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Published: Jan. 27, 2019, 6:03 p.m.

Escape to Paradise - 9
January 26, 2019
adairsvillesda.org

The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the strained, restless relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element, and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place—that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis. - Education p. 179.

All eyes are on America…

With the revelations of Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange -along with the willing surrender of our private lives to social media companies - Could it be that America could remove the freedoms of its own citizens?

The Constitution of the United States guarantees liberty of conscience. Nothing is dearer or more fundamental.

Pope Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854, said: The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error—a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.’ The same pope, in his Encyclical Letter of December 8, 1864, anathematized - (called anyone a heretic who believed that) those who assert the liberty of conscience and of religious worship,’ and also ‘all such as maintain that the church may not employ force.’ GC 564.5

“The pacific tone of Rome in the United States does not imply a change of heart. She is tolerant where she is helpless. Says Bishop O'Connor: ‘Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world.’

All eyes are on America…

In light of these long foretold events, the Bible describes a change that is coming - Daniel 12:1
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

Protestant America, it’s courts, its legal system, the church, capitalism, its social fabric, the economy, the family unit, morality, - all are compromised.

What conditions could lead this very country and then the whole world to turn on its principles?

All eyes are on America

The United States currently has nearly 1000 military bases and/or military installations in 80 countries around the world. The rest of the countries of the world who have foreign military bases are 11 and the combined of all of those is 70. Any talk of China or Russia as a threat to the United States is laughable. This nation is the sole superpower on planet earth and the Bible says it will be that way until the very end. Either through the military industrial complex or the dollar industrial complex - America is calling the shots.

All eyes are on America

Trend Forecaster and American, Ellen White wrote “By the decree of enforcing the institution of the Papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. … our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and Republican government, … then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan, and that the end is near.”—Testimonies for the Church 5:451. ChS 160.4

With rapid steps we are approaching this period. When Protestant churches shall unite with the secular power to sustain a false religion, for opposing which their ancestors endured the fiercest persecution, then will the papal sabbath be enforced by the combined authority of church and state. There will be a national apostasy, which will end only in national ruin.—Manuscript 51, 1899. Ev 235

How could this happen?
As we sit here today, there is a fact, the majority of the people of God, the majority of this planet have not yet even heard this story…but something will soon occur where a change will take place.

Remember the conditions we talked about last week when Jesus told his disciples what life would be like just before He would return a second time.

Famine, Disease, Natural Disasters… Matthew 24

What about the promise that the gospel would go to the whole world?

Isaiah 26:9 -…When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.

From the book commenting on this moment - The Great Controversy - “Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature, and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. When he was suffered or allowed to afflict Job, how quickly flocks and herds, servants, houses, children, were swept away, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. GC 589

While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he - [Lucifer the fallen angel] - will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations (wildfires), in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones/hurricanes, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. … These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. GC 589

Isaiah 14:12,16,17 tells us what will take place -
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
Then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God's commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. GC 590

God is upset, the economy is in shambles…

How would you like to be blamed for what appears to be a rampant outbreak of natural disasters or the elements or what some may call climate related events…?

Communications from the spirits - [the fallen angels] - will declare that God has sent them to convince the rejecters of Sunday [Sabbath keepers] of their error, affirming that the laws of the land should be obeyed as the law of God. They will passionately express sorrow for the great wickedness in the world and second the testimony of religious teachers that the degraded state of morals …is caused by the desecration of Sunday. Great will be the indignation excited against all who refuse to accept their testimony. GC 590.2

John Mark Hall “while you were sleeping”

United States of America
Looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies
That save the trees and kill the children

America, what will we miss while we are sleeping

America will we go down in history
As a nation with no room for its King
Will we be sleeping?

Satan's policy in this final conflict with God's people is the same that he employed in the opening of the great controversy in heaven. He professed to be seeking to promote the stability of the divine government, while secretly bending every effort to secure its overthrow.

God never forces the will or the conscience; but Satan's constant resort—to gain control of those whom he cannot otherwise seduce—is compulsion by cruelty. Through fear or force he endeavors to rule the conscience and to secure homage to himself. To accomplish this, he works through both religious and secular authorities, moving them to the enforcement of human laws in defiance of the law of God. GC 591.2
Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their actions driven from conviction (conscientious scruples) will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government. -GC 592

Revelation 18:5 - “Her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” - Come out of her my people -

God still has a people in Babylon; and before the visitation of His judgments these faithful ones must be called out, that they partake not of her sins and “receive not of her plagues.”

For over 100 years, those who presented the truths of the third angel's message of scripture have often been regarded as mere alarmists. Any predictions that religious intolerance would gain control in the United States, that church and state would unite to persecute those who keep the commandments of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. It has been confidently declared that this land could never become other than what it has been—the defender of religious freedom.

But All eyes are on America…
When Sunday observance or rest begins to be discussed….in response to economic concerns or climate related events the message will produce an effect which it could not have had before. GC 605

It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law. Psalm 119:126

And So We Wait

This 3rd angel has a warning message for all the world. But on a more personal and practical level, Adventist Evangelist Ellen White was asked what this was all about. She responded by saying that it was about Justification by Faith - the laying of the glory of man in the dust and God doing for man what it is NOT in man’s power to do for himself or herself - aka The Everlasting Gospel.

This message will cause a great ‘shaking’ among the people of God. A shaking of beliefs and will only be followed by a sifting - or persecution.

As long as God is on the throne - the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit is always felt by rulers and society. Many of the great men of the earth are going to accept this message and stand for conviction.

The day will come when the whole world will be united… against a small minority who are standing for conviction. Which side of this do you want to be on?

Through spiritualism, [the belief that death is just a doorway to the next life and that we can communicate with the dead] Satan appears as a benefactor of the race, healing the diseases of the people, and professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith; but at the same time he works as a destroyer. GC 589

The Bible says the apostles will appear to return to contradict what they wrote - as fallen angels. Heathen gods will appear in the cities of the world. Fallen angels in the form of loved ones who have passed on to the grave will appear to convince this small group of their error…

As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long professed to look to the Saviour's advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come. In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John in the Revelation. Revelation 1:13-15.

The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by anything that human eyes have ever seen. The shout of triumph rings out upon the air: “Christ has come! Christ has come!” The people prostrate themselves in adoration before him, while he lifts up his hands and pronounces a blessing upon them, as Christ blessed His disciples when He was upon the earth. His voice is soft and subdued, yet full of melody. In gentle, compassionate tones he presents some of the same gracious, heavenly truths which the Saviour uttered; he heals the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and commands all to hallow the day which he has blessed. He declares that those who persist in keeping holy the seventh day are blaspheming his name by refusing to listen to his angels sent to them with light and truth. This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion. GC 624

The time is not far distant, when, like the early disciples, we shall be forced to seek a refuge in desolate and solitary places. As the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman armies was the signal for flight to the Judean Christians, so the assumption of power on the part of our nation, in the decree enforcing the papal sabbath, will be a warning to us. It will then be time to leave the large cities, preparatory to leaving the smaller ones for retired homes in secluded places among the mountains.—Testimonies for the Church 5:464, 465. ChS 16

“There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.... Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert; go not forth; behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matthew 24:24-27, 31; 25:31; Revelation 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. This coming there is no possibility of counterfeiting. It will be universally known—witnessed by the whole world. GC 625

Heavenly Angels will guard the faithful from the enemies of man and fallen angels.

The people of God—some in prison cells, some hidden in solitary retreats in the forests and the mountains—will plead for divine protection, while in every quarter companies of armed men, urged on by hosts of evil angels, are preparing for the work of death. It is now, in the hour of utmost extremity, that the God of Israel will interpose for the deliverance of His chosen [people]. GC 635

There will be a mighty earthquake, graves will be opened, and the promise, the hope that everyone who has lost someone is waiting for will take place. We will be reunited with loved ones as we escape this planet.

The devil and his angels are confined on the destroyed earth for 1000 years. (Revelation 20)

The Bible says We will spend 1000 years in paradise. We judge men and angels. We ask why some aren’t there. We ask why some are. The goal is to be the one asking the questions.

In the heavenly courts there will be no song sung, To me that loved myself, and washed myself, redeemed myself, unto me be glory and honor, blessing and praise. But this is the keynote of the song that is sung by many here in this world. They do not know what it means to be meek and lowly in heart; and they do not mean to know this, if they can avoid it.
{TM 456.2}

Some will ask “what are these wounds in your hands? I got these in the house of my friends…Zechariah 13:6

We will return to this planet - earth. This will be the home of the righteous, the metropolis of the universe. The center of the action. Heaven will relocate to this planet.

He will marshal all the armies of the lost under his banner and through them endeavor to execute his plans. .… In rejecting Christ they have accepted the rule of the rebel leader. They are ready to receive his suggestions and to do his bidding. Yet, true to his early cunning, he does not acknowledge himself to be Satan. He claims to be the prince who is the rightful owner of the world and whose inheritance has been unlawfully wrested from him. He represents himself to his deluded subjects as a redeemer, assuring them that his power has brought them forth from their graves and that he is about to rescue them from the most cruel tyranny. The presence of Christ having been removed, Satan works wonders to support his claims. He makes the weak strong and inspires all with his own spirit and energy. He proposes to lead them against the camp of the saints and to take possession of the City of God. …… he points to the unnumbered millions who have been raised from the dead and declares that as their leader he is well able to overthrow the city and regain his throne and his kingdom. GC 663

In that vast throng are multitudes of the long-lived race that existed before the Flood; men of lofty stature and giant intellect, who, yielding to the control of fallen angels, devoted all their skill and knowledge to the exaltation of themselves; men whose wonderful works of art led the world to idolize their genius, but whose cruelty and evil inventions, defiling the earth and defacing the image of God, caused Him to blot them from the face of His creation. There are kings and generals who conquered nations, valiant men who never lost a battle, proud, ambitious warriors whose approach made kingdoms tremble. In death these experienced no change. As they come up from the grave, they resume the current of their thoughts just where it ceased. They are actuated by the same desire to conquer that ruled them when they fell. GC 664.1
Satan consults with his angels, and then with these kings and conquerors and mighty men. They look upon the strength and numbers on their side, and declare that the army within the city is small in comparison with theirs, and that it can be overcome. They lay their plans to take possession of the riches and glory of the New Jerusalem. All immediately begin to prepare for battle. Skillful artisans construct implements of war. Military leaders, famed for their success, marshal the throngs of warlike men into companies and divisions. GC 664
But God in his mercy ends this before it’s too late. He reveals the whole story of good and evil like a panorama story in the sky. All will see their part they acted in the drama of the ages. They know where they turned their back on love and accepted Selfishness as their ruling principle.

As Jesus stands up - Nearest the throne are those who were once zealous in the cause of Satan, but who, plucked as brands from the burning, have followed their Saviour with deep, intense devotion.

The coronation of the king of Kings takes place. All bow and acknowledge that He was right all along. Jesus was never selfish.

Even Lucifer kneels as he remembers his position next to Jesus. He remembers that he was offered forgiveness and like those all around him - rejected it. He bows and admits - Jesus was right.

The working out of Satan's rule in contrast with the government of God has been presented to the whole universe. Satan's own works have condemned him.

Jesus declares - “Behold the purchase of My blood! For these I suffered, for these I died, that they might dwell in My presence throughout eternal ages.”

In this moment, millions will turn and look at their spiritual leaders - many ministers - teachers who misled them. Lucifer, believes that perhaps even now he can stir up a revolt. As he attempts it, he is finally unmaksed. All the earth turn on him and the fallen angels —-

“Because you have set your heart as the heart of God; behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon you, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they shall defile your brightness. They shall bring you down to the pit.” “I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.... I will cast you to the ground, I will lay you before kings, that they may behold you.... I will bring you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold you.... You shall be a terror, and never will you be any more.” Ezekiel 28:6-8, 16-19. GC 672

God in his mercy ends the lives of the whole world, the devil and his angels from attacking and tormenting each other.

And God will silence and erase from all memory the rebellion from the whole earth. No eternal hell fire. One event, to put them out of their misery.

It is as this time when I think finally every tear will be wiped away. The earth will be recreated.

Revelation 21:1 -“I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.”

What will the new earth be like? Think about life now but remove the threats, remove the diseases, remove the threat of war, remove the anger, the sorrow, the sadness.
Think of what brings you joy now and imagine it ten fold greater.

What will the heavenly city be like?
Density of NYC - whole world could live in Texas.
We are told it is built like a giant cube. The width of the walls -
Appears to be built like ancient cities - where the citizens live in the walls with a view of the inner park and the outer sea of glass perhaps?

We are told there will be no night there. We are told we will have a country home where we will grow gardens and enjoy all the best of this life but far beyond any form of happiness we have ever experienced. Not 10% of our brains but 100%. Playing with Lions and Lambs.

if you like to travel, Visiting all the worlds of the universe. Tasting their delicious cuisine. Meeting new friends, learning new talents.

Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and body. GC 677.

There is Adam - he beholds the trees that were once his delight—the very trees whose fruit he himself had gathered in the days of his innocence and joy. He sees the vines that his own hands have trained, the very flowers that he once loved to care for. His mind grasps the reality of the scene; he comprehends that this is indeed Eden restored, more lovely now than when he was banished from it. The Saviour leads him to the tree of life and plucks the glorious fruit and invites him to eat. He looks around him and beholds a multitude of his family redeemed, standing in the Paradise of God. Then he casts his crown at the feet of Jesus and… embraces His Redeemer. The Great Controversy, 647, 648. AH 541.2

And that’s just the beginning…

On that day, Jesus will turn his eyes on you, put a crown on your head and say well done!

For the world - All eyes are on America

For the universe and Jesus - All eyes are on this planet

For you - Keep your eyes on Jesus. This world will let you down. But Keep Your Eyes on Jesus.

Song Turn your eyes upon Jesus