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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eugene Prewitt Weekend

Eugene Prewitt

01 Reaching the Least Reached

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you'll bless us this evening as we talk about how to reach the least reached.

And I ask for the gift of your spirit to do this in the name of Jesus.

The last time I spoke at Advent Hope was before I moved to Malaysia.

And you're going to hear 1 in each of these 3 meetings.

And if you ever get a hunger to hear more of them, I now have a YouTube channel, something I'll probably never follow up with anymore, but during the pandemic, I put a lot of them up.

And when it's over, maybe never another 1.

But anyway, you can find that if you look for it.

1 day I was on my mountain in Malaysia, and I saw a dog.

Now, this is not surprising on the mountain.

The mountains in Malaysia are full of dogs.

Dogs in Malaysia don't belong to anybody.

They're fed by cars that drive by and throw bags of scraps out the window.

That's how people feed dogs there without getting ownership of them.

And even so the dogs start to be attracted to certain vehicles, they recognize the engine hum and know it has a bag of chicken heads in it.

And that's just difficult because dogs are very territorial and all the crazy ferocious dogs in that mountain are not going to let a newcomer in easy and as I approached her this new dog who I soon named Susie As I approached her she was ferocious she showed her teeth her canines those sharp ones she growled and she got very close I didn't feel the breath through my pant legs and she was just acting like a man-eating dog.

She was about medium-sized for a dog, you know, 5 times a Chihuahua size but half of a German shepherd, kind of like that.

And when I made friends with her, what happened is that she was converted.

I mean, the difference between what was before and what was after was as plain as the day.

That before, she was barking at every car, every bicycle, every pedestrian.

But after she learned to love me, she became sweet and adorable and no longer chased cars and wagged at pedestrians and ignored bicycles, except for a couple that had thrown rocks at her before she was converted.

But for the most part, she was born again.

And it reminds me of a passage that you know, 1 John chapter 4 verse 18, where it says, well, I'll read it to you.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

What happened with Susie is that when she was afraid, she was vicious.

And you might not realize this, but many of the mean people you know in life, the ones that are ornery and argumentative and caustic, the ones that seem to just be always picking a fight with people.

Many of them, what's going on isn't that their hearts are so black, it's that their hearts are so yellow.

It's fear that causes so much of what looks like anger.

And when I broke through that fear with Susie, it was replaced with love, and love casted out the fear, and when fear went away, there went the ferociousness.

But I'm telling you, I say in evangelism, in personal ministry, Please push through apparent anger issues.

Don't push through them with your own fangs showing, but push through them with some persistent care.

The second thought comes from Revelation 14, verse 6 and 7.

And I suppose since you are watching on Facebook Live, that you might even be doing 3 things at once the way some silly people do.

But I hope you're going to concentrate for a few minutes and go pick up a Bible and turn to Revelation chapter 14 and let's look at verse 6-7 and just talk about part of it.

It says, verse 6, Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel, to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.

It's that first verse, verse 6, I want to speak to you about.

Let me speak to you about how they relate to Loma Linda.

You can't preach to every nation while you are.

While you are in Loma Linda, you can personally in person, preach to every tongue, every tribe, every people.

Right there in Loma Linda, in your hospitals and in your neighborhoods, you have people that are represented by every part of the planet, every language, so that you can reach out in Loma Linda to people that come from countries that are nearly impossible for us to reach in person.

I'm thinking right now of Morocco, Algeria, Albania, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Bhutan, in some ways even Malaysia, certain parts of India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, you know these countries are places where the work is infantile.

I mean, it is so hard for us to do mission work in those places.

But those people come to the United States.

They come for treatment while they're in the...

And if you look out, you see someone from 1 of those places, your meeting with them may be the last time that they ever meet a Seventh-day Adventist.

It may be the last time that they ever meet a Seventh-day Adventist.

It may be the last time that they ever have a chance to make a contact that will help them prepare for the Mark of the Beast and the Seal of God.

And if I could say even 1 bit more about that, I would say, before I'm done this weekend, I wanna help you understand how every day I get new contacts in those countries.

And if you will, we can start to reach those least reached countries just from where we are, even in the pandemic.

So what I just told you is that you can reach every language electronically, you can reach every tribe electronically, you can reach every people group electronically and maybe even in person where you are.

And if those of you who are becoming doctors or are doctors, you even have more access to those nations and his positions than most people do.

There's something about being a physician that gives you access to many countries.

I'm thinking of Somalia right now, 1 of the least reached countries, Egypt.

The second part of the thought comes from Acts 17.

And if you have your Bibles turned there, maybe this is the third thought, because I forgot about Susie.

I'm going to turn in my Bible to Acts chapter 17 and help you learn something about how God is working.

This is a verse that has something to say about racial inequality, and I'm not speaking about that tonight, but it's here.

Verse 26, and he has made from 1 blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth.

And he has determined that their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.

Now that second part of the verse might seem odd to you, but yes it's true that God has determined a lot about where people live and where people go.

And look at his reasoning, the purpose behind the boundaries he makes for people groups.

So that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each 1 of us." Do you see God's plan in putting boundaries and determining where people groups go?

If you see it and your mind broadens a bit, then when you encounter that person from Yemen, you're not gonna be thinking that what an interesting coincidence, you're gonna be thinking God brought this person here so that they would have a chance in the dark to find the gospel.

You know, grope, that word grope or feel after him in the King James, that implies that you can't see well, that there's some darkness, but you're trying to find light.

And God brings people who are searching where they can find it.

Let me tell you a story, maybe 2, and then I'll tell you about some techniques.

So in Malaysia a few years ago, that's where I live now is Malaysia.

In Malaysia a few years ago, I met a very noble seeming woman.

The respect she showed to Heidi and I, Heidi is my wife, that respect was above average and her above average respect to me caused me to take above average interest in her.

And through my wife, we collected her WhatsApp number and I began to communicate with her over the course of months that turned into more than a year.

02 Apostasy of Faithful People

I was on my mountain in Malaysia, and as I was walking, I heard the dogs.

Now I told you that we have dogs in the mountain last night, but if you didn't hear it, you might not know.

But what I didn't mention is we have lots of monkeys on the mountain.

Why at the mountain where I was there were 4 types of monkeys and the dusky leaf langurs were the most common type.

They have white eyebrows and a white mustache with an otherwise dark face and kind of a pinkish lips.

Well there was a dusky leaf langur in a banana tree surrounded by our 4 local dogs.

Oh the dogs were excited because there's no way out for the monkey.

Monkeys can climb trees, but monkeys can't climb thin air, and there was no big tree around that banana tree.

And so the monkey, all it could do is jump over the dogs, but who's gonna be faster on the ground, monkey or a dog?

I mean, it was exciting to them and they're wagging their tail and barking and just, just carrying on.

And as I got closer, I observed something a little sad to me.

That mother monkey on the banana tree had a baby clinging to her breast.

And I didn't think the dogs would probably show any mercy on account of that baby.

And And while I was watching that scene, I saw the most amazing thing.

That mother took the baby off of her, put the baby on the banana tree, and then she crouched, and she jumped over 1 of the dogs to the ground and led all the dogs away on a chase.

And that little baby on top of that banana tree climbed down the banana tree safely over to a jungle tree and climbed up lot about what I saw there I've thought what if the baby had not climbed down?

Do you think those dogs would have come back?

And then there would have been no way to escape for that baby.

And I've thought about Jesus, that Jesus, like that mother monkey, he's already jumped over the dogs.

And what I want you to be thinking about, boys and girls and parents of boys and girls and future parents of boys and girls, I want you to be thinking about the fact that let's not waste any more time.

Let's just get down and get over to the jungle, because it's possible to waste what Jesus has done.

Why Paul in the book of Galatians in chapter 3, at chapter 3, verse 4, he said that, I'm afraid of you, that I've done labor in vain.

And also in chapter 4, verse 11, In both of those passages, he indicated that the sacrifice Jesus has made for us is not necessarily going to be useful.

I mean, that mother's sacrifice that she made for her baby, it was a tremendous sacrifice, but it would be worth nothing practically if the baby had stayed in the top of the tree.

So boys and girls, maybe you know the thing that you need to do to be right with God.

Maybe you know the things you need to do and I'd say today's a good day to start doing them.

And now the story for the adults, for the parents.

I don't mind children if you listen to the parent's story because they listen to your story.

So long ago in Iran there was a mother who developed cancer and her cancer was getting quite bad and she was afraid she was going to die and she didn't find any hope, any help from the religionist around her and she decided to just go experimenting and see if maybe outside of Islam might be a better a better something.

So the first thing she tried was a Christian church and she took her little five-year-old boy with her to that church and when she got to the door they wouldn't let her in.

You know, there are some Christians in Iran and those Christians have had peace there for a thousand years because, well, they have submitted to some things.

And 1 of those things is you do not evangelize the locals.

And so they were afraid and so they didn't let her in.

So then she went over to some Zoroastrians and looked into that.

It's kind of like the worship of fire and spirits.

And she started leaning that way, but she died.

And that little 5 year old boy grew up, and when he was old enough he came to Malaysia to study.

Shervin came to study, and while he was there in Malaysia, he got the idea that maybe he should try what his mother tried.

Maybe Christians in Malaysia might be different.

And so he asked a Christian girl in his university if he could attend her church and you know she was scared and so to save her church she took him to a different denominations church.

She didn't tell him that it wasn't her own church But the church that she took him to was a Pentecostal church.

And what he saw there did not impress him at all.

It looked to him a lot like the religion he grew up with, kind of a sentimental nothingness, kind of how he viewed it.

And well, it was more than a year later when a lack of peace and fulfillment in his life led him to decide to try again.

And he asked another Christian girl if she would take him to church.

And I want to thank God that that second girl he asked was a Seventh-day Adventist.

And she took him to the Seventh-day Adventist church.

And Shervin began to study and to learn, and he loved the things he learned there.

And he was baptized and became a Seventh-day Adventist.

I met him the first month I went to Malaysia.

He came to study in our missionary school there.

It was his sale of a great controversy to a Muslim lady that got his whole group of fellow students and him put in jail.

And in Shervin when he was put in jail that was very dangerous for him because well if he was deported from Malaysia as an apostate he would certainly be killed in Iran which could happen And so he wisely disappeared after they let him out of jail after 1 day, and I didn't see him for a while.

But now I know where he is, and now he's working for me.

And if you watched that video that was put up recently on the Advent Hope page, that doodle video about the prophecies of Daniel.

And already it's been meaningful and helpful to quite a number of people.

He began doing that work when he was home, a very courageous person I tell you, a very courageous person.

So I hope that you're going to be more like that girl that invited him to church.

My experience is that almost everyone in the world is more religious than Christians.

I mean almost everyone is highly religious and it makes you look quite secular when you're nervous to keep your religion to yourself.

You know, it doesn't make any sense to that good friend of yours why you would wait till you've known him for 10 years before you tell him about how to get to heaven.

It seems to him like either you don't really believe in heaven or you took a really terrible risk to wait that long.

I had a man in Malaysia that came over to visit my wife and I and I had a good time studying with him some and he wasn't quite ready to dive into actual weekly studies but he liked the Bible he believed that as a Muslim he should read the Bible and the Quran and and anyway it was a good contact a warm 1 but I couldn't, I couldn't push it into where I wanted it to go.

So, so I contacted him a few months later, 6 months later, just to try again.

I found good success with giving people a second, third, fourth, fifth try.

Many people that aren't interested today are interested 6 months from now or are interested a year from now.

And conversely, it's also true that many people who are interested today aren't interested 6 months from now.

So that being around is important in this business of soul winning.

And anyway, I tried, I sent him a note and I saw with some delight on WhatsApp, he was writing me back, you know, how social media spies on people, you can see their typing.

And then when the message came, my delight disappeared.

She said, I guess she didn't hear, my dad died.

And when I heard that, I was just thinking, this is the tragedy of friendship evangelism.

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Series

Eugene Prewitt Weekend

01 Reaching the Least Reached

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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