Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The Key to Finishing the Work

Oleg Lotca

When Heaven is Ready

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp, held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father, as we are reading your Word, oh Lord, we know that without your Spirit, even the Bible is not going to be helpful to us.

You know that our minds might be racing to and fro.

We might be tired, we might be distracted, but Father this morning we're asking have mercy on us and speak to us in clear tones.

So that by the end, not only of this topic here, but by the end of the camp meeting, we would all say truly the Lord has been with us in the name of Jesus amen by the way before we read I would like to thank everyone who has spoken before did you hear this morning's topic, Pastor Don.

And I hope you can go and watch the recording, Because his talk this morning was just powerful.

Those who were here, who was here this morning?

Those little groups there and discussing and what are you doing with the message that you're hearing?

Are you going to just sit on it or are you going to do something about it?

So anyway, so I'm reading there, sitting out there in nature and reading, and after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was what?

So you have to understand the context of when I'm reading this.

I'm reading this during George Floyd's protests and all of that mess that was happening.

COVID on 1 side, all of those protests and all of that and nobody knows where this is going.

So my mind, just like all of you, thinking Lord where is this going?

And all of a sudden I'm thinking, have we been sitting and waiting for too long?

And is it now going to be just shut and from now on it's just going to be tough and difficult?

And as I read this Bible verse, all of a sudden, in the midst of the darkness that was all over the world, it was a darkness, the mandates, And all of those things that we don't want to go into now, but it just was, it was dark, people dying, people afraid, people are all sitting in their houses, protests.

And all of a sudden I'm reading, wow, John sees that at the end of time, God will have a people that will rise up and the earth will be what?

So it's not all lost for the planet Earth.

There is a prophecy, and this in my mind, this is the top prophecy that we have in the Bible.

That God's people will rise up, and they are represented here as an angel and they will lighten the entire earth with God's glory, the knowledge of God.

And I started reading all the Ellen White quotes.

Everything that she has to say about this other angel and this is not 1 of the 3 angels you know.

It's the angel that comes and unites to the 3 angels' messages, but she says that this is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and now God's people with power go and proclaim the message.

I said, this is just so much hope there for God's people.

And because this was in the context when everybody was hiding in their homes, maybe doing Zoom or something.

So when I was reading, I said, Lord, from now on, I want to dedicate my life to look at all of the conditions for receiving the Holy Spirit, and by your grace, comply with all of the conditions, so that my family and I, and my church and I, will be ready to receive the Holy Spirit and to go forward and enlighten the earth with his glory.

To us is offered the great and measureless gift of the Holy Spirit.

It is not because of any restriction on the part of God that the reaches of his grace do not flow earthward to man.

If all were willing to receive, all would become filled with the Spirit.

Watch here, when they'll turn their attention to what is true and living and real, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit in strong heavenly currents will be poured upon the church.

So there are conditions, there are some conditions for this outpouring of the Holy Spirit and this week what we'll do every morning We will look at some conditions to fulfill because let's understand this correctly.

Our theme, by the way, Pastor Justin and everyone else, this theme, He must increase.

It's so good that probably we should keep it for about 5 years or 10.

Because I mean this is all and now at the end of time, this is all we need.

Jesus to increase and what we read in Revelation 18.1, that's the epitome of Jesus increasing in his people so much that he now shines through his people to the world and the earth is lightened with God's glory.

Never, Ellen White talks, that even more than when Jesus was here on the earth, God's character will be seen.

And you and I have the privilege to be alive at this time.

But friends, what happens is we get enthused during camp meeting, we get excited, and we walk out and we say, whoo.

And then we go back home and we find a stack of bills, and all of that.

And we find something that's broken at home and we go to our church and we start dealing with all the things that we're dealing and all of that and we forget and we get distracted until next camp meeting.

By God's grace, this year doesn't have to be that way.

Just a few weeks ago, I was in Spain, and I don't know about you, but I just like trains.

I remember 2 of our kids and us, we took a train from Moscow to Moldova.

That's about a 2 and a half or 3 day journey on the train.

So I was there in Spain and I was anticipating to take a trip from Madrid to Barcelona on this bullet train.

And I started researching a little bit about those trains.

I wanted to know how fast they were going and all of that.

The top speed that that train goes at, it's 217 miles per hour.

How many of you would love to ride that, kids?

That would be pretty neat, you know, just seeing everything flying past you in the windows there.

The travel time for those 386 miles is 2 hours and 30 minutes, pretty nice.

The cost of 1 of those trains is close or about $800 million.

So, Very interesting, you know, I was there a few weeks ago and I have family there, and they were all talking about what happened on April 29.

You probably remember, you might not, but everybody in Spain will remember that day for the rest of their lives.

There was a general shutdown, power shutdown, power off, power outage, blackout.

These bullet trains, all of a sudden, they were going at 200 and something miles an hour and all of a sudden they just stopped and everybody was like wait what do we do now we're in the middle of nowhere what do we do now okay emergency generators those came on but that would not move the train.

That was only enough to keep the doors opening up and the AC for a little bit.

And it sounds like the electricity is out in the entire country.

Actually, they had to get off the train and walk, walk onto the freeway.

And they, some people were just catching a ride.

The Ultimate Rescue Operation, Part 1

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

Father in heaven, we want to thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today in this seminar.

We thank you, Father, that you've already blessed us this day.

And we pray that as we listen to the words that you have sent your servant to share with us, that they will speak to our hearts and help us to grow in Christ, that we can be all 1 and unified and ready to share the message to this dying world.

We thank you Lord for sending your spirit upon us.

So the title for Today's talk is the ultimate rescue operation.

Yesterday, do you remember what we talked yesterday about?

Yes, yesterday we talked about the main subject was, and the goal was to highlight the importance of the Holy Spirit.

It's almost redundant because who doesn't know that we need the Holy Spirit?

So why do we have to keep talking about it?

Well, we need to keep talking and praying about it until we have the fullness of the Spirit.

And there are aspects that we will be catching here and there that you'll say, you know what?

Maybe, just maybe, we did not understand something still, and that's why we have not received the fullness of the Spirit.

So the purpose of this talks today included is to discover something else what are the Conditions for receiving the Holy Spirit and I'll be putting some emphasis on certain things You know when you read your Bible or the Spirit of Prophecy and you highlight Something do you do that?

What does that mean that everything else is?

Not important No, it doesn't mean that it just that portion caught your attention or you need it for something specific.

So The danger is when you highlight something specific for somebody to think that that means the other things are not important.

God has a package deal for us as a people.

We need to do many different things, but in this talk, we'll just highlight some specific things.

So yesterday we talked about that train, you remember?

And the train, when the train, The train in itself, it's a wonderful idea.

It's a perfect design, great thing to take people or load from point A to point B.

But if the train runs out of fuel or power, what happens?

And then as a church, we're saying that we invented to push the train.

And the train was not designed to be pushed around.

It only functions with the power of the Holy Spirit.

But I'm always afraid to say the power of the Holy Spirit because of all the misinterpretations.

So I want to say the person of the Holy Spirit that gives power to the witness that we go forward to do.

Let me just read, but before we read the quote, let's pray 1 more time.

Father in heaven, as we read the inspired writings, would you please inspire us through them?

We might be tired from the night, but would you please speak in very specific tone to each 1 of us.

That by the end of this presentation We would all understand a little better what you want to do with us Individually and us as a people in the name of Jesus.

I think this 1 is a very very very important 1 It's rather large and I'm always afraid to put large quotes because I might lose some of you, but let's do it.

The great outpouring of the Spirit of God, which lightens the whole earth with His glory, will not come until we have an enlightened people who know by what?

By experience what it means to be laborers together with God.

And we were talking yesterday, if you're like me, I want you right away to know what does it mean to be a laborer?

Because it says if we're not laborers with God, the Holy Spirit will not come.

When we have entire wholehearted consecration to the service of Christ, God will recognize the fact by an outpouring of his Spirit without measure, but this will not be while the largest portion of the church are not laborers together with God.

Do you understand that that's a condition?

So the purpose of each camp meeting, if you look at the original purpose of camp meetings, is actually to equip church members to become laborers together with God.

It's not just to come and to say, did I get my best spot at camp meeting or not, or did I get my talks, or did I get my veggie links or not, and all of that stuff.

But the main purpose is to equip us to become laborers together with God.

I'm just going back just a little bit to bring everyone with us if somebody was not here yesterday.

What did it mean to be laborers together with God?

When we follow plans of the Lord's devising, we are labors together with God.

Friends, we can be labors, we can work very hard, but we will not be labors together with God if those plans are not devised by God Where do we find the plans that God has for his church in the Bible?

And the spirit of prophecy are you excited about the Bible and the spirit of prophecy?

Has it blessed your life Oh friends at the age of 26 when I went from Canada to Argentina, I went already kind of ruined because I had my 10 years outside of church, outside, far away from Christ.

And far away from Christ, life is horrible.

And I did a lot, a lot of harm to myself and to my body.

So by that time, I already had quite a few surgeries in my body.

When I would eat something, I would always, I had problems with any single food I would eat.

And then I discovered the book Steps to Christ.

And you tell me, what does Steps to Christ have to do with your health?

And I read the book Steps to Christ for the first time in my life at 26 years old and I said whoa and now I understand the plan of salvation I have never seen it this way why didn't anyone show it to me before Why didn't anybody give me this book before?

Those 13 chapters were just like in chapter 7 and 8 were like boom.

And after that, I said, there is so much light and power in these words.

And I started to read other books that Ellen White has, and I started to read stuff that she had to say about health like Councils of Diet and Health.

And I found out that sugar was bad for you, and probably you did too.

And I went to my places where sugar or cookies were or everything, and it went straight into the trash can.

And then I read that meat was not good, and boom, gone.

You know, when we teach the plan to quit smoking, what do we teach people?

The Ultimate Rescue Operation, Part 2

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

Camp meeting is good because even a walk from your tent or wherever you are to here is an exercise already.

What a blessing it is to be at Camp Median.

I did have my exercise at around 5, maybe 5.30am, going for a run around this place, on the roads there, around 5, it's just beautiful.

You still have a few more days, you can actually try it out.

It's amazing how early it starts to become bright.

At around 5.30 I brought my light and I actually had to turn it off to enjoy a little more of nature and I was just fine.

You remember on Sunday we have talked about the need and the importance of what?

And we all know that without the Holy Spirit, our church wouldn't have even existed so far.

It is by God's grace and through the Holy Spirit that we are in operation still.

Because if it wouldn't be for that Satan would have destroyed this church long time ago but God through the angels and the Holy Spirit guiding the church we're still around but what we're talking about we want to get to where Jesus will increase to that point.

And you remember we have shared a Bible verse there.

And before we read this verse again, let's pray 1 more time.

Father, as we read your Word, Your word has been inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Without your spirit even the Bible is a dry thing.

So Father we need the person of your spirit to come and touch our hearts and minds this morning so that when we will leave this place we'll be closer to you and we would know more about you we would know you better and we would be willing to do your will in the name of Jesus.

And after this things, I saw another angel come down from heaven, heaven what?

And the earth was lightened with his glory.

Ellen White comments that this other angel, it's not a visible angel, you can't even hear a sound of an angel, but it is in representation of whom?

God's people, you and I, that are receiving the power of the Spirit, and are going out now, the people of God, they believe in everything that God said.

And they said, Lord, we don't only believe that that potentially will happen, but we believe that we are a part of it.

And Lord, today we're willing to engage in this and to allow you to take us all the way wherever you want to lead us.

It's so good to see this group here as well from GoEtherefore group.

We also have seen how and I'm just doing a little summary of what we have talked about, because I see some new people that joined us today for the first time.

So I'm just doing a little summary from what has happened in this past days.

So Ellen White commenting on this verse, and this is the epitome of Christ being lifted up.

When the entire earth will see God's glory.

So Ellen White comments how we can get to this experience, And that's what we're trying to break down this week.

Disclaimer, there are many, many ways how God is working in his church.

Aren't you thankful for a garden of flowers when they're all different and not all the same?

But God has a creative idea of having many different flowers.

Same with different types of ministering to people.

What we're doing here this morning, we're emphasizing certain parts of it.

It's not that they're more important than others.

It's just we're emphasizing some of them, okay?

And particularly some of them that sometimes can be neglected because they're not as popular.

So just please, please have that in mind as we go, because I get enthused.

And when I get enthused, I start emphasizing, and I sometimes emphasize so much that it might sound that other things are not important.

God has many different ways how he works.

So Ellen White comments on this verse and you have we have read but we'll be reading every morning this.

The great outpouring of the Spirit of God, and here she mentions directly Revelation 18.1, which lightens the whole earth with His glory will not come until we have an enlightened people who know by experience what it means to be laborers together with God.

And I'm jumping, but this will not be while the largest portion of the church are not laborers together with God.

So, the Holy Spirit in the latter rain power will not come until you and I will not say, okay, we get it.

We're not going to bring any more excuses.

And you'll take care of how, you'll take care of consequences, you'll take care of everything.

You're saying we have to do it, we'll do it.

So, and then we said, okay, what does it truly mean to be laborers together with God?

I want us, if that's the only thing that we remember out of all of these mornings, I think that's going to be the big, big thing that in the end of times, there will be a temptation to come up with this idea and that idea and we are told as well by Ellen White that we have to be creative.

But we have to make sure that our creativity is based On thus says the Lord.

Our Heavenly Father is more willing to give the Holy Spirit, we read this the other day, to them that ask Him, than our earthly parents to give good gifts to their children and now another part.

So this is another part of this because 1 is the work, 1 is the work for people, for the salvation of people, But here comes the other part of preparation for receiving the Holy Spirit.

And I'll just touch on this just briefly now.

Those of you that will be joining on Sunday morning, if you don't know what that is about, From this coming Sunday and on, we'll have a three-hour morning prayer from 6 a.m.

To 9 a.m., a Zoom prayer to pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to pray for mission to the cities, and to pray for the missionaries in the local churches.

And you know who are the missionaries in the local churches?

That's going to be the emphasis of the prayer.

And we'll be studying about the conditions, What has to happen for the Holy Spirit to fall on us?

And that is going to be, this is going to be 1 of the quotes that we'll be analyzing and dissecting.

This coming Sunday we'll be actually going, we'll be going into, because look what she says here.

But it is our work by confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer to fulfill the conditions upon which God has promised to grant us his blessing.

A revival needs to be expected only in answer to prayer.

By the way, this quote, she writes it in the context when she writes about camp meetings.

She says, in our camp meetings, the main goal is to equip our members for mission, and our main goal is to learn how to receive the Holy Spirit.

So that's because if you read the next paragraph after this, she talks about how in camp meeting we should emphasize this.

4 things, she says, that have to happen, and that's our work.

Confession, repentance, and earnest prayer.

The Ultimate Call

Father, we're asking, please be with us as we speak on your behalf.

It's such an important, important mission and such an important topic, so we're asking that your Holy Spirit will not only anoint my lips but will anoint hearts and ears of everyone who is listening here in the auditorium or anyone who would listen over internet.

Series

The Key to Finishing the Work

The Ultimate Rescue Operation, Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Key to Finishing the Work

The Ultimate Rescue Operation, Part 1

1h 9m

Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

03 Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

1h 2m

Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

01 Sharing the Three Angels’ Messages in 30 Seconds

1h 4m

The Key to Finishing the Work

The Ultimate Call

59m

Presenting Persuasive Appeals During Keys to Revelation

03 The Holy Spirit Makes Appeals Appealing

58m

The Three Angels' Message

07 The Fourth Angel’s Message

1h

Let My Pastors Go: 1844 to Heaven, Why So Long?

01 A God Ordained Truth: A Man-Made Method

50m

Plenary Sessions

Revelation’s People of Destiny

1h 7m

Decision - Discipleship - Destiny

02 Discipleship that Doesn’t Dumb or Dump

55m

Decision - Discipleship - Destiny

01 From Decision to Discipleship

1h 9m

Prophetic Preaching and Persuasive Appeals for Decision

01 Why the Preaching of Appeals is Crucial

47m

Plenary Sessions

Illuminated With His Glory: Revelation 18

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine