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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

A High Time to Wake Up

And I'm going to turn it over to you, Brother John.

And of course, I want to welcome the Granite Bay pastors families and some of our studio people that are here and want to welcome those who are joining us online.

I think Santiago, who manages our Internet, is telling us that we've got people from all over the country that are tuned.

And we heard that during our Sabbath school program, names were being read from people all over the world.

And we want to encourage you to if you've got some friends and they don't know that this service is being provided, I've got to share some things I think are very important today.

You might ask them right now to go ahead, log on, tune in.

They can go to the amazing facts Facebook page.

They can go to the Doug Batchelor Facebook page to the YouTube Doug Batchelor YouTube site as well as the Granite Bay SDA Facebook page.

And I think it's even streaming through Vimo on that page as well.

And so we'd like to encourage God's people to come together.

We don't have our regular buildings we can gather in, but I think it's important for us to be together to study His word.

Now, as you could probably gather from the scripture reading, the message today is about a high time to wake up.

You know, we read there in Romans that the now our salvation is nearer and he says, So you need to wake up.

Now I'm going to talk about the importance of being awake through this lesson.

But before I get to that, I want to make sure that everyone understands we're living in a physically sleep deprived society.

And you can read in Psalm 8, I'm sorry, Psalm 4 verse 8.

I will both lie down in peace and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me to dwell in safety.

And in Psalm 127, verse 2, it is vain for you to rise up early to sit up late to eat the bread of sorrow for he gives his beloved sleep.

So sleep is wonderful when you're resting in the Lord.

Just in the last 100 years or so, people have become more and more sleep deprived because we got all this artificial light and artificial entertainment and people are struggling because of that with a lot of health problems.

Just like to always start with an amazing fact.

The longest documented record for a human going without sleep without using artificial stimulants is held by the 17 year old high school student from San Diego.

That's 11 days in a self imposed experiment, but it was monitored.

Randy reported hallucinations, nausea, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech, with problems in memory and concentration.

No wonder I can have that after about 16 hours without any sleep.

God made us where we need appropriate rest.

But in the Bible, when it says wake up, it's not talking about neglecting your physical rest.

It's talking about not sleeping spiritually.

And right now, friends, I think that there's a problem in the world is that our salvation is nearer than we believed and the church may be sleeping spiritually.

You know, folks are wondering what's going on in the world with these challenges and these problems and some of the frightening things that are happening.

There's a quote from the book, Prophets and Kings.

The time is at hand when there will be sorrow in the world that no human bond can heal.

Disasters by sea and by land follow 1 another in quick succession.

How frequently we hear of earthquakes we had 1 here in Lake Tahoe yesterday.

Tornadoes destruction by fire and flood with great loss of life and property.

Apparently these calamities are capricious outbreaks of disorganized unregulated forces of nature wholly beyond the control of man.

But in them all God's purpose might be read.

The agencies by which he seeks to arouse, that means to awaken men and women to a sense of their danger.

Whatever you think might be going on, I'm quite certain that God would like for these things to be the means of people waking up and realizing the danger that we're in.

Now, when we say wake up, there's 2 different groups that need to wake up.

People need to wake up to their spiritual need, but the church needs to wake up to help lead them to Christ.

Now, as my text to use as a springboard for our study today, I'd like you to go to the book of Jonah and in Jonah, chapter 1, verse 5, you know the story.

And it threatens to sink the ship and the sailors are throwing everything overboard.

Then the mariners were afraid and every man cried out to his God and they threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten the load.

But Jonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep.

Now this to me is really a prophetic picture of what's going on in the world today.

The people in the world are experiencing incredible economic loss.

That's the purpose why they're making this ship journey.

And, but Jonah, the prophet of God is asleep.

So I want you to consider 5 things about Jonah here.

I want you to look at who is sleeping, look at where he is sleeping, look at why he is sleeping, consider when he is sleeping, and then look at how he is sleeping.

In the middle of the storm, the person who's sleeping is the 1 who has a connection with God.

He's the 1 who knows the way of salvation.

The word of God is in his mouth and he's asleep.

He's asleep at a time when everybody else is praying and they're looking for salvation and he's sleeping.

Friends, I really think the church needs to wake up.

And while I'm concerned about what's going on in the world today, in some ways I'm excited because I have been praying that God would do something, whatever it takes to wake people up, not just people in America, because you can become so materialistic.

We think we're rich and increased with goods, and sometimes God has to wake us up.

But the church to wake up to what our mission is to return to the faith that was once delivered to the saints.

To get that primitive evangelistic zeal, that sacrificial spirit of Christ so that we'll care about the lost.

And it's something like the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

We've got these pagan beggars at our gate desiring to eat the crumbs that fall from our table.

We as Christians, especially Seventh-day Adventist Christians, we understand the Bible.

People are starving for what we're feasting on.

You know, this is kind of what happened in the Old Testament with the children of Israel.

He didn't want to go talk to the Ninevites.

But they kind of had this exclusive mentality.

It was okay for all of them to get together among themselves and to study and argue about the Word of God and so forth.

But that can also happen to churches where we forget about those who are starving around us.

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A High Time to Wake Up

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