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NEC Youth

Eugene Prewitt

4. Faith & Fanaticism

I want to tell you a story for grown-ups.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, I was in Australia and it was the winter of 2010.

Now probably that was nothing special here in the UK, but in Australia, for 1 thing, it was my first time ever being there.

I thought I would never get to go in my whole life, and I wanted to go my whole life.

Can you follow how that would be special?

I was there, And I also took up bird watching that month because I thought I'll never be in Australia again and it's my only chance to see these birds.

So that's when I began bird watching, is when I was there in Australia.

But it just happened, no, I don't believe in that kind of thing.

It happened while I was there that Australia had their worst flooding in recorded history.

I mean, it was not just 1 little region, but it was the entire, that direction on the map is east, The entire east coast of Australia was just flooded, swamped terribly.

And that had a little bit of coloration on how much I saw of the beauties there, but I was there to preach anyway.

I didn't like raise money and fly there, you know, I was speaking there.

1 Friday morning, December 24, 2010, the host, where my wife and I were staying, woke us all up and said we needed to pack up quickly and leave.

You see the way the coast of Australia works, if this is the ocean on this side towards me and that's Australia on that side, It's kind of a little flatland along the ocean, and there's mountains a little further inland.

I'm just kind of summarizing the way the geography works there.

A lot of roads start at the coast and go up into the mountains.

Can you sort of picture that in your mind, how it would go?

But they don't go over the mountains, they don't go between each other, they just start at the coast and go into the mountains.

But we were up 1 of those roads a little ways into the foothills and our host had discovered that the floodwaters were rising and that 2 bridges that were essential to get into his home were both facing being wiped out by the floodwaters.

Normally the waters were 30 feet below the bridges but now they were just a foot below the bridges and the waters were rising.

And he realized that since floods were being, were all over the state, I mean all over the country, that if those bridges are taken out, his little community would not be in the high priority for getting the bridges fixed.

So that we could be stuck there for quite a long time.

And that's why on Christmas Eve, only it wasn't Eve, but it was in the morning, he let us all know we were leaving.

He, his wife, his 2 children, my wife and I got into their 2 cars and we went across those bridges where you can see the water right there just below the bridge and we made it.

He had to find a place for 6 people to come on Christmas Eve, who were Adventists, and this was Friday, Christmas Eve was Friday that year.

So a Friday to have 6 guests come to stay for who knows how long, including over Christmas.

How many of you would have volunteered to take the 6 of us if you'd lived in Australia?

Because you don't know how long we're going to be there, right?

We can't tell you how long we're going to be there.

And so we got to the lady's house and I learned as we were there part of the reason she let us.

She had rooms for people to work in her fields, in her rooms for agriculture workers, And so that's where we were staying.

But the other reason was that her son was a backslidden Adventist.

He had left the faith, and he was coming home for Christmas.

And she was hoping that we would get a chance to interact with him.

They're always thinking about how to help their children and so she was willing to like be a host to 6, 2 children and 4 adults for who knows how long just to give her son a chance.

But by the time we arrived, she wasn't as warm as I anticipated, because while we were driving there, after she told us come, her son had found out we were coming and decided not to come home for Christmas.

She let us come, but can you sort of feel for the poor lady?

Like a pity for her, trying to help her son.

I was preaching that Sabbath, Christmas, and I didn't preach about Christmas.

Christmas has never been a very big deal to me, but I preached on Christmas, and on the way home after the church service, our driver thought we should stop and see 1 of their national wonders.

It was a large waterfall, but it had been closed off.

That is, they closed the park because waterfalls are kind of like rivers.

In floods, they overflow their banks, and they become more majestic and more dangerous.

Can you sort of picture how that would be?

And so the National Park was closed to avoid any danger, but Australians never have paid a lot of attention to things like that.

And so our driver stopped and we walked in over the barricades and around to go see this majestic falls.

It was more beautiful than it would be if they weren't having record flooding.

But it was more beautiful, it seems, to everyone than it was to me.

Because after about 10 minutes, I'd had enough of seeing it.

But everyone else was just watching and watching and watching and watching.

And I saw down the parking lot quite a ways there was someone else, besides our little group of like 5 people or so, there was someone, another lone Australian from the tens of millions of people that live there that had the same idea as our driver.

And I thought, you know, how about I just go talk to him?

I like to make friends with people if I have a good chance to do something helpful.

So I walked over there to talk to him and asked him his name and told him mine and found out that he was the son of the lady at whose house we were staying.

Now I didn't tell you we had to drive 2 and a half hours to get to church.

It was not far from his home, but I didn't know that.

It's because when he gave his heart to the Lord, he was sort of expecting the church to be full of people like him, and he joined a group of missionaries, the Recall Porters to be particular, but what he found was not what he anticipated, and he got so discouraged by the lack of spirituality that he found near him, that it just, well, he went back to his way, pre-Christian way of living, and that just didn't work out for him at all.

So we did make friends and he did come home that evening for Christmas.

He might already be a good solid Adventist, but I haven't kept up with that lady in the 5 years, so I don't know how the story ends.

I'm just telling you that story as a way of letting you know something that has struck me strongly in the last 20 years, that in my own day-to-day life, I don't see miracles very routinely.

I mean, if I ask God to help me find the keys, he does.

So I do see, but you see those kind of miracles too, right?

But in doing the work of God, I see miracles routinely.

And if you'd like to see more of the supernatural, I recommend more of the trying to help people.

That's what I recommend, That's just that thought.

The second thought I have for you tonight is that I'm changing the title of my evening talk.

It's not about the blessings and curses anymore.

Because as I was sitting there thinking a few moments ago, I was thinking we've heard enough about fanaticism and Leviticus 26 for 1 weekend.

So I'm going to talk to you, you know that says fanaticism and faith, but we've given a lot of attention to the fanaticism and not a lot of attention to the faith.

So I'm going to talk to you tonight about faith, but before I do I am going to tell you a wee bit about the blessings and curses.

Someone might have come here just to hear it.

It's that you ought to compare Leviticus 26 verses 40 through 43 to the prayer of Daniel in Daniel chapter 9.

If you compare Leviticus 26 verses 40 through 43 to the prayer of Daniel in Daniel chapter 9 you'll find an incredible correlation.

In fact, what you'll find is that Daniel had been reading about the curses and blessings of Leviticus 26 and was claiming the promise starting in verse 40 in his prayer in Daniel 9.

And then when you find that, I think you'll begin to realize that the prayer in Daniel 9 and the blessings and curses, while they were all for the Jews in particular, they describe the way God deals with people.

And he's dealing with our church the same way he's dealt with his people in all places and in all ages.

And that means that the promise there in Leviticus 26 that Daniel was claiming is a promise you ought to claim.

And when you see how Daniel claimed it in the book of Daniel, chapter 9, you'll get an idea of a model type of prayer.

I just so recommend the type of prayer Daniel was giving.

As a type, in fact, every time Daniel prays in the book of Daniel, something really incredible happens.

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4. Faith & Fanaticism

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