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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

The Little Gospel

Well, I've entitled our message this morning, The Little Gospel.

I had several people ask me that this week.

Well, we're going to talk about that today, and I think you'll see it's a very biblical concept of the little gospel.

Somebody might say, well, how can the gospel be little?

Well it's not that the gospel is little, something else is little that leads to the gospel.

And we're going to talk about that this morning.

I want to encourage you to come today to the Revival Series, 415, if you have a chance.

If you haven't had an opportunity to come, it's still not too late, you're welcome to come to that.

And also, the Vespers this evening, the Grow Michigan training that we're going to be pressing upon this year, and the class that is on the Becky's Door, the sign-up sheet, there is a little bullet, insert in your bulletin about that.

I want to encourage you to reach out and share your faith, Amen?

Even if you can't, what we're doing here, we're building upon what's already been done in the last several years.

And we're going to form a team of lay Bible workers who can share their faith and give Bible studies.

You may say, well, I can't be a Bible worker.

Everyone is called to share their faith, amen?

There's shy ways to do it and there's not shy.

There's a way for everybody and there's different examples of it throughout scripture and God is going to use you.

So I encourage you to step out in faith today.

We're going to ask the Lord to be with us.

1 more time, we'll ask for prayer and I invite you to bow your heads wherever you are and pray for me as I pray out loud.

Father in heaven I pray this morning that your Holy Spirit would guide and direct our hearts Lord, that we would be drawn unto you, that we would be drawn close to you, and Lord, that Jesus would speak through us today, that you would, your word would come down from heaven, Lord, and inspire us and encourage us and direct us and instruct us, convict us Lord, comfort us, and Lord may your spirit just lead us as we open the pages of sacred scripture.

How many of you have heard the story of Desmond Doss?

Many of you know Desmond Doss and I told this story to the school kids.

I'm not going to tell his whole story but I do want to tell just a little bit about him.

Desmond Doss, I actually knew Desmond Doss.

My father-in-law is a pastor in Alabama and Desmond's final church before he passed was my father-in-law's church.

He actually helped to found that church and he was out working on the church as they were building it.

He donated money and he was a part of that church before he passed away.

1 of the most humble men I've ever met was Desmond Doss.

He actually had a prayer for my wife and I and our wedding.

And the first time I ever saw Desmond, I didn't know who he was.

And I went to a camp meeting down at Southern Adventist University, and I came into the auditorium and I sat down, and 2 seats over was Desmond and his wife.

And I had noticed that they were just elderly people, wonderful, nice people, and they greeted me and I greeted them.

And I noticed that as, it was Doug Batchelor preaching the sermon, and as he preached his wife would write down what Doug said in a notebook, and she would pass it over to Desmond, and he would take a magnifying glass, and read what he had written, because he was virtually deaf, and almost blind.

And then about a year later I started attending my father-in-law's church and lo and behold, there's that couple.

And someone told me the story of Desmond Doss and what an amazing man he was.

And God used this man to do powerful things.

But if you ever met Desmond, you would find that he was just a very ordinary, normal, down-to-earth, common person.

There was no, there was no just this glamor about him.

Of course he had a glow about him because he knew the Lord.

But when Desmond was a young man, I forget exactly how old he was, it was early teens or so, even from his youth, he was the kind of person that would do anything for anybody.

1 time there was an announcement on the radio that there had been a car accident, this was many years ago, and they actually needed blood for the patients because in those days they didn't have a huge supply.

So Desmond actually walked 3 miles to the hospital, donated the blood, and then walked back.

Several hours later, it was announced that they still needed more blood for the people.

And so Desmond walked another 3 miles, gave more blood another 3 miles back, 6 miles in a day just to help somebody.

When he went into the military of course he received the congressional medal of honor, the highest medal that anyone can can obtain and he did it without ever carrying a what?

He went in as a medic, he refused to carry a gun because he believed in the commandment, thou shalt not kill.

And so Desmond went into the medics and many of his fellow soldiers would beat him up and they would curse at him and they would threaten him and his commanding officer actually threatened him because he wouldn't carry a gun.

He said, if I ever get in a foxhole alone with you, he said, I'll shoot you myself.

And he was faithful to God even in the small things, and slowly but surely he won the confidence of his fellow men.

And they came to respect him, and they came to love him, and in fact many, many times, even in boot camp, he saved their lives.

And they had a great of gratitude to Desmond.

And of course that famous story that we all know, when Desmond climbed that cliff and rescued a hundred or more soldiers and drug them to the edge of the cliff and lowered them down with a rope and where was it that he learned to tie the knot to save those men?

How many of you can say amen for the pathfinders?

And so God used an ordinary knot to save the lives of more than a hundred men, even though there was enemy snipers seeking to take his life.

And they interviewed some of those snipers after the war and they found that those snipers had Desmond in their sights multiple times, trying to fire at him as he grabbed those men by the neck.

He would weigh 130, 140 pounds, and he would drag those men over to the edge, tie them up, and lower them down.

And he said, he told me, he said, every time that I would go for another, he would say, Lord, help me to get just 1 more.

And every time that sniper would try to fire his gun, his gun would click.

And he would unjam it and try to fire again.

He would unjam it, he would point it in the air.

Then he'd point it back at Desmond, click, click, click.

God used, let me make this clear this morning, God used the faithfulness of Desmond in the ordinary things of life to do something for him that was extraordinary.

Because Desmond was faithful in the ordinary things of life to God, God used his faithfulness in the ordinary to do something extraordinary through Him.

That, dear friends, is the little gospel.

Faithfulness, not in the big things, well in the big things, but not only in the big things, but in the daily trudges of this life, and it's those things that prepare us for a greater work that God wants to do through us.

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The Little Gospel

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