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Eastern Canada Youth Conference

ECYC 2011 Seminar: Comfort Zone

Daniel Dragan Stojonavic

In the Shadow of the Lamb

Heavenly Father, thank you for your presence, for your guidance, and for the certitude that we can have the inspiration of the Holy spirit.

Be with all of us and help us to understand your will.

So, the title was a difficult title for me.

I received the title, it's not my choice.

But you understand when you say comfort zone, so I forgot to say the beginning, the title is In the Shadow of the Lamb.

When you talk about comfort zone, you think immediately about the comforter.

And when I look around myself, I see that our world is going crazy.

Actually, they are not doing well, or Great Britain, or so many other countries.

But in general, financially, almost everybody is in trouble.

And I am not spending too much time here, but only to remind you that politically, our world is in trouble.

There are so many people challenging the authority of the governments.

I was a witness of this period of history And I was surprised, for me it was sure that communists will stay for centuries, like Roman Empire.

I was almost sure that something solid is behind, but in 1989, we saw that it was not so.

And at the same time, we understand the limit of the political system that we have here, the best political system.

When you read the books about ethics, not only Christian ethics, you will understand, and I quote someone who is the best specialist of ethics in Europe, the president of the Association of Specialists in Ethics for the European Union, he says, We don't have references.

We don't know what is good and what is not.

If they don't know, those who have to decide about the future, those who have to create something good for everybody, then we understand that they are in trouble and we are also in trouble.

Employment perspective, you know even better than myself, it is hard to find job.

Ecological challenges, things are going worse and I don't need to spend too much time.

You can find so many examples everywhere that our world is going crazy.

I will have the privilege the next week to be in Haiti.

I was already there just after the earthquake.

And I can tell you that it was really chaotic.

Every night we had strong, huge earthquakes.

And when you think about everything happening in our world, it's incredible.

Nuclear tragedies, probably we are at the beginning of these tragedies, but when you look all these elements and it is only some of them, you have a question.

When you listen to the presentations, sometimes from the book of Revelation, you will understand that the future is not extraordinary, how to say, it's not so nice.

We are talking about difficult times, persecutions, we are talking about 7 plagues, and we don't know what is the future, a big question mark.

I like a quotation of someone who wrote, he's a composer, and who wrote an excellent piece of music of about 1 hour and, I don't know, 15 minutes.

And the title of this piece of music is The Book of Revelation.

And he says, he's not a seven-day Adventist, the book of Revelation is obviously the battle between 2 cities, the city of good and the city of evil with God sitting on the throne and watching over, having always the situation under the control.

This is why 1 can see the quietness of the saints even in the middle of atrocious plaques.

And I'm so glad to see that this guy didn't spend 10 years doing theology, he is a composer.

But he understood well the message of the book of Revelation.

And this is why we have the quietness of the saints.

But we are not looking specifically to be in peace.

We have the vision, our vision is heaven.

And you know, Revelation chapter 21, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, no crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away.

But we are not looking to be comfortable here.

If you know Viktor Frankl, someone knows Viktor Frankl from Austria, He was an excellent psychologist, spent several years in Auschwitz, and was just in the opposite of Freud.

The idea of Freud was that if you want to understand yourself, thank you so much, if you want to understand yourself, you need to analyze your childhood, your past, and from this analysis, you will see who you are and you will deal better in the future.

If you're only looking at your past, there is no hope.

And from his experience in Auschwitz, he said, during Auschwitz, I never look at my past.

When I was in big trouble I already thought about my meeting with my mother, father, brothers, sisters, and so on.

Which means for him, he said, therefore, our solution is in the future.

When we have a right vision of our life, then we can deal with difficulties of the present time.

He says, What is necessary for humans today, it is not the state without tension.

You know when you say comfort zone, everything is perfect, everything is well?

No, what is necessary for humans today, it is not the state without tension, but the battle to accomplish the highest goals.

This is not to eliminate the stressful situation at any price, but more to find a potential meaning, very obvious, without regard to the difficulty of the task to achieve it.

So for us, when we say comfort zone, it's not laziness.

It's not God will do everything and we will just wait.

When we talk about the comfort zone is to understand the vision of God himself for the last day events.

And when we embrace this vision, then we say that probably we will go through stressful situations, but we don't worry about stressful situation, because the stressful situation is not what we want to avoid.

We want to accomplish the right goal, the goal of God himself.

So as I said at the beginning, the book of Revelation is all about Jesus.

Jesus is at the beginning, in the middle, at the end, everywhere.

And probably we don't speak enough about the Holy Spirit in the Book of Revelation.

I decided to choose only 12 verses because we have more than 20 references of the Holy Spirit, explicit references.

You have some others, probably I would say more than 50 general references of the Holy Spirit in the book of Revelation with symbols, illustrations, And then you can understand that behind it, there is a story about the Holy Spirit.

But you have a little bit more than 20 references of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Revelation, which is important because We have 22 chapters.

At least every chapter you have, on average basis, you have 1 reference to the Holy Spirit.

And this is why I decided to spend with you 2 aspects, to see 2 aspects.

First, the Holy Spirit in the book of Revelation, and something about the chapter 18.

Those who study the book, as I said, they will see the important place of Jesus.

John to the 7 churches which are in Asia, Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.

And from the 7 spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

I put a title for this aspect of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the book of Revelation.

I said, the fullness of spirit as the source of grace and peace.

I think that the Apostle John, I don't want to provoke the ideas or to put an hierarchy between the Apostles, But do you know how the Apostle Paul will write his own epistles?

Every time at the beginning, you have greetings.

A Double Golden Cup for Every Unclean Spirit

Our Heavenly Father, thank you for your presence and for the opportunity to study the Book of Revelation.

We would like to have the same spirit as you inspired the Apostle John.

Help us to see your work and your message and help us especially to be connected constantly to your power.

I will just finish with item number 12, so I chose 12 verses.

This is the conclusion, and the spirit and the bride say come, and let him who hears say come, and let him who thirst come, whoever desires let him take the water of life freely.

And I like to underline the fact that the Holy Spirit is mission-oriented.

Jesus Christ said, go and make disciples.

So we know that Jesus is mission oriented.

But also the Holy Spirit will say, with the bride, come.

The invitation comes from the Holy Spirit.

I have a very nice presentation about Isaiah chapter 55, but I have no time to explain to you the reference.

This is the reference from the book of Isaiah, inviting us, inviting those who are thirsty to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I would like just to finish with this.

Ellen White was explaining about Acts chapter 2.

And she said how powerful was the presence of the Holy Spirit in the first apostolic church.

And she said, these sins are to be repeated and with greater power.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was the former rain, but the later rain will be more abundant.

The Spirit awaits our demand and reception.

And this is what I like here in this text.

Christ is again to be revealed in his fullness by the Holy Spirit's power.

When the Holy Spirit's work, it's works, it is always to reveal better Jesus Christ.

Man will discern the value of the precious pearl.

And with the Apostle Paul, they will say, what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ.

And I count all things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." And she is very free to say everything that she thinks, because she is talking from the Holy Spirit.

I don't know if I would be able to be so specific in as she is, she has authority.

She said, the Bible should not be brought into our schools to be sandwiched in between infidelity.

And I like to know that Ellen White at that time was willing to put Jesus Christ only and not sandwiched in between all other things.

I agree that we have to study other things.

I like sociology, I like psychology, I like so many things.

But everything has to be examined through Jesus Christ.

And she will conclude, this is a long quotation, keep in the channel of light, study the Bible.

If you want to be connected with the Holy Spirit, don't forget to study the Bible.

And I will just finish with this question if you want.

You see, inspiration, it comes for their spirit, in spirit.

When you say entusiasma, It means enteo, in God.

So if you want to be a good 7 day Adventist, just be inspired and be filled with enthusiasma, which means be in God.

Can I say, I probably will have the time to underline it again?

What are the 3 characteristics of the remnant church?

And the third 1, the testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit of prophecy.

Look at all these 3 elements from God's perspective.

Keep God's commandments, which means God the Father.

And the third is testimony of Jesus, which is spirit of prophecy, which is the Holy Spirit.

What are the characteristics of the remnant church?

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And people, so many times they ask me, what do you believe?

And they would like to know exactly to make differences with their own church.

I tell them, our characteristics are God himself.

We have nothing else to give to the world.

We have nothing else to share with others if not our identity, and our identity is Jesus Christ.

So to be in God or to be inspired, it is the only goal of all of us.

So I would like to say something about the double golden cup for every unclean spirit.

This is the quotation of the chapter 13, 14, and 18.

And I think that it is important for us to know that if we have the presence of the Holy Spirit at the end of time, we have also the presence of unclean spirits at the end of time.

And this is a battle between supernatural powers.

And this is why we need to talk about a double golden cup for every unclean spirit.

The text of Revelation chapter 18 verse 2 to 4 underline this element.

Babylon the great is fallen and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit and a cage for every unclean and hated bird.

For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornications, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.

And you can see in this text the condemnation or the reason why the church is no more the Church of God.

These are characters very, very explicitly, just remember all details of the text.

The church, becoming a dwelling place of demons, the false church, the imitation of the church, is defeated.

This is the first constatation, this is the first statement.

The second aspect is a dwelling place of demons.

I don't need to talk about new age concept, I don't need to present all aspects of this supernatural conflict.

As Seventh Day Adventist members, we understand well the great controversy.

But I would like to underline the fact that if there is no place for the Holy Spirit in the church, then other spirits will come.

And if the Babylon, as the woman, is a fallen church, there is always a supernatural power.

If it is not the Holy Spirit, then This is a dwelling place of demons.

The third element, a prison for every full, unclean spirit.

When we talk about unclean spirit, we need to talk about the purity of the Church.

And if I have time, I will spend a little bit of my time to talk about the purity of the Church.

And the fourth aspect is apostasy, and well developed this idea in the first 5 century of the Church.

They talk about the apostasy of God's Church.

The fifth point is the wine of the rat of her fornication, immorality of the church.

The sixth aspect, the kings of the earth have committed fornication, which means that the church started to do politics.

Seventh, the merchants of the earth have become rich because of her, which means that the church started to do business instead of preaching the gospel, and the number 8, the abundance of her luxury, possession instead of being.

I like the interpretation of someone also for France.

He said to us, how simply Jesus worked to explain a mystery of his kingdom?

And then he said, the church decided to put the wine in a golden cup.

Come Out

Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to study and also to understand your Word for our time.

Thank you for the presence of your Holy Spirit.

Thank you in advance for helping us to have the same vision as you have of ourself and of our world, and to understand well your plan.

The third presentation about The third presentation about the book of Revelation chapter 18, verse 1 to 4 in general, it was my duty, my assignment.

I would like to start with an illustration from France.

I don't know if you speak French or you understand probably French.

There is a title of a book called Sorte de Babylon.

I was in charge of a youth camp for 9 years.

It was music youth camp, and we prepared 7 to 10 concerts during 3 weeks.

And it was a nice opportunity for us to have good presentations and good concert and then it was followed by the presentations about health, Bible and time events and so on.

And during 1 of my presentation, I drove my car with 17 young people.

They were in the car or in front of me or on the roof or behind, we were 17 because we were in a small village and we had to drive 15 kilometers.

And it was a smaller road and we did it very, very slowly.

At the end, When I came to the big city, my car broke.

And then we were 17 going out of the car.

And the lady who was there, she said, it's not possible what they are doing here.

And I asked her, could you please help me to find a solution, a good garage to repair my car?

And she said to me, I see that you have the same t-shirts.

I said to her, we have a concert this evening.

And I said, Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And she said, the best experience about my faith was about Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And I was so glad, you can imagine if you meet someone who had a bad experience with the Seventh-day Adventist, then it is really harder for yourself.

But if someone said the best experience that I had was with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it was very positive for me.

And then she started, she said, I did probably around 30 Bible studies, but in last 5 years I was alone and we don't have the church very close here, but I am not Seventh-day Adventist.

When I come this evening to your concert, I will give you a book, and I would like you to give me your opinion about the book.

This is not a Seventh-day Adventist book.

The title is, as I said to you, Come Out of Babylon.

And this is how I understood a little bit better Revelation chapter 13, 14, and 18 specifically.

And she said to me, this is the book about the history of the Protestant Church in our area on, how to say, very close to Valence and Grenoble, 2 cities in southern part of the France.

And during the night of Saint Barthélemy, so many Protestants were killed.

And someone did the history of the night of Saint Barthélemy.

And he presented in a wonderful way, I can say that it is a very honest representation of all events during that time.

And she said to me, do you agree with the concept of Babylon in this book?

And I can say that it is something that surprised me first.

The idea of the Pierre Berthoud is that everywhere where you worship and you have someone who doesn't want to give you the freedom to worship, he's the part of Babylon for him.

And I understand them, They said, in France we lived as Protestants, and we had no problem to worship God.

And suddenly, a new king came, and now we are in trouble.

We will leave France to go to Switzerland, to Holland, and then United States of America.

What is really nice in this book is something that I never thought before, even though it is in the Bible and in the spirit of prophecy and the idea is the following idea.

Babylon is everywhere and it could be only in your mind, in your heart, everywhere.

Because we are always looking for Babylon somewhere and we forget that Babylon can be even in our heart.

When I started to read this book, and this is how they understood that if you're worshiping God in United States or in Canada and someone is starting to persecute you, they say, go somewhere else and continue to worship God in a country of freedom.

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ECYC 2011 Seminar: Comfort Zone

Illuminating the World with His Glory

Transcript

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Parts

In the Shadow of the Lamb

57m

A Double Golden Cup for Every Unclean Spirit

58m

Come Out

1h

Illuminating the World with His Glory

1h

Sound Doctrine