Good morning, friends, welcome again to Sabbath School Study Hour here at the Granite Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church. Very warm welcome to those who are joining us online across the country and around the world, part of our extended lesson study class and also our members and visitors right here at the Granite Bay church. It's good to see you this morning as we continue our study in our lesson quarterly entitled "preparation for the end times." Today, we're looking at lesson number eight, that's entitled worship the creator. You'll find that in the first angel's message in Revelation 14. So we're gonna be studying Revelation 14, the first angel's message in a special way during our time today.
But before we get to all of that, we want to let our friends know about a free offer that we have for those who are joining us. We do have a dvd download that's available to those who are willing to text the following code, it's "sh022" to the number 40544, and you'll be able to receive a download of the ultimate purpose dvd, one of the sermons in that series. And again that code is "sh022" text that to 40544. If you'd like to receive actual dvd copy of our free offer, just give us a call at 866-788-3966, and you can ask for offer number 846. We'll be happy to send that to anybody who calls and asks.
Well, before we get to our lesson again, I'd like to invite our song leaders to come, and they will lead us in our song this morning. Dear Father in Heaven, we thank you once again that we have this opportunity to open up Your Word and study this very important message, part of the everlasting Gospel that is to go to all the world. Lord, we ask for the Holy Spirit to come and guide our hearts as we take a look at this important passage of Scripture. And we pray, Lord, that you'd lead us into a clear understanding of truth, for we ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen.
Our lesson this morning is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug. Good morning, friends. Welcome to Sabbath School Study Hour. Very thankful to see each of you here, some who may be visiting, some who are watching from around the world. And that became very tangible for Karen and I this last month because we were in africa, and I thought maybe before we get into the lesson, if it's okay with you, I'm just going to give you a little mission update.
And we've got some slides that will appear, it might be on my monitor also or it can be up there on the screen. We were in kampala, uganda. And we were there for just about two weeks. That is the middle of kind of east africa. I've never been to this country before, and it's right on the lake.
.. It's right on the borders of the biggest lake in africa, second biggest freshwater lake in the world, which is lake victoria. There's still quite a bit of unemployment and poverty in the country, but nobody's like starving because it is right on the equator and there's a lot of food everywhere. People may not have any money but most people are able to find food. And part of what we were doing is we work together with our.
.. We have an afcoe-africa, and evangelism training program there in africa. It's been based in kenya for the last couple of years, but in preparation for these meetings, our director, lowell hargreaves and sandra, his family. They had done some meetings in kampala, which is the capital there of uganda, and they had trained a number of people in evangelism, but there was ten of them they thought they could send out as evangelists. So a few weeks before we arrived, we had ten evangelists, I think we got eight or nine of them there, that went out around the city and they begin to conduct meetings, and then we brought all of the people from their meetings to the final ten meetings that Karen and I presented.
And we spent some time with the evangelist, this was just a great roundtable time asking all kinds of Bible questions and each one of them has an incredible testimony. So one of them was a pentecostal pastor and another one was into satanic worship, and now they're all working for the Lord. Yeah, this is the whole team, they're also singing during our series, the men and the ladies. We met outdoors, now this was really a miracle. The only time that I could squeeze this meeting in was in the raining season.
They really got two seasons in this part of africa, you know, the sun goes down pretty much the same time all year long, it's on the equator. And it's either sunny or raining. The temperature doesn't fluctuate a lot, it, you know, it gets up to 75, 80, maybe 85 during the day, it's pretty hot then cause it's really humid. But it was very pleasant, scattered clouds. We saw rain every day, but we were meeting outdoors, and we prayed that it wouldn't rain during our meetings.
The chances that it would not rain during our meetings, we knew, were very remote. But we prayed and the people prayed, and it was a miracle, it would start raining after the meetings, it would rain before the meetings, but it didn't rain during the meetings. And that was especially difficult Sabbath we prayed because sometimes it rain in the morning and not at night, or rain at night not in the morning. Sabbath, we needed to be good all day long and it was. And so, the Lord has really blessed.
Next picture. Because they've had some issues with terrorism, we had armed guards and metal detectors. Everybody that came to this outdoor arena had to go through a metal detector and not just where they walked through a door, they were also frisked. And so there was a sense of heightened security. Traffic in kampala is just epic.
Karen and I at one point, because of the traffic we weren't getting to the meeting that time... In time and we could see where the meeting hall was, and so we told the driver to just let us out. And we jumped out, and we ran to the meeting and they had this berm, and we knew our meeting was in the other side of this berm, but that was not the normal entrance. And there's an armed guard there. And he said, "you can't come in here.
" I said, "but I'm supposed to speak in a few minutes." And so I told him through a little bit of english, a little bit of sign language, "I'm the speaker." He said, "okay, come on in." So we kind of literally climbed over the wall to get in, everyone's watching us come in. Telling, here's the speaker just getting in at the last minute. I think that they were singing a little longer, and doing a longer health program so we can get there. We had members of parliament and the military that were coming to our meetings, and so it was well attended. Yeah, and we also did a program where we were teaching the area pastors.
There are like 25 churches around the city, it's a big city. There are 43 million people in uganda. And so it is a big country. And so I did some training with pastors. Next picture.
Oh, the food was really good. Every day we would eat almost all... Every day we would eat lunch with the afcoe evangelists and our afcoe team, and they prepared it right there at the union compound, and it was my kind of food. Lots of fruit, all the avocado you could eat. I mean, yeah, that's an amen.
That was really good. And yeah, there's papayas, and mangoes, and jackfruit, and so a lot of fruit, and then I like, you know, all the different kinds of beans and vegetables and the sweet potatoes and stuff so, ate really good, so don't feel sorry for me. We took a trip, it was about an hour and a half, two hours out to the biggest university in the country, adventist university called bugema. I was supposed to just talk to the seminary students, but we were dribbled out, and they shut down the whole college, and everybody came to our presentations, and they treated us very well. It's a beautiful campus, beautiful location.
Next picture. So during the meetings, this is pastor lowell, he's been with Amazing Facts for about 22 years. He's doing the health talk right here through his translator. Most of the people speak some english 'cause it's english occupied uganda. It was a colony at one point so they're very proper.
And every time you preach, they want you to wear a suit, and when you preach outdoors on the equator and you have to wear a suit, it's not always practical, but they felt strongly about that. Mrs. Batchelor and I would do Bible questions, then people started out very slow, and eventually we just had pages of Bible questions that came in. And started out, we only had 2,000 people and it just continued to build. So by the final meeting, we had 7,000 people on the final meeting, on the final Sabbath.
And we were just really pleased. And there is just one of the shots of one of the evening meetings, sun kind of went down during the meetings, and they're great choirs... Next picture. That was a picture of Karen and I at the Nile before. Ryan, who is maybe in the back, he, one of the Amazing Facts media team.
He was there, and a little interesting point on this picture, ryan had a photograph of his grandmother at this very place 70 years ago. So he enjoyed taking this picture and then showing his grandma that the Nile is indeed still running out of lake victoria. And this is the point actually where the Nile runs out. At the conclusion of the meetings, we praised the Lord because of the work the Amazing Facts evangelists did as well as our meetings, we had 335 baptisms. And so that was a real joy to be part of the baptism that day.
So there's a lot more I can tell you, and maybe we will share more later, but we just wanted to give you a little mission update on where we were. And we do a lot of trips like that, we come back and Granite Bay goes, "we just know Pastor Doug was gone. Where were you? What were you doing?" And so, Karen and I had a great experience. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers. And you know what was really fun is after our meetings at night on the two Sabbaths we were there, we come back to our room, and when the internet was working, we would stream, some of you heard, Pastor Ross greet you from us in africa, we were there watching.
We took a picture of us watching you watching us, watching you. So that was pretty neat. And a lot of people there in africa, as everywhere we've been, they said, "oh, we are members online, we watch every week." Okay, into our lesson, an important lesson, going in lesson number eight on preparation for the end time. And we're talking about worshipping the creator. And so.
.. We have a memory verse, and the memory verse is from Revelation. This is in your lesson in new king James version. Revelation 14:6, this would be the first angel's message. So if you have it, I always like it if you could say this out loud with me, are you ready? Revelation 14:6, " then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.
" Now, this will be a special focus of our study. Now, lesson makes an important point in the beginning. We talk about present truth. Have you ever heard that phrase before? Present truth, what does that mean? As opposed to truth that is not present. A present truth is a message you would find in the Bible that is true, but it's especially applicable to a specific time.
For example, Noah had a message that said, "get on the ark, a flood is coming." That was a true message, but is that our message today? No, God said, "I'll never destroy the world again with a flood." Jeremiah had a message, "surrender to the Babylonians and live." Well, that was a message during the time of king zedekiah, because of people's disobedience the only way they would have peace and survive is to surrender. They did not listen, but that was a present truth message. And the message, "Babylon has fallen, come out of her." That was a message that happened after the Babylonian captivity, and it is a message today. It is present truth today, "Babylon has fallen, come out of her." And so, knowing what present truth is. What is the message that we give to the world? The Gospel.
When has the Gospel not been present truth. Never since the fall. It has always been present truth that we tell people, "repent from your sins, confess your sins, turn to God, accept his sacrifice." Even in the old testament, they were looking to the sacrifice of God for forgiveness. So that's always been present truth, but what is a specific present truth message for our day now? Right, if you go to Revelation 14, real quick, and let's do that together. Go to Revelation 14, I just want you to see something.
And if you look in Revelation 14:14. "I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat one like The Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, 'thrust in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.'" What is this a picture of? Second coming. Jesus is left in the cloud, he's coming in the clouds, he's the one with the crown, he's harvesting. His parables often talked about separating the wheat from the tares in a great harvest, and he said, "I'm sowing the seed of the Gospel.
" And so here's a picture of Jesus coming. Now what happens immediately prior to Christ's coming? Looked earlier in Revelation 14, go to verse 6, a verse we just read. "The Gospel to preach to every creature saying, 'fear God, give glory to him. The hour of his judgment is coming and worship him.'" A special call to worship the creator, a call that says a judgment has come happens prior to the second coming. So the message of worshipping the creator and an hour of judgment is a present truth message that applies now.
We are living in the last age and phase of the church. There are seven phases or ages of the church. You get ephesus, and smyrna, and philadelphia, and sardis, and thyatira, and so forth. We are now living in the last one which is laodicea. The very phrase "laodicea" means a judging of the people.
It should make sense to us that there's a judgment that happens before Jesus comes because the Lord says, "behold, I come, and my reward is with me." So he knows who is getting what when he comes, of course, God knows everything. But some determination, some investigation takes place before he comes because he knows what he's giving when he comes, right? And so, we're going to talk a little bit about that in our first section here. First of all, let's talk about the universality of the Gospel. Who does the Gospel go to? It says to every creature, we just read that in Revelation, "to preach to those who dwell on the earth, every nation, tribe, tongue, and people." That's Revelation 14:6. Someone in a moment is going to look at acts 1:8.
Hofstede, you have that? You go to Matthew 24:14. "And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached," how far? "In all the world." Now for you, you're thinking, "Pastor Doug, why are you even reading that? That's just such an obvious, self evident truth." It didn't used to be. Do you remember that Jesus had a hard time convincing the apostles that Gospel was not just for jews. And he had to give Peter a vision of this sheet coming down from heaven full of unclean creatures. And he said, "arise and eat.
" Peter said, "not so, Lord, I've never eaten anything common or unclean." God said, "don't call common or unclean what I've cleansed." And everybody thinks he's talking about food that we could eat anything now, that God has cleaned vultures and cockroaches for us to eat now, that's not what that's about. Peter never eats from the sheet, Peter tells us what the vision means, right when he's saying, "what does this mean?" Gentiles show up at his door. He's waiting for lunch, he's hungry, so God gives him a food vision to impress it on him. The gentiles come up and they said, "come, talk to us." Said, "you're unclean, I can't come in to you." And God told him not to call any man unclean. Okay.
And so they finally, slowly got the idea that the Gospel was to go everywhere, to the jew and the gentile. And so, you know, Paul even says to the jew first. So when they went to a town, they go to the synagogues first if there were any because it was a pretty short learning curve for a gentile to accept Jesus. They already had the other biblical foundation. When you went.
.. Now I mean for a jew to accept Jesus. When you went to a gentile, you had to tell him, "no, there's only one God." And tell him about the Ten Commandments, the jews knew all that. So they'd first start with obviously the children, then they go to the highways and the byways and tell everyone else. So, Matthew 28:19, "go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of The Father, son, and Holy Spirit," to go everywhere.
Mark 16:15, it's a little different from Matthew, the great commission here. "He says, 'go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.'" So even if you thought that the gentiles were unclean or if they were dogs, can you ever think of a place where the gentiles were called dogs. Did Jesus even say to the syrophoenician woman, "it is not appropriate to give the children's food to the dogs." 'Cause that's what they called the gentiles. And he was trying to teach them a lesson about their own discrimination when he said that because he ended up answering that lady's prayer, blessed her persistence. But lest you even think the gentiles were animals, Jesus said preach to every creature, that would mean everything, right? Every living being is a creature.
Every creation is a creature. And so it was to go everywhere. Please read for us acts 1:8. "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and samaria, and to the end of the earth." Now this is great 'cause it shows a widening circle. And if you look at those.
.. The sequence here, it said in Jerusalem, Holy Spirit is poured out in Jerusalem. In Judea, then they went preaching in Judea. In samaria, you go to... After the persecution of stephan, Saul was converted.
Then it talks about Philip, and Peter, and the others going to samaria. And then the uttermost ends of the earth. After the stoning of stephen, it says, "a great persecution arose and the disciples went everywhere preaching the Gospel." And so you see this exact sequence of what Jesus is in acts 1 is filled, is fulfilled later in acts. Acts 10:34, "then Peter opened his mouth and said, 'in truth I perceive God shows no partiality. But in every nation, whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him.
" Now, you and I think, "yeah, of course." Well, that was quite a hurdle for the jews to realize that it's not just us because keep in mind, for 2,000 years from the time of Abraham till the time of Christ, the Lord kept communicating truth only to and through the jews. And they thought, "we are it. We are the frozen chosen." And it took a while for them to realize, it's not just us, and that it goes beyond. Colossians 1:23, "if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which i, Paul, became a minister." So even in Paul's time, he's seen the Gospel is gone. And when he said every creature, again he's speaking in kind of an expletive there.
Hey, how was that, hyperboreally, he's talking about everywhere in the known roman empire, they'd seen it go everywhere back then. It doesn't mean that it gotten all the way around the world yet. Galatians 3:22, "but the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." Everybody, one more, I'll give you Romans 10:14, "how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" And so, they were to be sent. They were sent everywhere. All right, the next section, we're talking about the everlasting Gospel.
It not only reaches those who had known, that were in the church with the details of Christ's mission and the gentiles. It reached the lowest of the low. And the example given here is the thief on the cross about what the everlasting Gospel is. It is a very simple message. Now for a person to be saved, do they need six months of indoctrination? For them to be grounded they might, but to be saved, how much do you need to be saved? If you can only be with a person for ten minutes, can you lead them to Christ? Yeah.
And what's an example of the simple everlasting Gospel? It's the thief on the cross. It's a very short conversation, but he goes through all the steps of salvation. You find this in Luke 23, when Christ was crucified, it says, there were two other criminals. Luke 23:32, "two others criminals were led with him to be put to death." Originally, there were three, barabbas and his two associates. Barabbas is pardoned, he, basically, Jesus takes his cross, and just a little note, what does a word "abba" mean? Father.
What does the word "bar" mean? Son of, yeah, bartimaeus, barnabas. And here you've got barabbas means son of The Father. They asked that they be given a thief, a murderer, and a rebel, a counterfeit Messiah, a counterfeit son of The Father in place of Jesus. Jesus said, "this man was condemned to die, you are free, I will take your cross." So there's acquaint substitution that happens here with barabbas anyway. But his other friends weren't so lucky.
They... Oh, sorry, luck's the wrong word. They were executed. "Two other criminals were put to death with him. When they come to the place called calvary, they crucified him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.
" Now that I think is significant. You know, the parable of the sheep and the goats? He says, the ones on the right are saved, the ones on the left are lost? Right hand is sort of a symbol for favor in the Bible. Now I can't prove that the thief that was saved was on his right hand, but you can't prove he wasn't. So it's worth at least thinking about, right? It doesn't tell us exactly what it was. And someone is going to read for me now Mark 15:32.
And just before you read that, I want you to think about this. So you've got two great classes of people here in the two thieves. They are condemned, there's nothing they can do to save themselves, they're guilty, murder, rebellion, three things are mentioned, murder, insurrection or rebellion, and they're called thieves. We are all represented by those two thieves. They're helpless to save themselves, they're condemned, they're dying, they're under a death sentence, and they're crucified within the reach of Christ, but what can they do? They must pray.
The only thing they can do is to pray, right? With that in mind, go ahead, read Mark 15:32. Okay. Mark 15:32, "let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. Even those who were crucified with him reviled him." So when he is first crucified between them both, do they both engage in reviling him? Isn't that what we said. But how long is Jesus on the cross? About six hours.
Can you have a change of attitude in six hours? Yeah. So it tells us here that as the time went by, something happened to illuminate the mind of this one thief. And for instance, first of all, he sees Jesus lifted up as the spotless lamb, reads the sign above his head when Christ is crucified, "this is the King of the jews." He hears Jesus say, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Now why did Jesus say that? Did Jesus get discouraged? I don't think so. Did Jesus not know why he was dying on the cross? I don't think so. Why did Jesus say that? Ten percent of everything Jesus said in his life, he's quoting from the Bible.
Christ, there on the cross, is quoting from psalm 22. It is the first verse in psalm 22. Have you read psalm 22? Get your Bible. Go to psalm 22 real quick. I just want to show you something.
Psalm 22:1, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and the words of my groaning?" This is called a messianic psalm. It was a psalm about the Messiah. And you read the whole thing, we don't have time. You read in verse 8, I'll read verse 7, "all those who see me ridicule me, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 'he trusted in the Lord, let him rescue him, let him deliver him, since he delights in him!'" This is exactly what they said to Jesus on the cross. If you're the Christ, if you're The Son of God, let him save you.
Go to verse 14, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint, my heart like wax, it has melted within me. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth." Was he thirsty? Go to verse 16, "dogs have surrounded me, the congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet, I can count all of my bones. They look and they stare at me. They divide my garments among them, for my clothing they cast lots.
" When Jesus is being crucified, the thief can see the roman soldiers are gambling for his clothing, they are casting lots. And may be as a young man, he had known these verses. And all of a sudden he hears Jesus start quoting from psalm 22 and he thinks about the rest of that messianic psalm, "they pierced my hands and feet. They gambled for my clothing." The whole psalm is describing what is happening right then and there. Christ is calling the attention of all of them saying, "I am the fulfillment of all of this.
" So, no I don't think Jesus got discouraged, discouragement's a sin and he never sinned. Jesus did not lose faith because his clothing remark his father, "into your hands I commend my spirit." It's a statement of faith. Amen? So let me read you a quote here from the book, Desire of Ages, page 749, "to Jesus in his agony on the cross there came one gleam of comfort. It was the prayer of the penitent thief. Both men who were crucified with Jesus had first railed upon him…" see both did.
"One under his suffering only became more despondent and defiant but not so with his companion. This man was not a hardened criminal, he had been led astray by evil associations, but he was less guilty than many of those who stood beside the cross reviling the Savior." He gotten into the wrong crowd and got caught up in at the wrong time and now he was being executed. And so, I thought this story, let's look at it real quick, the exchange that takes place. You read in Luke 23:39, "then one of the criminals were hanged, he blasphemed him, saying, 'if you are the Christ, save yourself and us.' But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, 'do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due rewards of our deeds.'" That's cold confession and repentance, "'but this man has done nothing wrong." That's declaring the innocence of Christ, and he turns and he says to Jesus, "Lord," that's really important. Who was calling Lord around? Who was calling Jesus Lord around the cross that day? Not even the apostles.
Did Jesus look like a Lord that day? He looked like anything but a Lord. I mean, just think about it, he's dying. He's at least semi naked and he's bleeding. It doesn't look like he's master of anything. He says, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
" Did he look like he had a kingdom? That takes incredible faith. He somehow saw the sign above Jesus head. He thought about the psalm. He heard Jesus say, "father, forgive them. They don't know what they do.
" And all of the information begins to add up and he realizes, this is the Messiah, and he realizes he must repent. He repents, he confesses publicly and he says, "will you save me?" Now isn't this amazing. Even though satan had nailed Jesus' hands to the cross, the devil could not keep the Savior from saving. And when Jesus heard him say, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus was encouraged. He thought, "this is why I came into the world to save sinners.
" This is the Gospel. Very simple. He asked in faith, he prayed, and Jesus said, "assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise if you can behave for the next six hours." Did he say that? Upon what was he forgiven and accepted? Simple request. You know the Bible, you can read there in Galatians 2:20, it says, "I am crucified with Christ, yet I live." Who was actually crucified with Christ? This man, but he sort of represents us. We're like that man.
We're rebels. We're thieves. We're murderers. The Bible says if you are angry with your brother, sister without a cause, you're guilty of murder. We're guilty of the blood of Jesus.
Amen. And so we're all in that man's position. We're helpless to save ourselves, so how does he find salvation? He repents, he confesses, he asks. He says, "Lord, remember me." And like the prodigal son when he came home, he said, "I'm not worthy." The Father said, "you're completely forgiven." This is the everlasting Gospel. He is saved by asking through faith and Jesus promises on eternal life.
Now, was this thief saved based on his good works? What was he saved based on? Faith in the sacrifice of Jesus that he saw very vividly that day, he saw the love of God. Are we saved base on good works? Are we saved by praying and trusting in the mercy of God? But here's the question. If by some quirk, someone had come along with a crowbar and said. "You know, we just got a pardon from pilate to the thief on the right hand. You're being forgiven.
We're gonna pull out these nails. We're gonna bind up your wounds. And you're gonna maybe recover and live and..." Now here's the question. Would he have had different works after being saved by faith? Yes. You'd certainly hope so.
Would he have gone back to his life of rebellion, and murder, and stealing? No. Because his heart had been changed by grace. And so we're not saved by works, but if you are saved by grace, you're gonna see a transformation in the works. That's so important to understand because Revelation tells us, we are saved by faith but every man is rewarded and judged according to the works. That's extremely clear.
So the works demonstrate, if you've been saved by faith. But don't get the two upside down because, otherwise you'll always be thinking about your works and you'll not be thinking about rejoicing in the promise of God, and that then begets the good works. That's so important not to get the cart before the horse. Anyway...it looks to me like someone has sent in a question. You know, we often ask if you've got some question and here's the question, it says, "when is the third angel coming to proclaim his message?" Third angel's message is, "if any man worships the beast and his image and receives his Mark in his right hand or his forehead, the same will drink the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.
" That message is going out now. People need to understand what the issues are about the beast and Babylon, and the image of the beast, and so that message is going out. Now people don't have the Mark of the beast yet. But the warning should go out before that becomes an issue so people will understand it when it does come. Is that right? Yes.
Okay, got a second question, I see. Now these are first time I am seeing these. Who does the Bible say...now we got a lot of people, this is a Facebook question. Lot of people are watching on Facebook or the internet. Who does the Bible say will come to give a "present truth" message before the great day of the Lord? Well, it's given by those who'd come in the Spirit and power of Elijah, right? And you've heard them all, Elijah message? And Bible says, "I will send my messenger before the great dreadful day of the Lord.
" That's in Malachi 4. Jesus said, "Elijah has come and Elijah will come." Elijah has come in John the baptist. And he said Elijah will come. There will be an Elijah message. Now some believe it's not one person, but it's the 144,000 that are giving the Elijah message in the last days.
But it's a message of revival that comes to the people of God. There's going to be a great shaking that will come in to the people of God. I sometimes wonder, that's beginning now. All right. And, now there's six things this thief does before we leave the thief.
Six things that he does. He believes, no, first he beheld, he saw Christ lifted up. Jesus said, "if I am lifted up, I will draw all men." He saw Christ lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent, right? He beheld, he believed, he broadcast, he beseeched, he became and he was blessed. All that happened to him in such a short time. And that's what everybody experiences when we accept the simple good news of the everlasting Gospel.
That message does not change. That's the same Gospel that saved adam, same Gospel that saved Abraham, and the apostles. All right. Going on to the next part of this important message, it says, "fear God and give glory to him." And that's Revelation 14:7, "saying with a loud voice, 'fear God and give glory to him.'' Now, what does that mean to fear God and give glory to him? Does it mean be afraid of God? In a sense but it's different kind of word and definition from the fear that would make you run from something. Because true fear of God, if you understand a love for God and then a respect for his awesomeness, it draws you to him.
It doesn't make you want to run from him. Let me give you a verse that helps illustrate that. Go to Exodus 20:20, if you want 20-20 vision, go to Exodus 20:20, "and Moses said to the people, 'do not fear, for God has come to test you, that his fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.'" First he says don't fear, he says because God is testing you that his fear… now, there must be different kinds of fear, otherwise, he's saying don't fear so you can be afraid. See what I am saying. True fear of God is a reverence for God, feeling, understanding the awesomeness of God.
Amen? All right, wesley used to say, "the fear of God means you don't fear anything but God. If you don't have the fear of God, you fear everything but God." So when you really fear God, you fear God, nothing else makes you afraid. When you don't fear God, everything else makes you afraid. And wesley used to say if I had 300 men that fear nothing but God, I could change the world. And then you see in job 1:9, "so satan answered and said, 'does job fear God for nothing?'" You remember the book of job begins with the words, "there was a man in the land of uz named job, one who feared God and he did evil.
" He had this great reverence for God. He wanted to live ever. Ever heard the expression, "this is a God fearing man." It means the Word of God. Bible talks about the Word of God, they tremble at His Word, and it means you've got to listen to the Word of God. There's nothing more important.
That's what it means to be God fearing. In Genesis 22:12, "God said to Abraham, 'do not lay your hand upon the lad," he's about to offer Isaac, "or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me." God is saying to Abraham, "I know that you fear me because my word is so important to you, that you respect me." Let's go on to the next section. It says the hour of his judgment has come, and this is the second part of this first angel's message. When it says the hour of his judgment, will come or has come? Has come. So there is a time just before Jesus' coming, that God's people enter the last phase of the atonement of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, is the hour of judgment.
Now, someone's gonna read for me, 1 Peter 4:17. And while you're getting that 1 Peter 4:17, I'm gonna read the last words in Ecclesiastes. You know what that says? Ecclesiastes 12, after Solomon pontificates about the vanity of life, how does he sum everything up? "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments." So what does it mean to fear God? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Someone was asking about fear, I will give you little more on that, "fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man's duty," this is the whole duty of man, "for God will bring every work into judgment," it says God will, future tense, "bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it be good or evil." So where does this judgment begin? Go ahead. Dan, please read that for us.
1 Peter 4:17, "for the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the Gospel of God?" All right. In the days of Peter, the people of God were, in particular, the jews. They've been the guardians of the word. That sort of transitioned during the time of Christ to the Spiritual jews or the church at large. And there was a judgment that was gonna happen, and that judgment came on the Jewish nations.
So judgment began with the house of God. The veil in the temple was torn. Ultimately, the temple was destroyed. Now you are the temple of God. The church is the temple of God, right? That evil one sits in the temple of God showing himself that he is God, that's talking about someone in rome, he says he is in charge of the church of God.
That's judgment. So now when it says, judgment begins at the house of God, there's a judgment that begins with the church. In the last days, those who have claimed to be followers of the Lord, we're in the last day, day of atonement. Now what happened at the day of atonement? Look in Leviticus 16:29. We're living in the last stage of the church began with the church of laodicea.
Most believe that was 1844 is when we entered that last phase of the church history. And you see, read in Leviticus 16:29, "this shall be a statute forever for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you will afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a stranger who dwells among you. For on that day the priest will make atonement for you," call day of atonement or yom kippur, we call it, "to cleanse you, that you may be cleansed from all of your sins before the Lord." There is a final refinement that happens to the bride before the bridegroom comes. "It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you will afflict your souls. It's a statute forever.
And the priest, who is anointed and consecrated to minister as a priest in his father's place, shall make atonement, and will put on the linen clothes and the holy garments, then he will make atonement for the holy sanctuary." The sanctuary shall be cleansed. Have you read that prophecy in Daniel 8:14? For nearly 2000 years, the place of the sanctuary, for around 1260 years, the sanctuary was defiled. The truth, have you read Daniel 8? The truth was cast to the ground by the beast in the dark ages. The truth was corrupted. The truth about salvation, the truth about the Sabbath, the truth about baptism, the truth about spiritual gifts, I mean, you name it.
The truth was corrupted. And Daniel says how long until the sanctuary is cleansed? In 1844, God raised up a new movement. Not only did Christ begin cleansing the sanctuary in heaven, but God began cleansing the sanctuary on earth from all the false teachings of the dark ages. Amen? And so, this movement is now the guardians of that truth are restoration of biblical Christianity. The faith that was once returned to the saints is a revival of that.
And that all began, actually in 1844 with the great advent movement. We were not organized church until 1863, but the movement really began in 1844. So the hour of his judgment has come. What would the people do during the day of atonement? They'd afflict their souls. What does that mean? Are we to walk around with little whips and flog ourselves? Or does it mean it's the time of special holiness? As some say, I've heard people argue and say, "there's nothing wrong with drinking a little wine.
" And I don't believe there's any good biblical reason for doing that. But sometimes if I can't persuade people, they insist that the wine in the Bible is alcoholic and you could drink it, I'll say okay. If you're going to take that approach, you know, the priests were never to drink alcohol before they ministered. Look what happened to The Sons of aaron when that happened. And I said we're living in the day of atonement right now, we are a nation of Kings and priests.
And if there ever was a time in history when God's people should be sober and afflict their souls before God, this would be that time. And so whenever people start making excuses, I say, well, even if you could argue for that at any other time in church history, this is the time in church history that God is calling for a people who will humble themselves that there'll be holiness and humility. So this is what it means to afflict your souls and say, you know, we are going to turn from our sins. We want to live holy lives, especially during this age, just prior to the second coming, we are to be a nation of Kings and priests. Amen? I got time just for the last section here.
The last part of the message, "and worship the one that made heaven and the earth." That's also part of Revelation 14:7. Now why is that especially important to us? Well, where else in the Bible do you find that phrase, "worship him that made the heaven and the earth"? Exodus 20:11, "for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, and he rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day." That commandment calls us back to remember and to worship the creator. Amen? And who is that creator? That's Jesus. All things that were made, were made by him.
You know, if you read in Revelation 4:11, Revelation 4:11, "you are worthy, o Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created." So if there is no other good reason, because God is the creator. All the truths that we share rise out of a foundational truth. What is the foundational truth? He's in charge. As they used to say, he is large and in charge. God is the maker of all things.
Look at Nehemiah 9:6, "you alone are the Lord, you have made heaven, and the heavens of heavens, will all of their host. The earth and everything in it, the seas and all that is in it." You notice that Nehemiah is quoting from that commandment too, heaven, earth, sea, saying the same thing. And so in the last days, there's a special message that's to go back to the world that God is the creator, the Sabbath is a sign of that. Neglect of the Sabbath has contributed to the evolution conspiracy. Now I don't believe, most conspiracies I think are nonsense.
I could tell you about all kinds of crazy conspiracies but I better not because some of you probably believe in some of them. But one conspiracy I do believe in is, there is a conspiracy to try to put over a hoax that believing in evolution is scientific. The idea that all of the organization, and design, and interworking systems, and symbiotic relationships that you see in the world around you all happened by accident without intelligence over millions of years is the most absurd thing that has ever been put over on what should be an intelligent educated people. Amen. It is ridiculous.
And every Sabbath we're reminded, "no, we were created by the Word of God, by divine fiat." And one reason the devil has tried to get rid of the Sabbath is to get rid of the concept that he is a creator. Now why do people cling so tenaciously to evolution? Because if God created us, that means he's God, he's in charge, he makes the rules and you should obey them. People don't want to obey God's rules, so they try to eliminate the evidence that he created us so that they feel like, "I'm just an animal. I can fulfill all of my animalistic tendencies and desires. And there's no repercussions when I die, that's it.
" So it lends itself to a hedonistic life. Eat and drink, tomorrow we die. So we're called to be a people that will worship the creator, and I think we're called to remind people that he is the creator. And, you know, just coming back from africa. I told you, we took that little trip around the Nile.
We got in the boat actually, just went around a little bit and saw some things. The variety of animals and the inter relationships between the animals that we saw, that could never evolve. As I'm riding around in the boat, I'm hanging out with Karen and ryan and our driver, I'm going, "look, it only took 50 million years for that to evolve." Which was absurd, it would never happen. And such variety of color and species, all in the same environment. If everything evolved by accident, why didn't it all come out the same? And the foods that we eat.
I think I was teasing our afcoe evangelists back then when… the color and the texture. There was, you know, there's food, they got fruit that's got snakeskin, called snakeskin fruit. Any of you ever eaten? Skin looks like a snake. You think, I wouldn't need that. No, it's really good.
Because the skin looks like a snake. They call it snakeskin fruit. And then they get the jackfruit, they get the bananas, you know, there were no bananas in the Garden of Eden, did you know that? A banana is a hybrid between two asian foods. The bananas don't have seeds. Anyway, amazing fact.
But just the incredible variety that you see, and the idea that it all evolved is preposterous. That these particular flowers that could not exist without particular hummingbirds that pollinate them or moss that pollinate them. Anyway, we're people, we've got a message to call people back to the creator because... So many people in the world, you know, the number of people that believe in a God that created is constantly on the decline. How often do we hear in the news and on the media, "millions of years ago, are monkeys, they are ancestors," they call them.
And that just is not true. The scientific doesn't support it. The geologic evidence doesn't support it. It is preposterous. And I used to believe it so I get very agitated.
Because I knew as soon as I realized there was a creator, I suddenly realized I am accountable to the creator. And that's a message, there need to be a revival of people realizing that they will all someday stand before the creator because the hour of his judgment has come and we are called to worship him. Thank you very much for your questions and participation. We're out of time for today's lesson. I want to remind you about our closing offer.
It's on ultimate purpose, one of our messages, and you ask for offer number 846, when you call 866-788-3966. And if you want to download, you can download it by texting the code, and here's a code you text "sh022", and you text that code to 40544, and then you can download it. God bless you, friends. Look forward to studying the word with you again next week. I'm here in the beautiful island nation of fiji that's filled with exotic animals, beautiful vegetation, and spectacular scenery.
The people here are some of the nicest in the world but it hasn't always been that way. This was once known as the cannibal island. The fijian warriors were some of the fiercest in the south pacific, greatly feared. You can understand why. This is one of the weapons that they used for breaking the neck of their adversaries.
And long before they were killing any missionaries, they were fighting with and killing and eating each other. In fact, as you go to the different tourist locations on the island, they will sell you remakes of some of the forks they used for eating human brains. In fact, there was one cannibal chief, ratu udre udre, during the 1800's, that is in the guinness book of world records for having killed and eaten the most victims. He brags it every time he killed someone. He set a stone aside.
By the end of his life, he had a pretty big pile of stones. It's estimated he ate somewhere in the neighborhood of 900 people. Oh, my! You know, the fijians were not the only ones that had a monopoly on cannibalism. In fact, the Bible says that we are all capable of being cannibals. Galatians 5:15 says, "if we bite and devour one another, we may end up consuming one another.
" That's talking about destroying people's reputation by mean gossip. One famous missionary named paton, when he was preparing to go to cannibal isles, his friends and family begged him not to go. They said, "you'll be eaten." He said, "it doesn't matter to me if I die and I'm eaten by worms or of God's will that I'm eaten by cannibals, as long as I'm doing the will of God." Well, he went to the cannibal isles and brought many to Christ, and died peacefully in his old age. Some of the ancient cannibal cultures believe that when you killed and when you devoured your enemy, you would somehow take within you their spiritual strengths or powers, but that's really absurd. But there is a kind of cannibalism endorsed in Scripture, that's right.
Jesus said in John 6:53, "except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." And you don't need these tools to do it. What you need is to read His Word and learn about his life. Accept by faith his sacrifice in your place, and you can have a new heart and be a new creature. You can even do it right now. Let's face it, it's not always easy to understand everything you read in the Bible.
With over 700,000 words contained in 66 books, the Bible can generate a lot of questions. To get biblical straightforward answers, call into Bible answers live, a live nationwide call-in radio program where you can talk to Pastor Doug Batchelor and ask him your most difficult Bible questions. For times and stations in your area or to listen to answers online, visit bal.amazingfacts.org.