Participants:
Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY230034A
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00:04 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:15 ♪ I want to spend my life removing pain ♪ 00:26 ♪ Lord let my words heal a heart that hurts ♪ 00:37 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:56 ♪ ♪ 01:06 Hello and welcome to 3ABN Today. I'm Jason Bradley and I'm so 01:10 glad that you've decided to join us once again. And we have a 01:14 Power-packed hour in store for you today. And I want to share a 01:19 scripture with you. It's Proverbs chapter 22 verse 6 and 01:23 it says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is 01:26 old he will not depart from it. My guest today is Pastor Matthew 01:33 Hasty and you are the literature ministries director in the 01:38 Rocky Mountain Seventh-day Adventist conference. (That's 01:41 right.) It's great to have you here (Thank you). Yes and I'm 01:44 looking forward to talking all about Youth Rush, finding out a 01:47 little bit about your background and all of that. But before we 01:51 dive in ET Everett's going to bless us in song and it's 01:55 entitled When They Ring Those Golden Bells. 01:59 ♪ ♪ 06:06 Amen, amen. It's always a blessing to hear ET play the 06:11 piano. Pastor Hasty, I want to start with your background. 06:15 Let's talk about your upbringing Were you raised in the church 06:19 and did you stay in the church the entire time? 06:23 Yeah, absolutely. Before I answer it I just want to say 06:25 something small. I just got here yesterday from Colorado and my 06:29 wife was raised in Michigan and she felt like she was home. All 06:33 the green, all the grass, all the trees. In Colorado when we 06:37 left there was a lot of brown. So it feels like home. For those 06:42 of you have never been to 3ABN before, this is my first time, 06:45 and it's beautiful it's glorious it's like a little piece of 06:49 heaven out here. We saw deer and just went on a nice 06:52 little nature 06:54 walk. It was wonderful. But yeah my background. I'm a pastor. Um 06:58 I was raised in the church. My dad was a convert from 07:04 Catholicism and my mom's like third-generation Adventist. 07:07 And yeah my mom's a school teacher and so I was home 07:13 schooled for a couple years but then I was in her classroom for 07:15 many more years until high school. And so mom would get me 07:20 in trouble at school. Then I'd get home and get in trouble 07:22 again. But for the most part honestly, I've been in love with 07:26 the church, been in love with the truth and Jesus and just 07:31 excited to be here. 07:32 Yes that's awesome and yes 3ABN is a wonderful place. It's very 07:36 peaceful out here. I'm glad you guys caught onto it. Did you, Dad 07:41 ever share his conversion story with you? 07:44 Oh yeah absolutely. (So what happened) Heard it over and over 07:47 again. 07:48 Okay. So what happened with that 07:50 So I mean man this could take up a whole bunch of time so let me 07:54 try to cut all the fat I can. There's a pastor, Steve Painter, 07:58 he was the president of Indiana when I was there a few years 08:03 ago and before that, he was just starting out as a pastor out in 08:08 the east, I want to say Philadelphia might be wrong. 08:11 But he was going door to door and he knocked on my dad's door 08:17 signed him up for Bible studies and he joined the church. 08:20 Great, praise God, praise God., You know I'm fascinated when I 08:25 hear testimonies. A lot of times you hear testimonies about 08:28 people who you know they may have grown up in the church but 08:31 then they left and then they came back. But I'm fascinated by 08:34 people that stay the entire time because it's truly a blessing 08:39 to hear that testimony about how someone stayed grounded in the 08:43 church. So you know we don't want people to think oh well 08:47 since I stayed in the church, I don't have a testimony. No 08:50 that's a beautiful, beautiful testimony. So tell me about 08:54 Youth Rush. What is Youth Rush? 08:55 So Youth Rush is in its most simple form a mission trip. 09:00 It's a very evangelistically minded mission trip. The kids 09:05 come, they get a training in evangelism. Obviously, it's 09:09 specifically focused on Literature Evangelism and Bible 09:12 work but they also get training in more practical things like 09:16 how to make a budget, how to save some money, not spend too 09:21 much money. They get training the fundamentals of the church 09:28 and I think most importantly Youth Rush brings to our kids an 09:32 experience. Like my goal as a director for Youth Rush in 09:37 Colorado that my students, my college and high school kids, 09:42 they come and they don't just learn about Jesus from an 09:45 intellectual level but they can taste and see that God is not 09:49 just real but He's good. (Amen) And I want them to have that 09:52 experience. That's what really changed me, this program, when 09:56 I was a 16-year-old kid starting out I did this and still do it. 10:02 Yes so this literature evangelism that's taking place 10:06 why are you distributing books? and all of that stuff, why books 10:11 in particular? 10:13 Yeah so like 120 years ago Ellen White had a vision about this 10:18 program and it's Youth Rush's goal really to fulfill that. I 10:21 want to read you a quote. This thing is powerful, 10:24 you'll love it. "The plan for the circulation of Christ's 10:27 Object Lessons" I imagine all of us have read Christ's Object 10:31 Lessons, it's a beautiful book. "...is not of human devising but 10:34 it is God's plan. He signified that this book should be a gift 10:38 to our schools. Thus far it has done its work and God has set 10:43 His approval on the self- sacrificing efforts of His 10:46 people. Shall we mar His plan? No, no..." Listen to this part. 10:51 It's really good. "Until the Lord shall come" let me read the 10:55 whole thing "Until the Lord shall come and our present 10:58 system of school work is ended by entering into the higher 11:02 school, Christ Object Lessons is to stand as a gift to our 11:06 educational institutions." Now is it set up as a gift to just 11:10 be curriculum or whatever? Well it goes on I'll continue reading 11:16 "Long ago the teachers and the students in our schools should 11:18 have learned to take advantage of the opportunity to raise 11:23 means by the sale of Christ's Object Lessons. In selling these 11:26 books the students will serve the cause of God and while doing 11:30 this by the dissemination of precious light they will learn 11:32 invaluable lessons in Christian experience. All our schools 11:35 should come in line and earnestly endeavor to carry 11:39 out the plan presented to us for education of the workers, for 11:44 the relief of our schools and for the winning of the souls 11:46 to Christ." So to put it in a nutshell, Youth Rush's goal is 11:51 really a fundraising mission trip to help our students go 11:54 through our Adventist schools. That's it in a nutshell. And I 12:00 don't believe that just applies to our college-age students and 12:02 our high school students. I think elementary kids go door to 12:08 door all the time. A quick story third graders. We don't let them 12:12 go by themselves. They're with their local pastor, three of 12:16 them going to the doors with their pastor and knock on the 12:20 door, show them a couple books the person, the lady at the 12:24 door she was not interested. About the shut the door and 12:27 right on que, right as we turn little third grader pipes up and 12:30 she's like Ah do you want to pray with us? The lady opens the 12:38 door again. What are you guys doing. Anyway she went to our 12:40 church, she got baptized and joined the church because the 12:42 third graders were applying this principle and taking their books 12:46 door to door. A fundraiser for our schools. 12:50 Praise God. Yeah so out of the mouth of babes. (That's right) 12:53 Yes. Yeah, that shoots. So what do you do when like okay let's 12:57 say you go to the door. You knock on the door. How do you 12:59 handle the objections that come your way. 13:03 Yeah so we do get a lot of objections. Whenever you're 13:08 going to the door you get something. Honestly, I feel like 13:17 at first when I was 16 years old I started doing this work. And 13:22 at first, it was difficult. I remember I didn't realize I 13:30 guess how easy life had been. Raised in the church, went to 13:36 a good school, good Pathfinder club, etc., and you know life 13:42 was pretty easy but as I started knocking on doors there were 13:46 people that were not smiling at me when I knocked on their door. 13:49 And I took it very personal you know. I took it to heart and I 13:54 kind of got a little discouraged because of that. But after doing 13:58 it for so long and growing and maturing I guess I realized that 14:02 it's not me. You know Christ faced rejection as well. And all 14:10 the big biblical characters I read about they faced rejection 14:14 You know rejection is good. It's good for us. It's good for our 14:19 soul. Learning to receive a no is healthy and so I guess over 14:25 time I've had to learn that a little bit. 14:28 Yes. How did you get involved in this particular work? 14:34 So um a friend of mine actually handed me this book right here 14:40 Okay, and what book is that? 14:42 Colporteur Ministry. (Okay) And he handed this book to me and 14:46 told me to read this book. He just did a summer program and 14:49 was going around sharing our books door to door and he said 14:52 hey you should read this and you should do it. And I said okay 14:55 I'll read it. So I started reading this book and I fell in 14:59 love. I was really excited as I was reading. I got all kinds of 15:03 quotes in here. And right after this book I picked up another 15:06 book. It was on prayer something that I picked up at Pacific 15:11 Press. I was barely 16 years old, probably 15 at the time 15:14 and I read that book as well and then I said you know I need to 15:19 apply my prayer life to find out really if God wants me to do 15:26 this or not. And so I prayed a very, very specific prayer and 15:33 that was that the recruiter that was going to come to my school 15:36 that he would walkthrough the door of this classroom at 15:41 exactly 10 o'clock according to the clock that's on the wall 15:44 above the sink. I prayed that prayer for months and I need to 15:52 digress for a moment I don't want this story to give the 15:59 example that this is what we should be praying for. We have 16:02 examples in the Bible, Gideon, he prayed over the fleece before 16:06 he went to battle and you know we see examples of that and God 16:12 does answer those kinds of prayers but God also wants us to 16:14 exercise our faith and I don't want to lead anyone astray to 16:19 say hey this is how we should be praying. Let me just share this 16:23 quote with you: "To our people I will say let none be led from 16:26 the sound, sensible principles that God has laid down for the 16:30 guidance of His people. To depend for direction for any 16:33 such device as the tossing of a coin. Such a course is well 16:37 pleasing to the enemy of souls when he works to control the 16:41 coin and through its agency works out his plans. Let none be 16:47 so easily deceived as to place confidence in such tests. Let 16:51 none belittle the experience by resorting to cheap devices for 16:56 the direction in important matters connected with the work 16:58 of God." So I say that to say this story I do not want to lead 17:04 the audience into saying we should be praying for fleeces or 17:07 praying for this kind of thing. God wants us to exercise faith 17:10 Makes me think of Thomas. He wouldn't believe in Christ until 17:14 he saw Christ. How many of us should be believing before we 17:18 see. You know exercising our faith but this story I really 17:23 want to set up as inspiration to anyone that might be 17:27 struggling is this God's will God is will. I just point 17:32 Adventists to that. I want to God waits to say God really wants 17:35 our young people involved in ministry. He wants them to work 17:38 for Him. Anyway enough of my side note. 17:42 It's really good. I mean God does want us to be active. 17:49 He's not looking for bench warmers. He's looking for people 17:51 to get out there in the field. We serve a God of action you 17:54 know and so He wants us to take action and to lead people to Him 17:59 And it's a beautiful thing to partake in that work. 18:04 So I was in my...I was praying for this prayer, right, that God 18:07 would send the recruiter in the doorway of my classroom 18:11 according to that clock above the sink and the day came where 18:16 I found out the recruiter was scheduled to be at my school 18:19 at eight in the morning, first part of the day to do worship. 18:23 But I was praying for 10 in the morning. And I didn't stop 18:27 praying for 10 in the morning. Even that day I remember saying 18:30 Lord you know I've been praying for months now for 10 and he 18:34 calls right around 8 o'clock and the teacher, who is also my mom, 18:38 she tells us hey the recruiter's going to be running a couple 18:45 hours late. My stomach starts to turn and I go to the bathroom 18:50 and the recruiter, his name is Marshall McKenzie, a wonderful 18:54 pastor, he's been a big blessing to me over the years. But he's 18:57 in the bathroom just a few minutes before 10. I'm like hey 19:00 have you walked through the door way in this classroom yet? He 19:03 looked at me like what? And he was like no I just got here and 19:07 went to the bathroom. I'm like okay. So he goes into the 19:10 classroom and Pastor Marshall McKenzie walked right up 19:14 to the doorway 19:16 and doesn't walk in. Stands there. And then the teacher, my 19:21 mom, she walks right up to the doorway and she stands there and 19:23 they're both right in between the doorway and they're there 19:26 for about five minutes talking. And the clock lined up. I jumped 19:32 up on the counter, I jumped up on the counter, I looked at the 19:36 clock as closely as I could and it lined up perfectly at 10 19:39 o'clock, it couldn't be more than 10 o'clock than that moment right 19:42 there. I said, Lord if you want me to do this send him in the 19:45 door. That second he walked through the door. (Wow that is 19:49 huge) It's like God's real. I have more confidence in this 19:55 program than anything else on the planet. There's a lot of 19:58 good things we can do. Summer camp. I spent a couple summers 20:01 at summer camp. They're great. You know cleaning the church is 20:05 good, there's nothing wrong with making burritos, good burritos 20:09 but this is God's plan and I just have so much confidence 20:15 and this is His mission for us. 20:17 Absolutely. Is literature evangelism hard? 20:22 Yeah, I was going to do this a few minutes ago but to me right 20:27 now I say literature evangelism is not hard. You know I mean you 20:32 are walking around. That's not that big of a deal. I went on a 20:35 walk for fun yesterday. So it's not that bad. You carry a bag. 20:39 It's not too heavy to me. Now maybe some people might argue. 20:42 But in a sense it's pretty easy. However what is hard is all 20:48 mental. I mean you could even say emotional. I said this a 20:54 few second ago but you know when I was a kid starting out facing 20:59 rejection for the first time relatively spoiled you could say 21:04 You know, I didn't know I was spoiled but I was. You now I was 21:10 I'd just never faced rejection and no's like that before. And 21:11 that was hard for me. I had to learn to get over me. Over you 21:18 you know it's selfish to be upset when someone says no to 21:21 you. But that is ministry. Ministry is wrestling, 21:25 not against 21:27 flesh and blood and it's a wrestle. We need to learn to not 21:31 rely on ourselves for that but rely on Christ. He's our 21:35 strength, He's our power and when we let go of us it's not 21:41 that hard. Really enjoyable. I found it a big blessing. 21:46 Mmm. The other thing you know that's a big part of our 21:50 Christian journey you know as we're walking through, like we 21:54 have to get rid of self and we die to self and live for Christ 21:58 so, yeah, that's a huge part of our Christian life. 22:01 And now even I when I get rejected it's almost like fuel 22:03 to the fire. I kind of get pumped up. Going hours where 22:10 there's a lot of noise like ah there's something good coming 22:11 you know. The principle of the little lost coin, that parable 22:15 that Jesus shared is a reality to me on a daily basis. Looking 22:20 for that one person. 22:22 Yeah. And you know what, you never know too, because as you 22:25 go to the door and you share well you attempt to share the 22:30 good news of Jesus Christ. They may reject you in that moment 22:34 but maybe a seed has been planted that later gets watered 22:38 and then they're in somebody's church down the street or 22:41 whatever. Yeah. 22:43 Absolutely you don't know. 22:44 Yeah for sure (what happened) 22:46 Now you're a pastor and you know you've been asked to pastor 22:49 several different churches but yet you continue in this work. 22:54 Why is that? 22:55 You know it's a great question. I love pastoring, I really do. 23:00 I go to church in Windsor. They're wonderful and Indiana 23:05 I pastored a few churches. Mary and Markle in Hartford City, 23:08 Hello guys. Like I love pastoring but I really have a 23:14 burden for this ministry, for our literature work to really 23:22 prosper. A hundred and some years ago it was a different 23:26 scenario but today I feel the literature work is largely 23:31 lacking. I feel like especially in the North American Division 23:34 you know we can do more to make it healthy and run it in a way 23:40 that really makes it successful for our young people. Um this 23:45 quote I believe what draws me here is I believe the literature 23:52 is going to make a big impact in the last days. This is a common 23:57 book, everyone's heard of the Great Controversy but let me 24:00 just share this quote with you. This is from The Final Warning 24:03 It says, "The message will be carried not so much by argument 24:08 as by deep conviction of the Holy Spirit." So she's looking 24:11 into the very, very last days of the last days in the very, 24:16 very, very end of time, talking about the latter rain being 24:19 poured out and so the "work largely is going to be done by 24:23 the conviction of the Holy Spirit" and then she goes on: 24:26 "The arguments have been presented which I think is 24:28 pointing back to now. They have been presented and then then 24:33 the seed has been sown." So we got the work done, Amen to us. 24:38 Praise God. "But then it springs up and bears fruit" and she goes 24:45 on to elaborate, What is the seed that was being referred to 24:47 and she spelled it out directly "The publications distributed by 24:51 the missionary workers having exerted their influence yet many 24:55 whose minds have been impressed were prevented from 24:58 comprehending the truth or from yielding obedience." I've seen 25:02 this so many times. I was a Bible worker and I did Bible 25:07 studies with this pilot and his family and I gave them a Great 25:13 Controversy. A week later he comes back and he has like a 25:18 copy, like copies of this big of his book or stuff in the book in 25:22 the Great Controversy that he really liked and he read this 25:28 whole thing in one week and he was blessed. 25:30 He read the whole thing in one week?! 25:32 One week. Yeah it took me a year. 25:34 Yeah, it's 400 and something, 500 pages. 25:37 But he didn't yield obedience yet. It didn't completely make 25:41 sense to him. Another experience I was at a door. Some guy says 25:47 hey I have that book, comes back out with an old Great 25:49 Controversy. Highlights everywhere. Multiple colors. 25:52 black ink. I mean this thing is lit up and he showed it to me 25:56 but again he wasn't ready to yield obedience. I feel like 26:01 this work is almost like buying into a Roth IRA or something. 26:06 You know we're told that many people will get these books. 26:09 They're not quite ready to yield obedience but the time will come 26:14 when the latter rain is poured out, when it's time to retire 26:17 I'm looking forward to that day. That people will be won to the 26:22 truth that thousands will be converted in a day who will 26:25 trace their first convictions to the reading of our books. 26:28 On that same note I mean Dr. Kibble a very respected 26:34 seminary professor, he did some extensive research on why people 26:40 stay in the church. And I thought this was really 26:44 interesting. The number one reason why people join the 26:47 church or stay in the church is that they were raised in it. 26:50 Makes sense. I'm there. I was raised in the church. Number two 26:54 they had friends or relatives. The top two reasons why people 26:57 join the church. The third reason which I thought was 27:02 awesome is because of books or literature. Books or literature 27:06 are the evangelistic tool that leads people into the church. 27:10 And there's a lot of other things or reasons why but those 27:13 are the top three reasons. The fourth reason which is a common 27:18 one is a public evangelistic series. I'm preaching one in 27:22 October and I think it's great. You know Bible studies in homes 27:25 By pastors, TV, and radio stations, correspondence Bible 27:28 studies, internet material. All these things make an impact but 27:32 the top three was your friends being raised in the church and 27:36 then sharing literature. You know so our literature makes 27:39 an impact on people. 27:43 Absolutely. Have you... 27:46 You know have you heard of the Barna, Barna group. (I have not) 27:49 So you can go to Barna.com and they have a whole bunch of 27:51 different research. It's like a nondenominational Christian 27:55 research firm. And I thought this was really cool. They did a 28:01 survey on what are pastors favorite author under 40, 28:07 pastors under 40 favorite authors and on the top three 28:11 that came to the surface talking about Baptist, nondenominational 28:14 Methodist, you know mainstream audience. Who their favorite 28:18 authors were and Barna says Ellen White was the top three 28:23 (Wow) from these pastors favorite authors. 28:28 Wow, so on a nondenominational site Ellen White was in the top 28:33 three. 28:34 If you want sources I can find them. It's amazing. Beautiful. 28:36 That's incredible, that's incredible. And these pastors 28:41 are reading this stuff. You know they're preaching it as well. 28:43 Yes, yes. So walk us through the program. What does Youth Rush 28:49 look like. How do you prepare to go out and knock on doors. Walk 28:54 us through the whole process and how do you get the kids to 28:56 buy in? 28:58 Sure. So it's a hard pitch. Hey you want to come and go door to 29:02 door all summer? Yeah. It's not easiest sell. This summer in 29:08 Colorado, we'll have about 30 young people going door to door. 29:12 And pray for them. You have to have a mission-minded young 29:17 person. You know there's a lot of ways to make money. You know 29:23 you can work in McDonald's and get paid good money these days. 29:27 You know, but there's a lot of young people that have a burden 29:30 for mission as well. So when they come we just enhance that 29:36 burden that's already there. These kids are raised in the 29:39 church or even converts to the church. We had a girl just a 29:43 couple years ago that was baptized and then a month later 29:46 she joined us. She's the only Adventist in her family. And she 29:51 just had amazing, amazing stories to share. I mean just 29:55 books of Divine appointments. It's wonderful. But yeah I mean 30:02 you have to have a mission minded young person. 30:05 Yes, yes. And so as you're preparing to go out and knock on 30:08 doors like do you have like a table full of literature and you 30:13 guys carry those, put them in bags and head out. Like what's 30:17 the...give us the steps. 30:19 Step by step (yeah) what does their day looks like, (exactly) 30:21 So we packed their bags. We've got these nice little custom bags 30:26 and we put our books all lined up in there properly, throw the 30:31 books on the kid's shoulder and then they go into a minivan 30:35 with a leader. These are people who've done this before, they've 30:39 been through it multiple years. They're old enough now. They're 30:43 safe drivers. You know we have a policy in Colorado that you're 30:45 not even allowed to drive without a perfect record. If you 30:47 have one speeding ticket or a parking ticket. You can't even 30:50 drive. 30:51 There's a lot of people disqualified from that part. 30:53 Yeah, absolutely. Until you're 21 and you get a little more 30:57 flexibility there. But yeah we put these guys in the minivans 31:01 singing and praying in the van, and we get out there. We just 31:05 start knocking on doors. About three and a half hours and we 31:08 stop for lunch. Take a break. Then we do it again after lunch 31:12 and then go home in the evening and play some games and have 31:16 some fun and go to bed. 31:18 That's awesome. What stories can you share about maybe a life 31:23 that has been touched or transformed as a result of the 31:27 literature evangelism works. 31:29 Ah man, there's so many stories. Honestly, we could dedicate a 31:32 whole episode to just literature evangelism stories. (I love it) 31:36 I think it would be awesome. I could invite some friends and 31:38 they could all share their stories as well but I think one 31:41 that really jumps out to me is I went to college, started off 31:46 at Southern Adventist University Great school. Wanted to be a 31:51 pastor, so I studied theology there but one thing led to 31:55 another and I ended up leaving the school and one thing led to 32:00 the next thing and I ended up going to a Bible college called 32:02 Souls West. What really sold me on it was it was very hands-on. 32:07 It wasn't just downloading data but we'd do that, we'd do 32:13 training but then we would go out and have some practical 32:16 application to all the stuff they were throwing our way. 32:18 So it was my second year at Souls West, I went to it out in 32:23 Arizona and I just did a class on how to be a Bible worker but 32:30 then the practicum for Bible work. So the other teachers and 32:33 staff in the school they're assisting you to be a Bible worker 32:36 while I'm Bible-working. But the greatest goal of being a Bible 32:40 worker is getting Bible studies to study the Bible with. And so 32:43 I was processing on how to get and generate 32:47 more interest 32:49 more Bible study students and I found out the easiest way for me 32:53 at least to just keep it really simple and ask them. So one 32:59 Sabbath afternoon my other Bible worker friends couldn't make it 33:03 and they had surveys we were going to do and I was like aah 33:05 I'm just going to go and ask people if they would like to 33:08 study the Bible with me. So first door I knock on it, the 33:13 guy answered and I go hey I go to Bible college and I'm looking 33:15 for some guinea pigs. You want to study the Bible with me? 33:18 Sure. And I go through this little cul de sac, less than an 33:24 hour doing it three people signed up for Bible studies. 33:25 It was awesome. But it was only a practicum so I needed to 33:31 transfer those Bible studies off to our church members. And so I 33:36 handed off a Bible study interest to Ron and Sheryl 33:38 Sheraton. Call them mom and dad today. I lived with them for 33:42 that moment in time, great people but they finished the 33:48 Bible studies with this guy and they gave me a call about a 33:52 month or two later about this gentleman that I met at the door 33:55 was getting baptized. And I was excited. First time I ever met 33:59 someone that actually went through the whole system and 34:02 joined the church. So I drive down from Mesa from Flagstaff, 34:09 Arizona down to Mesa and go to this guy's baptism. After the 34:15 church service was over some lady came up to me and she said 34:20 hey, do you remember me? And I mean I got a goldfish memory 34:24 It's in and out you know. And I'm like sorry no I don't 34:28 remember you. And she said you knocked on my door a few months 34:33 ago and I was like cool. She said what you don't know is I 34:40 got Desire of Ages and Steps to Christ, and Christ's Object 34:43 Lessons and she said three days later my daughter disappeared. 34:48 And I still have no idea where she's at. And she said, those 34:52 books were the biggest blessing to me. They were exactly what I 34:56 needed at that time. And it didn't hit me till a few 34:58 moments later but I left and went to start driving home and 35:02 it hit me. I was like wow. Someone was baptized because I 35:07 simply knocked on the door and someone else was in the church 35:08 that was greatly blessed as a result of my ministry as well 35:12 from simply knocking on their door. We don't know the impact 35:18 that we'll make you know but... 35:21 Absolutely. (yeah) I wonder if she ever found her daughter? 35:24 I have no idea, never saw her again. 35:26 Man! Yeah, it's incredible. We have to open our mouths. We have 35:31 to speak up and share the good news of Jesus Christ. What I've 35:37 found is that you know there a lot of people who are hungry for 35:39 the gospel. The problem is they're looking in all the wrong 35:43 places because they don't know what it is they're looking for. 35:45 They're looking for something to fill that void. As Christians we 35:50 know that only Jesus Christ can do that. You know we talked 35:53 about studying the Bible and so my question to you Pastor Hasty 35:58 is How do you recommend someone go about studying the 36:02 Bible? Where should they start? 36:05 You know I'm a pretty simple guy. (okay) I like to keep 36:08 everything really simple. I preach at my church regularly 36:13 you know but my sermon development time is lacking 36:18 because I spend a lot of my time going door to door. And the more 36:23 I read and the more I study the more I see all these 36:27 illustrations especially in the ministry of Jesus. You know He 36:30 had so many illustrations. And so when I learn something that 36:34 just connects with me my next thought is how can I make this 36:40 as practical as possible by adding the story that could help 36:44 bring home that point or another form of illustration, 36:48 you know science experiments whatever you know. Something to 36:51 make the Bible come to life a little bit more. So that's been 36:55 my journey. I like to process slowly and then make it come to 37:00 life with some good applications. 37:02 Yes and so that's when you're preparing like your sermons. 37:04 But what about like if someone's studying the Bible. They want to 37:08 study the Bible like let's say this is their first time like 37:12 ever looking at the Bible. Where should they start? 37:16 Well you're talking to a literature evangelist. I 37:20 recommend getting a book and reading it. Even the ministry of 37:24 Ellen White. She said herself that her goal is to bring us 37:29 closer to the 37:30 Bible. Her ministry is just to help us to get into the word. 37:33 You know so authors are designed to help us understand and 37:38 comprehend scripture. And so I recommend getting some books and 37:42 just reading on various Bible topics. I just picked up another 37:47 book. Amazing Facts came out with a daily devotional on 37:50 Revelation I bought a hundred of them and gave them to all my 37:56 church members as well. Yeah books are great in helping us 38:00 dig deeper in the word of God. But there's nothing wrong with 38:03 just keeping it simple in the word of God either. You know 38:07 starting slow and then as your reading you might have questions 38:11 You know go back to the Concordance and look all the 38:15 verses similar to that verse All the words in the Greek or 38:19 the Hebrew that are similar to that word. You know we can do 38:21 that very simply by using our study tools we have, Bible 38:26 concordance is a great tool and can reveal a lot of cool things 38:29 in the scriptures. 38:31 Yeah absolutely. And it's so important to study line upon 38:34 line and precept upon precept here a little there a little. 38:37 You know you can't form doctrine off one passage. But sure so 38:41 that's really good. How can we bless the literature evangelism 38:45 work? 38:47 Yeah, great question. I'm glad you asked that. First thing, you 38:50 can buy a book. You know our kids go door to door. If you 38:58 have a literature evangelist knock on your door be a blessing 39:00 to them. If you don't have money you can't buy, give them water, 39:03 pray with them you know. But be ready to bless them if they ever 39:08 do knock on your door. But you know I believe in prayer, I 39:11 really do. Just a couple weeks ago I had some kids at Campion 39:17 Academy. We have a program that we take out at a high school in 39:20 Colorado these kids almost every day. And you know we went 39:25 out and started knocking on doors and in about two hours we 39:28 had 20 books with my little group of five kids. It was 39:31 awesome. The next day, that same town almost like the next street 39:36 right over we were out there for about two hours and we had like 39:41 a book, maybe two. It was really really slow. We didn't pray with 39:44 anyone, we didn't sign up with the Bible studies. Like it was 39:46 just like nothing was happening which in those moments and it 39:51 probably should be more than this to be honest, what do you 39:53 do? You pray. And so I got in the habit of texting my mom 39:59 hey mom we're struggling here pray for us. And then our group 40:07 we're starting to text other people. Pray for so and so. He's 40:09 looking a little discouraged right now. You know and by 40:14 prayer we see the books being circulated. Hey this quote, I 40:19 want to read it with you. Humble fervent prayer, it's right in 40:22 this book right here..."Humble fervent prayer would do more in 40:27 behalf of the circulation of our books than by all expensive 40:30 embellishments in the world." (Wow) Humble fervent prayer. 40:33 (Yes, yes) That's how we get our books out. 40:35 (Yeah) And so we just a couple weeks ago we went and set a goal 40:38 prayer felt goal, We want to get 20 books out. Two hours goes by 40:42 like maybe one or two. I text my mom, I text some friends. Jerry 40:48 Pumperton I texted him. I mean my prayer warriors, I need you 40:51 to pray for my team. We only have about 45 minutes left. We 40:54 are praying for 20 books. Pray for us. I don't know what 40:58 happened. We ended up with like 25 books in the last few minutes 41:01 of the day. And prayed with some lady from England and signed her 41:05 up for Bible studies. Like that's not coincidence. Answer 41:11 to prayer. So how can you pray? I'd encourage you to be prayer 41:16 warriors for our literature evangelists throughout this 41:18 country. Um on your screen I imagine there's going to be a 41:22 QR code that you could participate. If you want to be 41:25 on the front lines with us pray 41:27 Pull out your phone. If you don't know what is pull up your 41:32 camera on your phone and it should highlight something. 41:35 Click on that and it'll take you 41:36 to a simple way for you to keep 41:39 in touch with us. I'll send you 41:41 personally a text message whenever one of our kids is 41:43 struggling and you want to pray for them. We encourage and 41:48 love your prayers for our kids. You can also go to our website 41:53 rmcyouthrush.com and you can sign up there to be a prayer 42:02 warrior. 42:04 Yes, yes. Is there anything else that you have a burden for that 42:06 we can pray for? 42:09 Yeah so I read a book, it's a very small little book on Luke 42:15 chapter 10 verse 2. It says the harvest is great, the laborers 42:18 are few therefore pray to the Lord of harvest to send forth 42:22 laborers into the harvest. You know I would encourage us to 42:25 apply that prayer request from Jesus. You know Jesus 42:30 specifically asked us to pray for more workers and we should 42:33 be doing that. You know as I was kind of reading into that and 42:37 studying that something kind of dawned on me and this is you 42:42 know maybe my thing but I could be arthic so in high school I 42:49 went to Great Lakes Adventist Academy and they have this thing 42:53 at 10 o'clock in the morning every single morning the alarm 42:56 goes off and that's our alarm to pray for two minutes. It's in 43:02 the morning. And then I looked at Luke 10:2 and that memory 43:06 came to mind from my high school experience and I was like that 43:11 Luke 10:2 in the morning for two minutes could be my prayer 43:17 mantra for the rest of my life. So whenever possible and it's 43:21 not always possible but whenever possible I have an alarm that 43:25 goes off and at 10 o'clock I stop whatever I'm doing if I can 43:29 and I pray, not just for everything but I pray 43:33 specifically for laborers. And I encourage you to do that. I mean 43:37 how often would that be that if next year this time instead of 43:40 30 literature evangelists in Colorado, we have a hundred. You 43:44 know. Instead of a thousand literature evangelists in the 43:46 North American Division you know we have two thousand. You know 43:50 as a specific result of us praying for more workers. 43:55 Absolutely. You know I love the fact that you said set an alarm 43:58 and pray at a specific time. My mother, she sets an alarm and 44:02 she prays for our family members that are out, you know, out of 44:06 the church and don't know Christ or have walked away from Christ. 44:10 And Daniel he stopped in his schedule three times a day to 44:15 pray you know. And we get in the habit of praying before bed 44:18 or when we first get up in the morning. And then some of you 44:22 know we pray all day long. But still, we need to make a special 44:26 moment every day or multiple times a day to have prayer. 44:32 I think that'd be great. 44:34 Absolutely. So what are the needs, what are some of the 44:36 needs of the ministry? 44:37 What are the needs of the ministry? You know I mentioned 44:41 prayer, it's a great thing. You know our conference is super 44:47 supportive in Colorado. They help us out whenever there's a 44:51 need. And really beyond our conference our North American 44:57 Division and General Conference you know they support us. When 45:00 you're going door to door you're opening up opportunities for a 45:05 kick back in various ways. You know but we have a structure in 45:09 our church that really supports all of our students in a very 45:12 powerful way. So if I'd say if there's a need, I need more 45:19 workers you know. It's like Jesus needed to pray for them. 45:23 And you know honestly, that's the first two that come in mind. 45:32 Got you. How...Now if someone wants to get involved, right, 45:35 how do they get involved with the literature evangelism? 45:38 Yeah, I would say the first thing you should do if you want 45:40 to get involved in the literature evangelist program 45:42 as you should I would check with your local conference and you 45:51 know Youth Rush is the coined term for multiple different 45:55 conferences use that term. We have our own structure and 45:57 curriculum that we use. But there's a lot of other good 46:00 programs in North America that might not be called Youth Rush. 46:04 They can be called something else but it's literature 46:06 evangelism-focused ministry. So I would check with your local 46:10 conference, see what they're doing. And if they're doing 46:12 something, great, participate in that program. Stay local. I 46:17 think that's great. When you're going door to door one of the 46:20 first questions I get is Where you from? I'm from New Jersey 46:24 What are you in Colorado for? People you know are respectful 46:29 of fun and all my kids from out of state have fun. Everybody's 46:33 successful but it's still awesome to say you're local. So 46:37 that'd be my first step. Check out your local program. If you 46:40 don't have a local program may be ask your church or your 46:43 conference or both of them to start something local. You know 46:48 it'd be awesome to do something for your own territory. And if 46:52 that doesn't work out, you can go to our website YouthRush.com 46:56 or my personal website in Colorado is RMCyouthrush.com 47:02 and you can see all the list of conferences that have a program 47:06 but you can check out our programs there as well. You know 47:10 the bottom line is get involved. Do something. Do something for 47:16 the Lord. 47:18 Now what if someone's sitting there and they're saying like 47:19 well, this is Youth Rush. Like I'm not a youth anymore, like 47:24 I'm old. I'm older. So how can they get involved? 47:28 Well, we have an old rush, no, (giggles) gold rush. You know we 47:36 we all can be literature evangelists. On the way over 47:39 here I had a shirt that said ask me for a Bible pamphlet. 47:41 and if I don't have it I'll give you $5. I made sure I had Bible 47:45 pamphlets because I didn't have $5. You know we checked out 47:49 we went to the zoo, there's a free zoo, and we walked through 47:54 there with my wife and kid. By the way if you're watching um 47:56 what's the kids program called, just skipped my mind. Starting 48:03 with Jesus, Starting with Jesus. It's on 3ABN. My wife is Amanda 48:07 and my daughter Alisa. You can see them every week on that 48:09 program. Monday as we were walking through the zoo and then 48:14 we went to the arch and checked out the arch and it was fun. I 48:18 had at least three or four people walk up to me and they're like 48:21 nice shirt! And I handed them a Bible pamphlet. Hand them a 48:26 little Glow tract, hand them a little book. Everywhere we go we 48:28 can be a literature evangelist You know there's wonderful Glow 48:34 tracts. 3ABN has books, all kinds of sharing books. Pacific 48:37 Press is coming out with a big push for the Great Controversy 48:41 here soon. You know when we're going to the grocery store, when 48:44 we're on trips, when we're just living life we can be 48:50 missionaries. You know and there's golden opportunities 48:53 Everywhere we go we should be prayerfully filling those 48:57 moments up with sharing literature. 48:58 Absolutely. You know I love the fact that you had that shirt on 49:02 because you were like a walking literature evangelist. You know 49:07 you had the shirt on if I don't have a...was it a Bible pamphlet 49:11 A Bible pamphlet. 49:13 then I'll give you $5. That's pretty bold. Because if you 49:17 forgot it in the car they're going to take you up on the $5 49:20 I got nervous. I had one tract left and I told my wife, I said 49:24 hey do you have any more because I'm getting scared here. 49:27 She had one extra in her bag, I had more in my car but I...The 49:32 Bible says he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. That 49:34 verse came to life yesterday for me. 49:38 Absolutely, absolutely. Participating in this work, how 49:41 had that strengthened your faith 49:42 Oh in every single way. Sixteen years old. I mentioned being 49:48 discouraged you know just from the rejection. But I guess 49:51 beside for that aside from the selfishness that came with that 49:54 I also had no faith. You know I mean...and God...I knew God 50:00 wanted me there but I was praying and pleading and begging 50:03 like a little crying kid every day that God would bless me. 50:06 You know I think God wanted me to just relax a little bit, have 50:11 confidence in what I'm going to do. You know James says you're 50:14 like the waves of the sea-driven and tossed by the wind. You look 50:16 in the mirror and you completely forget what kind of man you are 50:18 That was me. I was pleading with God praying like I never had 50:23 before but you know it was not full of faith. You know and so 50:30 this program at 16 years old developed in me confidence in 50:35 what God could do. It really took away all confidence in what 50:38 I could do. You know I've got a full list of weaknesses but God 50:44 has mixed those strengths, those powers. 50:47 His strength is made perfect in our weakness. 50:49 You grow in service. You look at the disciples. They didn't sit 50:54 down at a desk and memorize scripture all day, which is good 50:58 There's a point where we need to study. The disciples' training 51:04 was following Christ. They went out into the community in 51:08 service... 51:09 And they mingled with the people All types of people and yes 51:15 healing and spreading the gospel yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I 51:19 love the fact it strengthened your faith and it enhanced your 51:23 Christian journey, you know, step by step. We've got a little 51:27 bit more to cover but I want you to know how you can get 51:33 involved. I want you to know how you can support and we're going 51:36 to go to an address roll in just a minute and the news break and 51:40 we will be right back. So don't go anywhere. We'll see you 51:43 in a minute. 51:44 If you would like more information about Youth Rush 51:49 you can write to them at 2520 S. Downing St. Denver, CO 80210 52:03 You can call (970) 703-4546 You can find them online at 52:15 YouthRush.com or email them at Matth@rmcsda.org 52:28 ♪ ♪ |
Revised 2023-10-04