WYC 2013: Always Ready

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GYC West

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready to Defend Adventism

Anil Kanda

The Sabbath and Atheism

Father, we just thank you so much for this time.

And thank you, God, that we can learn more about this world that we're living in.

But God, we confess that we are unable to understand great and mighty things.

And we need the power of the Holy Spirit.

Father, we also claim Jeremiah 33, verse 3, that says, if you call upon me, I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.

And so Lord, this is our desire that you would bless us with tools, with information, stuff that can really help reach this world.

I pastor in Ceres, the Modesto area, and it's a privilege to be here.

The name of this presentation is entitled The Sabbath and Atheism.

The next presentation is going to be entitled Insane or Infidel, What Happens When Hell Does Not Go Out.

The third presentation is going to be titled Ellen White and Food Documentaries.

And you're going to learn some wonderful things about modern day health movements and who has been at the root of modern day health movements.

So you don't want to miss these presentations.

As I said before, the name of this presentation is entitled, The Sabbath and Atheism.

When you take a good look in our world today, especially in the American culture, the secular culture, you find out that there is actually a strong movement called atheism.

You know, it wasn't until the 18th century that somebody identified themselves with the English word atheist.

Since that time, that movement has turned into something big, and it's like a juggernaut.

I was reading various statistics in America about atheism and has found out that that is actually that movement is actually growing.

A lot of people are no longer identifying themselves with the religion or any type of spirituality or a church.

Many of them are simply saying I'm agnostic or I'm an atheist.

The word atheist is a combination of 2 words in Greek, the alpha or the A, the negative, and theos, God.

So essentially what atheism is, is simply saying, no, God, I do not believe in God or I believe in the non-existence of any deity.

It's very interesting when you take a good look in out in media, out in books, out in the internet, you find out that there is a new breed of atheism and it's this kind of form of militant atheism.

And over the course of the last 7 to 8 years, there has been many bestsellers that have come out, and many of them are about atheism and the belief in the non-existence of God.

Some of these million atheism, you can take a good look at these 4 right here.

1 of them actually passed away, Christopher Hitchens.

These are called the 4 horsemen of atheism because they're very vociferous atheists.

Whenever they have a chance to talk about atheism and why Christianity is wrong, they will take that chance or take that opportunity and they will speak the most venomous things.

There you have right there, Christopher Hitchens, you have Daniel Dennett and you have Richard Dawkins and you also have Sam Harris.

Each 1 of them has done bestsellers that have reached the top of books on lists about atheism.

These individuals, many of them are philosophers, and doctors, and molecular biologists.

You go into YouTube, you can listen to various debates from these guys, and you can see the type of spirit that they have.

Well, this group has really taken on a large following, and so this has actually turned into a great movement since the 18th century.

Now, the name of this seminar presentation is called The Sabbath and Atheism.

And a lot of people ask the question, wait a minute, what does the Sabbath actually have to do with this modern movement of atheism?

I'm going to share with you 4 or 5 powerful quotes from inspiration that make a connection between the Sabbath and modern day atheism.

It is a constant witness to his greatness wisdom and love had the Sabbath always been Sacredly observed there could never have been in what?

Atheist or an idolater watch what she says next right here had the Sabbath always been kept man's thoughts and affections would have been led to his maker as the object of reverence and worship.

And there would never have been an idolater or what?

Then watch what she says again right here.

If man had always remembered to keep holy the Sabbath, there would never have been a what?

But Satan has made an effort to keep God out of the mind, has worked his plans so as to accomplish this, and having banished God from the memory of man, he puts himself, if possible, in the place of God, even goes so far as to exalt himself above God in compelling the consciences of men which God has never done." And that's from the Review and Herald.

Now watch this other quotation right here.

Had the seventh day always been kept, there would never have been an idolater, an atheist, or an infidel.

The sacred observance of God's holy day would have directed the minds of men to their Creator, the true and living God.

Everything in nature also would have brought him to remembrance and would have borne witness to his power and love." Again and again and again, you can see what Ellen White is saying, that had the Sabbath been kept like the way it should have been, there would never have been an atheist in our world today.

There is an apparent connection with Sabbath keeping, or the lack of Sabbath keeping, and atheism.

And we're going to find out how that connection goes about.

When the foundations of the world were laid, then was also laid the foundation of the what?

So there you see from this pen of inspiration that when this world was created, that the Sabbath was actually part of the system of this world.

I was shown that if the true Sabbath had been, what?

Kept, there would never have been an infidel or a, what?

Again and again and again, she keeps repeating the same point.

You can see the common denominator if the Sabbath is kept, if the Sabbath would have been kept, if it should have been kept like the way it should have, there would never have been an atheist.

So there she makes the connection over and over again that the lack of Sabbath keeping actually is connected to atheism and we're gonna see how that connection really comes to the surface the observance now watch this the observance of the Sabbath would have preserved the world from what idolatry idolatry you know when I was reading these quotations I was really trying to understand this.

How does the Sabbath lead, or the lack of the Sabbath keeping, lead to atheism?

What is the clear connections that we can make from history and see how 1 event actually leads to another, another movement?

You see, when God created this world, He created a perfect world.

The Bible says in Genesis chapter 1, Genesis chapter 2, anything God would create, it was what?

And everything he was created was constantly good, right?

When he finally created man, he said it was Very good, right?

Mankind was the essential, the linchpin for all of these systems.

Everything that God created were systems that were interdependent upon other systems.

And so when the fall of man took place, it led to a cascading effect upon this entire world.

When you take a good car engine, right, everything in that car engine, much of it runs together and is connected.

In fact, when you take a good look at a very advanced diagram of a car engine, you can see how complex, how intricate, and how interdependent each system within an engine is, you can say how each system is based upon another system.

I brought this, you know, I hang around with a lot of four-wheelers.

Okay, well, when you spend a lot of time in Weimar in Northern California, you get used to a lot of people who are driving these big old jeeps or these big old trucks with these huge tires.

Well, I have some good friends who are just some hardcore four-wheelers.

They like going rock climbing and they just like going into the most difficult places with these huge trucks and Jeeps.

I don't know any Indian people who do four-wheeling, but I thought I'd be the first 1.

So I said, okay, I got myself a Jeep, got a good price on it, and I was just, the Lord really let it.

It was a Jeep Cherokee 2001, low mileage.

And so what I began to do was to take this stock vehicle and I began to change parts in this stock vehicle.

1 of the things I did is that I took out the stock tires and I placed size 35 inch tires on there, okay?

35 inch, it was a big, actually used to have size 36 prior to that.

I took them off because it was constant rubbing against the tire weld.

I put size 35 inch on these tires on this huge Jeep.

Insane or Infidel: When Hellfire Doesn’t Go Out

Good afternoon You guys have come back for round 2.

Okay, we should probably get started because I know that with the stick with the time schedule, so Why don't we start with the word of prayer and just before we jump into that?

I just want to recommend you have your Bible if you need a Bible there should be Bibles in the back because I want to share some powerful verses with you when it comes to this teaching of hell and understanding the justice of God because there's actually a lot of even a lot of Adventist who are missing key things about the justice of God and about hellfire.

So I want to start with a word of prayer.

So let's bow our heads and let's ask God to bless us with the Holy Spirit.

Father in heaven, we just thank you so much for this time.

And Lord, we want to come to you humbly, Lord, asking for wisdom, the power of the Holy Spirit.

We pray that you would equip our hearts and our minds that the information we learn would be useful in reaching other people.

God, we need the balm of Gideon right now, right now, in this world.

So we pray that you would show us how best to heal hurting minds.

All right, well, if you missed last seminar's presentation, just a quick recap, what we did is we covered the Sabbath and atheism, and we learned 5 different places where Ellen White says, the Sabbath is connected to atheism.

Had the Sabbath been kept as it should, there would never have been an atheist.

And we discovered it was during the early church, they removed the Sabbath, and we talked about all the quotations, and it led to science being repressed.

The study of the organism, the study of nature, the study of creationism.

And even in the Catholic theological schools, we learned that there was a focus on the mind and no longer on the body.

We also talked about many of those quotations that were showing the repression of medical science during that time, eventually culminating with the Black Plague.

We also learned it would have been simple, rudimentary procedures that would have saved millions from dying.

And then we also discovered it was shortly after, that's when the French Revolution took place.

Whereas you had in the Dark Ages a religion that was focused on not having any science, and its pendulum swung.

You now had a science that wanted to do nothing with religion.

Like Ellen White says in great controversy, where potpourri began the work, atheism was completing it.

And so this is where we get our modern atheistic movement.

Well, the name of this seminar is called Insane or Infidel, When Hellfire Doesn't Go Out.

Something that's very interesting, when I was actually going over these presentations, I'm doing 3.

I did 1 right before, and then there's 2 more.

I found a certain theme emerging and it was about health.

You know, you think, okay, at Weimar you would expect that.

But I wasn't planning on just focusing on health, but I just found it kind of emerging.

The last presentation I talked about the importance of the health message.

This presentation I'm going to be talking about just the healing of the mind.

And the next presentation is also going to be dealing with health as well in the midst of all our doctrines and teachings.

But this presentation is called Insane or Infidel, when hellfire doesn't go out.

When you see a mother and her child walking, you see a very beautiful relationship.

You know, the Bible talks about a relationship about a mother and a child being so strong that God says, look, he says, He says, if a mother, he says, it is possible even for a mother, it's like so unlikely to even forsake her child, but God will never forsake you.

But you see God stressing the idea of just the importance of a mother-child relationship.

Every 1 of us is bonded to a mother of some kind.

There was a story that broke earlier this year.

And it was a story about a lady by the name of Andrea Pitt-Yates.

She had a nervous breakdown, a mental breakdown, where because of the things that were just swirling around in her mind, she ended up drowning 5 of her children.

She has her court case, I believe was in February, and that is 5 of her children that were killed by her Because of the something because of some things that were taking place in her mind Well, here's 1 of the reports that was released by Chronicle News Andrea Pia Yates told a jail psychiatrist the day after her arrest that she drowned her 5 children to save them from eternal hell.

The doctor testified Friday, my children were not righteous.

They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell.

Melissa Ferguson, the medical director of psychiatric services at the Harris County Jail, Ferguson was the first witness to testify for the defense in Yates' capital murder trial.

And she painted a picture of a delusional woman obsessed with the images of Satan.

Ferguson said Yates told her during the first jail evaluation on June 21st, this must have been actually last year, that she was a bad mother.

Yates cried and moaned loudly towards the end of Ferguson's assessment.

They stumbled because I was evil." Ferguson quoted Yates as saying, "'The way I was raising them, they could never be saved.

Better for someone else to tie a millstone around their neck and cast them in a river, then stumble.'" You can see just the gross misinterpretation.

In all the patients I've treated for major depression with psychotic features, she is 1 of the sickest I have ever seen, said Ferguson, noting that she had treated 6, 000 patients when she had stopped counting several years ago.

In fact, I was looking at the reports of this lady.

She began to be so obsessed with this teaching about eternal hellfire.

She was so scared about what was possibly going to happen in the future.

She said, in order to save my children from reaping up judgment, I'm going to end their life.

You can just see the mental sickness that this woman is dealing with.

What's really interesting, when you take a good look in our world today, the majority of Christianity has accepted this teaching, And the reality is that if they begin to really truly understand what this false teaching is about, it will lead to only 1 of 2 conclusions, Ellen White says.

In fact, Ellen White talking about this false teaching, about how God supposedly burns people for all of eternity, for trillions and trillions, trillions and trillions and trillions of years, she uses very strong language against that false teaching.

How repugnant to every emotion of love and mercy, and even to our sense of justice, is the doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented with fire and brimstone, and eternally burning hell.

That for the sins of a brief earthly life, they are to suffer torture as long as God shall live.

Where in the pages of God's Word is such a teaching to be found?

Will the redeemed in heaven be lost to all emotions of pity and compassion, even to feelings of common humanity?

No, No, such is not the teaching of the book of God when we consider in what false colors?

Satan has painted the character of God now watch what she says right here.

It's very powerful Can we wonder that our merciful God merciful creator is feel feared?

Even hated Now some of us have grown up Adventist.

In fact, when I was coming into the Christian faith, 1 of the problems I had was this idea that God would eternally burn those who did not love him, who did not know him.

Now for some of us who just know the beautiful teaching of annihilation and that when God deals with sin and sinners at the end time, he plans to destroy it all together.

But here's the thing, if you've ever lived with that other kind of worldview, it is so sickening to you.

And the thought of it can make you tremble and so confused about the character of God.

So she says right here, it is so repugnant.

And she says, when you see the false colors that Satan has painted about who God is, she says, no wonder people out in the world are either skeptical of him, or they hate him, or they fear him.

In fact, what is so remarkable, when you take a good look at what she is saying, there is 1 of 2 responses, she says, when people actually legitimately accept this teaching that God destroys sinners for all of eternity.

She says, A, they become either insane, or B, they become infidels, or unbelievers, or skeptics.

In fact, look what she says right here in great controversy.

How utterly revolting is the belief that as soon as the breath leaves the body, the soul of the impenitent is consigned to the flames of hell.

To what depths of anguish must those be plunged who see their friends passing to the grave unprepared to enter upon an eternity of woe and sin?

Apologize for just the coloring the lettering.

This idea that when God deals with the wicked at the end of time, he plans to torture them for all of eternity.

That's trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions years of mindless, unceasing torture and pain and it never stops and you never get used to it.

This is the teaching that is being prescribed by much of Christianity as a motivation for following Jesus.

And she says right here, when people begin to really accept this, no wonder that many are driven to insanity.

In fact, what I did is I went online and I found several testimonies of people who actually had nervous mental breakdowns because of this teaching.

Ellen White and Food Documentaries

And Lord, I know we're only scratching the surface.

We have seen the rise and fall of movements and revolutions, counter-revolutions.

And Lord, you've started so many things, and the world does not even know it.

Lord, we pray you would give us a glimpse into what's happening in our world today to see and understand, God, more and more of what you're up to and what you want us to be a part of.

Please bless us especially with the Holy Spirit.

All right, the name of this presentation is called Ellen White and Food Documentaries.

There is so much information here, it's gonna be very difficult for you to attempt to memorize any of this, or even write it down, because I'm gonna go very fast, however I won't go very fast to the point where you just can't least can't get the source down but at the same time there's so much I could have put here so if you feel like it's a little incomplete I totally understand I feel the same way I know this 1 presentation is not going to do justice to this.

And we'll ask the Holy Spirit to bless us as we continue.

Name of this seminar again is called Ellen White and Food Documentaries.

And I was checking out various definitions of the word revolution.

An overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of established government or political system by the people governed.

A radical and pervasive change in society and the social structure, especially 1 made suddenly and often accompanied by violence.

Number 3, a sudden and complete or marked change in something, the present revolution in church architecture.

A procedure or course as if in a circuit back to a starting point.

Number 5, I thought was very interesting.

And what we're going to be discovering is that there is actually today, in our world today, many health revolutions that have taken place.

But the question is, how did many of these health revolutions actually start?

Well, what's interesting, As we progress in this presentation, you're gonna be seeing some very interesting things.

We are living in a momentous time right now with lifestyle diseases running rampant, with big pharmacies monopolizing.

And by the way, when you go to just on the corner, you know what you'll see that's very interesting?

You'll see a Walgreens and you'll see a CVS or you'll see some other sort of pharmaceutical place and you go in there and they're not making money off their candy bars or the little trinkets they're selling.

The big money is found when you go to the back of the place and you see all these people lined up to get their what?

And the reason why that's so interesting is because where I live, you actually have, I actually have a Walgreens and a CVS right next to each other, and guess what, there's so much business that they don't actually have to compete with 1 another.

They actually set up right next to each other.

So you see what's happening in our world today.

An overextended health care system, which obviously is going to be changing in some very interesting ways, people are searching for answers elsewhere.

That's actually even correct grammar, but revolution has begun.

It's very interesting, when you take a look at what's happening on media, you begin to see there's a lot of health fads have been just really, really coming up, and a lot of people have become very excited about it.

Oftentimes, I'll be seeing on Facebook, a lot of people into these 5Ks or marathons now.

A lot of people are interested in running or jogging, right?

You look and a lot of people are all about juicing.

You hear things like that all the time, right?

Or people say, I'm going raw for a month.

Even the gyms have actually increased in, you can say, in just how many people are getting gym memberships, actually sticking with the memberships as well, which is very interesting.

So a lot of people are interested in health because they're starting to recognize that the medical community is unable to actually help them with many of the issues.

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Series

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready to Defend Adventism

The Sabbath and Atheism

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

OYC 2012 Plenary Sessions

Parables in Marriage: The Honeymoon

48m

There is Hope

A Second Look at The First Day

47m

The Sabbath and Atheism

1h

Look Up and Live

How Are You Living?

42m

Restore

04 Restore- How to Live Free in a World of Entanglements

53m

The Blame Game

50m

The Seventh Day

The Seventh Day- Part 2

38m

The Lord’s Vineyard

39m

Israel and the Judges

33m

Prophecies of Hope

8. The Topic that Satan Hates

56m

Medical Missionary Work

50m

The Evolution from Head to Tails

1h 6m

Sound Doctrine