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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Carlis Clinton

Evacuation Plans

16 years after Hurricane Katrina, which was the costliest and the most deadly hurricane in the United States history, Hurricane Ida was making her way to the coasts of Louisiana.

And so in hindsight, we now have found out that Ida is the second costliest hurricane in United States history.

It didn't take as near about as many lives but you know as Hurricane Ida began to make her way towards the coast.

The meteorologists, you know, they were charting her course.

They knew that they began to warn the people, you need to brace yourselves in these coastal areas around Louisiana and that area down there in Mississippi.

You've got to prepare for this hurricane this coming.

And so some of the state and the city officials, they began to urge people to make evacuation plans.

And some of the areas had mandatory evacuation orders, some they were all voluntary, but everyone began to brace who were in that area, brace for a storm that was coming that they knew had very deadly potential.

And just 2 weeks ago yesterday, In anticipation of Ida making landfall, the mayor of New Orleans, LaToya Cantrell, said this.

She said, the situation is much more serious than it was 6 hours ago.

And the hurricane, it represents a dramatic threat to the people of the city of New Orleans and she said this, Time is not on our side.

Lord Jesus, this morning I am keenly aware it seems like time is not on our side, but Jesus, you are on our side.

And for that we find great hope and great comfort, And I'm just praying this morning through the foolishness of preaching and through your Holy Spirit that you will touch our hearts this morning.

Make us keenly aware of the time in which we live and keenly aware of the need of Jesus that we all have right now.

So Lord please forgive us of our sins, send your presence here mightily among us I asked in Christ's name, amen.

2 weeks ago as the forecasters began to anticipate this arrival of Ida, It occurred to me, I was driving in my car, and it struck me, I said, this evacuation plan, this evacuation ideas, this is a perfect analogy to the coming, the warnings that we hear to be prepared for the second coming of Jesus.

And so I started then working on this sermon and a lot of things began to come to my mind that we won't even have time to get into today of how all this tied together.

But because as important as it was for the people over in the East to be preparing for Ida, how much more important is it for us to be preparing to meet Jesus when he comes back very soon.

I want you to look at a couple of quotes with me evangelism page 194 and 195.

It says there are many who do not understand the prophecies relating to these days and they must be enlightened it is the duty of both watchmen and layman to give the trumpet a certain sound and as a watchman in the Seventh-day Adventist Church I've been given a responsibility and that and I want to make the trumpet make a certain sound every time I step into the pulpit I feel like it's this is God this could be the last time who knows what's going to happen and so I feel a responsibility and again as I mentioned in the prayer I want us to be keenly aware of the the prophetic time of where we're at in that stream of prophetic time right now.

It says, let the watchman now lift up their voice and give the message which is present truth for this time.

Let us show the people where we are at in prophetic history.

That's my goal this morning, is to take a peek at some of this prophetic timeline and see exactly where we're at.

And I believe that Jesus, brothers and sisters, I believe Jesus is coming soon.

And I believe it is time now for us to be making evacuation plans go with me if you would to Matthew chapter 24 excuse me Matthew chapter 24 I'm gonna read verses 42 through 44 Matthew 24 beginning in verse 42 I'm reading from the New King James version says what's there for you don't know what hour your Lord is coming but know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into in verse 44.

Therefore you also be ready for the son of man is coming in an hour that you do not expect.

In this passage Jesus says you need to watch and you need to be ready for my coming and you know we in the Seventh-day Adventist Church we're pretty good at that I mean the Adventist that it's in our it's a part of our name it's a part of our makeup We're anticipating the coming the advent of Jesus so we we take the second coming of Jesus very seriously But with this encouragement to watch in this passage Jesus says that he's going to come at a time that we don't expect it And when I read that And I look at all this going on in the world and I look at what we understand as a church prophetically from the Bible.

I was like, it's kind of perplexing to me that Jesus says, well, you know, all these things and be watching for it.

But he says, you're not going to know exactly what's going to happen.

And so I thought, well, if you back up even to the beginning of this chapter that we're looking at in Matthew chapter 24, you're going to see this chapter is a whole chapter is basically a point by point list of things to be looking for, to be aware of, it's going to be taking place just prior to the coming of Jesus.

He says, you don't know what hour your Lord is coming.

And he also says, the Son of man is coming in an hour you do not expect.

And So it's still in spite of all of that, in spite of all he had just said in the previous verses in Matthew 24, he ends up saying it's going to be a surprise to some degree or another.

We who know the truth should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as a what overwhelming surprise I thought man but the surprise brothers and sisters is going to be for those who are not preparing, those who are not watching, those who are not thinking and observing and being alert as to what's going on.

We who are watching and waiting, believe me, there's some quotes, but There's going to be some things that's going to surprise us about how some of these things unfold.

We have a very clear idea of many of the things, but some of the things are going to surprise us, I think all of us.

But, he's saying, you don't have to be totally taken by surprise.

It says, For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

Verse 3, For when they say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as a labor pains upon a pregnant woman and they shall not escape but he says notice verse 4 but you brethren are not in darkness so that this day should overtake you as a thief you're all sons of light and sons of the day.

Therefore, he says, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.

Other words, we don't have to be taken by surprise if we're keeping our eyes open, if we're keeping in tune with Jesus.

We need to watch and we need to be alert of what's taking place in the world around us.

And notice this quote, those who place themselves under God's control to be led and guided by him will catch the steady tread of the events ordained by him to take place.

So he says those of us who are given our lives to Jesus who every day we're surrendering ourselves to him he says you'll be able to notice the tread of the things as they as things are marching on towards my coming you'll be aware of those things another quote and again all these are in that handout this that will be online says prophecy is fast fulfilling more notice this much more should be said about these tremendously important subjects The day is at hand when the destiny of souls will be fixed forever.

Great pain should be taken to keep this subject before the people.

The solemn fact is to be kept not only before the people of the world, but before our own churches that the day of the Lord will come suddenly and unexpectedly.

The message that I'm sharing with you today is a message that I shared with my congregation last Sabbath and I told them as I mentioned last night that I have never as a pastor in over 2 decades gone through a timeline, a chronology of last day events.

I've never done this in my ministry before, and I'm doing it because I think there's some confusion now about this.

I'm finding out more and more that a lot of us as Seven-Day Adventists, some of these events and some of these things and the order of some of these things is kind of confused or very hazy in our minds.

We're not going to go through, don't worry, we're not going to go through everything on this list by any means.

But I do want you to be aware that second page has got lots and lots of texts and quotes that go along with all this you can spend it all Sabbath and next Sabbath and the Sabbath after going through these things but we've got to keep in mind brothers and sisters that we are in a stream of events and we can be watching and keeping an eye on what's going on in this prophetic time chart it leads us to the coming of Jesus we got to remember this world is not our home As comfortable as we may have become, this world is not our home.

And God has given us ample warnings that He is coming and now is the time to make our evacuation plans.

Notice this, the work of the people of God is to prepare for the events of the future which will soon come upon them with blinding force seven-day evidence we have long been known for our prophetic understanding And many years ago we often use these prophetic timelines to heighten our awareness of the place we are the spots we're at in the time of in the in the history of the coming of Jesus.

But those things and using these things has largely fallen out of popularity for several reasons that we don't have time for me to go into this morning but regardless I see some value in it and as I shared this with my church last Sabbath I was surprised at the feedback I got especially from some of the younger people, how they were amazed to hear, and some of it was like it was the first time they'd heard some of these things.

I've got a picture of it on the screen here and it lays out this chronology of events Like I said, I'm not going to go into all of this and this is not developed by me This was originally by a guy named James Hayward.

I've made a few revisions Etc on here, but Basically what happens is the events that takes place leading up to the coming of Jesus.

They're basically broken up into 3 sections and 1 of them is this preparation time which we're living in now.

We're living in a time where we should be preparing.

We need to be surrendering our lives to Jesus so that's where we're at now secondly we're going to move into what we call the early time of trouble and then finally we'll move in to the final time of trouble another word we've heard we call it the time of Jacob's trouble and then the coming of Jesus but 1 of the dangers and this is 1 of the reasons that we don't use the charts like we used to so much is that these charts can give us a false sense of security it's what I call the Adventist version of the secret rapture because we look at that we take these charts and we say well we're over here the coming of Jesus is over here so I'm good right and those who believe in the secret rapture think well the the rapture hadn't happened so God's people hadn't taken so I've still got some time left right and so we as evidence this is our our secret rapture and so if we're not day we're not careful that's very dangerous thinking that I can just wait around because we still have some time to go we don't know what's going to happen but the 1 great prophetic marker in time that so many evidence look for to think that's the point where I know I've got to get serious with Jesus Can anyone guess what it is?

Exactly the Sunday law Let me assure you If you're waiting for that to happen to get serious with Jesus.

It's going to be way too late at that point.

You know in Matthew chapter 25 and I may be going over that parable this afternoon I'm still debating a couple of messages but in Matthew 25 there's the parable among other things of the 10 virgins and in that parable of those 10 virgins you find that 5 of them were foolish and they were foolish because they were not preparing ahead of time they start saying let us have some of your oil right they weren't preparing they when this day started coming they realized the bridegroom was there they said oh no we're not ready and so they were lost as a result and that story is given for you and I in fact miss white says very specifically that that 10 virgin is for the advent people today that's what that story is specifically applying to and so we've got to be ready now you know we're in that preparation time right now and so you can notice on this chart the first date that I have listed there is 1798 it begins what we call the time of the end this was when Revelation chapter 13 verse 3 it says I saw 1 of his deadly I saw 1 of his heads as it had been mortally wounded This is when the beast power the first beast of Revelation chapter 13 receives what appears to be a deadly wound now seven-day Adventists along with many Protestant refer reformers recognized this first beast of Revelation 13 is the papacy we understand that I'm not going to go into all of that this morning we don't have time for that but in 1798 the papacy received what appeared to be this deadly wound the Pope was taken captive as we know and the power of the papacy they thought had come to an end and it did at least temporarily and I'm assuming that again most of you have a background enough background in this you understand what I'm talking about but the next day as you can see listed there is 1844 this is the beginning I heard it alluded to in 1 of the Sabbath school classes this morning as the beginning of the investigative judgment.

This is when Jesus moved from the holy place in the sanctuary in heaven to the most holy place.

He changed his ministry at that point and the time of judgment began.

We're living now in the anti-typical day of atonement or judgment and you find out about that in Daniel's chapter 8 and 9.

But also it's key to understand this is the time when we begin to proclaim you know in 18 44 begin to proclaim the 3 angels messages found of course in Revelation chapter 14 and brothers and sisters that was this message of the 3 angels that was then and still is and will be till Jesus comes our primary responsibility as a people to share the 3 angels message with this world before Jesus comes there's no more pertinent message for this world than the 3 angels message and the last date list is very tiny there is 1929 that's the beginning of the healing of the wound spoken of in Revelation chapter 13 verse 3 says his deadly wound was healed and all the world marveled and followed the beast and as this wound is healing this power and the prominence and the popularity of the papacy is growing.

I got so many quotes I could share with you.

But now The Pope is at a place where many of the world leaders of secular governments consider him to be, he's like the world's pastor now.

When they think of, we need some spiritual advice, even other denominations are thinking, well, we've got this 1 guy, he can kind of represent us as a Christian, as the leader of the Christian world.

And so anyway, we're living now in the time of the Laodicean church, that seventh church from Revelation chapter 2 and verse 3.

And we've seen Hurricane Ida is just 1 of the many, many examples we're living in this time of all these natural disasters that are going on.

And they're occurring more and more frequently and causing much more destruction and cost in money and in lives.

But so now is the time, brothers and sisters, when we see all these things happening, that we have got to be preparing.

We've got to be making a more full surrender to Jesus at this time.

And so several things are going to begin to take place and they're taking place even now.

A counterfeit revival among the fallen churches among those churches who who are not worshipping on God's holy day.

I saw that God has honest children among the nominal Adventist so he says she says even among some of those Adventist who are not really serious about Jesus he says I see that God has honest children among those nominal Adventist and the fallen churches and before the plagues shall be poured out ministers and people will be called out from these churches and will gladly receive the truth amen Satan knows if she says and before the loud cry the third angel is given he raises an excitement in these religious bodies that those who have rejected the truth may think that God is with them he hopes to deceive the honest and lead them to think that God is still working for the churches and so churches that are are that know the truth and many do and are not following the truth and they begin to see God working in these churches because Satan is starting to do a work in the churches to make the people think, OK, God is with us.

We see these miracles occurring and we'll talk more about that in a minute.

And so this is also the time of the shaking and the shifting that's going to separate God's true followers from those who are not.

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