Paul does the very same thing in the book of 1 Corinthians.

For the church in Corinth, and he starts with verse 1 in chapter 10 and uses the Old Testament church as an example for the New Testament church to learn their lessons.

Start with verse 1 of 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink.

For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was whom?

So he's saying the same thing that you're being baptized into, they were baptized into.

It was Christ who led in the Old Testament church.

They were just Christian as you are Christian.

But, it says in verse 5, but with Most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Now, it doesn't take too much of a rocket scientist to put together that the Old Testament leading out of God's children of Israel to the promised land is supposed to be an example for the New Testament Israel, the spiritual, faithful Israel, who's going to the promised land soon to come.

And it could be easy, as it was in those days.

You understand, people in those days said, well, it doesn't matter how I, I'm a Jew.

And especially if you're a healthy Jew, a wealthy Jew, you're fine.

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Take Heed

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