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Northern Idaho Regional Campmeeting

Norman McNulty

Healing and Hope in His Wounded Hands

And I've certainly been blessed by my time so far here at this camp meeting.

Before we get into our message for this morning, I invite you to bow your heads with me as I pray.

Our Father in heaven we thank you for how you are a blessing at this meeting.

We know that we are living in very important times in this earth's history and I pray that this message this morning would lift up Christ and him crucified and that we would have a deeper sense of our need for Jesus and of the hope that he offers for each 1 of us and of the grace that he offers for each 1 of us and of the grace that he offers for each 1 of us and of the transformation that he offers to each 1 of us.

So I pray that you would speak through me and give me just the words that are needed for each 1 of us this morning I pray in Jesus name, amen.

I want to turn again to our scripture reading for this morning, found in Zechariah chapter 13.

Zechariah chapter 13, starting in verse 6.

And here we read in scripture, with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

Verse 7, a Waco sword against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts.

Smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.

Here we see this messianic prophecy of what it's going to be like someday in heaven as Jesus shows his wounded hands to the redeemed in the kingdom.

And clearly in Zechariah 13 this is a messianic prophecy written to the Jews as they're returning to Babylon, and it tells us that a day will come when Jesus will tell the redeemed that it was his own friends that put the wounds in his hands.

Now in the immediate context it was the Jewish nation that wounded Christ.

And Jesus is speaking of this prophetically in this chapter, in Zechariah chapter 13.

However, this verse of scripture is used by Ellen White to describe Seventh-day Adventists and how they treated Christ when he sent a message to this church in 1888.

So this verse is used to describe the Jewish people in how they rejected Christ as their Messiah nearly 2, 000 years ago, and yet we as God's people, those who claim to be his friends, can be guilty of this same thing.

And yet, the amazing thing is that because Jesus loves us, Despite the fact that he knew that we would wound him, he was still willing to die for us.

Most of us, if we knew that we would be hurt by someone close to us, would start to put up walls of separation, barriers, whatever it may take, so that we would minimize the pain by someone that we knew would hurt us.

And yet Jesus, who knew he would be wounded by those that he came to save, those who were his own professed people in the Jewish nation, and even among Seventh-day Adventists in 1888 and since.

Jesus suffered in blood and has his wounded hands on our behalf, knowing ahead of time that we would hurt him.

Now I want to make you think about some things here.

This is a book written by Ron Duffield, Wounded in the House of His Friends, which has some very good history about 1888.

And in this, this is in the introduction, page X, or Roman numeral X, He says, few Adventists may be aware that Ellen White has applied the portrayal of Zechariah 13.6 to the disgraceful treatment of Jesus Christ, represented by the Holy Spirit, at the hands of his remnant people during the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference session and throughout the controversial aftermath in the years that followed, how few are aware that Christ was wounded among our own church fathers 125 years ago.

Is it possible That we are continuing to wound him today by our naive or willful ignorance of the way he was treated in the past.

All too often as we long for Christ's second coming to put an end to our suffering, We forget how He has been wounded and what enormous suffering the long delay has caused Him and all heaven.

Have you ever thought about how sin and suffering affect Christ?

Because a lot of times we talk about it's going to be so great when we get to heaven.

I'm so tired of this world of sin and suffering and we just heard a great presentation on cancer and all of us have been touched by that in some way or another if it's not us personally, a family member, or a friend, and we're like, I'm so tired of cancer, of sickness, of sin, suffering, of broken homes, of unfaithfulness, whatever it may be, and it's going to be so nice to get to heaven where there will be no more sin and suffering to afflict me.

Don't you think he wants this world of sin and suffering to come to an end?

And it's amazing when you look at the parallels between the Jewish nation and God's people today because as the Jewish nation wounded Christ and they rejected him as the Messiah, so too we have made similar mistakes.

And I want to read to you a statement from Last Day Events, page 38.

And this is referring to a comparison between the experience of the children of Israel in the wilderness with God's people today, and it's also found in evangelism pages 695 and 696.

For 40 years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan.

The same sins that have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

In neither case were the promises of God at fault.

It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years.

Now when I see that statement of unbelief, worldliness, un-consecration, and strife that have kept God's people in this world for so many years that have caused us to delay the Lord's second coming, that tells me that we have not learned to see Jesus for who He is.

Because if we were experiencing the goodness of God and the hope that God offers to us through Jesus Christ, we wouldn't want to stay in this world.

It's amazing when you look at the children of Israel and you study their history.

This is a people that saw the 10 plagues poured out on the Egyptians and they were not touched by those plagues.

This is a people who were hemmed in by the Egyptian army on 1 side and the Red Sea on the other and God miraculously moved the pillar of clouds so that it was darkness to the Egyptians and light to them and then he opened up the Red Sea so that they were able to pass through.

They saw the miracles of God and then when they came to the water of Mara that was bitter, he turned the water from bitter into sweet, and then they still murmured and complained to ultimately when the spies went into the promised land and came back to Cadish Barnea with their evil report.

You can read about it in Numbers 13 and 14.

10 of the 12 spies said that they were not able to go in and possess the land.

This after everything that God had done for them.

Spared them from the outpouring of the 10 plagues of Egypt, parted the Red Sea so that they could pass through, and they even sang the song of Moses of their great deliverance, of how they had triumphed over the Egyptians, and they had been given the sweet water, they had been given manna, and God had sent water gushing out of a rock.

And despite all of that, they still had unbelief.

And it's the same sins that have delayed our entrance as modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

If we were to look at the history of our lives, do you realize that it's only a miracle of God's grace that you are part of God's chosen people at this time of Earth's history, of the billions of people here on this earth, we are part of God's chosen people that He has called to prepare the world for His coming.

If nothing else, what a privilege that God in his goodness has chosen us.

And you know we're like the children of Israel so many times I can speak for myself, it's like we can see how God has opened doors for us to work for him and he's parted the Red Sea if it will for us so that we can work for him and that we have a place on this earth to do his work and yet when challenges come up, so many of us are like the children of Israel, murmuring and complaining and offering unbelief in spite of all that God has done on our behalf.

Listen, if you're questioning God's leading in your life now what makes you think you're gonna go through the time of trouble?

You know, we as God's people have morphed in our appearance and our practices of lifestyle and so forth so that we really don't look much different than the world around us because we have forgotten our identity as a people.

And unconsecration, we're not fully consecrated to the work that God has given us to do.

Ellen White tells us in Testimonies Volume 9 that the 3 angels' messages, there's no other work of so great importance that we should allow nothing else to absorb our attention.

And yet I'm afraid that so many times as Seventh-day Adventists we've become absorbed by getting ahead in this world and we've forgotten why we're really here.

And then the last point, strife, boy is that not true today.

You know in 1888 there was plenty of strife to go around, arguing over the law in Galatians and whether or not the justification by faith that was presented by Jones and Wagner was biblical, or if it was going to prepare people to receive the mark of the beast, those were the debate of that day.

And there was strife among God's people that prevented God's spirit from being poured out.

And I'm afraid that if we're not careful today, that the strife that has come into the church over the issues that are being hotly debated today could prevent us from receiving the Spirit if we are not connected to the Lord.

Now listen, I am not saying that we lower the standard of truth and just accept whatever is out there.

I certainly believe in standing for truth, but stand for it in the spirit of Christ.

And love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you.

Don't be developing a spirit of bitterness and animosity towards those who disagree with you on the issues that are out there right now.

Now I want to read to you a statement from Ellen White that goes along with this concept of Christ being wounded and of the pain that the delay has caused Christ, and of the pain that this world of sin and suffering continues to cause God.

Those who think of the result of hastening or hindering the gospel, think of it in relation to themselves and to the world.

And I'll readily admit, my growing up years and even until recently, primarily when I think of going to heaven, I think of it with relation to myself and my family and to the world around us, but I'm not thinking about what it means to God.

And I'm trying to reshape my thinking on this.

And I hope that this message will cause you to think about this as well.

Few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our Creator.

All heaven suffered in Christ's agony, But that suffering did not begin or end with his manifestation in humanity.

The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God.

The cross is a revelation to our dull senses.

That when we think of the cross, a lot of times we don't even realize the magnitude of what Christ and God the Father have done for us to make salvation possible for us.

The amazing, immeasurable love of God in offering Jesus to die for us, we take it so often for granted and just say, oh, I'm thankful that Jesus died for our sins.

And yet we're not thinking of the pain that sin has caused God.

And it wasn't just on the cross that from its very inception, when the mystery of iniquity entered into that heavenly kingdom, the pain that sin has caused God.

Can you Imagine the pain that God suffered when he lost a third of the angels.

And when he lost Lucifer, the covering cherub, or I mean the 1 who was next to Christ in the mercy seat.

The great pain, the loss that God suffered in that.

The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that from its very inception sin has brought to the heart of God.

And when you realize the amount of pain that God was willing to go through to send Jesus to the earth, to die on this cross, it starts to open up a picture to us in a greater degree the amount of love that God has for us.

That despite the pain that sin has caused him, he was willing to go through the greatest pain possible to redeem us.

And it's that kind of love that will motivate us to follow Him.

And when we start to see the love of God in that way, and when His love begins to motivate our hearts to love Him and to follow Him, we're going to stop asking questions like, what's wrong with this?

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Healing and Hope in His Wounded Hands

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