Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Emmanuel Institute Bootcamp

Kameron DeVasher

Jim Howard

Mark Howard

1. Orientation: Intro to Prophecy

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for a new day of life.

And Lord, we thank you for the many blessings that you pour out on us.

As we learned this morning in the devotional, we are tested by those blessings to see if we will become blessings to others.

And Lord, that's why we're here in a large part, because we want to bless others with your truth.

I pray your Holy Spirit would guide us throughout this class and this entire session, that we would be better equipped to win souls for Christ.

Okay, there have been a few changes in our program.

Maybe I should back up and tell you this.

Emmanuel Institute, in case you don't know, is the training school for the lay training school, well it isn't just lay training because we did a pastoral training earlier this year as well, for the Michigan Conference.

And that's because the Michigan Conference believes in evangelism and soul winning and getting the work done.

And I mean, I can't express to you how thrilled I am to work in a conference that's invested there because not all conferences are.

And when we started out, the Emanuel Institute, our main program was a four-month program and we trained a lot of young people.

Well, we trained people of all ages, but a lot of times for 4 months you get younger students who would be coming and learning how to become Bible workers.

And there were a lot of blessings that we had doing that.

But 1 of the challenges that we ran into was that when a person would come to our training, oftentimes there would be some area that would open up for them to go do Bible work somewhere else besides where they were from.

And that may be a blessing to them and the church that they were going to or the state that they were going to in the conference they were going to but the local church oftentimes the local churches would be sponsoring they'd be helping out it's like all this is great they're gonna go they're gonna get trained they're gonna come back no they're not gonna come back they're gonna go somewhere else and be Bible workers and set some church on fire and what was happening is it wasn't impacting the local churches and that's where we have felt as Emmanuel Institute and as our Michigan Conference that the change really needs to take place among our laity and again if you heard the devotional this morning it was touching on that idea.

The work is not going to be finished by the ministers, it's going to be finished by God's people in every walk of life and in every career occupation what have you.

So a couple years ago now, Emanuel Institute shifted its focus to doing short intensives and we do programs where last year at camp meeting for example we did our witnessing class.

You can imagine that if we take you know 4 months to teach a class when you distill it into a few days, there are things that are getting left out.

And so, typically in our short program, we'll go over all the how-to about witnessing and how to give your testimony and how to strike up a spiritual conversation.

What we're doing this year is our Bible Boot Camp and our Bible Boot Camp is specifically designed to help people gain an understanding and a level of confidence to give Bible studies.

That's really our main focal point here and I'll get into that a little bit more in a minute.

Now 1 of the things that we did last year is, and we work with a conference office and it was Jim Mitchiff who pitched the idea, he said, I think I'd like to do an Emanuel session during camp meeting, makes it more accessible to people who can't go any other time.

And we attached a $35 fee to that for the different materials we used.

Well this is a different, and something else I should tell you is all of our manual institute sessions are, what's the word I'm blanking on here?

Subsidized, thank you, by the conference.

In other words, fees never cover the cost of the program, but The reason for that is, again, accessibility.

Now going into this camp meeting, we had a sign up.

There's a sign up and a lot of you signed up.

I don't know if there are those of you here this morning who didn't, but those of you who signed up and you paid a $35 fee, we're refunding your fee with a little caveat here and I'll let you know.

As we talked about it, we thought I want as many people as can attend this to be here because I want our people giving Bible studies.

I would encourage you to be in here for the long haul.

But if you're gonna go out, well, that's not true.

It was kind of selfish the way we did it because that 02:00 slot, the afternoon, like 2 to 3.15, we're not having class then.

And 1 of the reasons is if you've ever taught a seminar at the right immediate after lunch hour and everybody's sleepy we said I go to other seminars check those out and come back here at 330 to 530 that's right when you wake up but that's that's how we're running and it's all you know 6 days of this.

We don't want to leave, you know, things open for a little bit of the camp meeting experience.

But if you're just here trying this out and you're like, hey, I've got other seminars I wanna go to, I'd rather have you get some than none.

With this stipulation that you put it to practice.

Everyone here, I'm gonna tell you right now, everyone here can give a Bible study.

I don't know what the devil's telling you in your head, but everyone here can give a Bible study and win a soul to Christ.

And we're going to hopefully encourage you in that direction this week.

What we are doing is – How many of you got the manual?

There are 3 things that we're giving out during this week.

What this has in it is all of our Immanuel Bible doctrine studies And then it also has Pastor Cameron's Bible study outlines that he made for his Unlock Revelation meeting, and I'll explain why that is in a minute.

I primarily wrote the Emanuel Institute Bible Doctrine Studies, Cameron wrote his studies, and when you do a study, when you give a study, you always have your own angle that you take with it, and so when he teaches, he's going to be teaching more from the perspective of his study.

You also have the It Is Written studies, and 1 of the reasons, the key reasons is that the BibleStudyOffer.com program is using these and so we want you to understand how to use these studies in context of what we're going over.

Now that may seem like an odd thing to say until I tell you that the purpose of a Bible boot camp is not to walk you through a study.

There's nothing more frustrating to me, and maybe it's not the case with you, than to go into Sabbath school and go over and read through the lesson I read through during the week.

I don't want you to come and we're gonna read through a printed lesson together.

What we want to teach you in a Bible boot camp is the doctrine and why we teach it, why it's in the study set.

I mean you've got we got people today who are like, wow we're always talking about the doctrines and we need to talk about more about Christ and our relationship with him.

Well that should be coming out in your studies.

But the reason that we address studies and the reason that most every Bible study set you get in the Seventh-day Adventist Church follows the same pattern is because it's addressing key questions that people have that they need to have answered in order for them to make decisions for Christ.

And so what we're going to be covering in the boot camp, you don't have the...

Yes you do, because I just gave these out, I was trying to figure what I put on here.

I want you to look at your, this outline.

So what we have is we have the manual, we have the fundamentals of faith, which we'll talk about a little bit further this week.

And then we've got the it is written Bible study lessons.

So those who registered and paid ahead of time will get a refund, a $15 refund because they paid $35.

Now for the rest of you who come in and you're like, this is what we're going to do.

When we go over, there are things we're going to go over in class that will give you materials for but they're not going to be the complete materials that are for those who have paid if you want the materials we have them at the cost and that's $20 and some of you purchase that I think $12 for the this binder these are $2 you can get them at the ABC at $2 too.

Well, it's gonna be a little cheaper here because we're not charging the tax for it.

I'm not the ABC manager or anything like that.

So that's kind of how we're rolling this this week.

If you have questions on that, you can ask during the break.

We will take breaks roughly at 50 minute intervals.

Now if we're finishing up a topic and it's not, we gotta go another 10, we'll go another 10 and we'll take the break a little later that happens sometimes just so that you know but we're not going to try to have you sitting here for 3 hours straight ok but if you look at this is not the thing that I want to talk about I had it right in front of me a minute ago I want you to look at that schedule I just handed you mine because I...

Daniel could you get me another 1 of the schedules?

So, if you look at, for example, session 1 on Sunday, you'll notice that we have an orientation period and then intro to prophecy.

And Pastor Cameron's going to jump in here in the orientation in a moment.

2. Salvation

Father in Heaven, thank You so much for this privilege we have to be at Camp Meeting.

We believe that wonderful things happen here when You, Lord Jesus, meet with Your people.

And I pray that as we spend this time together, it's a safe environment where we're all together like-minded believers, but we understand that we come to these mountaintops so that we can be prepared to go into the valley and to do the work that You have called us to do in more difficult circumstances and more trying situations.

And we pray, Lord, that you would just strengthen us during this time so that we'd be prepared for those times.

Now, Lord, abide with us, teach us by your Spirit, give us understanding.

And help us to have confidence in what we believe and in your word, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

Alright, so you were able to get started this morning in the doctrinal part of things with the topic of the intro to prophecy.

I know that Pastor Mark was not able to get quite as much through Daniel 2 as we had hoped.

But we knew that there was a lot of preliminary stuff since this is a different session for us.

And we're doing the doctrinal boot camp, the Bible study boot camp.

We don't have as much time to talk about just the methodology and the foundation and so we needed to take some time to do that this morning and we knew that there was a chance that that might cause time to be a little limited but hopefully in these next sessions we'll give you a little bit more of a clear picture of each topic of where we're headed and how to do a study.

I want to tell you that the topic that we're talking about today, I'm going to go ahead and write it on the board, is salvation.

So I'm glad I was given a very narrow topic to talk to you about.

No, this is a very important topic, but I'm going to be honest with you, when it comes to an evangelistic meeting or a Bible study, oftentimes, the truth be told, this is 1 that people kind of yawn at.

Like, okay, yeah, I've heard that before.

It's not real controversial, it's not real cutting, it's not real, you know, I mean the saints aren't sitting at the edge of their seats at the evangelistic meeting during this 1 wondering what's going to happen when something is disclosed like the Antichrist or Saturday is really the Sabbath or the dead are not really in Heaven, or there's not those types of elements of dramatic difference, and so we tend to kind of yawn at it a little bit.

But what I want to tell you about this particular topic is that it is not merely a topic for 1 session of your Bible study series.

The reality is, this is the topic that is permeating your entire Bible study series.

So, what I'm going to be talking to you about, I'm going to give you some basic things and lay out concepts for you that I hope become clear to you, because if they do, then you can share them throughout your series.

But I'm just wanting you to understand something.

When you're giving a Bible study to somebody, you're wanting to see their soul saved.

So you have to have an understanding of this topic, not merely to present this topic, but to know why you're even doing what you're doing, okay?

Which is why when we talk about the topic of salvation, perhaps more than any other, although lots of them are like this, the truth is, salvation must be experienced before it is fully understood.

In other words, if you yourself have not been born again, It's going to be a very challenging study for you to give.

I mean, this is 1 of those things that helps me to understand why, and I'm going to be a little transparent here for a moment.

Why I, who am nothing more than a glorified layperson, okay, that's what I am.

Somebody who was just, the Lord reached down and rescued from where I was in my life, and I'll talk about that a little bit in a moment.

And then from there, I started giving Bible studies, and that went well.

And then I started, somebody said I should try pastoring a church, and I said, okay, I'll try it.

And then I started getting calls, you want to do this full-time, okay I'll do that full-time and then you want to take this larger church, okay I'll take that larger church, oh you want to come work at the conference, I guess and I go work in the conference but basically I've never been to seminary, I've never been to theological training in any of our institutions.

So for those of you who feel that that is the most essential thing, we'll give you a moment to leave.

But let me tell you something, The reason that I believe that not only me, but you too, can be just as effective as somebody who has been through that type of theological training is because salvation is something that you experience.

It is not something that you merely are taught.

In many ways, I did not learn the head knowledge of salvation until after the Lord saved my soul." In other words, I didn't understand how to explain it and articulate it until after I went through it.

You begin to understand it a little bit better.

You can mechanically tell somebody steps or something like that.

But it will mean nothing if you have not experienced it.

It's your experience that enables you to be able to speak with conviction, to be able to understand the nuances of somebody's personal, individual situation.

To know how to help them through whatever it is they're going through.

Salvation is something that must be experienced more than simply understood.

You talk about conversion and the idea of being saved or born again, and you're talking about something that ultimately, I like to say, comes by revelation.

Do You remember the time when Jesus asked His disciples, who do men say that I am?

And they said, well, a prophet, or Elijah, or whatever.

And they had all these different answers, and Jesus said, well, who do you say that I am?

And in this case, he spoke immediately with conviction and confidence, and He said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.

What does He mean flesh and blood is not revealed?

How did Jesus know that somebody didn't just tell Him or that He wasn't just listening to what was being told Him?

Because Jesus knew that for someone to speak with conviction about the fact that He was the Son of God, the Messiah, the only way that someone can speak with that conviction is if they have received it from revelation from God through the Spirit of God.

There's something about salvation that's different than head knowledge.

It's something that happens in your life.

And that is the fundamental ingredient that makes someone able to be a soul winner.

The number 1 ingredient that makes someone able to be a soul winner is that they themselves have had their soul won by the Lord Himself.

And it comes by, I like to say, revelation.

Now, I'll talk in a moment about that happens in different ways for different people and different speeds and different times and all those types of things and I'll talk about how you can know.

But I just want you to understand that that is something that comes from the Lord and that experience is the number 1 prerequisite to having success in soul winning and especially in giving a study on the topic of salvation.

I have to take a moment before getting into some of the details of sharing this topic to just give you a little bit of my own experience.

When you give a Bible study, it is not a cold transference of facts.

When you give a Bible study, what you're really doing is giving your testimony.

When I'm giving a Bible study, I'm studying the doctrines in the Bible.

What do you mean you're giving your testimony?

We think of testimony as 1 thing and a Bible study as another.

But the truth is that your sharing of those Bible truths, you can only share them because you yourself have become persuaded by them.

So when you are sharing those Bible truths, you're actually simply witnessing of your own convictions.

If you're not witnessing of your own convictions, you won't do very well giving that Bible study.

And you'll trip all over it because you don't really believe it, you don't understand it.

But if you are convicted of it, then all you're doing is witnessing.

If you're reading the Bible, when it talks about witnessing, it says that's when you share what you have seen and heard.

What you yourself have personally experienced.

Well, It's not just talking about in some miraculous, supernatural manifestation or something.

It means that when I have seen in the Bible, oh, that's clear!

When I see that, then I'm able to share it with somebody else, and that's witnessing.

I'm sharing what I have seen and heard in the Bible.

So Bible studies are really the purest form of witnessing.

Because where have you seen Jesus more clearly than in the Bible?

Where have you heard His voice speaking to you more clearly than in the Bible?

3. Great Controversy

Dear Heavenly Father, what a difference a day makes.

What a beautiful, sunshiny, cool, crisp day you've given us.

This morning as we come together as a group, we venture to open your word.

Lord, this topic that we're going to be studying today is the great controversy.

Something that is not just theoretical but is happening right now.

Help us to be sharp in our thinking, quick in our learning, but more than just an academic course or some sort of trivial pursuit of interesting collection of facts.

Help us even in this room today to have a heart changing experience.

Help us to see Jesus and by beholding to become changed like Jesus, ready to see him again soon and very soon.

What I would like you to do, again, this is the 1 we're going to be going through, but for this point now, just tuck it away, and we'll revisit it at the end of our study.

But what we want to do is give you the big background and then show how this can be a tool to teach that.

So for right now, what I'd like to do is take out your Bible and some notes.

I'm assuming we all have Bibles and we all have notes.

And as we find Matthew chapter 13, let me give you a few other preliminary thoughts.

In my estimation, and I think there are many who would agree, that every 1 of these studies is important.

Every 1 stands alone as its own thing, but in the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the Bible, what I believe the Bible itself conveys, is not just a smorgasbord of truths.

Oh, there is a Sabbath, there is a heavenly sanctuary, over there is creation, over there is the cross, and you can mix and mingle and have three-quarters this, five-eighths that, or no, no, no.

That what you have in the Bible is an entire what Sister White would call the system of truth, right?

An interdependent structure like a woven fabric where if you pull 1 thread the whole thing unravels, right?

Think about what happens if you get something like the state of the dead, which is a very formative thing, it's right there in Genesis 2 and 3, what life is and what death is, but if you're off on what happens when you die, Will that impact what you understand about the judgment?

What about the destruction of the wicked and the nature of hell?

I mean, some massive things unraveled just by moving that 1 thing, adding you shall not surely die.

What I want to show you today is that the great controversy is the overarching platform, it is the template in which every other thing that we're gonna study fits into.

The reason this study is so important, it is the foundation of the entire edifice of Seventh-day Adventist theology.

So whenever we get this concept straight in our heads, We see the parameters that the Bible outlines of this story, the great controversy, that it gives a context into which things like the calling of Israel in the Old Testament and the flood and the cross and the early Christian Church and even the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, everything, end time events included, fits inside of this box.

So what we're doing today is building the box that all the other studies fit inside.

And that's gonna be important because when you get to something like say the Sabbath versus Sunday issue, if you've established this framework, then you're not talking about just which day is correct.

You're talking about loyalties, you're talking about allegiances between 2 spiritual forces that are real and battling right now, okay?

So when you make appeals for those things like those quote salvation issues, remember talking about yesterday?

It's no longer about do I do this or do I not do this.

It's about I'm choosing sides in the Great War and I want to show my loyalty.

Nothing about legalism but it's everything to do with loyalty.

So let's go to Matthew chapter 13 as we start our first of, like I said, 4 distinct phases in this great controversy study.

Matthew chapter 13, Jesus here, the whole chapter by the way, if you look at Matthew chapter 13 is just chock full of what?

If your Bible has headings, what do you see?

It starts with a parable, then there's the purpose of parables, and the parables explain, and then there's the parable of wheat and tares, the parable of mustard tea, the parable of the leaven, the parable of the tarot, terrible parable of the hidden treasure, great price, dragnet, lots of parables.

We're going to focus on 1 of those parables today and it's the 1 that starts in verse 24.

And we're going to see why, because it's the 1 his disciples focused on as well.

But let's start here in verse 24 and we're going to read it as Randy Skeet likes to say, microscopically.

We're gonna get an overview, but we're gonna break it down into its elemental nuts and bolts.

I know, that wasn't a good Randy Skeet impression.

I don't know anyone who can do it, so I'm off the hook.

Matthew chapter 13, verse 24, another parable he put forth to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.

So already we have 3 parts that he's introduced it to.

But, verse 25, as simple as that sounded, the plot thickens.

But while men slept, I often have the phrase, pause right here, we're going to keep reading this text, but I want to drop an idea in your head that we're not gonna resolve right now but we'll come back to in just a couple minutes.

I want you to start thinking, who are these men and what does it mean that they're sleeping?

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Series

Emmanuel Institute Bootcamp

1. Orientation: Intro to Prophecy

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

1. Orientation: Intro to Prophecy

2h 43m

2. Salvation

1h 58m

3. Great Controversy

2h 44m

4. Antichrist

1h 42m

5. Law, Sabbath, Mark of the Beast, & USA

2h 44m

6. Timing and Signs of Second Coming

1h 28m

7. Sanctuary, 2300 Days, & 3 Angels

2h 28m

8. State of the Dead

1h 44m

9. Health, Entertainment, and Christian Dress

2h 45m

10. Hell & the Millenium

1h 22m

11. Babylon, Remnant, and Spirit of Prophecy

2h 32m

12. Witnessing & Discipleship

1h 41m

Sound Doctrine