HE TURNED HIS FACE STEADFASTLY TOWARD JERUSALEM
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Pastor Wayne Edwards of Heritage Baptist Church Perry, Georgia, USA begins a new series of sermons today. Today Pastor Wayne looks at Jesus’ final journey on earth to Jerusalem. The Sermon begins at approximately twenty minutes, you can access it by clicking the live link above. The Watchmen’s Report follows this preamble.
Gibber! Gibber!
Chugley
PASTOR WAYNE WRITES:
April 4, 2025
Dear Heritage Family and Friends,
When Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded, He left Capernaum, which had been the home base of His initial ministry in Galilee, and took His disciples further north to the mountainous area known as Caesarea Philippi. This was a major turning point in Jesus’s earthly ministry, for after a time of review, clarification, and confirmation of what His disciples had learned about Him, He “turned His face steadfastly toward Jerusalem. “
Jesus’ divine destiny was to be in Jerusalem on the 9th of Nissan for the observance of Passover. On Wednesday, the 13th of Nisan, at 3:00 PM, He would be sacrificed as the Lamb of God to atone for the sins of humanity, fulfilling His divine assignment. This precise timing, ordained by God, is a testament to the meticulous design of His divine plan.
In this sermon, we will cover several major events, including Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus’ declaration that He will build His Church, and the powerful affirmation of Jesus’ deity by God the Father. These events serve as powerful reassurances of our faith in the divinity of Christ.
· The sermon may be viewed at theheritagechurch.org
· The sermon will be available on our website and YouTube.
· The YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com@heritagebaptistchurchperry
Thank you for forwarding these sermon study guides to those you think might be interested. We are encouraged by the response we’ve received from viewers worldwide.
Wayne J. and Linda J. Edwards
PO Box 766
Perry, GA 31069
706-599-3966
wnledwards@gmail.com
THE WATCHMEN’S REPORT
By Wayne J. Edwards, April 5, 2025
In Acts 20:28-31, the Apostle Paul gave the elders of the church at Ephesus this solemn warning and charge: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.”
As a pastor, I’m acutely aware of the threats Christians face in the world today – worldliness, wokeness, racism, liberalism, Marxism, socialism, and, of course, man’s never-ending battle with sexual immorality. However, as the Apostle Paul indicated in the verses above, the greatest threat against Christianity is not those “isms” from without, but rather from the fierce wolves, cunningly dressed in “sheep-clothing,” who lure the spiritually weak into believing their false doctrines; even the doctrine of demons. Jesus made that abundantly clear in His letters to five of the seven churches in Asia Minor.
· The church in Ephesus had left its first love for the Lord.
· The church in Pergamum was situated right by “Satan’s throne,” and some of its members had succumbed to the teachings of Balaam.
· The church in Thyatira had embraced the teaching of Jezebel, and some of the members were compromising with the sexual immorality of the culture.
· The church in Sardis suffered from “dead orthodoxy,” going through the motions of worship without a personal encounter with God.
· The Laodicean church looked great externally, but Jesus said they were spiritually naked.
Beloved, a spiritually anemic church, cannot serve as society’s conscience, and that well describes the American church today—baptized but biblically illiterate, loud but lost, busy but barren. We’ve got churches packed with people who don’t know the God they claim to worship, don’t fear the Word they never read, and don’t feel the absence of a Spirit they never knew was there. This is the “commercial church” of our day, and it’s growing!
However, within this ever-increasing evil world, and despite the apathy and outright apostasy of the majority of today’s Christians, the Lord Jesus is still actively building His Church, and, having read the final chapters of the Book of Revelation, we can be assured that even the “gates of hell will not prevail against it!”
Pastor Wayne
Pastor Wayne
Wayne J. and Linda J. Edwards
PO Box 766