It Is Written Partnership Weekend 2015

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It Is Written

Adam Ramdin

God First

Welcome to the audio edition of Partnership Unlimited.

Each year it is written conducts partnership weekends around the country.

These dynamic events are a spiritual highlight for many who attend.

The following sermon will give you a glimpse of what Partnership Unlimited is all about.

We hope this message will motivate you to deeper Bible study and bring you a closer relationship with God.

At the conclusion of this sermon, we will share some additional information.

It's lovely weather here in Tennessee, is it not?

It's a traditional English thing to always mention the weather when you greet people, and so that's partly what we always do, mention the weather and comment how good or how bad it is.

As I said yesterday, it's good to be in Tennessee.

While I was working as an evangelist, I spent 3 months in the Nashville area and thoroughly enjoyed my time as it was good to be back in this state.

You may wonder where I know him from, or if I do know him.

About 20 years ago, he came to England to do a campaign.

Met him briefly then when I was very young.

But 10 years ago, 10 years ago, well 10 years ago next month, I had the privilege to be an intern evangelist under him, who was a senior evangelist.

And so, if there's anything you don't like in my ministry or I'll do something wrong, then I learned from him and he trained me.

I'd like to thank each 1 of you for being here.

I've been blessed today by listening to the testimonies.

Isn't it powerful hearing the testimonies of different things taking place around the world, what God is doing evangelistically in these days that we are living?

I believe we're living close to the end of time.

And I believe when we hear these stories of natural disasters, it's almost like the footsteps of an approaching God as he's coming closer and closer to this earth.

As we hear about the tragedies that take place, the ones that make it to the news, it reminds us of what the Bible says as what would happen prior to the return of Jesus.

And I believe the heart of God is breaking every time these events take place.

As he looks down on planet earth and sees all these terrible tragedies, I believe he longs to come home and come back and take his people home.

And I pray that you and I may be there when those days come.

You know I live, as has been mentioned, I live in England.

It's a country where it's very secular, as you've probably heard and you hear it often.

I'm encouraged this weekend just being here because it's a country where we sometimes hear in some of the hallways of our church that evangelism is kind of dead or dying these days.

I'm encouraged to be here to hear about how evangelism is still going forward, amen?

How God's word, as he promised, when it goes out, it does not come back void.

You know, I had the privilege to preach a campaign just a few weeks ago in England, in Manchester.

And we had a young man who came, and you know, sometimes you see people that come and he came every single night.

But he didn't make a decision to keep the Sabbath or to be baptized during the campaign but just 3 days ago got a text message to say sorry I wasn't at church last Sabbath.

I was sick but I've been studying this Sabbath thing a bit more and I've now made a decision that I will only worship on Sabbath and I'll see you in a few days time God has people everywhere that when they hear the word and we make it a priority to share the word with them, they will respond and they will change their lives.

I'd like to invite you to bow your heads as we begin with a word of prayer.

Father in heaven, we pause this afternoon as we begin this message from your word.

And I wanna pray, Lord, that you would speak through your word.

I pray, Lord, that as each person is gathered here, that each 1 of us may hear the aspect, the part, or the angle of the message that you want us to hear this afternoon, and that we can take something personally away from it.

I pray, Lord, that you would speak through me.

May it not be my words, but may it be yours, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

As I believe was mentioned yesterday in the introduction by Eve, a few of you still chuckle, is that I'm married, Amen.

Just celebrated my second year anniversary.

And so now I've been married for 2 years.

I've learned many, many things in marriage.

But 1 thing it has challenged me from the beginning of when I got married it challenged me to evaluate which woman comes first in my life.

You're immediately challenged with if you haven't contemplated it before marriage You definitely contemplated after the wedding which woman comes first.

I remember once early in the marriage my wife commented to me, she's a beautiful lady, in her character she's more suggestive than I guess you'd say demanding.

And she just kind of said 1 day almost as a comment in passing and I hadn't noticed.

Like on my desk in my office there's a old picture, an old picture of my mother in its original frame from 1950 something, when it was framed originally by her father back then.

And I managed to get my hands on it and I kind of had it in my possession.

All the other brothers and sisters wanted it, I had it, it's there on my desk.

And my wife made a comment in passing, but It was kind of more loaded than you may think.

And she was like, how come it is you've got a picture of your mother on the desk and not me?

Have you ever heard of that life scenario sometimes?

It's kind of a story that sometimes people say, they say, you may have heard this scenario.

If you're in a boat with your wife and your mother and it's sinking, which 1 do you save?

Now what they found is when they ask that question in different parts of the world, different cultures answer it generally differently.

And they found in certain parts of the world when they say if you save your wife or your mother, who'd you save?

And certain cultures will always say, save my wife.

Till death do us part, provide and protect, I saved my wife.

In other parts of the world they say generally speaking the overwhelming answer is this.

Mother brought me into this world, she nursed me, She raised me, I've only got 1 mother, I can find another wife.

You can probably guess on the response that's not what people around here say.

There's other parts of the world, there are other cultures that say, if I can't save both, if I can't save both, I cannot live with the shame of either my mother or my wife dying Therefore I'll drown with both of them Tell you a story is that a wedding and you know sometimes in these weddings these days maybe in your wedding They did this they asked the bride and the groom certain questions and they're asking the bride and groom these questions and and they kind of like, you know, they're kind of geared a certain way.

The questions are like some of them are funny some of them are romantic, some of them are personal and they ask the bride the questions then they asked the grooms the questions.

When I was at this wedding sitting at the table in the corner and they were asking the bride the questions now they switched to the groom and as they're asking the groom the questions that they're about to ask him they say things like, you know, who was the 1 who said I love you first?

When you have an argument, who apologized?

You know, these kind of questions they ask and it's kind of funny It's kind of cute and people are answering back and forth and and they're kind of going up and then the penultimate question was you know Which is the happiest day of your life?

To which he said today Is the happiest day of my life and then the final question came It was kind of like it just led that way.

We knew where they were going with the questions.

The final question came, which woman in your life do you love the most?

Now it's handed to him as we would say in English on a platter.

All he has to do is put his chest out and say well it's a privilege to say this for the first time in my life, my wife.

But he paused for a second, put the mic up to his mouth, and then he said, my mum.

And the tension just descended on the reception hall.

We were sitting at our table in the corner, I was kind of, I got lumped on 1 of these things called the pastor's table at a wedding, and we're all sitting there shaking our heads, going, oh boy, this is off to a rough start already.

The person who asked the question didn't know what to say.

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