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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Weston Fargo

Lost in Paradise

Such a blessing to be here with you this morning.

My name, for those of you who don't know me, is Weston Fargo.

As Addison mentioned, actually, I had the opportunity to attend AFCO in more recent times with good brother Clayton Vance and Matthew Clutie who are heavily involved in this great ministry.

And currently I'm spending time studying at La Sierra University.

And so Ethan and Chris are actually good brothers of mine.

We find that there is definitely power and unity, amen?

We found that as we continue to grow in the faith and as we continue to mature spiritually, it is so important to have someone to help you, to strengthen you.

We read in 1 Chronicles chapter 12 actually, 1 of the most prominent characteristics of David's mighty men of valor is that they could keep rank.

And I think it's so important to have people that you can strengthen, that can strengthen you, that could be there through the hard times.

And I just pray that each and every 1 of us would continue to grow as Ethan shared and appreciate that testimony, Ethan, again.

And as for Chris, I don't know if you mentioned this, Chris was actually on the way to share his testimony last night for the very first time when his car exploded and burst into flames and sometimes it just happens that way but God has a purpose for every experience is that right?

And God has a great purpose for this as well.

You know, I recently had the opportunity to share the message that I'll share here momentarily in the area elsewhere.

But I wanted, I felt impressed to share it again here because I feel like it's an ever-important topic especially for God's people today waiting for his sooner turn.

Because the great controversy itself, Satan's attack, is not only just about God in more of a general sense, but it's an attack on God's very character.

So this morning our title for the message is Lost in paradise and it's going to deal with our very conception of who God is.

But without further ado, may we bow our heads for a brief word of prayer.

Father in heaven, I just want to say thank you, dear Lord.

We know that you're already in this place.

There's not need to invite you in this place but there's need to invite you into our hearts and so I just pray that you would open up our minds, open up our ears and most importantly our hearts dear Lord that we would receive this message here this morning and that we would leave dear Lord not forgetting how you spoke to us and the very things dear Lord in which you are trying to teach us my precious name we pray amen Lost in Paradise is the title here this morning.

After AAFCO, I recently also spent time in India doing evangelism, and that was a blessing.

I want to make this small plug before we begin, and I'm sure my brother Clayton and Matthew, those of which I attended AAFCO with, can attest to this.

If you are feeling impressed to go to a Bible college, if you're feeling impressed to go on a particular mission trip, if God is calling you to step outside your comfort zone today, I would strongly urge you to do so.

There is something about stepping outside our comfort zone that helps us to more fully and completely learn how to depend on Christ.

And so if God is calling you to do something outside your comfort zone today, as small as maybe even knocking on a door, I strongly want to urge you to do so.

And so we are blessed with the opportunity to attend this Bible college, and I was given the opportunity to go out through the Amazing Facts Ministry and to do evangelism in India.

And so as we were there, we had a series of lectures that we were doing, that we were following.

And on 1 of our off days, 1 of the locals wanted to take us to 1 of the biggest tourist attractions in that particular location.

And so we ended up going to this Hindu temple and we are walking around this temple and you know that experience really moved me.

As we are there I began to walk around and even in the very walkway there were individuals shaving their head in the midst of the walkway.

There were people offering fruit sacrifices to images, to statues.

There were even people bowing prostrate for hours at a time before these images of animals and that such thing.

And you know that experience really moved me for this reason.

Every 1 of these acts of worship, every 1 of these practices or rituals that these individuals were performing was done in such a manner to appease the wrath of this God that they were worshiping.

And so as we walked around, everything was done in such a manner to please or once again appease the wrath of this God that they were worshiping.

In other words, this God they worshiped was almost looking at them just to condemn, looking at them to slip up, if you will, to punish them.

And so their forms of worship were molded around the idea of appeasing the wrath of this God and I couldn't help but realize something.

Many Christians today have the same exact perception of God.

They Look at God as this God who is up there and you're down here.

This God full of power, transcendence, authority, who's just looking to see if you make a mistake.

And in so doing, they lose sight of the personal, the intimate, the loving characteristics of who God truly is.

Friends, I want to submit to you here this morning that when our conception of God changes, when our conception of God changes, our perception of sin changes.

When our conception of God changes, our perception of sin changes.

This morning if you have your Bibles I want to turn to Genesis chapter 1 verse 1.

And we're going to be looking at the first 3 chapters of Genesis here this morning.

And this is actually a hotly contested, or shall we say a topic that is in contention within the Christian Church today.

This is dealing with primarily the first 2 chapters, but we're going to dive into the third.

And we want to say, we want to try and dive into the the mind of the author, if you will.

We want to see why Genesis is written the way it is.

Genesis 1, verse 1, just so happens to be 1 of my favorite verses in the Bible, goes on to say this, "'In the beginning, ' who?

"'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'" Now, I love the first verse of the Bible for this reason, it assumes God's existence.

So if you will we can take, we can open up our mental windows if you will, open up those mental windows and out of that window we can throw out ideas such as pantheism, which is to say God is in everything.

We can throw out ideas such as agnosticism, which is to say that God is but does not have affairs within our world today.

We can also throw out ideas such as atheism, which is to say that God does not exist.

Because the Bible assumes God's existence.

So I love the first verse of the Bible but as we pay close attention it's interesting.

In the study of hermeneutics or the study of Scripture rather there's a concept called the rule of first mention.

Basically what this rule implies is that the first time you see a particular word in Scripture, the meaning of that word tends not to deviate too far from its original use.

Genesis 6 verse 8 I believe is the first time we see the word grace used in Scripture.

I believe it says, and Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord.

And Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord.

So as we look all throughout Scripture, the meaning of the word grace there will tend not to deviate too far from its original use in Genesis 6.

The rule of first mention here in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 is the first time that we see the word God used in Scripture.

Now if you look at it through the Hebrew the word in this particular sense the word God is actually Elohim.

So I want to go through Genesis chapter 1 and I want to see how the Bible describes Elohim or God.

Jumping over to verse 3 it says this, Then God said, let there be light in what happened and there was light.

Then God said, let there be light in what happened, and there was light, amen?

Then God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Going on to verse 9, then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into 1 place, and let the dry land appear." And notice something, God just speaks in what happens.

He says, let the dry land appear and it is so.

Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit.

When God just speaks, when He even breathes, is that right?

When He even breathes, insinuating that He's gonna speak, there's already action.

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Lost in Paradise

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