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...