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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Melody Mason

Growing Above and Beyond Faith Even When God Is Silent

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you again for the opportunity to be here with the Advent Hope Fellowship.

And I'm just asking, Father, that you will speak through me this afternoon.

Again, you know the needs here, you know the burdens on the hearts, and you alone can meet that need, Father.

It's not a need I can meet or anyone else.

It's only you and the power of the Holy Spirit.

But I am asking, Father, that you would speak through me this afternoon and that hearts will be touched and that you will draw us to a deeper faith, a deeper love, a deeper understanding of who you are.

Oh, Father, please send your Holy Spirit to this place.

This morning I talked about faith, a little bit about faith, and I wanna start off talking about that again this afternoon.

Before I do, just something a little bit personal.

But I thought it was really interesting that my brothers chose to give names to my nieces that were very significant.

1 of them was named Darlene Rose and the other 1 Perpetua Faith.

And let me tell you a little bit behind these names.

Darlene Rose was actually named after Darlene Dibbler Rose, which was, she was a prisoner of war in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and there's a whole book written about her life story.

And this is a very convicting testimony of how God helped her and brought her through these incredible atrocities alive, but with courage and with faith.

And it was just, her testimony is just so, so beautiful how she relied upon the Word of God through this experience.

If you haven't read the book, Evidence is Not Seen.

And then Perpetua Faith is named after, some of you may remember, Vivia Perpetua.

She was 1 of the early Christian martyrs that actually she was a young mother, not even barely in her 20s, and had a nursing infant.

And she was of noble, royal kind of family and she accepted Christ and she would not give him up and as a result they said, you know, you're going to go to the Coliseum before the wild animals.

And she would nod and her family pleaded with her and pleaded with her and she says, no, I've found Christ and I'm not going to let him up.

She went out to her death like a woman going to her wedding.

She was just so honored that she could die for Christ.

And her testimony, if you read more of the story, is she actually didn't even feel when the animals attacked her.

She was, God gave her that experience without pain.

And her testimony is just so encouraging to me.

You know, it's not like any of us want to face that type of thing, and we're not asking for that.

We don't know what is coming ahead, but that's not what we want, right?

But I see these testimonies and these experiences of different Christians that have gone before, and I'm like, Lord, you know, I want to have that type of faith if that day comes or that test comes.

Well, how do we how do we grow that type of faith?

1 other story that's really been a blessing to me.

How many of you have ever read the story of the heavenly man?

This is amazing testimony of Brother Yun and his walk with God.

He did not even hardly know how to read, but he had heard about God from his parents.

And so he started praying that somehow he could get a Bible.

And this is in China, in communist China, where at the time it was illegal to have Bibles, and I think it's getting that way again, unfortunately.

But he just started praying and praying, and for 100 days he fasted and prayed, and God brought him a Bible.

And like I said he could hardly read but he started reading the Bible, God gave him the ability to read and he started growing these groups and planting these churches and miracle after miracle in this man's testimony.

They kept capturing him and he would get away.

And finally they captured him this 1 time and they're like, he's never escaping again.

We're gonna make sure this man never gets out to plant any more churches or to do any of this nonsense.

And so they actually got him and they broke his legs.

They crushed his legs so he couldn't walk.

There was nothing more that could be done.

So his prison mates had to drag him around and all of that.

But he kept his faith in God and He would not let go of his faith in God.

And after he'd been in the prison a while, I'm kind of fast forwarding the story here, he felt like God was telling him to get up and walk out of the prison.

He got up and he started walking and he didn't even realize initially that he was walking on legs that you couldn't walk on because they'd been broken.

He walked out through 1 door, passed a guard, the door opened, he kept going through another door, the door opened, he kept going, went out into the main courtyard and the main gate of the prison opened and he walked away to freedom.

This was a maximum security prison in China no 1 had ever escaped from.

And when he escaped, they could not figure out how in the world this happened and the only reason we know the validity of the story, of course, he told and those that witnessed the escape.

And he went on to continue to work for God.

And eventually got out of China, escaped, but continued to work.

In fact, some of the stuff I've shared with you this afternoon, you may be like, ooh, that's a little, you know.

But I think it's good for us to look back at the lives of those who have struggled and persevered and come through strong in faith.

And this can inspire and encourage us that when the testing time comes, it's gonna come in our own lives in different ways.

We don't know how, but God's gonna give us the strength.

He's gonna help us during those difficult times.

So I look at these testimonies and I'm like, Lord, help us.

And he is giving us the training right now.

You know, there's a powerful quote in Great Controversy.

It says, the season of distress and anguish before us will require a faith that can endure weariness, delay, and hunger.

A faith that will not faint to those severely tried.

The period of probation is granted to all to prepare for that time.

Jacob prevailed because he was persevering and determined.

His victory is an evidence of the power of importunate prayer.

All who will lay hold of God's promises as he did and be as earnest and persevering as he was will succeed as he succeeded.

Those who are unwilling to deny self, to agonize before God, to pray long and earnestly for his blessing will not obtain it.

Wrestling with God, how few know what this is.

How few have ever had their souls drawn out after God with intensity of desire until every power is on the stretch.

When waves of despair, which No language can express, sweep over the supply, how few cling within yielding faith to the promises of God.

We look at this quote from the great controversy.

Well, you know what happens when you say grow my faith.

The trials and the things start happening to grow your faith and you're like well Lord I didn't want you to do it that way but you know he knows how our faith needs to grow.

I mentioned this morning faith is 1 of the most emphasized gifts in all of Scripture and when we look throughout the word of God, we see this.

We live by faith, we walk by faith, we're justified by faith, we're sanctified through faith, we're children of God by faith, and just on and on and on, we see faith throughout scripture.

Of course, when the children of Israel came to the promised land there was a great test of faith and they went they sent their 12 spies into the promised land as we know and these 12 spies came back and 2 of them came back with a positive report right they said we can take this land God's gonna give us this land you know and and there's milk and honey and wonderful fruit and all these different things.

But 10 of those spies came back with a negative report, right?

They said, no, yes, it's a great land, but there's giants in the land.

You know, we would be crazy, how could we go and do that?

And of course the 2, Caleb and Joshua, they're like, no, but if God's brought us this far, we can do it, right?

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Growing Above and Beyond Faith Even When God Is Silent

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