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Village SDA Church

Adventist Fake News

Ron Kelly

And we have life more abundant because of Him last Sunday was an abundant day, if we could bring our pictures up, some of you were able to be there some of you have been at others, I encourage you, we're gonna have others we'd hope to take all these bags that we bagged, 3, 500 of them, and take them down to the Miami Correctional Facility next Sunday, but that's not working out.

It'll have to be a slightly different arrangement.

We were packed in that church school, over 200 of us.

And it kind of crowded us in on each other.

But you know, people were happy in spite of being kind of pushed about and everybody was doing what they could.

And we had young, we had the older, we might even have had old.

We had families and we had folks that were truly enjoying doing something that Jesus said should be done, which is caring for the prisoners.

Everybody could make a difference and everybody was and we even have the backwards dunk application of the stuff here.

It was wonderful to see folks that could barely see over the bag and those that could stick stuff in father and son and we created so much cardboard.

They were constantly grabbing it and moving it along, breaking the boxes down, family event.

By the way, we appreciate our Pathfinders and Adventures.

I hear Luke kind of put the heavy on his dad and said, I've never done this before, I want to do it.

And I think that was wonderful, thank you.

It was wonderful to have the adventurers there with us.

And I'm not sure what happy anticipations behind those closed eyes and that big smile, but it was a good day.

A few kids, even from Ruth Murdoch, joined us.

And getting the bags out to the truck, That was a lot of work.

Every 1 of those black bags had 6 paper bags in them.

And you know they were very full this time.

So our deacons and others hard at work there.

And the Russell family, they're making it.

The semi-truck's pretty full and they're still smiling.

I don't have a picture of their burning, but let me just say all that's left is ashes.

And I appreciate Cory Bush and his crew hauling that off.

And Chrysalyn was there at the very end with her mom, Tossie, helping to clean up.

She'll be a good deaconess someday and certainly a servant of Christ.

Let's bring up the time lapse here and watch it.

All right, watch the boxes disappearing here.

It wasn't quite that fast, but it was close.

And we did 3, 500 bags in a little under 2 hours so it wasn't our fastest bagging day but it was maybe our best 1 and The joy that was in everybody's heart, everything's about gone, the camera fell over, and it's a done deal.

I want to thank Pastor Paige and Christmas Behind Bars and all of you that could help and all of you that wanted to help and all of you that someday will help.

Jesus said that he was in prison and we visited him.

Well, you know, if you're under 18, you're probably not gonna go in.

And some of us, that threshold may be beyond us right now, but the literature that went in, They tell us at the Miami Correctional Institution that for several months ahead of time, the suicide rates go down when they're anticipating getting the bags.

So you may never go into the prison, but you're encouragement there, and we as a church, we made a $3, 000 contribution.

So when you're supporting combined budget and our evangelism funds part of our evangelism is ministry to the prisoners so not only did we pack the bags we worked with Christmas Behind Bars our local church school our own families youth and more senior And now we need to be praying when those bags go in that somebody's life will be touched.

You know, Pastor Page has told his story here.

You know, a piece of literature in prison is why he's ministering among us now.

We don't know when God's going to water the seed, but he can make it grow.

We don't always see the results, but we have confidence that God will reap a harvest if we're patient and if we are faithful to do what he says.

Lord, as we open this word now, I pray open our hearts.

And I ask Lord that our hearts would be sensitive to the impress of your spirit.

So please guide me and guide my brothers and sisters gathered with me here now.

And may this be a journey that edifies, maybe warns or challenges, but most of all Lord may it lift up Jesus your gift, our Savior, our elder brother, in Jesus name we pray, Amen.

And of course depending on what flavor of truth you want, if you could put those words together like that, you watch this news source to get this version of truth, this news source to get this version of truth, this news source to get this version of truth, or this radio program, or this website.

But I'm here to tell you today, Adventists cannot be involved in fake news.

Adventists, if they're going to go all the way through and not embarrass themselves, their family, their God, and disappoint a lot of people are gonna have to be true people.

They have to hear and feel in the word of God.

They have to sense what he's saying and see the hand of providence.

Through the Word of God they come to know His voice.

In the spirit of prophecy they find it confirmed.

But if as Seventh-day Adventists we resist the power of the Holy Spirit, we shall find ourselves calloused and pass by at the end.

Now I purposely don't go into politics in my sermons because politics give you a reason to disagree with me on a substandard issue.

Whether I do or don't like this, occasionally I'll use political events as illustrations, but I try to be nonpartisan in the use of them.

But in the age of post-truth, What we have found is, is that you can have any message you want, you can believe whatever you want, and the worst sin is for me to upset you or you to upset somebody else by saying that's not true.

Now we have our own version of fake news.

I mean, and to some degree it's okay, and in some degree it's not okay.

Is it okay if as Adventists, you know what I mean when I say I'm gonna have a haystack for lunch?

Should we explain that to anybody in our midst?

So a haystack is like a taco salad on steroids with a little bit of beans in it.

But we have our own subculture which is normal.

Your family should have its own subculture with a few little traditions.

And I kind of want to make a journey with you on this today.

I'm starting a four-part series on subject matter that will become clear enough in just a minute.

I need you to see what these things have in common.

Put your thinking caps on and say, what is the common thread that links these things?

It's hard to imagine a few minutes later, somebody would be dead.

The Conspiracy Behind the Conspiracy

Father, I don't know how you're going to move on people's hearts today, but I know that you're moving, and the great purpose of telling the good news of who you are and that people can have better lives, change lives, lives where their past is forgiven and the present has meaning and joy.

So I'm asking now, Lord, do what you would.

I thank you for all the different ministries represented by the different simple and ordinary giving that goes on in this church.

Bless those, Lord, who are gathered here today.

May they be systematic in their support with time and treasure.

And now send your spirit to teach us, I ask in Jesus' name, Amen.

This is the second part of a series of 4 sermons I'm doing on the Holy Spirit entitled Fake News.

And by the way, if you didn't get the announcement, you know Elder Wilson, our General Commerce President, will be here next Sabbath.

In the afternoon, he's gonna make a presentation and take questions and answers at PMC.

In the morning, he'll be preaching here and sharing fellowship lunch with us.

So please be praying for him as he comes as well.

You know, I got this packet in the mail and in this packet was supposed new truth.

The new truth was that somehow the church had apostatized in believing that the Godhead was composed of 3 distinct and completely united individuals.

The main apostasy was the idea that back in the early 1900s, a man by Leroy Edwin Frum led us down the wrong path in believing that the Holy Spirit was as much a divine person as was Jesus or the Father.

Now, what you don't know, and I'm gonna tell you this morning, is that God is, you knew this, but you didn't know the story I'm gonna tell you, God is always at work.

There were 2 ladies who got in their car last Sabbath on the other side of the state, and they were traveling over to Bering Springs.

They didn't know where they were going to church, but they did know they were going to link up at some point in time with a member of this church.

As they came across the interstate from east to west, guess what subject came up?

It was the new truth about the church's apostasy in believing in the Holy Spirit as a third party of equal status in the Godhead as They're driving across the 1 lady's not sure how to respond to the other lady, but it doesn't sound quite right.

I know this story because the lady who was driving the car, who thought it didn't sound quite right, waited until almost the very last person to shake my hand last Sabbath, and told me how she believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Holy Spirit led them here for the beginning of this series.

The idea that the church has apostatized and that unless you know special truth, you're on the outside is a great way to leverage somebody to follow you.

I'm here today to disperse as much fear as I can as far away as possible from this congregation.

There is a God in heaven who's already paid an eternal price for you.

If you wanna know the truth, guess who wants to tell you the truth?

His name is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And the truth is not gonna be found in some dark corner, and we're not going to find out towards the end of the game that somehow we were following cunningly devised fables.

We share a variety of doctrines in common with a variety of churches.

Because we share them does not make our acceptance of the doctrine suspect.

Now, when the lady stood in line to tell me this story, her other friend that she had been talking with along the way was quick to come up and be a very missionary-minded person in regards to the new truth.

And she stated how Fromm was an infiltrator to our church to give us bad doctrine.

Well, I want you to find out for yourself, and here's how I want you to do it.

Make a run on the ABC to where they need 500 copies of this book.

You read it because it's probably chocked full of more Spirit of Prophecy statements than any other book I've ever read aside from the Spirit of Prophecy, and you read it with your Bible, and you see if you are not enlightened in a systematic study of the Holy Spirit in a way that just blesses you beyond belief.

Now I've used this book before, and far from being an instrument of evil, this is absolutely a statement of light.

And when I think about the fact that this man compiled this book, a systematic study of the Holy Spirit in the age before computers, I stand in awe.

God had to have blessed this individual, not because I say so, but because the Spirit itself inhabits the message.

So I encourage you, if you've never read The Coming of the Comforter, try to get 1.

And my hope would be is that they would need to reprint it.

This book would bring back so much life into the power of this church that as I quoted last week in the sermon, filled with the Holy Spirit, we would be a terror to our enemies.

Now, in the new literature is the suggestion that unless you've got the skinny on the new truth, you're going to be on the outside and you'll be duped.

As a matter of fact, There's several of them in the Bible.

Let's look at them Lucifer in the war in heaven he went around in a very underhanded way attempting to form a coup d'etat Telling everybody God wasn't who they thought they were Be be fearful when somebody tells you that something that's fairly obvious is no longer obvious, and the real truth can only be learned from that individual.

It was a short-lived 1, but while Reuben was away, they said, let's sell him off here.

You know, he's doing a great work, and this was a legitimate conspiracy.

Ah, run to the temple, there's a threat on your life.

Daniel on the lines then, Conspiracy or no?

Daniel didn't know about it until they were standing on the street corners telling that anybody that prays to any other God except King Nebuchadnezzar, or the king, I should say, is going to be thrown in the lion's den.

And this was a real problem for Daniel because this conspiracy was carried out.

Seventh-day Adventism understand that there'll be a religious power that will enforce Sunday worship in direct contradiction to the fourth commandment, which says, remember the Lord and worship Him on His Sabbath.

Esther and Mordecai, we have a whole book of the Bible that's about a conspiracy to destroy a whole group of people.

He gets them in there and Herod says, hey, once you find out, come on back and let me know and I'll worship with him.

After Paul had been given bad advice to go in and fulfill a Nazarite vow, he's saved by the Romans and there are a group of zealots that say they're not going to eat until Paul has been assassinated.

And then the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were constantly plotting the downfall of Jesus.

And every single 1 of these has this in common, they are all conspiracies, they're in the Bible.

Now at the very end of the sermon, I'm gonna tell you something else they have in common, but we'll have to wait for that.

When at 1 time a brother came to me with the message that the world is flat, I was instructed to present the commission that Christ gave to his disciples.

Go therefore and teach all nations, and lo, I'm with you, even unto the end.

In regard to such subjects as the flat world theory, God says to every soul, so what?

Follow thou me, I've given you your commission.

And then she goes on to say this, dwell upon the great testing truths for this time, not upon manners that have no bearing upon our work.

Every Seventh-day Adventist needs to emblazon this in their brain.

Dwell upon the great testing truths for this time.

It was before there was sin, it will be after there is sin.

Jesus is coming again visibly, not secretively.

Game On, Game Over, Gave Up

You offer us a different kind of joy which involves the remaking of our hearts which sometimes is not easy.

I'm just praying, Lord, that Your Spirit would be impressing hearts, especially my own, as we make this journey in the word now.

I'm in the third sermon in a series on the Holy Spirit, and it seems to be a subject matter where the devil's trying to agitate and get us to go backwards.

My previous 2 messages are on our YouTube page.

I encourage you to look at them if you've not and you have any interest at all.

But I've entitled this morning's message, game on, gave over, gave up.

I'm not going to be in the last category, and I want to be in the game on category.

And when the game's over, I want to be in the Jesus category.

And some of you are too young to remember this, and some of you aren't.

Back in 1997, after 18 months of consecutive losses, the Apple Corporation was saved from bankruptcy by none other than, anybody know, Bill Gates from Microsoft.

Now what you need to know is that Apple had been suing Microsoft because they said Microsoft copied their interface, you know, the mouse and the graphical interface.

And so when they were there in Las Vegas for 1 of Steve Jobs famous engagements, Bill Gates came on the big jumbotron and there was little bitty Steve Jobs and probably Bill Gates wanted it this way.

Microsoft gave, loaned $150 million to Apple.

Now Nobody knew back then that Apple was going to harness this thing called the iPhone.

But they tied together the communication and music experience and they went on in on August 2 of 2018 to become the first company in the history of the world whose worth would top 1000000000000 dollars.

Now, right now they're not worth that much because some lagging iPhone sales.

But to think about the fact, I mean, when Bill Gates came on that big screen and Steve Jobs announced it, there were boos and all kinds of things because of the heckling and the nemesis between these companies.

But it was, and it is probably the single most amazing business comeback story in the history of the United States.

There was a gentleman who started a business that most of you interact with today semi-often.

And in the course of it all, Fred Smith, as a Yale student, wrote a paper in 1 of his business classes for which he earned a C.

So some of your C papers, not that we want to encourage mediocrity, but some of you who are there in the C category, hang on, I can still remember when Dr.

Andreas said, my A students come back as professors, my B students come back as members of the board, and my C students come back as millionaires.

Fred Smith wrote this article for Yale for which he got a C and you know if you attend Yale you might be coming from a little bit better well-heeled financially situation And he received an inheritance for 4000000 dollars.

And with a little bit more that he added to it, he started a company that most of you are benefited by, especially in the holiday seasons.

But he got to a place where his company was down to where he only had $5, 000 left, and he had a $24, 000 fuel bill for his fleet of trucks.

Now I'm not here to recommend what he did, but I am here to say this, after preaching this sermon today, it may be that it's time for you to do the same thing he did and take a gamble.

Now, I'm not talking about running over to Las Vegas like he did with his last $5, 000.

But Fred Smith, who is the CEO of FedEx, almost was not 1 of the wealthiest men in the world.

But he took his last $5, 000 and he thought, I'm going to go to Las Vegas and see if I can't get a little more money out of this, you know.

He actually won, if you want to say it that way, $27, 000.

He paid his $24, 000 fuel bill for his fleet of FedEx trucks.

And I guess you could say the rest is history.

God is looking to formulate a comeback for His church.

We're in a situation right now where the church is constantly backing up.

I don't mean just Adventism, but I include Adventism.

Anybody that says it's not true is not paying attention.

Now, the difference between me and you and some of the people who say it is some people are negative and I'm positive.

I actually believe the best days for this church are in the future, but they won't be the best days if we keep doing things exactly like we're doing today.

And I'm not here to suggest for a second that I've got some kind of mechanical fix for this church, because I don't.

Lots of times we want to say it's our structure.

Lots of times we want to say it's how much money we're spending on this, or how much money we're spending on that.

And we want to tinker with the mechanics.

I'm not here today to do anything but blame all the people, all right, including myself.

But I'm also here today to offer a solution, because when you look at the statistics, they're exceptionally bleak.

I mean, it used to be, I listened this morning to a, I listened, I won't tell you the website, because I'm not really excited about sending people there, but it used to be called Catholic Television TV.

The Catholics said, no, that's not us, that doesn't represent us, don't call yourself that, which was a wise move.

But nonetheless, the man on the video was, is a militant Catholic, And he took great delight in explaining in his 5 minute and 13 second video that America is now only, at least at the time he was quoting statistics, only 48% Protestant.

So he took great delight in saying America can no longer say it is a Protestant nation.

Now I want to tell you what, it's not a good news to find out that people are letting go of their religious affiliation, but there is a reason why.

And I'm going to tell you the reason why.

The reason why is that if you don't go forward in your journey with Christ, you go backwards.

What many of these great reformers did is they moved the church forward, but then their people said in effect, we've gone far enough.

Now, if you think Adventism is immune to that, you need to stop and think again.

Adventism is finding itself in the exact same place in the exact same position.

It's not that we refuse new truth, it's that we've hung on instead to our cultural experience, our social experience, without hanging primarily on to Jesus and moving forward, whether our friends do or not.

So if you happen to be a Catholic, there's a little bit of good news.

Nationwide Catholic membership has increased between 20, between 2000 and 2017, but the number of churches have declined.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that's the ELCA, has lost about 30% of its congregation, its membership, and it's down by 12.5% in its churches.

So if that was Michigan, all you'd have to do with our 180 churches is get rid of about 23 of them.

And you know, in our Michigan conference, there might be 23 that are on the bubble.

It might be that a generation from now they don't exist.

Is it all right if we keep backing up as the devil takes his thugs, the common culture, which by the way the common culture runs 180 degrees opposite of Christian culture right now.

When I was a kid, we were, I should say my parents' generation was incensed by some of the television programs that were coming on, which had 2 women living with a man, and other forays into what we would call social unacceptabilities.

But today I want you to know that the immorality of our age actually has turned itself and calls the church the problem.

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Series

Adventist Fake News

Game On, Game Over, Gave Up

Transcript

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