It’s closer then you think

Scripture Mt: 24:14: And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

STORY: Harley the Pit Bull,      

Anyone have a Dog? Anyone have a Pit-Bull?

Pit-Bulls are about the most loving Dogs in the world, they are just giving a Bad name by people who miss-use them. Well I have a Pit-Bull named Harley; she was dropped off on my door step by my Children and never picked up again, but she is a very loving dog so she stayed.

Now and then she will do some of the strangest things, like getting in my way under my legs so I can’t move with out knowing she is right there. Then all at once she will be gone, now where did that crazy dog go I would say. So I would look all over the house for her and can’t find her, what is going on I would think.

I would start looking under the beds and no Harley; well I would say I know she did not just disappear. So again I would start the search room by room and then at last I would check the Bathroom, and when I pulled the shower curtain there she is right in the bathtub. Oh I would say you want aBathbut then I would notice in her eyes something strange. As I reach down to pet her she would be trembling and her tale between her legs in fear.

What is wrong I would say but just about then I would hear it outside. Thunder out side, I would go and look and see dark clouds with thundering and lightning. Where did this come from it was Sunshine just a little while ago. Oh that’s it she could hear and feel that there was a storm coming and did her best to warn me to take shelter in the bathroom. When I would not go she had no choice but to leave me and go her self. I would think that is remarkable that Animals know when something like bad weather is about to happen long before we ever hear or see it.

Let us Pray!

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 Did you know that right before a Hurricane or an Earthquake Animals will start to act strange as if they somehow know something bad is coming!

Why is this, it is something left over from Noah days.

Let’s take a look at what happened back then in Noah’s time.

God told Noah that the End of everything was coming, to build a really big boat.

The question is why?

Genesis 6:

12: And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

The Earth was Corrupt with Sin and God told Noah to warned the people that the end is coming.  Noah preached for right at 120 years, and what happened no one believed him.

Only the Animals believed and when the time came they went into the Ark and were saved while the world outside perished.  

In the book of Matthew Jesus himself is telling us something very importance for the time we live in.

Matthew 24:

37: But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

38: For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

It is sad but the Bible is telling us that our World today is no different then it was back in Noah’s time

39: And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Most of the signs about Jesus return have all been fulfilled except for a few. 

Matthew 24:

14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

What did Jesus mean by all this?

There is a time coming that people will not believe there eyes if it were told them, in fact it is told them and they still will not believe.

The end of Sin out of Gods kingdom is soon to be removed forever, never to rise again.

But listen to what Jesus is telling us about how people will feel about his coming.

2^nd Peter 3:

3: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

4: And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

Are there scoffers in these last days?. There always has been scoffers but they are getting worse.

They are scoffing at everything including the nearness of the coming of Jesus Christ. You have seen scoffers. They are everywhere and complain about anything, listen to just a few

• “Everything that can be invented has been invented. I recommend that we close the US Patent Office.”– this was the statement of the director of the US Patent Office to President of the United States in 1889.
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• Thomas J. Watson Jr. of IBM predicted in 1958: “There is a world market for no more than about five computers. There’s no future in it.”
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• In 1896, one magazine author wrote: “The vast majority of people would prefer a smooth running, reliable steam engine . . . to the evil smelling dangerous, wasteful, and at best uncertain and unreliable gasoline engine.”
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• In 1900, a spokesman for the granddaddy of the Mercedes Benz Co. said: “There will probably be a mass market for about 1,000 automobiles, that’s about it. And after all, there is a limit to the number of Chauffeurs who could be found to drive them.” And during the next seven years Henry Ford sold millions of Model “T”s.
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• In 1903, a preacher predicted, regarding air travel, “it’s good for God and angels and the birds…”. – -his name? Bishop Milton Wright, father of Orville and Wilbur Wright.
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• In 1948, radio pioneer Mary Summerville predicted: “Television will not last. It is a flash in the pan.” Newspaper editor C.P. Scott agreed: “Television? No good will come of this devise. For one thing, the word itself is half Greek and half Latin. Is isn’t going to amount to a thing.”
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• In December of 1989, West German politicians confided to David Hasselhoff that the Berlin Wall would still be in place long after their children and grandchildren had died. Two weeks later it came down!

Scoffers! I tell you there are an abounding number of scoffers in our world today, scoffing, even in the Church, “you will hear people saying Jesus coming is a long way off. Don’t worry about it, just be cool we are all going to be raptured 

The last days are not far in the future my friend; and I believe the last days are here just around the corner.

Scoffers are saying: the ground under Los Angeles is solid. We aren’t expecting any earthquakes in our life-time. We still have time to eat, drink and be merry.

But God says in Luke 12:40, “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.”

I think there are going to be many, many disasters in the last days, just before the coming of Jesus.

One type of disaster will be in bad weather. Look at Psalm 50:3 (NLT) Our God approaches with the noise of thunder and a great storm rages around Him..

Lighting and thunder.

• When God came toMount Sinaithere was a storm. Remember?
• When He appeared to Elijah there was a great storm.
• And just before the second coming, I think we are going to have great storms.

“Natural disasters, Ellen G. White says in Counsels on Health, “will be more and more frequence and disastrous.”

Come over here to Revelation 7 in your Bible. The first verse talks about the wind.

Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.

In the last 20 years or so we have seen some of most devastating hurricanes ever.

Do you remember names like Mitch, Frances, Andrew, Katrina, Rita, Lili, Charley, Ivan, Jeanne. Those aren’t names that people are very happy with.

Those are big named hurricanes. Some of them coming and splitting and turning around and coming back again. We have the weirdest stuff going on. I think that eventually the angels will let go of the four winds.

What do these winds represent? They represent trouble, strife, wars, and all kinds of problems in the last days.

  STORY:    . ****   Galveston Hurricane Report of 1900 ****,  

In Galveston on the rain-darkened and gusty morning of Saturday, September 8, 1900, newspaper readers saw, on page three of the local Daily News, an early-morning account of a tropical hurricane prowling the Gulf of Mexico.

 On the previous day Galveston had been placed under a storm warning by the central office of the Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) in Washington, D.C.a one-column headline announced, “Storm in the Gulf.” Under that, a small subhead proclaimed, “Great Damage Reported onMississippi and Louisiana Coasts-Wires Down-Details Meagre.” The story, only one paragraph long, had been sent out ofNew Orleans at 12:45 A.M. that same day, but it added nothing to the information presented in the headlines. Additional details were unavailable “owing to the prostration of the wires.” Beneath theNew Orleans report appeared a brief local story: “At midnight the moon was shining brightly and the sky was not as threatening as earlier in the night. The weather bureau had no late advice as to the storm’s movements and it may be that the tropical disturbance has changed its course or spent its force before reachingTexas.”

This hurricane had been first observed on August 30 in the vicinity of 15° north latitude and 63° west longitude, about 125 miles northwest of Martinique, proceeding westward. Galvestonians had been aware of the storm since September 4, when it was reported moving northward overCuba. From the first, however, details had been sketchy because of poor communications. Ships at sea, where oncoming hurricanes built strength, had no way of telegraphing weather observations ashore, and other nineteenth-century technical shortcomings interfered.

Except for the rain and wind, Saturday began in the city of 38,000 inhabitants much the same as any other weekday. People prepared for another stint in the routine of six-day workweeks then common; not even an encroaching tide disturbed them greatly. Galvestonians had become used to occasional “overflows,” when high water swept beachfronts. Houses and stores were elevated as a safeguard.

The tide kept crashing farther inland, and the wind steadily increased. The Weather Bureau official in charge locally, Isaac M. Cline, drove a horse-drawn cart around low areas warning people to leave. Comparatively few people had evacuated the city, before bridges fromGalvestonIslandto the mainland fell, many of the people along the beach waited until it was too late to seek shelter in buildings downtown, away from the Gulf.

Houses near the beach began falling first. The storm lifted debris from one row of buildings and hurled it against the next row until eventually two-thirds of the city, then the fourth largest city inTexas, had been destroyed. People striving to make their way through wind and water to refuge were struck by hurtling bricks and lumber and flying slate from roofs. The greatest wind velocity registered before the anemometer blew away at 5:15 P.M. was an average of eighty-four miles an hour for a five-minute period, but gusts of 100 miles an hour had been recorded, and weathermen’s estimates later reached more than 120 miles an hour. About 6:30 P.M. a storm wave, sweeping ashore in advance of the hurricane’s vortex, caused a sudden rise of four feet in water depth, and shortly afterward the entire city was underwater to a maximum depth of fifteen feet. This storm wave caused much of the damage. The lowest barometer reading was 28.44, recorded shortly after 7:00 P.M. Around 10:00 P.M. the tide began to fall slowly, and little damage occurred after that.

September 9 dawned on desolation. Most of the city lay in shambles. Between 6,000 and 8,000 people in the city ofGalvestonhad died, and estimated casualties for the entire island ranged from 10,000 to 12,000. Property damage was impossible to estimate by current standards, but contemporary figures ranged from twenty to thirty million dollars.

A high-water mark of 15.7 feet and high winds had destroyed a third of the city, including 2,636 houses and 300 feet or 1,500 acres of shoreline. The sixteen ships anchored in the harbor at the time of the storm also suffered extensive damage.

More violent and costlier hurricanes have struck coastal areas of the United States since 1900, but because of the death toll the Galveston storm that year was in the 1980s still called the worst recorded natural disaster ever to strike the North American continent.

They had signs, they had reports, but no one picked up on them.

The worse thing that can happen is when the warning is giving and no one pays attention until it is too late.

If hindsight was foresight our first parents would have never sinned

I think we will have great storms in these last days and I don’t mean just Hurricanes. The winds of strife are beginning to blow, and in the last days there will be great trouble raging all over this entire Planet.

Take care because there is hope in Jesus

Revelation 7:

2: And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

3: Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

God will take care of his people in these times, we have nothing to fear if we put our faith and trust in the hands of Jesus

Psalm: 91:

7: A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

8: Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

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What are you doing to warn people of this soon coming End?

Look at what the Bible is telling us, we are the Watchman on the Wall we must tell the people. It is not our job to force them to hear or believe, but it is our job to let them know that it is coming and that it is closer then many people think it is.

There are many who have not heard, many who have not been told, many who have not been warned, and it is our job to warn them of what is coming.

Ezekiel 33:

6: But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.

7: So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house ofIsrael; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.

8: When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

9: Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

We are the Watchman on the Wall; every little thing you do will find someone who is looking for the truth.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.”

How can we sound the trumpet?      How can we let the people know?

There are many ways to share the Gospel, the good news about Jesus.

Everything thing we do will fall into one of three categories.

1. Direct Contact:

1. a. Face to Face sharing the good news
2. b. Visiting the needed
3. c.  Bible studies
4. d. Volunteering
5. e. Missionary work
6. f.  Your personal behavior, and that effects people more then you think.

2. Indirect Contact:

1. a. Mailing; this can be anything from sending a card to say Thanks, Miss you, happy birthday, hope you get well soon.
2. b. Leaving literature behind, tracks, free Bible studies cards, Health booklets, 
3. c.  Finding people who are in need and directing them to help
4. d. Sharing your resources, Time or Money

There are a lot of Christian’s right here in our Church that I know who minister, through Indirect Contact;    God bless you for what you do in His name.

3. Prayer:

1. a. Just that on your knee interceding in someone behalf.
2. b. Nothing will get you closer to Jesus then through Praying for someone else.

The gospel is going to the world. And, many Christian denominations are out there preaching about Jesus. We’re doing a lot, but we’ve got a lot more to do and we need to keep at it.

God has richly blessed the spread of His Gospel.

We need to keep something at heart, When the Gospel goes to the entire world, we go home!

Is it going to the world, I think it is and I think Jesus coming is a lot closer then you think

What are you doing personally to help other prepare for His coming?

Friends, the last days are an Opportunity.

It is the last opportunity for a dying world to know its creator, an opportunity for us to preach the gospel, an opportunity for you to give your heart to Jesus Christ

I wonder if there is anybody here today who needs a saving relationship with Jesus. Are you closer to Jesus today than you were last year?

Do you truly have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?  If not would you like to receive Jesus as your Savior all you need to do is to invite Him in to your life?

If you want to know more details of last day events, I highly advise reading a very informative book called The Great Controversy, by EG White, especially the last chapters.

Friend:   It is closer then you think.

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