GYC 2012 Acts: The Revolution Continues

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

GYC 2012 Seminar: Streams of Light

Michael Tuazon

Westney White

Where is the Evidence? In the Literature

This message was presented at the GYC 2012 conference in Seattle, Washington.

For other resources like this, visit us online at www.gycweb.org.

Now, in this seminar, we're going to be going through those 3 pillars.

So we're going to be touching on those 3 for a little bit.

And I'm going to give you 4 evidence, 4 evidences why you can trust the scriptures, specifically the scriptures.

So that's what we're gonna be going over first.

Number 1, we're gonna look at the effect of the Bible on human literature.

Number 2, we're gonna look at the Bible and its internal consistency.

Number 3, we're going to look at the proof of history.

Now, for those of you who have ever wondered, how do I know that I can trust the Bible?

Now, I usually do a whole seminar on this, and I have 7 reasons why, but in this particular seminar, we don't have much time, so I'm just going to give you 4.

So let's go over the first 1, the effect on human literature.

So this is the Scriptures, the effect on human literature.

Did you know that the Bible has been translated in 400 languages, portions in 2, 500 languages, the Gideons have distributed 560, 000 Bibles, this is of 2, 000 by the way, more authors, secular authors, Christian authors, whatever religion, have quoted the Bible more than any other work, and the Bible is the all-time best-selling book.

This right here is a list from Wikipedia of all the best-selling books of all time.

Number 1 is A Tale of 2 Cities by Charles Dickens, first published in 1859.

Does anyone see how many have sold over the course of, let's just say, 160 years?

Now you look at the next best-selling book of all time and you see the Lord of the Rings.

Number 3, The Hobbit, has sold over 100 million.

Then we have a book from China, over 100 million, and it was printed in 1750, that's about close to 300 years, about 250-300 years, and then Agatha Christie's book, and then the Renan, sold over a hundred million.

Now here's fascinating, go to number 678, 09:10, You'll actually see Steps to Christ down there.

Steps to Christ actually has sold about 50 to 100 million, they say.

Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S.

And so as you can see, there's a number of books that have sold.

Does anyone know how many Bibles are sold just in 1 year?

A Tale of 2 Cities, the best-selling book of all time, has sold over 200 million books, but how long has it taken to sell 200 million books?

Now the Bible, according to this, this is Answers.com, BibleAnswers.org as well.

This 1, they asked the question, how many Bibles are sold each year?

According to BibleStudy.org, 100 million Bibles are sold each year worldwide.

The New Yorker confirms that it is the best-selling book in history and outsells all other books every year.

Now do you know why the Bible is not allowed to be on the New York Times bestseller list?

That's why when I read the best-selling book, New York Times best-selling list, understand the Bible is the real number 1.

Okay, so let's go ahead and look at reason number 2 for the scriptures.

By the way, I see my assistant in the back.

She's the girl with the stickers you want to find for if you're going to attend all 6.

Internal consistency, internal consistency.

The Bible is a collection of 40 authors written over a span of 1, 500 years, written on the 2 most controversial topics, religion and politics, yet the Bible never contradicts.

Have you ever been to Starbucks and have just decided to randomly talk to someone there about religion or politics?

See how many people you can get to agree with each other.

Pro-life, pro-choice, whatever controversial topic you want to bring up, you will find that it's very hard for people to agree with religion and politics, and it's interesting because the Bible doesn't contradict.

Now let's go ahead and look at the proof of history.

And this is where we're going to get some real hard evidence, some archaeological evidence as well.

Did you know that the Bible has 5, 600 New Testament Greek manuscripts that exist that back it up?

The Bible has over 10, 000 Latin manuscripts and about 9, 300 early manuscripts.

There are over 25, 000 manuscripts that support the Bible.

Does anyone know the next book that has the most amount of supporting material?

So we have the Bible with 25, 000 manuscripts that support it.

So as you can see, the Bible trumps everything else.

Now, what I like about history is we get a look at archaeology.

We get a look at some of the findings, and we're going to be doing that this afternoon.

He's a scholar in the realm of archaeology.

Of the hundred of thousands of artifacts found by archaeology, not 1 has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies 1 word, 1 phrase, 1 cause, 1 sentence, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the biblical record.

Of everything that has been found by archaeology, There has yet to be 1 thing found that contradicts the Bible record.

Now sometimes they will say, oh, Jericho or Sodom and Gomorrah, we've never found that before.

But that's because time hasn't allowed us to find it yet.

And then they find it sometime later and they realize that the biblical record is correct.

Here in the United States, many of you know, we have our top schools, Harvard, Princeton, Yale.

In England, their top schools are Cambridge and Oxford.

Anthony Baca

The Great Controversy and the Great Solution: Literature Evangelism

Including we have Anthony Baca and we also have Mark.

So those of you, if you can take a seat, we know that our morning devotional just ended.

Again, for those of you, if you come to all the seminars, you can have a free canvassing bag and also if you make it and I'll do a deal with you, if you can just come even for 5, we can still have something for you.

Maybe we can get you a great controversy or 1 of the mega books.

That's because she's coming around with stickers.

And you can receive some canvassing prize at the very end.

You get your own GYC edition canvassing bag.

I'll make that announcement at the end, and you'll also receive a starter packet for books.

But before we begin, I'm going to have Anthony Baca, he also teaches at Souls West.

He'll be sharing a little bit of a testimony as we talk about the great controversy and the great solution, literature evangelism today.

So go ahead, Anthony, you can have the opening prayer and you can share.

Let's go down to our heads for a word of prayer.

Most gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to come and to open up your word and to study, And we ask now that your spirit would be here to be the true teacher and the true guide, that you would impress principles upon our hearts and our minds that would not only help us to know your will for these last days, but that would also transform us to be more like Christ.

Be with me as I share testimony and be with the main presenter this morning as he speaks on literature of evangelism.

Just a little over 5 years ago, if you were to talk to me, I would not have been a Christian, I actually would have been an agnostic.

And during my time as agnostic, I met a really, really nice Seventh-day Adventist who became a really good friend of mine.

And over the course of a period, he invited me to church, and I came to church, and I started attending a Seventh-day Adventist church, but I still had a lot of questions.

Do you guys ever have questions, unanswered questions?

I had a lot of unanswered questions, especially coming from an agnostic background.

And he did what any good Seventh-day Adventist would do.

Do you know what he did aside from give me Bible studies?

He gave me a book called Great Controversy.

Anyone ever read that book called The Great Controversy?

So he put a piece of literature in my hand, because he didn't really know all the answers either, but he said this is a great book.

Now, anyone here not from a Christian background originally?

You were converted to Christianity later in life?

So you can understand what I mean when I started getting questions answered from this book and from the Bible for the very first time how my mind was just illuminated.

It was almost as if light broke through darkness that enshrouded my mind and like this relief came to me as I learned so much about the character of God as found in the precious books that we carry.

And so I thank God for that book Great Controversy.

It really helped answer a lot of my questions and God used it as a modality to pull me from darkness into His marvelous light.

Now a few years later I'd get the privilege to be in the city of Las Vegas.

Now you want to talk about dark cities, that is a dark city.

And me and my friend Karen were able to go door to door and I met a young man named JD.

And we gave him a book, not knowing the fullness of his background, it was a book Steps to Christ.

What great contrast he did to me, Steps to Christ did to my good friend.

That book, he says, brought him from darkness to light.

That I didn't know the struggles that he was facing.

We just gave him the book and prayed with this young man, and I didn't know that because of that book that he would get baptized in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Because of that book, he would become a Cole Porter literature evangelist.

Because of that book, he would attend a Bible training school to become a leader in God's last day church.

I'm here because of a book, great controversy.

And ultimately we're all here because of a book, the Word of God, amen?

Turn your Bible to Revelation 18 verse 1.

When I think of my experience and JD's experience, I think of Revelation 18 verse 1.

If you've never studied the book of Revelation, I highly encourage you to study it.

Revelation 18 verse 1 is the culmination of the 3 angels' message, dubbed the fourth angel as it were, where all 3 proclaimed a loud voice.

And notice what verse 1 says, and after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was lightened with his glory.

Elmowai equates this verse with the outpouring of the latter rain and the wrapping it up of last day events.

And in a large degree through our publishing houses, through our what?

Publishing houses, is to be accomplished the work of that other angel who comes down from heaven with great power and who lightens the earth with his glory.

Know that the cold porting work is a prophetic work.

It is a work that God has called to take light into a dark world, that I might be filled with knowledge of glory of God, and then we might go home.

I pray that it is my desire that you, in whatever sphere you have, could pass out some form of literature that it might be light to someone else.

1 of the joys of doing this seminar is you will be hearing a bunch of testimonies of people who are changed by evangelism, specifically literature evangelism.

And later on at the end, you'll be hearing 1 of the most powerful testimonies I've heard by Mark.

It's actually an angel experience that was shared in California, so that will be at the very end.

It's called The Great Controversy and The Great Solution.

Father in heaven, as we enter into the mind of Satan, we ask that you guard us.

As we look and see the very depths of the great controversy and what it's over, We ask that you will illuminate our mind.

We submit ourselves to you and we ask that Jesus will be our invited guest, that the Holy Spirit will teach us, and that we can do all to please you.

Thank you, Father, for this opportunity to learn.

I asked the question yesterday, does anyone remember what the word Lucifer stands for?

Lucifer means the shining 1, the brilliant 1, the Latin Vulgate renders that as light-bearer.

Let's go in our Bibles to Isaiah 14, verse 12.

Isaiah has an insight as to what took place in heaven.

Many of you, if you have been door-to-door, 1 of the number 1, if you want to call it questions, that an atheist or agnostic has is where did sin and suffering come from?

And Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12 gives us an insight as to what took place.

Christine Carter

The First and Last Literature Evangelists

Next minute or so, we're just going to begin.

Just wanted to let you know that you can be seated or if you have friends outside, you can call them in.

Let's go ahead and start with a word of prayer.

Before we pray, I just wanted again to remind each of you, I know we had a number of people here at the last session, that if you get your card, your yellow card, you want a sticker from Alyssa, you'll receive your own literature evangelism training kit.

It's your basic training kit and you'll receive, it's the GYC edition and including 4 books that we will include as well.

And so, just be sure to see Alyssa who is in the back.

Before we begin with the seminar, we always like to start off with prayer and a testimony.

And the person who will be praying and giving the testimony this morning is Christine Carter.

I had the privilege of having her as my student.

She's a canvasser in the Southern California Conference area.

That's where she has canvassed, and she's led there as well.

And now she's doing Bible work in the Norwalk area.

And I've asked her to share a testimony in literature evangelisms, and that's what we are covering.

So you will be able to listen to a story of how literature evangelism has impacted Christine's life and also how she was able to reach out to others.

Before we share, let's go ahead and bow our heads for a prayer.

Father in Heaven, Lord, we thank you so much for drawing us here together, for bringing us from all over the world to GYC where we can seek your will and seek your word.

Father, I pray that you will continue to touch our hearts and to reach out to us as we seek to share your word with others.

Like Mike said, my name is Christine, and I'm from Southern California.

I've been leading as well, and I've gone to the souls.

When I started doing literature evangelism, I did it as a way to share my faith with others.

And we, through the programs, we have what's called divine appointments, where we meet someone in some type of circumstance where only God could bring it together.

And what has kept me in literature evangelism is actually realizing that this answers prayers.

I remember 1 instance, it was about 6 months or so ago, when I was with Souls West.

We were on a 2 or 3 week blitz where we would go door to door for that time period doing literature evangelism.

As soon as she saw me, she looked at the books in my hand and she said, is that about God?

And I said, yes, of course, I'm Christian.

She runs in her house, shuts the door behind her, and waits a few minutes.

And she's like, here, what books do you have?

And I started to share with her 1 called Man of Peace, which is based off of the desire of ages.

And she just looked at me, and she says, you have no idea what this means.

This morning, I prayed to God that he would send someone to my door to tell me about him.

And it was so powerful to know that God answers prayers directly like that, and that he uses literature evangelism to do that.

In Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 8, God asks, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

There are some people who, for whatever reason, whether they're not comfortable, whether they're not not sure where to go, They don't want to go to church.

They don't know if it's the right church.

So God asks us to go, to go to them, and to find them, and to seek them out, so their prayers can still be answered.

And that's what literature evangelism does.

We will be looking today at the first and the last Literature Evangelists.

And welcome again to the Literature Evangelism Seminar.

And this 1 is entitled, Streams of Light.

And if you have not seen Alyssa already, Feel free to find her.

We want you to be able to have your own Literature of Evangelism starter packet.

Just to review, our last session we covered the great controversy and the great solution.

We talked about darkness, we talked about Satan, We talked about how he is trying to misrepresent God's character.

And let's just see if the PowerPoint can come up.

We have some of the quotes that I want to go over.

Alright, let's see if we can get it going now.

Well we have, as usual, just a little bit of a technical delay.

Just to recap a little bit of yesterday's, or excuse me, the last seminar was we talked about the character of God and the first issue or the first problem was individual spiritual darkness.

And we talked about how the devil, what he wants to do is blind the mind of those in the world.

And God's solution is, let there be light, that we are to be individual lights.

And we talked about this quote that just before us in the closing struggle of the great controversy, 1 with all power and science and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of all righteousness, Satan is to work to misrepresent, what everyone, do you remember?

And our job as evangelists, if you remember this, our job as evangelists is to labor to do what?

To labor so that we can share the clearest and fullest manifestation of God's character.

And we talked about corporate spiritual darkness in Isaiah 60 verse 2, and then we looked at the Great Controversy, how we see the whole, the study of God's character is the entire or the very subject of the Great Controversy.

And we also talked about light, the solution to darkness is prophecy, And of course we talked about the quote where it says, in a large degree through our publishing house is to accomplish the work of that other angel.

And we're going to be looking at that quote again.

So now we're going to be looking at literature evangelism in the Bible.

Now I talked about this yesterday, I'm going to share it again.

Isn't it fascinating that of all the methods that God could use to record his story, the story of Jesus, That he didn't have a DVD set, that he doesn't have a CD, he doesn't have audio tapes, he doesn't have it on a Kindle, he doesn't have it on record.

What he has chosen as his method for preserving the story of redemption is what, everyone?

Yesterday we talked about the importance of literature.

The last session was the importance of literature evangelism, and this session my hope is that you will try literature evangelism.

What we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna be looking at different evangelists in the Bible, specifically literature evangelists.

And does anyone know who the first literature evangelist was?

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Series

GYC 2012 Seminar: Streams of Light

The Great Controversy and the Great Solution: Literature Evangelism

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Where is the Evidence? In the Literature

40m

The Great Controversy and the Great Solution: Literature Evangelism

51m

The First and Last Literature Evangelists

56m

Burned at the Stake: From Gutenberg to Glow

55m

The “In” of the “In and Out”: The Shaking, Literature, and Eschatology

52m

Glow: How to Fit a Preacher in Your Pocket

52m

Sound Doctrine