ASI Scandinavia 2013: Transforming Grace

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ASI Scandinavia

Henrik Jensen

Alexander Jensen

How To Maintain A Spiritual Life At A Secular University

My brother and I have been praying a lot that this workshop will be a blessing.

It certainly has been a blessing for us while we have prepared for it, and we hope also that it will be a blessing for you.

I'm sure it will be, because we're going to focus on God's Word, and God is never letting us down when we focus on his word.

Just to introduce ourselves if you don't know already, my name is Henrik and I'm studying currently medicine in Denmark.

I'm halfway through so I still have 3 years to go, and my brother Alexander is half a year ahead of me in the same course of studying.

So we have been asked to share with you the theme, How to Maintain a Spiritual Life at a Secular University.

And this is a subject that we will approach with great humbleness, and we know that we don't have all the answers, but we believe that the Bible has many answers to the problems that we as Christians will encounter when we go to secular universities.

Before we start, we always like to invite God to be with us and today will be no exception.

So if you will bow your heads with me, it's great to go.

Dear Father in Heaven, we thank you so much for this time.

We thank you for this convention, for all the things that you have made possible.

I want to thank you especially for the messages that already have been preached, how you have blessed the speakers and how you also have blessed us who have been able to listen.

Dear Father, I pray that you will once again be with us here as we try to study a word, we try to look into a very timely subject.

I pray that you will be with us and we want to humble ourselves and acknowledge that you are the 1 who has all the knowledge and we pray that you will give us insight today.

I pray that it will be you, that it will be glorified and that you will be able to help us in our future life when it comes to education.

This is our sincere prayer and we thank you that we can trust that you will be with us even at this time.

We thank you so much in Jesus name, Amen.

Before we start with the subject, there is just 1 point that I want us to consider very briefly.

And first of all, I would like to know how many here are somehow affiliated with the Madison School, by show of hands?

Either are current students or have been students in the past.

Yes, I just want to remind us very quickly about what we believe.

And I have picked out a point from our 28 fundamental beliefs.

I hope you can see it here on the screen.

And I just want to read it aloud to you because This point we need to understand before we can go on in our study today.

If we don't agree on this point, we will not be able to benefit so much from the presentation today.

It says here, this is point number 18 from the 28 fundamental beliefs, this is what we as Adventists officially believe.

It says here, 1 of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy.

This gift is an identifying mark of the Bremen Church and was manifested in the ministry of Ellen G.

As the Lord's messenger, her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth, which provide for the Church comfort, guidance, instruction and correction.

They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.

Now This is what we as Adventists believe.

And I have just highlighted a few words here, because they are especially important.

It says, her writings are a continuing source of truth.

Continuing means that her writings continue to be relevant even today.

I've heard some people who say that Elmight's writings was especially for her time, which means the 1900s, I mean the 19th century.

In other words, they think that we have come further than what Ellen White was talking about.

But as Adventists, we officially believe that her writings continue to be a guidance to us even to this day.

And also of course an important point is that we believe as Adventists that her writings carry authority.

It means simply this if Elwhaite writes it then we ought to do it that's that's as simple as it is because we believe that it's not actually Elwhaite's own thoughts It is really the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit also is the author of the Bible.

So that means that when she writes something it is actually not her own opinion but it is God talking to us and then we better listen.

And then of course it gives to the church comfort, guidance and instruction.

We know how to finish the work, we know how to work the cities.

We need as much guidance today as the church needed when Ellen White was alive, maybe even more.

So that is just the basic principle that I want to introduce here because In our presentation we are going to focus a lot on the Bible, but we are also going to read to you quotes from the Spirit of Prophecy.

And therefore it is important that we are all on the same page when it comes to what we understand when we say the Spirit of Prophecy.

We were asked to talk about how to preserve spiritual integrity at a secular university.

Why is it important for us to talk about this subject?

And I would like to ask you this question.

How many of you know a person, or maybe several persons, who have grown up in the church, they've been in the church and then they have gone astray after they have started or finished some secular education.

How many of you know a person who started in the church, he or she was an athletist for a long time, and then they went out of the church?

In Denmark, they say statistically that about 80% of young people end up leaving the church and that is a big number and of course we cannot blame we cannot only blame secular universities for that of course But as you will see later on in the study, they do have a big role to play.

When young people go into universities, it is very often that they apostatize.

And I just want to read you this quote, because this quote was absolutely eye-opening to me.

It says here, it's Elmight talking, it says here, men to a medical college to learn to treat the sick is questionable, for many of them have not root in themselves, and, as in sending our children to the other colleges in our land, they are brought in contact with every class of minds, and are thrown into a sink of iniquity, the companionship of skeptics, infidels, and the profligate, where not 1 out of 100 escape from being contaminated.

Not 1 out of 100 go into university and come out again without any contamination.

When I read that the first time I thought to myself, whoa, even white?

That sounds a little bit like exaggeration, doesn't it?

But you see, it is less than 1% statistically.

I thought to myself, maybe, wasn't El-Waid being a little bit pessimistic when she when she came up with that number.

But after I studied a little bit in the Bible I realized that Elwhaite did not make this option.

This is something that you can find very clearly in the Bible.

Just so that we can understand how important this topic is to talk about.

Obviously I'm not from an English speaking country, but I hope you can still understand.

Otherwise I could try to speak Danish to you, but maybe that would not be a good idea.

Let's see, Genesis chapter 13, verse 5 and 6.

It says here, And Lot also which went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents, and the land was not able to bear them that they might dwell together for their substance was great so that they could not dwell together.

From this text we can see 1 thing And that is that both Lot's household and Abraham's household was very great.

They had a lot of people in their household.

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How To Maintain A Spiritual Life At A Secular University

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