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

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Plenary

Jim Micheff

As a Witness

You know how easy it is for us to put words together and have them come out of our mouth and profess certain things.

And Lord, even in your scripture, you told us that we don't even know what to pray for.

Except that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.

And pleads with us with groanings which we can't even understand.

We want Jesus to be high and lifted up, and we want a clear picture of Him that we might catch a glimpse of His holiness, of His purity, of His goodness, of His perfection.

Not so that we can be discouraged, but so that we can be encouraged because He is saying that we can be like Him.

So we thank you for hearing and for answering our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

I love this theme, As a witness, we came up with it as a team, and I thought tonight I want to come right behind this theme, so that's the title of the sermon tonight.

When I was growing up young, my father was a literature evangelist, and he would come home and he would tell us of the different experiences that he would have.

He would tell us of how he would come and just he would just be driving down the road and he would be impressed to go to a certain house and he'd knock on that door and a person would come and there was just a divine appointment there and he would lead them to Christ.

And they would kneel down and he would lead them through a sinner's prayer and he told us about that.

I was 7 years old and my heart started to burn within me.

I want to be a witness like Dad is a witness.

And I started to think of different ones.

No, they go to church, I see them in church.

Well, who do I know that doesn't go to church?

And then I remembered, my mom baked bread and she baked it for several neighbors within our block and the next block.

Brown was a nice man and we'd often visit with him.

And when I delivered the bread, and I thought, you know, he doesn't go to church on Sabbath.

And so 1 Sunday morning, I asked my mom, I says, Mom, can I go down and visit with Mr?

He says, why don't you come up here and visit with me?

And so I sat next to him and I'm thinking, now how do I witness?

And as we're sitting there back and forth, I'm thinking, how can I witness?

Well, I know he doesn't go to church on Sabbath, so that's not a good thing.

And so I waited till he was done talking, and then I said, boy, Mr.

Brown, it sure is a hot day today, isn't it?

Brown says, boy it sure is Jimmy, it's really hot today.

And I said, it sure is, but it's not as hot as where you're going.

Brown looked at me with an inquisitive look and I said, well Mr.

Brown you don't go to church on Sabbath so I know you're going.

Now there was a few words We were not allowed to use in our home But I thought because I needed to have some strong emphasis that it would be okay in this case and so I said to mr..

You don't go to church on Sabbath, so that means you're going to Well now you know mr..

Brown didn't respond the same way dad had said so many people responded.

He didn't ask me to have prayer with him.

He didn't ask me to lead him in a sinner's prayer.

In fact, he didn't ask me anything at all.

He just looked at me with those little eyes that came down and his face turned red.

And then he looked at me and he said, Jimmy, you go home.

Well, I stood up, I thought, am I in trouble?

And I turned around and looked at him, he says, yeah, go on, go on home.

And I walked to the edge of the porch and I turned around and looked at him, he says, yeah, go on, go on.

So I took my steps down, walked down the steps and I started for heading home and I said to myself, boy, I don't like this witnessing thing.

And so I went home And I came in the door and mom said, Jimmy, what's the matter?

And I told her, I said, mom, I don't like this witnessing thing.

Dad comes home and he tells us about all these stories, but it doesn't work for me.

And she said, well, Jimmy, what happened?

I said, well, I went and witnessed to Mr.

And she said well what what did you tell Mr.

And so I told her and she said oh no Jimmy that is not witnessing.

We've got to share love, God's love for people.

Ron Kelly

How Low Can the Church Go

Now we are seeking your spirit to bring your word to life.

To tenderize our hearts, to lead us in the narrow way, to comfort and strengthen us, to encourage us, Lord, to help us to hear.

Set a watch before my lips and a guard before the door of my mouth Please take a coal from off the altar and set me free They pray Lord touch the hearts and the ears of all that are listening.

It's not exactly how you think it's comprised.

Writing in the General Conference Bulletin in 1897, the Hawaii said, Satan has a church upon the earth, which outnumbers the church of Christ.

Christ calls it the synagogue of Satan because its members are the children of sin and transgression.

They have confounded the distinction between good and evil.

But the world's Redeemer will have a church in which these essential differences will be made apparent.

I want you to look at a slide for a moment.

It will be the only slide I use this morning.

You can't read it, but you can see how the lines go.

Now, I want to explain to you what the lines are.

On the left side of the slide, you see a red and maroon line.

It starts out at 0 and it quickly jumps up.

That line represents the laws that have been passed in this country prohibiting same-sex marriage.

I want you to see in a generation how rapidly things can change.

In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act was passed.

And right away, about 30 states that are clustered there in the first years following it, sign on and they have laws banning same-sex marriage.

Now Jesus loves everybody, and Corinthians tells us, and we're going to look at Corinthians quite a little bit today, God can rescue us from anything.

But I want you to notice the cultural shift.

Over the next 20 years, almost every state in the nation takes its cue from the Defense of Marriage Act and establishes a law against same-sex marriage.

But slowly, the bottom line, the green line, starts out so slowly, at about 2002, 2003, Massachusetts passes a law that allows same-sex marriage.

And I want you to know that on Tuesday following camp meeting, we will be at the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling to legalize same-sex marriage.

Those lines show how rapidly things change.

Now, in the midst of it all, it's not too hard for us to know, even without that slide, that the church is under siege.

For over 200 years, up until 1965, the church in America grew numerically.

And every year since then, the church has found itself on the wrong side of the statistical analysis.

Our churches, as Seventh-day Admonists, are in a place where they are particularly vulnerable, and we need to go back and recognize that we have weapons of warfare that are mighty for pulling down the strongholds that are sieging in against us.

But if you listen carefully, you'll hear between the lines in some of the rhetoric that the church is the problem.

As a matter of fact, the people who hold the microphones in our country today are not bashful about making sure that everything we've stood for as a nation is really everything we need to stand against now.

And I'm here this morning with a sermon entitled, How Low Can the Church Go?

To try to encourage you and challenge you as was prayed for by our ministerial director, that we might be ready to meet Jesus.

When my mother was 18 years old, she left the church.

It probably coincided with when she left Broadview Academy.

But you know, it's hard to get the church out of a person.

My mother's watching today, and I have a depth of gratitude which is hard to imagine for this lady.

But she couldn't get too far away from the church.

My grandmother had 1 of the most unique names you're ever going to hear.

Theola, which is not a name you hear very often.

And I want to assure you that my mother, who served the Peoria church in Illinois for approximately 50-some years, loved Jesus and she loved His church.

My grandmother somehow arranged for me, the oldest of 4, for my mother to take us to church.

My first real memory of the church was in the early 70's.

I came to the primary class a little bit late.

And pretty soon they came around and they handed out something to each of us.

I didn't know much about the Bible, but I knew that it was the book of the Bible.

So, people started going around telling what book they had.

And now I look back on it and I'm awful glad I didn't get Haggai or Zephaniah or Deuteronomy or something like that.

I've got the only book in the Bible that has 3 letters.

And as they come around to my point in the circle, I'm feeling pretty confident this will be a good beginning.

And I hold up my book and I say, I have got the book of Job.

And everybody else thought it was funny too with 1 exception.

You know, send your children to the Sabbath school as missionaries.

Help them to know somebody might show up there that day.

I mean, everybody knows that you pronounce the book of Job as Job.

My mom wasn't giving up, I'm not exactly sure why.

It was probably grandma too behind the scenes.

A year or 2 later, she sent me to Pathfinders.

I went on a weekend campout, which turned out to be a rain fest, some of you can understand that.

They used to have old green pup tents that were made of canvas.

It was long before the high-tech days, and they only sort of shed water.

And I can remember a ten-mile hike and beanhole beans and lots of interesting memories, but it wasn't enough.

And then in our centennial year as a nation, my mother, While we were at my aunt and uncle's house who lived near Broadview Academy, we were enjoying a family get-together and my mother took me out on the porch and she told me my world was changing.

Okay, at 12 years of age I'm taller than my mother and I was curious what she had to say.

And I don't think I could have heard anything worse.

She was someone who understood what was best for me, and she had the courage to enact it.

He doesn't go to church, but he's a man of integrity.

She'd been working on him for a dozen years.

Cheers to Philippi - The Double Knotted Church

Father, thank You for letting us be a part of Your family.

And thank You, Lord, that You've set aside time to be a family.

And thank You, Lord, for the history of gathering as a conference in these camp meetings.

For this Sabbath, Lord, as we come to its final minutes, I pray, send Your Spirit down to bless us.

If there's comfort we need, may we find it.

If there's a change of direction that we need to make, may we accept it.

And I'm just praying, Lord, strengthen Your church and help us to cooperate with You.

This morning, I didn't explain to you what happened after they told us we couldn't come back to school.

And he got with my mom all these things we didn't know about.

And I mentioned this morning, my dad was a good man.

But in the late 1970s and the early 80s, the interest rates in America were about 10%.

By the fall of 1981, the interest rates went all the way up to 18.45%.

Somewhere in that time period, my dad refinanced the house to keep us all in school.

Later when we were teenagers, because we did, we met Jesus there.

He would be sitting at work with His friends, and they would be talking about their kids and the trouble they were getting into, and coming home late at night, and coming home drunk.

My dad said, my kids don't do that stuff.

And they said, oh Ron, because I'm Ron Jr.

And my dad decided he wasn't going to try to convince them because they weren't going to believe him.

You know, the time to be pointing people towards Christian education, which will begin in August, is right now.

If you've got somebody that God's put on your mind that ought to be there, start asking God to lay the impression on that person's heart.

You know, I'm somewhat of a poster child for somebody that never should have been able to go.

When I was attending college, actually I stayed home a year, went to a public university, public college for a year before I went off to Andrews.

It was 1 of the worst decisions of my young adult life.

And my mom and my dad weren't going to challenge me on it.

And I came perilously close to not being able to stay.

And when God's got a plan, He makes the provision, doesn't He?

So, we're going to have some sacrifice on the way out of this world.

But you know, if we all pull together, we can do it.

And I don't know how many children aren't in a seventh day of school because of money.

But I'll tell you what, God has gifted this church with a wonderful, educated, wonderfully endowed group of people.

And when God puts something on a church's mind, a Seventh-day Adventist church's mind, They can do it.

Now tonight, I've entitled my message Cheers to Philippi, the double-knotted Church.

And I want to read to you from a letter written in 1902 in which Ellen White said, Remember, that in every assembly, you meet with Christ, the Master of Assemblies.

Now Jesus is the Master of something, and it's noted, it's worth noting.

So we ought to assemble with the master of assemblies.

She goes on to say, encourage a personal interest in 1 another, for it is not enough simply to know men.

Tonight, I want to talk to you about knowing your fellow church members in Christ.

Actually bonding deeply with them so that the world could know that something very different's going on at your church.

When I was a boy growing up, the oldest of 4, we sat around the table every night for supper.

I don't know how well it was thought out, but I sat at my father's right hand.

We sat at the table and we talked about the day.

We sat at the table and we were taught manners like, don't chew with your mouth open and wait until you're done chewing to talk.

That time sitting at the table every night without the television on and without any cellular communication which hadn't been invented at least for the masses yet, that time together was time for us to become a family.

Now most people understand today that the family is under siege as well.

Homes are struggling to stay together and when they are together, they're not very together.

I have in my pocket a device that has done much good and much evil.

I know I was picking my daughter up from Great Lakes Adventist Academy.

By the way, I told the principal 1 time and I'll tell all of you, I would pay twice as much money to send my daughter to this school than they charged.

And they are making a serious, serious attempt at bringing Jesus into their lives.

And I value so much the fact that this campus is a sanctuary.

The kids are not perpetually bombarded by the temptations that the world is putting in their pocket.

These phones buzz and hum and chirp and ring and vibrate because the way it's set up.

Once you connect into a snapchat or an Instagram feed or whatever it is, it's hard for you to be left alone.

The other thing about these phones, speaking now as an experienced father of 4, is that these phones allow your kids to live a secret life.

So if you put 1 of these in their hands, make sure they know that it's yours, and you have the right to look at it whenever you want.

If you don't, these phones are the Trojan horse of the 21st century.

When I was a kid, if I wanted to use the phone, I had to ask permission.

When I got on it, it had a cord so I couldn't get too far away from where it was.

My conversations were not overly private, and my mom and dad felt it was better that way.

And you know, I'm going to give them a shout out.

And we all need to kind of remember to honor our fathers and our mothers.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and watched people sitting around the table and they're looking at this instead of looking at each other.

I want to encourage you to protect the bonding experience for your family.

I have 3 sons and I didn't know how that worked until they all got to be a certain age.

Now those 3 boys could look at each other and they could unite against their father.

Now they loved their dad and they respect their dad, but they didn't always like their dad, which is the parenting journey.

And if my wife and I had not been bonded when they ganged up on me, and if they thought they could run to mom and get a different outcome when they were little.

Imagine how terrible it would have been when they were big.

My ministry has strength because I'm bonded with my wife.

When she says to me, you're on the wrong track, you need to stop and rethink that, or Don't say that again, there's 2 services at village.

Don't say it that way in the second service.

Now I want to talk about bonding with my church.

Bonding with your church is like an arranged marriage.