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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Alden Ho

What vs. How

Our Father in heaven, as we come to you this evening, Lord, how we need your Holy Spirit to be with us.

We thank you for bringing us through a busy week.

We thank you now that we can take all of that that's been on our plate and push it aside so that we can rest now in the Sabbath hours.

Take our minds now and take the thoughts and cares of this week and push them along with what was just pushed to the side so that now we might be able to sup with you.

And in turn Lord, we ask that you will come and sup with us.

We open the door of our hearts and ask that your Holy Spirit will continue to permeate through and that you would fill us with your presence.

Help us to be able to understand in this message that there are things that we cannot do, but yet there are things that we can do and those little things are what makes the difference.

Open our eyes, open our ears for we ask and pray all these things in Jesus name, amen.

At the University of Chicago Divinity School, each year they have what is called a Baptist Day.

It's a day when the Baptists in the area are invited to the school because they want the Baptist dollars to keep rolling in.

Everybody's supposed to bring their sack lunch during that time period, and they eat outside on the grassy area.

Every Baptist day, they would invite 1 of the greatest minds to lecture on the subject of theology.

This particular year, they invited this Dr.

Tillich spoke for 2 and a half hours proving that the resurrection of Jesus was false.

He quoted scholar after scholar, book after book.

He concluded that there since there was no such thing as a historical resurrection, that this is some religious tradition of the church, it was groundless, it was emotional, it was mumbo-jumbo, because it was based on a relationship with a risen Savior who in fact never rose from the dead, in a literal sense.

Then he asked if there were any questions.

After about 30 seconds of just total silence, an old dark-haired skinny preacher, He stood up way in the back on the grass.

He had his little bit of a southern drawl.

At that time period, he reaches in his sack and he pulls out this apple, this juicy Michigan apple.

And he takes this bite into this apple, everybody's staring at him.

And while he takes this bite, he's just chewing and he's talking at the same time.

Now I ain't never read them books you read before.

Crunch, crunch, munch, and the juices are just running down his face.

And he says, now I ain't never read Hedager and Niebuhr and all those other things, crunch, crunch.

And he's chomping on the apple while he's talking.

When he gets done with the apple, he says, but Dr.

Tillich, I got me 1, just 1 here question for you.

And he says, what I want to know is this.

He says, is this your apple sweet or bitter?

Everybody's eyes, like a tennis game, they focus now from the old skinny preacher, the old man, to Dr.

Tillich stands there, thinks for a moment, And then in exemplary scholarly form, he says to the old preacher, Why, sir, how can I know whether your apple is sweet or bitter?

All eyes now focus back on the old skinny preacher.

Tillich, neither have you tasted my Jesus.

You see, many of us today, we talk a good talk.

Many of us here, if not all of us, are Seventh-day Adventists.

What does it mean to be a Seventh-day Adventist?

Just because you come to Advent Hope, does that make you more righteous?

Does it make you a certified Seventh-day Adventist because you come here as opposed to the other worship services?

You see, when the rubber meets the road, brothers and sisters, that's the difference.

So often than not, I ask you to raise your hand about, are you worried about this, are you worried about this?

Now some of you are probably wondering, I shouldn't have raised my hand now.

It all comes down to the theology of what versus how.

I wanna read to you a devotional from Maranatha.

My father used to buy all the devotional books.

As soon as the new 1 came out, he would buy it getting ready for the next year.

And you know, I see some people smiling because I know what that means.

Every morning at breakfast, at the breakfast table, the worship book was open, he read and prayed, that was it.

This 1 is called, from chapter 204, it's called The Ceiling and the Ladder Reign.

Our Heavenly Father claims not at our hands that which we cannot perform.

He desires his people to labor earnestly to carry out His purpose for them.

They are to pray for power and expect power and receive power, that they may grow up into the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus.

Not all members of the church are cultivating personal piety.

Therefore, they do not understand their personal responsibility.

They do not realize that it is their privilege and duty to reach the high standard of Christian perfection.

Are we looking forward to the latter rain, confidently hoping for a better day when the church shall be endued with power from on high and thus fitted for the work.

The latter rain will never refresh and invigorate the indolent who do not use the powers God has given them.

While we were driving a couple days ago, Jonathan mentioned, you know, many of us don't call upon God for the extra power.

All we have to do is ask for 1 more angel and that's granted to us.

We struggle, we turn, we lose sleep, we lose weight because we take all our problems and we try to figure out these things for ourselves.

But I want you to think about for a moment, Do you think Moses had all this stuff pre-calculated?

The Bible accounts for, they only counted the men.

Now the assumption is if there were 600, 000 men, there would be also 600, 000 what?

Just got to make sure you guys are all smart.

But let's just say, conservatively, they had at least 3 children.

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What vs. How

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