Forward to Zion: Ohio Hometown Camp Meeting 2016: Sharing the Truth in a Dangerous World

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Forward to Zion

Danielle Harrison

Sharing the Cross Connection

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, it's a privilege and an honor to be here tonight.

And not just for me to be here, I know it's a privilege for each and every 1 of us to be here.

Not only in this camp meeting here where we're hearing great messages and we're learning about you, Lord, but just to be here, quote unquote, in this space that we're living in, in our lives right now.

Because I believe that if we're here, then each and every 1 of us are having some kind of an experience and a walk with you.

And that is such a privilege and an honor.

You hold all of the world's emotion board, but somehow you bend your ear to hear our prayers.

Somehow you are a personal God who reaches down and speaks to us through your creation and through your spirit.

And we thank you that you are calling each and every 1 of us out of darkness into your marvelous light.

You're speaking to each and every 1 of our hearts and I pray that tonight you will do that in abundance, Lord.

And I know that I can only stumble and stutter over myself.

I'm not eloquent of speech and I can't deliver the information that you want these people to hear.

And so Lord, it's going to take your Holy Spirit to step in and do what I cannot do.

And Lord, you've promised in your word that you will send your Holy Spirit to those who ask.

You say in Luke 11, 13, if ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them than ask?

And so, Lord, I ask you humbly for your Holy Spirit tonight, and I ask you boldly for a double portion of your Holy Spirit this evening, because you've promised that if I ask you will give, I trust in you, Lord.

Lead me through this in a timely fashion and may each and every 1 of us glean something applicable for us today.

We ask you to use us for your kingdom to bring others into the space where they know you personally.

So how many of you know someone who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?

And for those of you who didn't raise your hand, you might be surprised to find out that you do know someone, but maybe you just don't know that that's where they're at.

So this is something that's coming into the forefront of the media and the buzz today, right?

And we're seeing a lot of things happening.

We're seeing a lot of things happening within the Supreme Court, right?

And you know, in the realm of Adventism, we talk about the evidences of the Sunday Law everywhere.

You know, we've known that these things are coming.

We've known that something is on the horizon and that we will be persecuted over this issue, right?

But did we really foresee this being the precursor for this issue being the precursor of that persecution?

You know, did we see this issue coming and taking over the focus of our country.

We didn't see the Supreme Court making a moral decision for all of the states.

Because it's really not their place to make that kind of a decision.

We didn't see schools having curriculums imposed upon them.

We see the green politics movement over in Europe, and we see it prevalent also in Canada, where there's sexual education curriculums that are mandatory in the public schools teaching sexual education that begins in kindergarten, teaching small children in kindergarten how to participate in masturbation, because to them they believe that it's just a healthy part of sexual development, right?

So, kindergartners, that's where it starts, teaching self-abuse.

And then as the years go on, they start teaching them how to have sexual interactions.

And then up into the high school years, they're actually implementing other fringe kind of sexuality, these are things that they're gonna be teaching, including sadomasochism and all of that as 50 Shades of Grey becomes more popular, right?

Did we see these kind of curriculums coming in to schools?

Well, you might say, well, that's not happening in the states, but oh, yes, it is.

It's on its way, and it's being implemented in some states.

In Germany, it's actually illegal to homeschool your children.

If you do not put your children into the public school system, they will come and they'll say, you're abusing your children, and they'll take you to jail, and they'll take your kids from you.

So you don't have the option of opting out.

Did we see that laws would be imposed upon schools that are receiving government funding?

You know, if you don't comply to having gender neutral bathrooms, then you will have monetary restrictions placed upon you.

These are things that are coming upon us today.

And we know that with the Supreme Court making moral decisions, that's going to have implications not only on this realm of sexuality and marriage, but also for the Sabbath.

Because marriage and the Sabbath are twin institutions, right?

And so if we see the attack on marriage, we're soon going to see it on the Sabbath as well.

Monetary restrictions, are we going to see that also placed upon issues of the Sabbath?

And are we gonna run the risk of losing our children and losing things For the sake of what we believe and what we stand for, it's going to become more and more complicated.

Are we, if we're not willing, in the face of religious persecution, to say, this is what I believe, and as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, If we're not willing to do that on this issue, we're placing ourselves in a pattern that's going to teach us to compromise in other areas.

It's gonna be 1 compromise at a time and it's gonna be slowly.

But We're really in the trying field right now.

And so if we're not gonna stand where the Seventh Commandment is concerned, we're not gonna stand when the issues of the Fourth Commandment are concerned.

And we might think, oh, no, you know, I'm really gonna do it, but we don't realize how complicated the scenarios are going to be.

And if we're not really settling ourselves to stand today on these small little issues, we're not going to be ready and willing to do it when it gets harder.

And so when I say this I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about, you know, just kind of glossing over things.

Sometimes we, we want to, in the face of the challenges, we want to either become overzealous or we just want to become really soft and pliable.

So we have to be, we have to be establishing our feet on a solid foundation now before the before the big waves really start to come.

We're seeing the first signs of the storm, right?

And we've got to get ready for what's about to come.

And so we've got to be willing to stand in what we teach in our churches, right?

We're to hold to the standard and preach the gospel in our churches.

And there's so many people who think, well, this is really, this is hard, because if people are coming into the church and we say something that offends them and this and that, Well, I'll tell you what, whenever I was coming into the church, they didn't form-fit the worship of the Lord around what they thought was going to be pleasing to me.

They just worshipped the Lord and let the Holy Spirit do the work on me that it needed to.

You know, we don't want to become religious bullies, but we also don't want to lay aside the truth and just fill our churches with pagan worship styles and unconverted people who aren't really interested to be there to worship the Lord, they just wanna be there for a spiritual high, right?

So, the other thing I wanna mention before I move on is that there's a difference between someone who is coming into the church and their yielding to the Holy Spirit as they're learning, because that was the place that I was in.

You know, I came into that church environment, and as light was given to me, as they just continued to worship the Lord, I started to see things from a perspective I hadn't seen them from before, and I was willing to yield to the Spirit of God as the convictions came upon me, right?

So the Holy Spirit was doing the work and I was yielding.

There's a difference between someone like that and someone who comes into the church and says, you know, I don't really care what the Bible says because I think it says something different than what you're saying and I'm gonna go ahead and live as an open homosexual or whatever the case may be.

And they're just saying, no, I don't care what the Bible says, I don't care what you say, I'm just gonna do what I want.

And that's a totally different spirit, right?

And that has to be approached differently as well.

You know, we really have to study out Matthew 18 and understand how to deal with this kind of confrontation because if we just allow that kind of an atmosphere to come into our churches then the rebellion is going to breed.

But we don't want to just look at a person and their struggle and judge them and say, you're not welcome here, right?

Even the person who's being rebellious, like I said, we need to study Matthew 18 and we need to know how to biblically approach that kind of conflict and that kind of rebellion.

So are we having important conversations in our churches?

Are you having conversations in your churches about the war on sexuality?

Are you talking about what are we going to do and how are we going to react when LGBT people start walking into our churches?

Because it's going to start happening by God's grace, let it happen.

We got to be able and ready and willing to reflect Christ to them when they come in and not look at them like they're aliens and clam up and push them right back out the doors where they came in, right?

We have to stand firm on our policies as far as moral decisions are concerned and where they're being imposed upon us by our society and our government.

But when it comes to individuals, we must act in love and we don't interpose our beliefs upon them.

So are you having these kind of conversations in your churches?

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Sharing the Cross Connection

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