GYC 2008: For This Purpose

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Doug Batchelor: The Victorious Life

Doug Batchelor

Broken Chains

The Glorious Mount

A Double Portion of The Spirit

A Day of Good News

The Purpose of Worship, Part I

The Purpose of Worship, Part II

Turn with me in your Bibles to, I want to go back to 2 Kings where I was a little earlier, and I'm going to invite you to go to chapter 6, verse 26.

And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, He gathered all of his army and he went up and he besieged Samaria.

And there was a great famine in Samaria and indeed they besieged it until a donkey's head was sold for 80 shekels of silver and a fourth of a cab of dove droppings for 5 shekels of silver.

Now here you've got a story in the Bible of this terrible famine.

The Assyrian army had surrounded the people of Israel.

And the idea in Bible times, if you wanted to overcome your enemy, you would surround them so that you'd besiege them.

Surround them so no food can get in, nobody can get out, and they're basically starved to the point where they can't fight.

Now, you look in Bible history, and there were some interesting sieges.

Herodotus, the historian, said that ancient Babylon was built in a way that it could withstand a siege of 20 years.

They had food stored in the city in silos and grain.

He used to exaggerate, so I'm not sure that's true, but I don't question that they could withstand a siege of at least a few years.

The Jewish rebels at Masada, I've been there, They held off the Roman army just with the food stores and the water stores they had up on this mesa, this desert mesa for 3 years.

Matter of fact, they used to aggravate the Roman army as they were building this ramp So they could attack Masada.

They'd throw water and food over the walls to say, hey, we got all we want.

When Nebuchadnezzar did attack Jerusalem, it was after a siege of 2 years.

Some of these Bible sieges, conditions inside the city would become just appalling.

And God had said to Moses that if your people neglect the truth and don't obey my commandments, your enemies will besiege you until you eat the children that come from you.

And I'm not going to read it, but if you keep reading in this chapter, not only were they eating donkey heads and dove droppings, they started to eat each other, which is pretty desperate.

So the devil's strategy is starve them till they surrender.

Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And John Lomacain and I were doing an evangelistic meeting 1 time, and we were teasing each other.

And he told me that I look like a convertible because I had no hair.

I said you look like, he has big ears, so I said you look like a car with the doors left open.

Then he said, if you are what you eat, Doug, you're a melon.

I'm worried more about the spiritual diet that people are eating.

If the truth is known, the average Seventh-day Adventist Christian spends a lot more time watching secular media and listening to worldly music, even in a casual way, and it undermines our faith.

I spent 20 minutes reading my Bible this morning.

And I say, well, bless your heart, that's good.

But compared with everything else you're eating, It's diluted.

And you say, well, but I do also go to the smorgasbord and I pork out on the hamburger and the pizza.

And eating a few healthy things is not going to compensate, or eating, taking a few vitamins is not going to offset an atrocious diet.

Having a little bit of Bible study is not going to reverse the effects of feeding on the media of the world.

And I say this because I'm worried about it in my own life.

I see it in the lives of our church members.

I see it all over the world wherever I go.

I mean, our church, it doesn't matter where I've been.

They're watching American movies with subtitles.

There's almost nothing you could say or tell me about that I'm not aware of.

I mean, I just grew up totally entrenched, saturated with the world.

And so I'm trying to wring that stuff out of myself as the years go by and displace it with good things.

But I got into a rental car in Palm Springs, I don't know, a month or so ago.

And first you get in the car, and you turn it on.

And you're going up to the drive-out teller, and you're giving them your credit card so that you could get your.

I get my car, and then I give them my card at the window because I drive so much I got this membership thing.

And then I'm trying to figure out where I'm going.

You know, you get in a car and I always have to lower the mirrors so I can see out of them and raise the seat.

And you know, every car is a little different.

I remember 1 time I was renting cars, and the car dealer was renting these Priuses.

First of all, I couldn't figure out how to start it, Because I guess you start it like a computer.

And then the screen lit up with all these diagnostic things.

I said, I'm going to get killed trying to drive this thing and figure out how to run it.

I haven't got time to learn how to drive this thing.

I was already 5 minutes in the car, and I'm driving down the road, before I realized the whole time I'd been in the car, there was this rap station on the radio that was on and playing this absolutely diabolical music, And I was oblivious to it.

And I thought to myself, Oh Lord, what is happening to me?

Sometimes I answer the phone and I'm making this very spiritual conversation, but I'm in some restaurant where they're just playing some kind of abominable music and you get so used to it that you wonder, what's it doing to me?

And it just so permeates our culture that it can almost become second nature.

I remember 1 time Joe Cruz, the founder of Amazing Facts, was telling this story about he went to visit some church members in Australia and the pastor said, let's go take a visit to the beach.

Series

Doug Batchelor: The Victorious Life

A Day of Good News

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The 4th Angel: Literature Evangelism Made Relevant In A Postmodern World

1. Literature Distribution for Today’s Mind in Today’s World

44m

The Science of Surrender

56m

We Are Still His Witnesses

56m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Unleashing the Power - A Practical Guide for Finishing God's Work

Beyond Good Intentions

1h

Devotions For Decisions

1. Devotions, or Just the Motions?

1h 2m

The Call

41m

GYC 2012 Morning Devotional

Redefining Culture

54m

Morning Devotional

Faith and the Final Crisis

59m

Remnant Identity: Who We Are and Why It Matters

6. Summary of 3 and 4

1h

Plenary Sessions

Six Keys for the Western Adventist Church

1h 8m

David Shin - GYC 2007 Evening Devotionals

Teach Us to Number Our Days

1h 30m

GYC 2013 Seminar: The Neophyte and the Great Controversy

05-The Neophyte and The Great Controversy, Part 5

1h

Sound Doctrine