July 5, 2025 • 60 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Allen Morehouse (00:01):
Well, I'm going to call my son up here.
I've been excited for him to preach at our church.
And this is passed through Michael More, although I know him as Michael. And I'll
share a little bit. I, what can
I share? He says,
I'll just keep it simple.
But you know what?
The Lord has blessed in his life.
(00:23):
He went to Avondale College in Australia.
He went to Southwestern University in Texas, and that's where he met his beautiful wife, Delany.
So that's a whole nother story.
And then he finished up at Southern while he was a pastor here in the Arizona Conference for, I think, 11 years.
(00:45):
Close to that?
Close.
I think it was 2006 to 17.
He's now the pastor at Sand Point Seventh Aven Church. Beautiful
place up in you know, up close to Canada.
I am thrilled that Michael is here today.
He's got a message from the Lord.
(01:05):
And you'll notice the spelling is a little bit unique because he's unique.
God bless you.
Thank you.
Myckal Morehouse (01:21):
It's good to be here, Arizona, like a decade.
Aus, Aussie, Aussie, right?
And good to see good friends, Jackie and David.
Good to see you and others that I recognized from being here before.
But most of all, it is good to be in the house of the Lord.
Amen?
(01:42):
It's good to fellowship together.
It's good to greet one another with warm embraces, to study God's Word together.
You miss that when you don't come to church, don't you?
Amen.
And so we're going to invite the Lord's Spirit to be with us.
And I invite you to join me in bowing your heads as we pray and just ask for the Holy Spirit to bless us this morning.
(02:04):
Shall we do that just now?
Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for the privilege that is ours to gather together as you have called us each Sabbath to come together and worship your name.
I pray that you would bless us.
With the blessing that you have purposed for every heart here, I pray, Lord, that you would lead and guide us, Lord.
(02:26):
We ask that you would open your words to us in Jesus' name.
Amen.
How many came here this morning hungry?
Not hungry for bread, cereal, pancakes, but hungry for spiritual food.
You want God to bless you.
And you know, the Lord promises that if we come hungering, that He will pour manna from heaven.
(02:49):
And so I believe that God has a message for you.
Even if it's not written in my sermon, have you ever had that before?
You've been listening to a sermon, you got a totally different message than what was preached.
So, God has a message for you.
This morning, but I did come with some new light.
(03:11):
Now, some cringe when they hear this.
It's like a warning siren that a fanatic has just entered the church.
And it's time to put up our defenses because here comes the latest heresy
Anybody have that kind of warning sirens that go off in your mind when you hear, oh, here comes somebody with new light?
(03:37):
It's for good reason we put our defenses and look with skepticism when someone says they have new light, because the world has been filled with kooks and crooks.
Who have come in sheep's clothing with new light.
Throughout history, there have been individuals who have claimed to bring new light.
Fresh revelation supposedly from heaven, but not all light because not all new light is good light because the world has been filled.
(04:08):
With many of those who claim that they have new light and have led multitudes away from the clear teachings of Scripture.
You just look back in history.
Back to the year of about 16 A. And there was a
man who came out of a cave, white as a ghost. His name
was Muhammad, and he came with new light.
(04:33):
He said that he had been shown by an angel visions, Quranic visions, visions that
Eventually led to the writing of the Qur and the formation of the second largest religion in the world, Islam. Two
(04:53):
billion people.
All over the world.
Then in 1823, another young man named by by goes by the name of Joseph Smith, living in Palmyra, New York, claimed that he was visited by an angel.
Moroni and given new light.
He said that he found a hole actually he found a rock, moved the rock, dug under the rock, and found golden plates.
(05:21):
And on those golden plates were supposedly written in a new Egyptian language that Jesus
After he had preached the gospel in Israel, he came to the Americas and preached the gospel to the Indians here.
And he wrote down this new light, this new gospel, in a book called
(05:43):
The Book of Mormon.
And there started one of the fastest growing churches in the world, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I think there are a few in Arizona.
Even within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, history has seen troubling claims of new light.
(06:08):
In the 1930s, a man by the name of Vict Hute, a Sabbath school teacher, claimed to have new light.
He received prophetic insight, so he claimed, and deeper interpretations of end-time events.
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Even saying that he was shown a literal slaughter of Seventh-day Adventists at the end of time who were not faithful to his teachings.
Led many astray and continues to influence small groups today, sowing fear and distortion of Adventist theology new light.
(06:49):
So if you're a little skeptical this morning when somebody says, I have new light, you have good reasons.
Because there's been a lot of people down through time who have said they have new life.
But I believe that Satan
us this skepticism to pull Seventh-day Adventists into a ditch, actually into two ditches. We
(07:16):
'll call them Ditch One and Ditch Two.
Ditch number one And before we get to ditch number one
I'd like to turn to our first text in the Bible, Psalms 1, verse 105. Psalm
(07:37):
119, verse 105, the Bible describes
Truth as light.
Can you read it with me?
Let's read it together.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
What is God's truth, His Word called?
Light.
It's light.
And you know, the opposite of light is darkness.
(08:00):
Darkness is the absence of truth.
When we cease to be led in God's truth, we are walking in darkness.
We're lost.
And so light represents truth.
In Psalm 82, verse 5, it says, They do not know, nor do they understand.
They walk about in what?
(08:20):
Darkness.
So the way the Bible uses light and darkness is in reference to truth.
And when I say new light, I mean new truth that we have never seen.
Seen or known before, and the devil has two ditches for every Christian here
Or some com so comfortable in your own religion that you only stay with the things you know and were taught. It
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's the ditch of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the ditch of tradition.
It says, I'm only going to stick with that, with what's orthodox, with good old time religion, with what the pioneers taught.
That's where that was good for them.
And it's good for me, and here I stand, and I will not move.
(09:09):
Ditch number one.
But here's the problem with ditch number one.
When you fall into ditch number one, no new light, no change, no progress, I'm sticking with the old-time religion, religion becomes dry.
It becomes ritualistic.
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It becomes an experi that loses life. Those
who
Fall into this ditch wither spiritually and find that their faith is nothing more than a set of habits.
They carry out today because they carried them out yesterday and the day before.
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I want you to know this is not Jesus' religion.
It's a religion of rules, traditions, and human exercises that is devoid of the Spirit of God, and it is used by Satan to keep God's people as.
Unprepared and devoid of the power of the gospel.
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You know why Laodicea is Laodicea?
Why their water is lukewarm?
Because they're not seeking anything else from the Lord.
They're comfortable with what they've always heard.
They always knew.
Here I stand.
I don't need to study any further.
(10:34):
I've got all the light I need to be saved.
I'm a comfortable Christian.
But there's another ditch.
You ready?
You know what we called the other ditch?
Oh, you were listening.
Good.
So, ditch number two.
Is the ditch where people abandoned tradition, abandoned the old paths, always in search of something new and fresh.
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Have you ever seen those people?
They are clear on the other side.
They say, I don't want what the pioneers taught, or the people of a hundred years ago taught, or the old-time religion.
I want something fresh.
something new, and they have a good reason to avoid ditch number one.
But in avoiding ditch number one, they go all the way over into ditch number two and say, I want a religion that is alive.
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I want a religion that is fresh and new.
I want to wake up in the morning excited to discover new truth.
But when you abandon the old-time religion and only focus on what's new, you have no foundations to anchor you.
And anything that comes in that's new, you're ready to catch up and adopt and bring into your religious experience.
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And so you have this other ditch.
And we, if you're in ditch number one,
You look at the people in ditch number two as the heretics of the church.
And if you're in ditch number two, you look at the people in ditch number one as the old fog who are dead.
Right?
(12:13):
There's another name for ditch number one and ditch number two.
You might know them by this name, cons and liber.
Does that fit?
The cons are afraid of the new and hold to the old way.
The Liberals find the old way dead and lifeless and are in constant search of new ways to keep religion fresh, alive, and relevant.
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Everyone here, and I mean everyone here and those online.
Fall probably or gravitate probably towards one of these two ditches naturally.
It's almost how we were wired or how life
Experience has rewired us, and the devil is there to prod you along into either of these ditches.
(13:00):
But I want you to know that
Jesus stands in the middle road, holding the hand of the conservative and holding the hand of the liberal, trying to keep them from falling into the ditch.
And he holds them.
And you know, we need cons and we need liberals. The liberals keep
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the church from dying.
And the conservatives keep the church from apostasizing.
We need one another.
And there will always be this tension.
Between the conservatives and the liberals, unless we focus on just holding Jesus' hand, Jesus always stands in the middle.
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Giving us fresh life for our Christian experience and reminding us that the old ways are still relevant today.
Jesus said something
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In the book of Matthew, chapter 13, verse 52, about the scribe
And it's really the only time in the entire Bible he had something good to say about scribes.
It's Matthew 13, verse 52.
I'd like to invite you to read it with me.
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And this is what he said.
Let's read it together.
Then he said to them, Therefore, every
Scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and things old.
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Do you know what a scribe's job was?
We would think to ourselves that a scribe is just somebody with a pen and paper who copied.
What a boring job.
It's one step lower than res books in a library.
(15:19):
But a scribe in the Bible had a more important job than just copying words on a piece of paper.
A scribe was known as the person who had studied the Bible so thoroughly from cover to cover.
That if you had a question about any scripture in the Bible, you could find a scribe and he would know the answer.
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We don't call them scribes today.
We call them pastors and teachers or Sabbath school teachers.
That was a scribe.
They were the preachers of the day.
They were the ones that would get up and explain the scriptures to the people.
It's interesting.
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Thing to note that Jesus rarely had anything good to say about scribes.
That's kind of self-incriminating, isn't it?
In Mark chapter 12, verse 38.
He said to them in his teaching, What did he say?
(16:33):
Beware of scribes.
Translate that into 20 language. Beware
of
Pastors, beware of preachers.
Can you understand why the pastors of Jesus' day hated him so much?
Went around and said, Hey, everybody, beware of the guy who stands behind the pulpit.
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He desires to go around in long robes, loves greeting in the marketplace, the best seat in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.
These will receive greater condemnation.
Whoa!
Jesus was not too kind or gentle with the preachers.
(17:24):
But he did have one time in the Bible where he actually comme the preachers of his day. And
these weren't the proud preachers.
These were not the preachers who extorted people and
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These were humble, truly seeking the Lord, embracing the truth and following it.
And how did he does he describe this man?
The scribe, if you listen to his sermon, you will hear two things.
If you listen to this scribe's sermon, you will hear two things.
(18:08):
What two things?
Will you hear?
What two things does he pull out of his treasury?
Things new and things old.
Things new and old, and here is the middle road between the two ditches where Jesus stands.
Not letting go of the old established truths.
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They ground us, they plant us, they hold us solid on theology that has long endured the battering of time.
The old pillars, and friends, we need the old pillars of our pioneers.
We have nothing.
To gain to abandon our fundamental beliefs.
The Sabbath is still the Sabbath, yesterday, today, and forever.
The dead still.
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Sleep in the grave, Jesus still ministers in the heavenly sanctuary and is still coming again soon.
How many today can say they are grateful for things that are old?
Am. But
if all we do is stay in the things that are old, our religion becomes crusty and stale. We
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need also things that are new.
And what are the things that are new?
What is the new light?
And where do we get it?
To discover this, I'd like to take you in the Bible to the book of Revelation to uncover the secret of the hidden manna.
Revelation 2, verse 17.
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Let's read it together.
Are you ready?
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him
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Who receives it?
Hidden manna.
What is this hidden manna?
And we're going to come back to the hidden manna in Revelation at the end of the sermon, and you'll see.
But first, you need a foundation from the Old Testament about man. If
you go back to the Old Testament, you find that man was something new that Israel had never tasted before.
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New bread from heaven.
Exodus 16
Coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers and made with honey.
And they called it man because manna means what is it? It
's new. They
'd never heard of it before. Bread
(20:43):
from heaven? Never happened.
But there it was every morning.
So every Israelite had to get up early each morning for this new bread.
This bread from heaven was deeply symbolic.
It was not just physical bread, but represented spiritual bread as well.
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D you remember Jesus' temptation in the wilderness? What
did he say to the devil when the devil said, Make these stones bread? What
did he say? But
That's right.
Man doesn't just live by physical bread.
There is spiritual bread that we need.
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Bread new light from heaven that we need.
We can't just sustain on the bread we baked yesterday.
We need new bread.
Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
And when Jesus said that, he was actually quoting
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From the most quoted book in the Old Testament that Jesus quoted from.
Do you know Jesus' two most quoted books from the Old Testament?
Deuteronomy and I think it's Isaiah.
I could be wrong.
But Deuteronomy was one of them, and he's quoting from Deuteronomy.
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And in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 3
One more.
Right there.
This is where he's quoting from.
So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger.
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And then what?
Fed you with manna which you did not know, meaning it was new bread.
Nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know.
Why did he rain bread from heaven, that he might make you know to know what?
To know to know that man shall not live by bread alone.
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The man was not just there to physically feed Israel, but to plant within their minds and hearts a spiritual truth that was to carry them for the rest of their life, that you may know.
That man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
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They were not just
To look each morning for new physical bread, but the Lord was teaching them that every morning they were to look for new spiritual bread.
Spiritual bread is what they needed.
Word, a word from the Lord.
And if they didn't get the word from the Lord, they would just assuredly
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Shrive up, starve, and die as if they had not gotten bread, manna from heaven. They
needed new light.
They needed to crave new light, and so the Lord allowed them to hunger.
Are you hungering in your walk with the Lord?
Are you hungry?
Do you feel a need inside of you like there's something more to this Christian walk?
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Maybe, maybe you have drifted into ditch number one.
Where you've become satisfied with the old-time religion and just doing what you've always done because you have always done it.
I show up to church today because I showed up to church last week.
Week and the week before, and it's kind of a habit in my life, so I just come.
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But inside your den, the Lord allows you to hunger so that you will want new bread.
New bread from him man shall not live by bread alone
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But from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, the falling of the manna every day was a symbol of God's desire to feed his people
Every day with food from his word.
Not old food, not yesterday's food, not last week's storage, but fresh, new food every day.
So important was this lesson that it was.
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Fresh and new, that it was bread for today, not bread for tomorrow, that God baked this lesson into the whole experience by commanding Israel to only gather as much as they could eat today.
Because if they tried to store up enough for tomorrow, what happened?
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Like Lazarus, it stinketh.
You need new bread.
You need it, friends.
You need it each day.
Ex sixteen, verses sixteen through twenty This is the thing which the LORD had commanded let every man gather it according
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To each one's need, one Omer for each person according to the number of persons.
Let every man take
For those who are in his tent.
Then the children of Israel did so, and gathered some more and some less.
So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.
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Every man had gathered according to what?
To each one's need.
And Moses said, Let no one leave any of it until morning, notwithstanding.
Of course they did not heed Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stink, and Moses was angry with them.
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But they learned their lesson.
What's the lesson here?
God wanted to feed the children of Israel with new bread from heaven every day.
And they needed to eat it fresh every day.
If manna represents the word of God, what is the whole story teaching us?
Every day that you wake up, God has new things.
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God has them.
New things from his word that he desires to teach you and feed you with, things you need for that day.
But you have to go to his word and open it.
You have to gather it.
The manna didn't fall into the open mouths of sleeping Israel in their tents.
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They had to get out of bed.
They had to walk out their tent door and they had to go looking for the manna.
The manna was there.
Every morning it was there.
If they went looking for it, did they find it?
Did they always find enough?
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Always.
But they had to get up out of bed and go looking for it.
Sometimes we expect.
That the Lord will feed us like a baby.
We open our mouth, and the bottle is inserted.
I remember when my children cried and I couldn't take it anymore.
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I just took a bottle and put it in and
But it doesn't work that way with the Lord, does it?
There is some eff that needs to be made on our part.
Why?
Not because our effort brings us any salvation.
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But our effort is needed in order to assimilate what God has provided.
It's part of demonstrating faith.
It's part of the human experience saying, Lord, I do
Expect it.
I do expect that there's going to be new bread.
If I never got out of bed, it would indicate that I didn't believe that it really rained man today.
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Similar to the man who had withered legs, and Jesus said, Get up and walk, he had to actually make an effort to get up and walk, and that effort made
Demonstrated faith in the word of God.
And when he placed his faith in the word of God and willed to walk, that man walked.
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And friends.
When you and I get out of bed and we make an effort saying to the Lord, Lord, I believe that you have a message.
That I need today to strengthen me, to guide me, to help me in my walk today.
When we make that effort, we find new light.
Now I get it.
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Some are not mourning birds.
But what does the Bible say in Lamentations 3, 22?
Read it with me.
Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his comp fail not, they are new.
Every morning great is your faithfulness.
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They are new every morning.
Now, some of you wished it said every evening.
And as much as I'm with you on that, and I would love to rewrite the Bible, I'm sorry, it's not my book or yours.
The Lord is the one who wrote it, and He said it's new, everyone.
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Think of it.
God has mercies that will preserve you, compassion that will not fail you, and these come every morning.
Little book called Steps to Christ, page 70, says Consecrate yourselves to God in the morning.
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And then it says, Make this your very first work.
Christ Object Lessons, page 342.
The hours of the morning are the most favorable for seeking the Lord.
And in a little book called My Life Today, page 15.
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Let's read this one together.
If the rush of work is allowed to drive us from our morning devotion, we are in danger of falling under temptation.
Morning is a sacred time.
I know it's hard.
I get it.
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But someone says, Pastor, I'm not someone who can roll out of bed first thing in the morning.
Or, Pastor, I wake up too early to have time to study or read the Bible.
I just can't get up any earlier.
What should I do?
Two points from the Word of God.
First point
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And feed me with the new light you have for me today.
Jesus will wake you up.
There have been many times that I've prayed that prayer and purposefully not set my alarm, hoping that God would forget that He was supposed to wake me up.
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Have you ever done that?
Am I the only one?
Purposely shut the alarm off.
There have been some Friday nights that I don't have my sermon done, and I say, Lord, wake me up in the morning.
Lord, please don't wake me up.
Me up in the morning, and he wakes me up at the time that I need to finish whatever I need to finish.
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Always on time.
I'll roll over in bed, open my eyes and think it's 7 and it's 5 a.
And
I say, really?
Really?
5 a.
m.
And I hear that sweet s still voice saying, You asked me to wake you.
I'm holding to my promise.
The Lord promises in Isaiah 50, verse 4
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How to speak a word in season to him who is weary.
Some here today may struggle to know how to speak, how to share your faith, how to communicate.
And what does the Lord say?
He will show you how to speak.
A word in season to him who is weary.
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When?
He awakens me morning by morning.
He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.
You didn't want to hear that verse, did you?
Is this a promise?
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Someone here says, Yes, but that's not a promise I want.
O friends, how the disciples wished they had not slept in the garden of Gethsemane.
When the Savior had told them to watch and pray, the time came when they could no longer watch and pray, and they were found unprepared for the arrest.
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Trial and crucifixion of their master.
Would the disciples have scattered as they did at Jesus' arrest if they had stayed awake and watched and prayed?
Would Thomas have doubted if his soul had been strengthened with prayer through watching and praying?
Would they have seen the angels that ministered to the Saviour?
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Would they have understood the great drops of blood that came from his face as he wept and prayed while they slept?
Think of the ten Virgins.
How many of them would not have slept and let their lights go out?
It was the sleeping that caused the foolish Virgins to not realize that their oil was out and so was their light.
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What if they had not slept?
Could they have gotten more oil and maybe gone to the marriage feast?
Jesus caps that parable of the ten virgins by giving us all this warning in Matthew twenty-five
He says, Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
In other words, don't let sleep cause you to become surprised by the coming of the Saviour.
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This was the main issue with the virgins.
Watching means more than just having our eyes open.
It means that we are looking for the coming of Jesus and the Word of God.
We are studying for new light.
We are praying and searching, searching and praying.
We are purposeful about seeking God for those who like to sleep.
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Listen, I can sympathize.
I've been on vacation, and it's hard to wake up.
But let this message stir you as it stirs me, with a new resolve to get up in the morning to study your Bible.
The man fell in the morning, and for those who waited, it melted.
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And the opportunity for that day was lost.
By the way, what does the Bible say about when the manna melted?
What time of day did the man melt? The
Bible says when the sun became hot
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What time does the sun become hot in Arizona?
What time?
Seven thirty or eight?
You've got to get your study in before the sun becomes hot.
In other words, don't delay.
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Do it first thing in the morning before the su is hot. When
you wake up and you begin feeling the sun beating
Through your window, or you begin, you walk outside to drink, whatever, and you feel the sun hot, just think of melting manna and run back inside and say, Let me get my manna before it melts.
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Before it's too hot.
But there is another reason the Bible gives us to not sleep.
In Romans:, it says
And do this knowing the what, know the time, that what
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Now it is what?
High time to do what?
To awake out of sleep.
This is our second reason.
We got to know the time that we're living in.
As we're wrestling there in bed, we say, What time is it?
Well, we may look at our watch and see what time it is, but when you're looking at prophetic time, you say, What time is it?
(38:18):
The reason the Lord says this is because there is a time given for God's people to study.
There is a time given for new light, but the time will come.
When you can no longer gain new light the time will come when the man will know
(38:38):
Longer fall.
The time will come where you can no longer wake out of sleep to study your word.
Have you ever tried walking and reading?
Anyone here tried walking and reading?
How did that work?
Not well.
Anybody here tried running and reading?
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How in the world are you going to run to the mountains and read your Bible while you're running?
You can't get new light, then it's too late.
The new light needs to come now.
Now, now
Because now is when you need it and will benefit from it.
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You will need to recall those things when you're running.
Then, but the time for quiet study, the time for un prayer, the time for thoughtful meditation is now.
And there's a third reason to not sleep.
And it's actually an encouragement from Jesus that he will give you light if you awake.
Ephesians 5, verse 14.
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Let's read it together.
Chapter five, verse four. Let
's read. Therefore
he says, Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.
Will Jesus give you light if you get up?
Yes, Jesus will give you light, and you need that light in order to be alive as a Christian.
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You need that light for revival in your life.
Every revival that has ever occurred in my personal life or in the lives of anyone in this world has happened as men and women have turned to the Bible.
As they begin reading the Word of God, it is the Word of God that awakens the soul.
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So we get up in the morning, we make an effort, and we open the Word of God with the expectation that He will feed us.
With new light.
But there's another truth in the story of the man that cannot be missed, and encourages you and me to open our Bibles.
In the morning, even if we have a short amount of time.
I want you to notice this promise.
Exodus 16, verse 17 through 18 says
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So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.
Every man had gathered according to each one's need.
Some of you are retired or stay at home, or perhaps you're just in great spiritual need right now in your life, and you have lots of time to study, or need lots of time to study.
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But then there are some of you who are stretched thin and you don't have much time, but you make time.
I've heard some say, unless you spend an entire hour, you aren't reaching the bar and you can't benefit from the Word of God.
I actually had somebody say that.
Pastor, you will gain no benefit from your spiritual devotions unless, Pastor, you spend a thoughtful hour.
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Come with whatever time you have, come.
If you're hungry, the Lord says, come.
If you're thirsty, the Lord says, come.
I will feed you.
I will give you the water you need to drink that will bring life.
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Come.
There are some who are able to spend a thoughtful hour or four hours
In prayer.
We just got back from a trip.
You know where we went?
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Greece.
And in Greece there is a little place called Met.
And it's up kind of north, and it's a place that these monks went to build these monasteries on these magnificent rocks high up in the air.
It was really cool.
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And we got to listen to their schedule.
They were up at like 4 a.
And
they had they had how would you like?
Somebody telling you you have to pray for four hours.
They had to pray for four hours.
Then they got a short break and they got to eat and do different things.
Up on their monastery, and then they had another four hours in the afternoon.
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These men
Where maybe in ditch number one, they were just following a criteria.
I just need to meet the bar of four hours.
I don't care what I read.
I'm just going to read until four hours.
Have you ever read a book?
And then you get to the bottom of the page and you have no idea what you read because your mind wandered off.
Anyone ever done that?
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Yeah.
I hope you don't do that while you drive.
But it can happen.
Like you just do things by rote.
We read the Bible.
Not to put in our thoughtful hour.
But to gain new light.
And the Lord says, If you have time that you're willing to give me, I will feed you.
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Maybe you only have five minutes, fifteen minutes, maybe a short period of time.
But you say, Lord, I'm going to make it an effort.
I'm going to make it a morning eff to search for new light from you.
Believing that you will feed me with new bread from heaven in the morning.
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And the Lord says, Good, come, and you will have enough.
There's a book that I read a while ago called Atomic Habits.
Anybody here read that book, Atomic Habits?
No. Anyone
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here struggle in setting routine habits, goals? Well, that
's why you haven't read the book. Because you're
doing great.
But if you do struggle with coming up with habits, read Atomic Habits by James Clear.
It's a really, really great book.
And one of the things that he says about developing habits is set your goals small.
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So att that it would be hard to fail. So he
said, you know, set your goal. You know,
some people like to set big goals. I'm
going to read an hour a day for the rest of my life. And
Set your goal and say, I'm going to read every day for three minutes.
By the way, those devotional books
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That you get, like the Ellen White devotionals and other devotionals, those devotional books take three to three and a half minutes to read a devotional.
I've timed them.
Three minutes.
So you set your goal.
Three minutes a day.
How many could meet that goal?
Three minutes a day.
Yeah.
Okay, we got to lower the bar.
One minute a day?
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So you set the goal wherever you know you can hit it every single day.
So you hit the goal day number one, one minute, and you hit the button and say that was easy.
And you say, but I want more.
And you look at your watch and you say, I've got more time.
And so you keep reading.
And then the next day, one minute.
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And the next day, five minutes.
And the next day, you read for ten minutes.
And the next day, you're back to one minute.
But the point is, is that even when you feel like you don't have enough time,
Everyone can reach the goal of one minute.
And then you never get the disappointment of, oh, now I have to play catch up.
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Because I missed my hour yesterday, so today I have to do two hours to catch up with the hour I missed yesterday.
You how the human mind works?
Set yourself up for failure.
So.
Just a little nugget, but you don't need it because you guys don't read those books and are just fine.
How often did the bread fall from heaven?
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Every day, except for why did it not fall on the Sabbath?
There was a lesson there, wasn't there?
What was the lesson?
Exodus 16, 23 through 26.
It says, Then he said to them, This is what the Lord has said
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Bake what you will bake today, boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until the morning.
So they laid it up till the morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink.
Nor were there any worms in it.
Then Moses said, Eat that to, for today is the Sabbath to the Lord.
Today you will not find it where?
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In the field, six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.
So if there was no bread in the field, where were they supposed to get bread?
They laid it up, right?
But what's the lesson here?
On Preparation Day, that is Friday, we should spend maybe a little extra time.
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What does it say?
Gather how much on Friday?
It doesn't actually say double.
I thought it might say double, but it doesn't actually say double.
But it does say lay up what remains.
Maybe this means morning and evening worship.
Maybe this just means that whatever you study on Friday will become a blessing on Sabbath as well.
But why was no manna given on Sabbath?
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Where was the bread for the people on Sabbath?
You know, there was bread that was baked fresh on Sabbath.
You know where it was?
In the sanctuary.
Not in the field, but in the sanctuary.
Leviticus 23, verse 3 says, Six days you shall work be done.
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But the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation.
You shall do no work on it.
It is the Sabbath of the Lord and all.
Your dwelling.
The Sabbath was meant to be a holy what?
Convocation.
What is a convocation?
It's a gathering of people.
What's a holy convocation?
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A gathering of people to worship.
What do we call it today?
Church.
And this is why it is important for you not to miss church.
God's people were meant to gather together at his church, and this is where he would feed them on Sabbath.
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All through the week, they would go to the field and bake what they would bake at home.
But on the Sabbath, they didn't go to the field.
Where did they go?
Church, and it was there in the church that God would feed them with the bread that was fresh, and this bread.
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Was fresh put out by the priest.
Leviticus twenty-four, five through eight.
And you shall take fine flour, talking to the priest, bake twelve cakes.
Two tenths of an eph shall be in each cake. You
shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord, and you shall put pure frankincense on each row.
that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the LORD, every one every Sabbath he shall set it in order, every Sabbath.
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Now some may say but Pastor wasn't it Jesus who said beware of the Pharisees
And the scribes, beware of the preachers.
I look at who's going to be preaching in the coming weeks, and I decide if I'm going to get a blessing.
Here's the truth.
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The blessing will come if you seek it, regardless of who is standing here.
Remember I started the sermon off saying how many of you
have ever
received a message that the preacher never preached?
Have you ever had that happen?
You've listened to a sermon and you received a message, and the preacher never preached it, but you surely heard it.
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If you come to receive a message, the Lord will provide you.
With the bread that you were supposed to receive that day.
Come expecting to be fed.
I'm sorry, I'm not a finished by noon preacher.
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I'll try.
We can keep going.
Exodus 16, verse 33.
Moses said to Aaron.
Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations.
So important was it that God's people receive the new light
New bread from him every morning that God actually commanded that a pot of manna be kept ins the ark next to what?
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Next to the Ten Commandments, showing that the keeping of the Ten Commandments is as important as gaining daily food from the Lord.
They were together holy, a holy thing to the Lord in the ark, and it was to be kept there for generations to come so that they would never forget the need for new light.
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This has been the practice of God's people to wake up morning by morning and find a place to receive new light from God, even from ancient times.
Did you know Abraham got up early in the morning?
He did.
Genesis nineteen twenty-seven.
And Abraham went out what?
Early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord, meaning he was returning to the same place.
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To come and seek the Lord.
Moses did it.
Exodus 34, verse 4 says, So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones.
Then Moses rose when
Early in the morning went up to Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him.
And he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
And Job did it.
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Job chapter 1, verse 5.
So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise what?
Early in the morning, and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.
For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.
Thus Job did what?
Regularly.
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King David did it.
Psalms 5, verse 3.
My voice you shall hear when.
In the morning, O Lord, in the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up.
And Jesus did it.
In Mark chapter one, verse thirty five Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there prayed.
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In Counsel to Parents, Teachers and Students, page 258, it says, Jesus in the early hours of the morning often found him in some secluded place meditating, searching the Scriptures, or in prayer.
New light.
So, what is the hidden manna in Revelation?
It is the daily experience of the believer who comes and
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Receives from the hand of Christ every morning the new light day by day and treasures up this hidden manna in his soul until he becomes just like the one who gave him the man.
That is the hidden manna.
Revelation 2, verse 17 says.
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I guess I didn't get that one in there.
Sorry.
Revelation 2:1 says, He who has an ear to hear.
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
I will be going back to that Peter verse.
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes.
To who?
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To him who overcomes, I will give some of my hidden manna.
And I will give him a new stone and write on it a new name.
Perhaps we shall taste a bit of the real manna in heaven.
That's a valid interpretation.
But I believe there is also a spiritual interpretation, and that is that those who are overcoming now are overcoming because they are receiving the hidden manna now.
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They are receiving new light from Jesus now, and as they partake of these great and precious promises, they overcome the corruption in this world and have a new nature.
Listen to these words in 2 Peter.
As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which
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Have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these
You may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
Lust.
The reason the manna is called hidden is because its work is unseen by human eyes.
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Friends, this is how revival takes place.
Men and women commit to study the Word of God.
are transformed by the Holy Spirit, and the manna they receive day by day, hidden in their souls, nourishes and revives their faith, and they are born again.
Last quote, man release, volume twenty one, page one hundred thirty one. Can we read
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this last one together?
The true believer has a living connection with Christ, the source of all spiritual life.
He is guided by the Holy Spirit, and the hidden manna is placed by the hand of Christ him upon the soul.
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Today, Jesus is calling you to embrace new light and to commit to a life in pursuit of it.
Expecting that Jesus has hidden manna for you today and tomorrow and every morning.
Is there anyone here today who feels the Holy Spirit speaking to you?
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Are you willing to respond to that call?
Today, you get the wonderful privilege that human beings get, that animals
don't always get and that is to make a choice to put your will on the side of the holy spirit
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We have the ability that no animal has, and that is to look outside of ourselves, down at ourselves, and realize where we are.
An animal
Your dog, your cat, cannot look at itself and say, I am lost.
I'm not where I should be.
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But a human being has been given that gift by God to be able to introspectively look upon ourselves and recognize
I am lost and I'm not where I need to be.
And friends, if God has given you that gift, it is truly a gift.
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And today you can make
Make a choice to change your position.
You want to make that commitment with me?
Say, Lord, I want to search for your new light morning by morning.
Do you want to make that commitment with me and say, Lord, I want new light in my life.
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I want to be fed with your manna morning by morning.
Am. Will
you bow your heads
Allen Morehouse (59:43):
and ask
Myckal Morehouse (59:43):
the Lord to waken you as I ask the Lord to waken me morning by morning? Heavenly
Father, I join your people in this prayer.
Saying, Lord, it's hard to get out of bed, but we need it.
(01:00:04):
Help me to go to bed on time so that I can wake up on time.
You've promised to waken me morning by morning, and so, Lord, with your people, I ask that you would waken me so that I can be revived.
(01:00:27):
With new light.
Thank you, Jesus, that you're faithful.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Well, I'm going to call my son up here.
I've been excited for him to preach at our church.
And this is passed through Michael More, although I know him as Michael. And I'll
share a little bit. I, what can
I share? He says,
I'll just keep it simple.
But you know what?
The Lord has blessed in his life.
(00:23):
He went to Avondale College in Australia.
He went to Southwestern University in Texas, and that's where he met his beautiful wife, Delany.
So that's a whole nother story.
And then he finished up at Southern while he was a pastor here in the Arizona Conference for, I think, 11 years.
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Close to that?
Close.
I think it was 2006 to 17.
He's now the pastor at Sand Point Seventh Aven Church. Beautiful
place up in you know, up close to Canada.
I am thrilled that Michael is here today.
He's got a message from the Lord.
(01:05):
And you'll notice the spelling is a little bit unique because he's unique.
God bless you.
Thank you.
Myckal Morehouse (01:21):
It's good to be here, Arizona, like a decade.
Aus, Aussie, Aussie, right?
And good to see good friends, Jackie and David.
Good to see you and others that I recognized from being here before.
But most of all, it is good to be in the house of the Lord.
Amen?
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It's good to fellowship together.
It's good to greet one another with warm embraces, to study God's Word together.
You miss that when you don't come to church, don't you?
Amen.
And so we're going to invite the Lord's Spirit to be with us.
And I invite you to join me in bowing your heads as we pray and just ask for the Holy Spirit to bless us this morning.
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Shall we do that just now?
Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for the privilege that is ours to gather together as you have called us each Sabbath to come together and worship your name.
I pray that you would bless us.
With the blessing that you have purposed for every heart here, I pray, Lord, that you would lead and guide us, Lord.
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We ask that you would open your words to us in Jesus' name.
Amen.
How many came here this morning hungry?
Not hungry for bread, cereal, pancakes, but hungry for spiritual food.
You want God to bless you.
And you know, the Lord promises that if we come hungering, that He will pour manna from heaven.
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And so I believe that God has a message for you.
Even if it's not written in my sermon, have you ever had that before?
You've been listening to a sermon, you got a totally different message than what was preached.
So, God has a message for you.
This morning, but I did come with some new light.
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Now, some cringe when they hear this.
It's like a warning siren that a fanatic has just entered the church.
And it's time to put up our defenses because here comes the latest heresy
Anybody have that kind of warning sirens that go off in your mind when you hear, oh, here comes somebody with new light?
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It's for good reason we put our defenses and look with skepticism when someone says they have new light, because the world has been filled with kooks and crooks.
Who have come in sheep's clothing with new light.
Throughout history, there have been individuals who have claimed to bring new light.
Fresh revelation supposedly from heaven, but not all light because not all new light is good light because the world has been filled.
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With many of those who claim that they have new light and have led multitudes away from the clear teachings of Scripture.
You just look back in history.
Back to the year of about 16 A. And there was a
man who came out of a cave, white as a ghost. His name
was Muhammad, and he came with new light.
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He said that he had been shown by an angel visions, Quranic visions, visions that
Eventually led to the writing of the Qur and the formation of the second largest religion in the world, Islam. Two
(04:53):
billion people.
All over the world.
Then in 1823, another young man named by by goes by the name of Joseph Smith, living in Palmyra, New York, claimed that he was visited by an angel.
Moroni and given new light.
He said that he found a hole actually he found a rock, moved the rock, dug under the rock, and found golden plates.
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And on those golden plates were supposedly written in a new Egyptian language that Jesus
After he had preached the gospel in Israel, he came to the Americas and preached the gospel to the Indians here.
And he wrote down this new light, this new gospel, in a book called
(05:43):
The Book of Mormon.
And there started one of the fastest growing churches in the world, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I think there are a few in Arizona.
Even within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, history has seen troubling claims of new light.
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In the 1930s, a man by the name of Vict Hute, a Sabbath school teacher, claimed to have new light.
He received prophetic insight, so he claimed, and deeper interpretations of end-time events.
(06:29):
Even saying that he was shown a literal slaughter of Seventh-day Adventists at the end of time who were not faithful to his teachings.
Led many astray and continues to influence small groups today, sowing fear and distortion of Adventist theology new light.
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So if you're a little skeptical this morning when somebody says, I have new light, you have good reasons.
Because there's been a lot of people down through time who have said they have new life.
But I believe that Satan
us this skepticism to pull Seventh-day Adventists into a ditch, actually into two ditches. We
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'll call them Ditch One and Ditch Two.
Ditch number one And before we get to ditch number one
I'd like to turn to our first text in the Bible, Psalms 1, verse 105. Psalm
(07:37):
119, verse 105, the Bible describes
Truth as light.
Can you read it with me?
Let's read it together.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
What is God's truth, His Word called?
Light.
It's light.
And you know, the opposite of light is darkness.
(08:00):
Darkness is the absence of truth.
When we cease to be led in God's truth, we are walking in darkness.
We're lost.
And so light represents truth.
In Psalm 82, verse 5, it says, They do not know, nor do they understand.
They walk about in what?
(08:20):
Darkness.
So the way the Bible uses light and darkness is in reference to truth.
And when I say new light, I mean new truth that we have never seen.
Seen or known before, and the devil has two ditches for every Christian here
Or some com so comfortable in your own religion that you only stay with the things you know and were taught. It
(08:46):
's the ditch of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the ditch of tradition.
It says, I'm only going to stick with that, with what's orthodox, with good old time religion, with what the pioneers taught.
That's where that was good for them.
And it's good for me, and here I stand, and I will not move.
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Ditch number one.
But here's the problem with ditch number one.
When you fall into ditch number one, no new light, no change, no progress, I'm sticking with the old-time religion, religion becomes dry.
It becomes ritualistic.
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It becomes an experi that loses life. Those
who
Fall into this ditch wither spiritually and find that their faith is nothing more than a set of habits.
They carry out today because they carried them out yesterday and the day before.
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I want you to know this is not Jesus' religion.
It's a religion of rules, traditions, and human exercises that is devoid of the Spirit of God, and it is used by Satan to keep God's people as.
Unprepared and devoid of the power of the gospel.
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You know why Laodicea is Laodicea?
Why their water is lukewarm?
Because they're not seeking anything else from the Lord.
They're comfortable with what they've always heard.
They always knew.
Here I stand.
I don't need to study any further.
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I've got all the light I need to be saved.
I'm a comfortable Christian.
But there's another ditch.
You ready?
You know what we called the other ditch?
Oh, you were listening.
Good.
So, ditch number two.
Is the ditch where people abandoned tradition, abandoned the old paths, always in search of something new and fresh.
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Have you ever seen those people?
They are clear on the other side.
They say, I don't want what the pioneers taught, or the people of a hundred years ago taught, or the old-time religion.
I want something fresh.
something new, and they have a good reason to avoid ditch number one.
But in avoiding ditch number one, they go all the way over into ditch number two and say, I want a religion that is alive.
(11:26):
I want a religion that is fresh and new.
I want to wake up in the morning excited to discover new truth.
But when you abandon the old-time religion and only focus on what's new, you have no foundations to anchor you.
And anything that comes in that's new, you're ready to catch up and adopt and bring into your religious experience.
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And so you have this other ditch.
And we, if you're in ditch number one,
You look at the people in ditch number two as the heretics of the church.
And if you're in ditch number two, you look at the people in ditch number one as the old fog who are dead.
Right?
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There's another name for ditch number one and ditch number two.
You might know them by this name, cons and liber.
Does that fit?
The cons are afraid of the new and hold to the old way.
The Liberals find the old way dead and lifeless and are in constant search of new ways to keep religion fresh, alive, and relevant.
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Everyone here, and I mean everyone here and those online.
Fall probably or gravitate probably towards one of these two ditches naturally.
It's almost how we were wired or how life
Experience has rewired us, and the devil is there to prod you along into either of these ditches.
(13:00):
But I want you to know that
Jesus stands in the middle road, holding the hand of the conservative and holding the hand of the liberal, trying to keep them from falling into the ditch.
And he holds them.
And you know, we need cons and we need liberals. The liberals keep
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the church from dying.
And the conservatives keep the church from apostasizing.
We need one another.
And there will always be this tension.
Between the conservatives and the liberals, unless we focus on just holding Jesus' hand, Jesus always stands in the middle.
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Giving us fresh life for our Christian experience and reminding us that the old ways are still relevant today.
Jesus said something
(14:09):
In the book of Matthew, chapter 13, verse 52, about the scribe
And it's really the only time in the entire Bible he had something good to say about scribes.
It's Matthew 13, verse 52.
I'd like to invite you to read it with me.
(14:31):
And this is what he said.
Let's read it together.
Then he said to them, Therefore, every
Scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and things old.
(14:52):
Do you know what a scribe's job was?
We would think to ourselves that a scribe is just somebody with a pen and paper who copied.
What a boring job.
It's one step lower than res books in a library.
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But a scribe in the Bible had a more important job than just copying words on a piece of paper.
A scribe was known as the person who had studied the Bible so thoroughly from cover to cover.
That if you had a question about any scripture in the Bible, you could find a scribe and he would know the answer.
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We don't call them scribes today.
We call them pastors and teachers or Sabbath school teachers.
That was a scribe.
They were the preachers of the day.
They were the ones that would get up and explain the scriptures to the people.
It's interesting.
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Thing to note that Jesus rarely had anything good to say about scribes.
That's kind of self-incriminating, isn't it?
In Mark chapter 12, verse 38.
He said to them in his teaching, What did he say?
(16:33):
Beware of scribes.
Translate that into 20 language. Beware
of
Pastors, beware of preachers.
Can you understand why the pastors of Jesus' day hated him so much?
Went around and said, Hey, everybody, beware of the guy who stands behind the pulpit.
(16:59):
He desires to go around in long robes, loves greeting in the marketplace, the best seat in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.
These will receive greater condemnation.
Whoa!
Jesus was not too kind or gentle with the preachers.
(17:24):
But he did have one time in the Bible where he actually comme the preachers of his day. And
these weren't the proud preachers.
These were not the preachers who extorted people and
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These were humble, truly seeking the Lord, embracing the truth and following it.
And how did he does he describe this man?
The scribe, if you listen to his sermon, you will hear two things.
If you listen to this scribe's sermon, you will hear two things.
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What two things?
Will you hear?
What two things does he pull out of his treasury?
Things new and things old.
Things new and old, and here is the middle road between the two ditches where Jesus stands.
Not letting go of the old established truths.
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They ground us, they plant us, they hold us solid on theology that has long endured the battering of time.
The old pillars, and friends, we need the old pillars of our pioneers.
We have nothing.
To gain to abandon our fundamental beliefs.
The Sabbath is still the Sabbath, yesterday, today, and forever.
The dead still.
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Sleep in the grave, Jesus still ministers in the heavenly sanctuary and is still coming again soon.
How many today can say they are grateful for things that are old?
Am. But
if all we do is stay in the things that are old, our religion becomes crusty and stale. We
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need also things that are new.
And what are the things that are new?
What is the new light?
And where do we get it?
To discover this, I'd like to take you in the Bible to the book of Revelation to uncover the secret of the hidden manna.
Revelation 2, verse 17.
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Let's read it together.
Are you ready?
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him
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Who receives it?
Hidden manna.
What is this hidden manna?
And we're going to come back to the hidden manna in Revelation at the end of the sermon, and you'll see.
But first, you need a foundation from the Old Testament about man. If
you go back to the Old Testament, you find that man was something new that Israel had never tasted before.
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New bread from heaven.
Exodus 16
Coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers and made with honey.
And they called it man because manna means what is it? It
's new. They
'd never heard of it before. Bread
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from heaven? Never happened.
But there it was every morning.
So every Israelite had to get up early each morning for this new bread.
This bread from heaven was deeply symbolic.
It was not just physical bread, but represented spiritual bread as well.
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D you remember Jesus' temptation in the wilderness? What
did he say to the devil when the devil said, Make these stones bread? What
did he say? But
That's right.
Man doesn't just live by physical bread.
There is spiritual bread that we need.
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Bread new light from heaven that we need.
We can't just sustain on the bread we baked yesterday.
We need new bread.
Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
And when Jesus said that, he was actually quoting
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From the most quoted book in the Old Testament that Jesus quoted from.
Do you know Jesus' two most quoted books from the Old Testament?
Deuteronomy and I think it's Isaiah.
I could be wrong.
But Deuteronomy was one of them, and he's quoting from Deuteronomy.
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And in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 3
One more.
Right there.
This is where he's quoting from.
So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger.
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And then what?
Fed you with manna which you did not know, meaning it was new bread.
Nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know.
Why did he rain bread from heaven, that he might make you know to know what?
To know to know that man shall not live by bread alone.
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The man was not just there to physically feed Israel, but to plant within their minds and hearts a spiritual truth that was to carry them for the rest of their life, that you may know.
That man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.
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They were not just
To look each morning for new physical bread, but the Lord was teaching them that every morning they were to look for new spiritual bread.
Spiritual bread is what they needed.
Word, a word from the Lord.
And if they didn't get the word from the Lord, they would just assuredly
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Shrive up, starve, and die as if they had not gotten bread, manna from heaven. They
needed new light.
They needed to crave new light, and so the Lord allowed them to hunger.
Are you hungering in your walk with the Lord?
Are you hungry?
Do you feel a need inside of you like there's something more to this Christian walk?
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Maybe, maybe you have drifted into ditch number one.
Where you've become satisfied with the old-time religion and just doing what you've always done because you have always done it.
I show up to church today because I showed up to church last week.
Week and the week before, and it's kind of a habit in my life, so I just come.
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But inside your den, the Lord allows you to hunger so that you will want new bread.
New bread from him man shall not live by bread alone
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But from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, the falling of the manna every day was a symbol of God's desire to feed his people
Every day with food from his word.
Not old food, not yesterday's food, not last week's storage, but fresh, new food every day.
So important was this lesson that it was.
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Fresh and new, that it was bread for today, not bread for tomorrow, that God baked this lesson into the whole experience by commanding Israel to only gather as much as they could eat today.
Because if they tried to store up enough for tomorrow, what happened?
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Like Lazarus, it stinketh.
You need new bread.
You need it, friends.
You need it each day.
Ex sixteen, verses sixteen through twenty This is the thing which the LORD had commanded let every man gather it according
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To each one's need, one Omer for each person according to the number of persons.
Let every man take
For those who are in his tent.
Then the children of Israel did so, and gathered some more and some less.
So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.
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Every man had gathered according to what?
To each one's need.
And Moses said, Let no one leave any of it until morning, notwithstanding.
Of course they did not heed Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stink, and Moses was angry with them.
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But they learned their lesson.
What's the lesson here?
God wanted to feed the children of Israel with new bread from heaven every day.
And they needed to eat it fresh every day.
If manna represents the word of God, what is the whole story teaching us?
Every day that you wake up, God has new things.
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God has them.
New things from his word that he desires to teach you and feed you with, things you need for that day.
But you have to go to his word and open it.
You have to gather it.
The manna didn't fall into the open mouths of sleeping Israel in their tents.
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They had to get out of bed.
They had to walk out their tent door and they had to go looking for the manna.
The manna was there.
Every morning it was there.
If they went looking for it, did they find it?
Did they always find enough?
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Always.
But they had to get up out of bed and go looking for it.
Sometimes we expect.
That the Lord will feed us like a baby.
We open our mouth, and the bottle is inserted.
I remember when my children cried and I couldn't take it anymore.
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I just took a bottle and put it in and
But it doesn't work that way with the Lord, does it?
There is some eff that needs to be made on our part.
Why?
Not because our effort brings us any salvation.
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But our effort is needed in order to assimilate what God has provided.
It's part of demonstrating faith.
It's part of the human experience saying, Lord, I do
Expect it.
I do expect that there's going to be new bread.
If I never got out of bed, it would indicate that I didn't believe that it really rained man today.
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Similar to the man who had withered legs, and Jesus said, Get up and walk, he had to actually make an effort to get up and walk, and that effort made
Demonstrated faith in the word of God.
And when he placed his faith in the word of God and willed to walk, that man walked.
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And friends.
When you and I get out of bed and we make an effort saying to the Lord, Lord, I believe that you have a message.
That I need today to strengthen me, to guide me, to help me in my walk today.
When we make that effort, we find new light.
Now I get it.
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Some are not mourning birds.
But what does the Bible say in Lamentations 3, 22?
Read it with me.
Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because his comp fail not, they are new.
Every morning great is your faithfulness.
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They are new every morning.
Now, some of you wished it said every evening.
And as much as I'm with you on that, and I would love to rewrite the Bible, I'm sorry, it's not my book or yours.
The Lord is the one who wrote it, and He said it's new, everyone.
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Think of it.
God has mercies that will preserve you, compassion that will not fail you, and these come every morning.
Little book called Steps to Christ, page 70, says Consecrate yourselves to God in the morning.
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And then it says, Make this your very first work.
Christ Object Lessons, page 342.
The hours of the morning are the most favorable for seeking the Lord.
And in a little book called My Life Today, page 15.
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Let's read this one together.
If the rush of work is allowed to drive us from our morning devotion, we are in danger of falling under temptation.
Morning is a sacred time.
I know it's hard.
I get it.
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But someone says, Pastor, I'm not someone who can roll out of bed first thing in the morning.
Or, Pastor, I wake up too early to have time to study or read the Bible.
I just can't get up any earlier.
What should I do?
Two points from the Word of God.
First point
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And feed me with the new light you have for me today.
Jesus will wake you up.
There have been many times that I've prayed that prayer and purposefully not set my alarm, hoping that God would forget that He was supposed to wake me up.
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Have you ever done that?
Am I the only one?
Purposely shut the alarm off.
There have been some Friday nights that I don't have my sermon done, and I say, Lord, wake me up in the morning.
Lord, please don't wake me up.
Me up in the morning, and he wakes me up at the time that I need to finish whatever I need to finish.
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Always on time.
I'll roll over in bed, open my eyes and think it's 7 and it's 5 a.
And
I say, really?
Really?
5 a.
m.
And I hear that sweet s still voice saying, You asked me to wake you.
I'm holding to my promise.
The Lord promises in Isaiah 50, verse 4
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How to speak a word in season to him who is weary.
Some here today may struggle to know how to speak, how to share your faith, how to communicate.
And what does the Lord say?
He will show you how to speak.
A word in season to him who is weary.
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When?
He awakens me morning by morning.
He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.
You didn't want to hear that verse, did you?
Is this a promise?
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Someone here says, Yes, but that's not a promise I want.
O friends, how the disciples wished they had not slept in the garden of Gethsemane.
When the Savior had told them to watch and pray, the time came when they could no longer watch and pray, and they were found unprepared for the arrest.
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Trial and crucifixion of their master.
Would the disciples have scattered as they did at Jesus' arrest if they had stayed awake and watched and prayed?
Would Thomas have doubted if his soul had been strengthened with prayer through watching and praying?
Would they have seen the angels that ministered to the Saviour?
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Would they have understood the great drops of blood that came from his face as he wept and prayed while they slept?
Think of the ten Virgins.
How many of them would not have slept and let their lights go out?
It was the sleeping that caused the foolish Virgins to not realize that their oil was out and so was their light.
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What if they had not slept?
Could they have gotten more oil and maybe gone to the marriage feast?
Jesus caps that parable of the ten virgins by giving us all this warning in Matthew twenty-five
He says, Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
In other words, don't let sleep cause you to become surprised by the coming of the Saviour.
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This was the main issue with the virgins.
Watching means more than just having our eyes open.
It means that we are looking for the coming of Jesus and the Word of God.
We are studying for new light.
We are praying and searching, searching and praying.
We are purposeful about seeking God for those who like to sleep.
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Listen, I can sympathize.
I've been on vacation, and it's hard to wake up.
But let this message stir you as it stirs me, with a new resolve to get up in the morning to study your Bible.
The man fell in the morning, and for those who waited, it melted.
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And the opportunity for that day was lost.
By the way, what does the Bible say about when the manna melted?
What time of day did the man melt? The
Bible says when the sun became hot
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What time does the sun become hot in Arizona?
What time?
Seven thirty or eight?
You've got to get your study in before the sun becomes hot.
In other words, don't delay.
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Do it first thing in the morning before the su is hot. When
you wake up and you begin feeling the sun beating
Through your window, or you begin, you walk outside to drink, whatever, and you feel the sun hot, just think of melting manna and run back inside and say, Let me get my manna before it melts.
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Before it's too hot.
But there is another reason the Bible gives us to not sleep.
In Romans:, it says
And do this knowing the what, know the time, that what
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Now it is what?
High time to do what?
To awake out of sleep.
This is our second reason.
We got to know the time that we're living in.
As we're wrestling there in bed, we say, What time is it?
Well, we may look at our watch and see what time it is, but when you're looking at prophetic time, you say, What time is it?
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The reason the Lord says this is because there is a time given for God's people to study.
There is a time given for new light, but the time will come.
When you can no longer gain new light the time will come when the man will know
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Longer fall.
The time will come where you can no longer wake out of sleep to study your word.
Have you ever tried walking and reading?
Anyone here tried walking and reading?
How did that work?
Not well.
Anybody here tried running and reading?
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How in the world are you going to run to the mountains and read your Bible while you're running?
You can't get new light, then it's too late.
The new light needs to come now.
Now, now
Because now is when you need it and will benefit from it.
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You will need to recall those things when you're running.
Then, but the time for quiet study, the time for un prayer, the time for thoughtful meditation is now.
And there's a third reason to not sleep.
And it's actually an encouragement from Jesus that he will give you light if you awake.
Ephesians 5, verse 14.
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Let's read it together.
Chapter five, verse four. Let
's read. Therefore
he says, Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.
Will Jesus give you light if you get up?
Yes, Jesus will give you light, and you need that light in order to be alive as a Christian.
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You need that light for revival in your life.
Every revival that has ever occurred in my personal life or in the lives of anyone in this world has happened as men and women have turned to the Bible.
As they begin reading the Word of God, it is the Word of God that awakens the soul.
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So we get up in the morning, we make an effort, and we open the Word of God with the expectation that He will feed us.
With new light.
But there's another truth in the story of the man that cannot be missed, and encourages you and me to open our Bibles.
In the morning, even if we have a short amount of time.
I want you to notice this promise.
Exodus 16, verse 17 through 18 says
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So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.
Every man had gathered according to each one's need.
Some of you are retired or stay at home, or perhaps you're just in great spiritual need right now in your life, and you have lots of time to study, or need lots of time to study.
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But then there are some of you who are stretched thin and you don't have much time, but you make time.
I've heard some say, unless you spend an entire hour, you aren't reaching the bar and you can't benefit from the Word of God.
I actually had somebody say that.
Pastor, you will gain no benefit from your spiritual devotions unless, Pastor, you spend a thoughtful hour.
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Come with whatever time you have, come.
If you're hungry, the Lord says, come.
If you're thirsty, the Lord says, come.
I will feed you.
I will give you the water you need to drink that will bring life.
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Come.
There are some who are able to spend a thoughtful hour or four hours
In prayer.
We just got back from a trip.
You know where we went?
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Greece.
And in Greece there is a little place called Met.
And it's up kind of north, and it's a place that these monks went to build these monasteries on these magnificent rocks high up in the air.
It was really cool.
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And we got to listen to their schedule.
They were up at like 4 a.
And
they had they had how would you like?
Somebody telling you you have to pray for four hours.
They had to pray for four hours.
Then they got a short break and they got to eat and do different things.
Up on their monastery, and then they had another four hours in the afternoon.
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These men
Where maybe in ditch number one, they were just following a criteria.
I just need to meet the bar of four hours.
I don't care what I read.
I'm just going to read until four hours.
Have you ever read a book?
And then you get to the bottom of the page and you have no idea what you read because your mind wandered off.
Anyone ever done that?
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Yeah.
I hope you don't do that while you drive.
But it can happen.
Like you just do things by rote.
We read the Bible.
Not to put in our thoughtful hour.
But to gain new light.
And the Lord says, If you have time that you're willing to give me, I will feed you.
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Maybe you only have five minutes, fifteen minutes, maybe a short period of time.
But you say, Lord, I'm going to make it an effort.
I'm going to make it a morning eff to search for new light from you.
Believing that you will feed me with new bread from heaven in the morning.
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And the Lord says, Good, come, and you will have enough.
There's a book that I read a while ago called Atomic Habits.
Anybody here read that book, Atomic Habits?
No. Anyone
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here struggle in setting routine habits, goals? Well, that
's why you haven't read the book. Because you're
doing great.
But if you do struggle with coming up with habits, read Atomic Habits by James Clear.
It's a really, really great book.
And one of the things that he says about developing habits is set your goals small.
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So att that it would be hard to fail. So he
said, you know, set your goal. You know,
some people like to set big goals. I'm
going to read an hour a day for the rest of my life. And
Set your goal and say, I'm going to read every day for three minutes.
By the way, those devotional books
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That you get, like the Ellen White devotionals and other devotionals, those devotional books take three to three and a half minutes to read a devotional.
I've timed them.
Three minutes.
So you set your goal.
Three minutes a day.
How many could meet that goal?
Three minutes a day.
Yeah.
Okay, we got to lower the bar.
One minute a day?
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So you set the goal wherever you know you can hit it every single day.
So you hit the goal day number one, one minute, and you hit the button and say that was easy.
And you say, but I want more.
And you look at your watch and you say, I've got more time.
And so you keep reading.
And then the next day, one minute.
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And the next day, five minutes.
And the next day, you read for ten minutes.
And the next day, you're back to one minute.
But the point is, is that even when you feel like you don't have enough time,
Everyone can reach the goal of one minute.
And then you never get the disappointment of, oh, now I have to play catch up.
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Because I missed my hour yesterday, so today I have to do two hours to catch up with the hour I missed yesterday.
You how the human mind works?
Set yourself up for failure.
So.
Just a little nugget, but you don't need it because you guys don't read those books and are just fine.
How often did the bread fall from heaven?
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Every day, except for why did it not fall on the Sabbath?
There was a lesson there, wasn't there?
What was the lesson?
Exodus 16, 23 through 26.
It says, Then he said to them, This is what the Lord has said
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Bake what you will bake today, boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until the morning.
So they laid it up till the morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink.
Nor were there any worms in it.
Then Moses said, Eat that to, for today is the Sabbath to the Lord.
Today you will not find it where?
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In the field, six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.
So if there was no bread in the field, where were they supposed to get bread?
They laid it up, right?
But what's the lesson here?
On Preparation Day, that is Friday, we should spend maybe a little extra time.
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What does it say?
Gather how much on Friday?
It doesn't actually say double.
I thought it might say double, but it doesn't actually say double.
But it does say lay up what remains.
Maybe this means morning and evening worship.
Maybe this just means that whatever you study on Friday will become a blessing on Sabbath as well.
But why was no manna given on Sabbath?
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Where was the bread for the people on Sabbath?
You know, there was bread that was baked fresh on Sabbath.
You know where it was?
In the sanctuary.
Not in the field, but in the sanctuary.
Leviticus 23, verse 3 says, Six days you shall work be done.
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But the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation.
You shall do no work on it.
It is the Sabbath of the Lord and all.
Your dwelling.
The Sabbath was meant to be a holy what?
Convocation.
What is a convocation?
It's a gathering of people.
What's a holy convocation?
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A gathering of people to worship.
What do we call it today?
Church.
And this is why it is important for you not to miss church.
God's people were meant to gather together at his church, and this is where he would feed them on Sabbath.
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All through the week, they would go to the field and bake what they would bake at home.
But on the Sabbath, they didn't go to the field.
Where did they go?
Church, and it was there in the church that God would feed them with the bread that was fresh, and this bread.
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Was fresh put out by the priest.
Leviticus twenty-four, five through eight.
And you shall take fine flour, talking to the priest, bake twelve cakes.
Two tenths of an eph shall be in each cake. You
shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord, and you shall put pure frankincense on each row.
that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the LORD, every one every Sabbath he shall set it in order, every Sabbath.
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Now some may say but Pastor wasn't it Jesus who said beware of the Pharisees
And the scribes, beware of the preachers.
I look at who's going to be preaching in the coming weeks, and I decide if I'm going to get a blessing.
Here's the truth.
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The blessing will come if you seek it, regardless of who is standing here.
Remember I started the sermon off saying how many of you
have ever
received a message that the preacher never preached?
Have you ever had that happen?
You've listened to a sermon and you received a message, and the preacher never preached it, but you surely heard it.
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If you come to receive a message, the Lord will provide you.
With the bread that you were supposed to receive that day.
Come expecting to be fed.
I'm sorry, I'm not a finished by noon preacher.
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I'll try.
We can keep going.
Exodus 16, verse 33.
Moses said to Aaron.
Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations.
So important was it that God's people receive the new light
New bread from him every morning that God actually commanded that a pot of manna be kept ins the ark next to what?
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Next to the Ten Commandments, showing that the keeping of the Ten Commandments is as important as gaining daily food from the Lord.
They were together holy, a holy thing to the Lord in the ark, and it was to be kept there for generations to come so that they would never forget the need for new light.
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This has been the practice of God's people to wake up morning by morning and find a place to receive new light from God, even from ancient times.
Did you know Abraham got up early in the morning?
He did.
Genesis nineteen twenty-seven.
And Abraham went out what?
Early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord, meaning he was returning to the same place.
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To come and seek the Lord.
Moses did it.
Exodus 34, verse 4 says, So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones.
Then Moses rose when
Early in the morning went up to Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him.
And he took in his hand the two tablets of stone.
And Job did it.
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Job chapter 1, verse 5.
So it was, when the days of feasting had run their course, that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise what?
Early in the morning, and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.
For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.
Thus Job did what?
Regularly.
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King David did it.
Psalms 5, verse 3.
My voice you shall hear when.
In the morning, O Lord, in the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up.
And Jesus did it.
In Mark chapter one, verse thirty five Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, he went out and departed to a solitary place, and there prayed.
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In Counsel to Parents, Teachers and Students, page 258, it says, Jesus in the early hours of the morning often found him in some secluded place meditating, searching the Scriptures, or in prayer.
New light.
So, what is the hidden manna in Revelation?
It is the daily experience of the believer who comes and
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Receives from the hand of Christ every morning the new light day by day and treasures up this hidden manna in his soul until he becomes just like the one who gave him the man.
That is the hidden manna.
Revelation 2, verse 17 says.
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I guess I didn't get that one in there.
Sorry.
Revelation 2:1 says, He who has an ear to hear.
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
I will be going back to that Peter verse.
Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes.
To who?
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To him who overcomes, I will give some of my hidden manna.
And I will give him a new stone and write on it a new name.
Perhaps we shall taste a bit of the real manna in heaven.
That's a valid interpretation.
But I believe there is also a spiritual interpretation, and that is that those who are overcoming now are overcoming because they are receiving the hidden manna now.
(56:05):
They are receiving new light from Jesus now, and as they partake of these great and precious promises, they overcome the corruption in this world and have a new nature.
Listen to these words in 2 Peter.
As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which
(56:30):
Have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these
You may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
Lust.
The reason the manna is called hidden is because its work is unseen by human eyes.
(56:55):
Friends, this is how revival takes place.
Men and women commit to study the Word of God.
are transformed by the Holy Spirit, and the manna they receive day by day, hidden in their souls, nourishes and revives their faith, and they are born again.
Last quote, man release, volume twenty one, page one hundred thirty one. Can we read
(57:20):
this last one together?
The true believer has a living connection with Christ, the source of all spiritual life.
He is guided by the Holy Spirit, and the hidden manna is placed by the hand of Christ him upon the soul.
(57:43):
Today, Jesus is calling you to embrace new light and to commit to a life in pursuit of it.
Expecting that Jesus has hidden manna for you today and tomorrow and every morning.
Is there anyone here today who feels the Holy Spirit speaking to you?
(58:07):
Are you willing to respond to that call?
Today, you get the wonderful privilege that human beings get, that animals
don't always get and that is to make a choice to put your will on the side of the holy spirit
(58:29):
We have the ability that no animal has, and that is to look outside of ourselves, down at ourselves, and realize where we are.
An animal
Your dog, your cat, cannot look at itself and say, I am lost.
I'm not where I should be.
(58:51):
But a human being has been given that gift by God to be able to introspectively look upon ourselves and recognize
I am lost and I'm not where I need to be.
And friends, if God has given you that gift, it is truly a gift.
(59:15):
And today you can make
Make a choice to change your position.
You want to make that commitment with me?
Say, Lord, I want to search for your new light morning by morning.
Do you want to make that commitment with me and say, Lord, I want new light in my life.
(59:36):
I want to be fed with your manna morning by morning.
Am. Will
you bow your heads
Allen Morehouse (59:43):
and ask
Myckal Morehouse (59:43):
the Lord to waken you as I ask the Lord to waken me morning by morning? Heavenly
Father, I join your people in this prayer.
Saying, Lord, it's hard to get out of bed, but we need it.
(01:00:04):
Help me to go to bed on time so that I can wake up on time.
You've promised to waken me morning by morning, and so, Lord, with your people, I ask that you would waken me so that I can be revived.
(01:00:27):
With new light.
Thank you, Jesus, that you're faithful.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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