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Weimar University

Weimar - COVID-19

Don Mackintosh

Christ, Adventism, the Spanish Flu, COVID and You

Well, let's just pray together this morning and ask the Lord to be with us before we study this morning.

Father in heaven, Lord, thank you today for waking us up and thank you for your grace that is all-sufficient, available, and that your justice points out our need and your mercy and your grace Allow us to have confidence that if we confess our sins, you're faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us, and we ask that you do that today, And bless us as we think about some things from your Word.

Now in Matthew chapter 4 and verse 23, and in Matthew chapter 9 and verse 35, there are some verses that are actually, what would you say, they are parallel verses.

In Matthew chapter 4 and verse 23 it said that Jesus went about teaching in their synagogues and preaching and healing all manner of sickness and disease among the people.

So actually it says he went throughout Judea in Matthew chapter 4, verse 23.

And then in Matthew chapter 9 in verse 35, it says that he went everywhere.

So it's the same verse, but in chapter 4, it says he went throughout Judea.

So he went through this small area at first and then ultimately went everywhere.

So he went out to bring healing and then they came in after they saw that he was healing.

They brought people to Jesus to be healed.

And of course today that would be a very comforting text, right?

That Jesus would go out and heal and then they would bring all manner of sickness and disease to him, all manner.

Even the lepers which were quarantined in that day would cry out to him and he actually would touch them and heal them and he got in trouble because he was not following social distancing of that day.

But how many would like to have Jesus come today and bring that healing today?

Of course you can see here our chairs we're attempting to follow social distancing and the very few remnant that are here are spaced out quite distant from each other, except for those that are, of course, families.

They sit next to each other all the time, and we don't have many of those here today either.

But Jesus cut across these barriers not because he wanted to flout the policies and government regulations, but because he was demonstrating his divinity as he lived in humanity.

And so his healing miracles he often would say go show yourself to the public health officials, show yourself to the priests.

And so once they would be healed of leprosy or something else then they would go immediately to the public officials.

They would see, wait a minute, they are leprosy test negative.

Pretty soon, a great number of the priests even began to believe because they saw that this was a healer whose power far exceeded anything they could do.

All they could do was diagnose and Maybe come up with some small treatments, but they didn't seem to work very well But here was a healer that could not only diagnose but could treat the diseases Now it's interesting those 2 texts Matthew chapter 4 verse 23 and 935 they're kind of like a sandwich they're kind of like bookends and what is between Matthew chapter 4 verse 23 and Matthew chapter 9 verse 35.

But what are in those 4 and a half chapters is kind of what I'm getting at.

Now this is perhaps 1 of Jesus' most famous sermons ever.

In fact, it probably is the best-known sermon ever of anybody.

You have healing ministry that then leads people to listen to the most famous sermon ever.

And then after that famous sermon you have another text that then applies to the church.

He looked out and he saw that there were, the people were like sheep with no shepherd.

And he wanted to send out other people to do the same thing he had done.

And it says, so he went everywhere healing and teaching and preaching.

And then chapter 10, it shows how he equipped the disciples to do the same thing he had done.

How many can see that this is a very interesting paradigm?

He heals the physically ill, the brokenhearted.

He crosses lines because he is actually not spreading the disease, but he's bringing an end to the disease.

He then shows the priests what he's doing, and they all get interested, and they come to the Sermon on the Mount.

Why do they come to the Sermon on the Mountain?

Well it says in the book Ministry of Healing, page 17, that there was no building large enough to hold the crowds that came to see Jesus.

Anything that Herod had built, and he built some massive structures, anything that the architects had designed could not hold the people.

And so you see Jesus out in a boat and then people come along the shore as an amphitheater.

You see Jesus on a mountain top with his disciples around him and people coming up to listen.

They could all see him and there he is teaching them.

In other words, his healing ministry, his divine manifestation of healing ministry, led to an openness to the preaching of the gospel.

I mean, that should be the same case today?

How many think God's people should be known as those who glorify God in whatever they eat, and whatever they drink, and whatever they do, all to the glory of God?

And how many think those people should in fact as a result not only be protected by his health laws but also be able to reach out to others as a result.

Now you know Jesus did 7 Sabbath miracles.

7 Sabbath miracles, and those miracles often included healing.

We don't find his disciples healing on the Sabbath because they can't really demonstrate their divinity like Christ did, right?

But we see Jesus doing that as a representation of his divinity.

Okay, now, with that in mind, that's a little Bible study today.

Let's now look at lessons from the past in Seventh-day Adventist history.

Seventh-day Adventism is a religion that is a Christian religion.

And they follow Christ's example by going to church on the seventh day.

That's why they're called Seventh-day Adventists.

And Adventist just means that they believe that he's coming again.

So they go to church on the seventh day because he did, and by the way he did all those miracles on the seventh day.

They believe Christ was not just a man, he was God.

And secondly, they believe he's coming again.

So Seventh-day Adventists had something called sanitariums.

Now I'm at a, what used to be called a sanatorium.

Weimar Institute was a sanatorium and it was for the treatment of tuberculosis, so-called consumption, because it would consume the lungs.

It was a respiratory problem and people were dying.

The leading cause of death when this or these buildings on this campus were built in 1917 was well, 2 things.

Consumption, that is tuberculosis, and secondly, the Spanish flu.

This particular campus would end up serving 26 counties in the area.

And people would bring their tuberculosis patients from 26 different counties.

Joint, which means it was a joint effort of all of those different areas and they would bring their patients here.

You could not go in and out of the campus because people knew that tuberculosis was contagious and that it could be spread through sputum or coughing on someone else and so they were very very careful And there were some very interesting people that lived here.

1 person that lived here was a man named Ben Nighthorse Campbell who ended up being, he's a Native American, who ended up being the governor of the state of Colorado.

Another 1 was this famous movie star who did the Karate Kid.

I don't know if you remember this, the old man in the movie of the Karate Kid.

And I'm always interested to read the various stories of people who grew up here.

We have a cemetery, several cemeteries that are adjacent to our campus of many of the patients who lived and died here.

But I'm going to think it's kind of interesting that there was a place called a sanatorium that was treating respiratory illnesses and also it was originating right at the time as the Spanish flu.

Okay, so, Seventh-day Admonists at this time, they didn't run this particular sanatorium.

They had started what was called a sanatorium.

Sanatorium was for the treatment of tuberculosis, but there was a early Adventist physician whose name was John Harvey Kellogg, and he started what was called a sanitarium, sanatos, sanitate in Romanian, another Romance language that means health.

Sanitarium, sanitary, clean, but actually health.

And how many think that cleanliness is related to health?

Wash your hands, don't touch your face, disinfect surfaces because this virus that we're fighting against can live for many hours on a cold surface and for several hours on your clothes and for several hours on your hands.

Sometimes we have these novel diseases that develop or viruses.

COVID-19 and Revelation 16

I want to thank those who've been singing.

As they mentioned earlier, if you can sing for 1 hour a day, it boosts your immunity.

So we tried to have some extra songs today to boost your immunity.

But when you go out today, I hope you all go out for a walk.

Go anywhere on foot for a walk and I hope that you're out in the sunlight and walking as well today.

And hopefully we also have some light from God's word as well today.

Before I get into the message today, I wanted to say that we do have a website that's called TCI, TCI, total community involvement, tciweimar.com, tciweimar.com, and you can see here, I have it up on the screen as I hope that it will be up on the screen soon and This website was put together by 1 of our friends in the community who we met through TCI, Total Community Involvement.

And during this time, he said, what can I do to help out?

And actually I asked him that and he said he'd be willing to help.

Now you'll notice on the website we have total community involvement which we normally go out in the community and help people with whatever their needs are.

1 of the greatest needs in our community right now is good information about how to avoid getting or transmitting the coronavirus.

Nedley had done a presentation with Pastor Baxter of Amazing Facts, which now is in the millions in different languages.

And then also it tells a little bit about community involvement in another video that's there, gives some coronavirus tips.

And then it has the message that, the brief 2 minute message I gave just on talking about the Bible and quarantine.

Ramirez and a number of the physicians here at New Start, which is a health program here.

And the health facilities here, we treat diseases of different kinds that pretty much have been given up on by other people, or at least not effectively treated without having lifestyle measures.

And so those physicians and other guests are going to be joining us for a series of videos that will be released once per day.

So I invite you to share it on your social media and if you're a church out there that would be interested in having a website similar to this, Total Community Involvement, just get in touch with us and we'll get you in touch with someone that can help you with that website.

And you'll notice down here it's got a whole bunch of things that you can look at in terms of what you would like help with.

So it actually has some of you that know what total community involvement is, it has a card where you go into the community and you can fill out what your different needs are, and we have that as well.

Or if you'd like to ask a question, then you can email that as well, total community involvement.

Right now, when we kind of are limited, perhaps, in the people we can reach out to, we can at least reach out and share good information by pointing to that presentations and the others coming up.

All right, today, We wanted to talk about something that's not in our normal series today.

This morning at 8 o'clock I shared a message which I want to encourage you all to watch at some point because it gives the history of Weimar Institute as it relates to or sanitariums, not so much Weimar Institute, but sanitariums as they relate to the treatment of flu type diseases, the Spanish flu of 1918.

These buildings here on this campus, some of them were built in 1917.

This was built around that same time in World War I and I encourage you to watch that if you'd like to go to Weimar TV and look at the 8 o'clock message.

Well, let's pray together again and ask the Lord to be with us.

Father in heaven, as we speak today, we don't need to hear a word from man, but we need to hear a word from you.

So We ask that you would speak to and then through us to bring courage, not only to ourselves, but to others.

And we thank you, we come in Christ's name.

Now, over the last few days, some people have asked me, Pastor Don, Do you think that what is happening today is part of the last plagues of Revelation chapter 16?

Do you believe that what's happening is shown in the Bible or in other inspired writings?

So I thought today, instead of going through our normal series, we'll take just a break, and I have 2 messages, 1 this morning and 1 now, on this subject today.

Now, the plagues of Revelation 16, let's turn there and look at them, they were introduced in our scripture reading this morning.

In Revelation chapter 15, it showed that the, in our scripture reading, it said that there would be 7 last plagues in Revelation 15 verse 1, and that in them the wrath of God would be complete.

And then it shifts away from those plagues.

It doesn't say anything more about them right there, but then gives a picture of the people that don't go through the plagues or have protection during the plagues.

And it's the picture of those who have victory over the beast and his image and over his mark and over the number of his name and they're standing on the sea of glass and they have harps of God and they're singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.

He was the author of most of the Old Testament and what did he do?

He led God's people out of a bunch of what?

So he brought them out of plagues and some of those plagues fell on everybody and some of them fell just on the wicked.

And he led them out of all those plagues, and many of them are physical plagues.

As you read, if you read the book of Exodus, you'll see that.

They went out, and they went to the mountain of God, where He had been learning for 40 years how to be patient so he could help them get through a plague situation.

How many think we're learning a lot about our patience and forbearance in this time of pestilence?

How many of you have had your patience tested?

How many of you have had some fear or met people with fear or anxiety or frustration?

So, they're singing the song of Moses and the Lamb, and what did he do?

He led them from Egypt with its false mountains, pyramids, and false gods, there were about 80 of them, and he led them from that mountain to God's mountain with 1 true God.

And how many think today God wants to lead people from false mountains, false places of supposed security and false gods and wants to lead them towards His mountain and His security and the 1 true God.

They're singing the song of Moses and the lamb.

And actually, to memorialize this idea that God can deliver them, what God did was to build a sanctuary in the wilderness that would remind them of every step of the exodus.

So when they left Egypt and they were following Moses, they sacrificed a lamb and they put the blood on the doorpost.

Likewise in the sanctuary system, they would sacrifice a lamb that represented Jesus in advance.

Then they went through the Red Sea next, and in the sanctuary there's a laver.

It's actually called a sea in the book of Kings.

So they went with a lamb and then they went through the Red Sea.

Next thing they did was to come to the base of the mountain where Moses had years before seen the burning bush.

And so in the sanctuary there are 7 lampstands reminding them of the burning bush experience.

And then next Moses went up and ate and drank with 70 elders.

And next in the sanctuary there's a table of bread with grape juice to remind them of that.

And then next Moses went up to receive the law of God for them, left them there, and he went up into the very presence of God.

The rest were quarantined at the base of the mountain.

And then others came up and then there was another quarantine.

Interesting, quarantine was taught here even in this model.

Because if you had sin in your life, nothing, there was something in your life, you couldn't go close, close to God.

He put borders there because he didn't want people to be consumed by the wrath of God, which is the same thing as the love of God in the sense it's a revelation of his character, it's a revelation of who he is.

And then Moses goes up into the most holy place and receives the law of God.

Next thing you see in the sanctuary system is what?

So these people in Revelation chapter 15 are singing the song of Moses and the lamb, and the Lamb led them all the way to face-to-face relationship, no quarantine, nothing between their soul and the Savior.

How many think that's the Jesus we want to study about today?

Now having said that, let's go to Revelation 16 with that little introduction.

Revelation 16 is not God's sanctuary, but it's the devil's sanctuary.

Did you know that for everything God teaches, the devil has a counterfeit?

So there's God the Father, there's God the Son, there's God the Holy Spirit, and there's the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

And in Revelation 16, we pick up where Revelation 15.1 had left off.

It said, the 7 last plagues for in them, the wrath of God is complete.

And then we look at Revelation 16 and you'll see, I won't go through all of them in depth, but these are plagues.

Quarantine

In times of stress and anxiety, people are given to be more open to conspiracy theories.

The other day I was talking to someone in the community as a result of the shutdown, and they'd been in their home for 5 or 6 days, and they were worried to come out.

And you know, I began thinking, is there anything that old book says about quarantine, about being put aside because we're worried about disease?

And then I remember that ancient book of Leviticus, where God's rules concerning who could come into the camp and out of the camp and how he would take care of sin, but also sanitation and public health issues.

I remember that book and I looked and I began to read chapter 13, chapter 14, chapter 15.

I saw something that that really gave me great peace.

Quarantine didn't begin with our government.

When he saw that there was a problem, he protected his people by taking those that maybe had a disease or maybe had a sickness, and keeping them outside the camp, first of all for 7 days.

Then they were rechecked, and then another 7 days.

And this was all done by the priests, who were also the physicians of the day.

And a calm came over me, because I realized that these same procedures, these same ideas that we're seeing today that are meant to protect us are something that was originated by God himself.

You know, as a Christian, I'm called to be a priest, the priesthood of all believers, we could all act in that way.

Bringing protection when it's needed, not to separate 1 another for all time, but maybe just for a short time until we get healthy.

And we can come back again as a congregation and come together and praise because we took the precautions we needed.

And that just ministered to my heart and I hope it does yours too.

COVID 19- Having Peace in the Midst of the Storm

Father in heaven, thank you that you are our Father and that there is a heaven.

And that you want that heaven to ultimately be again on earth.

And you have consistently been advancing your truth and people have come to know more and more about the great controversy and how it is that you are a loving God.

And we ask that that would happen more again today as we study in Christ's name, amen.

As I was thinking about the messages for today, I thought of this text in 2 Corinthians 4.

Verse 8, we are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed.

Persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.

And as I thought of that text, I thought about the situation that much of the world finds itself in today.

Do they feel as though they're troubled on every side.

I heard this morning that there are governors who are shutting down state borders.

I heard the other day that there are governments that are shutting down their airline travel.

In fact, I went to pick up a family member just yesterday who got out of a country over in Africa just before all the planes were shut down because people are troubled and distressed, but, and they're also perplexed.

How do we relate to something that we don't seem to understand?

And what do we do with so many people being cast down, falling down, actually dying?

And yet, in this passage, we find the author of most of the New Testament saying, we're troubled but not distressed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed.

How many would like to know the secret to such calm under pressure?

This is what we want to talk about today because I don't want you, but I need that kind of recipe.

In Weimar Institute here, we have a kind of a crisis team that's been meeting every day and has to stay in touch with what's being said as much as we can understand that and then work together to make recommendations.

And I got to tell you that's been a pretty stressful situation to just try and figure out what's being said.

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Series

Weimar - COVID-19

How to Handle Stress, Anxiety, and Fear

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Reasons for Hope: The Case for Faith in a Secular Age

Reasons for Hope: The Case for Faith in a Secular Age - Part 4

1h 12m

Personal Health

How to Deal With Anxiety

1h

1918 Flu & COVID-19: Medical Symposium

3. Nutrition, Exercise-induced Antioxidants and Racial Disparity in COVID-19 Death Rates

2h 2m

Chaos, Coronavirus, and the Christian Response

47m

Confidence in Crisis

Confidence in Crisis - Part 1: When Nature Dies: The Almost Last Supper

1h 7m

Jesus on Prophecy

55m

4-Living the Faith

Coming Out of Complacency

1h 30m

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready for Freedom

Overcoming Seminar, Part 6

1h

Mental Health

02 The Stress Equation

49m

Preparing For the End of Time

1. Why Prayer Matters

45m

Mental Health

01 The Mental Health Crisis

44m

Sound Doctrine