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Living Hope SDA Church

Christian Martin

The Power of Grace

As we meditate on God's Word, my message today is entitled, The Power of Grace.

Father in Heaven, we just want to pause to acknowledge you once more.

And now, Lord, we we turn our attention to your holy word that you would speak to our hearts.

May we know something more about the necessity of the power of grace at work in our lives.

It took place at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee.

And I was a freshman there in the dormitory in Talz Hall.

And as a theology major, we had our network.

And this particular evening, the call went out among some of my fellow theology majors that there was some strange behavior happening in 1 of the rooms on the third floor.

And instantly I knew that this was no joke, this was serious.

And so I made my way down the hall together with a few others and we went inside the room and sure enough there was 1 of the students that we didn't know very well, but we saw, we saw the guy, you know, we're in the dorm.

But rather than being extroverted and loud and whatnot, he was now completely still.

And as he sat there, as he lay there, they began to describe the strange behavior that they had seen.

In fact, 1 of them said that it sounded like, and it gave him goosebumps, but it sounded like that at 1 point he spoke, but not with his own voice.

And so right away we figured that there was possibly some demonic activity going on, some demon possession.

And as we prayed, we noticed that his head began to shake back and forth.

And so, this is way beyond a freshman theology major's experience.

I knew what I was signing up for, but it wasn't quite like this.

And so, I don't remember whose idea it was, but we soon agreed that we better call some reinforcements.

And The reinforcements was 1 of our theology professors that we all respected well.

We knew he lived within a mile of the campus so we said he'll come if we call him and we did and he came.

He walked inside the room and later, fast forward, later we were told by this student that, man, let me tell you something.

When he walked in, he said, I literally felt a heat wave come into the room.

It was like the temperature just shot up.

We literally felt a heat wave coming into the room when he walked in.

Well, by the grace of God, we were on our knees, we prayed over him.

There was a moment where He shook a bit, his eyes rolled all the way back, but we just prayed more intensely.

And by the grace of God, that night he was delivered.

But I'll never forget what he shared in a testimony when he told us that, yes, it was like there was a heat wave.

That's sure enough, the angels of glory, the angels of light, even Jesus Christ himself is often introduced in Scripture as having a fiery presence.

That that heat wave was nothing more than the presence of God with us in that room.

And I'll tell you right now that If our eyes could be opened to see angels, if our eyes could be opened to see demonic beings battling it out among themselves, we would be utterly stunned.

Our minds can't even wrap our mind around what would be seen in the unseen realm.

We would see images that would never be erased from our memory for as long as we live, sealed in our minds if we could only see with our eyes.

We would see angels of light flying at high speeds, leading to individuals who need a way of escape so that they would not fall into temptation.

If our eyes could see the unseen, we would soon recognize that it's spiritual warfare that we're in.

When are we going to fully come to realize that?

If not already, that we're in the thick of spiritual warfare.

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to what?

But I'll take it a step further than the hymn writer.

This is wartime, spiritual warfare that has to be taken seriously, Pathfinders.

We need to take this seriously, so seriously.

We have to have discernment more than ever before.

We need to know so that we won't unnecessarily, emphasis on unnecessarily, put ourselves on dangerous ground.

But something needs to draw our attention to the boundaries that can be in place for us not to cross the line and put ourselves on dangerous ground.

Something needs to tell us that you can go this far, but be careful.

If you cross that line, you're going to put yourself on dangerous ground.

Every Pathfinder is very familiar with it.

Many of us are too, whether you were in Pathfinders growing up years ago, whether you're a parent or even a staff member that pops in the meetings and listens in and hears the Pathfinders repeat the pledge and the law.

What is this pledge and law that we speak of?

Well, the pledge and law is found, repeated in every meeting that Pathfinders have.

The pledge, which is part of the presentation, part of their pledge and law, is a commitment, is a commitment which includes the Pathfinder Law.

If we could have our media give us some attention to the slides and help me advance them, I would appreciate it.

It's an introduction to what will follow.

You see the pledge as precise and serious as it is, it includes the Pathfinder Law.

Why do we need to reinforce this in our minds?

Why do we as pathfinders give this so much attention?

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The Power of Grace

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