Jermaine Gayle

GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

A Costly Enterprise

Pharaoh’s Compromise

I'm ready to get down to business, are you?

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Exodus, chapter 10.

And tonight we are going to be reading verses 24 to 26.

If you don't mind, I would love to have your permission to challenge you tonight to find your texts quickly.

We don't have a lot of time, and I have a lot of ground to cover.

The Bible says, then Pharaoh called to Moses and said, go, serve the Lord.

Only let your flocks and your herds be kept back.

But Moses said, you must also give us sacrifices and burnt offerings that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

For we must take some of them to serve the Lord our God and even we do not know with what we must serve the Lord until we arrive there.

The title of tonight's message, Pharaoh's compromise.

Holy Father in heaven, once more, we ask that you speak to your people in your conference.

Lord, we have the unique privilege to learn from you, all of us together, the speaker included.

We want your voice to be heard above the distractions.

We want your voice to be heard above mine.

And we want you to be seen dear Lord is our prayer in Jesus name and we all say amen I want to tell you about a time that I found myself debating the subject of the nature of sin with a six-year-old.

It was summer camp and I was in charge of a group of young kids.

I want to tell you right now that if you want to learn to be a preacher, work with kids.

This summer we had a program that we would do with the kids and we would teach them half day and then the rest of the day would be just having fun at the pool.

And it was my responsibility to be on guard.

We took the kids to the pool and they were having fun.

I saw some of the kids having fun at the pool earlier today.

This was a fun time for the kids and they really enjoyed being at the pool.

But I had a little child and he was quite the leader.

You know he had his 12 disciples and brought them all and he was leading them.

And friends, he took them down to an area away from the pool where there were some berries and he began picking the berries and started eating them and then was sharing the berries with the other kids.

Well I'm in charge so I am concerned obviously and I you know I to be honest with you I grew up growing up in Jamaica there is a philosophy that is practiced there.

And praise God, I think it has changed now.

There is a thing called communal discipline.

Anybody else know what I'm talking about?

I'm telling you, I remember my teachers would get an ounce in, and then I would get home and tell my dad what my teacher did and my dad would ask, what did you do?

And then I think mom would help and so I would go and appeal to mom and then mom would get hers in too.

So my only option was to negotiate with a six-year-old.

So I'm sitting down, by this time I, you know, I have my best, you know, tools that I'm pulling out of my tool belt as a leader and I'm trying to appeal to the six-year-old saying, don't go down to the berries.

I'm using the very best skills of negotiation that I could possibly use but nothing was working.

In the discussion I realized, you know when you when kids get tired of talking, they just blurt out whatever is on their mind.

And he got to that point in the discussion where he's like, I don't want to talk about this anymore.

So he just blurted out, look, we can never overcome sin.

We are going to sin all the time and there's nothing to stop us from doing it.

And I'm there thinking, you know, I forgot that I was talking to a 6 year old, so I'm like thinking of all the Bible verses, the passages that I could use to negotiate and argue with this young man.

I pulled out my verses and I was ready to convince him.

And then I read my first Bible, he was just checked out.

Understood nothing of what I was saying as I'm having this theological debate with a six-year-old.

He just knows that it's okay to keep doing something wrong and he can never overcome that.

And finally I realized, I got the pastoral hat off and I realized who I was talking to.

And then I decided I'm going to have to change my strategy.

I want you to be the natural leader you are.

Instead of telling him don't go to the berries, I said you know what, you're gonna be my security guard.

You're gonna prevent the other kids from going to eat the berries.

And friends, I don't know, something switched in that moment.

That six-year-old became the best security guard I've ever seen.

He had an assignment, and I watched him as the other kids would try to go to the berries, he'd be like, no, no, no, no.

And I'm like, I don't have to do anything.

Now I'm just sitting down watching this six-year-old lead the pack away from the berries.

Sometimes young people just need an opportunity to serve.

What we think often is that they need a theological debate or a theological discussion or answer to their question and all they need is someone to trust them with some responsibility.

My dear friends, when I look at the conversation between Moses and Pharaoh, I think of that six-year-old.

You know there are grown adults who behave like children.

Exodus chapter 3 verse 12, God told Moses, so he said, I will certainly be with you and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." Exodus 3 and verse 12.

This was the moment that God called Moses to go and confront Pharaoh, but before God did that, he told Moses the destination before he gave the assignment.

You are going to serve God on this mountain, God says to him.

Notice the language of the text, Exodus 3 and verse 12.

You shall serve God on this mountain, the very mountain that Moses was standing on, the shoes were off, God was telling him, you are going to come back to this spot and you will serve me on this mountain.

When God said these words, it was 3 months before the people would arrive to their inaugural worship service at Mount Sinai, and what a Sabbath it was, I can imagine.

He did not say to him, if you bring the people, but when you have brought the people.

Meaning Moses, believe me, what I'm saying to you will take place.

Moses was being asked to see the invisible.

By the way don't you just love that theme?

The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 46 verses 9 and 10, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other.

Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done.

Saying, my counsel shall stand and I will do my pleasure.

Carry My Bones

I've been very blessed and I'm happy that I get to be here with you this evening.

I'm ready to get down to business, what about you?

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Genesis, chapter 50, verse 24 through 26.

The Bible reads, and Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land "'to the land of which he soared to Abraham, "'to Isaac, and to Jacob.' "'Then Joseph took an oath "'from the children of Israel, saying, "'God will surely visit you, "'and you shall carry up my bones from here.

So Joseph died being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

And here is the ending of the book of Genesis, A Coffin in Egypt.

The title of my message is Carry My Bones.

So there Lord, I pray that you use this vessel of clay.

Break it if you have to, but let your light shine.

We pray that you may speak to your people, myself included.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus, our Savior, and we all say, amen.

It was my very first time riding shotgun in a hearse.

When the invitation was extended to me I was unsure.

I had conducted a funeral and the funeral director had come up to me and said Pastor Gail We appreciate all that you've done for us here today.

If you're open to the idea, we would love for you to ride in the hearse with 1 of our staff members to the gravesite.

And with me being Jamaican and all, some of those old superstitions were coming back to mind.

You see, my dear friends, I did not grow up a Seventh-day Adventist, and the years that I am an Adventist today are becoming slowly more than the years that I was not.

And the moment he said this, I thought back to my upbringing and the things that I learned growing up.

In fact, I'll tell you this with all honesty.

Between my house and my grandma's house, there was a grave.

And my dad used to tell me these crazy stories about the dead.

And I remember being so terrified that I would run from my front porch to my grandma's house nonstop until I get there.

My Dear friends, I ran in the dark so fast that I was before Usain Bolt, the Usain Bolt.

I got to my grandma's house and I picked up the thing that my dad told me to get and right there I would line myself up on that porch and I would get ready and run straight back to my house non-stop.

Because in my mind those superstitions were there.

If you slow down, the ghost would get you.

Friends, I am grateful for our message concerning the state of the dead.

It frees us from those old superstitions, but I'm going to be honest with you, sometimes the past revisits and we have to recenter ourselves, stay on mission.

And so here I am, sitting in this hearse.

I buckled my seatbelt and I closed the door, and the driver came in, young lady in her 20s, and now I feel I have to have a lot more courage.

And as I'm sitting there, we start talking.

We pulled off together, and my first question to her was, why did you choose this line of work?

And then she says to me, Pastor, this is not a job for me.

This is a calling, and I'm happy that I get to serve people at their lowest and and I hear her saying all of these things and I didn't respond for a little while there was a pause and she might have thought that I was thinking of my other question but what was going on in all honesty was those superstitions were coming back to mind and I felt myself with those intrusive thoughts taking the form of a prayer and I in my mind was there telling the Lord please don't let anything move back there and then I had to remind myself Jermaine you are a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and God wants you in a hearse because there are hearse drivers who need salvation.

I refocused my attention, surrendered my heart, and I said, Lord, this is where you want to use me today.

And friends, that day, More than just sitting shotgun in a hearse, I became co-pilot for a hearse driver.

I knew the area, we started talking and she would ask me where do I go next, I would tell her turn right, turn up the light.

We were driving, we were talking so much.

By the time we ended our conversation back at the funeral home, she turned to me and said, "'Pastor Jermaine, where is your church?

"'I would love to attend.'" There are moments in our lives when God calls us to face our fears so that he can use someone as fearful as you to save someone who is fearless, not about the job they do, but about the future that lies ahead of them.

God is in the business of saving hearse drivers.

And he can use whoever he chooses, whenever he wants to, wherever he wants to, to save people.

Are you willing to go the distance to save the people that God wants to save?

So 2 lessons I learned that day while riding shotgun in a hearse.

Number 1, God can use anybody he chooses.

Number 2, God is in the business of saving people wherever they are, including hearse drivers, and he needs you in these places, in these spaces, because friends, we have the message that the world is dying to hear.

By the time the children of Israel were ready to leave Egypt, Moses had already fought a good fight.

He had approached Pharaoh about 7 times, and they had these conversations, these negotiations, and Pharaoh refused to let the children of Israel go.

And I would imagine that by the time Moses ended the last meeting, if he came to a group of Israelites and they would ask Moses, well, how did it go?

Moses would have said, well, the final meeting, the good news is Pharaoh is willing to let us go.

Poor fellow, He could have saved himself a lot of trouble.

When I first came and told him, let my people go, he didn't believe me, and now Egypt is in a free fall.

The economy is tanking and all of society is in trouble, but now he's finally ready to let us go.

He lost his firstborn last night, but now he wants us to leave in a hurry.

Turn with me in our Bibles to the book of Exodus chapter 12 and verse 33.

I believe that this would have been Moses' response to the children of Israel that leaving Egypt was going to happen quickly.

The Bible says in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 33, and the Egyptians urged the people that they might send them out of the land in a haste.

For they said, we shall all be what everybody?

All were now off to the races, I imagine.

All the Israelites gathering their last bit of belongings.

There were the Israelite shepherds gathering their herds from the fields in Goshen.

If you go down with me to verse 38, this is what the Bible says, Exodus chapter 12 and verse 38.

A multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds, a great deal of what, everybody?

There would not have been enough U-Haul trucks to accommodate this mass evacuation.

When Pharaoh punched the numbers back in Exodus 1, and verse 9, he had this to say about the Israelites.

He told the Egyptians, there are too many of those Israelites in our country, and they're becoming more powerful than we are.

To move this many people out of Egypt, therefore, for a scrappy 80-year-old guy like Moses would have been crazy.

The logistics team would have had to go door to door and I imagine a lady inside hearing the knock.

Hey, Moses sent us, It's time to leave Egypt.

The Bible tells us, my dear friends, in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 35, notice what it says, so the people took their what everybody?

I imagine the women are probably there trying to finish the baking for the night, for the evening.

The Bible says Exodus 12, verse 35, so the people took their dough before it was leavened, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes and on their shoulders.

Can you see them stepping beyond the threshold of their doorways with pots and pans clanging and perhaps in that moment if an Israelite were to look back above his doorpost, he would see the blood symbolizing, signaling that this trip was paid for by the blood of the Lamb.

Praise God, Jesus pays for slaves to leave Egypt.

My friends, pardon me for a moment, but in my sanctified imagination, I see the people of God spilling out into the streets and alleyways of Egypt.

I hear the bleating of sheep as shepherds coax them forward.

I see families rushing, calling names, gathering their children.

I see animals with their backs all loaded down with their silver and gold.

And while it would have been a miracle in itself to gather this many people in an emergency, which it was, what stands out to me, my dear friends, is not the chaos, but the pause.

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Exodus, chapter 13 and verse 19.

Kalamazoo SDA Church

Heartburn

Father, we want to thank you for another glorious, wonderful Sabbath.

It is good to be in your house together as a family, to worship together, to study together, and we're asking dear father that your Holy Spirit will set our hearts on fire Is our prayer in Jesus name?

Disappointed anybody Ever been disappointed perhaps.

It's something you ordered off Amazon that showed up and it wasn't what you ordered.

Or maybe you ordered something from Timu and when it showed up it just wasn't the same size you saw online.

I remember I was driving from Indiana to Michigan in my 1999 Chevy Malibu.

And as I'm driving on the highway, surprisingly, I was coming to be interviewed in Michigan.

Otherwise, I mean, this was going to be my first shot at pastoral ministry.

I was coming to a job interview, and I knew that if somehow I got to work in Michigan, I would still be in Michigan, perhaps.

I was working at Indiana University as a field chaplain with the local church there.

I was looking forward to this next new chapter in my life.

And as I'm Driving from Indiana to Michigan on the highway, my car broke down on the highway.

My bank account said, you cannot afford any car repairs today and there I was on the side of the road in my car I was so disappointed I remember calling the record service they came and took the car to a shop And I knew I couldn't pay for the car to get fixed, but somehow the car ended up at the shop.

I wanted them to haul me to Michigan, but they weren't going to do that.

But I remember I was so disappointed, friends.

I went out and I got me some Chinese food, and I sat down in the comfort of my food and relaxed.

In fact, some of you might have been disappointed this week.

Let down by someone, let down somewhere, and you're trying to find how to pick yourself up and somehow still believe disappointed.

Well, there is not a single disappointment that you and I might experience today that could compare to what happened to Adventist in 1844.

October 22nd Jesus didn't come And many who had sold their homes and lands figured out that they were still here on earth and heaven was not in their future, at least not right away.

Imagine the disappointment as they walked the streets of Michigan, some parts, and they were being taunted, asking, well, Brother Joe, why are you still here?

By the way, they had said that Adventism had swollen to about 50, 000 people, and after the Great Disappointment, it narrowed down to about 50.

But in the year 1850, a man who was disappointed as a result of Jesus not coming again, coming back in 1844, is named Stephen Smith.

A very not well-known individual, but I'm going to tell you about Stephen Smith.

Stephen Smith received a letter from Ellen White in the year 1850.

And he had believed in the Advent message back in 1844, but the disappointment somehow shook his faith to the core, and Stephen no longer believed in the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Stephen was a gifted and eloquent speaker.

He was said to have many talents and he was a very promising and prominent man in Adventism.

But after the disappointment, he struggled.

He couldn't find his footing anymore and his faith was on the cusp of being let go altogether, but he had walked away from the church.

And 1 day, Stephen Smith received a letter.

The envelope was addressed to him and the name on the envelope was Ellen G.

I don't know about you but if I show up at my mailbox and I got a letter with the name Ellen G.

The prophet writes to you, you're probably thinking, wait a minute, what's going on?

But Stephen Smith received the letter and when he saw it he said, oh, don't want anything from her.

He took the letter, threw it in a trunk in 1 of his rooms, and closed the trunk, closed the closet door, and left the letter for years, friends.

His sentiment when he received the letter was, there it is, she thinks she's going to give me 1 of her testimonies.

He thought as he threw this letter in the bottom of this chest, that that was it.

I'm done with this second coming thing and this Adventism thing but then in the year 1885 friends 1885 how many years later is this any math whiz here anybody math how many 35 I heard multiple answers A preacher by the name of Eugene Farnsworth came to town and he was preaching an evangelistic series and Stephen Smith showed up to listen to the message.

This was by the way in New Hampshire and Stephen Smith was there and this is where Stephen Smith grew up and he came to listen to this preacher that was still preaching this great message and Stephen Smith had showed up with the intent to criticize and also to challenge this preacher on account of what he was saying and he was going to prove to everybody in the gathering that what this preacher was preaching was false and not true.

But the more Stephen listened, the more he realized that everything that pastor Farnsworth was preaching was straight biblical and on point and Stephen could not refute what the Holy Spirit was doing he said I was going to this is Stephen Smith quoting him is I was going to listen to Farnsworth's messages and I was going to be his greatest critic.

He walked, by the way, 14 miles to get to this church to prove Stephen, to prove Mr.

Back to Menu

Presenter

Jermaine Gayle

All Recordings

A Costly Enterprise

1h 43m

Pharaoh’s Compromise

1h 28m

Carry My Bones

1h 37m

Heartburn

39m

A Life Changing Question

42m

Born Free

45m

When the State Goes Too Far

41m

Those Who Rule

33m

Christ’s Prayer and the Shaking

52m

Elijah’s Prayer and The Issue of Climate Change

51m

Daniel’s Prayer and the Conflict with the Law of the Land

1h

The Prayer of Jacob Under Religious Persecution Part 2

53m

Sound Doctrine