Engage

The Bible Is Boring, Pt. 1

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jay Rosario & Daniel McGrath (Host), Michael Johnson

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Series Code: E

Program Code: E000024


00:19 Hello again, my name is Jay Rosario
00:20 and welcome to Engage.
00:22 In this program we're addressing relevant issues
00:25 facing young Christians all over the world
00:28 and joining me today is my good friend Dan,
00:30 who is our co-host. Dan how're you doing?
00:31 Good, Jay, how're you doing? Doing well.
00:33 So Dan what are we gonna be talking about in this segment?
00:36 Well, today we're talking about
00:37 the relevancy of the Bible.
00:39 There is a tendency in churches
00:40 to kind of down play the truths of scripture
00:43 for either entertainment or evangelism methods.
00:46 When In reality the Bible has all the answers,
00:49 it has the power to change lives.
00:51 So we're gonna look at that today
00:52 and we have a special guest joining us. Who is that?
00:55 Well this guest, Dan is actually a very,
00:57 very significant person.
00:59 He's the one that was influential
01:02 in bringing me to God and basically sparking
01:06 that first encounter that I had with the Lord Jesus.
01:08 So his name is Michael Johnson.
01:10 We want to invite Michael Johnson to come on now.
01:12 Michael Johnson is not to be confused with-
01:15 With the famous track runner Michael Johnson.
01:18 This is another Michael Johnson. Yeah.
01:20 So Michael you're, or Mike, if I call you that Michael.
01:22 Mike, you are the one, you're the guilty one.
01:26 I am guilty, sorry. You are guilty
01:27 because it is your fault that I am here.
01:30 That's right. In another words,
01:31 if it wasn't for you and for your wife or your family,
01:34 there will be somebody else hosting the show.
01:35 And this is actually a very, very special privilege
01:39 and honor that I have to--to have
01:41 you in the part of as a guest of our show.
01:43 And Michael those-- for those of you--
01:45 for those that don't know who you are,
01:47 tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live,
01:48 what you do etcetera, how big is your family.
01:50 Well I have--my wife and I, we have five children,
01:53 four girls, one boy.
01:56 My wife is a registered nurse, I am a dental lab technician,
02:01 I've own my business for 27, almost 28 years
02:05 which is where we ended up meeting there for a while.
02:09 Yes. But- And where do you live?
02:10 Well, we live in Spokane, Washington, right now.
02:12 Our kids go to Upper Columbia Academy.
02:15 They are teenagers and above and we moved down
02:19 from Anchorage, Alaska, where we met you.
02:21 Awesome, so that's really part
02:22 of the, the, the, where the story
02:24 takes place is Anchorage, Alaska.
02:26 We're gonna be talking a little bit about the Bible.
02:28 You know, many times in our Christian experience
02:30 as young people, we really don't have low expectations
02:34 of the word of God. Sometimes we, we go to the Bible,
02:37 we don't really expect much about it.
02:39 We doubt whether it has power to change our lives
02:41 and we doubt whether it has the possibility
02:43 to transforming other people's lives.
02:47 So well you guys, you have a very unique relationship,
02:49 you know, I haven't known you for that long but,
02:52 but I have known Jay for a while
02:54 and he's had the opportunity to preach all over the world,
02:56 but you're kind of the person
02:57 that brought him into the message
02:59 and so really you know, everyone that Jay preaches
03:02 to is under the direct influence of your ministry.
03:06 So I don't know if you have thought about that,
03:07 but, you know, how did you find this guy, this character,
03:12 you know and actually get him who had no interest
03:15 in the Bible to, you know,
03:16 become a preacher and a pastor.
03:18 Well, it's too bad my wife wasn't here,
03:20 she's the one who ended up meeting them but it started,
03:23 if I can give it a beginning, I went to Lord in prayer
03:29 and asked Him, I felt like a hypocrite
03:30 because I've been an elder in the church
03:32 for a quite a few years
03:33 but had never given a Bible study before.
03:35 Wow. So, it started on my knees,
03:38 in the quietness of the early morning
03:40 I knelt down and told the Lord,
03:42 I would like to give a Bible study.
03:44 And so, I prayed for a week,
03:47 I told my wife what I was doing.
03:48 I told her, we need to learn to be more bold for Christ
03:52 and just put ourselves out there.
03:53 And it was hard for me because I work in my home,
03:57 in that way I could be with my kids all the time.
04:00 And so, you know,
04:02 I didn't know how it was going to happen.
04:04 But through praying that about a week later is where my wife
04:09 ended up meeting Emil at the furniture store.
04:12 We had--we had bought some furniture
04:15 because it all started with the bed,
04:18 that was some, we had a back problem
04:20 so and so forth and through the process
04:23 of trying to find a new bed.
04:26 One was taken back.
04:27 My wife woke up early one morning,
04:30 about 1 o'clock in the morning,
04:31 was asking Lord and-- she felt guilty for spending
04:34 so much money on a bed and thought,
04:36 may be she ought to take it back and so the next morning
04:38 she woke up and she says,
04:39 "How did it go for the first night?"
04:41 And I said man this is awesome and she said I don't think
04:45 this is what we got to do.
04:46 So she called the store.
04:47 They got the bed taken back and so in the process,
04:51 she went to another place and found the same bed
04:54 for half the price and so she was getting all excited.
04:56 So in the process of saving money
04:58 she decided its time to buy a couch too.
05:01 And so, and we had to go pick up the furniture, she did.
05:05 And so that day they were gonna go out
05:09 and get me something while they were in town
05:11 you know, Sub-Sub sandwich or whatever and my wife
05:14 was getting tired and decide she didn't want to do it.
05:16 My daughter Collie said, no we got to get dad said,
05:19 he wanted that. She is, we'll just go to McDonald.
05:22 And she said no, dad wants a Subway sandwich and so-
05:25 Yeah, that's more like.
05:26 And so she knew that by going over there to get it,
05:30 then she might as well pick up the furniture.
05:32 And when she went to do that, that is where she met Emil
05:35 at there, because he was the one who was putting
05:37 it in the back of our vehicle.
05:38 So you wanted a Subway sandwich.
05:40 Yeah. And the Holy Spirit have been convicting
05:42 you to give a Bible study, convicting your wife
05:44 that she need to go, get rid of this bed. That's right.
05:47 And then in that process
05:48 you met somebody who, who was searching
05:50 for the scriptures, right?
05:51 Yeah, basically what happen, my elder brother Emil,
05:53 I'll tell the Emil side of the story, was working
05:56 at a furniture store and he was in an interesting
05:59 situation at that time.
06:01 He was dating a Christian girl,
06:03 they have been attending evangelical church,
06:06 he was been very involved,
06:07 he was been very into a lot of the activities,
06:09 he was reading his Bible and my grandmother
06:12 is a Seventh-day Adventist Christian.
06:14 And we never really grew up with our grandmother,
06:16 but we do recall visiting her vacations or what not,
06:19 she would drag us over to the church.
06:21 And that we knew two things about my grandmother.
06:23 Number one that she kept Saturday and number two,
06:26 she ate really weird food.
06:28 Those are the two really main things that we remember,
06:31 so my brother, when he started getting involved
06:33 in Bible study, he kind of had this little thing
06:35 in the back of his mind of grandmother,
06:37 so he calls grandma, says,
06:39 "Hay grandma, I bring the Bible."
06:40 She almost had a heart attack with joy.
06:41 She said, "Wow, finally one of my grandchildren
06:43 is in the word."
06:44 So she decides to send him a literature
06:46 and so he starts kind of in this whole process
06:48 of investigating truth of what have you.
06:50 And he tells his girlfriend at that time
06:52 about the situation and we had the opportunity,
06:56 well, they had the opportunity to talk and then somehow
06:59 her older brother got involved
07:00 who was an elder of a local church
07:02 to give Emil Bible studies, my elder brother
07:05 and in the process, I don't know how he did that,
07:07 he dragged me, Jeffrey, my other brother
07:10 and I think his room mates, which is Dennis and Howard,
07:12 which later on we'll talk more about in details.
07:14 But the point is that Emil got very,
07:17 very confused with the Bible.
07:19 He knew that something was missing.
07:21 He knew that there were answers
07:22 that weren't being 100 percent clear.
07:25 So he prayed at the end of that Bible study
07:28 and we went to back to his home,
07:31 we got to house around three in the morning, 2:30-3:00
07:33 in the morning and I went to sleep, Jeffrey went to sleep,
07:36 everybody went straight to sleep.
07:38 My brother Emil knelt in his bed and he prayed,
07:40 "Lord, I am confused, I am interested
07:43 in understanding truth, please lead me to somebody
07:47 that is able to lead me to the truth."
07:49 The next morning he goes to work at the furniture store
07:51 and that's where we'll pick up the story
07:53 and that's where they met,
07:54 that's where my brother Emil met Michael's wife Sherilyn.
07:57 Now you guys are getting, your arm
08:00 so you said that your arm was twisted,
08:01 you had to go this Bible study,
08:03 but here you are, an elder in your church,
08:05 you know, considerably older than him and his brothers
08:08 you know, how did you feel
08:10 when you had to give this Bible study
08:12 when, you know, we're such a media saturated generation
08:14 did you feel like you had, you know, pop-in some videos,
08:17 play some music or what does you do?
08:20 No, you know, it's interesting
08:21 because my wife made a comment,
08:24 you know, when it got down to have the Bible studies,
08:26 the most important thing to us was this,
08:28 the Bible meant so much to us, because it reveals
08:31 the character of God.
08:33 And to me it just stands on its own
08:35 and so that's the approach I took.
08:37 And my wife, you know, I heard her talking to her mother
08:41 when we heard you guys were gonna coming over
08:43 and we were all excited because
08:45 when they came home from getting that sandwich
08:46 and having the furniture and everything,
08:48 my daughter come down stairs and she was so excited.
08:50 I am just sitting there working.
08:51 She got so excited, she was coming down
08:53 there and she's like, "I got to tell you something,
08:54 I got to tell you something."
08:56 I said what is it? She says, "I can't tell you
08:57 because mom will get mad at me, she wants to tell you."
08:59 So she comes down and the next thing I know,
09:01 she said you got seven people coming for Bible studies.
09:04 Wow. And, and I am sitting here now you know,
09:08 be careful of what you asked for it, right.
09:10 And so now the thing is what I am gonna do?
09:13 Well, I had learned to in a very early part
09:17 of the relationship depend upon the Lord,
09:18 but my amount of knowledge, my relationship
09:22 with Him was in that growing process
09:24 and so all I knew is what I didn't know,
09:26 I had to give it to Him, He was responsible.
09:29 And so when it came down to giving Bible studies,
09:31 there was only one thing that I knew and that was find a,
09:35 find some pamphlets that I was gonna fall through
09:38 and be able to give then something to take back home,
09:40 because it seems logical to me that if they had any question,
09:45 they can go back over the material
09:47 and they can approach it that way.
09:48 And a fascinating thing is that the showdown
09:52 or the encounter, whatever we want to call
09:53 it between my brother Emil and your wife Sherilyn,
09:56 really prayer was a kind of foundation of all of that.
09:58 My brother was in a complex situation
10:00 who's seeking the Lords will.
10:01 He was praying around three in the morning
10:03 and that very night that you mentioned
10:04 that your wife was praying,
10:06 it was around three in the morning.
10:07 So I also heard, your grandmother
10:09 was praying at the same time. Right.
10:12 That's where I understood.
10:13 So you had a, you had a several individuals praying
10:15 for a very similar cause and within hours
10:19 because it was two or three in the morning,
10:20 that next morning, somehow God orchestrated
10:23 the events of your wife Sherilyn,
10:24 orchestrated the events of my brother Emil
10:26 and they met in the furniture store,
10:28 they exchanged words.
10:29 I wish we can get to the details
10:31 but time doesn't allow us.
10:32 Well, and get this, it was all about bed, right.
10:35 The thing is we ended up with, we ended up
10:37 keeping basically the same old bed
10:41 and yet never had back problems after that.
10:43 So obviously an angle was somehow involved-
10:45 It was all about meeting- In the springs of those beds,
10:47 he was causing challenges just so that Sherilyn
10:50 could meet my brother Emil.
10:52 The interesting this is that me, my brothers were thought,
10:54 we were all in different levels,
10:55 of course I was in my teen, I think I was 15,
10:57 Jeffery was 17 and Emil was about 19.
10:59 And Emil was heavily involved in the, this church.
11:03 He was kind of thinking about may be marriage,
11:05 of course he was dating this nice Christian girl.
11:08 Jeffery was in this phase in his life
11:10 where he want to become a millionaire
11:12 without going to college and he realize
11:14 that really wasn't a successful.
11:15 And I was somehow into like martial arts.
11:18 My dream was to be like the next
11:19 Bruce Lee, it's really crazy.
11:21 So we were all in different, all in different worlds
11:23 and some how the Lord was able to,
11:24 in our own different levels of experience,
11:26 He brought us together.
11:28 And what I love is when we had the opportunity
11:31 to eventually go to your home
11:33 which of course you invited us to church
11:36 first which we went and that's where we met you
11:37 at the Hillside O'Malley SDA church in Anchorage
11:40 Yeah. And we went to your home,
11:41 I thought it was really weird and I only now realize
11:45 it when I look in hindsight that you lived on,
11:47 what, what, what's the name of the street that you lived on?
11:49 It was Resurrection Drive.
11:50 Resurrection Drive.
11:52 you know, what makes that, it was funny
11:54 because the Resurrection Drive came off
11:56 from main road and had a U, there were two entrances.
11:59 There was two entrances. And whenever
12:00 I give people the direction,
12:02 I said, always take the first resurrection.
12:04 Not the second one.
12:06 Yeah, that's right. So that was just the joke.
12:07 But I don't know, when we got to your home,
12:09 it was the Resurrection Drive, which of course like I said,
12:12 it was not until now that we understands
12:13 what the resurrection is all about that we say,
12:15 "wow, that was special".
12:16 We pull into the driveway, it's me, my bothers,
12:19 I mean the car is packed and everybody
12:22 gets out of the car except for me and my elder brother Emil.
12:24 He was on the driver seat and I am in the middle here
12:27 about to exit the car.
12:28 And he puts his arm over the shoulder
12:31 of the car and he turns about to look
12:32 at me and he says, Jay, and I said, yes.
12:36 He says, I need you to do me a huge favor and I said what?
12:42 He says, I need you to be very careful
12:45 that you don't say any curse word.
12:48 Because I, even though I was the youngest out of the group,
12:50 I don't know why I had this, this inability to restrain
12:53 my tongue from saying foul words.
12:55 So he said, listen this is a Christian home
12:57 that we're gonna be going into.
12:59 These people love God, these people love Jesus,
13:02 don't embarrass me, is what he said.
13:04 And I got so terrified, I am like, oh no,
13:07 I can't say a curse word, what if I do,
13:09 what if I slip that I am gonna embarrass Emil,
13:11 I am gonna be embarrassed, so literally,
13:13 I don't know if you remember Mike,
13:14 but the first time I went to your home,
13:15 actually I think it was about
13:16 the first seven or eight visits, I didn't say a word.
13:20 I know, I think hardly anybody did.
13:21 Yeah. Well, in fact it's interesting
13:23 because as we, you know they, they came over
13:26 to the house, it turns out they basically
13:28 for the next year and half, two years,
13:31 we had them every weekend.
13:32 I already had five kids, now I had six teenagers
13:35 and above to add to that.
13:37 And of course my wife loves to cook,
13:39 so that wasn't the issue.
13:41 And but what's interesting is I don't remember
13:44 you guys ever hardly saying a word
13:46 for the longest time and I thought it was so odd.
13:48 They'd come in, we had our Bible studies
13:50 and the only person that it seem like to allowed
13:52 to ask questions at that particular time was Emil.
13:55 I thought you had some kind of code going on there.
13:57 Well we, I think may be Emil had told everybody
13:59 else the same secret and of course
14:01 you just don't embarrass me.
14:03 He came across as the boss, so you know.
14:05 Whenever you ask me, so do you want orange juice,
14:07 I never said yes or no, I just kind of shook my head
14:08 and said-I was afraid to say yes.
14:11 And you always, you guys always sat
14:13 at the same spot of the table, it never changed,
14:15 it was like a pecking order of some sort there.
14:17 Yeah, like a sign seating.
14:18 I just thought it was awesome, there was,
14:20 there was some respect there for some reason
14:22 that I didn't understand, but to me
14:23 it was just about them being there.
14:25 Yeah, so let me just kind of distill this a little bit,
14:28 we, you said that prayer was a big part
14:30 of you know, reaching out to others
14:33 and specially these guys,
14:35 who you know kung-fu martial artists-
14:38 Well, that was me, my brothers were millionaires in the making.
14:41 That was Jeffery. You know, this group of people who probably
14:45 doesn't have anything in common with you, you know,
14:49 so you prayed and suddenly you have not just five kids,
14:52 you have, you know, what six more added to that.
14:55 Yeah, that wasn't- and by the way
14:56 that wasn't just on the-- weekends, they would come over
14:58 three to four nights during the week
15:00 and I believe that we ended up studying
15:04 or talking about the word of God
15:06 for at least two to four hours each time.
15:07 At least. Now see for me and my business
15:09 and I look back on this with amazement
15:11 because I was already working major hours.
15:14 That's why I always headed to my home
15:16 is because I was working 18-20 hour days,
15:19 so when they came over, they took those two to four hours.
15:23 So what about 10 or 11 o'clock when they go home,
15:26 I went back to work.
15:28 Now somehow the Lord gave me the strength to continue,
15:31 I don't now if you ever knew that- Oh yes.
15:32 And I never said anything because it didn't matter,
15:35 the most important, I was on such a high about
15:38 what God was doing and giving me the opportunity
15:40 that He actually heard me, you know praying
15:42 and seeing something you like,
15:43 Ellen White says you know prayer gives God permission,
15:45 I gave him permission to do something
15:47 that he was aching to do.
15:49 And here we get is, we get these six people
15:51 that want to have Bible studies,
15:53 that blew me away and my wife made it very clear,
15:56 she says, you know what?
15:58 I want to make sure that these kids get treated
16:00 like the conference of our president gets treated.
16:03 With the utmost respect,
16:05 utmost respect and so that is the way we approached
16:07 that whole thing because they were that important.
16:09 And that's why we keep coming back
16:10 because they keep treating us like royalty.
16:12 And the food is not half a bad either-
16:14 How fervently your intensity while you're praying for that?
16:20 Oh man, you know, everyday,
16:23 when I got up and had my worship.
16:27 It was always for, I believe it was a desire
16:31 that Lord put in my heart, to desire
16:33 something more than what I had.
16:35 Because I am not a pew sitter, I've never been a pew sitter.
16:38 If I am not active, I feel like I am not,
16:40 I am just not doing what I was called to do.
16:43 And at that point in my life, I was getting so excited
16:47 about his whole thing that when it came about,
16:50 I was just blown away that God actually listen to me.
16:53 I mean I knew he did, I saw things happening,
16:55 but to see it happen, He actually heard me personally
16:59 and so that, with that the excitement
17:01 just kept driving forward and in course the reaction
17:04 and the things that happened during that time
17:06 were just evidence that He's working in their life too.
17:09 So Jay, you mention that you kept coming back
17:12 because they treated you so well,
17:13 there's some sort of drug in the orange juice
17:15 that they'll give to you. Yeah.
17:16 That kept you coming back for more.
17:18 I think it was the vegetarian manicotti.
17:20 There you go, that will be it.
17:21 That is Sherilyn's famous dish. Yeah.
17:23 No, honestly it's a-- combination of several things,
17:25 like I said you know, this was kind of a little bit
17:27 more of the nicer part of Anchorage I think,
17:29 we kind of lived in the, not so nice part of Anchorage.
17:31 So I was little intimated,
17:33 probably because of what my brother told me
17:34 before entering into your home.
17:35 And just because it was just such a proper home,
17:38 it was a godly home, a Christian home,
17:40 very foreign to my upbringing.
17:43 What I loved about the Johnson home
17:45 thou is that it was very, they're very genuine,
17:48 it was very natural, it was very-there was a lot of love,
17:51 if of course it was biblical, of course what I loved about,
17:54 what I loved about the way Michael was teaching
17:55 the Bible number one is that every thing, every question
17:58 that we had, he says, well let's see what the Bible says.
18:01 Let's see what the Bible says.
18:02 He never shared his own opinion and with the passion
18:04 that you shared it, it was just as contagious.
18:06 I am like wow. Here's an individual who is confident
18:10 of what he believes in and he's passionate about it.
18:12 And I said, kind of already know to myself,
18:15 I said, I wanna be like this some time.
18:17 And number three was the fellowship,
18:19 I think and the food actually, the food and the fellowship,
18:21 the combination of both.
18:22 Before we, before we go on to food and fellowship,
18:23 I just want to kind of ask a little bit
18:26 about the Bible studies,
18:27 you know this is not some thing
18:29 that's got great entertainment value,
18:32 you know, you read some of the stories
18:33 and they could be movies,
18:35 you know, they're pretty graphic,
18:36 but I mean this is some thing
18:38 that you had never read before.
18:39 No. So what did the Bible,
18:41 what do you think of the Bible, you know.
18:43 Well previously, I thought the Bible
18:44 was kind of like just Shakespeare,
18:46 stuff that you read, it's very rosy and poetic language
18:49 that has literally no applications to reality.
18:51 And I remember the very first Bible study
18:53 that you shared with us, Michael.
18:54 Do you remember what the first Bible study was?
18:55 I don't remember. He doesn't remember,
18:57 it was on the second coming of Christ.
18:59 In fact, I wanna read text.
19:00 Oh, it was a good choice, weren't they?
19:01 Yeah, it was a good choice.
19:03 John Chapter 14, in this Bible study
19:05 that he gave to us.
19:06 This was the verse I think that really
19:09 just brought us together and I said, at the conclusion
19:13 of your Bible study, of course I wasn't ready
19:14 to be baptized into the church, of course.
19:17 But I committed myself, I said, there is something
19:19 in this book and there is something in this family
19:23 that I need to, I need to discover.
19:25 What is that they have, what is that this book
19:27 has that I don't have, because it was obvious
19:29 that I was missing something. John 14 versus 1 to 3 says,
19:31 "Let not your heart be troubled;
19:32 you believe in God, believe also in Me.
19:34 In My Father's house are many mansions;
19:36 if it were not so, I would have told you.
19:38 I go to prepare a place for you.
19:39 And if I go and prepare a place for you,x
19:41 I will come again and receive you to Myself;
19:43 that where I am, there you may be also."
19:45 And I always thought to myself, wow,
19:47 God wants to dwell with me for eternity.
19:51 I thought well, that's so awesome and that's really
19:52 the first kind of taste that I had of the Bible.
19:56 So this is the first time that you thought
19:58 the Bible spoke to you? Yes.
20:00 Now this is, this is very interesting
20:01 and this is something I think,
20:03 you know, our viewer need to know and understand
20:05 is that, a lot of times we think that miracles
20:08 are what people need to see to have faith.
20:10 And we want to see miracles, because we want to believe,
20:13 but the Bible says that by, faith comes by hearing
20:17 and hearing by word of God. So when we read the Bible,
20:19 the truths of this word, of this book, we develop faith.
20:23 And you're saying that God wants to dwell with me,
20:27 and so you didn't get, you didn't get
20:28 a lot of entertainment value, but you got the Bible
20:31 and it spoke to you.
20:32 You know I didn't get entertainment value,
20:34 but I had a lot of fun.
20:36 It was a lot of fun going through these Bibles studies.
20:38 I look forward to going, I was in school,
20:42 I was in may be math class, algebra,
20:44 whatever it was.
20:45 And I was just thinking man, when is the bell gonna ring,
20:47 so I can meet with the rest of the guys,
20:48 so we can drive over to Resurrection Drive.
20:51 So meet with the Johnsons and it literally
20:53 just became part of our life, just going to their home.
20:56 And like I said it wasn't only the Bible studies,
20:58 but it was the fellowship. Well, tell us about the fellowship?
20:59 Well, this is the interesting thing is that first of all
21:03 you know, Michael, he's obviously Caucasian,
21:05 he's a white man and me, my brothers and even Dennis,
21:09 Howard and Jessica are of Latino background.
21:12 So obviously, you know, statistically speaking
21:15 it wasn't supposed to work out.
21:17 This experiment wasn't supposed to be successful.
21:19 Were you racist at all?
21:21 I wasn't racist, but I kind of you know well dressed,
21:24 you know Caucasian people, I just didn't know how
21:26 to relate with them, and my brothers
21:28 may be even had a harder time
21:30 than I did, but I just think it was so amazing
21:33 that in spite of our differences,
21:35 our cultural differences, our sociological differences,
21:38 somehow with the word of God,
21:40 these barriers were completely removed.
21:41 And I have to mention something
21:43 about Michael and his basketball playing.
21:46 You see there's a common belief that white man can't jump.
21:49 Well, Michael actually has disproved this theory,
21:52 because I remember when we challenged you
21:54 to play basketball for the first time
21:56 in front of your drive. Yeah.
21:57 Michael was wearing this really
21:59 funny basketball outfit, I cannot get into
22:01 that I don't want to embarrass him,
22:03 but he was playing and he literally beat
22:05 all of us and I thought to my self, how is this possible?
22:08 So the fact that you, you know,
22:10 you are willing to spend time with us really,
22:12 really he was a spiritual father to us.
22:14 He invested his time, his energy, you risk you know,
22:17 your business just to nurture the relationship
22:20 that God established between us
22:22 and not only was it a spiritual chemistry
22:24 that we had, but it was actually a social,
22:26 emotional connection that we had.
22:28 And I view Michael today as a father
22:30 and actually I just lost my father recently
22:32 so Michael is a very special individual
22:34 and Sherilyn of course is like another, another mom of mine.
22:37 So I think those dynamics of having solid biblical truth
22:41 and what I loves of all, like was a, he answered
22:43 everything with the Bible and he spoke the truth
22:46 and love but he spoke it passionately
22:48 and it came from your heart and on top
22:50 of that it was when the Bible studies
22:52 were over its almost as if the Bible studies continued
22:55 but now it was through your life, through your actions
22:58 and it was like, it was like there is no difference
23:01 between this Bible study
23:02 and spending time with Michael and family.
23:05 I honestly believe that I am a spoiled individual
23:08 because the lord chose the best family,
23:11 the lord shoes the best family for me,
23:13 my brothers and my bother's roommate so.
23:15 And so as you are spending time with these guys
23:18 is not just the Bible studies and more,
23:19 this is kind of little more than
23:21 we have prayed for probably.
23:22 Oh yeah, yeah its fully because my wife
23:24 and we go to play basketball and stuff like that,
23:27 my wife, I come back and she says, you know, she says,
23:30 you are not a teenager, do you, you are old enough
23:33 to be their father. She said,
23:35 "you got to, you got to settle down" and I-
23:37 And you started out with back pain.
23:38 Oh, yes, yes. Then and, and what's crazy
23:42 is its just they were like my kids but saw my self
23:47 as a kid and yeah I was older
23:50 but I have never seen myself as older.
23:52 You know I am creeping up on 49 years old next month
23:57 and I still play with high school kids out
24:00 at where my kids play and keeping up
24:03 with them playing full court, couple of hours,
24:06 twice a week and its one of those things that you know,
24:10 when it came to studying the word of god,
24:13 I don't even know how to explain it
24:14 but there was a youth that I felt then
24:18 and it was because of something that we shared,
24:21 I wasn't paying attention to, attention to it then,
24:24 they were fun to be around.
24:25 What a group of energetic people and so it just energies
24:31 me more and more.
24:32 I loved to have them come over, I didn't care
24:34 that they came over two to four hours.
24:36 The word of god is what I thoroughly loved
24:39 and I trusted in and to see what was going on there,
24:44 may be I couldn't answer all the questions
24:45 but that doesn't mean that it isn't happening
24:48 and you're not experiencing it in your life.
24:49 I've learned that, a lot of things I like to be able
24:52 to explain but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen
24:55 and so as I look at the product
24:57 of what standing here today.
24:59 It was what he took an he put into reality everyday
25:02 of his life because the same thing could have happened
25:05 that had they left the house and never studied it,
25:07 know nothing, where were they be,
25:09 it's a continuation of what they felt
25:12 and that's the true, the true test
25:15 I think of your trusting God.
25:17 And seeing it from their point of view,
25:20 you know, I wasn't even paying attention to that.
25:22 I just knew what I loved and the fact
25:24 that somebody wanted to sit and listen.
25:26 So you are just being who you were.
25:29 You were out there playing basketball
25:30 because you love to play basketball
25:32 and you could find some common ground
25:34 there but what's interesting
25:35 to me is that you didn't just spend an hour
25:38 giving a Bible study once a week.
25:40 You actually cared about these individuals,
25:42 you took them in as part of your family,
25:44 you know you played with them, you loved them,
25:46 you fed them, you gave them orange juice-
25:49 Without any mixture- Vegetarian manicotti.
25:51 Without any drugs in it. Right.
25:54 And so, what would you tell somebody
25:56 who wants to get involved in giving the Bible study,
25:58 but he's not really sure how they can relate, you know.
26:00 Well, if somebody wanted to give Bible studies,
26:03 the way I approached is pray about it.
26:05 That there are people that want help,
26:09 they're looking for answers and God
26:12 has an incredible way of bringing people together,
26:14 but prayer literally gives him permission and the results,
26:19 they will happen.
26:20 He's just waiting for someone who has that desire.
26:22 Okay, so I can summaries this,
26:24 you know, we tend to put entertainment up there,
26:28 but you're saying the-- Bible, intense Bible study,
26:31 fervent prayer and-- fellowship, the three things
26:34 that led Jay Rosario
26:36 here to be a converted Adventist preacher. Yeah.
26:39 Mike, I cannot tell you how happy
26:41 we are that you are able to come.
26:43 My pleasure. Blessed us with your presence
26:45 and may be those who have been watching
26:47 this program are wondering wow, we want to hear more.
26:49 Well, our next segment we're gonna
26:51 have more of Michael Johnson and more--little bit more
26:53 of how you can get involved with Bible study
26:55 as a personal devotional experience
26:58 and how you can actually give Bible studies
27:00 to other individuals.
27:01 May be you are a young person who has underestimated
27:04 the power of the word.
27:05 May be you come to the Bible, you wonder
27:06 what can this old book do to me, a modern day young person.
27:11 Well hopefully this program today has encouraged
27:13 you that the word of God has the potential
27:15 to change people one hindered percent.
27:18 I stand here as evidence that God
27:20 can change the heart of young people, and it's not just me,
27:23 it's me, my brothers and three of my brother's room mates.
27:26 We were finally baptized into
27:27 the Seventh-day Adventist church and all of us,
27:29 all six of us are now in full time ministry. Amen.
27:31 Nothing that we did, it's all the work of God.
27:34 And may be you're a young person and saying to yourself,
27:36 how can I get an experience like this.
27:38 My suggestion is to go to the word of God and say,
27:40 Lord I want you to be able to do exactly
27:43 what you did in the creation where You spoke
27:45 something out of nothing.
27:47 And I want you to speak something out
27:48 of the nothingness of my life.
27:49 So we want to encourage you to continue,
27:51 tune into this program because our next segment
27:53 is more exciting and is more practical.
27:55 God bless you and thank you
27:57 for joining us, till next time.


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Revised 2014-12-17