Amazing Discoveries Reveal the Future

Mark Finley

HopeLives365

Heaven’s Investment Plan

In a time of economic downturn in America, a time of incredible financial uncertainty, people everywhere are seeking stability.

With the job losses, the downturn in the stock market, with the volatility of American finance, people are saying, what can I count on?

Where can I find something to hold on to that's solid?

Let's go back, back 2, 500 years to the ancient city of Sardis.

When the Babylonian Empire was extending its reach throughout what we would today call modern Iraq and Iran in the Middle East.

The Sardinians were growing in power in the area that we now know as Turkey.

Sardis, 500 years before Christ, was a mighty city.

Not long ago we tramped around in the ruins of Sardis.

It's in the middle of the Hermas Valley at the foot of Mount Tumulus.

It is a location that's not far from a river, so the inhabitants of Sardis had adequate water.

The valley is fertile, the climate is fantastic, they grew fruits and vegetables.

They discovered in Sardis a gold mine and they discovered multiple gold and silver mines and Sardis became the richest city in the world.

If you look at the columns in the city of the ancient temple of the goddess of Diana or Artemis, you see these huge columns and you just can imagine the expense that it would have taken as the marble was imported, the marble facing from throughout the world to build this temple.

Also we see the ruins of a thriving community's large marketplace.

There were silks and precious gems, as well as the spices from the east and carpets that were sold here in Sardis.

Sardis had a very sophisticated city government.

It had a Senate, it had a very well-defined government that guided the affairs of Sardis, this very wealthy empire, an empire of lavish luxury.

Here is a gymnasium that would outrival any modern gymnasium any place in the world today.

This is all that remains of the gymnasium.

It had hot and cold baths and steam baths and sauna.

It had exercise rooms and fitness teachers.

As you look at even the ruins of this two-story gymnasium, and you come close to it today, my wife and I are standing there.

And you notice we look so small in the light of the hugeness of this gymnasium.

You look there at the very carefully etched mosaics.

And when you look at the floor of both the gymnasium and neighboring buildings, you see very exquisite, careful, hand-done, lavish tile.

Sardis, indeed, was the center of wealth, the center of luxury.

The temple of Artemis or Diana was a temple dedicated to this pagan god.

But as you wander here there's something that catches your attention.

It is a simple Christian church that was built right in the shadow of this pagan temple centuries later.

Today, this city of luxury is a city in ruins.

Today, nobody goes to the marketplace anymore.

Today, nobody is sitting in the sauna bath in the gymnasium.

But there in the shadow of it all, As I came into this little Christian church that was built in later centuries, here is a cross that's etched out.

There's something that still stands forever eternally, even after the glitter and glamour are gone, even after the luxury are gone, the cross of Jesus Christ still speaks to that generation and to ours.

It speaks of something that will last forever, something that's enduring.

The cross speaks of forgiveness and mercy and grace.

The cross speaks to that generation and ours of eternal life.

The king of Sardis was a man by the name of Crotius.

It is said that Crotius was the wealthiest man in the world.

He was considered to be the wealthiest man in the world at the time.

Gold and silver coins were first used in Sardis.

We do not have a record of gold and silver coins being used before this period of time in Sardis, but they were used first in Sardis.

Crotius asked a wise philosopher from Athens.

A philosopher from Athens came to visit Crotius and Crotius said to him, of all the men you've ever met, who's the happiest?

Now he expected the wise philosopher from Athens to say, it's you, Crotius, you're the wealthiest man in the world, look at your luxury, you are the happiest man.

And the philosopher said this, the sage said, I see that thou art wonderfully rich and art Lord of many nations.

But with respect with that wherein thou questionest me, I have no answer to give until I hear that thou hast closed thy life happily.

In other words, Crotius, he who dies well, has lived well.

But he who lives well and does not die well, has not lived at all.

Crotius, when you come to the end of your life, Will you look back over your life and say, I've lived in luxury, but it has evaporated through my fingers like grains of sand?

Will Crotius you say, at the end of your life, the things that I've worked for, I've worked for in vain.

Because at the point of death, the thing you care about more than anything else is eternity.

In the past, as well as in the present, our wealth can be gone overnight.

The wise man was right when he counseled Crotius that it was not the wealth he had that determined his happiness, but the wealth of his character and the wealth that he shared.

We are living at a very precarious time in American history.

Every place you look, you see American finances overextended.

The bank repo signs are on 1 home after the other.

In the first 3 months of 2010, if you go to RealityTracks' U.S.

Foreclosure market report, for the first quarter of 2010, 932, 234 properties were foreclosed on in that three-month period.

This is a 7% increase from the previous quarter and a 16% increase from the first quarter of 2009.

1 in every 138 US housing units received a foreclosure filing during the quarter.

The stock market in America is very volatile.

And with the problems we're currently having with the Euro, and particularly the problems for bankruptcy in Greece, in Spain and Portugal.

The European Union is pouring billions, trillions in and America is participating in that with our fragile economy.

Here is an article for CBS News, Wall Street markets wake to Wall Street, world markets wake to Wall Street nightmare.

The stock market goes up and down and people that put their money in stocks, they see that, they lose fortunes overnight at times.

Leading financiers, leading economists are incredibly concerned and what they're concerned about is the growing national debt in the United States of America.

In 1989, our national debt was $2.7 trillion.

And so people are asking the question, where can I put my confidence?

Where is something that's going to last forever and ever?

In the book, How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years, Howard Roof says this, no 1 knows exactly where the breaking point is, but it's coming and soon.

America is truly on the brink and so is the rest of the world, because when we sneeze, the rest of the world gets pneumonia.

If the American economy goes down, it's going to impact the entire world.

Personal debt in the United States is at all-time high.

If you take all the personal debt in America.

Now, that does not include your mortgages.

But just the amount of money that people owe on their credit cards with these enormous high debt rates, 18%, 19%, 21% in credit cards, If you take all the credit card debt in America, beside mortgages, leave mortgages out, 2.46 trillion as of January 2010, according to the Federal Reserve's G-19 report.

Never in our history have we had such high national debt, such high personal debt, so much volatility in the stock market, and so much economic uncertainty.

A Beginning With No End

Randy Skeete

Pastor Randy Skeete Sermon Library

The Inner Circle

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the lord breaketh the cedars.

Yea, the lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.

The voice of the lord divided the flames of fire.

The voice of the lord shaketh the wilderness.

The lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the lord maketh the hinds to carve and discovereth the forests and in his temple does everyone speak of his glory.

The Lord will give strength unto his people.

The Lord will bless his people with peace.

I particularly love that Psalm because it deals with the voice of God.

7 times and since my work requires my voice.

The voice of the lord is full of majesty and I ask god to put some of that into my voice.

The voice of the lord breaketh the cedars but we know that from Genesis 1 3 and God said, let there be light and the light came.

That is the power because the voice of God is not merely a noise that comes from his throat.

It is the authoritative nature of his word.

We live in a world where so-called Christians have little interest in spiritual things.

We're excited by all sorts of things, cockfights.

We are a little excited by the study of the word of God.

There is a video on YouTube of Chinese Christians receiving a Bible for the first time.

When they finally realized they had a Bible in, they were kissing it and those of us today have Bibles all over the place, we don't pay any attention to it at all.

You never miss the water Till the well runs dry.

Do all you can to get it here before that day arrives.

This will be the fourth time I'm speaking.

So, for those of you who preach, preaching is an exhausting business but God is so nice.

He gives you back the power but when you preach truth, it exhausts you.

You don't lose a lot of energy but when you preach truth, it exhausts you.

It really does But it's a good exhaustion and it's for the sake of God.

Is there anyone present with us who is not a set of the Adventist?

The handsome man in the green and the equally lovely lady.

Would you mind telling us who invited you?

That handsome man with the glasses, who has a hairstyle like me.

Let me offer a special prayer for Brett and Whitney right now.

Father, I ask you now in the name of Jesus Christ, a name you never resist, bless Brett, Whitney, and their family.

You know they have desires, they have longings.

If they have children, put a double blessing on their children, Father.

And Father, place in them a desire to fellowship with us more often.

Until then, keep them faithful and let their lives brighten the lives of others.

Anyone else who is not a Seventh-day Adventist?

Michigan Camp Meeting 2025: He Must Increase

The Last Elijah: An Intergenerational Revival for These Last Days

Don MacLafferty

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

01 Stand Before God

You're about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2025 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

As we proceed, Lord, with the first morning meeting, the best meeting of camp meeting, we pray that your Holy Spirit will be poured out upon us.

Lord, may we see the light from on high stream down upon us today.

Fill our hearts, Lord, and speak to our souls, is our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

Have you come here hoping that I'll only do what would make you the most comfortable, or have you come here with a hunger for the Word and also to press together as last-day believers?

If you've come with that hunger, then let's please do not sit so far apart from each other.

Because, you know, in Spirit of Prophecy it talks about the need to press what?

And also, there's many, many places in Spirit of Prophecy where it talks about small groups formed that will be in the Word and praying together.

So I do not want these early morning times to be spectator moments.

You've come here to be in the Word and in prayer.

And yes, I'll be teaching the Word, but it's not just 1 direction.

I got permission from the administration to do this.

Can we make little circles of 6 as fast as we can.

And I invite you to make teams of 6 to be in the Word.

Now, next thing, to prep us for the Word, simple activity.

Do you believe that nature is God's second book?

And by the way, children today and youth are less and less out in that second book.

It's a big burden of mine in discipling the generations is to get kids and youth and adults outside.

So we won't do that right now, don't worry.

But I'm inviting you in teams of twos in your small group.

If you have an odd number it doesn't mean you're odd, it just means that you'll have to be in threes, some of you, okay?

But if you're in teams of 6, in teams of twos, just one-on-one, ask each other this, What's 1 thing that you have seen in nature that's made you in awe of the creator God?

And I'll give you a quick example really, really quick.

So it'll give you a moment to think, because then you'll be on the spot.

So for 3 years, so I'm a full-time volunteer missionary.

So I don't work for pay or salary and I have the joy of just going wherever God wants me to go.

And I work in the littlest tiny church, the littlest tiny school around the world.

I also work with the General Conference as a volunteer.

And by the way, if you never say you're just a volunteer in the local church, never just say you're just a volunteer.

Pretty soon everybody's going to be a volunteer, by the way, because there's not going to be any buying or selling pretty soon.

So anyway, 1 day when I was a volunteer in Canada, we had just moved there.

Some of you know that story, how we got there.

It's a crazy story how we even got there.

And I was, God wakes me up in the morning early, and I was out in the forest.

Now, Canada has deep forest with porcupines and everything else that you can imagine.

And I was out there tromping around in the snow when all of a sudden I looked up in the heavens and there was what?

And I mean, like I'd never seen them ever before because I was so far up north.

And it was shimmering like this and I felt like I was being ushered into the throne room of God.

And it gave me a tiny taste of maybe what heaven might be like.

And it just made me in awe of our Creator God.

Now, there's also little things in nature that can make us in awe of God, not just the big things in the sky.

So turn to each other and just ask each other, what's 1 thing in your lifetime, if you could pick only 1 thing, that made you in awe of our creator God.

Take all the time in the world as long as you do it in 30 seconds, go.

Okay, I wanna hear a few examples real quick.

I'm going to ask this group, you know, this is a very dangerous place to be because you're so accessible.

But can you tell me 1 thing you've seen in nature and I'll tell them.

Is that a good example of something that makes you in awe of God?

Fred Calkins, I know you from Kentucky, Tennessee years ago.

What's 1 thing you've seen that makes you in awe of God?

Somebody like by the name of John Gaten, for instance.

Okay, and 1 person on this side, somewhere over here.

You know, God has put these things out in nature to make us in awe of Him.

If you're not getting out enough, we often get too in awe of stuff that man has done.

I hope while you're here at camp meeting you get outside.

My wife is here with me and we're hoping that every day in between things we're gonna go on a walk and that's what we do every day of our life that we're that I'm not on mission somewhere else.

We walk together and it slows us down and makes us in awe of God.

Now, this morning we have 1 text to 0 in on.

Christian Martin

Living Hope SDA Church

All In: Faithful to the Finish

What a beautiful, beautiful song, Be Thou My Vision.

You know, throughout our vacation Bible school, we repeated this message.

It's a message that stood out, repeated every time we sang the song, and you heard it just now.

Even if I worry and stress, I know that I'm still so very blessed, because I've got a friend who walks with me, and I'll never walk alone.

My message today is entitled, all in, faithful to the finish.

Father in heaven, we just want to pause to thank you for the way that you're the God who is so mighty, so powerful, yet you're the God who wants to walk with us.

We pray, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts, speak through your word, and we thank you for answering this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.

Did you know that the word walk is mentioned 212 times in the Bible compared to the word run which is only found 83 times in the Bible.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

Heaven’s Investment Plan

57m

The Inner Circle

1h 21m

01 Stand Before God

54m

All In: Faithful to the Finish

26m

05 Passover

29m

05 Passover

28m

Love Hate Relationship

42m

05 Joyful Christianity: An Attitude of Thanksgiving

1h 10m

Beginning, Middle and End

44m

A Study in Hebrews 5: A Call to Grow Up

35m

Carried on Eagles’ Wings: God’s Call to a Higher Purpose

1h 30m

Revelation Exposes the Truth About Christian Denominations

1h 3m

Sound Doctrine