Pastor Holland reflects on the historical impact of the Adventist Church in Battle Creek and emphasizes the need for a revival of true godliness and the spreading of the gospel message.

<p>Pastor Holland reflects on the historical impact of the Adventist Church in Battle Creek and emphasizes the need for a revival of true godliness and the spreading of the gospel message.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Battle Creek Tabernacle SDA Church

Which Gospel?

Chris Holland

Which Gospel? Part 1

The Bible records just a few of the details of the rebellion.

If you have your Bibles, I'd invite you to open them to Revelation, the 12th chapter.

Beginning in verse 3 and 4, the Bible says this, And another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold, a great fiery red dragon having 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 diadems on his heads.

His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth." Verses 7 to 9 give us further insight.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

He was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

The earth was God's newest creation at that time, and he was cast to this place.

But that serpent just asked 1 question, Did God really say?

And with it, the woman, deceived by the devil, and then her husband, deceived by his own desires, joined the rebellion against the Almighty Creator.

Was he caught off guard by this rebellion?

The book of Revelation tells us he was most certainly not caught off guard because it describes Jesus as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

God's plan was in order from the beginning of time.

John 3 16 articulates that plan in absolute detail.

While it is not the intention of this sermon to talk about the divinity of Christ, I do want to spend just a moment.

This is 1 of the most misunderstood passages in the Bible, because there are some that say that Jesus was literally born of God.

The word only begotten is a very poorly translated word.

It is in the original language, the Greek word, monogenes.

Mono meaning 1 and only, genes meaning unique 1.

There are many in our church today that are striving to return to the religion of some of the pioneers by saying that Jesus was a created being.

My dear friends, I want to warn you, the creation cannot save the creation.

It is only God that can save the creation.

Because he was fully God and fully man at the same time.

And people will then say to me, how is that possible?

And my answer to you is, I have absolutely no idea.

But the Bible says it, and because the Bible says it, I believe it.

I flip the switch and the light comes on.

If I followed the same principle that some follow, and that is, I don't understand it, and because I don't understand it, it must not be.

Then there will be many people sitting in the dark.

In fact, for many years, whenever I worked on my car, before I worked on it, it was running.

It may not have been running well, but I would work on it, and then afterwards it wouldn't run at all.

I don't understand how an internal combustion engine works.

I understand even less about the computers that now run these engines, and I understand even less about the mechanics behind electronic vehicles.

But I can tell you this, I didn't walk here this morning.

Even though I do not understand it, I trust that it works.

And even though I don't understand the full divinity and full humanity of Christ, the Bible is clear that He is 1 with the Father and He has existed from eternity's past.

And while I may not understand it, I believe it because the Bible says so.

But God's plan was that he sent his only son, that whoever, that includes me and I'm thankful for that, believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Surely they would see in his son the personification of love." See, God had a choice in dealing with the rebellion of Satan, and that choice was he could have instantly extinguished the rebellion, which would have raised questions in the creation, including the angelic host, so they would no longer serve out of love, but they would serve out of fear.

Or he could do something drastically different.

And that was to demonstrate what true love looked like.

We know the many stories of the birth of Christ as we have just come out of this season celebrating the birth of Christ.

The devil did all he could do to try to prevent it, but he failed.

He failed miserably, And after he could not kill the Christ child at the birth, he continued to pursue Jesus throughout his life.

And in a multitude of moments, trying to extinguish and eliminate him.

Jesus was taken captive, illegally tried, and He was put to death.

I'm sure for a moment, Satan celebrated believing he had conquered.

His disciples wondering what was going on.

1 day, This was the Messiah whom we had pinned our hopes, and now He's in the grave.

And in it, Jesus Christ, in the great controversy episode, celebrated his greatest victory and as verse 5 says, and her child, speaking of Jesus, was caught up to God and His throne.

Jesus was victorious and in this back and forth of the great controversy between good and evil, Satan was not satisfied and so verse 6 says that he then counterattacked once again.

He couldn't take out the Christ, so now let's take out the people.

The Bible says in verse 6 of Revelation 12, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1, 260 days, a time period often referred to as the Dark Ages, from approximately 538 AD to 1798 AD in biblical prophecy.

Satan was not able to take out the Christ, so he attempted to take out the Christ's people.

This past fall, I had the opportunity to travel into the Piedmont valleys of the Italian Alps, home to the Waldensys.

The Waldensys were a simple people, a simple people who simply wanted to follow the Bible's teachings.

This did not sit well with Rome and they pursued these people.

In fact, in September I had the opportunity to go into a cave.

In that very cave, in that very cave, hundreds of people gathered, hundreds of people gathered to worship God in that cave.

And what did the Romans do when they found these people in the caves?

They built a fire outside the mouth of the cave and the smoke from that fire funneled into the cave where hundreds died for their faith.

From the earliest of centuries through those dark ages, Satan unleashed his attack by persecuting the church.

The ancient writer Tertullian in 197 AD wrote these words, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians.

The pagan Diogneto wrote of that early time, do you not see that the Christians are thrown to the wild beasts that they may recant the Lord?

Do you not see that the more they are punished, the more the others increase in numbers?" And the historian Ippolito Romano, during the persecution organized by Septimus Severus, wrote that large numbers of men have been attracted by the faith of the martyrs and became God's martyrs themselves.

You see, in this back and forth of the battle of the great controversy, Satan continues to fail and fail and fail.

I don't know why it took him so long to figure it out, but once he figured out that the front out assault against God's people no longer was working, he changed his tactic.

Revelation chapter 13 describes the changing of the tactic.

In the verse previous to Revelation 13, Revelation 12, 17, the Bible says, and the dragon was enraged with the woman and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring.

If you're reading from the King James Version, it says, the remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

What's interesting about that verse is the word that says he went to make war in the original language actually should be translated he went away.

Which Gospel? Part 2

Last week we asked the question, which gospel?

This gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a witness to all nations and then the end will come.

Revelation chapter 14 in verse 6, it's a part of the 3 angels messages that sweep across the earth and ripen the harvest that God is preparing for says the everlasting gospel will be preached throughout the earth.

And as we studied last week, we understood that these 2 messages, this gospel and the everlasting gospel, are in fact the same message.

And the greatest takeaway I do hope from last week is that this gospel, the everlasting gospel, is not some theological idea or concept but rather a practical reality of how Jesus would spread the good news of his victory.

I briefly mentioned and read Luke chapter 4, but if you have your Bibles with you, I would invite you to open to the Gospel of Luke chapter 4, verses 16 to 21.

In these verses, Jesus outlined how he would accomplish his mission.

How would he spread the good news of his victory?

That word gospel is the Greek word uangalion, which was used in classical Greek to announce victory.

Often that victory was announced by a rider on a white victory horse.

How would Jesus spread the news that he was victorious in the great battle, the great conflict, the great controversy between good and evil?

Luke chooses to place this story right at the very beginning of the ministry of Jesus.

As Jesus had been baptized, had been tempted in the wilderness, and now he returned to his home city where he announced his mission.

It seems, and if we believe that the Bible is holy inspired, which I believe it is inspired, Luke has deliberately placed this story to mark the commencement of Jesus' public ministry.

These words were to encapsulate and summarize all that Jesus was about to do.

As was already read this morning, in Luke chapter 4, Jesus was in the synagogue.

He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah, a scroll, and when he opened that scroll, he began reading.

When he read, he was reading from Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, and also Isaiah 58.

As Jesus read, it was as if he was introducing to all of his hearers what this gospel, what the everlasting gospel was and is.

The everlasting gospel, this gospel, is to preach the gospel to the poor.

There is a spoken word, and the poor of this passage, it's a very broad term, and certainly it can reference those who are economically disadvantaged, but also those who are oppressed and disillusioned and in need of God's help.

Those who are lacking in spiritual worth.

This gospel is to be proclaimed, to share good news, the good news of Jesus' victory with those that, yes, are economically disadvantaged, but those who are poor in spirit.

Whatever has happened in their life, whether they are emotionally poor or spiritually poor, there is the good news that Jesus has won.

The call of Jesus in the lawless and loveless society that we live in today is to share good news.

The good news that Jesus loves his people and a Life with him will bring about order and stability in your life.

But it is not only to proclaim words, but the passage then says, it is to then heal the brokenhearted.

This gospel is a message of curing and restoration.

Jesus wasn't just concerned with the physical or spiritual, but he was concerned with the entire nature of humanity.

This is why Jesus was called the great physician.

He met the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of people.

The restoration of wholeness that is described in this phrase is directly related to those who have a broken heart.

Now in our modern English language, broken hearted usually is a reference to some kind of emotional break.

The broken hearted are those who have been broken by sin, those who have regret in their life, those that are looking for healing.

It is also a word used to describe those who are suffering from bitter disappointment.

The ministry of Jesus was to be a ministry of mending people who are broken.

The brokenheartedness of individuals might be from emotional pain, it certainly could be from physical suffering, and often it is from spiritual suffering.

This gospel is to bring healing to those individuals.

The mission and promise of the Messiah is that there is mending from the pain of being broken.

Many of us are broken, many of us are more broken than we might readily admit.

Jesus wants to take you in your broken state and mend you and heal you and make you whole.

But the gospel, this gospel, the everlasting gospel, is also to proclaim liberty to the captives.

The captivity that Jesus came to announce freedom from was freedom from sin.

While Satan was holding people and holds people today in bondage, Jesus came to free them from that bondage.

There is little doubt that while Jesus' ministry was comprehensive in nature and included the whole person, we must understand that while he brought about relief from physical, emotional, and social pain, his main goal was to bring about deliverance from sin.

Sin, the transgression of God's law, that law which James refers to as the law of liberty, the law of freedom.

We don't often speak of laws as being freeing, but when we read the 10 Commandments of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, The original Hebrew conveys a much more positive sense than our English translation of thou shalt not.

Remember the introduction to the 10 Commandments.

The introduction to the 10 Commandments is that God had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

And that preface should be read in front of each 1 of the 10 Commandments.

Because God had brought them out of Egypt, because God brings us out of the house of bondage, we don't have to have any other gods.

We don't need to take the name of the Lord in vain.

Because God has brought us out of the house of bondage, we need to remember the Sabbath day, a day to experience the recreative powers.

Because God has brought us out of the house of bondage, we don't have to be disrespectful to our parents.

Because God has brought us out of the house of bondage.

We don't have to be disrespectful to our parents.

Because God has brought us out of the house of bondage, we don't have to kill.

When we have been taken from the house of bondage, we no longer have to do those things that put us in bondage.

The message of this gospel is that there is deliverance and freedom from sin.

But the passage continues as Jesus describes His ministry.

This Gospel, the everlasting Gospel, is to recover sight.

Whether you were born spiritually blind or have had some type of experience to cause spiritual blindness, the ministry of Jesus was to restore that sight, whatever the case may be.

What makes this even more important is the historical background to blindness.

At the time of Jesus, it was generally regarded to be impossible to cure blindness.

Now there were perhaps operations sometime around the third century B.C.

Where doctors were actually, with some success, operating on cataracts.

However, however, it was generally believed that the only way to cure blindness was that there would be some supernatural power of a godlike man or a god, not the skill of a physician, that could restore the sight of the blind.

And so this gospel is a message that restores sight to those who have experienced spiritual blindness.

We don't know why someone might have experienced spiritual blindness.

It might be because they were a member of the church.

Maybe they were born into a family that had negative thoughts towards spiritual things.

I don't know what it is, but whatever the case may be, God calls for his son Jesus and for us as his children to share a message that brings about healing to those that have experienced spiritual blindness.

But this gospel is also to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

I love that this is added to the message.

Jesus actually brings liberty, he doesn't just announce that liberty.

He actually provides the means for people to be delivered from sin.

This is in fact the phrase that is alluding to Isaiah 58.

And Jesus uses Isaiah 58 in an interesting way.

If you read all of Isaiah 58, and we don't have time to study the entirety of Isaiah 58 this morning, so I would encourage you to read Isaiah 58 this afternoon.

But in Isaiah 58, God was making a complaint against the nation of Israel for not living out her calling in proper Sabbath worship.

Israel had failed to be a source of liberty for those that were oppressed.

And Jesus inserts this parenthetically to his reading of Isaiah 61 to help us understand that his ministry will be a ministry to do what Israel had failed to do.

And that was to bring about the salvation of God and free those who are suffering from oppression.

It was Jesus announcing that he came to reverse the injustices of the world and announce freedom and deliverance and provide that freedom and deliverance from sin.

And that freedom is found in Jesus alone.

Series

Which Gospel?

Which Gospel? Part 1

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

GYC SE 2012 Seminar: Leadership

Cultivating the Active Virtues

58m

Fresh Manna By Jacob Gibbs

The Sum of Last Year

32m

GYC 2012 Morning Devotional

Resurrecting the Church

52m

Morning Devotional

Esau was a Seventh-day Adventist

1h 2m

The Genealogy of Jesus

43m

Last Lap

45m

The Promise Land

31m

Plenary Sessions

Six Keys for the Western Adventist Church

1h 8m

Leaves From the Tree of Life

49m

Crisis Ahead

1h 15m

The Great Controversies: Relativism's Beauty and Fundamentalism's Beast

For What End: The Goal of Controversy

1h

GYC SE 2008: ReGeneration Plenary Sessions

Adventism For the Last Generation

50m

Sound Doctrine