Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Faithful Talks

Louis Torres

1. A Lost God

2. The Bridegroom is Coming

3. Faithful

4. The Sons of God

5. On the Throne

I'm going to share with you things that I hope will do something for you to bring about whatever God needs to change in your life.

And any time you deal with change, it always is painful.

But I pray that you will allow the pain if it means salvation.

The religious community in the 60s was shocked by a professor who made a statement, and The statement he made was that God was dead.

He was a theologian, and that's what was shocking, that a theologian would make a statement such as God is dead.

Now, Pastor Bentley, Can you just put your finger on the mouse pad?

Just put your finger on the mouse pad to move the first 1 and if it moves the first 1 we're okay.

And if it doesn't then I'll ask you to use your finger again and we'll just proceed.

It came out of the magazine, Time Magazine, and it shocked a lot of people because It seems to appear with all the atrocities that have taken place during the First World War and Second World War that God really did not exist.

When I became converted, I was working in a machine, I got a job in a machine shop, and I got a letter from the US government telling me that I was drafted during the Vietnam War.

My boss told me that I didn't have to worry about it because he was a personal friend of the colonel and he could get me released from military duty.

Why would you want to go to Vietnam anyway?

Why, he said, because I've manipulated my life all along all these years, and I decided to stop manipulating my life.

I want God to lead my life and not me trying to figure out how I can get out of something.

And then he explained to me how as a little child, being a Jew, trying to escape with women and children and old people, all of a sudden a plane, an Italian plane came down and began to shoot them and kill as many as possible.

And he says a little boy, he was hit under the train, and he watched all these people being mowed down, And the question that came to his mind is, where is God?

Father, heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity we have to study your word, and we pray for your spirit to guide, to direct us, Give me clear thoughts, I ask in Jesus' name, amen.

The question about God being lost is not something that just atheists, agnostics, infidels deal with.

There are many, many young people who grow up in the Adventist church who really do not and are not and do not understand or know or experience the reality of God.

Is it possible for you to grow up in the Adventist church and never know God?

Is it possible for people to be religious and never know God?

And so while it is true that there are atheists and agnostics and infidels who don't believe in God.

You would expect that, but you don't expect it in a religious setting.

But the highest number of people who don't know God, not found outside, is found inside.

There are millions of religious people in the world who don't know God.

And I know of young people who have left the church because they have never experienced God.

I've known of young people back when I was in the military, who came into the military at the same time that I was there, who though they grew up in certain areas of what we call Adventist ghettos, these young men gave evidence that they knew not God.

Even though they professed to be Adventists, yet the sad commentary was that they did not know God.

They have a hard time trying to find God.

And that's interesting because in the Bible, in the book of Jeremiah, let's see if I can get the next 1.

Can you put your finger there, the magic touch?

And in the book of Jeremiah it says, ye shall what?

And find me when you shall search for me with how much?

Why is it so difficult for people to find God then?

If the scripture says that you will seek me and find me when you shall search for me with how much?

Why is it that young people make shipwreck of faith, leave the church, leave the church family, leave the faith, and go out into the world and live a reckless, or not so reckless, a very prosperous life without God.

Now, the reality is that in the scriptures, people think God is lost, but what we find from the scriptures is that God is not lost, he is actually looking.

For example, Jesus gave 3 parables in the book of Luke, chapter 15.

The first group, they're lost but do not know how to find their way back.

It's a terrible, scary sense that comes over you when you realize that you're lost and you don't know how to find your way.

Any of you have been lost and felt you couldn't find your way?

And it's even more exasperating when you need to get someplace and you can't get there because you're lost.

That's what happened to me the other day.

The first 1, lost, but doesn't know how to find his way back.

And the interesting thing about that lost condition is that someone went to find him.

In other words, the sheep did not initiate the search.

The shepherd is the 1 that initiated the search.

The wonderful thing about that story is that it doesn't end with a shepherd coming back with empty hands.

The shepherd comes back with what he went to look for.

Is it possible for a person to be lost in the house?

Again, the condition is a lost condition, and the coin does not know that it's lost.

And there are many, many, many, many, many, many people who do not know that they are lost.

The term that describes them is called strangers to divine influences.

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Series

Faithful Talks

1. A Lost God

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Nature of Liberty

50m

God, Hot on Our Trail

39m

The Secret of Happiness

39m

Overcoming Addictions (Evening Meetings)

Gaining the Victory

50m

The Beatitudes

Blessed are the Pure in Heart

32m

Conquering Addictions: A Personal Testimony

1h 28m

The Unhindered Gospel

Dying in Order to Live

47m

Godly Living

Called to be Seekers

54m

Men of Prayer, Men of Power

1h 50m

Absolute Surrender

45m

Posh Pigs and Precious Prodigals

44m

I Met God

I Met God 11

38m

Sound Doctrine