Inspire Ohio 2014: Crisis at the Close

<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>

Advent HOPE Kettering

Jason Sliger

Crisis At the Close: The Mob

Well, last night we looked at the Garden of Gethsemane, what we're doing for those of you that weren't able to make it last night.

We are looking at the closing scenes of the life of Christ, And we're doing some parallels and comparison between the closing scenes of the life of Christ and the closing scenes of this earth's history.

The crisis that Jesus went through and the crisis that we will go through.

And as we look at the crisis Jesus went through in the last 48 hours of his life, there we will find tools that are necessary to see us through our crisis in the final close of this earth's history.

Now, last night we looked at the subject of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We made a little comparison between Jesus and the disciples.

And as I concluded the presentation last night, I gave 4 practical tips to either continue or to start off having a prayer experience like Jesus.

Does anybody who was here last night remember what the first 1 was?

So we have a specific place, and incidentally, I don't recommend that that specific place is your bed.

For obvious reasons, get out of your bed to have and find some place outside of the comfort of your bed because beds were made for a specific thing and it wasn't for praying.

Although you can do it there, chances are you'll find yourself nodding off.

So find a specific place to pray, then have a time to pray.

Now you may choose to have more than 1 time, but before you can have more than 1 time, you have to have at least 1 time, okay?

So have a place to pray, have a time to pray.

And then the third thing was to pray what?

Learn to pray aloud where only God can hear you.

Now we're so tuned or so trained to pray inside of our heads, but there's something to actually verbalizing your prayers in the secrecy of your prayer closet with the Father.

That's what Jesus did in the early mornings as he was out talking to his father in various places.

So learn to pray aloud where only God can hear.

And Ellen White actually tells us that we should do this.

And then the fourth thing was, if your mind wanders, what?

So if your mind wanders and we all are susceptible to this, Our mind kind of gets caught up in the day's activities, what needs to be done, we're thinking about our to-do list or whatever it may be.

The devil is really good at reminding us what we need to do in the morning when we're supposed to be praying with the Lord, isn't he?

He reminds us all these things and kind of distract us.

So if your mind wanders, just bring it right back, keep plowing through that prayer time together with the Lord It's not separating you just come back bring your thoughts back where they need to be and continue that communion with God these 4 Practical tips have revolutionized my personal prayer life, and I hope that it does the same for you as well.

A passage of scripture just in passing here that I was thinking about this morning, jot it down, Psalms 143 verse 8.

This is a prayer that you can pray maybe tonight or tomorrow morning when you start your devotional time.

I won't tell you what it is just so you have curiosity.

Look at it tomorrow morning for your devotional time.

Today what we're going to do is we're going to continue the narrative of the final scenes of the life of Christ.

As I mentioned last night, This is going to end up being an 8 part series, and I'm not going to be able to do all of that here obviously So I'm just going to kind of start things off and let you continue the study in your own personal devotional time But we're looking at the mob today the crisis at the close.

We're looking at the mob that came and accosted Jesus just after his time in the garden.

Okay, before we begin, we must always start with a word of prayer.

So I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray together this afternoon.

Father, what a rich Sabbath it has been so far.

What a beautiful day it is outside, the wonderful sunshine, the beautiful sermon that we heard this morning challenging us to love as Jesus loves, to love as God loves.

Father, as we turn our attention back to the theme of Inspire Ohio, the crisis at the close, Lord, we're looking at your son because he's the great example in our lives.

Father, we're looking for tools that will help us to become more like Him.

And as we heard in the special music, oh, to be like Thee.

Send Your Spirit's presence to be with us here now, I pray, and guide us, I ask, in Jesus' name, amen.

Go with me, if you would, in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 14.

And verse 4, we're looking at the characteristics of the 144, 000 here.

The Bible tells us many characteristics that they have.

We're looking at a specific 1 here in verse 4.

The Bible tells us this, these are they which were not defiled with women, for they are virgins, meaning they are spiritually pure.

The Bible says, these are they which what?

They don't just follow the Lamb in fair weather.

They're not fair weather Christians, but they follow the Lamb wherever the Lamb chooses to take him.

And we looked last night in Inspiration where the servant of the Lord tells us that in order for us to follow Christ in the courts above, we must first learn to follow Him here below.

And so as we're looking at the crisis at the close, it's just before us.

Ellen White tells us, she told us 117 years ago that we are right there at the end, the crisis that is about to close just before us.

And as we're looking at this crisis, we're closer to it now than we've ever been before, we want to be like Jesus.

We want to follow the Lamb wherever He may take us.

If it means opposition, we're there with Him.

If it means trials, we're there with Him.

If it means betrayal, We're there with Him.

Now, we also looked at how we are, as I mentioned, nearing this time of the crisis, the close of this earth's history.

And as we are getting closer to this time of crisis, as I mentioned, we're closer now than we ever were before.

There are many warnings that Jesus is giving us in his word, many warnings that he gave to his disciples, which we're going to look at a little bit later on, some of those warnings.

But What we want to do right now is we want to take a look at the characteristics of Jesus in the closing scenes of his life.

Last night we established the first tool.

We're going to look at 3 tools in our time together that Jesus used.

We're putting tools in our tool basket, our spiritual tool basket.

And the first tool that we looked at last night is that Jesus prayed while others, what?

While the disciples slept, we find Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.

Now, in Testimonies, Volume 2, page 205, The servant of the Lord tells us that the sleeping disciples are a representative of a church who is sleeping in the most perilous time of earth's history.

So as we look at this Garden of Gethsemane experience as we did last night.

Crisis At the Close: The Mob

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Creation- Genesis as the Foundation

53m

Flight Plan

3. Destination

1h 3m

Hindsight is Perfect

32m

The Parables

The Rich Man and Lazarus

43m

It Happened Because of Prayer

Give Him Not Silence

42m

Plenary

Radical Practice

1h

Chad Kreuzer Weekend 2022

Healing the Helpless

47m

GYC SE 2011 Seminar: Relationships

From Self-Protection to Soul Connection

1h

I’ve Got a Secret

41m

A God Worth Knowing

01 The God Who Hears and Knows

49m

Lessons from the Life of Paul

Hermeneutics

43m

Plenary

Sabbath School Q&A Panel

57m

Sound Doctrine