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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Royce Bailey

The Last Generation

Isn't it great to have the Advent hope, to have Jesus in your life?

And it's so exciting that I can share with you some facts that I think are rather important for our salvation.

It's the Bible Belt And it is not unusual that I can easily talk to my patients about faith and about what they believe.

I get to talk to my fellow colleagues that are not Adventists and get to learn where they're coming from.

And I'm gonna share a little of that with you today.

And some of that comes back to what I have outlined here, the last generation.

Well, in Zephaniah 3, 13, the remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity.

Well, that's when you're in heaven, right?

Nor speak lies, neither shall they have deceitful tongue, for found in their mouth they shall feed and they will lie down and none shall make afraid.

And in 2 Peter 3, 10 to 14, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief.

The heavens will disappear with a roar and the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Well, we have this wonderful rock that is sitting out in front by the breezeway in by the library and it was in Battle Creek for many many years and it was transported here from Battle Creek in 1955 and my mother got a picture of my dad and me in front of this rock when it was first presented here.

And here I am during match week, and it's the American Medical Missionary College.

So when you walk by there, please take a look at that rock.

We were doing the cadavers, and I had a Crohn's flare.

I bled out, and my first transfusion of my whole life was right here at the medical center in the Cloverleaf.

So they could get back to medical school and get back to learning.

You know my story of how I almost died, the General Conference put in a video, and I would like to share that with you.

There are few Christians today who do not know the name Judy Walter Bailey and the peaceful sound of her heavenly harp.

He told me, he said, anyone in this much pain needs to be dead.

But very few of her listeners realize what Judy and her physician husband, Royce Bailey, have been through.

Being a physician, I could look at my chart and I said this person that's in this chart should be dead and that was after I got better.

Bailey's brush with death has touched and changed many lives.

And so if you go through a trial realize that it's it's going to give you a greater faith in the Lord.

Bailey's faith has helped me to realize that I can also have that type of faith.

Bailey talk about his experience with people and I've seen how it's touched their lives.

To look at Royce now, you'd never know anything was ever wrong.

He's the director of the ICU at Park Ridge Hospital in Fletcher, North Carolina near Asheville, where He cares for patients every day.

He also runs a busy practice right next door, with all the pressures and challenges of being a busy cardiologist.

So, what brought Royce face to face with death?

He's had Crohn's disease, a colon wasting disease, since he was 19 years old.

Yet, though in constant pain, few people ever even knew he was ill.

And he's the type that the glass is always half full.

The only way you knew that something was not quite right was that he sat in his office and was very quiet.

Judy explains how the trial of their faith began.

I was having an extra close relationship with the Lord, closer than I had had up to that point.

And 1 morning during devotion, my personal time with the Lord, I told him, I said, you know, I think you could test me and try me and I think I would really still love you if you took away this house or, you know, I really think that I would still be faithful to you.

And it was just days later that 2 o'clock in the morning, I heard a faint little voice in the bathroom and it was Royce and he was saying, Lovey, come and get me.

And I went in there and he was in a pool of blood.

The Crohn's disease had caused Royce's bowel to perforate or tear open, and he was rushed to Park Ridge Hospital, where he had emergency surgery to remove his entire colon.

Certified surgical technologist Teresa Barnwell explains how Royce's bowel looked.

It was it was more like a I can't explain it.

When he came out He literally looked like the Goodyear blimp.

Complications from the perforated colon were sending Royce and Judy on a journey through the valley of the shadow of death.

And at this, you know, during this time, I was pleading with God to keep him alive, to give him a blood pressure, to help him to breathe on his own and not be on a respirator.

And it didn't seem God was answering my prayer.

And we know that it's true that life is real and so is death.

But if we face both with a trust in the Lord.

And I remembered I told him that he could give me any test and I still thought I would be faithful to him.

And I said, now wait a minute, God, I was talking about the house.

I said, I have to be willing to give up everything for God.

As tough as it is, and as desperate as it is for you, that if you could just grab hold of that hand of faith, God said He's there for you.

And I'm here living proof to tell you that God is there.

And I said, you know, We've got 2 precious little girls and they need a father and I need a husband.

There's no way that I should be sitting here in front of you being able to describe all of this what God has done.

And I will accept whatever your will is, but keep him alive.

I trust in you and you have said that you know the end from the beginning and if we would believe that, that we would have it, when it's all said and done, no other way but the way that you have allowed.

Okay, God, I know you will supply all of our needs and I know you won't let me down, but keep him alive." And I went back and forth and back and forth struggling with the Lord.

And we talked about the faith we were to have and about the experience of the biblical characters.

That's a great, you know, ennobling experience to go through.

And it was hours later that I finally said, okay, okay.

In my mind, I put Royce in a package, and I covered it with beautiful wrapping paper, put a lovely ribbon on the top and I can just see myself handing him over to God saying, okay, He is yours and I will accept whatever you allow." And it was minutes later, minutes later, that Roy started maintaining his own blood pressure.

And he started being able to be weaned off of the respirator.

I was so sick, had no energy, was so ill that I couldn't even watch TV.

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The Last Generation

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