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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Tim Riesenberger

Salvation Simplified

Loving Father in heaven, what a joy it is to talk about you.

And Lord, I just ask that as I speak tonight that it would be you and not me, and that Jesus would be not only seen and heard but felt in our hearts, that we would feel His words burning within us as we walk this journey right now.

We love you, Lord, and we welcome you on this, your Sabbath day, in Jesus' name, amen.

I'm gonna have you turn the lights out for a moment.

I'm going to share with you something that happened to me that changed my life.

And I believe it illustrates a truth that every 1 of us must know if we are to know God, to see God 1 day.

And it's a lesson that I learned in the mission field.

This is actually not a representative picture of the country, but it's just the picture that I took as we were headed down the road.

And We were about 3 hours from the nearest city.

And this village had no running water except for 1 hour a day, had no electricity, very simple and we were asked to do Just some health work there.

There was myself and a dentist and several nurses several physical therapists occupational therapists and People that were just interested in God's natural remedies that was the clinic that we had and Most of clinic was just sitting down and teaching people wasn't a whole lot of Technology no surgical suite.

Days Basically, we had some hydrotherapy, very limited, a few poultices we could make, some charcoal.

And what I found out in this country is that people don't drink any water.

So a lot of what I did was educating people about the 8 natural remedies.

But the most important remedy was that I pointed them to God as their physician.

And that was something that had to be done with every person.

And I think that we sometimes forget that God is the great physician.

Sometimes we rely on our technologies, our education, The things that perhaps medical science has taught us and there's nothing wrong with any of that But ultimately it is only God that heals and we must always remember that no matter how far we go in our education or with our technologies These are the other stations where people would learn about various natural remedies.

If you look in the middle you can see our dentist he's got a mask there and to the far left that was actually our restroom that we had.

It had a little partition, just kind of a thatch wall there.

And 1 of the things I was impressed with is that there were just crowds and crowds of people wanting to be seen.

And they would come up with any possible way to get ahead of you in line.

If you were to walk away for just a moment, several people would follow you and start asking you questions.

Now I didn't even take a moment to eat or anything like that.

The only time I took a break was to actually go to the bathroom.

And so I just went for a brief moment to that little building over on the left and I was just going to the bathroom.

And as I'm using the bathroom, he said, Doctor, una pregunta, which means, Doctor, 1 question.

I thought I was saying, dude, I'm going to the bathroom.

In our culture, if you're a guy and you go in the bathroom you sit and talk with the guy there's your use in the bathroom no but if you're a girl It's rather rude not to talk to the person in the stall next to you if they address you But in that culture there is just no barrier like that He had no problems following me in the bathroom and talking to me And I said well, we'd be more than happy to answer your question and to see you in your place in line 1 of the things I found was that many people were crowding around to see me except for 1 family.

She stayed at the back of the crowd the whole day.

She never once tried to come forward to see me.

All I would catch is little bits of conversation.

Oh, he doesn't have time to talk about me.

And finally, her mother just grabbed her by the shoulders and just kind of marched her to the front of the line where I eventually saw her.

Her name is Helen and she's on the right, my right, in the yellow.

15 years old, apparently healthy, apparently happy.

And so I said, well what seems to be the trouble?

And she said, well, I think it's my heart.

And I just kind of chuckled and laughed and I said, oh, well, maybe it's some boy.

And she said, no, there's something wrong.

So I listened to her heart and I heard the worst sound that I'd ever heard in my life.

I heard a very loud, harsh sounding murmur that told me that there was definitely a cause for her symptoms.

Warner teaches us in physical diagnosis that you really never use later pretty much except in situations like this.

So I have found out after doing all these maneuvers, that she had what's called a ventriculoseptal defect, a large hole in the 2 big chambers of your heart.

Now, that can be a problem just as far as the blood not flowing efficiently.

What was happening with this girl is that the right and the left ventricles of the heart were mixing blood with each other.

Now for those of you who are medical students, which pressure, which side has greater pressure on it, the left side or the right side of the heart?

Because it has to pump blood to the whole body.

And the right side of the heart just pumps blood to the the lungs.

So what will happen is the left side of the heart will pump blood over to the right so it'll just get re-oxygenated over and over again.

Now there's a problem though that happens called Eisenmenger's complex, where eventually the right side of the heart will start to compensate and the pressure will start to go up.

Now, you tell me what happens when the right side of the heart will now overcome the left side so it pushes the blood from the right side of the heart straight through to the left side.

And that is what I believe was happening with this girl with these episodes that she was having.

And so I listened to her and it was it was pretty bad because I didn't say a word but as I was just listening to her heart she just started to cry because I think she saw all the blood kind of drain out of my face.

And when when this happened I had everyone else on the mission team say let me hear let me hear let me hear And so they all wanted to come and grab their stethoscopes and listen And I gave her an opportunity actually to listen to her own heart and to listen to the heart of her sister So she could kind of tell the difference that there was something wrong.

And so when we were finished, she kind of said, so, well, what do I do?

And I said, well, there's really not anything to do.

You're going to need to go to Lima, which is the capital of your country, and see a heart specialist and probably a heart surgeon.

You're going to need to perhaps get a procedure or surgery to repair this hole or to perhaps get a new heart.

And at that moment, as I looked into the eyes of a 15 year old girl, God spoke to me that I needed the same, that I needed a new heart.

And I can tell you that in the story of Helen, the little girl that I met in Peru, I have seen the clearest picture of salvation that I've ever seen in my life.

And at that moment as she is looking at me for answers, she's wanting a cure, a remedy.

She said, well, can't I drink more water?

Like the other person you saw, can't you just make a little poultice and put it on my chest?

There's nothing I can do for you Except for pray and She said well, what will I do?

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Salvation Simplified

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