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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Thomas Jackson

Creator’s Masterpiece: Preserving Vital Force

I'd like to say good evening to everyone.

And I'd like to say thank God personally, Even those who have come before me and after me, just to be here is a blessing and a privilege.

Because no man knows really no more than God gives him.

And there's always someone in your audience who knows more than you do.

So what I'm going to simply do is just share what God has given me and therefore there's a phrase simply profound and profoundly simple.

2 things that we want to accomplish this weekend.

The first is that we can be encouraged, that we can be inspired and empowered to live up to that which God has given us.

And that it will not just be a theory in our mind, but it will possess our hearts and we will be a living epistle.

I mean we are actually be living out these precious truths that the world might see the truth walking on 2 legs and 2 hands.

Secondly, as we embrace these truths, then we are under obligation in debt to God to share with other people.

And the only reason I'm here this evening is because I'm in debt.

And so the way I pay my debt is that I want to see a soul won in the kingdom of God.

Father in the lovely name of Jesus, the father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the creator and redeemer, the sovereign of the universe.

A covenant-keeping God, a God, Lord, who inhabits the praise of his people, a God who longed to have fellowship with those who he created in his image.

We come now with these few moments to turn our hearts towards heaven asking Lord that you will condescend 1 more time in the person of thy Holy Spirit and take control of this meeting and remove every distraction that your word might find a lodging place in our hearts in Jesus name we pray amen before we move any further I know I have friends here that I've known for over years and there are those who are not familiar with us, but I'd like to let you know that my queen is with me for over 35 years.

My helpmate, my partner, my best earthly friend, my lovely wife Laverne Jackson.

Could you just stand so they can be sure there's no distinction here.

You know, we met when we were 17 years of age, young folk, and didn't realize that God had chosen her in eternity and blessed her to live with me for 35 years.

So maybe this Sunday you'll probably hear from her.

Some of those of you who do not know who we are as Brother Mike stated, meet.

We get a lot of informational letters from foreign countries and they spell our name M-E-A-T because they don't understand, but we understand that.

So it stands for missionary education evangelistic training and I'm not going to spend a lot of time but there are those who have come to our place in the western part of Tennessee even though I have a southern accent I was raised in in the southern part of Chicago and migrated to the south And so it's a multifaceted ministry just like Weimar or Uchi Pine, those of you who are familiar with those institutions, we have a little simple lifestyle center and a medical missionary training school.

We put out little booklets such as these.

Some of these will probably be around tomorrow evening or Sunday on different diseases and a wonderful cookbook that my wife put together from SAD to GLAD.

You are as healthy as the food you eat and the food is as healthy as the soil which it grows on and so we have had the privilege to travel around the world and my story goes like this And as it would mention in the little bio, I was clinically diagnosed with arthritis at the age of 17.

In another 2 months, I'll, let me see, how old will I be?

I remember When I hit 40, I had hormonal problems.

But when I hit 50, I was excited when I hit 50.

If you don't know where you're going at the age of 50, you will not know where you're going, period.

I'm serious, you gotta be established at the age of 50.

But at the age of 17, and I will not get into a lot of details, maybe later on this week, but I was told that I had this number 1 crippling condition that affects something like 55 million people here in America, 1 out of 5 persons.

And it lasted till I was 27 and as it stated it stopped my career as a professional basketball player and I remember my team physician telling me said, Thomas, you're a good basketball player.

And unfortunately, you will have to live with this condition for the rest of your life.

And I took so much, so many drugs, steroids, anti-inflammatory drugs, they just lost their effect.

My body became desensitized to it and I had to resort to other measures just to play sports.

And I was in my early 20s, and when it was declared, no hope.

During the Vietnam War, some of you young folks were not born during that time.

The NBA, 1 of the teams were Philadelphia 76ers, and the United States Army.

Which 1 you think that I really wanted to be drafted by?

Well, you already answered that question.

They gave me the highest rejection they can give anybody.

4F simply means that you're unfit for boot camp.

I was not a Christian but I was praising God anyway and I continued to try to play sports but my condition became so severe that I almost became immobilized.

Over 35 years more I picked up the Bible.

I grew up in a Christian home, but because I wanted to be rich and famous, to make money to put my mother who was so gracious and raising 8 children alone.

That was my desire to return gratitude and love her.

But when my career ended, I went into depression.

I began to do other things to transfer the anger and the disappointment.

You can think about maybe in your life you've had dreams and a vision and it just dissipated and didn't come to fruition.

But my mother, for the first 12 years of my life, I can just see it now that she continued to instill in my mind that there's a God.

Even though I strayed away from that God, got into a lot of other type of isms, but what she indelibly impressed upon my mind stayed there.

And God had to get my attention because God is always in pursuit of us.

Even when we going this way, he's always coming at us.

And since we will not just voluntarily or willfully respond to him, he loves us so much, he will devise and orchestrate situations and circumstances to get our attention.

And the only reason I'm here this evening is because of arthritis.

If it wasn't for arthritis, I wouldn't be a Christian today.

When you're going through the pain and the agony you cannot see daylight through the darkness.

But in retrospect I said Lord thank you for arthritis because you got my intention.

When I'm flat on my back only way I can do is look up and so I picked up the Word of God and when the doctor told me that there was no cure for it and therefore I had to come to the conclusion that there was no cure for it And so ladies and gentlemen and friends, we're going to see.

Those without arthritis because of the ions in the atmosphere, your joints begin to ache.

My wife, like I said, been knowing me since I was 17.

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Creator’s Masterpiece: Preserving Vital Force

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