ASI Southern Union 2019: Present Truth | Happening Now

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ASI Southern Union

John Bradshaw

Present Truth

How many people here are marathon runners?

Someone is volunteering you as a marathon runner.

So for me, marathon running was a lot like skydiving.

When I wore a younger man's clothes, I was certainly going to do it.

I was going to get around to running a marathon.

There were times my knee hurt, my back hurt.

I grew up playing rugby, and so you carry that with you.

In fact, I went out once and bought 2 very good pairs of running shoes, determined that now was the time I would run a marathon.

I would train in my new Brooks running shoes, never did get around to it.

Every time I think of my birth date, my age, I think, you know, honestly, it's probably never going to happen.

The runner in our family right now is Melissa.

In December, an American marathon runner, a young lady from Nebraska, she was running a marathon with the goal of qualifying for the American Olympic trials.

The time she was aiming for was 2 hours and 45 minutes.

But as she ran, she was running well, running freely, and she realized she was on pace to run the marathon in 2 hours and 43 minutes.

She would have qualified for the Olympic trials with tons of room to spare.

But then, as she said later, The marathon did what marathons do, and she started to slow down.

At the 25-mile mark, she saw a man in a Jesus costume holding a sign that said, the end is near.

Of course, it's only 26.2 miles, and so the end was near, but she thought to herself, I feel like the end might be right now for me.

She didn't know how far she had to run the final mile, but she knew she had to really dig deep.

He started to coax her and encourage her.

He ran ahead of her to the water station, grabbed a drink, brought it back to her.

And the help helped her a lot until she came around the last bend and the finish line was in view and her friend said her legs were wobbling.

And it didn't look like she could make it 20 miles, great.

25 miles, you know, okay, but that last mile, oh no.

And she wasn't sure whether or not she'd make 245, that was the time she needed, and just a few paces short of the line, she fell to the ground.

But she would not stop, and she rolled to the finish line and made it across.

Now, you carry a chip with you somewhere.

That recorded her time as 2.45.00, the qualifying time, except the time from the starters gun indicated that she had run in 2.45 and 7 seconds, which means she missed qualifying for the United States Olympic trials.

You don't typically see people rolling themselves to the finish line in a marathon.

I'm hoping tonight that we are not like the unfortunate marathon runner who ran well for 20 miles, who ran not so well for the next several, struggled the next 1 and then just really struggled the final 1 only to roll to the finish and misqualify.

I wonder if you'd open your Bible with me to 2 Peter, 2 Peter in chapter 1 and we'll look in verse 12.

And this is Peter, I'm jumping right to the verse that you expected that I would use in a sermon entitled Present Truth, where Peter said, "'Wherefore, I will not be negligent "'to put you always in remembrance of these things, "'though you know them, and be established "'in the, " what?

"'Present Truth.'" The New King James Version says, "'The Present Truth.'" It's interesting, other versions say something like, "'Be established in the truth that is with you or the truth that is present with you, the truth that you have.

We've made our peace with the translation that says the present truth.

And we have grown to appreciate the concept of and our possession of present truth.

We believe that truth has been for certain ages down through time.

Martin Luther did not keep the seventh day Sabbath.

Martin Luther did not understand Daniel 8 and verse 14.

But Martin Luther's calling was to preach the doctrine of righteousness or justification by faith.

Because the ruling church in Luther's day had darkened the truth.

People could not see the light of the truth.

The gospel was hidden, and they had essentially been enslaved by the ruling church that made them a source of income that kept them dependent on the church and robbed from them their freedom to think for themselves.

Martin Luther said, no, no, no, this whole idea of justification by works.

The church will say, oh, we don't really believe justification by works, salvation by works, but that's what the church will say.

Yes, they really did, and yes, they really do.

Luther said, no, we want you to believe what the Bible says, and that is that you may receive the righteousness of Christ through faith in Jesus Christ.

It was a phenomenally eye-opening, the heavens have departed and the light of Christ shines down into your heart, truth.

Ellen White said in the second volume of the Testimonies, the present truth, which is a test to the people of this generation, was not a test to the people of generations far back.

If the light which now shines upon us in regard to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment had been given to the generations in the past, God would have held them accountable for that light.

And so evidently, God did not give the light, did not shine the light.

He knew in 1517 that the return of Jesus would not be for 500 more years or thereabouts.

And so the present truth for now, the truth which we have, the truth for us today is rather different from what it was in the past.

It contains the truth that we had in the past, but it speaks to us today in a fuller, brighter light.

And here we are in the end of this earth's history with the truth that has advanced, and we find ourselves the heralds of that mighty truth.

Now, I would like to look with you at a passage, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and we start in verse 1, which says, Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him.

And so the context is this is presented in the light of the, tell me, the second coming of Jesus.

That you'd be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, he had spoken about the return of Jesus, and now he comes back around because there were people who thought that if you weren't alive when Jesus returned, then you couldn't go to heaven.

So Paul is writing this for clarification, and he says, even if you got a letter purportedly from us, don't believe that Christ's coming is at hand.

He says, Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away, what, first, and that man of, tell me, sin be revealed, the son of perdition.

And he describes the son of perdition by describing him as the 1 who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, all that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that He is God.

We are talking here about major end time, last days deceptions, the fullness of which we have not yet seen.

Remember ye not that when I was with you, yet with you, I told you these things?

Now you know what withholds that he might be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of iniquity does already work.

Only he who now lets, that means hinders, will let or hinder until he be taken out of the way.

And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.

Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, in them that, tell me, perish, because they did not receive the, tell me, love of the truth that they might be saved.

And so Paul is painting this scenario, this picture.

He's graphically portraying what will take place down here in the end of time.

He is saying Jesus hasn't come and he's not gonna come because there are gonna be great last day deceptions.

We understand that as involving the man of sin, the Roman Catholic papacy.

And this thing is gonna hold certain things in check until it'd be taken out of the way.

The devil will work with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.

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