Hartland Fall Convocation 2025: Engage Clarity Mode

David Buruchara

Lilena Walker

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Breaking Silence on Suicide: Ending the Pain Without Ending Your Life

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together to discuss this heavy topic.

Give us wisdom, give us clarity, give us hope.

If anyone in here is struggling with suicidal thought or suicidal desire, we ask that you give them fresh encouragement, Lord, fresh hope and a joy that doesn't even make sense to them.

Walker, I don't know about you, but when I was a student studying to become a counselor, I enjoyed all my classes and was enjoying, you know, Just having fun until we got on the topic of suicide.

So even for a student, studying to be a mental health practitioner, I was completely lost as to how to navigate this topic when we were studying it in school.

So I can imagine for the average lay person, what do we do when we come face to face with this big word called suicide?

Now I work a lot with couples, I work with men, but I hear you work a lot with people dealing with either suicidal thoughts, attempts.

And not only that, but I hear you yourself have your own testimony.

So thankfully, as for me, I never had a suicide attempt.

If anyone was there last night when I was doing the teen mental health, I talked about periods where I would have dissociative episodes where I felt out of body.

So I would be like again, sitting in a room, I'd be grocery shopping, and it would feel like it wasn't me doing it.

It would feel like I'm watching the hand touch things, but I wasn't feeling it.

I would look for things, and I would see myself doing it, but it didn't feel real.

It's 1 of the scariest things you can experience.

And during that time, I thought to myself, if this is what life is going to be like, I would rather not be here.

I don't even know, I was existing, but I wasn't living.

And it got to the point where I was cutting, I was like dicing onions in the kitchen with my mom.

And I had what they call now an intrusive thought.

And the intrusive thought just said, what if you just took the knife and cut your arm.

And I remember I was holding the knife just like this, thinking that thought.

And my mom, praise God for her, she says, Lelena, you're OK.

And I just slowly kind of put the knife down.

She was like, I'll finish chopping the onions.

That moment, right, it told me something.

It told me that my mind sometimes couldn't be trusted.

Right, That sometimes I would have thoughts that were wicked, basically.

That's why they call it intrusive, right?

You're going about your day, you're just cutting onions and all of a sudden, what if I, right?

It didn't start from a place of necessarily deep depression.

So I had that experience at, again, 14, 15.

But thankfully, when I went to Oakwood at 16, I told you all yesterday, 16, of course, is a young age to go to college, but thankfully, because I had the experiences I did in high school, I was ready.

I felt like my friends, I felt like I was on par with them in terms of maturity level.

If you ask them, it might be a different story.

But I thought, I was like, yeah, I belong.

So I had a great time my freshman year to my junior year and onward when I graduated from Oakwood.

So Oakwood, imagine having a period of time of no suicidal thought.

So I was like, oh, maybe it's not going to come back.

And it came back when I got to Loma Linda.

And I'm literally now learning about mental health.

And the thoughts started to come back of just, what if you're really not as needed as people say you are?

Right, these again, just thoughts that would come out of nowhere.

And it got to the point where in 2019, I remember I called my best friend at the time, and I was telling them just how badly I was feeling.

And I mean crying, pouring my heart out to them.

And usually they would answer with, you know, empathy and compassion and comfort.

This time, Their words were, I really can't help you with that.

Because during this time, I'm meeting with 3 different therapists during this time.

And now, The person on the other line is saying, I don't know how to help you.

And I got off the phone with that person, I hung up and I literally laid flat on my bedroom floor and I cried out to God.

For the past, at that time, it had been 4 years of being in Loma Linda, I was like, I feel like this dark cloud is just covering my head.

And people see me as the same kind of joyful Lena you see today, people saw me as that back then.

So imagine being seen by others as like being full of joy, but on the inside, you're like, I'm dead inside.

Randy Skeete

Pastor Randy Skeete Sermon Library

Treasures in the Trash

Our subject for this evening, treasures in the trash.

If you are not using 1 of these, cell phone, please turn it off until it is dead.

Don't play with the phone in the presence of God when you should be worshiping him in truth and in spirit.

You will not do that in the presence of an earthly judge.

Favour number 2, while I'm speaking pray for me and say Lord put your words in that man's mouth.

Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 9, Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth.

And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth.

God knows that I want to speak His words as clearly and simply as I possibly can.

God is pleading with us, come, let us reason together.

What a privilege to sit down with the invisible God and reason with him and he will listen to your arguments.

I said he will listen in order for there to be reasoning they must be listening on how many sides both sides let's pray loving father in heaven you were with me last night I believe you helped me Whatever power you gave me last night was for last night.

I need power, I need your Spirit of truth.

Forgive my sins if I have offended you, dear God.

Cleanse me, that's why Christ died and rose.

I ask you, dear God, to cover me with Christ and fill me with the Spirit and protect me with the angels.

I pray for all those who are listening online and in person, Please God, bless them individually through this single message.

A special blessing on all our guests and a sweet blessing on the little boys and little girls who are watching.

This beautiful country with beautiful people.

All other countries represented by those watching, bless them too, Father.

But I lift up highly the host country of Zimbabwe father let your spirit work aggressively to move someone who is still stubborn over the line over to your side.

Now dear God, thank you for the cold temperature.

Speak through me, I pray, and through Brother Vavad, the interpreter.

In Jesus' name, let God's people say, Amen and Amen.

I want someone or someone's online or in person to break out a pencil and some note paper.

Because I'll be asking you to help me, and what you tell me, I'll tell the internet audience.

Piece of paper and a pencil to make a list.

Let us go to Romans chapter 7, we read verse 12.

I read from the King James Version of the Bible.

Of course you have to tell me when we're ready.

Holy and the commandment, holy, just, and good.

Now write on your paper, holy, just, and good.

That is the Spirit of God telling Paul to write that.

And by the way, the Spirit is called the Spirit of truth.

So whatever he inspires a man or a woman to write is truth.

For we know that the law is spiritual but I am carnal, sold on the sin.

The law is, let's review the list, holy, just, good, and spiritual.

But let's pause on verse 14, my friends and those online.

In other words, whatever carnal means, the law is the opposite.

I am, the law is spiritual but I am carnal, soul and the saint.

Psalm 119, our subject, treasures in the trash.

My tongue shall speak of thy for all thy commandments are.

We have 1 more to the list, write it down.

The law is holy, the law is just, the law is good, The law is spiritual, the law is righteousness.

Stay in Psalm 119, let's go to verse 142.

Read with me, thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and thy law is the truth.

How to Talk to People Who Believe Lies

Gabriel Arruda

Freedom Health Ministries

How to Talk to People Who Believe Lies Part 1

The title of the sermon is, How to Talk to People Who Believe Lies.

And I think we all recognize that in society there's lots and lots of arguing.

We have this denomination versus this denomination.

I mean that's just the tip of the iceberg right?

We have lots and lots of people arguing about a lot of different things and you simply cannot avoid it.

We have to learn how are we going to navigate in a world where people have different views of us and people may have views that you think are totally and completely wrong.

Do you know anyone, perhaps you have someone in your life, someone you actually really deeply care about, and you think that they believe total lies.

Does anyone have anyone like that in their life?

You have someone who you deeply love and as you just see their belief system you're like, man that person just believes total lies.

Maybe it's a doctrinal point of view, maybe it's a political point of view.

You know, no matter how many facts, No matter how much evidence you put before them, they simply refuse to see it.

I think if we're all honest, we all have had an experience like this.

I'm going to share about why that happens and how to talk to people who are in this category, as well as how to not become in that category yourself.

Not too long ago, I was in a Bible study, and in the Bible study there was a group of young adults, and there were 2 Mormon missionaries there.

And I asked the Mormon missionaries, they were presenting a topic, I asked them, can you please tell me what is your view of the Bible versus the Book of Mormon?

And they quoted to me their fundamental belief number 8, which states that the Bible is the Word of God, quote, as it's correctly interpreted.

Why do you have that as it's correctly interpreted clause there?

And they kind of beat around the bush a little bit, but then pretty much after, you know, some discussion came down to this is really the the blunt truth here.

The Bible has been corrupted according to them and the Book of Mormon is here to clear it up.

That is, if you just want to know exactly what they believe, that's it.

A lot of times it won't be that direct with you, but that is what they believe.

And so I said, you know, can I share with you a Bible passage that is very meaningful to me?

And I quoted Psalms chapter 12 verse 6, which says, the words of the Lord are pure words as silver, tried in a furnace of earth, purified 7 times.

Listen to this, thou will keep them O Lord, thou will preserve them from this generation and forever.

So I said God has actually promised to preserve His Word and you're saying that it's been corrupted.

So I see a dichotomy there and also I shared with them a very interesting piece of history.

I shared with them the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

You know prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls which happened in about 1947, the earliest manuscripts we had were about 800 years after the time of Christ and so this was a field day for atheists and skeptics.

They said 800 years from the time the Apostles wrote these things to the earliest manuscript, who knows what garbage got put into those manuscripts, what personal opinions and points of view, so on so forth, and you know the Christians really didn't have a lot of answer for that, they just said well we believe it's the Word of God and it's led me to Christ and led me to salvation.

But in 1947 God gave a fantastic answer to that.

They found the Dead Sea Scrolls, long story short, when they went through these scrolls they realized what they had were the earliest manuscripts of the Bible that had ever been discovered to that point.

Some of the manuscripts, 2 of the oldest ones, were the books of Isaiah and the books of Daniel, which went back 200 years before Jesus, and very early manuscripts of many New Testament fragments and so forth.

And as they compared this discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the Bible that we have had for, you know, 2, 000 years, you know what they found?

There were thousands of what they call textual variants, but what those are, are commas that are in different places, punctuation in different places, and misspellings, slight misspellings of somebody's name or of a certain town.

But in every single variant, and there are thousands of them, they found it did not change 1 bit the core message.

And what the Dead Sea Scrolls proved is the Bible that you have in your lap today is the exact same Bible that Jesus quoted from the Old Testament and the Bible that the Apostles had and were writing.

And I shared this with them and you know what their response was?

This is the response I got it in my memory almost verbatim.

They said, yeah that's cool I just think it's awesome that God inspired Joseph Smith to give us another testament of his word.

Did you just hear what I shared with you?

I just proved that your point is utterly false.

You told me that the God gave us the Book of Mormon because the Bible's been corrupted.

I just shared with you that the Bible has not been corrupted so that the Book of Mormon is essentially useless and you come back with, yeah, the Book of Mormon is true.

Why do such bright people give such a foolish response?

There's a very good reason why people can't see truth.

And here's the danger when you're talking and dealing with people like this.

The danger on our end is to get frustrated.

To get very frustrated when there's plain evidence, clear as day, how could you deny it?

What is the matter with your mind, with your eyes?

And it's tempting to get very frustrated with these people.

And I have made lots of mistakes in Bible studies in the past.

I used to, I lost it with a few of my Bible students in the past and God has helped me reform from that.

But I also want to make an important distinction.

What a lot of Christians think is that it's about winning arguments.

Friends, it is not about winning arguments.

There's a difference between winning arguments and winning people.

Those are 2 different things and they're 2 different roads to travel depending on what you want to do.

So you have to determine what is the goal.

Do you want to win an argument or do you want to win a person?

Have any of you ever won an argument against your spouse?

You won the privilege of sleeping on the couch that night, didn't you?

You know, just because we win an argument, we could lose the war.

And so what I'm going to share with you is how to, not win arguments, how to win people.

But I also wanna share with you, not everybody can be 1.

And what I wanna share with you is that we waste a lot of time, I think, arguing with people about their theology and even their philosophy, because there's something under that.

You know, I actually wanted to have a whiteboard up here, but I couldn't get a hold of 1 by the time I the preaching this message.

There's a tier system here What we have at the top is people's behavior What they do but below behavior what we have is people's theology.

Your theology dictates what you do, what you think is right, what you think is wrong.

But below theology, there is something else.

Below theology is philosophy, their philosophy.

And what philosophy is, is your beliefs, your belief system.

And a lot of people think that theology drives philosophy sometimes, but more often than not, philosophy, underlying core values, core beliefs drives people's theology, what they choose to see from Scripture, what they choose to believe about the Bible.

Rico Hill

Arise and Shine

And the reason why I'm so honored is because I'm a ram in the thicket.

And whenever God can use me as a ram in the thicket, you have to be honored.

So I'm honored to actually be used in this way by the Lord.

And I think you'll understand a little bit why, a little more why, as I share some of my story, some of my testimony.

You know, it's always good, as I mentioned in the earlier session, it's good to share your story.

And as I share my story, some of it anyway, I think you'll understand why I'm so honored to be in this position.

I'm going to jump right in because this service has gone along with all the preliminaries.

It's been a blessed convocation though, hasn't it?

I was sharing with Sister Mayer that when I used to live in Arizona, I used to listen faithfully and I would wear out those CDs from the 3 Angels Chorale.

Ah, if there's some latest additions to that, I would like to have it.

Let's have a word of prayer and let's get right into the message, okay?

Gracious loving Father and our God in heaven, Lord, we're so thankful for the opportunity to come and to speak a word on your behalf But Lord No man or woman is worthy of such a task So Lord we need your spirit.

And the Bible says, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

So I want to claim the promise with my brothers and sisters here today, that if we being evil know how to give good gifts to our children how much more shall our Heavenly Father give the gift of the Holy Spirit to them that ask and Lord we're asking yea pleading in Jesus name amen okay so the message is rise arise and shine you're familiar with that text from Isaiah yeah arise and shine for thy light has come now in every generation God has raised up called people to carry the torch and to pass the torch on.

And I need to let the older ones here know that they have specifically given me the assignment to really target this message to our Gen Z and our Alpha generation.

So God has called specifically this generation, you know, consider track.

I ran track for a short period when I was in like grade school and I ran relay and relay the whole idea in running relay is to not to win the race alone The idea is that you would run as fast as you could, get the baton to the next person, and then they would get it to the next person, and then that last person, that last person, woof, they had to bring it home.

Many believe that when we talk to Gen Z and this Alpha generation, you're receiving the baton for the final final lap, for the final sprint.

But God, God who has called you, I read somewhere that all of his biddings are enablings.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Breaking Silence on Suicide: Ending the Pain Without Ending Your Life

47m

Treasures in the Trash

53m

How to Talk to People Who Believe Lies Part 1

40m

Arise and Shine

43m

Steadfast in the Faith

42m

Pr. Mark Finley Analyzes Charlie Kirk’s Sabbath Book

1h 2m

Attacked On Purpose: Why Your Sexuality & Identity are Targeted First

48m

The Everlasting Gospel

33m

The Right Way to Turn the World Upside Down

40m

01 Why Apologetics?

28m

Evangelism in the Age of AI

57m

The Promise Land

31m

Sound Doctrine