David Wright

Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Why Are You Adventists So Obsessed with Health?

Today we're taking a break from the series on Paul and we're talking about health because I was told I need to talk about health and so I like to do what I'm told when I can as much as possible and so I'm actually stealing a illustration that Pastor Hyman used earlier this week with the kids.

And so I have pictured here 1 of the most expensive cars.

And I didn't spend a lot of time trying to decide which is the most expensive and all the rest.

This 1 is priced very reasonably at just 13 million.

It's a Bugatti, made in Germany, but if you keep digging, it's really just a polished up Volkswagen, as they're the parent company.

Top speed of 250 miles an hour, so they say.

And so let's suppose you have this car or you've been given this car.

That's the 1 I had in college back there in the left.

It was really embarrassing to drive to work.

But anyway, you get this car, you have the owner's manual, and I know as all of you men do when you buy any appliance, you pour through and you read the owner's manual cover to cover, right, Pastor Hyman?

In fact, on the way here this morning, we were in fact going to be on time, and then I had a little notification that 1 of my tires was flat on our van.

We've never had a car that would tell us any of these things.

You just had to wait till you heard the rim, and I don't know.

Anyway, so I got out at the first stop sign, and I did the whole, you know, kick the tire thing.

Well, I didn't have to look at this 1 tire in the back.

Well, before I even did that, the reason I'm telling you this story is that there was a symbol on my dash.

Anyway, she pulled out the owner's manual.

And she says, oh, that means 1 of our tires is low.

Owner's manual can be good to have around.

In fact, it can be very helpful to pay close attention to the fluids that go into your vehicle and some vehicles are very specific, only this kind of power steering fluid or whatever it might be.

And if you just ignore the owner's manual on how to care for your brand new $13 million Bugatti Volkswagen, what will happen to your car?

And you might say, well, that's too much of a pain to have to find my nearest Bugatti dealer.

I'll just put in whatever fluids I want to.

I can use some of this leftover oil that I found, you know, and I can pour in some of this other water and some of these other things, and I have some old sets of brakes that I didn't use on another car, I probably can just apply them to this car.

And then they probably need to replace these tires every 500 miles or so, but I still have a lot of good wear on my truck tires.

What would soon happen to this vehicle if you just ignored everything in the manual?

And of course you see where we're going with all of this.

But it would be to the detriment of this car.

And very quickly, how much would this car be worth in a very short amount of time.

I've known individuals who have not checked the oil on their car, the lifeblood of the engine, and they're going down the road and all of a sudden the heat indicator spikes, the whole engine locks up, and virtually the engine is destroyed.

All because they didn't pay attention to the owner's manual.

We serve a Creator God of heaven who created a beautiful world and at the end of his creation, he made man in his own image, the crowning masterpiece, if you will, of creation.

If anybody knows how our body best functions, I would think he would be the creator God of the entire universe.

But we have all kinds of other things vying for us to purchase and buy and ingest sugar and all the rest.

I'm really surprised ketchup isn't up here.

If we want optimal performance, if we want to reach 250 miles an hour, then we really need to put in and pay attention to what we put into our bodies.

So, at this mini medical school, and you heard all that they learned about the body system and how interconnected everything is, how color and food is important for vitamins and minerals, the importance of exercise, how to minimize sugar intake, how to read labels, how to avoid certain foods, and what things are actually poisonous to the body.

Yet we have a culture and a society out there that says, who cares?

If it tastes good, if it feels good, do it and enjoy it.

Have you known people that have taken that motto and how they live their life?

If it tastes good, if it feels good, enjoy it.

And they enjoy it for a season, but that season passes all too quickly.

I really wonder if there could be such a thing as truth in advertising, if you could show a product and then fast forward and show the end result of that product.

You'll be grabbing your toilet before morning.

What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own." Continuing on, "'For you are bought with a price.

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are whose?

God's.'" Back to this stewardship idea that even my own body truly does not belong to me, but it is God's.

It is what he wants to inhabit with his Holy Spirit.

You know, if you were to calculate the worth of the human body, People have tried to do this.

In fact, and this is to sell parts of the body is not ethical, it's illegal, it's not even fully possible to get everything because we are so, in fact, interconnected.

However, insurance likes to estimate and hospitals estimate.

So, if we were to calculate various parts of the body, it would go something like this.

If you're a woman, your egg cells over 8 years is 214, 000.

If you add everything up, the value of the human body, 45 million dollars.

You are incredibly and wonderfully made at the hand of the Creator God.

And at the end of the day you cannot put a worth or a value on your health and on your life.

Our bodies are in fact the temple of the Holy Spirit.

We are to treat our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Our bodies belong to God, both through creation and through redemption.

And so I do believe God cares about how we treat what He has given to us.

So we have 3 diets in the Bible, if you will, or 3 categories.

Do You Want to Be Made Whole?

And He looks into our lives and He sees things right off the bat and He says, you know what?

I could make these adjustments and changes quite easily, actually.

But if you'd only allow me to get started, if you'd only give me permission, if you'd only give me access.

Revelation 3.20 says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

He doesn't say, Hey, hey, hey, here I come.

He stands politely as a gentleman at the door, and he knocks.

And if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me." He says, I long to have relationship, but I'm not going to force myself on you.

I'm not going to demand it or require it.

And so that fundamental choice comes down to you and I, and it comes to us today and every day.

And the question is, what are we going to do with that choice?

I like the things that I'm used to and accustomed to.

But what is that essentially saying about our trust in God as He's knocking at our heart's door?

Well, He might do something I don't like.

He might take away those things that I very much enjoy.

We're basically saying I don't trust that he has my best interest at heart.

So the safest place to leave that person is outside.

But friends, Jesus is the great fixer-upper.

And the essential question is, do you want to be made whole?

It's not, is there somebody out there that's willing to take on the task?

It's a very simple, it's a very basic question.

This morning I want to look at the story in John chapter 5.

There's other aspects of this story that we probably will not take the time to get into, but I want to look at the first part of this story that takes place.

The title in your Bible might be similar to mine, a man healed at the pool of Bethesda.

It was a Sabbath day, just like in our story, it tells us in verse 9, and we as well came through the Sheep Gate.

It's on the north side of the Temple Mount of the city.

I mean, the lower end is taller and higher, and that's where more of the main entrances were.

And so this north end is kind of the backside, if you will, of the Temple Mount.

And so the Sheep Gate was called that because the sacrifices often would come in through that gate.

And there was a pool there, and it became so popular that they expanded this place.

And we read about it here in John 5, beginning in verse 1.

After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now, there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having 5 porches.

And in these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.

For an angel went down at certain time into the pool and stirred up the water.

And then whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well of whatever disease he had." Verse 5, now a certain man was there who had an infirmity 38 years.

If you're not familiar, Jerusalem has been built on top of many, many times.

And I believe it's when the Muslims kind of took things over.

They didn't want the Temple Mount to be so high and removed.

And so they built on top of a lot of the existing Jerusalem, which is still underneath all of that.

Sometimes you can even access and do a dig in Jerusalem underneath the city that everyone's using today.

But this story in John chapter 5 has been under some scrutiny for some time saying there's no place in Jerusalem that fits this story.

Until they unearthed and uncovered exactly what the Bible describes in the 20th century, they found 2 pools with 5 porches.

Was it just as accurate before the archaeologists found and made that discovery?

And this is maybe a depiction, if you will.

You have the Temple Mount here on our left, and then behind, we're actually looking at the north side here, even though it may appear to be the south side, you have these 2 pools, if you will.

And if we zoom in on those 2 pools, this is kind of a model, if you will, of what it may have looked like.

It was laid out in an uneven rectangle, 165 feet by 220 feet wide, that's the uneven part, by 315 feet long, hewn entirely out of rock, surrounded by colonnades on all 4 sides, and divided by a fifth colonnade in the center.

And this pool was fed by an underground intermittent stream.

And so anything, if you know anything about an intermittent stream, sometimes it bubbles and gurgles and does all of these things when the water begins to flow again.

Yet there is this idea that has developed, this tradition that when the water gurgles, it's an angel and the first 1 in the pool is healed.

Well, Beth, if you study words, means house of.

We have lots of Beths in Scripture or cities that start with Beth.

And we read about who is there, the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed.

Really, what this ended up being was a human garbage dump.

And it was avoided by most, and you can understand why.

Because of the sights and the smells, it was not pleasant, it was uncomfortable.

Here are people that nobody knows what to do with.

Maybe there is some chance, some stretch, if you will, that when there's a stirring of the water, they could be healed.

Another reason to avoid it is I don't want to become ceremonially unclean on my way to the temple, never mind the fact that it's a depressing place to be and they're asking for money and begging and all the rest.

Let me ask you, what would it be, Certainly in our time, but what would it mean back then?

Who's going to employ somebody that is lame, unable, And perhaps the paralyzed is the most worst off of all." To be paralyzed means some part of the body is not capable of movement.

You can tell it anything you want from up here, but there's no response down below.

It might be from the waist down, it could be from the neck down, but it is a total lack of control of a part of the body.

We could use words like powerless, helpless, incapable, unable.

Just gonna pause our story there for a minute.

Revelation’s Battle of Armageddon and the Seven Last Plagues

We have a rather heavy topic, if you will.

Revelation's battle of Armageddon and the 7 last plagues.

I don't know about you, but this does not sound like a children's storybook that you want to read them before they go to bed each night.

Daddy, read us again the story of the 7 last plagues.

I've never heard that before, but we're gonna go through that here just a little bit.

Really, when you think of the 7 last plagues, what do you think of?

If you read through Revelation chapter 16, it certainly is not a pretty picture.

It's not something you look forward to or that you're longing to have happen.

There's all kinds of things that are going to happen and unfold and exactly when and how it's going to unfold is what we want to look at this morning.

Will we see all kinds of pictures happening on things around the world?

Perhaps whole cities going up in smoke, if you will.

All kinds of natural disasters and those types of things.

Armageddon is certainly something that we see in all kinds of Hollywood depictions, isn't it?

And again, they try and come up with stories and scenarios, but I've never seen an Armageddon film.

I don't usually watch the films, but any kind of a trailer or anything else that looks cozy.

Oh, we thought we might just go visit Armageddon, right?

That's not exactly the picture that we have.

And really, when we go through that chapter, we're looking at unprecedented series of worldwide natural disasters, unprecedented world financial collapse, global international conflict.

But I imagine that the Times or the Daily Times may read something like this, Is this the end?

A lot of people are projecting the time of the end is just around the corner.

Is it the case, And if so, what will it look like?

And the other question that I think is fair to ask is, how could a loving God afflict people with sores from head to toe?

How could a loving God turn rivers of water into rivers of blood?

Why would a loving God pour out these 7 last plagues?

Are they just some arbitrary scourge on the part of God to punish?

I mean, 1 John 4 8 says that God is a God of love.

And if so, can you see God's love in the 7 last plagues?

Is it true that all prophecy is Christocentric, meaning Christ is at the center of the prophecy.

And if so, the question becomes, what do the 7 last plagues do to teach us about Jesus?

Do you have good answers to those questions?

We also want to see, when does this period of tribulation occur?

And are God's people raptured before this period of 7 last plagues?

That's a very popular teaching that God's going to rapture his chosen before he comes.

Therefore, they won't have to suffer any of the 7 last plagues.

Are we on the verge of the tribulation, the time of the end, and the battle of Armageddon?

Well for that, let's turn to our theme book, the book of Revelation, and hear the third angel's message.

Revelation chapter 14, at the heart, at the climax of the apex or peak of this chiastic structure in Revelation, we have this 3 angels message.

And it says, then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel.

It doesn't need to be redone or refashioned.

To preach to those who dwell on the earth.

Well, to every nation, tribe, tongue, people, everyone.

Yes, the message of Revelation is to go to the whole world.

Saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come.'" Fear God not in the sense of being afraid of God, but rather respecting or obeying God.

Allow him to be Lord of your life." And then here's another key, and worship him.

Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.

Direct quote, copy and paste, taken out of the fourth commandment.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

It's a memorial of the Creator and the Bible Sabbath, if you will.

The 1 who created and formed and fashioned us, who created all things.

Skipping down to the third angel, then a third angel followed them saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast, here's another form of worship, If he worships the beast, however, and his image, and receives his mark rather than the seal, the Sabbath of God, on his forehead or on his hand.

And so we have these 2 contrasting ideas, 2 forms of worship.

We have the worship of the Creator and the worship of the Beast.

We have the seal of God and we have the mark of the Beast.

And so at the end we see it's about worship.

He's the 1 that is worshiping and receiving the mark, the false worship.

He himself shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.

So who will be the recipients of God's wrath?

Those that have the mark of the beast." Who will have the mark of the beast?

And in their way and fashion, as they say, it should be done.

And you might say, and what is the wrath of God?

Well, Revelation 15, 1 tells us plainly, and we'll look at this verse in a moment, but the wrath of God is the 7 last plagues.

And this wrath, which is poured out full strength into a cup of his indignation, he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." This is a solemn warning given by these 3 angels, isn't it?

But Revelation predicts a final conflict over this true and false worship.

There's going to be this climactic moment.

And if you're thinking Armageddon, you're on the right track.

At the end of the third angel's message, still in Revelation 14, now verse 12.

Here are those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus, which Last night we learned the faith of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Here is this group at the end time that have both of those characteristics.

And while the world is giving them all kinds of pressure to do something else, here are the saints being patient, saying, I know the world is saying this, I know the leadership is saying that, I know government's saying this, kings and influential people are saying all kinds of things, but I'm going to follow the Creator God.

I'm going to abide by the 10 Commandments and have a faith of Jesus." So the great conflict in the last days of Earth's history is a struggle in the human mind, if you will.

Back to Menu

Presenter

David Wright

All Recordings

Why Are You Adventists So Obsessed with Health?

43m

Do You Want to Be Made Whole?

33m

Revelation’s Battle of Armageddon and the Seven Last Plagues

43m

Gethsemane, Crucifixion and Resurrection

12m

Trapped

15m

Looking for Interested Hearers

41m

Q and A and Final Charge

1h

Mission to the Community

46m

Mission of Attendance and Involvement

1h 4m

Mission of the Word

1h

Freedom Squandered

46m

Are You Old School?

41m

Sound Doctrine