Joe Reeves

GYC Conference 2023: But If Not

I Know Something You Don't Know

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Adventism According to CNN and Bill Maher

Alright, if everyone can find their seats, we will get started on session number 2.

Hope you're enjoying the first full day of GYC.

And I almost canceled the seminar because I loved some of the other titles and I really wanted to go to them.

So you're lucky I'm here and I didn't put a cancel sign on the door.

But they said that the others are being recorded so I can catch those later.

Now this is I know something you don't know, the lure of conspiracies.

Now 1 of the latest conspiracies is that this seminar is not being recorded and won't be posted.

So it's a good thing you're here in person.

So far nobody's been able to debunk that conspiracy, even though I just made it up.

So in case it's true, it's a really good thing that you're here.

And we're going to have a good time looking at some very important things.

Some of us are a bit vulnerable to accepting difficult topics.

So, as I was preparing some of this presentation part of the time I asked myself why am I doing this?

But this is so important to talk about and it has touched a nerve.

We've had a number of you coming up to Pastor Cody and myself this morning and last night.

Glad that we're having a seminar on this topic.

And it's already been pointed out in the first session, the reason that we feel that we need to talk about this and we need to open up the Bible and spirit of prophecy and ask some tough questions about this topic is because we see this compromising our mission and our message.

And I'm going to be sharing some things in this thing will be sensitive.

And I've also been documenting some things that people have been posting and saying and predictions from the last 3 years that will be in this presentation.

And I am absolutely convinced that the devil's goal is to make a false prophet out of the Adventist Church and a false prophet out of you.

Now what's happening in America right now is that there's a lot of predictions about America.

Many, many different churches, people having dreams about America, people making predictions and So there is a competition of prophets, who can be the false, or who can be the true prophet, who's the false prophet.

And the devil's ultimate goal right in 2023 is to make a false prophet out of you, towards your neighbors, and out of the Adventist church and completely discredit us.

The other reason this is so important is because conspiracy theories impact people's salvation.

And it's not because any of us will be saved or lost based on which conspiracy we believe or don't believe, but it's because we're saved or lost based on how close we are to Jesus.

And fanaticism has pulled many people away from Jesus.

And it was referenced already that many of us have sat in sermons back in the 2008 era making predictions.

I was told when I was college, you should drop out of college because you will not graduate before Jesus comes.

It's a waste of time and many of my friends did.

I ask you a question, did that positively impact their faith or negatively?

Many of my friends from that era are out of the church.

So we're gonna have to learn from some successes and mistakes in the past and we're gonna have to really focus on what Jesus is saying and his calling towards us and ask the tough questions because we cannot afford to have our mission message compromise or we cannot afford to have these things separated from Jesus.

We'll have a good time today then and we really need the Holy Spirit to enlighten us.

If you'll bow your heads, I'd like to pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you that we can be together here at GYC.

With so many great studies happening throughout this convention center of your Word and of prophetic insight, And in this room right here, during this hour, which we dedicate to you, we much need you to sort out some things in our hearts and give us openness that we can track closer with you more than ever before and not get pulled in so many other directions.

All right, these text messages, if you have a question from the last presentation, they go to my phone and I haven't gotten any yet.

So if you don't send any questions, it's gonna be a really boring Q&A panel tomorrow.

So but if you send in some questions it'll be lively.

I appreciate Pastor Mark Howard that's walking in right now.

He gave a great presentation this morning for our morning devotional.

In fact, the earlier you text your questions, the more likely that they'll make it on.

Because usually when we have Q&A panels, we get a flood of questions at the end, and we don't have time for all of them.

So the earlier you text me, the more likely it'll be in the panel discussion.

So you can take a picture, if some of you are right now, of that slide.

And if a question pops up while I'm presenting or Cody, you can text us right in the moment if you'd like.

The title for this presentation is Adventism according to CNN and Bill Maher.

I'd like you to take you back to 3 years ago.

But there was mask mandates, everybody, people weren't traveling.

We were in the middle of the COVID pandemic.

And we had just gone through a very tense election season in the United States between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and very, very tense.

In the middle of that, there was a group called Q, or they were making these anonymous drops on the internet.

And beginning in 2017, Q, also known as QAnon, dropped over 5, 000 cryptic messages.

It Seemed like it was from some government or military insider.

But this gained wide following leading up into the 2020 election.

Hillary Clinton was about to be arrested and would attempt to flee the country was 1 of the predictions.

Mark Zuckerberg was going to leave Facebook and flee the United States.

They made a lot of predictions with specific dates attached, and I'm not going to go through them, but there was a lot of false dates attached to predictions that QAnon made.

And QAnon followers skyrocketed during COVID when people sensed that there was corruption and compromise motives in the way the pandemic was being handled and it was being leveraged for people's personal corporate interests.

And so people were suspicious and QAnon really took off during that time.

1 of the key tenets of QAnon narrative was the 2020 election.

Trump would be re-elected by a landslide.

And When that didn't happen, their drops after that or their messages started falling off.

But they believed that Trump was going to be put back in office in April.

When that didn't happen, they thought it would happen on August 18, 2020.

And in the midst of this, all of a sudden there was a very bizarre connection that appeared in the media between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and QAnon.

Of course, when we look at the history of Jesus from the Gospels, we can't be surprised when false accusations are made and people revile us and say these things.

It started out with, at least the ones that I saw, with CNN on October 15, 2020, just what, 2 or 3 weeks before the election.

And CNN had this article, How QAnon Uses Religion to Lure Unsuspecting Christians.

And they go through the history of Cunanan and describe it.

And then in the middle or last part of the article they say, under somewhat similar strains, a group of 1840s Baptists called the Millerites predicted the second coming of Jesus.

When Jesus did not arrive, the Millerites were greatly disappointed, but they adjusted their apocalyptic timetables and soldiered on, eventually becoming the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Do you like our church being portrayed in that light, yes or no?

So their idea was that they were trying to understand if QAnon had a great future or not.

And they said, well, probably not, because QAnon's making false predictions, so people will stop believing it.

And then they said, well actually it probably does have a great future because the Adventists started out making a false prediction and they've grown ever since.

So Then on November 3, 2020, this narrative really took off with this article from Pace Magazine.

QAnon took a major hit with Biden's election, but it's never going away.

On the morning, the article starts out with these words, on the morning of October 22, 1844, anybody recognize that date?

Some many thousands of devout individuals throughout the US and beyond waited with collective bated breath for the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Kind of a weird way to start an article on the elections in QAnon.

They believed with all their hearts that the day had come when Christ would return to usher in the end of the world, smiting the wicked while shuffling them off to heaven to live in eternal bliss.

It was, after all, what they'd been promised by their spiritual leader as part of the surging Millerism movement spearheaded by Baptist preacher turned prophet, William Miller.

William Miller did nothing to stand in the way of those members who gave away all their worldly possession in anticipation of Christ's imminent return.

Evil Surmising and Suspicion in the Church

Alright, if we can find our seats, we will begin our last seminar presentation of the day.

This 1 on evil surmising and suspicion in the church.

Now, you know, as I was listening to Pastor Cody there, I thought, it's too bad I'm not more sensational.

If I would have titled this seminar Jesuits in the Church, I'm sure the room would be packed right now, right?

But we'll be looking at some, we've been talking a lot about what we have to say about us, developments and situations in the government, and for our last session today we're talking about situations in the church.

And this topic is very dear to my heart because it matters a lot to Jesus.

When you just listen to how we talk about each other in the church sometimes, the evil surmising, the suspicion, the speculation, the venomous talk, the toxic dialogue, it really gets amped up.

And when you listen to the tone of it, Sometimes it's hard to tell a difference between the tone in the church and the tone in the world.

And there should be a big difference, shouldn't there?

So that's what we're going to be talking about this afternoon.

And it makes a big difference on our spiritual journey, how we relate to the body of Christ and how we relate to leaders in the church, how we relate to those in the church that are making mistakes, and how we react.

So let's have a...well first let me show you this.

A few people walking in and then you can, this is the number for the, you can text your questions.

So I'll be moderating this panel discussion tomorrow, morning at 9.40.

So I'm meeting with my panelists this evening.

And I highly recommend, if you really want your question included, to send it now.

And we always end up getting way more questions than we can fit so if you really want your question now's a good time to text that in.

You could take a picture of that if you want that's the number to send it to for the panel discussion.

Evil surmising and suspicion in the church.

When my 6 year old son, Hudson, saw this picture here, he said, he's trying to figure out if the news is right.

And I looked at that, yeah, he is trying to figure out if the news is right.

So we're gonna be unpacking some things that are very important for the spiritual condition of our personal journeys and our church.

And some things that make me very concerned about our spiritual condition.

If we were to do a health check on it, some things that we're talking about in this presentation are very alarming or something that we really need to seek for God to help us in.

So let's bow our heads as we begin as I kneel, if you'll seek the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you that we can be here this afternoon.

And for this final seminar session today, I pray that your spirit would hover in this room and brood over our hearts and minds and call to us.

And the attendees and participants here this afternoon will even hear words from you beyond what I say.

And we will rise up and follow where you lead.

The Grand Coulee Dam backs up the Columbia River, which is the river that you landed close to if you landed in the Portland Airport for GYC.

And it backs up the Columbia River for 150 miles.

It's a mile and a half wide in some places.

Millions of people visit there in the summer for water recreation and being in the mountains.

What would happen if the Grand Coulee Dam, if somebody shot the Grand Coulee Dam with a torpedo?

There would be a wall of water that would come down the Columbia River if that dam broke all of a sudden.

The Portland Airport would be wiped out, and very likely this convention center would also be flooded and it would do a lot of damage all throughout the Columbia Basin.

I wonder sometimes if this lake, if this water represents the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of the Holy Spirit, what is it that's damning it up?

What is it that is preventing the Holy Spirit from being poured out and the latter rain to fall?

Latter rain power as we are promised and as we expect.

Well, there's 1 prayer in the Bible that unlocks the key to this question.

It's the prayer that follows Jesus discourse when for 3 chapters, he's talking about the Holy Spirit in John 14, 15 and 16.

He's in earnest that with these last hours with his disciples that this dam would be broke and that the Holy Spirit be unleashed in Pentecostal power so that they could continue the work that he began.

This could not happen unless the dam was broke, which Jesus prayed for in John 17 20 to 23.

When he says, I do not pray for these alone but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they all may be 1 as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be 1 in us that the world may believe that you sent me now what is it that will cause the world to believe it's if these rogue rugged disciples that are the most unlikely disciples to ever be united and ever love 1 another, if the world could see that the miracle of love could hold these disciples then that would be evidence to the world that these are Jesus' disciples and that they have Jesus' message.

The world is looking for a place such as the church Where the things that are dividing people in the world will not divide people in the church.

Now Jesus, when he called his disciples, he did not call the ones that would likely stick together.

He called disciples from all kinds of political, economic, cultural backgrounds.

And so this is a very unlikely prayer when Jesus continues, And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be 1 just as we are 1 I and them you and me that they may be perfect in 1 and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved me as you have loved me have loved them as you have loved me Is this prayer going to be answered again, yes or no?

This prayer is going to be answered again.

Jesus' final prayer, the longest prayer of Jesus recorded in the Bible.

On Jesus' discipleship team there was all kinds of thorny relationships.

I mean you got Simon the Zealot on 1 side, the ultra-nationalist, the protester, the 1 who is defending for the honor of Israel.

And most of the disciples were closer to him politically.

Go read Desire of Ages on the call of Matthew.

When Jesus called a globalist, a Roman collaborator, and a Jewish betrayer, the tax collector, Matthew.

The things that they love to talk about, Now how are they going to talk about it now because they have Matthew on their side.

Now if Jesus back then called people from all across the political spectrum to be his disciples, to make it harder than ever for them to stick together so that He could show His power in keeping them together.

Do you think He works any different in the world in the church today?

This is why on your church board you've got globalists and you've got nationalists and you got people of every different persuasion.

God has put us all in the church together, coming from different angles, having different interests, to see if there's something higher than politics that will unite us.

And so, you know, national honor, there's nothing that people will be quicker to die for than national honor.

I mean, look at the millions and millions and millions and millions of soldiers that have died because of national pride throughout the ages.

People will die for national pride so fast.

But Jesus says, well I'm gonna bring together ones that are at variance with their ideas to show that there's something higher than national pride.

Something that people will die for in their love for Jesus.

And there's several chapters on this in a publication we just came out.

I'm the editor for Inverse Young Adult Sabbath School Quarterly.

General Conference publishes a Sabbath school quarterly specifically designed for young adults, 18 to 35.

And it's against the rules for anybody over 18 to 35 to read these or to use them.

We do have a few Sabbath schools that break those rules, but that's okay.

But this quarter, January through March this year, is called Jesus and Liberty.

And we have several chapters on this topic of how Jesus related to the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the disciples and the Romans and the Jews and all these different things.

There's a lot of instruction for us today.

And so when Jesus says in his prayer, by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for 1 another.

The world is still hungry for something higher than national pride and something higher than politics that will bring us together.

And so we have a scenario today much like that of the ancient time of the nation of Israel when there was much jostling, when the Romans were trying to create and did create a global empire, and these back and forth.

Today, here we are, And we're worried about all the things that are happening with Black Lives Matter and the global elites and MAGA Republicans and Christian nationalists.

And we're waiting for 1 of them to do something because it's going to trigger the in-time events.

But while We think that the big enemy is out there, it's this group, and we spend all of our time hating on this group, or all of our time hating on that group, all of our time blaming this group or that group.

Peter Chung

Cody Francis

Mark Howard

Amy Ratsara

The Lure of Conspiracies Q&A Panel

And I hope you're having a great time at GYC.

Our seminar is 1 of them that has been recorded and going on to AudioVerse.

And so if you missed the first 4 presentations of this seminar, titled, I Know Something You Don't Know on the Lure of Conspiracies, you can catch those previous presentations on AudioVerse later.

And so, yeah, appreciate some great conversations before and after the presentations and some great feedback.

And it seems that this topic is 1 that people are thinking about and care about and that is how we relate to conspiracies as far as our Adventist mission and message.

I'd like to begin a word with a word of prayer if you'll join me in bowing your heads and we'll begin.

Heavenly Father, thank you that we can sit alongside some great friends here and make new friends today here in this place.

And Lord, even right here in this room, we come in with different perspectives and sometimes perhaps baggage.

And we want to surrender all of that to you and that we can press closer behind Jesus than ever before.

And that's our prayer, it's our desire, it's our aim, and that we can be true to the calling that you have over us.

As I was walking this morning, got a call from my wife.

My wife Ruthie and my kids are up in Spokane with my parents.

And she was telling me about, as she was reading in her devotions, part of her devotions right now, is reading in Desire of Ages.

And she read this morning about this situation with Jesus in Caiaphas.

And as he goes to trial, there's a real, the plot is definitely laid.

Permit me to read a paragraph if you will here describing the scene when it says, 1 of them, this is the trial of Jesus, 1 of them who had been bribed to accuse Jesus declared, this fellow said I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in 3 days.

If they had been reported exactly as he spoke them, they would not have secured his condemnation, even by the Sanhedrin.

Had Jesus been a mere man, as the Jews claimed, his declaration would only have indicted an unreasonable, boastful spirit, but could not have been construed into blasphemy.

Even as misrepresented by the false witnesses, his words contained nothing which would be regarded by the Romans as a crime worthy of death.

Patiently, Jesus listened to the conflicting testimonies.

No word did he utter in self-defense." So the conspiracies were swirling in Jesus' time and in his ministry.

We got more seats in the front available.

But Jesus was not the 1 stirring up conspiracies about others.

Jesus was on the receiving end of the conspiracies.

Did you notice that there were conspiracies about Jesus?

1 of the sessions that we spent time on yesterday was about conspiracies in the church.

So perhaps if we follow Jesus most closely, there will be conspiracy theories about us.

Presenter

Joe Reeves

Most Listened

Adventism According to CNN and Bill Maher

58m

Evil Surmising and Suspicion in the Church

55m

The Lure of Conspiracies Q&A Panel

1h 9m

02 Are Adventists Wrong about Revelation 13?

55m

02 Trying Your Own Way

29m

02 Climbing Mars Hill

29m

04 Should Adventists Accept Government Money?

41m

03 How Not to Debate a Christian Nationalist?

57m

05 Should There be Free Speech in the Church?

50m

01 Renewing the Broken Mind

29m

Religious Liberty: Did You Just Say That? Pt. 1

1h 5m

01 Why Apologetics?

28m

05 Jesus and Hinduism

29m

01 Growth: A Blessing and a Curse

28m

01 What Will Cause the Next Civil War?

57m

05 Time to Leave the Cave, Elijah

51m

08 The Day the Sun Stood Still

29m

11 God’s House

29m

04 The Problem of Evil

29m

12 When God Disappears

29m

09 Caleb’s Inheritance

29m

06 Jesus and Buddhism

29m

Designer gods

47m

03 Encountering God

29m

Sound Doctrine