FYI 2009: Awake!

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Florida Youth Initiative

Scott Moore: Do or Die

Scott Moore

Communicate: Say it or Die

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to eat today.

We ask that you will help us not to take that for granted, but to appreciate it.

And Lord, we ask that you will fill us with your Spirit as we learn how to give our personal testimony, and as we look at Scripture, about how important that is.

Thank you for the privilege of being here today.

Let's go to 1 John 1, verses 1, 2, and 3.

3 ok first john chapter 1 verses 1 2 & 3 and Danielle would you like to read that for us that for us?

Did you find it Did you find a restroom over here?

With us from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life.

For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.

And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

All right, verse 1, John says simply this, the only thing that we have shared with you is what?

That which was from the beginning which we have heard, this is verse 1, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life." So John says, the things that we experienced ourselves, verse 3, that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you.

So what did John share with people when it came to sharing the message of Christ?

What did he share with them specifically?

So, in verse 3 it says, "...that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." That is what God expects us to share with people.

When we learn the Adventist message, or when we grew up in the Adventist message, there came some point in our experience where we were challenged.

And then we are able to share our experience with somebody else.

If we haven't been challenged yet on our faith, it will happen.

So John simply says that what we shared with you is what we saw and what we heard, what we looked upon or what our experience was.

So no matter whose testimony you read in here, you are reading about man's relationship with God.

And this book has changed the entire world and it is our testimony that will continue to change the world and draw people's attention to the Bible, the Word of God that contains the power of God.

This is, I forget exactly where it's from, but it will tell us in just a second.

God could have reached his object in saving sinners without our aid.

Remember there's nothing that God can't do.

God could have reached His object in saving sinners without our aid, but...

Now that word, but, is a contrasting word, isn't it?

So that means, in total contradiction to what was just said, in order for us to develop a character like Christ's, we must share in His work.

So God could have done it without us, but in order for us to develop a character like Christ's, We must share in His work.

In order to enter into His joy, the joy of seeing souls redeemed by His sacrifice, we must participate in His labors for their redemption.

So God can do it without us, but in order for us to develop a character like God's, like Christ's, we must share in His labors.

Let's go to, let me see, it's Romans I believe, Romans or Hebrews, so we're going to Hebrews Hebrews chapter 12, right past the T section, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 and 2.

Therefore, seeing we also are passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every way, and the sin which doeth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame, and He sat down as the right hand of the throne of God.

So verse 2 there, it says, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame." And notice what this says, in order to enter into His joy, The joy of what?

It's for want of our testimony that this world is perishing.

And we're too embarrassed to even do that.

We're going to look at some commands of Jesus.

Matthew, of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, chapter 16 and verse 15.

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.

So is it important for us to share what we ourselves have seen and heard and felt with other people.

It generally sets them at ease and actually they realize that If they would think about it, they would have similar testimonies.

Well look at the text itself there in verse 16.

So what makes it so important for us to be just like John or Peter or Mark?

Okay, what are we saving people from when we give them our testimony and they're turned toward the Bible?

Jesus said in verse 15, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Is that a command?

Does He say, well, since you're in a wheelchair you don't need to do that?

Does he say, well you stutter so you don't need to do that?

He just says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

Matthew 28, so you're just backing up 1 book, going to the left there.

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I command you.

And, lo, I will do all that is given unto me in the world.

Alright, so Jesus says there in verse 19, Go ye therefore and teach all nations.

Conviction: Recognize it or They Die, Part 1

Father, we just ask again that your presence will be with us, that we will be able to glorify you by what we learn here.

And Lord, as we notice people come in under conviction, we ask that you will give us the courage to draw them back to your word so that they can be saved.

We're doing an evangelistic meeting and a man comes to church just during the evangelistic meeting, he comes to church, hasn't been to church for 40 years.

40 years prior to that, Jenny, he'd married a Catholic and his family had disowned him, completely disowned him because he married a Catholic.

So he decided forget the church, forget God, forget everything, hadn't been to church for 40 years.

On that day we make a passionate appeal for baptism and this man stands up to be rebaptized.

He's baptized on a Sabbath and then that Monday the pastor of the church and I go to visit with him.

Ron Werner is the pastor's name out in Sheridan, Oregon.

You won't find a better pianist in the world.

That guy can just play out of this world.

So we go to visit this gentleman that has just been baptized and I'm sitting on a couch over here and He's sitting here and his wife is sitting over there and the pastor is of course sitting beside me.

And I just said, you know brother, I just want to praise the Lord for the decision that you made and that you were baptized.

And then I looked at his wife, Her name was Marisol.

And I said, Marisol, which Sabbath would you like to become a Seventh-day Adventist Christian?

And she said, you think I need to be re-baptized?

You know this lady has known about the Sabbath for 40 years.

Of course she doesn't do any of that anymore.

I wanted to say, absolutely, you need to be rebaptized.

But right then, God just impressed me so much that I never said anything about baptism.

All I did was ask her when she would like to become a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.

And so I said, Marisol, Did you hear somebody say something about baptism?

And she got this real solemn look on her face.

She said and she started to get contemplated and then she just blurted out again You think I need to be rebaptized?

I know drinking, I know smoking, he beating me, he beating the children, he need to be rebaptized, I don't need to be baptized.

And I said, Marisol, did I say anything about baptism?

I said, who do you think said something about baptism?

She said, But I've been keeping, I've been doing everything God has asked me to do.

So she got her Bible out and I said, I want you to turn to the New Testament book of James.

We went right to James, right after Hebrews, you have James.

And I got up from where I was sitting and I went over to where she was sitting and I sat down beside her and I hand she had her Bible and I had my Bible I said Marisol read for me James chapter 2 verse 10 and Veronica can you read that for us?

And at that point she just began to weep She began to cry and she said, Oh, Pastor, I have known about the Sabbath for so long, but I have never kept it.

She said, I think I want to be baptized the next Sabbath.

Many times when people are under conviction and they want to argue with us, We just want to put up our hands and we just want to smack him with this text or smack him with that text.

When if we start doing that, we'll find out later that we lose all of the power that was working on that person's heart.

There is a key to gaining a decision when it comes to giving a Bible study or preaching an evangelistic meeting or preaching a sermon on Sabbath.

You never, ever, ever give a Bible study or preach a sermon or preach an evangelistic meaning sermon without giving an appeal.

If you leave off the appeal, this is not your high school or college speech class where you give an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

You never have a conclusion in a Bible study.

And that appeal has to worm its way into someone's heart.

And when you're appealing to people, they start showing different signs of conviction.

So let's talk a little bit about the key to gaining a decision.

The key to gaining a decision is called conviction.

Now conviction, in conviction you have positive indicators of conviction and negative indicators of conviction.

We were doing an evangelistic meeting in Mount Tabor, Oregon.

There's this, the pastor there told me, he said, listen you can't preach an evangelistic meeting on jewelry in my church.

He said, you can't preach an evangelistic meeting on jewelry in my church.

I said, listen pastor, with all due respect, you're not the 1 that pays my salary and you guys asked me to come here and to be an evangelist for this meeting, so I'm gonna preach whatever the Lord impresses me to preach.

He says, well, well you can't preach on the wedding band.

I said, I tell you what pastor, I'm gonna preach on what the Bible says on jewelry, and if you want to kick me out and you want to explain to everybody exactly why I'm not here to preach tonight, you're more than welcome to do that." And he said, well you're gonna lose my members for me, you're gonna lose them, my members are gonna leave the church, and the church there was a very, very, it was a very liberal church, if you can use that terminology.

And so I got up to preach that night and man, I just went into that sermon with just fear and trembling, praying my heart out.

And there was a, when we were all finished, you know, you're standing at the back, shaking the hands of the people as they're leaving.

And this church member stayed until everybody was gone.

And she had big old ruby rings, big old brooches, huge earrings, stones.

They weren't just silver or gold things, they were big huge stones, very gaudy jewelry, very expensive jewelry.

And when everybody was gone, she looks around, She looks at me and she said, You preached that just for me, didn't you?

I said, You know, there were lots of people in here tonight that had jewelry on.

I said, yeah, there were lots of people here tonight with jewelry on.

But I'm so glad that God made it feel as though that message were just for you.

She said, now I've just got to pray about what I'm gonna do.

I said, I tell you what, I too will pray that God gives you the courage to do what He has shown you to do." She says, yeah, I'm gonna go home and pray about it.

I said, well you pray sister and I'll be praying.

The next night she comes to the evangelistic meeting, all of her jewelry is still on.

She comes to the back, she looks around to the left and the right, she looks at me and she says, well you can see I still haven't done what God asked me to do.

I said, well at least you know that it's God asking you to do it.

The next night she came to the evangelistic meeting, not 1 stitch of jewelry on.

Conviction: Recognize it or They Die, Part 2

I usually am awake way before it's time to be up, yeah.

So I'll get 6 to 7 hours of sleep if I'm blessed.

My brother can do that, but I gotta get my sleep.

I have to get my sleep, but I can't sleep.

Bring a kid to bed and sit there for an hour or 2 before you can get your sleep.

You know if you take your book and you bring it closer to your eyes It strains your eyes, and it makes you tired very quickly.

Alright, well yesterday I told you that what we were going to do first thing this morning is we were going to bring each other to decisions.

And Andrew, I'm going to have to bring you up to speed about what we talked about yesterday.

When we give a Bible study or we do a sermon, people will give us excuses.

You ask the question at the end of your Bible study, at the end of your sermon, what would keep you?

Is there anything that would keep you from accepting Jesus today?

Is there anything that would keep you from following what God has taught us?

Is there anything that would keep you from putting those cigarettes down?

Once they give you that excuse, your job is to say, you know, I went to a particular class, I went to this class and they taught me that God has something to say about everything.

And so taped here in the front of my Bible, and what you'll do is you'll just cut this thing out, and you'll tape that right in the front of your Bible, and you say in the front of my Bible I have a sheet of the most common reasons people say that they can't do what God is asking them to do.

And then I'll go over there and I'll sit next to that person.

If I've been sitting across from them, I'll scoot closer to them, and we'll look at this sheet together.

I'm hiding nothing when I'm over at somebody's house.

The only agenda I have is for them to hear the truth.

If we can persuade them, go to, well, we'll talk about that in the next class.

So what we're going to do now is we are going to think of some excuses, some very common excuses that people give us.

For example, somebody says, I can't keep the Sabbath because I'll lose my job.

So what we're going to do is we are going to bring each other to a decision.

So you think of an excuse, whether that's smoking, whether that's you don't want to take your rings off, whether that's you can't keep the Sabbath because you're gonna lose your job, you think of an excuse and then we're gonna bring each other to a decision by asking what would keep you, and the person that has the excuse says, well, you know, I can't keep the Sabbath because I'm going to lose my job.

And then you say, well, I went to a class, and in that class, I learned that God has something to say about everything.

And so what you have there on the top, these are just duplicates of each other.

The bottom is just a larger font than the top.

And these are common excuses that people give us when we're having Bible studies with them or when we go over to clear that person for baptism.

And you remember from yesterday that you always point people back to the source of conviction, and the source of conviction is God.

So you're going to overcome excuses with Scripture.

You're not going to overcome excuses with reason.

You're not going to overcome excuses with argument.

You're just going to overcome it with Scripture.

And when you ask what would keep you, they give you the excuse.

You overcome that excuse with Scripture, and then you ask the question again, is there anything that would keep you?

And then they're going to give you another excuse.

So we're actually going to practice that right now.

So we're going to get in groups of 2, well we'll have 1 group of 2 and 1 group of 3, and then I'm going to float between the 2.

And so 1 person in the group of 3 is going to be an observer.

Okay, so let's have a word of prayer and then we'll start doing that.

Father, we thank you so much for the privilege right now of being able to practice bringing someone to a decision.

You know that this is the most important part of giving a Bible study.

We ask, Lord, that you will teach us through experience right now in this bubble of a classroom how we can bring each other to a decision.

Okay, so why don't the 3 of you get together and then you 2 get together and 1 of you is going to be the excuser and 1 of you is going to be the 1 that overcomes the excuse with Scripture.

And I'm just gonna bounce back and forth between the 2 and listen.

To begin with, we've got quite a few minutes of doing this.

So, you've given me a decision card, okay?

You know, I've thought about it and I've thought about it and I just don't think it's right for me at this time.

I got a job, and if I don't work Saturday, I lost my job.

I got 3 kids and a wife to feed and big mortgage payments.

I just can't really let go of that job at the present time.

Maybe come back and we'll talk about this in 6, 8 months from now.

Maybe try to make some other arrangements.

But you do feel like from the presentation the other night that God has called you to honor His Sabbath.

Yes, that's true, but I'm thinking God would maybe give me a little more time to let me, just to get my house in order before I make that decision.

You know, Jim, because you're the head of your family, all of the decisions that you make will have an eternal impact on your wife and your children.

You know statistically, when fathers accept the truth, over 80% of the time their family accepts the truth and walks in it.

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Scott Moore: Do or Die

Conviction: Recognize it or They Die, Part 1

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