The 3rd angel warns about the final test of loyalty and the role of our daily choices in the formation of our characters and our final destiny.

GYC SE 2016: Good News

<p>The 3rd angel warns about the final test of loyalty and the role of our daily choices in the formation of our characters and our final destiny.</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

It was my freshman year in the University of Missouri, in Columbia, Missouri.

And I had, unfortunately, I know most of you are not going to relate to this, but I had in high school cultivated the bad habit of procrastination.

And I did OK in high school, waiting to the last minute to do my reading assignments and turn papers in, and I thought it was going to be the same way in college.

And I remember, I don't know why I did this when I made my schedule, but I had in my, it was my psychology class and I had a psychology lab at, I want to say it was 7.20 in the morning.

And as an 18 year old, I thought that was the most ungodly hour to do anything.

And I remember that my alarm clock would go off at 720.

Well, it wouldn't go off at 720 to get me at class, it'd probably 715, right?

It actually went off a little earlier than that.

And I remember on many occasion looking at that alarm clock and thinking, you know, forget about it.

Especially in the wintertime, I thought, forget about it.

I am not getting up and going into that class today.

And once I made that decision and hit that snooze button or that off button on my alarm, I want to tell you I felt good.

And that wasn't the only time I skipped classes.

I was dating a young lady at the time who is now my wife, Stephanie, is sitting right over here.

And so there were some times that I didn't go to class because I would have rather been with her.

And I want to tell you that when I skipped class and hung out with her, I felt really good about it.

But I will never forget the end of that semester when I came into that, and we had 25, 000 people there approximately at University of Missouri.

And of course, your classes were smaller.

But final exam day comes and you go into that vast lecture hall.

And you've got all of those chairs and everybody quietly sitting at their table with their paper.

And I remember going in and sitting down on exam day, that final exam, and I remember looking at that paper and everything on it kind of starts swimming.

I don't know if you've had that kind of...

And you realize only too late that you are not prepared for the final exam.

The message tonight is entitled, The Final Exam.

I want to tell you that happy euphoric feeling I had when I hit the snooze button became an ugly red dragon on exam day.

Now, 1 thing we've been talking about this week is we've been talking about the 3 angels' messages.

In fact, I'm going to have you guys advance to the first slide for me here.

This is something I've shared and I hope you can follow along the statement here.

From the book testimonies for the church, volume 9, page 19, it says, in a special sense, Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and lightbearers.

To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world.

I really want that to sink into your ears.

When these young men from Salt came up and shared what they did, and brother, you said Daniel 2, we grow up with it, and we don't have a clue how many people have never heard these things before, totally unprepared for the coming of Jesus, says on them that is Seventh-day Adventist, a 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.

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

And this isn't us listening to the message, this is us giving the message.

And in case I forget to say it later, I want you to be clear on something tonight.

Most people are not going to receive the message like this, and they're not going to be receiving it in an evangelistic meeting.

And the Lord has enlisted every 1 of us and given us the ability.

I am a debtor both to Jews and to Greeks.

So we've been talking about this and I've been wanting to dwell on some of the practical aspects.

I mean we talk about the 3 angels' messages and if you talk about Adventist history and you go way back to William Miller and all of that business, for a lot of us we're far removed from it.

So I've been trying to draw out some of the practical implications of those messages.

For example, the first angel's message, the message stirred the people with the soon coming of Jesus and led them to examine their own profession of faith in Christ with their actual experience with Christ.

It's easy to say I'm a follower of Jesus, but if Jesus were here in person, would I be going where he's going?

The second message, the message of the warning against Babylon, exposed the danger of the truth and error mixture of Babylon and her teachings, grooming us, And I'm going to pick up on this in a minute, grooming us to receive the mark of the beast.

The third angel's message has to do with the mark of the beast, but far more.

And if you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, we're going to Revelation 14.

And we're going to look at the third angel's message here.

The Bible says, Here then a third angel followed them, that is the first and the second angels, saying with a loud voice, if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation.

Who on this earth has ever drank the cup of God's wrath full strength?

There's only 1 and that's Jesus Christ and he drank it so nobody else has to.

Now this is what the Bible says, whoever receives this mark, will receive the wrath of God, the wine of the wrath of God, poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation.

He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb.

And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever.

And they have no rest day or night, who worship the Beast in his image and whoever receives the mark of his name here is the patience of the Saints here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

I'm not sure exactly how it is today I know how it was when I was growing up as a young Adventist and the mindset was this oh we know about the mark of the Beast this is going to be the Sabbath Sunday thing right and here's what I'm going to do I've got this down cold pastor here's what I'm going to do when they pass the Sunday law, that's when I'm gonna start going back to church, I'm gonna get caught up in my back tithe, I'm gonna start drinking decaf, and da da da da da da da da da.

I'm going to get everything right when they pass the Sunday law.

It's all about the, I know the right answers.

I got the cliff notes and when the test comes, I got it.

Well, it's not going to roll out that way.

See, the Mark of the Beast is the final test.

But I want you to understand something as we read in this passage here.

You know, the Mark of the Beast is a warning, but it's not a solution.

I want you to go to the screen with me and look at something Ellen White wrote interestingly about the third angel's message.

Several have written to me inquiring of the message, if the message of justification by faith is the third angel's message, and I have answered, it is the third angel's message in verity.

Let's look at 1 more that I have on the screen for you.

It's from the book Early Writings, and it says this.

The third angel closed his message, or closes his message in this way Here is the patience of the Saints here are they that keep the commandments of God in the faith of Jesus?

Notice what it says next as he repeated these words he pointed where?

The minds of all who embrace this message are directed to where?

Because it's where Jesus stands before the ark, making his final intercession.

The warning message of the third angel is not the solution.

The warning against the Mark of the Beast is not the means of resisting the Mark of the Beast any more than a warning about a coming storm is what prepares you for the storm.

Series

Plenary

The Final Exam

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

A Fresh Look at Country Living

1. Building Character for Eternity

57m

By Beholding

1h 10m

Nothing to Wear

51m

Plenary

Truth Only

51m

Plenary

The One Thing Jesus Can’t Give You

55m

Keys of Revelation

15. The Return of the King

1h

Plenary

Wake-Up Call

1h

The Great Object of Life

52m

Character Climb

45m

Accessing the Supernatural: From New Age to Scripture Memory

58m

Being Adventist

Born Adventist or Born Again?

1h 2m

Professedly Christian

45m

Sound Doctrine