Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
The speaker begins by expressing joy and gratitude for being at the church. They mention their upbringing in a Seventh-day Adventist church and reflect on the church's 20th anniversary. They also share a story about a field trip and a moment of encouragement during a marathon. The speaker acknowledges various individuals in the congregation and discusses their own journey in ministry. They mention using slides in their sermon and touch on the topic of fresh oil, referencing Psalm 92. The speaker briefly discusses their Catholic background and their transition into Adventism. They also mention their experience as a teacher and Bible instructor. The speaker ends by expressing their gratitude and mentioning a future story they will share. Well, good morning, everyone. It's just such a joy to be here with you, such a beautiful church. I've been in a couple of churches that were right on a main highway, you know, and it's so nice to see a church as we drive by, oh, Seventh-day Adventist, you know, because many, many people never heard of Seventh-day Adventist. I grew up in a little town that we live in now, and it was a Seventh-day Adventist in the church that I grew up in, and I never, I never knew it, I never knew it. I see that this is the 20th anniversary of this church, right? The building was built in 2003, so it's kind of a nice anniversary to look back and see how God has blessed this congregation and the people who built this building. You bought this building from somebody else, right, Kevin? Yeah. That's how God had other plans. David, I was thinking about you and your field trip down to Plymouth, the Plymouth Plantation. Do they still have, like, actors who kind of are in character there, right? And they talk like they don't know anything after 1620. I remember we were there once, and it was, we brought our children, and there were a lot of kids from Boston who were on a field trip, and there were many, many kids, and we were in this one place, and the lady was making candles and everything, and people were looking around, and the lady who was making the candles said to one of the students, he said, and she said, and what for your trade, young man? And the kid, he didn't know what to say, you know, so he just said, computers, and the lady looked kind of strange, she said, aye, you'd be a pewter smith, a fine trade for a young man. I thought she was pretty quick with that, so, anyway, and it's good to see Glee here. Glee, I've told this story many times, but I don't think you've ever heard it before, but you were instrumental in my life in helping me to accomplish a goal. I had a little midlife crisis, any men have a midlife crisis here? Come on, alright, there's a couple of honest people, and so I decided I was going to run a marathon, so I did one, and that was all over with, and I was glad I accomplished that, but my sister got so inspired, she decided to run the one in Vermont City, is it Montpelier, isn't it? So, she said, oh, come and do it with me, come and do it with me, and I said, I don't really want to, I've been there and done that, but she just kept teasing me, so I trained a little bit, and I did it with her, but I wasn't prepared. And I was about mile 18 or 19, I was on a very long, long stretch, and there was no runners ahead of me, and there was no runners behind me, and I was so discouraged, and I was like, right on the verge of saying, what's the point of this, I don't need to do this, I was just about ready to quit. And Glee Charlestream came by on a bicycle, I was running, I had my head down, and he said, hey, Mark Gagnum, or Mark, hey, you're looking good, looking strong, and he just drove off. And I just thought to myself, well, if Glee thinks that I'm looking good and looking strong, I guess I am, and I finished. But you know, it just was a lesson to me about how we all get down, and just a little bit of encouragement. All we need is a little bit of a word that, well, he believes in me, or he has confidence in me. So that really encouraged me, Glee. You never knew that, well, now you know. And is it Bob? Yes. Bob, what was the piece you played during the offering? It was Setting of the Lord's Prayer by B. Roy Robertson. I heard it when I was a little kid, I got my first long tabernacle choir album, and that was on it. And the album was called The Lord's Prayer. Wow, beautiful, beautiful arrangement, done so nicely. It is. Oh, so nice, and you just, I was very inspired. And The Lord is My Shepherd was excellent, too. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I could talk about Kevin and Ellen, and the providences of God, and how they were so instrumental in helping us, but that would take up the whole sermon time. Just so honored to, looking back to see how God has led. Isn't it amazing when you look back in your life, you see God, how God has led? You just say, only He could have orchestrated that. Well, I wanted to share a little bit with you today. Now, I see it's already five past twelve. Is that usually when the preacher gets up to preach here? Five past twelve, okay. About ten after one. All right, well, that is good, that is good. I hadn't, I hadn't, should I not take that seriously here? I don't know. Okay. When I, I hadn't, when I retired, a friend of mine asked me to go out to a little church in Shelburne Falls, and there was just a handful of people, and so I'd been there for two years, Pam and I, and only in the last few weeks have we taken other speaking appointments. The first time I preached really to a big, you know, a big congregation. We have a very small little group. And so I went to Connecticut, and most of the people were from the islands. And so there was nobody, there was nobody there at eleven o'clock. And I said to the elder, you know, does nobody come? He says, oh yeah, they'll come. They come when they want to, you know. So, you know, so he said, you can preach as long as you want. Go to three o'clock. He said, nobody cares. They're here, they'll be here all day, they'll be here till eight o'clock. So if you know that culture, you know, churches all day, they never look at the clock, you know. So I felt really good, you know. But you don't have to worry. I'm not going to do that today. The title of my sermon is Fresh Oil. I put a few slides together. I don't know, I never preached with PowerPoint before. For the first 10, 15 years of my ministry. But then I pastored at Cape Cod, and there were a lot of Portuguese and people that didn't speak English. And so when I put the slides in, they said, oh, that really helps us to learn English. And then I found that people, you know, there's so much beautiful artwork, inspired artwork. And when people have pictures today, you know, we live in a generation where people are, my folks grew up, you know, listening to the radio. So you were auditory, auditory learners. Okay. But today, you got to show me something, Pastor. It's a little bit hard to just keep listening. So I put a few slides together here. And this text, Psalm 92, just talks about being anointed with fresh oil. It's a beautiful, beautiful psalm. My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of a unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh oil. I heard a skeptic once say to me, that's why I don't believe the Bible. He says, you know, you talk about unicorns in the Bible. And I said, well, you know, I said, I can't really explain everything in the Bible, I said. But I heard a guy tell me once that there's a big, big synagogue in Queens, New York, he said. And on the front doors of the synagogue, there's a profile of a bull. And a bull is a symbol of power. And it had a horn on it. Of course, a bull has two horns, right? Right. But when you turn sideways, when you have a profile of a bull, how many horns do you see? One. You see one. Right. And he said, oh, I never thought about that, you know. But I was glad I ran into somebody who was able to give a little explanation for a unicorn, you know. But I want to tell you a little bit of my spiritual journey, very briefly. I grew up a very devout Catholic. And we heard the message, as Kevin shared, back in the mid-70s, 1977, 1978. And immediately after coming into the church, because I had some experience as a school teacher, just basically substituting in public school and then teaching in the Catholic school, they hired me to teach in the Adventist school. And I said, I didn't have any experience. I said, I don't have any. I never took an education class in my life. My major in college was something completely different. But they said, oh, no, you can go back and get your certification. So anyway, here I am, a brand-new Adventist, and I'm teaching in a one-room school with, you know, a dozen kids or so, just flying by the seat of my pants. For those of you who don't understand what that means, you can Google it when you get home. And because I didn't have any formal training, I just worked harder. That was part of my work ethic growing up as a family. You just outwork a person. You just go the extra mile and do more. And you can have a lot of success in this world if you're just willing to work overtime or you're willing to volunteer. People notice that, and they appreciate that. Well, I did that for three years, and then the Lord opened up a way for me to be a Bible instructor. And I went to the pastor, and I said, can you help me? You know, somebody gave money for me to be a Bible worker. They paid for my salary for a year. It was a one-year commitment. That lasted for nine years. But when I started, I went to the pastor, and I said, can you give me some help, Pastor? You know, give me Bible studies. I've never done that before. He says, well, I went to seminary, but they never taught us how to give Bible studies in seminary. So here I am just doing the best I can, you know, trying and listening to different people and listening to tapes. And I remember listening to a set of meetings by a man named Pastor C.D. Brooks. How many people are familiar with C.D. Brooks? It was a big evangelistic crusade he did in the Warner Theater, I don't know, back in the early 80s. And there were like 300 people. I mean, there were 300 people baptized. I think five or six different ministers of other congregations. It was just very inspiring. And I remember hearing these things, you know, his illustrations and things, and almost driving off the road. It was just so thrilling and exciting to hear him. So, you know, I had a plethora of illustrations I heard and stories I heard from other people. But, again, I spent most of those years just doing the best I can. And then, by the grace of God, it really was a miracle. I'll have to tell that the next time I come, how I became a pastor in St. Johnsbury. It's interesting to see Alyssa here. She was just one or two years old when I started there in St. Johnsbury. And now I'm a pastor of three churches. I had never passed before. I didn't really have a clue. So I just tried as hard as I could. And after I had that district, I went over to Norwich Walk and pastored over there, Skowhegan area, Waterville, for two and a half years. And then I got a call to go to Cape Cod for 13 years. We were there in Cape Cod. And then I got a call to come back to Lemonster. It's just incredible that when we read the book on a Thursday night that the Beusels gave us, it was a little book called A Day to Remember by George Vanderman. It was on the Sabbath. And I read that book on a Thursday night. And I came out, and I was in bed. And I put back the covers, and I came into the kitchen. I said, Pam, you have got to read this book. And the Beusels had already witnessed to us a little bit. But the timing was right. And Pam read the book. And the next Sabbath, we found the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Yellow Pages. And for those of you who don't know that, you can Google Yellow Pages when you get home. So we walked in the door of the Lemonster Seventh-day Adventist Church. And 25 years later, I come back, and I'm the pastor of the Lemonster Church. And for 10 years I was there. And every time I drove in the parking lot, I said, I'm the pastor of this church? It's just so hard to believe. But I guess the point I'm trying to make is that when I was introduced to all of these doctrines and these wonderful truths, I just grabbed onto them. After I read that book on the Sabbath, I was a Seventh-day Adventist in my heart, even though we weren't baptized for nine months or so. But my default way of coping with life always had been pretty much just try harder, work hard, go the extra mile, prepare, be conscientious. And so it was easier for me to do that than it was to put my full and complete trust in the Lord. Now, I did put my trust in the Lord. Now, I did put my trust in the Lord, okay? But, you know, when you're used to doing something, it's easier to kind of go back to that. And I spent a lot of my career struggling and battling with that as I was in ministry. Now, I think of this man here, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church. You know, countless statements, if you read about this man, if you were to look at the 18th century in England, and you did a survey of the most influential person of the 18th century in England, right? On the top of the list would be this man here, in terms of the influence that he had. But early in his ministry, he came to America because he was going to evangelize the Indians down in Georgia. And he came, and he had, it really was a total failure in many ways. And he came back to England, very discouraged, wondering, like, you know, just having doubts, and wondering why he had failed so miserably. And as he was on the ship coming back, there was a great storm. Some of you know this story. I believe it's in great controversy. There was a terrible, terrible storm, and everybody was praying and, you know, screaming, because it looked like, you know, they were going to go down. And Wesley saw on the ship a group of people who were going around serving other people and helping and encouraging other people, and they didn't have any fear. Even the children. And Wesley asked them afterwards, when they made it through the toughest part of the storm, he went to them and said, now, what is with you people? He said, remember who was fearing for your life, but not you. And the man, he was a Moravian believer. He said, we're not afraid. We put our trust in God. Even our children had no fear. And Wesley said to himself, whatever religion these people got is better than the one I've got. And he realized that here he was, a minister of the gospel, but he did not have what these other simple believers had. I just wrote down a quote this morning. I was looking at it, and Wesley said, I went to America to convert the Indians, but, oh, who shall convert me? That was his question. Who shall convert me? But it was a few months later, he was in a little church, and he heard a sermon. I think it was the introduction to a sermon by Martin Luther. Somebody was reading it, and the light of the Holy Spirit came down and changed his thinking. He said, you remember that famous expression? He said, I felt my heart strangely warmed. And that changed the whole tenor of his life. But later on, Wesley, realizing how much he needed the Holy Spirit, how many years he had ministered without the Holy Spirit, he said this. He said, my fear is not that our great movement known as the Methodists will eventually cease to exist or one day die from the earth. My fear is that our people will become content to live without the fire, the power, the excitement, the supernatural element that makes us great. And, of course, he's talking about the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God. You know, it's possible to run a church, to do outreach, to do all manner of spiritual things without the Holy Spirit. It's possible. And other people would look and say, wow, that's very impressive. But I heard one person say, if 95% of what the church does ceased to exist, we could do 90% of the work that we do now without the Holy Spirit. That was his kind of a little indictment about the church. He said, in the early church, he said, if they didn't have the Holy Spirit, they wouldn't have been able to do anything. But we could do a lot of things without the Holy Spirit, but they couldn't have done anything without the Holy Spirit. And as I've been growing in the Lord, I don't know if there are people here, I'm sure there are people like me. I just reached my three-score year in ten milestone in my life. And the older you get, you realize that, you know, I don't know anything. I'm just a total beginner. And it's humbling. Somebody once said, you know, the nice thing about humble pie is not fattening. Not fattening. And so this has led us to, both my wife and myself, you know, and the challenges we face, some very, very difficult challenges in our life in the last couple of years. And adversity has a way of driving us to the Lord. Kevin mentioned that, you know. Adversity pushes us to see our need of the Lord. And so I read this from Testimonies Volume 1. It says, the reason why there is so little of the Spirit of God manifested is that ministers learn to do without it. And I know when I began to pastor, you try to figure out, it took me a while to figure out, what am I doing here? And then, you know, there are expectations that people have on you if you're a pastor. And the natural tendency is to try to live up to the expectations that people have on you. And when you do that, well, people are happy, the conference is happy, you know, things are happy. That's kind of like, you've kind of reached the pinnacle, right? And everybody's happy, you can come across as a successful pastor or a successful teacher, all right? But there's something missing. Because it's easy, again, like I said, to default to that pressure, that work ethic of, I'm doing the work that I'm doing, but I'm doing it in my own strength. And it's not that I didn't pray, it's not that I didn't have devotions, but it was more like they were separated from my... My spiritual life wasn't incorporated to everything that I did. It was more like, you know, you get up and you exercise, right? If you exercise right, you go to the gym from 7 to 8. Okay? Do you think about exercise anymore? No, I did that, I knocked that off. Okay? Does anyone have that problem with your spiritual life, with your devotions? Okay, I had my prayer time from 7 to 7.30, good. Next, right? And then you go on with your day. And it's, hey, I'm busy, I'm doing things, right? I'll try to think about the Lord once in a while, but it's not an integrated life. And I wonder if, you know, it doesn't really sound like the vine and the branches, the vine and the branches have a constant connection to them. And as I began to think of these things, I began to... It just changed me so much. This blessed me so much in my journey, especially in the last couple of years. So I've gone from the beginning of my experience in the 70s now right up to the last couple of years. An absolute imperative question we must ask and answer is, what group do I fall under? The natural person, the carnal person, or the spiritual person? The natural person is not interested in spiritual things, right? They could care less about it, they had no interest, right? And then the spiritual person is the person who's, you know, he's with the Lord, he's walking with the Lord, his life is... You know, the Lord has his thoughts, and whether he's in ministry, whether it's washing dishes or raising kids or sweeping the streets, or whatever he does, right? There's no distinction between... All my life is committed to the Lord. The carnal person, you read about it in Paul, wrote quite a bit to the church in Corinth. I'm not going to go back and read the text, right? But he calls them three or four times, you're carnal. Now, were these atheists, were these church members or non-church members when he wrote to Corinth? They were in the church, right? But he was trying to tell them that even though you've had this initial experience with the Lord, he said, you're carnal. And that word doesn't necessarily mean like living an immoral life. The person, the best definition I've heard about that is being carnal means living by normal human powers and abilities without the Holy Spirit as the primary influence in the life. And when I read that, I said, friends, I can't tell you how humbling it is to have worked for the church for 40 years and to come to the realization that, hmm, that kind of sounds a lot like me. And so that began a new experience for me. I remember reading Romans 8. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. If anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, they are none of his. You know, that I didn't, when I came into the church, when I came into this great Advent movement, the Lord really was working on my heart. I mean, he gave me a love for the truth, he gave me a love for these doctrines, a desire to share. I mean, all of that, none of that could have happened without the Holy Spirit, right? And so, you know, Ephesians talks about, you know, they are sealed, you're sealed with the Holy Spirit. And that's not the seal of God at the end of time he's talking about there, okay, that's a different seal. But it's like God puts his hand on you and, you know, the first time you know that you're a child of God, remember that day, right? I'm a Christian, God loves me, you give your heart to him and you have that initial fire of the Spirit of God comes up and you're changed. But then, life happens. And we, again, find it easy to default to living on our own strength and we forget that without fresh oil, without a daily baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I didn't really understand that. And now, as I see the time that we live in, as we see the nearness of the Lord's coming, as we see the experience that God's people must have before he comes, oh, friends, we need a daily baptism of the Holy Spirit. We need a daily filling, we need fresh oil. You know, you read in the Desire of Ages that Sister White says that daily Jesus sought for a fresh supply of divine grace in order to do his ministry. Every day. Well, friends, if Jesus had to do that every day, how about me? How can I even live one day without that? So, I want to just run through a few slides with you here. Ten groups of individuals who are all related. You've all spent some time with our relatives this Thanksgiving, all right? Here's some people that are related. Let's just go through and see if we can see a little bit of a golden thread here. All right? Here's the first group. The Pharisees, right? People from whom the kingdom of God was taken. I remember at the end of Jesus' ministry, he told them the terrible about the vineyard owner, right? And he planted a vineyard, Matthew 22, I think, and he sent servants to get the fruit thereof, and they killed one and stoned another one, right? Finally, the owner said, I'll send my son. And Jesus, when he gets done, and of course they killed him, he said, this is the owner, let us kill him. And Jesus says, what will the owner of the vineyard do to those people? And the Pharisees completely indicted themselves, missed the whole thing, and they said, he will miserably destroy those people and let out his vineyard to somebody else who will bring him the fruits in due season. And then Jesus gives that famous line. He said, the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you and given to another nation. People just read that. That would solve a lot of theological questions when people are talking about Israel over there, truly the people of God, right? People are talking about who still think that geopolitical Israel is still part of God's prophetic picture. It's a tragedy, because it's not true, because they haven't read the Bible. They're futurists. But anyway, I don't want to get off the point here, okay? But these people, they had a knowledge of the Bible, they were sincere, but they missed something. They had information, but that did not enable them to see the Messiah who was right in front of them. The five foolish virgins, right, in 1925, okay? I have a quote here. The class represented by the foolish virgins are not hypocrites. They have a regard for the truth. They have advocated the truth. They are attracted to the truth. Does everybody here have a regard for the truth? How about people have advocated for the truth? People who are attracted to the truth. You wouldn't be here if you wouldn't, okay? So those who believe the truth, but they have not yielded themselves to the Holy Spirit's working. They have not fallen upon the rock, Christ Jesus, and permitted their own nature to be broken up. And as I read these things, I began to see, again, the Spirit of God began to convict me about my own experience and that I needed so much more. I needed so much more than what I had. The third group. A beautiful painting here of Mary Magdalene at the feast at Simon's house. Remember when Mary came in and crashed the party and poured the oil, the perfume, on the feet of Jesus. Remember the story? And Simon over here, in the purple, remember his thinking? It tells what he was thinking, right? Jesus knew who this one was. And here's a man who had been saved from a living death. Jesus just went up and healed him. No questions asked. And he knew he was the one who was responsible for leading Mary into sin, into having those seven demons that Jesus cast out. But his attitude of... just terrible thinking. Now, we do have some hope for Simon here in this story because Jesus was so kind and tender with him and he didn't expose him publicly. And I think Desarbega says that afterwards he did become a follower of Jesus. But in that time, he's looking down on somebody who, in reality, Jesus tried to help him see that he was a greater sinner than Mary. All these related. How about the nine o'clock workers in the parable of the vineyard in Matthew 20? Remember the story? People came at nine o'clock, came at twelve o'clock, they came at three o'clock, they came at five o'clock, and they came down to get paid. And the people who had only worked for just less than a half hour, right? They got the full salary. And the people at nine o'clock, right? Hey, what's going on here? They complained. And the master says, can I do what I want with my own money? They could have been, they should have been, hey, happy. If they put themselves in the other people's shoes and said, if that was me, I wouldn't be happy, right? But no, no, they couldn't see past their own selfish desires. He said, I thought we agreed. We agreed for a certain wage. Right? You see, it's a mindset. That was good. They were good workers. They were out there, they worked hard all day. All these people, right? They had many good qualities. But we're looking for a way of thinking here that needs to be dealt with. Remember the guest without the wedding garment, right? In those days, it was typical, right? Before, a couple days before the wedding, you know, the Amazon truck driver or the UPS guy, right? He would come and he would just take, you'd get a ring at your doorbell or knock on the door and you go out there and there is your suit or your dress for the wedding. And the clothes were all provided for you. That must have been something, huh? And so people considered it an honor, a great honor to wear the clothes that the king had hand-picked, all specially tailored, right to your perfect dimensions. But one person came in and, of course, he wore his own clothes. And it didn't go well. It didn't go well for him. The master of the servants said, you know, you wicked man. And he was cast out. But the fact that he did come, maybe he brought a nice gift, put it over on the table, signed the guest register. But something was wrong. The good son. Have you ever heard the parable of the prodigal son referred to as, you know, we usually say the prodigal son. But how many people would like to guess how many sons were lost in that parable? They were both lost. And I would dare say that the son who stayed home was even more lost than the prodigal, if you really think about it. Because if you read the story through and you see there was a lot of Pharisees who were there. It wasn't just, you know, there was a lot of people who should have known better. Jesus, his real audience was these Pharisees and Sadducees and the elders. And he wanted them to see his heart. And especially when it came to the elder brother, because the elder brother who wouldn't even come in when the party was going on, the feast, the elder son in the field, he came and drew nigh and heard music and dancing and he called one of the servants and he said, your brother has come and your father has killed a fatted cat because he has received him safe and sound. The Bible says, verse 28, that he was angry. What kind of a response is that? Anyone have been estranged? You haven't seen your loved family? You know, and they're found? Hey, we're happy. But he's angry. And he would not go in. So the father, he goes out. Did he go out to meet the prodigal? Why? Because he was lost. He wanted to bring him back. But he had to go out for the other son too because he was just as lost. He entreated him. But the older son answered and said to his father, Lo, these many years I do serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandments. And yet thou never gavest me a kid that I might marry with my friends, but as soon as this thy son, not my brother, your son, he wouldn't even associate with him. See, here's the elder brother. But what did Jesus tell? He wanted people to see that the real elder brother in the story wasn't this boy. It was him. He was the one, a real elder brother. He would go out. He would go out and look for him. You see, but he was home and he was dutiful and he seems to, that's why he gets the label tabbed on him. He's the good son. But again, you see how all these stories are related. Let's finish up here. The rich young ruler, we know the story, right? What's he wants to do to be saved, right? He went on, I've done all these. But that's not going to get anybody into heaven, is it? What I've done. Same thing here. Same thing here. He brought an offering. Now, I'm sure these fruits and vegetables, they were from Whole Foods or Whole Paycheck, as I like to call the store. Okay? But again, doing religious things. He's offering a sacrifice, but it's on his terms. It's in his strength. It's according to his mindset. And where did all of this, all of these attitudes start from? They started with a fallen angel. Who... Well, the most important takeaway from our time together this morning, friends, who are all of these 10 individuals or groups related to? And the answer, friends, is this group of people in Revelation 3, 14 to 22. This group of people, God's remnant church, living right before he comes. And as I turn there and read some of these familiar words, again, since I've had this little rebirth experience here, it's been much, much more easy for me to see that these words are talking about me instead of everybody else. Why are we related? Why is Laodicea related? Why are we connected to all these previous nine people that I saw, that we shared? And the reason is this. The Pharisees said, you know, we have enough, right? We're the chosen people. We're the foolish virgins. We have enough, right? They had oil. We've got enough. But did they? No, they didn't. Simon, Simon the Pharisee, you know, I did enough. I invited Jesus. I invited him to come to a party. You know, he could bring his rude disciples too. And I got, you know, I got the nice catering thing. And, you know, I think I did quite a bit to show my thank you to Jesus. You know, but in contrast to Mary, right? But in his mind, he did enough. The workers at nine, right? They weren't thinking about themselves, but they were looking at the other people, right? They didn't do enough. Their eyes were looking at other people. They were like, what have you done, right? Hey, I know I don't have what you told me to wear to Jesus, but this is not too shabby, right? I got this right off the rack here at Men's Warehouse. The eldest son, right? Hey, I obeyed enough. I did this and this. I never did ask for anything. I obeyed enough. The rich and the poor. If I do what Jesus says, if I do what Jesus says, sell all I have, I'm not going to have enough. James 8. His fruit is acceptable in the world. And Lucifer, of course, we know, right? The whole great controversy. God has his law, right? He says, hey, my law. We don't need a law. My law is in me. You know, we can just be self-actuating. And the last one, right? What does Revelation 3 say to me? What does that sound like? I'm good enough. I'm good enough. They're doing religious things. They're in the church. Even pastoring the church. Teaching school. I'm not looking at you, sister. I'm just trying to make a point that it's so much easier for us to be human doings rather than human beings because that's just in our DNA. And falling on the rock and being broken is like, it's a prerequisite to be receiving the Holy Spirit. It's just a prerequisite because we can't. And Ellen White says, I think I have it here on another piece of paper. Let me read it to you. This is from First Selected Messages 330. Faith, apply the blood of Christ to your heart for that alone can make you whiter than snow. But you say, the surrender of my idols will break my heart. This giving up all for God is represented by your falling on the rock and being broken. So give up all for Him. For unless you are broken, you are worthless. Unless you are broken, you are worthless. And that's why, you know, we see all through the Bible, you know, the people, the people who, you know, Isaiah, you know, woe is me, I'm a man of unclean lips. And Daniel, my comeliness has turned to corruption. And Moses, right, you know, 40 years for him to unlearn everything he had. He had to be broken before God said, okay, now I can use you to go back and leave my people out. And Peter, the same way, he had to go back and almost die. He wanted to die when he denied Jesus. And we talked about John Wesley, right? He had to be broken before he could do anything. And David, you know, in Psalm 51, you know, the beautiful prayer of repentance, a broken and a contrite spirit, you will not despise. You know, I've always been amazed at the way the Lord leads in our life and how he condescends to reach us where we're at. But this was, I don't know, about a year ago. Did we go with Wendy to, I don't know how many, however many people have ever been to Sight and Sound in Pennsylvania. Has anyone ever been there? Well, they put on Bible productions, you know, Moses and Daniel. And it's, you know, they have a 200 meter stage and special effects and everything. It's really quite an amazing thing. Anyway, we brought some friends who, one of them went through his story and the other one was never, wasn't a Christian at all. But we just thought we would connect with them. So we went to see this production that was on David. And the story, you know, played out. And then, you know, that famous scene, it was toward the end of the production where David sins with Bathsheba and the prophet, help me, Nathan, right? He comes and he says, you know, you're the man. And all through the play, David had, you know, different times in his life. He would pick up the harp and he would play a song. You know, he would sing one of his songs. And so here, when Nathan leaves the stage, there's David just sitting there and he starts strumming and he starts saying the words, you know, of Psalm 51. You know, created me a clean heart. And it was just a beautiful song. And he got to the part where he said, you know, wash me, wash me and I will be whiter than snow. And the Spirit of God was there. The lady in front of me was crying. The lady in back of me was crying. And as the music was playing in the background, after he said, you know, wash me, he sang, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. They had a big snow machine and the snow began to fall on David. And I was so, I just thought that was just such a wonderful, you know, in his grief, in his sorrow, you know, that snow fell on him. But then all of a sudden, I just looked up and I don't know how they did it. But the snow was falling on us. And something about those little flakes coming down and landing on me, I just, it just healed me. Because it's pretty hard to be in the Lord's work for 40 years and to realize that you did a lot of it in your own strength. But the Lord, that was a turning point in my experience. And I'm wondering this morning if maybe there aren't some people here that feel like they can associate with my story. And they realize that, you know, I need an experience that I've never had before. I've done a lot of good things and I love the church and I like to serve the church, but in my own life, my own individual relationship with Jesus, I don't want to hear him say someday, amidst the fact that I did all these wonderful things, I don't want to hear him say, I don't know who you are. Because those are the worst words, those are the worst words that could ever fall on human ears, wouldn't you say? So when we read, you know, I'm rich and increased with goods in need of nothing, right? And then it goes on to say, you know, you're poor and wretched and miserable and blind and naked. That's the reality of what we are. That's God's diagnosis of us. You know, and coming to the point where we admit that, right? That's the first step to recovery. If you know anything about 12 steps, right? You know, I admitted to myself, you know, that, you know, another human being, that I was, you know, I was out of control. You know, that my life had become, I was addicted. My life had become unmanageable, right? Admitting the fall. And then step two is, came to believe that a power greater than I could restore me to sanity. And isn't that the work of the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary? Isn't it a work of restoration, of rejuvenation, of reconstruction, of making us new people? And that doesn't, regeneration, that doesn't happen, you know, when we first come to the Lord and hear all these wonderful things, right? Maybe it happens a little bit, but the real transformation comes in the school of life. It doesn't come through a set of Bible studies. Your poor, wretched, miserable, blind, naked, that isn't the greatest rebuke. The greatest rebuke to Laodicea is in verse 20, and it was our scripture reading. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. See, in this whole scenario with Laodicea, right? Where is Jesus? He's outside. He's outside. Isn't that tragic? Here I am, and here we are, doing the work of the Lord, keeping the Sabbath, returning our tithe, not any pork, don't smoke, drink, or dance. Okay? But Jesus is outside because I'm doing quite well, Jesus. When I get in the gym, I'm sure I hope you're there because I'm probably going to need you, right? But it's just this picture of Jesus being on the outside, but praise God, He wants to come in. He wants to come in, but He's only going to be able to come in if we can come to the point where we realize that I need something that I've never had before. I need a new experience. And, friends, the difference between Jesus in the holy place where He was before 1844 and where He is now in the most holy place since 1844 is the difference between Him being on the outside or on the inside because when He's on the inside, then He can do the real cleansing of the sanctuary, which is where, friends? Where's the real sanctuary that Jesus wants to cleanse? It's right here, right? And it isn't just a behavioral thing, right? Right? When I read that, you know, that attitudes and motives, that's all going to come up in the judgment. Not just, I did this wrong, I did that wrong, I've got to stop doing that wrong thing. You know, it's like, even if we do something good, but what was the motive behind that? If it's wrong, that's all written down, friends. And that calls for a much deeper experience than, well, I sinned, and Lord, forgive me, and then I sinned again, Lord, forgive me. I don't want to make trite of it because if we sin, we need to ask God to forgive us. You know what I'm saying? It's just a deeper experience because that lack of that experience is the only thing that Jesus is waiting for because once He has a group of people that have that experience, He can put the seal of God on them. And once God has a people who have the seal of God, the Holy Spirit can be poured out. He'll have a group of people who will be able to handle that tremendous power of that last outpouring that's going to make the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost look like one of those little sparklers you've got at Fourth of July you held in your hand, right? Compared to the ones they have in Boston at Fourth of July. So that's the experience that God wants to give us. But I didn't come all this way to not leave you with hope, right? He has a remedy. Captosing Him is really a prayer. It's really a prayer in itself. A hymn that has grown to be one of my very, very favorite songs. I think it's 266. Let's let the Spirit minister to us as we sing these lyrics. Shall we stand? Make it your personal prayer. Spirit of God Descend upon my heart Clean it from earth Through my soul Clean it from earth Through all its pulses move Soothe to my weakness Mighty as the one And make me love thee I ask no dream No prophet ecstasy No sudden rending Of the veil of clay No angel visitant No opening sky But take the dimness Of my soul away Hast thou not bid us Love thee God and King All, all thine own soul Heart and strength and mind I see thy cross there Teach my heart to cling O let me seek thee And O let me find Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh Teach me the struggles Of the soul to bear To check the rising Doubt the rebel sigh Teach me the patience Of unanswered prayer Teach me to love thee As thine angels love One holy passion Filling all my frame The baptism of the Heaven descended Off my heart an altar And I locked away And Bob, if you could just keep playing just a little bit there. Father in heaven, just want to thank you so much for being with us here this morning. Thank you for this beautiful hymn. How more clearly, how more eloquently could we say it, Lord? Could we pray it? To ask you that the one holy passion that fills all our frame is more, more of Jesus. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. As we leave today, may we keep this picture in our mind of our hearts being an altar and your love being the flame. It's my prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.
