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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Jason Sliger

The Experience of God’s Prophetic Movement

How many of you want to do lay activities?

If your neighbor is falling asleep in the presentation, I give you full rights to use your elbow in a gentle way and remind them that we're studying the word.

Now I get the fortunate opportunity of pacing back and forth so that keeps me awake But I know that after a nice Sabbath afternoon and a meal sometimes it can be kind of hard to keep the focus but As Carlos already mentioned we do have kind of a an intense subject that we're going to look at this evening.

I just recently put together this presentation on the experience of God's prophetic movement, and I've been sharing it with different folks at the Bible Prophecy Seminars, where I've been working, and it seems to have been a real blessing.

So I thought I'd share with you folks out here as well.

But before we delve into the study of God's Word, I thought I would just briefly share with you another testimony from the field in evangelism.

We do 3 at the beginning, and then we have a break in the summer, and then we do 3 in the fall, and then we have a break in the winter.

And this past year, there's just been a tremendous amount of blessings that have happened from meeting to meeting.

We started our first meeting this year in Jamestown, North Dakota in January.

And if you want a little piece of advice, don't go to Jamestown, North Dakota in January, and I won't charge you for that piece of advice.

I never experienced minus 35 wind chill before.

I felt like my face was going to split in half as I was driving to the meetings in the evening.

It's just, I mean, we were there for a couple of weeks before we even seen the pavement on the roads.

And anyways, but God had some blessings in store, as you can only imagine.

Second night of the meetings, there is a elderly gentleman who came in on his motorized scooter.

And when we moved to the church, Paul actually drove his scooter in the snow from his house to the church every night.

But he had diabetes and couldn't feel anything in his legs, so it didn't really bother him that much.

But second night of the meetings, Paul came for the first time.

And as he came in, I mean, I could just tell he was a giant of a man.

You know, he was sitting in his motorized wheelchair, but he was a giant of a man.

And when he got out of his motorized wheelchair and sat down, he kind of stood up for a minute, and then he sat down.

And after the meetings that night, I stopped by Paul and said hello to him.

And he jokingly said, he was kind of 1 of these sarcastic guys that like to joke with you every now and then, but was well-meaning.

He said, you didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know tonight.

In some ways, that's a good thing, that they've been studying the Bible.

There were a few nights that he missed because of his health and because of the weather as well.

But somewhere in the course of the meetings, Paul made the decision that he wanted to be baptized.

And so the pastor and I naturally wanted to visit with him and find out what he knew and just kind of talk to him about this decision.

And we went out to eat with him for breakfast in the morning.

We sat in this little breakfast parlor, the 3 of us, and we were sitting there eating and I said, Paul, why don't you tell me about your background?

And he told me he was born in Alabama and sometime in his early 20s he left his home and got caught up with the wrong crowd and shortly after that he began to ride with the Hells Angels.

He rode with the Hells Angels for 14 years and did various acts of crime and lawlessness.

I mean, the things that he told us are just not worth repeating.

When he stopped writing with the Hells Angels, and that's a whole story in and of itself, how he got out of that experience of writing with them, he told us that he still lived the life of crime, selling firearms to the mafia and various other people, and pimping women out, and just a very, very rough lifestyle.

And I thought, well, this is going to be an interesting story to hear how he gave his heart to the Lord.

He was driving through North Dakota on his Harley Davidson, big Harley Davidson bike, the biggest bike you can get.

And he was riding through North Dakota, and as he was riding through, he stopped in Jamestown for some reason.

And when he stopped in Jamestown, he stopped at a light in the city, and he put his legs out to stabilize himself.

And because of his diabetes and neuropathy, he was unable to hold the bike up any longer, and he fell over.

They went to the hospital, and the doctor told him you won't be able to ride a bike any longer.

And so that's how he came to Jamestown, North Dakota.

And shortly after this experience, he checked himself into a hotel, sold his Harley Davidson, and was at a loss of what he was going to do in his life.

And while he was there in that hotel room, he opened up his bedside stand, the little thing next to his bed, and he opened it up and there was a Gideon Bible.

How many of you are thankful for Gideon Bibles?

I mean, The story will only be told of how many people were led to the Lord by the Gideon Bibles.

So he opens this Gideon Bible up and there in the stillness of his hotel room, reading chapter after chapter after chapter, this man who rode with the hell's angels for 14 years, lived a life of crime, drug abuse, all kinds of terrible, I mean, just amazing the darkness that this man came out of.

There in the stillness of his hotel room, no family around, no friends around, no preacher around to lead him into the truth, Paul read about Jesus and gave his heart to the Lord, the best he knew how.

As he was reading the Bible, I mean, he wasn't a very educated man, as he read the Bible, he read, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, 6 days, shout out labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.

Okay, that must mean that God wants us to keep the seventh day of the week holy.

You know, it just amazes me that God has made the Bible so simple.

And so he got the yellow pages out and he began to phone all the churches in town And he asked them, do you keep the Sabbath?

Now I don't know about you, but if I were a preacher, I would find that pretty intimidating.

Some guy that wrote at the Hell's Angel for 14 years, 6'6", over 200 pounds, do you keep the Sabbath?

And so he went through this whole list of churches and none of these ministers would keep me in the Sabbath.

And then he found this church called the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

He picked up the phone, called the guy, it was a pastor I was working with.

And so they began to study the Bible together.

This was shortly before the meetings began.

The pastor met Paul and they were studying the Bible together.

And that's how Paul got this connection to the church, was through this phoning of all these churches, trying to find a church that keeps the Seventh-day Sabbath.

And you know, There are people out there, it reminds me of that quote in the Spirit of Prophecy, that there are many on the verge of the kingdom waiting only to be gathered in.

So Paul came night after night, at the end of the meetings he made the decision he wanted to get baptized, and then finally he added more information to what he had already found out in his own personal study, and he decided he wanted to become part of God's prophetic movement and become part of the local Seventh-day Adventist church.

Well, as you can imagine, 6'6", over 200 pounds, we were wondering, how in the world are we going to baptize this guy?

He was adamant, I want to be baptized, preacher.

So we worked it all out and we got this came to the Sabbath day and we had a strong brave deacon and the pastor who lifted Paul up and carried him up the stairs and carried him down into the baptistry and there the pastor pronounced the baptism service.

I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

And I remember seeing Paul go down into the water, along with the deacon.

They Both went down into the water, and Paul came up a changed man.

And you know, there wasn't a lot of people that got baptized in that small little meeting.

But I know that God had me go to Jamestown, North Dakota for Paul.

I mean, his health is just terrible, but he gave his life to Jesus.

And he said something to me that I thought was just very profound.

He said, Jason, I suffer with my health, but I don't blame that on God.

And I thought, you know, wow, what a depth of insight this man had in his relationship with God.

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The Experience of God’s Prophetic Movement

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