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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Lewis Walton: Rediscovering the Faith

Lewis Walton

Rediscovering the Sabbath

We want to say good evening to you, and we want to thank this excellent facility for the fine care Joellen got when she was an inpatient here, oh, about a month or 2 ago, and she especially enjoyed the singing, but we weren't quite prepared for Jason, who saw her on the wards when she was an inpatient to repeatedly say ye are dead.

But thank you so much for the beautiful music, really enjoyed it.

It is so nice to hear an Adventist group sing with that kind of enthusiasm.

And before I begin, I want to acknowledge the presence of a very distinguished physician and researcher here, Dr.

He has been a hero of our family for many years.

My wife, who's a boarded surgeon, has often said if she ever had to have a neurological procedure done, Dr.

And so we're privileged to have him here and now we're just excited to learn that he's doing research on this campus.

To me what he's doing is extremely innovative, very, very promising.

He has, I think, figured out a way to get past the blood-brain barrier with a very, very severe malignancy that occurs intracranial.

And if it works, it just may be that the tumor will be susceptible to this new technique he's working on.

And if he can perfect some way to treat glioblastoma, his name will certainly be of note in the medical and scientific world.

Isn't it about time we had some major scientific prize rest here?

It's about time to have a laureate on the Loma Linda campus, isn't it?

So thank the Lord for all of you who are so very involved in the important work of making and keeping people whole.

And I talked to Dick Schaefer this afternoon, and he has an equally exciting idea that I just got to tell you about, of maybe recreating the old sanitarium up on the hill and having a first-class, world-class prevention center.

Why not have something like that working in accordance with an acute care center?

That would round out our message, wouldn't it?

So I'm really appreciative of being here, and I want to wish you all Happy Sabbath.

As a matter of fact, let's do this right.

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.

Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is 1.

Our topic tonight is rediscovering the Sabbath.

Now I want to begin with a question, a rhetorical question, but I think it's 1 we need to consider and that is simply this, what on earth are we doing here tonight?

Now you think about it and the huge majority of the San Bernardino Valley right now is either on their way to a movie or a club or shopping or going home to have a beer and watch TV, and we find ourselves here in a religious meeting.

Just a handful of the world's population preserves this thing we call Shabbat, this Sabbath day.

Here we sit in a religious meeting and just a few people like us and a few people wearing prayer shawls like this talit In a synagogue or in a Reformed temple tonight, preserve this thing we call the Sabbath day.

And to observe this Sabbath day is not without risk.

This day we call the Sabbath separates us from most of the world and from most of the Christian world.

This country tonight has millions of wonderful Christian people, Good people who, like us, believe in the Bible, believe in the creation story, believe there was a flood.

And if you live near me in Bakersfield, believing in the flood wouldn't be too tough because 3, 000 feet up on a shelf called Shark's Tooth Mountain, you can find the teeth from ocean-going sharks.

So lots of people believe in these things.

They believe in the Christian faith like we do.

They're people with whom we ought to have a close kinship of belief, but strange to say they often look at us with a bit of resentment and a bit of prejudice.

I've felt that, I've seen that myself, even in a little non-denominational church near where our home in the country is, the pastor there has never adjusted to the fact that there are Advants living in proximity to his parish.

Why is it that people who otherwise would have a common sense of belief with us, find us sometimes a little threatening.

The simple reality is that it is because of a day.

That means that this day that we observe, this Sabbath day, leaves us with no natural allies on the right.

We are, most of us, conservative Bible-believing Christians.

We believe the Word of God and we act on it and we take it as inspired.

That ought to link us up with the evangelical and the conservative fundamentalist believers on the right.

Because we are separated from them by this day we choose to observe.

Lots and lots of people in this country tonight, millions of them, helped to create the phenomenon we saw on the evening of November 2.

They are very confident, they are very organized, and they are very certain they are right.

And if you don't believe me, just watch the cable channels and catch the next interview on a talk show where Falwell appears, and you will see a man who is supremely confident.

I don't mean to say that in a belittling way.

He is just very confident he's right, and the people that are with him are right.

And the sad thing is we find ourselves separated from a great majority of the Christian faith in this country simply because of a day.

So we have no natural allies on the right.

On the political left, among the political progressives, We would have natural allies because we are very concerned about civil and religious liberty.

So there are organizations like the ACLU, you may not agree with their entire agenda, but at least in terms of preserving constitutional rights, they're in the forefront of that fight, sometimes perhaps a bit ahead of where anybody else would want to go, they would naturally be our allies except, except for what?

We are fundamentalist Christians and most people in that extreme of constitutional concern are not particularly religious.

The point I'm trying to make is we have no allies on the left.

Something happens to the Constitution, and we are poised to fall right through a crack.

I don't have time to talk more about that tonight.

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to talk about some of the end-time challenges we face and the challenges we face from Islam.

And I'll point out some of the constitutional problems we're now encountering as this country fights for its life.

Simple fact is we don't have a natural constituency.

But the good news is If everybody else on earth thought you were wrong, you would still be in the infinite majority because the entire rest of the cosmos is with you.

So once again, I ask the question, what are we doing here?

Why are we here on a Friday evening when most of our Christian friends would say you're legalists, you're misguided, or you're just plain wrong?

This prayer shawl I'm wearing is the hint as to what we're doing here.

I'm going to take it off for now, but don't go too far because I'll be meeting you again as we close.

We're here for the same reason our Jewish friends are in temple or synagogue tonight.

We're here because of something called creation.

Our topic is rediscovering the Sabbath, and let's open the book and go right to the beginning.

Right to the beginning of the book, Genesis chapter 1.

You know it's kind of interesting, there are many theories today of how the world began.

You know, people assume either there was 1 Big Bang.

Others believe there were recurrent Big Bangs and will be recurrent Big Bangs in the future.

Rediscovering Faith

So we're going to fasten our seat belts here and kind of go from 0 to 160 in a catapult launch, 2 seconds.

I invite you to open the Word to Revelation 14.

If you wanted to get the single best biblical view, I think, in the entire scriptures of the profile of God's last church and God's last message, you would most easily find it in the 14th chapter of Revelation.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel.

Now what's interesting about the 8 verses between Revelation 6 and Revelation 14 is that you see a steady progression of logical end-time truths that the world has to become acquainted with in order to meet this collision of human history with the intervention of this cosmic event called the coming of Jesus.

And if you look at it as we go through it this morning, you're going to see that it just kind of builds like a stairway.

Very logical, very progressive, very chronological.

1 truth building on the next until finally in the 14th verse, take a look at it there, what is it that you see?

And I saw and behold a white cloud and 1 on the cloud like unto the Son of Man.

On his head's a crown and his hand is a sickle and that is the second coming." So those 8 verses between the sixth verse of Revelation 14 and the 14th verse move like a stairway very logically and progressively from where we are now to the coming of Jesus.

And let's begin because We're going to see a profile of God's last message to this world.

I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel.

I guess that takes care of the argument that there was an old covenant in the Old Testament, a new covenant in the New, doesn't it?

The same gospel that saved Abraham saves us.

Now I find it worth mentioning, worth commenting on, that God's last series of messages to the world begins with a foundation stone of the gospel.

Right over here, before we get anywhere else, we have the gospel.

I think it's worth remembering because if we don't start with a clear view of the gospel, everything else Adventists have to say to the world is like a stairway in the air.

It would be very possible with all of the other good information that we have to give to people.

If we don't start with the gospel, we could wind up with people who are probably very healthy, probably very prophetically aware, probably biblically intelligent, and still sinners.

Healthy, prophetically concerned sinners.

We need to start with the gospel, but I'm a lawyer, not a preacher, and so every time I hear an assertion that sounds just too conveniently pat, it arouses the cross-examination mode in my mind and the question that comes to my mind There is if the gospel is a foundation of the 3 angels messages.

Any quick easy definitions of this thing?

It's very easy to piously say a word like that, and we all nod at each other and go on as though we understood what we meant.

That's an answer I frequently get, and it's an excellent answer, because the gospel is good news, isn't it?

How God saves the human race, how you reconcile infinite evil with infinite goodness, because there's an infinity between the 2 and the sanctuary is God's illustration of how that gets done isn't it so I hand in the back here please alright and I like the way you put that.

She said Jesus loved us so much he died to save us from our sins.

She didn't say he died to save us in our sins, did she?

Alright, let me pose a research model for you here.

Anytime you encounter a question like this, like what is the gospel?

If you rely on a definition you yourself have created and become comfortable with.

You may be tunnel-visioned, you may be in error, you may not see the whole picture.

Might I also suggest that an excellent beginning point when you start your research in the word is to go first to the cross.

Chances are you will find the answer at the cross, and you find it here.

Go back to the cross, And here is the morning of the crucifixion, and along with Jesus are 2 other fellows who very much deserve to be crucified.

And they're strip naked—that's the way the Romans crucified people.

There's nothing pretty about a crucifixion.

And they're thrown backwards on their back onto the vertical Pitabulum of the cross and a heavy Roman knee pins down the forearm and then the carnifex produces The nails which are about a quarter inch square, about 5 inches long.

We've discovered this from archaeological digs.

I don't need Mel Gibson to illustrate biblical truth for me.

So I did my own research, historically and biblically.

The crucifixion was practiced so that heavy knee comes down on the forearm and mobilizes it, and then that spike goes through the foramen of the wrist or through the palm of the hand, in the process probably crushing the sensory motor median nerve.

And you med students well know what that does.

It sends fiery jolts of excruciating pain up the arm.

So he's starting to hurt, and hurt very badly.

The other arm gets pinned down, the other sensory motor, median nerve, gets crushed.

And then about 3 nerves in the feet get crushed as the nail goes through the feet, and there's just pain all up and down the body.

And he does the 1 thing that executed prisoners in the Roman era did.

He goes, once Rome does this to you, there's nothing else they can do.

And you scream curses at anybody and everybody.

You bring into question very loudly the emperor's parentage, because there's nothing else they can do.

But interestingly enough, he starts cursing at the man next to him.

And then he notices something, doesn't he?

That man, just to the left of him, isn't cursing.

And this son of Israel, something clicks in his mind, probably the prophecies of Isaiah, and he puts it all together, and he realizes this is it.

Number 1, he confesses his own unworthiness, doesn't he?

He talks to the other prisoners, he says, we deserve what we're getting, but he doesn't deserve it.

So number 2, he confesses the righteousness of Christ.

And then number 3, what does that rascal do?

Having admitted he doesn't deserve salvation, he asks for it anyway.

And that, my friends, that is the gospel.

None of us deserve salvation, but because of the gospel we can ask for it anyway.

You can preach that in Cannibal Valley, New Guinea, or you can preach it in depth in the theological seminary.

We don't deserve salvation, but because of the gospel we are enabled to ask for it anyway.

But if that's all there is to the gospel, and if, as you correctly said, brother, the gospel is good news, might there be more?

I've been accused a few years ago of looking like Paul Harvey, to which I always respond, too bad for him.

But as Paul Harvey would say, is there the rest of the story?

If the gospel enables us to be saved even though we don't deserve it, might there be more to it?

Till the Storm Passes

It is worth the drive from from Bakersfield to come down here just to listen to you sing.

I mean, it is so refreshing to hear an Adventist group sing with that level of enthusiasm, okay?

Sometimes when I speak, and all our people are good people, but some of them are very restrained and you sometimes wonder, you know, if there's an audience out there or if the pastor has gone to a department store and rented a bunch of mannequins, you know, dressed them up and sat them in the pews.

And it's just nice to hear some life out there.

Albeit, I am still adjusting to hearing 1 of my wife's attendings keep saying, ye are dead.

But it's just a little unusual under the circumstances.

Well thanks for having us and good afternoon.

And our topic for today, for this afternoon, is 1 that incorporates prophecy and current events.

And just for a moment, metaphorically speaking, just reach your hand out through the veil that separates our present moment from the world of tomorrow.

Push through the fog of tomorrow and tell me what you feel out there.

Reach into the future and tell me what you feel.

My take on this thing is that what you feel when you reach into the future is the first gusts of a storm wind.

Let me say it plainly, I think there's a storm coming.

And our topic for this afternoon is till the storm passes by.

In the dark of the midnight, have I oft hid my face?

While the storm howls above me, and there's no hiding place.

Mid the crash of the thunder, precious Lord, hear my cry, keep me safe till the storm passes by.

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more, till the clouds Roll forever from the sky.

Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of thy hand.

Many times Satan whispered, there is no need to try, For there's no end of sorrow there's no hope by and by but I know thou art with me and tomorrow I'll rise where the storms never darken the skies.

Till the storm passes over till the thunder sounds no more till the clouds roll forever from the sky Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of thy hand.

I invite you to join me in Daniel chapter 12, the very first verse of Daniel chapter 12.

It's familiar to all of us, 1 you don't really need to look up because you know it.

At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was, since there was a nation." Now you think about that.

600 years before the time of Christ, this prophet Daniel reaches his hand out into the future.

And it's not just tomorrow's future, it's way downstream in time, into a future still 27 centuries distant.

And he draws for us a word picture of a world just almost literally gone mad.

I mean, we're talking disorder on a scale never before seen in human history.

And 600 and some years later, it's kind of interesting to notice that Jesus does the very same thing.

Now compare Daniel 12 with what Jesus described in Luke 21.

Take a look at Luke 21, verses 25 and 26.

And there shall be signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, men's hearts failing them for fear." And the New International translates that in a way we can relate to very readily today.

The New International Version says, men will faint with terror.

So Daniel describes chaos on a level that's just simply unexplainable in human history.

And considering the fact that Daniel is also looking forward to a time in which the barbarians from the steppes of Asia would roar into the Roman Empire, tear that empire apart, and leave the world in shambles for nearly a thousand years, what's coming described in Daniel 12 apparently is rather dramatic.

He says there will come a time when people look into the future and they just lose it.

Now let's go to 1 more text, kind of flesh this thing out, because John the Revelator now adds some detail and focus to these broad brush pictures and he tells us the details of what a world like that might look like.

And I invite you to look at Revelation 13.

You really don't have to look up, do you?

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark and that none might buy or sell, save he that hath the name, the mark, or the number.

Now let's homogenize these texts we've put together here and try to determine what we've looked at.

What the Bible seems to be describing is a world in which liberty disappears And the power to control people apparently becomes absolute on a very brief global scale, and it seems to usher in the kind of chaos that leads to the necessity then of a rescue mission called the Second Coming of Jesus.

Now, with that prophetic background kind of, you know, echoing in our cranial cavities, let's take a look at the world in which we find ourselves living.

I mean, the world I see today is very much like some structure that's being subjected to stress cracks.

And the interesting thing about it is the cracks all seem to be beginning to focus on a common center, like something's getting ready to decrystallize, to come apart.

And let me give you 3 illustrations this afternoon.

First of all, let's talk about our recent election.

What we have just seen happen last November 2, in the morning of November 3, is a powerful event not seen in recent history.

We now have control of the United States Congress, both houses, a comfortable supermajority, and the White House under the control of a single party.

All right, we'll talk about that in a second.

Number 2, while this power is consolidating in America, we have becoming available some of the most hideously destructive material that the human mind can create, and it's flowing out into the hands of people who think if they either kill you in battle or die in battle, they're doing God a favor.

Like a ghost out of the 7th century, Islam is suddenly reappearing, reasserting itself in our world and catalyzing end-time developments.

So we have a recent election, we have the availability of destructive power, and now into this already volatile mix we have a catalyst injected in the form of militant extremist Islam.

It's hard to imagine what has recently happened in America.

I thought possibly Bush might win the White House, but I thought if he does, the probability is the country will balance that to some extent with a Democratic majority in 1 or both houses.

I'm not making a political statement, I'm just observing on what has happened in recent past.

And what we see as a result is now that a president who before was tempered to some extent by some credible opposition is now obviously very, very assertive.

He is beginning to get rid of some cabinet members who were seen as not perhaps fully committed to his program.

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Series

Lewis Walton: Rediscovering the Faith

Till the Storm Passes

Transcript

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