SDA Youth in the Last Days

The tempest is raging.  Terrified, they watch their own craft fill with water, and begin to sink as the fury of the waves break upon it.  Hopeless.  Minutes away from a watery grave. We have storms in our lives as well.  Our lives feel like they are falling apart and we sink into despair.  We may even feel neglected by God.  On our own strength we struggle desperately to bail the water out of our lives.  But we still sink. Now in a panic, they work like beasts, bailing water out of the boat, but to no avail.  They watch the scene, entranced by its seeming unreality, as the boat sinks a little more as another torrent of water rushes down on them.  Finally, the boat with its human cargo, is lost beneath the waves. All too often, this is the tragic story of our lives.  We despair, and no matter what we do, we sink anyways. But that wasn't how the story ended.  In their panic, they had forgotten about their M...

Jumping inside the boxcar, they took one last look at the sunlight before being sealed shut inside their metal prison.  Simon and Wesley had illegally left Romania in order to escape mandatory service in the military, where they would have been beaten, perhaps fatally, for refusing to serve on Sabbaths.  Despite several close calls with the police in Romania, Hungary, and Austria, Simon managed to cross three boarder crossings on foot and escaped to Italy where he joined his brother Stefan, who had illegally taken refuge there after being cruelly beaten in the Romanian military.  Once in Italy, Simon had been captured by the police, who interrogated and beat him.  However, Providence intervened when he could not locate his ID, which meant they could not ship him back to Romania.  He was released and given 15 days to leave the country.  Having no place to go, he remained illegally for nearly two years.  Meanwhile, his friend Wesley back i...

What is peace?  What must be done to obtain it?  Is it even possible?  In the midst of the billows of waves life sends our way, peace seems to have sunk out of existence.  Our lives are compassed about with worry, stress, grief, and fear as one after another calamities befall this old world.  But you can still obtain peace while the tempest rages.  But what is peace? Peace is calm assurance from God when you yield all to Him, trusting fully in His plan rather than your own.  So many people are vainly striving for peace, unable to locate its source. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul says, " Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passeth all understandin g, shall keep your heart s and minds through Christ Jesus."  - Philippians 4:6,7    First of all, we must "be careful for nothing", ...

Why are we here?  What is our purpose?  And what lies beyond the grave?  These thought-provoking  questions have never ceased to plague the minds of thousands.  One thing is certain - We are here.  That much we know.  But why?  Why are we here?  Are we seriously just the product of an evolutionary coincidence?  If so, what is there worth living for?  If we got here through sheer evolution, then absolutely nothing could lie beyond the grave other than nothing!  And how could we have moral standards?  How could there be right ad wrong?  All we can have is man-made rules and laws subject to change.  Nothing set in stone.  Yet right and wrong seem so clear.  Life without a purpose feels so empty.  Living for simply self-gratification just to sink into everlasting oblivion.  Perhaps there's more than this to life!  A reason why we're here?  A mission for us to fulfill?...

Romans 5:3 says, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also:...”  Huh?  Glory in tribulations?  No way!  Tribulations are terrible, difficult, discouraging, and plain old awful!  But wait.  Are they really?   The end of the verse and the following verse say, “Knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience experience; and experience, hope.”  What do patience, experience, and hope mean?   In the Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, the Greek word for patience means, “the characteristic of a man who is unswerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings.”  That is a characteristic that we all need, and that is what tribulations bring.   Experience.  The same lexicon defines experience as, “approvedness, tried character.”  Isn’t that what we need to enter heaven-- a proven, tried character? Hope.  The lexicon gives this definition for ho...

When Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, their descendants were automatically doomed to share their unfortunate fate.  But God, in His mercy, offered His own Son as a sacrifice for mankind!  Satan claims this old world as His own territory, but Jesus bought it with His own blood.  This spiritual battle is still raging!  The victor has been crowned, but which side are you and I on?  To whom do we pledge allegiance?  All heaven and the whole universal beings have been keenly watching this drama unfold with intense interest.  They still are.  They are watching you and I today as we go about our duties.  We are the universal subjects of interest whether or not we like it!  We are on stage .  Angels are right beside us all the time to guide us in the right path.  If we remembered that we are on stage always, if we could see beings standing beside us, how different would our actions be!?  What if we r...

Thomas Mayhew November 9, 2017 The Impossible Becomes Reality The crisis is real. King Saul and his few, faithful soldiers are totally hopeless in winning an impending battle with the Philistines. With 600 versus thousands upon thousands, it seems that there isn’t much hope. Only a short time before this grim situation, a prophet named Samuel told king Saul that he would come to offer a sacrifice to God, asking for His blessing on the battle. Saul waited, and waited, for seven days, becoming more and more worried as time progressed as he watched many soldiers leave out of fear. Saul began to despair as he watched his army dwindle down to 600 soldiers. Finally, he decided to offer the sacrifice that he was not authorized for. Just as he had finished, Samuel arrived, and told Saul that a consequence from God was to come upon him. His kingdom would be given to another man better than he. Now Saul found himself hiding in a cave with his 600 faithful soldiers, all too fearf...

Sorry for the font size problems!  The font refuses to change size!  Not sure what's happening... Jesus loved us so much that He gave His own life that the fallen sinners could take His place in the courts of glory.  All we have to do is accept the invitation to heaven. This is such a famous verse, but take a minute and let it really sink in. " For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.   For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."   John 3:16,17 This Divine Love is so utterly incomprehensible for our finite minds to grasp. "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.  As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep."  John 10:14,15 Jesus l...

Anytime we do something for God, or do anything well, where does the glory go?  Many times, we take the glory to ourselves.  But why do we do this?   Do we deserve the glory?  Isaiah 64:6 says, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”  We have nothing in ourselves to boast.  Even our righteousness is as filthy rags.  We are completely and utterly helpless without God intervening personally in our lives.  We are mortal, we naturally have evil desires and motives, and we can’t do anything about it.  So the answer is no, we don’t deserve the glory.   So who deserves the glory?  Picture this for a moment.  The high Creator of the Universe, who holds the galaxies in His hands and calls the stars by name, the One who is exalted and praised by the holy angels in heaven, steps down from His throne. ...

\ Hugh Latimer was  protestant Reformer in England. He started out as a bishop, but began to see the errors in the Papacy.  Soon he began denouncing the papacy from the pulpit, and was thrown into jail.  About to be executed, he was saved by a government official.  Although not retaining his superior rank and prestige of bishop, he traveled vastly, boldly preaching the truth.  For a time he had no opposition, for the Royalty was Protestant.  This was so until Lady Jane Grey was murdered and the wicked Mary Tudor, or "Bloody Mary", ascended the throne.  Immediately she threw Latimer in prison, where he languished for a time.  He was brought for trial with Nicholas Ridley, another faithful warrior.  Both were sentenced to death on that fateful day in 1555.  As they ascended the stake, Ridley encouraged Latimre that either God would lessen the pain or give them strength to endure.  It is said that La...

Faithful to the End Part 7 By Caleb Tam The Reformation is now over, but the flame kindled by those faithful men burns on.  All through the centuries there have always been some who remain true to God and conscience no matter the cost, preserving the precious word of God.  As a result of the apparent downfall of the Reformation, many people are now compromising their beliefs and consciences, reforming them to the cunning ways of the Catholic church.  They are placing mortal man in higher authority than the infallible and unerring  word of God.  They accept the authority of contradicting popes and councils, obeying man rather than God.   Four years after nailing his 95 theses, Martin Luther, when pressured to recant at the Diet of Worms, firmly responded to his accusers with these powerful words. " Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason, I do not accept the authority of popes and counc...

In this end time that we are living in as young people, the world is throwing anything and everything at us to blow us off our track.  The world is keen on separating us from Christ and making us to compromise with the world.  How can we stay on our path?   2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”  What does glory mean?  Glory in this sense means character.  When Moses asked God to show him His glory, God, in response, showed him His character.  (That story in Exodus 33 and 34).  In this verse, our glory, or our character, is exchanged for God’s glory, or His character.   This principle is that by beholding, you become changed.  I’m sure you have noticed that if you spend time with a certain friend, you start to act and think like them.  Maybe you have also noticed that when you foc...