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00:06 ♪♪♪ 00:11 ♪♪♪ 00:17 ♪♪♪ 00:23 ♪♪♪ 00:29 ♪♪♪ 00:35 Shawn Brummund: Hello, and welcome to another edition 00:37 of the Sabbath School Study Hour. 00:38 We're so glad that you have decided to join us here today as 00:41 we come together to be able to study God's word. 00:44 Right here in the Granite Bay Seventh Day Adventist Church 00:47 in the greater Sacramento area of California, USA. 00:51 We're glad to have all the viewers that are joining us 00:53 from across the nation, of course, we have many people 00:56 that join us both live, as well as online, and the various 00:59 television networks across the world and we're 01:02 always glad to be able to have you. 01:04 So please stay tuned with us as we continue to study. 01:06 We have a choir that you can see that is with me here today that 01:10 is going to be blessing us in music as well. 01:13 We are coming into our second last lesson study for a very 01:18 interesting and very uplifting and informative study in two key 01:22 books in the Old Testament entitled Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra 01:27 and Nehemiah. 01:28 And so if you have your Quarterlies make sure you 01:30 grab them. 01:32 If you don't have them in hand already we're gonna be looking 01:33 at lesson number 12, that's lesson number 12, which is 01:37 entitled "Dealing with Bad Decisions." 01:41 Now if you don't have the quarterly, you'd 01:42 like to follow along and be able to study either 01:44 during the lesson study or afterwards make sure you go 01:47 to Amazingfacts.org and you can find a digital copy there 01:51 for you. 01:53 Now before we invite our choir to sing for us we always have 01:55 a special offer that we like to be able to give to each 01:58 and every person that is interested and this is one of my 02:01 favorite studies. 02:02 It's lesson study guide number five which is entitled 02:06 "Keys for a Happy Marriage." 02:07 "Keys for a Happy Marriage." 02:08 If you haven't studied this and you are married or you're 02:12 thinking about getting married make sure you get a copy 02:14 of this. 02:15 You can dial into 1-866-788-3966 and you can receive a free copy 02:21 at the end of that phone call. 02:24 Number 164 is the offer number. 02:27 So please ask for free offer number 164 and again that's 02:30 number 1-866-788-3966. 02:35 Now that's for everybody that's in North America or any 02:39 of the US territories. 02:40 We're happy to be able to send that out to you. 02:42 If you're not in those particular areas of the world 02:45 or you'd like a digital copy, we also have that available 02:47 for you. 02:49 And that is through text and you can see that pertinent 02:52 information that's on the screen and you simply text number 02:56 SH046. 02:59 So that's the code, SH046, and you want to text that 03:03 to the number 40544. 03:07 So please take advantage of that even here today. 03:12 So we are going to invite our choir to be able to us join us 03:16 in song as they inspire us and help us to be able 03:19 to worship the Lord here this morning. 03:20 God bless you. 03:22 ♪♪♪ 03:26 ♪ Your humble birth, ♪ 03:29 ♪ Your matchless worth; ♪ 03:34 ♪ Jesus, God with us. ♪ 03:42 ♪ No earthly crown, ♪ 03:45 ♪ no great renown; ♪ 03:50 ♪ Jesus, God with us. ♪ 03:57 ♪ Redeemer King, ♪ 04:01 ♪ of whom angels sing; ♪ 04:06 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 04:18 ♪ Splendor displayed in manger laid ♪ 04:26 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 04:35 ♪ Shepherds adore and kneel before ♪ 04:42 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 04:50 ♪ Seen of old the wonder foretold ♪ 04:58 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 05:10 ♪ Glorious one incarnate Son ♪ 05:18 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 05:26 ♪ Humbly we bring our offering ♪ 05:34 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 05:42 ♪ Redeeming light in meekness and might ♪ 05:50 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪ 05:59 ♪♪♪ 06:15 ♪ Jesus, God with us ♪♪ 06:30 Shawn: Thank you so much for blessing us with that 06:32 wonderful song. 06:33 And before we invite our teaching pastor up today, want 06:36 to invite you to join me as we pray. 06:38 Father in heaven, we want to thank You for this 06:40 opportunity to be able to come together to be able to study. 06:43 We thank You so much for Your word in the way that You have 06:46 revealed so much to us and Lord we trust that You will reveal 06:49 even more to us today as we look at this very relevant topic that 06:52 is brought to light in this lesson. 06:54 I want to pray God that You will help us to have receptive minds 06:57 and hearts and Lord that You will help us to take Your 06:59 guidance and wisdom to heart and apply it to our lives. 07:02 And so Father, we pray for Your Holy Spirit to teach us, be 07:05 with our teacher today and bless him as well in Jesus' name, 07:08 amen. 07:09 Our teaching pastors today will be Pastor Luccas Rodor, and we 07:13 thank him for being here today. 07:17 Luccas Rodor: In the spirit of full disclosure I 07:19 like to tell you all that today's lesson is a very--it's 07:23 a very profound lesson and to a few people, to some 07:26 people it might be considered a bit controversial. 07:29 So bear with me. 07:31 I'm sure that if you study the lesson you know what I'm 07:33 talking about. 07:35 You know that this week's lesson can be a little bit, a little 07:38 bit complicated if understood the wrong way, but I'm sure that 07:43 the Lord will guide us in today's study. 07:46 The title of today's lesson is "Dealing with Bad Decisions." 07:50 Now you know, we all, all of us make decisions hundreds maybe 07:55 thousands of times every day. 07:57 All the way from the most menial small decisions all the way 08:02 up to the biggest life changing decisions. 08:04 I mean, some of these decisions they're very tiny. 08:07 They don't really matter much in the scope of of reality. 08:11 So you know as much as we'd like to flatter ourselves, 08:13 sometimes it doesn't matter that much if the shirt that you come 08:16 with to church is blue or yellow or red. 08:21 It doesn't really matter that much if for breakfast you drink 08:23 orange juice or apple juice. 08:26 These are the small decisions of life that they impact only 08:28 you and only in the moment. 08:31 But on the other hand, there are some decisions that are much 08:35 more complex and much more intricate and these decisions 08:41 they impact you and those that you love in very consequential 08:45 ways, serious ways. 08:49 There are some decisions that involve eternal matters, 08:52 for example. 08:53 Some decisions that will impact you and your loved ones and your 08:56 family, not only during your life and throughout your life, 08:58 but also eternally. 09:01 And one of her personal letters, the author Ellen White, she 09:04 wrote that in the blink of an eye we can make decisions 09:08 that will scar us forever and as a result, thorns will grow 09:13 upon the path, making the way back just that much harder. 09:17 So to better understand this week's lesson, we have 09:20 to understand it in the scope of this whole lesson. 09:23 This is our second to last lesson for this quarter. 09:26 The second to last lesson and we've seen something that I 09:29 find truly interesting, truly beautiful in the books of Ezra 09:32 and Nehemiah is that you don't see anyone sugar coating what's 09:37 happening to the children of Israel. 09:39 You don't find that there. 09:40 In these two letters you find some of the darkest moments, 09:43 some of the most dangerous moments, some of the ugliest 09:46 moments that these people they go through. 09:48 So for us to understand this week's lesson and the bad 09:51 decisions that God had to help the children of Israel 09:53 to correct, we have to understand that in the scope 09:56 of the entire context of who these people were, all the way 10:00 from their calling, the calling of Abraham, the calling 10:03 of Isaac, and of Jacob, the calling of their children, 10:05 their sons, and the peregrinations that they 10:07 had, all the way from the context of the Exodus 10:11 from Egypt from which the Lord with a mighty hand delivered 10:15 them and redeemed them from bondage. 10:17 We have to remember the enormous challenges of their journey 10:21 through the desert, the Sinai desert and the rebellions that 10:25 they went through, the establishment of the kingdom 10:28 of the nation in the Promised Land. 10:30 We have to remember the ups and downs that they faced almost 10:32 constantly. 10:34 These were people that were on a, you know, a proverbial 10:37 roller coaster almost always. 10:39 There always either totally up or totally down. 10:43 We have to remember that Israel. 10:44 They go through this cycle of A, B, and C and this happens again 10:50 and again throughout the Old Testament. 10:51 They go through a cycle of apostasy, A. 10:54 Bumps on the road, B. 10:56 And return to God, confession, confession. 10:59 And then only onto go to apostasy again, and then more 11:03 bumps on the road, and then more confession and this seems to be 11:07 their cycle. 11:08 They live through these A, B, and Cs of life. 11:13 Comes to a point where Israel then becomes continuously 11:16 rebellious. 11:17 Always rebellious. 11:18 It seems as though there isn't one moment of peace and truly 11:21 you find few few moments of peace throughout their 11:24 history of true peace. 11:26 There are a few, but they're kind of rare and spaced out. 11:30 And then because of their constant rebellions, that leads 11:34 to a new captivity, and then to a new calling, and that's 11:37 what we've been studying throughout this quarter, a new 11:39 calling, where there their exodus isn't from Egypt, it's 11:41 from where? 11:43 Babylon. 11:44 And here they're on an exodus coming from Babylon. 11:48 They recuperate their land, the recuperation of their land, 11:51 then they have the reconstruction of the temple 11:53 and the walls and then they fall into a new cycle of A, Bs, 11:56 and Cs. 11:58 Of apostasies, of bumps or beatings, and then 12:02 confession. 12:04 And you know, friends, that is the true tragedy of our human 12:06 race, of our fallen nature. 12:09 It seems as though our blindness is an incapacity of, in most 12:14 occasions, not seeing correctly, not thinking correctly, not 12:18 acting correctly, and not deciding correctly. 12:21 And so in the context of this whole story of this people that 12:25 go through the cycle of bad decisions, of beatings, and then 12:30 callings from God again and again, and God forgiving 12:33 them again and again, in the context of all of this, 12:35 we find a few occasions and that's what we're going 12:37 to study throughout this lesson that we have studied and now we 12:42 are we're talking about. 12:43 We find these two occasions where these two great spiritual 12:46 leaders they have to deal with the bad decisions that 12:50 the people made. 12:51 And so the first one that we read about we find in Nehemiah 12:54 13: 23 through 25 and this is the context of the first thing 12:59 that we're going to talk about today. 13:01 Look at this Nehemiah 13, 23 through 25 says, "In those days, 13:06 I also saw Jews, who had married women of Ashdod, Ammon, 13:11 And Moab. 13:12 Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and could 13:16 not speak the language of Judah, but spoke according 13:19 to the language of one or the other people. 13:22 So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some 13:25 of them and pulled out their hair and made them swear by God, 13:29 saying you shall not give your daughters as wives to their 13:32 sons, nor take their daughters for your sons 13:35 or for yourselves." 13:36 So this was Nehemiah's reaction to one specific decision that 13:41 the people were making regarding what? 13:43 Marriage. 13:45 Their decisions regarding marriage. 13:47 Here the people were intermarrying. 13:49 Last week, lesson 11, we dealt with the apostasy of backslidden 13:54 people. 13:55 Now this time, we find that age old problem that intermarrying 13:59 resurges here in the children of Israel, and since we are 14:02 so far off from those people, since this happened thousands 14:05 of years ago, it's a little bit difficult for us to understand 14:09 exactly what's going on. 14:10 That's why it's so important that we understand the details 14:13 of this story, for us understand the impact, why was this 14:16 so serious for them. 14:18 You know, we live in a world today where, well, our cultures 14:21 they're so mixed. 14:22 I mean, I come from Brazil. 14:23 In Brazil, you have all kinds of people. 14:25 You know, my family for example, I have my grandfather on my 14:29 father's side, he's Syrian. 14:31 And he ran away from World War I and he ended up in Brazil, 14:34 and he married my grandmother that was German. 14:36 And on my mother's side, my grandfather, he was Italian 14:40 and he married a Brazilian lady and Brazilians, they're all 14:43 mixed up, so she had everything in her, you know, and my parents 14:46 are Brazilian. 14:47 I was born in the United States and so my family's just a big 14:49 mixture. 14:51 And that can be said for most of us. 14:53 So in that context, it's difficult for us to sometimes 14:56 understand why this was such a big issue for them. 14:59 And we're going to get into that. 15:01 So, I'm in Nehemiah 13, again 23 through 25. 15:05 He says, "In those days, I also saw Jews, who had married women 15:08 of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab." 15:11 The implication, the implication that comes from their decision 15:15 of marriage are not simple as those as the color of our shirts 15:19 coming to church or the juice that we drink in the morning. 15:22 These are not small decisions that they were making. 15:25 These were big decisions. 15:27 In the end of--at the end of the day, the heritage 15:30 and the tradition of God's chosen nation were under threat. 15:33 That's why this was ultimately such a serious offense. 15:37 The heritage of God's chosen people, their identity was 15:41 under threat. 15:42 The new generations that were coming, that were growing up, 15:45 they had lost the identity of the language. 15:48 Verse 25 says that. 15:50 Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod and could 15:53 not speak the language of one or the other people. 15:58 The whole of God's plan was under threat. 16:02 Now that might seem a bit drastic to say that. 16:04 How how can you say that God's plan was under threat just 16:06 because they couldn't speak the language? 16:08 Well, the loss of their language, the assimilation 16:11 of another language, imply that the Canaanite culture had 16:14 invaded, had absorbed new generations, the new 16:17 generations. 16:19 Their future was at risk. 16:21 And you know this was actually something very common that 16:23 happened back then. 16:24 When a conqueror, he wanted to truly conquer a people and be 16:28 sure that they would never rise again, what would he do? 16:32 He would come, he would conquer them. 16:33 He would take the people from that land, exile them 16:36 or take them to a completely different place, and then he 16:39 would supplant or he would he would take people from somewhere 16:42 else and bring them to this place he had just conquered. 16:46 And in that way, that land lost its identity. 16:48 It was a form of genocide. 16:51 And that is exactly what we find here. 16:53 These people, they are losing their identity, their language, 16:57 their culture is changing and that's why this was such 17:00 a serious offense. 17:01 Nehemiah, he now observed that many of the Jews had again 17:05 falling into the same sin that Ezra had to deal with as soon as 17:08 he arrived in Jerusalem in 457 BC. 17:11 So Ezra chapter 9 and chapter 10, they deal with that 17:14 and that's the second part of our lesson. 17:16 We're gonna talk about that after, after we talk 17:18 about Nehemiah, after what happens to him. 17:21 So this all happens in the context of the covenant. 17:26 God had made a covenant with his people and when Ezra comes back, 17:30 he again, well, makes them enter the covenant, a covenant 17:36 with God. 17:38 And this covenant included that they would not intermarry, that 17:42 they would not marry or get involved with the nations 17:45 around them. 17:46 And so here Nehemiah, he's seeing that this covenant that 17:48 they had come into just shortly a few years before was already 17:53 being broken. 17:54 You see this happens the second time that Nehemiah is his 17:58 governing Judea. 18:00 Nehemiah, he goes through two periods, through moments 18:02 of government and so in the first moment 18:05 and the first period, while he's there with them, it's very 18:08 likely that none of this happened. 18:10 There wasn't much intermarrying. 18:11 They were keeping the covenant, but as soon as Nehemiah leaves, 18:15 as soon as the watchdog leaves, what happens? 18:17 In Portuguese we have a saying that as soon as the shepherd 18:20 or as soon as the watchdog leaves the chickens, they make 18:22 a party. 18:24 And that's what happens here. 18:25 As soon as the watchdog left, they fell back into their ways 18:28 of intermarrying and they were taking foreign wives once more 18:34 into their families. 18:35 Now I want it to be very clear that we're not talking here 18:38 about sexism. 18:39 The Bible is not being sexist when it talks about these 18:41 foreign wives that are coming and unfortunately in those days 18:45 in the patriarchal society that they lived in, what would happen 18:48 is that the husbands, they would bring wives to live with them. 18:52 It was very rare that the man would move to then live 18:54 with the wife. 18:56 What happened was that the men, they would take the wife, they 18:58 would prepare a home for her, and then they would take them 19:00 to live with, you know, the wives to live with them. 19:03 So then when we see here that these men they are taking 19:06 foreign wives, that it's not being sexist. 19:09 It doesn't mean that there weren't men also marrying Jewish 19:13 women, but what would happen is that the Jewish women would then 19:16 move to the foreign nations. 19:17 Does that make sense? 19:19 The women were moved to the foreign nations 19:21 and the foreign wives they would then moved to Israel. 19:23 So we're not trying to vilify the women here. 19:25 Far be it from that. 19:27 That's not what's going on but when they say that 19:29 they're taking the foreign wives, it's because if the men-- 19:31 if the women, the Jewish women were marrying foreign men, it 19:34 means that they would then move to where these foreign men 19:37 lived. 19:38 Does that make sense? 19:40 All right. 19:41 So I need you to observe where these wives came from. 19:43 They came from Ashdod, which really was the area Philistia. 19:47 So these are Philistinian wives. 19:49 The race that had always been an enemy of the children 19:53 of Israel. 19:54 Do you remember that? 19:55 The Philistines had always been fighting with the children 19:58 of Israel. 20:00 Always, always hostile and the natives of a city that 20:04 had recently allied with their enemies. 20:06 So Ashdod, if you read from chapter 4 through 7 20:09 of Nehemiah, you find that Nehemiah is constantly being 20:12 harassed by many people on every side. 20:16 They plot to kill him. 20:17 They want to get in the way of them rebuilding the walls 20:19 and rebuilding the temple and Ashdod had been one 20:22 of the cities, one of the allied cities against Nehemiah's reign 20:26 and his his to rebuild Jerusalem. 20:28 So here what we're talking about is that there was a much 20:31 subtler and more dangerous enemy now, because before the enemy 20:37 was on the outside, but now the enemy--who's the enemy? 20:41 They're coming in. 20:42 They're invading. 20:44 The enemy is inside your home. 20:45 It was inside their home. 20:47 So it was a much subtler and more dangerous enemy. 20:51 More than the sin of rebellion to the divine orders, here we 20:54 have the sin of high treason against God. 20:57 What does high treason? 20:59 Allying with the enemy. 21:02 Going over to the enemy side and that's what these people 21:05 were doing, these external enemies were now 21:07 within the gates of home. 21:09 In the past, do you remember how Balaam had had counseled 21:14 the king to destroy the children of Israel? 21:17 What was his strategy, his warfare strategy? 21:19 It was exactly this. 21:21 Go in. 21:23 Offer them your daughters. 21:25 Let them marry them and subtly the danger will come 21:29 from within. 21:31 Destruction will come from within. 21:34 When we compare Ezra chapter 9 verse 1, to Nehemiah chapter 13, 21:37 verse 1, we find that these people had indeed broken 21:41 covenant with God. 21:42 Ezra 9:1, says when these things were done, the leaders came 21:46 to me saying, the people of Israel and the priests 21:49 and the Levites have not separated themselves 21:51 from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations 21:54 of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Parasites, the Jebusites, 21:58 the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. 22:00 That's Ezra 9:1. 22:02 Now look at Nehemiah 13:1, on the day they read 22:05 from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people 22:08 and in it was found that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever 22:11 come into the assembly of God. 22:14 These marriages, they happened. 22:16 And these people had come into the assembly of God. 22:21 These marriages had happened after Nehemiah's departure as we 22:24 already mentioned. 22:25 And the children coming from these marriages, from these 22:28 unions, they were incapable of speaking the language 22:30 of Judea. 22:32 Now some scholars they say, they have thought that these 22:34 children, they spoke a jargon of half Hebrew and half another 22:38 language, have foreign language. 22:40 However, it's much more likely that that these children, that 22:44 half of them, since they came from these wives that were 22:48 foreign, they they didn't speak the language at all. 22:51 They could not speak the language at all. 22:54 The Seventh Day Adventist Bible commentary describes that, 22:58 and this is regarding the book of Micah and we don't have time 23:01 to go into this but just so you understand many of these Jewish 23:04 men, they were divorcing their Jewish wives, to marry 23:08 the foreign wives. 23:09 And so the children that came from the union of the Jews 23:12 and the Jews, they would speak Aramaic and Hebrew, but then 23:17 the children that came from the union of the Jewish men 23:19 and the foreign wives, they could not speak Hebrew 23:23 or Aramaic. 23:25 So you had half of these children speaking the language 23:26 of the land and you had half of the children not speaking 23:29 the language of the land and that was the problem that 23:31 we're going through. 23:32 So what's the importance of this? 23:34 What's the big issue here? 23:35 The loss of the language implied in the loss of their identity. 23:40 That was the problem. 23:43 The loss of the language implied the loss of their identity. 23:46 And Nehemiah became outraged when he discovered that many 23:50 of the youth in Judea were incapable of speaking Hebrew 23:53 and Aramaic. 23:55 The Moabite and the Ammonite languages, they were dialects 23:58 that were very similar to Hebrew and to Aramaic. 24:00 They were very similar, but yet they were different 24:04 and a lot was lost in translation. 24:07 So he was distressed to find out that these foreign dialects 24:10 were gaining a foothold in Judea. 24:13 And his strong reaction, the severity of the situation, 24:17 and the dangerous tendency that all of this represented heavily 24:20 weighed on his heart. 24:22 So what I'm trying to do is stress to all of us the big 24:25 problem, because if we don't understand how huge, how severe 24:28 this problem was, we don't understand their reaction to it. 24:31 Does that make sense? 24:33 If you don't understand how bad the situation was and if in your 24:36 mind, it's you know it's not that bad. 24:38 They were--they exaggerated in the reaction and their 24:40 solution. 24:42 We can't have that. 24:43 We have to understand how severe this problem was. 24:46 So all of this weighed heavily on Nehemiah's heart and so his 24:52 reaction to all of this is described in verse 25 of chapter 24:55 13. 24:56 It says that he contended with them and cursed them 24:58 and struck some of them and pulled out their hair. 25:01 Now that might seem kind of over the top, right? 25:04 He beat them, he cursed them, he beat them, he cursed them, he 25:08 struck them and he contended with them. 25:10 He pulled--can you imagine that? 25:11 He plucked out their hair. 25:13 Now that might seem an over the top reaction, 25:16 but his intention was to teach them. 25:18 According to the Bible, you see this was what was expected 25:22 in a reproach. 25:23 This was expected. 25:25 This happened according to the covenant. 25:27 These condemnations, when he curses them, he's not cussing 25:30 them out. 25:31 That's not what's happening. 25:33 He's not calling them bad names. 25:34 That's not we find here. 25:35 When he curses them, he is cursing them according 25:37 to the covenant. 25:38 And you find this in Deuteronomy chapter 28. 25:41 You find what happens, or what would happen when the children 25:44 of Israel, they did not follow the covenant. 25:47 So when Nehemiah here, he's cursing them and calling them 25:51 out and plucking their hair, truly he's acting in the context 25:54 of a broken covenant. 25:56 In all of this we find a very strong pedagogical process 26:00 of teaching, in which Nehemiah he strives hardly to teach 26:04 and to educate these people. 26:06 Some of the leaders were beaten. 26:08 They were. 26:10 That happened. 26:11 He pulled out their hair. 26:12 Or apparently they didn't like hair that much, which was 26:14 a problem. 26:15 Because later on we're going to find that Ezra he plucked 26:16 out his own hair. 26:18 So they had something with hair, where they plucked it out. 26:19 Guess these people wanted to be bald. 26:21 Some of the leaders, they were beaten and all of these things, 26:24 they were asked per the requirements of national 26:28 humiliation and re-education. 26:31 So Nehemiah is reproof, we find it in verse 26, and 27, where we 26:35 find did not Solomon King of Israel sin by these 26:38 very things? 26:39 Yet among many nations there was no king like him who was beloved 26:43 of his God and God made him king over all of Israel. 26:46 Nevertheless, pagan women caused even him to sin. 26:50 Should we then hear of your doing, all this great evil 26:52 transgressing against our God by marrying pagan women. 26:56 Again, God is not vilifying women. 27:00 Please understand this. 27:02 God here, the is not vilifying women. 27:05 If Solomon had been a queen, if he had been Solomona, alright, 27:09 and had married many men, if that had been the custom, then 27:13 the text would be saying that the foreign, the pagan men, 27:15 the pagan husbands, but that's not the case here because 27:18 the culture was different. 27:19 So we're not vilifying women. 27:21 This was just what happened. 27:22 So we're just stating what had happened. 27:24 So when it comes to God's orders always throughout the whole 27:27 Bible, when it got comes to God's orders, to all of us, 27:31 we find that God's orders have two basic characteristics. 27:35 First of all, they are always very clear. 27:37 Always. 27:39 When it comes to God's most important instructions to us, 27:42 they're never mysterious. 27:44 They're never difficult to understand. 27:47 Unfortunately, there are many people that make them harder 27:50 than they they should be, but God's orders are always 27:54 crystal clear, always simple to be understood. 27:57 No one needs a Phd, or no one needs to be a philosopher, 27:59 an academic, a physicist, to understand what God is 28:02 telling them. 28:03 I've heard many times people come and ask, you know, they 28:05 say, "Pastor, I don't know where to start with my Christian life. 28:08 I don't know where to start you know coming back to God. 28:11 I didn't know how to fix my relationship with God." 28:13 Have you ever heard someone say that? 28:15 I don't know where to start. 28:17 You know what the best answer is? 28:19 Start with what you know. Start with what you know. 28:24 That's simple. 28:25 Love God. 28:26 Love your neighbor. 28:28 And from then on, you start finding out that God decrees His 28:30 orders for our life. 28:31 They are crystal clear. 28:33 The second basic characteristic of God's orders is that they are 28:38 always, always protective. 28:40 Always. 28:42 They are clear and they are protective. 28:44 Their purpose is never to keep us from happiness or from being 28:48 accomplished. 28:49 God doesn't want that. 28:51 God wants you to be happy. 28:52 God wants you to be accomplished. 28:54 Their purpose is to protect us from that which destroys, that 28:59 which annihilates our life. 29:01 God's decrees are always protective. 29:04 A classic example of disobedience in the Bible is 29:06 King Solomon and that's what we found here that Nehemiah was 29:09 talking about. 29:10 One of the most famous kings in all of history. 29:13 He was given great intellect, great riches, and yet he was 29:16 incapable of understanding, of perceiving the consequences 29:20 of his deviations. 29:21 He couldn't see it. 29:23 Not only did he deviate, but he came a bad example, and because 29:27 of his bad example, you know in the Bible, we find that if 29:30 the king was good, how would the people be? 29:32 What would the people be living like? 29:35 They'd living a good life and if the king was bad, a bad king, 29:38 what would happen because of his example? 29:40 The people would also go down a bad path. 29:42 You don't find any different from that in the Bible. 29:44 The king was good, the people they would go in in the 29:46 right path. 29:48 If the king was bad, the people are going the wrong path. 29:49 And because of Solomon's example, we find that the nation 29:52 had started deviating also. 29:55 These foreign women whom Solomon married, who brought 29:59 in the foreign gods, and foreign religions, they ended 30:03 up breaking up Solomon's relationship with God, 30:06 unfortunately. 30:08 So Nehemiah, he was right in reproving the destructive 30:11 heirs of his compatriots. 30:13 The order not to take foreign wives, the order not to take 30:17 foreign wives had nothing to do with nationalism and had nothing 30:22 to do with sexism. 30:23 It had nothing to do with racism. 30:25 It had everything to do with you know what? 30:27 Idolatry. 30:29 The order not to take foreign wives had nothing to do 30:31 with nationalism, nothing to do with racism, and nothing to do 30:34 with sexism. 30:35 It had everything to do with idolatry. 30:37 That's what we find here. 30:39 These pagan wives did not renounce their idolatry. 30:41 They didn't renounce their religion and since sin is always 30:45 in harmony with fallen human nature, am I wrong there? 30:49 Sin is always in harmony with our fallen nature. 30:52 It's very easy to be dragged down by the wrong influence. 30:58 The effects of these mixed marriages are seen on all sides 31:01 to justify it by referring to one exception and we find 31:04 a few exceptions, where a righteous Christian, a spouse 31:08 marries an unbelieving spouse and that unbelieving spouse come 31:12 then to the Lord. 31:13 We might have examples of that right here today, but to justify 31:17 this with this example is to forget that there are 31:22 hundreds of thousands of examples where marrying 31:26 unequally yoked, leads to spiritual casualty. 31:31 Unfortunately, you see friends, when we perform marriages here 31:36 at church, when we have marriages here in the church, 31:38 it's not a fad, it's not a social tradition. 31:42 Its significance is profound, it's deep, it's important. 31:46 It's an emblem of that couple's decision to invite God to be 31:51 the great guest of their home, the inhabitant of honor in 31:56 their home. 31:57 In the case of mixed marriages here of intermarrying, people 32:01 always end up having different norms, different standards, 32:04 different ways of solving problems. 32:06 They will be divided when it comes to the big decisions 32:08 of life because their standards are different. 32:11 Does that does that make sense? 32:12 I don't want to lose any friends here, but when it comes 32:17 to the standards of our life, when we have different 32:19 standards, that's going to influence the way that 32:21 children are raised. 32:23 That's going to influence financial decisions. 32:25 That's going to influence life decisions. 32:28 And that's what we find here in these people. 32:30 That's what was happening to them and when then children 32:32 come, the chasm only gets bigger, the chasm only 32:35 gets wider. 32:36 Think about those mixed marriages between the Jews 32:38 and their neighboring nations. 32:40 Think about the influence of their pagan parents. 32:43 Consider this text written in the book called "Patriarchs 32:46 and Prophets," and it's found in page 244. 32:49 It says there is no other work that can equal this, to a very 32:54 great extent, the mother holds in her own hands the destiny 32:57 of her children. 32:59 She's dealing with developing minds and characters, working 33:02 not alone for time, but for eternity. 33:05 She is sowing seeds that will spring up and bear fruit, either 33:09 for good or for evil. 33:10 She has not to paint a form of beauty upon a canvas 33:14 or to chisel it from marble, but to impress upon a human soul 33:18 the image of divine, especially during their early years, their 33:22 responsibility rests upon her forming the character of her 33:26 children. 33:27 The impressions now made upon their developing minds will 33:30 remain with them all through their life. 33:32 Parents should direct the instruction and train their 33:35 children, while they're young to the end that they may be 33:39 Christians. 33:40 In this context, my friends, a question arises. 33:43 How can this goal be reached in divided homes? 33:47 You need the effort of both parents. 33:49 That is God's ideal. 33:51 Now, we understand that in this world we have what is not ideal. 33:56 And one of the beautiful parts of the gospel is that God can 33:59 and He does transform the worst tragedies, the worst situations 34:04 into the best of cases. 34:05 God is that powerful. 34:07 But God here, He is working per what is ideal. 34:11 As we progress with the lesson we find the reaction of another 34:14 great spiritual leader in Israel. 34:17 The same lesson also emphasizes the reaction that Ezra had 34:22 to this same problem and we find that in Ezra chapter 9, verse 1 34:24 and 2. 34:26 Look at look at what we're talking about here. 34:27 The leaders came to me, saying the people of Israel 34:30 and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves 34:34 from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations 34:37 of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Parasites, the Jebusites, 34:40 the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites, 34:43 for they have taken some of their daughters as wives 34:45 for themselves and their sons. 34:47 So that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands. 34:49 Indeed, the hand of the leaders and the rulers has been foremost 34:54 in this trespass. 34:55 So the story of Ezra here, the story starts with Ezra 34:59 finding out that not all in Jerusalem was daisies 35:03 and roses, not everything was going well in Jerusalem when he 35:06 gets there. 35:08 Actually it's the contrary. 35:09 More than 100 civil and spiritual leaders 35:12 of the people were guilty of deliberately disobeying 35:15 the law that he had come to teach. 35:19 A group of layman. 35:20 They came to Ezra. 35:23 And they were telling them that some of the leaders, 35:25 the spiritual leaders, the civil leaders, priests, Levites, had 35:30 married foreign women and had allowed them to marry their sons 35:34 and that some of these men and this is what we find 35:36 in Micah that I already mentioned, some of these men 35:38 they divorce their Jewish wives to then marry the foreign wives. 35:42 Can you imagine that? 35:44 The reason, the reason Ezra is sought out, the reason they come 35:48 to him, is because they didn't know what to do, because let me 35:50 ask you something. 35:52 If the leaders are doing something wrong, well, who will 35:54 you turn to who? 35:56 Who could they turn to? 35:58 If the priests, the Levites, the spiritual leaders, the civil 36:01 leaders, if they were breaking covenant, well, who do I go 36:05 to then? 36:07 So that's why they sought out Israel, and sorry, Ezra. 36:11 And that's why Ezra here he observes that he recognized that 36:15 the exile to Babylon had happen to a great extent due to these 36:20 very same sins. 36:22 So Ezra he starts seeing the cycle. 36:24 This happened because we went to Babylon because of all 36:28 of these things and now they're starting to happen again. 36:31 Israel had to remain separate from the pagans and their 36:35 practices. 36:36 Both entities needed to remain separate, distinct, otherwise, 36:39 my friends there could be no plan of salvation, there could 36:42 be no plan of reaching the lost, if the messengers themselves 36:46 were no way different from those who they were trying to reach. 36:50 Does that resonate with you? 36:53 The message cannot be preached, we cannot reach them, if we 36:57 ourselves are in no way different to them. 37:01 And that's what Ezra sees here. 37:03 How are we going to have this mission that God gave us if we 37:06 are not different from these four nations around us? 37:11 The distinction had to be seen in all areas of life, 37:14 including marriage. 37:16 Ezra and the people who sought him they understood that 37:19 the problem was severe. 37:22 It was a severe problem. 37:23 No one could marry a spouse whose religious differences 37:27 would have been--would have had an impact upon their marriage 37:30 or their way of raising their children. 37:32 That's what they understood. 37:33 They couldn't marry people who are going to change the dynamics 37:36 of the culture of their household. 37:40 So understanding and perceiving a problem is the beginning 37:43 of fixing it, right? 37:45 And that's what they were doing. 37:46 God gave Israel a law regarding marriage to protect them 37:50 from spiritual contamination. 37:52 Because of intermarrying, the Israelite lineage had become 37:56 contaminated by the pagan nations surrounding them. 38:00 Israel had not been chosen, my friends, and this is very 38:02 important for us to understand. 38:03 Israel had not been chosen as a special nation, or a holy 38:06 nation, because they were better than anyone else. 38:11 That's not why they were chosen. 38:12 They were chosen because God had a specific role in His grand 38:16 plan of salvation. 38:17 So through Israel, all the other nations would be what? 38:21 Blessed. Blessed. 38:24 So Israel, what blessing are we talking about? 38:26 Israel was responsible for three main blessings. 38:30 They were responsible for three main blessings. 38:33 The first is the knowledge of the living God. 38:36 The second was the written word, Scripture. 38:38 And the third was the Messiah, Jesus Christ. 38:43 And this placed Israel in debt with all the other nations. 38:48 What was their debt? 38:49 The knowledge of the Gospel. 38:51 You you remember when Paul himself later on in Romans 1:14, 38:54 he says I am a debtor. 38:56 What did he owe? 38:58 What did Paul owe? 38:59 The knowledge of divine grace, that's what Paul owed 39:03 and in the same sense, my friends, we today are 39:05 debtors also. 39:07 We sometimes consider ourself better, superior, privileged. 39:14 Privileged we are because we have knowledge of some specific 39:18 things, but what does that make us? 39:21 That makes us debtors. 39:23 We are in debt to the world around us. 39:26 Endangering this debt was Israel's greatest temptation. 39:30 The danger of what? 39:32 Of their mission, endangering their mission. 39:35 Whatsoever came between them and their great mission needed 39:39 to be seen as a threat. 39:40 In this case what was the threat? 39:43 Intermarrying. 39:44 That was a threat in this case and so if it was a sin 39:47 for a single Jew to marry foreign pagan wives, it was even 39:52 worse for married Jews to divorce their Jewish wives 39:55 to then marry the pagan wives. 39:57 If the leaders of Israel continued to give this bad 40:00 example, and contaminate families with these pagan 40:03 beliefs and religion, they would end up contaminating 40:07 the mission, the nation, and it wouldn't be long until Israel 40:12 once again lost its path and purpose. 40:17 Just like King Solomon in 1 Kings chapter 1, they would 40:20 begin to adopt the false gods of their wives and soon the true 40:24 faith of Israel would be destroyed and God's plan 40:27 frustrated. 40:29 So when we find Ezra's reaction again, it's kind of difficult 40:33 for us today, thousands of years later to read this and be 40:36 like well, this was such an over the top reaction. 40:39 So exaggerated. 40:40 These people had--they were kind of dramatic. 40:42 That's what it kind of feels like when we don't understand 40:45 the severity of the problem, but Ezra's reaction, we find 40:49 this in chapter 9, verse 3 through 6. 40:53 It says, "So when I heard this thing, I tore my garment and 40:57 my robe. 40:59 I plucked out--" Here's the hair again. 41:00 "I plucked out some of the hair on my head and my beard." 41:03 I really believe that some of these prophets were 41:05 completely bald because so many things, so many bad things 41:09 happen with the children of Israel that if the prophets 41:11 always reacted like that, plucking their hair, they would 41:13 have no hair left. 41:16 "Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God 41:18 of Israel assembled to me because of transgression 41:21 of those who had been carried away captive and I sat 41:25 astonished until the evening sacrifice." 41:28 So he stayed the whole day. 41:29 "At the evening sacrifice, I arose from my fasting and having 41:32 torn my garment and my robe I fell on my knees and spread 41:35 out my hands to the Lord, My God and I said, Oh, my God, I am too 41:39 ashamed and humiliated." 41:42 In the Bible, my friends, we learned that prayer is 41:44 the solution to every problem. 41:46 And chapter 10 begins with a prayer. 41:48 Look at what it says. 41:50 Now while Ezra was praying and while he was confessing 41:53 and weeping and bowing down before the before the house 41:56 of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children 41:59 gathered to him from Israel for the people wept bitterly. 42:03 So the first thing, my friends, please understand this. 42:05 The first thing that we observe is that the decision that was 42:09 taken as a solution to their problem--What was their 42:11 problem? 42:12 Intermarrying. 42:14 The solution that was taken, that was given, the decision was 42:18 not based on racism again. 42:20 It was not based on sexism. 42:22 It was not based on nationalism. 42:25 This decision was an answer to prayer. 42:29 This decision that they made was made, it was given to them as 42:34 an answer to prayer. 42:37 Therefore, there is no space here, my friends, for mere 42:41 superficial humanistic sympathy based on human rights. 42:45 We're not talking about that right now. 42:47 That's not the issue. 42:48 This decision came directly from God and if he is God we 42:53 have to believe that he at least knows what he's doing, don't we? 42:58 These foreign wives had to be sent away. 43:01 Surprisingly, even those who found themselves 43:03 in the situation, they agreed with that decision. 43:07 Even the people that would have to suffer this decision they 43:10 agreed with it. 43:12 In the end 113 Jewish men sent their wives away. 43:16 Some of these even had children. 43:19 At first glance this might seem irrational or drastic, 43:23 but please remember that nowhere in the Bible do we find God 43:27 offering shortcuts to amend human wrongs. 43:30 If God didn't find a shortcut for Himself to save His own son 43:34 from having to die on the cross the eternal death, He's not 43:37 going to find a shortcut for us when we make the mistake. 43:42 We also have to go through the hardships 43:44 of the resolution. 43:46 Ezra was right when he said, "You have transgressed and have 43:50 taken pagan wives, adding to the guilt of Israel." 43:53 You see, in this sense, the laws of agriculture are also 43:57 applicable. 43:58 For we reap what we sow. 44:00 Sometimes we reap immediately. 44:04 Most of the times, we reap after awhile. 44:07 And sometimes we reap in greater quantity. 44:11 The same thing can be applied here to this. 44:14 Secondly, Ezra was also spot on when he observed in chapter 44:18 10 verse 11, he said, "Now therefore make confession 44:21 to the Lord God of your fathers and do his will. 44:23 Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land 44:26 and from the pagan wives." 44:27 Do you see what he's saying here? 44:29 Ezra is saying that this was God's decision. 44:33 This has to be seen as God's decision. 44:35 The solution to this great problem came from the living 44:37 God. 44:39 Very frequently we want to act as though we know better 44:41 than God. 44:43 Have you ever done this? 44:44 You know God says, but I think. 44:47 God says, but I think. 44:49 In a theocracy, and that's what these people were living 44:52 through right now. 44:53 They had a governor but ultimately they were living 44:55 through a theocracy. 44:56 God clearly indicated the best solution and accepting it meant 45:00 accepting his decisions. 45:02 You know, churches very frequently become divided 45:05 and their witnesses then weaken, because in some circumstances 45:10 people, and I don't want to lose any friends here, but sometimes 45:13 people they side with family members, relatives, friends, 45:20 disobedient to the matters of church discipline or church 45:24 belief based on the Bible, many want to place their own wisdom, 45:29 their ways, their discernment, their opinions above the clear 45:33 thus says the Lord. 45:35 God says, but I think. 45:38 My friends, God is way above and beyond our ideas. 45:43 We have to remember that the experience here in this 45:46 situation with the children of Israel was punctual. 45:50 It was a punctual decision. 45:51 It was a specific decision made as a solution for a specific 45:55 problem in a specific circumstance. 45:58 So that means that if one day you just wake up not loving your 46:02 husband or your wife anymore, and you can't justify it 46:04 by by using this, okay? 46:07 That doesn't work like that. 46:08 Here in this situation, it was a specific situation, a decision 46:12 made directly by God. 46:15 Sometimes God doesn't make--God makes unpopular decisions. 46:20 Sometimes God makes unpopular decisions. 46:24 But, God is not in the business of cheap popularity, that's not 46:29 our God. 46:31 His decisions are always wise, merciful, full of sympathy. 46:35 We're not called to judge God with our limited vision, 46:39 with our limited knowledge, with our--So at the end of all 46:43 of this, at the end of all of this, we don't know all 46:47 the details of these stories. 46:48 We don't. 46:50 We have--there are many questions left unanswered. 46:51 For example, were these women sent back to the houses of their 46:54 fathers or of their relatives? 46:55 Did they go somewhere else? 46:57 Was there a special land given to them, or what happened 46:59 to them? 47:01 We also don't know what happened to the children. 47:02 Did the Jewish fathers continue supporting those children as 47:05 was custom? 47:06 In the cases of divorce, if the men had children and they 47:10 divorced from the wives, it was their custom to be financially 47:14 responsible for those children. 47:16 Did this happen? 47:17 We don't have all the details, so where does that leave us? 47:20 That leaves us, my friends, with a question. 47:23 What lesson can I learn from this? 47:24 You know what lesson I learned from this whole story is that 47:29 marriage is something very, very serious to God. 47:36 Marriage is something important. 47:37 It's one of the two blessings that we received still 47:40 in the garden of Eden, including Sabbath and marriage. 47:45 Marriage is very important to God. 47:49 Now we know that we don't live in an ideal world. 47:52 And we know that accidents happen, we know that sometimes 47:57 extreme measures have to be taken in the context 47:59 of marriage. 48:01 You know when I was a kid and when I was a child, I used 48:03 to turn on the radio with my father in the car and there was 48:07 this one program, I was like six or seven years old, but there 48:10 was this one you know how they have these counseling speakers 48:14 on radio and on the TV and sometimes and there was this 48:17 one that I used to like. 48:18 Her name was Dr. 48:19 Laura Schlessinger and you know we don't agree with everything. 48:23 I believe she's Jewish and we don't agree with everything, 48:26 that all her councils, but I found it interesting that she 48:29 she said that there were the three big A's when it comes 48:31 to separation, which were adultery, abuse, and addiction. 48:35 Adultery, abuse, and addiction. 48:38 And I found it very interesting that she said that and later 48:40 on in pastoring, in counseling, pastoral counseling, I found 48:44 out that more likely than not when you're talking 48:47 about separation or divorce with a couple usually it has 48:50 to do with one of these three things. 48:52 It has to do with one of these three things. 48:54 Adultery, abuse, or addiction. 48:56 Now, what I want to leave you with today is that while 49:00 marriage is a serious thing to God and these things might 49:06 happen, while these things might happen, adultery, abuse, 49:09 and addiction, I want to tell you that our God is the God that 49:12 fixes problems. 49:13 He's the God that cures and transforms people. 49:17 I have seen the worst cases be transformed. 49:19 If this is the God that could transform Manasseh, if this is 49:23 the God that could reach out and heal the demon possessed 49:27 of Gadara, this is the God that can transform you, that can heal 49:31 your marriage, that can fix your marriage, that can fix 49:35 the problems with you. 49:37 And He can then bring a blessing to your family. 49:41 In the Bible, marriage is serious. 49:43 Marriage is serious for us today, but God can fix it. 49:47 That's the time--that we have time for today. 49:49 I'd like to remind you all that if you want that special gift 49:53 don't forget to send in the requests for it. 49:56 It's "Keys for a Happy Marriage." 49:59 Alright, and all you have to do is call in or than shoot a text 50:02 to to the given number that Pastor Shawn already mentioned 50:05 for us in the beginning. 50:07 May God bless you, may he keep you, and may he be with you 50:10 and your household always present in your heart and your 50:13 home. 50:15 male announcer: Don't forget to request today's life changing 50:18 free resource. 50:19 Not only can you receive this free gift in the mail, you can 50:21 download a digital copy straight to your computer or mobile 50:24 device. 50:25 To get your digital copy of today's free gift, simply 50:28 text the keyword on your screen to 40544 or visit the web 50:33 address shown on your screen and be sure to select 50:36 the digital download option on the request page. 50:38 It's now easier than ever for you to study God's word 50:41 with Amazing Facts wherever and whenever you want and most 50:45 important to share it with others. 50:49 ♪♪♪ 50:55 ♪♪♪ 50:57 Doug Batchelor: Hello friends. 50:58 We all know a marathon is one of the longest and hardest races 51:01 a person can run. 51:03 But did you hear about the ultra marathon they used to have 51:06 in Australia. 51:07 It was 544 miles from Melbourne to Sydney. 51:11 It attracted as many as 150 world-class athletes, but then 51:15 something happened that no one would ever forget. 51:17 In 1983, a 61 year old potato farmer named Cliff Young decided 51:23 to enter the race. 51:24 People were very amused because he had on rubber galoshes 51:27 over his boots and when the race began and all the runners took 51:31 off, sure enough, old Cliff was left behind shuffling along very 51:35 slowly, but he was shuffling very persistently. 51:38 Normally, during this seven-day race, the runners would go 51:42 about 18 hours running and then they'd sleep for six hours. 51:45 But nobody ever told Cliff that. 51:47 When the other runners stopped to rest during the night, Cliff 51:50 just kept on running. 51:52 Some people were afraid. 51:53 Oh Cliff is going to have a heart attack and they were 51:55 asking the race organizers to show mercy and stop the crazy 51:59 old man. 52:00 But he would have none of it. 52:01 Each day, he was gaining on the pack because when they 52:04 were sleeping he was plodding along. 52:07 During the last night of the race, Cliff passed all 52:10 of these world class athletes. 52:12 Not only was Cliff able to run that 544 mile race 52:16 without dying, he won, beating all the other racers by 9 hours, 52:20 breaking the record and becoming a national hero in the process. 52:24 What's really amazing is when they told him that he had won 52:27 the $10,000 prize, he looked confused and said he didn't know 52:30 there was a prize and he decided to share it with the other 52:33 runners. 52:34 When asked how he was able to run all night long, Cliff 52:37 responded that grew up on a farm where they had about 2,000 52:40 cattle and because they couldn't afford horses, he used to have 52:43 to round them up on foot, sometimes running two and three 52:46 days nonstop. 52:47 So throughout the race he just imagined he was chasing 52:50 after the cows and trying to outrun a storm. 52:53 Old Cliff's secret was to keep on running while others were 52:56 sleeping. 52:58 You know, the Bible tells us that the race is not necessarily 53:01 to the swift. 53:02 Something like Aesop's parable of the tortoise and the hare. 53:05 The tortoise just kept on plodding along. 53:08 That's why Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:13, he that 53:11 endures unto the end, the same will be saved. 53:14 Now you might slip and fall during the race. 53:17 You might even get off to a bad start, but in the Christian race 53:20 that we run the main thing is you want to finish well. 53:23 Keep on running, friends. 53:24 Don't give up. 53:36 male announcer: Amazing Facts changed lives. 53:45 Diamond Garcia: Hi, my name is Diamond Garcia and I am 53:47 from the beautiful islands of Hawaii. 53:49 I was raised in a very dysfunctional family, like most 53:53 families. 53:54 Being in that environment I would lie, cheat, steal, rob 53:58 houses, cheat in school and tests and lying to teachers 54:02 and getting into fights and all kinds of stuff. 54:06 One day I was asked to take this little box of something and walk 54:11 down the road and give it to someone and they would give 54:13 me money and I'll walk back home and I later realized I was 54:16 dealing drugs. 54:19 Growing up in that environment I thought that you know being 54:22 an adult was a life of drinking and smoking and partying 54:25 and that's just what adults did. 54:29 When I looked at my family and saw the road that they were 54:31 going down, getting arrested, getting beaten up, coming home 54:35 drunk and puking all over the floor, I just didn't 54:38 want for myself. 54:41 Growing up I had a grandma who was baptized as a Christian 54:44 in her 20s, but then she wasn't a real practicing Christian. 54:48 And so one day I was at her house and there was a box 54:51 of various books and I went to the bottom of the box 54:53 and found a book called "The Great Controversy" and I picked 54:57 it up and I said this is interesting and I opened 55:00 to the first page of that book and it said, "If thou hadst 55:03 known." 55:05 I had no clue what it meant. 55:06 And so I said, you know what? 55:07 Forget this. 55:09 But I put the book down. 55:10 I just walked away, did my thing, but then something told 55:12 me, you know, Diamond, go back to that book. 55:14 And so, I went back to the book, picked it up, went to the last 55:18 two chapters and I read it. 55:21 And I said to my grandmother, I said, "What church is this from? 55:24 I want to go to that church." 55:25 So she brought me down to the local church and I 55:28 walk in through the back door and the piano was off key, 55:31 people were off key. 55:33 It's like man, this is really kind of I don't want to be here. 55:37 And I got to the front of the church and I sat down, I 55:39 was listening to the sermon and the whole service was 55:42 so boring to me, but then something that gives me the set 55:45 of DVDs and it was it was called "The Prophecy Code." 55:50 It was through watching Doug Batchelor explain the truths 55:54 found in the Bible that really brought me to Christ and brought 55:57 me to realize that you know what there is a life better than my 56:01 family's life. 56:03 My second week at church on Sabbath there was one person 56:06 there. 56:07 He basically told me, "Hey, Diamond, do you want to make 56:09 some money?" 56:10 And I said sure. 56:12 I said, "What do you do?" 56:13 He says, "Well I'm a call porter. 56:14 We go door to door and we sell Christian books." 56:16 I said, Oh, okay, well that sounds interesting. 56:19 I do want to make some money too. 56:21 And so he said, "Okay, well why don't you come with me?" 56:24 We drove out to the neighborhood, parked 56:27 the car, and that night was just raining, it was pouring 56:29 and pouring. 56:31 It could not stop raining. 56:32 He prayed. 56:33 He said, "God, this is Diamond's first night. 56:35 If it's your will stop the rain so we can go knocking on doors." 56:38 And as soon as he said amen the rain just stopped. 56:41 I was just thinking in my head, is this guy a prophet or what, I 56:44 mean, he just prayed and asked God and it happened. 56:48 And so I was so happy, I got the books, and I went 56:51 to the first door and the first door I went to, the persona gave 56:54 me 50 bucks. 56:55 That night was actually a big night for me because it was 56:58 where I first saw God's power work in stopping the rain 57:02 and people were actually giving me lots of money. 57:05 I then became a call porter or canvasser and I saved money 57:07 to pay for my way through Academy and when my 57:10 church began to see how God was using me they immediately 57:14 recognized that it was God's spirit moving and they put me, 57:17 you know, preaching, or teaching and sharing my faith. 57:20 And I've been engaged in ministry for the past six 57:22 to seven years now and God is taking me all over the world 57:25 and multiple continents, sharing my testimony, how God has 57:28 brought me out of darkness into His marvelous light, which 57:32 is total contrast as to how it was before, and now, you know, 57:35 it's a total contrast. 57:38 My name is Diamond and Amazing Facts has helped change my life. 57:45 ♪♪♪ 57:52 ♪♪♪ |
Revised 2019-12-16