Hartland Summer Conference 2018: Prepared for the Final Crisis

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Jim Howard

All My Goodness

I thought it would be good to talk to you on the theme of this camp meeting.

What is the theme of this camp meeting anyway?

You know, as Seventh-day Adventists, we frequently say that we have a message to prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus.

And we prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus with a special message that has been entrusted to us.

This is not a message just for us, just so you know.

It just so happens that the Bible gives the second coming of Christ in Revelation 14, 14.

1 like the Son of Man coming in the clouds with a sickle in his hand to reap the harvest of the earth.

That's a picture of the coming of Christ and just prior to that there are messages that are to be given, the 3 angels' messages.

That's not our message, that's what the Bible mandates Christians to share before the coming of Jesus, it's just we have embraced it.

And that is in essence how we prepare the world for the coming crisis by giving the message that God gave us to give before he comes.

Revelation 14 and let's look at the first angel.

How do we prepare the world for the coming crisis?

By saying with a loud voice, Revelation 14, 7, Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come.

And worship Him who made heaven and earth the sea and springs of water.

This is how you prepare for the coming of Jesus.

Notice what it says, for the hour of his judgment has come.

There's, you know, when you have a test coming, you've got to prepare for it.

You can't just wake up that morning and all of a sudden do well.

And so we're telling the world, you need to be prepared.

Let's just make sure that we remind ourselves by going to the book of Exodus.

We have 1 of the most outrageous questions or requests in all the Bible.

Where Moses speaks to the Lord and says in verse 18, please show me your glory.

All my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.

I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

That's where the title of the message for tonight comes.

I will make all my goodness pass before you.

He said, okay, I'm gonna make all my goodness pass before you.

Then when the time comes in chapter 34, he tells them, he tells Moses, you've got to bring tables of stone, like the first ones.

And in verse 5, it says, Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and did what?

Proclaimed the name of the Lord and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.

Here you see this merging of these different things that are brought up.

I would say there's 4 different things here that are almost synonymous, and they're all spoken of in this 1 passage.

You have the glory of God, You have the goodness of God or His character.

You have the law of God, which is a transcript of His character.

And you have the name of God, which is representative of His character.

Here is 4 different things that are representations of who God is.

They're all referring to the goodness or character of God.

And it's fascinating to me when he shares this little picture of his character that he ends with these not so pleasant words, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children of the third and the fourth generation.

Well, it's interesting to me also that he told Moses, I will make all my goodness pass before you.

There has to be not just mercy, but a blending of mercy and justice.

Justice is as much an expression of God's love as his mercy.

And so that's why Moses then bows his face to the ground and he worships Because when you see God high and lifted up, when you see Him for who He is, it just cuts you to the heart.

And it's so pure and beautiful that it brings about the immediate response of worship.

This is what it means to give glory to God is to behold the character of God and then reflect it.

And so when it says fear God and give glory to Him it's talking about aligning ourselves with the mind of God, having the very character of God reflected in our lives.

Ellen White, in the book Christ's Object Lessons, page 414, says, The light of His glory – His character – is to shine forth in his followers.

So, Ellen White describes the glory of God as his character and it is to shine forth out of God's people.

So Revelation 14, fear God and give glory to Him.

That's the first verse that came to my mind when I thought about being prepared for the final crisis.

The message that is to prepare the world for the coming of Jesus is the 3 angels.

And the first angel says, fear God and give glory to him.

Well, I thought of another passage when I thought, how do you prepare for the final crisis?

You remember in Matthew 24, Jesus tells about the signs of the end?

In fact in Matthew 24 14 Jesus says that the gospel will go to all the world and then the end shall come which is exactly a parallel of Revelation 14 because you have the everlasting gospel going to the whole world in the 3 angels and then you have the end coming.

But ultimately in Matthew 24 you see kind of a setup because when you get to the end of Matthew 24 and on into Matthew 25, Jesus is using this description of the end to help God's people know how to be prepared for His coming.

And Matthew 25, if ever there was a parable that talked about being ready for the coming of Jesus, it's Matthew 25 and the parable of the 10 virgins.

We may not read through the entire parable, but I'd like to remind you of its beginnings.

The Bible says, Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to 10 virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

Now 5 of them were wise and 5 were foolish.

Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.

The 5 who were foolish woke up, their lamps were going out, they went to ask for more oil and the wise said, no, there's not enough for both of us.

And so they went to get oil and the door was shut and the foolish versions were not permitted to come in.

Now this idea of oil, we've taught it for many years in the Seventh-day Adventist Church because this parable is very ingrained in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

You'll see Ellen White refer to this parable in the context of the movement of 1844.

You can read that in the book, The Great Controversy.

She also, in the book, Christ's Object Lessons, uses this parable to describe events at the coming, just prior to the coming of Jesus.

Well, we are quick to point out that the oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit.

How do you be prepared by, How do we collect the Holy Spirit so that we have it with us?

We do not use the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit fills and uses us, so how is it that we make sure that we have this extra oil.

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All My Goodness

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