GYC Europe 2012: The Hour Has Come

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Distinct Advent Message- B1

Sebastien Braxton

A Solemn Appeal

This message was presented through a partnership between GYC and GYC Europe at the 2012 conference in Linz, Austria.

For other resources like this, visit us online at gycweb.org.

Let's go in our Bibles to Galatians chapter 5.

If you're not there you can say have mercy.

The Bible says this, this is the Apostle Paul, and he says, For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

In other words, the reason why I take you to this text is because this is the only verse in the Bible where this phrase exists.

To use the term righteousness by faith, it's all over the writings of Ellen White, but in terms of the Bible, this is the only verse where this actual phrase is used and Paul is saying in verse 5 he says we himself as well as the Galatians the church that's there in Galatia he says we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.

So the question immediately emerges, the question, What is righteousness by faith?

All right, so Paul is starting off here in Galatians chapter 5 with the only occurrence of this phrase.

Now, let's dive into this concept of how familiar are you all with righteousness by faith?

How familiar are you with, you say I'm very familiar.

How many are like, I'm kind of familiar with righteousness by faith?

How many of you are like, I have no idea what righteousness by faith is?

Now, I want to take you through some of the teachings of Jesus.

If we wanna understand something in its simplicity and in its power, the best place to go are the teachings of Jesus.

He sums up things very easily and I believe there's no greater teacher than Christ.

So let's start with the verse in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew in the fifth chapter, Jesus's first sermon as recorded in the book of Matthew.

So first we're gonna explore the concept of righteousness.

And then we're gonna add the component of faith and will kind of just lightly land into the third angels message I'll give you a break at some point Just so your mind can kind of digest what you have heard Matthew chapter 5.

The Bible says this in verse 6 Jesus says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what?

For righteousness for they shall be what?

Now the first thing here that Jesus establishes is that righteousness is something that should be hungered and thirsted for.

It is something that responds and satisfies a desire in the human heart.

So he says, blessed are those, not based on their name, not based on their socioeconomic status, not based on their knowledge or education or their possessions, but blessed are those who have a desire.

Now, when you hunger for something, a pain of hunger is a innate Desire that God placed in man.

Yes You were born with the ability to become hungry.

I wish I didn't have the desire for hunger I wouldn't eat if I didn't have to that's just my own personal Lord, I don't know why you did that, but he did it for a reason and it's through this that we understand righteousness Just as you and I hunger for bread or thirst for water or whatever we thirst for Jesus says you can have fostered in your heart and in my heart, a desire and a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.

In other words, Jesus by the very statement, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, there are people in the world that do not hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Only the people who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed, and only the people who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.

So, something that many of you may have no way of knowing, In that translation where the Bible says, and they shall be filled, or for they shall be filled, in the original language, in the Greek, we have kind of different voices of verbs, okay?

And what this means is this, You have what's called an active verb.

Passive verb now active and passive in Greek.

All it simply means is this is The subject doing the action or is the subject receiving the action?

So in Greek, they have a specific way of putting the verb so that when you're listening or you're reading, you know when it says Sebastian was filled with righteousness, In the Greek we say, oh, Sebastian was receiving righteousness, he was a passive, he was the object of the verb, are you following what I'm saying?

In the same sense, if it said, Sebastian filled them with righteousness.

So in the Greek, they are very particular in these verbs.

Another example of this, go to Ephesians chapter 5.

Ephesians chapter 5, keep your finger here in Matthew.

Ephesians chapter 5, we're gonna look at verse 18.

Ephesians chapter 5, when you're there, say amen.

All right, verse 18, if you're not there, say have mercy.

Alright, the Bible says here, Are you there?

Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18, this is what Paul writes to the church in Ephesus.

He says, and Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the what?

Now, here again, in the original language, it's the same kind of verb.

So in other words, when Paul is talking to the church in Ephesus and he says, being filled with the Holy Spirit is an action that is done to you.

If in order for you to be filled with the Spirit or filled with righteousness, there must be a filler.

If it was us who are filling ourselves, then the verb would be active in Greek.

So I'm not trying to get into all the technicalities, but I'm trying to establish what Jesus is trying to communicate.

If we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we are now in a position for the filler of righteousness to fill us.

That means 1 of the reasons why many of us do not have righteousness is because we do not hunger and thirst for it.

Do you really hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Let me describe this in a couple different ways.

First of all, have you ever gone to a conference like this or an event of some sort?

And in this event, the meals are spaced out a lot longer than you normally eat your meals?

Yes, maybe you experienced that yesterday.

Or maybe the meals are not as large as the portions you normally eat at home?

And this is when Sabbath becomes a really big temptation, doesn't it?

Mark Finley

The Remnant

Father in heaven, we just want to thank you for the opportunity of studying your word.

We just praise your name for the Bible, for the word of God.

And as we open its pages today, we pray that you'd inspire us, encourage our hearts, draw us close to you, and deepen our faith in the fact that you have a remnant movement on earth today, a church that you've raised up specially.

Richards of The Voice of Prophecy was attending a really large seminar for pastors.

Now, these pastors were not Seventh-day Adventist pastors.

And as they were attending the seminar, after the seminar 1 evening, they were sitting around and eating.

And 1 of the pastors looked at the other pastors at the table, and they began to discuss the book of Revelation.

Well, these non-Adventist pastors didn't know a great deal about Revelation, and so they started discussing about these wild beasts and these weird images.

And Pastor Richards thought that this was quite fascinating, so he just sat there listening for a while.

Sometime it's good to listen before you speak.

And 1 of the pastors spoke up, these evangelical non-adventist pastors, and he said, you know what I think?

I think it's too bad that the book of Revelation was ever put in the Bible.

I think that was too bad." And everybody kind of paused and he said, the reason why is this.

But secondly, if the book of Revelation wasn't in the Bible, we wouldn't be troubled with that cult of the Seventh-day Adventists.

You know, I thought about that when Pastor Richards told us that, and I said, you know what?

Well, it's certainly not true that it's too bad the Book of Revelation is in the Bible.

The Book of Revelation is 1 of the most precious books in the Bible.

But if you didn't have the Book of Revelation in the Bible, Seventh-day Adventists would lose their unique identity.

God has raised up a unique end-time movement, and we find that identity in the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation has really 4 chapters that help you understand the uniqueness of God's last-day movement.

And our topic this afternoon is the remnant.

We're going to look at the remnant throughout the Bible.

We're going to look at the remnant in the book of Revelation.

But there are really 4 chapters in the book of Revelation that describe God's end-time movement.

Revelation 14 describes the message of God's true church.

Revelation chapter 12 describes the identifying characteristics of God's true church, and that's where we'll spend a lot of time.

Revelation chapter 10, I talked about the other night, it talks about the historic rise of God's true church, that God's true church would rise out of disappointment, just like the New Testament church.

And then Revelation 3 talks about the condition of the true church, that at the judgment hour, God's true church would be complacent, it would be apathetic, somewhat Laodicean.

Now, there are many young people particularly that look at the Adventist church, they look at their local church and they say, you know what, it's rather complacent, rather Laodicean.

But when you really look at it from the Bible perspective, that is 1 of the characteristics of God's church in the last days.

When you study the remnant in the New Testament and in the book of Revelation, there is no remnant that comes out of the remnant.

When you look at the New Testament, God's remnant last-day church would be spiritually apathetic, but there would be in the body of Christ, in the context of that church, those that were passionate about Christ, those that were passionate about his message.

The wheat and the tares would grow together until the what?

The wheat and the tares would grow together until the harvest.

So we're going to look at first the book of Revelation.

We're going to start with Revelation Chapter 12.

And if you have your Bible, I invite you to take it, which I hope you do.

And we're going to begin with Revelation 12.

We looked at this briefly the other evening, but I'm going to focus on the last few verses.

We pointed out that Revelation 12 is really a scenario of history from the fall of Lucifer in heaven down until the time of the end.

And in Revelation, the 12th chapter, we have these 4 vignettes.

And we studied first that Lucifer fell from heaven, Then the scene passed on.

The scene passes on, and Lucifer tries to destroy God's people in the Middle Ages.

And in each of these first 3 incidents, Christ wins, Jesus wins, Satan loses.

Christ triumphed over Satan in the powers of hell on the cross, He won.

But right now, we're looking at the remnant.

If you have your Bible, please look at Revelation 12, verse 17, and the dragon.

What are the 2 symbols of Satan in Revelation 12?

So He deceives those whom he wants to destroy and destroys those whom he deceives.

So there are 2 symbols in the book of Revelation, chapter 12, of Satan.

The serpent, he is the deceiver, but he is a deceiver with the intent on destroying.

So the dragon was enraged with the woman.

Now, in the Bible, a woman represents what?

The woman represents the bride of Christ.

And, or if you have an apostate woman, like in Revelation 17, the woman represents the fallen church, but here, the true church.

So the dragon Satan's angry with the church.

He goes to make war with the rest of her offspring.

Now, the King James Version says, the remnant of her seed.

There are different translations for that word remnant.

Remnant can be translated the rest, it can be translated those who remain.

Just raise your hand if you've got a German Bible.

Tiago Cunha

The Day That Divides- Part 2

Once again, It's a pleasure to have so many of you.

Now, let me just see by show of hands how many of you were in yesterday's workshop.

I want to repeat some of the things that we saw yesterday, okay?

Because I believe Actually the the message is important.

That's my personal belief and Also because they asked me to repeat it.

All right So once again before we start can we just have a word of prayer?

Father in Heaven, we thank you and we praise you for another blessed opportunity to be together Lord.

We did not come here to hear a man, but we came here to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

Lord, we want to be fully prepared for what is coming in our direction Lord.

We want to be sure of the Lord and Savior that we have and want to be sure that we are following the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ in everything that we do Lord.

Help us to be assured of its meaning, especially for me as an individual, for my personal decision to follow Jesus Christ Lord.

So once again, bless us with your visit, with your Holy Spirit at this moment.

Bless my lips as the words that will come out will be the ones that you have prepared from your throne of grace.

Because we ask in the name of the 1 that never fails, Jesus Christ, Amen.

I believe that we have heard already many things about the Sabbath.

And 1 of the things that the Seventh-day Adventist Church actually teaches about the Sabbath is that it is a memorial, right?

Now, my passion about the Sabbath has increased because when I came to the Adventist Church just prior to that, I was visiting several churches as probably some of you actually can relate to that, in search of what we call the truth.

I want to be sure that I'm following the truth.

I want to be sure that I'm following what the Lord actually expects from me and what the Bible says.

And I remember that at the time, this was already around 13 years ago, I was visiting several churches and specifically I was visiting a charismatic church, a Pentecostal church, and I remember vividly in my mind that the very last time that I went to that church was on a Sunday where they actually insisted very much for me to come on that Sunday because they knew that I was struggling with some issues on the Bible, specifically the 10 Commandments and even more specifically about the Fourth Commandment.

And then when I arrived there I could understand why because the preacher, a special guest actually they had invited, was talking specifically about, imagine what, the Sabbath day.

Well, I don't say amen, because actually what he said was helpful for my decision, but I don't think it was helpful to glorify the Lord, and let me tell you why.

The theological basis that they presented were not actually very solid in themselves.

They presented several things, but from the half of the sermon until the end, and we were talking about the sermon that lasted for around 1 hour, basically the men started screaming, always repeating the same phrase with the sound of drums and guitar and so on.

And what he was always saying is that it was not on Friday and it was not on Sabbath or Saturday but it was on Sunday that Jesus was rose again.

Yeah, okay So the man really screamed this for a long long time and then the people were coming to the front and all that he would Touch them in the foreheads people just faint like that and so on and I was struggling my seat because as I told you I was really in search for the truth.

And I was praying that the Lord would actually show me exactly what He wanted me to do, what He wanted me actually to do in that same specific situation.

You want me to answer to these same appeal?

You've got to tell me what you want me to do." And by that time I was surrounded by some of the elders of the church and other people.

I had around 10 people that came to me, surrounded me, and if you've been there, you know that there's a little bit the idea that the Holy Spirit is almost like an electric force that if you touch someone, you can pass it through.

And so they started to touch me in order to pass the Holy Spirit to see if I would have some reaction and so on.

And they touched me and they touched me and touched me more and more.

Yes, I feel something, but it's not the Holy Spirit.

But you know, and they kept, you know, touching me and the Holy Spirit never said anything.

Actually I had a very interesting experience at that moment.

I opened my Bible and just by chance, I don't think it was by chance anyway, I think the Holy Spirit was there, yes, guiding that specific moment.

My Bible opened in Exodus 20 and my eyes just felt in verse 8, remember the Sabbath day.

And I left in that moment and I never came back again.

As we in the, in our church we've heard many times, it is yes, a memorial of creation.

But I believe that the Lord wants us to understand even more than that.

Now, talking specifically about God's creation, God in his infinite mercy and love, he provided ways for us to know who we are and that is the first point that we are going to see.

Open your Bibles please in Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27.

Verse 26, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let him have what?

Dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." Verse 27.

So God created in his own image, in the image of God created he him.

Now an interesting detail in verse 27 is that Moses here is using a little bit of poetry in order to underline something for us not to forget.

Notice, So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He Him.

So somehow I believe that God really doesn't want us to forget that we have a blueprint of our Creator.

Now, in verse 26 there's a very interesting detail there.

God said let us make man in our image after our what?

And right after it says, and let him have what?

William Fagal

A Prophet for Such a Time As This

I would encourage you, if you are wanting to listen in English, to come a little farther forward.

It might be better, particularly if there turns out to be a translation group in the back.

Then there would be less, you know, interference between the 2.

So, and you know, students, it's the ones who sit in the front who get the best grades, right?

I'm 1 of the associate directors of the LNG White Estate, and I'm really pleased to be here with you today.

My colleague, Cindy Tuch, would have been the natural 1 to come, but she had another appointment and couldn't be here so I was the 1 that was lucky enough to be able to come.

And I'm going to be sharing with you today some things about the life and ministry of Ellen White and particularly about Scripture and how Scripture relates to these things.

In presenting the program I have for you today, which I hope you'll be able to see on the screen.

It isn't as bright as I would wish it might be, but perhaps it will help.

I'm using a program that Cindy Tuch initially developed, and I've modified it, added to it, and 1 of our capable staff people at the White Estate made this nice PowerPoint presentation out of it.

So we'll share together on these things today.

Let's begin by asking the Lord's blessing on our gathering.

Our Father in Heaven, we're thankful that we can be here at this conference.

And we're thankful for the gift that you have given to us through the life and ministry of Ellen White, pointing us to Jesus, pointing us to the way home to heaven.

I pray that you will be with us as we study today.

May we follow, may we always follow that voice is my prayer today in Jesus name, Amen.

Well we're talking today about a special agent of the kingdom of heaven, Ellen G.

Really, she's a prophet for such a time as this.

Series

Distinct Advent Message- B1

The Day That Divides- Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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GYC 2012 Seminar: Unleashing the Power - A Practical Guide for Finishing God's Work

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Beyond the Tithe: Practical Lessons on Personal Finance

6. Lay Up Your Treasures: Earning Interest in the Bank of Heaven

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Fulfilling Kim’s Dream

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Personal Evangelism 1

Small Group Evangelism: A Longing for the Real Christian Life- Part 2

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Sound Doctrine