Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201607A
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00:11 It has stood the test of time...
00:14 God's book, The Bible 00:18 Still relevant in today's complex world 00:24 It Is Written 00:25 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 00:38 There is a story told by the great literary giant of Russia, Leo Tolstoy, and he tells the 00:44 story of a man by the name of Pahom. Pahom lived in a little village, and there in that 00:50 little village, he had a little farm. He had his whitewash, bricked house. There in that 00:57 little farm, he enjoyed the fruits of his labour. But one day, while Pahom was out in the 01:02 field and was working, he asked himself the question, "How much land does a man need?" He began 01:12 to contemplate, how much land does a man need? Then through the grapevine, Pahom learned of 01:20 a people called the Bashkirs. Now, the Bashkirs lived in a picturesque place and they had a 01:27 lot of land. But the Bashkirs were going to be giving away their land. So Pahom learned 01:36 of this. And here is what the deal was: for 1,000 roubles, which was a lot of money at the 01:43 time, you would give it to the Bashkir tribe, and then you would take off at sunrise in the 01:50 morning with a shovel in your hand. And every 100 metres, you would dig a hold and drop a 01:57 stake. And you had until sunset to make a full and complete circle, and whatever you could 02:06 do in that approximately 12 hours would be your land for 1,000 roubles. So, one day, 02:16 Pahom made a visit to the Bashkirs, and there he met the chief, and he gave the chief his 02:22 1,000 roubles, and he said, "Okay, Pahom, here's what you need to do. Here's your shovel, 02:29 here are your stakes. Go out and claim your land." And so Pahom dashed off, and every 100 yards, 02:36 dig a hole, drop a stake, dig a hole, drop a stake. And it got to about noon and Pahom said to 02:43 himself, "I need to start turning back so I get there in time," because you see, if you 02:48 did not get there in time, you lost your money and you got no land. But just as Pahom was 02:55 about to turn, he noticed this beautiful lake and the woods behind the lake and he said, 03:01 "Surely I need this lake. And those woods will provide heat for me for a long time." And so 03:08 he hurried around the lake, digging a hole very 100 metres and dropping a stake. And he was 03:13 pushing himself and pushing himself and pushing himself And then, as he was getting 03:20 ready to turn back, he saw this meadow with a babbling brook running through it. He says, "I 03:25 certainly need the babbling brook and I need that meadow." And so he pushed himself and 03:30 pushed himself, digging those holes every 100 metres and dropping a stake. And as he 03:37 pushed himself, it was one of those moments - have you ever had those moments when you've 03:45 been running or working hard and your chest starts to hurt because you've been working so 03:48 hard? And he's huffing and he's puffing and he's running and he's noticing the sun's setting. 03:52 And he sees the chief off in the distance. And he begins to run even harder and harder and 03:59 harder. And as he passed the woods, he saw the chief of the Bashkirs off in the distance. He 04:08 knew he would make it. And he dug those holes every 100 metres. And as he finally 04:13 arrived to the chief, he fell down in exhaustion, and all the Bashkir people were cheering. 04:19 But then they noticed, Pahom was not moving. And they turned Pahom over, thinking he had only 04:31 been exhausted; he was not breathing. You see,Pahom had died for exhaustion. And 04:41 Tolstoy ends the story with this question: How much land does a dead man need? The Bashkir 04:49 people answered that. They buried Pahom in 6 feet of land You see, Tolstoy wrote this 04:58 story as an allegory of what is happening in society today. Some of you remember when the word 05:08 "multitasking" did not exist. But we live in a society where we drive and shave and eat and 05:17 talk on the phone all at the same time. We live in a world where we are pressed, pressed, 05:24 pressed by the stresses of society and the stresses of the world in which we live. And it 05:29 leaves us asking the question, "Is this really what God intended in our lives?" The 05:35 devices we have are supposed to make us more efficient and one device is not enough.a smart 05:44 phone, a tablet, a laptop, so on and so forth. Dear friends, we live in a society where there is 05:50 no rest, just press, press, press forward. Statistics tell us that this year, 1.3 million 05:58 Canadians will live with heart disease. Over 350,000 Canadians will be hospitalized with heart 06:05 disease or stroke. 66,000 people in Canada will die this year of heart disease and stroke, with 06:13 the major contributing factor to that being the stress and anxiety in which they live. 06:20 Dr. Nieca Goldberg of the New York University School of Medicine says this: "Chronic 06:26 anxiety can significantly increase the risk of heart attacks, at least in men. There 06:33 is a correlation between the heart and the mind." Interesting study. 25% of Canadian workers 06:40 actually say they have high stress and anxiety in their jobs, but three-fourths of 06:46 Canadian workers indicate that their jobs causes some type of stress. And when we talk about 06:51 that stress, we're talking about unhealthy stress. The question that I ask is this, is this 06:58 really what God intended for us? Or does God have the ultimate answer to the problems of 07:05 stress, anxiety, tension, and worry? Today, we'll journey back in time. Almost 2000 years 07:16 ago the bookof Revelation was written. Revelation's last-day message, the true Jerusalem 07:23 Factor, calls out to us, that Jesus, who is in the temple in heaven has placed before us a 07:30 solution to the frantic pace of the 21st century. It is a call to rest.rest in our Creator. The 07:41 Apostle John writing from that rocky crag of an island, Patmos, and this is what he said in 07:49 Revelation 4:11 as he witnessed the throne room scene of heaven: 08:08 You see, creation is a powerful concept. It should not surprise us that in the 21st century, 08:13 there is a great push-back from the concept of creation. But in the Bible, creation is a 08:22 powerful concept, because it leads us back to the One Who made us, and gives us security 08:27 and rest in His love and in His care. The call of the first angel in the three angels 08:32 messages of Revelation 14 is to fear God and give glory to Him. Why? For the hour of His 08:44 judgement has come. This is final key of the Jerusalem Factor and the reality of 08:50 judgement taking place in the heavenly sanctuary. The verse goes on. 09:03 You see, the call of 09:05 the final days is a callback, not just to be ready because we live in a time of judgement, but 09:12 it is a callback to the worship of the Creator. So how do we worship the Creator of heaven 09:19 and earth and find rest and security in Him? Let's go back to the very beginning of time. 09:25 Let's go back to the very first book of the Bible.to the book of Genesis. There in Genesis, it 09:32 records the Creation week, where God makes the heavens and the earth and all that in them is, 09:38 and He makes the trees and the plants and the water and all of these things. And then on the 09:45 sixth day, the Bible says that God said this: "Let us make man in our image." In the image of 09:53 God he created him; male and female he created them Creation is a powerful concept 10:01 because it connects us with the One Who made us. In a world that says that all of this we see 10:06 around us is just the result of a grand accident, God puts the brakes and says, "No, no, no 10:14 wait a second. I made you. I formed you. I thought about you. You were by design. The Bible 10:24 says that God knew each of usbefore we were born, while we were yet in the womb. That 10:32 creation week, God made everything perfect. The Bible then tells us that God did 10:42 something on the seventh day. He didn't create any objects, but the Bible says in Genesis 2:2, 11:00 Now, let me ask you a question that seems rather obvious. Did God rest on the seventh day 11:06 because He was tired? No, God doesn't get tired. God rested on the seventh day with a specific 11:13 purpose. What did God create on the sixth day? God created mankind on the sixth day and He 11:23 rested on the seventh day. Why was that? Because God was able to understand that man would 11:31 need a specified period of time in which they could reconnect with the Creator. So God created 11:39 the Sabbath. A window in time in which man could be revived, restored and recreate in the 11:48 presence of his Creator. The Bible then says that God did something very special to the 11:55 seventh day. What did He do? In Genesis 2:3 it says, 12:12 The seventh-day Sabbath given at the creation was to be God's perpetual reminder of our roots. 12:19 The seventh day. You have the first day of the week, the second day, the third day, the 12:24 fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day, and God comes to that seventh day, and the Bible says 12:29 that He blessed it, and when He blessed it, He made it as an eternal sign of the powerful 12:36 creative acts of God and His infinite love, and then He sanctified it. That word 12:43 "sanctified" literally means to be set aside for a holy purpose. And then the Bible says that He 12:51 rested. At creation, God placed a seven-day cycle into the very fabric of our being. Let me pose 13:00 a few questions for you. How long is a year? This is not a trick question, by the way. How 13:06 long is a year? 365 days? What is that time duration? It's how long it takes the earth to go 13:20 around the sun. Then you have the month, 30 days long. How do we get that? By the cycle of the 13:28 moon coming around the earth. What celestial body tells us how long the week is? Is that how 13:36 long Saturn takes to get around? No. You see, It's a trick question. There is no celestial 13:42 body that tells us how long a week is. The origin of the week comes from God Himself, the 13:48 origin of the seven-day week. And look at this fascinating study that has been done. Recent 14:00 research in something called chronobiology reveals these weekly rhythms. Susan Perry and 14:07 Jim Dawson in the bookThe Secrets our Body Clocks Reveal say this: 14:24 Circaseptan literally means "about seven." They studied the human body as well as other 14:30 organisms outside of humanity, and here's the amazing thing that they research concluded: 14:35 the rejection of organ transplants seems to follow a seven-day cycle. The immune 14:43 system response to infection follows a seven-day cycle. Blood and urine chemicals follow a 14:49 seven-day cycle. Blood pressure follows a seven-day cycle. Heartbeat, the common cold, and 14:54 coping hormones all follow this seven-day cycle. It appears that God made us to operate on a 15:02 seven-day cycle. In fact, Deuteronomy 5:33 says this: 15:24 Isn't that fascinating. What is even more intriguing is that Deuteronomy chapter 5 records 15:36 God giving to Moses once again the Ten Commandments. You'll remember the story of the Ten 15:42 Commandments, the children of Israel rebel, Moses throws down the tablets, the tablets are 15:50 broken, and he needs a second set of tablets. God rewrites those commandments on the 15:57 tablets, and the first portion of Deuteronomy chapter 5 records that rewriting. And then God 16:06 says, "Hey, if you follow My ways, you'll live, you'll be well, and you'll prolong your 16:12 days." If you follow all of my commands including the Sabbath you'll be well. Now, did God 16:21 know what He was talking about? Let's take a little journey in history. During the French 16:29 Revolution and during Stalin's time in Russia, both of these ruling countries actually 16:34 experimented and helped us understand this seven-day cycle. During the French Revolution, 16:41 during the age of reason, in the 18th century, France decided to move from a seven-day week to a 16:46 ten-day week. They wanted to get more productivity out of their workers. But here was the 16:52 problem: after they did that, productivity actually decreased. The new secular rational week of 17:01 ten days was devised and approved by the ruling convention in October 1793. That 17:07 didn't work and France returned to a seven-day work week Unfortunately for the Russians, 17:13 they failed to learn those lessons from the French, and so Russia, under Stalin, also went 17:19 to a ten-day work week, and notice what happens. After 11 years of disappointing 17:25 production and epidemic irresponsibility in the workplace, Stalin called it 17:30 quits and gave the Soviet people back their seven-day week Experiments have been done with 17:37 shorter work weeks of a four-day week. And all of these experiments have utterly failed. 17:44 Well, why is that? You see, because when God created man, He created man to function on a 17:52 seven-day week. Now, you'll remember, when we've been studying the book of Daniel, 18:00 that we've noticed some interesting things. Daniel, in Daniel chapter 7, said these 18:14 words, speaking of this power, this little horn power, that is a religiopolitical entity, it 18:16 says this: 18:25 Who's law is this power trying to change? For sure it is God's law. In fact the Bible tells 18:30 us, at the end of time, there would be an entity that would address God's law and times. 18:34 The book of Revelation also talks about this issue. Revelation chapter 13 beginning 18:40 in verse 3: 19:20 Here is the key piece that we must not miss in the context of this study. The key issue at the 19:26 end of time as outlined in the book of Revelation is not where will war break out, who will be 19:32 involved in that war, how that war will be administered, but the key question that Revelation 19:38 addresses is, who will we worship? Many people are looking for a rebuilt temple in 19:46 Jerusalem and that may well happen, but the True Jerusalem factor is to look up to the 19:51 heavenly Jerusalem. It is there that we find Jesus our High Priest, the One whom we should 19:57 worship.The book of Revelation presents two entities. There is the dragon. Who's the dragon? 20:04 Satan. And then there is the Lamb. And who is the Lamb? Jesus the One who dwells in the 20:12 heavenly sanctuary. In the book of Revelation, there are two cities, the city of Babylon, and 20:17 then the city of Jerusalem. It is a choice, you see. This is what the book of Revelation is 20:25 all about, a choice on, ultimately, who will we worship In the Garden of Eden, when God 20:36 created mankind, He gave mankind the seventh-day Sabbath as a reminder that we wouldn't forget 20:43 Who the Creator was, that we would worship the One Who made the heavens, the earth, and all 20:48 that in them is. And as a reminder, Revelation 12:17 speaks of those who are faithful 20:55 to God in the end times, and what will they do? They will keep the commandments of God and 21:01 have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Revelation 14:12 says that: And so we have this 21:13 crisis now. God made mankind with a seven-day cycle. He gave him the seventh-day Sabbath to 21:20 remember Him so he would not forget Him, which sounds a little obvious, but that's why 21:28 God did it. And then at the end of time, we see that the key issue is worship. Who will we 21:34 worship? You see, when God wrote the Ten Commandments, God could've written the Ten 21:40 Commandments in any type of material He wanted to. But what did He write the Ten 21:44 Commandments in? He wrote them in stone. See, He did not write them in sand, because you see, 21:49 with sand, the wind will blow it away, the waters will wash it away, but stone represents this 21:59 idea of eternity. God did not write it on paper, because paper can burn up. But interestingly 22:08 enough, God wrote it on stone to represent the endurance of the law forever but more than 22:13 external tablets of stone, God desires more for you, which is why Hebrews chapter 8 verse 10 22:20 says this: 22:29 Today, God has made plain, that He loves you and He loves me. H has not forgotten us and He 22:35 desires that we would not forget Him. Do you desire to walk with Him and experience full rest in 22:41 Him? He came to this earth to die for you, so you might live. In invite you to live fully in 22:49 Him today, experience the law of liberty, experience keeping the Sabbath Holy and it shall be 22:58 well with you as you are in Him. Heavenly Father we thank you so much that you have given us the 23:06 Sabbath as a day that we can rest in you. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen. 23:35 Hi, everyone! So, here's the dilemma. You want to eat healthy, but you feel it's going 23:40 to be expensive. Well, I've got good news for you. Eating healthy can be very low cost. 23:46 With careful planning and preparation you can stretch your food dollar, and still buy 23:52 wholesome, nourishing food that tastes great. Here's how to do it: First, avoid buying 23:58 convenience foods. They tend to be more expensive because the more that's done to food before 24:04 you buy it, the more you pay. Preparing food from scratch will help stretch your dollars. And, 24:10 buy foods that will give you more "bang for your buck". For example: purchase beans and 24:16 vegetables like potatoes and carrots in bulk. Purchase fruits and vegetables that are 24:22 in-season.For example, buy strawberries in early summer peaches in mid-summer, and pears 24:29 in the fall. For more information on in-season produce, visit the Foodland 24:34 Ontario website. On the Forks Over Knives website, I read an article where the author was 24:41 able to live on a budget of $1.50 per dayfor 5 days by purchasing only potatoes, 24:48 carrots, brown rice, brown lentils, brown rice pasta, tomato sauce, and oatmeal. Sure, 24:55 it was a verylimited menu, but the author was creative, it was nutritious, and it worked! Here 25:02 are some other helpful tips for eating inexpensively: Plan your food budget by planning your 25:07 meals for the week Make a shopping list, and stick to it Don't be swayed by the colorful 25:13 packages that are vying for your attention on the store shelf! Check for sales and though it 25:20 might be a little old-fashioned, use coupons if you've got them. Shop at farmers markets; you can 25:27 get luscious produce at great prices. Shop on a full stomach If you shop when you're hungry, 25:34 you're likely to buy more than you really need. Been there, done that! After you've planned 25:41 your meals and done your shopping, use some spare time to make as many of the meals as 25:45 possible, and freeze them. When you arrive home during the week, it will be easy to just reheat, 25:51 and you won't be tempted to spend money on take-out. And last, plant your own garden! If 25:58 you've got a back yard, use it to grow your own organic food.You'll love it! Now, a 26:04 quick word about beans. Beans really are a "best buy" item, especially when you buy them dry 26:10 and in bulk. They're full of protein, fibre, and minerals They are low in fat and high in 26:16 good carbs! What I've done here is I boiled some agate soybeans given to me by It Is Written 26:24 supporter, Mrs. Villeneuve who grows them in her garden, and I've added them to a soup, a 26:30 salad, and a spinach/collard green/onion/tomato dish. You can add beans to rice, pasta, baked 26:38 goods, and even puree them and use them as a dip with vegetables or on crackers, like 26:45 I've done here. This is the same soy beans just put in the processor and look at that - so 26:52 good. Use your imagination and use beans often. It's inexpensive and delicious to 27:00 shop plant-based. I'll see you next time. 27:11 My dear friends, God created a day that we could remember Him and draw near to Him. Today I 27:17 would like to over you for free a magazine called "A Day To Remember", there you can learn 27:22 more about the Sabbath and drawing nearer to Jesus at that time. In addition to that offer, 27:29 I would like to offer you the full set of the "Jerusalem Factor". You can have all 8 27:34 episodes in 2 DVD's for any size donation. Here's the information you need for today's offer. 28:06 Dear friend, God loves you so much that he made a day entirely to spend with you that you would 28:12 draw nearer to Him. If you would like to learn more about drawing nearer to Jesus Christ, I invite 28:16 you to go to our website www. ItIsWrittenCanada.ca. I hope you found true peace in Jesus today. 28:22 I hope that you'll join us again next week and until then remember, It Is Written, man 28:28 shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. |
Revised 2016-12-12