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Village SDA Church

Confidence in Crisis

Ron Kelly

Confidence in Crisis - Part 1: When Nature Dies: The Almost Last Supper

Confidence in Crisis - Part 2: Survival in a Surveillance State

Confidence in Crisis - Part 3: Political Intrigue and Power

Confidence in Crisis - Part 4: The End or the Beginning?

Confidence in Crisis - Part 5: Prophetic Lockdown

Confidence in Crisis - Part 6: Faith Without Cloud or Pillar

Confidence in Crisis - Part 7: Covid-19 in a Post-Truth World

Confidence in Crisis - Part 8: Who Moved the Cheese?

Father, thank you for the nearness that you have for us.

Your presence draws near to comfort and to cheer.

So I'm praying now, Lord, as we open the word that You'll open our hearts.

I pray now, Lord, that we would not be afraid of the things that are upon the earth or the tidings from the east or the west, but that our confidence in You would deepen as the days go by.

Send Your Spirit into our homes and our hearts, I ask in Jesus' name, amen.

This morning I've entitled my message, Prophetic Lockdown.

Most of you are probably aware that 95% of the population of the United States is under some form of shelter-in-place order.

Yes, there are a few states where there are none of these orders, but when you take the actual population and the dense spots, 95% are restricted in their ability to move.

This morning, I want to talk with you about the fact that eventually the elements of Earth's convulsions for the last measure of civility and normalcy is going to be built around religious persecution.

What was in the past is what will become in the future.

Part of the reason we can have a measure of assurance that this moment with COVID is not the last moment is because there are so many things relative to what we can't see, and the battle about things that don't seem to matter the same way right now have not yet come to the forefront.

How rapidly we could move from where we are to there is nobody's guess.

We do know that when deliverance is upon a woman, great with child, that the final movements can be rapid ones.

And indeed, we've seen how different the world can be within a few days.

In this series of sermons called Confidence in Crisis, I'm attempting to make something exceptionally clear.

Is that the main preparation for the time of the end is a deepening confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ, a deepening knowledge in His word, and a love for the lost that will move us into positions where our faith is stretched, sometimes discomfort is upon us, but our confidence will grow.

The other thing I want to make abundantly clear in this journey of messages, is that the only deliverance for God's people has always only been from God.

And that will become more distinct as we press on to the end.

So there's nothing wrong with some little measure of preparation on our behalf in some senses.

We know that during the little time of trouble that precedes the 7 last plagues, that spiritual warfare is going to break out on the face of the planet.

And in the midst of all this, there will be the discussion, the re-discussion, I should say, of Sunday laws.

And during that period of time, God is calling His people out of the cities.

Eventually, persecution will become so intense that even people in small towns and villages will look for more out-of-the-way places.

Yes, a garden will be helpful in those moments and times.

But even that knowledge and even that progression of removing ourselves from places of potential high density population and thus persecution is a gift from God.

But the idea of saving up a lot of money, saving up a lot of food, the idea of a house being paid for, while all of those things will have some slight measure of potential advantage, they are really not what God is calling us to.

God is actually calling us to an active recommitment to the proclamation of the glorious gospel truth of the 3 angels' messages found in Revelation 14.

So when we think about Elijah, we realize that food will be an issue for God's end time witness.

Elijah is both a Old Testament in the life of Christ as well and symbol for the proclamation of truth in the end.

We know that Jesus referred to John the Baptist as Elijah, but didn't take away from the fact that Malachi's prophecy in chapter 4, last book of the Old Testament, would yet have a future application.

In other words, there will be an Elijah message at the end of time.

There will come moments when the abundance that we know now will be replaced with scarcity.

We saw with Elisha that it was a surveillance dynamic where the king of Aram surrounded that little town of Dothan.

And it could have appeared that Elisha was in big, big trouble, except for 1 thing, the God of all knowledge sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and nothing was going to happen to Elisha that God the Father did not allow.

We looked at Esther and we saw political intrigue, we saw how the levers of power and influence could be worked behind the scenes.

In all of these things we saw God's deliverance.

And last week I talked about conspiracy theories and fear as a motivator of preparation.

There are some who ought to be afraid in this moment.

They brought a human pride, a human arrogance, a human hubris.

They've made no preparation for the things that can't be seen, for the eternal issues for the world to come.

There is a group of people that might be listening to me for whom fear would be the natural, logical, and motivational step.

But for those that have come to know Christ, the devil would like to make them afraid so that they're paralyzed and self-focused as we approach the end, which is the last thing God wants from his people.

Those 12 spies that went from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the promised land in the book of Numbers during the time of the Exodus.

10 of them came back and they were unnerved by what they saw.

They went so far as to lie and say the land actually devoured its inhabitants, which was controverted by the fact that they brought back a cluster of grapes so large it was carried on a pole between 2 men.

But 2 of those men came back, and they were convinced that the God had delivered them from the oppressive hand of the Egyptians, could deliver them from the might of the Canaanites, Caleb and Joshua.

We don't know the names of the other 2 men, but we know the names of Caleb and Joshua, who served the Lord with completeness of heart, the scripture speaks to.

Yes, The devil would like Christians at this moment in time to be self-focused and afraid, and not focused on the completion of the gospel message, the commission that Jesus gave to us.

Take your Bibles this morning and open up to the book of Revelation.

I wanna show you that nothing has changed.

In the book of Revelation chapter 13, we look at an old beast and a new beast.

I want you to understand the nature of the old beast.

The nature of the old beast was persecution, restriction of conscience, the inability for 1 to follow the dictates of their own heart as led by the Holy Spirit.

Religious dynamics, we see 2 women described in the book of Revelation, a pure woman and a prostitute.

These 2 women represent churches, And these churches are warring at the end of time.

I'm going to show you how in the early days of the Christian Church with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, there was this amazing battle between the church that was alive and pure and true and the church that had lost its way, compromised with the world, but held much power.

Revelation chapter 13, talking about the beast.

Verse 1, the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.

Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having 10 horns and 7 heads, and on his horns were 10 diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.

And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like those of a bear, his mouth like the mouth of a lion, his dragon gave him the power and throne and great authority.

I saw 1 of his heads as if it had been slain and his fatal wound was healed.

And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast.

They worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast and they worshiped the beast saying, who's like the beast, Who's able to wage war with him?

He was given a mouth to speak arrogance and blasphemies, arrogance and blasphemy and authority to act for 42 months.

He opened his mouth and blasphemies against God to blaspheme the name of His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven.

It was also given to Him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given Him.

All who dwell on the face of the earth shall worship him.

Everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.

If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes.

And If anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed.

Here's the perseverance and faith of the saints.

I want to assure you this morning, without the time to spend an illustrative study in the Word of God, is that this first beast actually represents an arm of the church, empowered with civil authority, refusing to allow people to live out their understanding of their relationship with God and conscience.

It's about the fact that at the very end of time, the battle on the face of the planet is not going to be secular, it's not going to be geopolitical, it's going to be spiritual.

Satan has claimed this little globe as his, he's rusted it from the hands of its rightful rulers Adam and Eve and their descendants, And Jesus has come as a divine deliverer to restore to us the inheritance stolen away.

And all throughout the history of earth, religious power and civic power have been combined to oppress people and keep them from the worship that is due God and that is in the hearts of his faithful ones to offer freely.

Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth.

He had 2 horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon.

He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose fatal wound was healed.

He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men.

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life.

There's a new power on the scene, but it's every bit as much religious as the old.

And what we see here in the book of Revelation, chapter 13, is that before the emergence of some of the issues and the ideas and the enlightenment, before the rising of the United States of America, the world was locked in a constant, a constant devotion to those, often kings, who claimed to be gods.

And this idea of civic power and religious power separated is a new idea.

Throughout the eons of Earth's history, there has been this mandate that people worship as someone else tells them how to worship.

But along comes this new beast who appears to have a completely different approach.

He speaks at first like a lamb but he changes his dialogue to that of a devil.

And it's in the period of this time that I want to look this morning, because nothing has changed.

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Series

Confidence in Crisis

Confidence in Crisis - Part 5: Prophetic Lockdown

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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