“I Can’t Do This”

By Andrew McChesney

The party sounded perfect. A table was booked at a club in Harare, Zimbabwe. Alcohol was purchased, and people were invited. But Elder didn’t come. “What happened?” Hubert asked when he later saw his friend.

“I can’t do this,” Elder replied. “I’m an elder.”

Image © Pacific Press

Hubert had heard the explanation before. He and Elder had become friends while teaching at a high school in Harare. Nineteen-year-old Hubert was taking off a year to teach before entering the university. Elder was 25 and an elder at a Seventh-day Adventist church. Hubert partied, but Elder would not participate. He always explained, “I can’t do this. I’m an elder.”

Hubert had never met an Adventist before, and he thought, “This guy is true to his church.” But he declined Elder’s invitations to go to church.

The next year, Hubert enrolled at Midlands State University in Gweru. He kept remembering Elder, and he visited an Adventist church for the first time. The people were warm and friendly, and the sermon touched his heart. During the semester break, he went to another Adventist church while visiting an aunt. It got to the point that every time he saw a church, he wanted to go inside. He felt like something was missing from his spiritual life.

For his second year of studies, Hubert received a scholarship to study in Russia. He wondered whether he would find an Adventist church there.

One Saturday, he was drunk when Mildred arrived at the birthday party of a mutual friend at 8 p.m. in Moscow. “Why did you come so late?” he asked.

“I was at church,” Mildred said.

“But it’s Saturday,” Hubert said. “Church is on Sunday.”

“Well, I’m a Seventh-day Adventist,” she said.

Hubert couldn’t believe his ears. Mildred saw his interest and invited him to go to church the next Sabbath. She even waited for him in the metro station on Sabbath morning. But Hubert was embarrassed that she had seen him drunk and did not show up. When she called to see where he was, he found himself saying, “I’m sorry. I’ll come next Sabbath.” Mildred called him throughout the week to remind him of his promise. He accompanied her to the Moscow International Seventh-day Adventist Church on Sabbath.

A year later, Hubert gave his heart to Jesus in baptism. He contacted Elder and thanked him for being faithful. Elder was overjoyed!

Today, Hubert Nyabadza is an active church member. “I am thankful to God that He led me to the Seventh-day Adventist Church,” he said.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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Further Thought:

 “From the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven it has been Satan’s purpose to overthrow the law of God. It was to accomplish this that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator, and though he was cast out of heaven he has continued the same warfare upon the earth.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God’s law, is the object which he has steadfastly pursued. Whether this be accomplished by casting aside the law altogether, or by rejecting one of its precepts, the result will be ultimately the same. … In seeking to cast contempt upon the divine statutes, Satan has perverted the doctrines of the Bible, and errors have thus become incorporated into the faith of thousands who profess to believe the Scriptures. The last great conflict between truth and error is but the final struggle of the long-standing controversy concerning the law of God. Upon this battle we are now entering — a battle between the laws of men and the precepts of Jehovah, between the religion of the Bible and the religion of fable and tradition.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 582.

Throughout Revelation, worship and creation are indissolubly linked. The essence of the controversy between good and evil, and the issues surrounding the mark of the beast, revolve around whether God is worthy to be worshiped.

As we have seen, the concept of Christ as Creator is at the very heart of Sabbath worship. Jesus consistently underlines the significance of the day of which He calls Himself the “Lord” (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, Luke 6:5). The Sabbath is an eternal reminder of our identity. It reminds us of who we are as human beings. It places worth on every human being. It constantly reinforces the idea that we are created beings, and that our Creator is worthy of our allegiance and worship. This is the reason why the devil hates the Sabbath so much. It is the golden link that unites us with our Creator and why it will play such a crucial role in the final crisis at the end.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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Join the discussion as we look at Lesson 11, The Seal of God and Mark of the Beast: Part 1

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Read Revelation 13:4-5. What identifying marks of the beast power do we discover in these verses?

The beast of Revelation is an apostate religious power that rises out of pagan Rome and grows to become a worldwide system of worship. According to Revelation 13:5, it is a blasphemous power. In the New Testament, blasphemy is equated with assuming the privileges and prerogatives of God as an equal.

Read Luke 5:18-26 and John 10:33. What two aspects of blasphemy do these verses identify?

mage © Steve Creitz from GoodSalt.com

Jesus was accused of blasphemy by the leaders. In Jesus’ case the accusations were unjust because He has all the powers and prerogatives of God — including the right to forgive our sins. And that is because Jesus is God. Or as He so powerfully expressed it: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ ” (John 14:9).

Meanwhile, 1 Timothy 2:5 teaches that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. In contrast, the Roman Church teaches that the priest is the mediator between God and sinful humanity. But because the priest himself is a sinful human being, he cannot be our mediator because he also needs a mediator. Blasphemy is also defined as the claim of any man to be God or to stand in the place of God. Here are just two statements from the Roman Church’s authoritative sources:

“The pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not a mere man. … he is as it were GOD on earth.” — Lucius Ferraris, “Papa,” article 2 in his Prompta Bibliotheca (1763), vol. 6, Pages 25 – 29.

Pope Leo XIII boasted: “We [the popes] hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.” — The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII (New York: Benziger, 1903), p. 193.

These claims become even more relevant when we understand that the word “anti-,” as in anti-Christ, doesn’t always mean “against” but can also mean “in the place of.” Hence anti-Christ also means “in place of Christ.” Talk about blasphemy!

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Monday’s section of this week’s Sabbath School lesson asks the question, 

Think about a time when life seemed to crumble around you and all that you had was your faith. How did you get by? What lessons did you learn? What did you experience that could help others who might be going through something similar?

When I saw this question I thought of a story I had just shared with some friends yesterday. Twenty-five  years ago, I was engaged to be married. While I was engaged, I was working as a full-time Bible worker in a three-church district in the  Fort Worth, Texas, area. However, I was a local hire with no benefits. Wanting to provide health insurance for my bride-to-be, I went to UPS where I got a part-time job working from 3:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., which provided me and my family-to-be with health insurance. This was in addition to my full-time job as a Bible Worker. 

Being a Bible Worker, sitting around in people’s living rooms talking about the Gospel all the time, I was not used to strenuous physical labor. I found it very hard to get up at 2:00 every morning, and even harder to do strenuous labor when I should have been sleeping in the middle of the night. It made my whole daily routine very difficult, especially at first. There was no time for me to waste. Every moment of my day had to be carefully planned in order to make things work out. One of the hardest parts was having to go to bed around the time all my friends were getting off work. And of course, being a Bible Worker and giving Bible studies in the evenings, sometimes I had to get by on 3 hours’ sleep. I remember being at work when the sun rose and when it set, and thinking to myself:  I am constantly working; I will never be able to just sit and watch a sunset ever again. 

After a few weeks, my fiancée broke up with me. Why is another story, but I still had a lot of growing up to do.  Anyway, I was devastated. I was stressed with a crazy work schedule between two jobs, and my motivation was gone. The night after she broke up with me, my alarm sounded as usual at 2 a.m. I rolled over in bed to turn off the alarm, feeling totally drained, emotionally and physically. I realized I was not getting married. I got this middle-of-the-night job to provide insurance for my bride-to-be, which she was now not to be. I told myself I did not need my UPS job any more, and to just roll over and go back to sleep and forget about UPS. It was a hard, thankless job in the middle of the night, one which I no longer needed. While all of that made perfect sense, I found myself going in to work. Friends, I want this to sink in, because this is where God’s grace totally took over. This is not about my faith; it is about the faithfulness of Jesus. I told myself to go back to bed and forget about UPS. I decided to quit UPS, but I still found myself going in to work regardless. I had no clue what I was doing. My heart and mind were in a blind fog, while I kept a job I did not think I needed or wanted. I kept going to a job that I had decided to quit, and had no idea why I was still going to work at 3 a.m. But I was. 

While I was totally mystified and confused by my actions, just a few weeks later it all made sense. The three-church district which I had served as a Bible worker for several years, decided to let me go. They wanted to start a church school, and could not afford that and a Bible worker. Suddenly UPS, the job I thought I did not need, became my only source of income. I look back now and realize why I got up and went to work that night, even though I had actually decided to quit. I had no idea I would soon be losing my Bible worker job. That night when I told myself to roll over and go back to sleep and forget about UPS, God’s grace and faithfulness yanked me up and said, “Nope! You are going to work. You don’t know why, but God knows why.” 

I kept my job at UPS and even became a part-time supervisor before it was all over. I found another day job as well and kept giving Bible studies when I could, as well as preaching every Sabbath as a lay person. I learned to organize every moment of my day, even my Bible study and prayer time. A few times over the years, I would wake up after I was already supposed to be at work, but would still pray and study my Bible before going to work. I told myself:  If life gets too busy for me to spend time with God, then life has just defeated its purpose. I was not going to defeat the purpose of life just for the sake of mere “survival.”  I learned to keep my Bible with me and to listen to Bible tapes in the car. While both jobs, combined, kept me away from home for 16 hours a day, I hired a housekeeper.  Little by little, even while I was working 16 hours a day, my life became normal, purposeful and enjoyable. I was no longer stressed. I was happy, and my heart and mind were no longer in a blind fog. 

by William Earnhardt

By the way, you know how I said I felt like I would never get to watch another sunset for the rest of my life?  Well, as insignificant as that may sound, God was even working on that small aspect of my life. Years later, God totally uprooted me from my life in Texas and gave me a ministry in Florida, where I have watched countless beautifully magnificent sunsets on the Gulf. God is so graceful and faithful in every aspect of our lives. Even the little things we think don’t matter in the grand scheme of the Great Controversy are still important to a gracious and faithful God. He cares so much about us! 

Still, I look back to that night when I woke up with my heart and mind in a fog and decided to quit my UPS job. God’s grace and faithfulness took me to work that night. God knew something I didn’t. That night, God picked me up and carried me through the fog and into beautiful sunny days. Seems like I have been in Florida forever now. I will find myself walking along the beach with one or a few of my Floridian friends, and as we pause to watch another beautiful sunset for the umpteenth time, I will sometimes laugh to myself and think, “Back in Texas I could not see through the fog and thought I would never watch another sunset. Fool! You watch them all the time now. Great is His faithfulness!” 

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