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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

The Sealing

Tim Rumsey

The Sealing Part 2

The Sealing Part 1

Person in this room, but I'm also not the youngest person in this room.

And I can very honestly tell you the world is very different now than it was a few decades ago.

And if Jesus doesn't come soon, there won't be much of a world left.

I invite you to bow your heads where you're at and please join me in prayer.

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the many gifts and blessings that you have given to us every day including this morning as we open your word together we ask that you would send your Holy Spirit we ask that you would help us to understand the information because that's important but most importantly father we ask that you would give us transformation through your Holy Spirit.

So on our way out here this week, we kind of turned this into a spring break.

I brought my wife and my 4 kids with me and so we hit a number of national parks on the way out here, including Death Valley.

Did you know there's water sitting in Death Valley right now?

And 1 of my sons had his heart set on seeing those salt crystals as they crack and form those different shapes.

And those are all gone because it's all underwater right now.

How many of you were here last year when the hurricane came through?

There's a picture, I think this was, was it Isabel?

Anyways, the hurricane that came through here last spring.

Every hurricane has a very unique shape to it, and I know you know this, but at the middle of the storm, there is something called the eye of the storm.

And if you're in the middle of the eye, this is what it looks like.

You know, people actually fly planes into the eyes of hurricanes so that they can get the measurements and so forth and tell us where it's going and how strong it is.

Well, if you were in the eye of a hurricane, this is what it would look like.

They call these stadium clouds and you can see why.

They just kind of build up like the steps of a stadium, not unlike what we have in our seating here today.

But there's something unique about the eye of a hurricane.

And if you look straight up, you can often see sunny sky.

And if you didn't know better, you would think the storm was gone and that the danger was past.

Now, the tragic part about this is that there have been people who have successfully hidden themselves in the first half of a hurricane.

Then the eye passes over, the weather clears up and they think the danger has passed and so they come out from their hiding place only to be caught unawares and some people have actually died when the back side of the storm comes.

Want to use this eye of a hurricane as an illustration for us this morning.

We're not going to be talking about climatology this morning, but we are going to be talking about where we are in the flow of prophetic events leading up to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

And I would suggest to you this morning that we are in the eye of the storm.

And I can't predict any more than you can when the next wave of trouble comes but we know it's coming and we need to be prepared.

Now we are told in Spirit of Prophecy that the Jewish nation is before us as an example of the termination of God's long forbearance.

In the destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of the world is typified.

So if we want to better understand what happens between now and the return of Jesus, 1 way we can understand more about that is to simply look at the destruction of Jerusalem.

Now the name Jerusalem suggests a city of peace doesn't it?

But there's probably no city on earth that has seen less peace over its history than Jerusalem.

It's been at least partially destroyed over 40 times in places the rubble is 60 feet deep.

You can just dig anywhere and you'll find something.

It's been besieged or attacked over 100 times throughout its history.

Jerusalem in the Bible is completely destroyed 2 times.

Once in the Old Testament and once in the New Testament.

So let's start this morning by just briefly reviewing the destruction of Jerusalem both in the Old Testament and New Testament because we just saw that if we better understand that we will better understand what happens at the end.

So let's start with Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem in the Old Testament.

In 609 BC, Pharaoh Necho of Egypt captures Jehoahaz, that was the king of Judah.

He put Judah under tribute and he installed Jehoiakim as the next king.

There are 4 attacks against Jerusalem before it finally is completely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar's army.

So here's the first 1 and it's really relatively mild.

There's actually no armed conflict, there's no bloodshed.

Judah falls under the control of Egypt and they have to start paying taxes to the king of Egypt and yes the king is exchanged for another 1 that Pharaoh preferred but other than that life didn't seem to change too much.

Now the next wave happened a few years later when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon comes for the first time.

Jehoiakim serves him for 3 years and then he rebels.

And so this brings the third attack in 605 BC.

Jehoiakim surrenders and many captives and temple treasures are taken to Babylon.

This is when Daniel and his friends are carted off to Babylon along with many others.

Nebuchadnezzar makes Mattaniah king of Judah and then changes his name to Zedekiah.

You'll notice that in each of the 4 attacks it gets more severe, right?

You start by just paying some tribute or taxes to the king of Egypt and now here we are taking treasures out of the temple, people are being taken captive, the temple is being desecrated.

The final and last attack came in 586 BC when Zedekiah breaks his promise to the king of Babylon.

He rebels against Nebuchadnezzar and then Nebuchadnezzar and his armies come and they besiege Jerusalem for 2 years and then completely destroy everything.

When we look at the New Testament destruction of Jerusalem, how many times did the Romans come?

In 66 AD, Cestius Gallus besieged Jerusalem with nearly 50, 000 Roman soldiers and then he suddenly withdrew very unexpectedly and The Jewish army followed after them and inflicted heavy casualties.

Josephus tells us up to 5, 000 Roman soldiers were killed by the Jewish army.

And we'll come back to that point a little bit later here.

Well, this didn't sit too well with Rome, as you can imagine.

So a couple years later, Titus returns now as the head of the army and he lays siege to Jerusalem and as you know, this is the last time.

Jerusalem and the temple are completely destroyed in 70 AD.

Now take your Bible please, let's turn to 2 Thessalonians 2.

By the way, as you're turning there, Jesus had warned his disciples, hadn't he, about the coming destruction by the Romans.

And he had warned them, when you see these things take place, when you see the first siege, take note.

Because when the opportunity comes, you need to what?

And we're told in the book Great Controversy that not a single Christian perished when Jerusalem was destroyed.

Because they heard what Jesus said, they believed what Jesus said, and most importantly they acted on what Jesus said.

It's important to read the Bible, it's important to listen to it, others teaching about it, It's important to study it ourselves, but if none of that actually translates into action in my life, a change of behavior in my life, changed attitudes in my life, then what good is it?

We need to take action on the Word of God.

Now 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, I want us to look at how this might apply to where we are today.

In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, Paul is writing to the early Christians and this is a pretty well-known passage for Seventh-day Adventists.

We go here a lot as we look at some of the events that take place before Jesus returns.

Let's start reading together 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 3.

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Series

The Sealing

The Sealing Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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