ASI Conference 2023: Revived to Witness

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Plenary

Mark Finley

Revived by His Spirit

When I think of the cross and Christ's tabernacling in human flesh, leaving the praise and adoration of the angels and coming down here to dwell with us, and living the life that we should have lived, and dying the death that we should have died, resurrected and living in heaven as our great high priest and soon to come again.

You know, it's wonderful to be introduced by a friend, somebody that you've known for years, somebody whose heart beats with your heart when it comes to mission and reaching men and women for Christ.

Let's pray together as we open the Word of God.

Father in heaven, we've come with thirsty souls.

We've come longing to be watered with the rain of the Spirit.

We've come to be fed with the bread of life.

The hour is late for an ordinary meeting.

So we come pleading our inefficiency, asking that you would open our hearts and do something extraordinary.

A number of years ago when Mark Hatfield was the senator of Oregon, he visited Mother Teresa in Calcutta And he spent a day with her at the house of the dying.

He noticed the long lines of people, impoverished, poverty-stricken, sick, decrepit, Many of them on the verge of death, 1 after another came to be treated by Mother Teresa and the Sisters of Mercy there.

And toward the end of the day, Mark Hatfield looked at Mother Teresa and he said, I just have 1 question to ask you.

How can you bear up under the heavy burden of all these people coming?

And she said to him, my dear Senator, I'm not called to be successful.

The Word of God does not call us to a life of popularity, power, or prestige.

The Word of God calls us to faithfulness, faithfulness to Christ, faithfulness to the teachings of Christ, faithfulness to the Church of Christ, and faithfulness to the mission of Christ.

And there is a very close relationship between this theme of faithfulness, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and revival.

And that's what I want to talk to you about tonight.

The relationship between faithfulness to Christ and revival.

The relationship between faithfulness to the teachings of Christ in revival, faithfulness to the church of Christ in revival, and faithfulness to the mission of Christ in revival.

Begin by briefly looking at the life of 1 who was faithful, Daniel.

We look at the story in Daniel, the first chapter.

So if you have your Bible, I invite you to take it and turn to Daniel chapter 1.

When Daniel was taken captive, Nebuchadnezzar's thought was to immerse Daniel and his friends in the philosophy, the culture, and the religious practices of Babylon.

His goal was to totally eradicate their Jewish identity.

Now when a Jewish mother named her children, The Jewish mother typically gave her children names that represented something about the gracious character of God.

Daniel's name, for example, meant God is my judge, or God is the 1 that vindicates me.

His name was changed to Belteshazzar, the keeper of the hid treasures of Bel, because of course Bel-Marduk was the chief god of 13 gods of Babylon.

And so Nebuchadnezzar's goal was to totally eradicate Jewish identity and totally have Daniel and his friends accommodate to the culture of Babylon.

God begins the book of Daniel with the story of Daniel, a captive in a corrupt, godless society.

His mind could easily have been shaped by that society.

He was under almost incomprehensible pressure to conform.

But we read in Daniel chapter 1 verse 8 these words and take a look at Daniel 1 verse 8.

The scripture says, but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank.

So that meat and wine was offered to Babylonian gods.

It was not in harmony with the health principles of Israel, neither was it in harmony with Daniel's commitment to serve the 1 God.

The scripture says that Daniel purposed in his heart.

The word purpose means he determined, he decided, he chose.

In the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, the heart is used in a special sense to refer to both the seat of the intellect and the emotions.

And so the book of Daniel begins with the story of a young man who is pressured to conform to his culture, who has this almost incomprehensible pressure to conform.

But yet, rather than being adapted to the culture around him, He was faithful to God.

And the challenge that Daniel faced is the challenge that we face in this generation.

The real battle just before the coming of Christ is a battle of faithfulness.

The devil will do everything he can through this godless, secular society to influence our thought processes because the mind is the seat of our thoughts.

Satan did everything possible to influence Daniel's mind and emotions through the enticements of a pagan culture around him.

Now in the book Prophets and Kings, page 479, we read this amazing statement and I quote, among the children of Israel who were carried captive to Babylon at the beginning of the 70 years captivity were Christian patriots, men and I add women, who were as true as steel to principle, who would not be corrupted by selfishness, but who would honor God at the loss of all things.

Men, women, who were true to principle, as steel, they were hardened, They would not budge.

Now the experience of Daniel and the Hebrew captives in Babylon powerfully reveals that it's possible to be faithful to God in the most challenging circumstances.

God's call to faithfulness in a corrupt, immoral, godless world in the last days of Earth's history is a call to let His love shine out of our lives.

As time comes to a screeching halt, God's call is once again to understand our identity in Christ.

Once again to be God's man, to be God's woman in this generation.

Once again not to yield to the culture around us, once again like Daniel, to be filled with the Holy Spirit and be transformers of culture, not to be transformed by culture, to be shapers of culture, not to be shaped by culture.

Now there are 4 aspects of this faithfulness that we want to study this evening.

First, the Holy Spirit will never be poured out corporately unless it is poured out on your heart and mine individually.

So the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not something that is merely a corporate outpouring on a general population.

The church is revived because men and women are revived.

Faithfulness to Christ is always the basis, always the foundation for witness for Christ.

That's why our theme is revived to witness.

Take your Bible, please, and turn to Revelation chapter 2.

In Revelation, the second chapter, We read about a church that was doctrinally pure.

We read about a people that exhausted their lives in labor.

But we read about a people in the church at Ephesus, who lost their first love, who lost their connection with Christ.

In Revelation, the second chapter, I read in verse 4, after Christ commends them, in verse 2, for knowing their labor and their patience and how they have tested the Apostles and tested those who claimed they were Apostles but found them liars.

After in verse 3 of Revelation 2, writing to the church at Ephesus, he talks about how they have persevered, how they've had patience.

But notice verse 4, nevertheless I have this against you, You've left your first love.

First verse 2, where it says, I know your works and labor.

The word labor in that passage comes from an ancient Greek word which means you labored to the point of exhaustion.

Now here's a church that labors to the point of exhaustion.

Here is a church that defends doctrine, but here is a church that ultimately becomes powerless because its heart is empty and void, and it's left lost its first love.

Chuck Swindoll in his book, Intimacy with God, makes this remarkable comment.

He says, noise and words, and frenzies hectic schedules, dull our senses, closing our ears to the still small voice and making us numb to his touch.

Somebody said superficiality is the curse of our age.

The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.

Our greatest need is not for more intelligent people.

Our greatest need is not for more gifted people.

Our greatest need is for more deep people.

It's easy when you're really busy and perceive you have more to do than you have time to do it, to neglect reflective prayer and mind-enriching Bible study that's life transformational.

The Holy Spirit comes to us in times of quietness.

The Holy Spirit comes to us as our Bibles are open, meditating on the amazing grace of Christ.

It is the life transforming power of the Holy Spirit that enables us to be revived to witness.

I'm impressed with this statement in the book of Ministry of Healing, page 58.

Amidst the hurrying throng and the strain of life's intense activities, He who is refreshed, that is by the Spirit of God, will be surrounded with an atmosphere of light and peace.

He will receive a new endowment of both physical and mental strength.

His life will breathe out a fragrance and will reveal a divine power that will reach men's hearts.

David Fam

Mission Revival

Before I share with you this morning, please pray for me because this is the first time my heart is beating too fast.

I have only 44 minutes to share a 20-hour story with you.

How am I going to share something from the 20 hours only God knows?

And this morning, I've been praying for a long time what to share with you.

And the Lord has impressed me to share with you not the 5% of the cream of my story.

Oftentimes in our ministry, we try to find the best story to impress you.

But the Lord impressed upon my heart to share with you something that is the challenge of a ministry being sent by God.

ASI has asked me to focus my topic around sent.

Another thing you need to pray for me is that I will not speak too fast because my English is not very good.

If I get too fast, you might think I speak in tongue.

So please, this body is too complicated right now, so just pray that Lord help this poor man that will do well at this 40 minutes I have.

Our Eternal Father, I ask for a special blessing upon this time.

Whatever that proceeds from my mouth, may you anoint with the Holy Spirit.

And may the word that I speak be encouragement to many people.

I'm going to tell you a lot of stories, so I start with 2 Bible verses.

The first Bible verse I chose was Isaiah chapter 55, verses 8 and 9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, say the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than the waves, and my thought than your thoughts." The second verse I want to bring out is Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23.

Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.

I repeat 1 more year, just hopefully I can get into 1 college that will accept me.

But my second year was worse than my first year.

I was praying to God, I said, Lord, what can this poor man do for you?

A man came back from Heartland College, my hometown, and he told me, David, I'm going to start medical missionary work.

He said, doesn't matter, whatever I ask you to do, you just do.

We rented a house with 4 bedrooms and we have nothing.

So we go around church members to ask for help.

So people give us chair, tables, anything that they do not need in their home anymore.

We have a table with different kind of chairs.

And by the grace of God, in 1 month time, we received everything we needed.

So I asked my friend, I say, who will come to our second-hand home, Lifestyle Centre?

He think for a while, he say, how about your mother?

And she have high blood pressure, diabetic, heart disease, migraine, headache, arthritis, overweight.

And every time she takes so much medication.

I remember when I was like 7, 8 years old, I asked my mother, I said, Ma, how long do you have to take this medication for?

I don't know anything but she told me, the doctor told me I have to take this medicine until I die.

I said you have to take this medication until you die.

I'm the 11th, the youngest child in the family.

I said, Mom, I told my friend, I said, I will bring my mother and you bring your mother.

So this center started with 2 mothers and 2 sons.

I called my mother, I said, Mom, I'm going to bring you to this health centre.

They believe a stupid boy, you know what I'm saying?

You just got to come and rest for 30 days, a 30 days programme.

When I went in there, I don't know what kind of food is there.

The first 7 days I think I'm going to go crazy.

My mother lost 15 kilos, that's 33 pounds.

And she not only lost her weight, she lost the high blood pressure, she lost diabetic, migraine-headed gone, arthritis gone, and she look more beautiful than ever.

Members in Action ASI

Members in Action

Well it's my favorite night at ASI, our Members in Action, and I'm so excited to be here with Jim Burr.

Jim Burr is the president of Heavens Declare, Inc., And it is about astronomy and telescopes.

How did you get started in this Heaven's Declare Inc.?

Well, I was a little kid at a camp meeting and Philip Knox came and he was excited.

He was doing evangelism with astronomy and that was the seed that got planted.

But I have dyslexia, I couldn't go very far in school, but our county has adult education, astronomy, I took that off and running, and I was a youth leader, and I'm taking magazines to Sabbath school, and pretty soon I'm buying slides and doing little Vesper programs.

Pretty soon somebody moves to Hinsdale, invites me to do a seminar.

We did 16 programs about, what, 30 years ago, probably, something like that.

That's amazing, and you also built telescopes for NASA?

We did 2 for NASA for the Mars Science Lab.

That was to get data from Mars on a laser.

They're using radio now but you can't aim radio but a laser you can aim data.

They were getting 1 megabyte a second going to laser, they get a hundred bytes a second, you know, a hundred times more data using a laser, and they bought 2 of my scopes, they did 16, they got their budget cut, but I was happy to cash 2 checks from NASA.

So you now do a ministry with Heavens Declare, Inc.

Where you actually like, you know, have like 1, 500 people coming out, 3, 000 people coming out sometimes, and you're speaking about astronomy, and then you're like letting people look at the heavens through telescopes.

Well, in our little town of Canyon City last September, Saturn is out, Jupiter's out.

I took an ad in the newspaper saying, we're gonna run, we ran 9 weeks every Tuesday night for 9 weeks, a one-hour lecture on astronomy and the Bible and you'll get to look through telescopes.

We had like $10, 000 worth of telescopes there.

I can see and that blew these little country town away to think you have really big telescopes that's free for them to look at.

And we witnessed, we gave away the last few weeks 100 videos on hell and Daniel 2 and John Bradshaw's Great Reset.

So tell me, where has this ministry gone since you've started it?

Well, we've been on 3ABN, you know, we did probably over a hundred televisions on 3ABN.

I did 12 on Thursday Night Live You know two-hour shows.

I spoke at ASI convention 5 years ago, keynote speaker at ASI Russia, okay, and 3ABN.

Loma Linda carries us on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

3ABN carries us Tuesday around in the morning and around noon and I guess the sun dared a dream I don't know where all it is but we just finished 32 radio programs for 3ABN radio and AWR and it's a 15-minute radio program with pictures.

Ladies and gentlemen get your phone out because we're going to Google the horsehead debit and today we're going to talk about Orion so you can have radio with pictures, okay?

So now you have something called Good News Television.

Folks, if you want to do evangelism, get Good News Television.

They take the best from 3ABN, the best from Hope, the best from Amazing Facts, repackages it.

We're now on the air since about 10 months in English and Spanish.

We got the money to go on for a year, to pay for a year of Spanish.

And the results we're getting are just amazing.

I got a call on a Monday in the middle of February.

And a guy calls me, he says, is this an Adventist channel?

He says, my wife and I were baptized over 30 years ago.

And John Davidson's going to be there in 3 weeks.

And I pitched to Golden because I know the people there.

On Sabbath, he is in church with his adult daughter and wife.

There's an altar call, and he goes forward, the 3 go forward for an altar call.

They have been in church every week since February 15 or the middle of February, And he tells me now his anxiety is gone.

But I said from a phone call on Monday to an altar call on Saturday, praise the Lord, the calls were getting in, people can't get answers.

I've been to 5 churches, nobody, I get answers, questions on Daniel, nobody can give me answers.

And 1 guy said, I would sit in the snow on my knees just to hear the truth.

And there's people out there, they're really good Bible, I get all the phone calls, okay?

Our president of Good News was killed in an automobile accident, Alan Christensen.

There's some people who really know their Bible, and what I have discovered, these people who stumble on good news television, and they really know their Bible, you know, now they hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

They can become our head elders in our churches.

And your tie says, in the beginning God created.

Tell us about tie evangelism in just 20 seconds.

Tie evangelism, when I travel I always like to dress up and I wear this tie.

What God does that was amazing, what he could do with that.

I was in LaGuardia, I was in New York waiting for my baggage and a lady comes up to me and she says, are you a missionary?

We have really good people, but they have problems with evolution.

I load her up with videos on astronomy, creation, a Bible study guide, and I'm in New Jersey.

I'm in Tennessee Last year at baggage claim.

They lost my baggage the lady comes up to me.

She said oh, you're a Christian What are you doing, Tennessee?

I said well, I'm speaking at a School she said well is it open to the public you can come to my guest She said I want to pick your brain She and her husband drove an hour to come up to hear me speaking at our school there in Tennessee, I forget the name of it.

And they stayed for 2 lectures, and we went out to dinner and shared videos with them.

You never know what God's gonna do with that.

We are so excited about what you're doing.

Series

Plenary

Members in Action

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Plenary Sessions

Hold Fast What You Have

2h 14m

From Big City Basketball to Big City Evangelism

38m

Plenary

Unfinished Business: A Conversation with Our World Church Leaders

1h 52m

Seminars

Our Best Year Yet Sharing Jesus

1h 16m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Why Adventist? Why Now?

1h 58m

Plenary

The Curse of Meroz

1h 57m

Plenary

Stewards of the Master’s Gold

1h 41m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

End Time Hope

1h 54m

Seminars

Heavenly Mergers and Acquisitions

1h 17m

Plenary

MENA (Middle East and North Africa Union)- A Final Frontier Mission

1h 42m

Plenary

Sexual Purity: Lost & Found

1h 16m

Medical Missionary Work: The Present "Present" Truth

6. Sharpening the Entering Wedge

44m

Sound Doctrine