FYI 2009: Awake!

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Florida Youth Initiative

FYI 2009 Plenary Sessions

Dwayne Lemon

From World-class Dancer to Word of God Preacher

Father in Heaven, we just rejoice, dear God, that we can commune with Heaven.

Father, we just want to take every advantage that you desire to give to us at this time.

Speak to us through the power of your Holy Spirit, and may our hearts be warmed as we see that we truly can overcome even by the Word of others' testimonies.

This is our prayer that we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

I wanted to let you know that when the book of Revelation 12 tells us that we can overcome by the Word of others' testimonies.

That's a very true statement because when I first came into the Seventh-day Adventist church, the area of service that I enjoyed most was Wednesday night prayer service.

And I actually enjoyed that the most, believe it or not, because I loved the testimony time.

And I guess that probably came because of, you know, a lot of things that I started to do as far as working for the Lord when I came to the church.

But prior to that, I was born and raised in Queens, New York, and I was in the concrete jungle of New York and just trying to figure out where I belong in the whole realm of society.

My mother was from the Virgin Islands, St.

Thomas to be exact, And my father was from Charleston, South Carolina.

And I was not raised in a Christian home.

And I tell you the truth, I always tell young people, I said, I did not have the privilege of being raised in a Christian home.

And The reason why I say that is because you guys have to understand it's a privilege to be raised in a Seventh-day Adventist Christian home.

Because for those of us who are in the world who have now come into this wonderful, marvelous light, we are now in this light.

We thank God for this light, but I'll tell you the truth.

Behind and under our suits are serious scars.

And they may not be physical scars, but they are scars that this world puts on you because of the practice of worldly lifestyle.

So therefore, even though you may say, oh wow, you know, I want to go out into the world and I want to try some things out and maybe I can make it back.

Then brothers and sisters, don't deceive yourselves.

No 1 has the promise of going out into the world, trying a whole bunch of worldly things and then making it back in.

When I was in Queens, New York, I did not have anything.

My parents simply told me, look, don't kill nobody, don't steal nothing, and more than likely you'll make it to heaven.

I said, all right, I don't have to kill anyone, I don't have to steal anything, so it's all for nothing for everything else.

And I lived my life where we were very much into video games and doing a lot of TV and watching TV and things of that nature.

But 1 day, my father started to play music.

And as he started to play certain music, I grew up in a home where there was no hip hop, but there was something that was a gentleman by the name of George Clinton and there was a style of music called P-Funk.

And this was a style of music that was very much played all throughout my house along with rhythm and blues or R&B.

And I would listen to these different forms of music and though my brother Leslie would play the bass and though my brother Michael might sing, I couldn't play any instruments, I couldn't sing.

But I always found that when music would turn on, my feet would start moving.

And next thing you know, I discovered at a very young age that I had this ability to move to music.

So next thing you know, I became the little celebrity in my home.

Whenever we would have barbecues, whenever we would have people come on by, my father would say, hey, Dwayne, come on out here.

And next thing you know, I'd come in the backyard and he would say, go ahead and do that dance step.

And there I am and I'm just, and I'm doing my dance step and I'm just kind of doing my thing trying to have what I thought was fun.

And I discovered at that age that dancing was a part of my life.

And I did not have any type of dancing background, I never took classes or anything like that, but every time the music played, my body moved.

And what happened was over a period of time, this was simply something that I did at home, And this was something that I just listened to the music, I'd move to the music, and I just simply considered it having fun.

And as time went on, my mother and my father, they saw that I had a talent.

They said, you know, you really know how to dance.

Because quite honestly, I was very insecure.

As a youth, I did not think much of myself at all.

At that time, being a dark-skinned, young black man in those days, and I was born in 1972, so I just told my age to you.

And you know, and here it is that as I was growing up, you know, at that time, you know, it was, people made a lot of jokes about dark-skinned kids.

And I never thought much of myself about anything.

But the 1 thing that I knew, in fact, my outlet that I had at that time, because I did not have Christ, my outlet was my dancing.

My dancing was my ability to zone the world out, and I can just kind of do something and be in my own world.

And maybe that's why I took it so seriously as a youth.

Well here it is that as time went on, my parents started saying, you know what, you really know how to dance, you really know how to do this thing.

And next thing you know, after a period of time, as I got into my teenage years, I started to get some freedom.

You know, freedom wasn't something very available as I was young, young, young.

But once I started getting about 15 years old, mom and dad started letting me go to parties.

So what would happen is I would start going to parties and I would gather with all of my friends and we would go to parties and it was like every time we used to have this thing.

Whenever we would go to a party, the person, you know, who wanted to dance, they would stick their arms out like this.

And then the other guy would come behind him and put both arms under him like that.

And then the person would take the guy and spin him around inside of the party.

And that was the way to get everybody out of your way.

And next thing you know, everybody would have to back up and now you got this big stage that you can now dance.

And then after we kicked everybody out of the way, the next thing you know, I jump in and I start dancing.

And that was my way of just blacking out the world so I can go ahead and do what I did.

Everybody would say, oh, you guys are the best.

We started giving ourselves all sorts of names.

And the name that our team was called was called Quiet Storm.

And we used to call ourselves the Quiet Storm because we started telling every beetle, we started telling everybody that We walk soft, but we hit hard.

So we would go inside clubs and we would come in real humble and we just, you know, it was false humility, but you know, we were, because we knew we were going to basically beat everybody there, but we would walk inside and we just look at everyone, kind of stand back and just watch them and just say, okay, he looks like he might be tough.

All right, I'm not going to mess with him.

And I mean, we used to just size everybody up, you know?

And then what would happen is we would go ahead and we would go ahead and start battling and we'd start going back and forth, back and forth.

And we'd just start dancing and we would start going to places and we would win opportunities to you know, get a trophy or something like that.

And then 1 day as I'm doing all of this dancing and I'm starting to realize that I got this talent, a friend of mine came to me and he said, hey listen, he said, you ever thought about going professional?

And he said, well you ever thought that maybe you could make some money doing this thing?

I said, man, that would be nice because you know, I was ready to dance for free anyhow, so to make some money, that was like a bonus.

He said, well, there's this thing called auditions.

And they would say, you know, they have these auditions in Manhattan.

We're going to go ahead and we're going to invite you to come on out to these auditions, and then we want you to just dance and put together some routines and share it with the people.

So next thing you know I'd get a phone call and say, hey, there's an audition.

And I found out there was this group, and they go way back, some of you maybe had never heard of them, but there was a group called Third Base.

And this group called Third Base had a guy that worked with them named Don Newkirk.

So Don Newkirk, he said, hey, I need some dancers.

So he ended up doing a video that was called Small Thing.

And it was a really small thing because nobody ever saw it, it seems.

But nevertheless, he did this video and I was a dancer for him, and just to see a camera in front of me and to know that I was gonna get 25 whole dollars, I was like, man, I'm rich.

Lessons from Our Pioneers

Is there anybody in this room that is still sleeping?

I don't know how anyone could come to meetings like this where you can hear a gentleman by the name of Peter Gregory open up the Bible and to expound from the epistles of John, take the Scriptures that were written so long ago and make them apply to us today right here in 2009.

I don't know how you can come morning after morning.

Listen to a gentleman like Benjamin Nguyen who would come before us and would share with us prophecy, the prophetic line of events and how they come in their order, to also talk about how we must apply this knowledge of the law that is in our minds and allow it to transition to our hearts.

I don't know how anybody can go to a seminar by a man named Jeff Arthur where we are learning 1 of the most important principles in the Bible, which is to understand the role of relationships and how we ought to conduct ourselves, whether it's dealing with courtship, the family, siblings, or even how we deal with 1 another as brethren.

I know that we love prophecy, and I don't know how it is that we can look at something like prophecy and not realize that in the book of Daniel, 1 of the things that the Bible shows us as it relates to Babylon and Daniel being there And how 1 of the very things that took place before everyone bowed down to the image was that music was played.

And how is it that we are able to listen to a gentleman like Shawn Myers, who was able to connect and show us the role of music in its counterfeit sphere as it relates to how the devil's gonna use it, but then in its true and most beautiful sphere of how God intended for it to be used.

How do we not understand that the very breath of the Christian is when we do the work of evangelism?

And we go to a class where a gentleman by the name of Scott Moore is able to show us all of the wonderful principles of evangelism, the reasons why, the how-to, and also all the divine mechanics that God has shown us through the last-day work of evangelism.

Brothers and sisters, How do you hear a message like what we heard yesterday from Brother Sizemore where he showed us very clearly where we are in prophecy?

How do we hear messages like this and still remain asleep?

Brothers and sisters, my heart truly prays that every single 1 of us are awake.

And at this time, God has commissioned me to give you something that you might go home with.

You know, Sometimes when people shake my hands, and I don't know, maybe some of you might have thought this to yourself as you shook my hand.

But sometimes people shake my hand and some of them say it with their lips, but probably others think it in their mind and they say, man, his hands are so soft.

But brothers and sisters, I always tell people if you really want to see the calluses, all you got to do is look at my brain Because I'm always thinking.

When I talk to people, I'm literally praying as I'm talking to them.

Because I'm counting on God for everything.

I'm like, Lord, Put the right words in my mouth.

Help me to express this thought properly.

And I've been praying about this last message because this is the challenge that I'm to give to God's people.

And brothers and sisters, you will find that in the ending of Jesus' ministry here on this earth, as Jesus saw that everything was about to close around him, Jesus gave some very important words of instruction to his disciples because he knew that soon and very soon he was about to depart.

And brothers and sisters, I believe that many of us are awake.

But I also believe that there's a chance that we might repeat history.

For history shows us over and over and over again about the stories of individuals who awoke when they were sleeping.

And so I want you to contemplate in your minds with me as we're going to review a brief little lesson from our pioneers.

And before I do that, I want to simply say this.

If there might be 1 person in this room that has heard the utterance of prophecy, you've heard about the mark of the beast, you've heard about the time of trouble, you've heard terms like death decree, and you've heard all these different things.

And sometimes, depending on where we are in our walk with Jesus, when we hear these terms, for many individuals, it doesn't bring up a longing to see Jesus, but it brings up a fear to say, Lord, can I make it?

When you hear about the blotting out of sin, God's people having victory over sin, When you hear about all these different things, sometimes, think about it, we grew up, some of us, listening to secular music and all these other things.

Some of us have been involved in all sorts of sports and different types of things.

We heard startling information even about our dress over this weekend.

And some of us sometimes will listen to these things and we'll say to ourselves, wow, you know what?

But I'm so thankful for a nice little quote that I remember reading and it was in a little letter called Life Sketches 196.

And in Life Sketches 196, the prophet of God says, we have nothing to fear for the future.

Brothers and sisters, we have nothing to fear for the future except that we forget the way God has led us in our past teaching and in our past history.

If we do not learn from what took place in times of old, we are assured to repeat history.

In fact, we are doomed to repeat history.

And so I want you to just gain this little lesson that I will share with you in these closing thoughts as we look to the lessons from our pioneers.

Before we do this, as much as possible, I'm going to invite you to kneel with me as we go before God in prayer.

As much as you are able to, let us kneel together.

Our Father in heaven, Lord, this is the final message to be given to your people during this wonderful FYI meeting.

We thank you for the great revivals that took place here.

Father, we thank you for truly opening our eyes that we were able to behold wondrous things out of thy law.

And Father, we come to you at this time because Lord, we know that History shall be repeated, but Father, we are careful to remember that there was a positive and a negative aspect to history.

Our desire is that our lives may testify of the positive side and not the negative.

And so, Lord, you give us your Word that we might be guided into all truth and that you may help us.

And Father, we commit ourselves into your hands at this time.

Please, Father, remove every distraction.

Help us to give unadulterated attention to the things that we are about to see.

And may we truly not only be awake, but by your grace and your power, help us to stay awake.

For this is our prayer that we ask, dear God.

And I start with myself, help me to stay awake.

For this is our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

The same way that you heard a startling message, You heard wonderful truths as they were explained from the books of Daniel and Revelation.

And as I saw in your eyes, as I'm sure many of your instructors saw in their eyes, As I saw literally the light turn on in your mind and you saw something that woke you up and got you excited and serious about your walk with Jesus, there was a man who was part of the military.

And in 1874, this man who was once part of the military, he ended up hearing the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation.

If you can work the slide from the back, that's fine.

And brothers and sisters, Don't lose your focus on this.

This man was none other than a gentleman by the name of A.T.

Jones, he was in the military And he was doing as men in the military do.

But 1 day he caught wind of the messages of Daniel and Revelation, and that time came in 1874.

And Here it is that when he heard those wonderful messages of Daniel and Revelation, he stayed in the military for 1 more year, and then thereafter, he left that military and he continued to study Bible prophecy.

He was sleeping, but God's message woke him up.

And as Brother Jones was taking this message, brothers and sisters, he took that message so seriously in his heart that he began to advance quickly.

He started to memorize Scripture, and he was able not only to memorize, but he was able to explain it with holy ghost power to the point that 1 statement that was said about him by the prophet of God dealing with the success of Elder A.T.

Jones, She says, the Lord in his great mercy sent a most precious message to his people through elders who?

It says, this message, and this message was what message, brothers and sisters?

Righteousness by faith always belonged to the movement known as Seventh-day Adventist.

You can't faithfully preach the third angel's message and exclude righteousness by faith.

Because right there when it says, here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus, brothers and sisters, Right inside of that very text of Scripture, you find righteousness by faith.

Because Psalm 119, 172 says, all thy commandments are righteousness.

And if you and I are keeping the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus, then that means all the patient saints are experiencing righteousness by faith.

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Series

FYI 2009 Plenary Sessions

Lessons from Our Pioneers

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Living the Word

1h 12m

Breakout Session #2

Following Christ Through the Crisis

1h 20m

FYI 2009 Plenary Sessions

From World-class Dancer to Word of God Preacher

1h

The Necessary Experience

1h 18m

Plenary

When Temptations Return

1h 18m

Christian Martin Weekend

How To Avoid Being a Good for Nothing Christian

50m

Preparing for the Latter Rain: The Judgment Hour Message

Prepare To Meet Your God

1h 15m

The Resurrection and Life- Raising Lazarus, Part 2

46m

The Faith of Jesus

1h 17m

Walk Humbly

49m

How YOU Can Bring Closure for Jesus

1h 4m

Being True to Our Trust

What the Law Could Not Do

50m

Sound Doctrine