The Laurelbrook Seventh-day Adventist Church service on January 19, 2019 began with Eric (senior) welcoming everyone and making a few announcements.
Jeremy Westcott played an introit. Eric had the invocation. The congregation then sang “In Times Like These”. Clayton Brandt had the main prayer; the congregation responded with “Hear Our Prayer, O Lord”.
Eric (senior) then called for the offering. Daryll Ellis and Saul (junior)then collected the morning offerings; the loose offering went to the local church budget. Felix (junior) played the piano while the offerings were being collected. The congregation sang the doxology, and Eric (senior) prayed for the offering.
Eric (senior) then read 1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”
Clayton Brandt then told the children a story about a colporteur and a lion. The colporteur was selling books in a rural area in Africa, but nobody was interested in his books. So he rested under a wide spreading tree. Eventually he climbed the tree and sat on a big branch. A lion saw the tree and laid down under the tree. The colporteur started falling asleep and falling out of the tree. He landed right on top of the lion! The lion took off running with the colporteur clinging to his back. The duo headed straight through a village. Eventually the colporteur was able to get off. The colporteur sold all his books because the villagers was awed by his experience with the lion.
Clayton Brandt discussed the topic “How Can We Know?” The congregation sang “Give Me the Bible”. Clayton Brandt had the closing prayer.
Personnel Other Than Students:
Clayton Brandt – works with Laurelbrook’s heavy equipment, including the trash truck
Daryll Ellis – local church deacon who works for nearby Majestic Stone Company
Jeremy Westcott – teaches some of the academy Bible and English classes and works with the music department
Following are some notes on the sermon by Clayton Brandt:
- Psalm 119:105 “NUN. Thy word [is] a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
- David was strong at times in faith, but there were other times when he was weak in faith. The devil battled for his soul – all Christians must go through this experience.
- The Bible does have stories in it that could be hard to believe were it not for faith.
- The Bible has many prophecies that were fulfilled to the letter.
- Moses told Israel to go to Mount Elba and worship there, reading the Commandments (Deuteronomy 27). An archeologist went to the area and found Joshua’s altar in this area.
- The archeologist sent someone to Mount Gerizim and found the acoustics so good that you could hear anyone on either mountain anywhere in the area.
- The group found ashes in the altar area with over 900 animals identified.
- The story of Balaam has been ridiculed. In an Amorite city, they found an administrative building with pieces of plastic fallen next to a wall. This plaster showed the story of Balaam and the talking donkey. These Amorites were Israelite’s enemies!
- Jericho was excavated by an atheist who didn’t find any evidence of Israel’s conquest. But recently another archeologist excavated in a different area of the site. This site had huge stones laid down, pottery from Joshua’s time, and insects with Egyptian names and dates. The insects’ dates ended with Joshua’s conquest.
- He found part of the Jericho wall still standing with a tiny window high up with a home behind the window.
- Joshua 2:15 “Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house [was] upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall.”
- 2 Samuel 5:11 “And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David an house.”
- The House of David didn’t turn up when two archeologists looked for it and said this was a myth. But a female archeologist said she used the Bible to help her excavations. She picked a location according to the verse and found the remains of the palace – a six-story building almost 600 feet in width.
- Next to the House of David there was an archive building with important papers from important people. When the building was burned, the clay seals survived. 26 had names of people in the Bible.
- Hezekiah’s tunnel was found in the late 1800s. 2 Chronicles 32:30 “This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works.”
- There is an inscription describing the completion of the tunnel.
- Luke wrote the Book of Acts, which many archeologist deny was written at the time it said it was written due to lack of any historical record of its stories.
- But one archeologist followed the Book of Acts through its journeys. All the places named were entirely accurate.
- In one city, excavators found a mosaic of a man carrying a huge gate on his shoulder, confirmation of the Bible story.
- An Adventist nuclear physicist worked in the Oak Ridge laboratory. He found tiny macroscopic halos in rocks. Radium decays in various stages, staining the rocks during these stages.
- These were mica chips whose halos expanded for 3 ½ minutes. The halos contain only one substance. Any reconstruction of this process always results with more than one substance, evidence of God’s power working.