Purified By the Word

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Living Hope SDA Church

Plenary

Mark Finley

A Prophetic Call to Faithfulness

I'd like to add my welcome to this purified conference.

During this conference, it's our prayer that the Spirit of God will speak to your heart.

It's our prayer that as the Word of God is opened, that your life will be touched and changed and transformed by the living power of God's Word.

My topic tonight is a prophetic call to faithfulness.

Father in heaven, we're living on the knife edge of eternity.

These are the most critical times in Earth's history.

And I pray that you take these words from this preacher and touch the hearts and minds of every person here.

It is too late in Earth's history merely to listen to messages.

A number of years ago, the former senator of Oregon, Mark Hatfield, visited Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta.

While he was there, he visited the very renowned and famous House of the Dying.

Their children were brought in the last stages of their life to die.

Mother Teresa's staff ministered to them in kindness and in love, trying to make the last days as pain-free and as pleasant as possible.

As Senator Hatfield watched the long lines of these poor, poverty-stricken, sick people waiting to get medical treatment, he was just overwhelmed with the sheer task of it all.

And he went to Mother Teresa and he said, how can you bear the load of all of this without being crushed by it?

She looked at him with tears glistening in her eyes and she said, Senator Hatfield, God has not called me to success.

The word of God does not call us to success.

It doesn't call us to a life of popularity, power, or prestige.

Faithfulness to the message of scripture.

A mission given to us as being pictured, as being carried by 3 angels in the middle of heaven to take the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

It is this faithfulness that Christ calls us to.

The Bible is filled with stories of men and women who are faithful to God.

You think of John, Paul, and Esther, just to name a few.

But I wanna spend a few moments focusing on the life of Daniel.

If you have your Bible, and I know you do, take it and turn to Daniel, the first chapter.

God's call to faithfulness in a final generation to prepare men and women for the coming of Jesus.

We're turning there to Daniel the first chapter and we're looking at verse 1.

In Daniel verse 1 the great controversy theme is introduced.

Daniel 1 verse 1 says, in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

So you have 2 kings, Nebuchadnezzar and Jehoiakim.

You have 2 cities, Babylon and Jerusalem, the forces of evil warring against the forces of good, the forces of sin and unrighteousness warring against the forces of righteousness.

Here you have a battle between good and evil.

Nebuchadnezzar attacks Jerusalem and he overthrows it.

Even in that apparent defeat, God's plan will be fulfilled.

As we look here in Daniel chapter 1, verse 3 and 4, it says, Then the king instructed Aspenaz, the master of the eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel.

Now you want to circle that word children.

You get a different impression in the English language, but the word for children in the Hebrew language here is teenagers.

These were young people that were 16, 17, 18 years old.

In other words, they were physical specimens of strength.

They had been studying in the schools, the Hebraic schools, and they were smart, intelligent.

And it says they had the ability to serve in the king's palace whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans.

It is to take the top brains and physically strong young men from the schools of Israel, from Jerusalem.

It's to take them and eventually educate them in the schools of Babylon, so that he can send them back as puppet kings to rule on his behalf over Jerusalem.

Now, to accomplish that goal, he invites them to a palatial feast.

Verse 6, now among these sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Now when a Hebrew mother named her children, She named those children based on names that would remind them of the true God.

You see that little word EL, the little letters EL at the end?

EL means the, it's a derivative of the name for God, Eloiahim.

And then you have Dan, the tribe of judges.

So the name Daniel means the God of justice and the God of judgment.

Now in ancient times, a biblical judge was a 1 who stood in favor of the 1 condemned.

You know, if we have to go to a court of judgment today, we tremble at that court of judgment to stand before the judge.

The judge was the vindicator, the 1 who said all things right.

So Daniel's name means he's the God of justice and judgment.

He is the righteous 1 in captivity, in bondage.

The Bible says, Hananiah, Hananiah means the Lord is gracious unto me.

I may be in captivity to Babylon, but the Lord is gracious unto me.

Mishel, name Michael, God-like, qualities of goodness, kindness, love.

I may be captive in Babylon, but the Lord is my helper.

Every name that a Hebrew mother gave her children represented some aspect of God so they would never forget their identity.

They would never forget that they were chosen nation.

The goal of Babylon was to shape the mind.

The goal of Babylon was to transform the culture.

The goal of Babylon was to change the thinking process so they would forget their identity.

That is the goal of Babylon today, to so transform young people's minds, to so transform their lives through mass media, through the internet, through social media, through television, through movies, through the culture of our day that we forget our identity.

We are chosen by God to be lights in the world, to be ambassadors for Christ, to witness in this generation.

Randy Skeete

Explaining the Impossible

With the Word of God in his hands, every human being, wherever his lot in life may be cast, may have such companionship as he shall choose.

In its pages, he may hold converse with the noblest and best of the human race, and may listen to the voice of the Eternal as he speaks with men.

As he studies and meditates upon the themes into which the angels desire to look, he may have their companionship.

He may follow the steps of the heavenly teacher and listen to his words as when he taught on mountain and plain and sea.

He may dwell in this world in the atmosphere of heaven, imparting to earth's sorrowing tempted ones thoughts of hope and longings for holiness, himself coming closer and still closer into fellowship with the unseen, like him of old who walked with God, coming nearer and nearer the threshold of the eternal world, until the portal shall open and he shall enter there.

The voices that will greet him are the voices of the Holy Ones, Voices who on earth weren't seen his companions, voices that here he learned to distinguish and to love.

He who through the Word of God has lived in fellowship with heaven will find himself at home in heaven's companionship.

Psalm 100, verse 5, for the Lord is good.

His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations.

I am highly honored, I really am, to be with you, and I'm grateful to my young brother, Brother John, for extending the invitation to me.

1, it is always a privilege to speak for God, and 2, it's a privilege to be associated with a young people's program even though I'm not a young person.

Before I go any further, who is present Who is not a Seventh-day Adventist, raise your hand.

You are not a Seventh-day Adventist, raise your hand.

If you know someone who won't raise his or her hand, just do that.

And that ought to bring the person to the surface.

Well, if some non-Seventh-day Adventist listens to this recorded version, wherever you are, may the Lord bless you as super abundantly as I believe He will bless us in this place.

I have many, many extra minutes, but that's not a threat.

I just wanted you to know if you see me ending early, it's not because I'm in a hurry to leave, it's because I have said what God sent me to say, and when I've finished that, I tend to sit down.

Okay, but we'll make an exemption during this meeting.

God bless Pennsylvania, named after an Englishman.

That's where the very first conference in the history of the Adventist Church was Michigan.

And Michigan was organized in 1860 before the General Conference was organized, May 21, 1863.

We're very jealous of that bit of historical uniqueness.

God will save a lot of people in West Virginia.

I was in Maryland, well, it's not a home state, this is Virginia.

Last week, actually, a little town called Chestertown had a lovely time.

My wife and I have talked about going there in the summer to see the badlands.

Mount Rushmore, lovely place when the sun is shining and there's no snow.

Did I miss a, what countries are represented?

Johannesburg is a state in the United States.

I must go back to school and study my geography more intensively.

I've been to South Africa, oh, 15 times or so.

I tell my friends in South Africa, I'm raising funds on GoFundMe to buy South Africa.

I've been there about 15 times, I really have.

Andrew Park

I Never Thought

I think that was overly kind for for me and my wife she might be tuning in online my wife Nicole so I just want to say hello I love you I miss you And I have the privilege of sharing my testimony today.

So why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer and ask for God's blessing.

Father in heaven, you know what I prepared.

But ultimately, you're the 1 who knows what needs to be spoken.

So I do want to claim the promise of Jeremiah 1 9 that you may put your words into my mouth and whatever you want to be spoken or not spoken that may be shared.

May your Holy Spirit have occupancy in my heart.

And I ask, Lord, that whatever is shared may be glorifying to your cause.

And you ultimately may be seen in all this.

It's about a three-hour drive east of there.

And the city that I grew up in, I spent the first 18 years of my life there.

Same school district, same friends, same neighborhood, same house, piano lessons every week.

It was just regularity and predictability.

That's really what described my growing up experience.

And I'm a second generation Korean American, so my parents came from Korea when they were younger.

And like most ethnic Seventh-day Adventists or Christians, you tend to go to church with your ethnic background.

And so I grew up going to the Detroit Korean SCA church.

And I remember every week, every Friday, we would go to church.

That was the biggest thing that I remembered.

And as I was in church growing up, Religion to me was very much obvious.

Whatever the teacher tells you, that's the truth.

Of course Jesus died for you, of course Jesus loves me, of course we're gonna go to heaven on a cloud, of course X, Y, and Z.

It was just a standard, obvious thing in my life.

And so religion was Sabbath school, you say for the divine service, you have potluck after church, and then there's choir practice and so the kids are playing out on the church grounds for the rest of the afternoon.

Go to someone else's house, and you spend the whole Sabbath with the church.

Even though I knew that Jesus died for me, even though I knew that we were gonna go to heaven on a cloud, I still didn't have my own personal experience with the truths that were being spoken.

I grew up going to public school, went to 1 school district, once again I shared that earlier, my entire life, K through 12, the same people.

And as I was getting older in elementary school, I started hanging out with the kids in the neighborhood.

And I also started hanging out with some of the kids at school.

And I remember 1 time in third grade, someone walked into school and he had an iPod.

Now back in the day there was no you have everything on there all you had was music you turn this circular thing and then you choose the music that you like and this was like the cutting-edge technology of third grade And so as I was obsessed with my friend's iPod, he would turn to these different songs, and that was the first time that I was introduced to rap.

There was this very popular rap musician, and I grew up listening to classical my whole life.

I thought the only genre of music was classical, and now I'm introduced to this very different style of music, which of course has profanity and a lot of other messages in it.

And I realized growing up, especially in my later years, I wanted to conform to whatever my friends were doing.

So whenever I was at school, I would listen to it on my friends' headphones.

When they started wearing Abercrombie, that was the biggest brand of clothing back then.

I thought, Mom, I need to get Abercrombie.

That is, If I don't have Abercrombie, I'm nothing.

And that same thing went for toys, playing cards, etc.

My life became filled with wanting to fit in with the people around me and being accepted by my peers.

And so imagine this elementary school kid who goes to middle school, he wants attention, and so he's really hyper, kind of like a class clown.

You may not be able to imagine that but I was in a lot of senses that kind of person and In terms of the values that were rising up in my life Acceptance by my peers was the highest value.

Religion started off obvious to me, but as I got older, religion became routine.

Sometimes it's inconvenient because my friends are doing other things on Friday and Saturday, but this is my life.

Now, we as individuals, human beings, We tie our value to the things that we do and the people that we are surrounded with.

So if you are a musician, oftentimes we tie our value to our musical capabilities.

If you are very determined to get into some kind of Ivy League school or do well in academics, we tie our value into our performance in our academics.

And in the same way, if you tie your value to your looks, if you think you're a good looking person, then your value is tied to your appearance.

Now here's the thing, when your value is tied to something that is externally based, that means your self perception and sense of self worth is going to be determined on something that is outside of your immediate control.

So you're the best looking person in the room.

Well, what happens when someone better looking walks into the room?

Your confidence just turned into insecurity.

Or let's say you are the most athletic person in the room, and then you go somewhere else, You find out, wow, I'm not as athletic as I thought when I compare myself to someone else.

I thought I was the best basketball player in my circle.

And I remember when I was in sixth grade, I found out about AAU tryouts.

And so I thought, I'm a pretty good player.

And after the tryout, I found out that I was cut from the team.

So seventh grade I thought, you know what, it was their fault.

That was a fluke, what happened in sixth grade.

We're playing, playing, playing, and after the tryout they posted all the numbers of people who made it to the third cut.

And I remember after school I went to the roster, I was looking for number 55 And I didn't see number 55.

And I realized the reason why number 55 wasn't on there wasn't because they forgot to put it on.

It was because I didn't make the team again.

David Shin

How to Gain the Victory Over Your Thoughts?

Father in heaven, thank you for this opportunity that we have to worship you on this Sabbath day to reflect on Scripture.

We thank you for this reminder every 7 days of your recreative power in our lives.

And we pray now that as we pause for a few moments to reflect on Holy Scripture, that you would speak to our hearts.

We ask these things in the precious name of Jesus Christ.

So we want to have a study on our thoughts, and I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of James.

Here James is describing the anatomy of temptation.

I know you've been sitting for a long time, everybody, and the blood is pooling, but try to stay with me this morning.

So this is talking about the anatomy of temptation.

In James chapter 1 in verse 15, the Bible says, then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death." James here is using an analogy of how temptation works.

Just because the egg is there doesn't mean you're having a baby.

And in order for there to be conception, there has to be something that takes place.

The egg is there, conception, and basically from there, the natural process takes place, and you have the baby.

Now, have you ever had a thought enter your mind?

Just because the thought enters your head doesn't mean that you're culpable.

But there is that gap, that synapse, that micro second in which, ah, consent.

It's like that split second, that synapse in which you're like, oh, let me think about that a little bit more.

In that microsecond, conception has taken place.

Now, some of us play this game where we're like, you know what?

I think it's kind of legalistic on those in that area.

I'm not going to actually go through the actions.

Nobody knows what I'm actually thinking in my mind.

You ever play this game before in your head?

And you're like, you know, I'm just gonna go there and imagine every detail of this fantasy in my mind, in my head.

Oh, I'm not going to participate in fornication, adultery, lying, murder, cheating.

I'm just going to watch it and call that entertainment.

So when we talk about our thoughts, that's where sin actually begins, right there.

Sometimes we're like, oh, I don't know what happened.

The reality is likely you've thought it through in your mind a hundred times.

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