Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Going the Distance

Mark Howard

1. Not Far

By God's grace, I hope we're not here a hundred years from now.

Somebody's not here a hundred years from now saying, you remember that camp meeting back when Elder Mitchell was first year, he was conference president?

We do this thing in the Adventist Church where we have these centennial celebrations.

Has anybody ever kind of looked at that and like for example I was down at Southern Adventist University this last year and I'm not trying to knock anybody but I was there they had their signs up like a centennial we've been here a hundred years is that anything an Adventist wants to advertise?

And saints, we know that it's not because we've been waiting on the Lord.

Inspiration tells us that He's been waiting on us.

And so I have been pleading with the Lord that this camp meeting would be something different, that the Lord would be able to use something here.

The Lord would be able to use everything here to move things forward and hasten the coming of Jesus.

So then, that's my theme this week is going the distance.

I just wanted to know, I'm not flipping slides up here and you're just like, you know.

Because it's time, I believe it's time God's people go the distance and finish this thing by his grace.

I'm basing this morning series on the book Steps to Christ.

I'm not expounding on the book Steps to Christ, I'll be drawing from it, but I've used the framework of it.

For example, today's message is based on that chapter, God's Love for Man, the first chapter.

Tomorrow's message is going to be on the sinner's need of Christ.

The next day on Monday, it's going to be combining repentance and confession.

So kind of that way, and I'm going to tell you if you have not read that book in a while or read it ever, get your hands on the book Steps to Christ.

It's so much more than, 1 thing I realized about the morning speaker, the difference between the morning speaker and the evening speaker is I have a time limit.

And so I there's no covering everything and as I've in preparation been going through the book Steps to Christ we always think of that book as a oh that's kind of the beginner thing.

That book is so full and so I want to encourage you if you haven't been through it in a while to pick up that book maybe as we're going through this this week.

I want to welcome you of course who are here this morning and I know that there are others joining us either by radio or streaming this morning and I want to welcome you here and I want to invite you to bow your heads and pray with me and let's pray that the Lord would do something mighty for us during this week of camp meeting.

Heavenly Father, Father I thank you this morning for a new day of life and Lord especially that it's the Sabbath day, a special day that you have cleared your schedule for us.

And we ask this morning for the gift of your Holy Spirit, not because we're deserving of it, but because you've promised, You've promised us that you are more willing to give us the Holy Spirit than we are to give good gifts to our children.

And Father, you've told us to pray for rain in the time of the latter rain.

And Lord, we know we see the world around us and we see things shaping up.

And yet, Lord, we've seen this in the past where you have brought events to pass and your people were not ready.

I pray this morning you would give me the words to speak and give us all ears to hear and hearts to respond to your word for we ask and pray these things in the name of Jesus and for his sake amen.

I've entitled this morning's presentation not far and I've taken that from that passage we were reading in the book of Acts.

Paul had gone to Greece, and if you turn there in Acts 17, I just want to draw out from what the Apostle is addressing.

He had a burden of heart there in Acts 17.

If you look at verse 16, this is what the Bible tells us.

It says, Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to what?

Idols or idolatry, and of course this is Athens, Greece is a center of all this idolatry influence, and Paul's heart was burdened as he saw this because he knew that they were not acquainted with the true God.

Bible says in verse 17, therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the Gentile worshippers and in the marketplace daily with those who happen to be there.

Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him.

And some said, what does this babbler want to say?

Others said he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

Let me introduce a concept to you, maybe you've thought about this before, but something we need to be clear on is there is a common thread through all idolatry.

And when I say all idolatry, I'm including false Christianity.

And that common thread is that God is aloof or indifferent or angry and religion is, it has been constructed, for lack of a better term, as a means of earning the favor and appeasing an angry God.

You go across the board with Eastern religions, like I said, and even into false Christianity, and the mindset of the worshiper is, I've got to somehow get God's attention, got to get Him to love me.

We see this in the Scripture on the Mount of Carmel, right, where Elijah goes up there, and what are the worshippers of Baal doing all morning?

In fact, into the afternoon, they're pleading to the point where Elijah begins mocking them and saying, hey, you know, maybe your God's asleep or he's on a journey somewhere, you need to wake him up or get his attention.

And what's funny about the story is the people don't say, hey, you don't know our God, our God isn't like that.

Instead, they're like, hey, you know, he has a point there.

And then they begin to try to get their God's attention to the point of cutting themselves, And the Bible says the blood was gushing out on them trying to get their God's attention.

That's common in all religions except true Christianity.

I remember when I first became a Christian, and you know when you first become a Christian, the Lord stirs your heart, you've committed your life to him, but there's a lot of, I was gonna say, you don't have all the answers.

Well, I still don't have all the answers.

And I remember my cousin, she was a teenager at the time, and she said, why, she was getting into Buddhism.

This was a cool thing going on, there was some hot young Hollywood actor that was in some Buddhist movie and so everybody's like, oh this is cool, we're going to look into the teenage girls.

She was like, yeah, I think Buddhism's cool.

She said, we Buddhists, and it's funny because she wasn't really a Buddhist, but that's how she identified herself.

We Buddhists just are content to be what we are.

We don't feel like we have to make everybody else Buddhist.

Why do you Christians, what's the big deal about Christianity?

But, the answer that's come to me is this.

Christianity is the only religion where God seeks his people.

God, the God, takes the initiative in saving.

In every other persuasion, you've got to get God's attention.

Paul, as he is going into Athens, he sees this.

Another picture from Mars Hill where we're going to read about in just a moment where Paul is looking out, meeting with the epic Kyrians and these philosophers from Greece to tell them about the true God.

I want to share with you a statement from Steps to Christ pages 10 and 11.

It says here, the enemy of good blinded the minds of men so that they looked upon God with fear.

They thought of him as severe and unforgiving.

Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice.

1 who is a severe judge, a harsh exacting creditor.

A being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men that he may visit judgments upon them.

That's the picture he has attempted to put in the minds of people.

And he even did that through the sacrificial system.

I want you to notice this is a fascinating statement.

I remember when I first read this some years ago.

Desire of Ages page 115 tells us that Satan watched as God was instituting the sanctuary services.

He was looking at that and he was thinking to himself, what is he getting at here?

And he discerned in those services that God was revealing the way of salvation through Christ.

And notice what it says here in Desire of Ages, with intense interest, Satan watched the sacrifices offered by Adam and his sons.

Now this is, this is not in the wilderness, this is way back when they were first instituted, as it says here, with Adam and his sons.

2. The Little Engine that Couldn’t

You know, I just, I love camp meeting, and I love to see the folks here this morning.

It dawned on me that there are people that watch from all over the place.

I had a former student from Emanuel, Gina Campos, if you're watching this morning, Gina, she texted me from… she's in Tennessee right now and watching the devotional yesterday.

His wife works… they're both working in China.

They have a little church group there, and they're watching these morning devotionals for their evening meetings.

So to our friends, our brothers and sisters in China, I want to say good morning, good evening, welcome.

And for all of our other viewers, welcome to our devotional this morning.

I have really personally felt the anger of the enemy at what's happening here at this camp meeting.

I have been wrestling even as I'm pulling these together.

There's a spiritual battle and I hope you understand that.

We're not just coming out here for a casual time in the morning.

I appreciated so much Brother Kelly's messages yesterday and some of the soul winning testimonies and everything, but the enemy's not happy with it.

Phil who used to say, you know, we pray for the Holy Spirit And the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he says, let's not just pray for the Spirit's outpouring, let's pray we get in on it.

Because we're told that the early rain is as accessible to us as it was in the church and Pentecost, and we're not seeing that kind of power now, and that's accessible, why aren't we seeing it?

We need to pray the Lord keep us open to what he wants to do for us and in us and through us.

I'm going to ask as I kneel if you'd bow your heads while we invite the Lord to lead.

Sounds awkward Lord this morning that we would invite you to lead.

You have drawn us here and we are here Lord, believing that you have something to give us.

But we need you to tune our hearts, bring us in harmony with Your will, with Your mind, help us to understand the message You have for us this morning, Lord.

May it be communicated clearly by the power of the Holy Spirit and give us ears to hear and hearts to respond for we ask and pray it in Jesus' name.

I mentioned yesterday, I've entitled our series, Going the Distance.

I want to be that generation that sees Jesus come.

Our theme is as a witness, and it's interesting, I've done a lot of witness.

I've been witnessing training for 20 years now, and it's this 1 thing that is essential for any witness, and that is that a person is excited about what they're witnessing about.

I have done a lot of practical training on how-to's, but you can how-to all day long for somebody who doesn't have a burden for what they're sharing, and they're not going to share it.

But on the other hand, if a person is excited about something, they don't need how-to's.

How-to's can be helpful, but that's not going to keep them from not sharing.

We need to be excited about our experience with Christ, and that's what we're talking about this morning.

Yesterday we talked about God's love for man in as much as we could.

It's an unfathomable topic we'll be studying throughout eternity.

But what I want to remind us of from yesterday is that the Scripture's clear that God takes the initiative in all of the work of salvation.

God's love for man is unique and very unlike human love, in that it's more of a choice than a feeling.

It's more of a principle than an emotion.

God loves us because of who He is, not because of who we are, and it is precisely for this reason that His love for us is unfailing and unchanging.

Not 1 will be lost because God didn't love them or because He stopped loving them.

Now, somebody brought up a good text to me afterwards from the Psalms yesterday, and you can find it in other places, where the Bible talked about how the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, but His face is against those who do evil.

When the Bible says God's face is against those who do evil, it still is not saying He doesn't love them.

In other words, when God destroys the wicked at the end, it's not because He didn't love them.

You imagine any child you have that gives you trouble up to here, and you in your earthliness still love them.

And I think sometimes it's important as we go on through the week to understand that just because God's love is unchanging doesn't mean everybody's going to be saved because God loves them.

Everybody can be, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more today.

Yesterday, we talked about the love of God for humanity.

Today we're going to talk about man's need, the sinner's need of Christ.

The message is entitled, I've entitled, The Little Engine That Couldn't.

And you're probably familiar with the old children's story about the little engine that could.

In fact, the story, the earliest known rendition of the story was in a sermon delivered by the Reverend Charles S.

It was published in the New York Tribune in April of 1906.

And after that, various versions of the story were shared.

1 of the more popular ones was a story entitled, The Pony Engine, in 1916 by a school teacher named Mabel C.

And the story is a pretty simple and straightforward story about a little engine, it was personified in a railway yard and there was a train that needed to be taken over a hill and, well, the big and important engines couldn't do it, wouldn't do it, made excuses about doing it.

And when they came to the little engine, the little engine said, I think I can, right?

And he did because of his positive thinking.

And that's what the story really was all about.

It was used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work, the power of positive thinking, and there's something to the power of positive thinking.

Even Scripture tells us a man is a man thinketh, and in his heart so is he.

Self-help books and seminars and inspirational motivational speakers have talked about the power of positive thinking for some time.

I'd shared a, found a statement a while ago by somebody I used to look up to back in my BC days, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once said, as long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it.

As long as you really believe 100%, and that's a philosophy of many people in the world.

And I want to tell you that people with that philosophy have accomplished many things.

There is something to the power of positive thinking, to a point.

But this fails to take into account that at the core of everything human, there is a fundamental flaw.

The very nature of man has been irretrievably corrupted.

In the book Steps to Christ, it says this, education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, are powerless in this sense.

They may produce an outward correctness of behavior, But they cannot change the heart.

Why don't you go with me to the book of Genesis, chapter 1.

There God created the heavens and the earth, and the Bible says when He created the earth and all the work was done, it was what?

Bible says it was very good at the end of Genesis chapter 1.

And as his crowning act, he created mankind, Adam and Eve.

And when he did, the Bible tells us something here in Genesis chapter 1 that I want you to note, verse 26.

The Bible says, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

I know we're going a little bit before their creation, or the reason.

According to our likeness, let them have, what's the word?

New King James says, dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image and the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

And God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have what?

Dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth." What does dominion mean?

3. Tragic Tale from Tinker Creek

Our gracious Father in heaven, oh Father, we thank you for another day of life, a day of privilege and opportunity to know you and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

More than this Father, as our theme here is as a witness, We have the privilege of sharing Christ with those who know Him not.

So I pray that in this camp meeting you would stir our hearts, Lord, to finish the work you've given us to do and to hasten the day of the coming of Christ.

May we all be ready for that day, not just ourselves, Lord, but those who are in our circle of influence because of something we let you do through us to reach them.

We ask and pray these things this morning in the name of Jesus and for his sake, amen.

Our theme this, the morning devotions, has been going the distance.

As I've said, I hope and pray and really believe it's possible that we can be that generation that sees the Lord coming in the clouds of glory.

I've modeled it after the book Steps to Christ.

Now, we've looked at our first message, I based on the chapter, God's love for man.

And we talked about God's unchangeable, unfathomable love, How God loves us because of who He is and not because of who we are.

And we talked about yesterday, I based it on the chapter of the sinner's need of Christ and talked about the utter fallenness of humanity, but praise God, He sent his son Jesus Christ to take humanity and become what the Bible calls the last Adam, to overcome where the first Adam failed.

But I don't know if you've noticed yet that neither of those chapters we've looked at takes 1 step to Christ.

I don't know if you've ever thought about that when you go through the book.

Today we're talking about what's called the first step, and that's the step of repentance.

The message this morning is called A Tragic Tale from Tinker Creek.

In her Pulitzer Prize winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard wrote a story or shared a story about some of the first cataract patients in Europe and America.

When they first learned how to remove cataracts, and some of these patients, some of these people had been born blind.

Some were blind from a very young age, and for the first time they could receive this surgery and see.

And you would think that would just be the greatest thing in the world.

But she shares in her book that this new sight experience proves overwhelming for many patients.

It oppresses them to realize if they ever do at all the tremendous size of the world.

It's hard to imagine for me who's always seen.

They said that some of the, for example, 1 of the patients was asked even after she received her sight how big her mother was.

And you might think she might attempt 1 of these, But she did this because the perception was not, she hadn't realized how to perceive size and distance.

And so there's this overwhelming new experience of seeing things you didn't see before.

It oppresses them, she goes on to say, to realize that they have been visible to people all along, perhaps unattractively so, without their knowledge or consent.

You don't have a mirror to look in, You don't know what you look like.

You don't know if you have marks on your face or you're having a bad hair day or what, right?

And so now all of a sudden you can see and you realize this is how I've presented myself.

These things were a little bit overwhelming.

A disheartening number of them, she continues, refuse to use their new vision.

Continuing to go over objects with their tongues and lapsing into apathy and despair.

For some, changing the old habits and adapting to a new way of life was so distasteful to them that after surgery, they actually chose to wear dark glasses or in some other way cover their eyes.

1 post-op 21-year-old girl, in the words of Dillard, carefully shuts her eyes whenever she wishes to go about the house and is never happier or more at ease than when by closing her eyelids she relapses into her former state of total blindness.

They actually chose blindness over sight because it was easier for them to keep living the way they always had.

The Bible tells us there's a church in the last days that's blind.

It's the church that describes you and me, and the Lord's counsel to that church is be zealous and repent.

There are Many, even in God's remnant church, who are no more willing to have their spiritual eyes opened to their own condition than were the cataract patients in Dillard's story.

Notice this statement from the book Testimonies to Ministers, even Seventh-day Adventists are in danger of closing their eyes to truth as it is in Jesus because it contradicts something which they have taken for granted as truth, but which the Holy Spirit teaches is not true.

Oh, I thought that was just other churches, Even God's people.

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Series

Going the Distance

3. Tragic Tale from Tinker Creek

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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