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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

The Risk of God’s Mission

So this morning, the risk of God's mission.

Was there some risk involved when Jesus came?

I don't know if you've seen John MacArthur in the news.

He's the pastor of the Grace Community Church out in California.

It's a non-denominational evangelical megachurch and he was catapulted in a larger way into the news when he did not abide by the California state orders set in mid-July of this year, 2020, for indoor activities to be banned and he decided we're gonna keep worshiping.

Even though the order was, no, you can only have 25% of capacity because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He and his church found themselves in court 4 different occasions, to my count, over fines and lawsuits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, yet each time the California courts upheld their right to meet in person.

After 4 losses in court, LA County tried a new approach to terminate the parking lot lease that they had leased from the county for 45 years.

Folks, we find ourselves in an age where there is a major push to consent to certain ideas.

And the tactic often used is, if we don't get our way, we'll make you pay.

Friends, secular humanism continues to march forward.

Back when I was in school and we talked about the end time scenario, about standing up for our faith at end times, I never would have guessed it might be over my refusal to marry 2 men.

I never would have dreamed that it might involve refusing someone confused about their gender the right to use any bathroom they so chose.

And friends, the rise of secular humanism will not, is not stopping with allowance if you have not noticed.

And now we're living in a world where everything has been turned upside down on its head.

Wrong is seen as right and right is seen and portrayed as wrong.

And so this man, John MacArthur in his 80s, not afraid to say it like it is, and as a result, the mainstream media, to put it lightly, does not like him.

He did an interview just before Thanksgiving where he claimed America is in a moral free fall.

And you might say, well, come on, Pastor, that's a little bit dramatic, isn't it?

In the interview, it came on the heels of the state of California allowing strip clubs to reopen while churches were still fighting to reopen.

And so he said it this way, in his own words, quote, you murder the babies in the womb.

If they survive the womb, you try and seduce them into transgender sexual deviation when they're young.

If they survive that, you corrupt them with godless education.

If they survive that, then you have divorce in the family.

And if they grow to be adults, you drown them in a sea of pornography." So I ask again, is America in a moral free fall?

Have we just become so used to things that we say, well, that's the way it is?

Now America's a great country founded on great principles, but if you think that we're not on the cusp of a crisis, I believe you need to think again.

In many of the secular colleges today, it is a more grievous sin for me to tell someone they're doing wrong than for me to practice wrong.

I don't have time to launch into this, but the subheading of the article, this is Time Magazine, November 2 of this year, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to think about the kind of future we want, to share ideas of how to transform the way we live and work.

Now this is talking about in reference to transforming how we lived and worked before the pandemic, is it not?

Major backers have said of this great reset, a better economy is possible but we need to reimagine capitalism to do it.

Does that make anybody else nervous in here besides me to reimagine capitalism?

You dig a little deeper and their goal is that by 2030, that's 10 years, not even 10 years, about 9 years away, that we won't own anything.

The 10 Commandments mentioned this morning talk about how we should not covet our neighbor's house.

It doesn't say our neighbor shouldn't have a house.

Bible says that if you don't work, you don't eat.

Now I understand we need to measure that with taking care of widows and orphans, but that's a far cry away from just reimagining capitalism.

So in the ebb and flow of our culture, In a time where riots last for over 3 months straight and the news outlets justify them, well it's just built up hostility.

I just have to break windows, burn things, and take what I want.

I saw on the news, maybe I mentioned this before, a guy saying, I'm not sure it has so much to do with rioting and them being upset as they just want a new pair of Nikes because that's what they're taking out of my store.

And how does that fix the problem that they feel that they're in?

And more specifically as it relates to the coronavirus, what is God calling us Seventh-day Adventists to do and to be at this time?

What is our obligation to the lost, to those questioning?

In a world gripped with fear over this COVID crisis, for the fear of some that this COVID crisis will result in an economic crisis, and some are even going as far as to say the economic crisis will have us forget entirely the COVID crisis.

Friends, our world is trembling and asking questions.

The interest in Bible prophecy is the highest now than it's been in a generation.

Did you know that Google searches for the second coming spiked to the highest level ever this year?

The world is crying out, what an opportunity before us as a people, what an opportunity for the remnant people of God to rise and shine.

But Instead of recognizing the golden moment before us, many of our people are just as frightened as the godless people down the street.

And yet there are people watching and waiting, but instead we have empty churches.

Did you know that in this conference, we still have churches that have yet to reopen?

And I get correspondence from some individuals at the conference office with messages to the pastor saying, and if you have not reopened, don't.

I get messages that say, for the camp meeting, we're going to live stream.

We want you to save the date and show it so everyone can see it because can't mean has been canceled in person It's all virtual and So for those churches that are open I think it's the first week of June last of May 1 of the 2 for those that are open save the date for those that are open Here are pictures after we closed Our first live stream only service was March 21, a week later than many around us.

And so here's some pictures I took of our church empty during the 10 weeks that we just live streamed.

And let me tell you, Because you weren't here, let me tell you, it was depressing to be on Sabbath morning in an empty, lifeless church, a quiet church, and to put a smile on my face each Sabbath and welcome everybody through this camera that I kept forgetting was even there.

I was talking to the 1 or 2 people that were here.

And yes, I'm thankful for that ability that we could live stream.

But for me, there was something deeply troubling about the whole thing.

So 1 Sabbath I walk around, empty Sabbath school classes.

Where's the primaries, the juniors, the youth?

And finally on May 30 we opened back up in person and if you remember we still had the panel up here.

And so we were getting done with this Abba School portion, and I remember coming down and getting ready to do church.

And then the doors opened in the back, these double doors.

I had to take a picture here are the Saints finally able to come back to church after 10 weeks and some churches are still not open.

At this time in earth's history, shelter in place.

We have several doctors in this church and I've leaned on them many times.

We social distance, we're social distance now, we wear masks as we come in, as we go out, as we're in the hallways, in the restrooms.

We remind people to wash their hands, as if you haven't heard that a million times.

We're not having potlucks or social events, which I miss, we're not shaking hands, but we are coming together to worship our God.

We are having Sabbath school classes together.

And in case you didn't notice, I as a leader felt like this church was revived, not just with church services, but when we started Sabbath school, something changed.

We're trusting everyone to make a good decision in regards to their level of attendance.

And we recognize that this is a voluntary place of worship.

We have a direct feed to our fellowship hall downstairs that want a little bit more social distancing, then that's fine.

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The Risk of God’s Mission

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