AdAgrA 2022: Sharing the Blessings

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Morning Plenaries

Dwayne Lemon

The Power of Object Lessons

Our Father in heaven, we are very grateful for this morning.

We thank you for such a relevant ministry like Ad Agra.

We thank you that you are truly blessing us to hear your voice and to know that you are leading and you are preparing a people to meet their God.

And so Father, we pray not only for this moment, but we pray for this entire time that we will be here on these grounds.

And so we thank you for the privilege to hear your words, give us ears to hear what your spirit wants to say to the church and bless us now as we fellowship 1 with another we commit ourselves into your hands take our lives and let it be consecrated Lord to thee is our prayer we ask in Jesus name let everyone say amen amen all right I'll be drawing a good amount of our attention to the screen.

So obviously I would expect you to take a look at that.

Outside of that, you're welcome, of course, to open your Bibles.

Please take good notes so that way we can not only hear but we can go back we can study and we can put these things into practice by the grace of God.

Also I'm going to actually task you with an assignment.

So 1 of the things I want to do is I want to task you with an assignment.

And I cannot tell you how excited I am about this assignment.

But let us begin by going through the Bible.

In Matthew 28, we know the great gospel commission.

Jesus made it very, very clear when the Bible says, and Jesus came and spake unto them saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

And that word teach in the Greek it means make disciples.

It says go ye therefore and teach or make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I'm with you always even unto the end of the world.

1 of the first things we need to understand is, you know, We often have to remember focus.

When we're doing gospel ministry, focus is everything.

And if you don't have the right focus, you can miss the whole point.

This is why we're told in that precious little book, Education, page 262, under the chapter, The Life Work, that it says, success in any line demands a definite aim.

If you want to be successful you got to be focused and when you come to meetings like this if I were to ask the average individual why are you here at Agra somebody would say I want to learn how to garden somebody might say I want to learn how to grow blueberry bushes somebody would say I want to learn how to go into the field and take what I grow from my property and make some money and start industries Well I want to take your minds a little higher.

The thing that Christ wants us to remember is that every instrument and every vehicle and every tool that he gives to us as his people is supposed to better equip us that we might go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost how can ad agra enable me and enable you to become better gospel workers for the master better soul winners for the Lord That should be the number 1 question.

And that's the question I pray every single 1 of you can ask yourself when you leave here.

When you leave here, how did this Ad Agra Conference 2022 better position our organization, our families, or me as an individual.

How did it equip me that I can better know how to communicate the gospel to those who know it not?

And I give this obviously to those instructors, the instructors who will be instructing as well as to all of those who will be listening and learning.

May this be our focus because I'm telling you the truth.

We're living in a time, brothers and sisters, where things are getting serious.

And on Sabbath, we're gonna talk about it because harvest time is very much approaching.

I do not say those words in my prayer just for you know habit or you know just to be you know repetitious I really mean it when I say we must become a people prepared to meet our God we are getting ready to go through very troublesome times the great grand majority of the people in the world and in the church are wholly unprepared for what is getting ready to come to take the majority of us in this world as an overwhelming surprise.

And what God wants is he wants us to take all these precious little youth.

I knew there would be so many families, especially homeschooling families, which is always beautiful to see.

And when we see all of our family and our children here, my mind always goes back to that precious little book that I trust and hope we all have read.

And if you haven't read it, please make it a priority to read it there's never been a time like now to read it great controversy in that book great controversy it was right there on page 366 when the saints of god were in scandinavia and they were giving that first angels message.

The leadership and many people in Scandinavia began to persecute the people of God that were proclaiming the words of God and they were trying to silence them very much like you read in the book of Matthew when they tried to silence all these people saying glory to God and Hosanna to the Son of David and the Bible you know it points out how it transitioned from a multitude to children and that's why Jesus said you know out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou has perfected praise.

Do you know in Great Controversy 366, it says that when the adults were being persecuted in silence, it said the children would start to take up the refrain.

And it says that the children were actually saying fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come.

She said that when the children were just regular she said they were regular children I mean they played on swings and threw rocks and did everything like little kids do.

But she says, but when the spirit of God took control of their minds, she says those little kids, those little children, she says their tone of voice and their manners changed.

It says, these children were as young as 6 and 8 years old.

And so parents, we are to train our children not just to know a lot of the lovely little songs that children sing and go through some of the typical things that we teach our children, we even must impart to our children the present truth.

Even our precious little ones are able to be acquainted with the first, second, and third angels' message.

They must also develop a passion that, as their little children, and I'm sure we're going to see children doing a lot of children's things on these grounds because this is a beautiful ground we're on.

And that's all right, but I look forward to seeing those moments when the Spirit of God takes possession of those children's minds and to see that tone and that manner change and to watch how God can use young people to arrest the attention of those who know not the everlasting gospel that we might be empowered to make it known.

Please let us remember this as we go forward.

Now in this, You remember that Jesus made a wonderful promise.

In the teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you, he promised, don't ever say you're lonely.

Remember, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world.

So this is our focus and this is our work and I am thankful to be a fellow worker with the Master.

The next thing we need to focus on is the field because obviously at Agra, you know, at Agra is here we are another conference part of the Blessed Movement of the Seventh-day Adventist Church giving the blessed herald of the first second and third angels message.

This is the work that God has called us to do.

We are told in that wonderful little book manuscript release book 2 page 228 it says God's purpose God's purpose in giving the third angels message to the world is to prepare a people to stand true to him during the investigative judgment and then it says this is the reason we do 2 things I love this quote that was manuscript release book 1 book 2 or book 1 page 228 I think it's book 1 page 228 it says this is the reason that we establish and maintain our publishing houses, our schools, our sanitariums, our food factories, our restaurants, and then it says this is the focus for every line of work in the cause.

So Now that we have our focus, let's talk about the field.

Again, because if we're going to reach souls, if we're going to win souls, then we need to know where to go to work.

So let's go ahead and let's look at James 5.

Again, success in any line demands a definite aim.

We know what our message and our focus should be.

Now let's go ahead and talk about the field.

In James 5, I love this, because often when we talk about the work of soul saving, soul winning, we often think those outside of the church.

Well let's notice what James 5 says because I do agree certainly the unchurched certainly those who know not God at all the heathen as we would call them the word heathen doesn't mean a wretched nasty person the word heathen simply means someone who is not acquainted with the true and living God That's a heathen so let us not go crazy when we hear the word heathen.

You know it's something you say that person's a heathen You said how could you insult them like that?

And it's like well hold on the word heathen By definition means someone who is not acquainted with the true and living God They could be totally dignified and wear a suit every day even to bed.

It doesn't mean that they still don't qualify to be called a heathen.

A heathen is someone who's just not acquainted with the true and living God.

Now let's notice something else outside of the heathen however in James 5 in James 5 in verse 19 it says brethren if any of you do err from the truth did they know the truth yes but they err they fell away from it is that right all right it says brethren if any of you do err from the truth and 1 convert him, it says, let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins." So that means according to the Bible, sinners are not just people outside the church and unbaptized.

It is possible to be inside the church and baptized and in the eyes of heaven still be accounted as a sinner.

Wheat and the Tares

Well let me go ahead and say good morning to everyone.

The morning is a wonderful time to hear the word.

And I'm very grateful that we can go over a very important subject this morning, where we're gonna talk about lessons specifically from wheat and tares.

There are some really, really good points from the word of God.

And like I said, none of these things are, you know, exhaustive.

So I'm just going to share some principles with us that I believe will take us a little bit higher in our understanding and hopefully in our experience with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And so as we prepare to receive the word as has been our custom, I am going to kneel for a word of prayer.

And I'd like to invite you if you are able to to kneel with me and if you can't kneel just go ahead and bow your heads where you are.

Our loving Father, Lord we are very grateful again for the gift of life.

We thank you for the privilege to serve and to get to know you as it is our privilege to know you.

And Lord, we bow our heads and we are upon our knees because we recognize your supreme power and your joy that you want to give to each of us, which will be a source of strength as we go through trouble as times in this earth's history.

And so we just ask first and foremost for the forgiveness of our sins.

We pray for the presence of your Holy Spirit not merely to come into the building but especially to be within our hearts and Lord we ask that you will give us wisdom that goes beyond our years that we may not only hear but know how to apply the words that we will receive at this time.

And so I am thankful that because these things are according to your will, you have answered our prayer.

And therefore we say thank you and now Lord help us to walk in the light as Christ is in the light.

You know, I remember 30 plus years ago, I was in the world of entertainment dancer and choreographer in the hip-hop and R&B industry and you know on television dancing with the stars and it was this message you know it was this message that interrupt my path to stardom because God had a greater idea of being a star than what the world could offer.

And I remember when I joined the church, I was like a sponge.

I was a high school dropout, very, very uneducated.

I mean, I used school as a means of playing games and acting absolutely foolish.

For some reason, I liked the English class.

But outside of that, history was torture, science was torture, everything was just terrible.

And when I joined this movement, I began reading.

And I was like, wow, what a phenomenon, reading.

And you know, and I like what I'm reading.

I have a special love for this movement because it was God working through this movement that I am the man that I am today.

And thank the Lord he's not even finished with me yet.

And I remember that as I would read I would understand and I mean my elders they didn't know that I'm a man that takes people at their word.

If you say you're going to do something, then I'm going to take you at your word.

I'm going to hold you accountable to your word.

When I joined the church, he saw that I was on fire so he said, hey if you want to call me at any time with any questions he says you could do it.

And I'm trying to understand this book called the Bible because I'm not understanding a lot and as I went through the Bible and I had this question I was like I don't understand it and I said oh he said I can call him at any time So I called him and his phone rang and I remember his phone ringing and he just said, you know, Dwayne, I didn't mean it like that.

But he said, but nevertheless, go ahead, go ahead.

So I got pretty studious and I went to this Bible study probably several months after I was baptized.

And when I went to this Bible study, there was this guy there and he had this paper in his hand.

Always beware of people who come to Bible studies with printed papers.

I'm just saying, just be, have the alerts up.

And I remember the brother came to me and said, hey friend, you know, I see you like to study the Bible, I wanted to give you something.

So he gave me this paper and the paper was saying that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is Babylon.

And you know he gave Bible verses, he gave quotes from Ellen White and I remember I was like, what?

You know because here I am, I mean I'm on the beast power.

The beast didn't like me in my early years.

I mean, it's like I had this energy and fire.

Like anything that dealt with the Roman Catholic church system and all these things, I mean, I'm teaching that thing and preaching it at subway stations.

I would get whiteboards and write on free literature.

And we got a table laid out with all the amazing facts, booklets, and everything.

And people are coming by, and I'm asking them silly questions.

I'm like, do you know what the mark of the beast is?

And I'm like, how do you know you don't have it?

And they literally were like, I don't know.

And I said, man, you need to read this book so you can find out.

And they would just give me that literature and we had people get baptized from that.

So I remember really being excited about this thing so to get this paper now that's telling me the church is Babylon I said what?

So I remember I read the paper and it was very convincing.

The other thing that people don't know about me is that I'm a very open man.

Now I'm much, much better at this now, but back then, oh forget about it, What I felt I said it.

You know I always wore my feelings on my sleeve.

So I remember that I came to my elders, a group of elders, walked into the room.

And they was just like, what's the bad news?

I said, the church is Babylon, we got to get out.

I'm telling you, I said, the church is Babylon, we got to get out.

You guys told me, make haste, Delay not, keep my commandments, Psalm 119, 60.

I mean, like, literally, I'm memorizing verses nowadays, so I'm giving them the verses back.

We must make haste, and we must delay not.

We gotta get out, we gotta get all the saints outta here.

And Elder James, bless his heart, Elder James, so quiet, calm, cool, and collected, Elder James comes to me and he says, so what brought you to this conclusion?

Series

Morning Plenaries

The Power of Object Lessons

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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