Pastor David shares a morning message at Alaska campmeeting on the priority of the Word living in the last days.

<p>Pastor David shares a morning message at Alaska campmeeting on the priority of the Word living in the last days.</p>

<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>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

The Priority of the Word

Our Father in Heaven, we thank you that you are so good to us.

We thank you for the Sabbath, a reminder of creation and redemption.

We pray that as we have gathered here this morning for our daily bread, that you would speak to our hearts.

You've promised that the Holy Spirit that inspires would also be the Spirit that instructs.

Bless us as we open your word, for we ask these things in Jesus' name.

Our topic this morning is entitled, The Priority of the Word.

And before we begin, I want to set the stage for our topic of discussion.

Several years ago, I had the privilege of working in Tulsa, Oklahoma as a Bible worker with an evangelist.

Anyone here ever been to Tulsa, Oklahoma before?

And we were in the midst of an evangelistic series.

It was a group of people that were coming out, making decisions.

And there was this 1 couple that were convinced on the Sabbath, they made a stand, and they had made a commitment to be baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And on 1 particular morning, I was walking around the church, having my morning devotions that day, and this lady who was studying to be baptized came to the church and she saw me and approached me.

Her face was very troubled and she said, David I need to talk to somebody And I said, do you want to talk to me or the evangelist?

Well, she said, could you just relay something to the evangelist?

She said that morning she had gone out into her garage and was taking care of some things there.

It was a storage unit that they were using.

And she said that as she went into the room that the 1 particular piece of furniture started to levitate off of the floor of the garage and started to move and shake about the room.

Understandably, she was very distressed at that.

So she called out the name of Jesus and the object started to shake even more.

And then it was that morning that she came to the church where I was walking around.

And I said, great, I'll talk to the evangelist and I'm sure he'll take care of things.

So in that morning staff meeting I told the evangelist what was taking place and he looked at me and he said, David, that's a, this would be a wonderful experience for you.

Why don't you go down there with your friend and pray and this, whatever it is, the spirit will depart.

I remembered in the book of Acts, do you remember that story where these 2 gentlemen are dealing with evil spirits and the spirit said, Paul we know, Peter we know, but who are you?

You remember what happened to those gentlemen?

They jumped on them, roughed them up a little bit, and then they ran out of that house without any clothes on.

And I was understandably a little bit worried.

I had some things in my life that I needed to take care of and the Holy Spirit impressed me that I needed to take care of some software that was on my computer that I did not have a license for.

So I went out there and then deleted all of this software and then I had some questionable music as well and I threw it in the dumpster and my friend and I went off to this house very nervous quoting Bible Scriptures.

We pulled up in the driveway and I said, Bill are you ready?

We went in there and she said, oh good, you're here.

I want to show you the room where this happened.

And we are like, oh wonderful, this is just great.

So we went in the room and nothing happened.

We went out to the living room and had a prayer.

Come to find out, there had been a history of witchcraft in the family.

And as this family was making steps in present truth, this evil spirit was not willing to let it go and was making these manifestations.

Quite an uneventful story because praise God the spirit went away and they were baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

There's another phenomenon that is taking place it's called Mary apparitions.

There's a book out called Thunder of Justice, maybe you've read that before.

There's a nun in South Korea by the name of Julia Kim that was participating in the Eucharist, and as the priest was coming around and placing the wafer in the mouths of these individuals, the wafer that he put in the mouth of Julia Kim was seemingly transformed from a wafer to a piece of flesh.

And this miracle was determined to be evidence in the notion of transubstantiation.

Remember, the priest holds up the Eucharist and says the Latin words, and in that moment, that Eucharist literally, not figuratively, becomes the body of Jesus Christ.

Another instance that took place that received a lot of publicity was in the city of Syracuse in Sicily.

Actually, it's the Lady of Syracuse in Sicily.

Just before Christmas in 1996, a painting of Jesus was seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses to be weeping red tears.

This painting was no ordinary icon for it hangs in the Bethlehem Church of the Nativity above the spot where Christian tradition maintains Jesus was born.

A Muslim cleaning lady was the first to see a light that came from the painting prior to the tears flowing from the eyes of Jesus.

Since her sighting, thousands of Christians of all denominations, along with many Jews and Muslims, have witnessed the tears.

In Sicily, in the spring of 1953, a statue of Mary began weeping tears as well.

Doubting neighbors, cynical journalists, and rational scientific investigators were baffled by the phenomena of a virtual torrent of tears flowing from the eyes of the plaster Madonna.

A skeptical detective caught several tears in a chemist's vial and without identifying the liquid, sent the specimen to a police laboratory for analysis.

Hardly any time passed before the crippled, the lame, and the ill from all over Italy were soon gathering before the weeping Madonna.

The tears were caught on a cloth and wiped on the bodies of the afflicted.

A middle-aged man recovered the use of a crippled arm.

A three-year-old girl stricken with polio was able to discard the stainless steel braces that encased her twisted legs.

An 18-year-old girl who had been struck dumb 11 years began to speak.

Hundreds of others claim to have received a healing blessing from the tears of the little Madonna.

The Madonna's tears ceased to flow on the fourth day of the phenomena, but exactly 1 month later the statue was carried through the streets at the head of a procession of 30, 000 people.

What do we do with real, verifiable miracles that have been taking place.

And there's a website online that documents the Mary apparitions that have taken place from the year 1400 until now.

And you'll notice a trend, especially since the 1990s, that the phenomena of merry apparitions has been increasing in frequency.

So as we begin our Bible study today, I want to pose the question, is seeing really believing?

Because we have verifiable scientific miracles that are taking place, does this show that these are evidence of biblical truth?

This is an important question especially as we approach the end of time because we're going to see more and more miracles that are taking place.

And we need to remember that there are 2 spirits that are in our world, 1 scripture, and we are coming to an age where I believe that everything that can be shaken will be shaken.

And these miracles are seen by many sincere individuals as evidence for coming from God.

As we approach our study this morning, I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to 2 Peter chapter 2.

The question is, what is to be the final authority of faith for the Christian?

What do we do when there are phenomenons like merry apparitions, weeping Madonnas?

I remember a news broadcast that was taking place on a major news network.

It was NBC and they had their cameras trained on this particular wall and a Mary apparition was taking place live on camera.

The outline of Mary was being supernaturally etched into a wall.

It was the morning show with Matt Lauer on NBC and they were showing a Mary apparition taking place live.

How do we relate to them as Seventh-day Adventist Bible-believing Christians?

Second Peter chapter 1 verse 16, Paul here is establishing a reference point for knowing truth.

For we did not follow cunningly devised, what does your Bible say, fables, when we made known unto you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." Here Peter is saying what I'm telling to you is not a myth, it's not a fable, it's not something that has been fabricated, it is the truth and on what basis does he make this claim?

He says that we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Paul, Peter is saying, look I was there, I saw it with my own eyes.

What I'm telling you is the truth because I was an eyewitness.

Now we know that in any court of law, an eyewitness account holds a lot of authority.

And here Peter is saying, look, what I am telling you is the truth.

It's not something that has been fabricated.

It's not because we had too much to eat 1 night and we dreamed this dream and came up with this fable about a crucified and risen Lord.

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The Priority of the Word

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