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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dane Griffin: The Main Thing is the Main Thing

Dane Griffin

The Main Why

Now, if you were in Michigan right now, you'd want to move around a lot to stay warm.

It's supposed to get down to 30 degrees there tonight.

I told the Lord when we lived in North Carolina, I said I will never move further north than North Carolina.

And as I was praying about what to present while I'm here for these next couple of sessions, there are many things we could have talked about.

Many topics that would have been pertinent.

Many topics that would be fun to study because the Bible is always fun.

Nothing I love more than studying the Bible, especially prophecy.

Maybe we can come back another time and do a whole prophecy seminar.

Just really get into it verse by verse to see.

Because I'll tell you what, prophecy is under attack today in the church.

But as I was praying, the Lord impressed me that as young people, you are going to be called upon to fulfill Isaiah 58.

And if you turn to Isaiah 58, We want to start at verse 12, because you are going to be called upon by God to fulfill this passage of Isaiah.

And it says, "'And they that be of thee, ' the remnant, "'shall build, ' the what?

"'Thou shalt raise up the foundations "'of many generations.

"'Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach." The restorer of paths to dwell in.

Now what does that passage tell you tonight?

Just in 1 short verse, the Lord encapsulates the work of His church at the end of time.

No, it says you will build up the old waste places." We're hearing all throughout some circles in the Adventist church today that in order to keep young people in the church, we've got to bring in new methods.

And yet the Lord here tells us that you will be called upon to build the what?

Return ye to the old paths where is the good way, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

Thou shalt raise up the foundations of..." what?

You shall be called the repairers." Now look at this, we've seen you're going to be builders, you're going to be raisers, you're going to be repairers, you're going to be restorers.

Friends, those are all messages of something's been destroyed.

We're going to look at this weekend what we're being called upon to rebuild.

What we're being called upon to rebuild, what we're being called upon to restore.

Where's the breach come that God is going to call you as young people?

And I'm sorry for those of us who have gray hair today.

The Lord gave us our crack at it, old folks.

Could the Lord have come in our generation?

You can listen in because we're going to help them in some ways.

And as we look at us as Seventh-day Adventists, What defines seventh-day Adventists more than any other religion in the world today?

Come on, what do we have as Adventists that nobody else has?

Does any church in the world understand prophecy like the Seventh-day Adventist church?

Do you believe that we are the remnant church of prophecy?

And as you look at the Seventh-day Adventist church, it used to be, not so much today unfortunately, it used to be...

Do you know there was a man in Cuba when Fidel Castro took over?

And Fidel Castro was doing what any good dictator does.

You do away with the physicians and the lawyers and the educated people, the pastors, so that you can control the people better.

And there was 1 man that he was going to put away.

And Castro said, you're a Seventh-day Adventist?

He said, draw me the 2, 300 days in the same.

The guy got down and he drew all the cashiers and said, let him go.

It used to be if you asked somebody about the 2, 300 days, They could tell you about the 2, 300 days.

They knew where the 1, 290, the 1, 335, and the 1, 260.

And they knew where all those dates fit in and why they're important and when the daily was taken away and when the 1, 260 days started and what the date was and why all these great prophecies.

They could tell you about the hour, the day, the month, and the year of Revelation 9.

They could tell you why the Muslim power figures in so deeply into the end of time.

The Main Who

Good morning Happy Sabbath I Heard this side over here Good morning doctor boy.

Yeah, I saw you in the back last night I was thinking I've seen her somewhere before where I seen her before then I remembered Isn't amazing how the brain works?

The name of our talk this week is called The Main Thing is the Main Thing.

And what we're talking about is the whole issue of worship.

Worship should change us into God's image.

Worship should control and mitigate every action of our lives.

And last night we talked about the main what?

If you want to get the whole talk, you can get it from American Cassette Ministries.

Just go to AmericanCassette.org and type on...

There's a whole listing of authors there.

Go under my name and see the titles and you'll click on the main thing.

It's the main thing and you'll get the meeting for last night.

But we discovered that Sabbath is the sign that God can take nothing and make something.

Anybody in the room today who feels like they're a big 0, if you add God, you're now a perfect 10.

When I woke up this morning, when I woke up this morning, I was excited because This is the day that God has set aside for me to manifest my relationship with God, to reaffirm my commitment to His way of life.

But more than that, It's a day that God has set aside to teach me how to be like God.

You see, that's why the Bible says in Genesis 2 that on the seventh day, God rested.

We should begin to plan for Sabbath on Sunday.

You see, Sabbath is the focal point of our lives.

Just as the sanctuary was the focal point of Israel, and the most holy place was the focal point of the sanctuary, and the Ark of the Covenant was the focal point of the most holy place, the fourth commandment was the focal point of the law.

And as such, the Sabbath becomes a focal point of my relationship with God.

And how He wants, just as the first Sabbath on earth was Adam and Eve communing with God.

The first day of their existence was them learning how to be like God.

I think you'll learn some more things than that.

But what we want to talk about today is not the main who.

This afternoon, we're going to talk about the main how.

And then we're going to talk about the main where.

How many of you were raised Seventh-day Adventists?

You're going to be amazed this afternoon as you see the complex broadness of the Sabbath.

David said, exceeding broad are thy commandments.

And we're going to see this afternoon how the Sabbath regulates and exemplifies and beautifies every aspect of life.

Well, Jesus said, turn your Bibles to Isaiah 42 and verse 8.

Jesus says in Isaiah 42, verse 8, I am the Lord, That is My name.

By the way, we learned last night a critical point that God ties His creative power and His creative authority to His prophetic power and His prophetic insight.

And once we begin to lose our prophetic grounding, once we start to lose our prophetic belief, we will automatically begin to lose our belief in God's authority.

Because the 2 are tied tightly together in the scriptures.

And we saw verse after verse after verse after verse last night that prove that from the Word of God without any shadow of doubt.

Satan knows if he can get us to doubt God's prophetic message, we will soon begin to doubt God's ownership of the Sabbath.

We will soon begin to doubt God's ownership of the Sabbath.

We will soon begin to doubt God's authority of the Scripture.

And eventually we will begin to doubt God's remnant church, and we will leave altogether.

So here God says, I am the Lord, that is my name.

My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to any graven image.

You see, God is very jealous, as we will see today, about worship and how We worship.

Have you ever noticed that snakes are very subtle?

We used to have a boa constrictor named Fred.

Snakes are great creatures if you get to know them.

As a matter of fact, if you go back to the Review and Herald, anywhere from 1968 to about 1985, Any snake you see in the Review and Herald or any snake you see in any Adventist publication is Fred.

They'd call me and say, Hey, Dane, we need Fred.

The Main Where

Are there any questions on what we've talked about so far?

You said you were passive when you first entered your spiritual life.

Now, assuming that everybody can take from this meeting today that pyramid's sitting on a spiritual foundation, everybody's not real confident in the first part of that pyramid.

And as you go up, everybody has different variations of their experience.

Can you give a little ray of hope for those who aren't too well experienced?

You know what I love most about God is He's a God of hope.

God says, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh.

I'm sure he looked at me and said, this is going to push it, but I can do this 1 too.

Let me tell you something about the brain.

Now, I wish my wife was here to talk about this because she knows it much better than I do.

But God engineered our brains for recovery, restoration, and renewal.

Now, the problem with many of us is we have been raised in a society that endorses or supports a fixed mindset mentality.

A fixed mindset says, I was born this way, my father was this way, my grandfather was this way, there's nothing I can do about it.

Judith Dweck, DWCK, a social psychologist back in the East Coast in Boston.

She isolated 1 group of children by psychological testing as fixed mindset children.

Another group of children were learning mindset children.

God made the brain to expand and increase and grow.

These little children that were in a fixed mindset, she would give them a hard puzzle to do.

When they got the puzzle done, they only wanted to do the same type of puzzle from then on because their whole self-worth is wound up in performance.

A fixed mindset is wound up in performance.

Dweck gave puzzles to another group of 4 year olds, and when they got done with a hard puzzle, they said, Dr.

Learning mindset is all around what can I learn from this?

How can I be better through this experience?

That's why Jesus in the Bible tells us to in everything give thanks.

What did I have to do to get out of that passive mentality?

Many men who are afraid to make decisions, they become passive because that's a safe zone.

They need to step out of that comfort zone and realize if you never make a mistake, you're not growing.

Do you know that almost every single man on the Forbes 500 multi-millionaire list has declared bankruptcy at least 1 time?

If you're broke, does that mean you're a failure?

But in a learning mindset, the learning mindset says what can I learn from this to make me better?

So, as I came out of my passive mentality, I didn't even know how to lead out in a Bible study with my own family.

That's my job as a man is to be the spiritual leader in my home.

So as I began to do this, every day I had to say, Lord, how do I learn how to be like You?

Lord, set up circumstances today to teach me to be different." And friends, every time you make a choice to be different, your brain begins to change in that direction.

Did you know that the brain of a drug addict reflects his environment?

But as that drug addict begins to make choices to do new things to move away from his addiction, his brain begins to change structurally to reflect the new environment he's going toward.

So, as I began to make small decisions, in other words, when my wife would say, what would she say to me?

She would say, Dane, have you done something?

If I hadn't done it, rather than saying, yeah, I did it, I'd say, no, I haven't done it, but I'm going to get it done tomorrow by 3.

So I had to force myself into making a decision.

And when I went down for worship in the morning, I'd say, Lord, what do You want me to share this morning for worship?

I've got to lead them to the throne of righteousness.

And 1 thing I started doing as a father is as we were having worship, I'd say to Anthony, who was my youngest, I'd say, Anthony, what do you think this passage means to you?

Gina, what do you think this passage means to you?

I'm trying to find out where they are spiritually.

What their thought processes are so I can see where they are spiritually.

9 times out of 10, I was stalling because I didn't know what the answer was.

All the time I'm saying, Lord, I don't know what it is.

And by the time it was time for me to tell what it was, the Lord told me what it was.

You see, as we start stepping out of it, Now ladies, if you've got a passive husband, it means you're going to have to learn to be very patient.

Because you don't move from being a passive man to being an Arnold Schwarzenegger overnight.

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Series

Dane Griffin: The Main Thing is the Main Thing

The Main Who

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Jesus Throughout the Bible

1h 17m

Seven New Things

31m

WYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

As You Think

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And. Worship. Him.

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Karl Tsatalbasidis ~ The 'Rock' and Worship: Music and Worship at the End of Time

If the Foundations Are Destroyed, What Can the Righteous Do? Part I

51m

Nehemiah

There Remains Therefore a Sabbath Rest

45m

Established in the Present Truth

The Law of the Lord is Perfect

1h 7m

Apologetics

Defending the Sabbath

1h 1m

Wyatt Allen Weekend

In Search of the True Church: My Personal Search for the Remnant Church

1h 14m

Of Prophecy and Praise

39m

Mark Howard: Last Generation Theology

02 The Present Truth

44m

The Joy of the Lord

34m

Sound Doctrine