This transcript is organized from YouTube’s automatic captions. Names, Bible references, and specialized terms may contain recognition or translation errors.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Let us pray. Our Father God in heaven, we thank You for calling us here at this early dawn and for pouring out a rich feast of Your word. Father, thank You for gathering us here by opening this tent meeting at a time when we might have forgotten the Lord, being soaked in worldliness in these last days, and for stirring up a greater thirst for God in our hearts. Father, because of the blessings You have bestowed upon us, we offer glory to the Lord with gratitude and praise in our hearts. Also, we especially pray for our children, the next generation. Our hearts were overwhelmed when we heard that so many young people and children were brought here by the hand this time. It was an unimaginable joy for us to see our children being revived and becoming strong as we gradually wear out, and to have them attend an opportunity where they can praise God in our stead and be taught about the Lord. We thank You for allowing Your Holy Spirit to be with them, so that even when Satan is prowling like a roaring lion to destroy souls in these last days, our children can gather here to find the Lord again through the abundant blessings of heaven and the wonderful grace of the Holy Spirit, and for providing this opportunity for them to remember the Lord even amidst difficult and trying circumstances.

Father, please pour out Your great grace upon them like the pouring of the latter rain of the Holy Spirit, so that their souls may become truly strong in the Lord and they may receive the faith to seek the Lord even when things are difficult and hard. Please help our children grow well, become stronger in faith so they can serve the Lord diligently in these last days, hope for heaven, and live their lives with joy, and grant them a heart that completely trusts in the Lord, a heart of obedience, and the preparation to fulfill the duty of a servant who can serve diligently. Please watch over the day of all the precious servants of Yours, the instructors, who have been called here today, keep their bodies healthy, and be with them so that their hearts may be filled with Your word, overflowing with the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. May the Holy Spirit alone be with us from beginning to end, so that we may feel Your presence and be completely immersed in Your word throughout this day with joy. We earnestly pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Ah, peace be with you. Amen. I pray in the name of Jesus that in this truly chaotic, complex, and heartbreaking era, this word of the Lord will be fulfilled according to the truth for us and those we love. Amen. [Sigh] There is a verse in Psalm 63:5 (63:4 in Korean Bible): 'My mouth will praise you with joyful lips, as I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night, for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.' In the morning, the word of the Lord. In this one verse, the expressions 'joyful' and 'sing for joy' appear repeatedly. When I am before the word of the Lord in the morning, I am joyful, grateful, happy, and I praise. These words are introduced to us as truth through one biblical writer. With what kind of heart are we here at this dawn? Is it possible that you feel the dawn is a bit tedious, tiresome, exhausting, boring, or dull? Is there anyone who greeted this morning with such feelings? That living like this is exhausting.

Unexpectedly, there are many research results showing that quite a few people, from young children to the elderly, suffer from chronic fatigue regarding living like this. As believers, what kind of feelings are we having in our daily lives and faith, and how are we living this moment or this day? What is your feeling when you go to church? When listening to the word, when praying... When I was pastoring in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, the children were young and I was in my prime, but every Sunday morning, I would get a welcome phone call. People in Seoul or nearby would call and say, 'Pastor Kim, how is your time today?' 'Oh, it's fine.' 'We'll come down, so please give us a ride.' 'What would you like?' Some would come by train, and they would come in various ways. When I picked them up, some people, because there weren't many transportation options or roads at that time, would take about an hour and a half to get from Seoul to Chuncheon normally, but on Sunday mornings or Saturday afternoons, it would take 4 hours, and when going to Seoul on Sunday afternoons, it would take 8 hours.

But they would come. Do you happen to know the reason? What are they coming to eat? There are two famous things in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do. I don't know if there is anyone here from Chuncheon. There is Dak-galbi, where chicken is cut nicely and eaten deliciously, but there is another famous thing called Mak-guksu. There is a place that has been famous since the days of President Park Chung-hee. Look it up on the internet. There is a place called Yupori Mak-guksu. When I went there, it already had a tradition of several decades. When I first ate it, it really tasted terrible. 'Hey, why do people pay money to eat this?' That was the taste. It was too bland and, what should I say? Anyway, it was like that. But the elders loved it so much. When they came, they would eat a bowl of this, and then, [Groan] 'Oh, Chairman, Association President...' But one day, after they called, they came a few hours late. I asked how they came, and it seems there was an accident on the way, and because of the traffic, they arrived around 2 or 3 PM, ate a bowl of Mak-guksu, and went back up for 8 hours.

4 hours to come down, 8 hours to go up. At that time, the price of a bowl of Mak-guksu was 3,500 won. I thought about it that evening. Why on earth do they come for this? But as this was repeated once or twice, one Sunday morning, I found myself waiting for the phone call. 'Are they not coming today?' If they came, taking them out was a moment for us and the children to eat out once a week. When building the church, when things were hard, this time was a happy time for the children to see them eating this delicious food as parents. But try doing that for 7 years. At some point, you want to turn off the phone. At first, you don't know the taste, then you learn the taste and are happy, just like when we first hear the truth outside, say 'Wow,' come in, get baptized, are fervent, do dawn prayer, take on all the church service, and then after 1 or 2 years, sometimes getting pricked, sometimes getting spat on, sometimes no one recognizes it, and after repeating it for a few years, 'Pastor, I will quit being the Sabbath School superintendent. Pastor, I will go to another church.'

I was like that. That delicious Mak-guksu becomes exhausting. Meeting people becomes exhausting, and I just want to sleep; even this joy becomes exhausting. I wish that the life of being bored and exhausted with believing in God was only my own appearance. Ah, but looking at the Bible, there are such words in Jeremiah 15:16 and Lamentations 5:15. 'O Lord God of hosts, I am called by your name.' Isn't this a great confession of Jeremiah? 'I am a person of God, a person called by the name of the Lord.' 'Your words were found, and I ate them.' Coming to dawn prayer, from 9 AM to 10:30, from 10:30 to 12:00, testimony in the afternoon, and evening word... having eaten the word like this, 'and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.' In the original language, it continues like this: 'Now the joy has disappeared from our hearts.' After I read this verse, I fell into a strange ambivalent feeling.

On one hand, I was sad, and on the other hand, I felt relieved. 'Oh, I wasn't the only one.' Along with the relief, on the other hand, there was an era when a pastor like Jeremiah lost his joy in the word. Does this make sense? When was it? It was when Judah was falling. If you look at the records of another pastor who recorded that era, it says: 'The joy full in the temple has ceased.' Still keeping the Sabbath, still eating and not eating, doing tent meetings, living religiously, but the record says it was an era when the full joy of the temple had ceased. Going to church to worship, but feeling something empty, and when worship is over, you have to go home, but you can't. There was an era in the Bible where something went wrong. Just like this era. Then I looked for the reason why this joy disappeared. I found it, and in 2 Chronicles 36, the reasons are summarized in three points. The first reason was that the highest leader at the time, according to the biblical expression, did not repent.

When a country falls, the church becomes difficult, and joy disappears, the first cause that God recorded for the era to which this rhetorical expression applies is when the elder of that house or the highest pillar of that church, someone who pioneered the church, or the leader of the country does not repent. I have thought about this expression many times. It is not when one does not recognize sin, but knowing the sin and yet not repenting, while still being very calm and shameless in faith. I am seeing my own appearance. Second reason. Why do the saints or my children not feel joy when worshiping in the morning? The second is expressed as 'priests who imitate the Gentiles.' Pastors existed, but their research references came from the Gentiles. But they applied things from the Gentiles while modifying them with words like church development, church mission, new, reform, revolution, etc. So, in severe cases, applying TV entertainment programs to Sabbath School time... When I said this, someone was embarrassed and chased after me.

It is recorded in the Bible. They looked into it and fell. The third is the people who despise the word. The first is the top-tier group. The second is the clergy or people in the church who have faith or should be models of faith. The third group is the Christians who watch them, just beginners in the church, or new believers, or people outside right now. When they looked at them, they despised the word. Isn't it too similar to today? But what is the reason for despising the word? In the Spirit of Prophecy, in the church commentary, it says, 'That person is our top leader, but I know he has sin, but seeing him not repent, do I really need to repent?' It becomes like this. Second, seeing priests, pastors, elders, and deacons using all kinds of means and methods, seeing the mixture, seeing the holy and the profane mixed, they feel that God's word has no power. So it is recorded that the general public despised the pastors, priests, and the word.

Ah, historically speaking, that was the reason for Israel's fall, and spiritually speaking, it was the reason why joy disappeared. How about us, our family, and our church? Another man of God in the era when joy disappeared, Jeremiah. He was a man of God who had to watch spiritual decline and destruction. How many years did he watch? According to the word, he was the leader and servant who had attended church and pastored the longest in that era. For 60 years, going through various kings, sometimes very young kings, sometimes kings who were experienced but influenced by this and that politics, sometimes kings who were elected by influential elders but had no will for reform in their hearts, looking at the influence of all kinds of kings, he had faith in the church for 60 years, and when he became a grandfather, his confession of life was, 'Now, whatever I eat, it has no taste, and even if I sit in church, there is no joy.' If someone asks me, I am an 80-year-old elder who has spent 60 years in this church after coming to America, a great person like Jeremiah, but looking at the current situation, whatever I do, I've heard it all. 'I know it all.'

I did it all like that in the past. Jeremiah was just like that. So, although I cannot show it today, if you search for 'Jeremiah' in a dictionary, a picture of a grandfather agonizing between saints who are frustrated and churches and saints who are collapsing usually appears as an illustration. Then, in times like this, what was Father God's heart? And how does He express that heart? Recognizing and understanding reality is also wise and necessary, but more importantly, with what heart did Father God call us together like this at that time? And what kind of life opportunity did He want to give us one more time? Isn't finding that another meaning of dawn, worship, and faith? What was Father God's heart? If you read the Book of Jeremiah, which is a quite long book of the Bible, you will find a peculiar repeated expression. The expression 'The word of the Lord came' is recorded about 30 times, excluding indirect, similar, or various other expressions.

However, when I examined the entire Old Testament, this expression is recorded 123 times from Genesis to Malachi. But among them, about 30 times appear intensively in one person and one era. When was that? In the era that a pastor explained for 15 minutes as an era when people despised the word, an era when people didn't do things like dawn prayer, an era when people felt no inspiration in the church, the word 'The word of the Lord came' was being expressed to that person intensively in 1/4 of the entire record. 'The word of the Lord came.' Although we are tired and having a hard time, what is the reason we are before the word of the Lord at this dawn? The heart of God, the sincerity of that expression, as these numerous pastors pray, fast, prepare for this meeting, and we come here and open the word of the Lord together... what is it? In times like this, to some people, the word of the Lord comes, at 9 AM it comes, at 10:30 it comes, changing pastors, sacrificing the time of those precious people who do overseas missions, God gives the word to me and us, and allows the word to come... this amazing grace.

Yeah, Jeremiah was experiencing that. But when I examined what the content of that word was, it is recorded in Jeremiah 32:41 like this: 'I will give them joy and bless them.' An era when joy disappeared. An era when someone recorded in the Bible that joy had ceased in the temple, but God, to this grandfather who is almost 80, who is watching the fall of the country and seeing the temple burning, to this grandfather whose joy has ceased, 'I will make you happy.' Even just that would be enough to be thankful for, but 'I will give them joy and bless them.' 'I will make your children prosper and bless them.' 'I will bless you with money.' 'I will bless you with longevity.' He didn't say that, but what he needed most. 'Even if my heart stops today, I want to restore joy in God.' A grandfather who can show his children without addition or subtraction what the fruit of the Spirit, which is joy, is. 'My child, I have believed in God for 60 years, and my heart is so joyful.' A grandmother who can say that. So when the grandchildren say, 'Grandfather, Grandmother, I've tried drinking alcohol outside, played games all night, and it's not joyful at all. What should I do? Is there no meaning in living for me anymore?' When they say that, 'No. Even at this time when joy seems to have disappeared in the church and spiritual vitality is weakening, no. I have believed in God for 60 years, and even today God told me that He would give me joy and bless me. Oh, God is truly a good person.' To a grandfather, an old man who is before God even in an era that can be recorded in the Bible as having lost joy in the church to the point where the country falls, even though we don't know how much of his future is left, not even a young Daniel, but to the grandfather Jeremiah, 'I will give you joy and bless you.' Amen. I pray in the name of Jesus that our God will give joy and bless our elders who love the church and love God this morning. Amen.

Amen. Uh, I had tea with some professors. We call it 'Darye' in the old way. I didn't know the etiquette of drinking tea well. Looking at it, there were four professors, me, and someone else who went together, and we drank tea, and all the teacups were really pretty ones. These days, there are many good teacups that are very expensive. Ah, but I can't show it to you, but my teacup looked like a bowl, it was cracked, and it had dirt inside, and they placed it in front of me. At first, I thought, 'I am the youngest, the youngest, and my age [Snort] is a bit lower, and since I am a pastor, maybe they are teaching me humility.' I thought that and went, and this host, this professor, pours tea [Snort] for us. You all know how to pour tea, right? You pour it so it overflows. Then you drink it.

I drank one cup. Since they gave it to me, I drank it all. When I put it down, this person, 'Oh, you seem to like tea,' and poured it so it overflowed again. This is a bowl this big. Yes. He poured it. I, without much thought, drank it all, thinking it was Pu-erh tea, which he got from somewhere under the master, so it's good and will be good medicine for the body. He poured it again. I drank about four or five cups. If you drink five cups of tea in a bowl, no matter how good it is, 'Professor, I cannot drink anymore.' Then he said, 'Ho,' [Snort] 'Pastor, if you want to politely refuse tea, you can turn the teacup upside down.' I didn't know that, so I kept drinking. If you want to politely say, 'I won't drink anymore,' you can just turn the teacup over slightly. Then he won't pour anymore. But I didn't know that, so I kept eating as given, thinking all sorts of things inside.

Like some failed earthenware that you sell on the street in Icheon for 1,000 or 2,000 won, cracked and all, and I kept drinking it in a bowl, and I was dumbfounded, so I sat still, and the professor smiled and said this: 'Pastor, you were upset, right?' 'Why?' I asked. Then he said, 'We are all drinking from such good teacups, and you are...' I smiled and, pretending to be very pious, 'I learned humility today.' He said, 'Pastor, what you are holding, even if it looks like that, is worth 20 million won.' Have you ever drunk tea from a 20 million won cup? That was the first and last time for me. Yes. I asked. 'Um. But why is it cracked and black?' Looking at the picture, it's black with dirt, and it's not just one crack, but it's cracked all over, 'What on earth is this?' I asked, and he said, 'Pastor, this is... after a wise potter molds it with clay and makes a teacup or pottery, he applies glaze for a long time and puts it in a kiln, and when it burns in the fire, it turns red and burns, and it becomes a vessel. He takes it out, and if there's a problem, he breaks it, and if not, he uses it as a product. While it's cooling after being taken out, because the speed at which the clay cools and the speed at which the applied glaze cools are different, it usually cracks by itself.'

The ones without it are cheap. It's supposed to crack like that, and a certain owner liked that crack and bought it. Just like I bought this, if you pour tea into it, while the tea is contained, the particles in the tea, the tea leaves, float around and go into the cracks where the glaze is cracked and get stuck in the clay itself. That happens once, twice, three times, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years... This person had been using this teacup for about 30 years, and after about 30 years, like dirt, the tea leaves go into those cracked gaps and get stuck there, so at a glance, it looks like black dirt, but in fact, the tea leaves are stuck there. So after about 30 years, at some point, even if it's an empty vessel with no tea water, what comes out of it? A fragrance. At first, when it went into the fire and felt pain as if its life was being torn apart, and it hurt, it might have been a bit disappointed in the potter, its owner. 'God, why do You give me such trials?'

Why does my child have to be in such pain? Why does my husband have to experience such an accident? Something went wrong between God and us, joy ceased, Lamentations, Jeremiah... but the amazing thing is that the next morning, the owner pours hot water into that cracked heart again. Even if I wasn't, I'm dying of pain right now, and the word keeps coming in, and sometimes in the pastor's sermon, sometimes while praying, I keep living, saying 'It's hot, it's hot' through life experiences. But after 1, 5, 10 years, at some point, the person who endured it becomes a vessel that gives off a fragrance that has the traces of the owner's life. 'You are the fragrance of Christ.' 'Pastor, even if it looks like this, it's a friend to me. Even if you give me 20 million won, I won't sell it.' I pray that God will look at you, Pastor, like that. He said that. If you are going to live as a Christian, not a pastor, from now on... that professor was retired and was a very elderly senior, a senior in life.

You will experience many difficulties. But even if it is a life like an earthenware vessel that looks unimpressive to others, having endured and overcome those moments, even if wrinkles are deeply carved and there is a smell from the body, God will at some point make you a vessel that cannot be exchanged for anything, 'You are mine.' Wouldn't Jeremiah have been experiencing that? This is called 'Chashim' in difficult Chinese characters. The cracked one. In our lives, often one morning, one day at church, we have an experience where our faith cracks. Sometimes the gaps widen little by little, and all these things that cannot fill the gap are opportunities for God the Father to bestow grace, and moments of God's sincerity to contain all that heart. It is written in Jeremiah 31:9 and 13 like this: 'I am a father to Israel.' 'I will make you find joy.' How much would Jeremiah want to get right now? The country is falling, please rebuild the country. The temple is burned, please rebuild the temple.

My children have left the church, please bring them back. How many prayer topics would he have had? Please bring back Daniel and Ezekiel who were taken away. He must have had countless prayer topics. But God is touching the life of Jeremiah as an individual, as a lamb before God, deep in his heart. 'I am your father and the father of Israel, but first, before your grandchildren, before the church, first you, the grandfather, even if my life was painful, I want to make you find joy.' The day the elder of the house restores joy with God. The day the elder of this church restores joy before God. The burning of the building temple is nothing. Seeing the corruption of this world is nothing. The moment of joy when the fruit of the Spirit is borne within us, our fathers and mothers in our families, our elders in the church, with a gentle smile... So Psalm 37:4 in the Contemporary Bible says this: 'Find your joy in the Lord.'

What will you find in the word of the Lord at this dawn this morning? There are many other prayer topics. But God saw the difficult 80 years of Jeremiah's life, deeper than that. He saw that boredom. 'Find your joy in the Lord.' If there is anyone among us who has that joy and has come before the Lord with joy this morning, I pray in the name of Jesus that that joy will flourish even more. Amen. Experienced joy. Didn't I say that the expression 'The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah' is recorded about 30 times? But if you look at 2 Chronicles 36, which records the life of Jeremiah, that is, the final history of Israel's fall, Jeremiah is mentioned twice. Chapter 36 is quite short. It puts all the important words in the fall of Israel, and in the midst of that, how many pastors must have been in that era? At the time, Ezekiel was young, and Daniel was also a good subject enough to be taken alive by the Gentiles, but God mentions Jeremiah's name at the conclusion of a country's history. But what does it mention? It says: 'The word that the Lord spoke by the mouth of Jeremiah was fulfilled.'

This means that the word of God coming and the word that has come being fulfilled can be completely different things. Coming here and listening to the word and the word we heard in this tent being fulfilled in daily life, in today's life, and in the daily life we will experience when we return to our lives, the Bible records them separately. The source of Jeremiah's joy was not one, but two. First, in an era when the word disappeared and was despised, the word of the Lord came with absolute power. How moving and joyful would that have been? But more importantly, the trembling emotion of that word being experienced and fulfilled in my life after it came. The person of God who experiences the joy of God's word being fulfilled at an age when I feel like the joy of my life is all over... that is Jeremiah. I looked for what a concrete example of the joy of that word being fulfilled would be.

Was it some emotional touch for a grandfather like Jeremiah? Or did he do some great dedication after returning to daily life? What was it? I examined it, and [Snort] when Jeremiah worshiped like that in the midst of that pain, if there is anyone here who is under 50 this morning, could you raise your hand? Oh, have so many come? Oh, Pastor, are you under 50 too? Oh, have so many come? Oh, thank you. I deliver the word in the morning, and in the evening, I go to a place where people called 'Young Spirituality' gather and deliver the word. Yesterday, I went and was so, so moved. I rented a lecture hall, and it was full. But I made a mistake. In Korea, when they said 'young spirituality,' I thought it was 30s and 40s. So I lowered the eye level of this word this much, but when I went, there were people who looked like 30s and 40s, and 40s and 50s... When Jeremiah delivered the word, it wasn't just people of Jeremiah's age, but who was among them? Ezekiel was there.

What is the reason Ezekiel could become Ezekiel? If you look at the Book of Ezekiel, what appears from the first chapter? Ezekiel is a prophet who suffered a lot. He was a prophet who suffered tremendously after being taken away, but from Ezekiel 1:1, what appears? 'I saw God.' 'God is such a person.' In the autobiographical revelation written when he became a grandfather ending his life, he writes, 'I saw God.' But who was in the pulpit when he was young? Jeremiah was there. One of the proofs of how the word that God said He would give you joy is fulfilled. When I delivered the word that came to you from God, someone among them, like Ezekiel, although he was a young man at the time, his life changed into a life of meeting God throughout his life. Oh, how moving it must have been when Jeremiah felt that! The second is Daniel. If we break it down like this, isn't Daniel a very excellent person?

But Daniel, it wouldn't be a shame to call it the motto of our church, the revelation about the coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, received as an answer after looking at the desolate sanctuary... before this, there is a record in the Bible that he started praying to God after realizing that the captivity period would end while reading the Book of Jeremiah. If Jeremiah hadn't existed, Daniel wouldn't have been able to calculate that the captivity period would end, and if Daniel hadn't existed, what would have happened to the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Jeremiah might not have been able to see it as a result in his life, but the fact that his life's record and traces were fulfilled has been fulfilled in Daniel's and your and my lives. When we go to heaven, you and I will be the evidence of the fulfillment of Jeremiah's life. Another person is Jesus Christ. In the church commentary and various writings, it says that Jesus studied the Book of Jeremiah whenever He had time. The Bible book that the Son of God enjoyed reading.

That is the patience of that old general, that elder who pastored for 60 years, 80 years faithfully, but endured all human suffering, and that elder-like relaxed joy and full love for God... not just a privilege of young people, but as you mature and get older, you have deep loyalty and love for God. So a theologian in our denomination said this: 'Potential Christians are not interested in objective truth.' We say, 'The Sabbath is the truth,' 'The Three Angels' Messages are the truth.' They are not interested in things like this. People outside open their hearts when they can move toward a deep experience with God through objective truth. Truth as a practical experience with God. The Seventh-day Adventist Church must re-establish its position as an interpreter of truth that leads to experience. Truth that is proclaimed, debated, and taught... now YouTubers do it all. Potential Christians are not interested in that, but truth that is fulfilled in our lives, joy that actually appears in our lives, I pray in the name of Jesus that our lives will be sanctified as interpreters of truth that leads to experience.

Amen. 'I will go to the altar of God,' a psalmist wrote like that. 'To God, my exceeding joy.' A Christian wrote this about the reason I go to God. 'God, because I couldn't get this, I tried to get joy in the world, went to eat delicious food, went on trips, saved money, invested in apartments, went to the stock market and looked at red and blue, but a Christian goes to the altar of God and says, 'I want to go near to God, my exceeding joy.' I pray in the name of our Lord that you will be people of God who reach before our exceeding joy, God, this morning. Amen. Endless joy, joy of our lifetime, joy of heaven. Uh, I was worshiping like this on Tuesday evening. Since it was Tuesday evening, the people who gathered were very few. During the study, even though it was a small church entrusted to me, on Tuesday evening, about a dozen people gathered and were having a prayer meeting, and suddenly the back door opened during worship.

And an elderly person with gray hair, a teacher, came in. And he sat quietly in the back and nodded while listening to my sermon. He was not a member of our church. Since the number of church members was small, one soul was a very precious position. When we had a conversation, he was this kind of person. At a young age, he was baptized in a student room somewhere in the southern region, and because the country was too difficult and the family was difficult at that time, he couldn't get a high education opportunity and jumped into the field of work immediately, and what he did was wallpapering and flooring. He was a person who lived his whole life doing that work, learning it from a young age. And he became self-made, had a building, and anyway, he became well-off. And he handed over the company that grew like his own business, and he retired, and one day, while reading the word of the Lord in the Bible, suddenly the word 'Sabbath' started to twinkle in his eyes. He was baptized in our Adventist Church at a young age, but after that, while working, he couldn't go to church on Saturdays, so because Korea was also working 6 days a week in the old days, what he did was go to the Catholic Church every Sunday.

And he was a Catholic for 50 years, a very staunch, sincere Catholic. Not only going to the cathedral every Sunday, but he was a person who served for 50 years in volunteer work with nuns, spending a day or two a week, and serving others. But one day, after retiring and reading the Bible, the word 'Sabbath' suddenly started to step on his eyes. So he went to the cathedral and asked the priest. 'Father, the Sabbath appears like this in the Bible, why don't we hold mass on the Sabbath?' And the priest told him to go pray. So he went to pray. But he couldn't get an answer, so he asked the head nun who he volunteered with every Sunday and during the week, 'Nun, while doing volunteer work like this, Nun, why don't we keep the Sabbath, this time to meet God that appears in the Bible, and live like this? I like doing volunteer work, but it keeps appearing in the Bible.' Then this person said, 'Since the Sabbath is not important, just do volunteer work diligently. Then God will receive even doing volunteer work as worship.'

He told him like that. But no matter how much he thought about it, it didn't seem right to him. That doing volunteer work is worship. That is also worship, but this, which appears from Genesis to Revelation in the Ten Commandments in the Bible, replacing it with volunteer work... he thought it didn't seem right, and he searched for the nearest Seventh-day Adventist Church from the house where he was staying on the internet to get the answer. And the church that was discovered was the small church where I was worshiping. He came right away that evening. And he opened the door and came in, and in that small church where a dozen people were sitting and worshiping, he talked about that story, 'Pastor, give me an answer as to why these things in God's word keep appealing to my heart.' Starting from that, he started studying the Bible and eventually became our Adventist member again. Ah, but he was saying this. 'Pastor, I've experienced everything I could really experience, earned as much as I could earn, my children are all doing well now, but I don't know the reason why God is telling me to turn my life upside down like this at this age. Is there a mission that I should do something too?' he asked.

I didn't know what to answer, so I stood still, and he said, 'Still, Pastor, you are a bit better. You don't say things one after another and just stay silent,' and then he went back. Right? That not knowing is also grace, so I stayed still. One day, I was delivering a sermon, and after the prayer, I opened my eyes, and this person had disappeared. 'Where did he go?' and [Snort] I went out and was greeting people outside, and he was coming from the end of the alley over there, and when he saw me, he was startled, and I reached out my right hand to shake hands with him and the other person, and he reached out his right hand, then put it in, and suddenly reached out his left hand. So I shook hands with his left hand by mistake. He said, 'Pastor, I [Snort] was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes, so while suffering alone at a young age, my only joy was alcohol and cigarettes, so I was a chain smoker from a young age, and then a heavy drinker.' He said that if he drank alcohol once, he would drink it like crazy.

But when I came to church, I thought I shouldn't smoke, so I never brought cigarettes, but today I accidentally changed into clothes that had cigarettes in the pocket and came to church. But I came to church and was worshiping, and suddenly my cell phone rang, 'beep-beep-beep.' He doesn't even bring a cell phone when he comes to church. 'Cell phones are Satan hindering me from the word.' So he is a person who doesn't bring it, but that day it was in his pocket. He didn't answer it. 'This is a test. This is Satan trying to cut me off from the word,' and he kept doing it, but when the sermon ended and we were singing hymns, it went 'doo-doo-doo' again. Without much thought, 'This must be something urgent,' and after the sermon ended, I went outside and answered the phone, and it was an advertisement call. 'Aish.' He realized it. What he said was, 'If I just enter the church, I don't think of cigarettes, so I come to church an hour before worship, wait, and when you open the door, I quickly go in and sit down.'

And after an hour, worship for an hour, and then after an hour, when I organize everything and lock the door, he doesn't leave. Since I was studying abroad at that time, studying in graduate school, I had to go quickly to do homework and send the children to school, 'You should go there,' then can a pastor kick a saint out of the church? Ah, what was the reason for this field where he sat next to me and read the Bible together? Because he doesn't think of cigarettes only when he enters the church, he tries to stay inside the church somehow. But that day, he was deceived by the cell phone and went out, so he smoked one, and realized it, and as he was coming back quickly, the pastor was guarding the front of the church. 'Caught.' He came, reached out his right hand, then reached out his left hand, 'Pastor, I'm really sorry,' and after telling this whole story, after talking about cigarettes, [Sigh] [Gasp] 'How can I touch a holy pastor with the hand that committed the sin of smoking?' He prayed with his left hand, and when he came to pray as an Adventist woman, when she was a beginner, 'Pastor, I ate goat soup from down there to fast and pray in the training center,' and she came up... 2 days and 3 nights of fasting, and she came up while buying and eating goat soup from down there because she was afraid she would lack strength... she said that to me... so this was a person whose joy of God and joy of the world were mixed inside my body right now.

Every day, as the year went by, that life changed within God's word, and although he was getting older, flowers of joy bloomed in that life. 'I've eaten a lot of delicious things, Pastor, I've spent as much money as I could, I've seen all the good cars. I've also served my whole life, but like these days...' But then one day, it was the Sabbath, and this person didn't come to church. While I was delivering the sermon, I kept feeling burdened. But after a while, I saw him coming in. Behind him, a couple followed him in. When I was assigned to that church, the predecessor, the person who was studying, 'Pastor, since you are studying, visiting houses is not easy, so visit the houses,' this house is our deacon, but the husband was our church member, and he doesn't come out these days, but he has a big illness, and there was a person who was terminally ill with a month to live. This person went to the hospital once or twice a week, just checked his vitals, prayed for him, and came back. There was a couple I took over. Those people, it's normal not to come to church, and the wife, when she came to church occasionally, she cried throughout the sermon time. Whatever sermon I gave, she came. If it was a joyful sermon, the husband is receiving the day he will die right now, so I alone

Listening to a joyful sermon, she cried, and if I gave a sermon that touched her heart a little, she just wailed, but the church members all pretended not to know. Because they knew the situation. But this elderly Catholic person, when he came to church, he kept an eye on the female deacon who cried every time she worshiped. 'Why on earth does this person grieve like this before God? Why do the church members just leave this sorrow alone?' He watched quietly, and later when he asked, he found out the situation. 'The husband is here like this, like this...' and he heard something from this deacon. And then, while retiring, he is a frugal person who sold everything including his car and rides a bicycle for his health, but he borrowed a car from his son, took the car, went to the hospital, and brought the husband of the terminally ill deacon whom the pastor had given up on to the church that day. Worship was interrupted. The church members gathered. This female deacon said it like that. 'To have my husband come to church once before he dies was my prayer for several years.'

But this person answered that prayer today. Even the pastor gave up, the church members just let it be, but if you speak legally, he is still a sinner, he hasn't quit drinking yet, his life hasn't been balanced yet, this person didn't miss the tears of that one Christian. He brought him that day. It was a mess. The couple sat behind, and this person sat behind, [Snort] looking at those two people kindly and smiling, and I cannot forget his expression throughout the last remaining sermon. That holy joy before God, the person who listened to the pain, suffering, and last prayer of one soul... at that time, I understood the heart of Jesus on the cross. 'He must have been happy.' Why He prayed the prayer of entrusting His soul into the Father's hands... that heart was... truly good. After worship ended gracefully, [Snort] now everything ended like this, and this person came to find me. 'Pastor.' 'Yes.' 'I have a request,' this Catholic person came to find me. 'Yes. What request is it?'

Uh, those couple seem to have lived while suffering so much that they seem to have never been on a couple's trip, and they said they couldn't even go on a honeymoon. In the old days, didn't many of our elders in Korea live without being able to go on honeymoons? Because they were busy making a living. Those people are like that, [Snort] how about our church sends them on a honeymoon before they die? I didn't even think of that idea. What do you think I answered? Do you think I said, 'Let's do that'? I answered, 'Our church balance is 430,000 won.' At that time, that church's balance was only a few hundred thousand won. Truly such a pastor. Oh, my. Money amount. When I answered like that, he looked at me like this and said he knew it would be like that. Because the church's appearance looked like that. He takes out a bundle of money. 'What is this much?' Then there was a bundle of 50,000 won bills in here. 'What is this?' Then he said, 'Because I thought the church would be like that, I brought money, let's not talk about this and send them.' But why is there so much money?

Then, 'Ah, I talked to those people, and it seems they have some pride. So if this poor church sends only those two, would those people go? Let's all go, church members. While going, let's include them so those people's hearts won't be hurt.' So, for the first time since that church was pioneered, all church members went to Jeju Island... they rode an airplane for the first time. We got three rooms. One big room, a room where all men sleep together. One big room, a room where all women sleep together. And a small room in the middle, a honeymoon room. So I did a congratulatory ceremony for those two there, 'Now it's a honeymoon. Go in.' And we took a group photo, and everyone was looking forward, but that female deacon was looking to the side. While stroking her husband's back, 'My husband has come before God.' At that time, I understood the joy before God, this person who has lived as much as he can live and knows the world, as he meets God, the holy joy that comes to that life... I shared that joy that he didn't know what to do with, and people were happy together... the path to lead to eternal life, although steep, has a fountain of joy that gives vitality to all those who are tired.

[Snort] Although our life's path is steep and rugged, God has a fountain of joy that gives vitality. God says to Jeremiah. 'I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.' 'I am a father.' That's what the Bible said. I will turn our life's sorrow into joy, and comfort us, and after sorrow, I will make me and my family happy. Why? Because I am a father. Let us praise the Lord because that God is our father at this [Snort] dawn. Amen. Let us have a time of prayer, rejoicing in the word of the Lord at this dawn together. Let us each go quietly to the altar of joy.

We will pray.