Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Hope in the Future

Louis Torres

Hope in the Future- Part 1

Our Father, as we consider your Word this morning, we pray that you will speak to our hearts, draw us nearer to you.

In my many travels, I always have the pleasure of sitting next to interesting people.

In 1 of my particular travels I discovered I was sitting next to a lady in charge of all the apparatus that point to space to see if there's life out there.

When she told me that she was a scientist and that she was in charge of all the apparatus pointing to space if there's life out there, I just informed her that she was too late.

And she looked at me quite amazed that I would say that to a scientist.

And I said, you're wondering if there's life out there.

And I said, the Bible already tells us there's life out there.

So I shared with her Job chapter 1, verse 6 and 7, which says the sons of God came together for a special meeting with God.

Then I said, you folk are trying to build a city in space.

I said you're you were too late again and I said God says in the Bible that there is a city in space and it even has a name called a New Jerusalem and I said not too long ago that you scientists discovered how to make transparent gold.

I said, yes, the Bible also tells us 2, 000 years ago that there was such a thing as transparent gold.

And that's Revelation chapter 21, verse 18, as you can notice in verse 21.

And so she said to me in response, this is amazing.

She said, can I share something with you?

She said, my brother just became 1 of the born again things, and he invited me to go to his church.

The pastor sat us in a circle, placed Bibles in our laps, asked us to turn to a certain page, and then asked us to read about the content of that chapter and give our impressions.

She said it was something about some bones and she said I was just amazed that people would sit like this trying to figure out something about bones and give impressions.

And then she said, if that's all that the Bible has to offer, who needs it?

But she said, I never knew that the Bible was a scientific book.

And she said, as soon as I get home, I'm going to buy a what?

Now, the Bible says, the heavens declare thee glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork.

Day unto day, utter a speech, and night unto night, showeth knowledge.

There's a lot of scientific research being done and going on even at present.

They're trying to figure out questions that have disturbed them for a long time.

However, every time they study, they unearth something that shakes them up and points them to the reality that maybe they've made a mistake.

That's hard to admit when you're getting paid thousands of dollars per month just to try to chase down some hypothesis and discover whether or not it's true.

But listen, recently the famous astrophysicist, Stephen Hawkins, several years ago made a statement and this is what he said.

I fear that since the evolutionary process has worked through the dialectic of determinism and aggression, our long-term survival and any hope for our species is in question.

However, if we can keep from destroying each other for the next 100 years, sufficient technology will have been developed to distribute humanity to various planets.

And then no 1 tragedy or atrocity will eradicate us all at the same time.

So the astrophysicist feels that there is some hope, And the hope is in leaving planet Earth and finding other planets that can inhabit human life.

As recent as last year, He was actually transmitted through technology to the Opera House in Sydney.

He was near London and he was projected on the stage as a halogen by technology.

And again, this particular time he made another statement.

I don't think we will survive another what?

1, 000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.

So first he says within 100 years enough technology will be discovered to take us to different planets so that we will not be destroyed all at once And then he says that even this planet will not survive more than what?

Now, if you know the scriptures, if you know the Bible, you realize then that this man is saying things that he doesn't understand he's saying, but we do.

What's amazing is this, that scientists are trying to figure out how to take some of us off to different planets so that the human race is not destroyed.

Question, how much hope does scientists have for this earth in reality?

However, what they are suggesting leaves us completely hopeless because not 1 of you will be around 100 years from now.

Not 1 of you can participate with that hope that they are presenting to get you off the planet.

Now, the question then is, is time running out for planet Earth?

And I'm going to share with you from the scientific perspective what the Bible has told us all along.

First of all, are there galaxies out there that have planets that can sustain life?

Because they're suggesting that we need to go to other planets, correct?

Are there planets there that can sustain life?

And what's interesting is this, that recently, in fact in 1995, they decided to point the Hubble telescope in a certain direction and fix it in a dark spot the size of a dime.

The size of a dime that you can look at at 75 feet.

So how big does that dime look at 75 feet?

If you hold it in your hand it's pretty small.

If you look at it at 75 feet it even gets much smaller.

So they focus on that little tiny spot to see if there was anything in that dark spot.

About 1, 500 galaxies are visible in this deep view of the universe.

Taken by allowing the Hubble telescope to stare at the same tiny patch of sky for 10 consecutive days in 1995.

The image covers an area of sky only about the width of a dime viewed from 75 feet away.

So now they know that beyond what they can see there are galaxies and galaxies and galaxies out there which means then that there must be planets and planets and planets and planets.

So that immediately raised high hopes on the scientific community that they should be able to find a planet out there.

Now, however, as they have done their search, they're beginning to question.

So in a Wall Street Journal article that came out in December 28, 2014, It began to explain a lot of what I'm going to share with you.

That Wall Street Journal article was actually issued just before Christmas on December.

In 1966, astronomer and famous promoter of science, Carl Sagan, announced that there were 2 requirements for life to be possible on the planet.

So if they can find a planet that meets those 2 requirements, then whammo, there is life out there.

So Based upon this premise, they set something up called SETI.

SETI is actually Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, S-E-T-I.

So now they're looking for planets that would meet these 2 parameters.

The 2 parameters are number 1, there must be a star like our sun.

Number 2, a planet a certain distance from the Sun.

So if you can find another planet that is close to another star like our Sun, then there is potential for life.

And so on that basis then, they estimated that since there's an estimated amount of stars out there, 10 to the 27th power, roughly 1 octillion of planets should exist in all of these stars.

So now they're saying, we discovered a mine.

There are all of these galaxies, which means there must be all of these planets that meet the condition for life.

Hope in the Future- Part 2

Our Father, as we study this morning, we pray again, claiming the promise of your Spirit, to be the 1 to speak to each 1 of us and through us.

To your name be glorified, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Relative to this subject is a subject of trying to find the true church.

Now I do not know if you realize that presently there are 39, 000 Christian denominations.

If you look at the chart, you'll see that in the 1800s there were 500 different Christian denominations.

By 1970, you see the exponential growth from 1, 900 to how much?

So in 70 years, the Christian denominations grew by about 17, 000 more.

By the mid-2000s, again it almost doubled, and it slowed down by the year 2008, slowed down to 39, 000.

You can well understand why it is that people are having difficulty with church.

Finding a church, And when you consider that there are 39, 000, it becomes even more challenging.

Especially when you realize that there's only how many books?

Only 1 Bible, and out of 1 Bible you get 39, 000.

So people many times are called church hoppers.

How many of you have heard that term before?

And the reason why some people do church hopping is because they're trying to find what they consider to be the true 1, the real 1.

Others just church hop because they like something called smuggler's board, where you can go and get a little here and a little there and a little here and a little there.

But now, whereas before you only had a few choices, now you have 39, 000 choices.

And it take you more than several lifetimes to go through that smorgasbord and figure out which 1 is the right 1.

However, in the Scriptures, God does not seek to make it so complex or so difficult that people cannot find the way to salvation.

And so Jude, verse 1 from chapter 1, says, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly do what?

The faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Obviously, according to the Bible, there's how many faiths?

But according to what we just read in this in the statistics there are how many?

And I want you to know that as far as the Bible is concerned, the Bible is clear.

Now you can argue and you can say, well, preacher, you're arrogant because, you know, all roads lead to Rome.

However, I should let you know that Rome is not the kingdom of God, nor is it heaven.

Rome is something set up by men, and God's salvation is not to be determined by a center point in a place called the Vatican with 7 Hills.

And Christ makes it plain that he has how many faiths?

Therefore, it is expedient, or should I say it is urgent, for us to discover which is the right 1, because from what we see in the world, things are winding up pretty fast.

So In the beginning, in Genesis, if you look at the book of the Bible, the Bible begins with 2 chapters, Genesis 1 and 2, and you say, well, that's obvious, preacher.

Well, it also ends with 2 chapters, 21 and 22.

But I want you to know this, that the first 2 chapters of the Bible and the last 2 chapters of the Bible are mirror images.

In other words, in the first chapter and chapter 2, you will find that there's a perfect world, a perfect home, a perfect relationship between man and God, a perfect food, perfect environment, everything is perfect.

If you go to the last 2 chapters, what do you find?

Man is back in perfection, he is with the perfect God, a perfect home, perfect food, everything is perfect again.

So you find a perfect world to begin with, and you find a perfect world to begin with again.

Obviously, we're not in the first and we're not in the, I won't call it the last, even though it will be the last.

And the purpose of the Bible is to help you know, figure out, discover, learn how you can get from the first 2 chapters to the last 2 chapters.

Everything in the Bible is to get you from point A to point Z.

Therefore, every teaching of Christ that Christ encourages, the basic tenets of His faith, you can find it in the first 2 chapters, and you can find it in the last 2 chapters.

In other words, in the first 2 chapters, there was no death.

In the last 2 chapters, there's a perfect diet.

We know there's a tree of life in the first chapter.

We know there's a tree of life in the last chapter.

And so we can see then in the Scriptures that God has a plan, which some people call it the plan of salvation.

But whichever term you use, it is to signify that God has a plan by which he's going to take you from the beginning to the new beginning.

I'm glad it doesn't say from the beginning to the end, that God doesn't have an end for his children.

God has a new beginning for his children.

Now, in the beginning, there was 1 faith.

The Lord has spoken to man, Adam and his wife, and gave them the understanding that they needed to have in order to maintain a present relationship with their Maker, a face-to-face communion with the Maker.

But something happened, something went wrong, and sin came in.

When sin came in, it divided that 1 faith, and it became 2.

1 is following the way that God ordained it.

The other 1 is following the way he dictated.

So you have 2 separate faiths now, 2 divergent faiths.

And when you come actually to the chapter 6 of Genesis, you will find then that what's happening is that those 2 faiths have merged.

Have merged, and the 1 faith that God gave that was to be maintained pure became polluted.

But God always maintained the truth or that faith through those people who were called seed carriers.

In other words, today we understand that whole idea of a carrier.

Hope in the Future- Part 3

We begin with a text, and it's 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 27 and 28.

And it says, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

And base things of the world and things which are despised have God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are.

Our Father, we thank you for your precious word.

We pray that you will anchor us deeper and deeper upon that which you have said is your word.

Speaking about small things or foolish things that confound the wise, there's a beetle called a bombardier beetle.

But the rest of you have never heard of it or seen it.

And it's called a bombardier because it has guns in the back like an airplane with a turret that has guns that shoot.

Now, what's interesting about this beetle is that it has the ability from its tail to shoot different directions.

Here, it's shooting underneath himself toward the front.

You see, you can see the spray coming out.

Can you see now the spray going down toward the bottom?

And now the spray is moving and now we are shooting directly to the back.

And so this beetle is an amazing little beetle.

It actually has a gun that it shoots at its enemy when it's being attacked.

And the liquid that it uses is 10% hydroquinone and 23% hydrogen peroxide.

Now what's interesting is that when you mix those 2 chemicals, they explode immediately.

Now if you believe in evolution, then you have to think of this process.

These little beetles were trying to figure out how to defend themselves, and they came up with somehow with the idea that if they could mix these 2 chemicals, then they would be able to defend themselves.

You had to do something to mix them at the right time.

If you don't mix them at the right time, they will explode.

In other words, they had to put them in separate containers.

So these beetles had to figure out, number 1, which chemicals to find to be able to mix.

Number 2, make sure that they did not mix until they needed them to be mixed.

So these ingenious beetles, billions of years ago, were trying to figure out a way to defend themselves and they first came up with the hydroquinine and then they came up with hydrogen peroxide.

And 1 time they mixed it and the beetle got blown up.

So every beetle that came after here tried to mix it and that got blown up and got blown up and got blown up and blown up and blown up.

And finally the next beetle decided we got to do something about it getting blown up.

So they decided that they had to separate the chemicals.

So, now they had chemicals that separated, but it didn't do anything for them because while the chemicals were separated, they didn't do what they were supposed to do.

So, they kept these chemicals in these containers within their bodies, millions and millions and millions of years.

They've been eaten up and eaten up and eaten up and eaten up, they can't defend themselves.

So finally they decided to come up with a mechanism where they could actually use these chemicals to defend themselves.

And but the other chambers had, here they are.

You can see the picture of the chambers inside.

So now they had 2 chambers, or glands, which produced the liquid mixture, and then 2 connecting chambers.

So now they had to take the liquid into a chamber that was connected.

But because the liquids would explode immediately, they had to put something to stop the reaction.

So they created a substance to stop the reaction so now you have the 2 liquids together and they would what?

Not explode because now they had an anti-explosion concoction.

So millions and millions and millions and years, they're getting eaten up still, so then they figured out what they could do.

Then they put it into a separate chamber, and that chamber then they put the anti-explosion remover and boom!

After millions and millions and millions of years, they finally figured out how to perfect the system so that the liquids could be contained and then put in the right combustion chamber, and then at the right time, it could explode when they needed to eject the chemical to defend themselves.

That beetle didn't have the brains to figure all that chemistry out.

I mean, even Einstein took him a long time to figure things out.

And you recognize that it's taken mankind, if they have been around for millions of years, it's taken mankind millions and millions of years to figure out where to get where we are right now.

And we still haven't gotten where we're supposed to get.

So, it is true then that God uses the simple things to confound what?

Here's a little beetle that it is unexplainable how that little beetle figured out how to correctly put these chemicals, the right chemicals number 1, with the right percentage, did you hear that, number 2, and know how to actually keep them apart and then combine them so that they could do the job that they need to be doing in order to shoot at the enemy when it is being attacked.

They're befuddled because they can't figure this thing out.

As long as they believe in evolution, they never will figure it out.

Because there's something to the call irreducible complex systems.

Irreducible, that means you cannot reduce it.

If you take 1 part off the mousetrap, will it work?

No, so all the parts have to be in place precisely at the same time in order for the mousetrap to work.

Well, in your bodies, you have a lot of irreducible complex systems, like the eye.

If the eye has 1 part missing, you cannot see, period.

So all the parts have to be in place at the same time in order for you to see.

And that's only 1 mechanism, besides all the other mechanisms that you have in your system.

So it's called irreducible, which means cannot be reduced, complex systems.

And this little beetle is 1 of those examples.

So God uses the simple things to confound the wise.

Series

Hope in the Future

Hope in the Future- Part 3

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Why Am I a SDA?

1. Does the Truth Really Matter?

35m

Emerging Church Symposium

The Serpent’s Whisper

1h 10m

Plenary Sessions

Are You an Evolutionist?

54m

Twin Cities

And God Said

1h 32m

Wondering After the Beast

45m

Plenary

A Church on Life Support

1h 25m

Where Is Your Faith?

1h

Back to the Mission

The Battle Cry of the Remnant

1h 1m

Antichrist: The One You've Never Known

Antichrist, Episode 6: Revealed

38m

The Supremacy of Scripture

1h 11m

Reed Shaken With The Wind

1h

When Lady Liberty Lays Down the Torch

49m

Sound Doctrine