Good morning, friends, and welcome again to Sabbath School Study Hour. A very warm welcome to our friends joining us once again, across the country and around the world, thank you for being a part of this international Bible study. Also, a warm welcome to the members here at the Granite Bay church, and our visitors; it's always nice to see you and spend time together studying the Word of God. You know, we don't always realize it, but Amazing Facts and the Granite Bay church really has a global outreach in sharing the Gospel around the world. This past week I received an e-mail from somebody who regularly tunes in to Sabbath School Study Hour in a country where Christianity is illegal.
He watches online and he worships with us and he considers himself part of the Granite Bay church family. So really, our work here is impacting the lives of many. At this time, what I'd like to do is show you a brief video - sort of a 50-year video review of Amazing Facts and some of the work we're doing. And the reason we want to share this with you is because the Granite Bay church is a very important component of this world-wide proclamation of the three angels' messages. So at this time, we're going to show you this short video.
Amazing Facts began in 1965 with a God-inspired concept. Hello, this is Joe Crews and the Amazing Facts broadcast - facts which affect you. These radio broadcasts would begin with an amazing fact from science, nature, or history, followed by a Bible message that touched the hearts of listeners from every walk of life. The program was an instant success and the ministry soon began expanding to include Bible lessons. In 1986 Amazing Facts added the medium of television to its growing outreach efforts, offering soul-winning evangelistic messages for viewers around the world.
In 1994, Pastor Doug Batchelor assumed leadership of the ministry, adding the Bible answers live call-in radio program and new ministry tv programs began airing on multiple networks around the world. For 50 years, the driving vision of Amazing Facts has been the bold proclamation of the everlasting Gospel and, with a team of evangelists circling the globe and thousands of men and women being trained through the Amazing Facts center of evangelism program - afcoe - the ministry is helping God's church see a rich harvest of souls. Amazing Facts - God's message, our mission. And there you have a taste of some of the things that amazing facts is doing in reaching the Gospel - or reaching the world, I should say - with the Gospel - the good news of salvation. And again, Granite Bay is an important part of that and our Sabbath School Study Hour.
Today we find ourselves on lesson #7 in our lesson quarterly. The title of today's lesson is Jesus, the master of missionaries. We're looking at the greatest example that we can ever find, of missionary work. And that, of course, is Jesus. We have a free offer we'd like to tell our friends about.
It's a book entitled down from his glory. We'll be happy to send this to anybody who calls and asks. The phone number is 866-788-3966. That number again is 866-788-3966 and you can ask for offer #154. You can also read this for free online at the Amazing Facts website, the book is entitled down from his glory.
Well, before we begin our lesson this morning, we would like to invite debbie to come and lead us in a few songs of praise because that's an important part of study, that of praise and worshiping God. Thank you, debbie. Thank you, Pastor Ross. I know you're ready to sing here, and those of you at home, I know that you look forward to your favorite hymns every week, because we hear from you, so we're going to start with #578 - join with us. We're going to do the first, second, and fourth stanzas.
So send I you by grace made strong to triumph o'er hosts of hell, o'er darkness death and sin, my name to bear, and in that name to conquer so send I you my victory to win. So send I you to take to souls in bondage the word of truth that sets the captive free, to break the bonds of sin, to loose death's fetters so send I you, to bring the lost to me. So send I you to bear my cross with patience, and then one day with joy I'll lay it down, to hear my voice, "well done, my faithful servant' come, share my throne, my kingdom, and my crown!" "As The Father hath sent me, so send I you." Thank you for singing this morning. And now, Pastor Ross is going to have prayer for us. I invite you to bow your heads as we pray together.
Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for giving us the opportunity to be co-laborers with you in taking the Gospel to the world. And father, not only do we think of those distant lands that need to hear the good news of salvation, we know of people that are closer to us - maybe folks that we work with or even family members that need to hear and need to receive this wonderful message of hope. And so, we pray that you'd give us wisdom as we prayerfully consider what we can do to help further the work in sharing the Gospel with others. Bless our time together as we study, for we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Our lesson this morning will be brought to us by one of the Amazing Facts evangelists - evangelist tim jones.
He actually is a member of the Granite Bay church. We don't get to see him too often because he and his wife, carol, are usually out doing evangelistic meetings across the country and around the world. Tim and carol were actually one of the founding members of the Granite Bay church about seven years ago, but from time to time they're back at their home base here in Sacramento and I said, "tim, it would be great if you would teach the lesson for us today." So thank you so much, tim, for being willing to share with us. We invite you to come forward and share. Thank you so much, Pastor Ross.
Good morning and Happy Sabbath to you all. Well, some of you are awake. Some - the rest of you had mornings kind of like mine, I think. Where you get up like at 4:00 in the morning and you can't quite get yourself back to sleep and so you say, "well, I might as well get dressed and get about the day." Well, that was my morning today as well. But I'm so happy to be here with you today - to see all of you.
We, kind of - wasn't expecting to be doing the lesson today, but I'm thrilled to be able to be here to do it. We, kind of, put together the lesson on - well, I wouldn't say short notice, but kind of quickly. So as we go through our text today - or our lesson verses, I'm probably going to be spending more time referring to my notes that I - than I would actually be comfortable with doing, but I'm going to do it because I want to make sure that I get the points across that I believe God's put on my heart to share today. Now when - as Pastor Ross said, we are not here that often. This is our home church, but we travel a lot so we are on the road most of the year and, when we are here, because this church has such a - such a richness in ministry and in people who are capable of ministering the word, I can't - when you see me up here doing this, you know they've gone to the bench.
Now fortunately, Granite Bay - if this was a sporting event, right? You know, a team - they have the guys that are the regular starters - the players - and then they have the guys that are on the bench, who come in when somebody is hurt or injured or tired. Fortunately, Granite Bay has a really deep bench. And so, I'm thrilled to be coming off the bench to be able to stand in and to share today. Well, we are on - let me just mention, once again, the offer that Pastor Ross mentioned earlier. There's a free book on - you can get it on the library - or you can request it as #154 and you can call the number - -788-3966 - that's 866-study-more - and you'll be provided with this wonderful resource: down from his glory.
We're going to be studying lesson #7 in our quarterly, if you have your quarterlies, but before we get into our lesson, let's just have another, very short, word of prayer. Father in Heaven, thank you so much for the opportunity we have to study Your Word as your people. And we are so thankful and privileged to be able to freely gather and open your holy book. And Lord, we know that the time that we have to freely assemble, Lord, may be limited and we want to do all that we can, given the opportunities that we have now, to be about our - your business - our father's business. So Lord, bless us today as we study.
Let your Holy Spirit be present. Anoint each one. And let the power of God be here and that Christ would be glorified. We ask in Jesus' Name, amen. Amen.
We're on lesson #7 and, you know, when we're studying the word, people often get different thoughts and life applications from the same Bible study, and this is what makes Bible study and sharing Bible truths wonderful and exciting. Same person can read the same lesson and can stand up here and give you a totally different perspective on it. And I think that's a really good thing, because we all have different gifts and God uses us quite differently. Now, in the natural, we have a body that's comprised of several different parts and all of these parts; however, are supplied by the same systems and each part receives exactly what it needs. And when those body parts receive from the same system that's supporting all of this structure, why, the body operates normally.
It's healthy. And each part does something different. They don't behave the same way. And that works the same way spiritually. We are the body of Christ amen? And we spiritually receive from the same source, but all of us have different functions and we all perform our tasks - God-given tasks - in different ways.
I just happen to have been at the general conference. A couple of weeks ago - we were still there, in fact, and it was a real awakening experience for me. You know, we were at the alamo dome and they have this walkway going over - it's a huge walkway - I just - when I say walkway you think of a small space - but this is a huge thing going over the roads there - the freeways or the over pass - and you walk over this thing and it's - and it goes down into the entrance to the alamo dome. Well, as I was walking in this huge crowd of people, I looked around and I thought this is what heaven is going to be like, because now I'm in the midst of thousands and thousands of Seventh-day Adventists - not that Seventh-day Adventists are the only people that are going to be in heaven, but at this occasion there were thousands and thousands of adventists. And I looked around at them and they didn't look like people that I normally see in church.
They were from all over the world. They were - there were people - it was just a - just a bouquet of all kinds of ethnicities and - and the majority of them were from other countries. And I thought this is what the road to heaven is going to be like and this is what heaven is going to look like. There's, I think, eighteen and a half million seventh-day adventists in the world and only 1.2 million of that group are in North America. So when you get outside of where we are, you'll see that the church looks very different.
Heaven is going to look like that and one of the things I love about the work that we do is that I can go to any city - any place in the world - and I can find brothers and sisters who will treat me just like I'm family. Amen. Any city - and I've done it - any city, anywhere in the world, any country in the world, and there are brothers and sisters that will take me into their homes, they will feed me, give me a place to stay. Why? Because we are all in the same body. Now our Sabbath school lesson - I have to get to that or I won't have time to finish it.
By the way, if you study your Sabbath school lesson, it is a wonderful way to do Bible studies. We try to do this every evening - is to take out our Sabbath school - because it's by days of the week - if you spend time each day before you retire studying the Bible, praying together with your family or your spouse, it is a wonderful way to bring closure to your day. And so, prayer and the word is critical to spiritual growth, so I will encourage you to study the Sabbath school lessons, study them daily, and to make the application of what you are receiving from the Word of God, make that application something that you draw strength from. Now we'll begin with our memory text, starting - we're in lesson #7 - Jesus, the master of missions. Our memory text is found in John 20 and 21 and this is what it says - again Jesus said, "peace be with you! As The Father has sent me, I am sending you.
" Now that's written in the niv. So I'm reading from the text. Let's read it again, "and Jesus said, 'peace be with you! As The Father has sent me, I am sending you.'" Now the you in this text refers not only to the disciples who were present when Jesus was speaking. See, in the mind of Christ, the entire church is included in the instructions that he gives to his disciples. The word is for all of us.
When Jesus spoke to those disciples - when he said to them, 'as The Father sent me, I am sending you.' I believe that he was speaking to me also. The prayer that Jesus prayed in John 17 is a good example of that. He says, 'I'm not just praying for these, I'm praying for everyone who comes through their work in ministry.' Amen? 'Everyone that comes after them, I'm praying for them also.' He is speaking to us. So it's clear, here, from John chapter 21 - 20, verse 21 - that mission began with God. The Father did the sending.
Jesus said, 'as The Father has sent me.' The Father did the sending. He initiated it and Jesus accepted his call to mission. So essentially, Jesus is the master of missions, as our lesson says and, in fact, he is the first missionary. He volunteered for the assignment, according to Scripture, before the world began. He knew that this mission trip, that he was volunteering for, before the world began, would cost him his life, but he came anyway.
He had the love and he had the courage to surrender to the will of The Father. Why? For the redemption of mankind. See, God foreknew that we would need a Savior, so a plan of redemption was initiated even before the world was made. God is always several steps ahead of the devil. There's nothing that the enemy can do that God has not already prepared for.
By the way, there's nothing that happens in the lives of his children that God is not aware of and that he's already made a plan for their deliverance. God is always ahead of the devil. Now the objective of mission, from God's perspective, has always been the same, that is, to reach and to save those who are lost. It was from the beginning, was his objective, and it continues through his church today. From the beginning we have the father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit working together to fulfill the mission of redemption.
The Holy Spirit has always been the divine agency through which The Father empowers the work of mission. In acts chapter 10, verse 38, this is what it says - acts :38 - "how God anointed Jesus of nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him." So Jesus, who accepted the call of God before the world began was, in his incarnate humanity, anointed with the Holy Spirit's power to fulfill the mission and will of God. So in Christ, the will of God was manifested. You see, God has increase on his mind. One doesn't go on a mission to decrease the family of God.
One goes on a mission to increase the family of God. God is not interested in the demise of the church, God is interested in increase. God is interested in growth. God wants everyone to hear of his love and to have their lives changed by the power of that love. God has increase on his mind and every child of God, I believe, will have the same mind.
Jesus was of the same mind. He came to be the seed that when that seed dies and was planted, why, it sprang up with a tremendous increase. So the mission of Christ is a mission of increase. Luke 19:10 says, "for The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." Now we move on to our - well, actually, I haven't moved on. I'm still on Sabbath afternoon.
I'm going to run out of time. I can tell. In the Sabbath afternoon reading, there's a statement in there that says, "in the new testament, Jesus outlines the program for missions." So what does Jesus - what does his mission program consist of? Well, I believe that there are - this is just my take on it, by the way, but I believe that there are five things that his program consists of. The first one would be commitment. Commitment to The Father.
Jesus didn't come to do his will, he says, but the will of what? The one that sent him. So there is first commitment to The Father to do the will of God. The second thing in his program is preparation. And Jesus, in concert with the Godhead, why they made preparation before the foundation of the world. He just didn't up and come, they had already prepared this thing before the foundation of the world.
And then the third component would be execution - that's actually doing something. Well, he did. Ultimately, he came. His life and his death here on earth required a complete sacrifice. So he had the commitment, he had the preparation, and then he had the execution.
And, by the way, when you're executing a mission, it requires a complete sacrifice. Ninety- nine and a half won't do. I was raised a pentecostal. You could never tell that, but I was. And the old people used to sing this song in the pentecostal church: Lord, I'm running trying to make a hundred.
Ninety-nine and a half won't do. In anything that we commit to do for God, ninety-nine and a half won't do. It requires a total commitment. The next component, I believe, is extension. That is, not only did he come and that he'd do - he did his mission, but he appointed and equipped others to continue the work.
It wasn't just a one shot thing, you see, he came, he committed fully, and then he appointed and equipped others to continue the work. Then the last part in Jesus' program for mission, I believe, is completion. That is, when probation closes, then Jesus returns again to take all of those who have been gathered together, receive him into one wonderful harvest. I want to be in that number, how about you? So he will, ultimately, complete the work. Now, in order for us to be like Christ, who is the master of missions, I believe that we must utilize these same components, or something very similar, if we are to be involved in a mission that looks like the mission of Jesus.
Now the reason for studying about Christ and studying about the master of mission, is to become like him. We want to learn to follow his steps. We're not studying about him just to accumulate more head knowledge or to present ourselves as more accomplished or more enlightened, we want to be changed. We want to be like Jesus. Now moving on to Sunday's lesson: Jesus in the old testament - 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verses 8 and 9 - if you have your Bibles you can turn with me there.
I will read it. It says, "therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the Gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began." Now the King James says, "before the world began." Now is time important? Well God created time, didn't he? If it's not important I don't think God would have created it. All of God's natural creation exists in the realm of time. Without time we lose our bearing. Our connection with creation itself is hindered.
Our understanding of God is hindered and we lose connection with our history. Redemption, according to Scripture - we just read it, was initiated before time began. Consequently, it doesn't flow from the natural order of created things. It does not flow from natural or created things because it was initiated before any of those things existed, are you with me? Did I lose half of you? No. Okay.
I told you all I was raised a pentecostal. Do you know what that means? If you say 'amen' it doesn't bother me one bit. Not one bit. Amen. Now, since redemption was initiated before time began - you see, it comes from the heart of God, it sprang from the eternal, and was in place before anything that is temporal was made.
Jesus, the lamb of God - the Scripture says - was slain before the foundation of the world. Redemption, which is really what mission is all about - going out to reach the lost - was first. He put that in place first. And creation and time followed. So what do you think is the most important thing to God? I think the most important thing to God, based on what we just read, is the eternal redemption of mankind.
He made provision for that first. See, he wasn't taking a chance when he created mankind, he ensured that there was a path to redemption in place before he ever made man. Now Jesus, who is that path, existed before time began. So in the old testament, which begins with the words, "in the beginning God" - clearly the Godhead was there in the beginning. In the beginning of what? Well, I believe that it refers to in the beginning of time.
In the beginning of time, God created. Now what was before the beginning? Was anything before the beginning? The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit already were there. So throughout the Bible, the old testament and the new testament, Jesus is present. Jesus was present before the first words were ever written. Jesus will be present after the last word is fulfilled.
Now here's an important principle: if something exists in the heart of God, it exists already, whether you can see it or not. And because it already exists in God, in order for it to be manifested in the Spirit - in the physical realm, all God has to do is say the words and it comes to pass. That's why I believe a negative unbelieving word should never come out of a believer's mouth. Why? Because it doesn't exist in the heart of God. Everything that we need already exists in God, whether you see it or not.
And whatever you need, no matter what it is, God already has a solution for it. Isaiah 61 and verse 1 says, "the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." Now this is a messianic prophecy and Jesus quoted this very text in Luke 4:18 while teaching in the synagogue - synagogue. Essentially, he was launching his public ministry and the Scripture says, 'all the eyes in that place were fixed on him.' But this text, I believe, also refers to Christ working through his church for the work of mission. Every member of the body of Christ who is filled with the Holy Spirit and surrendered to the will of God, can make this very declaration, do you realize that? Because we're representatives of Christ here on earth. Jesus, who is the master of missions, was anointed with power and he anoints his body today with that same power for missions.
Well, let's continue with Jesus in the old testament. Isaiah chapter 7, verse 14, "therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name immanuel." So Jesus, in the old testament, is revealed and when he appears in the new testament - well, let me say that correctly - Jesus, in the old testament is revealed when he appears in the new testament. Unfortunately, by the time the new testament times came, the religious leaders and the religious establishment didn't recognize the one who was foretold in the very text that they read almost every Sabbath. They didn't recognize the one who was foretold in Scripture and the one who was on a mission to redeem them. Isaiah verse 9 - chapter 9, rather - verse 6 says, "for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder.
And his name will be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace." Now you read these messianic prophecies and you marvel at how anyone, particularly a people who were steeped in the old testament, how anyone could read these prophecies and miss the fact that they were fulfilled in Christ. It's like you want to scream, 'look at Jesus! The prophets wrote about him! He's there in the pages of Scripture!' It's a powerful prophecy. Could there be any doubt that the old testament prophets wrote about Christ and his mission? None. Now I could read more, but I have to move ahead for sake of time. Now lest it appears that we're casting aspersions at others because of their blindness, we understand that we've all been blind at some point in our lives and God, fortunately, did not give up on us.
And just as he - just as he didn't give up on us, we must not give up on mission until everyone that can be saved is saved. Isaiah 53, verse 1 says, "who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground he has no form or comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed." You see, Jesus was the active agent of The Father at creation. The Bible says 'all things were made by him and without him there was nothing made that was made.' He's our creator and he has become the surety for our salvation. You see, the penalty was handed down - what the penalty should be for all of us. And what was that penalty by the way? Death. And wonder of wonders, he offered himself up to take that penalty on our behalf.
Giving up your life is the highest price that anyone could pay for someone else - on purpose - to do that. 'I'm going to, on purpose, die for you.' Anyone who would die for you would surely take care of you while you were alive, amen? Amen. And in the face of that kind of love from a loving creator, we can be assured that our hope in an eternal future is secured. And it's that message, you see, that forms the core of mission. Well, let's move on to Monday: the Desire of Ages.
When God created man in Genesis - well, actually, when he created the whole world including man - the entire universe operated in harmony with all of his processes, systems, and structures supporting the whole - not only was the earth a paradise, all of creation was perfectly synchronized. Everything in order. There were no jews. There were no gentiles. In fact, there were only two people and I would just assume that they were the same.
So we had everything in order. We had one race of people. And the introduction of sin upset the harmony of God's perfect creation. But as we pointed out earlier, God had already made provisions for that eventuality. In Christ, the resolution for sin was offered before the foundation of the world - not just for the jews - not for any particular group of people - but, according to Scripture, for the whole world.
When Jesus came onto the scene, everything changed. Finally, the world could see, in human form, what God was like. Here he is, standing there in front of you. Here is Christ - he's someone that is like everyone else, but at the same time he's wholly different from everyone else. He was a man on a mission from God.
He was the turning point for a new creation - a new race of man. He was the last adam, the Savior of the world. And everyone who embraces him, moves from the old creation to become a new creation. You've moved from whatever your identity was. If you're still identifying with that old flesh life - if you're still identifying with your old flesh - then you need to have an encounter with Jesus.
And see, that's what the whole issue of mission - Jesus, the master missionary - that's what his mission is all about, to move us from where we were to someplace that is so much better. Oh, I'm running out of time. Well, let's read a couple of texts here, of him coming. Luke chapter 2, verse 8 - it says, "now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.
Then the angel said to them, 'do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.'" - How many people? All people - "for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: 'glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!'" - Toward all men, not just a select few. John 1:29, "the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, 'behold! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!'" See, Jesus came to be the Savior in his mission trip. Of not just a particular people - he came to be the Savior of the entire world.
Now that is good news because no matter where you happen to live today, irrespective of your country, irrespective of your upbringing, irrespective of your ethnicity, Jesus came to be your Savior. Amen. And, as I mentioned in my introduction, about my experience at the gc, I saw that. I saw people from everywhere - all - big, little, tall, short, all kinds of different colors - they had embraced the Savior. That's what Jesus came to do - to save the world.
And he also came to empower us - to carry this message of redemption to the world. The world, you see, is our mission field. Now, for some of us, when Jesus says 'go' that might mean just across the street or it could just mean next door, but the whole world is our mission field. The mission - the field, rather - is all around us. The mission is in us.
As we travel around the country and, really, around the world, I'm amazed at the number of church members - seventh-day adventist church members who will tell me that they have never led a single person to Christ. Some have been in the church all of their lives or for a long number of years and have never led a soul to Jesus. Now, I have never in my life met a fisherman who has never caught a fish. Not once have I met a fisherman that will tell me, 'I've been fishing for all these years. I've never caught a fish.
' And if I did, I would probably tell him, 'you know, brother, you probably need to consider taking a fisherman's self-help class. Clearly you're doing something wrong.' You won't catch any fish fishing in your bathtub. Is that a Revelation? Yeah. You won't catch any fish fishing in your house in your bathtub. If you want to catch fish, you have to go to where the fish are.
You've got to go to the water, the lakes, or the rivers where the fish tend to congregate or pass through. If you fish in the water, even if you're a lousy fisherman, you'll catch a fish by accident if you do it long enough. In Monday's lesson, there is a quote from Ellen white from testimonies, vol. 6. Now, unfortunately, in the quarterly, they leave out the last line of the quote.
I'm going to read it to you with that line included because they should have included that. This is what she wrote, "the missionary spirit needs to be revived in our churches. Every member of the church should study how to help forward the work of God, both in home missions and in foreign missions. Scarcely a thousandth part of the work is being done that ought to be done in missionary fields. God calls upon his workers to annex new territory for him.
There are rich fields of toils awaiting the faithful workers." - Now here's the sentence that they didn't put in the quarterly - "and ministering angels will cooperate with every member of the church who will labor unselfishly for the master." Amen. So God doesn't expect us to do mission alone. We have back up. We have help. And ministering angels, it says, will cooperate with not just the select few - not just the marquee names, but it says "every member of the church who labor unselfishly for the master.
" I want to be in that number, how about you? Amen. Well, let's move on to Tuesday. We may get Tuesday introduced. It says mission to the jews. In Matthew 10:5 and 6, "these twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: 'do not go into the way of the gentiles, and do not enter a city of the samaritans.
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" And Jesus, himself, said in Matthew 15:24, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Now of all the people on earth, God chose Abraham and cut a covenant with him. And of all of Abraham's descendents - and he had many - God chose Israel to be his chosen people - a people through whom he could reach the world. Israel, unfortunately, failed in their mission and when Christ came, he came as a Messiah in fulfillment of Bible prophecy. And according to the prophecy of Daniel chapter 9, seventy prophetic weeks of the 2300-year prophecy was designated - cut off - for Israel. And the Messiah's mission was during the last week of this seventy-week prophecy.
The last seven years encompassed the mission of the Messiah. So it was God's attempt to give them one last chance. One last chance to reach the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to have them embrace the Messiah that had been promised to them through prophecies in the old testament. Jesus came and he preached to them. Jesus worked miracles among them, then he sent his disciples to preach to them but they rejected the message.
They rejected Christ and, ultimately, a new covenant was cut with spiritual Israel - the Israel of God - and the message went to the gentiles. So today, the church, spiritual Israel, is made up of jews and gentiles who embrace Christ the Messiah and who embrace his mission. So the church is the operational organism that the Holy Spirit's worked through to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ, the master of missions. I just want to remind you, as we close - I'm going to have to stop now - I'm not finished but I'm going to have to stop - but I want to remind you that there is a free offer. This book down from his glory - it's a free book.
You can get it online or you can order it by calling 866-788-3966 - it's offer #154 - 866-788-3966 or go to our website - amazingfacts.org and you can read it for free. -Study-more - offer #154 and we'll be happy to send this to you. God bless you and have a wonderful and blessed Sabbath. Amen. Did you know this boat could share the Gospel with 20,000 people? Or a car like this one can reach ,000 souls seeking hope in Jesus.
If you have a vehicle you're not using and would like to reach hearts for the Kingdom of God, prayerfully consider donating your vehicle to Amazing Facts today. It's easy to turn your unneeded car, boat, rv, motorcycle, even atvs and jet skis into a soul-winning vehicle for Christ and get a tax deduction. Amazing Facts will arrange to pick up your vehicle and provide you with a tax-deductible receipt. The proceeds from the resale will be used to share God's truth with millions of people around the world. Don't leave your vehicle in the garage collecting dust, use it to transform lives through Amazing Facts.
Contact us today and let us help turn your car, boat, rv, or motorcycle into lives saved for Christ. Amazing Facts, through your faithful support, has had a major impact on some of the largest non-Christian locations in the world. Beyond the great wall the printing and translation of our books and video materials are in constant motion. (Man speaking chinese) the Amazing Facts chinese language website is now one of our most visited websites. We also translated thousands of pieces of literature for these nations.
What started out as hundreds of followers is now in the hundreds of thousands. The impact of your funds invested in sharing the everlasting Gospel in these foreign lands will be felt for years to come. You know, every week we hear the most incredible stories from all over the globe, of lives that are being changed and hearts that are being transformed by the power of the word. And none of it could happen without your teamwork with this ministry. God bless you.
Congratulations. You're retired. A time to enjoy with friends, family, and God. But sometimes, with retirement, comes anxiety about future income and frustrating limitations on our ability to help in ministry. Well, Amazing Facts has an opportunity to help on both fronts.
With a charitable gift annuity from Amazing Facts, you can assure yourself of a steady income throughout your life and advance ministry and evangelism around the world. Why not call today? Can't get enough Amazing Facts Bible study? You don't have to wait until next week to enjoy more truth-filled programming. Watch Amazing Facts television by visiting 'aftv.org'. At 'aftv.org' you can view Amazing Facts programming 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, right from your computer or mobile device. Why wait a week? Visit 'aftv.org' - it's that easy. For life-changing Christian resources visit afbookstore.com or call 1-800-538-7275.