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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Bryan Choi

The Eighth Wonder of the World

It's always a privilege to worship with you here.

As Andrew mentioned, I did first start off here, coming to this set of Sabbath school meetings week after week, and by God's grace, It's amazing the journey that God has brought me through.

It's so blessed to be, and I've been hoped to be fed, amen, spiritually.

But I also realize that at the same time, it's not enough just to be fed.

And so I pray that as you continue to come here, that you sense your calling that God has for your life, that you will also step up to wherever he asks you to go.

And so thanks once again for allowing me this privilege to share with you this morning.

It's always a joy also, especially since we are leaving Chicago and Michigan area, which is now 23 degrees right now.

So we're very grateful to escape that, to come to warmer climates.

And so everything's a blessing, Praise God.

Let's have a word of prayer before we begin, shall we?

Heavenly Father, I am but a frail and sinful man.

But Lord, I claim your promise that if I will open my mouth, you will fill it.

Lord, may this message also speak to me because I'm not putting myself above anyone here.

So Lord, I pray that you please help us to have receptive hearts, may the Holy Spirit speak to us personally, and help us to be ready for your soon return.

Title for today's message is the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Believe it or not, there were 7 ancient wonders of the world.

The Colossus of Rhodes, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Maesolium at Halicarnassus, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.

These are the 7 ancient wonders of the world.

And if you're trying to look for these places, they don't exist.

Whatever does exist, they're just ruins, right?

But did you know that as of July, the 7th of July, 2007, they came up with the 7 new wonders of the world?

And they had people vote online to see what the 7 new wonders of the world would be.

And it's very interesting that they did this on 7-7-07.

And so these are the 7 new wonders of the world.

Okay, the Mayan city, Christ the Redeemer, the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, the ancient city in Petra, Roman Colosseum, and Taj Mahal.

Now how many of you guys have ever been to 1 of these places?

How many of you guys have been to 2 of these places?

And I went to Petra, the place where they filmed Indiana Jones, the last crusade.

So that was pretty big for me because I grew up watching that movie and I was like, wow, to be actually at the site, It was so amazing for me.

But believe it or not, numerous people have visited and continue to visit these spectacular locations and they spend their time, their money, they spend time with their families, friends, spouses to come to these incredible sites to see that they have seen it at least once in their lifetime.

You know, believe it or not, did you know that there's an eighth wonder of the world?

And what is this eighth wonder of the world?

If you guys have your Bibles with me, I'd like you to turn with me to see what The eighth wonder of the world is, and we're going to look at the book of Revelation.

Revelation chapter 13, and we're looking at verse 1.

It says, and I stood upon the sand of the sea and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea having 7 heads and 10 horns and upon his horns 10 crowns and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard and his feet were as the feet of a bear and his mouth as the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave him his power and his seat and great authority." And verse 3, and I saw 1 of the heads as it was wounded to death and his deadly wound was healed and all the world what?

You know it's interesting if you guys know what happened this past week.

Pope Francis celebrated his 78th birthday December 17th and it's very interesting, thousands gathered in Vatican City, and in St.

Peter's Square, they had a flash mob of tango dancers in his honor.

Well, because I used to be a dancer, so that just caught my eye.

But if you guys know Pope Francis comes from Argentina, and that's the home of where the Argentine tango came about.

But it's interesting, according to this news article, ever since Pope Francis became Pope in the last year, 7 million people have come to papal events wherever he was present.

And I went to the Old Testament tour this past summer and we were actually in Israel and he was actually coming to Israel to do some peace talks with Israel and Palestine and as he was coming we had to leave because all the places would be shut down, all the shops and everything just for his arrival.

So there's no way, no sense of us being there because we cannot visit anything because everything's shut down.

But during the past year, since the Pope has taken office, unlike any other Pope, he has been breaking down barriers.

He's been accepting of all various, if not all people groups.

He has been praised and admired for his humility and care.

With the Pope's growing popularity among both Protestants and Catholics, Pentecostals, Charismatics, among homosexuals, evolutionists and creationists, Israeli and Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, and also his critical role in the US and Cuba agreement that just happened recently.

He has made breakthroughs in negotiations and peace talks with both extremes, having great political sway where agreement would be otherwise impossible.

In a Pew research study released December 11th showed that the Pope had broad support across much of the world.

In fact, 60% of the 43 nations polled had a positive view of the pontiff.

And Americans in particular have shown their fondness for Pope Francis, often extolling his simplistic style.

According to the Pew study, 78% of Americans view the Pope favorably.

Kurtz, President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that the Pope has taken the world by storm.

After a recent visit to South Korea in August of this year, my wife was looking up this article, she brought it to my attention.

Thousands of spectators commented on the event in a blog, many of which were atheists.

Now listen to what they had to say about the Pope coming.

This is really profound because if you know Koreans, they are very critical and cynical and cold towards Christianity in general.

And this is what they had to say about his arrival.

1 Korean atheist said in a news article, I don't believe any other religion because they are so corrupt, so selfish, so proud, so hypocritical, but this Pope is different.

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The Eighth Wonder of the World

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