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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

Spirit Now Live In Me

My message this morning is going to be short and sweet because we need to move on with our service.

But I just want to invite you to bow your heads with me wherever you are.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this time, for this opportunity, and we just ask this morning, Lord, that you would open our hearts to you, to Jesus, the sweet drawing power of Christ, who draws our hearts in the world of darkness towards the light and if we will be willing to consent to that drawing we will be drawn to Jesus who is upon the cross and he said that he would draw all men to himself.

So Lord whatever barriers are in our hearts this morning, I pray that they would be removed and that we would look to Jesus, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and the risen Lamb, who intercedes for us now in the heavenly sanctuary.

So we ask for your blessing now, we come in Jesus' name, Amen.

I'm sure that you're all aware of the decision that was made this week by the Supreme Court.

I've talked to some folks this morning, but the Supreme Court voted this week, 5-4, to lift the ban on gay marriage all across the United States.

Now I realize, I'm well aware, that there's going to be people sitting here who are of different opinions about that, so I'll probably preach a sermon on that at some point, not today.

But the point is, is that regardless of how you see it, I see it as another step in the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

Not that there's a specific verse that speaks to that issue, but there are verses that, well there are verses that inevitably speak directly to the issue, there's not a specific prophecy, but it is a part of the larger picture of prophetic significance.

And I'm just going to tell you, because my time is short, that not just because of that issue, but that issue, regardless of how you feel about it, and let me just say this, I have no contention with the homosexual community whatsoever.

I would invite them to my house, I would invite them to go to eat, I would invite them to hang out.

I see every person equally as a soul to be won by Christ.

I believe that the homosexual, the LGBT, and there's several other letters that go along with that I believe that that whole community every individual has value in the eyes of Jesus value in the eyes of Jesus but regardless there is a great need there to be transformed by Christ.

And I believe that in the Bible it speaks very plainly, very specifically.

We can move and change and try to twist scripture all that we want to, but at the end of the day it still says the same thing.

And we can do that for a whole variety of issues.

There's 1 coming up, Regardless of which way you stand on it, there's people on both ends of the spectrum.

The Bible today is still as relevant as when the Bible authors put it on the page for the first time after being impressed by the Holy Spirit.

In fact, I would go as far to say it's actually more relevant today than it probably was even at that time.

And when the whole thing is all said and done, the Bible is going to be the last 1 that has the word.

I mean, it's going to have the last word.

It's going to be the thing that stands throughout time.

And I'm telling you now, we're living in troublesome times.

And there is a dark shadow that is forming across the earth.

And I believe that we now are on a precipice downward.

We've been inching upward and now we're going downward.

And there's a man that has a lot of influence across the pond who lives in Rome, who's very soon going to come to be America's Savior.

But embracing that Savior, they're going to reject the true Savior.

I pray to God that each 1 of us are searching our hearts.

And let me say this, there are people who are naysayers who will say, oh well you've been preaching, we've been preaching that forever.

Let me tell you, the time continues that we preach it, but the things that we have been preaching as an Adventist denomination for 150 years are no longer future events.

And we are launching into the beginning of what we have been preaching for a long time would happen.

There's 2 things that ought to awaken you this morning.

The knowledge of those facts and Christ redeeming you upon the cross.

We don't have much time left, I know we've been saying that for a long time, but I believe the time has now come.

I mean I'm not making any predictions but I think a few years of being quite generous.

I'm not making predictions, you understand.

We're very near friends, we're very near.

And I pray to God that each 1 of us are searching our own hearts, we're on our knees, and if there was ever a time in human history, if there was ever a time in human history where God's church needed to rise up and be a shining light for Him, it's today.

This Grow Michigan effort that we're doing, it's all important.

I'm going to be bold, but I'm also gonna be kind here, okay?

The things of the world are not important anymore.

Soccer games, football games, basketball games, baseball games, sports, entertainment.

The time is now where God is calling His people to put those things away and to put all of their energy and all of their focus into the work of God for the salvation of other souls who are searching for the truth Are you with me?

We need to cut the fat out of our lives, and rather let the Holy Spirit cut the fat out of our lives.

And we need to ask the Lord, Lord, what is it that needs to go?

And there might be things you can think of right now that need to go.

And the Lord may do a cleansing process in your heart.

And it's my prayer as your pastor that you will find no rest until the Holy Spirit is doing that work in your heart.

I don't pray that you'll be comfortable, you understand?

As a pastor, it's my job by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

The Grow Michigan, the meetings that we'll be doing next March, That might be our last opportunity.

Your pastor might be in jail by the end of the year.

Maybe by the end of the month, I don't know.

We've come to the place now, where it is going to cost something to be a Christian.

And as time progresses, it's going to cost even more to be a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.

And the only thing for you that's gonna pay that price, that it's gonna cost you, is that you are so ingrained in the Lord Jesus that you have a complete surrender to Him.

That's the only thing that's going to pay that price for you.

Otherwise, the price will be too high for you.

And the time is coming and you know people can sit back and say, oh well the pastor is trying to use some more fear mongering and he's trying to just threaten people, make them feel guilty.

And if we want to have that attitude, then there's a prophecy about those attitudes.

It's in the book of 1 Peter that say that there will be scoffers in the last days that would say, where's the promise of His coming?

And you can fulfill that prophecy today, or you can wake up and realize that things are not as they have always been.

We can cover up what's happening with comfortable lives, but the time will come when that comfort dissolves.

It's just the reality of what's happening.

The only way to pay that cost is to give ourselves wholly to Jesus today.

I have 2 verses to read to you this morning, and then we're going to break for communion.

We've only seen the beginning of these things.

John chapter 4, Jesus speaking to the woman at the well, Verse 10, Jesus said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

In the midst of a dark world today, Jesus is offering you and I living water.

And He's offering you to carry that living water to others.

And some people say, well, I'm too sinful to receive that living water.

Well, that's the exact reason that Jesus is giving it to you.

He's not giving it to you because you don't need it.

He's giving it to you because you need it.

So it's all up to us to open our hands and what?

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Spirit Now Live In Me

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