Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Preview and Preparation: The Coming Crisis

Royce Snyman

1. An Overview of the Crisis Ahead

All right, the title of this class, yes, I figured it out now, is Preview and Preparation and the Coming Crisis.

And we're going to, today, we're going to look at an overview of the coming crisis, things of what to expect.

What this class is not, this class is not going to spend most of its time talking about last day events.

But we are going to talk about last day events, and especially today.

You can't talk about the coming crisis without talking about current events, right?

And so today in our overview we're especially going to be looking at that.

That you and I may know the events and not know the 1 who's coming, and it doesn't matter.

Except that you'll just know and your heart will be filled with fear because events only will trigger fear in our hearts unless we have a relationship with Jesus who casts all fear out.

And so our class is going to be talking especially about the work of preparation for the return of Jesus.

We have a book, I have a book that I got in my library many, many years ago, and to tell you the truth, it suddenly vanished when I really wanted it.

And so I was so grateful when the book showed back up.

It hadn't been published for a while, but it's called Preparation for the Final Crisis by Fernando Chai.

We told the ABC about it and their book is available at the ABC and it's kind of going to be our textbook for this class.

And the things that we will share today, 2 sources for our presentation today in terms of primary sources.

First of all, Ellen White and the Bible, okay?

A source for some of the final events that I'm going to be sharing today come from a presentation by Elder Ed Reed and some great materials that I was able to glean from him, and then also from Fernando Chay's book.

And just to give you a little bit of reference, so if you want to go back and get some of those materials and maybe fill in the gaps that we don't have time to get into today, I just want you to know what those sources are.

I'd like to begin by talking a little bit about some of the current events that are going on.

Well, you all have cell phones and You have iPads and you have computers and if you're shaking your head, God bless you.

I am so tied to these things and wish I could get untied.

In my work, unfortunately, I need them and they're helpful to me, but there are times when I say, really?

Anyway, that's a current event by the way, these things.

But wherever you get your news from, if you are listening to the news, you are...

So the current events I wanna share with you, I wanna do it in this context.

This is a statement from Ellen White and Acts of the Apostles, page 260.1.

Now, I'm just curious, I know this is small print and it's a large 1, can any of you in the back read it?

It's Acts of the Apostles, page 260, and this is what she says in the underlined portion.

There are in the world today many 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." I hope you're studying your Sabbath school lessons.

These lessons from 1st and 2nd Peter have been absolutely outstanding.

And there is so much that applies to what we're talking about today in 1st and 2nd Peter.

Peter makes it clear that people are ignoring what's going on around us, saying that there's a delay, and Jesus, you know, this isn't really going to happen.

And this is the kind of thing that we've been dealing with for a long time in our lives as Seventh-day Adventist Christians.

But the things are beginning to kick in at such a rapid pace today.

I have a friend of mine who told me that he was putting some things on a blog of last day events, and he said, I thought, you know, I'm going to have a hard time finding stuff, so I'll put something up there once a month and be able to do that, " and he found he can't keep up with it.

He can't, every, every, almost every day something is showing up there.

Ellen White continues in the statement, she says, Paul teaches that it is sinful to be indifferent to the signs which are to precede the second coming of Christ.

Those guilty of this neglect when he calls children of the night and of darkness, out of the night and of darkness, He encourages the vigilant and watchful with these words, be ye then brethren not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief.

You are the children of light and the children of the day.

We are not of the night nor of the darkness.

Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober." So if someone says, well, you're just watching last day events and all that, and that's bad, now she says we need to be observant.

We need to know what's going on around us.

It shouldn't control us and it shouldn't be all we do.

Our relationship is not with events, it's with Jesus.

Not knowing when something is going to happen is not going to cost you salvation.

So this class again is focusing not just on the events but on the preparation for what's coming.

When we scheduled this class, and I am in charge of seminars, and along with Shelly Ringstaff, my secretary, she does all the work, I get the responsibility.

But she does a great job, and we really appreciate, I really appreciate what she does.

And as I got to looking at the schedule the way it was laying out, I asked myself, I sure don't want my class to be conflicting with another class that's going on as well during this series.

And that class is the 1 that's being taught by Ron Duffield.

If you don't go to that class, I hope you will go to that class.

That class, I've been reading his material, and I'm so thankful he agreed to come because we all need to understand what is God's work for us today in these last days.

So Ellen White is trying to help us understand what the issues are.

I want you to be aware that this presentation by Ed Reed is on YouTube.

You can get it any form you want where it lists some of those things.

The material that I found most recently doesn't have some of the latest events that are going on that are absolutely dramatic and critical, but nonetheless, they're there and it is helpful to you.

I know that you weren't around in 1755, so that's not a current event, but let's put it in our context.

Let's get an understanding that we are living in the last days.

The reason these events are critical to us is because those were the events that began to set the stage for the last days of Earth's history.

These dates are leading up to 1844, when God's people in the Millerite movement and what followed afterwards began to see what God was doing and what was happening in the world.

They began to realize that they were indeed living in the times that the Bible said would be here and that they were then experiencing, they were living in the last days.

This is, in my mind, the beginning of those last day events that really set the context for us.

I'm not going to spend any time about those.

You studied about them when you became a Seventh-day Adventist, and you study about them when you go through an evangelistic series, and you connect with those.

But let's get a little bit more current and come up to our time and be reminded of what God told us in Matthew 24.

Jesus, when he was talking to his disciples, you remember the context, he was in an environment where they could see the city of Jerusalem, they could see that beautiful temple that was built there.

And Jesus told him that the temple was gonna be destroyed and raised up in 3 days.

They're trying to do the math on all of that.

They're looking over there and they're trying to understand that.

But only 1 event made any sense to them about the temple being destroyed, and that was the end of the world and the return of Christ.

And so Jesus put it all in the context of the last day events, and that's in Matthew 24.

And 1 of the things he spoke of there are the false prophets.

All around us are false prophets today in all kinds of different guises and forms.

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda claims that he is Jesus Christ.

And the thing that amazes me about these individuals is they have amazing followings of people.

It's not just a few hands-on people like Jim Jones who had, well he had 800 some odd people that died under him, but there are others who've had just almost handfuls, smaller groups than you've got in this room.

He's not even alive anymore, but he had an opportunity for getting everybody's attention And he said that on May 21, 2011, and if I remember correctly, he had several dates that he said the Bible guarantees that Jesus was coming then.

They say the Bible guarantees this, it doesn't happen.

And people say, therefore, what can you trust with the Bible?

2. Reformation- The Laodicean Message

Father in Heaven, thank you that we have this wonderful privilege to study the Word of God, and we also have the gift of the Spirit of Prophecy that has been provided for us to guide us and to prepare us for the coming crisis.

We pray that Your Spirit, most importantly, will be present in this room today and that You will guide what I say and what we hear.

May we learn together, may we be prepared together for the return of Jesus and we thank you in his name yesterday we spent some time talking about preparation for the final crisis in the light of the events going on in the world today.

We spent the early part of our time talking about the events that go back to late 1700s and early 1800s that are clearly marking a delineation between what has gone on before and entering into the last days, the final days before Jesus returns.

As you will recall, especially those of you who are studying, and I know you all are, studying the Sabbath School lesson, you know that this issue of delay in 1st Peter and 2nd Peter is discussed and this delay, this delay that's going on has people challenged trying to figure out how is it that this delay still means that Jesus is coming.

But Peter reminds us that with God, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as as a day.

For you and I who just in that little brief period of time of 60 or 70 years or by reason of strength more, it Seems like this is forever.

But when we live 80 years or 90 years, this is not forever.

There are some chairs over on the far side, over here, so there are some places.

With God, time doesn't work like it does for us.

And He is wanting us to know, don't give up, it's coming.

You know, we're like little children waiting for Christmas.

It just, you know, I mean we've been waiting for 10 days already, where's Christmas, you know?

So we talked yesterday about the events that are going on now that really help to put it into perspective that there are things happening now so quickly that we as Seventh-day Adventist Christians need to be paying close attention because things are happening so quickly.

The stress I placed yesterday is we're not saved by events.

The events will not save us, our knowledge of the events will not save us, we may die in our knowledge of the events, we might die eternally with a knowledge of the events, because it's not the events that save us, it's Jesus who saves us.

But in His mercy and His kindness, He wants us to know that His promise in John 14 is going to be fulfilled and is in the process of being fulfilled.

And we're almost there when it will be finally fulfilled and Jesus will return.

His promise is valid as truly as the miracles he performed on this earth as truly as the people he saved from sin is his promise that he is wanting to save us from sin as well.

Today I want to take us into a part that you may say, you know, I was going to ask you so I guess I will.

You really want to go on with this class?

Now It's time to start thinking seriously about what Jesus wants to do in our hearts and lives.

It means every 1 of us are going to need to change.

And it means that people like me who stand up and teach classes about needing to change are also going to need to change.

So today we're going to be talking about the Reformation that's needed and the Laodicean message that we are told is going to bring about this final Reformation.

This is the part that we really need to understand.

We're going to get into some of the things that come on the heels of this in our days that follow.

You've seen the outline in the little booklet that's out there what we're going to be doing.

We're going to be talking about more about the shaking and those kinds of issues that go on within the church.

We're going to be talking about the events that surround the return of Christ and all that goes along with that, but we must first recognize that there is a Reformation to come and if we are to be prepared we must be part of that Reformation.

The Reformation must be going on in our hearts and our lives.

Ellen White says this in second volume of Spiritual Gifts, she says, I saw that the testimony to the Laodiceans applied to God's people at the present time.

Yes, at her time, and yes, in our time as well.

1 of the things that I learned by studying the material that Ron Duffield has prepared and is sharing here on the campground as well, is that God wanted to do something special with his people back in 1888 and the years that follow.

And so when she makes a statement like this, she's talking about them then that she wanted, that God wanted to do that work for.

And now you and I are still here, that means he still wants to do that work.

That means now is the time for this to happen.

She continues to say it was designed to arouse the people of God to discover to them their backslidings and to lead to zealous repentance that they might be favored with the presence of Jesus.

It's not I don't want to know about my sins but I need to know about them and I need to zealously repent and I need to be prepared.

Ellen White says in volume 1 of Selected Messages, page 121 up here on your screen, it says, A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs.

That is a very well-known statement, but I dare say we're not taking it as seriously as we need to.

We're not realizing that this is exactly what God wants to do for us, is to bring in among us a revival of true godliness.

I am concerned, you should be too, that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is dealing with issues that have nothing to do with a revival of true godliness.

Some of the things that are being thrown around in the church, and I haven't identified what they are, I just said some of the things that are being thrown around in the church are not the kinds of things that are needed here.

God wants this is our greatest need, and he wants to help us.

This should be the work that we are seeking to have happen in our lives.

There must be earnest effort to obtain the blessing of the Lord, not because God is not willing to bestow His blessing upon us, but because we are unprepared to receive it.

This should be getting our attention, it should be our concern, It should be the matter of our devotional life every day.

And I don't mean to obsess about it, but I mean it should be the focus and our understanding that this is indeed our greatest need.

Ellen White says, and I wish I had time to go through every single statement in depth, but we do have the references here you can look them up and that will be able to give you some guidance.

But she says in Christian Service page 42, Reformation must accompany revival.

There are a lot of things that go on pretending to be, a couple more chairs needed, I think, out there, there's 1 more left.

Okay, we're good, I'll let people find it.

When you're at the door and you see people point them towards the chairs that'd be great.

A revival of true godliness may be our greatest need, but that revival includes Reformation.

Reformation doesn't only imply change it means change.

There is going to need to be a change in our hearts, in our minds, and what is that change?

That's what we're here to talk about today.

Ellen White tells us, Great Controversy, page 464, that the greatest revival since Pentecost is coming.

Don't you want to see that today in your church where you live, worship, and serve?

Don't you want to see that in your church, the Seventh-day Adventist church, in Michigan, in North America, in the world?

Then it needs to be the focus of our prayers.

It needs to be where God is leading us some of the challenges we need to keep in mind in relationship to Reformation and to change that God wants to bring about is the devil gets this too.

He's had 6, 000 years whatever to study it.

You know, and he's got a pretty good brain to go along with it.

So he studied this all out, and he's been planning all along his steps in relationship to what he needs to do to counterbalance that.

In the Reformation that we call the Protestant Reformation that came about, Satan knew it was coming, Satan saw it as it arrived, Satan had already prepared the ground to be able to work with it.

And some of the things we're talking about here is exactly what he did.

But We turn around and we call what happened next, especially as the Roman Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation, we call that the counter-reformation.

What the Roman Catholic Church did in order to try to push back the Protestant Reformation.

Well, God knows what he is seeking to lead his people to and Satan has an idea of what it is that God's going to do and so he's already preparing his counter-reformation for our own time.

He's not only pushing back the Protestant Reformation in 2017 in a very real way, but he knows there's a real revival just like Pentecost and a reformation just like Pentecost that's about to come and he's preparing the ground now for that.

He uses things like as he did in history, he uses obstacles that can be brought into the way.

Paul says, Ellen White, in Great Controversy 396, wherever the Apostle raised up a church there were some who professed to receive the faith but who brought in heresies that if received would eventually crowd out the love of the truth.

This is the challenge that we are facing today in a very real way in Michigan and the United States.

It's happening in alarming ways and it's going to start becoming even more visible in the days ahead.

A former Seventh-day Adventist minister, who even happened to pastor in Michigan some years ago, no longer in Michigan, and that's all I'll say about that part of it, posted something on the internet recently and said, people are gonna be shocked because I'm telling you what I believe and there are other people like me who believe what I believe and you're going to be surprised.

And what he believes is not what Seventh-day Adventists believe.

3. The Sealing and the Latter Rain

Father in Heaven, as we begin our class again today, we do rejoice in the knowledge that Jesus is coming again.

We believe in the Second Advent of Jesus, and we're looking forward to that day with eager anticipation.

But we know that there is a preparation work that You want to do in our hearts, and we need to understand that, and we want to be able to apply that in our lives.

We pray that Your Holy Spirit will bless us in our class today.

Give me words to speak and each 1 ears to hear what you have to share with them, I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, we're moving from our first class where We were summarizing some of the events and looking at an overview of what to expect in the future.

Again, this is a general class, we can't get into every specific, but yesterday, today, tomorrow and Friday, we do want to look at some of those specifics in terms of that work of preparation that God wants to do in our hearts and our lives.

We're going to look today especially at the sealing and the latter rain.

An interesting topic, 1 that shows up not to this extent at an evangelistic meeting, but we do talk about the seal of God and the mark of the beast, don't we?

How many of you have attended a public evangelistic meeting sometime in the last 2 years?

Okay, so you know what I'm talking about, right?

If they weren't, please come see me and we'll talk about why they weren't included.

So we'll have to deal with it accordingly.

But the seal of God is an interesting perspective on what God wants to do with us.

So I want to start off, thank you very much.

Sign up, sign in sheets if they've gotten around, want to make sure nobody gets missed.

If there's any material that you need, be sure and sign it.

I want to give a synthesis of the sealing right now, which mainly means that I just want to boil it down for a moment here so that we get a perspective of it and then we would talk about it more in detail.

So first of all, the sealing involves what Ephesians, Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30, when he says, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of what?

So we're preparing for the return of Christ, the day of redemption is that day, And the work of the Spirit of God, we are told, is to seal us under that day.

We want to understand what that means so that we can allow that to be happening in our lives.

The second point is that the latter rain, according to Alan White in Testimonies to Ministers page 506, represents the spiritual grace that prepares the church for the coming of the Son of Man.

Now, we're gonna talk more about the latter rain in the last half of today.

It is a misnomer for us when we put all what the Bible says and what Ellen White says about the latter rain to allow that to be the final statement here.

It says it represents a spiritual grace that prepares the church for the coming of the Son of Man.

Yes, it is, but it's not a grace that you get by sitting around doing nothing.

It's not where you just suddenly wake up 1 day and and Jesus said, well, I like you today, so I'm going to give you the the seal, I'm going to give you the latter rain.

That's not how that works, and I want to make sure that statement doesn't lead you to that conclusion.

But what is clear from this statement is that it is spiritual grace that Jesus gives to us that prepares us for His coming.

The sealing begins in conversion and ends at death or the close of probation.

We're coming back to it now to make sure that it is clear and that we represent or understand what it is that God is doing for us.

At conversion, that sealing process begins.

It means that the experience that we have is that Jesus gives to us when we talked yesterday about the conversion experience and the justification experience.

That is the beginning of the sealing work.

The sanctification experience is the ongoing process of sealing us.

Series

Preview and Preparation: The Coming Crisis

1. An Overview of the Crisis Ahead

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Exonerating God, Part 2

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Revelation 13: Big Picture of The Beast

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01 LGT: A Recantation

48m

Norman McNulty: The Book of Hebrews

Hebrews 12:5-29 “The Highway to Mount Zion”

44m

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

12 Earth’s Closing Events

28m

Sound Doctrine