AOY 2014: Now Is the Time

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Army Of Youth

Final Events

Adam Ramdin

1. The Three Angels Messages

The subject that we're going to look at in the next 2 days comes under the title Last Day Events.

Some theologians would argue that we have been living in the last days ever since Jesus died on the cross.

Where sometimes we often think the last days is now, or sometimes we think, well, the last days, that's not just yet, that's right at the very end.

Now, in these presentations we're gonna be doing, we'll see that the last days, I believe, covers the time that we're living in, but we're going to focus specifically on some of those events that I believe will take place right prior to Jesus' return.

But some of those events that take place right prior to Jesus' return are dependent, so to speak, on what takes place now in the present.

Hopefully it will become more clear as we go on.

The subjects that we're going to cover, not necessarily in this order, we're going to look at what are the 3 angels' messages, a brief overview, the 3 angels' message.

Revelation 14, verse 6 to 12 talks of 3 angels.

It's the last place really that we have the messages, the last message given in the Bible.

Then we're going to look at subjects of the latter rain, a loud cry, The shaking.

I think the time of trouble is often misunderstood a lot in our church.

And I think we often, yeah, anyway, we'll get to that.

We misunderstand a lot and misuse that doctrine a lot in our church.

We'll also look at time of trouble and God's people delivered, how God delivers his people at the very end.

So, if I speak too fast, please tell me to slow down.

If you would like me to repeat something, please say rewind.

And if I'm boring you, please say fast forward.

To bow our heads as we start with a word of prayer, Father in Heaven.

We thank you for the privilege that we have to study your word.

We thank you, Lord, for the privilege that we have to look into it.

And I pray, Lord, that you would give us wisdom, that you would guide us, and that you would bless us.

There's a text in the Bible that I referred to when I was introducing this seminar.

1 Chronicles 12, verse 32 and the Bible says, and the children of Issachar which were men that had understanding of the what?

If you know the time that you're living in, if you know what is taking place at that time, you can adjust your life accordingly to what's taking place.

These men of Israel, they knew what was taking place, therefore they knew what they ought to do.

Pastor Benjamin Ung gave a powerful message yesterday for Sabbath School, where he was talking about the times that we live in, and based on an understanding of the times we live in, the signs that point Jesus is coming soon, should change the way that we live our lives.

In Romans 13 verse 11, another text that deals, I believe, with the times in which we live, it says, and that knowing the time, that it is now, what's the next word say?

High, what does it mean when it says high time?

We don't use that term too often in the English language, do we?

But when they say it's high time to wake out of sleep, another way that we could say that right now is it's the right time.

It's the best time, it should happen right now.

It's high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

And another text that we read is this Deuteronomy 29 and verse 29 the Bible says the secret things belong to who?

Belong unto God But those things which are revealed belong to us and our children forever.

Now I want to say this when we talk about the subject last day events or final events, whichever way you want to put it.

Final events, last day event, is often 1 of the most speculative things that is studied in Christianity.

And to make it relevant to this context, in Adventism.

It is 1 of the most speculative areas of study.

Sometimes you may hear of a preacher, quote unquote, that gets known as being a preacher that focuses on last day events.

Now I'll speak from my experience as a preacher and I will say this, it's always a dangerous thing to be known as a last day events preacher.

Because it tends to generate in your audience a desire to hear something new.

We generally in society, we have a cultural desire to always hear something new.

And so we all try and think different all the time.

And so if you're a last day events person, now it could be a preacher or a Bible studier.

This is the the problem you may get into This is the warning I'll give before we go into it Let's say you spend the next 6 months studying all the last-day events you can And you get convicted.

The challenge is this, if you want to go quote unquote deeper, what you tend to do, What you tend to see happen is people then start looking at a lot more Nebulous vague areas to try and pull something concrete out something that's not there And We can get down the track where we're observing the world as the time clock for Jesus return in The sense that we get obsessed with watching American politics or we got obsessed with watching all these things that we know are prophetically important, but ultimately it's knowledge and it's not experience.

So a studying of prophecy should change the way you live.

1 of the biggest reasons why people say, how do you know the Bible is true?

I can say, well, I've studied the prophecies and I know.

I know there's concrete things that were prophesied that happened that gives me a foundation that cannot be shaken, that I know the Bible can be trusted, I know Jesus is real.

Prophecy should do that to us, but it should also inspire us to give us an experience with Jesus Christ as well.

We're told the secret things belong unto the Lord our God.

There are certain things that we may never know.

That's hard for us to come to and accept as proud Seventh-day Adventists, but I think there are certain things that we may never know in the writings of the Bible before Jesus comes.

And so don't spend your time going down those alleys.

Know the pillars of Daniel and Revelation.

Know where they are, but recognize there are certain secret things don't go down there.

In Acts chapter 1 verse 7, turn to the Bible, Acts 1, verse 7.

Acts 1, verse 7, the Bible says, see when we study last day events, we should only study what is clearly revealed.

In Acts 1, verse 7, the Bible says, And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the father has put into his what?

There are certain things that we just won't know.

And we must accept that and be humble that that is the case.

God has told us the things revealed, they belong to us and the children forever.

So we are living in a time when the final message is to be given.

The question is what message is to be given in the day in which we live?

My apologies, I'm still quite not used to Malaysian English.

Matthew 24 says, And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto who?

2. The Latter Rain

We looked at Joel 2 verse 23 and introduced us to the idea of how many types of rain?

And the second 1 is called the latter rain.

Now this is because there's 2 seasons as it relates to harvest.

The former rain is to do with the germination of the seed and this 1 fell in what month of the year roughly?

Around October, November is when the early rain fell.

The latter rain was what ripened the fruit for harvest and this 1 fell around about the time of March and April.

The latter rain preceded the harvest and the point that I made was that you cannot have 1 without the other.

You cannot have loads of latter rain but no former rain and still hope for a harvest.

You have to have the former rain in order to get the harvest.

So as we look at this subject of the latter rain, we see that this is key.

The second verse that we'll look at is Isaiah 44, verse 3, which says this, For I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.

I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thy offspring." Now what's happening here is this.

You may have heard people say this in church when we talk about different rules of Bible interpretation.

Is that they write in the first half of the sentence the idea, the concept.

And then what you commonly find is they repeat that same thought or concept in the second half of the sentence, but they change the key words.

Now it makes interesting Bible study, because you can see words that the Bible writer decides to link together.

Now we use this, the classic example of this is we use when we do the study on the seal of God and we use Romans chapter 4 verse 11 I think it is, where we have the word sign and the word seal in the same verse, used interchangeably.

But in this verse, what words are used interchangeably?

Second sentence, I will pour my spirit upon your seed.

The word water and the word spirit are used interchangeably.

Therefore, in our study, when we're talking about the latter rain and we're talking about the former rain, what could we really substitute those words for?

We're talking about the outpouring of the Spirit early and We're talking about the outpouring of the Spirit early and we're talking about the outpouring of the Spirit at the end.

So latter rain is not really talking about rain, it's talking about the Holy Spirit, Amen?

And God uses the parable, not really a parable, God uses the illustration of nature and the rainfalls in nature to illustrate how his Holy Spirit falls on us.

So, he's using the word water interchangeable with the word spirit.

Now notice here, Zachariah chapter 10 and verse 1.

This is a key text on how we should relate to this subject.

In Zechariah 10 verse 1, the Bible says, Ask ye of the Lord, rain in the time of the what?

If you're a farmer in Palestine, should you follow this text, yes or no?

If you're a farmer, if you don't get the latter rain, will you get a crop?

You're praying for rain in that time of March, April that the rain come and give you crops.

I mean people still today, farmers still pray for rain.

Pray to God or pray to whatever God they believe in.

He said, in the time of the rain, pray for the latter rain.

Now, what's the spiritual application of that?

In the time period When the latter rain could fall, what should we as the church do?

We should pray for the outpouring of what?

Like the farmer prays for rain, so we as God's church should be praying for the latter rain to fall on us.

She'll be praying that her hearts are ready.

Pentecost is when the early rain fell, collectively.

Pentecost is found in the early chapters of the book of Acts.

Thousands of seeds were germinated, thousands of souls accepted the message, and thus the work of the Christian Church started powerfully.

How many of you have read the early chapters of the book of Acts and being inspired.

Early chapters of Acts and you read what the church did?

How many of you have read the book of Acts and you've thought, man, if only we could have that church would be amazing.

Just before Jesus comes down the last time, the latter rain will finish the work of the gospel.

So we had the former rain in Pentecost, and before Jesus comes the second time, we will have the latter rain.

Testimonies for the Church, Volume 8, page 21 reads, the outpouring of the rain, sorry, the outpouring of the Spirit in the days of the apostles was the former rain, and glorious was the result.

But the latter rain will be more abundant." Wow.

In Joel, the Bible says, we read that verse Joel 2 verse 23, what was that word it was used?

How many of you have ever been to a restaurant And you ordered the food and you were really hungry.

And you hadn't been to this restaurant before, so you didn't know how big the portions were.

And you ordered your food and you, I don't know, whatever your favorite dish is, they had it on the menu.

3. The Loud Cry

So we're going to look at the subject of the loud cry message.

If you have a Bible, open it to Revelation chapter 18.

The Bible says, mightily with a loud voice, sorry, strong voice saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and it's become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

And he goes on and says, for all nations have drunk the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

Verse 4, And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues." First 4 verses of Revelation 18 is what is often referred to as the loud cry message.

Sometimes people refer to it as the fourth angel, because there's 3 in Revelation 14, and then you have this other angel there so sometimes it's referred to as the fourth angels message as well same thing same thing so this message here in Revelation chapter 18 what does it mean What message will be given right here at the very end?

So we ask the question, what is the loud cry?

The simple answer is, verse 2, what's the first words in the loud cry message?

So we're going to go through this like and give us a basic understanding of verses 2, 3, 4, and 5.

So we see here in verse 2 that Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

So we ask this question here on the screen who has taken up a abode in Babylon and the text says who's taken up a boat there?

How many of you know what country Babylon is in today?

Now, Babylon was around in obviously the Babylonian Empire which is 600 BC and then it was still around after that for some while longer.

But Babylon became, was destroyed as a city, as a literal city.

The Persians conquered the city of Babylon, and later on it was destroyed, and it has not been inhabited since.

In Isaiah the prophecy was that Babylon would be destroyed and would never be rebuilt again, which to this day is still fulfilled.

Saddam Hussein, with all the money and strength and power that he had as the dictator of Iraq, tried to rebuild the city of Babylon.

He even had his bricks with a similar imprint to what Nebuchadnezzar had.

Nebuchadnezzar's bricks all had an imprint on most of them, which says, you know, I, Nebuchadnezzar, rule of the world, da, da, da, da, da, da, da.

Saddam Hussein did a similar thing with his own bricks, about how he was a great leader, ruler, et cetera.

And even with all his might and money, as dictator of the country, he wasn't able to rebuild Babylon.

He may patched up a few walls, but he never rebuilt the city.

Well, you see, literal Babylon was prophesied that it would become destroyed, and it was prophesied within the prophecy that it would become the habitation of wild animals, not humans.

Now, Satan and his angels, I believe, Satan and his angels are the spirits today that live in modern Babylon.

Now Revelation 18 verse 2, notice the text there, Revelation 18 verse 2 as we read, it said, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul, what?

And the cage of unclean and hateful birds.

I believe what this text is pointing out is that within Babylon, and Babylon is, you know, Babylon means confusion, within Babylon, which is a word for spiritual confusion, Catholicism, and apostate Protestantism, and when we say apostate Protestantism we're referring to Protestants that are not living up to their name, which is to protest, and have fallen away, which is basically all of Protestantism today.

So you've got Catholicism, Protestantism, or apostate Protestantism, which are not living up to their creed saying that they follow Jesus and the Bible.

Spiritualism is filling up the churches today.

Protestant and Catholic across the board.

And so part of the loud cry message is identifying that taking place and seeing that it's taking place.

Babylon has become the hold of every foul spirit.

Now the loud cry message, part of it, a key component of the loud cry message is to declare the truth on spiritualism.

Now at the root of spiritualism is a misunderstanding of this key doctrine, the state of the dead.

Let me ask you a rhetorical question, I'm not asking for a response, but can you today tell me where the dead go when they die?

Can you give me 10 Bible texts off the top of your head?

Can you give me 5 Bible texts off the top of your head?

I'm not asking you to quote them like Randy Skeet.

Can you just give me 5 references off the top of your head?

I'm not asking for 5 necessarily, But what I'm saying is, have these references in your mind.

Be able to quote some references that give some substance to your faith.

Because when you're witnessing to someone, even if, you know, Where do you believe the dead go?

Well, I believe when the dead die, they sleep.

And it's better to do that than not say anything at all.

But if you can just quote a few references, it gives that much more authority to what you've just said, even if you don't open the Bible and look at them.

Now, it's easy to memorize references, amen?

Now some of you here have memorized lots of useless information in your life.

You know, it could be something in school.

I'm not saying it's useless, but you may not use it after you've memorized it and put it on the test.

But in other areas of life, we memorize things quite A lot.

Does anyone here like, I don't know, some of you here memorize like shopping prices in the shops.

Some of you here memorize sports information.

You know, you can tell me who's the top scorer for what club and how many points they have and who scored in this game and what minute they scored in.

In a sense, in the grand scheme of eternity, it's useless information, but your mind is able to remember that.

Remember and put in some text in your mind on state of the dead, the Sabbath, the second coming.

Make it a challenge this year, write down 7 key beliefs that we as an Adventist church believe.

Sabbath, second coming, state of the dead, sanctuary, scriptures, salvation, state of the dead, stewardship.

Write down some key doctrines and just put down 5 reference texts to each 1 of them.

And just work it in your mind that over the next year, you'll take 1 doctrine and just memorize text on that doctrine, just so you have knowledge.

Because the key part of the La Croix message is to declare the truth on spiritualism.

Therefore, it's fundamental that you understand the state of the dead.

When I preach evangelistic campaigns, 1 of the hardest doctrines to teach people can be the state of the dead.

Not that it's a complicated doctrine, because the Bible is very clear on it, but it's a very conceptual doctrine.

For example, in the state of the dead sermon, you have to prove to someone that death is a sleep.

Now That's a big concept to get people's minds around.

Then you have to prove to them another concept in the Bible that the breath of man is the same as the spirit.

You have to, that's a concept, because a lot of people think the spirit is a separate entity.

No, you have to show that breath or life is the same as the spirit.

That's another concept you have to share with people.

Then you have to share the concept that when the dead die, the breath or the life goes back to God.

Then you have to share the concept of sleeping, they don't know anything.