Seventh day-Adventist Church of Adairsville

Daniel 1: 1-4 

Among the children of Israel who were carried captive to Babylon at the beginning of the seventy years’ captivity were Christian patriots, men who were as true as steel to principle, who would not be corrupted by selfishness, but who would honor God at the loss of all things. PK 479

Children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. 

Daniel 1: 5-10

Multiple Reasons – Dedication to Idols + Unhealthy Practices 

Parents lessons on temperance  - self control – moderation in all things - saved their lives

Daniel might have argued that, dependent as he was on the king's favor and subject to his power, there was no other course for him to pursue than to eat of the king's food and drink of his wine; for should he adhere to the divine teaching, he would offend the king and probably lose his position and his life. Should he disregard the commandment of the Lord he would retain the favor of the king and secure for himself intellectual advantages and flattering worldly prospects. Maybe even a chance down the road to witness to the king. 

Purposed in his heart – what does that mean today? 

Should the 4 Hebrew boys compromise with wrong in this instance by yielding to the pressure of circumstances, their departure from principle would weaken their sense of right and their abhorrence of wrong. The first wrong step would lead to others, until, their connection with Heaven severed, they would be swept away by temptation.

Daniel 1: 11-14

Oldest epidemiological study on health and diet

10 days – plant-based diet vs. kosher diets vs. standard American diets

Blue Zones – Secrets of the Longest Living People on Earth and Longest Living Americans – Adventists living by the same blue zone principles - https://www.bluezones.com/2021/12/10-things-that-will-happen-to-you-in-a-day-week-or-month-when-you-eat-a-whole-food-plant-based-diet/

1. You’ll feel fuller sooner and stay fuller longer, 

2. You’ll Be In a Better Mood and Have More Energy

3. You’ll Have Better Blood Sugar Levels

Plant-based eaters have a 34% reduced risk of having type 2 diabetes, 

4. Your Digestion Will Improve

5. Your Cholesterol will Improve

6. Your Blood Pressure Will Improve

7.Sleep Quality will improve

8. Your Skin May Clear Up - Look more Healthy

9. Birds and Bees interaction improves

10. You will Lose Body Fat

Daniel 1: 15-20

What a great lesson on the importance of principled friendships! 

In physical strength and beauty, in mental vigor and literary attainment, they stood unrivaled. Through a constant connection with God - they walked with God as did Enoch.

Prophets and Kings commentary …. - --- How did these 4 Sabbath keeping Hebrew boys become fitted for a position of so great trust and honor? It was faithfulness in little things!!! 

Many are waiting for some great work to be brought to them, while daily they lose opportunities for revealing faithfulness to God. Daily they fail of discharging with wholeheartedness the little duties of life. While they wait for some large work in which they may exercise supposedly great talents, and thus satisfy their ambitious longings, their days pass away. PK 487.3

In the life of the true Christian there are no nonessentials; in the sight of Omnipotence every duty is important.

This story is one to children and their parents…

What is Love?

Adairsville – February 12, 2022

Google definition of love: 

an intense feeling of deep affection.

"she is madly in love with him”

a great interest and pleasure in something.

"his love for football"

57% of Millennials ( 26-41 ) have never been married compared with 17% of members of the Silent Generation when they were the same age.

48% of American adults are married — down from 72% in 1960.

1 Corinthians 13 -  tells us Love is very different than what google tells us. 

John 15:13 – There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

…The highest form of love

“no greater love can anyone have than laying down their life – their desires, passions, career, talents, and needs – all to help enrich someone else’s life? 

The Prince: which one? 

It is believed that David was anointed to be king around the age of 14 or so. He would not actually become king until he was 30 years old. The anointing of David by Samuel was done in secret and for years it was unknown to pretty much everyone. 

But slowly and gradually, whispers started to swell into open conversations. Jonathan, King Saul’s eldest son and true heir to the throne as Prince of Israel, was about 27 when he met David. This first meeting would likely have been on the edge of the Valley of Elah – where Goliath was taunting Israel for those 40 days. David, probably 17 at the time, was the boy who said he would fight Goliath. 

David has just killed Goliath and the army of Israel has begun to chase the Philistines away. 

1 Samuel 17:57-58

1 Samuel 18: 1 – 4

1 Samuel 19:1-2 and 5-10 – a Friend defends a friend – lays down their life for their friend

1 Samuel 23:14 –18

2 Samuel 1:25-26

On the record of those who through self-denial have entered into the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, stand—one in the Old Testament and one in the New—the names of Jonathan and of John the Baptist. -Education 156

Jonathan, by birth heir to the throne, yet knowing himself set aside by the divine decree; to his rival the most tender and faithful of friends, shielding David's life at the peril of his own; steadfast at his father's side through the dark days of his declining power, and at his side falling at the last—the name of Jonathan is treasured in heaven, and it stands on earth a witness to the existence and the power of unselfish love. – Education 157

2 Samuel 9 – David shows kindness to Jonathan’s son

John 15:13 - There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

I hate winter. 

Birds and their songs are missing, the sounds of the frogs at night gone, flowers, sunsets, fresh tomatoes from the garden, blueberries, peaches – warm sunshine. 

Winter was never meant to be. A trial of health for me. 

John 9:1-4 

The only hope of better things is in the education of the people in right principles. Let physicians teach the people that restorative power is not in drugs, but in nature. Disease is an effort of nature to free the system from conditions that result from a violation of the laws of health. In case of sickness, the cause should be ascertained. Unhealthful conditions should be changed, wrong habits corrected. Then nature is to be assisted in her effort to expel impurities and to re-establish right conditions in the system. CH 90.1

Pure air, sunlight, temperance in all things, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power—these are the true remedies. Every person should have a knowledge of nature's remedial agencies and how to apply them. It is essential both to understand the principles involved in the treatment of the sick and to have a practical training that will enable one rightly to use this knowledge. CH 90.2

The use of natural remedies requires an amount of care and effort that many are not willing to give. Nature's process of healing and upbuilding is gradual, and to the impatient it seems slow. The surrender of hurtful indulgences requires sacrifice. But in the end it will be found that nature, untrammeled, does her work wisely and well. Those who persevere in obedience to her laws will reap the reward in health of body and health of mind. CH 90.3

Exodus 15:26 NIV
If you listen carefully to the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.

James 1 – trials 

STORY OF JOB – is a great story along the lines of what Jesus describes in John 9 that we read. No sin brought the judgments on Job. 

"This life at best is but the Christian's winter; and the bleak winds of winter-- disappointments, losses, pain, and anguish--are our lot here; but our hopes are reaching forward to the Christian's summer, when we shall change climate, leave all the wintry blasts and fierce tempests behind, and be taken to those mansions Jesus has gone to prepare for those that love Him.--Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, pp. 239, 240."

Adairsville

January 29, 2022

The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element, and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place—that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis.

Education

————-

Here on the top of Mt. Tabor, we can see the valley below. Israel is watching. They too recognize something great and decisive is about to take place. The morning had started out with a typical bright desert sunrise…but storm clouds seemed to be brewing…

Judges 4 - 1-7

——————————————-

In a land where metal weapons were exceedingly rare, King Jabin and the Commander of the Armed Forces - Sisera commanded nine hundred chariots of iron that made the plain of Esdraelon tremble as they rolled along in procession. 

These weren’t just any chariots - they were the new 900 Series with iron wheels, iron trim, and 4 foot diamond sharpened glittering blades jutting out of the center of each of the chariot wheels. As they spun at a few thousands RPMs, they would mow down an army like mowing through your grass.

And the frightened Hebrews would often peer down from the hills and thought that Jabin must be a mighty king, that Jabin and Sisera must be obeyed, all because of those chariots of iron - the flaunting symbol of that civilization’s military industrial complex.

God was ready to deliver his people. All they had to do was ask and finally they were asking. It had been 20 long years under the reign of Jabin and Sisera.

Judges 4:8-9

Every day Deborah listened to their tales of grief and their stories of pain and their record of oppression, the conviction grew in her mind that her people were tired of being afraid:  her people must be led to overcome their fear of those chariots of Jabin and Sisera. 

And so Deborah went about breaking the dark spell of discouragement and despair that hung over the Israelites.  She taught them how to believe again in a God who can do mighty miracles, and she taught them how to pray again.  And men and women, teenagers….began to change.

Deborah found herself at the heart of a genuine religious revolution, and she understood that the time had come for action.  And so she sent a message to the strongest man she could find, a tribal chief with the interesting name of Barak who lived one hundred miles to the north.

—the man whose very name meant “lightning”—he refused to go into battle unless Deborah went with him.

And Deborah didn’t hesitate. She could have. She was a mother in Israel, she was the voice of the nation. She was the voice of God to the people.There was no concern that she was a woman in a culture run by men…

She knew that God’s biddings were and are His enablings.

And down on the broad plain of Esdraelon, Sisera must have smiled to himself.  ‘Bring it on,’ he thought, perhaps like Goliath just a few years later, shouting “come down to us…with your sticks and stones.” Remember metal weapons weren’t common in Israel.  And when a man has nine hundred chariots of iron, he longs for something to do with them. Just like when the land of the free spends nearly 700 Billion dollars a year funding ‘defense’, some long for something to do with all these weapons….

But Sisera had made all of his calculations as though there was no God in the heavens watching out for His chosen people.  Sisera foolishly thought just like all of God’s enemies do that he was only dealing with a weak and pathetically helpless people,

The Battle —-Judges 4:10

Fast Forward over 1100 years, Paul is writing Hebrews and reminds us never to forget… the hero of this story….well let’s read it - Hebrews 11:32

You can imagine how perhaps that scene unfolded. As do many stories in the old testament…God often uses his creation to confound the wise.

Perhaps a storm of sleet and hail burst over the plain from the east in the face of Sisera and his men

Slingers and archers were limited. Others were stung by the cold

Deborah and all Israel had the storm to their back.

Flooding begins swelling the Kishon River

Chariots begin sinking in mud. Whatever happened, God showed up!

“The Song of Deborah” recorded in Judges 5 is treated by believer and skeptic alike as one of the greatest pieces of poetry of the ancient world. 

But in the midst of all this celebration and thanksgiving, there’s a note of great anger and bitterness.  In the 23rd verse of Judges 5, we read these lines that seem so strangely out of place:

“Curse Meroz, says the angel of the Lord,

Curse bitterly its inhabitants,

Because they came not to the help of the Lord,

To the help of the Lord against the mighty.”

As Deborah is on the top of the mountain about to go to war with Israel and asking Barak where the tribe of Meroz is…Barak says they just didn’t want to come, they made excuses.

Jesus parable in Luke 14 tells us about many making excuses in the last moments of time….I bought some land, I got married, my portfolio needs attention…

But Deborah doesn’t accept any excuses.  With righteous fire in her eyes, she denounces those who chose the safety of hearth and home while the legions of Naphtali and Zebulon were risking their lives on the plain of Esdraelon.

An entire tribe and people has passed into the abyss of history, leaving only its name as a byword for shame and dishonor. 

For Meroz has come to stand for uselessness, Meroz has come to stand for neutrality when no good person can dare be neutral:  Meroz has come to stand for apathy when honest people can’t stand idly by.

If God abhors one sin above another, of which his people are guilty, it is of doing nothing in a case of emergency. Indifference or neutrality in a religious crisis is regarded of God as a grievous crime; and equal to the very worst type of hostility against God. RH September 30, 1873,

But Meroz didn’t do anything so actively evil as playing traitor or spy.  No, Meroz simply did--nothing.  In the face of a monumental crisis confronting the people of God, Meroz carried on as though nothing unusual was happening. 

In a time of desperate conflict, an inactive friend is counted as an enemy. 

In a time of desperate conflict, an inactive friend is counted as an enemy.

• Martin Luther King Jr.
• “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." 

"There comes a time when silence is betrayal." 

if we’re lost in the end, I don’t think it will be primarily because of all the bad things we’ve done, even though there are a lot of those--but because we failed to do the good we could have done.

Jesus calls it nothing less than treason.

Question – Can you imagine living in a society where your every move was watched?

By and large American media vilify Edward Snowden for revealing that every American is being listened to an monitored and all that information is going through Bluffdale, Utah at NSA data collection facilities the size of small cities. This was all done to detect ‘Terrorist Activity’ – individuals saying or doing things that could be a threat against the government. William Binney and others later helped us learn how deep the rabbit hole of surveillance goes. 

in 1933, on the verge of the government rounding up Sabbath keepers into camps - the Nazis issued a decree that required Germans to turn in anyone who spoke against the party, its leaders, or the government ---That decree, “For the Defense against Malicious Attacks against the Government,”

Today we call things like this “if You See Something, Say Something” – just visit the Atlanta Airport and you will see signs all over. 

– Daniel lived through regimes like this. His story has lessons for us today. 

Daniel 6:1-17

The real sinister agents knew of his convictions – but they needed to find ‘legal’ means to entrap him. 

All freedom gone – a Grand Conspiracy 

How Grand of a Conspiracy? The book Prophets and Kings comments on this moment: 

Lucifer played an important part. The prophet was high in command in the kingdom, and fallen angels feared that Daniel’s influence would weaken their control over the rulers of Babylon. It was these satanic agents who had stirred the princes to envy and jealousy; it was these sinister angels who had inspired the plan for Daniel's destruction; and the princes, yielding themselves as instruments of evil, carried it into effect. PK 540.3

The prophet's enemies counted on Daniel's firm adherence to principle for the success of their plan. Thus the prophet boldly yet quietly and humbly declared that no earthly power has a right to interpose between the soul and God.

1 Corinthians 10:11 says - These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.

The book of Revelation paints a picture of another lions den moment – this time involving the whole world. Where deeply held religious convictions – convictions – will be the issue. And interestingly enough – like Daniel, the the Jews, it seems a pattern – The Sabbath keepers yet again will be under fire. Because Sabbath observance is the most outward sign that you show allegiance to GOD and not Self or the State. 

And that brings us to something forming just this past week….

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/01/11/2021-28135/privacy-act-of-1974-system-of-records

Daniel 6: 18-24 

God did not prevent Daniel's enemies from casting him into the lions’ den; He permitted evil angels and wicked men thus far to accomplish their purpose; but it was that He might make the deliverance of His servant more marked, and the defeat of the enemies of truth and righteousness more complete. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee” (Psalm 76:10), PK 543.3

Heaven is very near those who suffer for righteousness’ sake. Christ identifies His interests with the interests of His faithful people; He suffers in the person of His saints, and whoever touches His chosen ones touches Him.