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Lansing SDA Church

Wes Peppers

Thanks-L-iving

If you're breathing today, that means that God has a plan for you.

Sometimes when He is revealing that plan, it seems like all chaos is breaking loose.

But the Lord knows what He's doing, doesn't he?

And sometimes the very thing that we think is breaking us in half is the very thing that is shaping us and molding us and preparing us for the next step.

What do you think about that this morning?

We're going to talk this morning about Thanksgiving.

I was thinking, you know, if I preached a sermon next Sabbath about Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving would be over, right?

So you need to have a sermon about Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving so that you go into Thanksgiving with Thanksgiving.

And besides that, Pastor Walter is preaching next Sabbath, so then I wouldn't have a chance to preach on Thanksgiving.

How many of you are thankful this morning?

All right, so let's have a word of prayer and we will invite you to bow your heads.

I'm gonna kneel as we ask the Lord's blessing.

Father, this morning, We are thankful today for your goodness to us.

We are thankful that despite our trials, despite our problems, despite the winter that has just sprung upon us, we can be thankful.

Lord, we're thankful that as we look outside, we see the pure white of the snow that reminds us of the pure righteousness of Jesus that will cover our sins when we exercise faith in you.

We pray this morning that as we open your word for the next few minutes that you would guide and direct our hearts and that you would help us to understand, Lord, the importance of giving thanks, the importance of being thankful for all things, both good and bad.

So we ask you to guard our hearts today, and we ask this in Jesus' name.

How many of you knew, and I put this in my devotional this week, through the email, how many of you knew that Thanksgiving is actually a prophetic holiday?

Did you know that Thanksgiving was predicted in prophecy?

Some of you are saying, wait a minute, what's this new theology?

Well, actually, in the book of Revelation, you find it to be true.

If you go with me to the book of Revelation, I'm just going to give you a nugget here to introduce us into Thanksgiving.

In Revelation chapter 12, you find a picture of prophecy and also the history of God's church.

From the time of Jesus all the way down to the very final moments of earth's history, God's last day church, you can trace through Revelation 12 the history of the church.

And so I'm not going to read the whole chapter, but most of you have studied this.

If you haven't studied this, come and see me and I'll get you some Bible studies and we'll let you study it.

So in Revelation chapter 12, I'm going to jump to verse 13.

Revelation 12 verse 13, the Bible says, now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the man child.

This is talking actually, I'm going to make a lot of assumptions here, not total assumptions, but I'm assuming that most of you are familiar with this chapter.

Again, if you're not, I'll try to break it down a little bit so that you understand that.

But in chapter 12, verse 13, when you study all the chronology of the prophecy and you line it up with history, you find that chapter 12, verse 13 is actually talking about the early history of the church.

In the first several centuries of the church, there was great persecution.

There was some of the Roman emperors were persecuting Nero and many others, and Christians were under a gun.

They were thrown to the lions, they were crucified in the streets by day, and then lit on fire to light the streets by night.

And so this is describing the first several hundred years of early Christianity.

Then in verse 14 it says, but the woman, who's the woman in prophecy?

It's the church, was given 2 great wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place where she is nourished for a time, times, and half a time from the presence of the serpent." And so that's describing, many of us understand, that the time, times, and half a time is describing a period of prophetic history where God's church was in the wilderness.

This is actually talking about the dark ages.

I could show that to you more detailedly, but for the sake of time this morning, I'm just making the points, okay?

So that's during that time of 538 to 17 what?

538 to 1798, a period of 1260 years in which God's church was in the wilderness and it was being persecuted by another system on the earth.

Alright, if you haven't studied that, if that's confusing to you, talk to me afterwards, we'll get you some Bible studies.

And then it says, So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood.

So if he's spewing a flood of people out of his mouth, those are probably not righteous people, right?

So there were people that were coming to persecute and attack God's people, the church, during that time of wilderness, yes?

Now as we look into history during the Dark Ages, from the 500s on down to the 16 and 1700s, was there persecution throughout history, yes or no?

God's people were in darkness, they were in the wilderness, and they were being persecuted by this other power.

But notice what happens here in verse 16.

So in verse 15 it's telling us about that persecution.

It says, we don't know, it says in the earth opened its what?

"...the flood which the dragon spewed out of his mouth." So what time period here are we talking about?

Now, if you look at the word earth there, it says the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood.

Where else in Revelation do we find the word earth?

And it talks about in verse 11 of chapter 13, I saw another beast coming up out of the what?

The water symbolizes a very populated area.

Now, if you go through all the descriptive points of Revelation chapter 13 and that second power that rises up from the earth, you find very clearly, very specifically, very detailedly that it represents none other than who?

How many of you have studied that before?

If you've not, I'll be glad to study that with you, or 1 of our Bible workers or our assistant pastor.

And so this represents the United States, the second beast coming up out of the what?

Some of you look a little sleepy, a little dull.

You've been off from me for a couple of weeks here.

So now it's time to get you back on track.

Now, jumping back to chapter 12, verse 16, it says, what helped the woman?

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Thanks-L-iving

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