Forward to Zion: Ohio Camp Meeting 2015: For Such a Time as This

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Forward to Zion

Plenary

Stephen Bohr

The First Postmodern

Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege of being here.

We thank you, Father, that we can gather together in full freedom to open your word and to hear your voice speaking to us through that word.

We realize, Lord, that very soon this privilege of freely worshiping you is going to come to an end.

So Lord we just want to take advantage of these wonderful opportunities that you give us now in times of relative peace.

We ask that as we open your word this evening that your Holy Spirit will be with us to guide our thoughts and to open our hearts and help us to understand the message that you have for us.

And we thank you for hearing our prayer for we ask it in the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

I'd like to begin by reading a statement from the Spirit of Prophecy.

It's found in volume 10 of manuscript releases, page 162.

Here Ellen White is describing the original temptation in fall of Adam and Eve with what is going to happen in the end time.

This is not 1 of the better-known statements from the spirit of prophecy.

I read now from the inspired prophet that God has given to our church.

If the angels were deceived by Lucifer's ingenious methods of misrepresenting God, if Adam and Eve were deceived by his declaration that God was withholding from them the higher education that would make them as gods, is there not danger that men today will be deceived?

So notice she says if the devil was able to deceive angels and he was able to deceive Adam and Eve.

Is there any assurance that he's not going to be able to deceive us?

Please read the first chapter of Patriarchs and Prophets and see if the precious truths contained in this book are not given by the Lord to protect his people from deceptions that are urged upon them just now.

So she's saying that we should study the first chapter of Patriarchs and Prophets.

Do you know what the title of that chapter is?

It describes in detail the methods that Satan used in heaven to deceive the angels.

However, we're not going to focus on the original deception in heaven.

We're going to focus on the deception that took place on earth and of course what the devil did on earth was a reflection of the methods that he used in heaven we'll see several of those parallels.

So in order to understand Satan's deceptions at the end we have to understand his deceptions at the beginning.

And the first thing that I would like to underline is that when God created Adam and Eve, he surrounded them with every physical and spiritual blessing conceivable.

All of these blessings were a sign of his love.

He gave them fresh air, radiant sunshine, luxuriant plants, delicious sweet water, flowers, luscious fruit, animal companions, human companionship, they could have companionship with angels, and they could even speak face to face with God.

What a tremendous gift or what tremendous gifts God gave to Adam and Eve.

Now it's important to realize that Adam and Eve did not earn any of this, they did not ask to exist.

God simply created them and gave them all of these wonderful spiritual blessings, free of charge, as a gift.

However, God wanted Adam and Eve to respond to his love because all of these things were a sign of God's love.

So God wanted a response from Adam and Eve because God did not create automatons, God did not create robots that would automatically respond to him.

So the giver of love wanted a response of love.

By the way, this is the covenant idea in Genesis.

Do you know what the covenant formula is in the Bible?

That's the covenant formula it's used time and again in both the Old and New Testaments.

So God was saying I created you Adam and Eve because I love you, I gave you all of these wonderful gifts because I loved you.

Now what I want is I want you to form a covenant relationship with me.

I want you to answer my love to you by returning that love so that I can be your God and you can choose to be my people.

Of course the way in which you show love is by obedience.

That's why Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commandments.

And so the way in which Adam and Eve would respond and show their love for God, show that they want to enter a covenant relationship with God was by obeying explicitly God's Word, In that way they would be showing a response of love and they would be showing also that they accepted the terms of the covenant.

Do you remember that when God gave the 10 Commandments he said to Israel that he wanted to be their God and they answered everything that the Lord has said we will do.

So God creates Adam and Eve, He gives him all of these wonderful spiritual and physical blessings beyond what we can ever imagine.

It was God's free gift to them, but God now wanted them to form a covenant relationship with him.

He wanted them to respond to his love and the way in which they would reveal their love for him was through obedience.

And God gave them 1 command that he expected them to obey as a sign of their response to Him, of their love to Him, and we all know what that command was.

Genesis Chapter 2 verses 15 to 17 if you have your Bibles Genesis Chapter 2 verses 15 through 17 referred to this first command that God gave to Adam and Eve for them to accept the covenant and to reciprocate God's love.

It says there, Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat.

Usually we think of God as a God of restrictions, a God of prohibitions, but did you notice that here it says first of all God says you can eat from all of the trees of the garden, his first decree is positive.

So he says you may eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

So if you obey me you will keep my covenant, you'll reveal that you love me, you're reciprocating my love, and our relationship will be eternal.

But if you disobey this 1 command you will break in the covenant and you will show that you love something else more than you love me.

Let me ask you, was the command of God clear Or was it ambiguous?

Did Adam and Eve say, well you know this is kind of complicated, I don't know, I don't really know what it means.

Let me ask you, do you suppose that Adam and Eve would have starved to death if they didn't eat from that tree?

You see, the big temptation of Eve is not appetite.

It is appetite in the sense that she had appetite to be like God, we're going to notice.

Because if they were hungry they could eat from all of the trees of the garden.

God didn't tell Adam and Eve, you fast for 40 days and 40 nights, and then come to the tree to see what you do.

They could have eaten from all of the trees if they had wanted to.

So the test was clear, it was simple, and it was easy to obey.

God simply wanted them to give evidence of their love for him, their response to him, their covenant with him, by obeying his command, without question.

Now have you noticed that God did not give them the reason why they couldn't eat from that specific tree.

He told them the consequences if they ate, they would die.

But God did not explain why they couldn't eat from that specific tree.

In fact, Ellen White tells us that that tree did not look any different than any of the other trees.

It was just as beautiful as all the other trees.

It seems like God arbitrarily chose that tree.

It didn't have an aura of light around it.

It was just like all of the trees of the garden.

And yet God said, I want you to abstain from eating the fruit of that tree and don't ask me for any explanations.

They were to obey God without questions, without questioning why, they were simply to obey.

In fact God warned them not to investigate why he had told them not to eat from that tree.

Notice what Ellen White had to say in Patriarchs and Prophets, page 53.

She stated, should they attempt to investigate the tree's nature?

What does that mean, investigate the tree's nature?

Richard O'Ffill

1 + 1 = 1

Just let me carry on a minute about the presentation before.

There was reference made to the secret rapture.

My conviction is that the secret rapture is probably 1 of the most deadly of the heresies and it came on in our lifetime.

Now as was brought out, Rivera and I think there was a lady named McDonald, that they were the ones that kind of birthed it.

But it comes into our lives by the late great planet Earth with Hal Lindsey, and then the left behind Ceres.

And I remember when I was a young man that, shall I say, everybody believed that Jesus was coming in the clouds and that every eye would see him.

It's going to mean there'll be a group who are persecuting the people of God, thinking they're doing the will of God, because if they were supposed to be here, or they wouldn't be here, and so they're doing what they think is the will of God.

I was on a shuttle bus, and there was a man, he was reading some of the Left Behind series, and a lady who was there, they were discussing it.

I said to 1 of them, just out of the blue, I said, you know, The thing about the secret rapture that worries me is that it has Jesus coming 2 times.

And she said, I know, but I don't want to be here for the tribulation.

This is the 1 that sets up for the Sunday Law and it's here and it's all around us and it's almost become universal.

Now what I'm going to do, I'm giving you a little what I call warm-ups so I can say things in a warm up that I wouldn't dare say in a sermon, because they'd get me in and I'd have to be running out the door.

Anyway, some churches, you know, bless their hearts when they're so proud of their church.

We have a lawyer, a millionaire, and a genius.

And I want to say, listen, don't forget Jesus was a journeyman carpenter.

And I've said to the church members, if you're somebody on the outside, you walk in here, you're a nobody.

If you're a nobody outside, you work in there, you're somebody.

We're all children of God, we got to remember that.

What I'm going to do is ask you a favor or invite you.

People will come to meetings like this, and they'll go home and they'll say, you should have been at a camp meeting.

And our friend with whom we're talking, our relative, he says, what's it about?

I really don't remember, but it was really great.

But anyway, isn't that the way it worked?

So I'm going to ask you or invite you, because I'm going to say a lot of things and you're going to hear a lot of sermons.

At least in my sermons, Listen for 2 things, just 2.

So if somebody asks you, what did Dick speak of, you'll say, well, he spoke about this and that.

I've also learned that a sermon is no better than the needs we have in our lives at that particular time.

Not that the people won't appreciate it or be blessed by it, but the person who is more blessed is the person who says, what a blessing that was for me, I needed that.

Are you ready for me to get a little tighter?

Is it you that has such a beautiful voice?

I heard somebody behind me singing, it was beautiful.

If you don't think for yourself, others will do your thinking for you.

Don't be, be thinkers and not merely reflectors of other men's thoughts.

There are questions that have only wrong answers.

Do you believe this or this, they'll say to you, and say neither because the real answer is probably something else.

Somebody says to you, do you believe this or this?

He's setting you up because The trap is in the question.

So when people say to me, do you believe this or that?

He who asks the questions controls the agenda.

Don't try to answer every question that comes to mind.

Test the premise of the question before you try to answer.

I think that I can get questions in my mind that if I follow it through and try to answer it, I could lose my faith.

And you know when it's winter time and the lake is freezing over, it freezes over from the outside, put your foot on that ice and if it's not really frozen over, it'll dunk you.

If you take over the language of your enemy, you make it impossible for him to communicate his ideology.

1 word he's taken over is the word grace.

Grace easily becomes a blanket to hide sin.

Yes, but the kind of grace they might be talking about is the kind that we aren't.

Another word he's taken over is the word love.

Listen, how can you say, I saw 2 dogs making love?

Homosexual lover, I love apple pie and God is love.

Another word he's taken over is the word acceptance.

When the prodigal son comes home, does his dad accept him the way he is?

He gives him a bath and puts new clothes on.

No, because he's going to give us a robe of righteousness and change our hearts.

Elias Baquero

Our Connected Society

We call him Eliitas, it's like Elias Junior.

He and his family is very close to our family.

So I'm so glad to have him here and see him, how he has been growing in the Lord at his young age.

But before he will start his presentation, let us pray again to ask the Lord for his guidance.

Heavenly Father, thank you again for the beautiful day that you have given us.

Thank you because we have had the opportunity to know more about you.

Now that Elias is going to do his presentation, I ask you a special blessing from your Holy Spirit so he can speak your words.

Open our hearts, our minds to listen to your word.

Yes, the Nino family knows me since I was very young.

They saw me grow up and they saw me before, my life before Christ, and I'm happy that they now know a different Elias by God's grace.

For those of you that have a hard time saying my name, my name is Elias in Spanish.

It's Elijah when you translate it to English.

But if It's easier for you, you can say, Elias.

Let's open our Bibles to Revelation 4.11 and let's say a word of prayer before we read God's Word.

Dear Father, we want to thank you Lord because we have the Bible.

We want to thank you Lord because we have the Bible.

We want to thank you Lord because you instruct us, you speak to us through it.

And Lord we pray that today you will speak to us.

That you will open our minds and our hearts and that your voice will be clear in what it is we have to do, Lord, and what it is that we have to surrender, and what it is that you want from us, Lord.

And we thank you because we know you will.

It says, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

For his glory everything is and was created.

Now how many of us here have a Facebook account?

Now, I don't know if you've noticed among even Adventist circles, when somebody mentions a Facebook account, you know, they'll say, yeah, I have my Facebook account, but I barely get on, or, you know, well, I use it to encourage people.

And there's this unspoken, almost shame that comes with having a Facebook account.

But did you know that in January, a poll was taken that the average user logs about 1.72 hours per day on social electronic media.

I did the math, did some dimensional analysis there, and that means that people are spending an hour 43 minutes a day checking their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever it is.

That means that when you convert it to the amount of time during a week, that's 12 hours a week.

That's 2.15 days a month, and that's 26 days a year.

That's 28% of that individual's time spent on electronic social platforms.

I mean, what if we could add 26 more days to our year to do those things that are necessary.

People are spending 26 days a year doing these things.

Now, I'm not here to talk about the ills of social media, because I do believe that it can be used for good.

So that's not what we're here to talk about, don't worry.

More than that, I'm here to discuss what insights that can give to us about us as humans, about how we feel, how we think, how we behave as human beings.

Believe it or not the National Institute of Health actually published a scholarly article in 2012 discussing the reasons behind the use, the why behind the reason or the reason why people use social media.

Number 1, the ability to construct a public or semi-public profile.

Number 2, the ability to identify a list of other users with whom a connection is shared.

And 3, the ability to view and track individual connections as well as those made by others.

When they distilled it down to 2 main reasons, they were the following.

1, the need to belong, the need of a sense of belonging.

And 2, the need for self-presentation, and they listed a whole bunch of other things under there narcissism and neuroticism and so on.

The researchers distilled down to those 2 the need for human the need the human need to belong and for self-presentation.

They they said and I'm quoting here humans are highly dependent on the social support of others.

And ostracism from the social group impacts negatively on a variety of health-related variables, including one's sense of belonging, emotional well-being, sense of life, meaning, purpose, self-efficacy and self-worth.

Yet every year lots of Facebook users commit suicide.

So you know these social media platforms are not filling the need they're not filling the gap.

You see we were created for something more we were created with a need that that nothing can satisfy an insatiable need a God filled a God shaped hole in our hearts that nothing can satisfy.

Today, nowadays you see how there are so many different types of mediums through which people are trying to fill this hole.

Whether it be these artificial connections with other people through Facebook or through whatever platform they choose.

Whether it be through parties or whether it be through material things, owning a house, a car, a relationship.

But for those of you that have been married for a long time, I myself am not married, but I have spoken to many who are, and I'm sure that there are many here who would testify that even a happy marriage on its own without God does not fill.

There is a God-shaped hole in our hearts and nothing else will satisfy.

Jesus gives us the secret to filling this hole.

Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 15.

And here Jesus gives us the secret to finding satisfaction, true satisfaction.

Now before we go anywhere else, look at verse 8.

John chapter 15 verse 8 says, herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples.

So here is the secret to filling that need is to glorify God.

We were made, we read in Revelation 4.11 that everything was created for Whose glory?

But it's not just God, as we're going to see in this chapter.

There is a purpose to our lives and that is to give glory to God.

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