AMEN 2013: Following the Leader

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Mark Finley

John Osborn

Remote Area Medical: Volunteers Mobilizing Healthcare & Conference Summary

Des Cummings

The Patient Experience 1

The Patient Experience 2a

The Patient Experience 2b

Mark Ranzinger

Following the Lamb

Robert Hayes

Healing the Right Arm

Larry Cohen

Iron Heart

Jerry Page

Final Breakthroughs

Don Bovell

Fred Hardinge

Kelly Kinsley

AMEN Short-term Missions

My wife and I spent 3 years here in Florida, about 6 blocks from Florida Hospital while I was taking my residency.

During that time, I owned the most amazing car I've had in my life.

The reason that we painted it was because it needed to be painted fairly desperately.

But the thing that I really enjoyed was that I had a parking card to the Florida Hospital Physician's Lot.

And I had this recurrent dream of parking between a BMW and a Porsche with my sun visor that read, lay not up your treasures on earth for wrath and must as corrupt.

Actually, it was the best financial car I've ever owned as well.

I bought it for $575, changed a battery and a brake cable, and sold it 10 years later for $400.

The other interesting memory I had while I was here was Nick Walters, who was 1 of the other residents in the program, gave me a call over at his house.

He said, Mark, I got to have you come see this thing.

I was just down at a computer fair today and they've got this really new, neat thing out.

We're not gonna have to do DOS anymore and all those backslash.

I paid $95 for this because it's this new promotion for Windows 95.

Lots of happy memories of our time here in Florida.

The Bible exhorts us to pray for 1 another.

Chester has prayed for me and I'm going to entrust myself and my words to that prayer and to the God who which it ascended.

The theme of this conference has been follow the leader.

What does it mean to follow Jesus in your medical or dental practice?

And this evening I would like to take a closer look at this theme from a spiritual perspective.

The closest phrase I could find to that in the Bible is found in Revelation chapter 14, verse 4.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to that passage.

I'm gonna be, and I'll start at the beginning of that chapter.

Then I looked and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144, 000, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads.

And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters, like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.

And they sang a new song before the throne and before the 4 living creatures and the elders.

No 1 could learn that song except the 144, 000 who had been purchased from the earth.

These are those who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves pure.

These are the ones who follow the lamb wheresoever he goeth.

These have been purchased from among men as the first fruits to God and to the Lamb.

No lie was found in their mouth, for they are blameless.

Surrounded by chapters of war and carnage, mayhem and bloodshed on every side, with the smell of sulfur in our nose and visions that would make us close our eyes?

How is it that we come upon this respite, this peaceful hollow, this tranquil scene?

How can their peaceful faces, their mature experiences, and their graceful elevation be ours?

The experience delineated here of this group of people cannot be studied closely enough.

The next section is a 3 angels message, the final gospel invitation to the world.

With the most chilling warning found in scripture, the double sickle harvest of the righteous and the unrighteous, then the end of the age, the close of history, the finale.

When I was in school, there were times a teacher would say, This is important.

There were times when a teacher would say, you should underline this.

And some teachers were more blatant and would say, this is gonna be on the test.

I'd like to speak plain with you, this is gonna be on the test.

This passage should be studied word by word and phrase by phrase until its message saturates our minds and heart.

And tonight I would like to consider only 1 phrase, 14b, they followed the lamb wheresoever he goeth.

Now there is a well-known phrase in regards to surgeons sometimes applied.

1 of its meanings is to get straight to this point.

Well, this evening I don't want to go straight to the point.

I desire to make several stops along the way.

We don't have any particular rush to be some other place, so I would like to form a picture and work on the frame, slowly moving to the center of the portrait.

They followed the lamb wherever he goeth.

What did that mean to first century Christians?

Did these words have a deeper meaning, a more searing reality than we from our vantage as comfortable 21st century Americans can understand?

I'd like to begin with a bit of history, followed by a scenario question for us to be located in relation to their lives.

We begin our story in Rome, the center of the then old world, the seat of government which dictated the laws which held like glue the various sections and parts of the vast empire, be it locally in Rome or in the far-flung areas from which John writes the Revelation.

Rome was founded as Isaiah was beginning his prophetic ministry.

Destined to be done with the greatest histories of greatest cities of civilization.

This city was well on its way by the mid-first century.

The city boasted a size of about 500 square miles and had a million inhabitants, a melting pot of peoples and religions, the mixed population of Rome attracted Jews, who numbered approximately 50, 000 by the middle of the first century.

There were at least 13 well-known synagogues at this time in Rome.

In Acts, we read that visitors from Rome were present at the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, when Peter gave his sermon.

Whether it was these Christians that brought back the gospel message to Rome, we don't know.

But very early on, the Christian message did come to Rome.

The historian, Suetonius, writes that Emperor Claudius expelled the Christians and the Jews in 49 AD because they were constantly riding at the instigation of 1 crestus, probably a misspelling of Christ, resulting in the expulsion of Jews and Jewish Christians, and among them Priscilla and Aquila, who we read of in Acts.

5 years later in 54 AD, Nero invites the Jews to come back, and some 50, 000 do, And with them return the Jewish Christians.

It is thought that Peter visited Rome in the mid 50s.

In 58 AD, Paul writes his letter to the Romans and he comes to visit himself in 61.

The situation is so favorable for Jews and Christians that Paul could write in Romans 13, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.

And the powers that be are ordained of God.

With additional phrases, he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, for that power is the minister of God.

Who could have known how things suddenly would change for those Christians?

Josephus reports that a certain Papaea, a Jewish prostylite, became the wife of Nero at this time and made a way for Jewish concerns to go directly to Nero.

More than 1 historian has wondered if her presence and the access she provided didn't have something to do with the fate of Christians in 1864.

While rumor had it that Nero wanted at least part of Rome burned to rebuild it as the city that he wanted when this was whispered in the streets, Nero needed a scapegoat quickly, which he found readily in this little-known, suspicious group called Crestians.

The Roman historian Tacitus thus writes, as a consequence, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

Christus, from who the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius and at the hands of 1 of our procreators, Pontius Pilate, and the most mischievous superstition thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of this superstition, and evil, but even in Rome, were all things hideous and shameful.

From every part of the world, find their center and become popular.

In accordance, an arrest was made, first of all who pleaded guilty.

Then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city as of hatred against mankind.

Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths.

Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt to serve as nightly illumination when daylight had expired.

In the subsequent events, Peter and Paul are both taken prisoners and martyred, along with thousands of other Christians during this intense persecution under Nero.

After a hiatus, a sustained persecution under Domitian took place for the next 15 years.

This was a continuation of what Nero had done, and it is now in this context that we find John writing as the beast mauls his fellow Christians in Asia Minor and in other places of the world.

So what does this Rome of 2, 000 years ago have to do with us tonight?

Perhaps more than you may consider at first.

Let's just say that suddenly a number of armed guards came into this room.

You find yourself going numb with shock and disbelief.

A nameless terror fills your stomach as you begin to realize this is not a joke.

Their leader takes the stage and says, we will make an example of all of you to the world.

Series

AMEN 2013: Plenary Sessions

Following the Lamb

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Eye Track

The Optometry Practice: Our Platform to Share Jesus

52m

At The Top Of The Ladder

38m

Kingdom of Gentleness

59m

Lifestyle

Fighting the Metabolic Disease Conspiracy

48m

The Unveiling

Vision of Christ & the Seven Churches

47m

Cody Francis Weekend

Reaching Mormons

1h 4m

ANCHOR School of Theology

1. Principles for the Study of Bible Prophecy- Part 1

58m

Intensive: Gardening 101

6. Gardening 101: Winter Salads

49m

That Woman: Resurrecting the Three Angels

50m

How to Deal with Loneliness

23m

Digital Evangelism

03 Design and Video Part 1

43m

Division In the Home- A Divided House Is Not Able to Stand

23m

Sound Doctrine