“From Amish To The Gospel Call“ | Naomi and Pastor Andy Weaver

as U has been promised um we have Andy Weaver would you stand up Andy I want to introduce this uh good friend of mine we probably um met back in 200 either 11 or 12 I'm not sure do you remember or uh probably 12 okay I'm thinking 12 do you want to tell them uh what you thought about me when you saw me for the first time so um my name is Andy Weaver I was born and raised Amish and I'll tell you a lot more about that here in a little bit but um just I'll say this that we didn't know about well we knew about the different nationalities but we never went to church with people from from different background different nationalities it was just we were a very closed group all white people all born and raised in America and so John Carlo comes around and he is from Brazil and he wants to do a Bible study one Sunday afternoon and so I think you gave me gave me my first Bible study um Adventist Bible study yeah and it really bothered me um he kind of had a weird haird and so as we were studying I I don't remember what the study was about unfortunately remember everything yes we talk about the sanctuary we talk about the Antichrist okay we talk about the mark of the beast wow it was all those things remember so many questions I just remember he had weird hair do and and that bothered me I'm like he's and anyway so as he never told me anything until later right so that's right so as an Amish person I had all of this I don't think preed is this is the right word okay but I kind of had this um you know well we were used to uniformity so all the guys that come to church their hair are all cut the same the ladies all have the same Bonnets and so everything was uniform and so here comes this person outside person like we never had anybody visit our church that was not Amish never and so you got this Outsider that wants to give me a Bible study and he's got this weird haird and it just boother I kept looking at it it's just that really bothered me and so many years later I I told Johan Carlo about it I said I'll make a confession I said I thought you had you kind of comped your hair really weird and he thought yeah I thought your hair were weird too I was having the same feeling I was looking at him like why does he have his hair like that you know and it was quite different then than it's now cuz it would have been it come straight down under the ears and go straight around the back and so yeah I didn't never thought about him looking at my hair while I was looking at his hair yeah so and over the years I I came and visit and uh we become we became friends and he came with his wife and his family I want to introduce them to you uh would you stand up please so um and if you think these are all the children it's just half of the children right that's right half of the children thank you Naomi for coming and all the children you will tell their names because I can't remember I can't remember John because John was really hungry yesterday night and I learned his name very quickly and Daniel so but you will introduce the rest of the family that's right um Andy it's a pleasure to have you here right now he is actually serving as a pastor in the Ohio Conference of the 7th Day Adventist Church um and there is an Amish Church Church there and the Lord has blessed and praise the lord we look forward to hearing uh What the Lord Has Done in your life amen yeah let me have a prayer with you and then you have the time all right let's pray together dear heavenly father what a joy is to be in your house uh on the on this day on this sabbath morning with your people people from all over the world to worship you in spirit and truth and father in first place we ask you to cleanse us from unright righteousness empty our hearts of self and fill us with your presence give us your love give us your power and Lord as you minister to us through Andy we pray that you give him the words to speak and that you open our hearts for we pray in Jesus name amen amen God bless you well it is good to be here I I really enjoyed all the uh the little show you had of all the different nationalities that are represented here and I kind of thought I saw a Mexican hat kind of made me hungry cuz I I love Mexican food a lot and so that's it's very special I remember the first time I went to a seven Adventist Church um we got there I got there my wife didn't go but I went to check it out and I went to the restroom and there was this black fella and I looked at him and I thought I wonder if he's sday at Venice and so I ask him and he goes goes yeah I'm 7even St I'm like yeah isn't this just wonderful like like I've I've never experienced anything like this that people that look different from me can be of the same faith and I never got over it like I'm still it makes me very excited to be with a group of people from every from different nationalities bit different backgrounds and it's truth that brings us together amen and if you read Matthew chapter 24 you know the uh the apostles and the the Israelites they had great hopes that um that the Messiah would come and he would over you know he would um um push back on the Roman government maybe overthrow the Roman government and and the uh the Jewish Nation would get their power back and and he Jesus disappointed them and we read about Matthew chapter 23 you know Jesus talking talking to the religious leaders and you know telling them that they were Hypocrites and then ma Matthew chapter 24 and Matthew chapter 23 as Jesus Jesus was finishing his talk he says and your house will be left unto you desolate and then in Matthew chapter 24 and verse one you know he talks about um one and two the first couple of verses the disciples coming to Jesus and they said when will this happen what are the signs of your coming and and they're thinking he's coming as a king um to take his kingdom and at the end of the end of the age and so Jesus gave him them a kind of a a rundown of the signs of his return and they didn't understand all of this because they they didn't understand that he would die and go back to heaven and then come back uh to receive his people next and Screen okay that's fine all right thank and so he gave them a rundown at the signs of the end of the world and then he said that there's going to be Global issues and will be persecuted by All Nations for his name's sake and then he tells us how we will res God's people will respond we will not respond to politics and Earthly government he says that this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for witness to All Nations and then shall the End come so God has a truth that is for everyone that brings people together and we see that today and then you go to Revelation chap 14 and Revelation chap 14 ch sees in Vision a fulfillment of the prophecy in Revelation 24:14 where he says that that the gospel go into all the world and we get more context we get kind of get a u he kind of uh um yeah gives us more information Revelation chapter 14 where John saw I saw another Angel flying through the midst of Heaven having the Everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth to Every Nation tribe tongue and people and then he give the Three Angels message mesages and that is the message that is we are to give to the world and that is the message that is really the Springs the solution to the problems of our world the gospel whenever the gospel is at work the people come together when the gospel is not work at work and then there is fracturing and so I'm just very glad to be part of a of a church that has such a wide representation U really rep representation of God's people around the world and God loves them all and and you know the Bible says that when we get to heaven we shall be known even as we are known it also says in Malachi that we will grow up as the casts of the stall so I you can't prove I can't prove this from the Bible but you can't prove me wrong so I'm going to say that I believe when we get to heaven first we'll be able to see that that those people are Korean those people are Chinese those people are American whatever and so on we'll be able to see that like it'll still be there and we'll grow we might grow out of that but at first I think we'll we'll see that and it'll be very special and have you ever wondered and I wonder like aren't we going to sing some of our songs that we sing here like Amazing Grace who why not you know can you imagine on a Friday night that first Sabbath in heaven you got an the Angelic host coming in millions and millions of people and and the the singing is going to be unbelievable Jesus is going to be the pr be the preacher but can you imagine singing Amazing Grace you have billions of the redeemed singing Amazing Grace together I hope so I I love that song and but I'd like to introduce our family a little bit usually wherever we go we take our whole family we have a small family we have only eight children and the reason I say that is um the Amish the average the average family size in the Alish is nine historically it's dropped a little bit in recent years my mother was uh number 16 of 17 children and um her mother had the 17 children in less than 18 years yes and she was one of the loveliest people you'll ever meet and you wonder why right she was like a saint um she was a very very patient um um grandmother I I loved her to death she was very special to me um and and when my mother when my grandparents died on my mother's sight uh they were both in their 80s when they died and they died about 6 months apart all of their 17 children were there with all their original spouses uh everybody was present and all of them had families and who wants to guess how many grandchildren they had quite a few I think they right around 160 that were alive now my my dad's side of the family there was four there would have been another 10 if Grandpa didn't die but um so my my dad's site um my uh there was 14 children actually there was 15 children one of them died uh there was she had my my dad's mother had 15 children by the time she turned 37 I think she had 15 children and then her husband got sick and died otherwise she might have had 21 or 24 who knows but there are families that have I know one family that they have 21 um large families and I just read this morning it fell out of my Bible my my great aunt I don't know if I can find this real quick my great aunt died a couple years ago and she was a 100 years old which is unheard of for Amish people they usually um by the time an Amish person reaches I can't find it but I'll tell you about it uh but but by the time an Amish the Amish people reach 70 um they they're shot I mean they and you can understand why the women are done with you know and the guys you know we we did everything we we didn't have power tools power equipment we did everything with horses and pics and shovels and stuff back like back in the day and and so the guys are worn out even though the Amish get lots of sunshine um they they get lots of physical labor um they're all exclusively Blue Collar you got no white collar Amish people so they're all just blue collar and they wear out their bodies are worn out young but my my my great aunt she was a sister to my grandmother that I told you had 17 kids I wish I could find that I thought I had it right here she died a couple years ago she was a 100 years old oh here it is um she was 100 years old which is unheard of but she was very healthc conscious when she was growing up um and this is this was her granddaughter writing and I saw it and I thought this is this is really interesting her granddaughter from Missouri she writes to they call it uh it's an Amish paper called the budget um and so where they have people from all the different Amish communities write a small letter every week just letting just what's going on in the community because they don't have internet they don't have WhatsApp they don't have cell phones and stuff and so this is how they stay in touch this is what she says I got home on Wednesday evening from having been to Ohio to my grandma check Etna's funeral so the amage the reason it says check Etna her husband's name was check like Jake and her um her name was Etna i' I'm going to skip some of this Grandma reached the age of 100 years 4 months and one day and she left behind 12 children a couple of of them had died 151 grandchildren 830 great grandchildren and 40 great great grants the greats might be a couple more or less as it was hard to get an exact count but but you get the idea so I figured that that up this morning that's over a thousand yeah I'm sure she didn't know all of them so when I say that we have a small family that's partly true um I was part of a family of eight I'm number six of eight boys of number six of eight kids I'm number six of six boys and there was two girls that were younger than me and Naomi is number eight of 11 and so this is my wife and I um um we have five girls and three boys as you can see they're all orary um and I tell you the girls the girls are growing up the oldest one is 18 she'll be 19 in July and I don't like boys right now I do not like when boys come around and I don't like them I don't like boys yeah no they're my little kids when we got married uh 20 years almost 20 years ago now um it wasn't long we had a little we had Mary our first daughter and I thought that's so amazing we have a little baby now that that's going to be wonderful I didn't realize time goes so fast somebody should have told me enjoy the baby cuz she's going to be 20 before you know it but I'm sure they did so he says this is my family um we have a farm so we have about 50 use so this is a picture of the 's uh John is here today he's with Roxy Roxy is our border colleag that tries to help out with the Sheep um we have lots of babies right now um got a few pictures of them sheep will learn teach you a lot of things um there are probably some of the dumbest animals that are out there they're not very smart and they're like people if uh no I'm not I don't mean the intelligence part sorry I did not I was not no I'm not saying people are dumb okay we're past that one um we're not very smart sometimes but but they they follow each other around that's what I meant they're like people so if the Sheep get if a cow gets out you'll see her you'll see the last thing you see is her tail straight up and going into the woods and who knows where she went they'll run they'll run off like a horse they'll run off but sheep they'll run away in a in in group in a group they all run together and if you go yell at them they turn right around they know just to which hole they came out of and they go back in but um they yeah so they follow each other around blindly sometimes I've seen it where you you open up a gate and a sheep will come out and and there's some op in the road in their way like a bucket there's a bucket sitting there the first one will chump over the bucket and the second one will chump over the bucket and the third one will chump over the bucket and the fourth one doesn't see it and kicks the bucket out of the way and then the fifth one Chumps and the sixth one Chumps and the Seven ones chump there's nothing there anymore they're still chomping just like people there's nothing there they're not very smart yeah yeah and when you let them out they don't take turns they don't like to be ushered you can't Usher sheep out they all try try to get out of whole about that white all try to get out um together and they literally break each other's hips sometime trying to get out they're not very smart but they they teach you a lot of things sheep are fun they're very rewarding to work with um they are very very humble animals um they're just not very smart unfortunately this is um us putting up hay last summer as you can see not everybody works kids are sitting down they're supposed to be bailing hay but took a picture of them um we have a good time we have a small farm and and we debate whether we like winter or summer better cuz I like cold weather um I like having fun in the snow snow and so um my oldest daughter and I we all we always debating whether summer is better or winter is better she likes summer and I like I like winter kind of but I told her recently I said in the summertime I like winter in the winter time I like summer because I don't do too well with the heat and but um it's gotten a little better and I'll show you why um I used to kind of disdained summer because we had the way we farmed it was very hard um you had to work in the dust and do everything by hand and it it was it was hard and now that we've upgraded a little bit to a tractor and a Bor uh life is a little easier is a picture of one of the Lambs yeah they're so cute so innocent you know have you ever considered Revelation 12 um it talks about a beast that came up or a lamb yeah a beast that came up and it was like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon um which is not actually a scripture I I was thinking I'm more thinking about the the scripture in later in Revelation where it talks about um people being scared of the Wrath of the Lamb does that lamb look like somebody you should be scared of no they're just as harmless as they could be Jesus is as harmless as he could be it's a picture of babies so the little the little baby um the two that are smelling each other the little one was is an orphan the mother was actually a racehorse and but she she went blind and so when she had the baby she didn't know what it was she she was like oh she was scared what's that baby trying to touch me and and so yeah so the mother that was the baby I don't know whether it's on your left it's on my left the mother she she adopted both of them oh she she had her own and then she adopted the little ones which saved us a lot of grief and yeah that was kind of rare Mars are usually not inclined to do that but she did she took it right took her right under her wings and raised both of them that was last year that was a real blessing billing hay uh we still have horses we still do some of our farming with horses but we've gotten away from a little bit that's Mary harnessing the horses or hitching the horses to a rate to rate hay for those of you that know what that means this is my myself and the kids bailing hay Yep this is how we used to do it um you you can't see the horses but you pull that wagon with horses and you pull it over to Hay excuse me and the hay will come up loose and you stack it on the wagon and then you pull it off the wagon um as you can see in front of the barn there and that's a it's fun but it's a lot of work by the end of the day uh you can make any reppel any repel is ready to go to sleep you work so hard y we uh recently this is a bakery we opened a bakery a family bakery um so this is a picture inside our Bakery um catering we do catering for weddings um this was at a wedding in North Dakota we had friends that got married there in North Dakota um just this past November after Thanksgiving in a barn I said that's what love romance looks like you get to get married in a barn in North Dakota in November yeah but we had a good time so today I want tell you a little bit about the origins of the Amish the Amish religion excuse me and how we were born and raised and why we're here today why don't we pray one more time and we want God to be glorified not some not us so we'll pray one more time and then we'll talk about a little bit about our testimony Father in Heaven we're grateful to be here we're grateful that you have given a message message to your people that is relevant for all the different nationalities all the different backgrounds we're grateful for truth that brings us together and father we just anticipate that these friendships this truth that brought us together will last throughout eternity so we just give you all the glory and the honor all of us every one of us that are here today we have a story everyone has a unique story how you have sought them out and you have found each one of us so just bless our time together as we reflect on our story we want to you you to be glorified and honored and everything that I say and do I thank you and I pray in Jesus name Amen in Luke chapter 15 Jesus there's a recording of three Parables that Jesus gave the first the one Parable I I don't know if I have order but the one Parable is the parable of the SE of the uh of the Widow of the woman that had the coin that was lost and the the other the second Parable was about who remembers it was the Lost coin the lost sheep and the prodical son the lost son those three parables are very profound because the um between the three everybody in this world is represented so the Lost coin the coin obviously doesn't know anything so the the coin was lost and didn't know it and I think that was me for a long time but the lost sheep was lost and knew it but didn't know how to get back and then which one is left the prodigal son was lost and didn't care he knew it he didn't care all of them were actually discovered all of them were brought back to the fold and it seems seems like everybody in this world either we are lost coin we're lost we don't know it we think we think life this is just normal we don't know that we're lost or we're like the uh the Sheep we're lost and we feel it we know there's something very terrible wrong but we don't know what's truth we don't know what's what's right and then you have the prodical son where he knows he's lost but doesn't care and I believe that by and large growing up Amish um we were a lost coin um we didn't we we had we had a very unique lifestyle we had no cars um our transportation was all horses bies we right in Bucky you see the Bucky here that's how we got around and I remember seeing cars go by and I always thought it would be so nice to ride in a car I wonder what that would be like and I remember one the first time I I I remember riding in a car it was actually a bus we were going to Canada so we were allowed to ride in buses uh in Li ride in licensed Transportation vehicles um we were going to Canada to see my uncle and I remember getting on the bus and we went out in the interstate and we passed a um a truck a semi- truck and I couldn't understand how a truck can stand still and spinning their wheels just I could not understand that I was 9 years old I didn't understand that the truck was moving as well we were just moving faster that was my first experience but um a few years later my brother got hurt and he ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks and he got dropped down the road and a a piece of equipment with horses and and our neighbor came around and he said well hey I'll take the kids to the hospital to see your brother so we got in the car and that was very exciting it was just a pretty small car and I because you know horses you go8 miles an hour everywhere you go that's how that's how you travel and we got in the car and I remember he he spit up we get going faster and faster and I thought thought this is amazing we're flying and and we went around the curve and and I kind of leaned up we were going 35 M hour I couldn't believe it we're flying so we were never used to getting around so fast and but here's a little U background of the Amish the Amish were actually um they come from the anabaptist move movement so if you know anything about the Reformation you have Martin Luther coming out and he said look we're not saved by Indulgence and we can't pay for our sins we're saved by by gra through faith and so he was very strong on justification and which is where Christianity starts that's why people from every Church from every background they can be saved where they're at the Lord can reach them where they're at because they're not we're not justified because we've done a certain amount of things right or because we are now we're part of this right church or whatever we're Justified because we have put our faith in God and and God accepts us as we are and Martin Luther understood that and so that's kind of what brought the Reformation uh the idea of justification by faith and then you had other swingly um you had different people come up that had had that agreed with that but they had ideas beyond that and one of those groups was the anabaptist the anabaptist were known as the radical reformers so they said it's true that Martin Luther Martin Luther is right that we're justified by faith but we can't just live a loose life because we're we think we're under grace that we are to live a life of obedience to God and righteousness and so the the re reformers U the uh anabaptist reformers they were heavy into uh sanctification and whenever that happens and you know when you know conscientious Christians are always inclined to take it too far like you become self-righteous or whole you know you have that holier than thou attitude um it's always what happens when you believe in a to be a cons conscientious Christian that you can take it too far and the and so the early anabaptist um some of them took it too far but they were very concerned about living a life that actually represents God and eventually their leader became uh they they eventually um uh not yakob Amon but the menos Simons became their leader and hence you have the name menonite so those that were follow menos Simons became known as the menites they were very uh Evangelistic they were very much into Outreach and that kind of thing and they were terribly persecuted by by both the reformers and and the Church the Roman Church at the time and zwingley actually drowned zwingley was so frustrated with the uh anabaptist anabaptist Believers that they they insisted on on adult baptism so they would take people out people that were uh baptized as babies um they would baptize them again and swingland was so frustrated with that and by the way that's where the name anabaptist comes from it means rebaptism and swingle was so frustrated he actually took an anti Baptist leader out and drowned him held him out the water he said if you want to be baptized let me show you how it's done and he held him out in the water he was so frustrated and we think that's just Godless but we have to understand that back in the time that those times things were you know people were gristly like um zwingley wanted to do what's right but he was raised in this in this atmosphere that was just that was brutal they would take people out and you know a lot of the anabaptist people there were T thousands of them taken out and they were tied to Stakes a tire part over them and burned alive and like and so to go and and and and um um drown someone was was a little thing for them at that time and so the anabaptist movement had this this history of focusing on on sanctification very strong in sanctification and by the time you get 100 150 years away from the Reformation menos Simons is gone and what always happens once the reformer is gone the Reformation is over many times like the people follow the reformer more than they following the god that the reformer that the reformer followed and the truth that the reformer followed and the spirit that the former the reformer followed and that was true for the anabaptist movement and so now we are 150 years or so away from the death of Menos Simons the church is struggling and in fact I'll show you the next scripture the next slide this is what God says about about the era of that church so the the Reformation had sprung and the people were all excited about uh you know Christianity and truth that was rediscovered but eventually it became stagnant and it it can really represent our lives you know we come to Christ we found you know the teaching of justification by faith we have an experience with God and it's all exciting but when the when the honeymoon is over and then the question is are we still in the faith are we still excited about truth because it's in scripture or it do we give it up but anyways this is this is God's um uh opinion about the Church of Sardis during that era where the Amish Church started it says and to the angel of the church in Sardis right these things says he who has the seven spirits of God and the Seven Stars I know your works that you have a name that you are alive but you are dead you call yourself Protestant you think you are better than the Catholic church because you have ran away from it and everything but you're dead too and this is why he he says this is why Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die for I have not found your works perfect before God so what happens what happened is the Reformation sprung but they never took the Reformation to its completion and so whenever you're not growing you're dying and so as I said the reformers debt and the Reformation be Reformation ends and now the church starts looking in and we go into maintenance mode instead of evangelism mode and whenever that happens the church becomes stagnant we start looking at one another and we become surprised at one another's faults and then then you start inner you know the inner fighting starts and the church goes down and that's what was was happening during this era they never took the Reformation on so so even the Sabbath the Sabbath was brought up in those movements but they said no Martin Luther didn't didn't accept the Sabbath and we're not going to accept the Sabbath as as as um lutherans which is wrong I mean if it's in scripture we don't care I mean we we believe Luther was Godly whatever but God is showing us more giving us more life we keep growing that light but the church quit all the churches they quit and so out of this out of this frustration uh and a person stepped up to the plate his name was Yakov Aman this was in Switzerland and this is a little bit of the history it says in the late 1600s anabaptist leader yakob Aman he was like 30 years old he was quite young and his followers promoted shining and other religious Innovations which ultimately led to a split among the Swiss anabaptist into man and Amish branches in 1693 so yakob Ammon you have yakob Amon versus the menonite and yakob Amon he split away and the issue was Shinning he believed that if a person in church is living not living up to the standards they need to be excommunicated well now you're going back to Catholicism um so he even though he might have been very genuine um he did not believe that you should treat a person that fell away like like Paul says as a heathan and public and you know Jesus ate with the heathan the publicans and you you just try to reach him again and so that's where the whole shining started and if you know anything about Amish the big thing is shining and I'll share a little bit about that as we go on but yakob Aman um said we we're going to start shining people that don't live up to the rules and that's where the name Amish comes from Amon Amish go to the next one I got this one and so what happened is um the Amish even even like from 1693 to 1850s or so there was not much difference between Amish and everybody else they all look everybody looked similar but they were just very stringent when it came to church discipline they were very stringent and Shining was pretty light but when the Second Industrial Revolution came the automo automobiles came out the AL were like no we're not going to go there because if we get automobiles we don't we would we we won't have that sense of community anymore because everybody do their own thing so they said we're not going to have automobiles when lights came out they electricity came in they said well we don't want that because now we are dependent on the grid we are dependent on an outside on an outside source for our for our power and of course movies you know where that goes tell and and and radio say that we're not going to do that because we don't want to be associated with the outside world and and as as the the world started changing the arish we not going to change and so that's why you look at the AR they still have horse and Bucky Transportation they don't have televisions they don't have radio and you know by the way you know when uh they say if you don't have television you are uninformed if you do have television you are misinformed so yeah is that true and during Co somebody I was actually at it is written and with John Bradshaw right after Co and he said Andy do you know why the Amish and this is a joke kind of a joke they made out of you know why the Amish don't have Co and I said well they some of them did and he says well the reason they don't have Co is because they don't have television and anyway so the Amish handled Co quite differently because they were so um they were so removed from the status quo or from all the talks like they were just so far removed from it and and that was true for us and sometimes especially after I've came into the S Adventist Church I had a lot to learn like um just like racism we didn't know about racism because um even though we we saw black people we had no animosity against anyone like we didn't know that there was this this strain this stress between some cultures and my dad as he was an Amish bishop and which mean he's the leader of the Amish of an Amish uh group of church churches was like in adventism we would know him as the general conference president that's exactly what his position was and so he traveled a lot and not having his own car he would go in the Greyhound bus and he always said nobody can drive like a black person and nobody can laugh like a black person and so whenever he traveled he was hoping to have to have a black driver and so that's anyways back to um the Amish um that's what made the amage different and the problem is not that they don't have automobiles the problem is not that they don't have um electricity that's not problem but it has become a religion and so now in order for you to be for for anybody to become part of their Church you have to agree to wear a certain kind of hat the ladies have to agree to certain kind of Bonnets and certain kind of dresses everybody has to dress uniformly um hundreds of rules that you have to follow that makes you homage if you don't agree to that lifestyle you cannot become a member if you don't become a member you can't be part of the family anymore now you are ostracized you're put out if you choose to become a member usually it's around 18 years of age it had nothing to do with conversion they don't they don't get into that um Jesus to us Jesus was a historical figure not so much a personal figure and so we didn't know about actually knowing god like all of our prayers were scripted they were written by the early anabaptist you know 400 years ago and so the only prayers we did was scripted prayer we just read from our book we go to um to church and our our services were in German at home we speak Pennsylvania Dutch and which is a dialect of German and so we went to when we get went to school that's where we learned to speak English H so we can associate with the outside world which we heavily um relied on to make a living and and so in and then also in school we learned to speak Dutch and read the German the Martin Luther German Bible and so we go to church and it's a different language and the young kids they don't know what the preachers are saying and even as you get older there's a lot of things like if if I was to go go to have a study with an Amish person about un justification by faith I would have to do it in English because they have no idea what the words mean in German they just know how to say the words so they can read it but the point is when it came to religion it was very very formal it was nothing was personal it's just going through the motions we did not believe in evangelism it was actually forbidden in our church we were not we didn't want converts we were just in maintenance mode and so as I started reading anabaptist history I realized that our early reform anabaptist reformers believes in justification by faith and we always thought when people try to teach that there you know they want an easy religion that that that doesn't hold you accountable for your sins or whatever and I was astounded by our own literature by our own you know martyr smir a book that we've read a lot it's a compilation of the early anabaptist history it taught justification by faith and that's what opened my eyes I was about uh maybe 28 years old I think around 28 years old we had were married we had about five kids and that's why I discovered justification by faith and and I uh I started becoming very open I started studying scripture I'm going to have to skip some of these um um this is I'm going to have to skip this for the sake of time U this is how I how I was raised U these a pictures of Schwarz and Trooper Al if you had look at this little boy that would have been me exactly like that that's how I was dressed that how I was raised literally when I was his age um we build a barn for my my my dad build a barn and I did that job he's actually uh working on on some timber for a barn and just to fast forward um I want to say this though just to back up a little bit I I told you the Amish Amish is all blue color there is no Amish lawyers there's no Amish doctors um it's all blue color they're mostly farmers and their life is very predictable you know you're born and when you're about six six years old you go to school for 8 years that's you learn the the English language the German language uh math uh no science um um just just the the basics U no science no geography I really regret that I wish I didn't know more about the geography but um so just the basics after 8th grade you go out go out and you work uh you work as an apprentice whatever you you want to become a construction worker or a uh uh farmer whatever you want to do um you work as an apprentice and that's how you learn uh your trade which is a nice thing it's just your options are very very narrow so a lot of the Alish people don't actually they have don't ever come to where they realize all of their gifts because it's not an option the church doesn't give them the option to become a doctor or whatever um there are a few Amish doctors out there but it's not like they have a degree or anything they're just good at it and then eight at um um 18 years old you become you're baptized you become a member of the church when you're an aage of 21 you get married and then you have 18 kids depending and then when they're 18 when they're 21 they'll get married when you're about when the kids are all gone the boys are gone you have retirement sales so usually they sell all everything they have that they don't need like when they're Farmers you sell your your equipment and all your cattle and everything you you sell it and that's your retirement it actually works really well historically it has worked really well so they have a chunk of money to live off of and then you the husband will usually Tinker around in the workshop make furniture for the grandkids and stuff and and then it's life is over and you go and that's it it's very predictable it's not like well I wonder what my child is going to be when they grow up like maybe he's a doctor whatever no he's going to be a construction worker or he's going to be a farmer one of those two and you know that I wonder if my kids are only ever going to get married yes they will get married they'll get married young there's some exceptions there's always a few more girls than boys I'm not sure why but there's always and Amish that's the same is true you always have a few uh older ladies that don't get married but a lot of times uh they get married a little later in life uh some widower will come around and marry them I was telling you about about our church and I got to hurry I got only a few minutes left but so it was like I said it was very formal and then we started discovering the teaching of justification by faith and we became very open I and I'm I'm looking at what do Jehovah's Witness believe what do baptist believe and all of us all of a sudden the outside world the wall between us and the outside world came down like I started realizing everybody we're all in this life together like people that are not Amish can actually be God's people that was kind of foreign to me and so I started realizing this and I became very open and the Holy Spirit was working my heart I had no idea what was happening but God was wooing me because he he knew I wanted truth I was looking for truth and one day I actually prayed from my heart and I said Lord show me truth whatever it is whatever it is I will follow it and I was scared to death I was so scared and and I immediately told him and I even I said God and I will leave my church if you want me to but I immediately said but I don't want to I don't want to leave my church because if you leave the amest church you lose your family like my niece is getting married here in a week or so and I won't get invited um Family reunions all of that is gone your inheritance and I couldn't care less about inheritance but all that is is you're done like it's like Muslims if if you know anything about Muslims it's very very similar except you don't actually you're not your life is not in danger and I'm not saying as Muslims your life isn't danger here in America but in some parts of the world it is if you become Christian and so we we lost all of that so I can go my dad passed away uh two years ago and my mother is still around I can go see her you know maybe twice a year if you go too often it causes issues with the church but I couldn't bring her flowers or anything any food none of that uh we're shunned you know you're all cut off and so it took us about 3 years to make up our minds to actually embrace the truth because of that because we knew that our life is going to go upside down and it did we took a financial hit and our life went up went upside down when we finally um um made the decision that we're going to follow truth um I talk about this evangelism and while I was open we were very open to to truth Naomi was having some some health issues and an adventus couple moved into the community moved on to a little fat that that I used to work on a lot so we got to know them and one day he uh we had we needed to ride to the hospital to see a a relative that was at the hospital and he said yeah I'll take you and he put a we got in the truck and he preached to us all the way through the hospital and all the way back and the rest of his history we're in the church but I used to I used to really struggle like if God is all powerful why didn't doesn't he just kill the devil if he's you know why doesn't he override like cancer like all these things all these questions I had about God and he was able to answer to give me a satisfactory answer to all of these things and he gave me a book when we got back the great controversy and I had enough controversy in my life at that time I read it for a little bit but I had already read a lot about our history and so I kind of got burned out in the book and he came back and he goes how are you doing on the book cuz he knew this guy is wide open and I had no idea how much he was was having good time he's like this guy's going to become adous and and then he gave me this book Desire of Ages and that's where my life changed I wanted to know how to be right with God I didn't care about anything else I didn't care about the Sabbath all that stuff I just how am I right with God how how what do I need to be to need to do in order to be safe and I'll read some quotes from you um that led to our conversion from Desire of Ages remember God is this distinct person that is far removed we were almost like de like we believe God created us we believe in the creation story but then um God kind of leaves us alone we're just out there and and and God cannot relate to us and sometimes I was even angry with Jesus like yeah he lived a righteous life of course he did because God helped him but this is the Desire of Ages has really changed my life it says his name Shall be Called Emanuel God With Us and he says the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus Christ from the days of Eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the father let me jump down to the last one it was to Manifest this Glory that he came to our world to this sin darkened Earth he came to reveal the light of God's love to be God With Us I never knew that Jesus was actually God that was amazing to me this one blew me away since Jesus came to dwell with us we know that God is acquainted with our trials and sympathize it with our griefs every son and daughter of Adam May understand that our creator is the Friend of Sinners as I read this book one night sitting by this uh Fireside I would read this like a paragraph I get up walk around the house something was happening to me I I couldn't understand why this book was so different from any book I've ever read I was drawn in and I knew that I was I had discovered Truth by his Humanity Christ touched Humanity by his divinity he lays hold upon the throne of God that blew me away still I'm still very impressed with that statement as the son of man he gave us an example of obedience as the Son of God he gives us power to obey Christ was treated as we deserve that we might be treated as he deserves he was condemned for our sins in which he had no share that we might be justified by his righteousness in which we had no share he suffered the death which was ours that we might receive the life which was his by his stripes we were healed remember I as an homish person I'm reading this that never understood understood justification by faith didn't even believe in it didn't know what it was and now I'm starting to understand by reading Desire of Ages chapter 1 is which is summarizing the gospel and I'm starting to understand the gospel I was I was blown away this one very very very much resonated with me this talking about the Jewish people in the time of Christ it says at this time the systems of heathenism were losing their whole upon the people that's true for Amish people their retention rate historically was about 95 98% % these days it's dropped all the way down to 90% it's still very high that's the point but the people's faith in the system people are losing faith in the system men were excuse me men were weary of passion and Fable they longed for a religion that could satisfy the heart while the light of Truth seemed to have departed from among men there were Souls who were looking for light and who were filled with perplexity and sorrow that that was me as an Amish person and that was Naomi as an Amish mother they were thirsting for a knowledge of the Living God for some Assurance of life beyond the grave that was us and this book brought it to us this is my last one this is I didn't find this one then but I found it since this is one of my favorite quotes um in the in the spirit of Prophecy and Desire of Ages as through CH as through Jesus we enter into into rest Heaven begins here amen we respond to his invit invitation come learn of me and in thus coming we begin to We Begin the life eternal Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Christ I got I got to keep going the longer we are in the heaven of bliss the and still more of the glory and more and still more of the glory will be open to us and the more we know of God the more intense will our happiness be now as Christians we know that Joy comes by by serving serving God only H Happ true happiness comes from God but can you imagine throughout eternity a thousand years into it you're just so happy like the more you discover God because the Bible says God is past finding out and so the more we understand God so a thousand years into our experience like God is so amazing I've never been this is happy in my life 10,000 years into it you're even much happier because you got to know God more so happiness comes from God and the more we get to know God the happier we are and in August of 2014 this is a picture of us it's on Google for some reason um Naomi and I were baptized and we became members of the 77st church and we've never looked back and we've never been so happen in our lives it's been amazing experience the church is not perfect administrators are not perfect but it's a wonderful experience it's the truth um what the church teaches the fundamental teachings are the truth West s mission was formed and so we have our own nonprofit organization where we reach out to Amish people with the Three Angels messages um of Revelation 14 and we've had about I think about 10 Amish families that have responded to this far which is amazing because when we were converted in 2014 we were the first family technically historically like the Amish just did there was no breakthrough and so I have a QR code here in a little bit if you guys want to follow our ministry sign up for our newsletter we have a free newsletter that kind of keeps you in the loop what we're doing but we're doing a lot to reach the Amish people this is some of the things we um I wrote Our Own Bible study guides that were specifically written for Amish people uh these are Bible study correspondence cards I brought some of these we got a box of our latest newsletter you can you can have get one for free um get pick one up and you kind of know we're about um this is you you'll see this it's called The Rise phone conference um Amish people some Amish people have landline phones quite a few of them do these days they don't have internet and so we developed a system where they can call in and listen to dock Bachelor and you know Adventist sermons hundreds of Adventist sermons um and so that's it that's a QR code if you guys want to follow our ministry um and look on our website uh we have a camp meeting every year third weekend in August AUST that'll be on the website you're invited to come last year we had you know last few years about 8 800 people showed up on Sabbath Mark Finley will be there this year and so we'd love to have you I'm just we're just happy to be here thank you for the invitation and we're more than anything we're happy to to be to serve the Lord and we're very happy to be part of a church family that comes that is repes represents Every Nation Kindred Tong and people so thank you all God bless you in your journey remain faithful to the Lord remain on a narrow way and we'll spend eternity together Sabbath after Sabbath we get to worship together thank you amen amen

Channel: Warren Seventh-day Adventist Church

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Id: z9qsOGT7YG4

Length: 53min 32sec (3212 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 04 2024