GYC SE 2011: A New Beginning

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GYC Southeast

GYC SE 2011 Plenary Meetings

John Bradshaw

Reality Check

You know, you hear speakers say at times, it's really a privilege to be here.

And I can tell you tonight that I believe it's really a privilege to be here.

And I am very thankful that I have been afforded this opportunity to be in your midst tonight.

I can't see it because it's 1 of the gifts Father Time gives you.

And if you, like I once did, look at people about my age and say, why do they squint all the time?

If you haven't learned that by experience, there's a good chance that you will.

And I don't wish that upon you, but it's just a fact.

So if we're still here in about an hour and a half, I'll be looking at the clock probably thinking, oh I've still got 20 minutes left because I can't see the clock very well.

So pray for me brothers and sisters, pray for me.

I know we're here for a great reason, we're here to take a few nights to look at the Bible and be revived and be encouraged.

And I'm gonna confess a couple of things as we begin.

I believe that the Bible is a book that encourages and I believe that the God of heaven is a God that brings revival to our lives.

However, I believe, I guess I have a little bias, a little prejudice, I believe that the revival really happens when the people and the Bible get in connection with each other.

I think there is power in the Word of God, that's what I think.

And I would like to say that I have learned that from experience.

Well, I know that over the next few days I'll have lots of time to talk about this and that and to get off topic and waffle and show you pictures of my kids and all of that, but I'm gonna try to make a good impression by starting right at the beginning and finishing early.

So allow me to pray and we'll get into the Bible and expect God to bless us tonight.

Father in heaven, I'm going to start that again.

Father in heaven, thank you that we can be together in this place this evening.

I thank you tonight that we can come to you in the name of Jesus, your Son.

I believe that each person who is here tonight has come anticipating a blessing.

And so I pray that you would pour out your spirit in a way that would be blessed.

And Lord, not to speak in code, I am asking that you would be here personally.

And that you would clear the distractions from our mind, that you would give us a kind of a laser-like focus, that we would have clarity for the next 30 minutes or so, that our minds would be gripped by you, and that when we go from here we will go feeling like we have been blessed knowing that we have been benefited confident that your word is truly the word and certain that we can lean on you knowing you can be leaned upon so please Lord be heard I pray that you would not rely on the frailty of fallen human instrumentality but that you would verily speak in a voice that we would recognize and elicit from us a response that will be translated into a lifetime change.

In Jesus' name, please join me in saying amen.

In a previous life, I worked as a radio broadcaster.

After my university days, I worked on several radio stations, and I was the guy you'd hear in the morning telling the jokes and playing the records, CDs, As a matter of fact, when I began, I was largely record, so there you go.

Playing the music, giving away the money, and running the contests, and all that.

And while I was working in radio, there was a band that we began to play on our radio stations named Milli Vanilli.

I don't expect that anyone will have heard of Milli Vanilli but if you have bonus points give you extra credit.

There was a German music producer whose name was Frank, oh that's what happened earlier, whose name was Frank Farian.

And Frank Farian assembled a group of musicians, session musicians they were, and he discovered that he had put together a really good sound.

It was a really good sound except he had a problem.

The musicians were session musicians and they didn't look much like poster pin-up boys and girls.

Well, boys, as a matter of fact, they were men.

They didn't look like the sort of guys, well, let's put it this way.

It's going to be hard to sell millions of records to swooning teenage girls if the musicians are balding, fat, middle-aged men.

We pull together a group that looks good.

Their names were Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan.

They were both very good looking, so I'm told, and they could dance very well.

And, and, they had the added talent that they could act.

So while they were on stage, the music would play, and they would dance, and they would lip sync, they would mime like they were singing the songs.

And you probably know as well as I do that That practice is very widespread.

I sat on a plane the other day with a guy who was 1 of Madonna's backup dancers, or even front-up dancers.

He said, that's me and my buddy dancing with Madonna, and there they were.

And I said, so does Madonna sing live, or does she lip-sync?

It depends, sometimes live, sometimes lip-syncing.

He said, it's very hard to sing well while you're dancing.

And these guys danced a lot and it was always lip synced because they couldn't sing.

So, Milli Vanilli was born with Rob and Fab up front and the records started to sell.

I should just say it with confidence and trust that you won't Google it.

So in 1988, they even won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

They sold millions of records and millions of albums and won the Grammy Award.

But now it was time for their second album to come out, their second album.

And because these poor artists were lacking adequate self-expression they went to Frank Farian and they said Frank we need to sing on the next album and Frank laughed and said well that'll never happen and they said Frank we have to sing yeah I mean we are artists man and we want to be on the record actually doing the art.

And Frank said, boys, that's just not even within the scope of reality.

And as a matter of fact, he was a smart man.

When I was living in England, I heard 1 of these fellows on a television talk show singing, and it was bad.

I mean, it was so bad, Frank got it right.

He said, there's no way in the world I could let you sing.

They said Frank if you don't let us sing we will go to the world and tell the world that it has all been a hoax.

And he picked up his phone right in front of him and he called a journalist and as the phone was ringing he said I'll beat you to it and he announced to the news of the world that's not the newspaper that's the collective term he announced to the news organizations of the world that Milli Vanilli wasn't really Milli Vanilli.

I believe they were even asked to give back their Grammy award.

Now, the boys decided that they would try to make it on their own, didn't work out.

1 of them, as I told you, tried to ply his trade, but he was very bad, and he couldn't sing, and didn't get any gigs, and didn't record any more records.

The Prodigal World

Last night I think we got off to a good start.

I'm really just so thankful to be here this week.

You're aware that SALT exists now on the campus of Southern Adventist University and just by way of brief explanation when I arrived at It Is Written almost a year ago I arrived thinking man there's 1 thing we ought to be doing and that's getting involved in evangelism training and Bible worker training and as we met as a staff we identified that as a priority and it was something we wanted to do and we wanted to be involved and on the front lines but we weren't and we wondered how it was going to be and we thought it was God's will and we knew it was something we had to do but what do you do I mean you build buildings in Southern California what do you do and anyhow providentially God has led us at it is written to partner with you all at Southern Adventist University.

And SALT is the result, SALT is the result.

And we're just thrilled and I've been privileged to be able to participate in some of the SALT classes and see that God is working greatly.

So great stuff and the SALT team is involved in an evangelistic series right now carrying on at Chattanooga First so as you have cause to pray for stuff if you would remember the work that is going on there I believe your prayers would be effective and appreciated.

This week we are talking about a new beginning a new beginning revival and reformation and experiencing the new beginning that God wants us to have.

You know, I'm not too proud to admit that I just need to increase the font size here.

So, maybe that'll work and maybe it won't.

So anyhow, without any further ado, which is just a great word isn't it, no more ado, let's pray and expect God to bless us as we gather around the Bible tonight.

Our Father in heaven, I thank you that we can come to you tonight.

As we come, we come here, in fact we come to your throne of grace, cognizant of some realities.

Another of them is that He, you, have promised to send your Holy Spirit an answer to our request.

We're bringing you a check tonight and we're cashing it and we're asking you to pay us out you have promised us the gift of your Holy Spirit on top of that you've said ask and you shall receive in another place you said this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us so we're asking believing and knowing that you hear us and you'll give us what we ask.

We know that we pray in accordance with your will because it is your will for us to have your Holy Spirit.

So tonight it's not really I think a matter of you being willing or unwilling to pour your spirit out but please would you touch our hearts so that as your Holy Spirit circulates in this place and looks for impressionable souls and malleable spirits, I ask that you would make us of those so that while the raindrops of your spirit are falling around us we will not be left untouched touch us please and bless us as we come to the Bible we ask in Jesus name I invite you to say with me with some enthusiasm amen oh 1 of my favorite times of the year.

It's not every year, it's not every year.

But maybe even it's something I enjoy more than autumn, and that's the election season.

This is when they have the debates and they argue and this guy's a villain and that woman's a psycho.

And this other guy, the pizza guy and so on.

I find that the election season just brings out the best in people.

If you believe that, you believe anything.

But come back with me in time to an era when the majority of us here tonight were not born.

The year 1960 was an election year, you understand.

Dwight Eisenhower had had 2 terms in the White House.

And now his vice president, Richard Nixon, can anybody tell me his middle name, please?

Richard Milhouse Nixon was seeking to run for the Well, he was not seeking, he was running.

He was running for the presidency and was seeking the office of president.

Now on the other side of the fence, the political fence, was a young senator from Massachusetts.

And the political campaigning was intense and it was in earnest.

They were serious, both men feeling like they should assume the role of the presidency.

There was much at stake, there always is in a nation like this.

President Eisenhower felt like he ought to weigh in and talk about who he felt was the best qualified, the best qualified candidate to be the President of the United States.

And so allow me, if you would, to read, I couldn't memorize this in a hundred years, to read what he said.

He said, Richard Nixon is superbly experienced, maturely conditioned in the critical affairs of the world.

For 8 years, He has been a full participant in the deliberations that have produced the great decisions affecting our nation's security and have kept us at peace.

He has shared more intimately in the great affairs of government than any vice president in all our history.

He has traveled the world studying firsthand the hopes and needs of more than 50 nations.

He knows in person the leaders of those nations, knowledge of immeasurable value to a future president by all odds.

Richard Nixon is the best qualified man to be the next president of the United States.

And really, those were some serious qualifications.

They were so good that some years later they would help him to defeat Lyndon Baines Johnson and actually become the president.

But in 1960, in spite of his impressive qualifications, in spite of spending 8 years as the vice president, in spite of traveling the world and seeking to bring peace and entering into high-end negotiations, in spite of what are clearly tremendous qualifications.

Vice President Nixon did not become the President of the United States in 1960.

He did not become President even though he was a graduate of Duke University's School of Law, even though he was a lieutenant commander in the Navy during World War II, even though he was a congressman, even though he was 1 of the youngest vice presidents in this country's history.

You see, all these and other impressive qualifications were not enough to sway the populace, to convince the minds of the voting public of the United States of America.

Kennedy was instead elected president, and the rest is history.

You couldn't look at that man's curriculum vitae and deny that he was qualified.

On paper, you'd have to reckon this man has the right stuff.

But his qualifications were enough to see him elected to the highest office in this country.

Now there was a person in the Bible who was able to boast about his credentials as well.

He became known to us better as the Apostle Paul.

He wrote a letter 1 day to some friends, friends who lived in a city of Philippi, the city of Philippi, that's in Greece near the Aegean Sea these days.

Paul was able to write to them and recite a pretty impressive list of credentials, demonstrating that when it came to being righteous, when it came to being religious, when it came to meeting the demands of the religious strictures, if I may put it that way, of the day, Paul was qualified.

Here's what he said in Philippians 3 and verse 4, and you can read along with me if you have the Bible with you.

Paul said in Philippians 3 and verse 4, and I start at the beginning of the second sentence, if any other man thinks that he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, I'm all.

If there is somebody Who thinks that for some reason he might be able to trust in his own Qualifications I am telling you I can trust in mine more than him verse 5 Starts to talk about how good he was circumcised the eighth day That was in accordance with Jewish custom.

Better than that, of the tribe of Benjamin.

Now, I've wondered why he would brag about that.

He wasn't from the tribe of Judah, nor was he a Levite, and it seems like those were the heavyweights, but Benjamin was the tribe from which came King Saul, the first king.

This fellow was likely named after King Saul.

And so he's saying, man, I'm from the right place.

I'm from a tribe that was high enough in God's pecking order to be selected to be the tribe from whence came the first king.

A New Beginning: The Power of His Word

Well, first I want to say good evening again, because that music wasn't meant to lull you to sleep.

I'm glad you're here tonight, and I tell you what, I'm thrilled to be here.

I just genuinely am, and people sometimes say that when it's not true, but I'm saying it when it is true.

I'm so glad to be here, this wonderful, wonderful institution of higher learning, and glad to be here with you and the GYC Southeast team and so on.

You know before when I was on the phone with my wife and I said, can you listen for a moment?

I just meant to ask, are you able at this moment to listen for a few seconds?

That's just in case you thought I was sounding offhand.

I hope you will avail yourself of the opportunities to be blessed this weekend with GYC Southeast.

There are some tremendous seminars, very interesting, all of them tremendously inspiring and upward pointing.

I just want to take this long to tell you a couple of things we're doing at It Is Written.

1 brand new thing is a devotional a daily online devotional 60 seconds long we call it every word and I want to encourage you to think very hard about going to the it is written Website, I don't need to tell you the web address because you could just find it any number of ways, but it is, itiswritten.com.

And right in the front and center, you'll see this devotional.

You can play it, and then you can even subscribe to receive it in your inbox every day.

It's only 60 seconds long, and there are a couple of reasons why I recommend this to you 1 You might well be blessed.

I watch it every day and sometimes even I'm blessed and then If you see something that you like and you think well I can share this with somebody else All you do is hit forward and send it to someone else.

Every word and then you might like to check that out and even forward it to others.

And something too I wouldn't mind if you did was if you do that Facebook thing, if you were to follow us on Facebook that would mean a great deal because there are things that often we want people to know about and it's the easiest way of letting people know and then you can know what's taking place and it is written.

Some exciting stuff, we've been in evangelism ministry for over half a century.

Coming up in January, we hold a full series of Bible meetings in Las Vegas.

If you've never been to Las Vegas, don't feel bad.

But I've only ever been as a Christian, thank the Lord.

I haven't been a Christian all my life and I'm glad I didn't find Las Vegas at the wrong time.

It's an attractive place for almost all the wrong reasons, but we're gonna be there sharing Jesus come January, and it's gonna be tremendous.

And maybe I'll even tell you about a couple of them as I speak tonight.

And so that's that, And then we've got something planned for Kettering, Dayton, rather Dayton, Ohio next year.

And we'll stuff in Europe and Charlotte, North Carolina the year after and Arizona the year after.

Some big things and God is doing a great work.

And if you haven't seen the It Is Written television program in some time, The week of Halloween and the week before Halloween especially, 2 good programs.

We shot them in a cemetery on the subject of death.

What I really was hoping for is that there'd be a freshly dug grave at the cemetery.

And I just thought we could do some interesting things inside the grave.

Anyway, for reasons outside of our control, there were no fresh graves.

Anyway, I think the setting is going to be interesting anyway, and not at all distasteful, and I think something interesting.

Well, we're here tonight to open the Bible and study the Word of God.

My prayer is that it will mean something to you and that you will be affected positively and impacted powerfully by the Word of God.

So allow me just to empty my pockets here so that I'm not any more distracted than I otherwise might be.

Father in heaven, thank you tonight that we can come to you in the name of Jesus.

You've blessed us with the opportunity to know you through your Son, Jesus.

You know, Lord, for many of us, we've known Jesus or the name of Jesus so long and we've been raised in the right way and doing the right things, but tonight we've got to meet you again.

Your Holy Spirit must cut through whatever it needs to cut through.

So please give our minds, our hearts, our attention, our focus, whatever it is we need so that we can connect with you in this place tonight.

I thank you for every person who is here and might we go from here blessed and determined to be close to you.

We ask you in Jesus' name, please would you say with me, Amen.

Ninety-three year old lady named Emma Krapzer was in her own home minding her own business.

The police say that what she probably did was arrive home after an evening of bingo, arrive home while her home was being burgled.

Her home was being burgled and this dear 93 year old lady named Emma came home during the burglary.

The police said that the man they thought had burgled that house, Dewey Bozella, the police said Dewey Bozella murdered Mrs.

Well, Dewey said he never did, but it was very clear that somebody did.

She had done nothing to warrant being so violently offended, but there she was, dead, and the police believed they had their man.

Dewey said, I never did that, and he protested and he maintained his innocence.

I don't know what took so long, but in 1983, Dewey was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.

And they shipped him off to Sing Sing Prison in New York State.

During his time in prison, during his appeal process and all of that, the prosecutors or some legal officials said to him, we will let you out.

We will send you home for time served if you just admit you killed this woman.

Admit you killed her and you'll walk." And he said, I won't admit to having killed her because I didn't.

They said, don't you know what this means?

And he said, I would rather stay here than admit to being a murderer when I am not 1.

The Innocence Project got a hold of the facts of his case and started working in his behalf.

And in October of last year, after 26 years in prison, 20 years after he refused to talk so he could walk, Dewey Bozella was set free.

Dwayne Lemon

A Mighty Long Way

Let me say good morning and happy Sabbath to everyone.

It is a privilege to be here with you all and I'm trusting that God has some very important messages and very special blessings that he wants to give to each and every 1 of us.

And I'm believing by the grace of God that it is through the power of testimonies that we learn how to overcome the wicked 1.

That's why we have that promise in the wonderful book of Revelation chapter 12 where it tells us that they overcame and it was by the blood of the Lamb but I thank God it also says by the word of their testimony and I pray that ultimately that these 2 ingredients the blood of the Lamb and The word of our testimony will cause us to love not our lives unto the death, so that we may have total and complete victory.

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Series

GYC SE 2011 Plenary Meetings

A Mighty Long Way

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Reality Check

48m

The Prodigal World

59m

A New Beginning: The Power of His Word

58m

A Mighty Long Way

1h 15m

Surrender

1h

Back From the Dead

55m

Sound Doctrine