Forward to Zion: Ohio Camp Meeting 2015: For Such a Time as This

Plenary

Elias Baquero

Forward to Zion

Our Connected Society

We call him Eliitas, it's like Elias Junior.

He and his family is very close to our family.

So I'm so glad to have him here and see him, how he has been growing in the Lord at his young age.

But before he will start his presentation, let us pray again to ask the Lord for his guidance.

Heavenly Father, thank you again for the beautiful day that you have given us.

Thank you because we have had the opportunity to know more about you.

Now that Elias is going to do his presentation, I ask you a special blessing from your Holy Spirit so he can speak your words.

Open our hearts, our minds to listen to your word.

Yes, the Nino family knows me since I was very young.

They saw me grow up and they saw me before, my life before Christ, and I'm happy that they now know a different Elias by God's grace.

For those of you that have a hard time saying my name, my name is Elias in Spanish.

It's Elijah when you translate it to English.

But if It's easier for you, you can say, Elias.

Let's open our Bibles to Revelation 4.11 and let's say a word of prayer before we read God's Word.

Dear Father, we want to thank you Lord because we have the Bible.

We want to thank you Lord because we have the Bible.

We want to thank you Lord because you instruct us, you speak to us through it.

And Lord we pray that today you will speak to us.

That you will open our minds and our hearts and that your voice will be clear in what it is we have to do, Lord, and what it is that we have to surrender, and what it is that you want from us, Lord.

And we thank you because we know you will.

It says, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

For his glory everything is and was created.

Now how many of us here have a Facebook account?

Now, I don't know if you've noticed among even Adventist circles, when somebody mentions a Facebook account, you know, they'll say, yeah, I have my Facebook account, but I barely get on, or, you know, well, I use it to encourage people.

And there's this unspoken, almost shame that comes with having a Facebook account.

But did you know that in January, a poll was taken that the average user logs about 1.72 hours per day on social electronic media.

I did the math, did some dimensional analysis there, and that means that people are spending an hour 43 minutes a day checking their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever it is.

That means that when you convert it to the amount of time during a week, that's 12 hours a week.

That's 2.15 days a month, and that's 26 days a year.

That's 28% of that individual's time spent on electronic social platforms.

I mean, what if we could add 26 more days to our year to do those things that are necessary.

People are spending 26 days a year doing these things.

Now, I'm not here to talk about the ills of social media, because I do believe that it can be used for good.

So that's not what we're here to talk about, don't worry.

More than that, I'm here to discuss what insights that can give to us about us as humans, about how we feel, how we think, how we behave as human beings.

Believe it or not the National Institute of Health actually published a scholarly article in 2012 discussing the reasons behind the use, the why behind the reason or the reason why people use social media.

Number 1, the ability to construct a public or semi-public profile.

Number 2, the ability to identify a list of other users with whom a connection is shared.

And 3, the ability to view and track individual connections as well as those made by others.

When they distilled it down to 2 main reasons, they were the following.

1, the need to belong, the need of a sense of belonging.

And 2, the need for self-presentation, and they listed a whole bunch of other things under there narcissism and neuroticism and so on.

The researchers distilled down to those 2 the need for human the need the human need to belong and for self-presentation.

They they said and I'm quoting here humans are highly dependent on the social support of others.

And ostracism from the social group impacts negatively on a variety of health-related variables, including one's sense of belonging, emotional well-being, sense of life, meaning, purpose, self-efficacy and self-worth.

Yet every year lots of Facebook users commit suicide.

So you know these social media platforms are not filling the need they're not filling the gap.

You see we were created for something more we were created with a need that that nothing can satisfy an insatiable need a God filled a God shaped hole in our hearts that nothing can satisfy.

Today, nowadays you see how there are so many different types of mediums through which people are trying to fill this hole.

Whether it be these artificial connections with other people through Facebook or through whatever platform they choose.

Whether it be through parties or whether it be through material things, owning a house, a car, a relationship.

But for those of you that have been married for a long time, I myself am not married, but I have spoken to many who are, and I'm sure that there are many here who would testify that even a happy marriage on its own without God does not fill.

There is a God-shaped hole in our hearts and nothing else will satisfy.

Jesus gives us the secret to filling this hole.

Turn with me in your Bibles to John chapter 15.

And here Jesus gives us the secret to finding satisfaction, true satisfaction.

Now before we go anywhere else, look at verse 8.

John chapter 15 verse 8 says, herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples.

So here is the secret to filling that need is to glorify God.

We were made, we read in Revelation 4.11 that everything was created for Whose glory?

But it's not just God, as we're going to see in this chapter.

There is a purpose to our lives and that is to give glory to God.

And here we're told that the way to glorify Him is by how?

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye, abide in the vine.

He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit.

We find the same message in Isaiah 43 7 that we were created for whose glory?

Richard O'Ffill

As Was His Custom

Betty show and stand up and show us who you are.

She's what I needed and of course that's what we wanted to be.

I was telling yesterday how she's generous and I'm stingy.

And God brought her into my life, not for me to make her like me, but to bring somebody in my life that I needed to have.

By the way, I have a new ministry, and I'm now 1 of the greeters.

When you see me ring my eye, you know what's coming next is a joke.

So I'll just stick them out there when a person comes in.

They stick their hand in my hand and I shake.

But I was saying, you know, with what I have, I have a couple of things.

I'm not saying I wouldn't or there's anything wrong with it, but I thought to myself, I would like to pray that the Lord would heal me.

Somebody said it's the gift that never stops taking.

And so I could see myself, God forbid, in a wheelchair or the next time you see me with a cane and so forth.

But anyway, I'm thinking to myself, should I ask God to heal me?

Well, I'd sure like to do that, but why would He heal me and leave the others sick?

Am I better than all the rest of the people?

So I don't talk much about that to the Lord.

I do, I pray for compassion because you know if you see a blind person you don't think much about it.

Blind people are all over the place so we look at them or a person in a wheelchair you look at it.

But I want to tell you when I look at blind people and wheelchair people, I feel it.

Another thing I pray for, and I don't think it's selfish, I pray for strength to bear the cross, which I must bear.

And of course it makes the coming of Jesus more meaningful to me.

Of course, if you're 75 years old, the coming of Jesus is really near.

You know, when you get to be 70, that's about the end of the line.

I noticed some of you 70-year-olds are starting to, you know, look depressed, but not really, not really.

I think I told you yesterday for those who weren't here, how I had a cataract surgery.

Remember back in the old days, they put your head in a pillow and all that, and you had to keep stiff.

But anyway, I'm laying on the operating table, and you know me, I kind of smile and joke around.

And so the doctors and the nurses were around me, and I'm carrying on with them.

And then I'd say to them, when are you going to put me to sleep?

They put me to sleep and I didn't know I'd been asleep and I was awake.

Boy, did that comfort me in the moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump.

And by the way, those of us who go beforehand, we get a privilege.

Rise first and then the ones that remain.

Can I continue with the warm-up here just a few minutes?

You know, when you get to be our age, you can say that I'm having a senior moment, but really, we people, we remember everything we've ever done.

In fact, I was praying for my grandchildren.

If you don't have grandchildren yet, call your married children in and say, Honey, you owe me.

But anyway, Betty and I were praying, and it came the time for me to pray, and I forgot the name of my grandchildren.

And so I just prayed for the little children down the street.

By the way, if you don't pray, in a sermon that I preach about the Christian home, I realized 1 day that I was praying with anybody and everybody, with anything and everything.

If you'd said to me, go pray with a piano, I just kind of wondered where I was going.

Now, I'm just, you know, I'm exaggerating.

But I realized 1 day that I was praying with anybody and everybody and anything and everything, but I wasn't praying with Betty.

I was praying before we ate and, you know, and— but to just pray—listen to me, fellas— just with her out loud, just the 2 of us.

We had our family worship, but just the 2 of us to pray out loud.

You know, we men have a hard time being spiritual.

Our wives are many times the spiritual leaders in our homes and they're filling in a vacuum.

And so I've started some years ago praying with Betty out loud.

You know when you pray out loud, you say things that brings you closer together.

So if husband and wife, now I know that the people who are here would be inclined to do that, but if you don't pray out loud with your wife, not with the kids there, Just the 2 of you, if you don't do that, do that, would you do that?

And now I know what happens if you don't do that.

Hearts of the Fathers

I've written 10 books, and 1 of the latest ones was a morning watch book.

My books tend to be practical Christian life.

I have 3 that I like, And 1 is, you're hearing nips of it, these little warmups.

Then I have, Lord Save My family before it's too late.

And then I think 1 of the ones that most people like a lot is, Lord keep your mansions, just save my children.

When I, you know, I don't know if you're aware, But the publisher gets to put the cover and the name ultimately on the book.

So when I sent that up to Review and Herald, I suggested, Lord, keep your mansion to save my children.

And, you know, people said to me, well, that's irreverent.

Because what that's saying is, of all the things we men could have, it's our children that are most important to us.

First 1 I ever did was on prayer transforming prayer.

Anyway, if you go to Amazon and click in Richard O.

Phil or O-F-F-I-L-L, then my book list comes up and listen, go in, that's where I buy them.

You can buy them for $2, $3, 1 cent from the used book store and then you pay the shipping.

Anyway, so that's where you get them and they were written by my favorite author.

1 time I was, here's my notes coming out.

Oh, here's 1, you know, we've been hearing about the Antichrist.

If someone asks you who you believe the Antichrist is, a good way to start it, excuse me, I'm not a theologian, but a good way to start it is, They'll say, what do you believe the Antichrist, who's the Antichrist?

Start by saying, I believe what the reformers believed.

And once we say that, that gives us authority.

I was invited 1 time to speak to youth at an academy out in California.

And if you've ever spoken to youth, you can Imagine what it's like.

Some of these youth are goofy, I'll tell you.

You know, they really are, bless their hearts.

You know, have you seen them, how they wear their hats?

They wear them like this, they wear them backwards.

When we were kids, there's only 2 people that wore them like that.

That was the Ketcher and the umpire, you remember that?

And so 2 boys were walking along 1 day and 1 of them said, I wonder why they don't put something on his hat to keep the sun out of your eyes.

Anyway, I was asked to speak to youth and I didn't know what to do.

So I thought, I know what I'm going to do.

So I stood up and I said to the youth, today, you know, people pay a lot of money to go to seminars to learn how to make money.

And the big company people and the business people.

So today I'm going to tell you how to lose money.

And you know young people, they like dumb stuff.

And that sounded dumb, so they just were really bright.

And I said, 1 way to lose money is to ignore it.

Put it under your mattress and forget about it, you know.

Betty and I lived in South America and Chile where we would have 100% inflation per month.

So you take money and put it under your bed, bring it out after a few years, it's not the money you put there in the beginning.

So 1 way to lose money then is to ignore it.

And another way to lose money is to just waste it.

And I said now I'm gonna give you another free seminar on how to lose your girlfriend.

And I said, well, of course, you ignore her.

And another way is to be unfaithful to her.

And I said, another way, and I'm going to talk to you, is how to lose Jesus as a friend.

It would be to ignore him, to abandon him, or to be unfaithful to him.

Anyway, I got done and I feel pretty good.

Doesn't that sound like a good little thing?

Anyway, I went back to the revival meetings and Sabbath came and I walked into church and they said, Pastor O'Fair, would you come and speak to the youth?

And I hadn't had time to get ready for it.

And so I walked in and I said to the kids, I said, you remember me?

And they said, yeah, you spoke to us on Monday at the chapel.

And I said, did you know what, remember what I spoke about?

They said, well, yeah, you told us how to lose money.

And they said, well, you abandon it, or you ignore it, or you waste it.

And I thought, wow, I should be in the youth ministry.

And then I said, what else did I talk about?

And they said, how to lose your girlfriend.

1 + 1 = 1

Just let me carry on a minute about the presentation before.

There was reference made to the secret rapture.

My conviction is that the secret rapture is probably 1 of the most deadly of the heresies and it came on in our lifetime.

Now as was brought out, Rivera and I think there was a lady named McDonald, that they were the ones that kind of birthed it.

But it comes into our lives by the late great planet Earth with Hal Lindsey, and then the left behind Ceres.

And I remember when I was a young man that, shall I say, everybody believed that Jesus was coming in the clouds and that every eye would see him.

It's going to mean there'll be a group who are persecuting the people of God, thinking they're doing the will of God, because if they were supposed to be here, or they wouldn't be here, and so they're doing what they think is the will of God.

I was on a shuttle bus, and there was a man, he was reading some of the Left Behind series, and a lady who was there, they were discussing it.

I said to 1 of them, just out of the blue, I said, you know, The thing about the secret rapture that worries me is that it has Jesus coming 2 times.

And she said, I know, but I don't want to be here for the tribulation.

This is the 1 that sets up for the Sunday Law and it's here and it's all around us and it's almost become universal.

Now what I'm going to do, I'm giving you a little what I call warm-ups so I can say things in a warm up that I wouldn't dare say in a sermon, because they'd get me in and I'd have to be running out the door.

Anyway, some churches, you know, bless their hearts when they're so proud of their church.

We have a lawyer, a millionaire, and a genius.

And I want to say, listen, don't forget Jesus was a journeyman carpenter.

And I've said to the church members, if you're somebody on the outside, you walk in here, you're a nobody.

If you're a nobody outside, you work in there, you're somebody.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Our Connected Society

51m

As Was His Custom

48m

Hearts of the Fathers

1h

1 + 1 = 1

57m

The Latter Rain to Ripen the Harvest

1h 11m

Three Angels Flying in the Midst of Heaven

55m

The Lord is Coming. Are You Ready?

45m

Red Sky in the Morning

1h

13. Luke: Crucified and Risen

55m

High Time to Wake Up

55m

Healing and Hope in His Wounded Hands

58m

Our Great and Urgent Need

54m

Sound Doctrine