Creation

God Himself Is With Us

Matthew Nativity

Praise to the Lord

Some Cool Stories to Tell Beside the Campfire

The Christian Storytelling Honor

A Component of the Witnessing Master Award

Requirements 

1. Name one source where you have found material for stories for each of the following categories. Tell a story from each category.

1.1 a. Sacred history
1.2 b. Church history
1.3 c. Nature
1.4 d. Character story
1.5 e. Object lesson with visual aids
1.6 f. Web sources

2. For the above stories you tell, do the following:

2.1 a. Tell one of your stories to children, aged five and under, for at least three minutes.
2.2 b. Tell one of your stories to the 10-12 year-olds for at least five minutes.

3. Make a written outline of a story you are to tell.

4, State how and under what circumstances course material is to be modified for the following:

4.1 a. Telling the story in first person, second person, and third person
4.2 b. Different audiences, ages, and purposes
4.3 c. Making the story shorter
4.4 d. Making the story longer

5. Tell why a definite aim is necessary in telling a story.

6. Tell one story of foreign missionaries, not less than five minutes in length.

7. Tell one story that teaches health principles.

Requirement 1- Six Stories

1.1: Sacred History: “Those Sneaky Men of Gibeon!”

Primary Source- The Ninth Chapter of the Book of Joshua

The Verse Version

The trumpets blew and the people shouted, and the walls had fallen flat.
Jericho was defeated, and A-i after that.
Everybody felt the edge of the sword, except for Rahab and her clan.
The rest of the Canaanites heard the news and readied a battle plan.

But the citizens of Gibeon were as subtle as a snake.
They would con the chosen people, with the lies that they would make.
Phony baloney ambassadors dressed up in tattered rags,
And then took some worn out gunny sacks and tied them to their nags.

They got some old and moldy bread and wineskins that were torn.
They pretended they had walked a million miles from the place where they were born.
They limped into the Hebrew camp with a counterfeit fatigue.
They told those fightin’ Israelites they wanted to make a league.

They said they had heard About the God of Israel.
That even in the boondocks they knew His name.
They just wanted peace with His chosen people.
This was the only reason that they came.

Such a flattering presentation just could not be ignored.
Joshua and his princes didn’t wait for direction from the Lord.
They swore they would not tussle with Gibeon In their faraway land.
The Gibeonites were gratified, everything had gone as planned.

Three days later the truth came out; they were practically livin’ next door.
The Hebrews murmured against the princes for the oath that they had swore.
The leaders were in fear of the wrath of God if they smote their brand new neighbors,
But they’d get back at those Gibeonites by imposing heavy labors.

They were hewers of wood and drawers of water,
Under the curse of bondage from now on.
But they were delivered from the children of Israel,
And unto this day their fears are gone.

The Prose Version Five minutes in length, targeted to 10-12 year-olds

Everybody has heard about how Joshua and the people of Israel defeated Jericho. They just walked around the city seven times, blew their trumpets and the walls came tumblin’ down. God was with them, that’s for sure. The only people who lived in Jericho who managed to survive were Rahab and her family. Rahab had heard about how God was on the side of the children of Israel, and knew that “if you can’t lick em,’ you might as well join em.’ She was a big help to the Hebrew spies who had gone to take a look at Jericho before the battle. The Hebrews spared Rahab and her kinfolk because they were grateful for her help.

There were some other Canaanites that the chosen people spared the lives of, the Gibeonites, but thgis wasn’t because they were helpful to the Hebrews (although they would be helpful later on). No, it was because in those days, and it ought to still be that way today, when you made a promise to someone you had to keep it, even if the person you made the promise to wasn’t being totally upfront with you when you made the promise. You had sealed your promise with the name of God, and, after all, the third commandment says “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Promises are sacred, so you have to be very, very careful about the promises you make. It is sad, but some people will tell you a lie just to get what they want. It’s up to you to decide if they are trustworthy or not.

In the Book of Joshua, in Chapter 9 the Gibeonites took advantage of the importance of promise-keeping to trick Joshua the other leaders of the Hebrews into promising to spare their lives. Gibeon was directly in the path of the conquering Israelites. God knew that the bad influences of the original inhabitants would turn people’s hearts away from Him. History has shown that this turned out to be all too true. God had instructed the Israelites not to spare anyone they came across in Canaan. The Gibeonites made a plan that would fool Joshua into thinking they didn’t even come from Canaaan. They made some elaborate preparations in order to convince the Hebrews that this was the truth, but it was really just a big fat lie. They not only said they were not from Canaan, they also took a lot of trouble to make it look like they had been on a long, long journey to get to the Hebrew tribes and to make a covenant with them. Covenants are the same as promises.

The first thing they did was take some worn-out sacks and spread them on the backs of the animals they were riding. Then they got some tattered wineskins they had and tied these to their beasts. Then they put shoes on their feet that were falling apart, and they dressed-up in really old clothes. The finishing touch was some bread that had gone all moldy. They were now ready to meet the conquering Hebrews. All of the props they had made their first words of greeting to the Hebrews seem like the God’s honest truth! Here’s what they said:

“We’re from a far country. We came a long way to make a treaty with you.” The words gratified the vanity of the rulers of the Hebrews. It made them all felt special. These complete strangers had gone through all the trouble of taking a long, long journey just to make peace with them, even though they lived so far away the Hebrews weren’t interested the least in going to war with them. The Gibeonites kept laying it on thick, saying “We heard of the fame of your Lord, how He delivered you from Egypt, and how He caused your enemies to fall before your might.” If the Hebrew leaders were like most folks, it is likely that they credited themselves, rather than God, for most of the success their army was having. They might have even felt a little bit like gods themselves when they decided to honor the request of the Gibeonites. The men of Gibeon continued to describe the perils of their long journey, and to point out all of the wear and tear and mud and mold that this ordeal had caused. So Joshua and the princes of the twelve tribes swore an oath, a sacred oath that they would never, ever go to war with Gibeon.

Luke 8:17 says that “all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.” Soon enough, just three days later, the Hebrews came across the nearby hometowns of the Gibeonites. The tribes got very upset when they discovered that, not only had the phony ambassadors lied about where they lived, but their own leadership, Joshua and the princes, had been gullible enough to swallow this big fat lie. They should not have made this important decision on their own. They really should have asked God what He thought about it all. But what was done was done! A sacred oath could not be broken, the leaders told the people. The Gibeonites were safe from harm, and would remain safe. But the Hebrew leadership was not happy to have had the wool pulled over their eyes by men of Gibeon. They would get a little payback.

The princes of the tribes decided that the Gibeonites would live peacefully alongside the Israelites throughout the rest of their history as a nation, but they would not be performing very prestigious work. They would be menial workers. They would have to cut wood for the cooking fires of the Hebrew people, and they would have to fetch water for them as well. The Israelites would soon come to depend on the useful services that the Gibeonites performed, but would always feel superior to them.

Some believe that the Palestinians who live in and around modern Israel are the descendants of the Gibeonites. Jews still consider them to be second-class citizens. But when Jesus returns, and we are caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord, there will no longer be any first or second class citizens. The old things will pass away, everything will be brand new. Hebrew and Gibeonite alike, if they have accepted Jesus’ gift of forgiveness and salvation, will one day live as equals. God will love and care for one and all forever and ever, even if they used to be sneaky liars like men of Gibeon.

1.2: Church History: “Earthquake, Darkness, and the Sky is Falling!”

Primary Source- The Adventist heritage Manual

The Verse Version

Back in 1755,
The ground started shakin’ and the walls came tumble in’ down.
Ain’t never been that way before;
A new thing under the sun,
God done gone and done something,
Something ain’t never been done.

(It’s a sign of the times!)
The end of the beginning.
(It’s a sign of the times!)
The beginning of the end.
Earthquake! Pestilence!
Famine! War!
They all been around for the longest time,
But never like this before!

Back in 1780,
The lights got turned down low.
Sun seemed to disappear without a trace.
Couldn’t even see a hand held up to your face.

Blind!
Blinded in the broad of day.
Blind!
Just can’t find the way.
Help me!    Help me!
I’m stumbling around the room.
Ain’t never been this way before,
It’s darker than the tomb!

Back in 1833,
The stars not only fell on Alabama;
Two times they dropped like fallen angels,
Headed from heaven to hell;
From dusk to dawn, on land and sea,
Fiery tracers fell.

Jesus!
What can these things mean?
Jesus!
Is this the end of time?
Save me!    Save me!
I wanna vanish without a trace!
Show me the direction to the fire escape!
I wanna get out of this place!
(It’s a sign of the times!)
(It’s a sign of the times!)

The Prose Version Five minutes in length, targeted to 10-12 year-olds

1755.

Twenty-five years later, in 1780.

And then, in 1833, some really weird things happened on planet earth.

Too weird! But sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

What happened was that three signs of the end of the world appeared that took everybody by surprise. Three spectacular signs, some stuff that was so crazy that nobody alive could remember such crazy stuff ever happening before. The first thing was a giant earthquake, one so big that all of the world could feel it. The second thing was a night that was so dark that nobody could figure out why. The third thing that happened was a couple of nights where it was like all the stars were falling on earth, so many it was amazing that there was any left in the sky. Like I said, it was crazy! Super-crazy!

The newspapers were all full of people’s opinions about what these crazy things might mean. A lot of people who study the Bible were sure that these signs were a warning that Jesus would return to earth soon, very soon. From 1755, the time of the big earthquake, to 1833, the two nights that the stars all fell is a 78 period. Just eleven years later, in 1844, the 2,300-year period that Daniel wrote about in Chapter 8, Verse 14 of his book came to an end. Big things happened on that day, too, but they happened in heaven instead of earth. But the biggest thing that is going to happen hasn’t happened just yet; that’s Jesus coming back to the earth. It could happen at any moment. It could happen right now! When it does happen, you can’t say that you didn’t get any warning. The three big things that happened were three big warnings, warnings way too big to be ignored.

The first, the 1755 earthquake was really big. They talk about the “Big One” that will hit California someday, should the world last a little longer. They are so scared about the “Big One,” they made Loma Linda University tear down their old hospital and build a brand new one, one that can hold up to a major earthquake. The “Big One” that happened around 250 years-ago is known as the Lisbon Earthquake. That’s because Lisbon, in Portugal, was the center, or what they call the “epicenter” of all the shaking.

Back in those days there were a lot of people who were trying to convince other people that God didn’t have much to do with running the world. One of these was a Frenchman called Voltaire. For him, the Lisbon Earthquake was proof that God just didn’t care about His creation. He wrote about this in a book called “Candide.” Voltaire wasn’t a Christian, that’s for sure!

Other folks, ones who read the Bible and knew that God cares a whole lot about His sons and daughters, knew that the earthquake was part of the Lord’s master-plan for the salvation of mankind. It was obviously something that had been predicted in Revelation Chapter 6, verses 12 and 13. In Revelation there are seven seals that only Jesus is worthy enough to break open. When He gets up to the sixth seal a “great earthquake” hits the earth.

The second big sign that happened is described in the Gospel of Mark, a prediction that Jesus Himself made in Chapter 13, verse 24 of this book. Jesus said that the sun would be darkened, and the moon wouldn’t give any light. This was how it was on the night of May 19^th back in 1780. This happened eighteen years before the end of a 1,260-year period that is mentioned in not just once, but in seven places in the Bible. In 1798 the earthly power that the popes had had for over a thousand years came to an abrupt end. What is now known as the “Dark Day” was a signal that this was about to take place. Just like He did with Pharaoh in Exodus, God can use some unlikely people to get things done. Napoleon was the man responsible for the Pope of Rome losing most of his privileges, but Napoleon, like Voltaire, was not exactly a Christian either.

The third big sign that happened was a pair of meteor showers so huge that they amazed everyone who was alive back then. These showers took place in November of 1833. Ellen Harmon, who grew up to become Ellen White, was just about to turn six-years-old when these showers took place. Her parents might have taken her outside of their farmhouse to look at the big fireworks display that God was making for the world. She probably wasn’t scared at all, but a whole lot of grown people were scared to death! Maybe a lot of them should have been scared, because those who don’t accept Jesus as their Savior are going to miss out on His forgiveness, and His promises to look after us when the end of the world arrives. A prediction about this third sign can be found in the Bible in the same place as the prediction of the first sign, in Revelation Chapter 6, verses 12 and 13. In fact, all three signs are mentioned in these verses, so I am going to read them to you:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

If all this came true, you can bet that the rest of the things that the Bible predicts will come true. Jesus will come again alright, and sooner rather than later! You better be ready!

1.3 Nature Story: “You Need to Start Working as Hard an Ant, Lazybones!”

Primary Source- The Book of Proverbs 6:6-8

The Verse Version

Go to the ant, thou sluggard,
Consider her ways and be wise.
She’s probably been workin’ like a dog
Since before sunrise.
While you’re lyin’ in the bed,
She’s just tryin’ to get a head,
Getting ready for the lean times that will
Take you by surprise.

You are eating the bread of idleness.
It ought to be a crime.
People got to sweat for the bread they’re eating
Ever since Adam’s time.
We ain’t livin’ in the Garden of Eden.
There are things that you will be needin.’
You don’t work, you don’t eat.
Get out of bed and go earn ypurself a dime.

The Hebrews had a mind to work
When they rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls.
Get a mind to work, for works will follow you
When your bles-sed Savior calls.
Hard work never hurt anybody,
Unless the workmanship was shoddy.
Six days shall ye labor might be
One of the good Lord’s laws.

Whatever thy hand findeth to do,
Do it with all of thy might.
There may be a little bit of scratch left after you have
Satisfied your appetite,
And with the surplus from your labor,
You maybe could help your neighbor,
So work the works while it is day,
For no farmer can work at night.

But none of this can happen
If you’re hiding in the sack,
for Reveille has sounded,
It is high time for attack.
Wise King Solomon said,
Don’t be a sluggabed,   C
Cause you ain’t good for nothin’ when you’re
lying on your back!

The Prose Version Five minutes in length, targeted to 10-12 year-olds

Proverbs 6:6-8 has this to say:

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.”

Solomon wrote these words. Ants always seem to be working. It wasn’t just in the Middle East that people thought that ants were a good model for people to follow. Most everyone has heard the fable about the ant and the grasshopper. This was written long ago by a Greek person. Eventually, most Greeks would come to know the true God, but when Solomon was writing Proverbs the Greeks were what is called “polytheists.” “Poly” means many, and “theist” means belief in “God” or “gods.” So “polytheism” means “belief in many gods.” The Canaanites that lived in the land of Canaan before the Hebrews arrived also believed in many gods. So did the Egyptians, the people the Hebrews were running away from back in the Book of Exodus. In fact, the Jews of that time were just about the only people in the world who worshiped only one God. But even polytheists could learn some of the same lessons from nature that the Hebrews did. Nature was created by God, so it has plenty of clues in it to show us how we should live, and about how our Creator does His job, even if we are just a bunch of ignorant polytheists. Everybody will get to know about God someday. In Isaiah 45, verse 23 God is on record as saying, “…unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”

The fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant mostly tells about how lazy the Grasshopper was compared to the Ant. While the Ant worked hard during the good months to gather enough food to last him, or “her” as Solomon puts it, through the bad months, the Grasshopper did nothing at all. When winter came and there was no food to be had except for what had been stored beforehand, the Grasshopper was in awful bad shape! He had nothing to eat. The Ant had worked hard to prepare for the hard times. He, or “she,” was able to survive until the world came back to life in the springtime. This fable contains a useful lesson for everyone, and is a lot like the description of the lifestyle of ants that Solomon provides in Proverbs. If you think about it, the Grasshopper was kind of like people who don’t prepare for the troubled times that will only get worse just before the Second Coming of Jesus. These people are like all those foolish virgins in one of Jesus’ parables who did not have enough oil in their lamps to let them light the path of a bridegroom when he returned. From his wedding feast. The Ant, however, was like those virgins who had plenty of oil, and can be compared to hardworking Christians who are doers, rather than just hearers of the Word.

One lesson that Solomon’s Proverb teaches much more clearly than the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant is the importance not always relying on others to have to tell you what you need to do. If you know what the purpose of your task is, and you know how to accomplish this purpose, then you should not need to have a boss or a supervisor always breathing down your neck, trying to get you to do your work. Solomon writes that ants have neither “guide, overseer, or ruler.” The greatest kind of motivation is self-motivation. A biologist would say that ants are not really operating as independently as they seem to be, since they lack the ability to reason. A biologist would also say that it is instinct, and chemical triggers that drive the ants to work as hard as they do. But Solomon was not trying to teach the world a biology lesson. He was trying to inspire people to give 100% in every situation that they might find themselves in, not only in the workplace, but in whatever they happen to be doing, and wherever they may be doing it.

One of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ellen G. White, was a big believer in the positive benefits of hard work. Too many people in her time, and in our own time as well are just like the Grasshopper. They do nothing, and are even misguided enough to think that physical labor is somehow beneath their dignity. Ellen White has this to say about ants in the book she wrote that is called “Education:” “The ants teach lessons of patient industry, of perseverance in surmounting obstacles, of providence for the future.” These nice words may be too complicated for some young people to understand. Here is an explanation:

“Patient industry” means that we stick to our tasks, even when it might seem like the work that we are doing is not immediately accomplishing anything. It is most likely that things are actually changing and getting better, but that this is happening too slowly for us to be able to notice it. Ants haul in food for the wintertime just a tiny bit at a time, but these tiny bits soon add up to nice-sized piles in the storage chambers of the ant colony. It is kind of interesting to know that the ants bite off the ends of the seeds that they gather so that they do not start sprouting while they are in storage. A biologist would say that this action came about through trial and error, through evolution. They would say again that ants are not really that smart. But even if ants are not smart, God is smart. He designed ants, you know, and then He created them. They did not get to be so good at what they do through a process of trial and error. They were good from the get-go!

Ellen White’s statement “Perseverance in surmounting obstacles” can be translated into this familiar saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!” A famous quote from inventor Thomas Edison goes like this: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” “Persevere” means to stick to a task until a good solution can be found. A popular song about how ants will “persevere,” or in other words stick to a task until it gets done was sung by Frank Sinatra back in your great-grandfather’s day. It is called “High Hopes,” and part of it goes like this:

Just what makes that little old ant
Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, can’t
Move a rubber tree plant

But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time you’re gettin’ low
‘stead of lettin’ go

Just remember that ant
Oops there goes another rubber tree plant!

“Providence for the future” is like the parable of the wise and foolish virgins that was mentioned a minute or so ago. Jesus was talking about the end of the world, and comparing Himself to the returning bridegroom in the parable that He told. Getting ready for this difficult time by getting right with God is a really good example of “providence for the future.” Keeping a little extra food around the house just in case you might get unexpectedly stuck there, and keeping some savings in the bank to get you through some unforeseen crises are a few other examples of “providence for the future.” “Saving up for a rainy day” is what Ellen White is probably referring to, at least on the surface of her statement about ants. But like the ocean, there are hidden depths that lie beneath the surface, not only in the Bible, but in the Spirit of Prophecy as well.

1.4 Character Story: “A Sailor for Souls- the Joseph Bates Story”

Primary Source- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bates_(Adventist)

The Verse Version

An eighty-ear voyage, a man of the Sea.
Signed on as a cabin boy while still a lad.
My friend Joseph Bates told his story to me,
Of all the adventures that he’d ever had.

With much dedication and much native wit,
He rose through the ranks ’til he captained his crew.
The gold that he gained added up quite a bit.
He ditched the bad habits that he was chained to.

The drink and tobacco that all the crew cherished
Offended the captain, who knew that these vices
Corrupted the soul ’til all discipline perished
Made sailors’ lives an unending crises.

Joseph Bates now had a fortune in hand.
He’d lived to age fifty amidst salty waves.
He’d sail his last voyage upon the dry land,
Proclaiming to lubbers just how Jesus saves.

He knew of the Millerite warning that soon,
The Savior would gather His sheep in the fold.
The message was urgent, the signs were at hand,
The end of the age just as Daniel foretold.

Eighteen firty-four, on day twenty-two
In the month of October was fixed as the date
When the Lord would return, but a Great Disappointment
Was spread when the Lord, He appeared to be late.

But on the next morning a fellow named Edson
Was praying for light as he walked through a field.
The Savior had entered the Holy of Holies,
The key to to this mys’try had just been revealed;

Day told in Daniel was not about earth.
In time it was learned our High Priest’s transition
Was so that He might judge the Saints by their deeds.
Bates, he accepted our Savior’s new mission.

Santification means keeping the law;
Not just acknowledging only a part.
The commandment to keep ev’ry seventh day holy
Was an issue that Joseph Bates took to his heart.

He wrote of Creation’s perpetual sign,
An observance the churches of earth had rejected,
But one that was easy enough to embrace
By the saints in their process of being perfected.

The remnant alive at the close of probation
Must manifest faultlessness our God will seek,
But Joseph Bates will not be one of this number,
For he fell asleep in Battle Creek.

An eighty-year voyage has come to an end.
He had nourished the good and rejected the bad.
My friend Joseph Bates told his story to me,
Of all the adventures that he’d ever had.

The Prose Version Five minutes in length, targeted to 10-12 year-olds

If Joseph Bates were alive today, he would be 224 years-old. He died in 1872. He was pretty old when he did die, and very old for the times he lived in. He probably lived such a long life because he didn’t smoke or drink or eat meat. He went to sea when he was only fifteen, and spent the next twenty-one years living on a ship. He started out at the bottom as a cabin boy, and then rose through the ranks until he became a captain. In those days, captains were paid a part of the profits that the ship earned. Since Joseph Bates was a very good captain, he managed to earn and to save a good amount of money. He was able to retire from the sea when he was only thirty-six. But the close of his seafaring days marked the beginning his days as a hardworking man of God. The treasure that he had laid up on earth ended up being laid up in heaven instead, a place where thieves do not break in and steal. He spent all of his fortune helping the Seventh-day Adventist Church survive its difficult childhood. When he fell asleep in Battle Creek, Michigan, the church was, by that time, a healthy and growing adolescent.

His time spent at sea was very educational for this grand old man of Adventism. He had ample leisure between watches to study the Bible. His shipmates furnished memorable lessons in what not to do, for the sinful nature of many sailors of that era is well-known.

When he retired in New England, Joseph Bates associated himself with the growing Millerite movement. The Bible, and the signs of the times all pointed toward some significant event that was abut to take place, At first, the followers of William Miller thought that 1843 would be when this event would occur, but this was later modified to 1844. Former Captain Bates was several decades older than his friends and fellow Millerites James and Ellen White, so his wisdom, stability, and experience were something the young couple could lean upon in difficult and disappointing times. For just a moment, the level of this disappointment became so high that it came to be came to be called the “Great Disappointment.” October 22, 1844 marked the end of the 2,300-year period foretold in Chapter 8 of the Book of Daniel. William Miller and his followers believed that the “cleansing of the sanctuary” prophesized by Daniel in verse 14 of Chapter 8 referred to the Second Coming of Jesus to the earth. Miller’s message made a lot of sense to a lot of people, including Joseph Bates. When Jesus failed to return as expected on this day Bates, along with many other believers, wondered exactly what had actually happened. The times indicated by the prophecy were crystal-clear, and the signs were unmistakable, yet life on earth seemed to go on as normal. Nothing remarkable happened on October 22, 1844. Or so it seemed!

Another Millerite by the name of Hiram Edson was able to shed some light on the mystery. While walking in his cornfield on the morning after the “Great Disappointment,” he beheld a vision of Christ entering the “Holy of Holies” of the heavenly sanctuary. The Lord had just started what has come to be known as the “Investigative Judgment.” Out of the 50,000 or so people that had followed William Miller, only abut fifty believed in Hiram Edson’s vision. All of the others lost confidence in William Miler. For the first five or six years after the Disappointment, early Adventists believed that (just like the parable of the wise and foolish virgins) the entering of Jesus into the Most Holy Place marked the end of everyone’s chances of being saved. Probation was closed, and if you were not already in the ark, you were going to be drowned by the coming floodtide. This reference to Noah’s Ark was called the “Shut Door” interpretation. After 1850, however, the group that would soon become the Seventh-day Adventist Church came to believe that Christ’s judgements were still ongoing, but these judgments were directed only toward those who are doing (or perhaps only claiming that they are doing) the work of the Lord. Revelation 14-12 describes true Christians as “those who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Most people who say that they are Christians do not obey all of God’s commandments, believe it or not!

The founders of Adventism, including Joseph Bates, believed that it is indeed possible to fully conform to God’s will. The important role that the remnant church is to fulfill in the end-times requires that their robes be spotless. This second interpretation of Hiram Edson’s vision came to be known as “Pefectionism.” Ellen White believed that in the final tribulation there would be no intercessor for the members of the church, and they would have to live sinless lives in order to endure to the end of the age, and to win their crowns of glory.

Joseph Bates’s most important contribution to this quest for perfect obedience was in educating everyone about the fourth commandment. The worship of God on the first day of the week, Sunday, had become the norm at that time, but the fourth commandment demands that we worship on the Sabbath. This is the seventh day of the week, which is Saturday. Bates wrote several books on this important subject. Church historians even credit Joseph Bates for being personally responsible for convincing his friends James and Ellen White of the Sabbath Truth.

His efforts, alongside the efforts of his good friends, bore fruit when the Seventh-day Adventist Church was officially created in 1862. Like a United States Marine, Joseph Bates had fought his battles on both sea and land. The motto of the Marine Corps is “Semper Fidelus,” which is Latin for “Always Faithful.” The hero of our story, Captain Joseph Bates, always was faithful.

1.5 Object Lesson with Visual Aids: “Shem-e-i Throws Stones at King David”

Primary Source- Second Samuel 19:16+

The Visual Aids

A nice sized rock is all you need

The Verse Version

Shim-e-i chucked stones at old King David.   The
The king was on the run from Absalom his son.
Sim-e-i was kin to the former king, King Saul,
And I reckon that he wasn’t fond of David’s reign at all.

He called King David murderer and scoundrel.
He cussed him left and right, and he did it in plain sight.
The things he said to David were not pleasant.
He reminded him he was not king at present.

He claimed it was the vengeance of the Lord,
For all the blood that he had shed, and all the people who were dead.
Shem-e-i rubbed salt in David’s sores,
But one day there would come a time for settling old scores.

But this was not the time or place.
David suffered Shim-e-i with dignity and grace.
Like the curse of Balaam that the Lord turned upside down,
The infamy of Shim-e-i might help restore the crown.

Despite the admonition of A-bish-a-i,
Shim-e-i  protested, but he walked on unmolested.
Under torrents of abuse, David walked his weary way,
Until Shim-e-i stopped fussing by the ending of the day.

Now Absalom was fatally defeated.
His finish was not nice. He had followed bad advice,
So David journeyed back to take his former throne.
Shem-e-i was waiting, but not to throw a stone.

Shim-e-i fell down before the king,
So eager to please, that he groveled on his knees.
A-bish-a-i again proposed that he be killed.
David answered “Not today.”  Shim-e-i was thrilled.

This was not the time or place.
Shim-e-i  repented, there were ashes on his face.
David had commanded, so he could not be ignored.
Shim-e-i would not die by the sword.

Maybe it was just the king’s caprice.
He could leave the past behind or he was free to change his mind,
Or maybe oaths aren’t binding when you’re lyin’ in your grave.
He would return to Shem-e-i the trouble that he gave.

The years flew by and David lay a dyin’.
He called Solomon his son to tell him things that must be done.
A bloody grave for Shem-e-i was one of his requests.
He knew that loyal Solomon would do his very best.

Now Shim-e-i was under house arrest.
It should have been a cinch. He just had to warm the bench.
Solomon said “You will die the day you leave this town!”
Shim-e-i left anyway, so justice struck him down.

The tender mercies of my God are surer.
When forgiveness you implore, He remembers sins no more.
David wasn’t perfect. Perfection lies above.
Thank God for the consistency of our Redeemer’s love.

The Prose Version

God was not pleased when the Hebrews decided that they wanted a king to rule over them. They wanted to be just like all of their neighbors. The first king to rule over them was named Saul. God was not pleased with the way that Saul was behaving. He set the prophet Samuel to go and anoint a new king, a man after His own heart. This new king’s throne would be established by God to last forever and ever and ever.

There were plenty of setbacks for David along the way. One of the worst was the rebellion of his own son, Absalom. It looked for a while as if he would be ruler in the place of his father. Some people who were not happy with King David being their ruler welcomed the brief reign of his son. The relatives of the king that David replaced, Saul, were especially delighted. But David’s son, Absalom was no more likely to give them preferential treatment than his father would have. Their power in the new kingdom had pretty much disappeared with the death of Saul. But they still hated David’s guts.
When Absalom was on top. and it seemed as if the days of David’s rule were over for good, one of Saul’s kinfolk by the name of Shim-e-I decided to go and give David a hard time. He would “kick him while he was down,” which everyone knows is an unsportsmanlike thing to do. This mean person’s name was Shim-e-i. When David eventually regained his throne, Shem-e-I was among the first to apologize for his bad attitude, and his bad conduct, for he had followed David and his men as they were trying to escape from Absalom. It might have been the lowest point in David’s life, because this enemy was his own son. The real enemy in all of this was, of course, Satan, for Satan had entered into Shim-e-i just as surely as he did into Judas when he betrayed Jesus. Ellen White briefly writes about Shim-e-I in “Patriarchs and Prophets:”

“The spirit that leads man to triumph over, to revile or distress, one who is in affliction is the spirit of Satan.”

As I said, Shem-e-I apologized to David right after the king put down Absalom’s rebellion and regained the throne. This apology was probably intended just to save his own skin. David may have felt that Shim-e-I did not fully repent of his misdeeds in his heart, and the apology was not very sincere. Shim-e-I had said some awfully mean things to the king, and had even thrown rocks at him. David had patiently endured all of this verbal and physical abuse.

When the king was safely back in Jerusalem, he gave his word to Shim-e-I that he would not order that he be killed for his bad actions. David could have added, “not in my lifetime, at least,” for Shim-e-I had sown the wind when he insulted the king. David could not entirely forget the trouble that Shim-e-I had made for him. He decided to leave the punishment of Shim-e-I in the hands of God, and in the hands of his son Solomon. Shim-e-I had indeed sown the wind, and after the death of King David he would reap the whirlwind. On his deathbed, David instructed his son Solomon to not forget the evil that Shim-e-I had caused.

After his father died, Solomon decided to keep Shim-e-I within the walls of Jerusalem. If Shim-e-i ventured outside of the city even for a moment, it would mean the end of his life. Given the extreme consequences of leaving Jerusalem, you would think that Shim-e-I would be happy to leave well-enough alone, and to simply stay put. But one day a servant of his left town, and Shim-e-I was stupid enough to decide to go after him in order to bring him back. When Shim-e-I returned with the servant, Solomon reminded him of the condition that he had placed on him. Shim-e-I paid with his own life the price for breaking Solomon’s ground rules, but in fact he was really paying the price for the sins he had committed back when he, and his secret advisor Satan, decided that they would throw some rocks at God’s anointed. He had lived a good, long period between his crime and its punishment. Justice may not have been swift, but it had definitely been sure. You reap what you sow. Only a turning away from sin, and Christ’s atoning death on the cross can spare each and every one of us from the same kind of punishment that Shim-e-I received. As ye sow, so shall ye reap!

1.6 Web Sources “Where Can I Find Some Good Nectar?”

Primary Source- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bees_algorithm

The Visual Aids

The props that are required are four real or artificial flowers. They must be two different types, and these types must be easily distinguished from each other. If they are flower-shaped paper or cardboard cut-outs, then perhaps half of them could be one color, and the other half could be a different color. You must make sure that the colors are different enough so that there is no possibility of confusing the two.

One type of these two distinct props will represent flowers that have very good nectar.
The second type will represent flowers that have nectar, but not good nectar.

The Object Lesson Suitable for children of all ages

This is a story about Internet search engines. This is a story about evangelism. This is a story about bees looking for honey, and how when they find it they go back and tell their friends how good it is, and where they can find it.

Where I am standing here with you will be the beehive in this story about bees. Here are four flowers [the “flowers” are now displayed to the listeners]. Two of them have really good nectar. The other two have nectar that is OK, but maybe not the greatest in the world. I am going to put two of these flowers kind of close to where I’m standing. One of them is a great nectar flower, and the other one is just an OK nectar flower. I am now going to put the other two flowers further away. Again, one will have great nectar, and the other one will have nectar that is just alright [the “flowers” are all positioned, and the lesson is ready to begin].

Like I said, you have to imagine that I am standing in the beehive. I am a bee. You are bees too, if you want to be. I am a bee who is like an explorer, and I am about to go looking for nectar. If I had some helpers, we would divide up the territory we had to explore. Some of us would go farther out to look around, and some would looking closer to our beehive. We would try to be organized about how we searched for nectar as a group. If it were “every bee for themselves,” than we would end up wasting a lot of time duplicating each other’s efforts.

Internet search engines look for information instead of nectar. Evangelists are out looking for people who are ready to turn from their sins and accept Jesus as their Savior. But bees are looking for nectar, and God has designed them to be very good at doing this. Many internet search engines are modeled on the behavior of bees. Salesmen looking for new customers (and evangelists are kind of like salesmen) use these techniques as well.

So here I am, a bee, and I am about to go look for some nectar. Buzz buzz buzz! Buzz buzz buzz!
[The narrator quickly flaps his or her hands in the manner if a honeybee in flight, following a seemingly random trajectory. After a few seconds he (or she) discovers the nearest flower, one which has the characteristics and coloration of one with OK, but not so great honey. The “bee” takes a big sniff, get a resigned look on his (or her) face, and then buzzes directly back to the “beehive,” a trajectory that is often termed a “beeline.”]

So here I am back at our beehive. I found this flower that has some OK honey, but maybe not the best in the world. At least the source is pretty close to the hive. How am I going to tell all of you other bees about my discovery? I’m a only a bee, you know, so I can’t talk. But I can dance! I’m going to do what naturalists call a “waggle dance.” I will dance around in a figure-eight pattern, and in the middle part of the dance, in the middle of the figure 8 I will head in the direction where the flower I discovered can be found. The number of times that I go through the figure-eight will tell the other bees how far it is to the flower. Since the flower with OK honey is close by, I will just do a couple of passes through the figure-eight. The reason that they call this dance a “waggle dance” is that I will waggle my body while I am dancing in the direction of the nectar source. If I waggle real fast, that means there is really good nectar where I have just come from. If I waggle kind of slow, that means the honey is OK, but not anything to write home about. Here goes. You have to pay attention, because I am the only bee looking nectar today. You are the bees who will have to go and fetch it and bring it back to the hive. But, like I said, this first flower patch I discovered would not make very good honey. I am still hoping to find better. If I can’t find anything better later on, though, we may all end up working with the patch of flowers I have already found.

[The narrator “dances” twice, the “waggle” segments of the dance, which are pointing toward the nearby flower with mediocre honey, are not very energetic.]

You notice that I am not waggling very fast. I am not really excited about the flower, but it is definitely better than nothing. Most of you ought to just hang out in the beehive a while longer, hoping that something better will indeed come along. I am going to try again. Since I am working alone right now, I will continue to try to search close to home.

[The random meandering search is resumed. The second nearby flower, one with excellent nectar, is soon discovered. The narrator makes another “beeline” back to the hive.]

Now I am excited, and I know that you other bees will be excited as well when I tell you what I have found! My latest discovery is just as close as the previous flower, but this one has fantastic nectar! When I go through the “waggle” part of this dance, I will be waggling like crazy! Notice that I will be pointing in a slightly different direction than the first dance. We could do this demonstration outdoors sometime, and hide the flowers where you could not actually see them. You could find them just by watching my “waggle dance.” Here goes!

[This second dance has the same number of circuits as the first, but the “waggling” is much more energetic.] Buzz buzz buzz! Buzz buzz buzz!

There! That dance ought to light a fire under all of you! If we really were bees, most of you are not already busy doing something else should immediately fly off to this great flower patch and load up on nectar. It is well worth the effort. It’s still early in the day, so I’m going back to work now.
[The narrator bypasses the zone of nearby flowers and starts to randomly explore the areas of the room that are further from the hive. Soon he (or she) discovers one of the farther flowers. It is another lackluster flower, so the nectar not exceptional. After a third “beeline” return to the hive, another waggle dance is performed. The waggles are not very enthusiastic, but the number of passes that point in the direction of the flower are four in number, rather than two. This indicates that the distance is greater than was the case with the previous discoveries. Dialogue with the listeners is improvised, with regular interjections of “Buzz buzz buzz! Buzz buzz buzz!”]

I’m throwing in a few extra passes in to tell you all that the latest flower I’ve discovered is pretty far away. Since the nectar is not all that great, and the flower patch is not nearby, none of you are likely to be excited by my news. It may turn out to be important if we don’t find anything better later on, but for now you better not waste any time on it. I am going to make one more trip before I take my lunchbreak. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

[The narrator bypasses again the areas close to the hive that have already been explored, and when he (or she) reaches the distant parts of the room he (or she) meanders in an area adjacent to the previous flower that was discovered. The excitement of a fine discovery is apparent from the body language of the explorer bee as he (or she) encounters the final flower of the morning’s explorations. A little hop, and a waggle of the hands precedes a last “beeline” back home. The figure-eight dance the explorer bee now does is completed energetically, but in silence, and is terminated by another little hop and an excited flap of the hands. The scout bee emits one last self-satisfied “Buzz buzz buzz!” The narrator now faces the audience for the last time, and offers a few concluding remarks and observations.]

It is good that I found some more good nectar this morning. We naturally began today’s explorations close to home. All of the easy-to-get-to nectar was discovered and gathered first thing this morning. As the day progresses, we will have to fly further and further to find good nectar. We may end flying so far that we run into other bees who are trying to do the same thing that we are doing. I hope there is enough nectar for everyone.

Requirement 2- Age Groups of the Targeted Audiences

2.1 Modifications to “You Need to Start Working as Hard an Ant, Lazybones!”

A Three-Minute Version Suitable for Children 5-years-old and Under.

Your parents have to work very hard so they can be able to look after you, and to take care of you. I am sure that you are thankful for all of the hard work that they do.

The animals that God made are hard workers, just like your parents are. Some seem to work harder than others do. I think that the smaller the animal is, the harder they work! Except for creatures so tiny we can’t even see them, insects are among the smallest, and also the hardest working animals there are.

You’ve probably already heard about King Solomon. He was a smart person. He was the King of Israel after his dad, King David died. He was interested in all kinds of things. He studied the natural world, and learned a lot by doing this about God, and about how we should live our lives. He wrote down a lot of the things he learned in the Book of Proverbs. It is easy to find Proverbs in your Bible, because it is right in the middle of it.

One of the proverbs that Solomon wrote was about ants. God must love ants, because there are lots of ants in the world, billions and billions of them. They are good survivors, because not only are they really hard workers; they are also very well organized. They spend the times of the year where there is plenty of food available to gather this food, and to put it in storage. When the wintertime comes, and there isn’t any food to be found outside of the ant’s homes, there is enough inside, in storage, to keep all of the ants fed until springtime comes. This is a great plan, and God is the one who came up with it. All the ants have to do is follow God’s plan. This is the key to their success, and is the key to our success as well.

King Solomon wants us to learn about how we should go about our work from the ants. Here is what he wrote in Proverbs about ants, and about how we should work as hard as they do, and about how we should make good plans for the future:

“Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter.”

We all need to work hard, even when there is no one telling us what to do. One of the reasons that we go to school is so that we can learn how do things right. One day you will be able to figure out all on your own what needs to be done in order to solve a problem, or how you can help another person who is in trouble. Once you have figured out what you need to do, then you have to work hard to get things done. Just like ants do!

2.2 A Note on the Target Audience for the First Six Stories, 1.1- 1.6

1.1-1.6 are all five-minute stories composed to be understood by 10 to 12-years-olds.

Requirement 3- Story Outlines

3.1 A Written Outline of “Those Sneaky Men of Gibeon!”

A. Introduction

1. The defeat of Jericho by the Hebrews
2. The fear of the Canaanites due to the military successes of the Israelites

B. The Preparations by Gibeon to Deceive the Hebrews

1. Tattered clothing
2. Worn saddlebags
3. Torn wineskins
4. Moldy bread

C. The Initial Encounter between the Gibeonites and the Hebrews

1. Pretended to be weary
2. Lied about how far they had travelled
3. Spoke of God and Israel’s undefeated record of conquest
4. Requested a vow from the Hebrews that there would be peace with Gibeon

D. The Princes of the Tribes of Israel Establish a Covenant with Gibeon

1. A solemn oath is sworn by the Hebrew leaders
2. The Gibeonites are pleased by the success of their deception.

E. The Hebrew People Question the Actions of their Leaders

1. Three days after the oath the proximity of Gibeon is revealed
2. The people murmur against the princes
3. The princes refuse to violate their oath, which is sacred in nature

Conclusion

1. The Gibeonites are consigned to servitude to Israel
2. A caution about the negative consequences of deception
3. A general plea for forgiveness, one of the lessons Joshua 9 teaches us

Requirement 4- General Story Modifications

4.1 The Use of First, Second, and Third Person Narrative Styles

The first-person viewpoint is an intimate one only insofar as the listener cares for either the person who is doing the talking, what he or she is talking about, or (preferably) both speaker and subject. But, as we all know, there are some who seem to talk about themselves to an excessive degree. This type usually has a very good opinion of themselves. They are so interested in themselves that they are convinced that you will also be interested. Spellbound. Edified. Amazed! The result- the boredom of the listener, is opposite of the speaker or writer’s intent. They are attempting to acquaint you with the most interesting topic on earth- themselves! How can you possibly be bored?

First-person is great, but only if you have something interesting to say. “The Great Controversy,” like the Book of Revelation, was originally written in the first-person style. When avant-garde journalist began writing in the first-person back in the sixties, it was such a novel approach that this style of reportage came to be known as “New Journalism.”

The second-person viewpoint is intrinsically accusatory. Unless you are saying nice things about the person that you are addressing, you are likely to upset and offend them by using the second-person approach. The incendiary word “you” straddles the dangerously unstable literary area that lies between flattery and insult. This style is best left alone. Please feel free to talk about anyone you wish to, as long as it is not me!

The third-person style is always a safe gambit. Not longwinded first-person self-promotion., Not discourteous second-person finger pointing. Just the facts! It can frame even the most outrageous opinions in a manner that makes them seem to be balanced, rational, and scholarly. Nobody gets hurt. I don’t get hurt. You don’t get hurt. It can only make trouble for those other people, and they are not here to object. Not me! Not you! Them. And they are all at a safe distance, light-years away in third-person land.

4.2 Tailoring the Message to Fit, and Even Changing the Meaning

Here at the end of a discouraging political season 9December, 2016), observant citizens will all be aware of how a candidate can seemingly speak out of both sides of his or her mouth. Recently deceased songwriter Leon Russell wrote a song called “Magic Mirror” which described the involuntary and automatic way in which his fans, and he himself, would seem to adapt themselves like chameleons to emphasize whatever mutual characteristics the two parties may share. Mr. Russell felt that was not a particularly noble or healthy phenomenon. It is perfectly acceptable to “write up” or “write down,” or to “speak up” or “speak down” to effectively communicate a message to those who may have differing levels of comprehension (i.e. “age groups”). To modify or even entirely change the meaning of a story or a speech could, however, very clearly indicate either lazy craftsmanship or a lack of moral fiber in the writer or speaker. Ancient Greece and Rome were both infested with peripatetic instructors in the art of “rhetoric.” For a price, these hired guns would teach you how to convince anyone of anything. This is a useful trick for politicians, but it is not very Christ-like! You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. A “change of meaning” is like a deviation from the truth. A different function or intent merits a fresh, new form. This is assuredly not the kind of answer that the writers of this requirement were expecting, but is nevertheless one based on a lifetime of experience in fashioning new wineskins for new wine.

4.3 Making the Story Shorter

Shortening a story is what professional editors that work for newspapers and publishing houses do all day long. Thomas Wolfe’s editor at Scribners, Maxwell Perkins, must have lopped a couple of hundred-thousand words off of Wolfe’s manuscripts in order to make them more digestible for the reading public. He operated in the early twentieth-century. It has been noted that, prior to the advent of television, the reading public included practically everyone.

Kids don’t have very long attention spans. A guest speaker at a recent evening musical presentation at Berean Seventh-day Adventist church in Atlanta commenced a story in the avuncular manner that most patronizing storytellers adopt when they are attempting to engage the younger generation. What should have been a three-minute talk passed the five-minute mark. All of the preschoolers had already stopped listening. When the speaker passed the ten-minute mark, he had managed to lose absolutely everyone else. Yet, as it turned out, he was only getting started. The adults were all enthralled, enchanted and spellbound. The kids, by contrast, not only suffered, but will doubtless suffer again. “What a great storyteller! We simply must invite him back! He can really relate to children!” Adults do all of the booking, you know…

4.4 Making the Story Longer

You can “pad,” or “flesh-out,” or simply extend, augment, embellish, or ornament any story that was ever written. You start with associated material that lies closest to the narrative thread. You pump some of this literary silicon into the tale. If you add too much, and it starts to squeeze out of the primary conduit, you can attach some branch lines that could contain the excess. When you do this frequently, you have successfully emulated the literary style of Kurt Vonnegut. When the digressions and asides are so excessive that the main channel gets completely, irrevocably lost, then you have just managed to duplicate Laurence Sterne’s “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.” When a main narrative thread doesn’t even exist, then you may be Gertrude Stein, who famously wrote “A rose is a rose is a rose…”

Requirement 5- Why is a Definite Aim Necessary?

If you don’t have a definite aim, that you are still Gertrude Stein [see above]. Seriously, life is too short, and the return of Jesus too near, for us to be wasting valuable time on pointless activities. Without an aim, you are without a purpose. Pointless stories only serve to divert one’s time and attention from more important tasks. When you find an aim, a purpose, or a point that you can build a good yarn around, pray that it transcends the shallow, but dominant aim of most of the media that gets created at present. This is primarily designed to distract you, and mollify you, and hypnotize you to the point where you are only sleepwalking through life. Don’t waste your time, and try very hard not to waste other people’s time!

Requirement 6- A Foreign Missionary, “Michał Belina Czechowski (1818-1876)”

The Seventh-day Adventist Church may have been started in the United States, but very soon after it was first organized there were lots of men and women who were willing and able to go and share it with the rest of the world. You can find Christians, and Adventists in some of the unlikeliest placed these days. If you should ever stumble across one in some Oriental market, or on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean you will know that somehow the three angels’ message had been brought to their notice. These days, it may be because they learned about Adventism on their radios, or by watching TV, or by looking it up on the internet. But it most likely means that a real, live human being has journeyed from afar to come and speak to them in person. These messengers are called missionaries. The job that they do makes Jesus very happy, because he told us to go unto all the world and preach the gospel. The great prophet Isaiah wrote something about spreading the Word of God, and Paul thought it was so important that he wrote it down again. Here is what it says:

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns!”

If you have been a Seventh-day Adventist for very long, then you have probably heard of Andrews University. It is highly possible that your pastor may have gone to school there. It was named for John Andrews, who was the first official Adventist missionary to Europe. But before his official mission began in 1874, a Polish-American had been laying the groundwork in the Old World in an unofficial way. I hope I can pronounce his name right! It is “Michał Belina Czechowski.” He was a very energetic person, but not always a reliable person. He had hoped that the leaders of the Adventist church would sponsor his activities in Europe. He was born there, and spoke many of the languages that they use. Sometimes, however, Michal’s plans were bigger than his ability to fulfill these plans, and he was also much happier being his own boss than with allowing more stable and experienced people to guide him. But despite his willfulness and pride, God still used him to further His work. Without much support at all, Michal sailed from America to Europe in 1864, a whole decade before John Andrews did the same thing.

Michal had originally moved from Europe to the U.S. to serve as an evangelist for the Baptist church. In 1857 he attended an Adventist camp-meeting in Ohio. He recognized the truth when he found it, so he became an Adventist himself. He started his own church in New York three years later. When he decided that he needed to go back to Europe and tell everyone there about the Advent message, he ended up getting sponsored by some American Adventists who were not Sabbath-keepers. As I said, he was too green and intractable (meaning hard-to-manage) to qualify for official sponsorship.
He went on to work in Italy, Switzerland, and Romania. He was especially interested in telling the Waldenses of the Italian Piedmont (which means foothills) about Adventism. Ellen G. White thought the Waldenses were really good people, mainly because they were obedient to God’s laws, instead of men’s traditions.

Michał Belina Czechowski may not have been official, but this does not mean that he was not useful. He helped to prepare the soil, and to plant the seeds of faith on the European continent that others would soon arrive to nurture to maturity. Adventism is now firmly established in the Old World, but it is sad to think that a lot of Europeans do not seem to be interested in their own salvation these days. The Old World is a very worldly place, and it is impossible to serve Jesus and the world at the same time. The peoples of Europe may all be well-educated, and financially prosperous, but are nevertheless deprived of what matters the most in everybody’s lives; a relationship with Jesus. It would offend nearly every European if you were to tell them that they are serving Satan, rather than God. If you ever take a trip over there, you are encouraged to tell them about Jesus. Try not to get discouraged when they tell you that you are full of baloney! If they turn a deaf ear to you, then you must pray extra-hard that the Lord will make a way for His light to enter their hearts.

Requirement 7- A Health Story, “The Adventist Health Message”

The health reform message of the Seventh-day Adventist Church began way back in 1863. Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church Elder Tracey Wallace, M.D. often gives presentations that refer to the amazing accuracy and efficacy of Ellen G. White’s insight into the importance of the proper maintenance of what Paul describes as “the temple of God,” our bodies. Dr. Wallace attended Loma Linda University, a medical school that is currently squarely in the center of denominational health affairs. He is an enthusiastic evangelist for the Adventist “Health Message.” He describes it as being 150 years ahead of its time. It was originally concurrent with now obsolete medical practices such as “bleeding, purging, and poisoning.” Dr. Wallace notes that Ellen White’s prescient revelations are founded upon Scriptural prescriptions for healthy living, with an emphasis on dietary law.
The evils of tobacco and meat were apprehended early in the history of the church. Even before Ellen G. White’s 1863 “Health Message” vision occurred, Adventist pioneer Joseph Bates had become aware of the evil effects of alcohol and tobacco on the constitution. He was so far in advance of his own time, he even stopped eating meat. He was a big influence on his friends, James and Ellen White.

Recent observers note that “the world has gone after” the health message at this time (much of the world, but regrettably not all of it). Here is a long quote from a recent article on health reform from the Adventist Review: Ellen White, while explaining her vision of 1863, did not have or need scientific credentials. Indeed, the science of the day would have hindered rather than helped. Instead, she laid out a number of simple ideas that were at the time fairly revolutionary as a package, although not individually unique. Contemporary Adventist scholar Leo Van Dolsen once summarized these simple health principles—nutrition, exercise, water, sunlight, temperance, air, rest, and trust—in terms that were easy for most people to understand.

Results bear out the significance of the “Health Message.” Seventh-day Adventists who follow the health guidelines that the denomination promotes and publicizes live to be much older than those who do not. The “Health Message” incontestably adds “years to your life.” The messages that are found in the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy add “life to your years.” A long, healthy, and productive life is the end result of adhering to these messages. Christ came so that we could all have an abundant life.

Away in a Manger

Angels We Have Heard on High

Joseph Bates

Tannenbaum

This is a YouTube Link

Spittle and Clay

Faust Prologue

Goin' Home

Heretic

Morning

The complete condensed version of Elder Tottress's biography.

R.E. Tottress

Elder Richard E. Tottress at the Berean food pantry last year, lugging a briefcase filled with edification. Bible Worker Shirley

Crenshaw is visible in the doorway beyond.

98 YEARS OLD, AND STILL GOING STRONG

Elder Richard Edward Tottress has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, evangelist, educator, broadcaster, and author. In the Fall of 2016 Elder Tottress is still working. He regularly attends services at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Elder Tottress is the son of a Baptist minister. His father, M.A. Tottress was born in Texas in 1898. His mother Edna was an Oklahoma native. Richard is the eldest of a family of eighteen children. Three of his eleven brothers also became preachers. The 1940 U.S. Census notes that he was born in 1918 on a farm near the Creek County township of Newby, Oklahoma. A few years after his birth oil was discovered in nearby Slick, Oklahoma. Favored landowners of all races prospered for a season, but a decade later the boom had peaked and the boomtown of Slick was depopulated.

Dr. R.E. Tottress attended school in Bristow, Oklahoma, about ten miles away from Newby. At Lincoln High School he distinguished himself by winning a statewide oratory competition. Founded in 1922, Lincoln served as a premier learning environment for Bristow’s African-American Community, at least until Bristow High School integrated in 1958. Elder Tottress also diligently studied the Bible as a youth, and noted the disparity between Scriptural precepts and the actions of most of the people who professed to be Christian.

Upon graduation from Lincoln High, Elder Tottress (like many other Oklahoma residents during the depths of the Great Depression) migrated to California. His first stop was in Fresno, where a company of Adventists had been formed in 1931. In Fresno Elder Tottress had not yet accepted the Advent message, but God intended that he would soon do so.

It was on the West Coast that Elder Tottress providentially encountered a book by African-American Adventist pioneer Elder F.L. Peterson. Its title is “The Hope of the Race.” This 1934 work advocates Jesus as the only solution to problems that plague disadvantaged black Americans. It strongly recommends the Seventh-day Adventist denomination as an effective doctrine and discipline not only for the present day, but for all eternity. Elder Tottress read this book and discovered answers to questions that had been nagging him as a seeker of truth, and simultaneously discovered a satisfying model upon which he could pattern his own life. Apparently Adventists made every effort to observe and obey the commandments of God. And while Adventists are by no means perfect people (for all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God), strict obedience is a certain proof against charges of hypocrisy.

The author of the book that so influenced young Richard Tottress, Frank Loris Peterson, happened to be the first black student at Pacific Union College. This Adventist institution was founded in 1882. In 2012 the U.S. News & World Report ranked Pacific Union College second out of 219 national liberal arts colleges for campus ethnic diversity. F.L. Peterson inaugurated this trend toward diversity, graduating in 1916. In 1917 he became the first black teacher at another Adventist institution, one that was created in 1896 specifically for African-Americans. Ironically, for the first two decades of its existence the staff of what was then known as “Oakwood Junior College” was all Caucasian.

Dr. Tottress not only fully embraced the faith that Elder Peterson had publisized, but also followed the trailsthat his mentor had blazed to Pacific Union College and (ultimately) to Oakwood College.

In California Elder Tottress gained further knowledge of the Advent message in the San Francisco area through the evangelical activity of Elder Byron Spears. He was baptized in the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco by Elder Norman S. McLeod. This immersion occurred at Philadelphian Seventh-day Adventist Church. The fresh convert would now enroll in Pacific Union College, F.L. Peterson’s alma mater, located 75 miles due north of the site of his baptism.

At Pacific Union Elder Tottress personally encountered the man of God who had influenced him to become an Adventist, F.L. Peterson. The new student was practically adopted into the Peterson family. He was even roommates at Pacific Union with F.L. Peterson’s son, Frank Jr. While attending the school Elder Tottress served as religion editor for the school newspaper, the “Campus Chronicle” during 1941 and 1942. Future General Conference President Neal Wilson was concurrently the chapel editor of this publication, and in 1943 Frank Jr. was made an associate editor.

Having earned his B.A. in theology in 1943, Elder Tottress now spent his internship assisting in a series of tent revivals that took place in the Lubbock, Texas area. This evangelical campaign was under the direction of Russell Nelson, a native of New York. The elder also served as a civilian chaplain for Camp Barkeley, a World War II era United States Army training facility located near Abilene, Texas. At the peak of its operation this base had a population of 50,000 souls.

In June of 1946 Elder Tottress married the former Margarreau Flourine Norton. She would accompany him wherever his ministry called him to be up until her death in February of 1999, a partnership that would endure for over a half-century. The couple’s life journey would eventually include the Southwest Region, South Central. and finally the South Atlantic conferences of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Elder Tottress earned two additional degrees, a second B.A. from Oakwood College (currently named Oakwood University), and a doctorate from the University of Beverly Hills. He also studied as a post-graduate student at Andrews University and Texas A&M. He was ordained as a pastor in 1951, and went on to lead churches in Texas, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.

The long-running syndicated radio program created and hosted by Elder Tottress, “Your Bible Speaks,”  was first aired in Charleston, South Carolina in 1963 while he was the pastor of Shiloh Seventh-day Adventist Church. It would continue to be broadcast for the next four decades. A men’s chorale ensemble which currently performs as “The Singing Men of Oakwood University Church” was founded in order to provide music for this program.

The June 1, 1963 edition of the Southern Union publication “Southern Tidings” declares that “Elder R.E. Tottress has accepted a call to serve as dean of boys for the Academy of Oakwood College.” The Tottress family relocated from South Carolina to Huntsville, Alabama, location of Oakwood, and served at this institution in various positions. He initially headed the Bible and History Departments at the Academy, then went on to join the Bible Department of the College. He also served as assistant dean of men at Oakwood.

When the Oakwood College Church became independent of the Huntsville district in 1965, Elder Tottress became its first pastor after this reorganization. He helped to forge a strategic vision for the prominent and influential house of worship, one which is now led by Dr. Carlton P. Byrd. In 1969 Elder Tottress relinquished the helm, but assumed it once again when he served as as interim pastor from 1972-1973. At the time of a special Oakwood tribute to the elder, biographer E.C. Ward recorded the pastor’s current responsibilities as including a staff position in the Bible Department of Oakwood, duties as a media librarian, the chaplaincy of the radio station WOCG-FM, and a co-pastorate at the Oakwood College Church.

The literary and poetic work of Elder Tottress were written during the course of his academic, administrative, and pastoral activities. His juvenilia and manuscripts now reside in the Andrews University Library, but a good number of his books have been published and are available online.  An enormous quantity of brochures, pamphlets, tracts, and essays have also been penned by the elder. Whatever length or form  his output may assume, all are at least partially intended to familiarize potential converts to the Adventist faith with some of the denomination’s distinctive beliefs. These are the very truths that so attracted Elder Tottress  when he first encountered them as a young man. The worldwide online library catalog list five of his seven publications as being “widely held.”

The first of these catalogued works was written in the fifties, and was published between 1955 and 1957 in three editions. It is titled “Heaven’s Entrance Requirements for the Races.” In this book, one released in the early days of that portion of the ongoing struggle for Civil Rights that benefited from national media coverage, Elder Tottress reminds his readers that God is no respecter of persons. The Biblical precepts and promises that lead the believer to eternal life are universally applicable, and entirely color-blind. Elder Tottress exhibits a forgiving nature in the pages of the book, as Jesus commanded us to forgive others.

A two-volume set of poem by Richard E. Tottress entitled “Selections from Pastor Tot’s poems and points” was published in 1956. Nineteen years later, in 1975,  another book of verse, “Truth speaks: poems”  was published. Two works were printed in 1979; “Twenty-five silver “A” broadcasts,” a compendium of some of his radio addresses, and “Aspects of N., C., & B. history: All within a lifetime.” The N., C., & B. stand for the evolution of the terms that society has chosen in order to designate African-Americans; Negro, Colored, and Black. It describes many of the noteworthy people and places in the development of the African-American Adventist church that Elder Tottress was  eyewitness to during the course of his long career. Finally, a less well-documented work titled “Special sermon series: no. 1-” was published in 1979.

Resist the Devil

Roadmap

Job SDA 4th Qrtr Sabbath School Topic

More "alleged" Spam for the Glory of God: A Tripartite Sermon on Sacrifice.

Russell, Humphreys, and Pilgrim go the Distance 

THE THREE CABALLEROS

The September 24, 2016 worship service at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, Atlanta featured a sermon that was sequentially delivered by all three of the primary pastors: Fredrick Russell, Austin Humphreys, and Danielle Pilgrim. Here is a link to the ENTIRE SERVICE. The sermon was immediately preceded by a song that starts at time marker 1:24:03,  “He Kept Me,” a 2004 composition by Kurt Carr. It was performed by the Berean choral ensemble “Open Praise” under the direction of David Trofort. A memorable riff on the organ provided a transition to the sermon. It can be heard, along with the sermon itself by accessing the linked YouTube video at time marker 1:29:35. Pastor Russell started out by staunchly reaffirming the message of “He Kept Me,” then invoked a brief reprise of the song from the choir. This coda was completed by time marker 1:30:55, and the sermon proper began.

THE SERMON: “THE STRETCH”

“The sermon today, by all three pastors, one sermon, is called ‘The Stretch.'” Pastor Fredrick Russell introduced the sermon, and provided the title. “Stretch” is a word that possesses multiple, but somewhat similar meanings. One of the these meanings is directly applicable to the structure of the sermon, and will now be illustrated by the image just below:

“Handing Off Baton in Relay Race,” a situation that requires one to stretch. Thanks again, Getty Images!

The sermon was a “relay race.” The metaphorical “baton” that was passed was a microphone. Pastor Russell had fired the starter’s pistol, but Pastor Humphreys would run the first leg of the relay. Pastor Humphreys retrieved the baton from the “Holy Desk” where Pastor Russell had laid it. He started to run…

HUMPHREYS: “Our text for this morning… begins with  a familiar passage in Genesis 22…” The subject of the first leg would be Abraham, and the providentially interrupted sacrifice of his beloved son Isaac. The theme word, “stretch,” will now be foreshadowed by the premature quotation of a relevant verse of Scripture, one describing a significant moment in the unfolding of the highly prophetic, but thankfully abbreviated sacrifice of Isaac by his father Abraham. It is Genesis 22:10, which will again make its appearance in its appropriate location:

“And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.”

Pastor Humphreys was off like a shot: “We know the story, choir, of Abraham. Abraham is to become the father of many nations… Firstly, Abraham is a man of God, and he’s on fire. He’s asking for a son. He’s asking for a child and God grants him this child…” The synopsis by Pastor Humphreys continued: “In our text God has now asked Abraham to sacrifice what He just promised him.” Abraham does not question God’s command, but journeys with young, yet strapping Isaac to the mountain, the “place God wants him to be,” the pastor noted.

“Vous restez ici,” (You stay here) Abraham informs his servants at time marker 33:30 in a scene from the French-language YouTube version of “Abraham.” A disclaimer notes that some liberties have been taken with the source material for the script of this movie.

The pair of attendants that had accompanied the patriarch and his son to the base of the mountain were ordered by Abraham to stay behind. “The lad and I go up to worship,” quoted the pastor, “and WE will be back…” Pastor Humphreys emphasized that Abraham did not say “I’ll be Back.” He said “we’ll be back.” The attendants were not to tag along, as “sacrifice will require separation,” Pastor Humphreys noted. This was to be no typical sacrifice. The pastor said that we, too, can be hampered in our desire to advance in our own spirituality by those of our associates who are not so eager to advance alongside us, “stuck in their one season.” But we must make our own way in life. God makes plans for us as individuals, and not as members of a posse, or interchangeable cogs in some machine.

The “Spirit of Prophecy” was referenced with regard to this separation. A work by Ellen White reveals that If the two servants of Abraham had been with him at the moment of the proposed sacrifice of his son, “they would have stopped him from doing what God had asked him to do” [The book by Ellen G. White, “Patriarchs and Prophets,” contains a chapter (13) titled ” The Test of Faith.” It describes the interrupted sacrifice of Isaac in an enlightening manner, but does not include the insight just mentioned by Pastor Humphreys. This data may be discovered on Page 81 of “The Story of Redemption” in a chapter (10) titled “Abraham and the Promised Seed“]. The pastor drew a lesson for his auditors from this inspired addenda of E.G. White: “The reality is that we must sometimes separate ourselves even from the people we care about.”



[Here is a link to an earlier Wednesday night “War Room” sermon by Pastor Humphreys titled “I’m Gonna Get it All Back.” It was a more extended analysis of Abraham’s projected sacrifice by Abraham of his son. You must scroll past the first lengthy segment of the post to access the sermon summary. When you have read the summary you are advised to scroll no further, unless you are a masochist.]

“And so he lets them know ‘I need you to stay here, but WE WILL BE BACK!'” This assurance by Abraham to his menservants was repeated by Pastor Humphreys. He mentioned Isaac’s question to his father, “but daddy, where is the sacrifice?” Abraham’s answer to his son is also a prophecy: “God will provide.”

“Not only will sacrifice require separation,” Pastor Humphreys continued, but “sacrifice will require trust.” The speaker noted the apparent contradiction between God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the “father of many nations” with the present requirement that he sacrifice his only son. God is incapable of lying, so there had to have been more to the story. The pastor expressed Abraham’s reaction to God’s illogical requirement as follows: “If God is asking me to kill my only son, then God must be getting ready to do something ridiculous!” Pastor Humphreys stated that Abraham, upon consideration of the paradox that confronted him, was fully anticipating that God was about to act in a manner that Paul would later describe as being “…exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think…” (Ephesians 3:20)

Ephesians 3:20 is nicely complimented by Malachi 3:10

“He literally had to believe in something that ‘eye has not seen, and ear [had] not heard” [First Corinthians 2:9, partial]. God, for whom nothing is too hard, could conceivably resurrect Isaac from the dead after Abraham had sacrificed him, despite the fact that it was as yet an unprecedented thing back in Abraham’s day. The pastor described Abraham’s reaction to God in the face of his own confusion: “If God’s asking me to do this crazy request, then I am going to give him a crazy thing.” This crazy thing? The sacrifice itself.

The methodical preparations that Abraham made at the site of the intended sacrifice were meticulously described by Pastor Humphreys. God allows Abraham to proceed as if no obstacle would retard the progress of this overwhelmingly significant enterprise. “God does not stop him when he puts the wood under his son, no. God does not stop him when he grabs the knife,” the pastor declared. But these procedures are dramatically interrupted by God at the “eleventh hour” (a World War One era expression) in the previously cited verse, Genesis 22:10. It will now make its promised reappearance:

“And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.”

A High Baroque depiction of God’s timely intervention from the High Museum of Art, right here in the ATL. It was painted in 1700 by “Il Baciccio” (aka Giovanni Battista Gaulli), who also did all the frescos in “Il Gesu.” I noted on Facebook that “Il Gesu” is the Jesuit HQ.

Pastor Humphreys quoted the preceding verse twice, then declared that “when Abraham stretched, that’s when God stepped in!” He continued: “The reality in here for some of us today is that if you would just learn how to stretch yourself, God will step in.” The pastor revealed that “the word ‘stretch‘ in the original Hebrew literally means ‘to extend beyond'” [to exert oneself to a much greater than normal extent] so that whatever extraordinary thing that needs to be done can be successfully accomplished. Here it is the whole verse for all of you advanced Hebrew scholars:

וַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח אַבְרָהָם֙ אֶת־יָדֹ֔ו וַיִּקַּ֖ח אֶת־הַֽמַּאֲכֶ֑לֶת לִשְׁחֹ֖ט אֶת־בְּנֹֽו׃
[Don’t forget to read from right to left!]

“But that word ‘stretch’ is also the same word used when you stretch your hand in total praise,” the Pastor Humphreys added. This augmented level of praise is suitable for every occasion, and the pastor admonished every listener to “stretch your hand in the good times and in the bad times of life.” Pastor Humphrey’s leg of the race was almost run…

“Let me leave you with this: Usain Bolt, after he had won all these various medals… when they asked him about the relay races, they asked him ‘what do you practice the most?'” Pastor Humphreys now furnished Usain’s reply: “I’ve got the speed down pat, and the timing down pat, but you know in those races they’ve got to stretch to grab the baton… I’ve learned that we’ve got to practice the stretch.” The pastor was about to “pass the baton” himself, but just prior to doing so he revealed the compelling reason that had had motivated him carry this baton for the initial leg of this Sabbath’s rhetorical relay race:

“… I came by to let someone in here know today that if you would just practice the stretch, and let God know ‘Father, I stretch my hands to thee,’ no other help will I know. But I’ve got to learn to trust in the God that can keep me from falling!”

A very famous photo of Steelworkers taking a lunch break high over Manhattan. My prayer for these men as a child was “God, please keep them from falling!”

PILGRIM: “Continuing on the topic of sacrifice, in First Kings 17 we find a story that demonstrates another aspect of sacrifice.” Pastor Danielle Pilgrim revealed that this portion of the Bible demonstrates that sacrifice not only requires trust; it also requires unselfishness.

“We are introduced to Elijah, a prophet who was travelling to a land named Zerephath.” Pastor Pilgrim described Elijah’s predicament as an “interesting” one [I will paraphrase this predicament as being “out of the frying pan, and into the fire”]. “…There was famine in the land that he was travelling from, and there was also famine in the land where he was travelling to.” But Pastor Pilgrim noted that even though Elijah was leaving one bad situation for another, he neither “stressed nor worried, because he knew that the same God that fed him by ravens in the old famine land was the same God that would feed him in the new famine land.”

The relevance of this concept to our own lives was now described by the pastor: “…I know that right now, in this very room there are some of us experiencing famine in our lives…” Anaphora (repetition for artistic effect) was now employed by the speaker for the first, but not for the last time in the course of her segment of the relay:

“Some of us are experiencing famine in our finances, and famine on our jobs, and famine in our love life.”

Albert A, Goodman wrote the song “We’ve Come This Far by Faith,” a testimony that God can get you through just about anything. This image is from a VIDEO produced by the Bible Way Baptist Church. Check out time marker 6:40 in the YouTube video of the Berean Sabbath service for “Open Praise’s” version.

But there is no reason to fret about this famine. Pastor Pilgrim assured us that “the Most High God will keep you in peace in the famine land.” She quoted Ellen G. White: “We have nothing to fear for the future, except we forget how God has led us in the past.” She asked a question: “Is there anyone here thankful that God has led you through the famine land of your past? You have got to understand that if God kept you in the past, it is an indication that He can keep you in the future.”

[The quote by Ellen G. White that Pastor Pilgrim used can be found placed at the head of chapter 17 of a biography of the prophet by Herbert E. Douglass entitled “Messenger of the Lord.” This chapter is prosaically named “Organization, Unity, and Institutional Development.” The source of the quote is safely ensconced in chapter 31 of “Life Sketches of Ellen G. White,” a collection of autobiographical writings. This chapter is titled “Burden Bearers,” and the quote is on page 196. Here is the original: ” We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”]

We must never lose sight of the fact that God is sovereign, the pastor emphasized. The spotlight was now redirected from the congregation and back toward Elijah: “And so we have Elijah travelling to the land of Zarephath. And the Bible says that as he enters the gate of Zarephath he meets this woman.” Although unnamed, this woman plays a leading role in the prophet’s affairs. The pastor noted that “he commands her to give him bread.” She  clarified the nature of this command: “Now you must understand that the woman is not required to give Elijah any bread.” Pastor Pilgrim reminded everyone that the woman was a Gentile, a Phoenician, an enemy of the Israelites [as was the Samaritan “woman at the well” who Jesus addresses in John 4]. “Therefore,” the pastor revealed, “she was not required to follow the hospitality customs of the Israelites.” But even if she were, “You can’t get blood out of a turnip” [the summarizer’s goofy contribution]. “She simply had nothing to give,” Pastor Pilgrim more soberly stated.

A scene from a cute children’s VIDEO (one with very bad audio, however) that dramatically illustrates the statement by Pastor Pilgrim that is above this image.

“Understand that this woman was dirt-poor. She was a single woman. She was a widow. She was destitute. She was so poor that the Bible says that when Elijah met her she was preparing to make her last meal, and preparing to die.” First Kings 17:12 includes her reply to Elijah’s importunate command for victuals:

“…As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

But the Phoenician widow nonetheless determined to heed the stranger’s instructions. Pastor Danielle Pilgrim continued: “The Bible says that she poured out her last bit of oil, and her last but of [meal] to make bread for a stranger she just met,  because sacrifice demands unselfishness.” This assertion was repeated in an attempt to fix it in the minds of both the congregation and the online audience. “Here’s the beauty; it’s the correlation that this Gentile woman demonstrates the message of the Gospel… the message of the Cross.” Now a version of John 3:16 was most appropriately quoted:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“…Because sacrifice demands unselfishness!” A lesson about the happy aftermath of unselfishness was now drawn from the actions of the Phoenician woman by the second of the three preachers: “Here’s the gem of the text: the Bible says that after she fed Elijah, although her flour pot and oil jar were emptied, the text says that she kept on pouring.” This miracle is recorded in First Kings 17:16, just below the picture:

“And they lived happily ever after…”

“And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah.”

This transcendent miracle was highlighted by Pastor Pilgrim’s enthusiastic description of it. A final lesson was drawn: “… Sacrifice is always linked with a promise. And the good news is that when you put others first [and, alternately, “when you are unselfish”] then even when the jug is empty you can still keep pouring! Because the Bible says when you give, the Lord will give you ‘good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.'” (Luke 6:38, partial) “So as long as you give,” the pastor promised, “you will have bread in your house!” This important information was repeated three times. The Psalm that bears directly on this topic was the last Scriptural citation of this second leg of the rhetorical relay race, Psalm 37:25:

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”

Pastor Pilgrim now proclaimed for an unprecedented fourth time the salient point that she was trying to drive home:  “So as long as you give, you will always have bread in your house. But remember,” she added, “that while sacrifice requires trust, it also demands unselfishness!”

The baton now changed hands for the second time. Lead Pastor Fredrick Russell would traverse the third leg of the relay.



RUSSELL: “So it was the end of the movie, where the end of the movie is the beginning of the movie.”

This was a temporarily enigmatic and thought provoking introduction by Pastor Russell (although anyone who has seen the 1950 film noir classic “Sunset Boulevard” can immediately relate to this concept). In some movies the initially presented “end” of a story gets subsequently explained throughout the remainder of the feature.

A refined method of Scriptural analysis is to explain not only events that may occur within the separate “scenes” that make up the Bible, but to relate these scenes to nearby and adjacent occurrences. The Holy Spirit (who dictated the entire Biblical “screenplay” to holy men of God) frequently links the meanings of these scenes in order to create a kind of “meta-theme.” This is what Hollywood film editors are also known to do, should they have the right kind of raw footage to work with, and possess enough talent to creatively deal with it. Pastor Russell now explained to the congregation one of the many instances of “inspired” Scriptural juxtaposition that the Spirit (an extremely competent craftsman) has composed for our instruction and edification.

“Three days earlier, in Acts chapter 5, we begin with the end of the movie. What happens? You have a couple that have died, tragically, with… massive heart attacks in church. She [the wife] shows up, and her husband has died an hour or two earlier where he stood before the apostles… and he died. End of the movie!” The incident that the pastor related was by this point recognizable to anyone who had ever read Acts as the one concerning the confrontation between the apostle Peter, Ananias, and his wife Sapphira [this was the first time that the reclusive summarizer of these remarks had ever heard a preacher attempt to sermonize by referencing an episode that most “seeker sensitive” ministers would not want to touch with a ten-foot-pole].

The movie “The Book of Acts” does not begin with the ending (Paul in Rome, awaiting execution), but rather with a scene about the writer of the screenplay, Luke.

“An hour or so later the wife walks in. She hears that her husband has died, and she also, in church, has a massive heart attack… and the deacons carry her out as well. That’s the end of the movie. Here’s the beginning of the movie.” Pastor Russell now taught that Acts chapter 5 reveals that the early church had a “lot of needs in the body.” They would pool their resources. “The Bible says ‘they all held everything in common,'” the pastor affirmed. People with tangible properties converted these into liquid assets. “They were all going to give it to the body of Christ,” the pastor also said. There were widows in the body who required support. Thousands of new converts were joining every week. There was as admirable consensus among the members, and Pastor Russell voiced their attitude: “We are all going to give for the common good!”

But Ananias and Sapphira stood apart from this general spirit of generosity. They sold their properties for the sake of the church with the noblest of intentions, yet Satan slipped into their hearts when they were in fresh possession of a neat pile of highly negotiable lucre. “… They ended up getting way more money than they expected,” Pastor Russell revealed. “As opposed to a ‘few thousand of dollars,’ they ended up with ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars,’ and they began to say, ‘Hold on here!'” They jettisoned their original intent. The pastor imagined what kind of exchange of dialogue may have taken place between the colluding pair: “Ananias said, ‘Sapphira, do you see all this money? Do you see how much we’ve made here? Well, the church doesn’t deserve that much!” The upshot? “They both conspired to lie to God,” Pastor Russell stated.

The movie “The Book of Acts,” a very low-budget production, allows this gentleman to relate the tale of dishonest Ananias and Sapphira. This is much more economical than actually depicting the scene itself.

The plot of the Acts 5 movie continued to be described, scene by painful scene. It was film noir, just like “Sunset Boulevard.” The pastor resumed his voice-over narration: “…The Bible says he [Ananias] shows up at church, and in the basket he drops all of this money.” The apostle asks him a question: “Is this what God blessed you with?” The pastor dramatically voiced Ananias’s brazen lie for him: “YES! I’ve given it all! I told you! I will make a sacrifice for God, whatever God asks me for in my life; I’m willing to give everything! And we’ve given everything!” [Note: “TMI” is often the hallmark of a liar, and the pastor parodied this style to good effect. One good lie always seems to draw another one in its wake.]

“And Peter said to him, ‘you did not give everything. You lied. And not only did you lie, but you have lied to the Holy Spirit.'” The pastor affected the soft-spoken manner of Clint Eastwood in order to declaim Peter’s reply. This cool placidity is usually a harbinger of some spectacularly violent action in most of the movies that star Eastwood. Similarly explosive violence now struck Ananias. He died “on the spot,” the pastor related. “The young deacons came in and removed him.”

A famous scene from the Spaghetti Western “A Fistful of Dollars.” The carpenter is told to “Get three coffins ready…”

Meanwhile (cut to tranquil domestic interior scene) Sapphira is oblivious to the judgment that has just descended upon her late spouse, her partner in complicity. She is gleeful about the windfall that she and Ananias have raked up from under the boughs of the fruit-tree of the nascent church. She eventually grows a bit apprehensive about husband’s prolonged absence, however, so she decides to saunter on over to where all the saints are assembled. She walks in and nonchalantly inquires about her co-conspirator. Pastor Russell now provided the congregation with an English language audio track of her and Peter’s dialogue, just as he had previously done for her recently departed spouse in his encounter with the discerning fisher of men:

“‘Have you seen my husband? He was supposed to be back home, and he had no other errands to run.’ And Peter asks her, ‘I know you made a public display of sacrifice, and I know you’re a part of those believers that says in my life, anything God asks me to do, I’m willing to do it. But did you give all that you had?’ And she says, “Yea! We gave all that we had!’ And Peter says to her, ‘You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you have never come to the place where you have laid everything on the line, You’ve always held back.’ And he then says, ‘your husband is dead. And guess what? The men are here to take your body out as well.’ And she dies immediately with a massive heart attack. And here’s the point…”

“I can say to God I will sacrifice everything, as long as it demands of me nothing.” The pastor elaborated upon the all-too-prevalent attitude that he had just described: “I come to church and I say, ‘God, I’ll put everything on the line as long as it demands of me nothing that stretches me, and pushes me outside of my comfort zone!”

Andrew Carnagie advocated that all of one’s fortune be given to charitable causes a century before the establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He wrote a book bout this idea, “The Gospel of Wealth.”

A recap of the previous segments of the sermon was now provided by Pastor Russell:

“Abraham put it all on the line, Pastor Humphreys said, for God; even his own kin.”

“Pastor Pilgrim said when it came to sacrifice, that woman who was about to die along with her son; when the prophet shows up and she shares her last meal with him she understood that it was not about her only.”

“And in the final story, with Ananias and Sapphira, talking about sacrifice…”

“I will make a public declaration that I will put everything on the line for God as long as it makes no demands on me” [Pastor Russell had now placed himself in the position of a “stand-in.” The real culprits were probably hiding in their trailers, powdering their noses]. “And as a body of Christ, God today will make a brief, powerful demand of us.” Details would be forthcoming. But before the Lead Pastor’s leg of the race ended (as will the summarizer’s annoying cinematic allusions) the “grand unified field theory” of spiritual physics was introduced in order to firmly bind together the preceding three components of the sermon. This is, of course, Jesus Christ Himself, the ultimate sacrifice. Abraham and Isaac were a shadow and type of this sacrifice, and can stand a comparison to the outward form of the Cross. But the near-infinite suffering that Jesus endured when He “became sin for us” drives any sacrifice that we may be willing to offer into insignificance by comparison. Pastor Russell now unexpectedly passed the baton back to Pastor Humphreys.

Rembrandt- “The Three Crosses,” AKA “Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves.”

“And Pastor Humphreys… what was the ultimate sacrifice?”

The microphone was now physically handed to the man who had run the first leg of the relay. He had regained his wind by now, and was prepared for a sprint to the finish line.

HUMPHREYS: “When Abraham stretched his hand, the angel stepped in and called his name, ‘Abraham, Abraham.’ God told him ‘now I know that you fear God.’ As Abraham, whose hands happened to be shaking, the knife in his hand to do whatever it takes to sacrifice for God, the angel points and there’s a ram in the thicket” [This solemn declaration by Pastor Humphries assumed exceptional gravity by its contrast to his typically animated style of preaching.  It was unmistakably a message of the utmost import]. “And while you’re going up the rough side of the mountain, your blessing is coming up the smooth side. And that day Isaac was willing to do whatever it took because he trusted the father.”

Pastor Humphries asked his listeners to imagine that long ago God had a conversation with His Son. “I need you to sacrifice yourself.” The pastor described Jesus’ reaction to this request: “There was no hesitation. There was ‘no questions asked.’ He gave His life freely. He came to this world, and in 33 years turned everything upside-down. Peoples’ lives were touched, healed, set free, raised from the dead. But He had to make an ultimate sacrifice.”

Matthew 27:54: “Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.”

“He was tempted to give up, but He loved YOU too much.”

“He was tempted to back down, but He cared for your future.”

“And so all throughout these 33 years He courted us. He dated us. He took us out to make sure that everything was alright. And then on Gethsemane He knelt down and proposed to us. He let us know He’ll never leave us nor forsake us [Deuteronomy 31:6].” Pastor Humphreys now vividly described that fateful day on Calvary. He was preaching “the Blood,” which should be the foundation of every Christian homely. Paul once wrote to the body at Corinth about his recent visit to that ancient crossroads: “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (First Corinthians 2:2).

“Right there on that cross He solidified His covenant with us and said ‘I do.'” He then gave up the ghost. Pastor Humphreys personalized this event for the congregation: “Don’t you know He would just do it for one of us? He made the ultimate sacrifice because YOU were worth it.”
The pastor declared that God often asks us to make sacrifices in our lives. They may not be “comfortable,” he said, “but we need to learn to trust the one that’s able to keep us from falling.” Pastor Humphrey now restated a Psalm that Pastor Pilgrim had quoted earlier, one that assures us that our personal sacrifices will not prove to be fatal (as did Christ’s). Here again is Psalm 37:25:

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”

Unoccupied

Christ’s atonement was not permanently fatal. “The good news is, He got back up,” the pastor said. All that Jesus requires of us is faith, even if there should be no compelling physical evidence to convince us [For we walk by faith, not by sight (Second Corinthians 5:70]. Even in the midst of adversity we are not to relinquish the hope that is in Jesus Christ. A prerequisite for any tangible sacrifice one might contemplate is the intangible sacrifice of our hearts to our Redeemer. “There are some people who have been here a long time and you have still not given Him everything,” Pastor Humphreys truthfully observed. A pending opportunity to sacrifice was again mentioned, one which would be prefaced by a rendition of Pastor Don Moen‘s song “Lord I Offer My Life to You” (a contemporary cousin of “I Surrender All”) which is located in the VIDEO of the service at time marker 1:58:00.

The race was now effectively over. It might be said that Christ Himself completed it when He spoke the words “It is finished.” The song was over, and Pastor Russell now urged that the members of Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church “go the distance” themselves.

RUSSELL:  “OK everybody; one of the levels we’ve been trying to go to in this church of where we, as a people… first of all say to God, “God- all of my life, everything about me, God, I sacrifice for you my total life, withholding… choir?” The choir most certainly knew what it was that we are to withhold, as did many in the congregation. Pastor Russell himself provided the answer as to what exactly we are supposed to withhold: “Nothing.” He spoke of a projected “whole ‘nother level” that the church could ascend to if we (and he included himself as well) were to truly withhold “nothing.” It was all about sacrifice. The Biblical exemplar Pastor Humphreys had cited was referenced by Pastor Russell. He now furnished a model statement that everyone could make thier own: “God, like Abraham I sacrifice. I lay it all before you.”

This ram can let you off the hook!

“In the Old Testament something happened that God permitted His people to do. We are about to go on that same journey as a church.” The Lead Pastor noted that days devoted to “extraordinary” sacrifice were honored by the Israelites of old. With the entire assembly as witnesses, each person would bring their gift forward and place it on the altar. Pastor Russell announced that the members of Berean will soon have an opportunity (November 12, a Sabbath that will feature Admiral/Doctor Barry Black) to emulate the ancient Hebrews. The ongoing “R3” Capital Campaign (Restore, Rebuild, Renew) could use some supplemental funds. All ages and tax-brackets were encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to engage in “equal sacrifice.” More important than the gift itself will be the display, before God, of a willingness to give. The benefits would be both individual and corporate. The pastor again noted that, “in a culture where no one sacrifices, no one puts anything on the line, God is raising this church [to] a higher level of spirituality.” The definition of true “sacrifice” was clarified by the speaker: “It’s not ‘God, here is my tip. This is what I can afford.’ But here is my sacrifice.”

Mark Twain once said, “I can afford to be generous with other people’s money.” Pastor Russell’s ironic assertion that “I can say to God I will sacrifice everything, as long as it demands of me nothing” is in the same vein as Twain’s, and was restated in the course of the closing prayer. As he had noted in a previous sermon, the pastor looked forward to whatever thrilling form God’s intervention in a climate of (deceptive) scarcity might assume. “To stretch. To do what we’ve not done on a regular basis,” he prayed. The lesson of the widow’s mite was cited. The prayer ended. “Father, Holy Spirit, move upon every heart right now, and God, we thank you for what you’re going to do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Second Chronicles 34:9: “And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin…”