Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

The Last Elijah: An Intergenerational Revival for These Last Days

Don MacLafferty

01 Stand Before God

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

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

As we proceed, Lord, with the first morning meeting, the best meeting of camp meeting, we pray that your Holy Spirit will be poured out upon us.

Lord, may we see the light from on high stream down upon us today.

Fill our hearts, Lord, and speak to our souls, is our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

Have you come here hoping that I'll only do what would make you the most comfortable, or have you come here with a hunger for the Word and also to press together as last-day believers?

If you've come with that hunger, then let's please do not sit so far apart from each other.

Because, you know, in Spirit of Prophecy it talks about the need to press what?

And also, there's many, many places in Spirit of Prophecy where it talks about small groups formed that will be in the Word and praying together.

So I do not want these early morning times to be spectator moments.

You've come here to be in the Word and in prayer.

And yes, I'll be teaching the Word, but it's not just 1 direction.

I got permission from the administration to do this.

Can we make little circles of 6 as fast as we can.

And I invite you to make teams of 6 to be in the Word.

Now, next thing, to prep us for the Word, simple activity.

Do you believe that nature is God's second book?

And by the way, children today and youth are less and less out in that second book.

It's a big burden of mine in discipling the generations is to get kids and youth and adults outside.

So we won't do that right now, don't worry.

But I'm inviting you in teams of twos in your small group.

If you have an odd number it doesn't mean you're odd, it just means that you'll have to be in threes, some of you, okay?

But if you're in teams of 6, in teams of twos, just one-on-one, ask each other this, What's 1 thing that you have seen in nature that's made you in awe of the creator God?

And I'll give you a quick example really, really quick.

So it'll give you a moment to think, because then you'll be on the spot.

So for 3 years, so I'm a full-time volunteer missionary.

So I don't work for pay or salary and I have the joy of just going wherever God wants me to go.

And I work in the littlest tiny church, the littlest tiny school around the world.

I also work with the General Conference as a volunteer.

And by the way, if you never say you're just a volunteer in the local church, never just say you're just a volunteer.

Pretty soon everybody's going to be a volunteer, by the way, because there's not going to be any buying or selling pretty soon.

So anyway, 1 day when I was a volunteer in Canada, we had just moved there.

Some of you know that story, how we got there.

It's a crazy story how we even got there.

And I was, God wakes me up in the morning early, and I was out in the forest.

Now, Canada has deep forest with porcupines and everything else that you can imagine.

And I was out there tromping around in the snow when all of a sudden I looked up in the heavens and there was what?

And I mean, like I'd never seen them ever before because I was so far up north.

And it was shimmering like this and I felt like I was being ushered into the throne room of God.

And it gave me a tiny taste of maybe what heaven might be like.

And it just made me in awe of our Creator God.

Now, there's also little things in nature that can make us in awe of God, not just the big things in the sky.

So turn to each other and just ask each other, what's 1 thing in your lifetime, if you could pick only 1 thing, that made you in awe of our creator God.

Take all the time in the world as long as you do it in 30 seconds, go.

Okay, I wanna hear a few examples real quick.

I'm going to ask this group, you know, this is a very dangerous place to be because you're so accessible.

But can you tell me 1 thing you've seen in nature and I'll tell them.

Is that a good example of something that makes you in awe of God?

Fred Calkins, I know you from Kentucky, Tennessee years ago.

What's 1 thing you've seen that makes you in awe of God?

Somebody like by the name of John Gaten, for instance.

Okay, and 1 person on this side, somewhere over here.

You know, God has put these things out in nature to make us in awe of Him.

If you're not getting out enough, we often get too in awe of stuff that man has done.

I hope while you're here at camp meeting you get outside.

My wife is here with me and we're hoping that every day in between things we're gonna go on a walk and that's what we do every day of our life that we're that I'm not on mission somewhere else.

We walk together and it slows us down and makes us in awe of God.

Now, this morning we have 1 text to 0 in on.

02 Live God’s Word

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

Father in heaven, this morning we want to thank you for inviting us to this morning meeting.

Lord, you have spoken to our hearts to come here, and that means that you have something special for us.

And so, Lord, we pray that you would give us ears that can hear and hearts that can understand what the Spirit has to say to his church.

So bless us Lord and let the the gates of heaven open wide in the light of heaven stream into our hearts today.

We pray in Jesus name let all the people say Amen.

So at this time we want to go ahead and turn the time over to our speaker, Brother Don, and let him have as much time as he needs.

When I asked it overseas it doesn't always quite work out the way I hoped.

They look at each other and they say we're not kicking anybody, but that's what I say in Tennessee anyway.

That's a dangerous question when it comes from me.

Are you okay if we put ourselves into teams of sixes again so that we can be families of God?

So if we can do that really really quick, just make little circles of 6.

Now my friends, leaders, ask this question.

Please ask this question to the people in your small group with a smile.

If it's not with a smile, it will not work.

Say, did you remember to read 1 Kings what?

And ask the people in your group, did they remember to read it?

If so, what did they find about that phrase, the word of the Lord came to Elijah?

Leaders, when you asked that dangerous question, did you read 1st Kings 17?

If it went really well for your group, give me a thumbs up.

If it went like, not so well, just go like this.

If no 1 did it, just give me a thumbs down and I kind of know where we are.

Now, my friends, can I give you a fair warning that Every time I give you a challenge in the Word, what should you expect the next morning before we do the next part?

From now on, you'll expect that I will ask, right?

Now, for many years when I was pastoring, I would preach Sabbath by Sabbath, give a challenge, and never ask the next Sabbath, what did you do with it?

Do you, are you ever asked what you did with the last Sabbath message?

So most of my 25 plus years of pastoring, I would teach and preach Sabbath by Sabbath, but never ask them, what did you do?

So I became convicted in the last district where I pastored, I became convicted that I needed to reform in this area.

And so I went up 1 Sabbath morning in front of my church, and I said, now, before we go, I preached the message, and I said, before we go, here's the challenge.

And I said, I'm challenging you to do something about this, like put feet on this, between now and next Sabbath.

And everybody smiled, and I said, and next Sabbath I will ask you, what did you do with it?

So, they all smiled, so I thought that was good.

So I gave them the challenge, And I was so excited to see what God's people had done with the Word of God.

And the next Sabbath, I asked them, I said, now before I preach, I said, the elders are all in position.

It was a large church, so the elders were all up and down the aisles with microphones.

I said, I've been waiting for this all week long.

What did you do with the Word of God since last Sabbath?

Everybody had a strange moment in the church.

I mean, it was an awkward moment and no 1 had done anything with it.

So I preached the message and gave a challenge again.

I said, next Sabbath, I will ask you, what did you do with the word of God?

And so I gave the challenge, and all week long I waited with great anticipation.

But guess what happened the second Sabbath?

And the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth.

I hated this point in the message because it's so much easier just to teach and preach the word with no expectation and never to ask anybody awkward questions but this is not the time in Earth's history to keep God's people comfortable.

So I was under such conviction, but I did not like this moment because no 1 ever would speak up.

And this happened for about 2 months in this particular church.

It's because we as a people have been teaching and preaching the Word for decades with no expectation, listening to it with no expectation that we'll be ever asked, what did we do with the Word of God?

And so finally 1 Sabbath, an elderly woman that never spoke up in my church, she looked around and the Spirit of God encouraged her.

She stood up, she asked the elders and almost all the elders converged on her with their microphone.

They were so happy that somebody finally stood up.

She said, I am, I think she said she was, well I know if I tell you the age, then all of you will be offended because some of us may be older or younger than that.

So let's just say she's older than me, okay?

She stood up and she said, I have watched this and I have wondered, why does our church not respond?

And she said, I have gone to church for many, many, many decades, more than you, preacher.

And she said, nobody has ever asked me on a Sabbath what I did with last Sabbath message.

No 1 in decades and decades of Seventh-day Adventist worship.

So she said, finally the Spirit of God troubled me that this is for now.

This is not just for listening to, it is for walking with.

Last Sabbath, you, preacher, you challenged us to go and see the people where we're walking, see the people in our neighborhood, walk across the street as the Spirit of God leads you, connect to somebody you haven't connected with.

She said, there's gangs in this part of the city.

03 Find Heart Healing

Father in heaven, Lord, you've awakened us to a brand new day.

And the best place to start the day is on our knees.

And so Lord, as we bow our hearts before you today, we pray that we might decrease and you increase in us today.

That when people see us, they will see you.

So Lord, we're asking you to pour out your spirit upon us this morning as we gather the manna that you have so lovingly provided for us.

Bless us with your presence and your spirit is our prayer in Jesus name, amen.

Well you're looking pretty good this morning.

Looks like quite a few of you got your beauty sleep.

And the rest of you, we're working on it, aren't we?

Well, today begins our full seminar schedule.

So we're starting at a run, as it were, and all of you have figured out what seminars you want to get to and all the seminars that are interfering with where you want to be.

In other words, they're at the same time, right?

But we have them recorded, so that's a good thing.

I just wanted to mention the Michigan memo is out on the ledge out there, and you'll be able to find it down at the information rotunda there and it'll give you all the information that you need for the day.

I do want to mention that there's an informal reunion for the Adelphian Academy today at noon at RV campsite C61.

So if you're from the Adelphian Academy, they'll be doing that at C61 at noon.

And for those of you that are in RVs, the pumping schedule is there in the memo as well.

So it gives you a schedule when you can have your RVs pumped.

I want to turn all our time over to Brother Don and let him bless you through the Spirit.

I start with a Confession and a need for your forgiveness.

I've been I've had several of you very kindly and gently Come up to me and tell me Pastor Don You told us that Elijah is going to show up in every chapter and we've been searching and searching and some of the chapters you Said he's not there That is true in my joy yesterday morning, I told you, search between 1 Kings chapter 17 to 2 Kings chapter 2, and look for every time that God shows up, you know, calling him, the word of the Lord came to him and somewhere in there I said and he's in every chapter that's going to happen I meant to say every chapter that he's there it's going to happen so will you forgive me will you forgive me oh thank you so much I feel better already this time oh Alex says this time Wow Wow now that's a little pressure this little group over here is that from now on be perfect now this is why this is why the body of Christ needs to be the body of Christ.

I'm going to actually play off of this just for a moment.

In the body of Christ, anybody that ever speaks up front or in Sabbath school or wherever is prone to say something that is not quite right.

We should be so much brothers and sisters that we can come up to each other and do like some of you have done this morning and say, Brother Don, I think that you shared something that's not accurate.

Jesus needs to look good in this last day church.

If we will do this for each other, and by the way I invite you to continue to do that because I'm a speaker that I don't work off scripts.

I'm in the Word And then something may come out unscripted and you might have to say, Brother Don, just slow down a second.

But in your church, your home church, let us be this way.

Let us not be so worried about offending each other or being offended when someone approaches us.

Let us have the humility of Jesus Christ, which I want to always learn how to have.

I don't have it, but he's growing me to have it.

So now with kindness and respect and lots and lots of love, every group needs a leader that will just gently say, did you remember to read in Luke chapter 1, and did you remember to read that since yesterday, looking for how Elijah shows up?

Just ask each other with kindness and respect, just for a moment.

Now to prep us for this passage this morning, ask each other in twos this question.

When is a time in your life when you saw something broken and then you saw it healed?

Now, By the way, in nature, I see this all the time.

You ever see something that's broken in nature and then you see how God's amazing healing power makes that limb on a tree or whatever, you know what I'm saying?

There's all kinds of examples of healing in nature or in our bodies or in families, relationships.

So just in twos, ask each other what is 1 time that you have personally witnessed the healing power of God in anything of life where something was broken and then was healed.

In your small groups this morning, please have your Bibles open, if it's not already, to Luke chapter 1.

In Luke chapter 1, here's the assignment.

From verse 13 all the way through 17 and anything that was a specific prophecy please send someone up here to use a stylus and write it right up here and our tech team if we can make it so that the whole screen, if possible, so we can see it up on the whole screen, that would be great, and share any discoveries of what is being prophesied about John.

So let's see what you can find real quick.

Of the prophecies that you find in that passage, in your small groups, ask each other now which part of that prophecy is most special to you for today, for right now in this era?

Which part of that prophecy is most meaningful to you today?

Please just answer that in your small groups.

You can look on this right now up on the board.

Which part of this prophecy is most precious to you today?

Okay, if you want to answer that, you just go right to the point.

Not a preaching moment, just a quick sharing moment right back here.

Okay, we'll start here and then we'll come over here next.

Be in verse 17 where it says, making the people prepared for the Lord to come.

So that prophecy was about John preparing a people for which coming of Jesus?

Yeah, how John was set aside as holy for God.

He was set aside and how we can be that person for God too.

By the way, how many of you are set aside by God to be alive now for such a time as this?

If you have kids in your life, if you have youth in your life, young adults in your life, anybody, we should be telling each other, you know that God placed you on this planet for such a time as this.

Okay, we'll come back here and then we'll go over here if you can have the next person ready.

And by the way, when did this happen for John?

04 Come and Worship

What a wonderful thought to lift Jesus high.

We need that, Lord, because If we don't lift our eyes to see you high and lifted up, we have a tendency to focus on the negative and the heartache and the sorrow and the sin of this planet.

And so Lord, help us to behold you and become changed today.

We pray Lord that you will fill us with your Holy Spirit but in order for you to do that Lord we have to be emptied of self.

We indeed have to decrease so that you can increase.

So this morning Lord please help us to be emptied of self that we can have more of you and we thank you for it in Jesus name let all the people say amen.

If you met with someone much bigger than you before you came, His name is Jesus, then you should have lots of joy because He is good.

He's our best friend and our Savior and hopefully our Lord if we claim Him as Lord.

So I invite you in your small groups to ask 2 things.

Just ask, how many of you, well, did I ask you to read 1 Kings 18?

So leaders, ask the people in your group, how many of you actually read 1 Kings 18?

And then I'm gonna give you the Second question.

The Word of God in Ezekiel 36, 26 to 27 yesterday called us to a heart surgery.

Did any of you actually ask for Him to do that yesterday?

Series

The Last Elijah: An Intergenerational Revival for These Last Days

06 Never Run Alone

Transcript

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