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Agriculture

Plenary

Darren Greenfield

The Third Angel’s Thumb

I want to just give a brief introduction to our speaker this evening.

Darren Greenfield has been an integral part of Ad Agri from its very beginning, and I could say even from before its beginning.

So he has a real heart and a real passion for agriculture, but he's a man of many talents and many skills.

He had a background in engineering and is very practical.

He can make tools from scrap metal and very practical, hands-on kind of a person, but he was also a pastor in the Michigan Conference for 7 years.

And He currently is kind of the pastor of a prison church that he's very involved in out in California.

So the Lord is using him in many ways, and I know you're going to be blessed by what he has to share tonight.

Currently, Darren is running Weimar Farms in Weimar, California.

So he's got a passion and a heart for agriculture, and I know that you will be blessed as he shares what the Lord has put on his heart tonight.

About 8 years ago, I had the most difficult phone call in my entire life.

It was the most heart-wrenching phone call.

My 91-year-old grandmother was dying of cancer.

I had booked a flight to go home to be there.

She had asked me a number of years ago, she said, will you please speak at my funeral?

So as I talked to her, she didn't have much energy.

I could only speak for about 2 minutes for the last time I heard a voice.

She was a wonderful lady and she loved gardening.

She had the most beautiful garden in the whole street.

She cared about people and she was continually living her life to bless other people.

I never had assurance that she was right with Jesus.

So as I asked her the question, she struggled a bit.

And she said it was almost like there was a sigh.

And she said, yes, Darren, it is, it's okay with me and Jesus.

She was still alive when I arrived there, but in a few hours she died.

But my sister, who's blind, who was, who absolutely adored my grandmother, was there at her side when I had called her.

Prior to that, finding out that she had cancer and that she had a few months to live was a real difficult struggle for her.

She didn't accept it and she was very restless.

She wasn't surrendered and she was very unhappy about it and I'm sure she was upset with God about it.

And so as she got off the phone, My sister told me, she said, when she hung up the phone, she started praying, and she was praying out loud.

And then after she did, there was a joy that came into her heart.

And it was within 2 days that she was dead.

I was able to get up and speak at her funeral with the blessed hope that I will see her in heaven.

But tonight, I shared that experience with you even though it's very hard, Because as I speak tonight, I realize I'm standing between the living and the dead.

It may be you, it may be somebody else in your life, or somebody that's within your influence, And the message tonight may make the difference between you or them being in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus is coming soon and the signs all around us are screaming at us.

And Jesus is coming soon and now if ever there was a time to be serious about our walk with Jesus, it is now.

If ever there was a time to fully follow Him, it is now.

We can't try to cater to our own likes and dislikes, to our own pride and try to maintain it.

And as the work of the righteousness by faith message impacts our heart, it is to lay the glory of man in the dust so that we will fully follow Jesus.

And then, and only then, will the work be cut short in righteousness.

Then Jesus can use his people to finish the work.

The 144, 000 follow the Lamb wherever He goes, fully following Him in whatever He asks.

I struggled to share this message tonight Because Caleb and Joshua were not popular.

Caleb and Joshua could have lost their lives because the rest of the children of Israel did not agree with what they were saying they should do and were ready to stone them.

It was only because of the intervention of God.

And so as I share tonight what the Lord put on my heart to share, I do so in humility, not pointing the finger at anybody who it may prick the heart of, but with the sincere desire that as we fully surrender to Jesus to follow him, that there will be souls saved in the kingdom as a result.

I have to ask the question tonight like I did with my grandmother.

How many of you tonight are right with Jesus?

How many of you tonight are fully surrendered to Jesus?

Praise God, I see the majority of hands, And there are some hands that didn't go up.

But you know, I am grateful for those hands that did not go up because I was 1 of those individuals that didn't put my hand up or stand up in an appeal When I was in the world very lost very very lost It was a very simple appeal and a very simple message not 1 that stirred the hearts But as I sat there and didn't raise and and respond to the appeal the Holy Spirit started speaking to me and I realized that I had to make a decision.

It was, don't you want to work with Jesus and gather for the harvest and not be scattering people abroad but gathering with Jesus.

And everybody stood up except for me and I stayed there sitting down because I didn't want to be a hypocrite.

I'd been raised in the church and as I was raised in the church I remember seeing 1 of our Sabbath school youth leaders at the time, who was there supposed to be leading us spiritually, who was going to nightclubs, living a double life.

And there were many other things, I'm not wanting to share those things, but I determined when my friends and I, even though we had had an Adventist education and we decided at the age of 16 to leave the church, I decided in my heart I'm not going to be a hypocrite.

That's why we're leaving, because we don't want to be a hypocrite.

And so at that time when I stayed sitting down, The Holy Spirit started impressing my heart so powerfully and so real, just with a simple thought, don't you want to be saved?

Don't you want to be in the kingdom with your family?

As I sat there thinking about that, not realizing what was going on, I thought, yes, I do, but not now, I'm not ready now.

And in my heart I was wanting to put it off, any decision.

I was young, everything was going well, I was making money, I was having fun, I had goals, things that I wanted to do.

I thought I was almost immortal, like a lot of young people do.

And so, as the Holy Spirit kept on the appeal, I could feel like this magnetic pull and it was almost like an audible voice saying to me, why don't you stand up?

And then I heard another voice, another impression that said, don't do it now.

Look at all the things in your life you'll have to change.

Look at everything that's going to change in your life.

Don't do it now." And then the Holy Spirit came in with the last clincher that settled it for me, and that was, how do you know you'll ever have another chance?

How do you know this is not your last chance?

And I thought about that and I thought about the time when I was 18 years old and I was skiing in New Zealand and I went over a 120 foot cliff and should have been dead and my life was spared.

I thought about the times that I was crazy driving my V8 fast cars and going at high speeds and losing control and should have been killed, and I wasn't.

I remember the times, and I could name others but I don't want to get into it, that I could have been dead and I knew that at any time I could die and if I didn't make a decision Then I could walk out of that church and that would be it, I would be lost for eternity.

So I thought, okay, if this is my last chance, I must make it now.

Scott Ritsema

Learning to Be Human Again

Well, good morning and Indeed, it is a very very good morning.

I'm from Michigan So when you wake up in the morning and it's 70 degrees out in January, it's a very very happy experience I'm also very just happy to be here.

This is the agriculture conference I've been looking forward to this for quite some time and our message this morning is entitled how to be human again And I have a lot of information in a short period of time.

So we're going to dig right in Open with prayer and let's open our hearts and our and our minds and our ears to what the Lord might show us this morning.

Father in heaven we thank you so much for the goodness of Jesus and his ways.

We thank you for having our best interests at heart, for knowing how we can thrive most in your kingdom, in your design.

We ask that you would give us motivation, desire, and a love of the truth, of the truth of Jesus and the ways of Jesus.

I want to take you way way way back and then we're going to zoom all the way forward through the history and look at what a potential near future scenario might look like but let's go all the way back to in the beginning.

You know the scriptures well from Genesis, but have you ever noticed this is mankind at our best.

God's design for humankind, no sin, in this beautiful setting prior to the fall.

Now I'm sure it's not lost on the attendees of the Ad Agra conference that Adam and Eve were placed in a garden.

They were given agricultural labor as their occupation.

This is not Adam and Eve have been placed in the Eden townhouses in downtown Edenville.

Now this is not even Eden Estates in the suburbs.

So man was at his best in a country living setting doing agriculture.

Now contrast that with just a couple of chapters forward.

You get the fall of mankind, you get the first murder, you've got Cain.

Cain's genealogy is the genealogy of those who became the children of men and then the whole world became filled with wickedness, and the only thoughts of man was only evil continually.

That was a sorry state of affairs for humankind.

What was the very first thing it says in Cain's genealogy?

Have you ever read it in Genesis 4 verse 17?

It says the first thing he did after he was banished, after his murder, he had a son who built a city.

Kane and Kane's genealogy, those who concentrated in cities.

They became those who were responsible for the necessity of a flood to come upon the earth.

Speaking of which, continuing on in the story we get to Noah.

You know that Noah's occupation for many years, of course, is that he was a shipbuilder, but what about after the flood?

Genesis 9, verse 20 says that he was a husbandman, a farmer, a man of the soil.

So God's holy line of people continuing the process of being close to nature, close to the earth, seated originally in the Garden of Eden, carrying on this tradition in contrast with those of the world in the antediluvian and the post diluvian world.

So contrast the Cain's genealogy now with what you read in the book Education, page 211.

This would be Noah's family, Enoch, Methuselah, even the patriarchs.

With the people who were under God's direction, life was simple.

Their children shared in the labor of the parents, and studied the beauties and mysteries of nature's treasure house.

And in the quiet of field and wood, they pondered those mighty truths, handed down as a sacred trust from generation to generation.

Now before I read the last sentence in this paragraph, notice the context, in early ages, way, way back then, they lived close to the heart of nature and they labored in such setting, and such training produced strong men.

Well, of course, agricultural work, living life as a family, passing down the sacred truths to your children.

At the same time, as we heard Cain's genealogy, here you've got Noah, you've got the folks in early ages, here's another example from these very early times, the Tower of Babel.

Do you see the 2 histories kind of running parallel to 1 another?

Notice the Tower of Babel, People again concentrating in a megaplex with this massive building project of a tower that would go to the heavens.

You don't get much more urban than that in the ancient world.

Fast forward now to the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We read the following, The education centering in the family was that which prevailed in the days of the patriarchs.

So they continued this tradition from the Garden of Eden all the way down to Abraham's time.

For the schools thus established, God provided the conditions most favorable for the development of character." So what were these conditions that he built, that he designed, that he indicated that his people should do?

The conditions were, it says, the men who held fast God's principles of life, dwelt among the fields and hills.

They were tillers of the soil and keepers of flocks and herds.

And in this free, independent life, with its opportunities for labor and study and meditation, They learned of God and taught their children of his works and ways." Isn't that a beautiful picture from the book, Education?

Oh, you can imagine this scenario, this setting, this true education, this being tillers of the soil and keepers of the flocks and herds was best, it says, most favorable for the development of character.

So we've now heard most favorable for the development of character.

We've heard such training produced strong men.

Let's continue in this story and see if the trend advances.

In God's plan for Israel, every family had a home on the land with sufficient ground for tilling.

Thus were provided both the means and incentive for a useful, industrious, and self-supporting life.

No devising of men has ever improved upon that plan.

That's from Councils to Parents, Teachers, and Students, page 275.

No devising of man has ever improved upon God's Garden of Eden plan.

It is the training most favorable for development.

And no devising of man has ever improved upon that plan.

Country living, agriculture as a key part in the broader picture of how we live as followers of the Most High.

Now, of course, mankind in our age has tried to improve upon this plan.

We say, well, we've got a bigger, better idea here.

Most prominently, the 2 just tools, weapons in Satan's arsenal to divert people from God's original plan and design for them.

The 2 things that I spend a lot of time talking about in seminars that I do, media on the brain of course, the seminar Schooled, which is the Subtitle, The Deliberate Agenda to Destroy Individuality, Reduce Intelligence, and Re-engineer Society.

Because these are the things that are capturing the minds of the children from a very early age.

I want to spend some time talking about these in this session and then at the end we'll circle back around and see God's plan in action and how it's working today.

But if you go back in the history just a bit to the origins of, we'll start with the schooling piece and then we'll talk more about media after that, but 1913 was the year And the organization funding the public school system in America, which was under construction at that time, 100 years ago, it was the John D.

Now, we'll talk more about the history and the industrialists and what was going on.

But I just first want you to hone in on the urbanization aspect of this.

Listen to this statement from the Rockefeller Education Board about what they were trying to do when they built public education in America.

David Obermiller

Out but Not In, Going but Not Coming

Our Father in heaven, we want to count it a privilege to be where you desire to be.

And that is here in this room tonight, in our midst tonight.

It is your Holy Spirit that I ask for particularly.

Because in many ways, I am just like all the other people in the room.

Someone that I believe sincerely wants to be closer to you, wants the success and the privileges and blessings that come through having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

So Lord, we won't get that from listening to me speak tonight, but we will get that from you speaking to each 1 of us, including myself, through the presence and power of the Holy Ghost.

It is that presence, that gift, that I ask you to bless us with here.

The Israelites, I'm going to play on the theme of the conference, which is, you remember?

The story of Joshua and Caleb, which that text of scripture is about, starts not with Joshua or Caleb, but actually starts with the Israelites in Egypt.

God, you remember, had called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees.

God told Abraham that he would bless him with a land, what we know as the promised land, the land of the Canaanites, or the land of Israel.

Abraham didn't get to personally see that materialized.

And God told him that his people would spend 400 years captives in the land of Egypt.

The Israelites became slaves after Joseph died and a new pharaoh came that knew not Joseph.

The Bible tells us that the Israelites were enslaved.

As the Old Testament prophesies, 400 years they were in bondage to the Egyptians.

And the only hope they had of freedom was a promise.

A promise given to Abraham that 1 day they would inherit a land of their own.

You know, you and I have promises, we claim in the scripture.

But a promise not realized, a promise not materialized, is still nothing but something that happens in the future.

And for many of us, means nothing if it's not happening now.

You know God's promises are not just to be future activities, future events, but those promises are given to be fulfilled in you, through you, in us, through us, now.

A promise does no good if a promise isn't realized, materialized, made reality.

Exodus chapter 3 verse 7, verses 3, excuse me.

I'm looking at all my computer and Microsoft Word, and I'm looking at the screen.

Make sure I didn't hit the button too many times.

The Lord said to Moses, I have surely seen the affliction of my people.

I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt.

I have heard their cry by reason of their task masters, and I know their sorrows.

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into or unto a good land and a large.

A land, the Bible says, that is flowing with what?

Under the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And the land of milk and honey is a symbol.

It was reality for them, but it is a symbol for us.

The Passover was to be both commemorative and what?

Not only pointing back to the deliverance out of Egypt, but forward to the greater deliverance which Christ was to accomplish in freeing His people from the bondage of sin.

You see, what I'm saying to you is that their story is our story.

What happened to them, unfortunately, often happens to us.

And in the positive, what happened to them can be what happens to us.

This story is both commemorative of the past and typical of the future.

Not only commemorating deliverance from Egyptian bondage, but from the greater, I would encourage you, bondage of sin.

Of course, in the reverse, the land of Egypt, if it's a symbol, the promised land is also a symbol.

It is a land the Bible describes as a land flowing, we said it earlier, with milk and honey.

You ever thought about those words and what those words mean?

This is a, what kind of conference is this?

It's all the same words, meaning the same thing.

Ranching, farming, gardening, it's all the same activity maybe different scales.

You're a big farmer, you got acres and acres and acres, you're doing the same activity on a larger scale that you and I would do in our backyard.

Whether you have 1, 000 square feet or 100 square feet or 100, 000 acres, it is the same activity carried out on a larger scale.

And that right there is agricultural language.

So being that this is a farming conference, we make farming spiritual.

And God's promise of a land to be inherited was given in specifically agricultural terms.

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