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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dan Houghton

“Are You the One?”

It is a great privilege for Karen and me, the 2 of us, to be here with you this morning.

We just live a short distance away, Fallbrook, just a little ways down the road, and we have had the opportunity of being on the campus many times, but not in this auditorium.

And before I pray and ask God to bless us, I just have to tell you 1 story.

My wife Karen is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and she grew up there with a young lady named Barbara DeMazzo.

DeMazzo that this auditorium is named after, and she has a very unique story in that, as a five-year-old girl, Barbara fell off of a five-story balcony, and all the way to the bottom of that, her dad was the pastor, I believe, of the Milwaukee Central Church, all the way as she was falling, she could see her angel holding her, and when she landed, she was unhurt.

So being in the DeMazel Auditorium made me think of that story this morning, so I just share that as we begin.

I would like to invite you, if you would, 1 more time to bow your heads as we invite the presence of our God in our midst.

Holy Father in heaven, it's with great honor and privilege that we gather together in this place to sing praise, to pray, and to worship through the word.

And I pray this morning that you would anoint my mind and my tongue, that only what you would like to have said would be brought forth.

And let everyone that's here hear exactly from the perspective that you have for their lives, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I attended Southwestern Adventist University to begin my college career, but I transferred to Andrews University in the middle of my educational experience.

And as a new student just coming onto campus, I, you know, when you're a transfer student, and some of you are transfer students, and you're trying to find out how you, you know, the lay of the land, what's going on and so on.

And I remember having a young lady catch my eye.

1 of my good friends had come up with me.

He had gone to the University of Oklahoma, and we had both been in the Southwest and had decided to come to Andrews.

And we were looking around, and that first week, you know, it's always kind of a trepidation.

You just get a feel for what's going on, go to new classes.

But on the second weekend of the school year, the Heritage Singers had come to Pioneer Memorial Church at Andrews University.

And so even though my roommate Dale, who is my good friend from Oklahoma, we decided that we would go to the Heritage Singer concert before we went home to where my parents lived in Indiana at the time.

And so we go and we get there early, and after the concert's over, we're planning to drive to my parents' for the weekend with all my family as we were getting started.

And I look up, I'm sitting about maybe 20 rows back in Pioneer Memorial.

Some of you have been in Pioneer Memorial Church, you know about 20 rows back.

And I see this young lady that's caught my eye with a friend of hers walk in from the very front of the church.

And I said, well, it looks like she doesn't have a date tonight." And so as she's walking in, I see the 2 of them, and they're trying to find a seat, but there's lots of people that have come and saved seats.

Anyway, as the 2 of them are walking down, they see seats and they say, no, these are taken, these are taken.

And in my best chivalry, I stand up, step into the aisle and said, ladies, there's seats right here if you'd like to take them.

And they, smiles on their faces, wondering what's going on, they stepped in.

And these 2, I can tell you, it worked out really well because 2 summers later, the 2 of them married the 2 of us.

I had my eye on her and I thought maybe she could be the 1, but here's what's really amazing.

I didn't learn this for a long time afterwards.

In fact, I'm not sure if it wasn't after we were married that I learned this.

But she went home that night and called her mom.

She called her mom and dad and said, I think, I don't know why I'm saying this, but I think I met the man I'm gonna marry tonight.

How many times have you been the 1, or have you wanted, or someone else been the one?" And in fact, it's even popular in music today.

There's jingles, there are songs, you know, we're still having fun, you're still the 1, you've heard that jingle, I'm sure.

Well, that is a story that's been going on for a long, long time, and I want to have you open your Bibles if you have Bibles with you.

Now, I'm old-fashioned in that, yes, I do keynotes and I do PowerPoints, but when I get in to the Word of God, I like to have the freedom of the open Bible, and so I'm gonna do that today.

I thought about putting some up, but I didn't, so I'm gonna hope you have your Bibles or your phones with you.

I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 11.

John the Baptist, after he has baptized Jesus at some point, we don't know exactly when but it could not have been too long, John the Baptist ends up in prison.

Herod Antipas' prison, which had been built just, it's a little south of Bethlehem today, right at the edge of where the Judean wilderness begins to go down to the Sea of Galilee.

I'm sure it wasn't a very good experience for him.

And he is there after he has finished his job of baptizing Jesus.

The Scriptures reveal all about what happens, and disciples of John become disciples of Jesus.

Some stay disciples of John, not all of them cross over.

But they come to this point where they are hearing all these stories, all these stories about Jesus and His mighty works, all of the miracles, the dead being raised.

In fact, it was right after the widow of Nain had her son given back to life, according to the book Desire of Ages.

It was right after that when the disciples of John who were there in the crowd watching went back and told John what had been happening.

Now I've had the privilege of being in the town of Nain in Israel.

In fact, I felt very comfortable walking in here this morning because how many of you have noticed the beautiful pictures out in the hallway of the Days of Creation?

Well, I have the privilege, 1 of the things that is a part of our ministry is I represent and publish artist Nathan Green.

And so we have a longstanding relationship with Loma Linda University et al., and we have paintings and pictures around, and right now we're in the process of creating a whole new series for the new hospital that is called On Healing Miracles.

We got the first 1 up, the second 1 should be up in about 30 days.

So when I walk in and I saw those, but in preparation for the paintings that are being done right now, a team of us went to Israel because we were looking at trying to find every aspect of how to create the paintings as realistically as possible.

And I remember late in the afternoon standing in Nain, the village of Nain.

It's on a hillside facing north as it goes across the Jezreel Valley, and 8 miles across that you can see the cliffs that right above it sit Nazareth.

And I remember thinking, I'm looking at the cliffs where the people of Nazareth wanted to push Jesus off, and He disappeared from their midst.

So he was way up there compared to where John was.

The disciples of John went back down to the prison because they had access.

You know, that's the way some of the prisons would work.

You were expected as friends and family to bring food, to bring clothing, blankets, whatever else, and they come back in and they tell John.

And there's a little edge on it because they had all seen, and even John, We're told in the book Desire of Ages that even at that moment he began to question in his own mind what had happened and what was happening and why he was there and why Jesus was out doing all these things.

There was a big question going on in his mind, and he pulled—now, you know, I've really read all the chapters in Desire of Ages.

I've gone through and looked at all the passages in Scripture in preparation for my presentation to you today.

John the Baptist was a man who did not want to create discord, but he began to have a moment of question.

Now, I want to ask you a question, all of you.

Have you ever in your experience come to a point where you said, you know, I just wonder if what I've thought is accurate?

And you don't have to nod your heads, it's okay.

Everybody has had those moments where you actually begin to question, am I on the right track?

And we actually are trained in business to do that all the time.

We're always...we head down this track and we question and we adjust and we make adjustments in our track.

But in this case, John the Baptist pulls 2 of his disciples over to himself quietly, didn't want to discourage anybody else.

He said, would you just go and ask Jesus if He is the 1 that we were looking for or should we look for another?

They found Jesus in the area of Galilee where He was still ministering, and they asked Him the question, John has sent us to ask you, are you still the 1?

Verse 1, now it came to pass when Jesus finished commanding His 12 disciples that He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities.

And when John heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent 2 of his disciples and said to him, Are you the coming 1, or do we look for another?" Now before we go on at this point, I want to go backwards a little ways.

I want to examine what it is that allowed them to get to this point.

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“Are You the One?”

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