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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Restoration 2023

Wes Peppers

Bible Prophecy in 2023 & Why It Matters

Oh man, it's great to see you guys and thank you so much for coming here to restoration for 2023.

I'm excited to be with you over the course of the next week.

I think we're going to have a great time and hope that you're going to be blessed.

And how many of you, maybe this is your first time for restoration?

Well, we're gonna be studying the Bible pretty in-depth over the next week, and I think we're going to gain some powerful blessings.

I'm gonna explain that a little bit more here in just a few minutes, but my name is Wes Peppers and I am, I work with It Is Written.

I work with It Is Written and Pastor John Bradshaw.

How many of you have heard Pastor John Bradshaw speak at some point?

And he is a wonderful speaker and very blessed in our church and very beloved in our church and it's a blessing to work with him.

And also my good friend Kurt Dolinski is here and Colleen, they both work.

Kurt works for It Is Written and Colleen works for Adventist Media Ministry, which is under the umbrella that we are under.

But I come to you from Tennessee and I've been here before a number of times at Advent Hope.

This is my first time to speak at Restoration and my wife and children are here also, but you know the children have been a bit rowdy today.

Otherwise, you might not you might have a constant distraction here tonight, But you'll see them at various times throughout the week and my wife will sing for you tomorrow So it's going to be a great time So I am going to be sharing with you a number of things over this next week And I'm very very excited about that.

I think that these are very life-changing truths that God will use to speak to your heart.

And so the title of the series this week is religious traditions or relevant truths.

And what I've been asked to do by the leadership of Restoration Advent Hope is to basically go back to the basics.

And so we're gonna take a look at some of our core fundamental beliefs as a church and we're going to examine them and study them and I'm hoping to bring some fresh insight to them.

But here's what I found and here's why we're doing this.

It's because more and more and I'm just seeing it and maybe you see it too, more and more we see people within even our own church turning away from the core teachings that we once have held and beloved.

We're gonna kind of refresh ourselves on those over this week.

And I would venture to say that probably some of you sitting here tonight maybe have been in the church all of your life, maybe you have experienced, you know, church every week and you went to even schools and you still are not really familiar with what you believe in the church.

Could I ask for a show of hands to say How many of you agree that that's true to some level tonight?

So that's what we're going to be doing over the course of this week.

And it's going to, I think, bring some review for some of you.

Some of the things will be new for some of you and some I'm hoping that we're gonna put some practical insight into this so that you leave here with not just a deeper understanding of the Bible but how to actually apply it to your life and how to let it shape you and mold you and change you and grow you into a more mature Christian and to deepen your spirituality, to deepen your walk with God, to give you hope, to give you strength, to give you grace and something that you can leave here each day with in your pocket, but more importantly in your heart.

That's what I'm praying for this week, and I've been praying for this week, and I know the leaders have been praying, and I know that God is going to bless you in a very powerful way.

So, you know, much of what we have believed, people are now saying, oh, that's just religious tradition.

And many of those things don't really apply anymore.

And we're going to see very clearly that they do and they apply to your life as a young person in 2023 and they will apply to you if you live to be a hundred or a hundred and 50 or 500 years old.

They're still going to be as relevant as when they came fresh off the paper from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the author.

And so you're gonna see that this week and you're gonna see it throughout each day as we study.

So we're gonna be together in the, well I should say this, I don't want to belabor this too long, but check the schedule.

We're moving to, as I saw, 3 different locations throughout the week.

So you're gonna have to check the website.

You have some way to access that I know and so check the website.

The ones that have it easier are those that are watching us online.

They just know to go to the same place every day, but you've got to come, you've got to think about it a little bit, and so figure that out.

If not, ask somebody or do whatever you've got to do.

But we'll be here today and tomorrow, and then next week it'll be a mix of the Campus Hill Church Fellowship Hall and the Sanctuary, and I don't think we're here at all next week, but next weekend we'll be back here.

He was everywhere is nowhere and that's gonna be us this week, but we're gonna be somewhere and we know for sure that God is gonna be here.

So please bear with us and check that schedule and thank you again to those that are watching online.

Another reason we're doing this is I want to share this quick story with you and then we need to get started because time is ticking.

There was a girl who I was had the privilege of being her pastor.

She was fresh out of college and she went to 1 of our universities and she came to me and She said, now if I were to say the family of this girl, probably 98% of you would instantly know who I'm talking about, and that's the reason I'm not gonna say her name.

So this young lady came to me fresh out of school and she said, I went to elementary school in our school.

I went to all the way up through academy.

She said, I could not tell you why we believe anything that we believe.

I can't tell you the first thing about our beliefs from my own heart.

And she said, and I'm scared and I'm lonely and I'm afraid and I don't know what to do.

And it's interesting because I told her, well we're actually in 2 weeks starting a thing, a series of Bible study meetings just like the ones we're having here at Restoration.

And I said, I want to encourage you to come to those and you're going to learn about what you believe.

And she had had a dream that Jesus returned to the earth, and she was not prepared for that.

Now that's an unfortunate thing, and the reality is, is some people will try to tell you, oh you don't need to worry about that, that's doomsday, that's scary.

Well the truth is that it's a reality that's going to happen.

If you're driving down the road and the bridge is out and somebody waves as they're walking, they went for a walk and they almost walked off it and they said, oh, I better not do that.

And they turned around, they waved as you as you drove by towards the bridge.

You would likely appreciate it if they said to you, by the way, the bridge is out, don't go down there.

Or how would you feel if they just waved to you when you went by?

It's a reality that's going to happen and we need to know about it.

We need to be changed by it and we need to live our lives according to that understanding that we have from the Bible about what is to come.

How many of you would agree with that tonight?

And as she went through this seminar, that similar things I'll share with you this week, she said, I had no idea that we believe those things.

And here's what I'm finding to be true is that many people are saying, oh those things don't really matter anymore, They're not really that big of a deal.

We don't need to worry about that anymore.

And when you really understand it, they don't really understand what those things are.

The Atheist Who Found God

So we are going into our series this week.

We started last night, Religious Traditions or Relevant Truth.

And what we're studying throughout this week is the very basic beliefs that we have as a church.

Now I know some of you are not Seventh-day Adventists in here and that's okay.

Maybe you've gone to the church all of your life and you're just grounded in these Bible truths.

Maybe you're somewhere in between and you grew up in the church, but you just don't have confidence in what we believe, you're not sure.

And I told this story, there was a young lady last night, I'll just briefly tell it again.

She came to me and said, as I was in my first pastoral district, and she said, I grew up in our church.

She said, but if you were to threaten me with my life and say, give a Bible study on what you believe, She said, you'd have to kill me.

I don't know or understand what we believe.

And she came to some meetings just like this.

She became she knew Jesus more than she ever had before.

She understood what was happening in the world.

She found hope and joy and encouragement and powerful truth that changed her heart and changed her life.

So I wanna challenge you to come to these meetings over the next week, and they're gonna be life transforming.

You will not be the same person and it'll be review for some of you, but I am throwing in pieces that probably if you've gone to church all your life, you still haven't heard.

So there'll be something new for everybody.

We're also using the It is Written Bible study guides.

And you'll be getting those, except for this morning, you'll be getting those every meeting.

And so I'll be utilizing these in our study.

So you can take these and you can fill them out as we go through.

I don't cover everything and I won't cover every lesson but you'll get every lesson by the end of the week.

This will be something you can take back and study for yourself in your dorm or your apartment or house wherever you live.

So that's a gift to you from Advent Hope.

So just to give you an upcoming schedule today at 4 right here in Damasio Hall, Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Then I kind of chuckle at this, but we're, we're all over the place here and campus.

But Monday at noon, we will be at the Campus Hill Church Fellowship Hall.

And so there's a reason for that, and that is that we're going to feed you.

Now, I don't know about you, But when I was in college, I really got tired of ramen noodles.

And in those days when I was in college, I wasn't a Christian and I ate every flavor of ramen noodles, even the shrimp ones.

And I still got tired of them, but we're going to have amazing food at the noon hour.

So if you come for nothing else, come for the loaves and fishes and we're going to give you the Bible too.

But if you come to that Fellowship Hall, Campus Hill, what's it called again?

Hammond Jewell Fellowship Hall, noon, Monday through Friday this week.

It's a free lunch for you and a free Bible study.

We give you the free Bible, we give you the free lunch, we won't even charge you for the Bible study.

And then in the evenings, we'll be at the Campus Hill Church Sanctuary.

So we'll be there each night this week, Monday through Friday, 7 p.m.

And our subject on Monday is God in and out of you.

How does God come into your life and how does He shine out of your life?

I said this last night that if there's somebody that doesn't like you, invite them.

If there's somebody you don't like, invite them.

If there's people you don't like, you probably both need this, right?

So invite those people and we'll be glad to do that.

All right, we're going to jump into it now and time is already ticking.

But let's pray together and ask the Lord's blessing and then we'll jump in.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege we have to be gathered in this place.

Oh, how we need heaven's blessing and the Spirit of God to minister to our hearts.

We ask you to open our minds and open our hearts to you.

Pray that this will be a blessing and that you would reach down and we can sense your presence, your peace and your joy, and that we can make a decision to give ourselves to you and experience the fullness of all that you want to bring into our lives.

Now this is not the first time that I have shared my testimony here, but it may be the first time for several of you that you've heard it.

And so I'm sharing it in the context of the series.

So if you've heard it, hopefully it'll still be a blessing to you.

This is my family and my wife and I don't know where they went, but they were here.

My children, my son Levi and my daughter, Leanna, who I love very much.

Doesn't he just look like a Lincoln to you?

He's a very distinguished, noble, very enchanting-looking dog.

He's a fun little guy, but that's our family.

But my life is a very bizarre life, you could say.

And I know that Sometimes we grow up in the church and we feel like we don't have a testimony.

But I want to say to you today that every 1 of you have a testimony.

Jesus’ Answer to Evil and Suffering

You guys don't know how to handle this kind of weather, do you?

I lived in this kind of weather for 10 years.

And certain years, We prayed for weather like this because the other weather was so bad.

I think it's going to get into the 50s this week and you just don't know what to do with yourselves.

You guys are going to be in bad shape in the time of trouble.

Jesus said, pray that your flight be not in winter, not the Sabbath, right?

I know Sabbath afternoon, Saturday afternoon is like, you know, just the time you normally be doing something else but I'm glad you're here.

And if there's somebody that's close by that could come, you can just text them right now and say, get yourself over here and we're going to be studying the Bible.

Well, we're going to get rolling here and we're going to continue with our series, Religious Traditions or Relevant Truths.

And I'm just convinced that more and more relevant truth for the day and age in which we live is being viewed by many as just religious tradition that really needs to be done away with or that is not that big of a deal or that is not important for our Christian experience or even our salvation.

And I think that very soon we're all going to be very surprised.

And it's all headed to a certain place as we'll see this week in Bible prophecy.

But how many of you are thankful for relevant truth today?

You're thankful for that and how it impacts our lives and how it changes us and how it molds us.

So, just to remind you that Monday we'll be off tomorrow.

We'll no meet no meetings tomorrow but we will have that hike on Sunday tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock.

Okay you know where to go and so I'll be sharing a little devotional before or after or sometime in there.

And when we get to the top, I was hoping it was at the beginning so that while you guys start hiking up, I could hike back to the car, but I guess not.

So I'll share a little devotional thought tomorrow with you.

And then Monday, we'll be at the Campus Hill Fellowship Hall and we'll be studying the case for a savior and why you need it.

And the good news is about that is you'll also get a free 1.

You get a free Bible study and you get a free lunch, right?

I don't even know what it's going to be, but I'm just excited and I'm just saying it better be something good.

And every day, Monday through Friday, free lunch at 12.

Then Monday 7 p.m., God in and out of you will be at the church and the actual sanctuary.

And then Tuesday, translation or transformation, we'll be studying again and you get another lunch on Tuesday at noon.

So we'll be doing that every day, Monday through Friday at 12 in the Fellowship Hall and then at 7 in the evening in the church.

And so just to keep you updated on those things, it's not too late to invite someone.

I want to encourage you to do so and implore you to do so.

We want people that A, need to be here and B, want to be here.

And I think everybody needs to be here, yes?

Whether you want to be here, you can still be here even if you don't want to be here.

Many people have been dragged to meetings like this and had a life-changing experience.

And I can tell you many, many stories about that.

So what we're gonna study this afternoon is why does God allow suffering?

And There's a pretty good answer for that.

And what I'm gonna share with you today is by no means exhaustive But it is a foundation.

I'd need about 10 hours to be exhaustive with it and there's a lot of great answers.

I was listening this week to a sermon on this subject.

I have a slide in here that shares something that that person talked about.

I thought it was very powerful, but there are hundreds of sermons, hundreds of books on suffering and why God allows it.

And so, but we're just going to do a baseline study of that today.

So if you don't have a study guide, everybody should, but if you don't raise your hand and we'll get that to you.

How many of you have already decided I'm coming to every meeting this week?

Those of you that have not decided that, we have great ways of persuasion.

For those more stubborn, they include a dungeon.

And for still others, there's a rack and various torture items that will bring you to, no, I'm just kidding.

Somebody's going to take that and say, Wes Pepper said, torture is good for you, but I'm not saying that at all.

Well, let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing and then we will dive right in.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this day, for this time, for this moment, this is a moment that you promised to draw near to us, and we invite you to fulfill that promise in our hearts.

It's only the moment that we're in, the breath we take, is all that we're promised.

But we're also promised eternal life, and you've given that to us as a wonderful gift.

And so I just pray that you would guide and guard our hearts, that you would bless us, that you would strengthen us, that you would mold and shape us, and open our hearts to your precious truth today as our prayer in Jesus name Amen, I'm gonna take 1 sip I I was gonna do that when I came back, but you guys were already ready.

But the good news is you can't start without me.

I was just reading this week that Russia sent up a little space pod to rescue some astronauts that were trapped up there, 1 of which was an American.

And they were not in danger, but the pod that they had taken up there was leaking and so it was going to be very difficult the the Coolant that they normally would use in that pod had leaked out of the pod and it was no longer there, they still could have driven it back but the temperature might have gotten so high that they could have experienced intense heat and it could have been dangerous for them.

Devotional

Sunday, February 26th and this is take 1.

Well, we survived the hike and I want to thank Catherine and others who saved us from the quicksand a couple times.

How many of you almost lost yourselves in the quicksand coming up here?

It was a great hike and I was really hoping that it wasn't going to be uphill the whole way.

And it wasn't And so praise the Lord for that.

But I wanted to share with you the little thought and give me 1 second to pull up my Bible.

And you know, 1 of the things that we often, 1 of the things I think that we often fail to see about Jesus is His ability to relate to us in every way, whether that's emotionally or mentally or physically or whatever.

But the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that he was made like unto his brethren.

When he came he had fallen sinful human nature.

He wasn't sinful, but he had the nature of fallen sinful man.

Series

Restoration 2023

Bible Prophecy in 2023 & Why It Matters

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