Anchors of Truth

Marks And Seals

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: James Rafferty

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Series Code: AOT

Program Code: AOT000090


00:12 Welcome to Anchors Of Truth from the 3ABN Worship Center.
00:17 Decoding Apocalyptic Prophecy with James Rafferty.
00:22 Hello friends and welcome to another Anchors Of Truth series
00:28 here in Thompsonville at the 3ABN Worship Center.
00:31 We thank you for tuning in for the fifth and final
00:35 of five presentations by James Rafferty,
00:37 who is the co-Director and Speaker of
00:40 Light Bearers Ministry.
00:41 He and Ty have been teaching and traveling the world.
00:45 Not only themselves, but the literatures that they produce
00:49 by the millions, by the multiple millions,
00:53 have been sowing seeds around the world getting a harvest
00:56 for the kingdom ready for the coming of our Lord.
00:59 And so for the next hour or so, we would encourage you to
01:02 sit down and get your Bibles.
01:03 We are in the book of Revelation.
01:05 And we have learned quite a bit over the last four meetings.
01:07 Can you say amen to that?
01:09 And so join us as we walk through the pages that
01:12 God intends for us to understand in these last days.
01:17 We'd like to thank you also for your prayers
01:19 and all of your support that you give to 3ABN.
01:21 Whether you have come to volunteer or not,
01:23 whatever you do for the cause of Christ,
01:25 we surely do appreciate it.
01:27 But now we'd like to invite you to pray with us
01:30 as we go before the Lord and ask for the power from earth
01:34 to heaven to connect together.
01:36 Our Father in heaven, we thank You, Lord, for this afternoon,
01:39 for the opportunity once again to be fed from
01:42 the living Word of God.
01:45 We know that when we sit at the table of Christ,
01:47 we never partake of food that is devoid of nourishment.
01:51 And so, Lord, help us today to hunger and to thirst after
01:56 righteousness that we may be filled.
01:58 We pray a blessing on your manservant, James Rafferty,
02:01 as he has broken for us the words of life.
02:05 And this book, the book of Revelation, continues to reveal
02:08 over and over that the central person of its message
02:11 is none other than Jesus Christ.
02:14 And so Lord, through the message this afternoon
02:16 entitled, Marks And Seals, help us to see You more clearly.
02:21 May the challenge to our lives be received and lived up to
02:25 by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
02:27 And we pray this in Jesus' precious name, amen.
02:32 I've been given the opportunity to sing another song at the
02:35 final meeting here.
02:37 And I thought to do something a little different before
02:40 I just chose a song.
02:41 I said, well what song could I sing?
02:43 And I chose to do a song entitled, I Surrender All.
02:46 And the Lord tapped me on my back to kind of find out,
02:49 well what is the story behind this song?
02:51 And I discovered something very interesting.
02:53 A young man by the name of Judson W. Van DeVenter,
02:58 born in 1855, he was raised in a Christian home.
03:01 And at age 17, he gave his life to the Lord.
03:04 Now he gave his life to the Lord,
03:06 accepted Jesus as his personal Savior.
03:09 As he went on through life, he got a degree in a university
03:12 and he became very successful in business as well as in music.
03:16 He was a Methodist choir director in the
03:19 Methodist Episcopal Church.
03:21 But as he was tossed between whether he was going to be a
03:24 businessman or whether he was going to concentrate
03:26 his life on music, he continued in that journey.
03:30 And for 5 years, he struggled as to what he was going to do.
03:34 And finally in the year 1896, he surrendered his desires
03:39 completely to the Lord.
03:41 Now there's a difference between surrendering your life
03:43 and surrendering your desires.
03:45 And in that year 1896, after he surrendered his desires
03:49 to the Lord, he wrote down the lyrics to this song,
03:52 I Surrender All.
03:53 He never made it a song.
03:54 He just wrote down the lyrics.
03:56 And a man by the name of Winfield S. Weeden
03:59 later on found those lyrics and put music to it.
04:02 And Weeden loved that song so much that when he died,
04:07 on his tombstone were the three words, "I surrender all."
04:11 And so there are those who may have given their lives
04:13 to Christ but have not yet surrendered their desires.
04:16 I pray that as I share this song, we can go from just
04:19 surrendering our lives to also surrendering our desires
04:22 to the Lord.
04:38 All to Jesus I surrender,
04:46 all to Him I freely give.
04:54 I will ever love and trust Him,
05:03 in His presence daily live.
05:10 I surrender all,
05:18 I surrender all.
05:26 All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
05:34 I surrender all.
05:46 All to Jesus I surrender,
05:54 humbly at His feet I bow.
06:02 Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
06:11 take me, Jesus, take me now.
06:18 I surrender all,
06:25 oh I surrender my all.
06:34 All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
06:42 I surrender all.
06:50 I surrender my all,
06:57 oh I surrender all.
07:06 To You, my Lord, and to You, my Savior,
07:14 I surrender all.
07:22 All to Jesus I now surrender,
07:30 for I feel that sacred flame.
07:38 Oh, the joy of full salvation;
07:46 glory, glory, to Your name.
07:56 I surrender my all,
08:03 Lord I surrender all.
08:12 All to You, my blessed Savior,
08:23 I surrender all.
08:46 Amen.
08:50 Amen.
08:52 Powerful. I surrender all.
08:54 That's what it takes when we are...
08:58 Oh, I don't know.
09:00 I don't want to say "confronted."
09:02 ...faced with, when we come in contact with
09:06 Jesus and truth.
09:08 It takes a full surrender sometimes.
09:10 I know that's what it took for me when I first started studying
09:14 the topics that we're going to be talking about
09:17 in this last meeting together.
09:18 Seals and marks.
09:21 That's the center most focus of this chapter
09:25 in Revelation 14.
09:26 Just checking to make sure that both my pockets are out here.
09:32 Revelation 14, three angel's messages, talks about this,
09:36 in the third angel's message, this mark of the beast.
09:39 The mark of the beast is something that we are
09:42 warned not to receive.
09:43 You'll notice it here in Revelation chapter 14
09:46 beginning with verse 9, "The third angel followed them
09:49 saying with a loud voice..."
09:50 That is, clear.
09:52 The message is clear.
09:53 "If any man worships the beast and his image,
09:56 and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand,
10:01 the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God."
10:04 Now this is a warning that is found, not just in chapter 14,
10:10 but it is connected to chapter 13.
10:13 And the thing that connects it, the word that connects it
10:16 all the way through here, is the word "worship."
10:19 Worship, worship, worship, worship, worship.
10:22 That is the key issue here in Revelation's
10:24 three angel's messages.
10:26 And what's interesting is, that is also a key word or key phrase
10:30 that is found in the first part of the three angel's messages.
10:34 The first message or the first angel that brings the
10:37 everlasting gospel calls the world to worship God
10:42 who created heaven, earth, the seas and fountains of waters.
10:45 So what we have here is a conflict that's taking place
10:48 between worshiping the beast and worshiping God.
10:51 It's that simple.
10:53 And the beast, of course, isn't some computer
10:56 or some computer chip.
10:57 The beast represents a power or kingdom,
11:00 an earthy power or kingdom.
11:01 And so we see here a conflict that is going to develop
11:05 in the end of time between worshiping earthly powers and
11:09 kingdoms, religious powers and kingdoms, of this world
11:12 and worshiping God.
11:14 Which means that there's a difference between
11:18 the way we worship God and the way most people worship.
11:22 There's a conflict taking place.
11:24 Because God here, in His prophetic word, is writing this
11:28 looking ahead to our time 2000 years ago.
11:31 And He's foreseeing this conflict that's going to
11:34 take place in the end of time.
11:35 Now in Revelation chapter 7, a seal is being placed
11:41 on God's people.
11:42 This is where we find the seal being identified.
11:44 Revelation chapter 7 beginning with verse 1.
11:47 And the context of this is...
11:50 Well, John has just revealed the second coming of Jesus.
11:54 The fifth seal has been opened, and then the sixth seal.
11:57 And the kings of the earth and the mighty men, the rich men,
11:59 they're all running for the rocks and the mountains.
12:01 And they're saying, "Fall on us.
12:03 The day of His judgment has come, the Lamb has come.
12:05 Who's going to be able to stand in His presence?"
12:07 And so John is basically answering this question,
12:10 "Who will be able to stand in the presence of God
12:12 and the Lamb when He returns?"
12:14 And the answer is, those who are sealed.
12:17 They're symbolized as the 144,000.
12:20 They're identified as a great multitude that
12:22 no man can number.
12:23 But the one thing that is vital for those who are going to stand
12:29 before the throne and before the Lamb is that they have
12:33 the seal of God in their foreheads.
12:36 Now I want you to notice something.
12:37 We'll touch on this later.
12:39 You can only be sealed with the seal of God
12:41 in your forehead.
12:43 You can receive the mark of that earthly kingdom or power
12:46 in your forehead or where else?
12:48 In your hand.
12:49 Don't forget that. That's a very vital truth.
12:51 So they're sealed with God in their foreheads.
12:55 They receive the seal of God.
12:57 What is this seal of God?
13:00 What is it that this group receive that causes them
13:04 to be able to stand before the throne and before the Lamb?
13:07 Now we know one thing for sure.
13:09 It has to do with the righteousness of Christ.
13:11 It has to do with salvation.
13:12 How do we know this?
13:14 Well in Revelation chapter 7 verse 9, it says,
13:17 "I saw after this, a great multitude which no man
13:20 could number, of all nations and kindreds and people
13:22 and tongues," notice this, "and they stood before the throne
13:28 and before the Lamb."
13:30 Now remember the question that was asked by John
13:33 in Revelation chapter 6 and verse 17.
13:37 Well let's get the context, Revelation 6:16.
13:40 And these men say to the mountains and the rocks,
13:42 "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sits
13:46 on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.
13:49 For the great day of his wrath is come;
13:51 and who will be able to stand?"
13:53 That is, before Him that sits on the throne and before the Lamb.
13:56 The answer is, "I saw a great multitude," John says,
13:59 "and they stood before the throne and before the Lamb."
14:03 You see that?
14:04 So that's a direct answer to the question.
14:07 Now what is it about this multitude that causes them
14:09 to be able to stand before the throne and before the lamb?
14:11 Read verse 10.
14:12 "And they cried with a loud voice saying,
14:15 'Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne,
14:22 and unto the Lamb.'"
14:23 In other words, what caused them to stand
14:25 was that they were...
14:27 And I'm going to use another word for seal.
14:29 They were settled into the fact, they couldn't be moved
14:32 from the fact, the truth, that salvation belongs to God
14:36 and to the Lamb.
14:38 It is not we who save us.
14:40 It's God who saves us.
14:42 They were settled in that, they couldn't be moved.
14:44 Now this is described elsewhere in the Bible.
14:46 If you'll back to the book of Ephesians, there are two places
14:49 there that describe the seal that we are to be sealed with.
14:53 Ephesians chapter 4 is the first place I want you to look.
14:57 And by the way, this is such an important topic.
15:00 I want to encourage our viewers that are watching
15:02 this last of the five part series, get your Bibles out.
15:06 Get a pen, get a paper. Take notes.
15:08 Write down Bible verses.
15:09 I'm going to be sharing a lot of Bible verses with you.
15:11 We can't make a mistake on this topic.
15:14 This is life and death.
15:15 And you can tell in the words of Revelation's
15:19 three angel's messages how important this is.
15:21 Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 30.
15:24 Paul says here, "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God,
15:28 whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption."
15:33 So this verse indicates that we are sealed by the Spirit of God.
15:38 Now the Spirit of God is the third person of the Godhead.
15:40 It is God Himself in the form of His Spirit.
15:43 And He's sealing us with His character.
15:45 The character of God is what we're being sealed with.
15:48 We're being sealed by the Holy Spirit.
15:50 Notice this again, but it's in an even better context
15:53 in Ephesians chapter 1.
15:54 Ephesians 1 brings this out so powerfully
15:57 that you can't miss it.
15:59 Once you see this, you can't miss what the seal of God is.
16:03 Ephesians chapter 1, and I'm just going to read one verse,
16:05 though context is really powerful too.
16:08 Verse 13.
16:11 Actually, I'm going to read verse 12 just to
16:13 try and get more context.
16:14 "That we should be to the praise of his glory,
16:17 who first trusted in Christ.
16:19 In whom," verse 13, "you also trusted, after you heard the
16:24 word of truth, the gospel of your salvation:
16:32 in whom after that you believed..."
16:35 That is, after you believed in the gospel.
16:37 "...you were..." What?
16:38 "...sealed with the holy Spirit of promise."
16:41 Okay.
16:43 You want to notice in this verse that there are three words
16:46 connected together.
16:47 The gospel, the truth, and the seal.
16:51 You can't separate them.
16:52 Gospel, truth, and seal. Gospel, truth, and seal.
16:55 Believing the gospel, believing the truth,
16:59 is synonymous with being sealed with the Holy Spirit.
17:03 You can't be sealed with the Holy Spirit
17:04 and not believe the truth.
17:05 You can't be sealed with the Holy Spirit
17:07 and not believe the gospel.
17:08 Because the seal of God is, in essence, the character of God.
17:12 It is the truth of God.
17:14 And we're to be sealed with that truth so we cannot be moved.
17:18 Now the only way we can be sealed with the
17:21 character of God, with the seal of God,
17:23 is described to us in 2 Corinthians chapter 3
17:28 and verse 18.
17:30 This is very practical.
17:31 This is practical truth.
17:33 And by the way, Satan understands this truth.
17:37 And when you leave here today, when you turn off your TV's,
17:41 when you go about your business through the week,
17:43 I want you to think about this verse that we're going to read
17:46 right here and how it impacts you, how this law impacts you
17:52 on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis,
17:55 year by year.
17:57 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 18.
17:59 "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass
18:04 the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image
18:10 from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
18:14 There's the Spirit again.
18:16 The Spirit is working to seal us into the glory,
18:19 or the character, of God.
18:20 And He does this as we behold Him.
18:22 We behold Him and we're changed into that same glory.
18:26 This is a law of our spiritual and intellectual nature;
18:30 that by beholding, you become changed.
18:31 Think about that when you go to work.
18:33 Think about that when you are surrounded with the atmosphere
18:36 and the influence of the world.
18:38 Because the world is trying to use this law to change you
18:41 into another person.
18:43 Satan wants to perfect his own character in his own people.
18:47 And God is seeking to develop His character in us
18:51 and settle us into that character of love
18:53 so we can't be moved.
18:55 He does this through the Spirit.
18:56 Now what is so powerful about this is to recognize
19:01 that it is by beholding that we become changed.
19:04 Do you know what that means?
19:06 That means spending time in the Word of God.
19:09 How many of you are busy?
19:13 Oh man.
19:15 We've got so many inventions in this world to give us so much
19:18 extra time so we can have extra time to do so many things,
19:21 and we're still busy.
19:22 We're busier now than we were a century ago.
19:25 And everything is easier, yet we're more busy.
19:28 People tell me all the time, they retire and they're more
19:30 busy in retirement than they were when they were working.
19:32 Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
19:34 You know who's that, don't you.
19:37 If it wasn't for a certain day of the week
19:40 that God has set aside, mandated as part of His law
19:48 for me to rest, I don't think that I would spend
19:53 very much time beholding Him.
19:58 Let me put it in very simple words.
20:00 The Sabbath is the key to being sealed with the seal of God.
20:06 Why?
20:07 Because the Sabbath is the day that God has instituted
20:11 for every person on planet earth to put the brakes on,
20:15 to lay aside the secular.
20:16 And the dishes, ladies.
20:18 To lay aside every unnecessary work in this world
20:24 so that we can behold Him.
20:26 So that His Spirit can move upon our hearts and transform us,
20:29 so that by behold Him we can be transformed into His image.
20:32 Then I say, well if the Sabbath is so true,
20:36 so important, so vital, where is it in the context
20:40 of the three angel's messages?
20:41 Well let's go back to Revelation chapter 14 and see if it's here.
20:44 Let's go back to the context of the three angel's messages.
20:48 Let's begin at the very beginning.
20:49 Revelation chapter 14 verse 6, "And I saw another angel
20:52 fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel."
20:55 Remember, the gospel is what we need to be sealed into,
20:57 according to Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13.
21:00 "...having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them
21:02 that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, kindred,
21:04 tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, 'Fear God
21:08 and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.
21:11 and worship him who made heaven, and earth, and the seas,
21:17 and the fountains of waters.'"
21:19 Hmmm.
21:20 Do you know where John is quoting from in this verse?
21:25 "Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the seas,
21:27 and the fountains of waters."
21:28 Just flip back.
21:30 I know you know it. Don't you.
21:31 You give me the answer, right?
21:33 Where is he quoting from?
21:34 Exodus chapter 20.
21:36 Just keep your hand in Revelation 14.
21:38 Keep your hand in Revelation 14.
21:40 And just flip back to Exodus chapter 20.
21:43 And look at this, this is amazing.
21:45 Okay, Exodus chapter 20.
21:46 The Sabbath commandment, by the way, begins
21:49 with the word "remember."
21:50 And that word "remember" actually means, "mark."
21:53 "Mark."
21:56 It's the mark of God.
21:57 We call it, the seal of God.
21:58 But it's also the mark of God.
22:00 You have the mark of the beast, you have the mark of God. Why?
22:01 Because Satan always counterfeits
22:03 everything that God does.
22:05 And if we had time, we'd go through that.
22:07 We don't have time because we've got to move through this.
22:08 And this is a very important subject.
22:10 So, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
22:12 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.
22:14 But the seventh day," Exodus 20:10,
22:17 "is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
22:19 I guess that means that the seventh day is the Lord's day.
22:25 According to the Bible.
22:27 John says, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's day."
22:28 I've read some Bibles versions that say,
22:30 "I was in the spirit on Sunday."
22:31 That's what some translations say.
22:33 I don't like those translations.
22:35 Because the Bible says that the Lord's day is the
22:37 seventh day, not Sunday.
22:39 Sunday is the first day of the week.
22:40 Okay but, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.
22:42 In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son,
22:46 nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant,
22:49 nor thy maidservant..."
22:51 Remember that when you're in a hotel on Sabbath.
22:54 "...nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger
22:57 that is within thy gates.
22:59 For," here it goes, "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
23:03 the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.
23:07 Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it."
23:11 Okay that last verse, verse 11, "In six days the Lord made
23:15 heaven and earth, and the sea."
23:16 Worship God on the Sabbath, because on the seventh day
23:19 the Lord rested from all His work of creation, of creating.
23:24 He's the Lord of the Sabbath.
23:25 In six days He made heaven and earth, and the seas,
23:27 and the fountains of waters.
23:29 Revelation 14 says, "Worship him that made heaven, and earth,
23:31 and the seas, and the fountains of waters."
23:34 That's a direct quote.
23:35 The last message to the world quotes directly from the
23:40 fourth commandment.
23:41 Now God could have quoted from any commandment,
23:44 or all of the commandments, in His everlasting gospel message.
23:47 But He quoted from this one specifically because
23:50 He knew that this was the one commandment that
23:52 the world would have forgotten in the end of time.
23:56 So He directs us back to this commandment
23:58 which starts, "remember," knowing we would forget.
24:02 Why would we forget?
24:04 Well not just because of a certain prophecy in
24:06 Daniel chapter 7 and verse 25, but also because we are
24:11 human beings that naturally tend to work.
24:16 The world inundates us with this idea that if you want it,
24:19 you've got to earn it.
24:21 If you want to graduate from high school,
24:23 you've need to get your credits.
24:25 If you want to get a degree, you need to get,
24:28 excuse me, graduate from college,
24:29 you need to get your degree.
24:31 You need to put in your time.
24:32 If you want to get paid, you need to put in your hours.
24:34 If you want retirement, you need to put in your years.
24:37 Nothing is free. You've got to earn it.
24:40 And then contrary to that, the gospel comes along.
24:42 And the gospel says, "You can't earn it.
24:44 Absolutely impossible."
24:45 Wait a minute, I've been earning everything in life.
24:47 Everything I've ever gotten in life, I've had to earn.
24:50 The gospel says, "Well, this is different."
24:52 We have a hard time with that.
24:54 We profess to accept that as a gift.
24:57 "Well thank you for the gift."
24:58 But in the back of our minds, we're thinking,
24:59 "Now what can I do to earn this?"
25:03 If you don't think we have a problem with it,
25:04 read Matthew 18.
25:07 There's a certain servant who owes his master
25:11 a sum of money that is so great he can never repay it.
25:14 And his master calls him to give an account and tells him that
25:18 he and his wife and children are all going to go
25:20 to debtors prison.
25:21 And the man says to this master, "Give me time
25:26 and I will pay you back."
25:28 Absolutely impossible.
25:29 We're talking about salvation now.
25:32 And the master has compassion on him
25:34 and forgives him the whole debt.
25:36 That's the gospel, by the way.
25:38 In two ways.
25:39 Number one, He let us amass the debt in the first place.
25:43 And then number two, He forgives us even though we don't ask.
25:49 Because he didn't ask for forgiveness.
25:50 What did he ask for?
25:52 Time, he wanted more time.
25:54 The only way we can ever grasp the gospel is if we recognize
25:58 it comes from a heart of unconditional forgiveness.
26:00 That's what Matthew 18 tells us.
26:03 Did he grasp it?
26:04 Did this man who was forgiven this great debt
26:06 grasp the gospel?
26:09 No.
26:10 He went in on his terms, he went out on his terms.
26:12 How do we know that?
26:13 Well, he saw his fellow servant that owed him a small pittance.
26:15 He went over and grabbed him by the throat and he said,
26:17 "Pay me everything you owe.
26:18 Because I've only got so much time, I've got to pay this back.
26:20 Pay me everything you owe."
26:22 That's how we are many times.
26:23 We come to God and we hear what He says,
26:26 but it doesn't sink into the heart.
26:27 We don't take hold of it.
26:29 So we think we've got a certain amount of time
26:31 to perfect a certain character or to do a certain amount of
26:34 things in order to make ourselves worthy to be
26:36 what God calls us to be, or to pay back the debt.
26:40 But friends, when you grasp the gospel of God's love,
26:44 when that impacts your heart, it will change the way you
26:46 deal with others who owe you.
26:49 When you know that God has forgiven you,
26:51 it's going to impact you in a very powerful practical way.
26:54 That is sanctification, or the fruits of the gospel.
26:58 It causes you to be forgiving as God is forgiving to you.
27:01 So in this context, we have a very interesting idea.
27:08 I'll call it an idea for now.
27:11 The seal of God, which comes to us through the Holy Spirit
27:14 and the work of the Holy Spirit on your hearts,
27:16 changing us into God's image so that we reveal His character
27:19 is directly connected with the Sabbath.
27:22 Because the Sabbath is the time when God says,
27:25 "Spend time beholding Me.
27:27 Spend time taking in who I am so that you can become changed
27:30 into My image."
27:32 So the Sabbath now is dead center right in the middle
27:36 of the everlasting gospel and the three angel's messages.
27:38 When we read about the Sabbath, it directs us to Exodus 20.
27:42 But when we read Exodus 20, it directs us to Genesis 2.
27:48 What does Genesis 2 have to do with the everlasting gospel
27:53 and the Sabbath?
27:54 I want you to look here in Genesis chapter 2.
27:55 This is really, to me, quite profound and quite interesting,
27:59 and the most important thing that we can talk about
28:02 in relation to the seal.
28:04 Especially when we contrast that with the mark.
28:07 Because Revelation 14 tells us, those that have the
28:10 mark of the beast have no rest, day nor night.
28:13 God is interested in giving us rest.
28:14 Not just literal rest, but spiritual rest.
28:17 Not just temporal rest, but eternal rest.
28:20 Which comes to us through Christ.
28:22 Okay, Genesis.
28:26 God is creating the world.
28:28 First day, second day, third day.
28:30 He's creating the sky and separating the waters,
28:32 and creating the land and putting the animals,
28:35 and the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky.
28:37 Fifth day, sixth day.
28:39 On the sixth day, the finality of His work comes together
28:42 and He creates us; you and me.
28:45 He waits to the last day to create us.
28:47 So there He is putting us together.
28:50 Breathes in us the breath of life.
28:51 We become a living soul; breath plus body equals soul.
28:55 And we stand before God.
28:58 And of course, God creates Eve from Adam's side.
29:02 We stand before God and He says to us,
29:05 "First thing I want you to do is rest."
29:11 "First thing I want you to do is rest."
29:15 Why did God do that?
29:16 Well, I think there's a few reasons, but I'm going to
29:19 state the one that I think is most important at this point
29:21 in our juncture of salvation history.
29:25 God created this world without us,
29:28 but He made it for us.
29:31 There was nothing we could point to and say,
29:33 "Hey, you see that tree over there?
29:35 Me and God did that together.
29:37 I did the trunk, He did the branches.
29:39 I did the leaves, He put the fruit on."
29:41 Nothing.
29:42 Everything God did, He did without us
29:45 in creating this world.
29:47 But then He gave it to us as a gift.
29:48 And the first thing He asked us to do was rest
29:51 in everything He did without us for us.
29:54 Are you following Me?
29:55 Okay, this is powerful.
29:57 Because in Revelation chapter 14, God is
30:00 calling us all the way back to Genesis to remember something
30:03 quite valuable about how He created the world.
30:05 Because when we sinned, God began the job of
30:11 recreating the world in Jesus Christ.
30:15 Jesus Christ became the second Adam,
30:17 the second head of human race.
30:19 He's called the second Adam in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
30:21 Why?
30:23 Because someone has to take responsibility
30:25 for what the first Adam did.
30:27 The second Adam is going to do that so God can be just.
30:30 So He creates the second Adam.
30:32 Jesus comes to this world in the form of a man.
30:34 Adam means man.
30:37 And He lives a perfect life.
30:40 None of us helped Him to do that.
30:41 He recreated the human race in Himself;
30:44 perfect righteousness in Jesus.
30:47 Then He goes to the cross and He dies our death.
30:54 The Bible says, He tread the winepress alone;
30:56 speaking of His life and of His death.
30:58 And of the people, there was how many with Him?
31:00 None, no one was with Him.
31:02 Okay, now when God finished creating the world,
31:06 on the sixth day He said, "It is finished."
31:11 What day was that? What day was the sixth day?
31:13 Friday, the day before Sabbath.
31:15 Then He rested on the Sabbath.
31:17 When Jesus finished recreating the world;
31:21 perfect life, died our death,
31:24 He's hanging on the cross, what day is it?
31:26 Friday.
31:27 What does He say when He's done?
31:29 "It is finished."
31:32 So the Sabbath is a reminder, not only of God's first
31:37 creation, but of His second.
31:39 It's a reminder that He recreates us.
31:43 We are new creatures in Jesus Christ.
31:45 That everything that God has worked out was done without us,
31:49 but it was done for us.
31:50 Just like creation.
31:52 The everlasting gospel calls us to remember the Sabbath
31:56 and remember what God did for us without us,
31:58 and to rest in what God has done for us without us.
32:02 Are you with me?
32:04 That's why the everlasting gospel is connected
32:07 directly to the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is connected directly
32:11 to being sealed by the seal of God, or by the Holy Spirit.
32:17 There's no difference.
32:18 Because the Sabbath reminds us to rest.
32:20 Now I have a difficult time, at times,
32:23 entering into Sabbath rest.
32:24 Okay, I've been keeping the Sabbath for 30 years
32:26 and I'm willing to admit that.
32:28 I've just got things on my plate.
32:29 I've just got things I want to get done, you know.
32:32 And yet, God has given a command.
32:35 And sometimes, that's what it has taken for me;
32:37 a command.
32:39 That's why I believe Sabbath is so, well it's so powerful.
32:43 Because it's a command of God.
32:45 God's power is in the command.
32:47 God's power is not in any other day, it's only in that day.
32:50 That's the day that God created to be the Sabbath
32:53 for us to rest.
32:55 And it's because He's commanded it, because it's part of His
32:56 commands, that I cease and desist.
32:59 Because I'm affected, my life is affected by the power of God.
33:03 God calls me to rest.
33:05 And at times, I do it by faith.
33:07 Because, "If I could just get this one phone call in,
33:09 if I could just get this last task accomplished,
33:11 I think I'd be further ahead in life.
33:13 I think I could, you know, be more comfortable
33:16 about my future.
33:17 If I could just do one more thing.
33:19 The sun is going down in an hour at home."
33:22 But God says, "No, no, no, no, no.
33:25 You need to remember the Sabbath.
33:27 You need to remember that everything you need,
33:30 everything that you really want, has been accomplished by Me.
33:35 It's in Jesus Christ.
33:36 And you need to rest in that."
33:38 All the secular stuff is going to fall by the wayside.
33:42 But one this is sure and one thing is eternal.
33:44 And that is salvation.
33:46 And what would it profit any man if he gains the whole world
33:51 and loses his soul?
33:53 So the Sabbath stands in contrast, in Revelation
33:58 chapter 14, to the mark of the beast.
34:02 But what about the mark?
34:04 I was doing a series of meetings in Zimbabwe.
34:12 This was just a few years ago.
34:14 I'd never traveled to Africa.
34:15 It was my first time traveling to Africa.
34:17 And as I traveled to this university,
34:21 I was really excited.
34:23 One of the reasons I was so excited is because
34:26 the university was, well it was an Adventist university
34:31 with a lot of Christians.
34:35 Christian young people.
34:37 Two-thousand of them.
34:40 And my specific week of prayer was mandatory
34:45 for these two-thousand.
34:46 In other words, unlike the week here at 3ABN,
34:53 every student on that campus had to come and sit
34:57 physically in my meeting.
35:01 Are you with me?
35:05 There were three weeks of prayers every year at Solusi.
35:07 The other two weren't mandatory.
35:09 You could come if you wanted to, you didn't have to come.
35:11 But I had the one that was mandatory.
35:12 That means I had a full audience of 2000 young people
35:16 every single meeting whether they liked it or not.
35:18 And I was pretty happy about that.
35:24 I didn't realize that a lot of them didn't like it.
35:27 But I found out.
35:28 I was moving through the three angel's messages.
35:30 I was really excited because I knew that all of them
35:33 were Adventists.
35:36 And I was so interested in sharing with them
35:40 the everlasting gospel in the context
35:42 of the three angel's messages.
35:43 You know, something I thought was so powerful and so new
35:46 and so, "Oh you've just got to hear this in the context of
35:48 the three angel's messages, the everlasting gospel."
35:50 So we moved through it and there were amens
35:52 and there was positiveness, and people were attending.
35:54 It was good.
35:56 Then we got to the middle of the meeting
35:57 about half way through, about here.
35:59 We started talking about Babylon and about the wine of Babylon,
36:02 about marks and seals.
36:04 And as we started indentifying these things,
36:06 a change came over the audience.
36:09 The pastors came to me after the meeting and they prayed
36:11 with me, they always did, and they said,
36:12 "Did you notice there were a few murmurings
36:14 in the audience today?"
36:16 And I said, "Yeah, I noticed that.
36:17 They were really impressed with some of the
36:19 information, weren't they."
36:20 "Well no, not exactly.
36:22 You see, we aren't sure that we told you this before you came,
36:26 but not all of these students are Adventist students."
36:32 I said, "Really?"
36:33 They said, "Yeah, since we've become a university,
36:37 umm, we have, well we have a lot more students coming here
36:40 because of our status.
36:41 I said, "How many more?"
36:42 And they said, "Well, we use to have four hundred.
36:44 Now we have two-thousand."
36:46 I said, "So how does that relate to
36:49 Adventist verse non-Adventist?"
36:51 That's about how it relates.
36:53 Four hundred verses two-thousand.
36:55 I said, "So you're saying about 1600 of these students are not
36:58 Seventh-day Adventists?"
37:00 "Yes." I said, "Well what are they?"
37:02 "Uh, the major religion here in Zimbabwe is Catholic."
37:12 "Thanks for telling me."
37:13 So I though, you know I would have stepped a little gentler,
37:16 but oh well, I guess it's out of the pot now.
37:21 Went to the local library that afternoon.
37:23 I always met with the students in the early afternoon,
37:26 mid-morning, that had questions.
37:28 There were four girls waiting to talk with me.
37:30 They wanted to come in together.
37:32 I usually met with one for about 15 minutes,
37:33 one student at a time.
37:35 But there were four there, they wanted to meet together.
37:36 They sat down in front of me in their chairs
37:38 and they were upset.
37:39 There was one that was a spokesperson.
37:40 She had a Bible and she said, "We want to tell you something."
37:43 I said, "What is that?" And she said, "We are Catholics.
37:45 We don't like what you're saying and we want you to stop now."
37:48 I smiled and I said, "Well, I was raised a Catholic."
37:50 That didn't help.
37:52 She was really upset.
37:55 Here was her problem.
37:58 She said, "You told us this morning that the seventh day
38:02 is the Sabbath, not Sunday."
38:06 I said, "Well, yeah."
38:07 She said, "Show us that from the Bible."
38:11 I said, "Well okay, let's go to Genesis chapter 1."
38:17 So I said, "You have a Bible. You start reading."
38:20 So she started reading, she said, "And the evening
38:22 and the morning were the first day."
38:24 She took a pencil and she wrote in there, "Monday."
38:31 Then she looked at me and she said,
38:32 "Who's to say it wasn't Monday?
38:33 How do you know it wasn't Monday?
38:35 I say it was Monday. What do you girls say?"
38:36 "Monday." "Monday." "Monday." "Monday."
38:38 You know where she's going, right?
38:40 Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sabbath.
38:43 Sunday, seventh-day.
38:44 I said, "Okay."
38:46 I'm praying, I'm praying, I'm praying.
38:47 I'm saying, "Lord, where do I go from here?"
38:49 These girls are honest. They're Catholics.
38:51 I was raised Catholic, I know where they're coming from.
38:52 I remember when my sister first came into my house.
38:55 I was a brand new Christian, I was in love with Jesus.
38:57 He had just forgiven me for my sins.
38:59 I was going to church every Sunday and every Wednesday.
39:01 I was going to Calvary Chapel.
39:02 I was going to a Pentecostal church.
39:04 My sister was studying with Adventists.
39:05 And my sister says to me, "The seventh-day is the Sabbath.
39:08 And that's Saturday, not Sunday."
39:10 And I thought, she's gone bonkers, literally.
39:12 I thought, "What in the world are you talking about?
39:14 The Bible doesn't teach that."
39:17 I was so concerned about her that I started studying with
39:19 Adventists to get my sister out of the church.
39:21 I was like, "I'll find out what they're teaching.
39:24 These guys are crazy."
39:25 I studied my way right in.
39:30 So I thought, hey, these girls are honest.
39:31 They're honestly asking me what day is the day.
39:34 But then when she started writing, I thought,
39:36 I've never had any... Have you ever had anyone do that?
39:38 I've never had anyone do that before.
39:40 I said, "Lord, where do I go from here?"
39:42 And God took me to Luke chapter 23.
39:45 And I said to them, I said, "I want you to open
39:46 now to Luke chapter 23."
39:48 Because she said to me, "Now what, Pastor?
39:50 Now what are you going to do?"
39:53 She had an attitude. She was upset.
39:55 She told me after we were done...
39:57 By the way, I was in there for an hour and a half
39:59 with these four girls.
40:00 People where opening the door, "It's our turn, it's our turn."
40:02 I said, "No, no. Wait a minute.
40:03 This is important."
40:05 She said, "When we came in there, we thought
40:06 we were going to pick up our chairs and throw them at you.
40:08 We were so angry at you."
40:11 I kept smiling, because I could understand.
40:14 And so I took them to Luke chapter...
40:16 God impressed me, Luke chapter 23.
40:18 And as we were going there I said,
40:20 "Now you're raised Catholics. I was raised a Catholic.
40:22 What day was Jesus crucified?" "Good Friday."
40:25 "What day was He resurrected?" "Easter Sunday."
40:27 I said, "Now I want you to read these verses."
40:28 And I said, "Read starting with verse 52 of Luke 23."
40:32 "And this man went unto Pilate and begged the body of Jesus.
40:35 And he took it down," verse 53 of Luke 23,
40:38 "and wrapped it in linen and laid it in a sepulcher
40:40 that was hewn in stone, wherein never a man before was laid.
40:43 And that day was the preparation day."
40:44 I said, "What day was that?" And she said, "Friday."
40:46 She kept reading, "And the Sabbath drew on."
40:48 I said, "The Sabbath drew on?"
40:51 She didn't respond. Head down.
40:53 I said, "Keep reading."
40:55 "And the women also, which came with him from Galilee,
40:57 followed after and beheld the sepulcher,
40:59 and how his body was laid.
41:01 And they returned and prepared spices and ointments;
41:04 and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment."
41:08 Her voice got a little lower.
41:11 "Now upon the first day of the week..."
41:12 I said, "Read chapter 24 verse 1."
41:14 "Now upon the first day of the week..."
41:16 I said, "What day is that?"
41:17 "The day after Sabbath."
41:19 "...very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulcher,
41:22 bringing the spices..."
41:23 That was the day He resurrected.
41:26 She didn't look up for a while.
41:28 I think she read the verses again.
41:30 And again and again.
41:31 After she got done reading, she looked up and she said,
41:34 "Okay, you've taught us something.
41:37 And then she went on this tyrant about Adventists
41:39 and what hypocrites they are, and this, that, and the other.
41:40 And I said, "Listen, I'm not here to defend any person,
41:44 except for the truth.
41:46 Just the Word of God, please. Just the Word of God."
41:50 And she said, "Couldn't you please just
41:53 preach a social gospel?
41:55 Do you have to go into all of these details?
41:57 Do you have to talk about all this stuff?"
41:58 I said, "This is vital stuff."
42:01 I said, "This is part of the three...
42:04 This is God's last message.
42:05 This is the everlasting gospel.
42:07 This is vital for us.
42:10 Even people who keep Sunday have lost track of the Sabbath.
42:14 They don't understand the connection between
42:16 2 Corinthians 3:18 that the Holy Spirit is transforming us
42:20 from glory to glory.
42:22 Sealing us, settling us into the truth.
42:24 The character of God being manifested in us through
42:26 spending that time with Jesus, through connecting with Him.
42:28 And letting secular things alone.
42:31 We don't understand it, we've lost sight of it."
42:33 I said, "So I've got to preach this, I've got to teach this.
42:35 This is vital for me."
42:37 The Sabbath is how we enter into the salvation rest
42:40 through Jesus.
42:42 It reminds us to connect with Jesus, to abide in Jesus,
42:45 to trust in Jesus, to put our hope in Jesus.
42:48 That we can't save ourselves.
42:49 That we didn't create this world and we can't recreate it.
42:52 We didn't create this world and we can't recreate ourselves.
42:56 But Jesus can.
42:58 The Sabbath reminds us of that every single week.
43:00 And we need that reminder every single week, don't we,
43:04 when Friday is coming, pushing its task upon us.
43:08 And besides, I've got all these questions, I told them.
43:10 I've got all these questions now.
43:12 I had pile of them, I mean, I had a pile of questions.
43:13 So I sat down, this is right before the meeting
43:16 on the mark of the beast.
43:19 And I sat down in my room and sorted through the questions.
43:24 I made three piles.
43:25 The pile of questions, the longest one that I just didn't
43:28 have time to answer.
43:29 The pile of questions that I would try to answer.
43:31 And then the other pile of questions
43:33 that weren't really questions.
43:34 They were statements like, "We hate you."
43:39 "We wish you would go back to America."
43:41 "We can't stand the fact that you've come here to tell us
43:44 that we're going to church on the wrong day."
43:45 Things like that.
43:48 So I put those statements aside.
43:52 Because to be a follower of Christ,
43:54 you're going to be hated.
43:55 "The world hated Me, it's going to hate you."
43:58 But sometimes, they don't know what they hate.
44:02 And then I put the other questions aside to answer later.
44:04 And I started dealing with these specific questions.
44:06 Which the question I kept getting over and over again
44:09 was the same question these four girls had.
44:10 It was, "Show us from the Bible which day is the Sabbath."
44:14 "Show us from the Bible which day is the Sabbath."
44:16 I didn't realize this, but this college of 2000 young people,
44:20 very few of them had Bibles.
44:22 By the way, Light Bearers Ministry, we print literature
44:24 like the leaves of autumn.
44:26 We ship literature and Bibles overseas
44:27 to third world countries.
44:29 After I left there, we shipped a container of literature to
44:31 Bulawayo for the university.
44:34 2000 Bibles were in that container;
44:36 one for every student.
44:37 168 young people were baptized in follow up
44:40 meetings after this meeting.
44:42 Because I told him, I told the pastor, I said,
44:43 "Don't baptize these people. They don't even have Bibles.
44:45 Don't put any pressure on these young people
44:47 to be baptized for my sake.
44:49 I want them grounded in the truth so they can't be moved;
44:53 sealed with the seal of God."
44:54 And these young girls were part of that, by the way.
44:58 So I'm sitting in the meeting.
45:01 And I have a five minute, ten minute, question/answer time
45:05 before I give the mark of the beast meeting.
45:06 So I get up and I ask the question.
45:08 Same question, I ask it three times.
45:10 Proof from the Bible which day is it.
45:11 Proof from the Bible which day is it.
45:12 By the time I asked it the third time, everyone in there
45:14 is smiling and they're relaxed.
45:15 It was really intense in there.
45:17 It was just a, you can cut it with a knife atmosphere.
45:18 So I'm sitting down and I'm thinking, "How, how, how
45:22 can I share this truth?
45:24 How can I share this truth without people feeling like
45:28 I'm attacking them?"
45:31 I was raised Catholic, I understand.
45:33 So I'm sitting on the bench and a verse comes to my mind.
45:35 And this verse was so powerful.
45:38 God will do this sometimes. It's in Proverbs.
45:41 Now I didn't know where it was, so I'm in my Bible.
45:43 I've had this Bible, by the way, since 1984.
45:45 This is the only Bible I've ever had.
45:46 And it's getting hard, sometimes.
45:48 The papers kind of don't stick exactly, but I know where
45:51 stuff is in this Bible.
45:52 So I keep it.
45:54 And I don't know where it is in Proverbs.
45:55 I'm looking, looking, looking, through Proverbs.
45:57 I'm turning the pages.
45:58 All I know is this verse is on the left hand side top corner.
46:00 That's all I know.
46:02 So I'm going through Proverbs looking for this verse.
46:03 And I finally find it as I'm sitting there.
46:05 It's Proverbs chapter 27 verse 6.
46:07 And I read this verse, and immediately
46:09 peace comes to my heart.
46:11 And I read it to myself again and again and again.
46:13 Because I'm feeling nervous.
46:15 By the way, I think a little bit of nervousness qualifies you
46:19 to preach, to teach, to do whatever God wants you to do.
46:21 If you're not nervous, you don't feel your dependence on God.
46:25 You don't feel a need to depend on God.
46:27 So I've been preaching for 30 years, I get nervous.
46:29 That's alright.
46:31 It helps me to turn to God, turn to God, turn to God.
46:33 So I read this verse.
46:34 So I get up to preach the mark of the beast
46:39 and I read this verse.
46:41 "Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
46:44 but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."
46:49 And it gives me so much courage and such a feeling of,
46:53 well, goose bumps that I read it again.
46:57 "Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
46:58 but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."
46:59 And I said, "I could just give you the social gospel
47:03 and just share with you what you want to hear."
47:07 But I said, "I wouldn't be being faithful to you
47:09 or to God.
47:11 And I want to be faithful even though it may wound you."
47:13 And then I told them a true story
47:15 that I'm going to tell you.
47:17 God impressed me to share this with them.
47:18 I said, "This is a true story."
47:19 I said, some years ago I was in a room by myself
47:23 and I was out, I mean I was out.
47:26 So out of it that as I was laying on the bed there,
47:31 I didn't even know that these men came into the room.
47:34 They walked in; didn't know they were there.
47:36 One of them had a knife.
47:38 Took the knife, true story, went over to where I was laying,
47:41 and put the knife to my throat and began to cut.
47:49 I was so out of it that I didn't even feel it.
47:53 Seriously.
47:55 Now fortunately, I was in a hospital operating room
48:01 and those men were doctors.
48:06 And they were removing from my throat a cancerous tumor.
48:09 I had thyroid cancer.
48:12 And as painful as the whole thing was; the operation, etc,
48:16 and the recovery, I was so glad that they cut my throat
48:19 and took out the tumor.
48:21 "Faithful are the wounds of a friend,
48:24 but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."
48:27 And I began to share with them the whole picture
48:31 of this worship in the end of time.
48:34 I did the same thing when I was in Pakistan.
48:37 And I think it's vital for us to understand how
48:39 Jesus paves the way, the everlasting gospel
48:42 paves the way.
48:44 Because when I went to Pakistan, I went there
48:45 in 1997, 1998, and 1999.
48:47 I was going there to preach to primarily
48:51 Christians from different denominations.
48:53 I went to a compound in Peshawar right on the Afghanistan border
48:56 where there were 50 Adventist members in this church.
49:00 We preached the first night, there were 800 people.
49:03 The second night, there were 1200 people.
49:04 The third night, there were 1600 people.
49:05 By the time we got done with our series,
49:07 there were 4000 people there.
49:09 From every different denomination.
49:11 And the Lord impressed me, He said,
49:12 "The verse that you are to preach, James, is John 12:32.
49:16 'And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.'
49:19 That's your blueprint for evangelism.
49:20 That's what I want you to do in every meeting."
49:22 So I started just lifting up Christ.
49:23 And in the afternoon, I was doing a series on Revelation
49:26 for the pastors.
49:28 And there was a certain pastor there who asked me if I would
49:31 come back to Pakistan and preach this same series
49:34 for his pastors.
49:35 He had 120 of them, they were Pentecostal.
49:37 And I said, "Sure. By God's grace."
49:40 So in that series of meetings, we began with the gospel
49:42 and we were lifting up Jesus and we were focusing on Christ.
49:44 And he said to me, "Now that we've cleared that up,
49:47 I want you to tell us about the mark of the beast
49:48 and the antichrist."
49:52 See, I believe that Jesus opens the door.
49:55 You know, when you look at Christ, He said some
49:58 pretty intense things at times.
50:00 Didn't He?
50:02 I mean, He told Peter, "You've got a devil."
50:06 He told the Pharisees a few things too.
50:09 But He did it with love.
50:12 Tears were in His eyes and He had choked utterances.
50:15 It's not so much what you say.
50:18 It's how you say it.
50:19 My wife reminds me of that very often.
50:22 Because the intensity that I have when I preach
50:24 doesn't always get turned off when I think I'm right
50:26 about something at home.
50:29 We had two labs, Jake and Willie; a gold and a black.
50:32 And they remind us of this because these dogs were
50:35 very sensitive to voice tone.
50:38 We rarely ever had to touch them to discipline them.
50:41 All you had to do was say something in a certain tone.
50:45 I could say to those dogs, Jake and Willie, I could say to them,
50:48 "Jake and Willie, I love you.
50:56 I love you, I love you, I love you."
50:59 And you know what they would do?
51:00 They would stick their tail between their legs
51:02 and they cower off somewhere.
51:05 Because they couldn't understand the words that I was saying,
51:07 but they understood how I was saying it.
51:08 And I could say to those same dogs, "Jake, Willie,
51:11 I hate you guys.
51:13 I hate you, hate, you, hate you.
51:14 Oh, I hate you so much. I just hate you.
51:17 I just can't stand you stinky dogs.
51:20 Stinky."
51:22 And they'd just be all over me, man.
51:23 They'd be licking me and they'd just be...
51:24 Because it wasn't the words I was saying.
51:26 It was the way I was saying it.
51:28 That's the way it is with Jesus.
51:31 Sometimes we get so caught up in the symbolism of the beast
51:36 and the mark of the beast that we just start hammering people.
51:38 "You're the beast, you've got the mark."
51:42 It's a very simple issue.
51:43 It's about worship.
51:45 Those two days.
51:46 For all Christians, the seventh day Sabbath or Sunday.
51:51 This is what differentiates us.
51:54 And one of them is kept by millions of Christians
51:57 because they see it directly connected to the
52:00 everlasting gospel and the seal of God.
52:02 They see it as a biblical truth.
52:04 They've experienced what it means to rest in Jesus
52:07 through keeping the Sabbath.
52:09 Now that can become very legalistic.
52:11 It did with the Jews.
52:12 And we need to be very aware of why people see us as legalistic.
52:17 Because of that history and because sometimes
52:18 we come across that way.
52:20 There's another group of people who keep Sunday.
52:23 Some of them do it because, well, their fathers kept Sunday;
52:27 because the apostles broke bread on Sunday;
52:29 because Jesus resurrected from the grave on Sunday.
52:31 They all have to admit that there's not a
52:33 biblical command for it.
52:34 Except for, well there are about a billion people, Catholics,
52:38 in the world today who keep Sunday for a different reason.
52:41 They do it because they believe their church has the authority
52:44 to change the day from Saturday to Sunday.
52:47 And that's where the conflict begins.
52:50 Do we follow man or do we follow God?
52:53 It's not a question of judging others.
52:55 God has millions of people in all different churches
52:58 who don't understand or haven't seen or aren't fully convicted
53:02 for one reason or another.
53:03 Maybe primarily because we haven't been the
53:04 Christians we're suppose to be.
53:07 Because we come across as legalists, who knows.
53:09 We can leave that with God.
53:10 Romans 14 says we don't need to judge.
53:12 But at the same time, we need to share.
53:14 Why? Because this is becoming a big issue.
53:17 When I was in Pakistan, it was huge.
53:19 I mean, here I am in a Muslim country.
53:20 I'm doing this seminar for pastors.
53:22 And I started talking about the change, in Daniel chapter 7.
53:25 And some of the pastors were uncomfortable and they said,
53:27 "We don't want you talking about Sunday/Sabbath.
53:28 Don't mention that anymore."
53:29 I said, "Okay, but I've got to touch on the mark of the beast."
53:31 How am I going to do this?
53:32 And so what God impressed me with was the fact that
53:35 in the country of Pakistan at that time...
53:41 I'm trying to think how much time I have to share this story.
53:44 Don't hesitate, James. Just do it.
53:46 Okay, in the country of Pakistan at that time...
53:49 Pakistan is a Muslim nation.
53:51 It's an Islamic nation. Islamic law is enforced.
53:54 When I woke up on Friday morning,
53:56 it was business as usual.
53:58 When I woke up on Sunday morning,
54:00 all the businesses were closed.
54:03 Nobody was doing anything.
54:05 I said, "How is that in a Muslim country that businesses
54:09 close on Sunday and open on Friday when Friday is the day,
54:12 you know, you're suppose to go to the mosque?"
54:14 They said, "That's a recent ruling.
54:15 Just recently, the day was changed because of the
54:18 economic pressure from the rest of the world.
54:20 They were open for business on Friday and we were closed,
54:22 and closed for business on Sunday when we were open."
54:25 Revelation 13, can't buy or sell.
54:27 Think about it.
54:29 So I'm in this meeting with these pastors and I ask them,
54:31 this is a summary, I ask them, "Revelation says the world will
54:36 receive the mark in the right hand;
54:39 means they go along with it, they don't believe it.
54:40 Or in the forehead; means they believe it."
54:44 I said...
54:45 And they would worship, they'd follow one religious leader.
54:47 I said, "What day," I asked them, I said,
54:50 "What day has the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
54:54 chose to close for business...
54:56 A country in which it's against the law for
54:58 a Muslim to become a Christian.
55:00 What day have you closed for business?
55:01 And why?"
55:03 And these pastors looked at each other, they looked at me,
55:05 and they all said in chorus, "Sunday."
55:09 I said, "Why?" "Because of economic pressure."
55:12 And you see this happening even in the Muslim world today.
55:14 You see a transition taking place.
55:16 Hasn't happened in Saudi Arabia yet, but in many Muslim
55:18 countries a transition is taking place
55:20 from Friday to Sunday.
55:23 Closed for business on Friday, now closed
55:25 for business on Sunday.
55:26 And they're not even Christian nations.
55:27 God knew what He was talking about when He identified
55:31 this crisis in the end of time.
55:33 He understood what was going to take place
55:35 between the mark and the seal.
55:36 He recognized that our only hope was in the everlasting gospel
55:39 and understanding that we rest in Jesus for salvation.
55:44 And He knew, and oh does He know, that we needed
55:47 that message first and foremost, and that we need to share
55:50 that message with others in other countries secondly.
55:56 That's why we keep the Sabbath.
55:59 We keep the Sabbath because it reminds us that
56:01 Jesus is our Savior, not us.
56:03 We rest from work because we recognize that
56:05 Jesus is the Savior of all men.
56:08 We don't go out to eat in restaurants on Sabbath.
56:11 Why not?
56:12 Because we recognize that Jesus is your Savior
56:15 as well as my Savior.
56:16 And we're not going to make you work on that day
56:18 any more than we would work on that day.
56:20 We want you to rest from doing those dishes, and
56:22 you to rest from packing those bags and cleaning those rooms.
56:25 We want you to rest because you have a Savior.
56:27 And every time we rest on the Sabbath from our works
56:31 and don't allow others to work for us on Sabbath,
56:34 we're proclaiming to them, at least in actions,
56:36 that they have a Savior too.
56:39 When we go out to eat on Sabbath, we're telling
56:40 other people, "Oh we can't work, but you can.
56:42 We're saved, but you're not."
56:45 It's a testimony.
56:48 We believe that Jesus, in His everlasting gospel,
56:52 has given His life for the whole world.
56:54 And we need to give this testimony to the whole world,
56:56 whether they receive it or reject it,
56:58 and we need to do it in the spirit of Christ.
57:00 The only way we can do that in the spirit of Christ
57:03 is to ask for the spirit of Christ to come into our hearts.
57:06 To spend that time beholding Him and being
57:08 transformed in His image.
57:10 How many of you today would like to say,
57:11 "Yes, I want to ask the spirit of God in once again?"
57:14 Let's pray together.
57:16 Father, You've seen every hand, You read every heart.
57:19 You know our needs and the needs of the world.
57:22 You recognize how vitally important this
57:24 everlasting gospel is and You've given it to us in clear language
57:27 that it can be proclaimed with a loud voice.
57:30 Father, for those that are hearing,
57:32 for those who have listened, and for those of us who are here,
57:35 we're asking for Your grace, Your strength,
57:38 to be faithful not only to the truth,
57:40 but to the spirit of the truth.


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Revised 2014-12-17