John Bradshaw | This Fallen World

want to be blessed this afternoon i mean listen you could do other things you could sleep you could go sweat somewhere you do that you could sweat everybody likes to sweat it's a dry heat people like me who live in places like tennessee where it is not a dry heat we're amused by the it's 115 but it's a dry heat i'm melting i'm just glad to know i'm melting in a dry heat and not a damping but if you can't find anything better this afternoon to do and you cannot you cannot i hope you will enjoy the concert at four o'clock this afternoon you'll really be blessed good morning everyone greetings to you from my colleagues and friends at it is written it is written is a media ministry of the seventh adventist church we are a donor-funded ministry so i want to say thank you to i'm sure many people here today who support us with their prayers and their means we cannot do it without you so thank you very much to those of you who think of us and pray for us and certainly would love for you to tell someone about us in as much as it is written is an outward-facing ministry we exist to do outreach to do evangelism that you want we actually we produce one television program for the purpose of uh ministering directly to the saints and that is sabbath school if you haven't seen sabbah school on it as written i hope you will you can find our channel we have a full-time channel you know online at it is written dot tv dot tv if you have a roku connect with us there or a smart tv amazon fire apple something and google some amazon fire and apple play and whatever it is sorry but i got the amazon fire right and apple something right but if you have a smart tv then you know so connect to us uh there we got a whole channel we we used to produce one program in english then about 28 years ago we branched out and we went to one in english uno and espanol that was good and uh now we produce depending on how you count about 10 programs regularly and special series uh in addition to that we have a special revival series in october called grounded look out or listen out for word about that we're going to take people into the bible and show how the bible makes an impact in their lives you'll be blessed but again this is an outreach opportunity the the sabbath school program i hope you're watching you find it on facebook and youtube and what if youtube i think but that's the one other than that all outward facing and by the way with sabbath school the difference about the it is written sabbath school program it is unique in the world in that it's the only sabbath school program that features the author of the sabbath school lesson so rather than having people talk about what we think the author meant we speak to the author and she or he or they will tell us what they meant when they wrote the lesson and it's a wonderful journey we produce other programs besides we just have a wonderful time we have a preaching program and a bible q a program and of course our weekly program we're fixing to travel to turkey and shoot a series on the seven churches and then early next year we'll be in britain for programs on the british reformation we know it makes a difference we know i tell you why one lady who started watching it is written contacted us and said it is written is the glue that's holding my life together and i just said thank god for that it's really god we understand that but it's just evidence again that god is using the ministry of it is written so we'll share some resources with you tonight you've got a card there i hope you'll fill it out and get it into us and we'll draw a number of folks to um receive resources with some wonderful wonderful resources and we hope you'll stop by our booth over there and say hello at some stage another thing we want you to know about is uh it is written missions number of years ago we were traveling to india in association with our eyes for india humanitarian program we're going to be conducting an evangelistic series and so i said to somebody why don't we take a team and rather than just me do the preaching we get a multiple sites and multiple people so we took several evangelism teams and we took some physicians and we said god has birthed something and it has written missions was born so this year our teams are in uh dominican republic and bolivia and vieques puerto rico and uh we're going to ethiopia next month we have a mission trip to the navajo nation later in the year next year dominican republic again we'll be holding about 30 evangelistic series there philippines nicaragua cuba mexico and maybe some other place so if you'd like to be part of that come along get in touch say hey i need to know more about this we'd love to bring your academy or your church group or you or somebody or anyway great fun it's transformational blesses the missionary leaves a great blessing at the place where we serve it's a tremendous thing well we want to pray before we begin this weekend three angels one message i believe that jesus is coming back soon what do you what do you believe you believe that he's coming back soon we we don't have to guess anymore we don't do wander anymore and we know and we know precisely when he's coming back he's coming back soon and that's um that's good to know oh one other thing i just saw pastor smith over there wetherford right yeah earlier this year i want to say thank you oklahoma conference a couple of reasons one for having me here this weekend it's a privilege to be here and i love werewolka woods and i love being in oklahoma and i've been here before and it's fantastic and i hope one day god will allow me to come back this is a blessing for me so thank you second earlier this year my family and i were traveling through oklahoma we'd been out west a little vacation time and it was sabbath and we said where are we going to go to church and we ended up going to the wetherford church anyone else anyone else here from whether your pastor is here all right all right good to see you oh good to see you again yeah thank god for you and you and you is the lady who made the mashed potatoes here as if she is i know where i'm going for lunch wow we had a great time lovely congregation great little town and a fabulous past he must be fantastic because his mother goes to the same church i go to back in chattanooga tennessee so she's a wonderful lady we love her very much so thanks weatherford my family and i were really blessed oklahoma blessed us that sabbath a little earlier in the year well let us pray i hope you're praying that god will speak to you i'm praying god will speak to me let's pray together our father in heaven we come to you in the name of jesus we seek your blessing we know you are present here i would not dare to ask you to send your spirit to be here this is your house you dwell here your spirit was here long before we arrived here but we are going to ask you today that we would be here i pray you'd banish every distraction i pray you give us something like a laser light focus a laser-like focus on your word and i pray your message i'm not here to be heard i'm here to be a vessel through which you might be heard so i pray lord that you would bless the words spoken and more especially the words heard we come from many backgrounds many states many cultural backgrounds and we all have in our heart a great need for jesus we have brought our burdens some of us are actually really struggling with stuff some here are barely right way up and so i am praying that you will speak to the needs of each heart and point all of us to the savior who died that all might live with joy and peace and dwell with you eternally speak now lord we are listening we pray for your blessing in jesus name please say with me amen he's sorry to do this but there was some um something in the feedback monitor the foldback monitor here earlier i don't know if you can do that if it was just with scott's system but if you can if you can give me me and the monitor could you do that please just a little bit not a whole lot but if you can that'd be great and i hope you will if you cannot celebi we have at the bradshaw home a little appliance at least i think it's an appliance it's about this big it's brown it's a box with a fan fan will blow when you plug it in and switch it on we were somewhere conducting an evangelistic meeting i think what happened was we were somewhere where there was a musty smell maybe where we were staying and we mentioned that and some dear saints said i can help we've got this little appliance it'll take odors out of any room it's fantastic i wondered if it was an ozonator it's not it does have it does produce an odd smell but you know whatever that's okay we brought it home we plugged it and we flipped it on absolutely useless totally useless what a surprise i got when several years later i was fostering about in a cupboard and i found a sad little box and i said to my wife what is this doing here and she said oh it takes smells and no i remember that but i don't think it does she said i think it does i think it's useless so in our basement some water overflowed out of a dehumidifier dehumidifier you all don't have dehumidifiers in oklahoma you all have humidifiers i suppose but some water overflowed and dehumidifier and if carpet got wet and melissa said i don't want this thing to smell so she plugged in the little brown box fired it up i mean two days later absolutely no change and melissa said notice how much better it is our nephew until recently was living with us as as a student a ministerial student and he bought himself a new car now i mean new in the ministerial college student version of new yeah so it was it was a car of sorts but it stunk it was it was loaded up with cigarette smoke and he said oh man uh auntie melissa you got any any idea how i can get this smoke smell out of my car oh man she just she beamed her face lit up eyes got big she looked at me as if to say and she said i do i have something and she ran and got the box and she brought the box out and she said hey plug it in an extension cord and put it in the garage your car in a garage put this inside the car and just leave it to run i mean for several hours it'll be as good as new and so he did he plugged the extension cord into the wall he attached this to the extension cord put it in his car closed the car ran the thing for about a month i don't invent but i do embellish ran that thing for i don't know how long ages and he flipped it off and he went to the car just as bad as it ever was but knowing his auntie's self-esteem was bound up in the success of the little box he left the door open to its supposed efficacy when he said to her i think it might have helped a little bit my question about the box is does this thing work my wife is convinced it does i'm convinced it doesn't in the interest of full disclosure in our family when there is a difference of opinions and i think one way and my wife thinks another the vast majority of the time she's right but i don't think she's right about this one does this thing work friend that's a good question to ask yourself it's been a while but there was a time not too far gone when people would come to me wearing these uh thin copper bracelets what are you wearing that for oh it cures everything it'll accuse tinnitus and arthritis it'll accuse hemorrhoids and it'll cues it'll cure bed wetting and i mean everything to get rid of warts how's it working out for you i'm just going to keep wearing it for a while absolutely colloidal silver i mean there's going to be somebody after this i'm sorry they're going to rush up what do you mean what do you that's the best thing it i mean that fixes everything it'll fix world hunger to bring peace to the middle east claudio silva you know that that james baker the husband of tammy faye he's still shilling stuff on television as a tv preacher he's pushing colorial silver i don't think that's an endorsement but what i'm saying is a few years ago it was the thing you had to take it or you're going to die of everything here's the question does it work now i think closer to orthodoxy and probably about 20 years ago every evangelistically minded health-oriented person was pushing barley grass onto us or barley green or barley grass they say you stir it into water and you drink it and then they would say you know it's better if you stir it into orange juice anything that you've got to mask the flavor of with orange juice you ought to keep away from but i do understand green and i do understand i think it's chlorophyll you probably get the same benefits just eating grass but you know not a lot out there right now so i wouldn't knock barley grass if we probably have some enthusiastic fans here maybe even some producers i'm okay with it i'm gonna say that again i'm okay with it but as with everything the question that must be asked is does this thing work i went to the dryer at home i do the lion's share of the laundry hey gentlemen you're going to learn something from camp meeting don't forget this do the laundry ladies would have been saying amen gentlemen do the laundry your wife will think you're a hero the fact is the washing machine does the laundry you just put it in i said don't put white stuff with pink stuff and black stuff that hadn't been washed a lot in hot water don't do that but do do the laundry because then you take it out you put it in the dryer that's it you can go and sit down and watch football not that you would and then at the end of the day oh big day today did all that laundry ah i go to the dryer there are these three round things with dull spikes on them i said to melissa what is what are they she said they helped get the clothes dryer faster really oh yeah and how do you know that i think it was like i'm a mother or i don't know i read it online of course everything you read online is true so i said all right fine i mean it's not hurting anything and i would put the clothes in the dryer there was just a little part of me thought i want to take them out i don't believe in them but that would seem spiteful don't do that so i would if they're still there one of them has kind of cracked and done that now and every now and then particularly with sheets they'll get caught up in the laundry particularly fitted sheets i mean you can roll over and bear them oh what no what no what is that i have to tell you and i mean this genuinely how absolutely disappointed i was because i went online in preparation for this sermon do dryer balls actually work according to the i don't know the world health organization or according to the united nations or according to i don't know somebody those little things that you toss in your dryer improve the efficiency of your dryer by as much as 14 percent man i was disappointed i did not believe in them but i asked the right question does this thing work you know the elevator button to make the doors close you get in the elevator it takes forever you press that button usually doesn't work most places unwire them just it's just there for show most places my wife has a i got it for her she runs like a madman she has a a fitbit or something that she runs with so she would go and then we would take our daughter's tracker as well and discover that my wife always ran 10 further than she thought because the dumb tracker doesn't track accurately and you've i've said to my wife and daughter really it can tell you how many calories you've burned i mean without drawing blood it can do that oh absolutely no it can't i saw i searched that online cannot tell you it's just a best guess it's a kind of a rough approximation i got it there and by the way there's no pettiness in the bradshaw household i'll tell you that none of that fitness device under calculates by 10 there are things that we think work that don't work medicines there's some medical procedures i mean lobotomies were the thing for a while thank god they're not any longer you've forgotten all about fenfen people took that to lose weight they lost weight but tons of people ended up with heart valve problems it just wasn't wasn't a great thing there are tech products that you thought would work that didn't work google glass i don't know that it didn't work but it didn't catch on what about people who had the note 7 telephone this is not one and they get on the plane and the phone catches fire on a plane i mean don't you hate it when you're 37 000 feet and someone's phone just bursts into flames and so they said if you have one of those you mustn't take it on the plane but you know there were people who were going on a plane and just didn't say anything that won't happen to me and then we were thinking these things were the bee's knees but they were causing pandemonium pandemonium the question is does this thing work and you know i'm not really here to discuss the merits of those little things that make your clothes dry better or samsung phones or or whatever it might be but i do want to ask you the question does this thing work and and what we do in response to that question might be the difference between a worthwhile camp meeting and otherwise want you to go back with me in time more than 200 years presbyterians and methodists and baptists in these united states adapted what they learned from christians in england and scotland and they would meet for outdoor meetings in large numbers along the american frontier uh in [Music] southern kentucky not far from the church camp meeting location there on the banks of the gaspar river people large numbers of people would come together they'd gather there they would travel long distances the gatherings would last for many days and so the people would camp a presbyterian minister named john mccready described what happened at a camp meeting back in the year 1800 so that's before us this was a camp meeting 1800 i'm going to read to you now no person seemed to wish to go home hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody eternal things were the vast concern here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude sober professors who'd been communicants for many years as church members as it were now lying prostrate on the ground crying out in such language as thus i have been a sober professor i have been a communicant oh i see that religion is a sensible thing i feel the pains of hell in my soul and body oh how i would have despised any person a few days ago who'd have acted like i'm doing now but oh i cannot help it he writes little children young men and women and old gray-headed people persons of every description white and black that's interesting this was the year 1800 were to be found in every part of the multitude crying out for mercy in the most extreme distress people would come to camp meeting in their thousands and large numbers of people would be converted and that was the burden of the gathering adventists gathered for the first adventist camp meeting in 1868 on the farm of one eh route in wright michigan 10 miles or so from grand rapids and since then camp meetings have been held virtually all over the world virtually every year and all across the fruited plain they take an immense amount of energy they take an immense amount of money a large amount of money immense is the wrong word they take copious quantities of time the brightest people working in the church in this state bend their energies for days and weeks for this one event man you gotta hope it's worth it don't you i think it's imperative that we ask the simple question does this thing work it's right to ask that question and i'm not asking from a position of doubt i'm asking that i might awaken inquiry and what would be the measure of whether or not this thing this camp meeting works you might think our answer would have necessity of necessity be arbitrary but but i don't think that's true so what is a camp meeting it must be a spiritual convocation a time when god's people come together for the purpose of focusing on the word of god what's the point the point surely when we focus on the word of god must be our transformation it must be our growth in the grace of god surely the point of camp meeting must be that we become more like jesus surely or is the point of camp meeting running the sunday morning 5k is he going to the abc once a year and loading up on your bulk food purchases is it being sure that you go by the pathfinder food fair on sunday and and buy your food from them and support that trip to gillette uh this city unfortunately not the stadium is it important you do that well of course it is of course it is and you should and i hope you will is the point of camp meeting seminar classes during the day and because they're important i hope you'll go to the class being held by jack phillips from it is written and we'll talk more about that tonight it's going to be one that you do not want to miss but is that the point is that the point is it sermons at night is it hanging out and meeting with old friends during the day is that the point no it cannot be none of those things are harmful surely they're not and i believe all of those things are good but that cannot be the point of camp meeting camp meeting must be about more than that camp meeting has been held on this location since 1981 and i'm wondering if there's anyone here who remembers camp meeting being held over on sooner road anybody remember that look at that even you're too young to remember but you heard are you alone oh yeah i guess looking at you you might be right about that so you remember sooner road was it good yeah you remember camp meeting from your childhood like this best thing ever so before he was soon a road you know this conference has been in existence since the early 1900s more than a hundred years so it's fair to assume that there have been about 100 camp meetings held by the oklahoma conference since the conference came into existence what's it added up to again not doubting i'm not the cynic i'm not being negative i'd like you to be able to do a little inventory in your mind this and this and this and this and this and this but are they meaningful things the point of camp meeting must be transformation absolutely must be it's good that you can come and have fun and fellowship and see friends it's better than good that's necessary yeah very vital but friend how can we come to camp meeting and then leave no closer to jesus than when we arrived or how was it that you can come to camp meeting year after year after year and be no more like jesus huh you're that old crotchety guy in church that people avoid oh that's all rough he's just a bit of a grump and all ralph comes to camp meet he's a nice enough sort of fella but it's clear he's not converted and camp meeting didn't result in his conversion and neither did church attendance friend of god camp meeting was given to us by god to grow our faith so that we might be remade in the grace of god and so we ask ourselves does this thing work what's the point in fact what's the point of our faith if it isn't changing us we have not been called by god to be secular wolves clad in sheep's clothing worldly people with merely a christian sticker affixed to the bumper or the rear windshield of our lives paul wrote to the church in rome you find it in romans chapter 12 and verse 1 i beseech you therefore brethren i beseech you i don't inform you i appeal to you i plead with you brethren by the mercies of god that you do what that you present your bodies a what whoa hold on uh no not this this a living what sacrifice such as a what what what what kind of is he referring to here no no no no go back to the sanctuary service what kind of sacrifice is he alluding to here it'd be something like a what sort of sacrifice you think i'm trying to trip you up i'm not it be fair to say like a burnt offering yeah yeah absolutely you know there are some versions of the bible that refer to a burnt offering as a holocaust i don't really like that but but it does help you understand this is something that's been completely consumed he says i beseech you therefore brethren i appeal to you by the mercies of god that you present your bodies a living sacrifice that means everything given to god everything a living sacrifice wholly acceptable unto god and then he says these amazing words which is your reasonable service listen paul is saying i am appealing to you that you give yourself to god so fully that you are like a living version of a burnt offering sacrifice and you're thinking well that's radical paul says no it's not it's your reasonable service it is reasonable to do that therefore as a believer it is unreasonable to live for god in such a way that you are not giving everything that you're not putting everything about yourself on the altar friend of god we can't go away from camp meeting with one foot on the altar and one foot in the world we can't do that you can't go to camp meeting and come away saying oh i went to where jesus was i went with all these super saints i was there with the conference leaders and brothers brothers from the union office down there and i'm still not all in with god we can't be like that we can't be unconverted do you know what time it is it's 2022 jesus is coming back soon the gospel's got to grab us and change us and by the way i i run a risk here of putting the emphasis in the wrong place let me put it this way have you ever been to one of these buildings where there's a plum on the top ever been to one of those there's something like the eiffel tower or sears tower what it used to be sears tower or the empire state building now the empire state building's out in about 125 floors high why would you get off on the 10th floor go to the window you can't even go to the windows office building you'd be in a lobby why would you get on the elevator at the top and get off on the 50th floor or the 70th floor the view is right up there at the top too many of us we get onto the elevator of christianity and we allow jesus to take us to the second floor when he wants to take us way up there in the clouds we allow him to take us to the 20th or the 30th or the 50th floor and what happens is because we're moralists and not christians we say well i'm pretty good i don't cuss anymore and i don't eat pork anymore and i go to church on the right day i'm pretty good but that's not what paul wrote about in romans chapter 12. he didn't say i beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of god to be pretty good he said give it all everything all of your heart because then you are allowing jesus to grow you into what he wants you to be you are accepting from jesus the privileges of the gospel you are saying christ i am all yours make me what you want me to be stretch me to my christian potential use me for your glory make a difference in my life and through me make a difference in this world this is what god is calling us to we're going to go briefly to the uh second angels message in revelation chapter 14. three angels one message here's the message of the second angel they followed another angel saying babylon has fallen is fall in that great city because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication and later on in revelation chapter 18 the writer speaks about babylon and says she's going to receive the plagues of almighty god the people in babylon are called to come out not half in half out but out friend of god we can talk about fall in babylon and that's not a bad idea you've got the mother church written about in revelation chapter 17 mystery babylon the great the mother of harlots and abominations done in the earth yikes but it's not just the mother church it's the fallen churches who had their opportunity to follow the light of the gospel and said no we're not going any further they rejected the three angels messages fallen i'm not saying that as a critic i'm saying that as a minister of the gospel i'm reflecting what the bible says i'm not slamming anybody or their faith thank god by the way i believe the majority of the saints who are going to go from here to there to heaven are in the churches of babylon no one ought to be thinking it's only us and no one ought to be so ridiculous as to assume that somebody who goes to another church just because they haven't learned all the truths yet isn't a genuine christian genuine christians all over the place we're not standing in judgment on anybody but there's a system called babylon the fallen mother church and the fallen daughter churches and they are offering the world in sincerity or otherwise an incomplete gospel a gospel that will not prepare a person to stand on this earth and go through the crisis of this planet's last days because god has given us three messages the first the second and the third angels message and you will find in there as they point us to jesus and as we yield to jesus we find in there what it takes to be a christian a successful victorious overcoming christian here on this planet in the latest days of earth's history hey what a privilege you might have lived a hundred years ago god could have called you into being 500 years ago but you're here now not so that you can worry about the crisis have mercy i talk a whole lot more about the coming christ than the coming crisis but god has put you here do you know why because he wants you to know that he can fill your heart and bless your life and use you as a demonstration to the universe of what the grace of god can do in a person's life we've been called to be part of the remnant those of whom god says they keep the commandments of god and the testimony of jesus we have been called so that god can say to the universe this is what i can do in the life of a sinner and friend if you are frustrated and you feel like you are not experiencing the power of god talk to god about it he's either god or he's not and if you are being overcome instead of overcoming tell god you are done with that you are tired of that he has permission to do in your life whatever he wants to do to make you a bona fide genuine surrendered christian someone living their faith and sharing their faith and shining their faith wherever they go it's a privilege god has given us you could have been born earlier died in the 1920s or the 1960s or 15 years ago but here we are being prepared by god to show the universe this world in earth's last days the power of the gospel the privilege of the christian the blessing of knowing jesus when the world turns against him friend babylon powerful mighty there's not another system on the earth who can summon the most powerful business leaders from this country to travel to europe and sit at the feet of a religious man and then be told by him we want you supporting our economic plan for the world this was reported in the news not by some crackpot fringe ministry this happened you gotta say these are powerful movements that are taking place these are big things that are going on daily the world is coming closer and closer and closer to this system babylon every day you may not see it but it's taking place even when you're not looking but friend of god i want to think with you about the spirit of babylon you can cook it down any way you want i'm going to put it this way it is the spirit of lack of surrender to god it's the spirit that says we will follow the teachings of man and not the teachings of god you can be out of babylon but babylon can be in you the world is fallen you know when these united states were were called into being this country was a haven for people escaping religious persecution now they weren't all chosen from among the good angels and we should not pretend that they were but even the earlier institutions of higher learning such as harvard and princeton and yale were founded to be bright lights teaching christianity and training ministers now they're absolutely anything but easiest thing in the world would be for me to talk about the the problems in the world but you see them you are aware of them you understand much of that probably better than i do friend the concern is this that the church is following too closely behind the world that's the concern we are drinking what she drinks the church is drinking what the world drinks and we are following in her footsteps somebody wrote long ago daily the church is being converted to the world can you imagine that can you imagine loosening your grip on faith and becoming more like a child of the world you know it even within our church we're becoming increasingly political increasingly political hey i've got news for you stay away from that you can get into that in your own home that's your business but not a church we don't need to take a stand on this issue or that issue we don't need to join a movement we are the movement we are the movement join some movement god raised up the church to be the the the one who presents the solutions to the problem but we're becoming we're becoming political we are starting to see things the way the world sees things to give you an example when some adventist young person comes out of the closet and declares that she is lgbtqi or something else posts it online watch for the responses watch for the responses from the church folks there isn't a soul who will get on there and say we are praying for you honey but all these people who sit in the pews near you are saying stuff like you go girl we are so proud of you you live your truth now i don't want anybody piling on to that teenage girl or teenage young man and ridiculing or belittling that person love that person but when somebody chooses a life of sin don't cheer them on i understand it's a complex issue there's a lot going on in the world i know it's very confusing for a lot of people but what's not confusing is there's something called sin and there's something called righteousness there's something called right and there's something called wrong there's something called god's way and something called the other way we don't want to have anything to do with the other way and if someone is struggling with the other way love them be gracious to them welcome them be kind to them but the last thing you do is endorse them we endorse jesus what's going on in our midst roe v wade was overturned now listen the world didn't change they just sent it back to the states where it belonged in the first place it's not a political statement if you understand anything about the constitution the 14th amendment anyway i don't want to go there and now you've got god's people rising up in anger what no no seriously what you're going to rise up in anger and defend somebody's right to stop a beating heart how do you do that oh no i'm not talking about rape and incest i'm talking about the other 99.9 of abortions and people in the church are going to defend that and and and the problem is someone going to say i don't know why you i don't even know how you could say that pastor well i do thou shalt not kill oh actually at least put it straighter thou shalt not murder and and it's i mean it's it's what it is isn't it stopping a beating heart what in the world so when you've got church people defending this i'm saying god help us it's not that they disagree with me or i with them but when people see the bible and then ignore it it is demonstrative that we are drinking from the wrong fountains you think you can give your kids violent video games and cut them loose to run amok on tick tock do you know what they're seeing on there they're not seeing jesus loves me this i know adventists are drinking from the same streams as the world drinks from and so we're starting to act like lost people and think like lost people and teach like lost people and and become activistic like lost people no no no no no i saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth and to every nation kindred tongue and people we aren't even called to preach like other people but instead to preach like adventists it's the end of time we have a message to take to the world we cannot hide it under a bushel we cannot be silent we must not be like everybody else we must not think like everybody else we don't consume the entertainment everybody else consumes we don't go to the extremes that others go to we are people of the bible people of the spirit of prophecy people of christ people of worship we believe in the church we stand behind our church leaders we pray for them we thank god for what he's doing in this world and that's what we're about listen i'm appealing to you if you're about something else god is asking you today reorient that thing bring it back to where jesus is bring it back to the cross and you can interpret that anyway i want to be deliberately vague there but let god speak to you about that is your life following the well-worn path of jesus or are you just out there somewhere with a christian label stuck on your forehead what probably stuck on the bottom of your shoe you don't want that this is a time to let the christ of the bible get you in that elevator and take you all the way to the top of christian growth and character development you want to be used in ministry you want to support the church you don't want what the world offers this is a fallen world and so here we find ourselves in this fallen world and what does the world see when it looks on and sees god's people i remember being on a plane flying from zambia to south africa the man next to me was a coffee farmer he said he would only hire jehovah's witnesses if you're not a jehovah's witness you don't even get an interview to work with for me on my coffee farm i said why is that are you a jehovah's witness oh are you out of your mind no way would i ever no so why do you hire only jehovah's witnesses because they're honest they show up the men aren't running around on their wives they don't steal they're respectful wow i want to hear somebody saying that about seventh-day adventists if you want to hire somebody hire an adventist if you want a doctor get an adventist doctor if you want a tradesman who won't rip you off go to get adventist you want an honest mechanic go to the adventist mechanic we got to be different because when jesus enters our lives we cannot be the same you change we exist in a fallen world it is our privilege not to be fallen but to be lit up with the power of the gospel on fire with zeal for christ because jesus is living his life in us saul the persecutor arrested by christ became saul the ardent disciple jail keeper in philippi encountered the spirit of god he said what must i do to be saved do we go away from camp meaning having encountered the spirit of god did you pray this morning lord fill me with your holy spirit you can be 16 17 18 19 20 years of age and filled with the spirit of god you think that's going to make a difference yes does that make life boring boring boring inhabited by divinity are you crazy now you're living now you're different now something's going on you can look into the futures i'm following jesus i'm not going to make the same mistakes these other knuckleheads make jesus going to keep me straight that's what he can do friend of god you pray today i'm going to cat meeting i need to be blessed i have to be blessed did you pray that prayer lord you've got to bless me are you here have you prayed with anybody since you got to get me i mean you shook somebody's hand because you were told to but have you prayed for somebody did you make a note on your phone i got to pray for ethel ethel's son is dealing with a terrible illness did you do that we are here to draw close to god camp meeting isn't a glorified picnic it cannot be conferences wrestle with budgets and finances and making ends meet and trying to stretch dollars to go further but they invest in camp meeting i mean there are big conferences that do a thursday friday sabbath camp meeting big conferences and here we are in oklahoma we stretch from one weekend to another i hope you appreciate that that's and they do it saying you know i'm guaranteeing you no one has told me this i'm guaranteeing you it has come up in the conference committee someplace where someone said you know we could save a bunch of money if we just didn't do camp meeting i bet you someone said that someone should have said that they should be looking at everything like that but someone had to have responded and said no we're committed to this it's good for the conference even though it costs money it's good for the saints it's good to get together we are a family after all so they are committed can't meet a chance to communicate we discuss evangelism but god forbid that camp meeting would devolve meekly into a shell of what it ought to be now listen of course my greater point isn't just about camp meeting my point is faith your faith in god does the thing work you're not just going through the motions are you this church can never just go through the motions must never go through the motions i want to tell you something the aspects of your faith work let's check some off and i'll endeavor to be quick does prayer work yes or no jehoshaphat was confronted by a marauding army he couldn't defend his own people he cried out to god he said our eyes are upon you by the time the thing was done the enemy fled killed each other and it took jehoshaphat's team three days to gather up all the loot that they left in the fields out there that was a miraculous answer to prayer don't be praying little prayers lord i'm praying for grandma i mean we'd like to see you get well but i mean whatever no you take hold of the throne of god i'm not letting you go until you bless me and should grandma die then you say well okay you understand things i don't but but i'm not happy about that you don't pray for your neighbor to come to faith in christ pray for everybody on your street john knox he didn't say lord give me my neighbor here i die give me scotland the brother prayed for a nation and the nation went in the direction of protestantism as a result of that man's prayer friend we've got to pray prayer works the unfortunate widow prayed and prayed if she wouldn't quit she wouldn't quit don't you quit because prayer works that's faith work i mean it's i just kind of a funny old thing right faith the evidence of things not seeing substance of things hoped for and somebody went to jesus you got to fix this fella sent your servant the centurion servant he down there dying jesus said i'll come down no don't don't come what who would tell jesus not to come to their house this brother he said i know how this thing works all you have to do is speak the word that said you never met me before i don't need to meet you before i know who you are i know you have power and i believe in it why should i work for you you are the enemy you're on the roman side i'm crying out to you don't come down just speak the word jesus said i've never seen faith like that in my life in all of israel faith what he do he just believed that christ could do what christ can do come on friend we've got to believe now we've got to believe don't limit god by our lack of faith just believe faith works does preaching work be careful i answer that while i'm standing here this preaching work coming of course it works you read in the bible when the ministry of the word of god increased the number of disciples increased preach the word and and pray for the preachers i mean listen i've got to put some of you all on notice we don't need more sermons about how to know the will of god for my life part five you don't wasted four and a half sermon opportunities right there lift them up point people to the cross proclaim the everlasting gospel the three angels messages preach present truth former division president charles bradford wrote a book called preaching to the times he said we need more sermons about he started listing those subjects he said living in the sight of a holy god without a mediator when did you last hear that sermon i know come on now preaching works i'll tell you how it works there i was it is written partnership event in southern california these are not evangelistic meetings right somebody who was invited just went and invited somebody else this guy flew from two time zones away to be there he walks in in the morning sits down somebody preaches a message he hears that he turns to the person next to him and says what do i have to do to become a member of this church what the brother was a freemason a freemason and so somebody gave him some little counsel or whatever he went back to where he came from he's attended church every single sabbath since every sabbath he's waiting to be baptized any day now he heard a sermon no it had nothing to do with oratory you liberate the word of god and god speaks through the word of god we believe this does the bible work whereby given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye may be part takers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through life here's how it works you're broken you read the bible you claim what it says god applies it to your life you and you there it is you're gonna have some stumbles along the way but you are new you trust the word of god the word of god absolutely works does evangelism work oh i don't even want to hear a person say evangelism doesn't work now i'm speaking about public evangelism you just demonstrate your ignorance when you say it doesn't work well preacher what you don't know is that we held an evangelistic meeting in our church 10 years ago we got two people if you'd held one every year you'd have 22 now and those 22 would have gone to one some more you might have 23 or 33 or a hundred and three uh evangelism costs a lot of money you didn't you didn't say that when you bought your new car blinging hypocrite costs too much it costs too much when you're out there taking a first-class trip to paris or someplace which i'm not against you can do all that drive a new car if you want take a trip to paris but then don't go talk about how much evangelism costs stuff ain't free you understand ladies and gentlemen does it work yes it works sure it was people coming to the faith we had a man come to an evangelistic meeting earlier this year in portland oregon he walked in the door his wife dragged him along nice to see you so glad you i'm not happy to be here i don't want to be here it's what he said to the poor old greeter it's a wonderful story i won't tell you the whole story i'll just tell you the end of the story brother was baptized on the final day of that series heard the voice of god knew god was calling him god saved his life miraculously in vietnam he finally realized he needed to surrender to god of course it works does church work now there's a loaded question but of course it does church is god's idea don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together got to get in that church be part of the body of christ support the mission of support the church i don't tithe to the church because i don't like what the church does with my money okay do you bank what does the bank do with your money they loan it to pornographers and people are selling marijuana they stay they the local pork restaurant the the x-rated movie theater they're loaning them your money so if you ain't tithing to the church you know what you're doing monday morning you're calling up now give me that money back i'm put under my mattress now do you invest you know what they're doing with you you know what they do with your money down the investment shop you don't care as long as you get nine percent come on now we want to support the church it is god's church it is still the one object upon this earth upon which christ bestows in a special sense his supreme regard i won't criticize it because i would be criticizing the apple of his eye and because i beat around people like elder shires and elder nobly and others long enough to know you might identify someone that you feel like is insincere but i know the folks who are sincere i know our division president is a man of god and he's sincere i know our union president is admired from one side of this country to the other i know our conference but i don't know i don't know if he walks on water but this brother is a man of god i'm confident it is god's church anyway of course it works i'm privileged they let me in if they knew what i was really like they wouldn't let me in don't tell them does this thing work you get to decide you get to decide god says in ezekiel 36 a new heart also will i give you and a new spirit will i put within you and i will take your heart of stone out of your flesh and i will give you a heart of flesh that's what faith and yes it works you can come to camp meeting broken and go home healed you can come here low faith go home high energy you can come here doubting go home certain because this is where god is you can come to church open your bible i found jesus i want him in my heart your life can change in a moment ah but john you don't know the demons i'm wrestling with you know what i probably know them on a first name basis and i can tell you that what god has done for me he will do for you oh there are people in my church they don't like us young people sure they do they're just cranky old people that's all love them anyway no they're they never let us do anything yes they do don't tell me that sure they do oh they don't they don't like my long hair well it looks stupid that's why but they love you anyway they love you i first showed up in adventist church with hair i'm not halfway down my back but about as far as i can reach and people just loved me straight laced stiff boring people and they just love me that's why i cut my hair if i could grow it back i would i can't i'd like to there's a place for you in the church and there's a place for you in the heart of god i want to tell you something about these three angels isn't one one message somebody wrote to ellen white once and they said she said they said what's the message of the third angel she wrote back and she said the message of the third angel is the message of justification by faith in verity now listen that's what we're about as a people and that's the message that'll change your life the message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in christ alone it's life-changing i want you to experience that jesus wants you to experience that jesus wants to give you his power right now so you go home and go to your computer and you put some blocks on those pages and you delete a whole bunch of stuff and you say i'm glad i did it jesus would like you to go home and go to that looking cabinet and take that wine you've got oh it's just wine there's just one get rid of it just pour it out it's not for christians just pour it out and god will give you that but let's get beyond behavior jesus wants you to go from here and say i believe i'm forgiven i know i've been a scoundrel but i've been forgiven i believe that there is power in jesus to keep me from going back to that old life i can tell that person at work that it's over and it's over you can say i can go from here with my head held high because jesus has made me you and given me a new life i can go out of this place and know that i have purpose and value that somebody loves me that god loves me i may not have the job of my dreams but i know that god is going to use me right where i am i can be a witness i can share my faith i can put my head on my pillow at night and say i've made some mistakes in my life but god loves me this is the message of the three angels to us today yes of course it's about beasts and marx and babylons and so yes but you boil the thing down and the message to us today from the three angels is there a salvation for you in jesus christ he is the savior of the world he wants you to experience that salvation and have a real vibrant dynamic growing experience ah but john last time i made a re-commitment i got like two days and i fell on my face and you gave up how about when you were this big and you were learning to walk and you fell on your face you didn't just decide to crawl for the rest of your life you got back up you yes so you'll stumble that that's part of the growth experience but you'll stumble less and you won't be stumbling before long you'll be up on your rear up on your hind legs you'll be galloping like a steed across the prairie listen this this is the time for god's people to rise up he's coming back soon and jesus is saying who will let me have their heart so that i can do miracles of grace in that life and show the universe what the power of god can do he's asking us that today you know that he is does this thing work oh man it works all right it works how about today you point yourself in the direction of jesus or allow him to turn you around you say lord i've read philippians 2 and verse 13 it is god which worketh in me both the will and to do of his good pleasure it's time it's time can this god of the three angels messages change your heart i read where john newton the man who wrote amazing grace it said that he could swear that's used foul language for 30 minutes without ever repeating himself now even if that's an exaggeration you get the point he was a dark dark soul and then after using those dirty words he sat down at his desk i've seen the room and he wrote one of the most incredible collection of words ever assembled in the in the english language amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me i once was lost but but now i'm found i was blind but now i see and he wrote those words when we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun we have no less days to sing god's praise than when we first begun newton got it god ended his life and changed his life it worked for john newton he became a minister of the gospel in the church of england it worked for newton friend it's got to work for us because the church is to demonstrate the final and full display of the power of god and the love of god that's what we've been called to be and so church cannot just be business as usual and camp meeting cannot just be a glorified picnic we're getting closer and closer to the return of jesus we want god in us to demonstrate the final and full display of his love we cannot just go through the motions how about this couple who were in nice in france and they wanted to fly back to england to stansted airport north east of london and they got on a plane and everything was good and it was fine flying through the air and then somebody said something is what and they discovered that they were flying to madrid in spain and not stand still on the outskirts or just beyond the outskirts of london you see they were sincere enough i i the story does baffle me don't you wonder why everybody's speaking spanish didn't you read the sign of the gate didn't you see it say madrid when the person scanned your ticket and had an issue didn't you wonder about that when you get on the plane the pilot always says welcome aboard we are flying to such and such but i guess if the pilot said it in espanol they might maybe just didn't understand so it mystifies me a little bit but the fact of the matter is they got on a plane in nice flying to stansted found out they're on their way to madrid you know the first thing they did when they got to madrid they said we've got to get to london and fast friend even if you've taken a detour even if you're going in the wrong direction god can turn you around and get you right to where he wants you to be right to where he wants you to be and so i'm wondering today no i'm not wondering i gave up wondering i believe today that there's somebody here who's going to respond to the call of god in his or her life do something for me please wherever you are unless you're a musician would you stand on your feet you you assume no obligation or responsibility by standing but you just help immensely can you stand listen i know that there are people who came here today in good standing with god couldn't get a better experience if they tried thank god for that that's not true for everybody this is camp meeting we come here that we can experience transformation that we can experience the presence and the power of god that we can go from here closer to jesus that when we arrived i don't mean this is a general appeal i'm not going to ask you hey would you make a gentle rededication of your life listen carefully because of course i'm going to ask people to come forward and you need to know whether i'm asking you or not and if i'm asking you please come forward because i want to pray with you have you wandered from god is it time to come back have you never ever ever really surrendered your life to jesus have you just been going through the motions and you want a vibrant experience with christ if any of that speaks to your heart please don't delay don't wait come forward and let me pray with you we will pray together would you come forward and walk into the arms of jesus today if you've never been 100 committed to jesus if you are far from jesus today and you want to come to him if you've never given him your life i'm inviting you to come my good friend scott is going to sing his debbie plays and as god speaks to your heart please respond to god's urgent appeal and yield to his invitation today please come as scott sings and jesus speaks to you us found [Music] flows from calvary [Music] [Music] be my glory [Music] till my ransom [Music] the lady approached me recently she said do you remember me i said i will she said you spoke at a camp meeting you made an appeal i came forward and gave my life to jesus and my life has never been the same since years later she is a mother in [Music] and israel in her faith in christ i understand i don't mean to let you off the hook but i understand that not everybody should come forward right now because i'm not asking you to come forward if everything between you and jesus is a thousand percent i'm not this is not for you what i'm asking you to do is pray pray if there's someone near you that you know should come forward and give themselves to christ go to that person tell them i'll walk down front with you this is an opportunity for you i'm going speak again scott will will sing again listen if you're far from jesus you need to come back you've just been going through the motions if there's a great gaping gulf in your experience you need jesus to feel if you've never accepted him as your lord and savior i'm inviting you to do that now in fact god is inviting you to do that now i'm encouraging you not to pause not to wait is god calling you god bless you but i know there are others today someone is going to go from camp meeting and say what a great event i gave my life to jesus i'll never be the same again as scott sings and more importantly as the spirit of christ speaks to your heart don't resist don't fight yield to jesus come to faith in jesus name near the cross a trembling soul love and mercy [Music] shall find [Music] this much longer if i knew that there was one more person in this place who by coming forward and giving his life or her life to jesus would be changed and saved and become a shining light for jesus who would share christ wherever she went if i knew there was one more person i'd wait i sense there is but i don't know scott's gonna sing again if you've been resisting jesus don't resist please join me i'm gonna come down front and pray with you make a decision now come to christ right now near the cross how watch and wait hoping trusting ever till i reach that golden strand just [Music] be my glory [Music] shall find rest beyond [Music] i'm hopeful there are some pastors here today who will come forward here and gather down here with us because there may be some who would like to stay and speak to somebody or pray with somebody so if there's a pastor in the house or a head elder or somebody of that nature just make yourself available down here because there may be somebody who wants to pray or wants to ask questions and i would encourage you i don't know what's on your heart i don't know why you've come forward but you do if there's something you need to speak to me or one of the pastor or team here about that's why we are here we're going to pray together we're going to expect god to seal the decisions that have been made for him today and to continue to speak to the hearts of anybody who might have seemed a little cautious or lack confidence to come forward today you thought i'll be okay standing where i am okay we want god to speak to your heart as well let's pray let's pray together now our father in heaven we come to you in the name of jesus we thank you that 2 000 years ago at the cross jesus did the unthinkable the divine son of god yielded his life so that we poor sinful people might have everlasting life david wrote in the psalms what is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that you visit him here we are what are we that you love us so much as to give your life [Music] today father there are many who have come forward to accept jesus on some level some are coming to them for the first time some are coming because there's nowhere else to go they've tried everything and nothing's worked there are some who've tried jesus but it hasn't stuck and they're back they're saying i'm not going to stay face down i'm getting up and i'm coming to you again jesus i'm going to give you my heart again and allow you to have my life again some are dissatisfied with where their faith has taken them or where they've taken their faith they're wanting the real thing friend of god it's not too late even as i pray i'm afraid about another 30 seconds you can get here in less time than that would you join us down here father there's something powerful that happens when somebody steps out of their seat and leaves an old by faith steps into a new experience with jesus let that powerful thing happen now thank you for the miracle of salvation for the power of your grace for your love and for your acceptance we thank you for forgiveness we thank you that we can leave our sin right here and go away knowing that you've given us a new heart we might not feel different we might still feel awful about some of the things we've done but we're believing today that we are new because of you now bless each person who has come forward now the ones shedding tears the ones feeling terrible about the past the ones feeling as though they've been walking on thin ice the ones who feel like they're too weak to go forward as christians remind that one that you said your strength is made perfect in weakness all you want from us is our weakness not our strength we have none to offer we thank you today for new life we thank you for assurance we thank you for salvation we thank you for jesus in jesus name we pray please say with me amen and amen if you've come forward you want to talk to somebody there are pastors here who will be able to speak with you and minister to you just let us know what an amazing moment this morning what do you say guys while these folks are talking and praying with the pastors up front i want you to know somebody made a decision for christ a few weeks ago a few years ago they're being baptized today over at the pool after you have your lunch if you want to witness that baptism somebody just like the people here gave their heart to jesus they'll be a baptism over there after you finish your lunch at the pool okay so [Music] you

Channel: Oklahoma Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

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Id: X48all_9dk8

Length: 77min 13sec (4633 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2022