You and I are living in a grand and awesome time. It is the grandest time to be alive, because Jesus is coming soon, and if you are ready, there is nothing more exciting to think about, is there? If you are ready when Jesus comes, you will never, ever suffer pain, heartache, loneliness, disappointment, sickness, death or any of the awful things that you now have, because of this world of sin.
Problems, perplexities, trials and fear, and all the things that we experience in this world will be over forever, if we are ready for Jesus to come. So it is the grandest time, the time that all the apostles wished they could live to see. But it is also—and we have to have our eyes open to both sides of the picture—it is also the most awful period of time in the earth’s history.
We are going to see more awful things happen in the future than have ever yet happened. That might be hard to believe, but it is true. And so if you have your Bible, I would like to begin our study by reading from Romans 13:11: “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time [for you] to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand [or near]. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us [clothe ourselves with] put on the armour of light, let us walk properly [walking circumspectly], as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness [feasting], not in lewdness and lust [wild orgies and licentiousness], not in strife and envy [jealousy]. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts [cravings].”
Paul says, first of all he says that we should know the time. We should know the time. Now when we are talking about knowing the time, we are not talking about knowing a certain date. We are not time setters. We do not know the calendar date for the outpouring of the latter rain, the loud cry, the close of probation, or the coming of Christ. But, if we are students of prophecy, we know from the events happening around us, where we are in the stream of time. Paul says, Knowing the time, now is the hour to wake up.
Now we are human beings and we are all like little children. I have been amused sometimes how often Jesus called His disciples, Little children. We do not usually translate it that way in our English translations, but that is one of the most common ways Jesus addressed them. He called them that both before and after His resurrection. He called them little children.
I remember when my 30 year-old son, was a small child, I taught him the Christian fact from Bible prophecy that Jesus is coming soon. I taught him when he was a small child that Jesus was coming soon, because that is what the Bible says about our time. We are living in the time when Jesus is going to come soon. And I remember it must have been six weeks or so after I told him, that he almost accused me of being a liar! Because the Lord had not come yet. You see, when you are a small child and somebody says something is going to happen soon, and it has not happened in six weeks, they are a liar!
Jesus addressed His disciples as small children. As Adventists, we have been expecting the Lord to come soon, for what to us, is a very long time. I remember when I was preaching several years ago in Corpus Christi, Texas. A gentleman came to me. I do not even remember what I was preaching about that day, but this gentleman came to me and he told me this:
“My grandfather was a Seventh-day Adventist and my grandfather expected Jesus to come when he was still alive. But my grandfather died.” And he said, “My father was a Seventh-day Adventist and he expected Jesus to come during his lifetime. But my father has died. And I have believed all my life that Jesus would come in my lifetime and I am now seventy years of age.”
The Word of God has not taught for several hundred years that Jesus is coming soon. Martin Luther did not say that Jesus was coming soon, neither did John Calvin, and neither did any of the sixteenth century reformers. The message that we were living in the time of the end, and that Jesus was going to come soon, is a message that was first preached in the beginning of the 19th century. The early 1800s.
If you look at the history of the world, the world has been here for about 6,000 years. To say that Jesus is coming soon, during the last 200 is not a lie. But we are human. And so when you are human and it does not happen as soon as you think, it is easy to become lackadaisical and think, Well, it has not happened yet, it will be awhile longer. And that is when you go to sleep.
You expect the Lord to come. You expect to be ready, but you do not think it is going to happen right away. Is that what the ten virgins did? That is exactly what the ten virgins did. They all went to sleep. Now if you had asked any one of them, either the foolish or the wise, Is the bridegroom coming back soon? They would have all said, Yes. But they looked around. It is not happening in this minute, it is not happening in the next five minutes, and they went to sleep.
Paul says, Now is the hour for you to awake out of sleep. It is time to awake out of sleep. And I want to tell you, friends, God is trying to wake His people up, because if we sleep on, someday it is going to be too late to wake up. Do you believe that? God is trying to wake us up, and one of the ways that the Lord wakes us up is through the event that happened in our world September 11, 2001.
I want to read a prophecy to you, that you have no doubt read several times the last few weeks. It was made 90 ninety years ago and was fulfilled right to the letter on September 11.
This is in the first testimony in volume nine of Testimonies for the Church. And the title of this testimony is about the last crisis.
We could start reading right at the beginning, but we are going to just start reading on page 12. She talks about the conditions in our cities and then she says, “On one occasion, when in New York City, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. [skyscrapers.] These buildings were warranted to be fire proof, and they were erected to glorify the owners and builders. Higher and still higher these buildings rose, and in them the most costly material was used. Those to whom these buildings belonged were not asking themselves; ‘How can we best glorify God?’ The Lord was not in their thoughts. I thought: ‘Oh, that those who are thus investing their means could see their course as God sees it! They are piling up magnificent buildings, but how foolish in the sight of the Ruler of the universe is their planning and devising. They are not studying with all the powers of heart and mind how they may glorify God. They have lost sight of this, the first duty of man.’ As these lofty buildings went up [Incidentally, it took nine years to build the World Trade Center and cost eight-hundred-million dollars], the owners rejoiced with ambitious pride that they had money to use in gratifying self and provoking the envy of their neighbors.” [This was not that long ago—it was built between 1966 and 1975.] “Much of the money that they thus invested had been obtained through exaction, through grinding down the poor. They forgot that in heaven an account of every business transaction is kept; every unjust deal, every fraudulent act, is there recorded. The time is coming when in their fraud and insolence men will reach a point that the Lord will not permit them to pass, and they will learn that there is a limit to the forbearance of Jehovah. The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at the lofty and supposedly fireproof buildings and said: ‘They are perfectly safe.’” Ibid., 12, 13.
Did that happen? It most certainly did happen. An employer on the 71st floor of one of those buildings told all of his employees to get out and get down as quickly as you can. And they got down to about the 40th floor, when an announcement came over the loud speaker system, “The building is safe, you can go back to your offices.” The people who chose to go back to their offices, went back to their death.
A man called his father on his cell phone. He said, “An airplane hit this building, but do not worry, I am fine. I am in the other building that was not hit.” That was the last word they heard from him. They said, “The buildings are perfectly safe.” Even the firemen thought that. They decided they were going to go up and try to put the fires out.
“But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines.” Ibid., 13.
The Sunday following September 11, I was talking to my son on the telephone. I said to him, “I read this prophecy and every specification here has come to pass, but there is one thing that I want to get verified and I want to buy some news magazines to find out if this happened. According to this prophecy, when this fire would break out, they would not be able to operate the fire engines. I want to find out about that.”
My son said, “You do not need to buy any news magazines; I will send you some e-mails right now.” In a few minutes he sent me, oh, probably a dozen pictures of fire engines that were incapacitated, they could not use. They were parked right there, but they could not work them, they could not use them. It was exactly what she described. I have the pictures. You probably have seen these pictures also.
This prophecy was written over 90 years ago, and the context that we find this prophecy in is in a testimony on the last great crisis. Are we approaching the end of everything? We are very close, friends. The Lord sent us a wake-up call. It is time to wake up and to realize that we do not have much more time in this world.
When this tragedy occurred on September 11, members of our church were at the Kansas State Fair. We have a booth there. We have had a booth at the Kansas State Fair for several years, and we give out literature, talk to people, and sign up people for Bible studies and cooking classes and all sorts of things. So when this happened, our people were at the State Fair. They were manning our booth and they instantly realized something had happened to the public mind of the people in the United States—within a matter of minutes.
When they found out what had happened in New York and what had happened in Washington, D. C., people came to our booth. They said, “Do you have any information on Bible prophecy?” Our Bible worker came back and told me, and we started talking and praying. You may have heard it on the news, but people all over the United States started going to book stores to buy Bibles, trying to get material on prophecy. We decided we had to do something about this, we felt we needed to hold an emergency Prophecy Seminar.
Fortunately, Jän and Anna Schultz were with us at that time, and they jumped in to help. After making dozens of phone calls, they found a very good location for our seminar.
Materials were readied for newspaper and direct mail advertising, How to Survive the Coming Disasters on our Cities. People want to know, and they want to know what Bible prophecy has to say about this, and Bible prophecy has plenty to say about this.
We know, and they do not, and they know they do not. Let me just take a moment to read Testimonies, vol. 9, 28. “In the visions of the night a—very impressive scene passed before me. 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.’ On every side I heard similar words of reproach spoken.”
Do you want words like that to be spoken to you? Do you want somebody to tell you that some day? Let me tell you, it is not just going to happen in New York. It is not just going to happen in Los Angeles. And it is not just going to happen in Chicago. It is going to happen to Denver, Kansas City, Saint Louis, Dallas, Houston, and all the other big cities.
We know, from Bible prophecy, what is going to happen. They do not, and we have an obligation to tell them. If you were in a situation where you knew something awful was developing, but you did not understand what it was or what it meant, and somebody else knew, would you want him or her to tell you? People say, Well, they will not listen. That is true, some of them will not listen.
Some of them did not listen in Noah’s day either, but Noah told them anyway. So we have to give them an opportunity to hear the warning, whether they listen or not. We have decided that we have to do something now. Every one of us can do something. We have to ask the Lord to teach us and show us what we can and should do.
Just before Mrs. White related this vision about these skyscrapers getting burned up, she said, “We are living in the time of the end. The fast fulfilling signs of the times declare that the coming of Christ is near at hand. The days in which we live are solemn and important. The spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth.” Testimonies, vol. 9:11.
Now think that through for a moment. She says, “the spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth.” As the Spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth, what is moving in to take its place? Demonic spirits! And it is going to get so bad—you see, the more the Spirit of God is withdrawn, and the more the demonic spirits take over, the greater disasters we are going to see.
How big are the disasters we are going to see? I am not sure that I can comprehend the magnitude of the disasters we are going to see. I am going to read it to you right here in just a few minutes. We are going to see more than just a couple of the world’s biggest buildings go down. We are going to see something worse than that.
Now please do not misunderstand, I am not at all minimizing how terrible the events of September 11 have been. I am not minimizing that at all. It was absolutely demonic. And by the way, so nobody will misunderstand when we talk about God’s judgments, God did not do those things. That is what the devil and his angels have people do. But do not forget this, they could not have done it if God had not withdrawn His hand and withdrawn His Spirit so that they could do it.
“The Spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth. Plagues and judgments are already falling upon the despisers of the grace of God. The calamities by land and sea, and the unsettled state of society, the alarms of war, are portentous. They forecast (the) approaching events of the greatest magnitude.” Ibid.
I always used to read that, knowing that was written a short time before World War I, and that is the way I used to understand it. But let me tell you, friends, I do not know if we will get far enough to study about the wars in the last days or not. We are going to see bigger wars than we have ever seen before, bigger than World War II. She says, “The agencies of evil are combining their forces and consolidating. They are strengthening for the last great crisis. Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones.” Ibid.
Have great changes taken place in our world? The world has never been the same since World War I and the world changed even more drastically in World War II. Then, in Education, 179, 180, she says, “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. [By the way, are the relations among the nations today strained and restless?] 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.” Now I used to interpret that and say, that was about World War I. Well, it was, but it was not just about that, let me tell you! Because World War I was not Armageddon, that was not the last great crisis.
We are approaching a crisis, the magnitude of which we cannot comprehend, and the most important part of the crisis is the spiritual element, the spiritual perspective. She says, “Angels are now restraining the winds of strife, that they may not blow until the world shall be warned of its coming doom; but a storm is gathering, ready to burst upon the earth; and when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be a scene of strife as no pen can picture. The time is at hand.” Ibid.
“The time is at hand when there will be sorrow in the world that no human balm can heal. The Spirit of God is being withdrawn. Disasters by sea and by land follow one another in quick succession. How frequently we hear of earthquakes and tornadoes, of destruction by fire and flood, with great loss of life and property.” Prophets and Kings, 277.
Now, you are all aware of the fact that in the past, the mercy of God has been extended over the United States more than any other nation in the world. I have been in a state of shock just watching it over and over again. I remember in 1991 or 1993 when they had that bad earthquake in San Francisco which collapsed the freeways and buildings and had all kinds of destruction.
And then they came out in the papers, the number of deaths in that disaster was in the neighborhood of around 100, and I was astonished. Do you realize, friends, that in other countries when they have bad earthquakes like that, there are death counts of 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000? The mercy of God has been over this country more than any other country in the world.
In fact, until September of 2001, we had never had a disaster in this country that took the lives of 5,000 people. Did you know that? Never. Even Pearl Harbor was less than 3,000. Until September of this year we had never had a disaster that took the lives of over 5,000 people, but the Spirit of God is being withdrawn.
This is a statement that just makes me shudder. I pray about it and I say, Lord, what shall we do? Listen carefully to this statement, a prophecy that Ellen White made. It shows us that we are going to see disasters happen in this country so much bigger than have ever happened before, that we cannot even comprehend it.
This statement, written in Manuscript 53, 1910, by the way, is not only about the United States. It involves cities in other parts of the world as well as the United States. This is what she said, “The work that long ago should have been in active operation to win souls to Christ has not been done. The inhabitants of the ungodly cities so soon to be visited by calamities have been cruelly neglected. The time is near when large cities will be swept away.” Evangelism, 29.
Did you get that? What does it mean when she says large cities will be swept away? It sounds like destruction to me. “Large cities,” she says, “will be swept away.” Now if that was going to happen in the city where you lived, would you like somebody to tell you about it beforehand? I did not read the whole sentence. I just read the first part. Here is the rest of the sentence. “The time is near when large cities will be swept away, and all should be warned of these coming judgments.”
What are we supposed to do before the large cities are swept away? We are supposed to give them a warning that judgments are coming. It is easy for somebody to say, Well, how many will come? Will you get people to come? You know, that is not even our business. We are going to do the best we can so that people will know that we are having the seminar, and anybody who wants to be warned, will be able to come and be warned.
Wichita is not nearly as large as Denver, but Wichita is one of the large cities that is going to be swept away. Wichita is the largest city in Kansas, with over 400,000 people living in Sedgwick County. Steps to Life Ministry is only four miles away from McConnell Air Force Base, which is one of the largest air bases in the United States, specializes in refueling airplanes in flight.
When we send our bombers up, they have a much greater range if we refuel them when they are at 30,000. So that is what the Air Force does. They send up tankers and before they leave the boundaries of the United States, if they are going on a mission, they fuel them up in the air. It gives them a much longer range.
On the way to landing in a commercial plane just the other day, we flew over McConnell Air Force Base, and I was surprised myself. I see them in the air all the time, but I was surprised when I looked down and saw those refueling tankers sitting on the ground and how many there actually were. I did not count them; there were too many for me to count as quick as we flew over.
But because of that, they tell us that if there is a terrorist war in the United States, that Wichita is approximately number five to get hit. It is just a matter of time. So far the Lord has protected us by miracles of mercy, and I have seen those miracles. You know, we have atomic weapons at these Air Force Bases.
In 1991 I was right there, and I saw with my own eyes, I actually saw it. Tornadoes, I have learned, generally come from the southwest and travel northeast. That is generally the direction that they travel. We had a tornado that touched down southwest of the Air Base. And as I watched it, this tornado was traveling northeast, straight toward the Air Base. And do you know what happened? It got up there by the Air Base and for some reason, it lifted and went up and passed over and then came down on the other side. We have no idea how many times the mercy of God has been exercised to keep us from disaster and destruction.
What would have happened if this tornado would have disrupted atomic weapons and we would have had radio active material scattered all over town? It would have been serious, would it not? But the mercy of God was over us. The mercy of God has been over us so many times, because the Spirit of God has hovered over this country, because this country has been the cradle where the Three Angels’ Messages originated and was preached and sent to all of the world.
And because this country provided religious freedom, the mercy of God has been over this country more than any other country in the world. But the time is coming when God is going to lift His hand. In fact He lifted His hand last September, and some things happened that had never been allowed to happen before. There were people who wanted to do things to us like that for years and years, but God never let them do it. But God lifted His hand, and He let them do it this time.
Mrs. White says, “The time is near when large cities will be swept away, and all should be warned of these coming judgments. But who is giving to the accomplishment of this work the wholehearted service that God requires? . . . At the present time there is not a thousandth part being done in working the cities, that should be done, and that would be done if men and women would do their whole duty.” Ibid. That was written in 1910.
I do not know what the percentage is now, because we do not have a living prophet today, but in 1910 there was not one-thousandth part being done to warn the cities that should be done. She says, “O that God’s people had a sense of the impending destruction of thousands of cities now almost given to idolatry.” Evangelism, 29, Review and Herald, September 10, 1903.
Oh, that we could have a sense. I have thought about this so many times in the last few days. You know, there were people in those towers; I do not know how many of those people had any idea what was coming, probably almost none of them had the faintest idea of what was going to happen to them on that day, or they would not have been there. But you cannot warn those people now because almost all of those people are dead, so you cannot give them any warning any more.
As I have thought about that, I have realized there are some people who do not have very much faith. God has told us that this was going to happen and some people are just going to wait and watch it happen. But if you wait and just watch it happen, you will not be able to warn anybody then. They will be dead, most of them. The ones who survive will say, Do you mean that you knew this and you did not tell me?
You do not want words of reproach spoken to you like that. I wish that in every large city, there was a group of Adventists saying, We are going to see to it that this city gets warned. Now, they may not listen. They may be like it was in the days of Noah, but God will bless us as we do our part and try to warn the cities. The Lord has told us, This is what you are supposed to do. You are supposed to warn the cities what is going to happen.
But we cannot just wish and we just cannot curse the darkness and say, Well, it is terrible because of the apostasy in the Adventist Church, we are doing almost nothing. And believe you me, we are doing almost nothing. We should be having citywide campaigns and prophecy seminars in every large city in the United States this fall. That is what we should be doing. But it is not enough to curse the darkness because we are not doing what we should be. Instead of cursing the darkness, we need to light a candle wherever we are at.
We are completely re-writing the Steps to Life Prophecy Seminar so that it will be a Seminar specifically designed to warn the people in the cities of the coming disasters that are coming, and what they need to do.
By the way, we are also going to do something that we have never done before. We are going to teach them about disaster relief and simple remedies and health reform so that they are going to be ready for what is going to happen. Some of the disasters that happen in the cities may not all be nuclear bombs. It may not be something like that.
It may be something like Anthrax, or some other kind of biological warfare, when if you do not know about simple remedies, you will not be able to survive. So we are going to teach them those things. This is an emergency Prophecy Seminar! We have never tried to even get ready for one this quickly before, but the Lord is helping us. We are going to be ready. We are going to put it on.
And as soon as we are done, we will have all our materials ready, all our advertising ready, we are going to help any independent Seventh-day Adventist Church anywhere in the country that wants to do something like this. We are going to have all our materials ready for them, so that they can use it anywhere else. In fact, there is a church down in Oklahoma that is going to put one on right away. We have to get the materials sent down to them. We will help people anywhere in the country who wants to warn the city where they are.
My brother, Marshall, wrote our current Prophecy Seminar material in 1986, and one of the problems with this seminar is that it was prepared for a preaching style format. There are a lot of home churches all over the country, that do not have anybody there who can preach.
So we are revising our seminar. It is going to be in question and answer format, a teaching format, so that a person who does not know anything about how to preach, if you know how to read, you would be able to put this seminar on. Because, friends, we have an obligation. Some day, if we do not do everything we can to warn these cities, these people are going to come to us and they are going to say, You mean you knew that this was going to happen? Why did you not tell me?
I do not want them to be able to say that to me. I want to be able to say, Brother, I tried everything I could imagine to tell you. I did everything I could think of. I got on television and I got on radio and I got in the newspaper and I went to the state fair and I got in public auditoriums in Wichita, and I tried to tell you. I advertised it so that you would know about it. I tried to tell you!
“Soon, grievous troubles will rise among the nations—trouble that will not cease until Jesus comes. As never before we need to press together, serving Him who has prepared His throne in the heavens and whose kingdom ruleth over all. God has not forsaken His people, and our strength lies in not forsaking Him.”
Oh, friend, do you want to be part of the eleventh hour workers who give the final warnings to the people in our cities? It is going to happen. Somebody is going to do it. If not you, then God will use somebody else.
One time there was a war in Israel and there were some people, as they saw what was happening, it seemed like the job was just to big to accomplish and they decided that it would probably go down in defeat, so they decided that they would just let the others be defeated. And they would not have anything to do with it. They just let the others fight the battle and either win or lose. Look at what the Lord said about them: “‘Curse Meroz,’ said the angel of the Lord, ‘Curse its inhabitants bitterly, Because they did not come to the help of the Lord, To the help of the Lord against the mighty.” Judges 5:23.
I want to tell you, friends, there is a battle to be fought. You may be outnumbered 1,000 to one, or 10,000 to one, but it does not matter if you are on the Lord’s side. Talk about being outnumbered! Noah stood all alone. But he gave the warning anyway, and we need to warn the people of our time what is coming.
By the way, we have new material. One of the things we did when we rewrote our Prophecy Seminar was to show people how to survive the coming disasters on our cities. In lesson 20, we cover the topic of the Spirit of Prophecy in the last days. Do we ever have something to tell them now?
We had a lot to tell them already, but now we can tell them, “Do you know that God foresaw what was going to happen On September 11, 2001, in this country and He had it written down 90 years ago? Here it is! People have the audacity to scoff as to whether or not Ellen White was a prophet! If you are open to evidence, there is plenty of evidence.
But there is a battle to be fought. We must warn the world of its coming doom. Oh, we are going to get scoffed at. They scoffed at Noah. Martin Luther stood up against the whole world. One time Martin Luther said to his enemies, “You ought to be afraid. The reason you ought to be afraid is because I am only one and you are many and that is the reason you should be afraid! Study religious history,” he said, “who was right in Noah’s day? Who was right in Elijah’s day? Was it the one or was it the many? Who was right in Jesus’ day? Was it the one or was it the many?”
And so Martin Luther said, “You ought to be afraid because I am one and you are many!” Would that the Lord would give us a holy boldness like he had! We must warn the world. This world is coming to an end—soon! Soon there are going to be casualties in our large cities that we cannot comprehend. God’s children are not going to participate in the final disasters that come upon this world.
We are not going to be part of the plagues. The Lord is going to deliver us. But if we want to be delivered, we need to be giving the message to the people. Will you not pray in your own closet and say to the Lord, show me what You want me to do to warn these cities.
Whatever church you are going to, talk about it to your fellow church members and say, What should we be doing to warn the people in the city wherever your church is? If we pray, if we ask, the Lord will show us what to do. It does not take hundreds of people to warn a city, by the way. God just sent one to Ninevah, He just sent one, and he did not want to go.
The cities have to be warned before this destruction comes, and if you and I do not go, God will send somebody else, and He will also have a curse pronounced on us for not doing our job. We just read it in Judges 5:23. It is time, today, friends, to come up to the help of the Lord and say, Lord, what do You want me to do to see that the world gets warned because time is running out.
This story about these skyscrapers being burned up is in the chapter on “The Last Crisis.” Read it. The Lord will reveal some other things in that chapter that will absolutely startle you. It is time to wake up and be ready.