Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Plenary

Sabbath School 1

I'm really excited as a part of the Grow Michigan initiative.

We have some canvassers up here and we're going to share a little bit about how they were baptized and came into the Seventh-day Adventist Church and adding to the Michigan membership.

He's going to be a baptized member for a year tomorrow.

And so please share with us a little bit how you came into the church.

So I didn't grow up with a religious background.

But praise the Lord, I have faithful grandparents who are here right now, and they never stopped reaching out to me and praying for me.

And 1 day my grandfather, on a phone call, he continued to try to get me to read the Bible and study the Bible, and so after that phone call, I was really convicted to study the Bible.

And so I went through all the lessons, and I went through Unlocked Revelation, which happened around the same time as those Bible studies, and that's where I made the decision to be baptized.

Her name is Haley, and you've been an Adventist for a really, really long time, since February 4th of this year.

She's already knocking on doors, and she's gonna be knocking on literally thousands of doors this summer.

Share with us a little bit about how you came into the church.

Yeah, So I didn't grow up in a religious household at all, either.

I lived a very worldly lifestyle, just with partying and things like that.

And 3 years ago, I came to a point in my life where I just really wanted to know what truth is.

And I met a really amazing lady who, she introduced me to Christianity, and I went to a non-denominational church because that was really all I knew.

But meanwhile, my friend Chris, he was on a similar spiritual journey last year, and he had just done these Bible studies, and he was really excited about these Bible studies.

So he gave me some, and— And what were the Bible studies, by the way?

The Bible studies were the—it is written Bible studies.

And so he did a Bible study with me and then gave me the whole box of the Bible studies.

And I started to do them on my own, and it seemed like I was stuck on the Sabbath study for like 2 months until Chris went to Emanuel Institute, and then he kind of learned how to do Bible studies there.

And as I went through all of the Bible studies, I started keeping the Sabbath and the Lord helped me have victories over a lot of the things that were holding me back from getting closer to him.

Like I stopped drinking and I stopped doing drugs and my vocabulary changed, my diet changed, the way that I dressed changed.

Literally everything about me started to change and the most important thing that started to change was my heart because I just kept falling so in love with Jesus.

And I went to GYC in Texas this last year and that completely changed my life.

Pastor Moise actually made an appeal the first night I was there for baptism.

And I just decided that that was the commitment I wanted to make to Christ.

I met with Pastor Ackenberger in Traverse City like in January for baptism to make sure that that was the commitment I wanted to make.

And February 4th, I got baptized in my wonderful home church of Boynt City.

And I was just so excited about the truth that the Lord was showing me that I wanted to go canvassing this summer.

And then I'm doing Emanuel Institute in August.

And then I'm going to be doing the missionary training program through campus at Michigan State.

And Chris, you really forgot to mention that it was at Emanuel where they really directed you to say and said, find 1 Bible study contact, and you thought of Haley.

We had started the studies a while ago, and like she said, I just dropped the box off and expected her to do them, but I quickly learned at Emanuel that's not how you do things.

And so after that, I started learning a couple of things, and praise the Lord for that.

And I just want to encourage you, If you haven't heard about Emanuel Institute, and you want to be trained on how to give Bible studies, you really need to look that up.

And also for students that are attending public universities, campus also has a training program.

And every year we take students, even non-Adventists, to GYC.

And it is like a fire hydrant if you've ever been to GYC in terms of getting the message.

But praise God that Pastor Moise made that appeal and she accepted that call to baptism.

Chris, can you share a little bit about campus and how that connects with Miranda?

Yeah, so after I was baptized and went through a manual, I decided also to go through campus to learn how to be a missionary for God.

And during that time last year, we had a tent meeting in the middle of campus.

And we had things like music, free food, massages, and a prayer wall.

And that's where Miranda found us on campus.

So just to share a little bit of my background, I was born into a Christian home, but it was more Christian by name than Christian by lifestyle.

And also in high school, I was very involved in the Baptist church.

At that point in my life I called myself a Christian, but I didn't really know what that truly meant in my life.

And Towards the end of my high school experience, I started having more spiritual interests and drawing closer to God.

I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but through prayer I kind of learned that Michigan State University was where I was supposed to go.

So upon arriving there, I had a lot of friends that lived worldly lifestyles.

I knew that wasn't how I was supposed to be living.

So I started praying daily just to find a good group of Christian friends.

And 1 day, I was actually walking across campus to meet a friend but she ended up canceling on me and normally since MSU is such a big place I used my GPS but that day I decided just to go exploring and wandering around and I actually I actually stumbled upon a big tent which was the Crave Tour that Chris was talking about.

And yeah, so I met a lot of awesome people there and I just had a great time at the Crave Tour and I actually signed up for the small groups that they had.

And so while I was attending the small groups, I learned a lot of things about the Bible that I'd never learned before.

And I also just realized that God answered my prayers through the small groups.

I started hanging around with a lot of the people there, and I found family in them.

They like turned into my family after a little bit.

And yeah, their Christian influence and just like the examples they had in my life just by how they lived their lives, it just made like a huge impact on me.

And while I was studying the Bible, I started to give up things in my life that God showed me weren't right and God showed me that I should get rid of those things.

And eventually he impressed me to be baptized and after talking to Pastor Jermaine Gale, I decided that I needed Jesus in my life and I needed to fully commit to him and so I did.

I was baptized on January 28th this year, 2017.

Yeah, and after that, just like Haley, I was super excited just to share the Lord's Word and just everything that he had shown me in the past few months.

And so I also decided to go canvassing and dedicate my summer to him and also dedicate the next year of my life to him through campus ministries.

And I'm also going to Emmanuel Institute so God has definitely been leading my life in an awesome path.

How many of you think it would be a good thing if we had hundreds up here next year because you, because myself, are giving Bible studies, seeking the law so that we can hasten the soon return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Let's go ahead and close out this session, and then we're going to transition to the Sabbath School panel.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this time, this opportunity to see how you're working in the lives of young people.

And Lord, where there are 3 here this morning, we pray for hundreds, if not thousands, in the state of Michigan to be 1 to the 3 angels' message and ultimately into the hands of Jesus Christ.

So we pray in a special way for this work that's being done.

We pray for the 3 here that are knocking on doors this summer and the rest of the group that are working the doors throughout the state of Michigan.

Bless their efforts and be with us as we discuss Sabbath school.

May the words that be are spoken, not be our own words, but words from on high.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who answers all prayers if we ask in his name.

All right, saints of God, if you will go ahead and turn with me, we're going to be studying in depth the passage of 2 Peter 3, verses 1 through 14.

Stephen Bohr

Church - God’s Great Week

In the presentations that I will share with you here at Michigan Camp Meeting, I want to focus on 3 distinctives of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

These 3 distinctives are found in the 3 Angels' Messages.

The first distinctive we are going to discuss this morning, the seventh day Sabbath.

And then we are going to discuss the investigative judgment.

And Finally, we will take a look, another look, at the second coming of Jesus, which occurs immediately after the third angel's message.

An angel is sitting in a cloud with a sickle in his hand to harvest the earth.

Before we open God's word this morning we do want to have a special word of prayer so I invite you to bow your heads with me as we pray father in heaven we come before your august and glorious throne in humility realizing that our wisdom is so limited.

Therefore we plead for your wisdom, for your guidance as we open your holy word.

We ask that the spirit that inspired that word will be with us to explain it to us this morning.

We claim the promise of your presence through the ministry of your holy angels.

And this we ask in the precious name of Jesus our Lord and Savior.

In September of the year 2015, Pope Francis the first made a historic visit to the United States of America.

During his stay here, he was present at 4 main events.

The first of those, of course, was meeting with President Barack Obama in the White House, where they discussed certain issues for about 45 minutes.

Then the Pope moved to the United States Congress where he gave a speech to a plenary session of the Congress of the United States, the House of Representatives and the Senate was present there.

Then the Pope moved on to New York where he gave a speech for the 70th anniversary of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

We had a group from Secrets Unsealed present there, giving out great controversies and a special DVD that we prepared for the occasion.

He spoke in front of Constitution Hall, where the 3 founding documents of the United States were ratified.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

In virtually every contact that the Pope has had, every speech that he has given, he has highlighted 3 main topics.

First, the need to address and resolve the serious issue of global poverty.

Second, the need to save the disintegrating family.

And third, the need to resolve the grave issue of climate change.

Now it's no secret that the Pope has linked these 3 issues with the need to observe Sunday as the day of rest and his argument runs something like this.

Poverty is due to the fact that capitalist overlords abuse their workers.

They make them work 24-7 And so the capitalist overlords need to give their workers at least 1 day a week to rest.

And of course, you know which day that is, Sunday.

When he addresses the family, he also states that the family is stressed out.

The family is busy 7 days a week, working, going to school, shopping, etc.

The family needs a time to get together where they can go to church and they can strengthen the family roots.

And of course, the day of choice, Sunday.

When it comes to climate change, the planet needs a day to rest because the environment is abused 7 days a week and so 1 day needs to set be set apart to allow the environment to rest of course that day is Sunday So this leads us to ask the question, has the Pope focused on the right day to address these causes?

And of course, as Seventh-day Adventists, we know that the answer to that question is no.

So I invite you to go in your Bibles with me to see what the Bible has to say about this.

Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2 will be the central part of our study this morning.

Now there's something that's very interesting as we examine the Genesis story, particularly when it comes to the Sabbath.

And that is that there is no direct command of God in Genesis 2 for Adam and Eve to keep the Sabbath.

The story tells us that God rested the seventh day.

But there's no place where it says that God told Adam and Eve to rest.

And so this has led many theologians non-adventist theologians to say that the Sabbath is not a creation institution where God commanded Adam and Eve to rest Now in our study this morning I want to address that particular issue why is there no command in Genesis 2 for Adam and Eve to keep the Sabbath.

Why does it say that God rested the seventh day?

By the way, there's an individual, I'll mention his name because undoubtedly you receive his journal now and then, Dale Retzlaff, who used to be a Bible teacher in 1 of our educational institutions, he has declared war on everything Seventh-day Adventist, and he has stated that the Sabbath is not a creation institution because there is no command of God in Genesis for Adam and Eve to keep the Sabbath.

Sometimes for many years I thought how wonderful it would have been for God to have placed there in Genesis Adam and Eve keep the Sabbath that would have settled the issue.

Why didn't God tell Adam and Eve keep the Sabbath?

I struggled with that question for many years.

I believe that the Sabbath is a creation institution.

All my life I've believed that but I've always had the question why didn't God just settle the issue in Genesis and say Adam and Eve keep the Sabbath.

1 thing that we notice as we examine the creation story and That is that the creation story is centered in God.

God is the subject of the creation story.

More than 30 times just in chapter 1, we find expressions such as God created God sent God saw God called God made God set them God blessed More than 30 times just in chapter 1.

Which tells me that this story is centered in God.

God is the subject of the creation story, not man.

Now let's take a look at the first 6 days of creation week.

The first 6 days are all about God and not about man.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1 and verse 31.

Then God saw everything that he had made and Indeed it was very good.

So the evening and the morning were the 6 days.

Who created everything during the first 6 days?

It says the Lord saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good.

Because God did all of the work of creating the first 6 days everything that came into existence belongs to God go with me to Psalm 24 and we'll read verses 1 & 2 Psalm 24 verses 1 & 2 here in this very well-known section of scripture we find the following words the earth is the Lord's and everything in it now why is everything in the world the Lord's here comes the explanation for that it means because he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

To whom do the animals belong to whom do human beings belong but the Sabbath is the Sabbath of the Jews.

If everything that God made is His because He made it, then the Sabbath must be His as well.

And so we find that the first 6 days of creation week are centered in God God did all the work God did all the creating but the seventh day is also all about God let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 2 and verses 2 & 3 Genesis chapter 2 verses 2 & 3 and we're going to notice that 10 times in these 2 verses we're going to be told that everything is about God.

It almost sounds redundant when you read this passage.

In Genesis 2 verse 3, it says, On the seventh day, God ended his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made Somehow I get the impression that the 7 days of creation are all about God.

God worked 6 and God rested on the seventh.

The Bible tells us that God did 3 things with the Sabbath.

And number 3, he sanctified the Sabbath or made it holy.

So the first 6 days of creation week are all about God God works 6 God rested on the seventh there's no reference to man working 6 or resting on the seventh God works 6 and God rested on the seventh don't get nervous on me now we need to take a look at the word rested in Genesis chapter 2 verses 2 and 3 the word rested is used twice it's the Hebrew word Shabbat where we get our word Sabbath from now we need to understand what the word Shabbat means the word Shabbat does not describe how God rested on the seventh day it does not describe the quality of God's rest on the seventh day it does not describe the manner of God's rest on the seventh day the word Shabbat in Hebrew simply means to cease it means to quit in other words on the seventh day God stopped creating God ceased from creating on the seventh day so the word Shabbat means to cease it means to stop the seventh day God created no more in other words.

Now we use the word rest in a similar way these days.

When there's a trial and the district attorney finishes presenting his case, We say the prosecution rests.

Are we saying that the prosecutor is going to go to Hawaii on vacation?

And that he's going to have a great time there?

It means that the district attorney has ceased presenting his case because his case is complete that's the meaning of the word Shabbat it means to cease let me give you 2 biblical examples I have everything written down in my notes here all of the Bible verses to be able to deliver the sermon more quickly if you want you can write these down I'm simply going to read 2 other verses and there are many more I might say where the word Shabbat is used in the sense of ceasing.

Nehemiah 6 verse 3, Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall, the enemies wanted him to come down from the wall so they could talk about the project and Nehemiah told them listen I can't come down now I'm too busy building the wall.

This is what Nehemiah 6 verse 3 says so I sent messengers to them saying I am doing a great work so that I cannot come down why should the work cease while I leave it to go down to you the word cease there is Shabbat Why should I stop building the wall to come down and talk to you?

In Psalm 46, 8 and 9, we find a description of the time when wars will come to an end.

The Marriage of the Lamb

Father in heaven, this has been a glorious Sabbath day.

Thank you, Father, for the privilege of taking 1 whole day to just unwind, recharge our batteries, remember you in a special way.

Father, as we draw this day to a close we're sad we would like to prolong this day but we know that business at hand for this coming week needs to be taken care of.

We just ask that as we end this Sabbath day and open your word that your spirit will be with us to guide our minds and open our hearts.

We thank you Father for the privilege of prayer.

Thank you for hearing us and for answering because we ask it in the precious name of Jesus.

The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a unique way of studying Bible prophecy.

Basically, we use the method which is called historicism.

I prefer to call it the historical method.

Basically it's a very disciplined approach to the study of Bible prophecy because we have a beginning point and we have an ending point and everything that is in between the beginning point and the ending point.

Now this evening we are going to take a look at a prophecy that probably most if not all of us have studied before but there's a portion of this prophecy that we don't dwell on a lot when we have evangelistic meetings And so we're going to look at the entire prophecy very briefly in the first part and we're going to 0 in on the portion that is not touched upon in very much detail.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 7.

And we're going to go through the sequence in this chapter very quickly.

And then you have a third beast which is a leopard.

And Greece of course rules from 331 BC through 168 BC.

And then you have what is called a nondescript beast.

Actually, all of these are kind of nondescript lions with wings, leopards with 4 heads, they don't exist in real life but anyway the fourth beast is actually a dragon beast It's not called a dragon in Daniel 7, but in Revelation 12, this empire is called the dragon who wants to kill the child when the child is born.

And this fourth beast represents which kingdom?

It represents the kingdom of Rome, the Roman Empire.

But you'll notice that this fourth beast, this dragon beast, has more than 1 stage of dominion.

For a while this fourth beast rules by itself with no horns on its head.

But then after a while we're told that this beast, this dragon beast, sprouts 10 horns on its head after the Empire has ruled for a while by itself without horns.

And of course we know that the 10 horns represent the divisions of the Roman Empire As a result of the barbarian invasions, the barbarians came from the north of the empire and carved up what had been the Roman Empire.

And according to historians, the 10 kingdoms were complete in the year 476, when the last Roman emperor of the West was deposed.

And then you find that Among the 10 horns rises a little horn.

Actually, in the Aramaic, it says it rises from littleness.

In other words, at first this horn is little, but then it becomes huge.

And basically what this horn does as it rises from the head of this dragon beast once the 10 horns are complete is that the little horn up roots 3 of the 10 horns and once the 3 horns are uprooted the little horn can reign supreme without any opposition and basically as we know as we've studied as Adventists the little horn the papacy using the power of the state, actually uprooted 3 heretical kingdoms that were Arian.

They believed that Jesus was the first creature of God, Jesus was a created being, and so the papacy appealed to the Empire to uproot these 3 kingdoms the Heruli in the year 493 the Vandals in the year 534 and the Ostrogoths in the year 538.

So in the year 538, the last opposing of the powers was uprooted by the papacy, joining with the power of the emperor of the state.

So basically, we have moved in the chain of prophecy without any interruption.

We've moved from Babylon to Medo-Persia to Greece to the Roman Empire to the division of the Roman Empire the uprooting of 3 kingdoms 3 of the 10 takes us to 476 and to 538.

And then we find the little horn rising to supreme power.

It speaks blasphemies against the Most High.

It persecutes the saints of the Most High.

It thinks it can change times and laws, and the Bible says that it rules for time, times, and the dividing of time, which we don't have time to go through but I know that you've been through this before represents 1260 days but days in prophecy represent years So this has taken us to which date?

It has taken us all the way as a chain of events without any parentheses, without any interruptions from the Kingdom of Babylon in the year 605 BC all the way down to the year 1798 when the papal power lost its dominion because the state, The power of the state was severed from supporting the papacy.

It's a beautiful method because you know at every moment where you are in the flow of history.

You know where history starts and where prophetic history flows and ultimately these prophecies end with the setting up of Christ's everlasting kingdom.

So you have a starting point and an ending point and you have everything in between.

Now we don't have time this evening to go beyond 1798 to the beast that has 2 horns like a lamb.

Series

Plenary

How Can You Make a Big Difference in Children’s Lives When You Teach Sabbath School in a Small Church

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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