 Hello and happy sabat to you all. Join us as we discussed the sixth lesson of the fourth quarter from the teens cornerstone lesson 2023. From the orchestra we have Seed on the piano and Amy on the violin. From the panelist we have Gideon, Steve Tatiana and our wonderful teens teachers. My name is Mikael Fex and I will be taking you through the mission story. But before we begin let us have a word of prayer. Father in Jesus name we thank you for this day and Lord as we discussed the lesson here today we ask that you and your spirit may come and be with us oh Lord may you be with the viewers and may they understand what we are discussing today. May you be glorified in Jesus name we pray amen. Songs and soap that is the name of the story. Now it was a very special sabat in the African country of Khmerun. Actually it was a very special sabat all around the world. You see it was the third sabat of May. Do you know what is so special about the third sabat of May? The third sabat of May is the World Adventurer Day. A day when the adventurers around the world celebrate being adventurers. What does it mean to be an adventurer? Katsuya and the other adventurers in Haaklab spent some time thinking about this question. What does it mean to be an adventurer? They wondered. Does it mean reading and memorizing the Bible? Does it mean earning honors? Does it mean gathering for fun activities? They agreed that those were all important things but there was something that was much greater. They decided that being an adventurer means helping others. It means helping people in need just as Jesus would if he was walking the earth today. It means being the hands and feet of Jesus. Katsuya and her friends decided to celebrate World Adventurer Day by visiting children who did not have any parents orfans. On sabat afternoon Katsuya and 14 other adventurers went up with a grown-up master guide to the orphanage where 20 orphans lived. The orphans knew that the adventurers were coming and they eagerly met them in a big room at the orphanage. The adventurer stood on one side of the room and introduced themselves to the orphans. When Katsuya's turn came she smiled and said my name is Katsuya and I'm nine years old. I am a seventh day adventist and an adventurer. The youngest adventurer was seven years old and the oldest being 11 years old. They all said that they were adventists and adventurers. Then the orphans introduced themselves. The youngest being three years old and the oldest being 18. None of them were adventists or adventurers but they were curious to know more about adventurers and adventurers. When the introductions were over the master guide motioned for the adventurers to stand together. We're going to sing songs with you he said. Katsuya and the other adventurers enthusiastically sung songs about Jesus. They clapped their hands and with some songs and made motions with their hands. When the adventurers finished singing a dozen songs the orphans asked them to sing again. They had liked what they had and seen. The adventurers sung again the songs and the orphans listened and with bright smiles. Then the master guide preached a short salmon. He told the orphans that even though they didn't have any parents they had a heavenly father who was always ready to help them. He finished the salmon by praying for the orphans. Then came the moment that Katsuya had been waiting for. It was time to pass out gifts. Katsuya and the other adventurers had brought some square bars of soap to give to the orphans. The soap was good for taking baths and washing clothes. The orphans didn't have their own soap and they sometimes had to take baths and wash their clothes without any. Katsuya handed two square bars of soap to a six-year-old girl. The little orphan smiled broadly. She was so happy. Thank you! She explained as a gift, as she accepted the gift. When Katsuya saw that the girl smiled and heard her gratitude she also felt happy. She was happy that she and the other adventurers had been able to share songs and soap with the orphans. After the visit the master guide took the adventurers to their homes. It was amazing Sabbath, Katsuya said. My wish is to have that experience of helping others and people in need. Part of this quarter's 13th Sabbath offering will help open a seventh day Adventist school in Katsuya's home country of Cameroon, where children will learn to help others just like Jesus. Thank you for planning a generous offering next month. Thank you very much for that wonderful item. Welcome to lesson number six, so long so. I'd like my fellow panelist to introduce themselves before we begin. Can start from my left. Hello everyone, my name is Steve and I'm glad to be here with you all today. Hello everyone, my name is Tashiana and I'll be taking you through the lesson. Hey everyone, I'm Gideon and it's a pleasure to study the lesson with you today. Okay, thank you very much. Welcome all our guests and this is a very interesting story we have here. The title is so long so and it is a story of power gone sour and we are told here that he began with so much promise. In fact the Bible describes soul as one of the people who was good to look at if you catch my meaning. It was described as someone who was handsome and there's no one in Israel who was as handsome as this guy and the highlight of the first description of soul is he was actually humble. Okay, and I like Tatiana to just read our key text and just tell us what she thinks about some of the issues that are related with this story. Okay, the key text says the following. Then the word of the Lord came to Samo. I regret that I have made so keen because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions. He has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions and remember this is someone who's described as being humble. So what do you guys think? Do you guys agree or disagree with the following statements? The first one is the root cause of depression is actually selfishness. Tatiana, what do you think? I highly disagree. You highly disagree, Steve? I want to disagree on this one. You want to disagree on that one? Gideon. I also disagree. You guys also disagree with that statement. Okay, the second one is mental health and spiritual health are closely related. You guys all agree? That's true. Okay, the third one being satan cannot tempt us if we are fully committed to God. Steve, what do you think? I disagree. You disagree? What are your reasons of disagreeing with this one? That isn't why I disagree with this one because temptations are there to build us. They are there to enable us to see the greater good of God. And if we are tying it to Jesus Christ himself, remember he was also tempted and he was God. So what can limit us humans from getting tempted as well if Christ himself was tempted? Okay, Gideon, what do you think about this statement that satan cannot tempt us if we are fully committed to God? Being fully committed to God, I think it puts us in a better position to be targets of temptations by satan. So satan will actually tempt us more if we are fully committed to God because that's how we get to strengthen our faith in God and overcoming these temptations makes us stronger in our faith. Okay, thank you. Now the last one, Tachiana, I want you to answer me on this or whether you agree or disagree that one of the ways that satan gains access to our minds is through horoscopes. What do you think? I actually agree and satan actually can't read minds but he influences our thoughts. In this question, one of the ways satan gains access to our minds through horoscopes. Horoscopes are things that teens, let me say, or people in our age group find very interesting and this is a way that the devil finds to influence us and also gain access to our minds. Okay, amazing. Thank you very much. Now I just want to contribute on I think the third one where it says that satan cannot tempt us if we are fully committed to God. I disagree with that because temptations will always be there. The only problem is when you give in to that temptation that's when now satan actually gets you but temptations will always be there. Now I just want Gideon to just give us a highlight of what is actually going on in this story, what is happening to soul. The Bible has described them as someone who was humble and handsome but what is it that happens to soul? Gideon please take it away. So into the story, our story is about when God sent soul to the Malakites and told him to destroy everything and that was that did not quite much happen just to read an excerpt from the into the story section. Samuel said, although you are once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel and he sent you on a mission saying, go and completely destroy the wicked people, the Malakites, wage war against them until you have wiped them out. Why do you not obey the Lord? But Samuel replied, does the Lord delight in bant offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams. So when soul was sent to the Malakites and God instructed him to destroy everything, soul went ahead and spared their king together with the best of their sheep and cattle and he took them, the cattle were intended to be a sacrifice to God. But Samuel asked soul, isn't it better to obey than to give sacrifice of fat rams to God? And we also seen the story that soul went to visit a medium, I'll read that paragraph. The Philistines assembled and came and set camp at Shunem where soul gathered all Israel and set up camp at Gilboa. When soul saw the Philistine army he was afraid, terror filled his heart, he inquired of the Lord but he did not answer him by dreams or urim or prophets. But soul said then to his attendants, find me a woman who is a medium so I may go and inquire of her. So soul discussed himself, putting on other clothes and at night he and two other men went to the woman, consult a spirit for me he said and bring up for me the one I name. So soul went, visited the medium and later when he is at war with the Philistines he sees that he is losing the war. So he, so to read from here soul said to his amabaira, drew a sword and run through me or these unsurcamsized fellows will come and run me through and abuse me but his amabaira was terrified and would not do it so soul took his own sword and fell on it when the amabaira saw that soul was dead he too fell on his sword and died with him. So soul and his three sons and his amabaira all on this and all his men died together on that same day. So this story starts from the point where soul visit is at war with Amalakites but instead of killing everything has got instructed he takes the best of their cattle and sheep and spares their king also so that's disobedience is here right there and we have the section where he visits a medium to see to get our fortest or to just see what will happen at war with the Philistines and later he also commits suicide at the end of the story. Okay thank you very much for that I have two big questions for you the first one is which I believe you've partly answered is that what big sin that ultimately contributed to the soul of sorry to the demise of king so what was the ultimate sin? The big sin was souls disobedience. Souls disobedience thank you very much I believe that is in order but I'd want to ask myself why did soul sin of keeping some of the animals was almost punished immediately yet we have king David who committed adultery then later was actually described as a man after God's own hand. Kidyon I believe that David's sin was more of a sin he also recognized and accepted but what is soul's approach towards his sin we are told in the story that when Samela saw what why do you not obey the Lord Saul says but I did obey the Lord Saul said I went on the mission and the Lord assigned me I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back king Agag the king so Saul's sin is he does not accept that he's at fault he does not recognize his sin but he goes ahead and says that he obeyed the Lord and even in his disobedience and it's quite clear that he was he did not kill everything he did not destroy everything he still he still do I say hopeful that he's not at fault but David accepts his sin and tries to tread back towards God's ways I man beautiful now I have a few questions again now for Tatiana this time around I have three questions for you and since you read our memory text they can be answered using that the first one is and this is probably maybe for each and every one of us you can ask yourself this have I ever grieved God and if so how yes I have grieved God and when we say we grieve God this is when we give place to the devil and we grieve our Lord our tang actually is a culprit in grieving God's Holy Spirit where the corrupt valga words or angry words we speak I often lash out at people even at home when something is amiss and I planned it so yes I do grieve God okay okay the second one is does God still turn away from people he has called to leadership and why I don't think that God actually turns away from people but he does withdraw his spirit we can take that from I'm the story of soul that we read in the in the story when actually in the key text it says I regret that I have made soul king because he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions even so when soul called out to God and God didn't actually answer so yes not really necessarily okay Steve you have something to say yes I wanted to add that I believe God has set a framework on what you're supposed to do see and he promises that if you abide by those by that framework by that blueprint that he will be with you that his spirit will be with you and that he will guide you throughout the way and if you look at an example of the book of kings second kings to be in particular you find that those kings that followed the framework of God brought change the kingdom the kingdoms are the the time of the renau at times of peace you see but when we do not follow the framework or we step out of that to follow our own plan God now tends to withdraw the spirit as Tatiana said and this causes and now this leads the problems the various problems that the kings face in the arena so in other words it's actually the people that turn away from God and then when God withdraws his spirit from them they blame God for turning away from God that's what I deduce from those two now the other one is what can I do to save God myself from God withdrawing his spirit from me now that Steve has mentioned that there's a certain framework so what can I do and probably maybe Steve has answered that and said there's a framework so most likely is to live and coordinate within that framework to enable me to establish a relationship whereby God does not withdraw his spirit from me now um Steve aren't you to at least identify two people who you know who strike you as persons who might be described as David was described and you know David was described as someone who was after God's own heart are there any two people that come to your mind maybe in the Bible maybe in school that actually described that describe people that were like David so I believe I can mention Abraham him being the father of faith as well he was able to follow God he followed God's laws he whenever he seen he always turned back to God to look at him and I believe those are some of the qualities of someone after God's own heart that they acknowledge that they've gone wrong uh that they put God as their priority the first priority and that they're able to change the ways after realizing and acknowledging that they have seen see um another person I can maybe mention uh friend of mine in high school used to be really dedicated to God's word and whenever he got the chance he would uh he would go ahead and praise God and do all that and whenever he was at wrong or whenever told someone told him he was at fault he was very quick to realize that and to change his ways and that's one of the qualities I found desirable yeah great now um what I get from you is that just being described as someone who's after God's own heart does not necessarily mean you'll be forkless but it much more means that you are able to recognize um your fault and actually go back to God in genuine repentance because you know even Judas repented but but you see his repentance was false it was just guilty of the sin but he didn't have like genuine repentance so thank you very much Steve for that now um Gideon I want you to to think about the steps that led to souls downfall and I just want you to probably maybe give us the punchlines that stood out for you um in this story what are some of the key texts that uh you relate with souls downfall that act as a beacon of warning to us and and and to the world as general so I'll pick two deutronomi 12 18 and first Timothy 4 so deutronomi 12 18 says be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the lord your god and first Timothy 4 one the spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon their faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons so first Timothy 4 and stands as a one because you're told that um in tie in later times some will abandon their faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons and I think that's something that's actually quite evident today that some people are just foregoing or abandoning their faith and they're following whatever way they find right the whole news so in other words you can start well but not not end well and that's uh I think the saddest thing about about soul here that you see um starting well is not enough it's not enough to just get comfortable just because you have started well Tatiana what do you think what's your favorite text here that's a beacon of warning um I'd go with first chronicles 10 13 plus 14 and 14 and it says soul died because he was unfaithful to the lord he did not keep the word of the lord and even consulted a medium for guidance and did not inquire of the lord so the lord put him to death and turn the kingdom over to david's son of jessie here even the lord said oh sorry um he was unfaithful to the lord and he even goes to an extent of putting things in his own hands and consulting a medium instead of going to god directly and this is what put him to death and even turn the kingdom over to david son of jessie okay so we are seeing here first I think one of the things I got from this story is that soul actually battled mental illness okay and he also developed pathological hatred for for david and he even tried to to kill him and and this just basically tells us that this guy who started out well as a humble servant of the lord he veered off the road okay and it was so difficult for him to get back on track so this led him to another sin which now he started to become jealous of of david remember people who are singing um but soul has killed just thousands and david has killed 10 000 and he became jealous of of david and you see initially all these blessings that david received were to be in place for him so if he were to be faithful the same praises that david received were actually um confudge to him um at first now uh steve you want to add something yes so in line with what you mentioned about uh salt starting well but not ending well uh a particular punch line stood out to me that mentioned that says this is from mark chapter 14 verse 38 it says that watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak uh you will find that you might even find that soul himself wanted to glorify god wanted his reign to be one of peace one of uh where god was the focal point see but uh i guess it he got comfortable and maybe did not consult god as much and that's why you'll find that he may have fallen off because of that and he got all these issues of the mental illness like you mentioned so this can be a lesson that should be in prayer always consult god so that whenever the times of trials come we do not fall short yeah okay thank you very much steve now um i have a question for you yes which ditch i am am i more inclined to fall into and uh you can answer that by giving us what siya slavish wrote and also um jibs 219 can help you answer that which ditch is this that am i likely to fall into so uh if i can read from here uh as louis wrote that there are two equal and opposite errors into which our risk can fall about the devil one is to disbelieve in the existence the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them so this describes how some people view things like spirits and demons the fact that some of them view it as that they don't exist and that they don't have an influence over their lives and some believe in them excessively too much you see one thing we have to put straight here is that they do exist you see and they do play some factor in what we do in decisions we make and in the trajectory of our lives see and many people uh according to my point of view they tend to fall in the side where they don't believe that they exist you see and so when something happens to them they cannot attribute it to maybe something like of that sort happening you see and the point is to find a middle ground here so as not to fall into one of those ditches yeah okay thank you very much i think one one of the primary reasons for souls demise was actually selfishness okay and uh you see we are told that selfishness must be overcome you must be overcome self i believe there's a time i was listening to a certain preacher and i was just trying to ask a question and they asked who is your worst enemy like who is the enemy when even the their name comes about you can even frown and many people give various answers but the preacher student said your worst enemy is actually yourself and they said the day you will actually overcome self you love gained a lot of victories and the other person also said that um you know the greatest battles uh greater than the battle that is even been fought in israel and palestine right now the greatest battle that was ever fought is a battle in your mind soul had a battle here unfortunately he succumbed and of course all these things were written for our ensembles okay they were written so that we might see and be able to discern the things that have happened in the past so that we may be able to align our lives to that which um is right and true how can i become more selfless is the question we've we've discovered that you know selfishness can take you down how do you become selfless what are some of the activities you have to participate in to actually overcome being selfish tatiana you want to start yes i think the best answer for that would be calling upon the lord and acknowledging his presence in everything that you do we're always going to need god gideon what's the best method to overcome selfishness i think the best method to overcome selfishness is uh putting other people's will first that's literally the definition of selflessness but when you think about what someone feels or or how someone will react to something it definitely gives you a hand in being selfless and i'd also agree with tatiana where she says that putting god first also putting god first steve how can one actually overcome being selfish uh i can say humility humility yes because humility is the state of knowing that you are capable of doing such things knowing that you are able to do much but putting yourself in a position where it's not overshadowing the fact that god reigns over you that god exists and is the one who controls your life so i believe humility has been one of the main ways you can prevent selfishness you can achieve selfishness thanks thanks thanks a lot for that um i want us to conclude and uh as we conclude um and you guys to just give me what you take away from from this story um i'd like to start from gideon can just tell me um what you take away from this story you might take home for this from this story would be the that we might have started well but that does not guarantee us a good ending soul was soul started well soul was god's was god's chosen one for king of isra but when he became disobedient and started following his own ways in what i would refer to as gone he was quite scornful he he started trading away from god and once he started trading away from god it was a direct path towards the exit that he followed of which he could still have turned back but he's taking the first leap towards stepping away from gods kingdom just led him completely out thank you very much tiana um the most important thing i think i took from this story is that we should not be selfless and also that having god in our lives is what keeps us going and also that we should obey gods commandments and when you sin it's good to repent and to know of your wrongdoings steve uh what i'll take away from this is that god has a standpoint in your life and in whatever you do wherever you go you should acknowledge that sound but see that's where the aspect of putting god fast and so we should aspire to take this seriously and consult good whenever you want to make decisions or want to do things in your life okay thank you very much i think what i take away personally from this story is um number one i think selfishness is a sin that is practiced to the most and it's the one that you know creates so many spiritual disorders we have this mental illnesses like so was technically mentally ill and the other lesson i take away is that there is no man who can stand upon a lofty position without danger um is i'm philosopher normally says that it is a glass that is full that is hard to balance uh the one that is half empty is easier to balance but the glass that is full is actually hard to balance so even in the future young people when you may be given positions of power and authority ever remember that that's the most dangerous position that you can ever be in and it's not for you for you to be scared but it is actually for you to depend on god in decision making in such lofty positions thank you very much for joining us until next time kwaheri mighty father what in heaven thank you for the lessons that we've learned from the life of so lord how i pray that you may be able to help us lord as young people lord as we um take on life we may be entrusted with um positions of trust lord how i pray that we may learn the lessons and take homes that we may be able to stand even in the midst of trials to still depend on you be with us for it is in jesus name i pray