20210529 | Dialogue Of The Deaf | Pastor John Lomacang (tvsdac)

this morning i'd like to invite you to bow your heads with me as i go before the lord and asking him for guidance in this message today gracious father loving lord it is always a challenge but it is effortless divinely and i pray lord today that you will take the efforts of a human and push them aside and use the ever present power of the divine to find fertile soil to speak to the ears and hearts of those that you present before me this morning and may they hear may they be conformed to your image may they be transformed and may they hear not only here but may it be followed with an action of a transformed life we pray in jesus name amen it was um it was a very short passage in the bible and i want to begin this morning by what i have discovered this week as one of the shortest yet one of the most profound scriptures in the book of revelation it's little but when you walk through the bible you begin to see how big it really is and i'd like you to begin this morning by reading it along with me revelation chapter 13 and together we're going to read with some umph verse 9. together if anyone has an ear let him hear one writer wrote god gave us two ears and one mouth he intended for us to listen twice as long as we speak the bible also says be slow to speak but quick to listen in one of our devotional books my wife and i read various books together and she has one on relationships and i've really learned a lot as we've shared together these books on relationships some days they have filed me some days they have filed her some days they have filed both of us and this was one of those devotionals that filed both of us because it pointed out this term the dialogue of the deaf and when i heard that term i was intrigued i thought what on earth is the dialogue of the deaf i began to do my homework and find out there that is it's a title used by a number of authors and i thought to myself what could inspire someone to come up with such an abstract title dialogue which means speaking of the deaf which means i'm not listening and i looked up in oxford references and it explains the dialogue of the deaf as follows a discussion back and forth discussion in which each party is unresponsive to what the other says think about that what an ironic statement a dialogue in which each party is unresponsive to what the other says and i know parents don't like their children to be unresponsive i know wives don't like their husbands to be unresponsive and i know husbands don't like their wives to be unresponsive i know that employees or employers don't like their employees to be unresponsive so how do we live in a society where the dialogue of the death is affecting us all it also goes on to say the dialogue of the deaf is a situation in which people share their views without actually listening or acknowledging each other some of you may have been in that situation before where you told somebody something and maybe about a day or a week or a month later they went back and did the same thing and you followed that dialogue by saying did you hear did you hear what i said and i thought to myself that there is some relevance to the term dialogue of the death because you've heard of the very famous plague called julius caesar caesar and a young man by the name of mark anthony i believe he hit the nail on the head in his recitation of this play called julius caesar when he began that flowing poem with the phrase friends romans and countrymen say it with me lend me your ear the dialogue of the death the lesson that i've discovered is if i don't first get your ear i won't have your mind the dialogue of the death as i said under god's tutelage asking the lord father i'm intrigued by the title but where do i go with this i said show me what i need to do with this abstract title and then god impressed upon me the feeling and the thought i wondered if hearing god had anything to do with noah's day and then god sent me on a journey of turning my ears to him tuning my ears to hear what i may have missed we're going to come back to noah in just a moment but i'm mindful of first kings chapter 19 verse 11 and 12. and how in a world where there's so much noise is that an understatement see we are living in a quiet community praise god for that but when i make a phone call either to new york city more times than not while i'm speaking to my sister on the phone i hear sirens gone off i hear dogs barking i hear music one day i said to my sister who's arguing with you she said no one that's the television and i thought how could you hear me i've been in apartment buildings where when you get in the elevator as you pass the floors you can hear the sound coming and you hear the sound leaving i've walked in times square in new york city where sound is everywhere and if you if you didn't take a picture but you just recorded that with a microphone and asked people to identify what's happening they'll hear the sound of heels on the ground the sounds of car door slamming people laughing tires screeching music blaring you'll hear a cacophony of sounds that for the most part we really just don't pay attention to it because we have decided to tune our ears away from that which is irrelevant but i've asked myself the question could that possibly be happening in the last days between god's people and god first kings chapter 19 verse 11 started the journey for me and i read a scripture that really intrigued me in this loud generation notice the word of god then he said god speaking go out and stand on the mountain before the lord and behold the lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks and pieces before the lord but the lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake but the lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake of fire but the lord was not in the fire and after the fire a still small voice how can god's still small voice be heard in a loud generation how can god get the attention of a society whose attention has been purchased by everything and everyone else how can god find a way to bring a message of salvation to a generation that has purchased its own distractions how can god gain access to a society that is so confused that it has lost the art of hearing and i thought to myself isn't hearing and listening to the same thing with psychologists and audiologists say no it's not the same thing they said we can hear many many things we can listen to many many things but we only hear those things that our minds have filtered as relevant that's why a mother can hear her daughter crying in a crowded mall that's why my wife she has this whistle i could be and she does that sometimes in church to show people that she still has control of me sometimes on sabbath she's talking to my way over there she goes and i could hear that we developed that in the heritage singers we would go to malls and when it was time to leave they'd say just listen to our whistle and we could hear it over the over the din of noise in very crowded shopping malls and sometimes in walmart i can't find her and i say and i'd whistle or she'd whistle and not follow that still small sound but our ears have decided that this is a sound that we are looking for the lord reminds us that it is not always the confusing sounds around us but sometimes the confusion of sounds that hinder our hearts which takes me to that very opening moment of our earth when eve had a conversation that she should not have had and as we peek at that scripture you'll discover how this conversation actually transpired because i discovered satan could not access eve's heart without first getting her ear genesis chapter 3 and we look together at verse 1 in the unfolding of the dialogue of the death now the serpent was more cunning some translations say subtle than any beast of the field which the lord god had made and he said to the woman pause right there we often go to what he said but if she had turned him off there we wouldn't be in this mess today now there's there's the question of adam i know the lady said but what about adam ladies let me let me take you there slowly she would not have had anything to suggest to adam had she turned the devil off there and strangely enough what came to me is when eve ignored god's voice she experienced the dialogue of the death what do i mean by that when eve refused to hear god's voice she met someone who never intended to hear god's voice the dialogue of the deaf death to what god said what happened deaf to anything god said and this dialogue took place and the very first lie actually was not you shall surely die but it was in the question that satan posed to eve the fairy first lie he said has god indeed said right away what is he saying have you been hearing what god is saying if you are hearing what god is saying then my next question either will hit a wall or will gain access to your heart and he followed the question up has god indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden and i'm discovering there's a cadence in scripture and you'll see it unfold in the sermon today there's a cadence in scripture that has a lot to do with us being determined to hear what god is saying and i'm sure when you look back in your experiences many of the conversations that have brought you face to face with the end of your life or a great challenge could have been avoided if you were only determined to hear what god said have you had conversations that you wish you never had been in situations you wish you'd never been in if you had only determined to hear god's voice because hearing is the art of following that hearing with an action peeking back into noah's day i discovered that in the description of the end beyond the sinful conditions of noah's day a particular passage i've read thousands of times took on a completely different meaning in the framework of the dialogue of the deaf listen to it with me matthew 24 and verse 37. the words of jesus but as the days of noah were so also will the coming of the son of man be and i pause for a moment ask myself the question and then i got the answer the lord told me what satan did then he is seeking to do today what satan accomplished among the antediluvians he is seeking to accomplish not only in the world which he has done at an amazing level of success but he's seeking to accomplish that among god's people because the world is not a threat to the devil but the church of god is he's seeking to extend his tentacles to the ears and hearts of those claiming to have a connection with god and what he did then he's seeking to do today as you read the bible you discover that the sin of noah's day was not just all the things that they had done the putrid dark degrading acts of their lives but the greatest sin of noah's day was they refused to hear the voice of the holy spirit speaking to them we focus on the sin but any sin is possible when you turn off your ear to the pleading of the holy spirit and that's why genesis 6 and verse 3 reads as follows the bible said of that lost society and the lord said in genesis 6 and verse 3 my spirit shall not strive with man forever for he is indeed what flesh and his days shall be 120 years and when i read that i thought man this is amazing god actually put man on the time clock he gave noah the directive to preach for 120 years think of it in that society where it never rained before how could you believe that there is going to be rain when it never rained before you know how you believe that you believe what god said if god says it that's all that matters noah did not just hear god but noah's hearing of god was translated into action and so here's a man that society considered a man that had lost his mind they probably thought that he had some kind of mental disease he hired people to build an ark for a generation that never experienced rain but the spirit of god did not have to strive effortlessly with noah because noah's ear was tuned to god's voice it worked in noah's day and satan is seeking to employ it in ours day in our day what's the sin of noah's day the generation of noah became familiar with noah's message and i want you to hear me carefully because one of the dangers we have as seventh day adventist christians is becoming familiar with the everlasting gospel so much so that it no longer has an impact on us my evidence of that is or the story of a young man who went to visit with one of his classmates and in his home he was an amish young boy they had no television so he didn't see the things that were on television but he went to visit with one of his classmates for the weekend his dad gave him permission they said they want to go hiking but the rain came and they ended up staying home instead and so his fellow classmate decided we're going to watch some television together and he watched a movie that was that was replete with murders and violence and his young classmate this young amish boy while he was watching this he he threw up he vomited in his friends in his friend's bedroom he said what's wrong with you are you sick he said no i've never seen such violence before it actually sickened him but i can guarantee you today we can watch that it doesn't sicken us because our appetite has been so perverted by the things of the world that it has conditioned us subliminally to be no longer responsive to the things that are still a reproach in the eyes of god in noah's day it became increasingly easier to ignore noah's appeal noah's message was reduced to nothing more than background noise because he got so used to hearing the three angels messages that's why i'm amazed there's a young lady that there's a lady that my wife met she's a jehovah's witness she was a jehovah's witness for 37 years she's an adventist now she's watching this morning she is eating up eating up the advent message she said i was told for 37 years that i was not allowed to pray you know what she does now she is the head of prayer ministries in her church she was taught by her church that women that are jehovah's witnesses are not allowed to pray in homes at home if their husband's present they are not allowed to pray at the kingdom hall jesus said i was told for 37 years i'm not allowed to pray and if i pray my husband can't hear me she said but he can't stop me now she's the head of prayer ministries in her church she said pastor loma king i i so appreciate how you honor your wife you let her pray at the beginning of our sessions and when we do a prayer section at the end my wife takes the prayer requests and she prays she said i admire that so much i just love to pray right now and last sabbath or so a couple of weeks ago when i did the afternoon class on how to witness how to use your bibles to witness the bible marking class she took what i told her and went out right after that to her neighbor she said i'm going to put that into practice she says now i have bible studies with three people because all i did was follow your instructions and put it into action and she said and this is my first time and now i have three bible studies i asked myself the question what happened to all those advocates asked that still ask me pastor how do you do it i said follow her just do it amen somebody just do it the harvest is ripe but the labor is a few what happened in noah's day in the book christ in the sanctuary page 162 ellen white describes that generation she says a message was sent from heaven to the world in noah's day and their salvation depended upon the manner in which they treated the message or that message because they rejected the warning the spirit of god was withdrawn from the sinful race and they perished in the waters of the flood what happened they ignored the message what happened they ignored the message but i need to add another component of this because the bible says my spirit will not always strive with men today there is another way that people have the devil the devil is um the devil is evolutionary he's not like god god is the same yesterday today and forever but the devil is evolutionary ellen white says he is converted after the modern order of things he finds creative ways to deceive he continues to metamorphosize and use one tactic or the other to accomplish his design that's why when we look at that passage in genesis 6 3 my spirit will not always strive with man we've got to be careful today because there are some people that say okay they did not listen to god's holy spirit but i am and i'm waiting for the spirit of god to impress me to keep the sabbath can i make it clear you don't have to wait if god's word says it the holy spirit already agrees but there's some people nowadays that say well the spirit hasn't impressed me yet and there are other people that say i've seen pastors preaching and say oh the spirit just revealed something to me and it's completely out of harmony with god's word so you have to be careful even today that when somebody says the holy spirit says here's what the bible says first john 4 1 beloved do not believe every spirit but tests the spirit whether they are of god why because many false prophets have gone out into the world paul told his young protege timothy these words and first timothy 4 and verse 1 speaking of the days in which we live he says now the spirit expressly says that in what kind of times latter times some will depart from the faith some will depart from the faith giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons i like the way the king james version says that they're seducing spirits and doctrines of devils doctrines of devils can only affect those that succumb to the dialogue of the deaf said another way the devil can't deceive you if god's word is your guide if you are listening to what god says the devil can't make any suggestions that are successful if god's word is the voice that your ear is tuned to that's why my wife and i when we get busy either i slow her down or she slows me down we're about midway in the book of isaiah and yesterday when we read three chapters we said it's getting good now isn't it you see brethren the point of the matter is you've got to have a daily diet of god's word because as you read god's word your ear becomes molded to the voice of god and then you are able as when i worked at a bank when you spend time studying the original you can you can easily pick out the counterfeit but if your voice is not used to hearing the voice of god then the voice of a stranger can come along and you can be easily deceived that i've discovered in the word of god according to john 10 and verse 27 satanic doctrines cannot infiltrate the mind of those whose ear is tuned only to the words of jesus here's what jesus said john 10 27 he says my sheep what's the next word church hear my voice and i know them and they follow me it's amazing i watched a video the other day and it was just so cute sometimes people send me little links i don't watch all those videos you know all those medical ones i ignore them but i like to watch things about animals i like animals animals are cute and this video was animals that remembered their owner many decades later or a long time later didn't say many decades but animals that never forgot their owner the first one shocked me to death it was a young man that went to a game park in africa and a lioness and a lion was running toward him with ferocity and they both leaped on him and just started licking him and i thought wow what am i going to see and in the in the bottom credits it says he he raised them as pups and years later as he released them into the wild they never forgot him i saw another one where a gentleman had lost a lot of weight and he had been away he'd been ill for a while and he came back home and his dog kind of walked around him and looked at him slowly and started growling and then he turned his face toward the dog and he noticed it was his his owner and that dog jumped on him and as you know the tail was moving 150 miles an hour and he was licking him all over because he never forgot him and they showed picture after picture they showed a little girl with a duck that she had a little duckling and she released the duckling to the pond and as that duckling grew up to be a duck years later he came back and he just buried his head under her arms and started flapping his wings and i thought to myself if god's people were that way that nothing in time or no other situation can ever get us to the point where we forget to keep hearing the voice of our god that the voice of god still remains familiar to us in the rolling of time that the voice of god still is sweet to our ear and i was tickled by that i was planning on sharing it with you hun but i forgot but when we tune our ears to the voice of god nobody else can deceive us jesus said it again in john 10 and verse 8 all who ever came before me are thieves and robbers and i love the latter part but the sheep what did not hear them amen why is this important there's something happening in the adventist church today folk that were raised in this movement even some ministers pastor even some ministers i'm watching that have gone out from among us they post videos one person sent me a video the other day a video link to my messenger and said we want you to watch this we like to invite you to be a part of a debate and i was wondering what is the debate on they said well some guy just recently wrote a very thick book on he challenged all the many of the statements in ellen white's writings and he wants to prove her wrong and i'm thinking to myself well i heard that before walter race tried that many decades ago come on you old adventist you know what i'm talking about remember walter ray he wrote a book called the white lie where's walter ray whatever happened to walter ray his white lie is gone and the word and the inspired writings of ellen white are still here what do you say there have been people that have been throwing darts at this third grade educated holy spirit-filled lady called ellen white and what shocked me is they sent this to me they sent this to me and they said in a very clever way it's amazing to me how the devil knows how to build up stuff and try to make it sound interesting in the beginning but you kind of know where he's going when you know that the person speaking is on his side and i couldn't help in my tenacity but to respond i said please do not send me this foolishness i'm anchored and as i told a couple that pulled me aside one day when i was pastoring in a church in california spent 45 minutes with me on a sabbath afternoon trying to go quotation after quotation after quotation of the writings of alan white trying to shake my faith and they told me we're not trying to shake your faith we just want to show you some things that we feel are inconsistent and as i answered every one of them i never heard from them again but i've heard from ellen white quite a bit of time since then and i was invited to a church in lewiston california up in the mountains and when they invited me to preach they said whatever you do do not mention ellen white when you come here when i went there i mentioned ellen white you know what they did they invited me back they said we hadn't heard that in a long time here's my point ellen white does not supersede the bible but she does not fight with the word of god and she makes it clear as a people of god our creed is the bible in the bible only and she also says if we had listened to god's word there would be no need for an additional voice why did god send jeremiah because the people didn't listen why did he send isaiah because the people wouldn't listen to his voice today there's a danger there's a danger that we are becoming complacent to the word and the message of god and god is saying time after time i've got to send someone else oh that the people of god would tune their voice so that jesus can say but the sheep did not hear them that's why we are told by isaiah the prophet who knows in isaiah 8 and verse 20 god established a process whereby we can test everything that we hear isaiah 8 and verse 20 to the law and to the testimony if they do not speak according to this word what do we read friends it is because what there is no light in them so i began to walk through some points of how does the dialogue of the death actually happen and i read an article that i could title manufactured deafness another term would be passive listening bbc the british broadcasting company published this article and there are the references there by nicholas mancol battelle february 20th 2019 in which he wrote the following it was in fact a study done by children in school he said today's students have a problem and it's not the one written on the board they're so accustomed to constant stimuli from cell phone apps from cell phone from smartphone apps thank you honey and streaming platforms that they can't concentrate in class you may have missed ryan day's sermon for the gc on generation z a very good message ryan but they point out generation z ages 10 to 24 and the alpha generations alpha generation ages 0-9 were born in a world where a logarithms keep them clicking scrolling and swiping at frantic paces they're so busy doing this that they can't do this and one of the teachers asked the question how do you adapt a traditional curriculum to accommodate students raised by technology raised by technology one television personality said if you were born if you are such and such age you were raised when you watch television not only are you watching the program but below there's announcements going by and periodically there's a flashing of another show coming up this is a generation that they want your ear to belong to them the devil is clever he's trying to get us to be locked in a dialogue with god god is not hearing us because we refuse to hear him the dialogue of the death the church is facing the same challenge a distracted generation well here's how that works listen to the words of christ first and i'll lead you down further in john 14 verse 6 jesus said jesus said what i'm the way the truth and the life the question is how are you going to know the way how are you going to know the truth when the way and the truth are subject to hearing the voice of god how are you going to know the way and the truth when knowing the way and the truth begins by first hearing the voice of jesus and then i was blown away by the article the statistical one i'll just quote it so that i could have your ear in the united states in 2018 over 2 800 people were killed and an estimated 400 000 were injured in car crashes involving a distracted driver in some of those instances they said the drivers i read the article it's a lengthy article they said some of the drivers were driving with earbuds in and some were driving with noise canceling headsets how on earth are you going to hear somebody blow their horn and you're wearing noise canceling headsets they said about one in five of the people who died in crashes involving a distracted driver in 2018 were not even in vehicles they were walking riding their bikes or otherwise outside a vehicle and they said many of the victims were also themselves distracted how is god going to get their attention how is this dialogue of the death going to give way to ears that want to hear the everlasting gospel before the proclamation is done satan knows satan knows that hearing is the first step in finding jesus am i right i could tell if the room is crowded and my wife is talking i can hear her voice husbands you ought to say amen right there should be able to hear your wife's voice the flavor of a voice i could hear it in the crowd i could hear her when she laughs i know what it sounds like you know how that happens because we have many days many hours where sometimes we just sit down turn everything off we look at each other we just talk we talk we talk about the comfortable and the uncomfortable we talk we work our way through it when you can do that when you can go on vacation for two weeks with just you and your spouse and no retinue of followers and you sit down every day together and you wake up every day together and you're walking together and you're on the same boat ride together and you're on the same plane together and you're water skiing together and you can do all that together and you could survive two weeks and come back home i guarantee you if you spend that much time hearing one another not just listening but hearing one another your relationship will be far stronger after those two weeks than it was prior to that hearing one another active listening satan knows that the first step in finding jesus is allowing him to hear allowing our ears to hear his voice he knows that's why he's seeking to distract us today and some of you might think well you know when the pastor talks about coming out for bible studies and coming out for afternoon classes and coming out for wednesday night prayer meeting and joining us online or whatever we whatever we do oh well i don't have time let me very let me be very candid with you if you don't have time to tune your ears to god's voice the day is coming when god's voice will no longer be heard amos talks about that there's going to be a famine for the hearing of the word of god they're going to go from north to south east to west and they're not going to find it this is a privileged generation this is the generation where we are not short on resources amen for that we've got everything at our fingertips we can have translation after translation by our bedside i was talking to one gentleman the other day and he said right by my bedside i have a lot of books and i love reading and i was impressed he said the reason i'm here is because i've been reading about you and i know that this is where god has led me to be when you are listening isaiah talks about the blessing of listening isaiah 30 and verse 21 notice what he says your ears shall hear a word behind you saying let's say it together this is the way walk in it whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left he said god is going to be god is going to be speaking to you when you turn to the right hand or you turn to the left hand and if i can just take the time in this sermon if i were to put a pin in the sermon right here and spend the rest of the time just telling you how god has led us by listening to his voice and there were days that i didn't want to hear what had what god had to say there were days when i i saw what god was suggesting but i had other plans but i remember my wife sitting me down in a place called a rio vista in california between the church that they would they were leading me to fairfield and the church i just left antioch and i said i don't want to go back into pastoring is too tough i just want to be an evangelist i want to hit and miss and get back on the road i don't want to be hearing all those members and their complaints i don't want to be dealing that stuff people having hard heads and don't want to hear what i'm saying on set i don't i don't want to deal with that anymore we were sitting at a small shop and i had a strawberry milkshake it's okay to have a strawberry milkshake every now and then it was a real milkshake where they make it out of the scoops of ice cream and you know when you just want to get it when you just want to get numb just get a strawberry milkshake and tell them put everything on it i was upset with god because he was saying go to this church and i just left a church i was i just didn't want to go back into that and my wife said so now you telling god what you want i said what she said since when do you tell god what you want god spoke through my wife sometimes husbands we don't want god to speak through our wives pilate example number one if he had only listened to his wife it has saved himself a whole lot of headache so i said all right i'ma pray for since that's the case so i decided to give god a difficult prayer to answer all right you you god do this then you want me to go if you want me to go to that church because i had already hired i'd already been hired by amazing facts to be their evangelists when they come to california and they were going to be in california in a couple of months so i was already hired in mary they were in maryland but they were moving to california and doug batchelor said we'll be in california at such and such a date so i said okay god if you want me to go to that church stop amazing facts from coming to california see how much god you are now i didn't say that but you know my my recalcitrant heart was thinking that not trying to fix my wife for talking to me that way you know how we are sometimes come on confess it and so i went for the interview very nice church they said we don't need a pastor to tell us what to do we just want a pastor to hold us together because we already work in church and believe me they were a working church if you didn't come to church before sabbath school ended you were sitting out on the foyer wednesday night prayer wednesday night prayer meeting was always packed and when we left that church we left that church on the sabbath morning the congregation was packed before it was packed and the chapel was packed the sabbath god told us it was time to leave it's a difficult thing but god had finished us and he told us to move on but i remember that very well i pray god if you don't want me to if you want me to go there stop amazing facts well doug batchelor called me about two days later and said john i don't know what happened i don't know what happened but um the deal fell through and it's going to be a while before we come to california you know that looked like so i can almost hear god say now what who are you going now and i ended up at fearfield for six and a half years and i'll tell you it's one of the sweetest churches we ever had we still get calls from those members today matter of fact we get calls from all the churches we pastored throughout the years and uh it's a it's a blessing that we can still go back and know that god has allowed us to put down good roots but the point of the matter is we are where we are today because we heard god's voice i didn't have any plans to come to thompsonville all i did was sat at the edge of my bed and said lord what do you want me to do with the rest of my life i got a phone call two days later and that's why we're here when you listen to god's voice when you when god says ah left no right no left no right left no when you listen to god's voice he'll say this is the way. walk in it how does that happen in the generation where the average teenager has a 28 second attention span according to pew research pray for these young folk because the moment they leave their friends are texting them or tweeting them or tick-tocking them 28 second jason attention span that's what i'm up against when i stand on the pulpit on sabbath morning one kid said to me pastor you need to preach shorter sermons i said no you need to put your phone down paul paul preached so long utica fell out the window and died i never preached that long amen he went and prayed and woke him back up and kept preaching the survey said students now seem to find it particularly exhausting to read complex and long texts without regular breaks but they said in about 10 years or 15 years ago students seem to be accustomed to attending to a text for a longer period of time in other words they said this generation is hard for young people to pick up a book and read you know what they do nowadays this is the generation that does their homework with the computer on phone in their lap earbuds in the air waiting for the next text how are you going to get their attention on sabbath morning and i ain't doing nothing differently excuse my vernacular i ain't changing a thing because i'm not going down that path of fleeting entertainment i want to be able to train your voice to train your ear to hear god's voice elizabeth hoover chief technology officer for the public schools in alexandria city virginia she wrote the face-to-face interaction with the teacher is still the most important component in the classroom she says she says we should only use technology when it enhances a lesson in a way that is only possible by that device if it does not enhance the lesson she says don't use it because this generation is inoculated by devices could it be why this is the reason why revelation says what it does in revelation 1 and verse 3 how can the gospel reach this generation well the bible has the answer right here revelation 8 revelation 1 and verse 3. revelation 1 and verse 3. the bible says blessed is he who reads and those who do what hear the words of this prophecy and those who do what keep those things which are written in it for the times at hand just in case you missed it the scrolls were unrolled they didn't have many copies of the bible in that day and people gathered to hear the scroll read and boy did they lean to hear it but the scroll reader said now go do what you heard you see the cadences the message goes forth you hear it and then the word of god encourages you to keep those things that are written in it for the time is at hand we are told that if what you hear does not affect the way you live then you're really not hearing you may be listening but it's not finding a fertile ground and in the parable of the sower you find 75 percent ineffective results 25 effective results why because when the seed was sown which is the word of god there were different conditions to the hearers stony ground shallow ground thorny ground and only 25 of those had any results in their lives could that be the statistic today because this generation has been subliminally trained to turn off listening skills i cite the reasons how do i know that how many times have you paid attention to the music in the store go to walmart often do you turn off everything and focus on listening to one thing does it seem strange to you to have an uninterrupted conversation with anyone how easy is it to completely ignore background music and background talking while you're talking to one individual how often do you listen without device interruption a man by the name of simon sinek he said when you go to dinner which he's now decided to do he said when when my four friends went to dinner three of us decided we're not taking our phones just one would take a phone in case of emergency because we want to sit down and talk without interruptions my wife and i we go to restaurants we look at couples he said look at that they haven't spoken since they got here she's like this he's like that we were in thailand and on the subway platform they have glass sliders because we found out the purpose of the glass sliders is people have walked into the subway tracks because they were so engrossed in their devices and so i decided to take a picture of it i looked at the platform i looked left and i looked right and i saw people this is everybody's head was down and i said honey look at this how is god going to reach this distracted generation huh oh yeah that's right that's another one that's amazing my wife knows my ceremony material in oakland california a young man came on the train and he took out his gun and announced that this is a this is a robbery and nobody responded because they were all on their devices and he yelled even louder this is a hold up they showed on the camera he got off the next stop and i'm on my man man chill out i'm i'm texting they didn't hear what he had to say if you can't hear a thief with a gun in his hand trying to rob you how's the spirit of god going to get through to this generation i read the statistics on streaming services it says by 2018 180 million streaming users and it says all these trends push the concept of active listening to the wayside while reinforcing more and more passive listening so people don't listen anymore why am i coming why am i talking to you this way today i've been here 18 years and i can tell when i turn on the zoom wednesday night and this is our wednesday night bible study i know there are maybe three of my church members that are beyond that last long what are they what are they listening to what's actually happening between this hour and that hour when we had prayer meeting people say i want to have prayer meeting back on wednesday nights that's a great idea but how many of you are going to come what on earth is happening so importantly in your life that you can't chisel out an hour for god to get together corporately and pray and study the bible together what on earth is the devil what has what has he done to sequester you off stage in a soundproof room and the voice of god is only heard in a certain period of time on sabbath morning and for many of you that's too long when pastor told me said if your sermon is more than 20 minutes it's too long i said well that's the same who told you that he said well my church members did i said well you probably go to their their their football party where they watch football for four hours right they had a church where used to wear football jackets to church on sabbath and when the three when the angels when the blue angels came to town they'd go watch the blue angels fly at the air force base not too far away they watched the blue angels and they ignore the three angels and i thought what's happening to the church well let me make it very clear what happened in the time of noah also happened in the time of christ he committed to his people a doctrine messages solid food and by the time jesus came there was a condition among the jews that was appalling to the analogy of heaven look at what the bible says in matthew 13 verse 15 look at this prognosis of that generation this happened to the jews in the days of christ he says for the hearts of this people have grown dull their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their hearts and turn so that i should heal them he said that happened then i i've got to ask the question no answer necessary but i want you to think about it if it happened then if it happened in noah's day it happened in the days of christ we are in good company pastor they wouldn't listen to jesus so we we shouldn't stress over the idea that church members don't listen to us they wouldn't listen to the best preacher the world will ever know the best teacher the world has ever had and jesus said they won't even hear me why here's why first samuel 9. here's why here's the first samuel 9. here's why first samuel 3 verse 9 to 10 hearing the lord is a prerequisite to speaking for the lord what a beautiful example i just took a snippet from the story you know the young man young boy samuel therefore eli said to samuel because he kept hearing this voice he said go lie down and it shall be if he calls you that you must say this is what we must say today what a statement for today speak lord why for your servant hears so samuel went and laid down in his place now the lord came and stood and called as at all as at other times samuel samuel has to sin and what did you say speak lord for your servant hears why did samuel become one of the greatest prophets of his time he heard god before he wanted god to hear him if you want god to hear you we've got to be willing to hear god samuel spoke for the lord because he was willing to hear what the lord had to say and when you add to that satanic confusion the barrier of biased hearing now i'm winding up now but i want to just hit you with a couple more things here because these are things that i learned i always try to show you something different there's a there's a phrase called semantic noise what words i just say semantic noise which means in the in the industry of studying the the tactics and the skills of hearing semantic noise means during the conversation or during the communication of a message when an unfamiliar word is spoken it causes interference in the listener for example if i just throw out a word that you never heard before throughout a word that needed some further definition it'll interrupt your smooth hearing and i will lose you and as i study this it came to it came to it came to me why why the prophet habakkuk said what he did and why jesus as ellen y says he spoke the language of the people he did not want to he could have could jesus use big words i gotta throw that could jesus have used big words of course you think that psychologists and philosophers had big words jesus is the word smith he could have used that but his aim was to get to the heart and he knew she says he spoke the language of the people he spoke so they could understand i may be able to impress your intellect but if i don't get gain access to your heart my message has done nothing more than made you a student rather than a disciple that's why the prophet habakkuk said what he did listen to this he said in habakkuk 2 and verse 2 then the lord answered and said the lord answered me and said write the vision and make it what on tablets that they may run who does what who read it so in other words if it's clear i know what to do if it's not clear i got to figure it out before i know what to do that's why when you leave a building when the when you have to get out of the building real quickly how many words do you have to read one word what's that word can you imagine if it was like a long sentence wait wait let's figure out where to go no the point of the get the message quickly to that heart so that there could be in fact an act that follows what that person has just heard and then another doctor talked about this generation he said this generation is predisposed to psychological noise psychological noise psychological noise ricky is when people listen through the filters of bias and reinterpretation that means simply people here through the window of preferences likes and dislikes i might say something in the sermon that may get somebody upset and i lost them for the rest of the sermon somebody once said to me now you know you're not supposed to say that because it's against the law i said if it's in god's word i'm going to say it amen the preacher does not speak smooth things he speaks those things that will lead a person to understand that the blessing of hearing comes from the willingness to know that what is being said applies also to that person's life so how does the dialogue of the deaf work write these points down here's the next point the dialogue of the deaf happened when a person hears the message but doesn't believe it applies to them case in point luke 18 verse 10 to 14 i'm going to go through this very quickly two men went up to the temple to pray one a pharisee and the other a what tax collector the pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself god he said i thank you that i am not like other men he heard the sermon that day extortioner unjust adulterers or even as this tax collector than his resume of righteousness i fast twice a week i give tithe of all that i possess and the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven what did he do but beat his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner i tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be what humbled and he who humbles himself will be what exalted whenever you hear the message whatever day whomever the preacher may be ask yourself the question lord how does it apply to me because i've heard people say me you know pastors that was a good message but i wish so and so was in church today they got a list of people that should have heard it and they ain't on the list sorry grammatically they are not on the list how does it work they are not necessarily non-believers they just don't follow it up with action james 1 verse 22 to 25 look at this james 1 verse 22-25 i'm going through this very quickly because i know you have an appointment but be doers of the word can we say that together but be what does of the word and not here is only deceiving yourselves there are some great preachers in the world but it's not the preacher it's the message because if the guy that comes to my door from amazon is one foot tall or six feet tall i'm just glad he brought my package did you get it don't look at the messenger if he is proclaiming from god's word if it is coming from a thus saith the lord that is the most important point because james says if you just hear the word but you don't do it you're deceiving yourself why look at verse 23 for anyone for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like a man observing his natural face in the mirror for he observes himself goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was why for he observed himself goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was and then it goes on verse 25 but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and does what continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word this one will be blessed in what he does do you want to be blessed in what you do yes god wants to bless us but we cannot just hear we got to do we just can't say that was a great message and i'm not looking for that accolade we cannot just say what a preacher elder brooks what a sermon pastor finley what a message elder wilson what a what a message if we don't follow it up with an action god is saying we missed the point the dialogue of the death belong to people that replace obedience with christian activity they say lord lord lord lord haven't we done this and haven't we done that and he said to them i never knew you the dialogue of the deaf would rather do the christian things than be obedient to the word of god or rather do christian things than be obedient to the word of god the dialogue of the deaf they speak like christians but their hearts are not surrendered to god look at matthew 15 verse 8. the bible says in matthew 15 verse 8 these people draw near to me with their mouth on me with their lips but their heart is what friends far from me i used to be ready for confession when i was growing up i thought singing was everything matter of fact one evening i was sitting down oh this is about 15 years ago watching all right watching american idol i don't watch it anymore because it's american idol and i was hearing somebody sing and i thought man that guy can't sing i can sing better than that huh sorry it's a music awards thank you honey my wife is your wife like that they remember all the details thank you honey music awards and i thought he's getting a grammy he can't even sing and ryan i said i could sing better than that and all of a sudden the lord reminded me one day it's not how you draw near to me with your mouth and honor me with your lips i don't care how good you sing i want to know where your heart is because a lot of folk could sing good but like the church member in that church in fairfield she said even the devil can preach a good sermon but he can't live it and lastly the dialogue of the death happens when a person intentionally closes his ear to god's law and claims that god is still listening to them but the wise man solomon said it the other way proverbs 28 verse 9 one who turns away his ear from hearing the law what a statement even his prayer is an abomination my brethren i don't want to have a dialogue between me and god where god ain't listening to me and i ain't listening to him i don't want to be a church member alone we should get to the place where we want to develop a thirst in our hearts for hearing god's voice we want to get to the place where we are so willing to shut down the device and say where is my bible where is my bible i need to hear from god there are days i don't want to read devotional books i don't want to hear what somebody has to say about what god says i want to hear what god says about himself and i can tell you there's no suite of joy my wife said this last night we were sitting down actually during the day we were sitting down reading and isaiah she said we got a lot of work to do but it's getting real good okay one more chapter okay one more chapter okay one more chapter when god's word you got to taste and see that the lord is good and you know what you start hearing god speak to you there's no greater joy to know that god has preserved this book this book to speak to me and nobody can interrupt my conversation with god i've since then when i'm reading my bible i put my phone in the room and when it rings i ignore it because that's what the devil does somebody calls when you be now if you called i apologize but call when i read in my bible ignore that when god's word is being spoken it should be uninterrupted what did the lord say to the church he who has an ear to hear let him hear what the spirit says to the church seven times in revelation april we find that phrase why it's the last part of the story and god is saying i need you to hear what is he saying to the last church here it is behold i stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door i will come into him and dine with him and he with me how many of you want to have dinner with jesus can you imagine getting an invitation in the mail meet me and marion for dinner who's that from jesus no really let me see that it's frightening you know jesus has been sending invitations to you all week long he wanted to just eat with you how many of you have missed your dinner date with jesus where the bread and the water is sure where the word of god is sweet where it never disappoints where it's so good that jesus says i have food that you don't even know about where the woman at the well when she heard it she said i don't need that water pot anymore i found a man who told me everything i ever heard friends today adventist christian whatever the nomination you may be of today the blessing that this last generation is going to get that is reserved for this generation god is saying i want to spend some time with you i want to talk to you do you want to even hear me do you want to even do you even care about what i have to say i want to save you but that's not all i want to know you now i want to be able to speak sweet nothings in your ear and tell you i'll never leave you i'll never forsake you i'll never let you down i never let the enemy take hold of you i was talking to somebody yesterday sister-in-law kind of roundabout way young lady married to my wife's brother she's going through difficult times with her liver and she called yesterday and as i was praying to her god put on my mind a saying that i had never heard before and there have been times in my life i say to my wife i never said that before and she said god just gave that to you and yesterday as i was praying for her i said to her when your mountain seems steep god is at the top pulling you up he's at the bottom pushing you up and he's on your side holding you up but how would you know that i heard a voice crack she said there were times i wanted to give up but i knew that god never left me how many of you want to know that you'll only know that if you get used to hearing his voice today don't get caught up in the dialogue of the deaf god ain't listening to you you ain't listening to god you're not looking forward to seeing him you're just comfortable being a benefactor of what he has for the church down here i don't want to benefit from what the church has down here i want this to continue throughout eternity someone asked you today i've been trying to find creative ways to get you to find love in the bible to find love and prayer meeting to find a joy in getting together corporately to study god's word not just sabbath mourning that's almost obligatory but if you want to go home today and say lord talk to me speak to me let me hear you put aside the world shut it down lock it up put the device away say god i just want to be me and you if that's your desire today i would i wish i want to do something different if you want me to pray for you today that that will be your experience just come on down i don't want to just say stand i want people that are committed to that god's going to mark that god's going to say i'ma follow it up if you want god to be the one you have dinner with and his word is the menu and it gets so sweet he said hey that's not even that's just the first round i got a whole lot more food where that came from because this meal was never intended to be a part of the dialogue of the death heavenly father these are your children we are the sheep of your pasture and you said my sheep hear my voice lord is that the case because they are thieves and robbers trying to steal the hearts of our young the thieves and robbers trying to steal the hearts of wives and husbands thieves and robbers trying to entice us with things that come and go and they fade away and yet so often you sit maybe on our couch and in our living room when you watch us walk by you too busy to say hello too busy when you extend your hand wait and you say i don't have time for you now god i'll see you on sabbath lord may that not be the cadence in the lives of your children may that not be the cadence in the lives of us preachers may our bible be more important than just preparation for a sermon but may there be such a thirst for it that we cannot wait for that next meal and so lord i pray forgive us for where we have ignored you forgive us where we have not heard your still small voice forgive us for the moments that maybe we brought a tear to your eyes you've asked what has happened to my son what is going on in my daughter's life but may we find the best place the feet of jesus the best place the table of grace and when this meal is all done down here help us to realize spending time with the bread of water with the bread of life and the water of life and this life will prepare us for the banqueting table in the kingdom to come bless us lord and destroy the dialogue of the death and make it open uninterrupted communication but the god whom we love in jesus name i pray and all of god's people said amen and amen you

Channel: Thompsonville Seventh-day Adventist Church

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Id: 6m0w3WRkCXw

Length: 76min 52sec (4612 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021