Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Evening Plenary

John Bradshaw

01 The Reason Why

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Now, Father in heaven, in Jesus' name, we come to you.

This camp meeting, you have divinely ordained this convocation.

And we thank you that when we walk on to this campus, we are in your presence.

We thank you that when we walk into this auditorium, We're in your presence.

So here we are in your house, this is what this is right now, on your day.

And we've come to the sort of the apex of the day.

It's the part of the Sabbath when we, red and yellow, black and white, rich and poor, free and bond, Republican and Democrat, young and old, we're together with this 1 special thing that binds us together, Faith in Christ and that privilege of participating together in the mission of sharing Jesus with others.

We are praying sincerely that you would speak to us.

Now I know you have a faulty instrument to work through this morning.

In Jesus' name, please say with me, Amen.

On May the 1st in 1999, it was a Saturday, and historic discovery was made.

A man who was then 37 years old, a mountaineer from Colorado, his name was Conrad Anker, sorry, California, was climbing on Mount Everest at about 26, 500 feet.

He said he scanned to the right around the middle of the day while he was taking an hydration break.

He said he saw an anomaly on the horizon, this odd color of white, And he went to investigate and he discovered that it was the mummified remains of the famed British mountaineer, George Mallory.

Now, Mallory died while attempting to scale, attempting to summit the world's highest peak on June 8, 1924, a Sunday.

He was last seen about a thousand feet from the top, pushing forward.

The question that has persisted for most of a century is, did George Mallory make it to the rooftop of the world?

Based on what he saw, the positioning of Mallory's body, the geography of the mountain there, the topography rather, he's pretty convinced Mallory did not achieve his objective.

Because in 1953, on May the 29th, a Friday, a beekeeper, an apiarist from New Zealand, a man named Edmund Hillary, later he would be known as Sir Edmund Hillary, stood atop Mount Everest with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, becoming the first man, or might I be a little more respectful and say they, becoming the first 2 men to ever successfully climb to the top of that massive mountain.

Some would say, those with British accents, all of them, would say, Hillary did not make it there first.

A reporter asked Hillary once, you made it to the rooftop of the world, what about Mallory, think he made it?

And Hillary shook his head and replied with a wry smile, you know, getting back down again is a pretty big part of it.

And I have to agree that Mallory did not achieve his objective.

You hear stories coming out of Mount Everest or out of Nepal.

You see photographs of people lining up like this, like this, like this, to get to the top of Mount Everest.

It's gone kind of crazy over there because the window for getting up to the top of Everest is very small, it's a very narrow path, it's as dangerous as anything, and frequently people die up there.

Frequently, every year, there are people dying on Mount Everest.

And you say to yourself, why would they do it?

Somebody asked Mallory, why are you going to do it?

Why would you climb to the top of Mount Everest?

A year and 2 weeks after arriving in Antarctica on January the 4th, 1911, a Wednesday, the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott made it to the bottom of the world, the South Pole, on January the 17th, 1912, also a Wednesday.

He intended to be the first explorer to make it to the bottom of the planet.

A Norwegian named Roald Amundsen got there on December 14, 1911, a Thursday.

And while Amundsen made it back home to Norway and safety and fame and celebrity, Robert Scott and his team of 5 did not.

Scott died at his thought on March 29, 1912, a Friday.

Now, 1 member of his party, Captain Lawrence Oates, was suffering gangrene and frostbite.

And so on his 32nd birthday, March 17, 1912, a Sunday, he announced that he was leaving the shelter in which they were huddled and stepping out into a blizzard.

Why risk your life on such a hazardous venture, going to the South Pole without helicopters and without gear from REI and without satellite radio and without any of that?

Remember, back then, the British governed the world, essentially, and it was felt it was their divine right to be the first to do everything.

And so there was some of that, some nationalism involved.

There was some certain scientific and geographical objectives.

How would you like to sit in the smoke-filled gentleman's club off Mayfair and brag to your friends that, well, yes, I just got back from the South Pole and I'm the first 1 ever to traverse that place successfully on foot.

She also runs ultra-marathons, might even be here today.

She said, I put a backpack on and a 30-pound weight in my backpack and ran the marathon that way.

She said, I wanted to see what it felt like.

But you see, I want to ask you a question today, and that is, why is it that you do what you do?

What encourages you to press on as a Christian?

Now, some people practice Christianity for notoriety.

Some because it's a good and a right thing to do.

Some because it's nice to be seen in church.

Others go to church because that's the church where the college basketball coach attends or the college football coach, all of that.

Some people do it because they want to be in the moral in crowd, others do it because if they didn't people would look down at them, mother and father would find out, that would not be a good look, I've always done this, I wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't going to church.

Some of that might help, but honestly none of those are very good ideas.

Jim Micheff

He Must Increase

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp, held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

Father in heaven, as we bow in your presence, we recognize that you are our God.

We recognize that you've given us the Holy Spirit to teach us, to bring Jesus into our life so that He can live in our life by faith.

So tonight, Lord, we want to echo that prayer of Paul, that You would strengthen us with might through your spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith being rooted and grounded in love.

I want to start tonight by telling you a little story.

When my wife and I started our ministry, we started in Wyoming.

As we were pastoring in Wyoming, we of course met new people.

I'd never been to Wyoming before, And I met some of the first ones, of course, as a pastor, you usually meet your leaders.

And so I met 1 of the elders, Chuck Martin, who was married to Rita.

So every week we would come together and we would pray.

He ended up being transferred, he actually moved to Montana.

So a few years later, I was going through Montana and stopped by to visit with him, and we spent the night with him, and he said, Jim, he said, let's go white water, or let's go white water, not rafting, but canoeing and kayaking.

He says We I take my family on this all the time and he said you've canoed You know how to canoe don't you I said well yeah, we can do it camp And we even go down a fairly fast river, the Asobo.

And every once in a while, you know, there's a little bit of rapids.

He said, you'll have a great time with this.

So he said, you know, I have enough canoes and kayaks that we can all fit in it.

And he said, and I have enough life jackets.

So we made our way to the river in Montana by Kalispell.

And so we unloaded the canoes and the kayaks and we divvied up the canoes to everyone, made sure everyone had a lifejacket.

And so we all were assigned, you know, the places where we were going to go.

And he says, now listen, I want you guys to all come up and I want to give you a crash course on how to navigate down the rapids.

Oh, OK, that sounds like it'd be a good idea.

So we got together and he says, OK, I want you to.

And he started to tell us some very things.

He says, now listen, When you're canoeing, he says, the first person, as you're going down the river, you better be watching out for the sleepers.

A sleeper is a rock that's just under the surface and you can't see it, but if you watch the water, you'll see that the water moves a little differently over that rock and that means you better stay away from it because if you hit it, you could tip over.

Oh yeah, we want to stay away from those.

And he said, and then when you hit the ramparts, There's several different positions that you can take when you hit the rapids.

I don't remember all of the ones he said, but I do remember the 1 he called the prayer position.

And that's where you hit your knees, you slide your knees to the side, and you know you're on your knees and you're ready for whatever action that comes.

He said now when you hit the rapids you want to make sure that you work as a team.

The person in the front can help keep the canoe going straight by hitting off the rocks that you come, so you don't get sideways.

So that person in the front is going to be pretty important.

And then he said, now listen, I just want to add this 1 little thing.

If you should get separated from your canoe or kayak.

You fall into the river, make sure you navigate, turn yourself around so your feet is going first and that way your feet can help bounce off the rocks and not your head.

Well, now that sounds good, but I didn't like this idea getting out of my canoe.

And then he got into his canoe, and Dan, you're an expert at canoes, so you probably know what I'm going to say.

He gets out in the canoe in this fast-moving river, and he turns it side, he's at an angle, and he's just paddling, he's staying right in 1 place.

He said, well, this is how you paddle to stay right here if you got into a little problem.

So then he comes back over and he says, okay now I think we're ready to go, but let's have prayer first And so we had prayer that God would give us safety and and we would have a good time going down this river So off we went now the experienced ones went first and then my boys followed and then my daughter and her friend, and then Chuck and Rita were in a canoe, and I said, no wait a minute, Jodi's our youngest 1, And since you have the most experience, let's let her ride in your canoe." So she was in the middle and then Gail and I followed and we were heading down the river.

The water was a little higher than normal and it was running a little faster than normal.

And we didn't even have to paddle very much.

And Gail and I were just, wow, look at this.

Look at the mountain over there and look at this over there.

And then we came to a bend in the river and we heard screams.

Now we couldn't tell if those screams were for fear or from excitement.

And then we turned the bend and there was our first falls and Gail took 1 look at that and she says I don't want to do this.

There's a little problem because there's no reverse on a river and it is moving.

And I quickly could see that the kids that already made it through safely and so that gave us courage that we could come through safely too but you know there's something different about a rapids when you experience it yourself.

There's something about the sight and the sound and the spray of water.

Now, I had never experienced anything like this, And so I was trying desperately to say, what do I need to do?

And I was trying to remember all of the training that Chuck had given us prior to coming in.

And I was thinking, the only thing I could remember was praying position.

And so I hit my knees down there on my, you know, on the canoe, and I'm getting ready to go into this rapids.

My mind is trying to take in all of the sights and sounds and it's new and it's not knowing what to do with it.

Gail was so afraid that she had her canoe over the top, her paddle over the top of the canoe and she was holding on with both of her hands and she was just screaming.

We came into the rapids and we bounced off our first rock And I hollered to her, I said, push off the rocks!

And she just screamed, petrified, and she couldn't get her hands off her canoe.

And then we hit another rock that I didn't even see, and I thought for sure we're gonna fall over.

But then I remembered something Chuck had told us.

He said, if you're going down the rapids and you feel like you're going to tip over, immediately push your body the opposite way and try to counterbalance.

I pushed my weight the other way and we stayed afloat.

And then we bounced off another rock and we still stayed afloat.

And right ahead of us was Chuck and Rita and Jody was in the middle and Their canoe was riding so low that as they were going by all these rocks, it was filling full of water.

And then it lurched a certain way and Jody fell out.

And when she came to the top, she was moving her hands and arms and she wasn't quite sure what to do and I didn't know what I could do to help her so I just hollered feet first and then it was over we were out of the rapids And he had told us if that happens, there's a little eddy on the side.

It's a little quiet spot in the water and then collect yourself over there.

So we paddled over and helped Jody into the canoe.

02 The Power of One

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great blessings of life, whether it's grandchildren or children or family or friends or camp meeting.

You have allowed us to live lives of faith.

We live heart in heart with the God of heaven.

But I don't know that there are many of us here tonight who would boldly claim that we are all we ought to be.

So as we would not consider ourselves to be the finished product, We are praying that tonight you would continue in us that work you wish to do.

We may sound somewhat selfish in that but that's not really our point.

We wish that your will would be done in our lives.

We pray that we would more fully reflect Jesus and that we might live truly Christian lives.

Let your word be powerful again and again, but especially now.

In Jesus' name we pray, please say, amen.

If you got on the Piccadilly line in London, England, and I used to ride the Piccadilly line pretty much every day when I lived in England for a year or so.

If you got on the Piccadilly line, let's say at King's cross station or Piccadilly Circus and went west as far as you could go, well, you could end up in 1 of 2 places.

If you went west and got to Acton Town and the Piccadilly line split and went south, you'd end up Heathrow, Heathrow Airport, that's where you'd end up.

If you went northwest at Acton Town, you'd end up in a place called Uxbridge.

Now, I cannot imagine that more than maybe 1 other person besides myself in this place has ever heard of Uxbridge.

The only reason it exists, I think, is so that the Piccadilly line has somewhere to end.

There are many fascinating towns and cities.

However, right near Uxbridge is Pinewood Studio, second largest movie studio in the world.

And it's interesting, not because that's where they filmed part of James Bond and Batman and Star Wars and these things, not that reason.

It is, I think, interesting for another reason.

It got its start in the early 1930s, known as Sound City.

That was the name of the studio, Sound City.

A Scottish businessman named Norman Loudon founded Sound City, and things were going okay.

But then World War II came along and it wasn't a happy time for the movie business.

Now, right around that time, as England joined World War II in 1939, the English military brass hatched a plan.

Let's build fake or decoy targets for the German Luftwaffe to go after.

We'll make it look like there is a cluster of tanks here.

They'll expend their munitions, not their musicians, expend their munitions there, And it'll cost them something that won't cost us much of anything and certainly no lives.

Now, their first run at this was kind of cumbersome and kind of too expensive until somebody introduced someone to Mr.

Loudon and he said, hey, that's our business.

We can do it on the cheap, we can do it expertly.

They are the masters of fakery, you understand.

He said, we'll build them, we'll build tents, and we'll build runways, and we'll build ships, and none of them will be real.

And you can even today find pictures of a four-man carrying a tank around, because it's built out of paper mache or rubber or paper or fiberglass, I don't know quite what, but they built these things.

In fact, I don't want to get too far sidetracked, but what they did as a matter of fact was fool the Germans into believing that the assault on Normandy would not happen at Normandy, but at Calais because of the way they massed fake military stuff further north rather than further south.

Loudon and his team were able to build ships and tanks and airstrips, all of them phony.

In fact, at night they would stage things in certain places around the British countryside, making it look as though people didn't shut their blinds.

You know, they would do that at night so nobody would see light and the Germans wouldn't target that and bomb that.

They would make it look as though somebody inadvertently left their blinds open or their curtains apart, make it look like light was leaking out so that the enemy would say, ah, that's the place when in fact it wasn't.

Imitation, fake, phony, I would not say fraudulent, but certainly deceptive, but there's a lot of that in war.

Imitation, designed to be seen by the enemy and designed to deceive the enemy into thinking they were real when they were anything but.

And here we find ourselves down at the close of time, caught in the midst of a great controversy, in an intense spiritual battle.

We have, ladies and gentlemen, an enemy, someone who does not like you very much.

Our enemy, I'll say it again, is not flesh and blood, but principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places.

It's a crisis for us, and we know it is because we see casualties all around us.

Sometimes our own family members, church members, people we work with and live among, wounded, harmed, damaged by the enemy who, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour.

You see those who've been killed literally or spiritually, people who've lost their way, lost their spiritual moorings, lost their spiritual lives.

We are up against a tremendous enemy who's been studying you and people like you for 6, 000 years.

And far too often, the best defense we can muster is something that looks like the real thing, but in reality, is anything but.

And so let me ask you, if the devil were to come down here to earth, come down with a posse of his closest comrades, and they went looking for the remnant church, and they went looking for a place where people believe the everlasting gospel, and preach the 3 angels' messages, and send out missionaries, and return their tithe, and follow a divinely ordained help message.

If they went out searching the land like Joshua did, asked to bring a report back to hell of what they saw, what would their report be like?

Would it be like that of the Midianites when Gideon was sniffing around?

They said, this is nothing else, save the sword of Gideon, the son of Joash, a man of Israel.

For in his hand hath God delivered Midian and all the hosts would that be their report would Satan's angels say we cannot go up among them because they are a mighty host Or might the ambassadors or the spies who came down here to planet Earth go back to where they came from with a report that says, that's not the real thing.

That they look like a church, but we are not fooled.

You know, we make some bold claims at Seventh-day Adventists.

We get around believing that we have the truth.

I don't say that to lift us up and put anybody else down, but I believe that God has given us the truth.

I believe that God has given us a message that must go to the world before Jesus comes back.

I believe that our prophetic scenario is right on.

It's right on, at least as right on as can possibly be, given what we know, given where we are in the stream of time.

It's the best that you can find available.

Someone somewhere will hear me say that and say that's just arrogant and oddly enough some in the church might say that.

04 The Missing Link

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

Father in heaven, thank you that in your goodness you've called us here.

We've responded to that call consciously or otherwise.

And now that you have us, I pray you'd bless us.

Series

Evening Plenary

04 Spiritual Weapons for the Crisis Ahead

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Understanding Revelation 12-14

03 Revelation 13: The Two Beasts Part 1

1h 1m

Becoming a Visitor-Friendly Church

03 From Greeting to Serving Part 2

1h 1m

The Coming Sunday Laws

03 Enduring the Sunday Law

1h 7m

Bible Manuscripts and Translations

01 Are Bible Manuscripts Reliable?

1h 3m

Mentorship Matters

04 Mentoring Other Adults

1h

Principles for Succesful Soul Winning

Interpersonal Relationships - The Art of Hospitality Part 1

42m

Berry Bounty: A Guide to Growing Your Own Delicious Berries

03 Growing Blueberries

58m

Bible Manuscripts and Translations

02 What Variants Do Our Manuscripts Have? Part 01

57m

Health Ministries Workshop

07 The Nuts and Bolts of a Great Cooking Class, Part 01

52m

From Shame to Grace

05 A Biblical Journey of Healing

1h 1m

Experiencing Jesus Through Galatians

02 Experiencing Jesus Through Galatians

1h 4m

Theodicy

Melanie’s Problem

1h

Sound Doctrine