Tim Arakawa

Alistair Huong

Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN)

AudioVerse 3ABN Today Interview

I want to spend my life mending broken people.

Lord, let my words heal a heart that hurts.

Heal a heart that hurts I want to spend my life Mending broken people I want to spend my life mending broken people.

I'm Jay Christian and with me is Brian Hamilton.

I'm normally on 3ABN radio and Brian is normally the guy that sits in the accounting office and the way he describes it, he wears his little green shade and he sits there and works on the adding machine all the time.

And we have a couple of great guests that you're going to enjoy because they've got quite a story for you, a very interesting ministry.

We have Alistair Huang with us, and he's the executive director of AudioVerse.

And we also have Tim Arakawa, and he's a co-founder of AudioVerse.

And we're looking forward very much to talking with you and learning about your ministry.

First though, before we do that, we have a song and we would like to enjoy some beautiful music.

Celestine Barry, and the name of her song is 23.

♪ The Lord is my shepherd, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want I shall not want He makes me to lie down in green pastures He leads me beside the still waters He restores my soul He leads me in the path of righteousness For His name's sake Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadows of death I will fear No evil for you are with me You write on your staff their comforting You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

The proper rounds over Surely goodness and mercy Shall follow me All the days of my life And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever, forever Forever, forever, forever ♪ Amen, a beautiful song.

Seldestein Barry with 23, and the gentleman on the piano in the background is her husband Michael.

Well, Brian, we have quite an interview ahead of us.

We've got a ministry that reaches around the world on the internet.

And we'll let the gentlemen that are here tell us about it because they work with it very closely and rather than spending a lot of time just saying this is what it is, us saying this is what it is, we'd like to hear it from you guys.

And Tim, if you would, tell us a little bit about AudioVerse and how it got started.

Sure, well, the best way I think to describe AudioVerse would be to say that it's just a collection of sermons available on the internet that anyone in the world can download for free.

We have a collection of, I believe, over 5, 000 sermons now on the website.

And they're from a lot of different speakers.

A lot may be recognizable to our audience here.

For instance, we have Mark Finley is on Audio Verse, Doug Batchelor, even Ted Wilson has a few sermons on Audio Verse.

And we've had various events that we've recorded as well that we have on the website as well.

You know, Tim, I was recently on AudioVerse and looking up some of the sermons that were on there, and I noticed 1 from Glenn Kuhn.

Now, Glenn Kuhn was active in ministry when I was a young person, back in the 70s, 60s, somewhere in that era.

How did you get stuff that far back on audio verse?

Yeah, actually, that's a neat question, because the truth never gets old, right?

And the Bible is relevant yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

And we actually got into contact with Glenn Coon's grandson, and they wanted to get the message out.

They wanted to let as many people be blessed by his messages as possible And that's really what audio verse is all about anyway And so through that connection with Glenn Coons family now We are working on releasing the rest of the material that we have and once it's all said and done we should have the most complete collection of Glenn Kuhn recordings, audio and video that's available in any 1 place.

Okay, well you've just said something that I want to check now.

So, okay, can they listen to it or do they have to download it?

Well, our website actually is designed to allow people to listen directly on the website or they can download it to listen to later or They can put on their iPods or iPhones and tablets and things like that.

And all of these technologies enable people to access the content wherever they are.

And yes, we do have audio primarily, but we also have some video content now too.

And from the sounds of things, you're doing some of your own programming.

Well, we don't have too many programs right now, but we continually try to release the gospel in the best way to touch hearts all around the world.

Yeah, actually, we are looking forward to letting more and more people know about Audioverse around the world.

Okay, how can they find you if they want to go and check you out on the internet?

It's www.audioverse.org And actually we brought a few pictures to share with our viewers here of the website of what they'll find when they get there.

And when you arrive at the Audioverse website, you'll know you're at the right place when you see the Audioverse logo right at the top.

And across the top of the web page, you'll see all the various links to take you to the different portions of the website.

And you can see we actually have material in different languages even.

And you can also search in the toolbar by topics, your favorite presenter and conferences that you may have missed like ASI or GYC.

You'll see the list of all the sermons that are most frequently viewed and you can click on the speaker's picture And you'll see this next page, which is the sermon page.

And the most important thing to remember on this page is right in the middle of the top of the page is a big media player.

You click that and you're listening to a sermon.

So literally within just 2 clicks of visiting audio verse you could be listening to the truths of God's Word And that's so exciting that people around the world can just take advantage of this resource Tim you helped get the whole concept started How did you come up with the idea?

Well, to begin with, I think it was providential.

You know, sometimes God just places an opportunity in front of us and we don't even know what the results are going to be, but we step forward in faith.

And that's really the way that AudioVerse started.

I was a student at Loma Linda University studying medicine at the time.

And while I was there, there was a large group of young people, students, young professionals who were all on fire for the Lord.

And several groups and ministries actually came out of that.

1 of them was Advent Hope, which is a Sabbath school of the Loma Linda University Church.

Another 1 was Restoration, which is actually an evangelistic series that happens on the campus of Loma Linda University every year and it's student-led.

And also other youth conferences and all that came about through this.

There were a lot of great speakers that were coming through, a lot of great presentations that we wanted to share, not just with the surrounding community, but with those beyond Southern California and across the world.

And so I began to wonder if there was a way that we could do this that was, you know, cost effective and easy.

You know, you've got to remember back in those days, in 2005, you know, we're used to this very connected world now, social media, our cell phones, and everything's wireless, but back then we didn't have any of those things.

In fact, When you look back, actually Facebook at that time was just an online college directory.

And YouTube, which we all think about when we think about online video, hadn't even started yet.

White Salmon

Eugene Prewitt

Part 4: Questions and Answers

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you would use the truth in the Bible to be a light that shines also in dark places.

And where there are misunderstandings, I pray that you would use what you've taught me to be helpful here.

That should give you a few extra seconds to get there.

Amos chapter 9, which means it should be easier to find than Obadiah, which is right after it.

Amos chapter 9, and we're looking at verse 9.

As Adventists, you hear about a doctrine called the shaking.

If you've never heard of the shaking, then You're about to hear about it.

But this is a classic passage in the Bible about an end time phenomenon that's been paralleled in history where God takes a large group of people and narrows them down by some means to a smaller group that he can use in a more powerful way.

When you think of that storyline, Gideon comes right to mind, right?

Where God took a larger group and narrowed it down so he could do something.

And in the end of time he's going to do the same thing.

For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall to the earth.

Let me say this plainly, that farmers in many parts of the ancient world and maybe some parts of the current world, well you know grains grow with a covering or a shell, a hull or a husk that is not as edible as the grain.

I think that's true for a large percentage of the grains in the world.

And so if you want to use a grain, 1 thing you need to do is remove the husk, the hull.

And in many societies, the way that's done is you put those grains on some flat surface and you crush them either by 2 large rocks or by stomping on them or having horses tromp over them or somehow you put them through a difficult time.

And then you take that crushed grain and you might put it in a container and then throw it up in the air, the grain, and catch it.

What you know is that the grain is much heavier than the chaff, much heavier than the hulls that you're trying to get rid of.

So when there's a breeze, when you throw it up, the breeze catches the light stuff, drags it away, and you catch the grain.

And that way you end up with something that you can turn into flour without bothering people.

That's an illustration that both Jesus and John the Baptist used for what God is going to do with his church.

But Amos gives you an important and encouraging piece of information about the process.

Because when the farmer is throwing up the grain and catching it, he has 10, 000 grains on his plate.

And it doesn't hurt his feelings to lose a few of them.

God says in the shaking, not the least grain will fall to the earth.

In other words, the shaking is not dividing between weak Christians and strong Christians.

It's dividing between true Christians and false Christians.

Not between weak and strong, but between true and false.

And for some of us here, that should be encouraging, and for others it should be intimidating.

But for everyone it should be informative.

All right, I'm done with that little message.

Does someone want to start us off with A0I should tell you questions I don't like.

I don't like questions about me, or questions about you, or questions about someone else.

If you're going to ask a question about a person, find a way to word it generically.

Like, what should a person do if, and not what should I do?

And if you say, what should a person do if, be sure it's not so particular that everyone knows who you're talking about.

And I don't like questions that have an agenda behind them.

In other words, if you think that really, the Trinity is the most dangerous doctrine in the Adventist church, I don't mind if you ask a question about a verse, but I don't want you to ask a 10 minute question.

Or a question where really you're just trying to get the attention of everyone else to say what you want to say.

If that's what you want to do, hold a press conference afterwards.

But for here, I'd like it if you ask questions because you want to learn something.

All right, does anyone have a question after I've scared you away?

So the question is, why do I make this connection between the truth about God's vindictive justice and the issue or that obscure statement Ellen White said about an omega of apostasy that would come in the future.

And let me clarify that Ellen White did not say enough about the Omega for us to really nail down what it is.

So when I say that, I always try to say it in a way that is soft.

I hope I said it soft when I said it today.

But you know that I'm not even sure myself that it's true.

Did I make that pretty clear, what I said?

But here's what I think are some elements that I would expect to see.

I'd expect to see that that apostasy appeals to both conservative and liberal elements of the church.

Because the church is more liberal in the United States and in Australia and Europe, but the bulk of Adventists in the world are generally conservative, at least in some of the ways we're talking about, not in the issue of diet.

But in other issues, most of the world is that way.

And I would expect it to have broad appeal.

Then I noticed when I go back to Kellogg, that Kellogg's startling apostasy was not taking the strange off scouring or the weirdest or wildest elements of the church.

In fact, It didn't even get Conradi, it didn't even get Ballinger.

Jones and Wagner and Prescott and others were moving that direction, and Some went that way and came back.

So I'd be looking for something that was more centrist in that regard.

And maybe something worse is coming along.

But I've just been amazed as I travel of how this idea that's predicted in 2 Peter 3, it's being found all over the place.

The emerging church is a liberal development.

And I don't find it well represented in other fields.

I think the apostasies will be startling, and that might mean that people will make radical changes, Or it might mean that people we thought were most stable will be taken.

So since I'm doing a lot of guesswork in public, I don't want to do any more on that topic.

So is there a question on any other topic?

When the Bible gives a command, I see in the command evidence that obedience is possible.

And the Bible says very clearly, grudge not 1 against another.

It says, turn with me to Colossians 3, let's just look at what it says in this topic.

If we see what it says, then I think that we can talk to God in our prayer about this passage and say, I believe that this can be done.

I confess this is not how I've been living.

And I want to put on these character traits that I'm reading about here.

Colossians chapter 3, and look at verse 8.

Maybe we need to start all the way back in verse 6.

It says, for which things sake, and the which things are quite a list of terrible things in verse 5.

For which sins sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.

In other words, is he making light of how wicked these things are?

In the witch also you walked at some point when you lived in them.

So these terrible things that warrant condemnation, Paul says don't forget that you also warranted condemnation early in your life.

Part 3: Sin Debt and Blind Wise

So I think this is a familiar passage to us, even though we haven't read it in a while.

This is part of the Lord's Prayer, and it says, give us this day our daily bread, and then look at verse 12, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

I want to introduce an idea this afternoon and develop it in the Bible, and that is the idea that sin creates a debt.

Do you see in this verse 12 very clearly that Jesus uses the word debt to refer to my sins against God and also your sins against me?

And part of the prayer we should pray routinely is forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

That is, when you do me wrong, you owe me.

And when I do wrong, even if I do it to you or anyone else, I don't only owe you, but who else do I owe?

This is why David could say when he had killed a man and committed adultery, he said, against you only have I sinned.

He didn't mean that God was the only 1 he had injured, but he meant that very directly it was directly God that is injured by our sins.

It wasn't like someone else and God was hurt, but when we do wrong, We owe God because God is the 1 who is the author of the law of God.

I haven't really said anything you don't know, but I want you to think about these ideas that sin creates debt.

Turn a few pages forward to Matthew chapter 11.

Matthew chapter 11, and looking at verse 25.

I'm interested here that we have translation into sign language.

Are you familiar with the website, Audioverse?

Audioverse has a project right now, this year, 2014, to create our messages in a transcription form, which would open them up to an entire new class of people, you know, where you can read them.

And that's just something for you to be thankful for and pray about, and it does require some money if you wanted to even do more than pray about it.

And at that time, Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, Because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and you have revealed them unto babes.

Even so, Father, for it seemed good in your sight.

Do you see that when the Father was looking on earth, that it seemed good to the Father to reveal some things to simple-minded people and to keep those same things secret from others that were called wise and prudent?

And did Jesus feel good about that view of the Father or did he feel badly about it?

He said, I thank thee, O Father, that you have revealed these things unto babes and that you have hid them from the wise and prudent.

I just want you to see this passage as it relates to this morning's message and the last night.

I think that there is an idolatry today that is as prevalent as idolatry in the days of the Canaanite kings, but where they worshiped sticks and stones back then, we worship academia today.

We honor the wise and the prudent, and we believe what they have to say, and in fact, there's an entire system built around assuring that they get proper honor and prestige in the way that we speak to them and the way that they talk.

There's an entire system of honor built around that.

And maybe some of you here are in that class of highly educated people I'm thinking about, it doesn't look to me like merely being wise and prudent sets you up to be blinded by this passage.

But it looks like it's if you're wise and prudent in your own eyes.

That if your wisdom and your prudence that you get in the process of developing or doing your academic studies, if somehow it lifts you off the earth where you feel bright or educated.

I don't know how to express the idea so simply.

If academia makes you feel especially on target and right and smart, it has really compromised your spiritual life.

And anyway, you've seen the passage in Matthew 11.

Take heed to yourselves, which means pay close attention.

Pay close attention to your own decisions, your own thinking, what's happening to you.

If your brother trespass against you, rebuke him.

And if he trespass against you 7 times in a day, and 7 times in a day turn again to you saying, I repent, You shall forgive him.

This is when the disciples said, Lord, increase our faith.

But what I want you to see here is this idea.

Jesus, in the Lord's prayer, called guilt, he illustrated guilt by the word debt.

He said forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And here speaking about what you owe me when you do wrong against me, even though you owe me, the obligation is not entirely on you to set things straight.

When you owe me, part of the obligation is on me.

If you sin against me, do I have an obligation?

What's my first obligation in this passage?

I need to confront you and to let you know what you've done and then forgive you.

That whole process is important because God does the same thing.

He doesn't skip the confrontation step in the business of forgiving us.

He does, and do you think if you repent of the same thing 7 times in a day that he might forgive you all 7 times?

And what he says is, as you forgive your debtors, that is how he will forgive you.

I'm still developing this idea that sin creates a debt.

This is the end of that fascinating parable of the man that owed, I think it was 10, 000 talents.

Matthew 18, 34, and his Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was, what does it say?

Do you see in this parable the same metaphor that we read about in the Lord's Prayer?

Back to Menu

All Teachings

AudioVerse 3ABN Today Interview

58m

Part 4: Questions and Answers

37m

Part 3: Sin Debt and Blind Wise

48m

Part 2: Kind Atheists and Christ’s Righteousness

43m

Part 1: The Wise Can’t See It

48m

Beyond Belief: Noah and the Flood

41m

Power of Two

31m

One Thing is Needful

31m

One Thing You Lack

17m

One Thing I Desire

30m

Revelation, Part 6

1m

Revelation, Part 5

27m

Sound Doctrine