Sermon given on March 3, 2012 to commemorate 10 years of Advent HOPE Sabbath School in Loma Linda.

<p>Sermon given on March 3, 2012 to commemorate 10 years of Advent HOPE Sabbath School in Loma Linda.</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>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Advent HOPE 10-year Anniversary Weekend

Norman McNulty

Precious Past—Glorious Future

Happy Sabbath and I just want to say that it is a very much a privilege for me to be back at Advent Hope this weekend especially considering this is the 10-year anniversary and I had the privilege of being 1 of the people who was part of the group when we started and last night we had our Friday night vespers and it was so great to hear Trudy give some of the history, Steven Waterbrook and Doug Plata and then others, Jason Shives.

And it's definitely been a homecoming, a reunion, and a small little foretaste of what heaven will be like.

And just a few other preliminaries, as Angie mentioned, we are moving from Trinidad to Tennessee.

In fact, we flew back from Trinidad on Wednesday and Got on a plane Thursday evening and flew from Nashville to LAX.

It's 4 hours ahead in Trinidad Fortunately, it's gone better than anticipated and little Sarah Lynn.

She's in the back row, or maybe she's out with her grandmother.

We're all glad to be here, Joelle's back.

We're just really happy to be in Loma Linda this weekend.

And my friends in Trinidad, they asked me to send greetings to them in my first sermon back in the United States.

Some of them listened to audio verse, so To my friends in Trinidad, I miss you and it was a great experience.

So let's go ahead and have a word of prayer and we'll get started.

Father in heaven, we thank you for your leading and guiding in this ministry, but we know at the end of the day this is your work.

It hasn't been the work of any human, it has been the work of God, and we just thank you for that.

And I pray that you will be with us in the next few minutes as we recount how you have led us and where you are taking us.

I don't want to give a 15-minute sermon today.

I want to start off with a quote, and this would be a quote that probably most of us know, and it would almost be predictable for the occasion today.

It's from Life Sketches, page 196, where Ellen White says, In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God!

As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment and with confidence in Christ as leader.

We have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us and His teaching in our past history.

And when we look at how God has led, There's 2 elements for this weekend that we can look at.

We can look at how God has led the Second Advent movement.

But we also look at how He has led Advent Hope, for which I believe very strongly is part of the Second Advent Movement.

First of all, when we look at how we have traveled over every step, we can say, praise God.

And we also can have confidence in Christ as our leader.

That's why when Advent Hope was started, and there were, we heard about it last night, there was a group at Redlands, there was a group at Chinese Church, and then people from those 2 groups kind of came together and started Advent Hope.

The reason why that happened is because there was a deep love for Jesus Christ.

Realizing that Jesus is our leader, and that he has pointed us to truths for our time to take us to the second coming.

So, when we get to the statement that says, we have nothing to fear for the future, there is a condition to that statement.

And there's actually 2 conditions that if those conditions aren't met, we should actually become afraid.

I don't want that point to be lost because a lot of times we'll read the statement and we'll say, oh, God has led us, he'll always lead us, We're just going to keep following God no matter what without realizing that there are specific conditions to the fulfillment of that statement.

Except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and his teaching in our past history.

There's the history of our movement and there's the teaching of our movement, and the 2 are inseparable.

So, in other words, you can't say, I am a seventh-day Adventist.

God has led us, but I am going to ignore the teachings and the doctrines that have made us as a people for who we are.

That will not lead us to the second coming.

Because only when we remember our history and God's leading in our history and also the teachings that he used to raise our movement up, and only as we are faithful to those teachings, that is when we will continue to receive God's blessing.

And so as we come here to this 10-year reunion, I just want to start this message off by saying, look, God has led in the history of Advent Hope.

We started with 20 people in a small little room, and now we have hundreds of people coming.

And the purpose of Advent Hope is to follow Christ, our leader, with the teachings that he has entrusted us with to take us from here to the heavenly Canaan.

Now, as part of my message I just wanted to give a brief history of my own personal testimony.

Some of the others shared theirs last night.

When I came here to Loma Linda, I came here 23 years old.

Man, I miss, sometimes I miss those days of being 23.

And when I came here, I came from Southern Adventist University and I'd gone through our school system all the way through, received a perfectly good education, but I would say that my focus was on getting that degree at the end of 4 years and we'll see where I go from there.

I had no intention when I came here to Loma Linda of becoming heavily involved in ministry.

School was my focus And outside of school, things like sports were my hobby that took up the rest of my time.

But in my first year of medical school, and we talked about this a little bit last night, about how the Chinese church had something going on.

That is where I was exposed specifically to Peter Gregory, how to study your Bible.

There was a weekend retreat at Pine Springs Ranch, and All of those things started coming together and I was like, wow, if I can study the Bible the way I study for medical school, I might actually learn some things that will help me to defend my faith.

And you know, for those of you who are students here today, It is possible to make time for the study of God's Word and still do well in your schoolwork.

As time – and then that very year, Towards the end of my first year, I started studying more fully.

And then in, it was the beginning of my second year of medical school that 9-11 happened.

And it was right around then that Steven Waterbrook was talking about getting a Sabbath school on campus.

And within a few months, we had Advent Hope, and I somehow became part of the team, and we really coalesced together to have a Sabbath school that would be a ministry that would be dedicated to the proclamation of the love of Jesus in harmony with the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14 to prepare a people for the coming of Jesus.

And I hope that that will always be the vision of Advent Hope.

Now, when we talk about having nothing to fear for the future.

Except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us and His teaching in our past history, let's just briefly review the key teachings of how God has led us as a movement.

They are the 5 S doctrines, The Sabbath, the Sanctuary, the State of the Dead, the Spirit of Prophecy, and the Second Coming.

Now, if you want to take a look at the history of Adventism, find any group that has wandered away from the Adventist message and you will find that they have attacked at least 1 of these 5 doctrines.

Once you start attacking 1, everything else will start to crumble along with it.

Here's a little clue, the first 1 that usually gets attacked is the spirit of prophecy.

You start attacking the spirit of prophecy, and then the next thing that starts happening, you start questioning the sanctuary message, and before you know it, you're questioning the Sabbath message, and before you know it, you're becoming open to beliefs and theological viewpoints that have nothing to do with the truth that God has used to raise this movement up and before you know it you've left the faith.

And so we have nothing to fear for the future but I do become afraid when people start to minimize any 1 of those 5 core doctrines.

And if you see that happening, that should be cause for concern.

Those are the messages that God used to raise up our church.

And let me just run through some of these briefly.

And what I'm gonna do, it's sort of a two-part message here.

We're gonna talk about the core doctrines that God has used, but then we're gonna focus in especially on the second coming and the last part of our message.

The Sabbath message, of course, we understand.

Yes, scripture says the Lord made earth in 6 days.

He rested on the Sabbath, that God is the Creator and that we worship him on the seventh day as a memorial of his creation.

And it's no wonder that when people start attacking our doctrines, you'll start to hear people questioning the literal six-day creation.

And again, the Sabbath is tied to creation.

So if the earth was created over long ages of time, what does the literal seventh-day Sabbath mean?

So, the seventh-day Sabbath that we are worshiping on today, we can have confidence to know that sometime about 6, 000 years ago this was the very same day in the weekly cycle that God rested.

Not only that, the Sabbath is a sign that God is the 1 who sanctifies us.

And Ellen White even says in Desire of Ages, page 283, that in order to keep the Sabbath holy, men must themselves be holy.

So, a lot of times we do a disservice to our young people in how we teach them about the Sabbath.

We teach them the Sabbath is a day that you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't go there, you can't be here, you can't do all of these things, and we miss out on the fact that the Sabbath is supposed to be a sign of our standing with God, that it's supposed to be the 1 day in the week that we can put everything aside and spend time with our best friend Jesus Christ, who is our leader.

Eric Walsh

The Most Difficult Sermon I Almost Didn’t Preach

And I'm glad to be here to close the Sabbath with you all.

God is good, and we are instructed in the spirit of prophecy that we ought to guard well the edges of the Sabbath.

So it's always good when we come together to close the Sabbath as a family and to ponder on what we've experienced and what we've learned all day today.

But also how do we bring those things into the new week.

And I just praise God that we have Advent Hope.

And I am myself amazed that it's already been 10 years of Advent Hope.

And I want to reiterate something that was said earlier, and that is I hope that in 10 years, we would have this reunion on the sea of glass, and not have this reunion here on earth.

I want to ask you to turn with me in your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, starting at verse 6.

2 Corinthians, chapter 12, starting at verse 6.

And I'd planned normally, I do like PowerPoint and stuff, and I had all that planned.

And I was sitting in my office in Riverside at our church there and all by myself a little while ago and as I was just contemplating God's word, he just said, no, I'll just go with these few verses And let's just close out the Sabbath with these few verses.

And I'm going to give a testimony as well.

So I want to just give you some thoughts to enter into this new week.

Scripture says, For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool.

For I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.

And lest I should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, For my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Verse 10 says, Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake.

Our message closing this Sabbath, March 3rd of 2012, is entitled, The Most Difficult Sermon I Almost Never Preached.

The most difficult sermon I almost never preached.

Father God, we thank you, Lord, for bringing us together in this place, here in Linda Hall and Loma Linda University, Lord, where for many decades, your people have gathered to call upon you.

Tonight, Lord, we ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit in double and triple portions.

Father God, let Eric Walsh not be seen tonight.

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

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

The Apostle Paul here is really at a crossroad in a sense in his Christian experience.

On the 1 hand, Paul has gotten to a place where his ministry has become an incredible success.

In fact, Paul reaches the level of spiritual power, as it were, for lack of a better term, that in fact the scripture records in the book of Acts that people could take just a cloth from Paul and go across town and someone would be sick on the other side of town and if they came in contact with the cloth that had been Paul's cloth that the person would be healed.

Staggering because of course this has led over the years to many soothsayers who have sold prayer cloths on TV and online, but the fact is that the Spirit of God rested so much and I want to say to you that we sometimes don't respect how powerful the spiritual realm actually is.

The fact that when the Spirit of God falls on something or someone or somewhere that there is a residue of the power of God in that thing.

Paul's ministry had reached a point where Paul had just begun to explode.

And because Paul comes out of being a Pharisee, he comes out of a place of legalism and judgment and self-righteousness.

He's very careful because he's worried that he could fall back into that.

Let me tell you that sometimes, if you're trying to be a Christian, success can sometimes be your greatest enemy.

In fact, it is Paul himself who warns that when you stand, take heed lest you fall.

We must always be asking God to show us if we are moving away from a place of humility and into a place of self-righteousness where we begin to think that somehow we are the authors and the finishers of our own faith.

It is in 1 of these conversations he's trying to share with the church at Corinth, he's trying to share with them his own humility and the source of his humility, Paul is trying to make a very powerful statement.

He says, for though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool, it is the fool who glories in himself.

He who says instead, I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me.

Paul says, I need to tell you this, because I need you to be careful not to begin to think higher of me than you're supposed to.

And let me tell you, in our small Adventist world, and it is a small world.

There are a billion Catholics, close to a billion other Protestants, easily a billion Hindus, a billion just in communist China, 20-something million of us.

And so it's easy in our circles to actually have preachers and speakers and leaders who rise up and out of almost just the nature of the American beast.

And we have to be careful because, in fact, Paul is warning us that even the folk that run our crusades and we see on television and we hear at GYC, be careful because they're still human too.

Be careful because in fact, there ought not be Adventist celebrities.

He says, I don't want you thinking too much of me.

He says, and just in case, in verse 7, just in case I would be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations that God has given me because of all God has done for me because all as far-reaching and as powerful as my ministry has become Just to be careful in verse 7, he says, he says, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh.

Now, nobody knows for sure what the thorn is.

Some argue that after his experience in meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, that Paul forever had problem with his eyes.

There are others that argue that maybe his thorn in his flesh was self-righteousness.

Doesn't really matter in a sense, because I hope that when we read this, we realize Paul is trying to tell us to look at ourselves in a sense.

He says, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

The thorn in the flesh, the weakness in his physical being is connected somehow.

He somehow gets this weakness in the flesh and because of that weakness it remains a wedge or a way through which the enemy can continuously mess with Paul.

In fact it buffets him, it waters him down in some sense.

He says that this experience of having a physical weakness that translates into the spiritual.

Somehow this thing changes the way Paul is able to function.

Paul says in verse 8, for this thing I besought the Lord thrice." 3 times Paul prays that God would take whatever this thing is from him.

Now this is Paul, don't forget, who's bitten by a snake on an island and when everybody looks around and says that's a viper you're gonna die he shakes it up into the fire and doesn't even have a second thought this is Paul who happily has him it goes under the sword to find death as a martyr.

This is Paul who the cloth could travel across town and folk are healed.

This is Paul, yet even when Paul goes to God about his weakness in the flesh, He prays 3 times and gets no response.

And the reason he gets no response is found in verse 9, Because God gives him a reason He received goes to the Lord and he's and he says in verse 9 and he said unto me my grace is sufficient for you For my strength is made perfect in what?

He says Paul, you know what I'm not gonna perfect you Whatever this thing is.

The fact that you're not happy with what you have, the fact that you want to be better and do better and you want the thing removed, I'll cover the rest of it.

He says, but I want you to understand that your strength doesn't come from yourself.

I'm going to leave the thorn in you because you need to understand that the strength comes from me He leaves it in him He says because my strength is made perfect in weakness and and some of us I've seen folk leave the circle And I let me just speak candidly tonight circle of present truth I've seen them walk away from Advent, Hope, and GYC, all the things that we espouse and that we've grown to love and to really even hang our hats on as it were.

And they've walked away because they have not found perfection in themselves.

And I submit to you that we need to remind folk that Christ's grace is sufficient.

And that in fact, true strength doesn't come from you being perfect true strength comes from him being perfect And the problem with some of us is we've brought into the idea that I must be perfect in my own strength.

And you know what happens when you're not?

You begin to think that God doesn't care, that he doesn't listen, that he's not there, and You start beating your head against the wall and you start to actually retreat from the God who is actually the source He's the 1 who would actually give you the victory over the sin you're fighting But sometimes we begin to focus And I've said this before we begin to focus so much on the sin we stop focusing on the Savior We start focusing on so much on what we're doing wrong and what we want to change that we stop focusing on the source of the strength I have learned like the hymn says that as we look into the eyes of Christ as we spend time with him the things of this world grow strangely dim and the problem is The devil wants you to not focus on Christ.

He wants you to focus on yourself And he's such a trickster that he understands he can't he's not gonna get most of you to go out and drink a fourth of gin?

He's not going to get most of us to go to the strip club tonight or the nightclub.

He's not going to get most of us to look at pornography on the internet but whatever your thing is he can get you to focus on it so much that you stop focusing on the Jesus who's gonna save you in the end am I saying you're excused to sit no of course not But I am saying that looking at sin does you no good.

And the problem with many of us is that when we have a secret sin, Let me just be bold and plain.

When you are dealing with masturbation and pornography and hidden things that really only you know you're dealing with between you and God, and you can't get victory over that thing, The problem is you start to focus on the thing.

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Series

Advent HOPE 10-year Anniversary Weekend

Precious Past—Glorious Future

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Precious Past—Glorious Future

49m

The Most Difficult Sermon I Almost Didn’t Preach

48m

Sound Doctrine