Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

The Last Elijah: An Intergenerational Revival for These Last Days

Don MacLafferty

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

01 Stand Before God

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

As we proceed, Lord, with the first morning meeting, the best meeting of camp meeting, we pray that your Holy Spirit will be poured out upon us.

Lord, may we see the light from on high stream down upon us today.

Fill our hearts, Lord, and speak to our souls, is our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

Have you come here hoping that I'll only do what would make you the most comfortable, or have you come here with a hunger for the Word and also to press together as last-day believers?

If you've come with that hunger, then let's please do not sit so far apart from each other.

Because, you know, in Spirit of Prophecy it talks about the need to press what?

And also, there's many, many places in Spirit of Prophecy where it talks about small groups formed that will be in the Word and praying together.

So I do not want these early morning times to be spectator moments.

You've come here to be in the Word and in prayer.

And yes, I'll be teaching the Word, but it's not just 1 direction.

I got permission from the administration to do this.

Can we make little circles of 6 as fast as we can.

And I invite you to make teams of 6 to be in the Word.

Now, next thing, to prep us for the Word, simple activity.

Do you believe that nature is God's second book?

And by the way, children today and youth are less and less out in that second book.

It's a big burden of mine in discipling the generations is to get kids and youth and adults outside.

So we won't do that right now, don't worry.

But I'm inviting you in teams of twos in your small group.

If you have an odd number it doesn't mean you're odd, it just means that you'll have to be in threes, some of you, okay?

But if you're in teams of 6, in teams of twos, just one-on-one, ask each other this, What's 1 thing that you have seen in nature that's made you in awe of the creator God?

And I'll give you a quick example really, really quick.

So it'll give you a moment to think, because then you'll be on the spot.

So for 3 years, so I'm a full-time volunteer missionary.

So I don't work for pay or salary and I have the joy of just going wherever God wants me to go.

And I work in the littlest tiny church, the littlest tiny school around the world.

I also work with the General Conference as a volunteer.

And by the way, if you never say you're just a volunteer in the local church, never just say you're just a volunteer.

Pretty soon everybody's going to be a volunteer, by the way, because there's not going to be any buying or selling pretty soon.

So anyway, 1 day when I was a volunteer in Canada, we had just moved there.

Some of you know that story, how we got there.

It's a crazy story how we even got there.

And I was, God wakes me up in the morning early, and I was out in the forest.

Now, Canada has deep forest with porcupines and everything else that you can imagine.

And I was out there tromping around in the snow when all of a sudden I looked up in the heavens and there was what?

And I mean, like I'd never seen them ever before because I was so far up north.

And it was shimmering like this and I felt like I was being ushered into the throne room of God.

And it gave me a tiny taste of maybe what heaven might be like.

And it just made me in awe of our Creator God.

Now, there's also little things in nature that can make us in awe of God, not just the big things in the sky.

So turn to each other and just ask each other, what's 1 thing in your lifetime, if you could pick only 1 thing, that made you in awe of our creator God.

Take all the time in the world as long as you do it in 30 seconds, go.

Okay, I wanna hear a few examples real quick.

I'm going to ask this group, you know, this is a very dangerous place to be because you're so accessible.

But can you tell me 1 thing you've seen in nature and I'll tell them.

Is that a good example of something that makes you in awe of God?

Fred Calkins, I know you from Kentucky, Tennessee years ago.

What's 1 thing you've seen that makes you in awe of God?

Somebody like by the name of John Gaten, for instance.

Okay, and 1 person on this side, somewhere over here.

You know, God has put these things out in nature to make us in awe of Him.

If you're not getting out enough, we often get too in awe of stuff that man has done.

I hope while you're here at camp meeting you get outside.

My wife is here with me and we're hoping that every day in between things we're gonna go on a walk and that's what we do every day of our life that we're that I'm not on mission somewhere else.

We walk together and it slows us down and makes us in awe of God.

Now, this morning we have 1 text to 0 in on.

Christian Martin

Living Hope SDA Church

All In: Faithful to the Finish

What a beautiful, beautiful song, Be Thou My Vision.

You know, throughout our vacation Bible school, we repeated this message.

It's a message that stood out, repeated every time we sang the song, and you heard it just now.

Even if I worry and stress, I know that I'm still so very blessed, because I've got a friend who walks with me, and I'll never walk alone.

My message today is entitled, all in, faithful to the finish.

Father in heaven, we just want to pause to thank you for the way that you're the God who is so mighty, so powerful, yet you're the God who wants to walk with us.

We pray, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts, speak through your word, and we thank you for answering this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

Did you know that the word walk is mentioned 212 times in the Bible compared to the word run which is only found 83 times in the Bible.

So taken literally I suppose we could say that we should walk about 3 more times as much as we run.

It's a theme that you see predominantly throughout Scripture.

And that would make sense when you think about it.

It would make sense when it comes to our relationship with Jesus.

Because when we're on the run, when we're on the run, it's usually rushed.

And so, and so we have to do things quickly.

Like we're busy and don't have much time to get to know him.

But on the other hand, when we walk with Jesus, that's why I like that theme in the context of a relationship with Jesus.

We slow down and we consequently spend more quality time with him.

And out of the 83 times, or rather 212 times, that the Bible speaks about the word walk, the apostle Paul is the author of the scripture that refers to walking more than any other author in Scripture.

And in fact, half the times that he uses the word walk appears in the Bible, is used by Paul.

And 1 of those times is in his letter to the Galatians, when he wrote, walk in the spirit.

Walk in the spirit, Paul tells his listeners.

Because we find in scripture where it says, walk with the Lord.

So we walk with the Lord, or walk with God.

Noah walked with God, Enoch walked with God.

Well, today we saw 4 young people be completely immersed underwater, All the way under, all the way.

And that's because in the Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word translated baptized is baptizal, baptizal, which literally means to immerse under, like under, completely underwater.

And prior to the immersion in water, you may have noticed something I did to all 4 of them.

I prayed for them to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

And the reason I did that is because in preparation to baptize them with water, I need to ask God to do the baptism of the Holy Spirit because He alone can do it.

And so since the Holy Spirit is the presence of God, just follow this simple logic, the Holy Spirit is the presence of God, then to be baptized in the Spirit is to be immersed in the presence of God in the atmosphere of prayer.

That's the word picture that inspiration wants to give us when we hear the phrase to walk in the Spirit, to be immersed in His presence.

Now you understand why Paul wrote, pray without ceasing, pray without ceasing.

He meant sense the presence of God without seizing.

And when we think about that, we begin to understand the intimacy that God wants us to have with him continuously.

You know, in the last few days here, even somewhat today, even though it's a little cooler with the clouds, we could be thankful for that, since we're having our picnic and we want to be able to enjoy it to the max.

It's been exceptionally hot these last few days, hasn't it?

And our VBSers, I gotta say, are troopers.

Because we've had some issues with our AC here at Living Hope, but that didn't slow them down.

Their energy levels were just as constant as it was from the beginning.

But it's been exceptionally hot, that's for sure.

The sun has been blazing with all its glory.

You know, the 5K, for those who participated, what a challenge.

Now it wasn't about beating the time or anything else, it was about beating the heat.

But again, troopers, all that started the race, crossed that finish line.

It's been exceptional here in June for this time of year here in this area.

And during the week, especially Heidi and I experienced the heat, because we realized that without Elijah and Mariah around, some of you know they're in Michigan, and we miss them.

But not having them around has brought to our attention the number of weeds that grow in our landscaping.

When they come back, they're going to keep doing that job.

But since I've been gone, it's been like very visible.

And so Heidi and I took time this week to pull weeds.

We were right there in the presence of the glorious sun.

And as we did the work, we let our bodies naturally produce vitamin D.

God designed it so, so incredibly awesome.

In addition, of course, to getting a tan, I might add.

And so much so that when I came to VBS, more than 1 person noticed, Pastor, you got a tan.

Bringing to mind Psalm 89 verse 15, where it says, how blessed are the people who know the joyful sound.

They walk in the light of your countenance.

So to walk with God is to immerse ourselves in the light of His countenance.

And in doing so, letting Him produce supernaturally faithfulness in us.

Something begins to happen as we walk in the light of his countenance.

And coming back to me pointing out that Heidi and I got tans being out in the sun, I have to admit, And I praise the Lord for this, that I'm among the few who can enjoy a whole day in the beach, or in the sun for that matter, without using sunscreen.

Talking Points 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

Kameron DeVasher

Mark Howard

05 Passover

Good day, this is Cameron Devasia and I'm Mark Abbott and this is Tolkien Points.

That is Pastor Howard with a new adaption, your version of the question.

We've been in Australia for a little while, mate.

Yeah, maybe, are you gonna keep it around the office and take it home?

You know, you have to be around it, and you have to hear it.

I already can feel there's a little fade, but I just wanna tell our Australian brothers and sisters that emulation, at least here in the States, is the highest form of flattery.

Yeah, we were in North New South Wales at Big Camp.

Pastor Howard was speaking for the adult group in the main tent and I was in the young adult group.

And we also did a combined workshop together about soul winning.

And the whole theme was about mission and soul winning and revitalizing our churches and cooperation between pastors and lay members.

And so we, I mean, I think we, I speak for both, but had a really great experience there.

It was an opportunity to just be a part of the work around the world.

And it was exciting to see that we're part of a global Seventh-day Adventist movement.

And we all share the same common mission and same great commission from the Lord to do this work and so it's just it's it was a blessing to be part of it.

Really blessed by the Saints there in Australia and you had been there before so they gifted you your hat and then a Kubra.

That's right and so we're happy to have them on and now I'm gonna take mine off because I think it might become a distraction for the rest of the episode here but yeah except I'm gonna have a hat head, but that's okay.

My hair is sticking up and stuff and you never say anything so it is what it is.

But we are now back in Talking Points And this is quarter 3, lesson 5, titled Passover.

And this is a study of the book of Exodus that we're going through here.

And there's just such richness and depth in the book of Exodus for history and for practical personal application and themes of doctrinal import, like the atonement.

And we're gonna see all of that touched on today.

So I'm excited about this particular lesson and I actually put the talking points together for this 1 so why don't you start us off with a word of prayer and I'll walk us through our lesson study.

Gracious Father in heaven we are so thankful for your many blessings to us.

We thank you for the opportunity we had to fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Australia, and we pray that the mission would continue to go on forward there as well as around the world.

We thank you for this Sabbath school lesson that we can study worldwide and it continues to direct us toward the heralding our message and hastening the coming of Jesus Bless us now as we prepare and the teachers that are preparing to teach this lesson for we ask and pray it in Jesus name Amen, amen Well this week continues right back in the chronology of the study of the book of Exodus we've been going over and now we've come to after the plagues, the culmination of the plagues at that last tenth plague and the deliverance of God's people, where actually the deliverance will be the actual physical removal is going to be in next week's lesson but this time we're going to look at the culmination of the plagues with the 10th plague and the Passover that was instituted by the Lord as the deliverance of the initiation of the deliverance of the people of God.

So a lot to cover here and so is this out of curiosity this is focusing primarily on exodus chapter 12.

Yes 11 and 12 are going to be where we're headed today basically.

Because next week is like Exodus 13, 14, 15.

Yeah, we're literally just moving through in a sequence here.

But we have 3 talking points as is our custom this week.

Talking point number 1, God executes justice carefully.

So he does execute justice but he's careful how he does it and we're gonna look at what that means.

This comes from Sunday and Thursday from this week's lesson.

Talk point number 2, ancient Israel was birthed out of the Passover.

That's their kind of home base and launching pad for the movement that we know as the ancient nation of Israel And that's going to come from Monday and Wednesday's lesson even though they have been a nation in Egypt this marks a distinct There's a distinction here, and we're going to look at that all right, and then finally talk point number 3 Passover points to Jesus We can't get away from the obvious symbolism that's invoked here.

Exactly, we're not trying to come up with something new and creative.

We want to be faithful and that comes from Tuesday's lesson.

You know, there's always this kind of perceived tension between the mercy and love of God versus the justice and wrath of God when the reality is this 1 God who has 1 character and his justice is just as part of his characters as love and the Bible talks about repeatedly it says something about God and his anger and that he is slow to it for example Psalm 103 6 through 8.

Yes, verses 6 through 8, the Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.

He will not always strive with us, nor will he keep his anger forever." Now what's interesting about that 1 is not only to tell us about God's character, but what's the example they cite is Moses and the deliverance of Egypt.

The rest of the scripture uses this deliverance from Egypt as an evidence that God is, quote, slow to anger.

You read the same thing in Joel chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.

We read, Now therefore says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning.

Surrender your heart and not your garments.

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm." Now this brings up an interesting point.

By the way, that same phrasing is exactly the phrasing that was invoked in Jonah chapter 4 verse 2 when Jonah, Our Lord God was not this what I said when I was still in my country, therefore I fled previously to Tarshish for I know that you are gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, 1 who relents from doing harm.

Right, so he's essentially quoting the same concept, that I knew this about you, that's why I didn't want to deliver the message to the Nevites because they might turn and you're so good that I can bank on your slowness to anger.

So this is, God is not eager to destroy, he's not rash in his response to iniquity, he's patient and careful in his deliverance of justice.

Thus I put it, the lesson points out from quarterly, from Sunday, paragraph 2, if you want to read that statement there.

Yeah, it says, God gave Egypt time, 3 days of darkness, to think about recent events and what they meant.

He also provided their last explicit warning, the last chance to do the right thing.

And that's the immediate context of this tenth plague, which of course was the destruction of the firstborn.

But you think of like not only did he tell them, hey that plague is coming, he gave them the plague of darkness to sit quietly and think about what they've done, he gave them 8 other plagues before those or not, you know what I'm saying, by my count, and then it was the whole introduction of Moses to Pharaoh to start with.

So God has been going through a systematic process of trying through these plagues not to be punitive.

If he wanted to be punitive he could have started with plague 10 and just strike down right?

But he's walking through a systematic process.

Thus I wrote, the plagues were progressive redemptive condemnation of Egyptian idolatry and pride, thus the final plague was avoidable.

So that's every time you read about God's slowness to anger, it's slow so you can turn.

Turn away, repent, and God will relent, right?

It's conditional but When God finally does execute justice he does it Fairly, and he doesn't do too much, and he doesn't do too little he does it well the Bible uses the phrase each According to his works, so he returns exactly what's due, nothing more, nothing less.

So for instance, let's look at a couple of passages there.

Why don't you look up 2nd Timothy 1 verse 9?

2 Timothy 1 and verse 9 says, and it's in the middle of 1 of Paul's sentences here, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

So notice the redemption offered in Christ is, quote, not according to our works.

Right, so the assumption is we would get according to our works, but he saved us out of that.

But on the other hand you look at Matthew chapter 16 verse 27 and it says, For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels and then he will reward each according to his works.

The idea being that the default setting in God's justice is everyone gets exactly what they deserve or you can have the mercy of the Lord and you don't get according to your works, right?

So when God gives according to his works, He's not like saying everything is fine but I'm gonna create a punishment for you and I'm gonna make you something.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

01 Stand Before God

54m

All In: Faithful to the Finish

26m

05 Passover

29m

05 Passover

28m

Love Hate Relationship

42m

05 Joyful Christianity: An Attitude of Thanksgiving

1h 10m

Beginning, Middle and End

44m

A Study in Hebrews 5: A Call to Grow Up

35m

Carried on Eagles’ Wings: God’s Call to a Higher Purpose

1h 30m

Revelation Exposes the Truth About Christian Denominations

1h 3m

04 Spiritual Weapons for the Crisis Ahead

1h 15m

Where is He?

51m

Sound Doctrine