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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Don Mackintosh

Surprise Attacks, Part 1

Father in Heaven, Lord, thank you today for this new year.

Thank you that you can use the foolishness of preaching to impact our lives.

And I ask that you would impact my life over the next few moments, that you would cause me to listen to what you have to say, and all of us as well, to discern your voice today in the message for us.

You know, as you study history, the other day I was in a restaurant at a hotel.

We were traveling back from GYC and a man was sitting there and he was reading a military history book.

And so I began a conversation with him about all the different surprise attacks in history.

We talked about the Trojan horse in the 8th century, the Greeks finagled their way into the ancient city of Troy and they delivered troops in a surprise attack that came out and overwhelmed the city.

And then, you know, we thought about the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 A.D.

Where Alaric and some rebellious slaves rushed through a city gate that had been left open in a surprise attack.

They had never been attacked that way and overwhelmed that way.

And it totally changed their concept of themselves.

And of course, the Battle of Trenton in Jersey, or Delaware rather, 1776, George Washington crossed the Delaware with 2, 400 troops and surprised the Hessians and they were the best soldiers of the day.

No 1 could beat the Hessians and yet they were beat by the Patriots and this totally changed the Patriots' idea of themselves and it led to the independence that we enjoy in America because they knew that now they could beat the most trained army.

And then of course 1 of my favorites is Horatio Lord Nelson.

How many of you have ever studied the Battle of Aqabar?

So, like literally no 1 raised their hands.

So I can pretty much say anything I want right now.

So the Battle of Aqaba, famous battle where Lord Nelson was chasing Napoleon around.

Napoleon had just taken over Malta and he didn't want to meet Horatio Lord Nelson because he was a very famous naval admiral.

Of course, you go to Trafalgar Square, you see a picture of him on the top there when you go to London next time.

And this unflattering picture shows a, like, you know, a flap of skin there above his left eye and, or right eye, and that flap of skin actually was in this battle I'm describing.

1 time he was out battling and people said, you can't do it because the enemy will overwhelm us.

And he looked at the enemy through his telescope.

They said, that's because you're using your glass eye.

He came, an admiral, he just kind of, he knew he needed to get the job done.

And in this particular battle, Napoleon was down there, And he saw his ships, he snuck around at nightfall with his ships and came behind the ships of Napoleon and involved in a crossfire, sunk all the ships, stranded Napoleon, and, you know, we wouldn't have found the Rosetta Stone if that wouldn't have happened, so biblical scholars are happy, but it took him months.

He had to march his army all back up, all the way up through Africa to get back to the continent.

Battle of France, they went around the line.

And it totally changed the way the world regarded France and also the way France regarded itself.

The attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, a day of infamy, where the Japanese attacked 353 planes, 20 warships were sunk, 2, 400 Americans were killed, 12, 000 wounded.

Guess where they learned how to make that surprise attack?

They studied documents in the Smithsonian.

And they used our own documents to make that surprise attack.

And then there's many others that are interesting.

The 6 day war and of course, closer to home, September 11, has things changed since that surprise attack?

Huge surprise attack that have totally changed every airport experience you ever had since then around the globe.

But number 2 I want to talk about the most interesting surprise attack.

Now you probably didn't hear this at your Christmas program the last couple weeks ago.

Come down for the children's story and someone's all dressed up as a red dragon with 10 heads and how many of you saw that?

They come and they scare all the kids and then from the back of the church there runs up a pregnant lady to overwhelm the red dragon.

Surprise attack is met with another surprise attack.

A pregnant lady is attacking a red dragon.

We're studying the book of Revelation now, and it's a surprise attack.

And you just think about that attack, behold a virgin, unwed by the way, shall conceive.

How many think that would be surprising to your parents if you announced this attack?

Look I want to attack this situation by getting pregnant and I'm not married.

And then I'm going to take God and shrivel him down to the size of a dot of a pen.

I'm going to have him who's all powerful come down as an ovum and a sperm and I don't know how all that worked, overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit.

And these are early pictures of this warrior that's going to win.

And of course, went through the threat of being aborted, being attacked by an earthly dictator.

But we're a little ahead of ourselves, and she'll bear a son, and here's the place, on a road trip.

We're heading down to the stables to have the baby.

You know, they would probably say, what did we do with that child?

Now, this is also surprising, especially in today's culture, to have a virgin that would conceive.

I mean, that's kind of surprising, to have a virgin.

And then this virgin that conceives actually listens to a man.

And this man gets directed by an angel and she believes that.

She believes that is the voice of God as her leader.

How many think that sounds very politically incorrect?

How many think this is politically incorrect?

In fact, I read some feminist literature.

Why are the angels talking to the man who talks to the woman?

And then, you know, not in a birthing center, not in a place with all the medical gadgets, but in a barn.

And then the babe will grow up, he'll be wrapped in swaddling clothes.

I got a picture of some recent squatting clothes.

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Surprise Attacks, Part 1

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