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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Siegfried Roeske

The Adventist Advantage

This morning, in the spirit of the Advent hope, and in the spirit of, and I like the Adventist spirit here in this place, we would like to speak about a topic that will help us to get safely through the confusion and the darkness of this time safely to the coming of Jesus.

This topic is a little bit on the bold side, so I hope I'm not too bold, but I hope it's biblical what we say this morning, and I hope it's logical too.

It has blessed my heart, and it strengthened my faith, and I enjoy talking about it, and I hope it will bless your soul too.

If there are people here who are not of the Adventist background, I hope this topic will make sense to you, and you can leave at least thinking about it and thinking about the things you have heard.

The platform for our thoughts this morning is found in 2nd Kings 2nd Kings chapter 6 verses 8 through 12 2nd Kings 6 8 through 12 It follows a beautiful story about the axe head that floated.

It follows right after it says this in verse 8, then the king of Syria warred against Israel and took counsel with the servants saying in such and such a place shall be my camp and the man of God's sent under the king of Israel saying beware that thou pass not such a place for thither the Syrians are come down and the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of and saved himself there not once not twice over and over again Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing and he called his servants and said to them will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?

And 1 of the servants said none my Lord, O king, but Elisha the prophet that is in Israel, tell us the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thine bedchamber.

The king of Syria had a strong army, he had well-trained professional soldiers, he had horses, he had chariots, but Israel had the captain of the Lord host working through the prophet of the Lord.

And what the king of Syria surely learned was that when you fight the Prophet of the Lord, you're fighting the entire army of heaven.

And the Lord smote the entire Syrian army with blindness and had Elisha lead them into Samaria.

You know, the Lord does have a sense of humor, and I try to imagine it in my mind.

Here are these mighty generals, the Assyrian army, inclad in their powerful army garments and what have you, all these fine horses and the chariots and all of a sudden they go blind.

They're reflecting outwardly what has been a reality inwardly for some time.

And groping about where to go, Elisha saying, oh you don't want me, no I'll show you whom you're looking for, and I can't see those soldiers, you know the generals, everybody hands on the backs of the next 1, long line of soldiers, Elijah up in front leading this blind army into Samaria.

The gates were opened up and all the enemy soldiers marched into the camp, quite a few of them, to take 1 prophet.

As soon as they were inside, the gates were shut, and Elijah in his quiet way said, Lord Jesus, the God of heaven of Abraham, the God of Isaac and Jacob, please Open the eyes Can't you see them?

Oh the Lord opening the eyes of these soldiers and they are startled there.

They are captured all the Israel soldiers around them and the spears and there they are unarmed, helpless.

And then the king of Israel says, master, master, this is our opportunity.

Here we've got the enemy, we can destroy them utterly.

It's a little blood thirstiness there in the king it seems like and the Lord said 3 Lysa no.

In fact what we will do we will set before them food and drink and treat them well and Then we'll send them home To tell the families because dead soldiers don't make good missionaries.

The Lord in his wisdom transformed these pagan soldiers into missionaries.

They went home and couldn't tell the help, couldn't help but tell this story to everyone they met.

Guess what happened to us down there in Israel.

We're embarrassed to tell you but this is what happened.

And then they fed us and they treated us gently and they sent us home to tell the story of God's love.

Powerful missionaries they were and the Bible says they didn't come back.

In the great controversy the people with a prophet have a definite advantage.

1 man against hundred thousand I don't know how many they send there.

Now all throughout history, the history of mankind, there were crisis times.

And when crisis times would arise, God met the crisis by calling a man or woman and entrusting him or her with a message to guide and to lead God's people through the crisis time.

And I have 4, there may be more, highlights on crises, times, or history, but at least I'll pick on 4 this morning briefly.

The first 1 of course was in the days of Noah.

In Genesis 6, 8 Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

He was about to destroy all the people on this planet, all the creation, all the living things, very, very serious.

But he was not going to do it without wanting the people to prepare, and whoever wanted to could be saved out of that crisis.

And I want to tell you, Noah preached and he preached his heart out and you know They ridiculed him they made fun of him Just like they have done with all the prophets There's so many people today who look back in the Bible and say oh yeah if Elijah had come we would listen to him.

If Moses would come we would listen to Moses.

If Moses came today they would do the same thing to him they had done back there stone him try to stone him and they tried to do that with Noah but Noah preached on and preached 120 years ridiculed most the time along the way but those who listened which were very few were saved Then we have God's people in bondage in Egypt.

Strange circumstances, how they became slaves.

Christ's time, miracle after miracle from time babyhood up all the way.

Moses was surrounded by miracles, the power of God, faith and trust in God were built by these miracles.

In Hosea 12 13 it says, and by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt and by a prophet was he preserved God's people were preserved and guided by a prophet.

So all the history of mankind It is nothing unusual.

That's God's chosen way to lead his people and we'll come back to Moses later in an interesting way.

And then number 3 to prepare the way for the greatest event in history up till that time at least, the coming of the Messiah, his life, his ministry, his sufferings, Calvary.

That wouldn't just happen as a surprise upon the people on this planet.

No God would prepare this planet for that great event and he called John the Baptist.

The greatest prophet it said that ever lived to prepare the way for the Messiah.

The man who seemed to speak only of repentance and revival and and commitment to God, he wasn't appreciated.

For this is he in Matthew 3 3 that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying, a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight.

He didn't even want to be called a prophet.

He wanted to be called a voice in the wilderness.

Prophets, when they're true prophets, are humble people.

There was another prophet, he didn't want to be called a prophet.

Then number 4, the Bible clearly predicted that the Lord would send a prophet to help prepare the world for the great climax of all the ages in the glorious second coming of Jesus.

All the work of all the other prophets, all the biblical prophecies, all the biblical writings pointed and merge in that great and greatest event is Jesus' second coming.

When this the nails got hands of Calvary will become visible again to the entire universe.

This is not, Calvary was a climax but the second coming will even be greater because the cross will be raised again in a perspective that it's never been seen before, universal.

The entire universe will relate to it in a new and fresh way.

And God would not just allow this to happen overnight, that no 1 would have an opportunity to prepare, but again Malachi 4, 1 and 2 speaking about the end of the world says behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

It didn't mean in person, it meant in spirit.

John the Baptist was Elijah and the last day prophet was Elijah.

It was the same spirit of repentance, revival and commitment and a willingness to go and do the work that God had for his people.

Joel 2, you're familiar with these texts, I won't spend too much time on them but in Joel 2 it says at the time of the end God will pour out his spirit we're studying about the Holy Spirit and how important it is to let the Holy Spirit come into our lives.

He will bring all other things in its train we need the Holy Spirit we need to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives not just in a church too but in our lives individually the power of the Holy Spirit your sons and daughters shall prophesy.

Did you notice the last sentence of those verses says and in the remnant whom the Lord will call prophecy will be manifest right then Joel it talks about visions and dreams and it says in the remnant God will make this happen and it doesn't take too much to connect it through revelation and realize that God has blessed his people with a special gift.

Then we have 1st Corinthians 12 28 spiritual gifts.

I see 3 pillars that establish the biblical teaching of prophetic guidance for the last day.

The Old Testament prophecies and promises of Joel, Malachi.

Then number 2, first Corinthians, spiritual gifts.

God gave gifts of the church high on the list every time is prophecy.

He gave gifts to the church to perfect the church.

Prophecy is number 2 on the list over and over again to help perfect the church and to lead it into ministry and to bring maturity, spiritual maturity.

That's first Corinthians 12 and God said summon the church, first apostles, secondary prophets and then teachers and so on.

Ephesians 4a when the Lord ascended on high, when Jesus' sacrifice in heaven was accepted.

In answer to his accepted sacrifice the heaven opened up and the Holy Spirit dropped upon his people in Palestine and in Jerusalem.

It was the direct result of Calvary, the work that Jesus had done on the cross which was now accepted in heaven and as a result Pentecost happened.

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