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Omega Productions

All the World Marveled

G. Edward Reid

Preparing For the Lion’s Den

What I'm telling you now, I'm telling you sincerely because I love you guys and I want you to be aware of what's happening and its significance.

So, I'm going to read a statement to you that you understand is true.

You can find it in 7th volume of Bible Commentary, 976, paragraph 9.

It's also in the signs of the times, May 6, 1897.

I'm going to read this statement 2 or 3 times this afternoon.

Trial and persecution will come on all who, in obedience to the word of God, refuse to worship this false Sabbath.

Now here's the sentence I want you to remember.

Force is the last resort of every false religion.

So you can understand that ISIS and that form of Islam is not a true religion or they wouldn't have to chop people's heads off.

The same can be said about the Roman Catholic Church and the millions of people that they killed, their only crime being they wouldn't bow to the Pope.

So it's a false religion, just from the start.

Okay, what we're going to look at this afternoon is something that will give you courage and confidence.

A lot of People are scared to their wits end when they hear about persecution, but I'm gonna show you reasons why it isn't and why God will be with us.

Has God promised to be with us in difficult times?

In the words of Paul, 2 Timothy, the third chapter, all that live godly in Christ will suffer persecution.

So how does a person prepare for such treatment?

I'm going to give you about 4 real quick stories so you can understand that people have gone through some very, very difficult times in the past.

Most of you have heard the story of Marie Duran, who was 15 years old.

She was honest, generous, and very much in love.

Now you must remember that in the days that Marie Duran was living that people typically got married about that age, girls that age, voluntarily, I must add, not forced into it by someone.

At any rate, she was looking for her wedding day with great anticipation, but the day never came because she rather spent her wedding day and many days after it in the most miserable prison in all of France.

Well, Marie's family had come under suspicion for being Protestants.

When soldiers arrived looking for her brother, he was not there, so they arrested Marie instead, and she was dragged off to the dreaded tower of Constance in South France, where she was to remain in stark isolation.

At any moment she could be free, rejoin her love, and begin the life that they had dreamed of together.

Instead, she etched in small letters on the rock walls of her cell, over and over again, the words, Resist.

Resist is precisely what she did, not for a day, not a month, or even a year, but for 37 years.

Even to that day, you can visit that prison and see those words on her cell walls.

By the way, it's kind of interesting that she was finally released in December of 1767, but her father and her husband-to-be had both been executed while she was incarcerated.

Belarus is a small country, formerly part of the Soviet Union, nestled between Russia and the Ukraine.

And from the Adventist Encyclopedia, we learn that Belarus Conference is a statement that says the work came to Belarus in 1924 with the establishment of the congregation in the country or county of Brest.

1 might wonder why they actually celebrated the 100th anniversary in 2006, because 1924 is not 100 years.

But we found something very interesting from this unique story, and it is this.

To human eyes, we don't always see what God sees.

And so happens the word did begin earlier in Belarus than is known by our records.

It was only after the breakup of the Soviet Union that there was access to government documents and historians were able to find out that the government files showed there were Seventh-day Adventists in Belarus as early as 1906.

1 of the reasons we don't have in our own archives the records of those early years is that it was during that time the Russian Empire, when anyone followed any kind of religion was a worshiper of God, he was put under such great suspicion and the leaders of our church and various parts of the Empire were often sent off to what they called reorientation camps in the far north of Siberia.

Apparently that's what happened to a number of our own leaders.

There's 1 little short story that comes from that period And it was a pioneer worker, Mr.

Lebsack, started to work in the area of what is now Belarus.

He set up a few small companies of believers, traveled around giving Bible studies and training people, always under the threat of being arrested.

1 day as he was meeting with a group of believers, the security forces came and took him.

As they were escorting him down the center aisle, he called back to the believers, Continue after I am gone.

Why did this man suffer persecution, separation from friends and family?

Why did he have to die far away from the notice of society?

He suffered indignity and death because of his religious convictions, but he stood firm for God.

That's what we're going to talk about this afternoon.

Jesus said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

So The words of the pioneer pastor from Belarus repeated the truth of that statement, the work of God is like a river, it cannot be stopped.

There's hardly a person in this room who has not heard of John Hus.

Very interestingly, 1 of the first reformers, Remember that Martin Luther was in the 1500s.

He became a Roman Catholic priest in Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic.

He was a reformer and a master or teacher at Charles University in Prague.

After John Wycliffe, the theorist, by the way, who was the ecclesiastical reformation leader, Huss is considered the first church reformer, and he lived, of course, before Luther and Calvin and Zwingli.

But he was a Protestant, and it's very, very interesting that when he began to preach that the just shall live by faith that struck terror in the hearts of the Roman church because that would take away people from their support and the doctrines of fear that they had.

The church, the Roman church has announced that next year will be a year of forgiveness and a year of mercy in the Roman Catholic Church.

I mean, this has been in the news and everything.

The most amazing thing about it is I just got in my last issue of Our Sunday Visitor that the year of our mercy has for sale indulgences.

So you can be forgiven of any sin and they're for sale.

Early on, Huss had stood alone in his labors, but finally he was joined by Jerome, who had been in England and accepted the teachings of John Wycliffe.

By the way, at this time in history there were 3 popes now contending for the supremacy and they strife filled Christendom with crime and tumult not content with hurling anathemas they resorted to temporal weapons by the way all 3 called the other the Antichrist the only time they've ever spoken the truth it's interesting the gifts the offices the blessing to the church were offered for sale And to cure the evils that were distracting the church in Europe, a general council was summoned to meet in Constance in Germany.

The council was called for the desire of the Empress Agusman by 1 of the 3 popes, John XXIII.

And interestingly enough, the chief object was to be accomplished in the council was to get out of the schism to have only 1 pope and to root out heresy.

So they invited John Hus to come because he was considered a heretic, and they wanted to hear about him.

I want to give you a little bit of an introduction by way of some notes that I have.

And also I want to tell you a little brief story.

So hopefully these things will be of benefit to you.

First of all, there's good news and there's bad news.

And the good news is Jesus is coming soon.

And the bad news is between now and then there's gonna be some problems, some difficulties.

Yours truly and other people like me might be put in prison and I'll show you why tonight.

And I've never thought of myself as a chauvinist or a bigot, but people are being called bigots now because they want to hold up God's Word.

But I'm going to give you a story to help you understand this situation.

A number of years ago our family lived in Jackson, Mississippi when our children were small and I was the pastor there.

Very early 1 Monday morning I received a phone call from a lady who was a nurse and she was calling me from the hospital.

She called me at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Now, Kathy and I are early risers, but we usually get up at 5.30, not 5.

But she had wanted to call since 3 o'clock, but she waited in deference to my probably being asleep.

And so she said that there had been a very bad accident on Interstate 55 just north of Jackson, and she wanted me to come and counsel with the grieving family.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about that.

A family of 5 people had been returning home, apparently, from a vacation on the Gulf Coast and had probably stayed longer than they should have because it was 03:00 in the morning they were traveling just north of Jackson, Mississippi.

Some of you, like our family, have traveled late at night.

You remember that you roll down the windows and sing and tell jokes and your wife tries to keep you awake and all that stuff.

That was what they were doing, apparently.

3 children—one in the second seat and 2 in the back seat—there were 5 of them in the car.

Doing great until something unusual happened.

A man traveling southbound had stopped for a break either to get fuel or to take a nap.

I don't know whether alcohol was involved or not, but when he started up again, he headed south on the northbound lanes.

And so in just a few minutes, the car with 5 people and this man in the pickup truck by himself had a head-on collision at interstate speeds.

4 people were killed instantly—the mother, the father, the little brother, and the man in the other car.

The 2 children that survived had been knocked unconscious with serious injuries, but they were beginning to wake up.

They wanted me to tell them that the accident had proved fatal for their mother, their father, and their little brother.

I've thought about this a lot over the years.

It happened many years ago, almost 40 years ago.

And the reason it's so significant is what could have been done to prevent that accident.

Well, you know the guy went down the wrong way and he passed the wrong way signs and all of that.

The real interesting part about it, when you think about it, is Suppose I had been driving on the southbound side where I should be, and I saw this guy on the other side going the wrong way.

Maybe I could honk my horn or blink my lights or do something.

The guy, if he saw me, would have said, What's wrong with that crazy guy?

But then maybe he would have thought, I'm going the wrong way.

I think I should turn around right away and get off this road.

If you think somebody's going the wrong way and you're certain about it, is it an act of bigotry or self-righteousness to try to tell them to go the right way?

So we're going to talk about the papacy some tonight, and I am not an anti-Catholic bigot.

Many of them will be going to heaven as you well know.

But the system is what we're going to talk about tonight and that's what's so significant about what's happening here.

So I'm going to talk to you about history and prophecy and current events as a foundation for this presentation, first of all.

And I believe that as Bible-believing Christians we need to be aware of what's happening and of their great significance.

Now I'm going to start with a little picture here of the Mayflower.

Many of you know something about the pilgrims, but I'm going to tell you the real story tonight in about 2 minutes.

The real story is England had separated from the Roman Catholic Church around 1532 in the days of Henry VIII, and the split was primarily over the authority of the Pope and not so much of doctrinal issues.

In fact, Henry himself became head of the church of England, as you know, and anybody that disagreed with him got their heads chopped off.

They were executed, 200 people at 1 time, at 1 point.

But there was a group of people in England at that time who were called separatists or saints and later called pilgrims.

These people did not want to pledge allegiance to the Church of England, which they believed was almost as corrupt and idolatrous as the Roman Church.

So in 1608 this group of pilgrims left England and went over to Holland and seeking religious freedom.

They were there for about 12 years when they heard about the New World.

Now what I'm going to tell you next is really quite an incredible journey.

The Pilgrims hired a merchant ship called the Speed Well And that was going to take them to England where they were gonna meet up with another ship called the Mayflower, and the 2 would sail across the Atlantic together.

The voyage from Holland to England, which started out on July 22, keep these dates in mind, of 1620, the Speedwell developed serious leaks just going across the English Channel and had to be repaired in England.

On August 21, the 2 ships set sail for America.

After sailing—listen carefully now, this is not a big cruise ship, it's little sailboats—300 miles off the coast of England, the Speedwell again developed such serious leakage problems that they had to turn back 300 miles by sailing again back to England.

The Pilgrims had already spent nearly 6 weeks on board the Speedwell, but it was decided to transfer all the people, which were the boatload of pilgrims, with the other people and all the cattle and all the other stuff.

There were 102 people on board and a crew of about 30 people.

Now if you can imagine what I'm going to tell you next, modern cruise ships are typically 12 times that long.

Finally on September 6, the heavily loaded Mayflower left England, but the long delay in dealing with the speedwell's issues meant that the Mayflower must now cross the North Atlantic at the height of the stormy season.

This picture is actually an artist's drawing of a boat like the Mayflower, but as you can see, that little boat, when the swells come up, sometimes it would actually disappear.

The North Atlantic was at the height of its stormy season, resulting in a rough, dangerous, and uncomfortable passage.

And this is another picture, I'm going to show you this 1, of the same little boat.

And The interesting part about it was that it was a square rigged sailboat and with the North Atlantic storms, they actually got in such storms, they had to take the sails cleared down so the ship would not turn over sideways.

So for days they would just drift at sea.

Many of you know that you can fly from London to Washington, D.C.

It took them 66 days to cross the North Atlantic.

Early on in the voyage, their fruit and vegetable supply rotted.

With not enough nutrients in their diet, many of the passengers experienced bleeding gums, rotten teeth, and stinking breath associated with scurvy.

Their water became so polluted that their liquid was supplied by kegs of beer on board by the other passengers.

In addition, many of the passengers were horribly seasick, and 1 was swept overboard and drowned.

To make matters even worse, there were no toilets on board the Mayflower.

Remember, it was not a passenger ship at all, So the people used wooden pots, which they emptied overboard.

To make matters even worse, there was not enough fresh water, so no 1 got to wash their clothes for 2 months or themselves.

The passengers were forced to wear all their clothes for 2 straight months.

It was not until November 9 that they saw land in what is now known as Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

And the interesting part about this, When they actually came ashore, most people don't realize this, it was winter in New England with snow already on the ground.

It was too cold for building houses, so most of the pilgrims spent the first winter cramped quarters of the Mayflower that was anchored in what we now know as Plymouth Harbor.

During the first winter, nearly half of the people died.

It was malnutrition, disease, exposure to cold winter that took the toll, and it is very likely that without the kindness and the aid of Native Americans that none of the colonists would have survived at all.

Now I've told you these details to underscore the sacrifice and the religious commitment that these people were seeking civil and religious liberty.

Unmistakable Signs Of the End

There are 2 ways actually we know that the theme of our weekend, Arise, Shine, Jesus is Coming, is really true, because we know we have the great prophetic timeline, don't we?

And that has been carried through from the 1260 year prophecy that ended in 1798 and the 2300 year day prophecy that ended in 1844.

So far as time is concerned, it's time for Jesus to come.

1 other interesting thing is that it actually took Jesus just a few minutes to tell his disciples something very amazing.

And that's what we're gonna look at today.

We're gonna look at the great signs of the second coming of Christ.

And many of you are likely aware that the signs are being multiplied today, and this is, I like to say we're seeing the real thing.

And I'm going to put my computer up on the screen here So I can see a little bit better and just tell you 1 other little point before I start We've been talking about the second coming of Christ for many years 150 years or more in the Adventist church alone.

The 1 that's waited the longest is Jesus.

So we're certainly going to be happy about seeing what we're going to see very soon.

I'm going to transition to get my computer up here and then we'll get right into the topic.

In the meantime you guys can be finding the roots of our presentation is going to be Matthew 24 verse 3.

Because of the limitations of time and the amount of material I want to share with you, I'm using PowerPoint to help because I'm going to go 100 miles an hour and you're going to see a lot of stuff here.

But let's first of all open our Bibles and we're going to see something amazing.

I want you to pretend like in your mind that you are sitting at the feet of Jesus, not myself, but Jesus today.

And you're gonna ask him the same questions that the disciples ask him.

So we're gonna go to Matthew 24 and just see this 1 as we begin.

This is verse 3, now as he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him, what's the next word?

This was not a camp meeting, it was a private meeting between Jesus and disciples and tell us, And this is interesting, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming in the end of the age or the end of the world as King James says.

It's very amazing that they recognize that the second coming and the end of this world were synonymous events.

The people that are left behind are all dead.

But then Jesus goes about and gives them 2 chapters full of signs.

Chapter 24 is the kind of signs I'm gonna talk about today, signs that we would see about us in everyday life, and chapter 25 are signs in the church.

But now we're gonna look at the next part, verses 32 to 35.

After telling them, by the way, how many signs did Jesus' disciples ask him for?

And I've only chosen 7 that I'll share with you today.

We're looking at Matthew 24, 32 from the fig tree when its branches already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near.

So you also, when you see all these things, all these things know that it's near at the doors.

But Surely I say to you, this generation that sees all these things will by no means pass away till all these things take place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away." So I'm going to put up here right away an interesting statement that Ellen White made in Acts of the Apostles, page 260.

There are many in the world today who close their eyes to the evidences that Christ has given to warn men of his coming.

They seek to quiet all apprehension while at the same time the signs of the end are rapidly fulfilling, and the world is hastening to the time when the Son of Man shall be revealed in the clouds of heaven." So we're going to look at 7 signs, and these are the 7 signs.

If you decide to take notes, I'm going to show them 1 at a time so you'll be able to go through it, but I'll go through it real quickly.

Signs in the political world around us, signs in the natural world, signs in the social world, signs in the financial world, decline of morality, Pope Francis and the Sunday agenda, we'll spend some time on that with events of this past week, And of course the gospel is going to all the world.

The gospel is going to all the world right now.

First of all, we're going to talk about wars and terrorism.

Everybody probably understands that the Bible says in Matthew 24, there will be wars and rumors of wars, nations will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

What you may not know is this, Matthew, Mark and Luke say that the big wars when they come will not be at the actual end, there'll be time after that.

Mark says these are the beginning of sorrows.

And Luke 21 says, but the end will not come immediately.

So I'm going to show you a couple of things now.

The past century has been the bloodiest of all.

Most of you were not born when this happened.

But on August 6, 1945, the United States, with a specially equipped B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.

Over 100, 000 people were killed in just a few seconds.

By the way, that is a baby compared to what we have now.

But I'll show you that modern estimates place the number of deaths in World War I and World War II at 69 million military and civilian personnel.

Get the number in mind, because more people have been killed in the last hundred years than all of other wars in Earth's history combined.

In my book, Battle of the Spirits, I have a chapter called World War III.

If we had a World War III with 60 nations involved, somebody would use nuclear weapons, somebody would follow it up with nuclear weapons, and we would kill everybody on the earth.

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