<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Living Hope SDA Church

Chris Holland

What Are You Looking For?

We need God's mercy and we need it every day.

It is only by His mercy that we shall be saved.

What I ask you, have you ever ignored a warning sign?

Maybe unfortunately, you've ignored a speed limit sign, possibly ignored a work zone sign, Or maybe more serious, you've ignored a health concern?

Maybe you've ignored some type of weather warning?

The question I want to ask today is what are you looking for?

Today we're going to study the Bible and look what it says about warnings.

And not only what we should be looking for, but what it is that we should be preparing for.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful that we can gather and that we can freely study Your Word, and as we freely study Your Word, I ask, dear God, that it would not merely be an exercise in intellectual information gathering, but this morning would be a time of life transformation for all of us, including me as I speak.

To illustrate the importance of watching and looking for warnings and following the guidance of those warnings, I'd like for us to go back in time.

The date was January the 22nd, and STS-51L was scheduled for launch at 2.42 Eastern Time.

And they delayed it to January the 23rd and then delaying it to January the 24th.

Then it was rescheduled to January the 25th.

And on January the 25th, bad weather in Dakar, Senegal, aborted the abort landing field caused another delay.

January 26th, another delay because of bad weather at Kennedy Space Center.

And now the Space Shuttle Challenger was scheduled for launch on January the 27th, 1986 at 937 a.m.

Eastern Time, but mechanical errors and high winds caused another scrub of the launch, And the new date was January the 28th.

The temperatures overnight fell to 18 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 8 Celsius.

The space shuttle was blasted into orbit primarily by the thrust and power of 2 solid rocket boosters.

These solid rocket boosters were made up of several sections with rubber O-rings between each of the sections.

Because the engineers at Morton-Fiacal, the makers of the boosters, knew that the O-rings were rated to function properly only above 12 degrees Celsius or 54 degrees Fahrenheit.

18 degrees Fahrenheit was well below the parameters.

The evening before the scheduled launch, the engineers from Morton Thiokol and NASA discussed the launch.

And the Thiokol engineers continued to express major concern with the safety of a launch and urged that the launch be delayed.

But the challenge with delaying a launch is summarized very simply by the word money.

And so they move forward despite the warning signs.

That morning, January the 28th, the temperature had gotten so cold that ice actually covered the launch pad that morning.

The temperature was actually at 28 degrees Fahrenheit, the lowest launch temperature ever in the history of the Space Shuttle.

Some of you are old enough to remember, I remember, I was in grade school at the time, that the launching of the Space Shuttle was such a big deal, they would stop class, they would wheel in a TV, yes, they would wheel it in, young people, on the media cart, some of you are old enough to remember that, and we would watch the space shuttle.

I won't forget this day because I actually wasn't at school that day.

On that morning, a conference call was made again and now the Rockwell engineers joined the call because they had general oversight of the shuttle and all of them expressed major concern.

However, the pressure to launch, the pressure to stay on schedule, the pressure to save money, it led to a decision to launch.

They weren't looking for a proper resolution to the real problem.

They were looking for cost savings for a quick fix.

Roger Bozzolet, 1 of the main engineers for Morton Thiokol had studied and he knew what was going to happen.

He was so sure of the disaster, he refused to watch the launch.

He believed that the shuttle would explode on the launch pad as the engines ignited.

And at 1138 Eastern time on January the 28th, the Space Shuttle Challenger fired its 3 main engines, then the solid rocket boosters fired, the hydrogen vent arm retracted from the large external tank but did not latch and Although it did not strike the vehicle, it did not cause a problem for the vehicle as it launched.

To the shock of Roger Beausoleil, the shuttle actually lifted off.

However, he, nor anyone else watching that day, saw what they would only see on slow motion replays later.

A black plume of smoke escaping from 1 of the joints of the O-rings.

The shuttle climbed and climbed still higher and higher it went, but unbeknownst to the ground crew or the crew on board, at 37 seconds after liftoff, Gases began to escape the solid rocket booster, and as stronger than normal winds prevailed that day, it shifted the vehicle, and the gap which the gases leaked from became wider and still wider.

At this point, there were actually flames escaping from the joint in the O-ring.

Again, this flaming was only visible upon slow motion replays afterward.

Hydrogen was now also leaking from the external tank and no 1 knew there was a problem.

At 68 seconds into the launch, Commander Dick Scobie answers the fateful words, Roger at throttle up.

At 72.5 seconds, the shuttle jerks in sudden acceleration.

At just under 73 seconds, pilot Michael Smith can be heard saying uh-oh at 73.124 seconds the flight into the flight the dome of the external tank failed as 1 of the solid rocket boosters pulled loose and struck the dome.

At that moment, the external tank released its hydrogen and oxygen all at once, and it instantly ignited and disintegrated in the sky.

At 73.162 seconds, the whole vehicle except the solid rocket boosters disintegrated into a multitude of pieces.

And while that all may be fascinating, on that day, Francis, Scobie, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnick, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, and Krista McAuliffe, the civilian teacher whose entire school was watching and celebrating her being launched into space.

All of them died by the decision of leaders who decided to go instead of wait.

They placed efficiency and busy schedules above safety and caution.

Just 2 days later, all temperatures were within normal range.

This morning I want to ask, does the Bible give us instructions or warnings?

Warnings that are possibly going unheeded in our life?

If you have your Bibles, I would invite you to open to 2 Peter 3.

The Bible says this, but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heath.

Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

Nevertheless, we according to His promise look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." Peter was writing to a church at a time when the church was quite confused.

We can see the confusion of the church by looking simply back at verses 1-4, where Peter says, beloved, now I write this second epistle, and then he in parentheses says, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder, by the way, there were no parentheses in the original Greek.

I wrote both of these letters to you to stir you up, to shake you up a little bit.

That you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets.

Ah, so Peter's telling us why he wrote the letter.

When you say remember to somebody in particular, and I'm sorry I'm going to be a little bit stereotypical, wives when you tell your husband when he goes to the store for you, remember, what is the assumption that's being made?

This is why Steve Jobs invented notes in the iPhone.

Just for wives to make sure that we remember.

He says, I am writing these things that you might be mindful, which is basically the word remember, that you would remember the holy prophets and of the commandment of us.

He's calling their minds back to the Old Testament.

Oh, and also, not only have you forgotten your roots, you've forgotten the apostles of the Lord and Savior.

The teaching of the apostles was the teachings of Jesus.

So this is a church that's in a bit of trouble.

Back to Menu

What Are You Looking For?

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

God is Love?

10-The Return of the King

55m

Just a Drink of Water

43m

The Latter Rain and the Most Holy Place

1h 21m

Elijah: Part 1 - Where Is Your Fire?

49m

The Sanctuary

09 The Sanctuary: Power, Grace and Judgment

54m

God is Love?

17-Jesus Is The Answer

1h

Hindsight is Perfect

32m

Unlock Revelation

17. The 144,000

1h 5m

Right Foot, Left Foot, Lessons From the Journey

1h

After Hours

Keys to an Abundant Home: Our Journey

1h 2m

Standing on the Sea of Glass

1h 1m

Sound Doctrine