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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Adrian Zahid

Turning Strangers Into Friends

For those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with advanced stage cancer last year, and the doctors told me this year, 365 days to the day that I've been cured of cancer.

Of course, I still have 5 years of follow-up, and I just had my first round of CT scans and blood tests, but the Lord is good, and every day is a blessing, And every day is precious.

So today, my sermon title is Turning Strangers into Friends.

I was thinking about talking about my testimony, sharing my testimony today, but then I felt that I wanted to wait a little while.

And I was talking to a friend of mine and I told him I'd share it when I'm thin and rich.

So I'm working on being thin and rich and then I'll share it.

Actually I thought about sharing it, but then certain events occurred that made me change my mind and decided to preach a different sermon.

And then more events occurred and I decided to preach this sermon.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Kings 6.

This is a story of a king who wanted to find out why he was being thwarted in every effort to defeat his enemy.

He wanted to get after the king of Israel.

And every time he laid an ambush for the king of Israel, It just so happened that the king of Israel would find a different way and would escape.

And again, the king of Israel would pass by a different way and he would not be able to get the king.

If he tried any wars, he would be defeated.

And after a while, the king of Syria got his advisors together, and he asked them, he said, tell me, which 1 of you is a traitor?

Which 1 of you is telling the secrets to the enemy?

1 of them spoke up and said, it is not us, but the King of Israel has a prophet And that prophet hears what you say in your bedchamber and tells it to the king.

This is better than the NSA, don't you agree?

So, the most obvious thing then to the king of Syria was to get this prophet.

If he could get the prophet, he would win.

So in the middle of the night, he found out where the Prophet was, what city he was in, and he sent his army to go get him.

The next morning, it says in verse 15, When the servant of the man of God was risen early and gone forth, behold, a host compassed the city both with horses and chariots.

And his servant said unto him, Alas, Master, what shall we do?

The servant went out and he looked and he saw the enemy at the gates.

And they weren't just coming for the city, they were coming for them, for his master.

And Elisha said to him, fear not, they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

And The servant was thinking, how is that possible?

These people in this city, in order to save their lives, will turn us over in a heartbeat.

And so the prophet said, the prophet Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.

And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." What the enemy didn't realize was that they were surrounded, even though they had surrounded Elisha, they were surrounded by God's army.

And something amazing was going to happen.

Elisha prayed and asked God to smite those people, the enemy, with blindness.

And then he went out to them while they were milling around trying to find their way and he said, this is not the place and this is not the man you seek.

And he led them by the hand, the entire army of Syria, all the way into the capital city of Samaria.

And he said, and then he opened his eyes.

And the king, when he saw his enemy right there, And he saw the soldiers and now they were surrounded.

They were in the city itself and there was no way of escape.

And Elisha said to him, In verse 22, Thou shalt not smite them.

Wouldst thou smite those whom thou have taken captive with thy sword and thy bow?

Set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink, and go to their master.

You could kill them right there and advance God's cause.

You could go into Syria and you could conquer Syria because they had no more army.

You could do many things, but that is not, sometimes our way of doing things is not God's way of doing things.

You see, God's idea for Israel was that they would be a light to the world.

That they would share God's salvation with other people.

But what had happened is in their effort to not apostatize and in their effort to not lose their faith, they had built walls around themselves.

They had built walls, they had built cities and then they built walls around themselves and they built all these rules to keep foreigners from getting to know them as friends.

They had built walls in their minds, prejudice had built up in their minds And they had come to believe over the turn of centuries, they had come to believe that God's salvation was only for them and for nobody else.

And so God, seeing the situation, wanted to show them a different way.

He wanted to show them what he had intended for them in the first place.

And so in verse 23 it says, He prepared a great provision for them, and when they had eaten and drunk, He sent them away and they went to their master.

So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.

They went into Samaria many different times, but they never came back into Israel again.

The fight, he took the fight out of them.

More centuries went by, probably close to a thousand years or more, and now Jesus is in Israel.

And Jesus begins his ministry, he begins with a very powerful sermon.

We know it as the Beatitudes and then it goes on for several pages.

But we're going to focus on 1 aspect of it.

After he talks about all the different things for which you can be blessed, all the different attributes that you can have that can make you more attractive to people.

He goes on to say, in verse 13, he says, In verse 13, he says, Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?

It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and be trodden under foot of men." And he goes on in verse 14 to say, Ye are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and give it light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." This was Jesus' idea of what his followers would do.

And so, the problem is, in this day and age, we are in danger of becoming like the old Israelites.

The modern Israel is becoming like the old Israelites.

Sometimes we plan all these different things or we do these different things that have a net 0 effect on God's kingdom.

I remember going to a church several years back and this church had a 50 member choir.

They had 60 members in the church and 50 members were in the choir.

And they would spend hours and hours every week practicing to sing.

And then they would get up and they would sing, all of them.

And then they would feel good about themselves.

But as the church pastor of that church, my effort was to try and get them involved, try and get them into the community, try and get them sharing with their friends and bringing their friends to church, but they had no time for that.

We're already giving our time to the church.

And I'm not saying that choirs are bad, but what I'm saying is that sometimes our activities can get in the way of real soul winning.

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Turning Strangers Into Friends

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