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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

Daylight Savings Time

We have about 10 minutes so let's go to John chapter 9.

Father God we thank you Lord for this opportunity to Stand in your presence on this your holy sabbath day And we just ask father God that you would bless us despite ourselves father And just Lord let your words speak truth to us and inspire us to be your servants is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

John chapter 9 in verse 1 the Bible says, and as Jesus passed by he saw a man which was blind from his birth and as the disciples asked him saying, Master who did sin this man or his parents that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day, the night comes when no man can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and he made clay of the spittle and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and said unto him go wash in the pool of Siloam.

He went his way therefore and washed and came seen.

Jesus's disciples were perplexed at the idea that some people or someone would be born blind from their birth.

In the time of the Jews it was understood that anyone who received such an illness or was born in such a condition by default was given such a curse on their life because of some sin that had been committed.

So the disciples asked the question that any Jew at the time would ask if they had access to someone like Christ, and that is who sinned?

Not why is this person in this condition.

It was assumed that sin had to be the reason that this person had been had gotten into this condition.

So they turned to Jesus the Messiah, this loving God, fully 100% human and fully 100% divine, and asked him, who sinned?

Often when we see that others are in a bad spot or in a bad situation, when we see poverty or we see injustice, when we see disease or we see addiction, a lot of times what we assume is that someone had to have sinned.

That person isn't poor simply because society may have neglected them or they may have been dealt a bad hand.

It must be something that they did or their parents did why they are in that condition.

Even as we wander the halls of the hospital in singing bands, a lot of times in our minds we're running through our minds, what did this person do why they have cancer?

We begin to run the health message through our minds and start to wonder how they could have changed what they ate or how much they exercised that might have spared them from this virus or this cancer.

Unfortunately we have adopted much of how the Jews viewed things.

We assume that nobody gets into bad situations that does not put themselves there.

But I want to submit to you that that is 1 of the worst premises from which to go into ministry.

1 of the worst ways to enter ministry is to go in assuming that the victim you are going to help is responsible completely for their situation.

You see because the truth of the matter is that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.

There is none righteous, the scripture says, no not 1, and had things worked out just a little differently, in other words, if not for the grace of a loving God, so would we be.

And so as we look at this story and as Jesus takes this time to do some teaching, I want to submit to you as we have heard this morning, a call to join the singing bands and a call to sign up for Bible study, that Jesus wants to tell us something as we approach and go into ministry.

And so he turns to the disciples in verse 3 and he answers and he says, neither has this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God should be what?

I want to submit to you that on some level God allows suffering because it is the situation that seems the most difficult, it is the situation that seems the most impossible where God is most able to show up.

I can tell you that just this week I spoke at Saddleback Church in Orange County where a very famous pastor and wife combination lead at the Saddleback Church, Rick Warren, who is the author of what I think now is the number 1 selling book in US history, The Purpose Driven Life.

And they had a conference there on HIV and AIDS this week.

And I was 1 of the presenters at this conference.

And it was interesting because pastors from all over the world, 1, 500 people registered and came from all over the world, people from the White House and from governments around the world and physicians and pastors from churches around the world came to this conference.

And it's interesting because AIDS is viewed as still in many circles as something that someone did to themselves.

It is still viewed that way, let's just be honest.

And we often, the question you wanna ask as a healthcare provider, I can tell you after working at an HIV AIDS clinic on Miami Beach while I was in medical school, I can tell you that that almost is the first question you want to ask if the answer is not obvious.

But 1 of the things I said in my presentation is that the plague or this pandemic as they call it, that has come in the form of HIV and AIDS with multiple millions of people infected and the death rate into the hundreds of thousands in many nations, 25 million people infected in sub-saharan Africa alone.

I want to submit to you that this disease is 1 of the greatest opportunities for witnessing and the gospel being preached that has ever come on the planet.

This disease is offering the church, and when I say the church I mean the global church, it is offering an opportunity for us to do something in the name of Jesus and expect nothing in return.

As a matter of fact, 1 of the things I said is that every church should have a single mother's ministry, because we know that 1 of the reasons that black women in America now are fastest among those getting the HIV virus is because we are incarcerating black men at such a high rate in the United States.

And we know that 1 of the studies that social science has, social science is 1 of the evidence-based bodies of information, is that fatherlessness is probably the number 1 contributing factor to the fact that the prisons are being loaded with inner-city and poor men of all races but especially affecting black and Latino men.

Well we know that when you go into prison terrible things happen and men who go into prison especially for extended periods of time are often exposed to a very deadly virus, 1 called HIV.

These men then come out denying the fact that they may have had homosexual experiences in prison or that they are gay.

They refuse to say that, but then they take whatever happened in prison and go home to their wives or girlfriends.

And we now know that this is part of the reason that the epidemic in the United States has transitioned from where it was to where it is.

So 1 of the things we can do, if you really want to stop the spread of AIDS in the United States, especially since my audience was primarily, probably, pastors from suburban white America, I said, your church can challenge everything.

If your suburban white church was to reach into the ghettos of the United States and adopt single mother-led families, and make sure that the boys, especially, in those families have a greater understanding of the world around them.

Here is a tragedy that is happening right outside of your door not in sub-saharan Africa and here is a way that the gospel of Jesus Christ could be spread with power.

Why are these boys in this condition and why is America going the way it's going and why is this the situation?

Jesus's answer is don't worry about who sinned, worry about your response.

What are you going to do if this is the problem?

The reality is that the entire planet has been infected with the virus of sin and there is no disease more deadly than sin because all of these other diseases can only take you to death once.

Sin can take you to death twice and that second death is a permanent 1.

I mean and Jesus of course is saying this in terms of responsibility, None of their sins are responsible for this person's condition.

Verse 4, a sermon by the way is entitled Daylight Savings Time.

Verse 4, Jesus says, I must work the works of him that sent me.

When it is day, the night comes when no man can work.

I want to submit to you that you don't have forever to join the singing band.

I want to submit to you that you don't have forever to sign up to do Bible studies.

I want to submit to you that the night is coming and this is daylight savings time.

That if lives are going to be saved they must be done now while the Sun is still out, while the laws are still in place for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached with freedom.

Now is the time while we can take our Bibles and our guitars into hospitals and sing, this is the time to do it.

Because Jesus himself understood that all ministry is limited by the fact that our planet is on a timetable and that the day will come when this planet will be shut down.

And I want to submit to you that that time is coming very soon.

In a minute over a quarter of a million lives were taken in a tsunami.

In a matter of seconds, over 75, 000 lives were taken in an earthquake in Pakistan.

In just a few days, we watched as Hurricane Katrina, thank you, blew through the Caribbean and into the Gulf and up into America, showing America's nakedness.

And all of this happening in rapid succession and we have a prophetess in Ellen White who has warned us that when the last events will happen they will happen rapidly and they will be a mingled in with natural disaster and catastrophes.

The night is coming as this country gears more to a morality-based version of politics, as this country begins to move further and further away from the freedoms that made this country and this nation great while at the same time the moral decline of this nation happens at super speed so that you can turn on your television and watch the most debased and wicked programming ever.

Don't keep thinking you have all the time in the world.

Jesus warns us that the work that needs to be done must be done while there is still daylight.

The night is coming when no man can work.

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