Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers.
And here is today's presenter, Pastor Daniel Przybylko.
So today, take hold of God's promises. Can you believe it? Another year gone. Roselle was a guide dog.
And this isn't the actual dog, but Roselle was a guide dog, and she was just 20 months old when she and her blind owner first met Michael Hingson. Mr. Hingson in November 1999.
And she was Hingson's fifth guide dog. Less than two years later, Rozelle was asleep under his work desk on the 78th floor of tower number one of the world Trade Centre. You know, this was when the 911 attacks commenced, and she was awakened by the plane impacting the building 15 floors above them.
And despite all the smoke and the mayhem that was going on, the confusion, Rozelle managed to get her owner across to stairwell B. And she led him and 30 other people from that area down the stairs calmly, 1463 steps to get out of the building. Just after they got out, the adjacent tower number two collapsed.
And, you know, there was stuff going everywhere, things falling on top of them, etc. And Hinkson later said, while everyone ran in a panic, Roselle remained totally focused on her job. While the debris fell around us and even hit us, Roselle stayed calm.
And when she got home, apparently she played with the other dog that he had there as well, like as if nothing had ever happened. Roselle led her owner to the safety of a subway station, where they also helped another woman who had been blinded by the debris that had been falling. After the attacks, Hingson changed careers to work for the guide dogs for the blind.
And together they appeared on various television shows and things like that. And after Rozelle died some 10 years later, Hingson wrote a book about their 911 experience. It was called Thunderdog, the True Story of a Blind Man, His Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero.
You know, living in a world of uncertainty, we need to navigate our way through various challenges with confidence and trust in God. And the Scriptures have many examples of God being our guide and protector for his people. And the good news is that the same God of the Bible is the same God that we serve today.
Isn't that true? We're entering into a new year. We have to ask ourselves, who do we put our confidence in. Do you have confidence in Jesus as your leader? If it were not for the revealed word of God, the Scriptures, we would be heading headlong into a new year like a blind person without help.
Isn't that true? But friends, we do have help. We have the sure word of prophecy that ought to give us confidence no matter what seen or unforeseen events we may encounter in the year to come. So what is a simple reminder on our journey of life today that we can glean from the Bible that God has been and always will be and still is our leader today? Well, I want to start off today in the Old Testament, the First Testament of the Bible, and see that today we can have confidence in Jesus as our protector.
He is our protector who goes ahead of us. Let's read together the promises and directions that we find in the Scriptures that are given to Israel during the time of the Exodus, soon after they have been given the Ten Commandments, you know, they were given in Exodus 20. Let's open to Exodus chapter 23, where Joyce kindly just read from Exodus 23.
And let's read together verses 20 to 25, Exodus 23, 20, 25. And. And it says, behold, I send an angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
Verse 21. Beware of him and obey his voice. Do not provoke him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for My name is in Him.
But if you indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. For my angel will go before you and bring you into the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I will cut them off. You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.
So you shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. There's a lot to unpack there, isn't there? But before we do that, I want to look at firstly at some of the names that are given to Jesus in the Old Testament. Okay? Isaiah, of course, is one place where just in one verse, we find a whole bunch of names, don't we? If you turn to Isaiah, chapter nine and verse six, Isaiah, chapter nine, and we read there in verse six for Unto us a child is born.
Unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. And then it says, and his name will be called what Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
There's five names just right there, isn't there? Now there are many different names that we could look at, but one that I wanted to zone in on here today is also another one that is given in numerous places in the Bible and that is the angel of the Lord. You've come across that, right? The angel of the Lord, Hagar, when she was dismissed by Sarah, Abraham's wife, as she ran away, she came across the angel of the Lord. In fact, it's the first time that the angel of the Lord appears to someone in the scriptures, is to Hagar.
And that's in Genesis 16. Abraham was spoken to by the angel of the Lord as He was on Mount Moriah there with Isaac in Genesis chapter 22. And when Moses spoke to God in the burning bush in Exodus chapter three, the voice that he heard from the burning bush was none other than the angel of the Lord.
Now in those verses there in Exodus 3, he's also referred to as God, right? As God and as Jehovah, capital L, O, R D. Okay? Lord, there are many instances, other instances where the angel of the Lord is referred to in the Bible. And so, you know, it's no wonder then that the apostle Paul, when He's writing in First Corinthians chapter 10, he says that Christ was that rock that followed Israel through the wilderness.
Okay, it's no wonder that Jesus said in John 8:56, you know, Abraham saw my day. He saw Jesus day. And he rejoiced Abraham because Jesus had spoken to him personally as the angel of the Lord.
Our scripture reading today, that Joyce Read from Exodus 23, verse 20, behold, I send an angel before you to keep you in the way and bring you into the place which I have prepared. You know, I believe that this is none other than the pre incarnate Christ. Yeah, Jesus before Jesus.
You could say there's a book with that title, Jesus before Jesus or the angel of the Lord that journeyed with Israel through the Exodus. So let's unpack these six verses that I read earlier in Exodus 23, verses 20 to 25, which I believe are just as relevant for us today as they were thousands of years ago in the time of the Exodus. The first point here is that God promises protection and a future.
That's that scripture reading that we read there before. You know, God Made a promise, and he did not break the promise. God doesn't do that, does he? He would have brought them into the promised land much earlier had they believed, had they not rebelled.
He was faithful, enduring, you know, one rebellion after another, patiently preparing a people that would finally be ready after 40 years. And then finally, you know, Joshua, under Joshua's leadership, they were able to go in. But today, just as in the Exodus, the Lord offers protection to us, his people, protection and promise, as we witness our own community progressively stepping further and further away from God, as we witness the crumbling of principles and values, dishonest authorities, as we have witnessed the ramping up of wars and rumours of wars.
Do you fear that you may somehow be caught up in the dismantling of the world as we know it? Do you ever worry that you may slip and lose hope, lose faith? The Apostle Paul asserts in 2nd Thessalonians 3, verse 3. He says, the Lord is faithful. He is what? The Lord is faithful who will establish you and guard you from the evil one.
Is that good news? The Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you from the evil one. Jesus himself said, let not your heart be troubled.
We heard that in the video before, didn't we? Let not your heart be troubled. In John chapter 14, he said, I will come back. He made a promise, I will return and take you to a place where I am preparing today.
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is just as much the angel of the Lord who keeps us in our way on the journey to the heavenly promised land. He can be more deeply understood now, I believe, than ever before, because we, you know, in the times of the First Testament, it was all symbolic. But today we have so much more that we can understand about Jesus.
Although he's not visible to us at present, he can be more deeply felt, even I believe, than on the Exodus journey. The psalmist wrote, the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear, fear him, and he, what he delivers them. Do you believe that he delivers them? Jesus made the promise to his followers.
I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. Amen.
Amen. Good news, right? So how do we remain on the way?.2. Listen to your Redeemer.
Verse 21 says, Beware of him and obey his voice. Do not provoke him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for My name is in him. Verse 22.
But if you indeed obey his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to, to your adversaries. To beware of something is to be aware of it. Is that true? To beware is to be aware, to be alert, to be on guard.
We say, we often say that, you know, we need to have our eyes on Jesus. True. The best way to do that is to spend time contemplating Jesus, to be attentive to the Spirit, living and planning our lives in ways that he prompts us to go.
Today, Jesus speaks to us through the Holy Spirit, particularly when we make time, when we make time for Him. Jesus promised in John chapter 14 that he will teach, that he will remind, that he will guide us right now when it comes to obeying his voice. The important thing to remember is that Israel had already been redeemed.
When we look at these verses, remember that Israel had already been taken out of slavery. Okay, they've already been redeemed. They're no longer in Egypt.
And so it wasn't their obedience that would redeem them. Does that make sense? They'd already been brought out. The command to obey was given to a people who are already redeemed.
And it's the same with us today. If we've accepted Jesus, if we're following him, we are redeemed. We do not get redeemed by obedience, but rather our command to obey is the same as it was back then.
Our command to obey is also given to us because in Jesus we have been redeemed. Our problem is in the cares of this life, isn't it? The distractions, the things that discourage us, the things that pull us off track. Sometimes it's because of our own life choices, conscious decisions that we personally make to violate God's laws.
Isn't that true? Other times it may be due to people, other people perhaps well meaning people that don't always come across so well. Or yes, sometimes even people in the church that may cause offence to us. They may even harm us.
True, they may harm us because they themselves may not be on the right path. They may physically be present, but spiritually not that connected. Perhaps we find it hard to forgive, to move on, to deal with whatever it may be.
Perhaps we like the sin, a cherished sin, that we think is okay. It's not that big a deal. We are not willing to be aware.
Aware that God is speaking to us regarding perhaps a sin that we love. You know, the author of Hebrews writes In Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, he says, Let us lay aside every weight or burden and the sin which so easily ensnares us and Let us what, run the race with endurance that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Remember that God can help us out of any situation.
How many situations? Any. Any situation. God can help us wherever we're at.
And the promise in Philippians 4:13, that, you know, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. You know, ask God to fight your battles. Allow God to deal with your adversaries, things that may keep you out of eternity.
That's what he promises to do. Jesus will fight for you. And that's point number three.
Jesus will fight for you, verse 23. For my angel will go before you and bring you into the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and I will cut them off. Right.
So who does it? God does it. Right. God sees us through.
That's why we can be confident, According to Philippians 1:6, being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will what will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Is there a part for us to play? Yes, sure there is. We're told.
To do what? To take up the whole armour of God. Right. You know, Israel, when they went into the promised land, did they have to fight? Yeah, they did.
They had to fight. But who was fighting for them? It was God that did the fighting for them. And it's the same for us.
You know, we need to have the armour of God so that we can stand in the evil day. We can't escape the world that we're in, but we need to faithfully stand. And that's essentially what the next verse, verse 24 is about.
Be in the world, but not of the world. Verse 24 reads, you shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break down their sacred pillars. Recently, as I was walking in a wooded area near my home, I noticed somebody had put up a little shrine, you know, a little idol, maybe, I don't know, half a metre tall or so.
And obviously somebody goes out there and you can see by, you know, it's frequently visited because it's kind of in the bush where the grass and weeds are growing. And, you know, I have no idea who worships there or why it is there. Perhaps the person, perhaps they live nearby.
Maybe they think that it keeps evil spirits away. Not knowing that, it probably invites them in. Right.
And I wondered if I should head out there one night and Do a Gideon. After all, it's on public land, you know. But then I thought it probably wouldn't have the same effect in my neighbourhood as it did in Gideon's day, as nobody really pays attention to it.
We may not be in positions of influence today to be able to oust corrupt leaders, to be able to remove false gods or Babylon, as it's referred to in Revelation, but we are called to share a message, aren't we? We're called to share a message. Come out of her, my people. Come out of Babylon, my people.
And it can be a hard message to share if we're part of the problem. You ever consider that? It can be a hard message to share if we're part of the problem. What we are also commanded to do is, is to make sure we don't succumb to the gods around us, to not do according to their works.
The apostle Paul writes in Romans chapter 12, verse 2. He says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And John adds to this.
Let's look this up. First John, chapter 2 and verse 15. First John 2, 15.
It says, do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. I'm pretty confident, I think when I say that we all probably need to take some serious time and prayer to think over that verse, don't you think? Do not love the world or the things of the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Well, the last point is in verse 25, and that is the promise of blessing and well being. Verse 25 reads, so you shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
Is that good? Today the wellness industry is estimated to be worth $1.5 trillion. Can you imagine? $1.5
trillion for those of us who can't think much bigger than $1 million. That's like taking one and a half million dollars a million times. That's a lot, isn't it? That's how much the wellness industry is worth today.
God has given us a head start in this area, don't you think? Big time. The scriptures thousands of years ago deal with aspects of health and well being. And more recently also 160 odd years ago through the inspiration and writings of Ellen White.
You know, God wants us to be ambassadors of healing and wellness, but ultimately to be leading people to Jesus. The third letter of John, verse two says, beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and what and be in health just as your soul prospers. You know, I've lost count and I was just speaking to Marita here earlier this morning and she said how she came into the church because of the health message that we have.
But I've lost count how many people I've witnessed join the Adventist church with their first contact with the church being our health message, first point of contact, health. Just yesterday we received a phone call at home and a lady whose initial contact with our church was health principles that she had found online. You know, she had some health issues and she was googling and found some things online.
She started reading some of the things that Ellen White had written about health and she thought, this is amazing. And then she started discovering some other things. And by the way, this was the first Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Walara here was the first Seventh Day Adventist Church she ever stepped foot in. Unfortunately she only came here once, but she phoned yesterday and this was like early this year that she's planning to be baptised. Praise the Lord.
Right? She came initially because she was looking for better health, but God had greater plans for her and today she is feeling better. She may not be 100%, but she knows that one day she will be friends. We know that in this world we will have trouble.
That's a given. But just as in verse 25 there he says he will bless your bread and your water and take away sickness from your midst. Paul says in Philippians 4:19, and my God shall supply what all your need according to the riches in glory by Jesus Christ.
As I look over the instructions and the promises of these few verses in Exodus 23, I thank God that we're not going through life without a helper. Amen. We are not flying blind.
We have a protector. We have a helper. We have one who fights for us.
Another name for Jesus in the Scriptures is Michael. Michael the Archangel, or the one who is over all the angels. Michael one who is like God.
Right? Michael fights for his people. The Scriptures tell us Michael's adversary, According to Revelation 12 is who? The devil. Right.
Michael and Satan fought. And what happened? Satan was kicked out of heaven. Right.
According to the book of Daniel, Michael is your prince, or the great prince, and he stands watch as protector over his people. If we consider Jude verse 9 and 1st Thessalonians 4:16, it is Michael or the archangel who has Power to resurrect, to give life, right? And we know that he's coming back soon. We know he's coming back soon.
Friends. Michael is none other than Jesus, the resurrection and the life. The one who resurrected Moses, the one who has power to give life.
We know he is coming back soon. And so in Daniel 12, verse 1, Daniel 12, verse 1, we read that there will be a time. This is still future.
At that time, Michael shall stand up, all right? The judgement will be over. Michael shall stand up. The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people.
There shall be a time of trouble that's still coming, right? Time of trouble such as never once since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone who is found.
Written in the book. Jesus, the great prince, the protector, the warrior of the adversary. Jesus, the one who has gone ahead of us, will return and put an end to the sadness.
And in this world. And we're heading for a heavenly Canaan, my friends, heading for a heavenly Canaan. Last Sabbath I was here in this church.
Kuala Lumpur, English Seventh Day Adventist Church. It's a wonderful place actually. On the bottom floor they have a vegetarian restaurant.
You go up one level, they've got their Sabbath school rooms and things. You go up another level and they've got. That's where this is taken, where they meet for church on Sabbath.
But I met a beautiful German family there, a couple that had four children and they were travelling through Asia. Their children ranged from four months old to 11 years old. And they'd already been travelling for two months.
Can you imagine travelling with such a little bubble? They seem to be taking it all in their stride. But they were travelling for a period of four months through Asia. And as I shared with them over lunch a little bit about my Polish background, I shared that I also, I have some relatives in Germany.
They then opened up a little bit about their background and it turned out that the husband, he was born in Kazakhstan and the wife was born in Tajikistan. And as I looked at them, I said, well, I always imagined that people in those countries look different to you guys. You know, you guys are like, you know, blonde, blue eyed people.
And then they shared the story about how their ancestors had fled religious persecution in Europe more than 200 years ago. And they had settled, you know, his family had settled in Kazakhstan, her family had settled in Tajikistan. And that's why they were both born in, I guess what you could call, what, Central Asia or Far Eastern Europe or something like that.
And I wasn't able to spend too much time with them. But my guess is that as opportunities arose, and probably as per, persecution increased again in those countries for Christians, their respective families moved back to Germany, where they'd come from more than 200 years earlier. And these two had actually grown up in Germany from children.
Clearly, their journey was not always easy. But God had protected them and their families for what? Multiple, multiple generations. True.
Today, just like Israel in the Exodus, we find ourselves in a similar place. God has given us all that we need through a time of reformation, through a time of prophetic fulfilment. And as we move into a new year, friends, it is time to move confidently in faith and prepare a people to proclaim the promised land.
Today, like millennia ago, we too encountered difficulties along the way. All of us have difficulties, don't we? But God has promised to guide his people through the various twists and turns until we reach that final destination, the eternal destination. Friends, God is in front and behind and around, all around us, over and above.
Isn't that true? You know, I wondered how to picture this, but he hedges us in with a hedge right all around, like a mother hen protects her chicks. God is in front and behind when we're in danger. Isaiah 52, verse 12 reads, for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
Is that good? That's. You know, that was from that diving illustration. Master diver in front and I was, you know, the sweeper behind.
God does both of those for us, too. God is depicted in the New Testament as a parakletos. You know, the word parallel? He comes along parallel, alongside of us to comfort, to console and help when we go through difficulties.
So he's both sides. There's nowhere that God cannot protect us from. He is above and he is below.
Romans 8:39 reads, Nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Would you like to be hedged in like that? Above, below, on the sides, in front, in the back, with God's unfair, unavailing assurance. But as you consider your life course, your direction in life, your choices to date, your trajectory that you are on as we move into a new year, ask yourself the question, what is eternity worth to you? Is the angel of the Lord fighting your battles, or are you just fighting them on your own? Are you heeding the clear instructions that God has given to his people? As we consider the Exodus, you know, three and a half thousand odd years ago.
May the lessons given and the lessons learned from that short passage, just that we looked at today, be a light for our path today as we journey to the Promised Land. How many of you today would like to, you know, make a commitment anew? That you want to be close to the Lord? That you want him to be in front, behind, alongside, above, below? Would you like Jesus to be your Lord? To be alongside of you? To be your One who protects you, who fights for you? Amen. Friends, may God bless you as you make that commitment.
May God bless you and see you through. That we may all be ready on that wonderful day. Amen.
Father in heaven. Lord, we thank you that no matter what this life throws at us, no matter what this New Year will hold for us. Thank you.
That we need not be fearful or anxious, but that we can grab ahold of your hand and know that you will lead us safely through whatever may come, right through to the Promised Land. We thank youk that we can have the confidence in Jesus. Name we pray.
Amen
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