<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dave Steward

Injustice for One, Justice for All

I was working as a prosecuting attorney at the time in Riverside.

When God called me out of that, I was doing gang cases, including gang murder cases, death penalty cases.

And it's like God spoke to me and said, you know, Dave, I want you to stop sending people to the death chamber, and I want you to start giving them life in Jesus.

So after that, I attended Amazing Facts School of Evangelism, And now I'm an evangelist with Amazing Facts.

And I remember when I was at AAFCO, Eric Nelson, who some of you may remember, he used to be a leader here at Advent Hope, he did a half day presentation on how to put on a youth conference, because he was 1 of the founders of WYC, Western Youth Conference.

And I remember feeling exhausted when he was done with that presentation, because I thought, man, I didn't know so much went in to putting on a conference like that.

And I just remember thinking in my mind, I would never be involved with something like that.

But then Calvin Kim, my good friend, invited me to be part of leading out with Army Bible Camp.

And I'm really excited that we're for the first time in your area.

If you're looking for revival in your life, if you're looking to come face to face with God and experience his power in your life, you don't want to miss out on Army Bible Camp.

Dean does all our designing and our website.

And I know he announced it today, and it's in your bulletin.

But even if you can just come for the weekend, we would love for you all to come.

Trust me, it's going to be a great experience.

And why don't we go ahead and get started with a word of prayer, shall we?

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for bringing us together to worship you today.

Lord, we're thankful for your word, which makes the truth so evident.

And it makes falsehood evident as well, if we would just open our eyes and search and see for ourselves what the scripture says and Lord I pray your Holy Spirit would be with us today in a special way in Jesus name amen I've always loved Abbot Hope And I'm really delighted to see that it keeps growing, which just proves that if you feed people the word of God, the sheep will come.

We are here to feed the sheep, not amuse the goats.

So I'm really excited that Advent Hope just keeps growing.

Well, I want to start off with a story today.

When I was a DA, I knew a couple police officers.

Well, I knew a lot of police officers, but 2 in particular that I'm going to talk about today.

Their names are Saul Martinez and Donovan Rice.

I used to prosecute their drunk driving cases.

And on May 8, 1997, late at night, they were investigating a parked car north of Palm Springs.

At some point, Officer Martinez became quite upset.

In fact, he was so upset that he pushed, in fact, slammed his partner Donovan off the side of the road, and so hard that Donovan suffered leg injuries.

And while he was on the side of the road crying uncontrollably and could not get up, Saul did not call for help.

Eventually, a civilian had to call for help for Donovan Rice.

Saul never apologized or expressed remorse for what he did.

And it's very clear that what he did was intentional.

And I must say that I'm no longer friends with ex-officer Saul Martinez.

How many of you think that Saul should have been fired for what he did?

How many of you do not think he should have been fired for what he did?

OK, I saw mostly hands to fire him and a few to not fire him.

Well, how many of you want more information?

In fact, the governor of the state of California, which was Pete Wilson at the time, actually awarded him the highest award you can give a state employee, the Medal of Valor.

The National Latino Officers Association made him Officer of the Year for 1997.

That means of all the Hispanic police officers in the entire United States, they said Saul Martinez is Officer of the Year.

Eventually, a school in Palm Springs was named in his honor.

Would you like to hear the rest of the story?

Saul Martinez was not around to hear or receive any of those awards.

You see, what actually happened is, as they were investigating that parked car, there was another car that I didn't tell you about.

It was driven by an older man who had been drinking and was on prescription medication.

Donovan didn't know what was happening until it was too late.

But Saul Martinez saw what was happening.

And instead of worrying about himself, he pushed his officer friend to safety and saved his life.

And Saul Martinez was pinned under that car.

And until other officers could come and get that car off of him, he was underneath that car and 8 days later he died in the hospital.

He wasn't just a heroic police officer, but he lived a life of service.

He used to be in charge of the grape harvest with Cesar Chavez for the state of California.

I think the priest that officiated at his funeral said it best.

He said that his last act on earth was a sign of how he always lived.

And I remember being at a memorial service later with Donovan Rice.

And I remember him crying and just feeling so grateful to Saul for what he had done in saving his life.

And you can imagine how indebted he felt towards Saul's wife and 3 children who lost a husband and a father.

Donovan called Saul a prince and a gentleman and said that Saul's family always came first for him.

Yes, he was a hero, but it was an injustice.

But through that injustice, he was able to save someone else's life.

The title of my message today is injustice for 1, justice for all.

We all have a Saul Martinez in our life, don't we?

A hero that stands taller than even Saul did, and suffered even greater injustice than Saul did.

I like what Ellen White says in Desire of Ages, page 25.

She says, Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as he deserves.

He was condemned for our sins in which we had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness in which we had no share.

He suffered the death which was ours that we might receive the life which was His.

With His stripes we are healed." Desire of Ages, page 25.

Today we're going to look at the trial of Jesus.

We're going to look at the legal aspects of the trial.

You know, Plato said that lawyers were a plague of society and we're better off without them.

Back to Menu

Injustice for One, Justice for All

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

InVerse 1st Quarter 2024: Jesus & Liberty

09 The Persecuted Church

28m

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!

4. Mark of the Beast

1h

Understanding Difficult Topics

5. The United States in Bible Prophecy

1h 14m

Reading Revelation

Smyrna (Reading Revelation- 9)

30m

Death by Religion

30m

God is Love?

19-The Mark of the Beast

1h

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

04 Standing for the Truth

28m

Who Is Your God?

1h

The Joys and Troubles of When Christ is Born

46m

The Persecuted Angel

27m

Sound Doctrine