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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Richard Walton

A Ministry of Healing

Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will rise upon you and his glory will appear upon you.

Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Our message today is a story of light and shadows, of divine dreams and broken promises, of cities on a hill, and what might have been.

The brief passage in Isaiah chapter 60 is an oft-repeated divine dream.

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, the Bible speaks repeatedly of God's people being a light in a dark world.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 14, the Lord speaks and He says to His disciples, you are the light of the world.

Proverbs 4.18 in the Old Testament again, And the writer speaks, the path of righteousness is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.

And in John 8, 12, again, turning to the words of the Lord, Jesus speaks again to them saying, I am the light of the world.

He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have what?

What is so important in the Bible about light?

In the 4 texts that I have just shared with you, in both the Old and the New Testament, 2 words are repeatedly used in dealing with light in connection with God's people.

In Greek the word is phos from which we derive photography or phosphorescence phos for light.

Healing properties, healing properties and the light.

1 of the really interesting things about both of these words, particularly this 1 here, is the context in which it appears.

And for those of you that like to rise early, I don't, but I go to court a lot.

So I find myself watching the dawn more frequently than I would like.

It's just amazing sudden luminescence that if you're looking at it, it's so bright, it's almost painful to watch.

You can close your eyes, but still perceive there is light.

Oh, that same word is used in Genesis 1-3 in describing the sudden explosion of light and color that appeared in space in the earliest recorded moments of this earth's history.

But a sheath but I'll a heme in the beginning God did what God spoke and there was or out of absolute blackness there was the blazing inferno of the Sun light ladies and gentlemen is not a matter of reason or logic.

It is not a truth to be puzzled through and studied and understood.

It is a matter of perception and, dare I use the word, desire.

We instinctively seek the light because it warms us, because it gives us guidance, because it reveals things to us, because we can see even if it is nothing more than our own imperfections.

Now, what is it unique and special about God's chosen people from the very earliest moments of their history, from the exodus all the way through to modern times that distinguishes them absolutely and uniquely from the rest of the world in such a stunning way that they could be called a city upon a hill.

A city of such stunning brilliance that even Gentiles with their eyes closed can sense the presence of a light worth knowing.

A mark so distinguishing that even kings will seek our counsel, something so fundamental that everybody wants to have it.

And what about the relationship with God?

What is it that is so overwhelming about the truth espoused and lived by God's people that folk have to come to it even with their eyes closed.

While you're thinking about that, reflect on Isaiah chapter 60.

Isaiah 60 is interpreted by scholars as a messianic passage predicting the ministry of Jesus on this earth and if we want to understand what is so important about the light that he would bring to the world there are a few places in Scripture a Christian can more profitably look than the life and ministry of Jesus.

So I ask again, what is it about his ministry that drew people to him, even those who didn't believe?

What was it so dazzlingly unique about his ministry that even those who didn't believe wanted to come see Him and hear Him preach.

What were His second and final miracles while on this earth?

The second miracle Jesus ever performs you can find in the Gospel of John.

So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee, the place where he had made the water into wine.

At Capernaum there was an official whose son was very ill.

When he heard that Jesus had left Judea and had arrived in Galilee, he went off to see him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was by this time at the point of death.

Jesus said to him, I suppose you will never believe unless you see what?

Return Jesus, Your son is alive and well.

I've never had the privilege of coming out of an operating room and telling the family of a gravely injured person that their son or daughter, their wife or husband would be well.

I do know what it's like to stand next to a criminal defendant in a courtroom and stand with him when the judge intones, will the defendant rise.

I know what it feels like to park a not guilty verdict for a client.

But I don't know what it feels like to look a family in the eye and say, you can go home.

And the last miracle Jesus performed, Luke chapter 22, verse 49, and the disciples seeing what was going to happen cried, Lord, shall we use our swords?

And 1 of them did slash at the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear, but Jesus retorted, that will do.

It is worth noting that the Lord's last miracle before the cross, the last time He used divine power was to heal 1 of those who sought to do Him ill.

It also tells me something very important about the light that Isaiah prophesied Christ would bring to this world.

You see as a criminal defense attorney, I get tough cases.

The easy ones plea, the easy ones don't end up in front of a jury, but for the tough ones that do, The single most powerful tool that I have to that jury is to find a theme, a simple theme, something that might make them pause before sending my client off to prison for many, many years.

To look them in the eye and to say at the beginning of my case and once again right at the end the theme I want them to take with them because the bottom line is juries never remember anything in the middle.

They remember what you told them at the beginning and what you told them at the end.

And so by his life, by his example, it seems to me that the Lord encapsulated the simple theme of his ministry on this earth in 2 simple words, medical missionary.

He made it clear that he wants his followers to be healers, not just of mind, but even more importantly, of body.

If there is 1 way to reach everyone, no matter where on the socioeconomic ladder they may have landed, it is with a ministry of healing.

I well remember many years ago, I was assisting the government of Fiji in government-run health screening for a very important reason.

The native islanders throughout the South Pacific are not used to the heavily enriched diet of sugars, refined flours, that they're now eating after the introduction of European civilization, European culture.

And because of that, the incidence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in the islands is just shocking.

And the problem is in the islands, they don't have access to simple things like insulin and drugs to control their blood sugar.

And so for many people that day who were being screened for elevated blood sugar, the news we had to give them was for them a death sentence.

And through the door of that humble little building, I was sitting at a picnic table with a blood sugar meter, some lancets and some strips, I saw everyone from homeless people to a descendant of the royal family of Fiji come through that door Because Adventists were offering something Nobody else was a chance to understand your health condition and maybe just maybe if you had the pole to do it find a way to get access to the drugs that could keep them alive.

If I was and if I was smart enough, I would have come here.

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A Ministry of Healing

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