Participants: Justin Lawman
Series Code: 10AYC
Program Code: 10AYC000008
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00:16 Father, we ask that you hear us today, and Lord,
00:19 as I open the word this morning we ask that 00:22 your spirit would fall upon me and Jesus only 00:27 would be seen. We pray in his precious and holy 00:30 name, Amen. Folks, can I invite you 00:35 to turn your Bibles with me to; turning your 00:42 Bibles with me, this morning to John chapter 1, 00:48 John chapter 1 and verse 19. 00:55 John 1 and verse 19, it says, now, this is the 01:06 testimony of John when the Jews sent priests 01:10 and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 01:14 who are you? He confessed and did not 01:18 deny, but confess, "I am not the Christ and 01:22 I asked him,What then, are you Elijah? He said, 01:26 I am not. Are you the prophet? He answered, no. 01:33 Then I said to him, who are you, that we 01:37 may give an answer to those who sent us? 01:40 What do you say about yourself? 01:47 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the 01:50 wilderness, make straight the way of the 01:53 Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said." 01:58 Everything about John oozed of his prophetic 02:02 office, everyone that met him would soon 02:05 realize that the unction of the Holy Spirit was 02:07 on this man from the clothes he wore, 02:12 the camel head garment and the leather belt to 02:16 the way he preached with that feel or favor to 02:19 the multitudes and told them it was time to 02:22 repent and get ready because God was gonna 02:25 do something big in Israel. Everything about 02:28 this guy said, that he was working for God 02:31 and something especial was taking place in his 02:33 life and that we're terrified of him and the 02:38 leaders in Jerusalem send out to this, this 02:43 lone prophet in the wilderness and they 02:45 asked him a question, it is an excellent question, 02:50 who are you? What do you say about yourself? 02:59 That it is an excellent question. 03:04 They know what his name is, if someone 03:07 says to me, who are you? I reach for the 03:09 name tag, I'm Justin Lawman, I come from 03:13 this town and these are my parents and we give 03:15 all those places where we seem to identify 03:19 ourselves but this question he's being 03:21 asked is far deeper than that, it is a 03:27 question of identity. If this morning you 03:34 cannot answer that question, who are you? 03:40 And I don't mean your name. Why are you on earth? 03:49 If you cannot answer that question today, 03:53 I guarantee that you will have no purpose in life. 03:58 You see they came out to ask John this 04:00 question, because I wanted to know what 04:03 he was going to do. If they could discover 04:07 his true identity they would know straight 04:10 away his purpose. That is a question folks 04:16 that modern people cannot answer. 04:19 I listen on the radio the other day, they were 04:21 having a discussion about the, one of the 04:23 politicians made a comment that girls 04:25 should hang on to their virginity and their 04:31 chastity and people were ringing him with 04:34 opinions and one lady said let him do 04:35 whatever they like. I'm an animal and so I've 04:40 to obey those passions. I wanna tell you today 04:44 folks that you have an identity and a purpose 04:46 far greater than that of an animal. Amen. 04:49 You're a child of God. Amen. 04:51 And I wanna speak this morning to the young 04:55 Seventh-Day Adventists here today, who are 04:59 struggling with which world they're gonna live in. 05:06 When they have a foot in one camp or the other. 05:13 The preacher has been there, I remember going 05:20 to Sabbath school. I must admit I was 05:24 dragged there by my mother. She wanted me to know 05:28 what was right; mom took me to Sabbath school. 05:30 I remember leaving Church and going off 05:33 down to the gulf coast for the weekend and 05:35 being drunk in a night club that night 05:40 and this paradigm that I would have to walk 05:43 through every weekend that I be in church in 05:45 the morning and in the night club on a 05:47 Saturday night and what that does to you. 05:52 I want to speak especially this morning 05:54 to the young people here that are struggling 05:58 with which world they're gonna live in. 06:02 I wanna tell you, if you can answer that 06:06 question, who, who are you? It will make the 06:11 world of difference to the happiness and peace 06:14 in your life, that same night as I was down on 06:16 the gulf coast with all my buddies from school, 06:19 never had the privilege of any Christian 06:21 education or anything like that. I just grew up 06:24 in, in secular Australia, where you party hard 06:28 and have fun and that was as deep as the 06:30 meaning of life was and down on the gulf coast 06:34 that night, being intoxicated with my 06:37 friends, walking through the surface paradise mall 06:42 and standing just down about from here to the back 06:44 of the room where two girls that were dressed 06:47 plainly, long skirts. And had two little books 06:52 their hands and I turned to one of my buddies 06:54 from school in my drunkenness and I said 06:56 let's go and stir up these Jehovah witness. 07:01 Because they'd be the only people that you 07:02 would find out on the street at that time of the 07:04 night is what I thought and I went over to these 07:08 two girls in my intoxicated inebriated 07:12 brain and said what religion are you girls? 07:17 They said we are Seventh-Day Adventists, 07:22 that was the wrong answer. Yeah. 07:25 Apparently they had an AYC in their, in their 07:29 living room or something and they decided that they 07:31 go street witnessing. God bless them that 07:34 they were there. They passed to me a 07:37 little book and you know in my drunkenness. 07:40 You just say what's in your heart and they said 07:42 we're Seventh-Day Adventists and I said 07:44 back off, the remnant church. I said, how do 07:48 you know that? And they handed me this 07:53 little book with a picture of Harry Anderson's 07:56 Jesus knocking on a door. Amen. 08:01 Down the bottom, it said steps to Christ. 08:03 And I remember right down the very bottom 08:05 it said E.G White, when you're a drunk 08:08 Adventist and you read that. It's never gonna be 08:12 a good night, I wanna tell you that was if 08:17 someone picked up the back of a shovel and 08:20 they smacked me in the face and I walked away 08:25 from that, there was about 12 of us, with my 08:26 buddies from school and we go down to 08:28 McDonald's and I'm sitting there in 08:29 McDonald's with Harry Anderson's Jesus 08:31 Knocking on the door and I'm out just saying, 08:34 oh! Why always me, I'm like Isaiah all of 08:37 sudden. I'm undone, I got this conviction of 08:45 sin that was, it was heavier than lead, 08:47 I couldn't move and I just had, I got up and 08:50 I left my friends and I went back down the 08:51 street and I gave that book back to the girls 08:54 and I said girls, give this to someone who 08:56 needs it. They said you need it. 09:01 Amen. I did need it, I was so drunk to read, 09:06 it was a, a picture was enough for me and as 09:09 the Lord lives from that day to this day I've 09:12 never touched alcohol again. Amen. 09:14 Praise the Lord that they had enough 09:17 gumption of the Spirit to go ahead on the street 09:19 and try and look for a sinner and there was one. 09:27 That night the Lord started something in my 09:29 heart, I don't know how he did it. 09:32 This dysfunctional double standard 09:36 hypocritical young Adventist, the Lord 09:39 Jesus loved him with an everlasting love. 09:41 Amen. And he picked me up out of the gutter 09:45 that night and dusted me off and he said, 09:47 I have a message for you to tell the world. 09:52 This morning, I want to just briefly 09:53 answer that question. Who are you? 09:58 I wanna answer it through my journey and 10:01 what the Lord has revealed to me. 10:03 I invited you to turn your Bibles to Acts 10:06 chapter 11, being loving towards messages from 10:11 the book of Acts, I asked her what was 10:14 his favorite book on the Holy Spirit and he said 10:17 the book of Acts. You know, that's pretty 10:18 obvious what, why didn't I think of that. 10:21 In Acts chapter 11 and verse 26, Acts 11 and 10:27 verse 26, it's an unusual verse to read for 10:29 identity, it says: when he found him, 10:33 he brought him to Antioch, so that it was 10:37 for a whole year they assembled with the 10:39 church and taught a great many people. 10:41 And the disciples were first called Christians in 10:47 Antioch, in order to answer the question this 10:50 morning, who are you? My first point, the first 10:55 step to answer that is that I'm a Christian. 10:59 That means many things to many people. 11:04 But these followers of Jesus were first called 11:08 Christians there in Antioch and I have to 11:10 put out my hand. I was once in a, in an 11:12 assembly at school when I was about 13, 11:14 we had about 1500 students in our high school. 11:18 It was an Easter program, we got religious 11:20 instructions every Easter and I was horrified to go 11:23 up on the stage, said put up your hand if you're a 11:25 Christian and out of 1500 students, 11:28 three hands went up. One was one of them, 11:34 the hypocritical guy and his heart wanted to do the 11:37 right thing. I put up my hand and my mates 11:41 looked down the row at me they were horrified, 11:43 they removed their chairs. They didn't wanna sit 11:45 next to this guy they thought that's a guy that 11:48 fights and swears and does all that stuff and he's 11:50 calling himself a Christian. 11:54 I'm a Christian, because I have a 11:56 redeemer in Jesus Christ. Amen. 11:59 He paid the price for my sins on the Cross of Calvary; 12:02 the most significant event in my life, the thing that 12:05 defines my whole identity is Jesus Christ is my 12:09 savior and friend. He is an ever abiding 12:13 companion to me. Everywhere I go he 12:15 comes with me. He rebukes me and corrects me. 12:18 But, oh, how he loves me and I'm proud to tell 12:22 anyone in the world that I belong to Jesus, that I'm 12:25 a Christian. I was; after I got back from the 12:29 gulf coast I thought I better get back into this 12:31 Church thing and I never had assurance of 12:35 salvation as a young Adventist. 12:36 I thought there was a set of scales and my good 12:39 works had to weigh more than my bad works and if 12:42 I could ever get that balance right, I was okay. 12:46 And one night I was at this prayer meeting. 12:50 By the way there, it was a bunch of oldies at the 12:53 prayer meeting. I was 19, the next youngest person 12:57 was 80. It was very uncool, if my friends. 13:02 You know, I would cover my face as they'll go 13:04 that's because if my friends saw me, it was 13:05 really uncool to hang around these old people. 13:07 But, man I knew their Bibles and I was like a 13:10 sponge I was soaking up the scriptures 13:12 from these people. You know, the oldies in 13:14 your Church can teach you a thing of two guys. Amen. 13:17 Yeah, I'm going along these prayer meeting with 13:21 a bunch of 80 year olds and one of them who was 13:25 a free radical. He came to me, he said Justin, 13:28 if Jesus was gonna comeback tonight would 13:30 you be ready to meet him and I said. Well, I hope 13:33 so, he said I thought you would say that and 13:36 walked away in disgust. You know, I think he was 13:40 having a go with me. What's his problem, 13:43 I got him a car, at the time I had a 1970 VG 13:46 Valiant with a 318 flyable engine. 13:50 Ever service station I had to stop and fill it up. 13:55 I'm driving home in my Valiant, I can still tell you 13:57 the place in the road that it happened and as I'm 13:59 driving home in the Valiant. This thick skull guy, 14:02 it actually joined on me. If I have asked Jesus to 14:05 forgive me, if we confess our sins, what does he 14:10 say, he is faithful and just. If I had asked Jesus 14:14 to forgive me, I really meant it. 14:17 You know, that he has. And like John Wesley 14:23 that night driving home in the Valiant. 14:25 My heart was strangely warmed, I ram down the 14:28 window and starting to sing hymns and praise God. 14:31 Amen. Because I knew if I was killed on the right 14:33 that night, I didn't have to fret with a sigh to lost. 14:37 I had a savior that changed me. 14:40 My religion had been external for so long. 14:43 All of a sudden, it started on the inside and it 14:47 changed me and I wanna say to any of the young 14:51 people here today and I know you can hear 14:53 the best preachers in the world tell you all this. 14:55 But, the carnal heart is resistant to the gospel. 15:01 It's only the Spirit of God that can take that into 15:04 your heart, that you today have forgiveness of sins. 15:09 If you claim that promise and practice what it says. 15:11 If you confess your sins and that was the 15:14 beginning of my new life in Christ and it changed me. 15:19 And I wanna say today and I will say some things. 15:22 Always upset someone when you preach, you 15:25 haven't preached unless you upset someone. 15:28 That's the truth. Amen. Well until you, when old 15:32 man speak well of you? This audience here today 15:38 are not the only Christians in Sydney. 15:42 There are Christians that may not walk in the light 15:46 that you walk in, but they live up to what they have. 15:50 And I have to tell you, because I baptized some 15:52 of them into more truth and into Christ. 15:55 That they have an intensity and a love for 15:57 the Lord that brings shame on any Church 16:00 that I passed it. Amen. 16:02 And so let's not get up on our high and mighty 16:04 horse and think we're the only ones. 16:07 I wanna tell you that God has a people, he has a 16:10 people in all Churches, yeah he's got a people 16:13 in all religions. That live up to the light 16:17 in which they've been given, you know desire of 16:19 ages says, it's not how much. 16:21 I think it's page 331, it's not how much light you 16:24 have it's what you do with it. Amen. And if you do 16:30 nothing with it. She's says it's a curse to its 16:34 possessor. So, don't get on your horse and think 16:38 I've got all the truth. So, I'm the only one in town, 16:40 no you're not. God has a people, in fact the vast 16:44 majority are not of our faith today. 16:50 But, that leads me to my second point. 16:53 I'm a Christian, but I'm more than that. 16:57 Come with me in your Bibles to Second Timothy 16:59 chapter 4, I love Second Timothy, it's the Apostle 17:02 Paul's last letter, I'm a Christian this morning, 17:05 but I'm a Christian living through a crisis of 17:08 authority, it is come by stealth upon the 17:12 Christian Church. People had been 17:14 inoculated against it; they do not even perceive 17:17 the nature of the crisis. But, it is a crisis just the 17:21 same, the Apostle Paul is about to die. He says in 17:25 verse 6, he's ready to die and he's writing his last 17:29 chapter to the Christian Church. The last thing 17:32 to young Timothy, that he's ever gonna say. 17:36 It's a chapter for you; it's a chapter for the last 17:40 generation. He says I charge you in verse 1: 17:47 Therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, 17:49 who would judge the living and the dead at his 17:51 appearing and his kingdom; he said man 17:53 you better listen to what I'm gonna say. 17:56 This is serious, preach the word, first three words; 18:06 preach the word. I know of no other way 18:14 as a minister of the gospel when someone says to 18:15 me, that they wanna find Christ, they were wanna 18:18 learn stuff. I know of no other way than teaching 18:22 the scriptures. Amen. It has a power; I cannot 18:26 get up here and explain to you. How it does it, 18:29 all I know is it does it. I was running an a 18:33 evangelistic program in Los Angeles and a young 18:36 couple came along to the meetings and they were 18:39 African American, they lived down in Watson, 18:41 South Central, a gangland in Los Angeles and I was 18:45 a little white boy from Australia and you don't 18:48 know, the Americans in the audience will know 18:51 that, that the depths of the racial divide in some 18:53 parts of United States, they never ever attended 18:56 a white church in their life, and I got this little 19:00 ad, I had six thousand dollars to spend on 19:03 advertising in Los Angeles. I want to tell you that's 19:06 not enough to get out of bed. 19:10 But, I didn't care how much it got; you don't 19:11 need the biggest budget in town to do the Lord's work. 19:15 Just got out there and do it and I put this little, little 19:17 radio ad on KKLI and this, were driving along 19:21 in their car and they heard about this prophecy 19:23 seminar, we're gone along and he is a school teacher 19:26 in Compton High School. He's one of my best 19:28 friends in the world. They came along and they 19:33 told their Pentecostal friends that they were 19:37 going to listen to a Seventh-day Adventist, 19:38 but they didn't dare say he was a white boy and they 19:44 came along and they learned more truth, 19:47 more truth, change was happening. 19:52 They were living together and not married. 19:55 I just keep teaching the Bible. 19:58 And one day they said you got to come 19:59 around for lunch pastor and my wife couldn't 20:02 come and my daughter's sick, my son Caleb comes 20:04 along and we get there and, and this young lady 20:09 is decided that day either I was gonna marry them 20:12 or he was gonna come home with me. 20:16 I decided we better have a wedding and my son, 20:20 I'll never forget of my son, he's about, I don't 20:23 know 12 at the time. He walked her down the 20:25 hallway, he walked down the bride and there in the 20:28 kitchen we had a ceremony, they've gone 20:30 to the court and got all the court stuff and we had 20:32 ourselves a wedding. Amen. 20:35 Because they didn't wanna live in sin, 20:38 you know why they didn't wanna live in sin. 20:39 The Holy Spirit had been speaking to them through 20:41 the pages of this old book. Amen. The Apostle 20:45 Paul said preach the word, we got nothing else 20:48 to do in the world folks. Sure we gotta love people 20:51 with peaces and show kindness and compassion 20:54 as Jesus did, have a ministry healing. 20:56 But, in the end we have to preach the word. 20:59 That's why we're on earth and there is a crisis the 21:03 Apostle Paul said, look what he goes on to say, 21:05 he says preach the word. Be ready in season and 21:08 out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all 21:11 long suffering and teaching for the time will 21:14 come when men will not endure sound doctrine. 21:21 The largest congregation in the continent of United 21:24 States, oh! I forget how many thousand they're up 21:27 to now. They got the best preacher, I mean when 21:31 I grow up. I wanna be like this guy, the whole 21:33 sermon, he smiles from beginning to end. 21:37 I'm going to get there one day. I only smile when 21:40 I remember, but he just smiles the whole time. 21:42 I interviewed him on 60 minutes, I said man how 21:44 do you get such a large Church. How do you just 21:47 keep on growing and growing and he shared 21:50 some profound insight said, we would do well to 21:53 listen to. But, one of them just shocked me; he said 21:56 we don't preach on doctrine. 22:00 You see doctrine offends, doctrine divides. 22:05 It upsets people, it cuts across their path and the 22:09 Apostle Paul said the day would come when men 22:12 would not endure sound doctrine. 22:14 We live in that day today. Amen. 22:16 And I'm glad, I praise God everyday that 22:20 I belong to a Church that in it's very name, when 22:24 they said Seventh-Day, I said that's our authority. 22:33 There is a crisis, I'm pastoring in this country 22:36 town up in, the New South Wales years ago 22:38 and running an the evangelistic program in 22:41 the Church and I was on the ministers fraternal and 22:43 we were old friends with the other pastors and 22:45 I believe in that very much. That God has a people in 22:48 these different Churches and I love to fellowship 22:50 with him and some of the members of this 22:54 particular pastors' congregation started to 22:57 attend my Church. He got mad with me, he said man 23:01 you're a sheep stealer. I said absolutely I'm. 23:05 I have no problems with that. I said, I just you 23:08 know I don't exclude people from the Church. 23:11 If they wanna come, I said, you can come 23:12 along brother if you want to. I'm just gonna keep 23:14 teaching the Bible. What he said to me next 23:18 stunned me; some years ago, a pastor, he says man 23:23 I know that the Sabbath is on Saturday. 23:28 I said what did you say; he said I know that the 23:31 Sabbath, the Seventh-Day is Saturday. 23:35 Oh! I'm a bit slow, because in my little brain, 23:39 my next question was obvious to me. 23:42 I said well brother why don't you keep it. 23:46 He said, I don't think it matters. One of God's 23:50 Ten Commandments, the reason Jesus went to the 23:53 cross was a broken law. Don't you know that who 23:58 you give yourself over to obey, they're the ones you 24:00 belong to Romans 6:15, 16. You're slave either to 24:04 death or devious to righteousness, that's what 24:06 the gospel taught me. There is a crisis of 24:10 authority, never be ashamed to be called a 24:14 Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, because you 24:18 are saying that your authority is found in so 24:20 much scripture, the Bible and the Bible alone. 24:24 And that is what the world and that's what the 24:26 Church, every Church in Sydney needs to know that. 24:31 Our authority is from the scriptures and there is a 24:36 serious crisis going on. Ignore it; ignore it, to 24:42 your peril. I have one last point, I want you to come 24:52 Romans 13, I got so many different places I could 24:55 take you. I was going to take you to the Second 24:59 Peter chapter 3, but why don't we go to Romans, 25:01 there's lots of places we could go. Romans chapter 25:03 13 and verse 11: the Apostle Paul is writing 25:06 this mighty apical to the Romans, this one book 25:09 has changed the course of history. It's so many 25:13 leaders lives, as he outlines, the great plan of 25:16 salvation and he says here coming to the end: 25:20 it's really a pastoral letter, he's dealing with 25:22 problems in a church and the way he fixes them. 25:25 He preaches the gospel, he says in verse 11 of 25:30 Romans chapter 13 and do this knowing, knowing 25:35 the time. Do you know what time it is? 25:42 Don't look at your watch. Preachers are first to look 25:46 at the watch: "And do this knowing the time, that 25:53 now it is high time to awake out of sleep: 26:00 for now our salvation near than we first believed." 26:03 Is that true today? Yes. My third point, I'm a 26:06 Christian. I'm a Christian living through a crisis of 26:10 authority. But, I'm also a Christian who's living in 26:17 a time of urgency. A Christian who has an 26:22 urgency in mission, an urgency like never before. 26:25 He says in verse 12: The night is far spent, the day 26:32 is at hand: therefore let us cast off the works of 26:36 darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 26:39 We don't have the luxury to plan for another 26:42 thousand years on earth. We don't have the luxury 26:45 to sit around and play Church and built empires. 26:49 We don't have that luxury; we have been 26:51 called to warn the world that Jesus is coming soon. 26:55 Amen. And I don't care where 26:58 you look; I don't care which source of prophetic 27:02 truth do you trace down. I don't care which signs 27:05 in the world you go and look for. It doesn't even 27:07 matter today which group of Christians you talk to, 27:10 it's almost universal. They agree something big 27:13 is happening in the world, that's a call, that's a call 27:22 for the young people. The old people of the 27:26 Seventh-Day Adventist Church to rise up and 27:31 full fill the mission. You, you might find a lot of 27:36 satisfaction in acquiring real estate and fancy new 27:43 cars for about three months. I don't know 27:47 about you, but I find in my life. I get really 27:49 satisfied in a new house for about three months, 27:52 then the novelty goes and you think 27:56 about the next one. How you can improve it, 28:00 the deepest, most satisfying thing you can 28:02 ever experience in life is leading another 28:05 person to Jesus Christ. There is nothing else, 28:08 nothing will even compare. I was preaching in the 28:15 highlands of Papua New Guinea, back in 2004. 28:21 My friend Chappo is here today, he was with me, 28:23 we had a team of us up there running an 28:25 evangelistic crusade on an oval in Mount Hagen 28:30 up in the Highlands, and up in the Highlands man 28:32 they're wild fellows up there. 28:35 They could do very well down in Watson, South 28:37 Central, in Compton, in LA, no problems at 28:40 all to these guys. They have traded in their bows 28:43 and arrows for AK47s, we were, we kind of 28:48 worked out how serious it was, one Sabbath 28:50 afternoon. They wanted to take us for a trip 28:52 over to another province after Church and they 28:56 said O pastor, we just go to the police station first 28:59 and we sat at the police station for about 40 29:01 minutes and I said man, what are we doing guys. 29:05 We gotta get going, he said oh pastor we're just 29:07 getting some M16s for the trip. So, we can shoot 29:10 them from a long away. And I was like man 29:12 where are we going again. M16s, they couldn't get 29:19 any M16s this Sabbath afternoon. 29:21 Someone didn't have the key to the padlock and so 29:23 we had to take pistols and on the end, do we really 29:25 need to go on this trip, about half way over sure 29:30 enough. We were held up all this, it was the air was 29:34 blue from gun smoke as these Adventist police 29:36 men were, they was like the AK Carrell, it was 29:39 great fun. You know, you shouldn't do that any 29:41 Sabbath afternoon, you want relaxing stuff. 29:45 But, this point we just looking at the date on the 29:47 calendar. When are we flying out of here, 29:50 they had murdered an Australian one month 29:52 before we got there over 20 dollars, they shot them 29:55 in the chest with a shot gun and I'm preaching 30:00 away and the oval was around ten thousand 30:01 people will come there in the darkness of night. 30:03 There's at least 2 or 3 thousand Roman Catholic 30:06 believers there and the big issue. 30:09 They want me to preach on is the mark of the 30:10 beast, they want the mark of the beast and they're 30:13 not gonna let me leave town until they get the 30:14 mark of the beast. Great, I suddenly loved their 30:22 voice and put down their guns, well they say give 30:24 us the mark of the beast, pastor. Okay, that's what 30:30 we're being called to do and I'm sorry, I'm not one 30:33 of the guys that is able to tell someone without 30:35 telling them. You know, some guys, I can preach 30:38 that stuff and tell someone and no one even 30:39 knows what they just said. I'm just kind of a 30:42 little blunt and so we did all those great things and 30:46 we came down to it and I did it with tears in my 30:48 eyes and saying this is not about denominations or 30:50 Churches, but this is an issue over obedience and 30:53 who you belong to and I preached it and man 30:56 about half way through they came up on stage to 31:00 make an announcement and by this point after 31:04 three weeks. I could workout enough pigeon 31:06 to know what they were saying and they asked for 31:10 all the police officers and security guys to come and 31:13 stand down behind the pastor. I don't think they 31:18 know, great, oh! They're gonna shoot me now, 31:23 I turned to my, my friend, my merry buddy who was 31:26 there with me, a pastor and I said man, go and 31:28 see what they're doing and he said, I ain't going 31:30 nowhere, you know you just. He wasn't gonna 31:33 leave the stage, he was hiding behind me and 31:35 I realized I'm up there in the spot light. Every thing 31:38 else is in darkness, so if you're gonna shoot 31:40 something in the darkness the spot light is very 31:42 helpful. Man, I just wanna go back to see my 31:47 family and for about 5 minutes there I thought 31:52 I was gonna die. I want to tell you, it was the most 31:57 glorious 5 minutes of my life. 32:02 The Spirit spoke to me; I mean yeah we get 32:07 impressions and things in lot. But, he really did 32:09 actually speak to my heart. I had a decision to 32:14 make, what do I do, I turned to the translator 32:16 and said man what's going on, what are we 32:17 doing. He said keep preaching pastor, okay, 32:20 I'll keep preaching then and the Spirit said to me. 32:25 He said you were born to do this, that's why you're 32:29 on earth. It was like this flood of a warm fuzzy, 32:36 a warm fuzzy is real I had one in New Guinea. 32:38 Was like a warm fuzzy, I thought I'm gonna keep 32:43 preaching. I was born to do this and if they shoot 32:46 me and I'm wounded. I'm gonna finish my 32:48 sermon before I go to the hospital. If they kill me, 32:51 man you got to get some brownie points if your 32:53 shot while preaching surely. Amen. It was a glorious 5 33:00 minutes, for 5 minutes I thought I was gonna die. 33:02 But, for 5 minutes I knew we gotta shadow the 33:05 doubt that I was on earth to tell the world that Jesus 33:08 is coming soon. Amen. I don't get that in my 33:11 everyday when I'm sitting in the office or driving 33:13 the car. I don't feel that way all the time, but then 33:16 when I had the threat of death before me, it was 33:19 absolutely transparent. Who I was? I was born to 33:24 do this; I wanna make an appeal to end my message 33:30 this morning. Very simple, simple guy, 33:39 if you have been one of these Seventh-Day 33:40 Adventists like me who had struggled with having 33:44 one foot in the world and one foot in the Church. 33:50 I wanna invite you right now to make a choice to 33:52 have both feet with Jesus. I mean firmly on the rock, 33:58 I'm gonna invite you to do that right now by 34:01 standing where you are and I don't want to know 34:03 what ever it is, where ever you are. I'm gonna 34:06 invite you to stand and in standing you're saying to 34:08 the Lord. Yeah, I messed it up, I don't know who 34:11 I'm half the time but this morning. I'm absolutely 34:15 clear that I was born to live for Jesus Christ. 34:18 I don't want to live in that camp and that camp 34:19 along. I also wanna make another appeal to the 34:24 people here that are not Seventh-Day Adventist 34:26 Christians and you might have heard also to read 34:29 wonderful things about Seventh-Day Adventists. 34:30 I want to tell, what I told you this morning is the 34:32 absolute core fact of the matter is that we're 34:37 Christians who live during a crisis, a crisis of 34:40 authority. You may have been baptized; you may 34:42 walk with the Lord Jesus as your dearest friend but 34:45 I wanna make an appeal to you today, that if you 34:49 too wanna stand on the basis of truth and say I'm 34:53 gonna put my luck with Jesus Christ and his truth 34:55 I would invite you to stand as well. 34:58 And I'm not only standing, I want you after 35:00 this meeting to come out the back. Because we do 35:05 live in serious times. We do live in a world 35:10 that's going to destruction, but praise God 35:13 to Jesus Christ, who gives us the victory. Amen. 35:17 When you have him, you don't need anything else. 35:21 Please bow your heads with me and pray: Father, 35:24 you've seen the decisions that have been made here now. 35:28 That is not a casual thing to do, they stood amidst 35:32 their peers to say my life will be for Jesus alone. 35:37 My identity will be found in his gospel, his 35:41 salvation and wherever he sends me, whatever he 35:44 tells me to do, I'm gonna obey him. 35:45 Father, thank you for those decisions, may you 35:48 seal that decision with your Holy Spirit unto the 35:51 day of redemption that I would never be lost Lord, 35:55 but you would convict them of sin and steer 35:57 them back on the right path and Father, on that 35:59 great day. When Jesus comes in all his glory and 36:03 we are gathered together in the sea of glass, what 36:06 glory, glory, hallelujah. Father, on that day we 36:12 would have no regrets, we told everyone who 36:15 would listen that Jesus loves him. 36:18 We tell everyone who would listen, that he 36:22 wants to be a part of their life. 36:24 Father, bless this group today, keep us under that 36:28 great day of God almighty. We pray in 36:30 Jesus precious and holy name. Amen. |
Revised 2014-12-17