 Since April, welcome to the Teen's Cornerstone Connections lesson. In our last lesson, we posed the question, faith first? With Brenda taking us through the mission story from our inter-European division, rhythmic war music from our orchestra, Amy on the violin, Sabira on the clarinet, Joyce interpreting for us using sign language, and lastly our wonderful fantastic panelists, Sabira, Salman, Cheryl, Sid, and our wonderful Teen teachers. Enjoy! Happy Sabbath. My name is Brenda and I'll be giving you the mission of this week. Before we start, let's bow heads for a word of prayer. Our Father in Heaven, thank you for this beautiful Sabbath morning that you've brought us together, as we're about to read through the mission and learn something new and something that might give us hope to continue mission towards people who haven't heard about you yet. In just a minute pray, amen. This week's lesson comes from the, in this quarter, this quarter's mission comes from the inter-European division, and this week's lesson comes from Spain specifically. A fun fact about Spain first is that their main language is Spanish. Spanish is a language that's spoken by over 570 million people all around the world, and 21 of these countries have Spanish as their national language. That's such a great or awesome thing to know. So our story today is about a girl called Loida. Loida was born in a second generation from Adventist family, which means her parents and her grandparents are both Adventists, which is so cool if you think about it. But when she reached the age of 12, her parents decided to be divorced, and this was already such a bad thing to happen in the family, and she was trying to understand why they were divorcing, and through all those emotions, the church disfellowshipped her father. They said that her father had sinned by divorcing the mom, and this caused her to have many negative emotions towards the church and their beliefs. And when she, when she told other church members about these emotions that she was having, waiting for advice, they told her that her father had just sinned, and it has nothing to do with the church. And at this point of time, Loida was a faithful pathfinder, and a description of a faithful pathfinder would be someone who comes to church on time every time they have a meeting. She knew all the aims and the motives of the pathfinder, and she did her honest part. And as a faithful pathfinder, she was also preparing to get baptized that year with the rest of the pathfinders. But most of the members doubted that she was really ready to get baptized with all the negative emotions that she was expressing. Some of the members even told her that she should take some time and not get baptized so that her answers, her questions, sorry, might get answered. And at this point of time, Loida took the advice and stopped going for baptism, baptismal lessons, and decided to wait for God's direction in the questions she was having. But during this time, she decided to stop going to church altogether. Thirty years past, I said 30, that's a lot of time for someone to stop going to church. And during this time, no one reached out to her, not the pastors, not even the members, and she was once a baptismal student, and it was so sad of no one to even try and reach out to her. This caused her to cut off ties with all her friends in the church and everyone she knew who was related to the Adventist church. So 30 years later, and she's living her life, has nothing to do with God, and she's going through her social media page, and she finds an advertisement for a Pathfinder Camperie. So she clicks on this advertisement because she was a Pathfinder before, and she was like, I want to see what these guys are still doing because I was once a Pathfinder. She was curious to know how it was doing, and even though she cut off ties with the church, she still wanted to be involved in some way. But it still confused her how this advertisement came up on her social media. She didn't have any connections with the church. Well, on the site that she clicked on, they had summons and week of prayers posted there, and videos of previous Camperies. Loida broke down and cried, remembering all the days she used to go for Pathfinder Camperies, and spent her days in church with her family. She called her daughter Valeria, who was eight years old, and told her, I have connections in this church, and her daughter looked at her and said, wow, mom, this is such an amazing place. I wish I could go there. Why did you stop going to church? Loida thought for some time and concluded she didn't really have any answer for her daughter. When she left the church 30 years ago, she thought that she actually had reasonable answers to that question of why she left the church. But in honesty, they were all excuses. Her daughter was so excited about the Pathfinder Camperies from the previous videos that she begged her mom to take her to the next one. But Loida didn't have any connections to the church, so she spent a lot of time looking for anyone that could help them, and she found an old Adventist friend who was willing to help them go for the Camperie. Loida and her daughter ended up going for the Camperie and were amazed by it. They decided to go back to the church and started fellowshiping with the rest of the Adventists in their town. They lived in a small town in Spain, but later on decided to move to Saraguto, which is a bigger town in Spain, which had a stronger Adventist influence. Loida thinks that that Adventist advertisement popped up on her social media page. Even though 30 years had passed, she was happy that she was able to finally give her life to God and so did her daughter a few years later. Valeria, her daughter, is now 10 years old and is preparing to go to school in Saraguto College Adventist, which houses one of the schools that Loida's daughter will be going to. Last year, for the past three years, the 13th Sabbath offering has been going to this school to help it sponsor people who go to this school. Thank you for giving and for supporting all these children and families that come back to Christ. This mission teaches that even the small things we do bring people back to Christ. Amen. Let's bow our heads forward of prayer. Thank you Lord for giving us this wonderful Sabbath. Back to you again. Please be with us and take us through this lesson well. In Jesus' name we believe. Amen. So ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today we are on our fifth lesson of the quarter and it's entitled Faith First. Right. And ladies and gentlemen, just to give a brief introduction. This lesson over here, we have been following the Israelites and their journey ever since God created the world all and all up to when he commissioned Abraham and gave him the covenant. And now the Israelites, the children of Israelite have been in Egypt as slaves and now they are just about to make their great escape. Last week we saw how Moses had helped them or God had helped them through Moses that they had the fast pass over and now they are just about to make it across the Red Sea. And faith is an intricate factor in this. I don't know if any of my panelists would like to comment on that. I see Sberia is burning Sberia. Definitely. I think Sid can start by reading the key text. Yes, thank you. Our key text comes from Exodus chapter 14 verse 13. Sid, go right ahead. It says, Moses answered the people, do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance. The Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today will, will never see, you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. Amen. And I think, yes, I think a key part of this verse says stand firm and you will see the deliverance of the Lord will bring you today. So the definition of faith, we kind of see this in Hebrews chapter 11. And it says, now faith is confidence in what we hope for. So this confidence was not really there because there was uncertainty about the Israelites freedom from the bondage of slavery. And now they're told you have to cross this Red Sea. So they had to stand firm and this stability was only achieved purely in their belief and faith in the Lord. Indeed, indeed. And that's very true. And that's a very good point Sberia. As you point out, the Israelites had come to a point where they had to believe. Before them they had the Red Sea. Behind them they had the Egyptians chasing. Right? And we want to go right into that story right now and I'll ask Salmon to take us into the story. Take us into the story Salmon. Go right ahead. Hopi Sabath once again. Our story is from Exodus chapter 14. And we've picked out some small parts, not the whole of it. So I'll take you through the summary. So this story is after the templates are done. And now Pharaoh is realizing that all these services are gone. Now they'll have to turn for themselves. Now there are no slaves to work for them. There's no free labor. And so he commands his army. What are you waiting for? Get out of here. Follow those people. Bring them back here. And as fast as possible the army is up. Everyone the chariots and they're going for not really war. They're going to murder and capture. So the Israelites I think they're seeing them from a cliff and they're like wow we're going to die. Look at them. They're coming to kill us. And now they're asking Moses why did you bring us into the desert? Why did you bring us here to die? They were graves in Egypt. We would have died there peacefully. There's food in Egypt. This is the desert. There's no food. The Israelites were already doubting. And from the key text it says that the Lord will fight for you. But only if you stand still. That's one thing the Israelites had failed in. But God still knew that these were his people and he never gave up on them. So Moses tells them please let me show you what the Lord our God can do. So the Lord told him to lift up his staff and he did so. And the waters from the Red Sea they split apart. And the Israelites were amazed. Now they had dry land and two walls of water on their sides. So they start walking. They are being pursued. They have to work first. So they walk. I'd imagine the children looking at the walls and seeing fish in the water. It was an amazing experience for them. So they cross over and they're on the other side. And the Pharaoh is like seriously if they can do that they meet a snake. We made a snake. We can also pass through. You know go go go go. They're moving. They're moving. And then Moses lifts his hand again. And all the water it comes splashing on them. And this is a very deep place. It's over 50 meters deep. So they drown and they're dead. So the Israelites sung a song of praise. Praising God for his deliverance. And an interesting fact the archaeologists still find chariots under water. So I think our gods are very powerful gods. That's one thing I learned from that story. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much Salmon. Now ladies and gentlemen we just want to take a little bit of a break. We have a wonderful song from our orchestra. Song number 608. Faith is the victory. Faith is the victory. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much. Thank you so much to our wonderful orchestra. That was lovely. Now we want to look a little bit closely into the story and we want to see really what we can learn from it and what we can take from it. And so I'm just going to ask Sid over here. Sid, tell me from the story that we've just read. What can we learn about faith, about worship, about salvation? What lessons can we draw? Faith really. So God wanted the Israelites to trust him, have faith in him that he will bring them out of Egypt. But at first they really doubted what God could do. Yeah, true. And we can see that very clearly with what Salmon said that they told Moses. Moses, why did you bring us here to die? Yeah, like so when Moses lifted his staff and the water was flooded, if I was one of the Israelites, I'd be like, oh wow, wait, what? This is not humanly possible. Right. Also, I'd like to draw a verse from the punchlines, right? It's actually James chapter one, verse two to four. And it says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. I think it's so important, even in school, they say that stress takes a toll on the mind and the body. But another thing that stress does is that it grows us. The reason why we have so many assignments in school or we're put to tests and trials is because with that stress, we have the ability to produce perseverance. And this gift is extremely important. Of course, through our faith, we can believe in God, but we must persevere through the trials and the things that they go through. For example, with the Israelites, they stayed in slavery for a long, long, long, long time. And I thank you so much Salmon for reading the lesson because we said, they even complained. They said, because there were no graves in Egypt, has thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Their complaints are valid because they fear the journey ahead, leaving them to want to sort of hide under the blanket of familiarity. It's so important for us to learn that we might really, really hold on to the past, but we need to have knowledge and understanding of the past in order to move on to the future. Thank you so much, Sabira, for that insight. And also thank you, Sid, as well. What about the question of worship? What about the question of worship? We see here that after they came out, after they were victorious, after they had crossed the Red Sea, what about worship? What do we see, especially from the story that Salmon told us about worship? Sid, let me. About worship, so they crossed the Red Sea, the water swallows up the Egyptians. We can see in the story it says they sang songs of worship and songs of praise to God for letting them cross the Red Sea and letting them live. Yeah, thank you so much for that, Sid. Now, I just want to ask Sabira, just Sabira, now put yourself in the shoes of the Israelites, crossing the Red Sea. How do you think they felt? What was their sense of telling them? As they walked on dry land? Right, so I think the part of Tuesday really allows us to dig deep into our senses. Like you're saying, the fact of the water parting and us being able to walk through the ocean floor to this other side, it's mesmerizing. I couldn't really imagine it, but really being in that situation is just showing how powerful God can be, his power over nature. I imagine the fish just swimming and defying the laws of gravity. It's absolutely amazing. I don't know if I can fully put that into words, but I believe that that moment would be crazy. Also, there are a bunch of people walking through. I think it says 600,000 people were walking, including the children, right? So it's a crazy, crazy, crazy experience. So it would be very in a rush and trying to get across before the Egyptians come and take us captive. You can imagine it. You can imagine it. There's even a Psalm, Psalm 32 verse 7, and it says, you are my hiding place. You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. And I think that that is a good segue just to introduce Sheryl talking to us about the song of deliverance, the song that they sung. Exodus chapter 15, Sheryl. So after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, they sang a song to the Lord. I would just read like the first part of the song, and it reads, I will sing to the Lord for He has triumphant gloriously. The horse and its rider, He has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise Him. My Father's God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war, and the Lord is His name. So this song tells us that they were actually praising God after they had crossed the Red Sea, and they were thankful to Him. I also have another song here that I was actually told to my mom when I was very, very young. It's a very beautiful song. I will just sing the first part of the song that all of you can relate. So it goes, here we are, lifting our hands to you, giving you thanks for all you do as we pray and worship your home. That was so lovely. Thank you so much, Sheryl. And you can now just imagine it, ladies and gentlemen, as the Israelites had crossed, and they are singing that song of their, that song of victory, you know, that they have just gone across. But the sad thing is that, unfortunately, the victory did not last too long, and sooner or later they had forgotten about it. We read in the next chapter how they even worship a golden calf. And I just want to invite Sobera, if she has any thoughts in regards to, you know, how difficult it is sometimes, even for us, that after God has just come through for us in such a marvellous way, that often we find ourselves falling. You know, often we find ourselves not really there. You know, we find ourselves failing constantly after God has come through for us. And I don't know, Sobera, if you have any thoughts about that. Right. I definitely think that we may go through life and God has done crazy things in our lives. I think teens class specifically in Sabbath, I think it was last Sabbath, we talked about what are the extraordinary things that happen in your lives. In my mind, I was like, whoa, I don't know. I've been looking through every single part and I don't really recognize one thing as the best. But it's important to really sell yourself in the fact that God really ministers in our lives in ways that maybe we might not see, but to others is, wow, it's absolutely amazing. So recognizing that there are extraordinary things going on in your life and giving thanks for that. So that's a celebratory part of it. But also continuing, if you're still in that trial and temptation, recognizing and remembering that God was there for you. Psalm 77 verse 16 to 20, it says, when the water saw you, oh God, when the water saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled. And this part is so important because substitute waters with whatever issue you're going through. When the great saw you, when the financial situation saw you, they trembled. There is no problem or issue in our lives that God cannot manage. He can part right through them and you can walk freely on dry ground. So I think making sure that you remember, you go through the trial and tribulations and then you ask for God's help and then you walk on the dry ground and then you praise him and then you remember what he did for you. So if you're still in that situation, you find comfort and hope. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, superior, for that. And it's so true that by remembering what God has done for us, we find comfort. We find hope. We find an ability to move forward and to go through life's challenges, ladies and gentlemen. Now I just want to open up another subject for discussion with our team and I want to take us to the did you think section of the lesson, the did you think section of the lesson? And just in your opinion, we are given some scenarios there and maybe we can just read through some of them as we are here on our panel. See, I don't know if you can read through the first one. We have five here. If you can read through the first one, Salmon, the second one, Cheryl, the third, and then superior, the fourth. And just tell us what you think about those scenarios in regard to the fact that, you know, which one of these would test your faith the most? Which one of these would test your faith the most? Sid, we can start with you. The financial officer of your Christian school has informed you that you need to pay your bill in order to stay in school. You believe that God wants you to receive Christian education, but you have no idea how to get money to pay for it. So what do I think? I think I would just trust God because there is no way that he would say, for example, you're going to buy a car, then he doesn't give you a way to buy that car. So if he wants you to get Christian education, he will let you get Christian education and he will find a way for you to get money for you to pay for your Christian education. Yeah, that's very true. God, and I think the point that you're iterating there, Sid, is that God knows our needs, right? He knows our needs and he's always going to try and be there for us, you know, not even try. He will be there for us, you know, and come through in a major way. Go ahead, Salm. The second one reads, you struggle with the destructive addiction. Your friend says that if you have more faith, God will deliver you from the habit. What will I say for this? Okay. You know, just my personal thoughts on it before we hear yours, you know, I think that it's a bit, because you're struggling. It's a struggle that you have with an addiction, you know, you're trying to get over it, but you can't. And then your friend tells you, you know, just have a bit more faith in it. Would you think that it would be that easy just to have a bit more faith? Or would you think that it would be a bit more challenging for you as it were in that situation? Oh, I can say, I definitely think it's a popular line when perhaps you're going through something, I didn't even have to be an addiction. But in this case, someone says, oh, no, you should just pray more or maybe you're not like trusting in God enough, have more faith. But sometimes it's not just about not praying to God or not having faith, because that's putting in that your works translate to a good lifestyle or happiness in every single situation. I think God sometimes allows you and permits you to go into that deep ocean ground to the very, very, very bottom, and then using that to bring you up. So it's very rude, I would think, for my friend to come and tell me, have more faith if you're struggling with addiction. It's better to encourage them in it and tell them that you can overcome this through Jesus, but it is not a matter of you not having faith in Him, if that makes sense, or doing anything towards that. Yeah, I think the same too. Go ahead. I agree with Subhira. It's not about having faith. You have faith, you pray, but God likes Job. God let Job go through suffering to test him. Job passed the test. So I think sometimes we have to persevere to build faith in God. Yeah, yeah, and it's all about persevering, you know, trying your best to keep on keeping on, right? And we can go to the third one. Sheryl, if you can just read that for us. The third one says, you are convicted about the importance of having an hour of quiet time with God each day, but you are also behind in your schoolwork. So for this one, I believe that as much as possible, as much as you want to raise your schoolwork higher, you should also consider spending time with God, and you should strike a balance between the two of them, but as much as possible maximize your time with God and also do your schoolwork, and God will see you through your struggles and He will help you. Amen. Amen. Definitely God is a God of priorities too. I believe that if you you're behind in schoolwork, finish the schoolwork, pray about it and say, God, please help me to complete this because those grades are going to stay those grades if you don't pull them up. So God understands that we have lives, understands that we have all these things going on, whether it's school or work or friends. He cherishes that he wants us to live, but also he wants us to include him in that. So striking a balance is super important. And the fourth one says, you are the victim of a malicious rumor at school. When you get a chance to get even, you wrestle with the tension of taking the matter into your own hands or trusting God justice to the situation. Okay, my mother, my parents have always said, revenge is the Lord's. And for sure, this is extremely, extremely true, but it's important to note that we still go through these things. I think I've, I think everyone has gone through having a rumor about them that they don't particularly like, but equally it's important for us to take that rumor and give it to God. Tell God your struggles. Sometimes you may have a situation where you're just saying, some people are mean to me, some people are saying bad things about me. Tell God about those things because it's these things that God really cares about. Don't take it into your own hands because then you might be the one in trouble. So leaving God, leaving it into God's hands is important, but also don't take, keep on taking the punches and yeah, because it might be damaging to your mental health. No, absolutely. That's, that's quite true. And sorry, thank you so much for that insight. And even in regards to the earlier one that was read by Cheryl, you know, if you're having trouble with that, I think even just a quick prayer to God, you know, telling him that God, you know, I want to, to have a relationship with you. God, I want to be able to study your word. God, I want to have more time to spend with you. God is a God who listened and he's a God who will always be there to care. Ladies and gentlemen, I just see that we have just below 10 minutes left. Time is fast spent. I think I don't know if anybody has, I just want to open the floor for any last comments or if anybody has anything that they want to say. Right. Okay. So actually Friday's section allows us to go into the further insight about this. And it says, we do not earn salvation by our obedience for salvation is the free gift of God to be received by faith, but obedience is the fruit of faith. So our faith is super important in this. It says faith first. So faith is first just to clear that up. It's no longer a question. Faith is the first thing that you should do, but within that faith, we should act upon it. We should have obedience in the laws of the Lord. So keeping, making sure that everything, everything, every single thing that we do, we maintain our faith. And through that faith, we show actions that represent our beliefs. Sid, what do you think about this? Yeah. For me, it's the faith. You just have to, you know, keep on having the faith, keep on having faith in the Lord because what he wants to do for you, he will do only if you have faith in him. Sheryl, you can go. And as you continue reading the father insight, it says, Christ changes the heart. He abides now in your heart by faith. Then with Christ working in you, you will manifest the same spirit and do the same good works, works of righteousness, obedience. So I think faith is like the foundation for everything else. Once you have faith in your life, you would be able to have obedience, peace, patience and all the other things that come along with it. So it's important for us to have faith. Salmon, go right ahead. So I'd, I also agree on the matter of faith. Faith really just comes out here because without faith, most of us wouldn't have been able to separate the waters. Without faith, the Israelites wouldn't have been able to pass because as much as it's stunning, it's also astonishing. Why would I go between these two waters? Who is assuring me that I won't die? Yeah. Yeah. So faith is really a key component here. Ellen G. White actually speaks more about this situation. And in this story, it talks specifically about, I think I talked before about how the Israelites really wanted to go back to Egypt because they had this familiar blanket. And sometimes we get too used to bad situations, but we really need to get out of that and realize what God has to offer for us. Okay. And there's this phrase in Hawaiian. It says, So my attempt to speak Hawaiian is laughable, but the message is really important. It says, the path to the future is made clear through our knowledge and our understanding of the past. So they really had to realize where they came from. They came from all that hurt and all that slavery, but their future was determined of what God really wanted to happen in their lives. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much, superior. My wonderful panelists for your wonderful insights during this lesson. Ladies and gentlemen, that has been our lesson. We have been looking really at the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. And we have noted unequivocally that what it took on their part, on their part was faith. Ladies and gentlemen, it took faith for them to make even that first step into those waters. You can imagine, you can imagine you're there, the Egyptians are behind you. You don't know if you're going to die. It's a tough, tough decision. And what the Bible is admonishing us to do is have faith, put faith first, put faith first. In the Friday part, ladies and gentlemen, we are given a bit of an extracurricular activity that we can do. And it says to keep a journal for the next six months and carefully, carefully document times when you sense God's leading. Just to bolster up your faith. And it's something that you can practice at home. It's something that you can take a look at and do. Right? Anyway, my name is, my name is Bismarck Lumumba. I've been your teacher here from my right. That is Subira who has been leading us very well. Sheryl as well. Thank you so much. Sid and Salmon. And we want to say a big thank you and a happy Sabbath to you as Subira closes for us in prayer. Okay, let's pray. Dear Father God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for blessing us this Sabbath morning. And we've been reading this wonderful lesson about faith first, and we no longer have this question. We definitely know that we need to have faith, but equally that our obedience may really support and really emphasize our faith in you, Lord. I think as you led the Israelites through the Red Sea, this very taunting experience for them, you can lead us through all our troubles, all our situations that we really need your guidance. Let us have faith in the most abundant way possible. Bless us and protect us. In Jesus' name I pray and believe. Amen. Amen. From all of us here, bye and happy Sabbath.