Eight Statements From Ellen G. White

By Pastor John J. Grosboll.

I am very happy to be with all of you and be able to worship the Lord and study His Word today.  These privileges that we have are very time limited.  That is, we will not always have privileges like this.  We are not time setters, but very soon, we do not know how soon, we will not have freedom to have meetings like this.  Are you aware of that?

As I think about these things, I say, Lord, help us to take advantage of every opportunity we have.  Help your people get all the instruction that we need so that we will be ready for what is about to happen. 

By the way, none of the speakers at this camp meeting have received any instructions what they were to speak about.  They all made their own decisions after they had prayed and thought about it.

It has been an amazing thing, and I have seen this happen many times.  Somehow what the speakers want to talk about, you would think you were listening to a coordinated Seminar.  When I was listening, yesterday afternoon, to Pastor Kenny Shelton, I said to myself, Is this not wonderful?  This is just a wonderful introduction to what I want to study with the people tonight.

And this morning when Pastor Kenny Shelton was speaking about “For Such a Time as This,” I said to myself, Is this not wonderful.  I want to talk to the people about the times in which we are living and what is about to happen.  We are not living in ordinary times.  Ellen White wrote that we were on the border of the crisis of the ages.  There will be many people who will not realize that it is the crisis of the ages until the plagues fall.  But it is going to be too late to get ready then.

So we want to get ready now.  And before we open God’s Holy Word, I decided that I want to read to you eight different statements from the Spirit of Prophecy having to do with the times in which we are living.  Now it might seem that these statements are not connected.  They are about many different things, but they are all about the times in which we are living.

I do not usually do this.  I usually just open the Word of God and we begin to study.  And I believe in studying the Bible, but I think that these eight statements will provide a little introduction for what I want to study with you.  There is coming a time, and it is going to be before the general close of probation, when it is going to be too late for Seventh-day Adventists to be saved.  And the reason that I bring this up is because we need to think seriously about the times in which we are living, and not procrastinate. 

1.  The first statement I want to read to you is from Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 979.  “The time of God’s destructive judgments is the time of mercy for those who have no opportunity to learn what is truth.  Tenderly will the Lord look upon them.  His heart of mercy is touched; His hand is still stretched out to save, while the door is closed to those who would not enter.”

Those are the people who knew the truth, but they neglected to follow it.  And, oh, friends, my heart goes out to those people.  I did not come here from Kansas to criticize anybody, but my heart goes out, not just to the world, but sometimes I think that my heart goes out, even more, to my fellow Adventists.  It is like Paul said in Romans 9.  He expressed it in very strong language.  He said, I would that I myself could be accursed on behalf of my brethren in the house of Israel.  But no matter what he did, he could not save them.  They would not listen. 

My dear friends, multitudes of Adventists are going to wake up and realize that they are lost, when it is too late.  Multitudes of Adventists.  We could spend the next 30 minutes on this.  I could read you text after text from the Bible.  I could read you statement after statement from the Spirit of Prophecy, I just read you one.  It is going to be too late.  Oh, yes, there will be people who have never heard the message, and the Lord is going to see that they have an opportunity.  But for the people who heard and would not go in, it is going to be too late.

Friends, do not wait.  Do not be lackadaisical and say in your heart the same as a young Seventh-day Adventist, whom I know very well, said to his father.  He said, I will not be deceived.  I know when the devil impersonates Christ; I know what the Second Coming involves.  I know it will be public and I will not be deceived by what is going on, I know.

Oh, friend, how can we be so self-confident when we are not living up to what we know? 

2.  This is an interesting one.  In The Review and Herald, July 26, 1892, Mrs. White writes, “We have many lessons to learn, and many, many to unlearn.  God and heaven alone are infallible.  Those who think that they will never have to give up a cherished view, never have an occasion to change an opinion, will be disappointed.  As long as we hold to our own ideas and opinions with determined persistency, we cannot have the unity for which Christ prayed.”

There is a lot of talk in the other churches about unity.  There is a lot of talk in Adventism about unity.  There is a lot of talk in the Revival and Reformation Movement in Adventism about unity.  We do not have the unity that we need.  How are we going to get it?  Well, she says two things are needed:  “We have many things to learn,” and then she says,  “we have many, many things to unlearn.”

It has been my experience that it is harder to unlearn things than it is to learn things.  And we have more resistance to it because we learned it.  We said, That is so, and later on we find we were mistaken, and it was not exactly like that.  It is hard for us to cope with that, because our pride gets involved.  Oh, friend, is there something that you know is so, something that your are going to have to unlearn if you are going to come into unity before the end?

Ellen White said that we had many things to learn, but she said that we have many, many things to unlearn.  Are you willing to unlearn some things?  Moses had to unlearn some things.  It took him forty years.  If we are going to have unity, we are going to have to be willing to change.  We are going to have to be humble enough to say, If the weight of the evidence is not where I thought it was, then I am going to change my mind and come into harmony with what God has told us.

3.  This is from Prophets and Kings, 626.  “Christians should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as an overwhelming surprise, and this preparation they should make by diligently studying the word of God and striving to conform their lives to its precepts.  The tremendous issues of eternity demand of us something besides an imaginary religion, a religion of words and forms, where truth is kept in the outer court.  God calls for a revival and reformation.”

If you and I are going to be with this movement at the end, we must have revival and reformation.  Otherwise, we are not going to be with it.  Many people will think that they are with the movement, that they are God’s people, until the plagues begin to fall, and then they are going to find out that they are not part of it.  See Early Writings, 71.

I do not want it to happen to you. By the way, I do not want it to happen to me, either, and I am praying about it.  I am praying more than once a day and I am saying, Lord, I do not want to be surprised at the end.  If there is anything that needs to be changed in my life, please show me what it is. I want to be revived and reformed.

4.  This is from The Review and Herald, September 10, 1903.  “Transgression has almost reached its limit.”  Is there a limit to it?  Evidently there is.  God has a record of all transgression of His law going on in our world right now, and God has set a limit.  He has not told us when it is, we could not understand it if He told us, but God has set a limit.  And when we reach the limit, let me tell you, God steps in. 

She says, “Transgression has almost reached its limit.  Confusion fills the world, and a great terror is soon to come upon human beings.”  Now this was written in 1903.  And Adventists have been trying to figure out ever since what is that great terror.  When communism came in and slaughtered people all over Russia, starting about 1905, people thought that Communism was the great terror.

Later they thought that Fascism and Nazism was the great terror, and millions of people lost their lives with that.

Later it was thought that the atomic bomb was the great terror.  I can remember as a boy when Adventists thought that the atomic bomb was the great terror, and I can remember when all over the United States we were teaching people how to evacuate cities and how to build bomb shelters so that you could survive an atomic attack.  We thought that was the great terror.

But we do not know for sure that any of those things were the great terror.  Because when I read the Spirit of Prophecy, right at the end, you know the statement in the Bible that says men’s hearts are going to fail them for fear, it is not some type of symbolic speech.  It is actually literal.  People are going to become so fearful that their heart is going to stop and they are going to drop dead.

Great terror.  We have not seen the end of the great terror.  I am not saying that there have not been great terrors, but we have not seen the end of the great terror.  She said that “a great terror is soon to come upon human beings.  The end is very near.  We, who know the truth, should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as an overwhelming surprise.” Ibid.

As we are preparing?   We have an obligation to see that other people find out what to do to be ready for the end.  Here is what she says about this. 

5.  The Review and Herald, November 22, 1906.  “The Lord calls upon those who believe in Him to be workers together with Him. . . . Shall we allow the signs of the end to be fulfilled without telling [the] people of what is coming upon the earth?  Shall we allow them to go down in darkness without having urged upon them the need of a preparation to meet their Lord?  Unless we ourselves do our duty to those around us, the day of God will come upon us as a thief.”

Did you notice that?  Unless we are doing our duty to those around us, the day of the Lord is going to come upon us as a thief.  By the way, this is one of the main reasons that the church is organized.  One of the main reasons—I did not say the only reason—that the church is organized is to get the Three Angels’ Messages to the entire world.

And let me tell you, there are several million people just in Southern California who have to hear the Three Angels’ Messages.  When I lived on the edge of Riverside, close to 30 years ago, they used to say there are twelve million people just between the ocean and us.

We have to do our duty to see that these people have an opportunity to know.  Some of these people will listen if they hear the message.  But we do not have a lot of time. 

6.  From The Southern Watchman, December 1, 1909.  “Probationary time will not continue much longer.  Now God is withdrawing His restraining hand from the earth.  Long has He been speaking to men and women through the agency of His Holy Spirit; but they have not heeded the call.  Now He is speaking to His people, and to the world, by His judgments.”

You see, I grew up in Adventism.  I grew up in the Adventist Church and I understand how Adventists think.  All my life we have looked forward to the future and to these judgments of God, these terrible things in the end.  We have looked forward to this happening in the future.  Ellen White teaches that when it is all over, people are going to realize what they thought was in the future is already done.  We are living in the judgments of God right now, friends.

We are going to see that very clearly in just a few minutes when we read from the prophecy that Jesus gave about our time in Matthew 24.  But first, let us just read two more statements. 

7.  From Fundamentals of Christian Education, 336.  It says, “The solemn fact is to be kept not only before the people of the world, but before our own churches also, that the day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly.”

Notice those two adverbs.  The day of the Lord is going to come suddenly and it is going to come unexpectedly.  Oh, friend, whatever you do, do not wait to get ready.  Ask the Lord to help you to get ready now.  If you wait to get ready, it is going to be too late.  Mrs. White says, continuing this statement:  “The fearful warning of the prophecy is addressed to every soul.  Let no one feel that he is secure from the danger of being surprised.”

Now that is quite a statement.  She says keep this, not just before the world, but keep it before our own churches.  Do not let anybody think that you are secure from the danger of being surprised.  Just do not think that.

8.  And then this final statement, from Testimonies, vol. 9, 28, written in 1909.  “I saw an immense ball of fire fall among some beautiful mansions, causing their instant destruction.  I heard someone say, ‘We knew that the judgments of God were coming upon the earth, but we did not know that they would come so soon.’  Others, with agonized voices, said, ‘You knew!  Why then did you not tell us?  We did not know.’”

Oh, my friends, when it happens, what are your neighbors going to say?  What are the people you do business with going to say?  What are the people you work in the office with going to say?  Are they going to say, You mean that you knew this and you did not tell me?  Oh, right now you are scared to tell them because you are scared they will not believe, they will scoff, they will laugh, and they will whatever.

Let me tell you, when the Day of Judgment comes, there will not be anybody who will be telling you off because you warned them that it was coming.  Let us look at what Jesus said about it.  If you have your Bible, please open it to Matthew 24.  This is a chapter of the Bible that we, living in our time, need to make a special study.  We studied a few verses last night from this chapter, so we are not going to study those again.

We are going to start in at the beginning of the chapter and we are going to try to go over very, very quickly about nine points.  Let us read Matthew 24:1, 2.

1.   “Then Jesus went out and departed [Jesus was going out] from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple, and Jesus said to them, ‘Do you not see all these things.  Assuredly I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.’”

That temple was one of the wonders of the ancient world, and I want to tell you, when Jesus said that to His disciples as they were going out the door, they were in a state of shock, because that temple was the headquarters of God’s chosen people.  That was their General Conference. 

As they thought about that, they said, What in the world is Jesus talking about?  The only thing that they could figure out was that that this would happen when Jesus would come again.  Jesus had told them that He was going to come again.  He had told them that He was going to go away, and then He was going to come back again.  And they thought the only way this could happen would be at the end of the age, when Jesus comes back to this world again.

They could not comprehend that the temple would be destroyed before Jesus returned.  They could not comprehend that.  They could not comprehend that their church organization could be destroyed before Jesus returned.  They thought, That has to go to the end.  God set this up.  By the way, had God set it up?  Yes.  The first thing that you need to understand when you start studying Matthew 24 is that the very thing that you think cannot happen, can happen if God says so.

The very thing that you think is impossible, the very thing that they thought was impossible, happened.  Ellen White goes over this in the book The Great Controversy, in the first chapter where it talks about the destruction of Jerusalem.  The apostles, the disciples, if they had had any idea at that time that the temple was going to be destroyed before the Second Coming, they would have just been filled with horror.  They could not comprehend that.

I want to tell you, friends, between now and the end, even though the time is chronologically very short, between now and the end you are going to see a lot of things happen that Adventists today think are impossible.  That is the very first lesson that we ought to learn from Matthew 24.  This is point number one.  The thing that they thought could not happen, Jesus said, it will happen.

There are a lot of things going to happen that Adventists cannot imagine.  What you do not expect, what you think is impossible, is going to happen and you had better be ready beforehand.  That is point number one.

2.  They came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives, see verse 3, and they were talking to Him privately now.  That was wonderful, because Jesus did not have to talk to them in parables.  He could just lay it out.  They asked, When is this going to happen and what is going to be the sign of Your coming and the end of the age?

When Jesus comes, oh, do you not just look forward to it?  That is going to be the end of this age of sin.  It is going to be the end of the age of tears and pain.  Do you not sometimes feel like you can hardly wait?  It is going to be the end, the end of this age of sorrow, tears, pain, and sin.  It is going to be the time when Jesus called the time of regeneration.

You know, I meet a lot of people and you do, too, who are talking about a new age and I think, Brother, if you only knew, there is a new age coming but it is not what you think it is.  There is a new age coming all right, you are just mixed up as to what it is.  And they said, Tell us when is this going to be. 

3.  I have always been impressed at the very first thing that Jesus said to them.  The very first thing that Jesus said when they said, Tell us, when is this going to be?  When is the end of the age going to occur?  And Jesus said, Pay attention that nobody deceives you.  The very first thing that Jesus said about being ready was, Watch out that you do not get deceived.  I have said it many times before, but it is worth just one more time, one more sentence.

And that is, the person who is deceived does not know that he is deceived, because just as soon as you know that you are deceived, you are not deceived any more.  If I am deceived about anything right now, I do not know it.  And if you are deceived about anything right now, you do not know it.  As soon as you know it, you are not deceived anymore, and that is why we need to pray. 

Many times I have gone to the Lord and said, Lord, if I am deceived about this point, please open my eyes so that I can see it and get straightened out.  Why are people deceived?  Jesus gives four reasons why people will be deceived in the last days before the end.  Four reasons.  And the first one is the most scary reason of all.

(1)  The first reason that people will be deceived in the last days before the end is because they become offended.  Look at verse 10, 11 and 12, right in there.  The first reason that people are deceived is because they become offended.  Becoming offended leads, step-by-step to total deception.  (See Matthew 24.) 

(2)  A second reason that people become deceived is in Matthew 24:11.  The second reason that people become deceived is because of false teachers.  I will never forget a young man who came to some meetings that we were having in another state.  This man had been a Seventh-day Adventist, but he was in all kinds of trouble.  We will not go into his troubles, that is not necessary, but you know what kind of troubles people get into with their bad habits and with their marriages and with their jobs and all kinds of things.

He was in a whole bunch of trouble.  But he came to our meetings and he heard the gospel and he decided to accept it.  Did you know there are a lot of Seventh-day Adventists who do not know the gospel?  The gospel involves more than just confessing your sins; it involves receiving the Holy Spirit so that you have the power to stop sinning.  That is the New Testament gospel.

He heard the gospel, and he accepted it, but he had all these sins and all these bad habits that he was doing.  Nobody can tell me that the gospel is not true, because I have seen this very same thing happen over and over again.  I want to tell you, within about six weeks, God had straightened his life out.  His bad habits were in the past.  It was just unbelievable what happened in that young man’s life.  He was growing!

After that, he came to a friend of mine who had also been working with him, and said, I am going to go to a certain place.  I am going to take a certain class and I am going to learn certain things.  Some others of us who knew a little bit about what he was getting into told him not to do it.  We told him he would be deceived.  He said, Oh, no, I will not be deceived.  I am having my devotions.  I am studying my Bible every day.  I will not be deceived.  I am just going to learn some things.

We told him not to do it; we told him that he would be deceived, but he knew better than we did, so he went to this class and started to study. It was not even three months that he was just absolutely deceived!  Why and how does that happen?  Because of this.  If you and I know that error is being taught, and we go to listen to it anyway, because we want to learn something, we are going to be deceived.  That is the way the human mind works.

God will not protect you if you go where you know error is being preached or taught.  God will not protect you.  Jesus said, we would be deceived because of false teachers (in verse 11).  Were they successful in deceiving the people or not?  Yes they were.  So a second reason that people become deceived is because of false teachers.

There is a third reason mentioned in Matthew 24:12 why people become deceived, and that is because of the abundance of lawlessness.  That is a literal translation from the Greek New Testament.  Abundance of lawlessness, that is breaking the law.

Let me explain the way the human mind works.  I have seen this happen over and over.  I first noticed it when I was not even 20 years old.  If women’s fashions change, a woman would put on things and go out in public in clothing that she would be embarrassed to be seen in if that was not the fashion.  Why is she not embarrassed to do it now, since she would have been embarrassed to do it last year?  What has changed?

Well, people look around at what other people are doing.  I have often said to myself, There are a lot of people who would go naked if there were enough people doing it.  That is not far fetched.  We are affected by what people are doing around us and unless you are keeping your eyes on the Lord, if you are just looking at what is happening around, you are going to end up being deceived, going the wrong direction.

When my son was just a little boy going to a Seventh-day Adventist Church School, he was telling me about some things, and I was telling him that he must not do those things.  And he said, But, Dad, everybody is doing it.  And I said to him, Well, what if everybody who is doing it burns in hell someday.  Do you want to burn with them?

Friends, there are going to be a lot of people—do you want me to say it?  There are going to be a lot of Seventh-day Adventists in hell fire.  We might as well face it.  I hope that you are not there.  Ellen White said, in The Desire of Ages, that there are few people today who believe that we have a heaven to win and a hell to shun.  But it is still the truth.

(3)  A third reason that people are deceived is because of the abundance of lawlessness.  They look at everybody else, and they are deceived by watching what everybody else is doing.  Just because everybody is doing it, even in Adventism, does not make it right if it is not according to God’s Word.

(4)  The fourth reason that people are deceived.  This one is also in Matthew 24, in verse 24.  And it says, “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”  Notice, it is going to be signs and wonders.  We have seen some of that, but we are going to see a lot more.

Oh, friend, we need to study Matthew 24.  Are you offended?  Are you listening to doctrine being taught that you know is not according to God’s Word?  If you are, it is just a matter of time, and if you are not deceived now, you soon will be.  Are you looking around at what other people are doing?  It is not faith to dress or eat or engage in entertainment because other people around us are doing it.  It is not faith.

Because we are living in the time of abundance of lawlessness.  And in regard to signs and wonders and miracles, let me just mention to you, I have said this many times but it bears repeating.  If you are impressed by miracles, if you will change your mind because of miracles, it is one 100 percent certain that you will be deceived before Jesus comes.  100 percent!  Just read the last chapters in The Great Controversy.

(5)  Let us look at point number five.  In Matthew 24, Jesus talked about famine.  He talked about earthquakes.  In Luke 21, the parallel chapter to this, Luke makes a special mention about pestilence in various places—and we have a lot of pestilences today.  People in medical care and health care are dealing with diseases today that they did not even know about less than 30 years ago. 

So there are pestilences.  There is going to be famine in the United States before the end.  Ellen White predicted that, and that is one that we have not yet seen, but we are going to see it.  It is predicted in the Spirit of Prophecy that there is going to be famine in the large cities of the United States before the end.  And earthquakes!  I was talking to a man just the other day who knows something about earthquakes, and he told me, They do not even report the earthquakes any more unless they are big ones.

He said, “Did you know that just a few days ago within a 45 minute period they had two earthquakes in Spokane, Washington, and it was not even on the news, because they were just little ones.”  The earth is quaking more than ever before.  Some of you are preachers.  Let me tell you, you could preach a whole sermon just on the earthquake situation from what the Bible says.

Look at what has happened in the world since 1800; look at what has happened in the world since 1950; look at what has happened in the world since 1980, and it is absolutely mind-boggling.  I used to tell people in our prophecy seminars, that we had as many serious, that is major, earthquakes between 1980 and 1990 as we had recorded in the whole world between 526 A.D. and 1797.  That is a period of almost 1,300 years.

Now I said major earthquakes.  By the way, you do not need seismographs to record major earthquakes, they are always recorded.  People always remember those, and they are all in the history books.  But now, I have to get new statistics.  My statistics just from 1980 to 1990 are totally out of date.  Have you noticed what is happening in the last ten years in regards to earthquakes?  It is just boom, boom, boom, boom!

Do you realize that we are having many hundreds of times more earthquakes today than we had some decades ago?  Jesus said that was a sign of the end.

(6)  This is something for which we need to be ready.  Do you realize that it is impossible for you to be saved if you are not willing to endure some opposition?  This you and I need to realize.  There are some people who want to be saved, but they do not want to have any opposition.  They do not want to get the Three Angels’ Message out because somebody might not like it.

Listen, if you want to be saved without any opposition, you are going to find that you are up against an impossibility.  Jesus said in verse 8, These are the beginning of sorrows. Then you read verses 9, 10, 11, and He said that you are going to be hated by all nations.  You have to decide, friends, on whose side you are going to be, and then endure what is going to happen.  You have to decide whether you are going to endure the judgments of God or whether you are going to be hated by men.  It is just that simple.  That is the situation that we will be in during the last days.  Everybody in the world is in that situation. 

(7)  But Jesus promised, in verse 13, that the one who would endure to the end would be saved.  That is point seven, and that is important to study.

(8)  Jesus said, in verse 14, that during this time when all of these things were going on, that the gospel was going to go to all of the world and then the end would come.  And one of the reasons that you and I need to be busy doing everything we can to get the gospel out is because the Lord has promised us that once the gospel has gone to all the world, time is not going to go on any more.

We have that promise.  I have read it in several places in the Spirit of Prophecy.  She says, Time will not go on any longer when the gospel goes to all the nations.  We need to get busy.  I wish I had time right now to tell you some of the mission reports that we had in our camp meeting in Wichita, Kansas.  Millions of pieces of literature are going out.

Things are happening in the world today to get the Three Angels’ Messages out, things that have never, ever happened before.  God is at work to finish His work.  We had reports from Central America, from Mexico, from South America, from Africa, and from the South Pacific.  There is no question that God is going to finish His work.

The question is, friend, are you and I going to have a part in it?  Are we going to be part of what is predicted here in Matthew 24:14? 

There is something else that is important to study in Matthew 24 and that is the abomination of desolation.  Look here in verse 15.  It says:  “‘Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place.’  (Whoever reads [the one who] reads, let him understand).”

This prophecy, as also some other prophecies of Hosea, has a triple fulfillment and I will tell you what the fulfillments are right now, but you are going to have to go and study it out on your own.  We do not have time to explain it, to go to the references in the Bible and in the Spirit of Prophecy either one.

This prophecy was fulfilled once at the destruction of Jerusalem.  That is very clear in the first chapter of The Great Controversy.  It is very clear in Luke 21, which is the parallel chapter to this one.  It was fulfilled the first time to the literal city of Jerusalem in 70 A. D.  But this prophecy was not only for literal Jerusalem, it was also for spiritual Jerusalem, the Holy City that would be trampled under foot for 1,260 days, 42 months it says in Revelation 11:2, 3.

The early church, by the way, understood that.  John Chrysostom in Constantinople before 400 A. D. was preaching about this and he said, “This is not just literal Jerusalem, this has to do with the antichrist arising in the church and trampling the true church.”  The Holy City, Ellen White says concerning Revelation 11:2, 3, represents the true church.  The true church is the Holy City.

And so this prophecy was fulfilled a second time in 508 A. D.  Now you can see that we could spend a lot of time on that one.  We have the historical evidence, we just do not have time to read you the references and explain it.  We know what it says in Daniel 11:31. We know what it says in Daniel 12:11, 12.  We know that the word sacrifice was an added word.  We know exactly what the daily is, and we can explain this, but we do not have time right now.  That was the second time.

But this prophecy in Matthew 24:15 is going to be fulfilled again.  How do we know?  Because Ellen White tells us point blank that it will.  In Testimonies, vol. 5, 463–465 she says that the decree on the part of our nation enforcing Sunday will be a sign to us as it was to the Christians then, a time to get out of the large cities preparatory to leaving the small cities.

She explains exactly the situation about the rapture, and of Jerusalem and all of that. Now I am going to introduce a hard one for you here—Many people do not know this, but this great tribulation which would be greater than anything since the beginning of time or that ever would be, also has a triple fulfillment.

Now we do not have the time to explain that either.  What is the great tribulation?  Three times of trouble that would be greater than anything before or since.  The first one was the one described in Daniel 11:32–35, the 1,260 years of persecution, when the Holy City would be trampled under foot.  Revelation 11:2, 3.  That was the first one.  That was the great tribulation such as never had been and never would be.  Three great tribulations such as never was and never will be.  You may think that is a divine mystery, but you can understand that if you study it out.  The second great tribulation which would be a time of trouble greater than anything before or since is the time of trouble mentioned in Daniel 12:1.

Now the time of trouble that is greater than anything before or since mentioned in Daniel 12:1 is not the time of trouble on the church.  That is the time of trouble on the world.  That is the second one.  But there is a third great tribulation that is greater than anything that ever was or ever will be, and that is the one that is mentioned in Jeremiah 30:5–7, the time of Jacob’s trouble.  It says, point blank, in Jeremiah 30 that that day is great so that there is none like it.  That is a spiritual time of trouble.

By the way, Ellen White is very specific about that.  She says in Adventist Apocalypse concerning that time, that the time of trouble is not a time of trouble because the saints are being burned at the stake and all that, like in the Dark Ages.  She said their sufferings are mental.  It is a time of mental anguish such as has never been in the past and never will be in the future.

So, yes, the great tribulation is in the past, but there still is a great tribulation in the future and when the tribulation comes, it is too late to get ready for it.  You have to already be ready for it.  Oh, friend, are you ready? 

(9)  I wish we had time to study point number nine.  Jesus said, When you see all these things—all what things?  Well, to understand what all these things are, you actually need to go to Luke 21, because Luke specifies a few things that Matthew does not talk about.

Jesus said, When you see all these things, know that it is near.  And I want to tell you, friends, today it is near.  Time is not just going to keep going on.  It is going to come to a close and when it comes to a close, it will be too late to be ready.  You will either be ready or you will be lost.  How is it going to be for you?  Are you going to make a covenant with the Lord and say, Lord, by Your grace and power, I am going to study Your Word.  I am going to pray.  I am going to follow instructions, I am going to be ready by Your grace and power.

You can be, but, oh, friend, do not procrastinate.  Do not procrastinate!  Do not let anybody tell you, Oh, those revival and reformation Adventists preachers, they do not know what they are talking about.  Time is going to go on another 50 or 100 years.  I have actually heard Adventists talking like that.

And Jesus said, At a time when you think not, when you think it is not yet going to happen, it is all going to come to an end.  Therefore, the only safe thing to do is to be ready, now. 

I want to have a word of prayer with you about being ready now.  I want to give you an opportunity to make a commitment to the Lord, now, as you are thinking it through in your mind.  This is not a decision that you are making between you and me.  This is between you and the Lord.  Are you going to make a covenant and say, Lord, whatever it takes, I want to be ready.  I am surrendering my life to You.  I am going to follow instructions.  Help me to be ready.

I want you to think about that.  Is there anything in your life that you need to change?  Is there anything that you need to do, any decision that you need to make, anything that you need to change in your life so that you will be ready?