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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Flickinger

Change

We're going to talk this afternoon about change.

Father, thank you again for bringing us together.

We have been blessed this weekend already by our fellowship 1 with another, our encouragement of 1 with another, the food that we have shared, the conversation that we have had, and we ask that you will bless us once again with a message from your Word.

The world's number 1 best-selling book on change was written by a gentleman by the name of Spencer Johnson, M.D.

The name of the book, which some of you may have read, is Who Moved My Cheese?

Best-selling book on change in the business world.

If you would like to read it, it won't take you too long.

You sit down and Probably the vast majority of you would be able to read this book in about 45 minutes or less.

It's a relatively small book, easy to understand.

I'll give you the synopsis of it in a nutshell.

2 of them are mice and 2 of them are little people.

And every day they wake up, walk out the front door of their little houses in this little maze, and they walk through the maze to where there is a big pile of cheese.

And so every day they go and they eat their cheese.

But day after day as they go to eat their cheese what they don't notice is that the pile of cheese that they have been enjoying day by day is getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.

Until 1 day, they go to where the cheese has always been, and there is no more cheese.

And they have to decide what to do now that the cheese has moved.

Now the mice, they say, well, there's no more cheese here, let's go find cheese someplace else, and off they run.

Now, it's interesting, the names of the mice are sniff and scurry.

As soon as change takes place, they start looking for happiness, cheese, somewhere else.

The names of the 2 little people who also live in that maze are Hem and Haw.

Maybe that tells you a little something about them.

They begin by going back to where the cheese has always been, day after day, and hoping that the cheese will come back.

And then they begin to lament, who moved my cheese?

I've been happy with this cheese, and so forth.

And the book goes through this response that they have to the change that takes place in their life.

Like I said, short book, if you can find it, you'll find it anywhere really, translated into 37 different languages, sold 28 million copies.

Somebody once said that the only constant in life is change.

Data for the United States in recent years shows that of every thousand people in the United States each year 7 of them get married.

Marriage is a change in your life, but the data also shows that of 1, 000 people in the United States every year, 3 and a half of them get a divorce.

Yeah, and there are a number of people who have been enjoying unemployment benefits for a little while now, and in the very near future, they're going to have to start looking for work again.

If we want to make it very simple, it is the process of becoming different.

In the midst of a world that changes constantly, There's good news for you and me and it is found in Malachi chapter 3 and verse number 6 Malachi chapter 3 and verse number 6 in Malachi 3 verse 6 It says for I am the Lord I what I Change not Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

The world may change around us, and the world does change around us, But God does not change.

But the truth of God's word remains fast forever.

Well change often results from dissatisfaction.

We are dissatisfied with something and so we want to what?

In fact, several years ago, a presidential candidate by the name of Barack Obama came up with a slogan to run under.

Because people were not satisfied with the previous president.

Well, after Barack Obama ran for a couple of times, it was time for change again, because people were no longer satisfied with what was being lifted up by his administration.

I'm no prophet, I don't know what the future holds other than to make a pretty broad reaching statement that there's going to be change again.

Change is a constant, and change often happens or often results from dissatisfaction.

Sometimes we want changes and we work hard to accomplish them because we think maybe if something is different, it'll be better.

No, in fact, sometimes changes are anything but good.

You may remember a time back in the Old Testament when God's people looked at the world around them and they said, we like what we see out there.

Yeah, they got what they wanted and a whole lot that they didn't want.

Did God warn them that this change was not going to be good?

And the people said, We want this change.

In John chapter 6 and verse 15, coming into the New Testament now, the people of Israel were under the thumb of the Romans.

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Change

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