Joomla! site syndication http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:57:14 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org Joomla! site syndication http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=136&Itemid=32 A Health bulletin for the Champaign Seventh-day Adventist Church FamilyBrought to you by the Health Ministries Department ~ Vol. 1.1 Ministries - Health Ministry Thu, 13 May 2010 19:40:06 +0100 http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=126&Itemid=43 Sermon Summary, Champaign Seventh-day Adventist Church, Sept. 12, 2009 Search me, O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Daniel's dream of four beasts is a vivid prophecy of who will appear to win and who will appear to lose from the time of Daniel himself until the very end when God will intervene by force. In one sense, the vision should not have been obscure or even surprising to Daniel. Several years earlier he had dreamed of four nations as parts of a statue that was finally demolished by God’s kingdom. There is little to debate when comparing the two visions with what actually happened. In fact, Babylon fell to Media-Persia, which fell to Greece, which fell to the Roman empire, which fragmented into many smaller nations. The second vision (in chapter 7) reveals that after the breakup of the fourth kingdom the saints could expect a long period of intense persecution at the hands of a power that aspires to take God’s place. Then would come a judgment in heaven. The judgment would conclude with the Most High taking over all kingdoms for Himself and His people. The difference between the two visions is that the second vision was—and is—ominous for the saints on earth. That is why the good Jewish prophet was so troubled. For a group that serves the all-powerful God, the saints themselves have a record that appears to be powerless. Persecution indeed played itself out as reliably as the rest of vision. Humble saints of all religions—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—found themselves persecuted by professing Christians from the fall of the Roman empire until late in the eighteenth century. The oppression stretched for the long period of 1,260 years, which the prophetic language of the vision represents as “time, times, and the dividing of time.” To all appearances, during much of this time something was “waging war against the saints and defeating them.” According to the vision, only the judgment in heaven will offer full justice to these people. And one of the most awe-inspiring teachings of Adventism is that chapters 7, 8, and 9 of the book of Daniel collectively point to the year 1844 as the beginning date of the judgment. Justice is underway. For some of the saints, oppression continues—but from a different source. You may know that every year there is an International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church. This year the day falls on November 8. At least on that day we can pray for the courage of our brothers and sisters who do not appear to be very strong in comparison to the regimes of their homelands. We can also pray for the speedy completion of the judgment. Some of us Christians do not see a judgment in heaven as our own rescue. After all, we don’t have a very concrete sense of needing to be rescued. Some Christians even see a judgment in heaven as a threat to the salvation that Christ achieved on the cross. Here is where it helps to begin with a Jewish understanding of judgment, the understanding that Daniel would have grasped. Several of the Psalms express delight that God will serve as judge. The assumption is that God will judge kindly and in favor of the writer. Our second scripture lesson this morning was taken from Psalm 139. According to this psalm, God already knows everything about us without the formality of a judgment, but this knowledge is no cause for anxiety. In praying this psalm, I assume that God knows me and that I can approach Him. Most significantly, there is no attempt to excuse wrongdoing. In fact, the psalmist urges “Search me,” and “See if there is any wicked way in me…” By the time he wrote Psalm 139, David had apparently learned that there was more weakness lurking in him than he had realized. Maybe that is why there is no hint of self-justification in this psalm. We do not come by David’s trust in God easily, because our natural urge is to justify our behavior. This urge is is discussed very engagingly in a book recently published under the title “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me.)” No matter how blatant the deceit, at least some people can convince themselves that they are doing the right thing. Compared to this, it should be a relief to pray “See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. For all their apparent defeat, whether at the hands of their persecutors or in the face of their own weaknesses, the saints are most ready for judgment when they realize that they that we are not as strong as we had thought. For that realization leads us to place our confidence in Someone else who will rule in our favor in the judgment. Copyright 2009 by R. Chesnut. All rights reserved Articles - Sermon Excerpts Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=112&Itemid=43 Sermon Summary, Champaign Seventh-day Adventist Church, June 13, 2009 Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. Since the beginning of the movement, Adventists have been keenly interested in Revelation chapter 14. You can read Adventist pioneers referring to the sum of all their beliefs as “the three angels’ messages. The message of the first angel is unique for its choice of words. Whether you read in English or in the Greek original, this is the only place in the Bible where the words “eternal” and “gospel” are used in the same text. In what sense is this passage the gospel? It s is hardly worded as an invitation. There is no mention of sin or repentance or salvation or Christ. In fact, if we believe the angel’s words to be the gospel, then the eternal gospel is a command to do three things: Fear God. Give glory to God. Worship God. Those are the three actions: fear, give glory, worship. How is this the gospel? The mere term “eternal gospel” suggests that there is something unique and final about this statement. Yes, the gospel is a statement of good news about God's power for salvation. But to see where that statement really leads, listen as it is transformed and edited by the final crisis. Now that the judgment has come, it is time to forget about yourself and direct all attention to your Creator. Fear God. Give glory to God. Worship God who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. This is the final form of the gospel. This version brings the Bible full circle as the judgment points us back to creation. An opinion written by a judge refers to the underlying legal code, and in the final crisis, the gospel refers us back to the underlying Creator. I do not think we can sense the real crisis by simply looking at the world. There is plenty of trouble in the world, but that has always been the case. The most compelling reason for sensing a crisis is found in the book of Daniel, chapters 7 – 9, which point to the timing of the final judgment that began in 1844. The real Day of Atonement is even now in progress, and that is the real reason for declaring a crisis and for taking the messages of the three angels of Revelation chapter 14 to mean exactly what they say. If we cannot depend on the world to inform us that there is a crisis, it should be no surprise that we cannot depend on the world to inform us that there is a Creator. I wish we could find seven rocks, each signed by God at the end of a day of creation, but that is not what happens. As Adventist theologian, Jacques Doukhan points out: “Significantly, the only Biblical definition of faith occurs in the context of Creation. “Now faith is being certain of what we hope for and sure of what we do not see….By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible: (Heb. 11:1 – 3)“To believe that God was and is capable of creating from nothing is to base one’s faith and one’s existence on the invisible. It is to take a risk. Creation is the miracle that necessitates the greatest faith.”Exactly how much we are willing to risk on that belief is not clear unless you recognize the real status of the three angels’ messages. I am indebted to John Paulien, an Adventist theologian, for a recent article that emphasizes the strong linkage between Revelation chapter 14 and the fourth commandment. (These two passages were our scripture readings this morning.) The words themselves are similar. The themes are similar. The structures are similar. The entire book of Revelation is intentionally centered on an allusion to the fourth commandment. What all of this suggests is that eventually there will be a way of gauging how serious people are when they profess to believe in a Creator. The test will be whether they will make His terms of worship so completely their own that this worship becomes who they are. Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water. Copyright 2009 by R. Chesnut. All rights reserved. Articles - Sermon Excerpts Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=43 Sermon Summary, Champaign Seventh-day Adventist Church, May 9, 2009 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. From our distance of nearly 2,000 years, we may find the story of Pentecost merely interesting and exotic. Or we may tame Pentecost even more by assuming that it is entirely contained in a fundamental belief that is printed in a book. But for the early church, Pentecost was like a turn of history. Reaching the day of Pentecost is always a matter of following the instructions in Leviticus 23, one of the great chapters that outlines the yearly cycle of Jewish festivals. And so, as The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary mentions, “in the year of the crucifixion, Nisan 16 fell on a Sunday…Pentecost, coming 50 days, inclusive, later…would also fall on a Sunday that year.” On this Sunday, the disciples were gathered in prayer and in waiting. Acts chapter 1 records one of the last things Jesus said to them: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” According to Acts chapter 2, the believers were meeting every day. Before the resurrection, the disciples were caught off guard, and they scattered. Before Pentecost, they were expecting something, and they came together. Something came alright, or, to be more precise, Someone came. The gift came as the building shook as in an earthquake, the wind blew, and tongues of fire appeared over each believer in the house. The commotion apparently did not last very long—just long enough to attract a crowd. As it turned out, they had no more chances to see what they were looking for. By the time the crowd arrived, the Holy Spirit was working in the medium that He would continue to use even into our time. His power was flowing through what people said. That Sunday, the new speech fit the international gathering. No translators were necessary. The miracle after the earthquake, wind and fire was that everyone heard the word of God in his or her native tongue. Pentecost was—and is—like that. Acts chapter 2 verse 4 does not tell us exactly what the believers said that was translated for their listeners or how long the miracle continued. Neither the exact words nor the language matter. What matters about our words is up to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit can do without our words completely and make use of the wind, the earth, or the flame. The Spirit can start with our words and transform them into another language. And the Spirit showed on Pentecost that He can do something that is possibly even more miraculous: He can use a sermon. To our ears, there is nothing extraordinary about the Peter's sermon. But something must have fired the words. After all, the day ended with three thousand baptisms. And those were just the first fruits of a much larger harvest that is still in progress. I hope no one feels that sermons from the pulpit are more useful to the Holy Spirit than the sermons that grow out of our routine conversations—as if God were somehow dependent on the abilities of preachers. Most people will never deliver a sermon in church. Everyone, though, can be a voice for the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is still able to add his fire to whatever our words may be: a foreign language, an address to a group, a quiet conversation between just two people, the halting talk around a hospital bed. But the Spirit needs people who care at least enough to wait for Him and to say “This is it!” when they see His power. So, to quote a pointed question from Ellen White: “Since this is the means by which we are to receive power, why do we not hunger and thirst for the gift of the Spirit? Why do we not talk more of it, pray for it, and preach concerning it?” God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. Copyright 2009 by R. Chesnut. All rights reserved. Articles - Sermon Excerpts Sat, 09 May 2009 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.champaignadventistchurch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=110&Itemid=43 Sermon Summary, Champaign Seventh-day Adventist Church, April 11, 2009 Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? A recent issue of Newsweek reports that since 1990 the percentage of Americans who claim to be Christians has declined and fallen from 86% to 76%. To the extent that we are living in a nation that is somewhat less Christian than it used to be, we are facing a culture that is more like the one in which Christianity first spread. We need to be prepared to explain our faith to more people who share fewer of our assumptions. I think that, far from being threatening, this is an opportunity. Here is a chance to focus on what gave Christianity its original success. The success began with a very confused and murky situation on the Sunday of the resurrection. The story in our scripture reading from John chapter 20 is told with a memory for detail that sounds authentic: John outruns Peter on the way to tomb and stops to look in…only to have Peter catch up and barge in ahead of him. It is no surprise that the man who talked before thinking would also move before looking. But for me the most telling statement is in verse 9: “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.” At the late date of A.D. 90, the author wants us to know that the possibility of seeing Jesus again had not occurred to anyone—not even to Christ’s closest disciples. And why did they not understand? It is fair to point out, as Ellen White does in The Desire of Ages, that even within Judaism some influences discouraged any hope of the resurrection. “The news of Christ’s resurrection was so different from what they had anticipated that they could not believe it. It was too good to be true, they thought. They had heard so much of the doctrines and the so-called scientific theories of the Sadducees that the impression made on their minds in regard to the resurrection was vague. They scarcely knew what the resurrection from the dead could mean.” DA 793But compared to the mixed messages from their leaders, the past 48 hours in the lives of the disciples must have been all too clear a message: “He saved others. Himself he could not save.” So what good was He, and why did we ever get entangled with Him? And now his body is gone. Thank you, Mary, for letting us know, but there’s nothing to do now except go home. And they did. But Mary of Magdala was the same persistent presence as always. “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” No one would want to come out and say they were looking for a corpse, so she asks “where you have put him.” “Him” is the closest she can come to a name until she hears her own: “Mary.” Then she turned, and she knew. Rabboni! It’s you!We try our best to base our beliefs on faithful interpretation of scripture. But the single greatest attraction of our faith was not reached by study at all. The event itself came first as a bolt from another realm, and interpretation of scripture had to scramble to catch up. The first person to realize that He is risen indeed did not predict the event by analyzing proof texts. She could see for herself that death had been defeated. If, like me, you sometimes find your confidence in the story of that Sunday tested by the teachings of modern Sadducees or if you have more personal reasons for feeling that someone has taken your Lord away and you do not know where they have put Him, then know that He has a gentle question for you: “Who is it you are looking for?” Are you seeking a precedent for the unprecedented? We would have much greater reason to question the credibility of the witnesses if they cheerfully claimed to have expected exactly what happened. As it is, we are hearing from people who admit that they were no more prepared for a game-changer than we would have been. And the first step for us in this unexpected new game is to follow Mary Magdalene. According to the last verse of scripture that mentions her, she went, and she told. Who is it you are looking for? Copyright 2009 by R. Chesnut. All rights reserved. Articles - Sermon Excerpts Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0100