Thinking men and women everywhere are wondering, What’s happening to our society? Why the rise of unthinkable crimes? Mothers killing babies, kids killing kids, corporate fraud and greed abound. In this message we look at how God has different plans for humanity, and why many seem to have forgotten.

<p>Thinking men and women everywhere are wondering, What’s happening to our society? Why the rise of unthinkable crimes? Mothers killing babies, kids killing kids, corporate fraud and greed abound. In this message we look at how God has different plans for humanity, and why many seem to have forgotten.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Unlocking Prophecy

Chester Clark

1- Fools Who Fight the Future- Part 1

2- Fools Who Fight the Future- Part 2

3- Revelation’s Greatest Climax

4- Lamb on the Altar, Lion on the Throne

5- The Hero of Revelation’s Seals

6- A Game of Thrones and Revelation’s Answer to Evil

7- Revelation’s Ultimate Message

8- Humanity, Morality, and Society

9- Revelation’s Call to Worship

10- The Beast’s Greatest Conspiracy

11- How to Escape the Seven Last Plagues

12- The Certain, Unavoidable Identity of the Antichrist

13- Making a New Start

14- Facing Death Unafraid

15- Good News About Hell

16- Messages from Beyond the Stars

17- Prophecy Predicts a People

18- The Best is Yet to Come!

19. Daniel’s Worst Nightmare

20. Daniel 9 and Jesus

21. Daniel 9 and the Rapture

22. Revelation’s First Beast

23. The Seal of God

24. The Mark of the Beast

Tonight we're going to be talking about what's happening in our society.

We're going to be looking at the fact that many, many people are wondering, why is our society having the challenges that it is?

Now, whenever I talk about these things, there's somebody that brings some statistics who tells me, you know, it's really not all that bad.

Violent crime is down, theft is down, there's, you know, murders are down in the United States.

But even if you look at some of those numbers that appear to be down, there's still a general sense, isn't there, that there's something wrong in society?

And it doesn't take statistics to tell us when we're seeing on the news played out every day some of the violence and some of the crimes that we are.

I mean, you know, we weren't designed by our maker to live in a time, in a world where mothers are killing children, right?

There's something wrong when mothers are throwing their six-year-old off a bridge as happened this week.

There's something wrong when children take weapons to school and kill their family members.

There's something wrong in society when this is repeated over and over and it seems to be on the news and in our consciousness on an almost weekly basis.

In my mind at least, I think there's something wrong.

There's something that is not the way God intended it to be.

We're gonna be talking about that this evening.

But even if we don't have violent crimes, we look at some of the white collar crime that does seem to be on the increase.

We have capitalism without any ethics or morality, which is basically greed, isn't it?

I spent many, many months outside of the United States, even in the former Soviet Union, soon after communism fell, and I experienced some of what communism is.

And I'm not a believer that that's the type of economic system that we ought to have.

But capitalism without any ethics turns to abuse and greed, doesn't it?

And so we've had a couple centuries in America of prosperity and peace, and America's become arguably the greatest nation on earth, I believe, because of 2 principles, the principles of morality and ethics and the principles of capitalism and free enterprise.

With either of those removed, our nation's in trouble.

And we're seeing this on an almost daily basis as we read the news.

People are not afraid of taking what does not belong to them if it means they can get rich quicker.

Insider trading, Ponzi schemes, 1 thing after another.

Now, you might say, well, the society's just going into this state of decay and demoralization, but the Bible says in the book of Revelation that there is not going to be all doom and gloom at the end of times.

I'm thankful that we have the book of Revelation and that it's not all bad news, like many people think it is.

People think it's just scary, it's just beasts and destruction and all of these frightful things, But actually the book of Revelation holds a lot of good news.

Have you seen good news in Revelation so far in a seminar?

Have you noticed it with me as we've been looking at these pages?

Yes, and the Bible says that even in the last days there's going to be good news.

If we look with me in the book of Revelation, and we're gonna look at Revelation chapter 14.

Revelation chapter 14, I want us to look here.

We looked a couple nights ago at Revelation 14, verse 6 and 7, the first angel's message called the everlasting gospel, remember?

And Why is it so important that we have this everlasting gospel, this first angel's message?

Well when we look at this passage, we remember that when the angel says, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come, he's presenting to us why and how we should live different lives.

Lives that don't ask, how can I please my society?

How can I fit in, be like everyone else, and not rock the boat?

But lives that say, how can I please God?

The fear of God is simply putting God's approval above man's approval, right?

We saw that in the scriptures, we unpacked that throughout the Bible.

Revelation chapter 14, and we saw how this message is intended to prepare a people for what event?

What event did we see later in chapter 14?

1 like the Son of Man sat upon a cloud, and the harvest of the earth was ripe, and he would be instructed that the, or informed that the harvest of the earth was ripe and he would begin to reap.

Now notice with me, just before this event, just before this event, it would be discouraging, it would be discouraging for me if just before the second coming, Revelation described a world that was completely consumed with selfishness, greed, and immorality.

It would be discouraging for me if Revelation described, but just before the second coming, a world that was entirely rebelled against God.

There was no shred or even pretense of worshiping God.

It would be discouraging, wouldn't it be to you?

It's as if John the Revelator has envisioned this group of people pointed out to him.

And notice how they're described in verse 12.

Revelation 14 and verse 12, it says, here is the patience of the saints, here are those who do what?

Keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

The good news is that before Jesus comes a second time, there's going to be a group of people who are on this earth who are actually bucking the tide of lawlessness and immorality all around them.

There's going to be a group of people who are just like the first angel's message said fearing God Giving glory to him glorifying him in the way They're living their lives in the way that they're going about their day-to-day activities Then notice with me it says here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of who?

So it says the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Now I don't believe that we can, we have to split those 2 up.

But I think it's very interesting here that it's not, I mean, John could have just as easily heard the words, here are they that keep the commandments and have the faith of Jesus, right?

But he's actually having it clarified to us that this isn't something that's new, a new teaching of Jesus.

These are the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, right?

That John sees are going to be characteristics of God's last day people.

Well, how are people going to learn these principles of morality?

There was an interesting article not too long ago in the Wall Street Journal which actually asked the question, can ethics even be taught?

It's a very interesting thing they were looking at.

Is there any point to us teaching ethics in business programs?

Well, I'll tell you 1 of the reasons why it's not working, friends.

Because our ethics programs, our ethics classes have become detached from any absolute morality.

Our ethics are just based upon what is acceptable.

And I've talked to numerous, I've never taken these business courses.

I've numerous friends and family members that have in undergraduate and graduate school.

I've talked to lawyers who have been there in graduate studies at Ivy League universities, have taken classes on ethics.

And the ethics are based upon what is acceptable in your profession.

There's no teaching of an absolute standard, a moral standard of right and wrong that would be outside of humanity.

If you remove God, an external source of morality from our consciousness, you remove the ability to teach that there's right and wrong from outside of humanity.

And it's just what we do, we do what we think is right.

We do what everyone else expects us to do, and that's our standard of ethics.

And not only are we not seeing it taught in schools, but in many cases, I don't think our families are doing what they ought to, to teach our children.

Parents often, honestly, they may not have any choice, but they often are working and out of the home a lot, and children are being schooled and entertained by, it used to be just the TV, now if you watch kids, what are they usually babysit, what are they given to babysit them?

It's the iPad or the smartphone or whatever it is and that just keeps them occupied and they're there from a very, very young age and we expect Disney to teach them their morals.

We expect the television programs and the video games and the other things to teach them morals.

Series

Unlocking Prophecy

8- Humanity, Morality, and Society

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Morning Plenary

Bible Light about the Ten Commandments, Part 3

51m

Unlock Revelation

5. Revelation’s Global Peace Plan

1h

Cosmic Conflict

Cosmic Conflict- Part 1

39m

The Endurance of the Saints

54m

Beyond Belief: Noah and the Flood

41m

Amazing Discoveries Reveal the Future

Sunday Deception Exposed: How the Sabbath Was Changed

54m

Amazing Discoveries Reveal the Future

The Final Warning! America’s Collapse Has Already Begun

51m

The Heritage of Jacob

48m

The Book of Acts

The Not-So-New Testament

45m

Noah

02 Noah’s Sermon to You

36m

Unlocking the Mysteries of the Sanctuary

21 The Final Phase of the Judgment

1h 2m

06 Written in Stone

1h 4m

Sound Doctrine