Michigan Camp Meeting 2019: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Doug Batchelor

Pathfinder Parade

In some ways, I don't feel worthy because I was not a pathfinder growing up.

We have pathfinders and adventures at our Granite Bay Church.

But I didn't grow up in a Christian home.

5 years old, I was in military school, really.

Black Fox Military Academy, and then again, 11, 12, 13, New York Military Academy.

So some of the good things that you learn, the discipline, the rules and the code, I value that.

But the most important part was the focus on God that you have.

And that's what makes all the difference in the world.

And so, that's what I'd like to talk about a little bit with you this morning is you become like what you look at in your families and especially for the fathers.

And by the way, Happy Father's Day to those out there.

You know, there's that great chapter in the Bible, Hebrews 11, that talks about the heroes of faith.

And then when you get to chapter 12, after reviewing the great heroes of faith, like Abraham, talks about Gideon and Samson and Rahab.

And then it says, since we are surrounded, Hebrews chapter 12, by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run the race that is set before us, laying aside the sin, the weights and the sin that does so easily beset us, and here's the part, looking unto Jesus.

Our focus, In fact, some Bible translations say that's more accurately translated, fixing your eyes on Jesus.

It's like when you run the race, you're running towards a goal.

It's like this man who was walking 1 day out after a snow, and he saw some boys were on their way home from school, and they began to fight with each other.

And he thought they just need something to keep them busy.

And so he said, hey, boys, How'd like, 1 of you like to get 50 cents?" And they all wanted 50 cents.

I want you to run across that field with the fresh snow on it.

When I count to 3, I'll say, go, you start running.

And it's not just the first 1 who gets to me, it's the first 1 who gets to me who has the straightest tracks in the snow.

So he went to the other side of the field and he said, 123, go.

1 of the boys in the middle, he was wondering how his friends were doing, so he kept looking to the right at their trail in the snow, and then he looked to the left at their trail in the snow, but every time he turned his head, his trail turned.

Have you ever tried to ride a bicycle on a straight line while you're looking over your shoulder?

The other boy kept looking over his shoulder at his own tracks.

And every time he looked over his shoulders, his tracks would turn.

But the boy on the far right, he decided to run and he didn't look to the right, he did not look to the left, he did not look behind.

He looked at the man On the other side of the field, he said, my grandpa taught me when I plow a field, do not look behind you, but look at something at the end of the field.

And that boy had the straightest tracks because he was focused on the man.

We fix our eyes on Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith.

1 of the great daredevils, and I don't recommend you take this up as an occupation, but there's a guy named the Great Blondin.

He's 1 of the few tightrope walkers who lived and died of old age.

He was the first 1 who went across Niagara Falls on a cable.

He actually pushed someone across Niagara Falls in a wheelbarrow 1 time.

But someone asked him, they said, how is it that you don't get terrified when you get out there in the middle of the rope and you look down and you see all of the steaming boiling water from the falls and the spray and the wind and you know that if you fall you're certainly going to die.

He said, when I start out across the gorge, he said, I have a silver star that I have fixed on the other side of the rope.

He says, I know if I keep my eyes on the star, when I put my feet down, they'll be straight.

If you want to get to heaven, you've got to keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus.

You know, it's also a principle in the Bible.

There's a scripture in 2 Corinthians 3, 18, but we all with unveiled face beholding as an emir, the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

You become like what you look at, especially when you're young.

We were kayaking down a river with some friends.

It took a couple of days to make this trip.

And Karen and I were walking by ourselves while the others were packing up the camp and we came upon a baby duck.

Now this was a baby, baby duck, just a little, beep, beep, beep.

He had just come out of the shell, but there's no mama duck, no other babies.

We looked around and we thought, he's going to get eaten by something out here.

So we picked him up, had to chase him a little.

I was scooping him up with my hand, Took the baby little duck back to our camp to show everybody.

This little bitty fur ball went beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

And pretty soon it started hanging around the camp with us.

It crawled into someone's sleeping bag and stayed with them that night.

Next morning when we pitched our camp, we realized that we're, you know, paddling home.

We don't know what we're going to do with this baby duck, so I thought we were going to have to say goodbye on the shore because we're going down some rough water in the river.

And as we were getting in our boats, a little duck comes chasing after us.

We said goodbye, little duck, and we paddled away.

It jumped in the water and started paddling after us.

I went, oh, you poor little thing, you're going to get killed in the rapids.

We went through the rapids, and it got washed over.

But I didn't realize, you know, ducks can swim really good.

It floated like a little cork right through the rapids, came up the other side, jumped back up on our kayak.

It stayed with us the whole trip and it came home.

It thought it was a human because ducks go through something where they look at you and they bond You know if a baby duck when it comes out of its shell if it sees the family dog, it'll think it's a dog If it comes out of its shell it sees a person it'll follow the people around We kind of become like what we look at.

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