The 2nd angel warns about the confusing mixture of truth and error in the Christian world that impairs the rationality of intelligent beings and how we can avoid the cunning sophistry that will “deceive, if possible, even the elect.”

GYC SE 2016: Good News

<p>The 2nd angel warns about the confusing mixture of truth and error in the Christian world that impairs the rationality of intelligent beings and how we can avoid the cunning sophistry that will “deceive, if possible, even the elect.”</p>

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GYC Southeast

Plenary

Mark Howard

Wake-Up Call

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid!

The Final Exam

Daniel Neacsu

Righteousness by the Death of Me

For Such a Time as This

Preparing for Rain

Father in heaven, Father we are thankful that we can be here tonight.

We know that we're 2 or more gathered here in our midst to guide us, to teach us.

And Father in the context of what we're looking at last night and tonight to prepare us for the times that we're living in and the times just ahead.

I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be acceptable in your sight tonight.

For I ask it in the name of Jesus and for his sake, Amen.

Now last night we started out, the theme is the everlasting gospel and we started talking about the 3 angels' messages of Revelation chapter 14.

And I believe I put a slide up here tonight that we looked at last night from the ninth volume of the testimonies and I'm not giving you everything we looked at last night but this summarizes it.

It says here in a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light bearers.

To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world." I don't even want to try to give you the significance of that, but I'm asking the Holy Spirit that He will lay the significance of that statement on your heart and mind right now.

The last warning message for a perishing world, on them is shining wonderful light from the word of God.

They have been given a work of the most solemn import, the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels' messages.

There is no other work of so great importance there to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.

This is not the opinion of Mark Howard the pastor or of some theology professor or anybody else.

This is from inspiration and it says this is where the focus needs to be of God's people.

Because there's nobody else giving this warning message and if the world's going to hear it they got to hear from somebody and that somebody is you and me.

And so we looked last night at Jesus' prediction in Matthew 24, 14.

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness unto all the nations and then the end will come.

And then we went to Revelation 14 And we saw the gospel being depicted by as an angel flying in the midst of heaven, having this everlasting gospel to proclaim to all of those who dwell on the earth, every nation, kindred, tongue and people.

The very same thing Jesus said would happen.

Now we didn't go far enough in Revelation 14 to see in verses 14 and onward the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with a sharp sickle in His hand.

This gospel will be preached in all the world as a witness unto all the nations and the end will come.

And that gospel message in Revelation is a unique message.

It includes a warning against Babylon and her fall.

And it talks about the danger of receiving the mark of the beast.

Now what I said last night, we're going to continue on doing tonight, is I wanted to try to grasp the significance, the practical significance of these messages for us today.

Just reviewing last night, we talked about the first angel's message and how it was first proclaimed in the great second advent movement of 1840 to 1844.

At that time, they didn't understand the subject of the heavenly sanctuary, and so the judgment hour to them was a message of Christ's soon coming, you remember that?

And the need to be ready for that coming.

It led them to examine their personal relationships with Christ and make a full and total commitment to Him.

And that is the same effect that that message should have on those of us today.

This is in harmony with what we would call the afflicting of the soul, that the Bible says was a part of the anti-typical day of atonement in the Old Testament times.

They were to search their heart and review their standing with God.

Because the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

And there are times when we can think we're in perfect harmony with God when we're not.

1 of the most alarming and amazing, in a strange sort of way, stories in the Bible is the story of King David's adultery.

Where King David, a man after God's own heart, got sidetracked by the enemy, slept with another man's wife, and then in order to cover up the crime, had that man put on the front lines and murdered.

Then David took that woman in to be his wife and for an entire year, walked about his palace as if nothing had gone wrong.

That's how darkened you can be as to your own condition.

And it wasn't until Nathan the prophet of God came to David, told him a parable, David was outraged at the man depicted in this parable until Nathan the prophet looked at David and he pointed and he said, thou art the man.

And after that year, where David didn't even see where he was and how far he had gone from Christ, those words of the prophet helped him to see his true standing with God.

My friends, that's the first angel's message.

That was what the first angel's message did when it was first given And it has the same effect today.

It brings us to the reality that Jesus Christ has entered into the very last phase of work prior to His coming and preparatory to His coming.

And we read last night, in fact I want you to look at it with me tonight again, in 2 Peter, remember we talked about hastening the coming of the Lord, and in 2 Peter chapter 3, I want you to see what Peter says in regard to the coming of the Lord.

We started in verse 9 and it talks about how the Lord isn't slack concerning his promise.

Verse 10 says, But the day of the Lord will come as a what?

A thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God?" Peter says that if we're living in the context of the Second Coming, we ought to really be careful about how we're living.

Once again, this isn't a theology teacher, this isn't a conservative versus liberal ideology.

This is what scripture says to you and me if we believe Jesus is coming soon.

And this is the effect the first angel's message had on the people.

The message was designed to lead God's people to see their true condition and return to the true worship of Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.

And this is how it's worded in that first angel's message.

We looked at this last night, great controversy.

Says the first angel's message of Revelation 14 announcing the hour of God's judgment and calling upon men to fear and worship him was designed to do what?

Separate the professed people of God from the corrupting influences of the world and to arouse them to see their true condition of worldliness and backsliding.

And such as it was with King David and so it is with you and me and with anybody else, we can get caught up in the things of the world and drawn away from Christ.

And when we're drawn away from Christ, it's not going to be a good situation when he comes again.

And so before he comes, he wants to draw us back.

Now tonight, the message is called, Don't Drink the Kool-Aid.

Okay, How many of you have heard that phrase before?

We're going to talk about it a little bit in the context of the second angel's message of Revelation.

Of course, now the title comes from the tragic experience When cult leader Jim Jones, pictured there, on November 18, 1978, led his 900 plus member congregation to the jungles of Guyana, place called Jonestown, and led them to drink cyanide-laced flavor aid, just so that you understand that.

Wasn't Kool-Aid after all, but it's just become a phrase that we use.

It was flavor aid, grape flavor aid, and I guess there were some other flavors, and they put cyanide in it, and they had the people drink it, and again, it's the largest mass suicide in history.

Well, of course, the idea of drinking Kool-Aid didn't get a good PR after that.

The phrase, don't drink the Kool-Aid, has come to refer to a warning not to hold unquestioned belief, argument, or philosophy without critical examination.

Now we talked about that a little bit last night.

We talked about, for those who were here, we talked a little bit about cultural Seventh-day Adventism.

Which is different from Seventh-day Adventist Christianity.

You do what you do because that's what everybody around you does.

But it isn't out of a personal conviction.

And that can be the case in any Christianity.

And probably other flavors of religion as well.

But true Christianity is you investigate, you search out the truth, and you practice the truth because you're convicted that it's true.

Don't drink the Kool-Aid, don't just believe anything that you hear.

Well there's more to it than that that I want to get into, and I want to get into it in the book of Revelation.

Series

Plenary

Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid!

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Flip the Script

02 How Bible “Buts” Change Trials Into Triumph

53m

Restoration 2025: Revelation Speaks Life

Give Him the Glory

51m

In the Mean Time

48m

The Almost Overmastering Delusion

54m

Righteousness By Faith

3. Righteousness By Works

1h

Creation- Genesis as the Foundation

53m

Jesus On Religion

Jesus on Doctrine

44m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

06 The Table of Showbread

1h 8m

The Time of Destiny

52m

That You May Believe

52m

Some are Stronger than Others

41m

Even More Questions Angels Ask- Part 2

56m

Sound Doctrine