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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Brad Strother

You Know Enough!

My wife and I are leaving June 14 after I graduate in a Penske truck.

We're going to North Carolina, where we don't have to use sprinklers, and the water flows, and it's beautiful and humid, but it should be nice.

A couple things I actually want to talk about this morning before we get into the message is that over the past couple weeks we've had different outreach activities and I've got to be honest, I was pretty discouraged.

I have been in the past, because we're trying to reach the students of Loma Linda, amen?

I am a student, my wife is a student, there's several of our friends that are students.

We praise God that we were converted by people that were avid hopers.

But the outreach activities have been a massive blessing because the turnout has been substantial.

Whoever helped out for that, I thank you so much.

That reached I don't know how many students.

And I also would like to thank everybody that came out last weekend for the Clay Malibu for Jesus.

You know, I think quite a few people are like, I'd rather go to the poor parts now where we might be more well received, but on the due time, it's about building character.

You're so vulnerable at that person's door and that takes a substantial amount of courage as well.

So thank you so much guys that came out for that.

The message is entitled, You Know Enough.

Since I've been doing outreach this year, it seems fitting that I would hold on to this title, You Know Enough.

Let's open up our Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 3.

Okay, we'll just wait a couple more seconds.

My Bible reads, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel.

Therefore, hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me.

When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way.

To save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Yet if thou warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Yet if thou warn the wicked and he turn not from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Again when a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die, because thou hast not given him warning.

He shall die in his sin, and his righteousness, which he hath done, shall not be remembered.

But his blood will I require at thine hand.

Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned, also thou hast delivered thy soul.

Father God in heaven, Lord, you understand that I'm just a feeble, broken man, Lord, and I beg that you will fill me with your spirit this morning, and I beg that you will fill this room with your spirit, God.

Please Lord, I beg that you put your words in my mouth, and I beg that a message is proclaimed, Father, this morning.

And God, it is a message, because it is something massive and miraculous that you have done in my life.

I'm having to do community mental health this quarter and having to lead out psychiatric groups.

So we have ground rules, otherwise people start talking, people, you know, whatever, they can get kinda crazy.

So 1 of the ground rules is, I haven't got that much sleep over the past few days.

So if your neighbor's starting to slumber next to you, give them a little lovely elbow, you know, gentle, don't hurt anybody.

But if I haven't slept, I don't think it's fair for them to sleep and I'm up here working, okay?

So if somebody starts sleeping, I might call you out.

And I've got decent vision with these huge bifocals on.

Okay, so I think quite a few people wonder how did I end up here at Avid Hope?

I did it 1 time at Mountain Church and it was an unrefined testimony.

I think the Lord blessed that in spite of me.

Praise God, last year I spoke at chapel and that was more refined.

So I'm hoping today is gonna be a blessing, but more so today It's not just my testimony, it's how I ended up here, where you all are today.

So for that I'm going to have to go back to where I was a little kid.

I was raised in a legalistic home, I have no problem saying that.

During the 8, I'm 30 years old, so imagine 30 years ago, My dad was like second or third generation Abenist, and he had a rough time growing up too.

I think his parents abused him in several different ways.

So it was hard to break that cycle, so my dad continued to do the same things, and he did that to myself and my sister.

Well, By being in a legalistic home, you have to understand the definition of legalism.

I was taught how to do things, but it was in a way that was very much, you do it because I told you to do it, and you don't question it.

That's the type of atmosphere that I grew up in.

It wasn't this is why we do these things, Brad.

It was very much you do it, and if you don't do it, someone's gonna get bloody, and it's probably not gonna be me.

So it generally ended up with me getting hurt as a little kid.

I don't wanna focus on that too much, because I don't think that that's a blessing.

I don't think it brings glory to God's name.

But I just want to share 1 experience with my dad thinking that he was doing good parenting.

God bless my dad, but I couldn't learn my times tables.

And I was dyslexic and I had learning disabilities.

And I think my learning disabilities stemmed from parental disabilities.

When you're told that you're never gonna mount anything and that you're a moron and that you're never gonna succeed, it's kinda easy to fall prey to that.

I don't even know when we're supposed to learn them.

But the reason is is that I had to learn them this 1 night.

My teacher called my dad and said, hey, Brad is not learning his times tables.

He's falling behind, we gotta get him up.

So my dad said, okay, sure, yeah, I'll do that.

So after supper, I remember, my dad's like, come over here, stand right there.

So I came over to my dad's right-hand side, and he said, stand right there, we're gonna go over your times tables.

So several hours later, I was still standing right there at detention pretty much, and we were still going over times tables.

Well, I don't know if you guys have heard of Viktor Frankl.

He was a Jew that was in a Nazi concentration camp, and he was a psychiatrist.

But anyhow, he determined that your environment is out of your control.

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You Know Enough!

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