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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Trust God Through the Uncertainties of Life

David Wright

What Am I Suppose to Do?

Well, it's a privilege to be with you here at Advent Hope.

For a long time, I have tuned in to Advent Hope and listened.

You always have great speakers that come, so I have to admit I'm quite intimidated to even be here.

I was able to walk around campus and see.

Last time I was here, I think, was maybe 18 years ago.

And the campus has changed significantly.

I went up as high as I could in the hospital.

I wanted to see the view And they said, yes, can we help you?

And I said, oh, I'm just touring this fine facility.

And you have to have a, do you have somebody to see?

So I was able to catch the view but it's good to be here with you and I trust you've had a good week perhaps a long week perhaps you're ready for some rest as we enter into the Sabbath, but I pray that our time will be fruitful here together.

The year was 1987 and a commuter flight traveling from Portland, Maine to Boston took off.

And as they took off and gained some altitude, there was an unusual noise that they weren't sure what that was about.

After they got up to about 4, 000 feet the pilot turned it over to the co-pilot says I'm gonna go check this thing out and Went back through like I said, there's only 15 passengers in this turboprop and As he reached the rear section of the plane there was some turbulence in the plane that sent him jumping and landing on the back door and in an instant he realized what the noise was all about.

The door was not latched properly and it simply opened and Dempsey fell out at 4, 000 feet in the air.

Immediately lights came on to the co-pilot that the back door was open and they could feel all of the change of pressure and he knew what was going on, and he radioed, send somebody out over the water to look, we have lost the pilot out the back of the plane.

He turned the plane around, landed as soon as they possibly could, and to everybody's amazement, the rescue crew that came and encircled the plane found Dempsey.

The back door that opened also had stairs attached and a little arm rail, I guess, and he grabbed onto that instinctively on his way out and held on for dear life for 10 minutes.

He must have been upside down because it said when the plane landed, his face was just about 12 inches from the tarmac.

And so they did their best to get Dempsey to let go of this railing.

And because of the adrenaline and being there for so long, holding as tight as he could, they literally had to pry his fingers off because he was attached so tightly.

Has your life ever drastically been changed in 1 unsuspecting moment?

You think you're doing just fine, it's another day, going through your routine, and then there's something that's not quite right, and you go to check it out, and there's a bump, and you hit the back door, and everything is different.

Maybe it's a phone call that you receive with word that something has happened.

Maybe it's something that happens within the family.

It says, you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

But then this line, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

Have you ever found yourself in a difficult and discouraging time?

Perhaps there's somebody here right now that's going through a very difficult and discouraging time.

But when you think of the experience of Henry Dempsey and think of the alternatives of if you had just let go.

And I just wanna challenge you this evening in those challenging moments, in those discouraging moments, hang on to Jesus with everything you've got.

Never let go, because the harder you cling to Jesus, the tighter will be His grip on you." This evening I want to look at the final chapter of Jehoshaphat's life.

If you brought your Bibles or maybe you have them on your phones.

We're in 2 Chronicles chapter 20 and we're looking at a time when Jehoshaphat was confronted with a very scary moment, discouraging moment, and how he clung to Jesus.

And we don't really have time to get into Jehoshaphat.

And while he is not a perfect man, he does a lot of good things, especially at a time when most of the kings were wicked and doing a lot of bad things.

And we can read in various places, in fact if we go back to chapter 17, it says, Now the Lord was with Jehoshaphat, verse 3, because he walked in the former ways of his father David.

He did not seek the bales, but sought the God of his father and walked in his commandments.

Verse 6, and his heart took delight in the ways of the Lord.

Moreover, he removed the high places and wooden images from Judah.

And so there are some times he does things that are not ideal.

He aligns himself with Ahab and he tries in chapter 19 he gets into some back and forth there and cries out to the Lord and he saves him.

But I want to focus on chapter 20 this evening and pick it up there in the first verse.

It says, And it happened after this that the people of Moab and the people of Ammon and others with them, besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat.

If anybody has tape or something, that might be helpful.

But my coat keeps wreaking havoc on this thing.

But here we have essentially the bad guys coming against Jehoshaphat and they're coming in force.

And it says, Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, from Syria, and they are in Hazazon Tamar, which is En Gedi.

And Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim to fast without all Judah.

So I want to stop and pause there for a moment.

Judah doesn't do anything to provoke this attack.

He didn't do anything to bring this about, okay, they're gonna fix me up, here we go.

Seemingly doing everything that he knew to do, doing the right thing, but are we in a great controversy?

And even when we do things and try to do things the right way, the devil's gonna throw everything he can at us, and that's exactly, I think, what's happening here.

He could have gone into panic mode, he could have fired up the artillery, he could have done all number of things, but in verse 3 he says, "...and Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord and from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord.

Key number 1, when tragedy strikes, like Jehoshaphat, we need to immediately turn to prayer.

Often we are tempted to prepare first, to get ready, then ask God to bless our efforts.

A beautiful expression of confidence in God and utter distrust though is what we see in Jehoshaphat as he turns to prayer.

It's a funny thing about tragedy, how it tends to expose what's already in the heart or in the life.

If we're close to God in times of tragedy, we draw closer.

If we are having meaningful devotions with God, they become even more meaningful.

If we are having meaningful prayer time, we amp up our prayer time.

But if tragedy strikes and there were doubts before, those doubts often grow.

If we have not made Bible study a habit, when tragedy strikes it may seem impossible.

If we have not made honest, open prayer part of our lives, it will seem like our prayers hit the ceiling at times of tragedy.

And if destructive behaviors have had a foothold before, tragedy will only drive us further into despair.

Yes, tragedy has an uncanny way of magnifying what's already there.

Yet in this story, I see a king that truly and sincerely has been praying before because when tragedy strikes, he immediately turns to prayer.

Why Doesn’t God Do Something?

This is a few years ago when we were a family of 6.

Have you noticed how uncertain life can be?

Are you facing, is anyone here facing trials this morning?

It wasn't too long ago, well it's been a little while, it was back in 2013, it's hard to believe it's been that long ago, I was in a car accident and while everybody was okay, thankfully, In that process, I broke, in fact, they told me, and some of you here that know how to read x-rays, I crushed my right thumb.

And I learned very quickly how significant your right thumb is on your dominant hand.

The hardest part is that we had just had baby number 4.

Some people ask, what's it like to have 4 children?

And oftentimes we say, well, imagine that you're drowning and then somebody throws you a baby.

That's a little bit what it's like, but now I have a broken right thumb.

And you can see the cast there, my whole thumb.

We were in the accident, and this guy tried to manipulate it.

And oh, nope, I don't think that's working.

I ended up flying to another place in this third world country, and they manipulated it some more and set it.

When I got home and went to the specialist first thing He says if you were would have been here the day after we would have done surgery, but now Well, it is what it is.

I thought oh great But thankfully I mean you can still see that it's crooked And I don't have the same range as I did before but all in all it's okay But if you've never broken a finger, and I hope that you haven't Try to eat with your prominent hand without your thumb.

I mean, you can balance it and put it in those other fingers or something, but that's pretty tough.

You can try your left if you're right-handed, but to try and get that quickly into your mouth, and men, we're good at shoveling, aren't we?

You almost die when you're just trying to eat to stay alive.

Bathing the kids with with 1 arm trying to get them out of the tub when they're slippery.

Try buckling something as simple as buckling your pants.

Getting that thing to fit in a coat, not easy.

Even putting on your socks is a challenge.

Or this 1 caught me off guard, opening a jar of anything.

I just want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the peanut butter jar always kind of just sticks just a little bit.

How do you get it open without 2 hands and 2 opposable thumbs?

And everybody says, oh, you broke a thumb.

You know, they have pity on the people with a big break, you know, and they're wheeling around.

And so as you can imagine with 4 small children, times in the right household could be, well, chaotic.

Times when you need all hands on deck Kids are crying these were 2 are arguing over here.

There's dishes that need to be done kids that need bathing It's kind of the crunch hour and where is my husband?

Over in the corner doing thumb exercises.

Excuse me, I just have to do some thumb exercises.

Putty with different amounts, you know, that press in easier and harder.

We're used to doing things, getting things done.

It can be very frustrating, not to mention humbling.

And I'm not naive that of all that is perhaps happening with those that are represented here, this is rather trivial in comparison to some overwhelming weight that some of you may be carrying.

Burdens and trials, uncertainties of life that you carry.

But I simply share this to bring up the issue of trials because we all have trials, don't we?

But the question becomes, how do you deal with the trials of life?

What do we do when things don't go according to plan?

And from a spiritual perspective, How do you face trials?

Maybe you're going through something right now.

Maybe it's the direction of your future and what you're going to do.

You may know where you want to go, but maybe the doors aren't opening.

Maybe you're uncertain about your child or your grandchild and the direction that they're choosing.

But whatever it is, the situation might be all too much to bear.

Maybe it's a job loss, a close relationship, Maybe the loss of a loved 1.

How do you live in a world where the future is not secure and uncertainty is just around the corner?

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn.

We're gonna be in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7.

And if you don't have your Bibles or your cell phone was unable to be resurrected, I've placed the words on the screen behind me.

As we see how the Apostle Paul lived with uncertainty, but he lived rejoicing and courageous in that uncertainty.

And so perhaps you're there, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 7 and there we read, Now let's look at that text carefully.

Notice Paul says, I was given a thorn in the flesh.

Have you ever been outside playing as a child?

Perhaps you're working, maybe you're hiking, maybe picking berries, whatever it is, and a thorn gets in literally your flesh.

And it's painful, it's annoying, and sometimes it goes in deep and then it breaks off.

And so until you're able to get under a bright light with maybe a needle and some tweezers, this is gonna be an annoyance, this is gonna be a pain, this is not going to be fun.

And I don't know about you, but when I read this passage, I start to think in terms of that as it relates to this thorn in the flesh.

But that's not what Paul is talking about here.

He's not talking about some little scratch or some sliver that annoyed him just a little bit.

In fact, the word for thorn in the Greek language is scallops.

It's the same word that's used in ancient literature for impaling a victim.

In other words, you take a stake or sharpen some big long piece of metal into something like a spear.

And in Roman times or in the Middle Ages, you would take that sharpened stake and you would stick it through the chest and it comes out through the back typically and pins a person to the ground.

But you do this intentionally and carefully so not as to take out major organs so they can live as long as possible staked to the ground.

It's excruciatingly painful form of torture.

Are You a Special Need Christian?

All right, well, sorry for those of you that have been here all 3 times to have to listen to that again.

Honestly, I'm surprised so many of you are here.

But yeah, today we're talking about, are you a special needs Christian?

They'll figure it out here in just a minute.

But I had a wonderful lunch at Michael and Josie's house.

It was potluck and I tell you what, this was primo stuff.

I thoroughly enjoyed the food, the fellowship, to see little Josie in her element as hostess.

But I took lots of pictures for her mom, and she's going to be so proud.

Dwayne Lemon was a professional hip hop dancer and once got into a bar fight with another known hip hop singer.

I think about that, I think, well, that's a pretty cool story.

Doug Batchelor, I don't know if you recognize him on the screen.

David Astrick was a purple haired punk rock atheist.

Clifford Goldstein used to heckle Christians in the streets and lived in a kibbutz.

I just like to say the word kibbutz, it's just kind of fun.

Sebastian Braxton went to prison, of all things.

Those are all exciting stories, conversion stories, like wow, look at the power of God and what he can do.

Now me on the other hand, I was born into an Adventist family.

Here's a picture or depiction if you will of Happy Valley.

This is where I grew up, also known as Collegedale.

And so I grew up eating Adventist food my whole life.

I went to an Adventist grade school, I'll point on this side if I can, which is right here.

And was part of a little league softball group, which was right back here behind the VM.

Went to an Adventist summer camp, now that's not on the map.

Shopped in our Adventist health food store.

Took piano lessons from an Adventist all the way over here in the music building.

Even got my teeth cleaned by an Adventist in our church.

Now that's off the map, that's more like here.

At age 9, I was baptized into the Adventist church, right there.

My brother and I made good money mowing lawns for multiple Adventists in the area before we could even drive.

And we would cash our checks at an Adventist-owned bank Right about there.

Some of the yards we would mow actually were even right here.

Cecil Futcher, he used to bring us drinks, cold drinks every time we cut his grass.

That would have been, you know, you clocked in back here and then I cleaned Wright Hall, I cleaned the Science Building, I cleaned Brock Hall, I cleaned a lot of places.

I can see you're really into this, right?

This is pretty, you're on the edge of your seat.

Eventually I went to an Adventist high school across the field from our Adventist church, which is all the way down here, New territory for me.

And while I was there, I was asked to be student association pastor of the school.

Our graduation was held in the Abnus Church that I already pointed out.

But friends, at the age of 18, Circumstances changed in my life.

Upon graduation from high school, I had to leave.

Beloved, I had to leave home, gather up all my things, and move all the way into the dorm right here.

My junior year I met my future spouse, literally for the first time, in my parents' dining room table.

Or at my, not in, but at my parents' dining room table, you get the idea.

Her dad too was an Adventist pastor like mine.

And so after another Adventist graduation, there was an Adventist wedding.

Yeah, there's no kibbutz, there's no heckling, there's no prison, none of that.

And I began working as an Adventist pastor.

Since then I've attended an Adventist seminary, pastored 5 different Adventist churches.

I've been employed by the Avenus system now for, how long, I think 21 years.

And when I look back on those I went to college with, and maybe you've done this as well, there aren't that many that are still in the Adventist church.

After great expense, I know because I'm starting to pay that expense.

After great investments by their parents, working extra hours, long hours, But for whatever reason, they become weary, perhaps of the restraints of God, become tired of the obligations, the demands, maybe the restrictions, and so they leave the church.

Thinking that life is better out there and has more to offer than what the church has to offer.

That the good things of life have been withheld.

And you can do this, I'm sure most of you have done this.

You go on Facebook or some other social media and you can just type in your old friends and see what they're doing.

And very quickly, you get the picture, right?

What caused after being raised in this Adventist environment, and I have to think that at some point, in passing the baton from, this is my parents thing, to my thing, they never really made it their own thing.

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Series

Trust God Through the Uncertainties of Life

What Am I Suppose to Do?

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Following the Lamb

29m

Seminars

Origins of Self-Supporting Work

1h 9m

Be Opened

35m

Pathfinder Parade

21m

Eye Care

Touched by Grace: Reflecting Christ Through Practical Community Eye Care

44m

As We Near The End Of Time

31m

A Witness to all Nations

27m

The Word and the World

47m

Faith and Reason in the Christmas Story

35m

The Unhindered Gospel

God’s Sustaining Power

47m

The Last Supper

20m

Sound Doctrine