Anchors of Truth

The Great Controversy And The Time Of The End

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: John Bradshaw

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Series Code: AOT

Program Code: AOT000064


00:12 Welcome to Anchors Of Truth from the 3ABN Worship Center.
00:17 The Great Controversy with John Bradshaw.
00:22 I was at the General Conference Headquarters on last year,
00:25 and I was listening to a world leader of the church
00:28 talk about his experience with the book, The Great Controversy.
00:32 He said that he was going to preach in Denver, Colorado
00:35 and got snowed in to his hotel, interestingly enough, with the
00:41 Bible and The Great Controversy.
00:42 For two days, nothing but the Bible and The Great Controversy.
00:45 And he read The Great Controversy through in two days.
00:48 Which is no small feat since you're talking a book of
00:51 about 600 pages.
00:52 But he said it changed his life.
00:55 And we agree that The Great Controversy
00:57 may be one of the most powerful books written by Ellen White.
01:01 Because it gives us a view of the conflict between
01:07 good and evil, between Christ and Satan,
01:09 on a macro level, on a cosmic level, on a worldwide level.
01:15 During these particular meetings, our speaker
01:17 John Bradshaw has taken that macro view and brought it down
01:24 to a personal level.
01:25 He has taken the great controversy and applied it
01:28 to individual lives.
01:30 And we see how this macro battle between Christ and Satan
01:35 has very micro ramifications in our own lives;
01:39 how the battle is played out in the lives and hearts
01:42 of men and women worldwide.
01:44 And so it is my pleasure to welcome you once again
01:47 to the fourth in our series of meetings
01:50 dealing with the great controversy.
01:52 And today his topic is going to be,
01:56 The Controversy And The Time Of The End.
02:01 And so we're going to take a look at the great controversy
02:04 as it impacts on end time life; your life, my life.
02:12 We expect a great work from the Lord this day.
02:14 And so I ask you to give ear to the man of God as he speaks,
02:17 and open your hearts for the message.
02:19 Which I believe will help us take one more step
02:21 along that road that leads to glory.
02:25 Our music ministry this morning is coming from our friend,
02:27 our founder, Danny Shelton.
02:29 He will be singing the song, All My Praise.
02:32 But before he comes to minister to us in music,
02:34 would you now bow your heads with me in a word of prayer.
02:38 Gracious Father, we just praise You and we just thank You.
02:42 We love You so very much.
02:44 We thank You, Lord, for any number of things;
02:46 for life, health, strength, for the Sabbath day,
02:50 for Your goodness.
02:52 But most of all, Lord, we are thankful for Jesus;
02:55 the Author, the Finisher of our faith,
02:58 the One in whom we live and move and to have our being,
03:04 the Lord of all.
03:06 Father, as we sit now, we ask You to prepare us for Your word.
03:10 Because we want to be prepared on that Day when
03:13 Jesus comes again.
03:15 So help us, Lord, to feast on Your word,
03:17 as it were, to fatten up on Your word, so that when the
03:21 lean times come we will be full of Your word.
03:27 We praise You, Lord, and we ask You to have Your way this day
03:30 in our lives for those in this house and those watching
03:34 and listening around the world.
03:35 We just praise You and thank You.
03:37 Bless this speaker.
03:38 In Jesus' name, amen.
03:41 And now, Danny Shelton.
03:42 The next voice you will hear after him will be that of
03:45 our speaker, our friend, John Bradshaw.
04:03 All my praise,
04:07 I give You all my praise.
04:15 That's all I have to offer You.
04:26 I now build a sanctuary deep within my heart.
04:37 And all my praise I offer up to You.
04:49 I love You Lord, oh how I love You Lord.
05:01 I bear my heart and soul to You.
05:12 I'm an empty broken vessel
05:17 filled with hurt and pain inside.
05:23 Still I offer up all my praise to You.
05:35 Fill me Lord, oh please fill me Lord,
05:47 with Your Holy Spirit.
05:52 Fill me now.
05:58 For I long for Your anointing,
06:04 that I may work for You.
06:10 Fill me Lord, touch me Lord just now.
06:21 All my praise,
06:26 I give You all my praise.
06:34 That's all I have to offer You.
06:44 I now build a sanctuary
06:50 so deep within my heart.
06:56 And all my praise I offer up to You.
07:06 Oh, and all my praise
07:11 I offer up to You.
07:29 Well, we must say thank you, and thank the Lord.
07:31 And I must say good morning, everyone.
07:33 Good morning, everyone.
07:34 What a blessing to see you here and a blessing
07:36 for me to be here.
07:37 Blessing, you know.
07:38 It gives me an opportune opportunity.
07:42 Is there such a thing?
07:43 An opportune moment for me to mention something here.
07:45 And I hope you don't mind me doing that.
07:47 But right before this television program began,
07:49 there was a one or a two minute broadcast
07:53 featuring a lovely looking fellow with a
07:57 mellifluous New Zealand accent.
08:04 I'm not saying who it was.
08:07 Could have been anyone.
08:09 But what it was, was Every Word.
08:10 And that's a daily devotional that I do at It Is Written.
08:13 And I would encourage you to receive that
08:14 because I think you'll be blessed.
08:16 And I'm confident that others will be blessed
08:18 as you take the opportunity to share it with someone else.
08:20 I mentioned just a couple of nights ago right here how
08:23 a friend of mine was asked by an individual
08:26 what it is that helps him be so positive.
08:28 He said, "I start my day with a spiritual thought."
08:30 And he gave him a little card.
08:32 He said, "Why don't you try this."
08:33 And so the devotionals are general enough to be a
08:36 blessing to everybody, pointed enough to be worth something,
08:39 not too pointed that your neighbor is going to be
08:41 offended by them or you be offended by them.
08:44 So do check that out.
08:45 If you go to itiswritten.com, you'll see the little thingy.
08:49 It use to be a big thingy, but we made it little because the
08:52 big part is now given to our evangelistic series in
08:55 Paris, France coming up.
08:57 You'll be able to click there and then subscribe.
08:59 I would encourage you to subscribe.
09:01 You'll be blessed. It's 60 seconds long.
09:03 Although, I think today, if you'll look at the web site,
09:06 we've really blown it out and we've gone to 2 minutes.
09:09 Two minutes.
09:11 That's a marathon.
09:13 A 60 second start to your day.
09:15 I'm just wanting to suggest that if it's not
09:17 your thing, then great.
09:18 If it is, you'll say, "That was a blessing."
09:21 We are here to talk about the great controversy.
09:23 Not the book so much.
09:24 Perhaps this afternoon when we speak, I might get into
09:26 the book just a little bit.
09:28 But this great theme, really, it's the foundation of the
09:32 message that God has given us down here in the end of time.
09:35 The great controversy theme.
09:37 We're going to discuss this a little bit more.
09:39 This is our fourth part.
09:41 And this afternoon, part five and the final part.
09:46 The great controversy theme is that theme,
09:49 it's that thing that brings together the very aspects
09:53 of what we believe as a people.
09:55 It pulls together the teachings of God and lines up in a
09:59 cohesive manner who we are, why we're here,
10:03 what we believe, what we are to do with it,
10:05 and where we're going.
10:06 It helps us to see why it all matters.
10:08 And the great controversy theme gives us the big picture,
10:12 the big picture.
10:15 It is when you step back and see the big picture that
10:18 things start to make sense.
10:20 I mentioned, if you took a...
10:22 What do you call that thing you look at the stars with?
10:24 A telescope. Right?
10:25 If you took a telescope to the zoo and zoomed in
10:29 on an elephant, you would say, "I don't know what that is.
10:32 It's just a patch of gray."
10:35 That's all you would think.
10:37 If you backed off a little bit and maybe looked with
10:39 the naked eye, you would see, ah, elephants.
10:41 Several of them walking in the elephant enclosure
10:44 out there in the wild.
10:45 You see, the big picture helps you make sense
10:48 of all the little parts of the big picture.
10:51 You may look at a piece of a jigsaw puzzle
10:54 and say, "I don't know what this is."
10:56 It's a color, maybe a line through it.
10:58 When you look at the box, the jigsaw puzzle box,
11:02 you see where it fits in.
11:04 You say, "Ah ha, it's part of a bigger picture."
11:09 And so, we want to look at and consider the bigger picture,
11:13 the bigger picture.
11:14 There's much we could talk about it.
11:17 But why don't we just talk about it and pray,
11:21 and expect God to bless us.
11:23 Let's pray, would you bow your heads with me as we pray.
11:27 Our Father in heaven, we thank You today that we
11:29 can come to You in the name of Jesus.
11:31 We are grateful.
11:33 And in the words of the old hymn, "In our hand
11:35 no price we bring.
11:37 Simply to the cross we cling."
11:39 And Lord, we cling.
11:42 David said long ago, "What is man that
11:44 Thou art mindful of him?"
11:45 What are we?
11:48 All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
11:52 And so we are grateful today that as Peter wrote,
11:56 "The longsuffering of our God is salvation."
12:00 I am thankful You bear with us.
12:03 And I am thankful that as a Master Gardener,
12:07 You tend Your garden that You might grow us
12:10 into trees of righteousness,
12:13 that You might grow us that we would be ready
12:17 for the harvest.
12:19 And so as we think about that harvest,
12:21 after a certain fashion this morning, we pray Your blessing
12:26 not just that we be blessed, but that our minds be clear,
12:31 that we hear the voice not of the speaker,
12:34 but the voice of a Savior.
12:37 That we hear the voice not of man,
12:38 but the voice of the Holy Spirit.
12:41 I pray that we'll see something in Your Word
12:43 today that will help us, help us towards Your kingdom.
12:46 And not just help us, but I pray that during our deliberations
12:50 and our meditations You will be glorified and lifted up,
12:56 and seen to be as the God of this universe
12:58 and the sinners only hope.
13:01 Grant us these mercies now.
13:02 We pray humbly and we pray sincerely.
13:07 And we pray in Jesus' name.
13:09 Please would you say with me, amen.
13:15 A couple of days ago, I read a very fascinating article
13:19 by a fellow named, Malcolm Gladwell.
13:22 If you're not familiar with Malcolm Gladwell,
13:24 your life is probably going to be okay.
13:27 But if you are, you'll know that he's a smart journalist.
13:32 Insightful fellow.
13:35 He make a couple of books particularly famous.
13:37 One was called, The Tipping Point.
13:39 Another was called, Blink.
13:42 I'm not saying I recommend them.
13:44 I'm not sure at all of the content of them.
13:46 I'm simply saying they're well known books.
13:49 What Gladwell does is he has a happy knack of
13:52 looking at very interesting insightful investigations
13:58 into the way the human mind works.
14:01 And he will explain certain social phenomena.
14:05 Because he will explain to you that you might not have
14:07 understood this, but the mind works a certain way.
14:11 You could call him, I guess, a behavioral scientist.
14:14 He's not. He's a journalist.
14:16 But he acts a little bit in his writings like a
14:19 behavioral scientist.
14:20 Why do we do some of the things that we do?
14:25 Now in this article that I read just a couple of days ago,
14:28 Gladwell explained that...
14:30 And this struck me as surprising.
14:33 He explained that when David was victorious over Goliath,
14:39 that wasn't really such a big surprise.
14:43 In as much as by analyzing historical data,
14:48 it is found that a surprising amount of the time,
14:52 David triumphs over Goliath
14:56 in warfare, one nation against another.
15:00 There were certain parameters that he drew.
15:01 There were certain metrics that he applied to this.
15:04 But you might get a small army, that people thought had
15:08 absolutely no hope, fighting against a very large army.
15:12 And a remarkable proportion of the time,
15:15 the small army actually triumphs over the large.
15:19 Not always, of course.
15:21 But a surprising amount of the time.
15:25 And he said here's why.
15:27 In situations like that, David recognizes that he is David.
15:33 A stripling, a lad.
15:35 Weak, one might say.
15:38 And he recognizes that Goliath stands over 9 feet tall.
15:43 David recognizes that if he goes to Goliath like this...
15:47 ...and says, "Bring what you've got, Goliath,"
15:51 Goliath will squash him like a bug.
15:54 If he fights Goliath on Goliath's terms,
15:58 he will not win.
16:00 However, when David does something unorthodox,
16:04 something that Goliath isn't expecting,
16:07 it is then Goliath can be surprised and even defeated.
16:12 What was it in the Bible narrative that took place
16:15 in David versus Goliath?
16:17 Well to begin with, the king, the cowardly king,
16:19 who should have been out there fighting Goliath himself,
16:21 he said to the lad, "Here, put on this armor."
16:25 And David said, "No, I cannot fight in that armor.
16:27 That's just not going to work for me.
16:29 I need to fight in my own armor.
16:32 I cannot play to your strengths, king.
16:34 I don't need to be following an orthodox path here.
16:38 I don't want to be following convention because
16:40 convention will fail me.
16:41 Instead, I need to be doing what works for me.
16:44 Just let me go out there with a slingshot
16:50 and five little stones, five smooth stones."
16:53 Now ladies and gentlemen, that's madness.
16:57 Goliath was 9 feet tall. He was a brute of a man.
17:00 He looked like he'd been carved out of the side of a mountain.
17:02 He was covered up with armor.
17:04 He had in front of him an armor bearer.
17:07 And David said, "I'm going to come up against Goliath
17:10 with a piece of leather and five pebbles.
17:14 And that will be enough."
17:17 Well, David did something else that was interesting.
17:20 He had an element of surprise.
17:23 What did David do?
17:24 Did David walk up and stalk up and slink up and skulk up?
17:28 What did David do when he went up against Goliath?
17:31 He ran, he ran right towards him.
17:33 Here's this great big guy.
17:34 He's been defying the armies of Israel for goodness
17:37 knows how long.
17:38 "All they will do is quake in their boots
17:40 and shiver and shake."
17:41 Yet along comes a lad, sizes up the situation,
17:44 makes a short excursion to a creek, whips out his slingshot,
17:47 and runs towards the giant.
17:51 Goliath was surprised.
17:53 There was an element of surprise.
17:54 David had an unorthodox approach.
17:58 And of course, it didn't hurt that David was a crack shot
18:02 with a sling, did it.
18:03 That helped.
18:05 Goliath died.
18:07 The champion fell.
18:08 Gladwell talked about that.
18:09 He also talked about T.E. Lawrence.
18:11 You might know him better as Lawrence Of Arabia.
18:14 Lawrence Of Arabia won victories he should never have won
18:17 with a rag tag group of soldiers who were not well fitted
18:20 for conventional warfare.
18:21 Instead, recognizing they were not stronger,
18:26 Lawrence decided they had to be smarter,
18:29 smarter than the foe.
18:31 They needed to be agile, they needed to be aggressive,
18:34 they needed to be indefatigable.
18:35 They could not tire or relent.
18:38 They had what Gladwell would call, just to coin a phrase,
18:43 attitude.
18:45 Attitude.
18:47 He then went on and talked about something very fascinating.
18:50 He wrote in his article about a girl's basketball team.
18:55 Now, there was a group of girls that formed a basketball team.
18:57 They were 12 years old.
18:59 Little girls in the Silicon Valley in California.
19:03 Now the coach was an Indian man, I mean Indian from India,
19:08 who had never played basketball in his life.
19:11 And he sized up the situation.
19:14 He said, "I've got a bunch of skinny white girls who've never
19:16 played basketball and don't know anything about it.
19:19 I do not want to see them get whipped every week.
19:23 I want them to win.
19:25 But I'm not much of a basketballer.
19:27 I've never played the game."
19:28 This man was a computer programmer.
19:30 Smart fellow.
19:32 His computer engineering has actually implicated
19:34 and affected the world in which you live.
19:36 He's done some stuff that's very smart.
19:39 He said, "How can we approach basketball knowing that
19:42 we're up against Goliath and we're going to lose.
19:44 We will fight against big tall girls.
19:46 Girls who were born with basketballs in their hands.
19:49 Girls who can shoot the ball through the hoop
19:52 with their eyes closed.
19:53 My girls are little, they're not strong, they can't shoot.
19:57 They're not good basketball players.
19:58 But we are going to win."
20:00 He looked at basketball and he said, "Why do people play
20:02 basketball the way they play?"
20:05 The team has the ball, the other team runs back.
20:08 And gets on what?
20:10 Defense.
20:11 And they get in position so that the other team can
20:14 execute a move they've practiced a thousand times in practice.
20:18 And when they score, this team who scored
20:21 runs back to the other end and defends while the other team,
20:26 who just got scored on, takes the ball and they execute
20:28 a move that they have practiced two thousand times in practice.
20:31 And so it goes backwards and forwards.
20:33 And the computer programmer looked at this and said,
20:35 "This is madness.
20:37 Also, if my girls play that way, we will lose every time."
20:41 He said, "Now that's not going to work."
20:42 He sized up the game and he said, "Here's what we'll do.
20:46 We'll take an unorthodox approach.
20:49 When the other team gets the ball, instead of running back
20:52 to our end, we'll get right up in their face.
20:55 And I will teach my girls to defend, defend, defend."
20:58 You've heard of full-court press?
21:00 There are times teams apply the full-court press.
21:03 This fellow had his girls apply the full-court press
21:05 all game long.
21:09 And so, here are these other 12 year old girls who play
21:11 plenty of basketball, but they weren't use to having some girl
21:13 stick her hand in their face.
21:15 And so they looked for someone to pass to
21:17 but everybody was defended.
21:18 And they're back at the other end.
21:21 Often they would hang onto the ball too long
21:23 before the five seconds or ten seconds, or however long it is.
21:26 They'd have to give possession up.
21:28 These girls were under the basket, they would score,
21:30 and then they'd stay there and get their hands
21:32 in the girls faces again.
21:34 There were times they would score fifteen goals unanswered.
21:38 They would start the game on a 25 points to nothing tear
21:42 because the other girls were not use to
21:44 David's unconventional approach.
21:49 And so you say, "Why don't professional teams do it?"
21:51 Don't know.
21:53 For the same reason that professional basketballers don't
21:55 throw free throws like this...
21:59 Anybody remember the basketball player who use to throw
22:02 free throws like that?
22:03 Rick Barry.
22:05 And he had an excellent scoring percentage.
22:07 But other basketball players looked at Barry with the
22:10 granny shot and said, "That's just not cool."
22:14 So they shoot like this because it's cool, even though they're
22:17 not going to get the ball in nearly as much of the time.
22:19 See, convention doesn't always help.
22:22 You might need to be unconventional.
22:24 Particularly when your name is David and you are
22:27 up against Goliath.
22:29 Basketball is not war, no.
22:33 Some people would say it's much more serious than that.
22:38 But it isn't war.
22:39 But it makes the point.
22:41 Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes you are
22:43 up against a powerful foe.
22:44 And if you fight the foe on the foe's terms,
22:46 you are going to lose.
22:49 Instead, you've got to think about what your strengths are.
22:54 You've got to play to your strengths.
22:55 You might need to be maneuverable,
22:57 you might need to be responsive, you might need to be agile.
23:01 And you are definitely, definitely, definitely
23:05 going to have to have what Gladwell called, attitude.
23:09 You're going to have to have the right attitude.
23:11 Ladies and gentlemen, we can learn from that.
23:14 Please, in your Bible, turn with me to the book of Revelation.
23:17 In the book of Revelation, we read about the big picture.
23:21 We read of the great controversy that is
23:23 raging in this world.
23:24 You could call it the great controversy between
23:27 good and evil, but that would be slightly inaccurate.
23:30 That would be one step away from where you need to be.
23:33 This is the great controversy between Christ and Satan,
23:36 between Christ and Satan.
23:38 Satan, we'll get to this in a moment, fell when
23:40 he was in heaven.
23:42 And he hates you.
23:44 And he hates you particularly because you love God.
23:46 Even if you didn't love God, he'd still hate you.
23:51 I'm amazed.
23:54 And every now and then he does this;
23:56 Satan will bless his own.
23:58 But Satan even hates his own.
24:02 Isn't that something?
24:04 That's why he'll take someone and get him or her hooked,
24:09 addicted, down trodden, beaten down, and then
24:14 chew that person up and spit him or her out.
24:17 You would think that he'd want to bless people for
24:19 acting like devils, but he doesn't.
24:22 Satan hates you because God loves you,
24:25 because you were made in the image of God.
24:27 So he hates us, he hates us.
24:29 And we read in Revelation 12 and verse 12,
24:31 "Therefore rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them."
24:34 The verse goes on to say, "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth
24:37 and of the sea, for the devil is come down
24:41 unto you having..." What?
24:43 "...great wrath."
24:44 What does that word "wrath" mean?
24:45 It means what? Anger.
24:47 But he doesn't have anger.
24:48 He has what kind of anger?
24:50 Great anger, great wrath.
24:52 Why? Because he knows that he only has a... What?
24:55 We are in an enemy, my brothers and my sisters,
24:58 we are in an enemy against an enemy that we are...
25:00 Not in an enemy, we are in a warfare.
25:02 We are in a warfare against an enemy that is bigger than us,
25:08 more powerful than us, smarter than us.
25:13 If you've been alive as long as the devil,
25:16 you have learned some things.
25:18 He's smart.
25:20 Now he's not smart enough to surrender to Jesus.
25:24 But he's smart, he's clever.
25:25 If you want to match IQ's with the devil, you are going to lose
25:28 no matter how smart you think you are.
25:31 The Word of God tells us we are caught in the midst
25:35 of a great controversy.
25:38 Long ago, Satan said that he wanted to be like God.
25:40 How do we know? We read it in Isaiah 14.
25:43 "I will be like the Most High."
25:45 He wanted to sit in God's place.
25:48 And so the misery we see in the world today is caused by
25:51 an angry devil desperately determined to receive on earth
25:56 the worship he was not successful in getting when
25:58 he was in heaven.
26:00 When you read the story and you get to the end of the story,
26:04 you discover Satan is going to sweep the world away.
26:08 Look around.
26:09 He's doing a pretty good job.
26:11 Revelation chapter 13 says, "All that dwell upon the earth
26:15 shall..." Do what?
26:17 You know it's so interesting, isn't it?
26:19 It's so interesting.
26:21 The Bible doesn't say, "All that dwell upon the earth
26:23 will follow him," even though it does say,
26:26 "All the world wondered after the beast."
26:28 It says they'll go a step further than following.
26:33 I mean, you might be a republican or a
26:35 democrat or an independent.
26:36 You might be fixing to vote later on this year
26:38 and you would say, "Well, I want to follow President Obama,"
26:42 or "I want to follow whoever is on the other side."
26:44 Romney most likely, I don't know.
26:47 Or, "I'm going to follow some independent."
26:50 But you're not going to worship them, one might hope.
26:53 To follow is one thing. Right?
26:56 You might see someone who's got a nice coat on
26:59 and you say, "I like that coat.
27:01 I'm going to get one just like that."
27:02 You will follow her or his example.
27:04 But that's not worship.
27:06 The Word of God says, in the end of time
27:08 all the world will worship the beast, bowing down,
27:13 yielding allegiance, falling flat on their faces.
27:17 And I guess that's symbolically speaking.
27:20 Everybody, except for a remnant,
27:25 the group whose names are not written in the book of life
27:27 of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
27:29 Here we are in the time of the end, and the controversy rages.
27:33 Heaven's final judgment is taking place
27:36 and the controversy rages.
27:38 We do not have long.
27:40 Do you agree with me that we don't have long?
27:42 We do not have long. Look around the world.
27:44 Environmentally, the world is groaning.
27:47 Some say it's falling apart.
27:49 I don't know what you make of global warming.
27:51 But there's some crazy things going on out there,
27:53 global warming or not.
27:56 The world seems to be getting about...
27:59 Now I'm thankful that in southern...
28:01 Can you believe this; in southern California
28:03 the air quality is much better than it was a generation ago.
28:06 Thank God I got to southern California when I did.
28:10 So it's not all bad news.
28:11 But generally, globally.
28:13 We're cutting down the rain forests and we're sending
28:16 pollution up into the air.
28:18 We are barely managing to hold it together.
28:20 Economically, if you believe the experts, the financial systems
28:23 of the world are being held together with duct tape
28:27 and good intentions.
28:29 Morally, we are sinking.
28:32 Maybe morally we have sunk.
28:34 You cannot have an opinion anymore,
28:37 if it is biblical and traditional, without being
28:40 phobic or hateful or intolerant.
28:43 How did that happen?
28:46 I mean, you don't have to be mean about people that
28:48 you think aren't living a right lifestyle.
28:50 You don't have to, man.
28:52 God help us, there's so many Christians who are mean
28:54 and hateful towards people who are, what we would
28:58 consider, not living right.
28:59 Man, you don't have to agree with them,
29:01 but you don't have to hate them.
29:02 However, you can't even disagree now,
29:09 you can't even have an opinion now,
29:12 without being labeled a hater.
29:15 That's where we are, that's where we are.
29:19 Socially, if you want to look at how bad off we are socially,
29:25 you don't have to get down to the impoverished part of town.
29:28 You just need to look at how people are behaving
29:30 during the election cycle.
29:33 It seems as though when we're campaigning to lead the
29:37 free world, it brings out the very worst in people.
29:41 Jerry Springer proved long ago, people can lose their
29:44 sense of shame pretty quickly.
29:47 Religiously, Babylon is sharpening her claws and
29:49 getting ready to swoop, getting ready to
29:51 come in for the kill.
29:53 The churches in the world are in a perilous state.
29:57 That's not to say God doesn't have some
29:59 might fine people in them.
30:00 Revelation chapter 18 depicts God, quotes God as saying,
30:04 "Come out of her..." Who? "...My people."
30:07 So before we write everybody off, let's remember that
30:10 the majority of God's people are in churches that you would
30:15 consider aren't following all of the Word of God.
30:18 But there's a reason they've got to come out.
30:21 They come out because the churches are drifting further
30:23 and further and further away from God's ideal.
30:30 I had to laugh when I found out a fellow in Michigan was
30:33 deciding, he was a pastor, trying to figure out
30:35 how to reach his community.
30:36 He said, "I know what I'll do.
30:37 I'll start up a tattooing shop in the church."
30:45 Alright.
30:47 Suppose to have the Word of God in our heart.
30:48 You can come to church and leave with the
30:50 Word of God in your skin.
30:52 I guess that's a pretty frivolous example.
30:54 But I'm thinking that's not God's plan A.
30:57 You think that's right?
30:59 Now friends, the fact that there are churches
31:02 that we can see that we would figure are drifting,
31:03 that fact that we can see in Christianity a drift,
31:06 doesn't mean that lets us off the hook.
31:08 We have learned, in fact, many of us have learned to be
31:11 so faithful to God, we don't even smile.
31:16 We are so faithful to God, we've forgotten how to be nice.
31:20 So dedicated to truth, like it's an abstract concept,
31:25 that we have forgotten the real truth is Jesus.
31:29 So preoccupied with right and wrong we can forget that
31:32 there are people involved.
31:34 People who need to be loved and cared about.
31:36 People who need to be helped up more than they
31:39 need to be helped out.
31:41 I'm convinced, friend, we don't have long.
31:42 The Bible says so.
31:43 It seems that the only sign left to be fulfilled is
31:48 the one that said the whole world is going to
31:49 hear the gospel message.
31:52 And that sign is being fulfilled as we speak.
31:56 Literally, as we speak.
31:58 The great controversy is being carried on down through time.
32:01 It's coming to a head down here.
32:02 Satan, the master conspirator, has set this world up
32:05 so that there's nothing left for it to do but
32:07 fall over completely.
32:10 We are down here in earth's last days.
32:13 The controversy comes to a head.
32:15 God is not asleep at the wheel, however.
32:20 While Satan works...
32:21 I had somebody say to me not very long ago,
32:24 "We don't need to talk about the devil and give him credit."
32:29 "Brother, I read how the story ends."
32:32 Talk about the devil until you're blue in the face,
32:34 but if you read Ezekiel chapter 28
32:36 and Revelation chapter 20, the devil ends up
32:38 burning into ashes.
32:40 I don't think discussing what Satan is doing
32:42 is giving him much credit.
32:44 Unless you think that burning in the end of time
32:46 is a bit of credit.
32:48 Down here in the end of time, God is not asleep.
32:52 God is at work.
32:55 And what's He doing?
32:57 God is busy raising up a group of people who will
33:00 refute Satan's charges.
33:03 Satan said, "God is a liar."
33:05 Satan said that to Adam and Eve in the garden,
33:07 "God doesn't want you to have that fruit because if you do,
33:10 you'll be advantaged.
33:12 And God doesn't want you experiencing advantages.
33:14 Consider God to be cruel."
33:17 Satan has done nothing but lie about God,
33:19 and lie about God's people.
33:20 But God is raising up a people who will be faithful to God
33:24 in the most difficult period in the history of the cosmos.
33:32 Friend, I want you to think about what God is calling us to
33:35 in the time of the end.
33:36 The world wonders after the beast, we are told.
33:40 But on the other side of the page,
33:43 literally, literally on the other side of the page,
33:48 God has a people who do not receive the mark of the beast,
33:51 but instead are sealed with the seal of God.
33:54 Say it with me, "Here is the patience of the saints,
33:58 here are they that..."
34:01 And what?
34:02 "..and the faith of Jesus."
34:04 While Satan is working, while it looks like the last
34:07 drops of decency are going to slip down the plug hole
34:10 of this world, God is raising up a people.
34:14 We are to go to earth's remotest bounds
34:16 calling people to embrace Christ and the love of Christ,
34:19 calling people to remember that grace is more powerful than sin,
34:23 calling people to remember that God's ability to lift
34:26 a person up is greater than Satan's ability to
34:29 pull a person down.
34:31 I don't know someone who has not fallen along the way.
34:35 We are faulty.
34:36 But we celebrate God's grace and we revel in His ability
34:41 to make us into what we cannot make ourselves.
34:46 There is a destination we are heading to,
34:49 ladies and gentlemen.
34:51 We aren't on a train bound for no place.
34:53 We are heading for something.
34:56 And that is, let's keep it straight here, we are
34:59 heading for a date with the seal of the living God.
35:03 Now I don't want you to think I'm getting
35:05 the cart before the horse.
35:06 The destination is Jesus. That's true, that's true.
35:09 Not a belief system, not a doctrine,
35:10 not an idea, but a Person.
35:12 The destination for the Christian is Christ.
35:16 But I have a thought.
35:17 If you don't really understand what Jesus wants to do in
35:20 your life, you might never get to where Jesus wants you to be.
35:23 If you're a pilot, you don't say that the aim is flying.
35:27 The aim is the destination.
35:28 You're going to get there via the flying, that's correct.
35:32 But if you don't understand the destination and your
35:34 coordinates are off by a degree...
35:35 You know, when I was a boy growing up in New Zealand,
35:39 I road my bicycle down to Mr. Farrow's stationers shop.
35:42 That's where I picked up the newspapers.
35:44 I was a paper boy and I went and delivered newspapers.
35:46 And early in the morning, we'd go down there and
35:48 he would open the shop about a quarter to six.
35:50 And we'd get our newspapers and we'd go.
35:53 And I arrived one morning and Mr. Farrow looked ashen.
35:57 Now this man, he had the disposition of a librarian.
36:00 I don't say that unkindly.
36:01 He was a very sober looking fellow and a very responsible
36:04 kind of a man.
36:05 And he was a pillar in the community.
36:07 And when we arrived that morning, he looked ashen.
36:10 In fact, I thought I smelled alcohol.
36:14 I don't know if I did or not, but there was something weird.
36:17 And he looked like he'd seen a ghost.
36:20 And then I discovered what had happened.
36:23 We'd just found out as a nation that an airplane
36:27 that had taken off from New Zealand had just flown
36:29 into the side of a mountain in Antarctica, Mount Erebus.
36:33 You've never heard of it, but every New Zealander,
36:34 it is imprinted on our consciousness.
36:37 Imprinted. Mount Erebus.
36:39 The plane was flying, people were on a flight seeing trip.
36:42 And suddenly the pilot, or maybe the plane, said,
36:45 "Pull up, pull up."
36:46 And some sirens sounded.
36:47 And so they tried to pull up but all the did was they
36:50 managed to smear the aircraft and its occupants,
36:53 266 or 267, 260 some of them, along the side of the mountain.
37:01 They were flying in white out conditions.
37:03 They couldn't see where they were going.
37:04 You know why?
37:05 Because when they programmed the computer,
37:08 the coordinates were off.
37:12 They programmed it to fly into the side of a mountain.
37:15 Someone made a mistake, a costly mistake.
37:18 If the coordinates are off a little bit, you're not going to
37:20 make it to where you want to go.
37:23 God wants us to be so immersed in Jesus down here in the
37:26 time of the end, so immersed in Jesus in the midst of this
37:30 great controversy, that we know that Christ is going to
37:34 work in our lives to get us right to where
37:36 He wants us to be.
37:38 To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
37:42 Not marked with the beasts mark, but sealed with God's seal.
37:46 As we are sealed and given and yielded, it is then
37:52 that it is demonstrated Satan is a liar,
37:55 and God in this great controversy is true.
37:58 Our attitude, our approach, is important.
38:00 The foe is mightier than we.
38:02 If we will learn to play to our strengths,
38:06 we can triumph in this thing even though we are
38:09 David and not Goliath.
38:11 Remember what David said to Goliath?
38:13 I'm going to read it to you.
38:14 Here's what David said to Goliath, I love this.
38:16 It helps our focus, helps our focus.
38:19 What is our strength?
38:20 Remember, we've got to play to our strength.
38:22 What's our strength?
38:23 David knew what his strength was.
38:25 His strength wasn't his right arm.
38:27 Or maybe he was left handed. I don't know.
38:28 His strength wasn't the cut of the leather
38:30 that the sling was made out of.
38:32 His strength wasn't the stones, nor was it his marksmanship.
38:36 He described his strength when he said to Goliath,
38:38 "You come to me with a sword and with a shield,
38:42 but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts,
38:46 the God of the armies of Israel."
38:49 Friend, the name of the Lord of hosts is our strength.
38:52 The God of the armies of Israel is our strength.
38:55 Our strength in the time of the end is Jesus.
38:58 "Here are they that keep the commandments of God,"
39:00 ah, "and the faith of Jesus."
39:03 Faith in Christ, a living breathing,
39:06 moment by moment connection.
39:07 A surrender to him.
39:09 Praying without ceasing.
39:13 Living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
39:18 If we will have the right attitude, wholly leaning on
39:23 Jesus' name, then we will experience the power of
39:26 Christ's aptitude coursing its way through our spiritual veins.
39:32 God is trustworthy.
39:34 God is good. God is love.
39:35 We can know that, and we need to know that.
39:38 The world needs to know that.
39:39 You can believe the lies if you want.
39:43 But if you taste, you will see that the Lord is good.
39:49 You know, Satan knows that.
39:50 It's one of the reasons he misrepresents God.
39:53 He might not be able to get you on some of this,
39:55 but he's wrapping up the world pretty quickly.
39:58 You know, you can think about how Satan misrepresents God.
40:06 He's got theologians all over the world
40:10 who are inventing new ways to misrepresent God.
40:16 I don't know if I've told you this already since I was here.
40:18 Maybe.
40:20 I met a lady once who was a witch.
40:22 A real one.
40:25 They exist, you know.
40:27 And she was a witch because when she went to church,
40:30 the preacher would talk about a God who would burn people
40:33 in hell forever.
40:36 Now I don't know if you know how long forever is.
40:38 You probably don't, but take it from me;
40:40 it's a mighty long time.
40:43 And the longer she thought about this God who would
40:45 burn people forever, the more she realized she didn't
40:47 want to have Him in her life.
40:49 She figured she'd be better off without Him.
40:51 And so she left Christianity all together and became a witch.
40:56 This false teaching, which has made more atheists
40:58 out of people than any other false teaching I can think of,
41:01 was invented by the devil so that in the great controversy
41:05 masses of people would say, "Who would want
41:07 to worship a God like that?"
41:09 And there are unbelievers who think believers are fools
41:11 because we bother with a God who would do that.
41:14 We don't bother with a God who would do that.
41:16 He wouldn't do that.
41:18 I talked to somebody about this once and he said,
41:21 "God can do whatever He wants."
41:22 I agree, I agree.
41:23 But there are some things God does not want to do.
41:26 What kind of a father wants to burn his children
41:28 forever and ever and ever?
41:29 It makes no... Come on, man.
41:32 Think about this in the context of the big picture.
41:34 When God began this thing, He had a perfect world.
41:37 There were no cesspools.
41:38 I grew up in a large yard, we had a big backyard.
41:42 And dad always had a compost heap.
41:44 Always.
41:46 If you spend time around...
41:48 And it wasn't a silage heap.
41:49 But if you spend time around farms, you can get to the place
41:52 where you even enjoy the smell of silage.
41:55 You can get use to it.
41:58 But the truth of the matter is, a compose heap,
41:59 that's where stuff rots.
42:02 Nasty, really, when you think about it.
42:05 You think God is going to have a universe throughout
42:10 eternity that's got some old cesspool compost heap
42:13 on it some place?
42:15 You think God is going to have a perfect
42:16 universe except for one...
42:18 It just doesn't even make sense.
42:20 There's no way you can stack this thing up.
42:22 God's not going to have a beautiful universe
42:23 except for over there.
42:25 Fly over there and you can still hear grandma squealing.
42:28 You don't want that.
42:30 Rotten teaching.
42:32 God the tyrant, worse than Hitler.
42:35 You can look at other false teachings of the Bible.
42:37 The idea that when you die, you go straight here
42:39 or straight there, straight some place.
42:41 And if you do, if you do, Jesus is a liar.
42:44 Because He said that He was the resurrection and the life.
42:47 But it means that you can get to heaven without Jesus.
42:49 That's what it means.
42:51 You can get to heaven without Jesus.
42:53 When you die, you're just going to wing your way there.
42:55 No resurrection necessary.
42:57 Isn't that something.
43:00 I was taught as a child you can come to the priest
43:03 and confess your sins.
43:05 I'm glad I don't have a bad word to say about the
43:07 priests in our church.
43:08 They were good men as far as I knew.
43:09 Good men, good fellows,
43:12 but not God.
43:15 And here we were encouraged, "Go to confession, go to..."
43:17 I wrestled with that.
43:18 As a child I wrestled with that.
43:22 And it's not just that the teaching is wrong,
43:24 it's not just that it's unbiblical.
43:26 But in the great controversy, it paints a bad picture of God.
43:31 In the great controversy, it says you can get
43:33 to heaven your way, without taking your sins to Jesus.
43:37 You see what the devil has done?
43:39 He doesn't just flood the world with false teaching.
43:41 I mean, listen, there are all kinds of people who believe
43:44 all kinds of crazy things.
43:45 It's likely that some of your doctrinal positions are wrong.
43:48 I'm talking about little stuff.
43:50 We would have differences of opinions among
43:52 ourselves on certain things.
43:53 And we're not all going to be right about every last detail.
43:55 You know what I mean?
43:56 I don't want you to misunderstand me
43:58 when I say that.
43:59 There are some details that we differ on.
44:01 That's fine, that's alright.
44:03 Often, there's no harm intended.
44:06 And that's true throughout Christianity.
44:07 But Satan intends harm.
44:10 And you might be wondering your way through life
44:12 doing what you think is best.
44:14 Satan is trying to drag you down.
44:17 He'll tell you the ten commandments don't matter.
44:19 Which is the same as telling you God doesn't matter,
44:22 because they represent Him.
44:24 He'll tell you that you're body is not the temple of the Holy...
44:26 Hang on a minute.
44:28 Let's talk about that for a moment, shall we.
44:32 Friends, we need to be serious about some of these things
44:34 because we're living in the time of the end,
44:36 in the time of the end.
44:38 John wrote, "I wish above all things that you may prosper
44:41 and be in health, even as your soul prospers."
44:43 Satan says, "If it smells good, eat it.
44:45 If it tastes good, pig out.
44:47 Why stop?
44:49 They've got a pill for that now."
44:52 I love these TV commercials, "Got heartburn? Take a pill."
44:59 The commercial should say, "Got heart burn?
45:03 Stop eating that junk you're eating."
45:06 That's what it should say.
45:09 "Take a pill."
45:10 "Ah, good, I can keep on eating my Big Mac's.
45:12 I've just got to take a pill."
45:14 Sure.
45:16 You know, John wrote that good health gives you
45:22 a spiritual advantage.
45:24 That's what he said.
45:26 Friend, we need every advantage we can get.
45:29 We're in a great controversy.
45:31 A bunch of 12 year old girls go out on a basketball court
45:33 trying to figure out how to beat these big girls
45:35 who knew basketball front and back.
45:38 They said, "We need every advantage."
45:40 And so they played to their strengths.
45:42 A strength God has given us is the truth that our body
45:45 is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
45:48 Now if you think I'm meddling;
45:50 that's alright, I am.
45:52 I'm meddling.
45:53 But I'm meddling for your own good.
45:55 You know what? I read a headline the other day.
45:57 "Red meat raises chance of dying young."
46:03 You know, in Europe they've got cigarette packets.
46:06 And on them, they've got pictures of lungs that are
46:09 getting eaten up by cancer and stuff.
46:11 Lungs with tumors on them.
46:13 I wonder if they shouldn't put some warning like that on the
46:16 side of roast beef when they're selling it at a butcher store.
46:21 Show someone who's on a hospital bed who just had some kind of
46:25 cardiac arrest.
46:27 It's in the news, man. L.A. Times.
46:30 I'm not talking about the Podunk Herald.
46:32 L.A. Times.
46:33 "All red meat is bad for you."
46:43 And some of our people think we are critical when
46:45 we talk about health.
46:47 Now it's true, it's true, you won't eat your way into heaven.
46:51 And there are some people who are a little too sanctimonious
46:54 about their garlic consumption.
46:55 They want the whole world to know
46:58 how much garlic they eat.
47:03 Garlic is good for you, man, but there are some things
47:05 you need to keep to yourself.
47:09 Let that light shine under a bushel.
47:13 But while you won't eat your way into heaven,
47:15 there's a chance you could eat your way out.
47:17 That's the truth.
47:19 Olympic games later on this year.
47:20 I haven't met one Olympian who's doing his or her training
47:23 at Krispy Kreme.
47:26 Okay, I haven't met one Olympian.
47:28 But if I had, I wouldn't have met one who's doing their
47:31 training at Krispy Kreme.
47:32 You know, during the New York marathon
47:34 they had these drink tables.
47:35 And they grab the little cup of drink and they learn
47:37 to drink on the run.
47:38 It's not 7-Up in the drink contains.
47:41 It's water.
47:43 They're putting the good stuff in.
47:44 Now don't misunderstand me.
47:45 There's room for an occasional indulgence.
47:47 You can get so stiff, man, that all you want to do
47:50 is eat crackers and lettuce leaves.
47:52 You don't need to be like that.
47:53 You can enjoy some things in your diet.
47:57 But what I'm telling you is that we are in the midst
47:58 of a great controversy out here.
48:00 And when you are under heat of a time of trouble
48:03 such as never was since there was a nation,
48:05 you are not going to be crying out to God and saying,
48:07 "Oh God, I wish I'd eaten more chocolate cake."
48:11 You won't be doing that.
48:12 You'll be saying, "Lord, it's too late for me now to
48:14 gain some spiritual advantages that I might have
48:16 gained back then."
48:18 There's coming a time when we will need every advantage
48:21 that we can.
48:23 Instead, we're fogging our minds, man.
48:25 I grew up in the Waikato in New Zealand.
48:27 Foggy place. Big river.
48:30 I use to be on the river doing my paper run
48:31 and watch the fog roll down the river.
48:35 Fog all over the place.
48:36 I can't tell you how many times I drove down the road at
48:38 fifteen miles an hour.
48:39 All I could see was the white line on the side of the road.
48:43 It was like a lifeline.
48:45 You just wanted the fog to clear.
48:48 Jesus gave us the health message so that the fog would clear
48:52 and so you could, man, you'd see spiritually for miles.
48:56 You don't have to go along pecking at the ground like
48:58 a chicken when you can fly like an eagle.
49:01 God gave us these advantages.
49:03 It reminds me of something.
49:04 When a ship gets into a storm, the captain will sometimes
49:06 give orders to toss overboard everything that's not needed.
49:09 At least they use to.
49:11 Back there in Acts chapter 27, Paul is on a ship.
49:13 The ship is in a storm.
49:15 The Word of God says, "The ship was being exceeding
49:19 tossed with a tempest.
49:20 So the next day they lightened the ship, and with their
49:22 own hands they cast out the tackling of the ship."
49:24 Now the tackling was important, but right then
49:26 they didn't need it.
49:28 And so they got rid of it.
49:30 They got rid of everything but that which was essential.
49:36 The day is coming for us.
49:38 I can't tell you just what it's going to look like,
49:40 but I can tell you that if we believe,
49:42 we need every advantage.
49:43 Then we're going to start taking some steps
49:45 to get out of our lives the stuff that isn't essential.
49:48 Some of us are going to sink under the weight of our stuff.
49:53 Time to get rid of it.
49:54 I'm not trying to talk to you about just what exactly.
49:56 You figure it out.
49:58 You pray, and God will tell you.
50:00 There's a time of trouble coming such as never was.
50:03 Better to lose some stuff and save your vessel
50:06 than keep your stuff and sink entirely.
50:09 In Proverbs, we read a verse that ought to sober us up.
50:12 Proverbs 4:23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence,
50:17 for out of it are the issues of life."
50:19 Not just diligence, but all diligence.
50:21 Keep your heart, keep your mind.
50:23 Protect it, preserve it, look after it with all diligence.
50:27 The margin says, keep it with all keeping.
50:31 You know, in this battle we call the great controversy,
50:35 There is a pressing need to keep the mind.
50:38 Because, after all, we're in a battle for the mind.
50:42 The mark of the beast is put into the minds
50:44 of those who haven't kept their mind.
50:45 The seal of God is placed into the minds of
50:47 those who have yielded their mind to God.
50:50 We've got to be diligent.
50:53 Man, I got crept out in England.
50:56 Everywhere you turn, you see signs saying,
50:59 "Closed circuit television cameras are watching you."
51:03 Someone told me... I don't know if this is true.
51:05 I guess I should check my facts before I tell you.
51:07 But someone said that 25% of all the security cameras
51:10 in the world are in Great Britain.
51:12 That's an area smaller than Colorado.
51:16 And you're in a little village in the nowhere;
51:18 closed circuit cameras.
51:20 I came out of Paddington Station in West London,
51:23 there was a closed circuit TV car.
51:27 Or for those of you who don't speak English;
51:29 a closed circuit television car.
51:36 And there were cameras on it.
51:39 They drive down the street watching you.
51:44 Frankly, I think that's creepy.
51:47 But it makes a point.
51:49 They're serious.
51:50 They're looking out for harm.
51:51 Especially in the year with the Olympic games.
51:54 They know there's trouble.
51:55 They're watching like hawks.
51:57 They are keeping their cities with all diligence.
51:59 You know what I'm saying?
52:01 Are you on the lookout?
52:03 Is Satan cutting across your bow?
52:07 This isn't life just rolling along.
52:09 We are not the three little pigs with some big old bad wolf
52:11 trying to huff and puff and blow our house down.
52:13 This is life and death. This is serious.
52:16 There is an angry devil so full of hatred toward God
52:19 that he will take you in a moment, if only he could.
52:24 The Bible says he has great wrath in this great controversy
52:28 because he knows that he has only a short time.
52:32 Friend, we need to be diligent.
52:34 The Word of God says so.
52:36 Diligent.
52:37 This isn't a time for playing church.
52:40 This isn't the time for a lackadaisical approach to faith.
52:44 This is no time for nominalism.
52:46 Nominalism is a scourge.
52:50 I hear the term "cultural Christian."
52:53 I say, what is that?
52:55 You can't be a Christian culturally.
52:58 It's not something that you're just born into.
53:01 It's not something you inherit.
53:03 Christianity is an individual personal faith relationship
53:07 with a loving living Savior.
53:09 You're not a Christian unless you've got that.
53:11 Now you might be falling.
53:12 I'm not saying you're not a Christian if you're falling.
53:13 Christianity is a growth.
53:15 Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.
53:18 Understand that.
53:20 There's a growth, the Word of God makes clear.
53:22 But this isn't a game.
53:24 You know what?
53:25 It is better to be reaching out for Jesus and falling
53:29 than to be coming to church dressed just so saying,
53:32 "Amen and happy Sabbath," and walking out the door
53:34 forgetting that God even exists.
53:37 It is better to be struggling, crying out to God,
53:42 than living that lackadaisical nominal life
53:47 and not crying out to God.
53:51 Where can nominalism lead us all?
53:54 I don't mean to be judgmental here.
53:57 But you go to the doctor and the doctor will say,
53:58 "Bob, I've got some news for you.
54:00 If you don't make some changes, you've only
54:01 got 'x' left to live."
54:04 God says some of the same things to us.
54:06 Time to make some changes; attitudinal changes,
54:08 serious about faith.
54:09 Jesus died on the cross. That's serious.
54:11 Can you say amen?
54:12 Jesus is coming back soon.
54:14 That's serious. Amen?
54:15 It's also wonderful.
54:17 We say, "hallelujah."
54:18 We're going to look up and cry out and shout,
54:20 "Here He is, that's wonderful."
54:22 But it's serious.
54:23 That's why Jesus said, "Be ye also ready."
54:28 But too many of God's people, people who went to
54:30 Sabbath school and people who went to church school, and
54:33 people who belong to the academy band,
54:35 and people who sat on committees at church,
54:37 too many of them won't be ready for Jesus' return.
54:42 Because in the white heat of the great controversy,
54:44 they were nominal.
54:46 They were lukewarm instead of passionately
54:49 on fire for Jesus Christ.
54:50 When God comes into your life, He will bring a warmth,
54:56 He will bring a strength, He will bring a passion.
54:58 He will bring a fire, a fire.
55:03 We are in a war.
55:05 The dragon was mad with the church and went to make war
55:10 with the remnant of her seed.
55:13 I've never been on a battlefield, never been
55:14 on a real live on.
55:16 I'm thankful for that.
55:18 I have great admiration for those who have stepped
55:20 into the arena of war and have served their country
55:23 so that people like you and me can have freedom.
55:25 God bless our veterans, God bless them.
55:28 You don't have to like war, you don't have to like
55:30 the decisions that governments make, but you can be thankful
55:33 that there's someone ready to go and defend you.
55:36 I'm thankful.
55:38 Any veteran will tell you that out on the battlefield is
55:41 no time for goofing around.
55:43 You need to have your wits about you because
55:45 there is an enemy who will take you out.
55:48 And if you keep your wits about you, you're going to
55:49 protect someone next to you.
55:51 You know something, friend?
55:52 Your witness is either a strength or a weakness
55:56 to the person beside you.
56:00 There are people depending on you.
56:02 Your attitude on the battlefield is vital.
56:07 We are a body, see.
56:10 What happens in one part affects the other.
56:13 And we are in a battle out there.
56:16 Let me see if I can tell you this quickly.
56:18 At the time of the second world war, the French had
56:20 built the Maginot Line.
56:21 The Maginot Line was a fortress.
56:23 They were leery of the Germans and they didn't want to be
56:25 caught out by any German attacks.
56:27 So they built the Maginot Line.
56:29 It was expensive.
56:30 It was a fortification between the French and German border.
56:35 And if I'm not mistaken, also between France and Italy.
56:38 They dug enormous trenches.
56:39 Trenches that could hold thousands of men.
56:41 Trenches so big they would swallow up tanks.
56:44 Trenches so big they were virtually impregnable.
56:47 They were air conditioned. There were power plants.
56:49 Somebody told me there were elevators down there.
56:51 And even an electric train.
56:55 But Germany had attacked Poland and Czechoslovakia.
56:57 Now they were looking at France.
56:58 The French had the Maginot Line.
56:59 They thought they were okay.
57:01 But they didn't count on the Germans going right around
57:05 the Maginot Line and attacking them through the
57:07 Ardennes Forest of Belgium.
57:11 You see, they felt like they were Goliath.
57:13 David, really Goliath, did something unconventional.
57:16 Friend, they didn't watch.
57:19 And they were taken out.
57:20 We are in a battle out here.
57:22 Let's watch.
57:23 We won't be taken out if we watch.
57:24 We won't be taken out if we keep our eyes on Jesus.
57:29 We'll be okay.


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Revised 2014-12-17