"JESUS DESIRED THEIR GOOD" ALTTR AUDIO SABBATH SCHOOL STUDY: LESSON 7 - SABBATH AUGUST 6,
Sabbath: Jesus Desired Their Good
Hello Brothers and Sisters…… How in the world are you????? After a two week Hiatus, I am back with another Alttr Inc Sabbath School Lesson Study…. I apologize for the absence, but thank God that we are back….. This is the Sabbath School lesson for Sabbath August 6th, 2016 entitled Jesus Desired Their Good….. As usual, let us pray before we begin. Dear God, as we humbly yet boldly come before your throne by the grace of Jesus Christ…….. We ask that you will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. We come to you as little children who are hungry, looking to our father to feed us with the bread of life……your word………. Please send your Spirit of Truth to guide us into the truth we have gathered to study today…… All this we ask in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, we do Pray…… Amen.
The lessons memory verse is found in Matthew 23:37, this reading is taken from the New King James Version….. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks iunder her wings, but you were not willing!”
Here we find Jesus Christ lamenting over Jerusalem, as he recounts all the chances that have been given to the chosen people of God to come together under Him….. Prophet after Prophet, minister after minister, was sent to the Children of Israel, but they were all rejected, mocked, abused, beaten, and some even killed. In Luke 4:24 Christ says himself “No prophet is accepted in his own country”………….Christ knows this first hand, because he was crucified by the people who were awaiting his first advent.
This still rings true in modern times, as those who have decided to not speak smooth sayings, but the COMPLETE Gospel, are ridiculed, mocked and (socially) Persecuted by the church. But here is where it gets weird…….. Those who are experiencing this still find it more comfortable to stay within the four walls of the church, rather to branch out and speak to those outside of the church……. There is a great fear that many Christians have of ministering to those who do not know of Jesus Christ. They fear the rejection of the world more than they fear the rejection that comes from the church. This is because you can find a few in the church who will agree with, and validate you.
In the bible we read of Jonah who is the greatest example of this mindset….. Jonah was a prophet who was comfortable staying within the four walls of the church, meaning those who already held a belief in God. There were uncomfortable situations for him amongst his own people as Luke 4:24 applied to him as well. Even so, when God told him to get up and go to Nineveh to proclaim the word of the Lord to them, Jonah was more afraid of ministering to them rather than those among him that hated him.
But here is the thing, it turned out that speaking to those outside of the faith is much easier than speaking to those inside the faith. In reading Jonah 3:4-10 we will find out how easy ministering to people outside the faith is, and it reads… “And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet fourty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from this throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish? Then God saw their works, and they turned away from their evil way: and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it”
Did Jonah give a Prolific Sermon with BIG WORDS and MULTIPLE SCRIPTURES…. Did he have to beg and plead with the people of Nineveh???? NO!!!!!!!!!! All he did was say what God told him to say, and amazingly the people accepted immediately.
This is the thing….. Those who are not in the faith are not bad people….. They know that there is more to this life than what they are currently seeing/experiencing…… They have questions, but there is no one present to give them answers…. Why????? Because the people who have the answers are only congregating amongst themselves…….
But if we were to ever start going out into the streets and ministering to them with the same intensity that we minister to ourselves…….. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Thousands would be added to the church daily……
Personally, I have been ministering amongst those in my faith for the last 8 years, and I have come to understand something very saddening….. I have experienced more resistance from those of my own faith than those who do not believe in God, or who are apart of other religions.
In March of 2016 my wife and I conducted a mission trip to India….. When we got there, we were so afraid to speak to the Muslims and Hindu’s because they do not tolerate Christianity over there….. One of the Pastors that we were working with told us stories of how he and his colleges were beaten and kicked out of villages because of what they were preaching.
Even so, God sent us to India for a reason…… There were people who were outside of the faith, that needed to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ…… There were people who were upset at what we were preaching, but God saved us from people who were really seeking to do us harm…… But most important of all, we shared a simple message from Romans 1 about what the Gospel is, Who it concerns, and Why People Need it….. And would you believe….. Hindu’s and Muslims were giving their lives to Jesus Christ. They didn’t resist, they didn’t fight it….. The Holy Spirit just moved on their hearts, impressing upon them the truth found in the word of God.
This is what the Sabbath school lesson was impressing upon in the story of the church that was created in the community center of a skate board park… The invitation was given to many churches to hold services in the center because the community leaders saw a need, and were searching for a spiritual presence…. Out of the various churches that were invited, only ONE accepted…. But that is all that God needs…… All he needs is ONE person who will take this gospel, in courage, anywhere that God wants them to Go….. We will see people’s lives changed, our communities changed.
Are you willing to share Jesus Christ with those on your neighborhood, of your community, at your school or even on your job?????? There is a ripe domestic mission field waiting for us to gather in a huge harvest of souls for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ…… I Implore you to go out in the Power of the Holy Spirit, and minister today…..
As usual, it was a blessing studying with you….. Until Next time….
“ALTER YOUR MIND, ALTER YOUR FUTURE”
