AMEN Australia 2014: From Bended Knee to Bedside

Plenary

Phil Mills

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Christ’s Method of Training Medical Evangelists

I've been praying for proper words to share some thoughts because we're dealing with a subject of such vast importance.

Far-reaching implications because we're going to be looking at the secret that Jesus used to train his own disciples and qualify them to lastingly change the world.

Christ taught them a method that was so effective that money doesn't even assist it in accomplishing its goals.

To prove the point, Jesus twice sent disciples on nationwide tours in face of mortal enemies.

Without money, bodyguards, or supplies, yet these tours generated immense publicity and protection.

Furthermore, the disciples had to turn down substantial financial support which this method generated.

After we look at his unique method, we'll focus on the way Jesus trained his disciples in his powerful method of reaching multitudes.

Christ's method is not a secret, it's known.

But I believe the method is often ignored because the training has been forgotten, overlooked, or neglected.

But this topic is so comprehensive and so important, I want to begin with another word of prayer.

Dear Lord, who's sufficient to present the matchless charms of Christ?

I pray that your Holy Spirit may fall, that just as you spoke to disciples by the Sea of Galilee, so you'll speak to us today, your disciples, by the sea again, that this time together may not be just ordinary time, but that our hearts will burn as you speak with us by the way.

We will know, take knowledge, that there is a Jesus who's living and wants to use us to reach those around us.

The method to reach the multitudes is medical missionary health evangelism, comprehensive.

It's foolish to ignore this method in our outreach to others.

Medical missionary work is the right arm that gives the visible 3 legs which sustain and promote the gospel publicity protection and prosperity.

Without it gospel outreach is weakened, crippled.

Public and Personal evangelism is weakened and crippled as well.

First, it's foolish to ignore medical evangelism in our outreach to others, because medical missionary work brings the gospel publicity.

Lip-to-lip advertising is by far the most effective advertising.

It's the advertising that Madison Avenue, that's, I don't know, do you use that expression here in Australia?

Madison Avenue is the term in America we use for where the big advertisements are made, Madison Avenue.

And they seek to imitate, seek to create lip-to-lip advertising.

Money can buy media advertising, but the most effective advertising has always been free.

The skin cancer and cosmetic dermatology clinic where I trained, Dr.

John Chung instilled in our minds that every patient is our next advertisement.

Years ago, now forgotten almost, Microsoft produced the Zune.

They paid money to college students to have buzz groups and talk about the Zoom.

The iPhone spent very little, but before it was even could be purchased.

How can you get that kind of advertising?

Well, that's what God does in medical missionary work.

That's why it's called the injuring wedge.

Those who are healed spread the news more effectively than television advertisement.

Those friends become interested and tell those friends who become interested.

And it is this type of explosive spread that will finish the work in months.

We found this with the CHIP program in Wichita.

We received excellent television and radio publicity, which cost us very little, and our church in Wichita, Kansas became known because of medical missionary work." This is how comprehensive medical evangelism brought crowds to Jesus.

Luke tells us that after healing a leper, so much the more went there a fame abroad of him and great multitudes came together to hear and to be healed by him of their infirmities.

This word of mouth publicity was actually too effective.

The crowds became so big that Jesus had to go to places that were more inaccessible as a result.

When we want crowds that convention centers can't hold, we'll start doing comprehensive medical evangelism.

When we want the windows of heaven to be open so much that we don't have room for the blessings, we'll do comprehensive medical evangelism.

Works at all times and in all places, all situations.

It was medical missionary work that opened Syria to the gospel at the highest levels in the time of Elisha.

In the middle of a war between Syria and Israel, at a time when feelings were fever-pitched, when emotions and hatred were at their peak, Elisha's medical missionary work brought peace, it was his entering wedge.

Medical missionary work brought crowds to the apostles, it was their entering wedge.

Luke tells us that believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes, both of men and women, insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing might overshadow some of them.

There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits.

By the space of 2 years, all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks, and God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.

So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the disease departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them.

Yes, it's foolish to ignore medical missionary work in our outreach to others because comprehensive medical evangelism does bring publicity like no other work.

But second, it's foolish to ignore medical missionary work in our outreach to others because comprehensive medical evangelism provides protection like no other work.

The people protect the medical missionary from their enemies.

Because of Jesus' medical missionary work, the Jewish leaders were afraid to lay a hand on him because of the crowds who would defend Jesus.

The enemies of Christ had to delay murdering him for years.

Christ's trial, all mention of Christ's comprehensive medical evangelism was avoided and excluded because even discussion of it would have prevented his condemnation.

Had Jesus performed a medical missionary healing in King Herod's palace, he would have been released there on the spot.

This protective effect of medical missionary work is true in all times and at all places.

Acts 5.26 says, then went the captain with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.

Bartholomew Massacre, tens of thousands of Protestant citizens were murdered at the command of King Charles IX in an attempt to exterminate Protestantism in France.

But while the king carried an aquabus and himself shot Protestant subjects who sought his protection by coming to his palace gates, he hid his Protestant physician in his cabinet to preserve his life, locked him in.

Down under when the Adventist message was taken to Australia, ancient Sunday laws were revived.

Some of our members here were placed in stocks.

Some of our members were threatened with fines.

But at Avondale where medical missionary work had been done, the community refused to enforce the laws.

It's foolish to ignore medical missionary work and our outreach to others, because medical missionary work brings publicity and protection like no other work.

But third, it's foolish to ignore medical missionary work in our outreach to others because medical missionary work provides financial and voluntary efforts necessary to support the work of the gospel.

It was medical missionary work that provided for Christ and the disciples' maintenance.

Mark tells us that Peter's mother-in-law was sick.

Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

Luke tells us that certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went 7 devils, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's Steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.

True medical missionary work inspires sacrificial service at all times and in all places.

When Paul was a prisoner being transported to Rome and was shipwrecked on the island of Miletus, the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux, to whom Paul entered in and prayed and laid his hands on him and healed him.

So when this was done, others also which had diseases in the island came and were healed, who also honored us with many honors.

And when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary.

Elisha's medical missionary work brought huge donations.

So Hosea went to meet him and took a present with him, even of every good thing of Damascus, 40 camels burdened, and came and stood before him and said, thy son, Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, hath sent me to thee saying, shall I recover of this disease?

Now, think of it, Abraham sent only 10 camels for Rebekah, 40 camels for Elisha.

It was medical missionary work alone that's gonna cause the wealth of the Gentiles to flow into the church to support the final gospel outreach.

Yes, it is foolish to ignore medical missionary work in our outreach to others when it is medical missionary work that gives publicity, protection, and prosperity to the work of the gospel.

But it's equally foolish to ignore the gospel in our medical missionary outreach to others.

Medical missionary work, comprehensive medical work, is merely a means, not an end.

Comprehensive medical evangelism brings to view at best only a few brief years of comfort and health, while the gospel brings to view an eternity of comfort and health.

If medical missionary work providing a few years of health is good, the gospel which provides an eternity of health must be infinitely better.

If providing a few years of health is important, the gospel with its eternity of health and happiness must be infinitely more important.

It's foolish to share the good while we fail to share the infinitely better.

Scott Mayer

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Wholly Hollywood

A lot of people ask us in our ministry, so how do you guys survive?

When I left my job in Hollywood, I knew I would never see that money again.

But I cannot tell you how rewarding this work is.

To just go around and fellowship with my fellow brothers and sisters whom we may spend an eternity with.

And so, we're gonna have the deacons come forward and we decided to do something this last year.

We hope that people stop asking us to come and speak about this topic.

If God said, okay we don't need you to talk anymore, I'd be like, awesome, sweet, I can do something else.

I really want you guys to know, I don't want to be up here talking about what Hollywood is doing.

I would rather tell you about the love of Jesus.

Hollywood is not the issue, it is a tiny issue.

But what's crazy is we are so impacted by what we see, hear, watch, all those things.

And I've seen around the world, our brothers and sisters just caught up in this thing.

So as the deacons come forward, we're gonna collect an offering because what we decided to do this last year is we said, you know what, God, there's many churches that want us to come and they can't afford us.

And we said, you know what, we don't care about the money.

And so we said, you know what, we're going to leave it in your hands, God.

The second thing that we wanted to do is it takes a long time to make documentaries.

I don't know if any of you have seen some of ours.

Some of our documentaries, it's taken us years to produce.

But the problem is, is we produce the information well after it comes out, and everybody goes and watches it.

So that's what we started making these LED projects, which are on current films, they're 5 to 10 minute videos, free, before the movies come out, so you can make a better decision if you want to even put that information in your head in the first place.

So I want you guys to prayerfully consider, there's little envelopes that will be passed around in there with a little card on here.

This is not just a card to collect money as well as if you want to communicate with us, if you have questions, if you want to ask us to come to your church or anything, fill it out, fill out your address, sign up for our newsletter, support this work so that we can get our young people and everyone for that matter to stop messing around with this stuff of the world and get into their Bibles and let's all go home.

I don't know if we want to play some music.

I want to thank you guys so much because we feel like we have so much support in our church.

And you know, when we first started this ministry, we thought, what a weird ministry.

You want us to go and talk about Hollywood in front of tons of people?

And God has just shown us so much compassion that when we've traveled around, it's just amazing.

I mean, it has strengthened my faith in God, just traveling around and interacting with all these churches.

And it's people like you guys that make that possible.

So I want to thank you, and as we move forward, Let's first open with a word of prayer.

Dear gracious Heavenly Father, as we reopen up this topic here tonight, we know that the world is starting to turn their eyes to some of these religious movies and these religious things that are coming out of Hollywood.

Everyone knows the world is falling apart and they're looking for answers.

So Lord, open our eyes, soften our hearts, teach us how to navigate through some of this material.

And more importantly Lord, give us that daily desire to get our information from your word.

You know, if you have seen any of our films, a lot of them go over so many secular movies.

And just like Keith said, it is pretty exhausting.

We could stand up here and show movie after movie after movie until you guys were probably sick to your stomachs, don't need to see this anymore.

But what's amazing to me is this huge bloom of religious movies that are coming out.

And I think there's a bunch of people that are really truly honestly excited about this.

Hey, maybe this is time that we can share the gospel.

I mean if everybody watches movies, wouldn't that be a great way to share some truth about God?

Now, also like Keith said, not everything you see on television is evil.

I would not make them if I thought they were evil.

The television in and of itself is not evil.

I'm standing here today before you because somebody shared with me a DVD.

That's what really, truly woke me up and brought me back into the church.

It can be a wonderful tool to win someone over to the gospel.

So I don't want to discredit people making religious things, But time and time again, I will use this as my ruler.

If it does not speak according to this, there is no light in it.

That's the principle that I hope to teach you tonight.

This is okay to watch and this is not okay to watch.

You'll never hear that come out of any 1 of our mouths.

Does it line up with what God is trying to teach us.

And that should be the rule of thumb, how you see these films.

So I titled this Holy Hollywood and of course I put a whole parentheses around the E like there's a hole in their message.

You see the struggle between God and Satan, but really, where is the focus of a lot of these films?

Before I start that, I wanna read Matthew 7, 21 and 22, because this verse says, "'Not everyone that saith unto me, "'Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?

And in thy name have we not cast out devils?

And in thy name have we not done wondrous things?

In thy name have we not made all these great movies and things that shared the gospel?

Was it in accordance to the will of the Father is where this is.

In Matthew 7, 23 it says, "'And then I will profess unto them, "'I never knew you, depart from me, "'you workers of iniquity.'" Those are gonna be harsh words.

And they're gonna be said to those who believed with all their heart they were doing the will of God.

And it's very difficult to tell people, like people come up to us all the time and say, hey, I really want to make the great controversy into a movie.

Before you say, I want to make the great controversy into a story, guess what you need to do?

Do you want me to make the great controversy story?

If you do that, and all of a sudden you say, hey, I need 5000000 dollars to make the great controversy story.

If you do that and all of a sudden you say, hey, I need 5000000 dollars to make the great controversy story.

Lord, if you want me to make this great controversy story, give me the 5000000 dollars.

If you get 5000000 dollars in the mail, you have every right to go to God in heaven and say, I gave you the decision and you gave it to me.

Trust me, if you put the answer into God's hands and he doesn't want you to make it, you won't make it.

You will try and try and try and try and try and it will be impossible if you say, God, if you don't want me to do this, I ask you to take it away from me.

So, I always encourage people, hey, if you want to do something like that for God, great.

Keith Detwieler

Channels

I am new to Little Light and I moved out to help them, not this past November, but the 1 before that.

From Missouri, I was working in agriculture, not the kind that Tommy talked about.

Friday night though, I was working for a company that was purchased by Land O'Lakes.

So I worked in a lab testing herbicides and pesticides and all that.

So did that for a while and, you know, I seen something on Facebook and it was Scott.

And I seen it, and I said, you know what?

That is the piece that I needed to change the course of my life.

And so now I work with these guys on a full-time basis.

I actually quit my job to work with them.

Tommy, or not Tom, but Scott inspired me this morning talking about his wife.

So, my wife's beautiful, you can have confidence in that.

I say that because I have 4 children, so you know she's beautiful, right?

And she's at home with them today in paradise.

So a lot of you, we probably threw you for a bit of a loop.

You're thinking, wait a minute, I thought we were coming to a Battlefield Hollywood seminar.

And then Scott got up this morning and he's talking about marriage.

You're like, wait a minute, I thought we were coming to a Battlefield Hollywood seminar.

And so we're gonna start to throw you for a little bit of another loop.

I'm gonna talk to you about history, okay?

We'll get to some of the more Hollywood movie stuff towards the end.

But I wanna talk to you about channels this morning.

Not necessarily the kind that you flip with your remote while you're watching TV.

I'll talk to you about a different kind of a channel.

Let's turn in our Bibles this evening to Genesis chapter 2.

And I'll turn there with you, and we'll read those.

It starts out, it says, and the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

The first time in the Bible that we see that God commanded man to do something.

Many Christians will dismiss the commands of the Bible because of the cross.

But when we look at this verse, we see that the cross was needed because this command was not heeded.

So I invite you to go a few verses beyond that into Genesis chapter 3.

I really like studying this chapter, there's so much that we can unpack from here.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Christ’s Method of Training Medical Evangelists

46m

Wholly Hollywood

47m

Channels

55m

If You Love Me

45m

Soil of the Heart

1h

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

42m

Love, The Only Reason Why

36m

At the Door

43m

Baptism and the Temptations

35m

10. Luke: Following Jesus in Everyday Life

45m

22. Prophets and Psychics

1h

21. The Unpardonable Sin

1h

Sound Doctrine