GYC 2014: At The Cross

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

The 4th Angel: Literature Evangelism Made Relevant In A Postmodern World

Bill Krick

1. Literature Distribution for Today’s Mind in Today’s World

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at the Cross in Phoenix, Arizona.

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

The title of this seminar is The Fourth Angel.

Does anyone know what the fourth angel is?

The fourth angel refers to Revelation 18 verses 1 through 4.

You know the 3 angels, the 3 angels' messages, Revelation 18, 1 to 4, talks about the fourth angel.

And I'll explain why this period and also next period, why that fourth angel relates so closely to literature.

So this seminar presentation is entitled, Literature Distribution for Today's Mind in Today's World.

Literature Distribution for Today's Mind in Today's World.

And we're going to pray in just a moment.

But the question is, what is today's mind?

Today's mind is different than it was a hundred years ago.

It's different than it was a hundred and twenty-five years ago, 200 years ago.

That's the question that we're asking this morning.

Turn your Bibles to Daniel chapter 2 and we'll read our first verse there.

We'll have prayer and we'll read our first verse in Daniel chapter 2.

Daniel chapter 2 does not get old for me.

After hearing many evangelists preach from Daniel chapter 2, I love Daniel chapter 2.

And we're going to look at Daniel 2 verse 45 and let's pray.

Father in heaven, thank you so much for these GYC attendees.

Thank you that we can spend time thinking about your word, and most of all thinking how to reach people that you died for, Lord.

We are at the cross during these few days and we know that Jesus tasted death for every man including the postmodern man the secular man the man who doesn't appear to care about spiritual things and I pray that you'll help us to know how to reach people better because of the cross.

Daniel is concluding his explanation of the dream to the king.

Remember, first he explained the dream, first he told the dream, then he explained the dream.

Now verse 45, inasmuch as you saw, Daniel's talking to King Nebuchadnezzar, that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it broke in pieces, the iron, bronze, clay, silver, gold.

The great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this." And then notice the last line.

The dream is certain and its interpretation is sure.

This is from BBC, the news magazine, British Broadcasting Company.

And this fellow is writing, his name is Tom.

He says, is it better to be religious than spiritual?

Is it better to be religious or spiritual?

Religious is defined as participating in religious activities, going to church, fellowshipping with the body of believers, and spiritual is defined as having spiritual experiences, transcended experiences, with a higher power.

And this article discusses this and it points out that in America research has shown that 1 out of 3 people considers themselves SBNR.

So is it better to be spiritual or religious?

According to America, 1 3rd of Americans believe, no, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual.

How many of you took part in the 3 day canvassing outreach recently?

We meet people when we canvass, when we go door to door, when we talk to people, we meet people all the time.

I don't want anything to do with religion, but I'm a spiritual person." Okay?

Maybe they've had bad experiences with a church of some kind.

Or they don't want to be told what to do.

There's a big chunk of people out there today who consider themselves that way.

Now I want to, without taking more time to define the problem, I want to try to jump into a bit of a solution right away.

There was an interview recently that Adventist Review did with Pastor Sean Boonstra, who's the director of Voice of Prophecy.

And this, that's Sean Boonstra, this is what he said.

He pointed out in this article that research, Current research shows 34% of Americans attend church.

Back in 1789, when the Constitution was ratified, only 17% of people attended church.

Wait a minute, that seems backwards, doesn't it?

And actually, there was a Pew Research survey that was done that actually said that it was more than 34%.

It was more like 38% of Americans attend a church every weekend.

And that includes synagogue or whatever, okay?

So, Boonstra then goes on to point out that it actually isn't as different as you think it is.

We may have to back up to very foundational issues with this generation, but this idea that people are not religiously inclined?

Human beings are struggling with the same things we've struggled with for thousands of years.

So the point is, yes, there are people who say they're spiritual but not religious.

Yes, there are postmodernists who believe that there's no right or wrong, that everything's fuzzy and that you have your own experience.

Yes, there are people who are secular, but the core human problems never change.

What's a core human problem that everybody faces?

2. Literature’s Role in the Last Days

This message was presented at the GYC 2014 conference at La Crosse in Phoenix, Arizona.

The title of this 1 is Literature in the Last Days.

This is the fourth angel, the fourth angel reaching secular, postmodern, and other minds through literature.

To start off this session, we have a personal testimony from Helen Yu.

Okay, there's some key parts to this testimony that you want to make sure you get, okay?

So listen closely to what Helen is going to say.

Father, we ask your blessing on our next session.

We ask that your spirit and your angels will be here.

We ask that you will baptize us with your Spirit.

We ask that we will all leave more deeply dedicated to sharing the truth, to being what you want us to be.

So God has really blessed me so much in my life, but I'll try to condense it down into 10 minutes.

So to start, I was born in South Korea to a Buddhist father and a traditionally Catholic mother, so religious differences there.

And then when I was 5 years old, my little brother was born with Down syndrome.

And so his heart was failing and he really needed life-saving surgery.

But in Korea at that time, especially, it was seen as a disgrace to have a disabled person in our family.

So my dad's family refused to give my brother the surgery, But my mom was determined to save her son, so this disagreement kind of prompted the divorce between my father and my mother.

But praise God, my brother's surgery was successful, and he continues living as a witty, strong teenager today.

So anyway, so my brother, my mom, and I were just kind of left alone when some American Mormon missionaries who were doing their missions in Korea reached out to us and they invited us to their church and My mom was eventually baptized into a Mormon ward.

And these missionaries convinced us to move to the United States where my brother and I could have more opportunities and lead a better life.

And so my mom applied to Brigham Young University in Utah and got accepted to the nursing program there.

And so a few days before we were about to depart to the United States, I got sick with pneumonia and was hospitalized.

So I ruined all of our plans, but God obviously had better plans, so praise God for that.

And so a year later, my mom was chosen as 1 of the 20 teachers out of the province chosen to visit America for free.

And they were stationed out of Chico, California.

And the program organizers were Baptists, so they attended the Baptist church every Sunday.

And my mom was so impressed with Chico that she decided to immigrate there with our family when she came back.

So my mom quit her job of 20 years as a well-respected schoolteacher, left her friends, family, everything that she had to America so that my brother and I could have a chance at life.

So we moved to Chico as planned and we became Baptists.

We were attending the church there and then we found out that a Korean Presbyterian church was meeting in the same facility So we began to attend the Presbyterian Church with the Koreans in the afternoons and eventually became Presbyterians.

And so from Buddhists and Catholics to Baptists to Presbyterians, where does Seventh-day Advent system come in?

We had been familiar with Adventists because 2 of my cousins who were staying with us were attending the Adventist Academy down the street because it was the closest public or private school.

And then my mom's friend from the Presbyterian Church, told her about the SDA Church in Paradise and invited my mom to join her.

And my mom was so impressed when she attended the SDA Church in Paradise that we would drive 30 minutes just to go to church on Sabbaths.

And she began receiving personal Bible studies from the Korean pastor there.

And she was first introduced to Ellen White's writings.

And though we didn't have much money, she purchased the whole Conflict of the Ages series in Korean and read through them all.

And it was through reading The Desire of Ages that she truly felt God's love and understood the weight of Jesus' sacrifice.

And when she read The Great Controversy, it was the first time her eyes were really open.

And that the first time in her life that she realized that God wasn't just a fabrication of the human mind But our Heavenly Father who's all-powerful and all-knowing and who's actively working For our redemption And so my mom had always been involved with church and had thought church was a nice organization to get people to do nice things, you know.

But this was the first time that God became real.

Meanwhile, my mom decided to enroll me in Paradise Adventist Academy for seventh grade to keep me out of trouble.

And I wasn't familiar with the Bible at all, so in Bible class we would learn about Jonah and Noah and I had no idea while everyone knew all these stories from a long time ago.

I was skeptical as to why I would trust in something that I didn't even know was real, that I couldn't know was real.

Then I realized it would be pointless that a God did exist anyway.

It wouldn't mean anything to me if he didn't care about me in the first place.

So after years of wrestling with these questions, I just decided to see how God would show me his love.

Given that I treated my experience in life with the assumption that, okay, God does love me.

And so God led me to my first medical mission trip to Honduras my junior year, provided all the finances.

I wasn't even planning on going, but it worked out.

Things usually work out that way for me and God.

And he helped me in continuing my involvement with the Korean American Youth Adventist Missionary movement as well.

And in a way difficult to explain in just a few sentences, God worked in a way in my life where I saw his love so clearly, where I felt his love through service and I wanted to dedicate my life completely to him because nothing had made me feel so much joy.

And at that point, people asked me how I had a relationship with God, and I couldn't explain.

But 1 thing I was so sure of was that God loved me, and nothing could shake me of that.

And on October 29, 2011, my mom and I made the decision to get baptized together at the Paradise Adventist Church.

And so God led me to Andrews University after that for my freshman year and provided all the finances so I could pursue my studies to become a medical missionary.

And not only would I be trained academically, but God would connect me with the right people to give me invaluable missionary training through the Youth Rush summer canvassing program.

So to be honest, I was extremely skeptical going into the summer.

When I had first heard about canvassing from an old friend, I thought that would be the last thing I would ever do.

So you sleep in gyms and churches with strangers.

You go to the bathroom in strangers' homes, you know, and you're like a solicitor and I don't know anyone who loves solicitors.

Then I was canvassed by a canvasser named Sheila Nadarajah, and she followed me to my room to make sure I signed up for the program.

And yeah, the chances that I would actually be able to canvass are slim, so I prayed and said, God, if this works out, I'll know it's your will, and sure enough, it was, and I was scheduled to canvass the first half of my summer.

I was afraid of the world, and I literally thought everyone was out to get me.

And my friends that canvassed with me can attest to this.

And so I just judged people by their outward appearance and assumed, OK, there's no way this person has any interest in God at all.

But It was often those people that I predisposed as spiritually disinterested that were most interested.

And it was just such a beautiful experience to be able to pray with those people, to personally connect with them, and to give them books, to give them hope that would help them continue in their journey.

I never thought I'd say this, but I loved canvassing so much that I decided to stay for the whole summer and then come back for another summer.

I thought about why I loved canvassing too, because when I think back to what I did in the summer, sometimes I don't know how I love it so much.

But I had tough days, and I faced rejections, as all canvassers do.

But they were far outweighed by the many divine appointments where I truly saw God working, like literally miracles in front of my eyes.

And it was hard work, harder than anything, literally anything I've ever done.

But nothing else has been so rewarding for me.

And canvassing was the first time in my life where I experienced God so profoundly, more profoundly than I could have ever imagined.

And the thing I wanted most was just to get to know him better.

And canvassing gave me a hunger for the Bible to study the word and to really seek what God is trying to tell me through the Bible and also how valuable and life-changing Ellen White's works were as well and It was through this work that heaven became a reality before it was like Oh a nice place that everyone talks about going in the future but this was the first time where I pleaded for souls pleaded with God for the salvation of my family, my friends, and those that I met at the doors, where I saw the power of intercessory prayer.

And it was, this was when my life on earth was put into perspective, that we're just passing through here, and that we're on our way to something greater.

And most importantly, I saw how God could be integrated into my daily life and my in my daily, everyday interactions with others.

So I realized what it meant to actually see everyone that I met, everyone I see at the grocery store, you know, anyone, as a child of God.

And I was finally able to truly love and care about others, like random strangers.

3. Angels & Demons: Supernatural Beings, Literature, and the Struggle for the Soul

Welcome to seminar session number 3 of The Fourth Angel.

And today's title is Angels and Demons, Supernatural Beings, Literature, and the Struggle for the Soul.

Before we jump in, we're going to have 2 live testimonies.

The first 1 is by Janelle Andres, who is currently a Souls West student, Track 2, and she is from the beautiful islands of Hawaii.

And then we're going to have a testimony from Joel Moutre, who currently works as Assistant Literature Ministries Director of the Central California Conference.

Father, we invite your Holy Spirit, we invite your presence, we invite your power to be with us here in this room in the next hour.

And we pray that we can all emerge stronger and full of more faith and more courage to do what is pleasing to you at the end.

I've never actually worn 1 of these before.

Well, I'm very privileged to be able to have a testimony to share with you.

And what I'm going to be sharing with you is why literature evangelism has a special place in my heart.

First of all, to give you a little bit of background information, I was born and raised Adventist.

But, you know, just because I was born and raised in the church, it doesn't mean I had any less of the struggles that the world has, any less of the temptations.

In fact, I fell into the things that many of us fall into.

Most specifically, there was a relationship that I was involved in and my entire world revolved around this 1 guy.

And I started changing everything about myself, the career path that I was going towards, just so I could make him happy because he was everything that I cared about.

But you know, the entire time God was trying to give me a love that only he could fill and satisfy, yet I was trying to fill my own heart with this love from this guy and it really meant absolutely nothing.

And I didn't realize that until he decided that it was time for it to be done away with.

And after me and my boyfriend broke up, that's when I realized how empty that love that I was trying to fill my heart with really was.

After that, I decided that I wanted to travel the world and get away from all of the things that kind of reminded me about him.

So I decided that I was going to study abroad.

I lived on a cruise ship for 3 and a half months, traveling to about 15 different countries.

And while I was studying abroad, God was slowly pricking at my heart.

And I went to some third-world countries, such as, like, Ghana.

And while I was there, I saw people living so simply and how the little things just brought them joy.

I did a bunch of these service projects, kind of like little mini mission trips almost, where we would give toothbrushes to orphanages and teach the kids how to brush their teeth, or we would go and feed the homeless.

And it was interesting because I started to notice a pattern that all of these organizations that I was volunteering for all had a bigger purpose, and they were all Christian organizations that was ultimately trying to spread the gospel.

And it was then that God was really putting in my heart, like, I want you to go into ministry, I want you to live a life that is not for yourself, but is for other people and helping them to get to know God.

And so I came back to the States, and I was like so determined, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go into ministry, But I absolutely had no idea what kind of ministry.

But little did I know, God had a specific ministry that he wanted me to be involved in.

The very month that I came back to Hawaii, he sent 2 literature evangelists by the names of Greg and Karen Wilson that happened to be Bible working on that same island.

And it was interesting because I was so determined that I was gonna plan the kind of ministry that I was gonna go into, that I was applying for all of these Christian organizations, not necessarily Adventists, but organizations that really focused in outreach and ministering to other people.

And I was going to apply for these internships, but there was a bunch of resumes and essays, and it was kind of crazy how hard it really was to apply for it.

And so at Bible study 1 night, where I met Greg and Karen Wilson, the 2 literature evangelist Bible workers, as I shared the prayer request, Karen came up to me that night, and she asked me if I needed help with my resume and with my applications.

And I was like, yeah, that would be awesome.

So as we would spend time together, every single time we'd hang out and we'd work on these resumes and things, it would always lead into an impromptu Bible study.

And it was interesting because, you know, like I said, I was raised Adventist, but I never really studied the Bible for myself, and I've never really been taught how to study the Bible.

And when I would study it with her, it was the first time that the Word of God was really pricking my heart, and it was being, like, really personal to me.

We would read verses, and Karen would tell me, like, I want you to insert your name right there because he did that for you.

And every time we'd hang out, she would always tell me, hey, you should think about canvassing or you should think about this program called Youth Rush.

And you know, I liked her so much that I was like, I'll pray about it.

And that's all it took for God to be like, all right, that's good enough.

Long story short, in that aspect, I went to Youth Rush that summer, And God just changed my entire world.

It was really interesting because the more I was trying to reach out for these souls, I realized that the first heart that God was trying to win was my own.

It's really amazing how God can use you in trying to reach other people, that He's saving you at the same time.

And I started seeing Him do that in my life.

As I kept doing this work, knocking on people's doors, going out of your comfort zone to go into theirs to bring them the Gospel in a very simple way in the messages in our books.

There was this 1 experience where there was this man who was literally on his deathbed, and he told me that he could die any minute.

And before I left, he told me, he's like, you know, something that's really interesting is just 10 minutes ago, I was on my knees praying that God would show me that he loved me.

And then here you are coming to my door with a book telling me that I can understand how God is my friend and that he does love me.

And you know, it's interesting because there's so much more that this work can do that we don't even really see.

The time that I was really sold out for this work is when I met someone that reminded me of my own family member.

Do any of you guys have family members or loved ones or friends that you're praying for them to come to God?

Maybe they've drifted away or they've never given their heart to God.

1 of them was specifically 1 of my cousins.

And as I was talking to this guy, everything about him reminded me of my cousin.

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Series

The 4th Angel: Literature Evangelism Made Relevant In A Postmodern World

4. How to Reach the Five Major Religions Using Literature – Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Parts

1. Literature Distribution for Today’s Mind in Today’s World

44m

2. Literature’s Role in the Last Days

52m

3. Angels & Demons: Supernatural Beings, Literature, and the Struggle for the Soul

53m

4. How to Reach the Five Major Religions Using Literature – Part 1

49m

5. How to Reach the Five Major Religion Using Literature -Part 2

44m

6. How to Reach Mormons & Jehovah’s Witness Using Their Literature

43m

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