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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Garfield Browne

I Believe In Miracles

My wife and I are delighted to be with you today.

Some of you know her, She's in the med school.

But it's my delight to be here, and I want to thank all your leaders, particularly Dr.

Villiers, who saw it necessary to invite me to talk with you for a few minutes.

But I also this morning had the privilege of meeting Jeremy and his dear wife and noted what he said about childbearing pains that they are feeling.

But I want you to know today that it is an honor to be in God's house on His Holy Sabbath day.

I invite you to join me as we read our scripture today.

And I'm reading from the New King James version of the Bible.

When you found it, please say aloud, Amen.

That's good When you have found it, please just say a loud Amen.

And the sons of the prophet said to Elisha, see now the place where we dwell with you is too small for us.

Please let us go to the Jordan and let every man take a beam from there.

Let us make there a place where we may dwell.' So he answered, go.

Then 1 said, please consent to go with your servants.

And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees.

But as 1 who was cutting down a tree, the iron axe head fell into the water, and He cried out and said, alas, master, it was borrowed.

So the man of God said, where did it fall?

So he cut off a stick and threw it in the water and he made the iron float.

Therefore he said, pick it up for yourself.

Almighty God, we have seen many miracles in our great walk with you.

Today as your son I come before you and as your servant Lord before your people.

You have called them from many places, many homes, many areas, and you have brought them to this hallowed spot.

I pray today that you will speak to their hearts profoundly.

Not only will they find strength during this terrible pandemic and war and discomfort, but I pray today that you will bless every family represented here.

Where there's distress and sorrow, I ask that you bring hope.

Bring them, Lord, the assurance that you will never leave us nor forsake us.

With this I pray in the wonderful name of Jesus, our Lord, our Redeemer, and our Savior, amen.

Our topic, if you will indulge me for a brief moment, I will speak to you from the subject, the topic, I believe in miracles.

During the prophetic ministry, The Prophet Samuel designed the educational model and curricula for the schools of the prophets.

The schools were named according to their locations.

Unmarried students found dorms on campus, while married students were permitted to live off campus with their families.

This can be found in 2 Kings 4.38 particularly, The fact that they dwell in dorms was evident.

The first 2 schools of the prophets were at Remah, the prophet's home, which is, this was Samuel's home.

Others were subsequently established by the prophets Elisha and Elisha in Bethel and Jericho and Gilgal.

And some even conclude that there was 1 in Carmel and another in Samaria.

Most biblical scholars agree that the schools prospered extraordinarily under the leadership of the prophet Elijah more than any other prophet.

In 1st Kings chapter 18 and verse 4, the Bible tells us that there were over 100 students enrolled in the schools of the prophet.

And we learned that particularly in the school at Jericho there were approximately 50 students.

The overwhelming rise in the enrollment gave rise to this extraordinary story that we will look at hermeneutically today.

These institutions of God's prophets are a good reminder that even in a world that is mainly unfaithful to our Lord, God always preserves a remnant of those faithful to him.

No matter where you go on earth, I want to reiterate that God has his people, a remnant few who are willing to stand though the heavens fall.

I want you to know today that God is preserving the remnant for a reason.

And at a time when lawlessness and civil unrest and wars and strives and pandemics and evil reign supreme across the land, The school of the Prophet stood as an example of how we should stand in such moments.

The schools of the Prophet provided a setting for spiritual growth and in-depth knowledge acquisition of God's principles as preparation for those who would exemplify God's principles among the nations.

White said clearly that our desire, our educational design was somewhat a reflection of the schools of the prophet, not merely with dorms and the presence of teachers and professors and so forth, but particularly in the way that she said that it was designed was in the concept that prayer and the presence of the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to be with us even during difficult times.

And so The introductory setting for our story today is the School of the Prophets in Jericho and the main setting subsequently moves to the banks of the Jordan River.

As indicated in verses 1 and 2 of our text, the dorms were becoming tight and things were becoming difficult for the students.

The students could no longer hold comfortably in those dorms.

So they approached the Prophet seeking his permission to join them and accompany them to the fertile river valley to fell trees to expand their dorms.

The prophet consented that they should go, but when asked to accompany them, he hesitated, and later agreed to join the students on that long journey down to the fertile river valley of Jordan.

There are details we have about this story that I wish to highlight very clearly, apart from the scripture reading.

We know that the settings, we know the settings first, the story starts in Jericho on campus and then the story subsequently move as I said earlier to the River Valley of Jordan.

We know that the closest section of the River Jordan to Jericho is about a hundred and 12 miles.

Not only that, there are some things we really do not know about this story.

Like, why the Prophet first refused to accompany the students on such an important task, to complete such an important task.

We do not know how many students were involved in the proposed project.

We also do not know how they proposed to transport the wood that they fell in Jordan, 112 miles, back to campus.

We do not know if they had beasts of burden such as donkeys or camels or horses.

We do not know how long it took them after felling the trees to get back to campus.

It does appear though that the deterrence that they face were not enough to dull their enthusiasm to do the work of God of building up the kingdom of God.

When I was young and lived in the Caribbean, we had a membership in our church of 60, small church.

And For a while, we wanted our church to grow.

We wanted a new building you could sit inside and see through other places than the windows.

The elders got a plan, and the plan was for 200 members.

White says something very powerful which I'll quote to you but an army of young people They only said the word we're going to start our church and the minute they did in that church we had about of the 65 members 25 were young people and in that church we got it together.

The women in the church brought some sumptuous food for us.

And we worked from morning until night and that continued, that, it continued until we built a church that now houses over 200 members mark my word there is no bank loan on that church it's not what because we didn't want to see through other places other than the window.

White says, with such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish how soon the message of a crucified and risen soon-coming Savior might be carried to the ends of the air.

This church is replete with young people.

Boil their spirits up and encourage them to do God's work.

Because you know as we age we sometimes relax and lay back but young people are enthused about spreading the gospel.

Give them the tools so that they may go forth with power and teach humanity that there's a Christ that's coming soon and things that are happening in all parts of the world like Ukraine and Russia will be no longer because we are going home.

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I Believe In Miracles

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