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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh Weekend

Eric Walsh

01 Purified in Persecution

02 Truth to Peace: The Importance of Understanding Prophecy

Our message this morning is entitled Truth to Peace, the Importance of Understanding Prophecy.

Our scripture reading is taken from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and we have been coming from Thessalonians, let me just jump back here, And for the three-part series for this weekend, it's Lessons from Thessalonians, Thriving in Times of Trouble.

And so the text for this session, 1 Thessalonians 5, 19 through 21, says, 5, 19 through 21 says, quench not the spirit, despise not prophesying, prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

A message again, truth to peace, the importance of understanding prophecy.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

And once again, Lord, I just ask that you make me a nail upon the wall, hammered in by your Holy Spirit.

And upon that nail, Lord, I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

That Eric Walsh be not seen or heard today.

Instead, Father, we hear a word from the throne room of grace.

The deacon, Stephen, had just preached a very powerful sermon to a Jewish group of listeners.

He was pleading with them for the case of Jesus Christ.

And he goes through the history of the Hebrew people.

And we'll start here where he ends, kind of his summation and his verdict against those that are listening.

He says in Acts 7 verse 51, "'Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears, "'ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, "'as your fathers did, so do you.'" What an appeal, right?

I mean, that's an appeal at the end of a message.

He says in verse 52, which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?

And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the just 1, of whom ye have now been the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." I mean, Stephen is preaching.

I mean, you don't hear preaching like that much anymore, calling them out on their sins.

He says in verse 54, when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

They attacked him as if they were animals.

Verse 55, but he being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.

As they attack him, as they gnaw on him, he is able to see beyond the veil and see Christ standing on the right hand of the Father.

Verse 56, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.

This only greater infuriated those attacking him." Look at verse 57.

"'Then they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with 1 accord, cast him out of the city and stoned him.

And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul." And here the apostle Paul is introduced into the scripture.

Verse 59, and they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And Stephen says this in verse 60, And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.

There's a reason the Bible uses the language, he fell asleep here.

Because for a Christian, death is just a power nap.

He fell asleep, having seen beyond the veil and seeing Christ at the right hand of the Father.

This isn't a story from the letters to the Thessalonians or about the Thessalonians, but this is the experience the Thessalonians had.

There was such persecution of Christians and it continued in Thessalonica.

They witnessed people stoned and beaten, As we talked about last night, as people came out from worshiping idols and false gods and began to follow the true God of heaven and his son Jesus Christ, as they turned their lives over to him and turned their backs on paganism.

And again, the church in Thessalonica was a church that came out of paganism more than a church that came out of Judaism.

The persecution was fierce because the Thessalonians were supposed to be of the most loyal Roman citizens to the emperor and to the empire.

And here now they've switched and come out of it.

Because it was so terrible, 1 of the great fears that they had is that as people were being killed for their beliefs and Jesus had not returned, they believed that his return was so evident and so soon that they were concerned that if you died before he came back, you might miss going to heaven.

And when you read about this in the book Acts of the Apostles, what Sister White says is there was so much new information for them to receive as new believers coming out of paganism with no familiarity with the scripture that it wasn't difficult to understand that they might miss some key lessons Paul had taught, and maybe they missed this 1.

And so they were grieved as they would hear stories of people beaten, put to death by different agonizing means.

They grieved, wondering would these people ever see Christ after he returned?

There was a dismay and persecution began to bring upon them a sense of uncertainty and Satan was playing that against them.

So Paul steps in when he hears about what they're going through.

In 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 13, Paul writes to them and he says, But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not even as others which have no hope.

And here now you begin to see why the doctrines we believe as Adventists are so often under attack.

Because you're gonna see as you read about this that these doctrines are doctrines of hope.

If you understand them, they help you to survive persecution.

So he says, listen, I don't want you ignorant, church.

Those that are asleep, You're not supposed to grieve the way the world grieves.

You're supposed to be different because they don't have hope in the world.

Verse 14, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also would sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him?

And so Paul jumps and he said, listen, if we really believe the great miracle of Christ rising from the grave, walking out of the tomb, it changes everything.

Imagine if next week they said that they could, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove that they found the body of Jesus Christ in a grave in Palestine right now, if they could find that.

What would happen to all the Christians around the world?

They looked hard and long right after he died, and they couldn't find a tomb with a body.

What they saw was a walking, living, breathing Jesus Christ.

He is alive, and because he's alive, it changes everything.

There is no other deity that has this kind of a story.

We believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." And this is not saying that, as evangelicals often believe, that the unattached souls of the dead are going to come back with God to the second coming, because if that's the case, the rest of the text makes no sense.

What it's saying is just as Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to heaven, those that are dead now, he's going to 1 day bring back to heaven with him.

Verse 15, for this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

Again, if they were already in heaven, conscious, how could we...why would you even say this?

Instead, Paul is saying, don't worry if your loved 1 has been killed in an act of persecution, don't worry, you're not going to go ahead of them.

We which are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

Verse 16, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall do what?

They shall rise first." Again, if they were already up there, how could they rise?

And there are others who believe, well, Jesus already came because he came into people's hearts.

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

I want you to imagine this, what Paul is saying, the peace it gave to the Thessalonian believers that 1 day Jesus himself, the 1 they've only heard about, he is going to penetrate this atmosphere.

Behind him will be all of the forces, an army of heaven.

And when he comes, those that are dead, as we stand up looking, shouting at his coming, the ones that we lost, the graves will be opened.

My mother's grave, my grandmother's grave, are they're going to pop open and like them old-time jiffy popcorn, some of y'all too young to remember that, jiffy popcorn makers pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, the graves are going to open, the cemeteries will be bursted and there people will come up.

Did you know the word cemetery from the Greek means a place of sleep?

And out of the graves will the righteous dead come up out of the grave.

We'll be watching the whole thing standing there and then all of a sudden church gravity will lose its power on you.

You won't need to hook yourself up to some kind of drone.

You won't need a flying car or an airplane ticket.

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Series

Eric Walsh Weekend

02 Truth to Peace: The Importance of Understanding Prophecy

Transcript

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