Michigan Conference Campmeeting 2021: How Much More?

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Essentials for Salvation

Doug Batchelor

02 Persisting in Prayer

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2021 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

They say in real estate there are 3 rules.

You might get a beautiful mansion, but if it's out in the desert, it's going to be worthless.

But if you get a great location and you've got an old shack on it, you can tear it down and build something that'll really be worth something.

Now, you're all wishing you knew these 3 rules sooner, right?

And in the Christian life, there are 3 rules.

But it is possible for people to be born and raised in a church and not know how to pray.

If you go with me in your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 11, I just want you to notice this.

We'll not spend all of our time here, but something I hope will give us all a little bit of encouragement.

And it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, that 1 of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.

They had heard the scribes and the Pharisees praying long prayers.

But when they saw John the Baptist pray, and when they saw Jesus pray, and Jesus sometimes would come from his place of prayer and his face was radiant with light and he had been energized, and they could tell he had been in the presence of God, they said, wow, that really works.

What we're doing doesn't seem to be working.

Some people go through their whole Christian experience and the single greatest struggle they have is they never really learn how to pray.

The Bible tells us that we are to be persistent in our prayers.

Prayer is not something that you do where you recite a Hail Mary or an Our Father from rote or say it over and over again.

But prayer is really the deep cry from sincerity of your heart to the heart of God.

And so we're going to talk a little bit about the importance of prayer and the importance of praying persistently.

I see you've got the fire extinguisher on the wall there, and maybe you've got 1 on… I see 1.

You ever seen these little square boxes they've got in the halls of schools, and it says, in the event of emergency, break glass?

In the event of an emergency, well, maybe we should pray.

And it's like the last thing Christians think of.

Or how many of you have parked your car in some shopping mall or parking lot and you weren't really paying attention and you walk out afterward and you press the panic button on your keys to find your car who will admit that they have done that?

Who's done it but you didn't want to admit it?

Or you get on the airplane and you sit down and you notice a little tag on the chair that says, in the event of an emergency landing, use your cushion for flotation.

We always think about prayer as this panic thing, this emergency thing that we do where it really needs to be the breath of life for the Christian.

The Bible talks about Noah and Abraham and Enoch that walked with God.

It means that you live in an attitude of communion with God.

And it's something that you do consistently and persistently.

When Jesus said, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in the earth?

You know, that word faith is really talking about endurance.

He that endures to the end, the same will be saved.

Christians show that we continue to, like Jacob, we wrestle with God and we will not let go.

It's an attitude of living and walking, being aware of Jesus who said, I will never leave you or forsake you.

But if the truth be told, A lot of us go through our day and we scarcely think about Jesus.

If you could physically see him by you, it'd be hard to ignore.

He said, I will never leave you or forsake you.

If you could see him by you all day long, you'd talk to him more, am I right?

He wants us to spend time in communion with them.

If you go to Luke chapter 11, same chapter, go to verse 5.

They asked him, they said, Lord, teach us to pray.

Jesus takes them to a parable about persistence.

He said to them, which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me 3 loaves for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey and I've got nothing to sit before him and he'll answer from within and say don't trouble me the door is now shut my children are with me in bed I cannot give you.

Now keep in mind in Bible times a couple of things 1 The way this is worded could be confusing.

That doesn't mean they had all 9 kids in 1 bed with them.

He's saying along with me and ostensibly my wife, the children are also in bed.

You might think, well, what's such a big deal about that?

Well, right now we've got very sophisticated hardware on our doors where you just, you know, open and shut the door, a little clink, turn on the knob.

But back then, they used to kind of lift their doors.

They might have some leather hinges or something, but they'd lift their doors into position and then they'd bind them or secure them with a board and wrap it all up and tie it off.

Talks about if you can't, the thief cannot enter the strong man's house, they used to secure their houses and tie him up for the night.

So after you get your house all tied up for the night, it's kind of like here in Michigan when you get your, you know, six-year-old all bundled up for school, and right after you get them all bundled up, they say, I gotta go to the bathroom.

So they get the house all bundled up, it's all tied off, it's all bolted and then your friend says, hi, can you open the door and give me some bread?

He says, a friend has come to me And I need 3 loaves.

Now in Bible times it was considered really a custom and an obligation that you showed hospitality if a guest came you were to provide for their needs.

And there's several cases I could cite in the Bible where travelers stayed with someone, they said let all your needs rest upon me.

If a traveler, you brought them in, you help supply their needs.

And he said, someone's come, I just didn't have enough.

And he goes on and says, I say to you though, he will not rise to give him "'because he's his friend, "'yet because of his persistence.'" In other words, Jesus says, "'Seek, ask, and you'll receive.

"'Knock, and it will be opened to you.'" That means his friend is down there saying, Stanley, come on Stanley, please, I'm your buddy, your friend, you gotta help me out.

Now, if you're gonna ask a favor and you gotta borrow something, you usually go to the neighbor that you know, right?

01 Feasting on the Word

In my 3 presentations this weekend, I'll be sharing with you my favorite subject, and it's the disciplines of the Christian life.

The disciplines of the Christian life are not complicated.

It's read your Bible, pray, share your faith.

If you show me somebody that is reading their Bible, talk about on a regular basis, studying the Bible, they're spending quality time with God in prayer, and they're making an honest effort to tell others about Christ.

I can almost always guarantee someone that is struggling with backsliding is neglecting 1 of those 3 disciplines in the Christian life.

If you've ever looked at the sanctuary, you know that there's 1 door in.

And the bullseye of the sanctuary is you're moving through.

You go through the courtyard, you go by the altar, by the laver, you go into the holy place, and ultimately you get into the presence of God.

We've been separated from God by sin, but once you go through that laver, that baptism, and you move into the holy place, you have the 3 disciplines of the Christian life.

You've got the bread, it's the Word of God.

You have the altar of incense, that's prayer.

Jesus said, let your light so shine before men.

And so we're going to be talking about that.

I'll be talking this evening about the Word of God.

Tomorrow morning we'll be talking about persisting in prayer and sharing in the power of the Spirit tomorrow evening.

These are my favorite subjects to talk about.

Everything around us now has been brought into existence by the Word of God.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

We do not know exactly what Jesus looked like.

If I ask you to close your eyes and try and picture Jesus, many of us will conjure up some image that probably looks like some painting we've seen.

He looked like probably a normal Galilean Because even when they came to arrest him they had to ask Judas, which 1 is he?

He's wearing, you know, this beautiful white robe and he just kind of stands out but he was able to mix into a crowd and disappear pretty quick.

It wasn't because he could sing like David.

We only have 1 record that he sang at the Last Supper.

He wasn't necessarily as strong as Samson.

What changed the world about Jesus in his 3 and a half years of public ministry is what he said, and of course, his sacrifice for us, which was the culmination of that message.

10% of everything Jesus said, he is quoting from the Bible.

Jesus said, you search the scriptures, from them you think you have eternal life.

In the volume of the book, it is written of me." The Bible is telling us about Jesus.

Now the key to the Christian life is love.

It's difficult to love someone you don't know.

I mean, a lot of people just have kind of a generic love of God in their hearts, but if you're going to marry somebody, you don't want that generic love.

I want to make sure you're still following me.

And through that communication, you find you love the character, the essence of who that person is, which is conveyed through time and through communication.

We communicate with God through our prayers, He communicates with us through His Word.

If you love God better, you'll obey Him better.

If you love God better, you'll want to talk to Him more.

If you love God more, you will Share more with others about God.

You know, I find people have no problem at all talking about what they love.

You talk to a person 15 minutes and they're all wrapped up in airplanes, they're going to talk about airplanes.

And I've talked to people that I meet and I kind of fish around to find out what their interests are.

And as soon as you touch their interests, they come alive.

And some people, it's all about football or baseball or whatever it might be.

And you mention it, you can just see them sparkle.

And they're happy to talk to you about that on and on because they love it.

If we love God more, the gospel would go a lot faster because you couldn't keep us from talking to people about God.

Now, as we're entering the last days, I think it's critical that God's people individually really need to be rooted in the Word.

We heard some great testimonies about the importance of a book.

Over 40 years ago, a Jewish atheist hippie was living in a cave, and I'd read a lot of books, but I read the Bible, and that just changed my life.

After accepting Christ, you know, I'd never even heard of Seventh-day Adventists, but after reading that book, I thought, I have no other options.

Right now, I should close my eyes, I could still preach a sermon.

If you were to duct-tape my feet together, I could still preach a sermon.

You could tape my hands behind my back and tape my feet, plug my ears, pinch my nose off so I can't smell, and put a bandana over my eyes, and I could still change your life by sharing the Word of God.

There's nothing more powerful than the Word.

And so if you want your life to be transformed, we need to be spending quality time in the Word.

Now, it's more important now than it's ever been because you're living in a culture now where you are being bombarded by so much information unlike any other time in history.

There's never been a time like this where we are literally living in a blizzard of information and you know we sort of get addicted to it.

And I remember when Blackberry Phones came out, we had 1 gal in our office, and her husband called it her crackberry because he said it was like an addiction.

I thought, yeah, she just constantly couldn't have it out of her reach and she was busy, needed it for business and everything like that.

Well, you know, I've sort of started getting that way where, you know, I used to just, I didn't even keep my phone with me.

I probably don't know 10% of what it does.

03 Power for Witnessing

We've been sharing 3 presentations talking about...

You all noticed how I said 3 presentations?

3 presentations that are talking about the priorities in the Christian life.

3 main disciplines to prosper and grow as a Christian, and it is reading the Bible, prayer, sharing your faith.

When I was a baby Christian living up in the mountains, there was a very dedicated man, as we all called him, Brother Harold.

I don't even know what his last name was.

He was a Jewish convert, an older man, and he had gone through a dramatic conversion experience from being a devout Jew to Christianity, and he had a ministry working among the street people and the hippies of which I was 1.

But this man was probably 1 of the most dedicated Christians I've ever met.

I mean, he woke up at like 3 or 4 in the morning, he prayed for an hour, He'd read his Bible in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.

He'd then go to the hospital, and he'd visit all the rooms.

Back then, you didn't need to be the hospital chaplain.

He would just go walk into the rooms and say he'd like to quote you a scripture.

And from memory, he'd quote the 23rd Psalm, or he'd quote something.

Whenever I heard him quote the Bible, his voice would quiver.

I used to go to these early morning prayer meetings in a place called Joshua House, and Brother Harold would be there, and I'd see him praying before the meeting, and he used to just look up and pray, and I saw his face would glow.

Well that's just to introduce him to you a little bit.

Now I'm walking down Palm Avenue and Palm Springs 1 day and he comes up behind me in his three-wheel bicycle.

He rode a little three-wheel bicycle with a basket on the back and he saw me and recognized me.

He said, how long can you hold your breath?

But I was glad to answer because I could hold my breath for 4 minutes and 10 seconds because Karen helped me end her once and she timed it.

No, actually, I grew up with a swimming pool.

We used to scuba dive and snorkel and I would free dive.

He said, you shouldn't go any longer than that without praying.

I said, that's how often you need to read or meditate on God's Word.

I said, what's going to happen to you if you do not exercise?

I said, that's what happens to your faith if you don't share it.

He said, you've got a physical body that has very real needs.

You have a spiritual body that has very real needs.

If you do not take care of those practical needs, there's going to be a cause and effect.

We need to share our faith, let our light shine, but we cannot do it in our own strength.

We need to do it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now this is 1 of the few times you're going to notice in the Bible, and we heard our Scripture reading from Acts.

I'm going to read what Jesus says in Luke 24.

Jesus told the disciples, I want you to be witnesses, but notice what he says at the end of his ministry in Luke 24, verse 49, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but Terry'..." What does Terry mean?

"'Wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.'" You cannot live the Christian life without the Christian power, and you cannot share the message without the power.

Jesus said, unless you are born of the water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

Now, You could work with your pastor if you've not been baptized, and you could set a date on a calendar for your water baptism.

It's a little different for the spirit baptism, but the spirit baptism is even more important than the water baptism.

There will be people in heaven who may not be baptized in water like the thief on the cross, but you must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, unless John 5, sorry, John 3, verse 5, unless you are born of the water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

And I know a lot of pastors and evangelists.

We love to tell how many were baptized, and it always makes for a good report with a conference.

But I almost never have Any conference president say, how many were baptized in the Holy Spirit?

So how do we receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Now you may not be able to schedule the date, but there are things you can do to bring about the gestation and the conception and the ultimate delivery of the Holy Spirit in your life.

The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and Jesus was born within, And we need that spiritual birth to happen within us.

How was the Holy Spirit poured out in the book of Acts, chapter 8?

Christ said, don't go off preaching, teaching, you're going to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

He ascended to heaven after 40 days of meeting with them, but the Holy Spirit didn't come until 50 days, Pentecost after.

That means they spent 10 days doing what?

They were in the upper room, reading the Bible and praying.

You know what Jesus did every time that Jesus appeared to them before his resurrection?

Then they went to the upper room and they prayed.

And then sound came from heaven as a mighty rushing wind, and the place was shaken where they were assembled, and tongues of fire appeared upon them all.

They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

That happened after they had bathed themselves in the Word and bathed themselves in prayer, and it's the next sequence.

You know, the greatest revival in the Bible happened in the name of, or in the times of Jonah.

It says, the word of the Lord came to Jonah in chapter 1, But he wasn't listening to the Word.

In chapter 2, Jonah does a lot of praying.

Chapter 3, the Holy Spirit comes upon him.

If you've been in the belly of a fish for 3 days and 3 nights, you come out.

Jonah was born again, and after he was born again, God said, the Word of the Lord came to Jonah again the second time.

This is chapter 3, said, "'Arise and go to Nineveh.'" He said, "'Yes, sir.'" And he went in the power of the Spirit, and he preached, and the whole city was converted.

I mean, if you're going to have Jonah for an evangelist or Noah, Noah reached 8.

It's a lot easier to let your neighbors know about Jesus when you've experienced this new birth.

So we're going to look at some vignettes in the Bible of people who were successful in witnessing and what brought that about because we need that baptism of the Spirit.

If you look with me in the second book of Kings, now time will not permit for me to read all of the story, but I'll bring you up to speed.

Second Kings, I want you to go to chapter 7.

In 2 Kings chapter 6, there's a battle between the nation of Israel and the Syrians, and the Syrians surround the capital of Samaria.

They besiege the city, and they besiege the city for so long, and it may have lasted a couple of years, so that they're starving to death in the city.

Series

Essentials for Salvation

03 Power for Witnessing

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Key to Finishing the Work

Taste and See

1h 8m

Personal Encounters with Jesus

4. The Secret Christian: Nicodemus

50m

The Joy of Discipleship

53m

Principles for Succesful Soul Winning

Interpersonal Relationships - The Art of Hospitality Part 2

50m

Hungering for More of HIM

02 Powerless

42m

The Last Elijah: An Intergenerational Revival for These Last Days

05 Cry for Fire

41m

Principles for Succesful Soul Winning

Elephant in the Room: 5 Keys to Church Growth

55m

Established in the Present Truth

Sound Doctrine

58m

Looking Back

36m

Our Great and Urgent Need

54m

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

03 The Holy Spirit Makes Appeals Appealing

58m

Effective Wholistic Witnessing Among Refugees

04 Effective Wholistic Witnessing Among Refugees

41m

Sound Doctrine