SWYC Summer Hollydale Church Revival

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GYC Southwest

Eric Walsh

Sleeping Near the Window

We're just going to come from the book of Acts.

We're going to stay in Acts for our last message and we'll be starting in Acts chapter 20.

Starting at verse 6, Acts chapter 20 starting at verse 6 and I'll read in your hearing.

The Bible says, and we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in 5 days, where we were abode 7 days.

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow.

And he continued his speech until midnight.

And there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep.

And as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead.

Father God we thank you for this opportunity to study a word and we just ask Lord for a blessing as we study your word.

So of course Paul in this story now is ready to move on again, ready to go to the next place and as Paul is preparing to go he runs into the disciples and they're having a church service and Paul this time is long, very long-winded and we don't know what time he starts preaching but he preaches all the way till midnight.

Now most of the people are probably awake and they're paying attention but this 1 young man named Eutychus is sitting in the window and it while sitting in the window he falls into a Deep sleep now.

I don't know about you Sounds seems to me like a window would be a bad place to go into a deep sleep if there's no screen or anything to keep you inside.

The Bible tells us that this young man then falls such a deep sleep, he falls out of the window, down what sounds like about 3 stories, hits the ground, and they believe that when he hits the ground, he's dead.

Now we don't know who else was in the building.

We know that some of the disciples were there.

And we don't know what else was going on.

But I want to use this story kind of as an analogy, because there are a lot of people who, just as Pastor Ian was just saying, a lot of people think that, you know, in order to reach the youth, you know, we have to segregate them, we have to separate them.

And I want to submit to you we have to be careful.

Because a lot of times what has happened is the family structure is already in trouble.

We bring the family to church and we break it into pieces.

Now when I was growing up we couldn't do that.

We all had to sit in church with our parents.

But I thought it was a good idea to separate the youth out.

But I began to understand that in fact, what the youth need isn't to be separated.

What the youth need is the word, they need truth.

And the problem a lot of times, we separate the youth and we try to entertain them into staying in the church.

And what we wind up doing kind of symbolically then is placing them in the window.

Symbolically we kind of place them in the window.

What I mean by that is they're kind of half in the church and what?

The window is neither inside the church as I heard 1 preacher say nor is it outside.

The window is the conduit between inside and outside.

So if you're sitting in the window you have been placed in a position where you're riding the fence.

And I want to submit to you that 1 of the problems of the youth in the church today is that like eutychus they're sitting in the spiritual window of the church.

They can hear the word where they are, but they can also hear what's going on out in the street.

They can hear both sides, so they're not fully committed to being in the church, even though they're not maybe fully committed to being out of the church and Ellen White warns us that this is the most dangerous kind of Christian.

The 1 that plays both sides makes Satan's greatest tool And so you don't want young people to be kind of in the middle.

1 of the things that they say in some of the research about what keeps kids in church, when they look at what happens to kids when they leave the church and they wind up out in the world.

They go to college and they fall away and then they wind up no longer believing in church, no longer attending church.

Sometime in the late years of college, junior, senior year and then afterwards.

In 1 study they asked them what happened and the young people say, well church was too, we had too much of an MTV church experience.

In other words, they were so set on entertaining us and amusing us that they never taught us what we need to believe to actually be Christians.

So when they went to college, and as I was talking about in my last message, and someone approaches them with evolution, they can't explain why they believe in God.

After a while, after years, you know, the first 2 years of college, the study shows that their church attendance does this, they walk away.

Not because they weren't entertained in church, not because they weren't separated, not because they weren't given a lot of attention, not because they didn't go to Knott's Berry Farms and Disneyland and Universal Theme Park, but because they didn't know what we believe.

Because we've literally placed them in the window, not in church and not out of church and you know what happens to you when you sit in the window you fall asleep especially at midnight now let's just let's step into the symbolic here because I could deal with this from the from the real but the real but but but prophetically what does midnight represent we talk about that midnight hour and the midnight and and and and we're talking about the time of the end we're talking about the second coming so literally watch this we've placed the young people in the window at midnight, while the word is being preached, they're asleep.

So if you took eutychus and just kind of played the symbolism of the story, and maybe I shouldn't do that, I'll know, because I'll get a whole bunch of emails and when this goes out on AudioVerse, but I don't care, because I think the message is right.

That we've gotta be careful that in the midnight hour, while the word is being preached, we're not sleeping in the window.

And too many Christians young and old are sleeping in the window they don't really take this that God's Word seriously they don't get a Sabbath series there are doctrine seriously there's gloss over all of that stuff And they fall asleep in the window.

Could be quite comfortable depending on how wide the windowsill is.

While Paul was preaching a desperate message before he left town, warning them of what would happen, trying to encourage the church, while Paul is giving them a word while that prophet man Paul was not just a simple preacher he had he understood prophecy he's preaching and telling them what was to be they fall asleep in the window listen Many have fallen asleep as the testimonies of the Spirit of prophecy through inspiration has been preached in these last days.

They have ignored the word that's being preached through the servant of the Lord and they're sleeping in the window.

Verse 9 says, and there sat in the window a certain young man named Eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep, not just a regular sleep, he's in REM sleep, deep sleep here.

And as Paul was long preaching he sunk down with sleep and fell from the third loft and was taken up dead.

Isn't it interesting that he's sleeping in the window and he falls asleep which way does he fall he falls out of the church I don't miss this he falls out of the church now how do you fall in into the church what would happen He'd have got a couple bumps and bruises, but he'd have been all right.

I warn you that when you fall asleep in the window, the devil tends to figure out a way to get you to fall out of the church.

The devil doesn't make you fall asleep in the window and then push you into the church.

You fall asleep in the window you're probably gonna fall out of the church and land in the world dead, spiritually dead.

Verse 10 says and Paul went down and fell on him and embracing him said trouble not yourselves for his life is in him.

Now I like this verse and I like it because I like it because A lot of times we think that the youth in the church are dead.

I was just in Jamaica and we had this whole Sabbath school discussion around the youth and 1 of the things I said is in fact many of our churches we treat the youth as if they are just appendages of the church.

Just a side note, my challenge to the church is to bring the youth into the church.

In fact, as we were talking about at lunch, the fact of the matter is the youth are probably the church's great weapon.

When the youth are galvanized to do God's work, when they are fired up to do God's work, the work will be finished.

And instead, in many churches, the youth can't get in, programs like GYC and other programs that really edify and build up youth are being targeted and blocked.

I've talked to some of the organizers of programs like GYC and Advent Hope and other programs, and they've been told by official church leaders, they've asked us, where did we get our degrees from in theology, and what training, or how can we lead these movements?

And 1 of my good friends, Sebastian, who leads in GYC, Sebastian told me the story of all that he went through.

And 1 of the things he says, maybe he doesn't have the training, but guess what?

He's got the desire to do what God wants him to do.

Let me tell you something, for a lot of people working in the church, sometimes it's just a paycheck, is that God needs us to believe.

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Sleeping Near the Window

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