ARME 7: Waialua, HI - Nov 2011

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ARME Bible Camp

Doug Batchelor

No Turning Back

Boy, they really know how to sing in Hawaii.

And matter of fact, it was 22 or 3 years ago I did a series of meetings in Micronesia, and the theme song was Jesus is coming soon.

I kind of leaned over and whispered and said, you let me know if a church opens up somewhere in Hawaii.

I told Karen, I've been talking to each other.

I think the Lord's going to come before my hair turns gray.

1 thing I want to tell you about, and it's actually connected with the message this morning.

Amazing Facts is going to be doing something I think is very important.

There are way more ex-Seventh-day Adventist Christians in Hawaii, in North America, than there are practicing.

There is a tremendous harvest field of people who once knew the Lord but got discouraged.

Elder Wilson was kind enough to tell us we get uplink from the General Conference Worship Auditorium.

And the beginning of the year, January 13, 14, 15, Amazing Facts is going to be doing a brief series, 4 meetings, called Reclaim Your Faith.

And we're directing it especially to people that once knew the message or were once baptized or went through the schools and for whatever reason have become disconnected.

Now how many of you know somebody in that category?

What if we had a program that you could bring them to?

Bring them to your house, turn on the Hope Channel, and just say, would you come have some soup with me and some bread?

And I want to just watch a one-hour program with you.

And then just pray that God will talk to their hearts and invite them back.

There's a big, big group of people that knew the message that need to just hear the Father's voice calling them home.

So please pray for that program, Reclaiming Your Faith.

Now that ties in with the message today, which is really dealing with not turning back.

We were talking about soldiers yesterday.

I told you I might have to make this part 2.

If you're going to be a soldier, you need to have resolve and tenacity and determination to do what your commander has asked you to do.

Why don't you pray with me just a moment more?

Father in this beautiful Sabbath day, we thank you for the clouds and the breeze.

And we just now pray that the breeze of your Spirit will blow through this place and especially our hearts.

Speak to us, Lord, encourage us, help us be more like Jesus.

As a result of our time worshiping you and opening your word, we pray in his name, amen.

I'm inspired by the stories I often read in history of the military exploits and the bravery of soldiers.

And you've studied the Civil War, for example.

How many times, it doesn't matter north or south, the commanders would send their men charging into an absolutely withering blizzard of enemy fire and they knew the likelihood that they would be mowed down was about 70%, might not die, but they were at least going to get wounded, and they went.

A lot of stories where people went on what they thought were suicide missions, but they went.

Now, 1 of the keys to being brave and going forward as a soldier and not being afraid of what the enemy might throw at you is if you have resigned yourself to the fact that you're already dead.

Once you're already dead, you have nothing to fear from the enemy.

So, you commit yourself, you say, I am going to take up my cross and follow Christ and if we're crucified with Christ, then nothing that the devil can throw at us and no temptation.

If you're dead, then everything gets a lot easier.

1 of the stories in particular that is encouraging to me, it's really a fantastic story.

And if I can fantasize, could I go back in time to some different part of history, where would I go back to?

I would like to go back and be part of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Now I know here in Hawaii you probably want to go back to Captain Cook.

I'd love to have landed when he did and see what it looked like back then.

But first on my list is if I could be on that expedition, Thomas Jefferson had just bought the Louisiana purchase from Napoleon.

They had just expanded the size of the United States by about 1 third.

The problem was they did not know what they had bought because very few people, just a few trappers had been west of the Mississippi in the Missouri.

And so Jefferson got together what they called the Corps of Discovery, led by 2 captains that had been proven to be very brave and determined men.

And he sent them with a group of about 40 men and said, I want you to cross the continent.

There's no bus, there's no freeway, there's no interstate, there's no railroad.

Maybe we'll find that the Missouri River somehow connects with a lake that then connects with the Pacific, you will find the Northwest Passage and that would be 1 of the greatest discoveries because you can connect the oceans of Europe and Asia.

They really thought that maybe somehow you could take the Mississippi or Missouri and connect it to the ocean.

But beyond that, they said, we need to know what the land is like.

And they were given these gifts and things to meet the different natives they would meet along the way.

They spent all day catching a prairie dog and they actually, that prairie dog survived and made it back to Jefferson.

So then they took off, 1804, took them 2 years.

The rigors and the hardships they encountered were phenomenal.

Keep in mind, they had to paddle upstream for about a year and a half.

Sometimes they had to take all of their gear, unload it, and portage some little waterfall.

At 1 point, when they had to portage Great Falls in Missouri, they understood from the Indians that it was going to, they calculated it was going to take them maybe a day to carry their boats around.

They had to drag their boats up the hill, stepping on prickly pear cactus for a month with all their gear, all their ammunition, all the samples, out in the sun.

At night, they'd patch their moccasins and sandals again.

Wintertime, got stuck in the mountains, ran out of food, ate the horses.

All along the way, it wouldn't have taken much for them to just turn the boat around and paddle downstream.

But they went on because their commander, the president, had said, cross the continent.

Boy, but they saw some things that were incredible too.

They saw land flowing with milk and honey.

And I wish I could have been on that expedition, not for the hardships, but just to see some of the things they saw unspoiled.

Took them a year and a half, and finally when they paddled down the Columbia River and they got to the Pacific Ocean, Meriwether Lewis wrote in his journal, oh the joy, after a year and a half of trying to get to the ocean they'd never been to before.

And you know, it's interesting, you read the story in the diary, when they finally left the Missouri and started getting out into the Great Plains, 1 of the soldiers, I think it may have been Patrick Gass, Patrick Gass by himself was amazing because He actually not only survived the Lewis and Clark expedition and numerous Indian wars, by the Civil War, he was 93, missing 1 eye, and he offered to enlist.

He had been in the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Can you imagine knowing Daniel Boone and Thomas Jefferson and all of these characters, all the way to Davy Crockett, and then seeing all that change in history?

But when they finally made it, oh, I started telling you, Patrick Gass, he wrote, when we finally got to the Great Plains, he said, we had never dreamed that there was that much expanse.

He said, you gotta keep in mind that those of us who grew up on the East Coast, you could leave the Atlantic Ocean and a squirrel could hop from tree to tree until he got to St.

He said, we just couldn't imagine a country with no trees.

So they saw wonders they just couldn't even imagine, but they finally reached their destination.

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No Turning Back

Transcript

Parent Conference

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