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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Richard Walton

He Is Risen

It was that special shade of pitch black that comes just before the dawn.

It was probably a cold springtime morning and certainly a lonely 1.

Around the remnants of a dying campfire are gathered armed legionnaires of the Legio Tenfritensis, down from Syria where they were normally stationed.

They had come into Jerusalem with the Roman governor under the Roman standard, the eagle, and the letters SPQR underneath it, Senatus Populus Que Romanus, the Senate, and the people of Rome.

They had marched in proudly for the express purpose of putting down any possible Jewish revolt that might occur.

Because it was Passover, A time when the heart and mind of every son and daughter of Israel the world over, to this day, turns homeward to Jerusalem.

This year, as your Jewish friends conclude the Passover Seder, they will say, L'Shanah Ha'Baa'ah Berusha La'yim, next year in Jerusalem.

And so, worried that the Jews might once again revolt and try for their dream of a homeland that they themselves ruled, The Roman governor had traveled down to take up residence in the city of Jerusalem during this the most special times of year in the Jewish mind.

He had brought with him plenty of reinforcements in case of a riot down from a large Roman base in the pro-council up in Syria.

It had been remarkably a rather quiet weekend, save for 3 executions on Friday undoubtedly planned quite some time in advance to remind the Jews who was really in control of Judea.

But on this morning, 1 of those executions has Pilate worried.

He had been well known throughout Judea for his healing and his speaking.

A week ago he had entered the city in a procession that upstaged even Pilate's pretentious arrival.

And yet in a remarkable turn of events that occurred in the space of just a few hours, Jesus of Nazareth was now dead.

Remarkably quickly, he died faster than almost any other victim of crucifixion.

They pulled his lifeless body off the cross and stuck it in a tomb.

And Pilate, worried that his followers might sneak in and steal his body in the middle of the night and start some resurrection rumor, assigns a small contingent of the cracked troops from the Legio 10 Fritensis to guard the tomb.

They were undoubtedly men who had done something to irritate their commanding officer because being turned out over a weekend from their temporary barracks at the Antonia Fortress on Temple Mount was not any soldier's idea of a fun weekend.

They found themselves, probably unwillingly, sitting around a dying fire in the wee hours of the morning with the onerous task of guarding a corpse.

It is always an honor to be here in this special place to worship with you and to reflect on the magnificence of a message that could build an institution famous the world over for healing, body, and spirit.

An institution that tries to carry out the divine dream set forth by the Apostle John, beloved I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.

But to me, it is a unique privilege to be with you on this day.

To share with you the message this institution was built to trumpet to the world.

Without that, All of this, these buildings, the truths we try to teach here, the effort for patients who come to this place hoping for healing and a second chance.

Without that message, it's all empty walls and hollow words.

The story I have for you today is an old 1.

It's been told many different ways over the millennia since it happened.

But it is the cornerstone of everything this institution stands for.

Today we're going to take a trip, you and I.

We're going to travel east across our continent, across an ocean, across the northern tip of the continent of Africa, and then another ocean, this time the Mediterranean, and we will find ourselves in the heart of where it all happened.

But just getting there in our minds isn't enough.

1 could speak, I suppose, of most of the Bible, stories of miracles and ministry, of human failure and the sacrifice that sin requires.

1 could also speak of the uniquely Adventist understanding of how the story is still ongoing today with a process known as the investigative judgment, a biblical understanding of truth that puts the entire gospel message on a firm legal footing.

But I am going to suggest to you today that the whole story of Christ's ministry on this earth, of why he had to come here and be in that tomb on that Sunday morning 2012 or roughly 2000 years ago.

I'm going to suggest to you that that story was first told 2000 years before Jesus came.

If you understand that story, you will understand the entire gospel message.

You will also understand that the plan of salvation that was playing itself out on that springtime morning cannot be divided between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

There is no new truth in Christ's ministry on this earth in His sacrifice and His resurrection.

The truth and the story is 1 undivided message of the awful price of sin and of the enduring love of God.

Genesis 22 and let's start with the first verse.

And it came to pass after these things that God said to Abraham, and he said, behold, here I am.

That's an interesting phrasing Abraham uses.

He doesn't say, here I am, what do you want?

It is the exact same phrase recounted in Psalms 40, verse 7, where Jesus before coming to this earth says here I am.

Genesis 22 verse 2 and God said take now your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and get you to the land of Moriah.

We could get to the parts of the story that are normally told, but if we did we'd miss an enormous truth.

You See, Abraham was not sent to some random place.

Abraham was sent to an ordained place, a place of worship.

In fact, you will only find Mariah twice in today's modern Bible.

The word only appears twice in the modern translations.

Take a look at 2 Chronicles 3, in verse 1.

Somebody who gets there first, go ahead and read that for us.

The only other place in Scripture that you will find Mount Moriah referenced is in relation to the building of Solomon's temple.

Now, it has been debated for centuries by both Christian and Jewish scholars as to whether this use of Moriah refers to the same place that Abraham went to.

Some people think that Abraham was going to a range of mountains, not to necessarily a specific mountain.

Other scholars believe it was a very specific place in the high mountains around Jerusalem.

The answer to that question is unfortunately lost in the fog of time.

But I don't think anything is accidental in the Bible.

When you're reading a story so filled with symbolism that pointed to Christ, to His ministry on this earth, and to the sacrifice He would make for all of us, it is certainly worth noting that the only 2 places in the Bible the word Moriah is used is in the story that foretold Christ's sacrifice and in the historical chronicle of the Temple's construction.

The story of Abraham and Isaac and of Christ on the cross and resting in the tomb is at its heart a sanctuary message, pointing us to God's explanation of the plan of salvation, not just the sacrifice and the resurrection, but the investigative judgment and the role of Christ as both our judge and our advocate.

It is no mistake that Abraham was sent to the mountain where the earthly sanctuary would be built.

I submit to you because in due process terms the sanctuary investigative judgment message is the best news in the entire Bible.

We'll pick up the story with the second half of the second verse.

And Abraham is told by God to go to this mountain called Moriah and there to offer a burnt offering upon 1 of the mountains that I will tell you.

See, there were many different types of offerings that 1 could make.

You could make the sin offering, or the guilt offering, where you would take a little animal to the temple and it would be killed, but you got part of it back.

You would eat a portion of it or the priest would eat a portion of it.

It was an offering that was given, but something came back to the giver.

There was the tithe offering where a portion was given, but the vast majority was retained.

There were many different types of offering in Talmudic and Mishnaic law.

But a burnt offering was something special.

The Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament, actually sticks in an extra word to clarify that and says it is a whole burnt offering.

Go to this mountain and offer your son as a whole burnt offering.

Leviticus 1.9, The priest shall burn on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice and offering made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord.

There was nothing that came back from that offering.

Keep that in mind When you think about the words in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.

John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he did what he gave his only begotten Son.

I pointed this out I think the last time I was here with you but it it bears repeating.

You know when you go to someone's house for lunch or dinner after the service today it's traditional that that you take off your coat and they very kindly put it in their spare bedroom or a closet for you.

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He Is Risen

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