Anil Kanda

Ceres SDA Church

Winning Again

So why don't we bow our heads right now and let's just take some time to pray and ask that God's Holy Spirit would be here, that God would grant to us the present blessing, and that we'd all walk away changed having been in His presence.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for grace, God, that we can come to your throne right now, just as we are, Lord, to find help, to find grace in times of need.

Lord, you've called us here to worship and, God, to receive the message from heaven.

And Father, we know that there are many things that are on our hearts and minds, bills, houses, people, situations, circumstances, Lord.

But Father, right now we just want to pray and ask for the present blessing.

God, we ask that you would open up heaven's gates and that you would pour your Holy Spirit upon this congregation.

God, we want you to give us a message this morning, the things we need to understand.

I, You know, I'm somebody who likes playing basketball, but I'm not somebody who actually likes to watch basketball.

My mom, on the other hand, she loves to watch basketball.

She's just a little Indian lady, she's about 61 years old, and her favorite team is the LA Lakers.

And if you ever want to see an Indian lady curse up a storm, just put a game of the Lakers playing and them losing and you will see a little Indian attempt to cuss in the English language.

And, you know, I never grew up actually watching sports.

I used to play out in the streets or in the field and stuff.

But there was something I actually liked to watch, and that was the Olympics.

Now I don't actually like watching all of the Olympics.

My favorite part of the Olympics is the very end.

I'm talking about the part in slow motion when that runner is going right through that finish line.

I don't want to see the rest of the race.

I just like the very end, when they're going to that final lap.

NASCAR racing, People like watching NASCAR racing.

I don't understand why watching cars go 250 laps around.

You know, it's the very end that matters, right?

And probably most of the women will agree on this too as well and some of the men.

My favorite thing about watching sports is the very end.

That's when the sweat is coming down your face.

That's when you're just on the edge of your seat and you're watching just to see what's going to happen.

Because the unexpected happens at the very end.

You can imagine somebody, for example, the Olympics.

Let's talk about somebody who's running, right?

And you see as it goes into slow motion, perhaps you missed the actual event when it took place, but you're watching the slow motion replay, and you're seeing somebody running.

And you're seeing them run with just efficiency.

Every part of their body is moving in sync.

And their body, their muscle is throbbing.

You can see the sweat that is coming off people's heads as they're racing towards that finish line.

You can see people in the background as they're trying to catch up.

And that 1 winner is making his way towards the very finish line.

Well, you know what the favorite thing about that is?

Is when you're looking and you see the people in the audience or in the stadium.

And you're seeing there, you see a guy with a hot dog, and you see a guy with a hat and somebody holding up their child and just people holding food and all of a sudden you see them slowly going up.

The hot dog guy's mouth, the hot dog's coming out of his hand as he's raising up.

The guy with the hat, his hat's falling over in his face.

There's a man with his little daughter who's in front of his little daughter.

And you see them slowly rising up as the runner is...

Making his way right towards the finish line and as he is getting right through that ribbon and the ribbon is stretching and finally it just snaps you see people's expression right in the stadium and their faces are just like you watch out those are golden moments right we love victory Can you say amen to that?

In fact, this is the reason why I think people watch sports, is because we like victory.

God created us to be a people of victory.

And we need to experience more than just victory in sports, but victory in our own lives.

And what we're going to be looking at today, we're going to be looking at the life of somebody who began to experience uninterrupted victory.

Not just victory and then stumbling and then coming back a year later, but somebody who had victory after victory after victory after victory.

And you're going to see that in their life, it started off with a defeat.

Let's go to Luke chapter 22 Luke chapter 22 And this is Jesus at the Last Supper.

And he's with his disciples, and you can imagine this is the last few hours he's having with his disciples.

So he wants to communicate things that are extremely important for his disciples to understand.

Watch what Luke chapter 22 verse 21 says.

Betrayer is with me on the table and truly the Son of Man goes as has been determined but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.

Now let me ask you a question, who was Jesus talking about?

Jesus was specifically talking about Judas but guess what?

His own disciples were going to betray him shortly.

In fact go to verse 31 you're going to see Jesus actually address Peter right here.

Verse 31 Luke chapter 22 starting with verse 31 and the Lord said Simon Simon you notice in the Bible whenever God is mentioning the name twice he's placing an emphasis upon that person.

Listen, I am speaking to you is what he is saying.

Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may what?

But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail.

And when you have returned to me strengthen your brethren notice what Jesus is saying right here He says Simon Simon Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat I did a little bit study about the word sifting and what it actually occurs what it actually means.

It's not talking about the very beginning of planting crops, it's actually referring to the very end after the harvest has already been plucked.

And sifting is basically separating the wheat from the debris.

The Butterfly Effect

We are going to be jumping into the Word of God.

And I believe that God has something very special in store for you.

But the 1 thing he asks on your part is to have an open mind and an open heart.

So right now, we'd like to go to the throne of God and ask Jesus to give us that right now.

Why don't we bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Father in heaven we thank you so much for your goodness and for your kindness.

Thank you God that we got to see a baptism, 2 baptisms.

We got to see children being dedicated to you.

Thank you for the music and the testimonies.

Lord, you have blessed our church today in a mighty way.

We pray and ask, God, as we open up your word, that these blessings would continue.

And Lord, according to Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20, you would do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or imagine.

God, I don't want to preach a message or a sermon.

We pray that heaven would pour out its spirit upon this congregation this morning.

It's really good to have our call porters here.

I'll tell you this, I did call portering 1 summer, and I did it in the year 2003.

That's a long, long time ago, and I never forgot.

That 1 summer that I did call portering, It changed my life.

It was something that really pushed me to my limits, and it taught me a unique way of witnessing.

Many times when we're trying to witness to somebody, or we think to ourselves, man, I wish I had something to say to this person right now, and words sort of escape us.

We really don't know how to start the conversation or how to take it towards something very spiritual.

At that moment it's always good to have a piece of literature.

When the spoken word fails, the written word will prevail.

And so it's always good to have some literature in your hand to have some in your car This is always a wonderful thing to do with in fact if you want some literature you go talk to those call porters They'll get some for you All right, the name of the sermon is called the butterfly effect The Butterfly Effect.

I know some people have asked the question, wait a minute, this seems to be the title of a movie, a Hollywood movie.

I actually walked into Kmart yesterday, and I saw The Butterfly Effect movie and The Butterfly Effect Part 2.

And I thought to myself, this is not what my sermon is about.

And so, we're going to understand a little bit about the butterfly effect and how it applies to our spirituality and our lives as Christians.

In physics, there is a theory, and it was hypothesized by a man by the name of Edward Lorenz.

And in 1960, he basically articulated a theory that was already being sort of grappled by a lot of physicists.

And it's this thing called the butterfly effect.

In other words, it describes how there are small actions that can take place that will ultimately lead to very big and massive events taking place.

For example, the analogy that's quite used often is the flapping or the fluttering of a butterfly wing will lead somehow way down in a period of time to a massive hurricane in South America.

And this was an individual, Edward Lawrence, who actually began to understand this theory when he was trying to predict the weather using some calculations.

And because he messed up on 1 of the calculations by a fraction of a percentage, it led to completely different and really different and big results that were far different from the predicted results.

In fact, this is the reason why a lot of meteorologists or weathermen actually have a difficult time predicting weather because of all the variables that are involved that affect weather.

And so this theory basically teaches that in large scale systems, small actions can lead to huge changes.

Small actions or variations can lead to huge changes.

We can see this in the human body, in the circulatory system, how small changes can change, have massive effects.

We can also see this in the stock market, where slight fluctuations will lead to something really big.

And so when we're understanding this butterfly effect, folks, you're going to see that it also applies to spirituality.

In fact, when you study the Bible, you will see that certain individuals, individuals who did, or just committed small actions or did small things, seemingly small things, led to huge and massive and great revolutions.

We're going to be taking a good look at somebody in the Bible where there are great events that can be tied to something that he did.

Something that he apparently did in the Scriptures.

The Bible actually says only 1 verse about this individual, exactly what he did, that had a ripple effect that in these cause and effect over and over again it led to massive changes in the course of human history in the course of human history in fact we're going to take our Bibles and we're going to go to the book of Ezra, the book of Ezra.

We can look at our church today, and we can see that we are part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

But folks, I want you to understand something.

This church was started by a group of people during the 1800s.

And the reason why they started this Seventh-day Adventist church movement is because of a fulfilled prophecy.

This prophecy actually took place, or the beginning of this prophecy began in the 400s A.D.

And it took place because of what 1 individual did in his influence that he had upon a certain king and His influence led to a great revival In fact this individual Ezra also started 1 of the greatest revivals in all of Israel, it led to the completion of the temple and the walls, the temple and the walls in which the Messiah, the Messiah, the Promised 1 actually walked into.

Just this small action had this ripple effect that changed the course of human history.

Generations later, and what this individual did had no clue what was going to take place as a result of his actions.

Everyone take your Bible, we're going to the book of Ezra, Ezra chapter 7 verse 10.

And watch what the Bible says in the midst of the book of Ezra.

It is this 1 verse that described what Ezra did that had this ripple effect that changed the course of human history, that led to tremendous events taking place.

Watch what Ezra chapter 7 verse 10 says, For Ezra, what's that next word?

Heart to seek the law of the Lord, to do it and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.

What this man did in this 1 verse led to huge cataclysmic events.

All because he did something that seemingly when we sort of read it in the book of Ezra it really doesn't seem like a big thing but when you actually trace cause and effect you will see it was this particular action that led to so many other things that would take place in history.

The Bible says, for Ezra prepared his, what?

Heart to seek the law of the Lord, to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.

And that question is, how do we prepare our hearts?

You know, many times we like to think, well, the best thing for me to do, I need to prepare a sermon if I'm going to be preaching.

Before you preach a sermon, before you prepare for the sermon, you need to prepare your heart.

Before you prepare your reports for work, you need to prepare your heart.

Even before you do your homework, you should prepare your heart.

Even before preparing your canvas, you should prepare your heart.

In anything big that you are doing, or even relatively small, there needs to be a very special process of preparing your heart.

If you're going to come up here and do music, even before you prepare your Psalms, You should have a time in which you are preparing your heart.

It was Ezra's action of preparing his heart that led to this massive revival in all of Israel.

It started and completed the temple building.

It helped a group of people who were sitting down, who were refusing to do any more work, who had become sleepy.

And 1 man's revival in his own life led to an entire nation being revived.

I never forgot, I was doing an interview in the conference about a few years ago, they were interviewing me for a pastoral job and you know 1 of the administrators, he really likes to just bring the hammer down and he likes to make sure these sort of young recruits can handle pastoring a church.

And so he looked at me in the midst of the interview as I was trying to pontificate and sound really smart and intelligent, and he says to me in the middle of the interview, what are you gonna do when the church doesn't wanna grow?

What are you gonna do in the church when everybody is asleep and nobody wants to work and do the gospel, or give the gospel?

And I said, well, then he continues, and he continues just to sort of chide me and hit me, and he says, What are you going to do in the church when everybody is asleep and nobody wants to work and do the gospel, or give the gospel?

And he continues just to sort of chide me and hit me.

And he says, what are you going to do when you are stressed out of your mind and you do not feel like working for God, what are you going to do?

And I never forgot, the Lord gave me the right answer.

And it silenced him too, which was really great.

I said, I'll remember what Ezekiel 37 says, that even dry bones can live again.

And he sort of, just like he got punched by the spirit, he stopped and said, that's good.

Folks, I want you to understand something.

It is possible to live again spiritually.

H.M.S. Richards

Voice Of Prophecy

Watch Bible Prophecy

We're happy to be with you for this worship service.

And now as we open God's holy word and study what he has for us, I'm sure that you with me will receive a great blessing.

You know, as we read the newspapers, isn't it true that Bible prophecy is being fulfilled?

My father, HMS Richards, is presenting now the subject, Watch Bible Prophecy.

Suppose you had been reared by an infidel, your father and mother skeptics, and you had been reading the writings of Tom Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Voltaire, Hume, and other doubters and infidels.

Well, this was the case of the very dear friend of mine.

As he grew to manhood and continued to study, he began to read the Bible.

Against his will and to his utter amazement and deep chagrin, he found the evidence of the truth of the Bible and the Holy Word itself, and he found it to be overwhelming.

In that wonderful book he found these words, Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.

And as a result, my friend now is a thorough Bible-believing Christian, right at this moment, and he has been for years.

Bible prophecy convinced him of the inspiration of the Scriptures.

Remember, Bible prophecies are not guesses.

Here's the challenge of 1 Thessalonians 5, 20 and 21.

Some people have the idea that Bible prophecy is merely clumsy guesswork.

They take the words of the skeptics and make no honest personal investigation.

Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord.

If the prophecies of the Holy Scripture are straightforward, easy to understand, have been fulfilled accurately in history, then we must accept the Bible as the Word of God.

Here are the words of the Lord Himself, spoken through the prophet Isaiah, I am God, and there is none else, none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times of things that are not yet done.

There you have it, God's challenge, Isaiah 46, 9 and 10.

Read the prophecies of the Scriptures, then go to the library and find out the truth or error of these divine predictions.

No other book has ever been like this or able to make such a challenge and stand such a test.

The Bible has now been translated in full or in part in over a thousand languages and this challenge comes as never before to everybody in this electronic age.

"'Produce your cause, ' saith the Lord, "'bring forth your strong reasons.' Let them bring them forth, and show us what shall happen.

Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods.

This is God's challenge to false gods everywhere.

The true God will be known by the historical fulfillment of the prophecies of His Holy Word.

I tell you before it comes, said Jesus, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He.

Jesus based his claim to be the true Messiah, the true Christ of God, on the fulfillment of his own word.

Bible prophecies are not like the predictions of the Delphian oracle in the days of ancient Greece, which were so worded that no matter what happened, they could claim fulfillment.

In the Holy Scriptures there are scores, hundreds of fearless prophecies reaching down, not merely a few days, weeks or years, but hundreds, yes, thousands of years into the future.

The Bible speaks as certainly of the future as historians can speak of the past.

In fact, it describes future events before they occurred.

In Isaiah 13, beginning with the 19th verse, and Jeremiah 51, beginning with verse 24, references made to the great kingdom of Babylon, which at The time of the prophecy, notice, was a mighty nation, the most mighty nation.

These prophecies came true and they have remained true during the past 2000 years or more.

Every day that Babylon remains now an uninhabited ruin.

The challenge of the unbelieving world stands.

Listen to the words written way back 700 years before Christ.

Babylon shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation, neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there." Isaiah 12, verse 19.

Remember, Babylon was probably the greatest city in the world at that time, like London or New York today.

It was often called Golden Babylon, the wonder of the world and so on.

Not only was it to be overthrown by its enemies, but it was to sink completely out of sight as a city, no 1 to live there.

This was literally fulfilled and is its condition today and I know it from personal observation.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Winning Again

41m

The Butterfly Effect

41m

Watch Bible Prophecy

15m

God Wants You

30m

Dream Big

36m

How to Lose a Battle Before it Begins

45m

7 Attacks Against the Truth

1h 21m

Transformed by the Truth

1h 4m

Genes, Health and Spirituality: What’s the Connection?

1h 34m

Facing Fire

58m

End Time Hope

1h 54m

This Testimony

1h 57m

Sound Doctrine