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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Brian Hindman

Repairer of the Breach

Well, the Bible says, Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands.

It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.

I hope you're not sleeping with your eyes open just yet.

His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth how long?

To all generations forever and ever is correct.

His truth endureth through all generations.

It's always an undeserved privilege and a high honor to share God's Word with you on Sabbath morning.

We are living in a serious and solemn time, as you probably are well aware, and it is really not time for us to continue on with business as usual.

Business unusual, rather, That was the theme for the recent ASI convention that was held.

Business unusual is the theme and the focus for the Christian as they read, as we read and study the Word of God.

So this morning our subject I've entitled as repairers of the breach.

We'll get into that in just a moment, but if you would just pause for a moment, I'd like to bow my head and seek the Lord in prayer.

Oh, Father in heaven, Lord, thank you for the privilege of preaching and for standing before your people.

Lord, we have come seeking blessings which we do not have otherwise.

And so we humble ourselves and just cry out to You, Lord, for the blessings that we need, the salvation that's undeserved, and the righteousness that you offer to us so freely and abundantly.

Lord, bless us now as we consider your word, is my humble prayer in Jesus' name.

Well, I don't know how many of you have traveled extensively and been to China.

I have been to China last year, but I did not have the chance to visit what you can see on the screen here.

I was only about an hour away in Beijing, the capital, the Great Wall of China.

The Great Wall of China, when I used to teach history, was something we would study and talk about, and it actually dates back over 2, 300 years, before the time of Christ on earth a long, long time ago.

It's considered to be the world's longest wall and the largest ancient architecture that was constructed back in ancient times, which evidently if you're over 33, you're ancient, So that's something that those of you that were here for Children's Story a week or 2 ago will remember.

Well, this wall was first connected together by an emperor named Xir Huangdi in around the 220, 230s or so BC.

And there were other existing parts of this wall that had been constructed.

And by the way, the purpose of the wall was to keep out invaders.

Northern invaders from China, the region today that is Mongolia.

Later on, the Mongols were invaders from the north, but that's not until nearly 2, 000 years after the wall had started.

So they were a reason for building this wall to keep out intruders and invaders.

Well, it's interesting, the official length of the wall has been calculated, somebody maybe walked it or did something, 13, 170.7 miles.

That's more than halfway around the world, I guess if you count all of the little side pieces and connecting parts.

The average height of the main section of the wall is about 25 feet.

And it's been called the longest graveyard in the world because all of the peasants and workers that were forced to to work on the wall many of them died and they were just buried inside the wall and so that was it's the long graveyard as it's been called for over 13, 000 miles.

It's interesting though that the record from history shows that it really wasn't an overall and effective deterrent from keeping invaders out.

The historical record says that any time you would bring together any kind of a sizable army, they could always break through the wall and have a breach in some way and get through.

Oftentimes, I guess some stories say they could just bribe some of the centuries that were in the guard towers and get through that way.

But at any rate, the wall itself was, some people have said maybe a lot of wasted effort, but it still stands as something that's impressive, none the least.

But a breach in the wall was not too difficult to make.

And I'll start out again with our scripture reading.

It's always special to have our young ones up front reading the Word of God.

But notice what the scripture says here in Isaiah 58.

We find a picture of the work that God has called us to do in the last days that we're living in.

Isaiah 58 verse 12, it says, "'And they that shall be of thee "'shall number 1, build the old waste places.

"'Thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations, "'or rather the foundations of many generations, "'and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in." Now there's actually a lot of things in that verse that I want you to notice.

We are to be Rebuilders, repairers, and restorers.

Rebuilding, repairing, restoring is something that you do on something that has been torn down, right?

You cannot rebuild something unless there has been some kind of a breach or a breakthrough in the building or the wall.

This is a picture I believe that God has given to us of our work, especially in these last days.

The waste places of humanity, the waste places of this world to be rebuilders of what has been broken.

How many of you know something about brokenness?

I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, but I'm sure all of us could raise our hands that know something about the brokenness that this world has caused or brought to us.

Whether it's broken homes, broken families, broken health, broken minds, broken relationships, broken finances, broken in some way, I thank God that we serve a God of restoration.

A God who is a restorer and a rebuilder of what has been broken.

We find in Romans 8 28 and 29, you might know the first part of this passage very well, where it says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.

But then notice verse 39 or 29 rather in Romans 8, for whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate or predetermined to be conformed, to be in the image and shape of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

That is the calling that God has given for us, to restore us individually so that he can work through us to restore humanity collectively.

I'll say that again, God has called us to a work of restoration that he wants to do in our lives so that he can use us to help be restorers and rebuilders and repairers of the brokenness in humanity around us.

In fact, we're told in the book, Desire of Ages, page 824, the very essence of the gospel is restoration.

The very essence, the very key, the very heart of the whole gospel message, the good news, is restoring what has been lost and restoring what has been broken.

That reminds me of a passage in 1 John 3 and verse 8 where John writes these words and says, He that committed sin is of the devil, for the devil sent it from the beginning.

For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Can you say amen to a God who wants to destroy the works of the devil?

That is his mission, his focus is to destroy the devil's work, to tear down and to destroy people's lives.

The work of restoration actually involves several phases, 2 simple phases.

Number 1, there must be a demolition, a tearing down of what has been broken to the point where it can then be built up on solid ground, a rebuilding upon solid foundations.

In fact, Some of you know, my wife and I, we recently relocated, not far away, we just moved about a mile down Howard Gap Road and the house that we're living in with my in-laws, we're living downstairs in a lower section, and We had some water damage and some water issues.

As we're moving in and we don't even have our things put away, we're having to beat down sheetrock and tear out walls and even tear out duckwork in the ceiling.

But we've had to get some help, and hired help rather, to tear out all of the walls and areas that have been damaged by the water leak so it can then be re-sheet rocked and restored and repainted and fixed again.

We had a guy come last week and he did a tremendous job.

I don't know how, but you have to tear out and fully clean out things in order to then repair them properly and rebuild again.

And I believe it's kind of a similar process in the restoration process of God.

There are walls in our lives that need to be torn down, that we ourselves have built, that we ourselves have constructed.

There are ministries and people though who are so consumed with tearing down that they spend very little time in the work of restoration.

We should never lose our focus on the restorative process that God wants us to keep in mind.

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Repairer of the Breach

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