Video sermon transcript by Slawomir Gromadzki
Personal Testimony
Hello everyone, and happy Sabbath to all of you! Since it is the first time I have the privilege of speaking from this place, let me tell you a few things about myself.
I was born in Poland and joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1986, when I was about 25 years old. Before that, however, my life was not very good. I was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. My girlfriend and I were planning to get married, but she became afraid of marrying someone as foolish and irresponsible as I was, so she decided to leave me. I did not love her at that time, but after she left, I began to miss her, so I tried everything to quit smoking and drinking and to make myself a better person. But as you can imagine, very shortly after that, I realized that I wasn’t able to change myself because of my pathetic willpower.
So when I was about to give up, I was inspired to give God a chance. I didn’t know anything about Him because my father was a communist and an atheist, and my mother wasn’t interested in spiritual things. But I thought, “I don’t know anything about God, whether He exists or not, but I will not lose anything if I give Him a chance and try.”
So I went to a big Catholic cathedral because I thought that was the kind of place where I should approach God. Nobody was there, so I sat down in a pew, knelt, and started begging God—not knowing if He existed—to change my life. I did it with tears in my eyes, and suddenly I felt a strange peace, as if someone wanted to tell me that He loved me, that He heard my prayer, and that rescue was on the way.
Very soon after that, someone brought me a book. Guess what the title of the book was? It was The Great Controversy, written by the Seventh-day Adventist author Ellen White.
Poland was mostly a Catholic country, with about 100,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, 200,000 Evangelical Christians, only about 3,000 to 5,000 Seventh-day Adventists, and about 20-30 Adventist colporteur evangelists. So God chose and inspired one of them, sending him to find me among a population of about 35 to 37 million people!
When I prayed the first heartfelt, honest prayer in my life, God sent me a book written not by a Catholic, Evangelical, or Jehovah’s Witness author, but by a Seventh-day Adventist author. I was reading it very slowly. It was strange for me because, until that time, I usually read only the beginning and the end of books, but I kept reading this one.
When I started reading about the second coming of Jesus, the changed commandments, the Sabbath, those incredible biblical prophecies fulfilled in such an amazing way, angels, spiritism, and the new life in heaven and on the new Earth, I was so impressed that I had never felt anything like it. I read the second half of the book overnight until I finished it in the morning. I was so surprised that I had never heard about these incredible truths.
My greatest desire now was to share this incredible truth with my family and friends, and I was 100% sure that they would all accept it because, to me, the evidence was so strong. But I was so surprised when I tried to share the truth with them: my friends were not interested, although I begged them to be, and my family—my parents and my three older sisters—thought that I had developed some form of mental illness. My oldest sister, who was a dentist, was begging me with tears in her eyes to go with her to a psychiatrist. I could understand them, though, because they didn’t know that the Word of God is active and living, and that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes it. It is a transforming power.
After reading the book, I immediately bought a Bible because Spirit of Prophecy books always lead to prayer and to the study of the Word of God. I started studying the Word of God every day and praying, and what I couldn’t achieve on my own, God gave me the power to accomplish. It wasn’t easy, and what was surprising to me was quitting smoking. For two weeks, I was dreaming about smoking Marlboro Lights. In the morning, because those dreams were so vivid, I woke up sure that I had started smoking again, but thank God I realized it was only a dream. I praise the Lord for that! From that time until today I have never returned to alcohol or cigarettes.
Many years have now passed since those events, and during all that time I have never doubted that it was God who answered my first desperate prayer in that empty cathedral and guided The Great Controversy into my hands — the book that led me to study the Word of God and discover the truth that “shall make you free” (John 8:31–32).
Since then, God has answered many of my prayers, sometimes in truly miraculous ways. Twice He healed me instantly. On another occasion, while I was distributing Bibles and books such as The Desire of Ages, The Great Controversy, and Steps to Christ in the Polish mountains, God sent His angel in human form to help me carry heavy parcels with those books. At first I thought he was simply an ordinary man who kindly offered to help me. But when I later wanted to thank him by giving him one of the books free of charge, he suddenly disappeared without a trace.
Today, after all these years, I can say that I do not merely believe in God — I know from my own experience that He exists. I know that He is a God of love, mercy, compassion, and infinite power. He is the God who says to each one of us: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3), and “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).
Before we start, let us have a short word of prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, we would like to open Your Word now and study it for Your glory and for our spiritual benefit. We want to do it with the presence and special influence of the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us to lead us into all truth. We thank You that He is with us now, because we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus, our wonderful Savior, and because You have promised. Amen.
“My Sheep Hear My Voice”
Please open with me to the Gospel of John, chapter 10, where we are going to read verses 27 and 28.
Recently, these two verses caught my special attention, and I would like to share a few thoughts with you.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”
What a wonderful promise! First of all, since our Lord says, “My sheep hear my voice,” we need to stop and ask ourselves how we can hear His voice. Obviously, we can hear His voice when we read His Word, but is that the only way we can hear His voice? Please listen to what the book Christ’s Object Lessons tells us about it:
“If we keep the Lord ever before us, praising Him, our prayers will take the form of a conversation with God, as we would talk with a friend. He will speak to us personally” (Christ’s Object Lessons, pages 129–130).
To me, an excellent example of such close communion with the Lord and hearing His voice is Sister Elva from a church near Wolverhampton, where I used to live. I often had conversations with her. She was taking care of a Polish man named Stanislaw. Like myself, he was addicted to alcohol and smoking. She got a Polish version of that beautiful small book Steps to Christ from me, gave it to him, supported him, and prayed for and with him. He seemed to accept the truth, but the problem was that he was still smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. She kept praying that the Lord would give him the power to overcome.
One day, he had an accident so severe that he was taken to the hospital. He couldn’t speak or eat through his mouth and was fed through a special tube connected to his abdomen. After visiting him in the hospital and praying for him, Sister Elva told me that she went back home, knelt, and started complaining to God, saying, “Lord, why have You allowed him to go through this horrible accident? He can’t even speak now.”
The Lord spoke to her in her mind and said, “Yes, you are right, he can’t speak now. But can he drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes now?”
Then she realized that the accident was actually a great blessing for him because he was able to quit smoking and drinking. So instead of complaining, she started to praise God. For a long time, I kept in contact with her through WhatsApp, and she was always an excellent, beautiful example to me of what my Christian walk should be like.
So now we know a little better what the Lord Jesus meant when He said, “My sheep hear my voice.”
“And I Know Them” – Oida vs Ginosko
Let’s move to the second very important statement He makes in John 10:27: “I know them.” Again, if I study the Word of God properly, I need to stop and answer the question: What did He mean by saying that He knows me?
Not long ago, I was watching a video sermon by one of our pastors, and he mentioned that in the Greek language of the New Testament, there are two words that can be translated “to know.” The first one is oida, and the second one is ginosko.
Oida refers to knowing something or someone through observation, without necessarily having a relationship. But ginosko is different: it can refer to knowing someone through a close, intimate, loving relationship. The same word ginosko is used when we read that Joseph did not know (ginosko) Mary until Jesus was born. In that context, the word refers to an intimate, close relationship between husband and wife.
Guess which word was used in John 10:27 by the Lord Jesus? Ginosko! He says, “I know (ginosko) them”—meaning He knows them through a loving, intimate, close relationship.
Now, there are two things we can do in order to develop this close relationship with our Lord. The first one is abiding in His Word, because He says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.” So He says, “I know you because you are truly my disciples.”
The second thing, of course, is prayer.
Knowing God Through His Word
But before we come to prayer, let me share one more important statement about the Word of God:
“Study the Word of God. Commit its precious promises to memory, so that when we shall be deprived of our Bibles, we may still be in possession of the Word of God.”
We are encouraged to memorize the key verses of the Word of God. We don’t have to be like John Andrews, one of our pioneers, who knew the entire New Testament and almost the entire Old Testament by heart! But we are encouraged to learn and memorize key Bible verses.
Some time ago, I went through the entire Bible and selected about 200 to 300 key Bible verses. By God’s grace, I have managed to learn many of them. I repeat the ones I know about once a week so I don’t forget them, and I continue to learn new ones. In the beginning, it was quite difficult, but the longer I do it, the easier it gets, and I hope to learn all of them well. This is important because, during times of persecution, we may not be able to carry our printed Bibles or mobile phones with Bibles on them. But if we learn key Bible verses by heart, nobody will be able to take the Word of God from us. I have to tell you that filling my mind with the Word of God gives me great satisfaction and pleasure.
Now, how should we study the Bible? First of all, with prayer; second, with understanding. Let us not move forward when we don’t understand something—let us keep reading and praying until we understand. It is also extremely important to study the Word of God with faith: we have to believe what we read in the Bible, because otherwise it will not benefit us.
Knowing God Through Prayers
In order for Jesus to say that He knows us, we also need to develop this close relationship with Him through long, earnest prayers. The Bible tells us that we are to pray without ceasing, and the Apostle Paul says that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Why are we supposed to pray all the time and take care of the gift of salvation—which we have through faith—with fear and trembling? It is because we have to deal with two deadly enemies: the first one is the army of invisible demons, and the second one is internal—the law of sin dwelling in us.
How can we overcome the army of demons? We can’t do it on our own. So what is the solution to this problem? One of our Polish pastors once told me that when he was attending primary school as a small boy, there was an older, stronger boy who bullied him on a regular basis. He couldn’t fight that boy because he was too weak. But he got an excellent idea: he decided to bring his older brother to school, who was stronger and bigger than the bully. From that time on, the bully never bothered him again.
What an excellent example for us Christians! Do we have an Elder Brother who is much stronger than our bullies? Thank God, we do! He says that all power in heaven and on Earth has been given to Him. Is He our Brother? Oh, yes! The Apostle Paul says that He was made like His brothers—like Abraham’s descendants, like believers—in every way. At the Incarnation, the Lord Jesus took our flesh, overcame it perfectly on our behalf, and now He wants to repeat that victory in us by faith. If we have communion with Him, and if we first accept Him as our only ticket to heaven and salvation, He can dwell in us and overcome all our external bullies.
Overcoming the Law of Sin
But we have another deadly enemy, and we are way too weak to overcome it on our own.
What is it? In Romans 7:17, the Apostle Paul says:
“Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”
Please notice that he uses the singular form of the word “sin,” not plural. The singular form here refers to our nature. That’s why John the Baptist says in the beginning of the Gospel: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” referring to our sinful nature. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, we read that Jesus was made sin (singular) for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
The Apostle Paul calls this singular sin that dwells in us—this matrix or factory of sin we are born with—a “law.” Why does he call it a law?
If you stretch one of your hands forward like this and keep it stretched for 20 or 30 seconds, what do you start feeling? There is an invisible force pulling your hand down. What is it? It is the law of gravity! Why is it called a law? Because it is a constant force that never ceases; it works 24 hours a day. Is the strength of our muscles a constant force? No. Therefore, sooner or later, our muscles have to give up, and the law of gravity wins because it is a constant force that never stops.
Now we can understand why the Apostle Paul calls this matrix of sin in us—which is constantly pulling us toward sin and selfishness—a law: because, like the law of gravity, it is a constant force. Can we overcome the law of gravity with our willpower? Is our willpower a law or a constant force? No. Therefore, no matter how strong our willpower is, sooner or later we give up, and the law of sin and death wins.
Does this mean we shouldn’t use our willpower to fight against sin? No, we should use our willpower, but we cannot rely on it. There is a much better way to achieve victory. How can we overcome the law of sin? We can overcome it by using another law! Is there another law available in the Bible for us Christians? Thank God, there is!
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
By the way, the Book of Romans is extremely important. Why? Because the Gospel is the most vital message for us to understand, and the Book of Romans contains the complete message of the Gospel presented by the Apostle Paul in a systematic way from start to finish. That’s why this Gospel turned the world upside down, including during the Great Protestant Reformation. When Martin Luther started understanding the Book of Romans—that “the just shall live by faith”—he proclaimed it, and the whole world was turned upside down.
The Gospel will do the same in our lives, because the Gospel is not words only; God says that the Gospel is the transforming power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. The Gospel is the holy life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, which needs to be accepted by faith.
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
What is the name of this law with which we can overcome the law of sin? The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus! But please notice that this victory over the law of sin, selfishness, and death first took place in Christ Jesus. It took place because, at the Incarnation, He took our nature: “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The Greek word sarx is translated as “flesh.” What does “flesh” mean? It’s not only the physical body. Paul says in Romans 7, “I am carnal (sarx), sold under sin.” So the word “flesh” refers to the nature we are born with. The Lord Jesus took it, and He is the only One who overcame it perfectly.
He overcame the law of sin and death not by using His divine powers, as some people think—because in Philippians we read that Jesus emptied Himself of His divine prerogatives. He never fought against sin using His divine powers; He used the exact same power available to all of us, which is the power of the law of the Spirit of life, and He overcame perfectly. Now He wants to repeat that same victory in all of us!
Does He want to repeat this victory in order to save us? No, because our salvation is already found in His victory. When we accept His salvation and His victory over sin and death, it becomes our salvation. Why then does He want to repeat the same victory over the law of sin in us now? Because He wants to demonstrate the power of the Gospel and prove that we are saved and have truly accepted this wonderful Gospel of freedom.
Consider another vital verse from the Book of Romans:
“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”
Please, dear brothers and sisters, we need to make sure that we are born of the Spirit, because if God’s Spirit—Christ’s Spirit—does not dwell in us, we do not belong to Him and are lost.
Is it difficult to be a born-again Christian? No! How can we be born again? How can the Holy Spirit dwell in us?
“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you… Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”
Paul wrote this because Judaizers had deceived the Galatians, telling them, “Yes, you have to believe in Jesus, but you also need to add something—keeping the moral and ceremonial laws and circumcision.” They claimed that salvation is through faith plus human effort. Paul called them foolish and asked how they had received the Spirit: by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?
When we hear this wonderful Gospel of freedom, study the Book of Romans along with Steps to Christ—which explains the Gospel in a clear, systematic way—and believe with all our hearts without trying to add our best self-righteous deeds to it, a miracle takes place. We accept it as we are, enjoy this salvation, and are no longer spiritually dead. We are born spiritually dead, in darkness, without the internal presence of the Holy Spirit and agape love, but now a miracle occurs: the Holy Spirit begins dwelling in us with agape love.
“Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
Practical Prayer & Union with Christ
Some time ago, I started watching video sermons by Pastor Pavel Goia, and I immersed myself in his beautiful ideas about effective prayer.
Pastor Pavel Goia
I started implementing those ideas: I stopped praying selfishly about myself, gave up quick “microwave” prayers, and began spending longer periods in prayer—about one to two hours.
First of all, I praise God for what He has done through the Lord Jesus. Then I make a list of all the blessings, miracles, and answered prayers, praising Him for them, because it is very dangerous if we forget how much we owe our Lord. Then I pray for my wife, my family, my friends, and for you, the church members. I don’t pray generally; I pray individually for every person. It takes time, but I believe the Lord wants us to do it. For myself, I pray only that the Lord destroys my selfishness and pride, enabling me to surrender all so the Holy Spirit can use me to share the truth of the Gospel with others.
After about two weeks, I started noticing the blessings of this kind of prayer. The Lord started giving me more opportunities to witness for Him and answering my prayers, just as He did when I first accepted the truth, had my first love, and surrendered to Him.
Some time ago, I told you that one day I couldn’t find a cable for my shaver. I looked for a long time, and finally my wife and I decided to pray. While praying with my eyes closed, the Lord showed me where the cable was. When I opened my eyes, the cable was right where I was shown!
Not long after that, another cable story happened: I couldn’t find the cable for my hair clippers. This time, I decided to pray earlier. As I prayed, the Lord impressed me with an idea: He showed me that I should take the shaver cable I had found earlier, turn the connector upside down, trim a little plastic off, and plug it into the socket of the hair clippers. I did it, and behold—it charged normally! So I was able to use one cable for two different devices. It’s just a small example to show that when we surrender all and truly pray, the Lord guides us, inspires us, and dwells within our spirit.
READ ABOUT “MIRACLES & ANSWERED PRAYERS” BY PAVEL GOIA
“Few pray all night as did our Savior, but devote hours in the day to prayer. Prayer is the breath of the soul. It is the secret of spiritual power. No other means of grace can be substituted, and the health of the soul be preserved. Neglect prayer, and you lose your hold on God.”
Wanderer and a Lump of Clay
I love to read a Persian story about a wanderer who found a common lump of clay:
It was so redolent of the sweetest perfume that its wonderful fragrance scented the place.
“What are you?” was his demand. “Are you spikenard in this rude disguise, or other costly merchandise?”
“No, I am but a lump of clay.”
“Then whence this wondrous perfume?”
“Say, friend, if the secret I disclose, I have been dwelling with the rose.”
And will not those who love to dwell with Sharon’s Rose distill sweet odors all around, though low and mean themselves are found?
Whenever I read this beautiful short story, it touches my heart because it reminds me that although I am like that ugly, worthless lump of clay—sinful, lost, naked, and wretched, as we read in Revelation chapter 3—if we choose to believe, we can be one with Him who is like the most beautiful Rose of Sharon. The longer we are united with Him, the more He can reveal through us the sweet aroma of His everlasting, unconditional, self-sacrificing agape love.
Christ In Us, the Hope of Glory
Can Jesus be one with us? Oh, yes! In one of his letters, the Apostle Paul says that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. In Romans 7:4, we read that 2,000 years ago, when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, we all died through the body of Christ. Because we died through Him, we have the legal right to “divorce” our first husband.
Who was our first husband? The holy, immortal law was our first husband. Was that marriage happy? No. Although the first husband is holy, perfect, and immortal, we were unhappy because whenever we made a mistake, he condemned us. We were serving God out of fear, not out of love.
How did God solve this problem? He put us in Christ, and we died with Jesus on the cross—our old self was crucified with Him, as Paul says in Romans 6:6. Now we have the legal right to divorce that first husband and marry a second husband, who is the Lord Jesus!
In marriage, two become one. We are united with Christ, so when the old, holy law comes to examine us, he no longer sees our flaws—he sees Jesus, His righteousness, His holiness, and His perfection! That is why Romans 8:1 says:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”
Isn’t the Gospel wonderful good news? It is the Gospel of freedom that we already have in the Lord Jesus, even though it is difficult for our egocentric nature to accept.
“That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
In verse 21 of John 17, He repeats these same wonderful words:
“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”
When something is repeated in the Word of God, it means it is extremely important. Jesus prays that they may be brought to complete unity.
Can the Lord Jesus dwell in us? Oh, yes! Someone once told me that Bible verses saying Jesus dwells in us are just metaphors or paraphrases, not literal. But can demons dwell in sinful human beings? Yes, the Bible is very clear about that, and we know it from experience. How can demons dwell in us? Because God created a human spirit within us so that He could dwell in us through it. When we completely reject God, demons may enter and dwell in us instead. Demons don’t have physical bodies of their own, but they have spirits. Similarly, God has a personality, but He is also Spirit, and through our human spirit, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can dwell in us—which is an incredible truth!
Most Important Prayer Intention (Ephesians 3)
Before I finish, let me quote one final passage from the Word of God in Ephesians chapter 3 to emphasize what is most vital in Christianity.
The Apostle Paul says, “I bow my knees before the Father.” The Jews usually prayed standing up with outstretched arms; when they knelt, it meant they were praying for something of supreme importance. What is so vital that Paul prays for us on his knees?
He prays that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you may be rooted and established in God’s agape love, and that you may have power to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ. He prays that you may know (ginosko) this love through personal communion with Jesus—a love that surpasses knowledge—so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Amen!
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