Beloved in Christ, I greet you in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as I warmly welcome you

to the 3rd A.L.I.V.E. GHANA BIBLE CONFERENCE, here in Kwadaso Agric College, Kumasi. I am very much delighted to see you present, ready to unite and delve into the theme, FAITH OF OUR FATHERS, which is in line with the theme for the 125 years of Adventism in Ghana. Every once in a while we have longed to know what inspired Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only beloved son; we have questioned what spirit belied the faith of Moses, who traded away the palatial joy of Egypt for a cold, uncertain future with Israel; still more, we have wondered what prompted Job to hold on to faith when circumstances around him called for bleak despair. These questions we all ask, and with each new insight into Gods word our faith strengthens. Yet still, with each advance step on the trail laid down by the great cloud of witnesses, we wonder why, in comparison to those who came before, we still feel ourselves babes in the faith, upstarts who have barely began the race of faith. Ellen White gives a clue: In every age there witnessed for God men who cherished faith in Christ as the only mediator between God and man, who held the Bible as the only rule of life, and who hallowed the true Sabbath. How much the world owes to these men, posterity will never know. They were branded as heretics, their motives impugned, their characters maligned, their writings suppressed, misrepresented or mutilated. Yet they stood firm and from age to age maintained their faith in its purity, as a sacred heritage for the generations to come. The Great Controversy, page 61. Such insights intimated in the quote above will be expanded in the next couple of days. And it will be our greatest joy to see you come out stronger, more strengthened in the faith of our fathers. I would conclude with the second stanza of the S.D.A.H. 304 Our fathers, chained in prison dark, Were still in heart and conscious free; How sweet would be their childrens fate, If they, like them, could die for thee; Faith of our fathers! holy faith! We will be true to thee till death.

I wish to welcome you again to the A.L.I.V.E. Bible Conference.