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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

The Hand of God

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Let's pray again before we think about this.

Father in heaven, Lord, we're talking about your hand today, and we want to be in the center of your will.

We want to be guided by the hand that wrote those 10 Commandments, the hand that, the spirit that inspired those hands that wrote the Bible.

So as we study your hand today, we ask for your spirit In Christ's name, amen.

When we're in God's hand, when we're living within His will, and even when we're not, God sustains us, but special sense, when we're in His will, He can do things.

He can take care of those who stand against us, those who war against you.

We were at this ministry, and we were thinking about all the different things this ministry in Norway and Sweden had gone through, and the attacks from without, the attacks within, the betrayals, and the blessings.

And you know, people kept saying, do you remember this?

But there were these people that were attacking that ministry.

Because God protects those who stay in his will.

I will hold your right hand, saying you fear not.

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.

Triumph of heaven, Crank of heaven, powerful hand.

Strong in the hand of heaven, crank of heaven, feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain, whence the healing stream doth flow.

Let the frown and cloudy filler lead me on my journey through.

Strong deliverer, strong deliverer, Be Thou still my strength and shield.

And that's what the sanctuary message is.

And that sanctuary was actually a building that was built to remind them that he brought them out by the blood of the Lamb, took them to the Red Sea, that's the labor, gave them the light by night and bread every morning, it's the holy place, made intercession for them, that's the altar of incense, and gave them the law.

That building was actually to remind them that he had led them, 1.5 million people, from bondage to freedom.

And then what a joy it is to be a part of that final exodus called the Advent Movement.

Where you look at Revelation 10 through 22 and those chapters, again, God leading His people, stepping into a body of water, chapter 10, then going all the way to chapter 22, leading the Advent movement.

The subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844.

It looked like God was not leading them, but he was leading them.

It opened a view, a complete system of truth, connected in harmony, and showing that God's what?

God's hand had directed the great Advent movement.

I don't have any question that God's hand directed the Advent movement.

The medical missionary work is what most people know Adventist about around the world.

His right hand opened up the door for the message and it went around the world.

But I wasn't thinking about these things this week too much.

I was thinking about this sermon yesterday on the plane, what am I gonna say?

But at the same time I was looking at the newspaper and it was saying, in 10 days, President Trump will decide whether or not we're going to bomb Iran.

And there were people saying, I don't know if we can trust our nation to his decisions.

And others were saying, I think we can trust him, because he almost was killed once, and he has no need to be getting money.

He's just doing this to serve the nation.

I thought, what is it that we should be thinking about when we think about God's hand and the nation and God's hand in our own lives?

And as I was thinking about that, I came across the book, A Nation in God's Hands, which was written about another time that our nation was involved in its most deadly war, a civil war.

And when the president had to deal with a fractured nation, and that president was Abraham Lincoln.

And in this book, A Nation in God's Hands, the story of that great conflict is covered.

And I thought I might just read a couple excerpts today because maybe we could draw some lessons that could help us as we think about how we should relate and how we should witness to others during this time of impending potential conflict and ongoing conflict in many places of the world.

When the Civil War began, they thought it would be a short, very quick battle, And that first battle of Bull Run or Manassas, thought that, they thought this would bring the conflict to a sudden end, and they were joking and laughing, and people drove their carriages out to watch the 1 and only battle of the Civil War.

The entire Union Army, however, commenced a universal retreat from the battlefield and fled all the way back to Washington, D.C.

And that was a victory entirely unexpected by the South.

In the days following the disaster, the North was in despair and couldn't understand the sudden retreat of the Federal troops on the battlefield.

The secret of that panic, according to the New York Daily Tribune, will perhaps never be known.

An essay to explain it, all essay to explain it, and all fail.

It's clear that we are righteous and the other side is not, just like every side of a fight thinks.

I'm right, they're wrong, God's hands with me.

Well, they couldn't seem to figure it out, but there was a little lady who had developed a prophetic gift back in 1844, and she had this to say.

Both the north and the south suffered severely.

The southern men felt the battle, and a little while would have been driven back further still.

Northern men were rushing on, although their destruction was very great.

But just then, an angel descended and waved his hand backward, and instantly there was confusion in the ranks." This book that I'm reading goes through and shows all that confusion and talks about it and shows that the North were in fact winning and shows all about it.

But this very simple description pulls the curtain away and says that in the events of mankind, there is, well, it was alluded to today, someone who can control weather, someone who can lead people apart and together.

It appeared to the northern men that their troops were retreating when it was not in reality so.

And so all of them began to panic and run.

Then it was explained that God had this nation in His own hand.

And would suffer no victories to be gained faster than he ordained, and no losses to the northern men than in his wisdom he saw fit." Well, what needed to happen so that the North could win?

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The Hand of God

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