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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Joel Moutray

The Lost Art of Reading:  Why We Should Re-read the Un”Red” Books

It is something that has benefited me personally and I know it benefits all of us when we serve Christ And so before we begin I just want to share a brief short snippet on my testimony Just so you guys can get to know me a little bit My name is Joel Moutre.

I work at the Central California Conference Office with the Literature Ministries Department, and that is GLOW.

Guys, you guys have seen GLOW before, right?

And I worked there for almost 4 years, and I really appreciate that God had called me to do that because it really fits in because all I do is I get to train and teach and inspire others to do and to experience what I myself have experienced.

You know, see God used evangelism to help convert me and I remember I was born in the United States, well I don't remember that part though, but I know that I was born in the United States.

When I was 5 years old, we moved to the country of Norway.

So, yes, I could eat the ganoshk or goosabat, which means I speak Norwegian and happy Sabbath in Norwegian.

And when I was about 15 years old, we came over, back over to California.

And we, I went to high school here, graduated 4 years.

Taj Pakleb came to my high school, gave a week of prayer, and I was baptized my junior year.

I wish it had been all perfect after that, But I fell away from the Lord for a little bit, but God had a different plan, amen?

And he called me to do full-time evangelism.

And he called me through something called Youth Rush, which is a 10-week summer program where young people, 16 and up, can knock on doors and sell books door to door.

And I did that, and I realized that I really needed God.

You know, as Seventh-day Adventist, I grew up Seventh-day Adventist, and so, you know, you know a lot about God, but you don't always know Him.

And so going door to door and seeing, or rather just being involved in evangelism in general, you see your need of God.

You can't share Christ without having him.

You know, Jesus told Peter in John chapter 21, he says, go feed my sheep.

I've realized that you can't feed sheep without food, amen?

And so I've realized that beautiful balance between giving yourself to Christ and putting yourself out there outside of your comfort zone and seeing your need of Christ kinda helps take care of that Laodicean, I don't see my need of God.

And when we do that, when we submit our hearts to Him, be used by Him, then we're forced to go back and read and study our Bibles because we have to, we need more strength, we have to trust in God.

And so ever since then I went to Bible college and I continued my education there and now I work with GLOW and Youth Rush.

This is an exciting project that GLOW is doing.

In September of this year, do you guys know what's happening in Philadelphia?

The Pope is coming to the United States to speak to Congress and have a mass.

So we have decided to arrange a huge outreach with people and volunteers from all over the North American division and trying to gather people, volunteers, to pass out 1000000 glow tracks in that weekend.

And so if you're interested, or If you know anybody that's interested, this literally just started a week or 2 ago.

We don't have a website yet for you to sign up, but you can write this down or ask us afterwards if you don't have anything to write down.

Email Nelson, the GLOBE director, Nelson at puconline.org.

And so before we begin with the actual presentation, I want to, there we go, just make sure that works.

I want to spend just 1 more moment in prayer.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for the Sabbath that is here, I believe, and, or at least not now, Lord, in a few minutes.

We just thank you for that Sabbath peace, and I pray that you would give me the peace.

Give us that peace that surpasses all understanding.

And Father, I'm a sinner telling other sinners where I found bread.

Lord, as it were, 1 beggar telling the other beggar where to find bread.

Lord, I'm not worthy to stand here, but as it says in Matthew chapter 10 verse 20, I just claimed it a minute ago, that it would be the words of the Father through the Spirit speaking and not myself.

I need to grow in these same areas that I'll be presenting.

But Lord, I know that you've convicted me on it, and that's why I want to share it.

Just what you've been teaching me, and so I pray you bless us in Jesus' name, amen.

But any of you guys out front, can you guys see what it says?

If you look inside, you know my friend, he told me today when I borrowed it from him, he said be very careful with it, it's old.

And this is 1 of the first Acts of the Apostles that came out.

It's 1 of those books that I have a friend named Anthony.

It's 1 of those books that if my friend Anthony would see it, he would be tempted to keep it, you know, and it's because he loves those old books and everything.

But you know, it's interesting, I changed my title from what it was in the bulletin, but it says right here, The Lost Art of Reading, why we should reread the unread books.

Now notice that the red is not R-E-A-D, it's red as in the color red.

I'm 25 years old, I've been Adventist my whole life, but I've heard that these books, I mean obviously they're red.

Most Spirit of Prophecy books were printed in the color red and so they called them the red books, you know the whole volume, etc.

I have a picture on my computer of this guy standing next to all the volumes of the Spirit of Prophecy.

Reaches up to about here if you stack them all up.

And they used to call them the red books, but I have also heard being a younger Adventist, hearing the phrase, you know, oh, they're called the unread books now.

Some of you have, some of you're not, but it's true, some people call them the unread books, and they're referring to it because they're not always read anymore, as they should.

And so, this evening's presentation is really what God has laid upon my heart, he's been convicting me of, to read the Spirit of Prophecy more, but I believe it's also a vital, vital key component to what our church needs as well.

I believe that the testimonies given to our church are vital.

It's like the blueprint for the end times and to be successful Christians.

And we asked the question, why we should reread the books?

And we're going to discover 3 reasons why we should reread the unread books.

First though, I want to bring you to a study.

In Value Genesis, you guys heard of this study before?

You have the 1990 edition, you have the 2000 edition, and 2010.

And what it was is Adventist researchers at different universities and groups got together and they studied people or young people in grade, I think it was grade 6 through 12, and they asked them, the first time they had about 18 or 15, 000 volunteers and they had 20 the next time, et cetera, and they asked them all kinds of questions about their devotional life, about their upbringing, about their pastors, about their parents, and they wanted to find out what is really driving our young people.

And they found some very interesting things.

In the second 1, in Valley Genesis 2, under the category of Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, they found these very alarming statistics.

It says right here that 64% definitely believed in the 1844 investigative judgment.

That's a little over half of the kids, both teenagers and young people, actually definitely believed in the 1844 message.

The next 1 down, it says there that 50% definitely believed in Ellen White's gift as a prophet.

The Lost Art of Reading: Why We Should Re-read the Un”Red” Books

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