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Weimar University

Stress Management in Stressful Times

Eric Walsh

01 When God Spared Not

So just to give a little more background, but I praise God because I learned, and the podcast we did today, this is literally what we talked about.

I had no idea I was gonna talk about this when I came this weekend, but now this is already the second time.

But we learned, when you look at it, that like Daniel or the 3 Hebrew boys, sometimes it's in the fire that you meet Christ.

You see, if the 3 Hebrew boys had figured out another way around the fiery furnace, they would have also escaped a chance to meet the pre-incarnate Christ.

And some of you are going through some stuff.

You're here this weekend really going through some stuff.

You can't say out loud what you're going through.

I want you to understand that you need not shy away from the fire.

If Jesus is in the vessel, you can smile at the storm.

And the problem with the storm for most of us isn't the storm.

Like the disciples on the ship on the lake when the storm hit, how afraid they were, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

The ship literally could not sink with Christ on it.

Just like Lazarus could not die if Jesus was in the house, so he waited 2 days to go to allow him to die so that he could raise him up and make the point once and for all that he is the Christ.

So understand that as long as Jesus is in the vessel, you can smile at the storm.

When you ask the tough question, God, I'm going through this terrible time, what is it you're trying to teach me?

What is it, what character defect do you want to burn off from on me as you pass me through the fire of trial?

And when you start to take that stance, your trials become more like a workout than like a death sentence.

And just like you go to the gym and get uncomfortable, to get stronger you go through trial and in its discomfort we grow spiritually stronger.

Alright, we do have a sermon we have to do here, don't we?

And so, I'm gonna push off the stuff on stress tomorrow.

We just got back from Brazil a couple weeks ago.

Some of the friendliest people I ever met were in Brazil.

We had a great time in Brazil and so that's why some of this is in Portuguese because I didn't have time to take the Portuguese up but since some of you can read it, I don't feel so bad now.

All right, our scripture reading is taken from 2 Peter.

Chapter 1 says, but there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privilege shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of, and through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, and speared not the old world, but saved Noah, The eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemn them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that should after Live ungodly.

Our message this Sabbath evening is entitled, When God Spared Not.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord, I ask once again that you make me just a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

But upon that nail, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Lord, let Eric Walsh not be seen or heard tonight.

Instead, Father, let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

The Bible says, and the men arose up from the vents and looked towards Sodom and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way and the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I do?

Abraham had such a relationship with God that before God would move on something, God actually contemplated whether or not he should share it with Abraham.

Let me tell you something, you are such a friend of God that God is not going to do anything in these last days that he has not already shared with you in his word.

Prophecy is God's showing his friendship toward us just as he showed it toward Abraham.

Verse 18, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him.

For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which has come unto me, and if not, I will know.

So God said, listen, I don't know if I need to tell Abraham what I'm about to do but the cry of these cities the wickedness of these cities has reached up to heaven and because of it I've got to go down here and check this thing out myself.

And here again in the Old Testament is an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ.

The Bible says in verse 22, and the men turned their faces from thence and went towards Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord.

And Abraham drew near and said, will thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

Now, Abraham had a vested interest in what was going on because his nephew had chosen the better land.

He took the land that faced towards the cities, and because probably some urban sprawl happened before long, Lot was inside the confines of the city.

And so Abraham knew he had blood in the city.

I would imagine he probably had Thanksgiving dinner at Lot's house sometimes or some equivalent.

So he asked, would you destroy the righteous with the wicked?

And then he starts to do this numbers game that is almost unique and found almost nowhere else in Scripture anything like this.

He says in verse 24, Peradventure there be 50 righteous within the city.

Will you also destroy and spare the place for the 50 righteous that are therein?

And Abraham said, listen, if the city is thousands of people but if there's just 50 of them that are righteous would you just save the place?

The question you have to ask yourself then and it is a quintessential question to Christianity and that is who are the righteous.

Genesis 15 and verse 5 gives a 1 aspect of this there are many others but this is the 1 I want to highlight for our talk tonight.

Genesis 15 5 God Speaking to Abraham again several chapters earlier, and he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them.

And he said to him, so shall thy seed be.

So On a nice clear night like tonight, God had Abraham look up, see all the stars and say, can you see them?

The number of stars, he said, and remember, this is before pollution, so you could really see far and the bright lights of the cities.

He said, that's what your seed is gonna be like, verse 6.

And he believed in the Lord and watched this church and he counted it to him for what?

In fact, the story of Abraham is literally antithetical to calling him righteousness for a couple more decades.

He actually marries his wife's handmaid and has a child he should never have had.

Yet the Bible says that up front his account was preloaded with righteousness.

Here's what the Bible says, Romans 4, 3, for What saith the scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for what?

Abraham doesn't really exercise righteous behavior until he's taking his son Isaac up to the mountain, about to put him to death, or at least carrying out the, all the way, carrying him up all the way to the mountain as if he's gonna put him to death that is when his righteousness shines through appropriately but it is years after God speaks to him and shows him the stars.

Galatians 3, 6, even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, James 2 and verse 23, and the scripture was fulfilled with saith, Abraham believed God and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.

Righteousness is something you cannot earn.

Abraham in fact went backwards before he ever actually began to move forward.

This is why we as Protestants believe in the concept of righteousness by faith.

His righteousness was imputed before his behavior caught up.

Because what folk believe is that in order for them to be right to come to God, they've got to begin to live right first.

I would submit to you that in fact you will never live right if you don't come to God first We'll talk about that a bit more tomorrow as well Back to the story Genesis 18 that be far from thee to do after this manner, so he's pleading with God now, we'll go through this part quick, because I love how he does it, he just slides all the way down from 50 really fast, like he's haggling in a market, that be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous shall be, should be as the wicked, that be far from thee, shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

Abraham was so close with God, look, he's like, listen, you're the judge of all the world, man, you can't just be killing righteous people with the wicked people.

02 The Snares of this World

Morning, and we're gonna get right into our message so that we have time to go through.

I know this is a, it's a Sabbath school hour, so we're gonna do not a sermon, but hopefully more of what I call a sermonar.

So that we kinda hit a couple good points.

Nedley, we were talking about what to present.

The first 3 sessions are gonna be heavier.

And then at 06:00, we're gonna do 1 more for the community.

So I hope you brought your thinking caps in a sense and are ready to go deep as we get some things that are happening in the world now.

Our scripture reading is taken from Philippians chapter 2 and verse 5.

It says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

And our message for Sabbath School Hour today is the war for your mind, the war for your mind.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your Word.

We thank you, Lord, for your mercy and for your grace.

Lord, again, I just ask that you make me a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord.

Lord, upon that nail, I ask now that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

As we deal with, Lord, the warnings and events of things that are coming upon the earth in the next 2 sections, I am asking for an extra portion of your Holy Spirit.

Then Lord, I am asking that you bind Satan now.

Bind the demons and drive them far from here.

Allow us now, Lord, to focus on those things that are eternal.

There's our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

All right, we're gonna start in Revelation chapter 7.

And I talk on this topic a lot, I update it all the time as a physician and someone who did, 1 of my residencies was in preventive medicine, and so we were able to do a year of addiction medicine.

This really, training, this really is 1 of the things that resonates with me, is understanding these passages.

So Revelation 7, verse 1 says, and after these things, I saw 4 angels standing on the 4 corners of the earth, holding the 4 winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

What the Bible tells us here is that in fact there are angels commissioned to hold back the winds of strife.

The way you could see that kind of is to think of it as the job of these angels, whether you believe it to be allegory or real, the job of these angels is to not allow the full effect of sin to ravage the planet.

In other words, there are those who are making it so that sin's full weight does not fall squarely on the planet.

Now as this is happening, it is, as you look at the stream of prophecy, this is happening as some other big events are happening after the Protestant Reformation and big things are happening.

So a fifth angel jumps on the scene in Revelation chapter 7 in verse 2.

The Bible says, and I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.

And he cried with a loud voice to the 4 angels to whom it was given to herd the earth and the sea.

And a lot of prophecy experts speak to this as the loud cry or some speak to it as the teaching of the Sabbath after 1844.

And so it speaks to the fact that this great truth would come and that the seal represents that.

The Sabbath is the only of all of the commandments that is laid out like a seal.

And so you can see that there's a time that would come when there would be a sealing of certain people and that until that happens, the full weight of whatever is going to come if those 4 angels let go should not happen.

He comes from the east, which is the direction from which God's message comes, and here he cries out a loud voice to the 4 angels, don't harm anyone, saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God, where?

So when you look at the passage, it is speaking very specifically.

And you could just run past and say, okay, there's a seal that goes on top of your forehead.

But when you begin to break this down neuroanatomically, anatomically, start to really look at it, what we're discussing is the frontal lobe of the brain.

There's a lot of discussion now inside the church and outside the church around the frontal lobe, also called the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain where a lot of very important things happen.

Planning, language, problem solving, impulse control, you see that?

Judgment, motor function, and even social and sexual behavior.

In a nutshell, it is in your frontal lobe that character exists.

If you are to have the character of Christ, it will be because your frontal lobe has such a character.

If you do a lobectomy and remove the frontal lobe, you lose your personality, you lose your character, and there's a whole bunch of literature on it, study psychology around that.

It is critical that this part of the brain be protected.

The human frontal lobe is 33% of our brain.

1 3rd of the human brain is frontal lobe.

The next most intelligent animals are porpoises and chimpanzees, not your dog or your cat.

Porpoises are chimpanzees, and their brain is only 13, 1, 3, 13% frontal lobe.

So a third of our brain, and what does this do?

We start with it starting with reasoning, having rational logical thought.

It allows us to actually gauge and control, regulate emotional response.

In essence, it is also why we are able to worship.

When we were formed out of the dust of the ground, and God said let us make man in our image, 1 aspect of that is that in being made in God's image, we were given a frontal lobe.

We were given a part of our body that gave us the ability to choose.

Because it is absolutely important to your salvation.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as what?

If you can't reason, you are going to hamper your ability to find salvation.

Your ability to reason, and what reason is it?

Well, the reason part of it is to be able to look and say, listen, I am a sinner and I am in need of God.

The reasoning that says I am powerless to save myself.

The reasoning that says that the blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient.

If you can't reason, you will not, it'd be very difficult, Not impossible for you to be saved wives Isaiah makes it clear God says let us reason together.

We talked about how Abraham Dialogued with God last night with the Lord last night.

They shall be as white as snow Reasoning is connected to that What are the What else does the Bible say about this seal that goes in the frontal lobe, the frontal cortex of the brain on the forehead?

Verse 13, to whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise.

Because if you take the Holy Spirit and delegate him to a position that is not real.

In other words, there are a lot of Adventists now who are teaching the Holy Spirit is not a person and he's not divine.

They kind of make it more like the force from Star Wars.

Right, he's just kind of like there, and he just does stuff.

But the Holy Spirit works to purify us, to develop our characters.

03 The Boldness of Satan

Jump to the book of Luke, the 21st chapter, Luke chapter 21, verse 25 through 27.

The Bible says, and there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.

For the powers of heaven shall be shaken And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud of power and great glory.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, The Stress of Now.

And Lord, again, I ask that I just be made a vessel.

Fill me, Lord, with your Word, with your truth, and with your Spirit.

The Lord, whatever comes from this pulpit is not of me.

Lord, let it all be from the throne room of grace.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

So we're gonna start by looking at the times in which we live.

This is a great shot from students in Europe.

And they say, and the sign that she's holding up says, we don't have time.

It's an interesting thing, as we're gonna talk about today, that the world, much of the world, is more concerned with the world coming to an end than many in the church are.

In fact, it was 62 degrees in Connecticut in February this week, and I was on 1 of my calls for work and someone said, This is good for our property value here in New England, but it's not good for the planet.

There's a stress of the time we live in and people are perplexed.

Men's hearts, the Bible says, are failing them for fear.

1 of the most tragic stories that come out of Ukraine, the story of a little elementary school girl who had to be pulled out of school and she was hiding out in bunkers in Ukraine.

And this little girl, not 10 years old, died of a heart attack under the stress of the bombs and the fear of the war.

Jesus, in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 1, outlines for us the end time events.

Now I won't be able to get through all of it.

In fact, our church, if you're ever in Connecticut, please visit us.

We're at 3 Angels, Seventh-day Adventist Church in Newington, Connecticut.

Our next big series is going to be on end-time events.

And we're going to really go through and look at things in detail from the pulpit.

And so Matthew 24 is a key part of that in Matthew chapter 24 in verse 1 the Bible says and Jesus went out and departed from the temple and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple Why did they want to show him the buildings of the temple?

Because in the previous chapter, after Jesus deals with those who are selling in the temple, he walks out understanding that that would be the last time he would really deal with the temple.

And Jesus says, I leave your house unto you desolate.

If he's the Messiah, if he's going to sit on the throne of David, how could he say the temple itself is desolate?

And so when they get out in Matthew 24 and verse 1, they're busy showing them.

It wasn't like Solomon's, but it was still pretty quite a pretty amazing.

Herod had done a lot to improve upon it and he was showing him the giant stones covered in limestone, some say, that would glow even at night.

It was a beautiful structure so intricately put together that the stones almost seemed like 1 sheet.

It was the pride of the nation, and they had to show him, as if they were reminding Jesus that the temple was the center of their worship.

Jesus' response is not just a rebuttal to them, but to us when we put our hopes in things of earth.

Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here 1 stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.

And in some of the most dramatic prophetic fashion, this prophecy comes to pass.

The Roman soldiers in AD 70 under the general Titus, he actually come in and they make sure to turn over every single stone.

Verse 3, and as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be?

And what shall be the sign of your coming and of the end of the world and so they came to him and they say wait a minute you Jesus you got to show us what's going on here because we're confused aren't you supposed to rule isn't it aren't all of our problems supposed to end aren't we supposed to run the Romans out you know that's why they many of them chose Barabbas it chose Barabbas because they were under the idea and thinking that Jesus was going to be a king and a leader.

A week before they choose Barabbas, They're throwing down palm branches and they're crying out, Hosanna.

A week later he's beaten, he's emaciated, he's wounded, he looks weak, and as they look at him and they look at Barabbas, who's probably a burly revolutionary, they decide in their mind, wait a minute, he's never gonna liberate us from under the Romans.

Let me tell you something, in the political climate of our day, There are many who are choosing Barabbas.

More concerned with liberation in this life than liberation from sin eternally.

So they come to us and say, when will these things happen?

The Spirit of prophecy tells us that the 2 prophecies are mingled together because they would not have been able to manage to hear them straight and so you have to understand as you read Matthew 24 you're looking at 2 prophecies the 1 that would end in the fall of Jerusalem that would actually happen as an artist rendition of it where everything is torn down and the Roman soldiers take the booty from the temple and take the loot from the town and the city is destroyed.

And 1 that would point to the very end of time where we are alive today.

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