<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Anil Kanda

Unbroken

Father in heaven, we just thank you again for this morning, and thank you for this privilege of worshiping you and opening up your Word.

God, we pray, as Ellen White says, for the present blessing right now.

Lord, we pray that our hearts and minds will be drawn to you.

And as we open up the Word of God, may you speak to us, may you convict us, and lead us closer to you.

Alright, how many people have their Bibles?

Put your Bibles in the air if you have a Bible.

All right, look to the person next to you with a judgmental look for not bringing their Bible to church this morning.

Look, your hair may not work right on Sabbath.

You may forget all sorts of things when you get to church, but the 1 thing we never want to forget is the Word of God.

This morning we're going to be taking a good look at the Bible, and we're going to be looking at a very powerful story in the Scriptures.

Now I want to warn you not to fall asleep.

Because when you read the book of Acts, you remember what happened to 1 man when he fell asleep?

You know what's really powerful about that story though?

It's the story of a young adult who decided to hear the preaching of God's word.

He fell asleep, he fell out the window, and he died.

But that's not the end of the story, right?

He was resurrected, and I love what is said right afterwards, and the church was not a little comforted.

In other words, when a young adult hears God's word, he goes through a death, but then he goes through a resurrection, and an entire church can be impacted by that life.

This morning, as I said before, we're gonna be taking a good look at the life of Daniel.

And this morning, when I was actually studying out this story, God began to give me some additional thoughts to what I was going to preach about.

In fact, I came across this verse that's oftentimes used many times during evangelistic series.

It's found in Jeremiah chapter 29, verses 11 through 13.

But what is so remarkable about this verse that is used over and over again, maybe on placards, maybe it's used in a painting at your church, or maybe it's something you put on Facebook, is the context of this verse.

You see, God gave this verse during the time Israel was about to go into 70 years of captivity under Babylonian rule.

For 70 years, they would be under a bondage in Babylon, under Babylon, and it was through what was going on that God gave this beautiful promise that is found in the book of Jeremiah.

Thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord.

Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and they say something like this, they'll say, hey, I know what I'm thinking.

They're trying to assure you of something, so they'll say something like, hey, I know what's going on.

And essentially what they're saying is, what's coming out of my mouth is really what's in my heart.

So when God is saying, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, He essentially is saying, look, I know what's really in my heart.

Says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a what?

Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me And find me when you search for me with all your what?

You know where God wants us to start today?

And this beautiful passage of God's promise, God's hope, was given to a people who were about to go into bondage.

A time of oppression, a time of confusion.

And this is the context of the story of Daniel.

You know, when I first became interested in studying out the Bible, as somebody said before, I was actually born and raised a Hindu.

Now that may not make a lot of sense to people, but in India it makes perfect sense.

Hinduism is polytheistic, Sikhism is monotheistic, sort of a pantheistic monotheism.

But in India, you can do 2 things that are contradictory to each other.

That's why they call it the land of contradictions, right?

And so I was born and raised with these kinds of religious backgrounds.

And what was really interesting is when I began to study the Bible, somebody introduced me to the book of Daniel.

I tried picking up the Bible before, and growing up, there was lots of spiritual literature.

My dad's closet had all these books on Hinduism and Rathaswamy and Satsangi and I would go into his library and I would sit down, I would open up these books and I could not understand a single thing.

I thought to myself if I couldn't understand it, it was because it was way beyond human comprehension.

This is something that must be of God if it cannot be understood.

That's the reasoning of a 14-year-old kid.

But then when someone began to introduce me to the Bible, I remember picking up the Bible.

And I was still going to the Sikh temple, and we still had Hindu idols in the house, but I would pick up the Bible, and I would open up the Bible, and I'd read stories, very interesting stories.

And I would try to pick up on the lessons that were coming out of these stories, but for some reason I was not able to connect and understand the Bible.

But it wasn't until I came across the Seventh-day Adventist And the very first book that he introduced me to, guess what, was the book of Daniel.

And it was through the book of Daniel that I really began to understand the rest of Scripture.

For some reason, the book of Daniel seemed to connect with me.

The book of Daniel starts with a group of vegetarians, right?

Daniel chapter 2 is that these group of vegetarians apparently know Bible prophecy.

Daniel chapter 3, this group of vegetarians apparently stand for the 10 Commandments.

And Daniel chapter 4, the very individual who they have come in contact with, has his own personal story of how God changed his life.

And so I began to study out the book of Daniel.

1 day when I was actually in my philosophy of science class in Modesto, I never forgot on the very last day, the teacher had really dedicated the last few months of attacking creationism.

And so on the very last day, I had been preparing and I had been praying, but It wasn't just a very easy place to connect and witness to people.

As she was going about the final last 20 minutes of her presentation, I for some reason raised my hand.

The context in which she was talking about was the National Academy of Science, their criteria for what is authentic science.

So I raised my hand and I said, if you look at criterion number 4, it says that science must be testable and must be repeatable.

And I said, how would you test the theory of macroevolution?

If it's based upon billions of years of this planet and millions of years of life evolving, how would you be able to test that in our short lifetime?

She responds by saying, well, what you would do is you would go back into the data and you would study out what might be the effects of that theory.

So I raised my hand again, very obnoxiously.

I was really quite surprised at myself that day.

And I raised my hand and I said, well, that's really interesting.

And I said, over the last 100 years, wouldn't you admit that there has been lots of hoaxes and fabrication to make the theory of evolution work?

I just saw her throat become uncomfortable.

I just saw something change in her throat.

And just her voice begin to crack a little bit.

And she said these words, yes, that's actually very true.

So I raised my hand again and everyone began to look at me and I was wondering to myself what am I doing at this very moment and raised my hand and I asked the question I said how many alterations does the theory need before it's finally dismissed?

Back to Menu

Unbroken

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Prophecy

Covenantal Revelation: The Six Angels of Ch. 14 and the Davidic Covenant

1h 22m

The Fruit of Revival

43m

How to Prepare Yourself for the Latter Rain

46m

Gabriel Arruda Weekend

The Anxiety Relief Prayer

1h

Disappointment or Development: Lessons From the Life of Job

57m

The Time of Destiny

52m

The Afterlife

The Afterlife- Part 2

28m

Lessons from the Life of Daniel

Lessons from the Life of Daniel - Part 1

47m

7 Keys for Overcoming Temptation

52m

Plenary

Better Than the Best

51m

Health Evangelism

01 Lighting the World

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine