Sermon by Ron Wyatt Feb 13, 1999

SERMON BY RON WYATT
Feb. 13, 1999
WOODVILLE SDA CHURCH, New Zealand
Sabbath a.m. & p.m.

Happy Sabbath to all of you. Thanks for coming out to spend some time together in the presence of the Lord.

Back approximately 400 years before Christ came to this earth as the Lamb of God, God gave a message to one of His prophets and told him to go to a great and wicked city and tell the inhabitants of that city that after 40 days that the city would be destroyed. The prophet did not want to go on that assignment, so he fled, and you remember the story of Jonah. Finally he ended up giving that message – and with great power and persuasion.

HOLY SPIRIT IN OLD TESTAMENT:

Now, there’s some that think the Holy Spirit is only a New Testament phenomenon – a new covenant phenomenon. That is not the case. When David had sinned grievously against the Lord and Bathsheba and her husband, he asked that God not take His Holy Spirit from him. The Holy Spirit was certainly at work back there and I believe that it was certainly at work through the words of Jonah to the inhabitants of this city. The city was not destroyed. And Jonah, bless his heart, he was disappointed. It’s hard to imagine someone who really wanted to see all those people burned up and destroyed. Somehow or the other he spoke the words of the Lord but he didn’t have the heart of compassion that God has towards His erring creatures.

Back in the 1860’s in a little church in Otsego Michigan (I was a member there, for a bit) a young lady called to the office of a prophet said to the people that were sitting out in the wooden pews in front of her, “Many of you will be food for worms, but many of you will be alive at the coming of the Lord.” All those people are dead and probably became food for worms. And today we have those who would point to her and say she was a false prophet. Was Jonah a false prophet? He was not!

In Eze. 33:11 God makes it very clear that He receives no pleasure from the death of the wicked. If you and I find it in our heart to enjoy the prospect of people being lost, eternally separated from God, then regardless of what we may believe about ourselves we do not know God. He has poured out all of heaven that we and others might have an opportunity to have eternal life! And we need to reflect that kind of love – in our actions and in our words.

There are some things that were happening in the late 1800’s that a lot of people are unaware of – I was unaware of. In the 12th verse there it says that the righteous will not be saved in the day that they start doing wickedly and neither shall the wicked be destroyed in the day that they change and become righteous. Well, the city of Nineveh repented and they qualified for the mercy of God as outlined here. Jonah was NOT a false prophet! God did not change His mind or alter the word that had gone out of His mouth, because the provision for mercy for those that turned from their sin and did that which was righteous was laid before Jonah was sent out there with that message.

The group that Sr. White was speaking to that day in the 1860’s in Otsego Michigan were following the Lord and the words of admonition by His prophet. But in 1888 God sent two young men to His church with a message that if it had been accepted Christ would have come way before this time and those people sitting there, many of them, WOULD have been alive at the coming of the Lord. But that message was rejected. The righteous turned from doing that which was right and did that which was evil in His sight and so the blessing that could have been theirs was delayed.

Now, personally, I don’t feel any real grief over the fact that Christ did NOT come in the 1800’s or the 19th century, because had that happened you and I would not have been participants, folks, in the grace and mercy of God or in the New Jerusalem or the earth made new. So I’m actually grateful that things happened the way they did. That may be a sorry thing to say but it’s an honest thing.

When we began excavating for the Ark of the Covenant outside of Jerusalem, as we excavated down the cliff face, and found the cut-outs where the posters had been placed giving the name and the accusation of those who were crucified in Jerusalem (and it didn’t only happen to Christ – that was the custom in those days – the name and what he was accused of was put up in three languages that were used in Jerusalem) and as we went on down and found the cross hole and realized that that was the very place that Christ had given His life for us, it was a stunning realization!

PLACE OF STONING:

It was also the place of stoning. Just to the left as you face that escarpment, to the left of the cross hole, were great piles of stones – about all a person could take in their hand and throw with any force. Among this pile of stones were finger-bones, where they had been smashed off – severed – when the people stoned the victims there. I don’t know whether any of those bones belonged to Stephen or not but I’m quite certain that
that was the place where he was stoned.

SOMEONE DUG 100 YEARS BEFORE:

I noticed something else. Someone had been excavating approximately 100 years before! In the late 1880’s or 90’s General Gordon was sitting in the house of a family that had moved to Jerusalem and this house was right up even with and even above the northern wall of the city. And as he looked out to the North he saw this strange formation in the rocks that resembled a skull and he recalled the statements in the Bible about Jesus Christ being crucified at the “place of the skull“, and he became convinced that that quite likely was the crucifixion site. He rounded up a bunch of workers and went to work excavating down that escarpment. And he was within approximately 10 feet of an opening into the cave system (not the very chamber, but the cave system) where we found the Ark of the Covenant almost 100 years later! He was called off to war and died at the battle of Khartoum and no more work was done on this excavation until God put it in our heart to begin to excavate there.

EVERYTHING WAS IN PLACE:

The point that I would like to make, and I can tell by the expression on your faces here that you’ve seen it – you’ve figured it out – everything was set, folks. The tables of stone would have come out at that time as a “witness to the world against the idolatrous sabbath” [1 B.C. p.1109] that had been substituted for the true Sabbath! EVERYTHING WAS IN PLACE to finish the work then! Mrs. White was NOT a false prophet! The people that should have been listening failed to accept the message of Righteousness by Faith.

And it’s not a complicated matter, folks. The Bible asks the question, it says “Can the Ethiopian change his color or the leopard his spots?” It says, “Neither can you do good who are accustomed to do evil.” It says, “It’s not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” You and I do not have the force of will, the character, to decide that we will serve the Lord and to DO it, on our own. That is not within us. Many people today are traveling under the sparks of their own creation and they think that they are something special. That’s sad! Hope that they’ll be converted someday and that God can use them. Folks, God is not going to delay His Son’s coming to this planet again!

WORK TAKEN OUT OF THEIR HANDS:

Sr. White says that God will take this work into His own hands and finish it. She says the workers will be surprised by the SIMPLE means that God will use to finish His work. The SIMPLEST way of teaching people is “show and tell”. But it’s the most effective. And God has brought out of His treasure house marvelous revelations that prove that the Bible is true, divinely inspired and historically accurate, to give us a renewal of our own faith and to give us tools with which to work on behalf of others that are most effective.

GOD IN BACK OF RON’S WORK:

As you know, God has given me the privilege of locating and documenting all these things. All right. The reason he allowed ME to do that was, nobody is tempted to believe that Ron Wyatt is CLEVER enough to have found all this on his own! And should they be in doubt, I would be delighted to point that fact out to them. These things were not revealed by human cleverness, but by the hand of God! He HAS taken His work into His own hands and it WILL BE FINISHED with or without our participation! He would prefer that it was WITH our participation. Mrs. White says that the angels will finish the work that man could have had the privilege of accomplishing had they been faithful. I don’t know about you, but I have a great deal of confidence in something that angels do. I don’t dare reflect, for long, on WHY God allowed me this honor and privilege. But there’s one thing that I am extremely grateful for and that is that His angels are participating in doing this. And He’s been kind enough to have them speak to me on occasion, with very clear instructions as to what I was to do. I’m not clever enough to make those decisions, folks! People’s eternal lives are too important and too valuable for me to use MY opinion on how things should be done. And I refuse to do anything without I know it’s the direct will of God.

CHURCH LEADERS REJECT RON’S WORK:

Now, you have probably had it called to your attention that none of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the lawyers and the scribes approve of what we are doing. The amazing thing is that it’s the exact number that approved of what Christ was doing when He was here on earth! No one supported His ministry, when He was alive. Two of them did afterwards.

I’d like to share with you something Sr. White said. She wrote this in 1888. It had to do with Jones and Waggoner’s message to the flock of Righteousness by Faith, but it also has an application in our time. It says: “There is to be in the churches a wonderful manifestation of the power of God, but it will not move upon those who have not humbled themselves before the Lord, and opened the door of their heart by confession and repentance. In the manifestation of that power which lightens the earth with the glory of God, they will see only something which in their blindness they think dangerous, something which will arouse their fears, and they will brace themselves to resist it. Because the Lord does not work according to their expectations and ideal, they will oppose the work.“

I found the blood of Christ, Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God, upon the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant, the earthly throne of God. And it was quite obvious that that blood fell upon the mercy seat on the Passover. The learned Doctors of the Law have spoken and declared that that’s impossible, because in the old system of sacrifices the blood of the animals representing the blood of Christ was sprinkled on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement. Paul says Christ died once, and that satisfied ALL of the types and shadows. The Passover was the first occasion in the Jewish year when the blood, Christ’s blood represented by the blood of the lamb, was sprinkled — over the doorposts and over the homes of the Israelites in Egypt, and I guess there were probably a few Egyptians that did that just to be safe. The Destroying Angel passed over them. It was on that occasion that Christ died and His blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.

But here it says, “Because the Lord does not work according to their expectations and ideal, they will oppose the work. ‘Why,’ they say, ‘should we not know the Spirit of God, when we have been in the work so many years?’ Because they did not respond to the warnings, the entreaties, of the messages of God, but persistently said, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.’ “Talent, long experience, will not make men channels of light unless they place themselves under the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and are called, and chosen, and prepared by the endowment of the Holy Spirit. When men who handle sacred things will humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, the Lord will lift them up. He will make them men of discernment–men rich in the grace of His Spirit. Their strong, selfish traits of character and their stubbornness will be seen in the light shining from the Light of the world. ‘I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.’ If you seek the Lord with all your heart, He will be found of you.” (Maranatha 219; R&H 12-23-90; 1888 Materials 765; Last Day Events 209)

MEN LEAD BY SATAN:

You folks have had a taste of what men who believe that they are led of God but who, in fact, are led by Satan will do to people who refuse to submit to their ASSUMED authority. Christ made it quite clear that there were not to be any masters over the believers, but everyone was to be a servant, and those who served most, would be the ones that would be the most honored. Sr. White began to point out many years ago the problems that would come by a centralization of the authority of the church. She was asked to go to Australia and New Zealand and be a missionary. Meanwhile back in Battle Creek, and later on over in Tacoma Park and now in Silver Springs Maryland, things have gone exactly as God said they would through His prophet.

Very recently the GC President was forced to resign. Some years back he and one of the vice-presidents were caught paying their wives salaries for non-existent jobs, out of the worthy-student fund. When people are elected to offices of the church by a popular vote there’s only one result that can come about and that is spiritual death, because it’s popular to preach smooth things.

MY DAD AN EXAMPLE:

Now, I have a personal experience regarding the “new theology“. Some years back I lived in Nashville Tennessee. My dad, who is about 88 years old now, he always went to camp meeting. He’d get himself one of those tents and he’d stay there – get up early and go to the early morning services and, you know, he loved to do that. Well, I was aware that camp meeting was going on, but I had other obligations, so I couldn’t go. I was quite busy with one of those other obligations and I got this very strong impression to go to camp meeting and look my father up and talk with him. And I thought, “Well, maybe it’s something I ate!” But the impression wouldn’t go away. So I dropped everything, got in my car, drove down there, went to the locations office, found out what tent he was staying in and went there. And sure enough, he wasn’t there! So I left a note and was on the way back to my car and I met him, walking towards the tent. And so after the “Hello’s” and that, I said, “Dad, what do you think about camp meeting this year?” He said, “Well, it’s the most wonderful camp meeting that I have ever attended in all my life!” And I said, “Well, what in particular happened that makes you say that?” He said, “Well, Elder Folkenberg spoke last night and he taught us something that was SUCH a relief that I just feel like I’ve been let out of prison!” I said, “Well, what was that Dad?” And he said, “Well, he taught us that we can’t be perfect and God doesn’t expect us to be perfect and all that will be taken care of when Christ comes.” And I said, “Well, did he give you any scripture references on that?” And he said, “Oh yeah! He referred to Noah, who got drunk after he came through the flood and the Bible says that he was a righteous man in his generation. And then he told us about Abraham, who lied about Sarah being his sister, and He was a friend of God. And then he told us about David, who stole Uriah the Hittite’s wife and then arranged for him to get killed in battle, and David was a man after God’s own heart.” And I looked at my dad and I said, Dad…WHO is our example??” I could see the thinking process going to work there and I saw him get this startled expression on his face. He said, “Jesus is our example….” I didn’t have to say any more.

But friends, I wonder what would have happened had the Lord not impressed me to go there and have that conversation, because Dad would have gone back home and shared that “wonderful message” with everybody. And human nature is such that once we say something we are quite unlikely to admit that we were mistaken. My dad falls into that category. Jesus is not going to wave the magic wand because, you see, He is no respecter of persons. If He waved the magic wand over those who call upon His name but do not allow Him to bring about the transformation of their character that is demanded – if He waved a magic wand over them, He’d have to wave it over the devil and his angels and all of their followers, otherwise He would be a respecter of persons. “Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” “Now are we the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when we see Him WE WILL BE LIKE HIM, for we will see Him as He is.“

The Bible has all the admonition that we need to be saved. And God in His mercy has sent us additional information and, shall we say, expansion on the principles of Scripture to help in applying them to our own situation in this point in history, through His prophet. Amos 3:7 “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” The Old Testament is full of prophets. The New Testament is full of prophets. Christ personally said of John the Baptist, He says, “To them who will receive it, this was Elias.” Well, folks, the Bible said that Elijah would come before the great and terrible day of God Almighty and would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. To them that will receive it, Mrs. White was Elijah the Prophet.

That was the Elijah message for this time because, dear friends, the great and terrible day of God is upon us! And it should be a cause for rejoicing, but it should be a cause for conviction about those around us who are not under the shield of God’s mercy. The Jews set about keeping all of the blessings of God to themselves. They were to have been a light to the nations so that every one coming and going through that hub of ancient civilization would have come to know God, His law, His Justice, His Righteousness, His Mercy. But they kept it to themselves. And they lost it. Today God’s people are doing exactly the same thing.

When I became convinced that the Bible was indeed the word of God I started praying, “Lord, save me. I don’t want to burn in hell. I don’t want my parents to burn in hell.” And there were a few other special people that I didn’t want to burn in hell. And that was about it. Nothing worked! I had the most horrible time trying to live a Christian life that I’ve ever heard of. Maybe other people have had the same experience. It’s not something you want to talk about. Paul kind of expressed this when he said, “the things that I would not, them I do, and the things that I would do, I don’t get ’em done.” That pretty well summed up my experience. And then I prayed and asked the Lord to help me out of this dilemma, out of this mess, and I was impressed to ask that He lay upon me a burden for souls. You see, God’s blessings must be asked for, otherwise we don’t appreciate ’em, we don’t recognize them. So I prayed and asked for a burden for souls. And He laid it upon me. I no longer just pray for my family, friends and myself. I still pray for myself and my friends, but I said, “Lord, do whatever is necessary in my life so that you can use me in some way to help others to come to know you and your Son that died for them, so that they can rejoice in your salvation.”

This afternoon after the lunch break I’ll share some stories about angels. God’s angels are more at work today than they were during the apostolic evangelism of the world. And you remember they were quite active. One let Peter out of prison. One told Phillip to go down and hitch a ride on the road to the Gaza area. Of course, the Spirit, after the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized, carried Phillip back and set him down somewhere where there was another job for him to do. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? We don’t need to have to fret and worry about what the will of God is. Folks, first of all we need to know what the Words of Life are. You should be able to give a reason for the hope that is within you to them that ask. Now, I’ve heard a lot of people answer a question like that, you know, “What do I need to do to get to heaven?” And they’ll say, “Well, you need to join my church. If you don’t join my church you’re going right straight to hell.” I’ve never seen anybody rush down and join up after having that answer. We’re supposed to give a REASON, in kindness and humility. And, see, God used a line of reasoning to persuade us of His truth. And that’s what we are to share with people. We are to open the Scriptures.

HOLY SPIRIT ARRANGES MEETING:

The Holy Spirit had already arranged so that the Ethiopian eunuch had opened the Scriptures himself. They were open when Philip caught the ride with him. But we are to give a reason to these people that ask questions. It takes a little longer, but Christ died for those folks. They deserve a little more time if it takes it. What are the Words of Life? Genesis, chapter one, verse 26, “God said, let us make man in our own image after our likeness.” And it says, if you read on through the first chapters of Genesis, it says, “and He created man, male and female created He them.” And, you see, they were harmless. And it talks about a garden that God planted in the Eastern portion of Eden. And then there was the Tree of Life and the other fruits. And God said, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Satan asked Eve, he said, “Did God say you shouldn’t eat that fruit?” And she said, “Yes. He said that we should neither eat it nor touch it.” God didn’t SAY “nor touch it”.

Folks, we need to know EXACTLY what God says! She misquoted him there and put herself at a great disadvantage. Now, I wasn’t there, but what she opened herself up to was the possibility that the serpent, controlled by Satan, could have flipped a piece of that fruit at her at a velocity and direction that she couldn’t get out of the way of and it hit her. Again, I don’t know that that’s what happened. But it opened up that possibility. And then he could say, “Well, you’ve touched it and you’re not dead.” Sr. White says that he pointed out to her that they had already eaten of the fruit of the tree of life and couldn’t die. But anyway, she ate the fruit. Adam ate the fruit because he didn’t want to lose Eve. And God put angels there to guard the way of the Tree of Life.

Now, it’s nice to talk to you folks because you know that we are not immortal. When I’m speaking in public I have to, shall we say, share a few verses that indicate our mortality, and that the way God extends immortality to us is by giving us access to the Tree of Life and to the water of the River of Life. We have sinned, and we have been separated from the gift of God through which He provides immortality to His creatures. There’s only going to be a select FEW that are given access to that fruit again. Revelation the 22nd chapter, the 14th verse, “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Only those who are found keeping the commandments of God, those who through prayer to the Father in the name and blood of His Son have asked, can receive the blotting out of their sins, because their sins have gone beforehand to Judgment and when their name is reviewed in the Investigative Judgment there’s no sins there – they’re all blotted out.

WE CAN’T KEEP COMMANDMENTS:

Folks that’s not something we can do. We can not keep God’s commandments in our own strength. We must ask of the Father in the name and blood of His Son that He restore us to His likeness. Man sinned, and God already said, “In the day that you eat thereof you will surely die.” Adam lived to be 900 and some years old. He didn’t live to be 1000 years old. With God a day is a thousand years. There’s 7 days in God’s time set aside for the finishing of the rebellion and the restoration of this planet. With us it’s 7000 years. Now it says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And it says that death has passed upon all for all have sinned. But “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Those are the words of life, dear friends!! The world is full of lost souls out there. It’s part of human nature to condemn, to vilify and try to convince people that we’re better than they are. If we get to know God we will not be condemning to those around us. We will be found offering them something better than what they have.

CAN’T DO RELIGION:

When I first went to a Seventh Day Adventist church I was SWARMED upon! Have you ever seen a June bug? Or maybe you don’t have them here. But they fall out of the sky in the midst of a bunch of chickens. All of them – they GO for it! Well, that’s what happened to me. And I had people telling me I could not eat ice cream, I could not — you know, I mean they just laid all of these “can’t do’s” on me! I felt like I’d been run over by a truck! Folks, share the “CAN-do’s” with people! You see, for they have been invited to go to a loving Heavenly Father and ask for forgiveness and restoration to His likeness, so that they can have access to the fruit of the Tree of Life and the water of the River of Life. Show them by your kind attitude and actions and words that there’s something better than what the world has to offer.

IMPACT OF VIDEOS:

Although the church leadership has condemned these discoveries, and actively try to influence people not to come and look at them, they are spreading all over the world like wild-fire! Even among Adventist missionaries. We got a call from a Doctor in Brazil and he said, “Bro. Ron”, he said, “you have no idea what an impact that video is having on the natives that we have to work with.” He says, “We are baptizing more people into the church than are being baptized by all the other evangelistic methods and missionary operations put together.”

NOT RON WYATT’S STUFF:

Now, if you haven’t figured out by now that this isn’t Ron Wyatt’s “stuff”, I’ll make it real clear to you that this is GOD’s “stuff”!!! There was somebody once said that “Ron Wyatt is either the greatest archaeologist that ever lived or the greatest liar that ever lived”. I would like to offer a third option. “Ron Wyatt is a simple pick and shovel man, for the greatest Archaeologist that ever lived!!!” These things are ours to use, folks. And I’ll say one more thing and then we’ll stop so you can have some lunch.

A PERSONAL ENCOUNTER:

I was in an Adventist church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The pastor who invited me out there was risking his pay check. You see, those whose signature was required on his pay check had made it known that I was not to be allowed in the churches. Anyway, this fellow warned me about a Doctor that would be in the audience. He said, “He comes to all of our meetings and everything, and he always tries to embarrass and humiliate the speaker.” Now, I always give people an opportunity to ask questions, because that’s how I know what God wants me to explain to people. I don’t know who’s out there or where they come from, but He does. And that’s what I wanted to do at that meeting. But he said, “If you do that this man will trash you.” He said, “You need to have them write their questions and you pick the ones you want to answer.” And I said, “Well, if I can’t answer their questions I don’t have any business being up there to start with.”

So anyway, the questions and answers had proceeded on for a bit and then this man stood up and he said, “Well, Mr. Wyatt, you have wasted 2 hours of our time and your precious time.” He said, “You see, we all believe all these things happened. I mean, so what do we need this for?” Well, the pastor had told me that this man was a pediatric neuro-vascular surgeon. Well, I put people to sleep for surgery while these kinds of men operate on them – in his case, children. So I said, “Sir, I understand you are a pediatric neuro-vascular surgeon.” He kind of rocked back on his heels and strutted a little bit there – a little body language – and he said, “That’s right.” And I said, “Well, I’m very impressed. There’s only 8 of ’em in the U.S.” And I told him that I was an anesthetist and then I said, “Sir, the day that you go into an emergency room or into the sick room in a hospital and instead of writing down an order, ‘Prepare this patient for surgery’, you lay your hand on them and you ask the heavenly Father in the name and blood of His Son to heal that child and He does it”, I said, “then you come back and tell me you don’t need this stuff.” I didn’t know what his reaction would be….. He dropped his head and he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry!”

GOD DOES NOT GIVE THINGS WE DON’T NEED:

Folks, God doesn’t give us things we don’t need! I hear people say that “Satan can deceive others, but he can’t deceive me.” Bless their poor, lost souls! He’s already deceived them and gone on to someone who’s a bigger challenge. And there’s many of those kinds of people among the Seventh-day Adventists, because like the Jews, you see, we have been entrusted with the words of life. But that doesn’t make us any better than anybody else. It should make us more humble and more grateful and, through the power and Spirit of God, instruments in His hands for the saving of souls. We should pray that God forgive our sins, restore us to His likeness and do whatever is necessary in our lives so that He can use us to help save others.

[Closing prayer] “Heavenly Father, we thank you that you love us. We don’t understand the ‘why’. We thank you for Jesus who was willing to volunteer to die for us that we might be restored to your likeness and have eternal life with you. We ask that you will bless every one in this house today as only you are wise and powerful and loving enough to do. And we ask that you will not allow anyone to be lost that you can use any of us here to help them in some manner to come to you in the name and blood of your Son and be saved. In Jesus’ name and by His blood we pray, Amen.”

 

AFTERNOON TALK:

[He gave out some sheets of paper with scripture texts on them, about which he said:] Some scripture texts that I know that God wants us to have and to be specially aware of at this time. Feel free to make copies of them and pass them along. Because when we asked God to help us find and document everything that He wanted found and documented, we first asked Him to help us know what He wanted said about them. because it’s no good to have people’s attention if you don’t know what to tell them when you get their attention. And these are the things that God wants us to tell. Now there’s a great work to be done on this Earth and it WILL be finished this time. There’s not going to be any more delay. The angels of God WILL finish the work. Parts of it they will finish because we have failed in our responsibility and part of it they will help us with. And that’s what I would like to talk about for just a few minutes here.

When we were excavating in Israel for the Ark of the Covenant a lot of people would come by. We were just about a block and a half up the street from the Rockefeller museum which is where all the offices of the Israeli Antiquities Department are located. Now, there’s been a letter sent around that implies that we never had a permit and possibly never excavated and all those sorts of things. Satan is at work and there are those who will not enter the kingdom and they will do all they can to stop others from entering. And so this is the type of thing we are dealing with.

Well, by way of a quick explanation – The United Nations passed 2 resolutions that there was to be no Archaeological excavations in occupied territories, so all of us who have received permits to do archaeological work in occupied territories have been asked to keep those private. And one person who kind of shouted around about his is not doing archaeological work in Israel any more…. I’m not going to jeopardize my relationship with those people just to have the satisfaction of showing some of these people that they are wrong. There are things that are more important than proving people wrong. And all the folks that we discuss we pray for. Remember this. Anybody that gets to heaven is going to be a nice person. So you can enthusiastically pray for the worst kind of people there are, that the Lord will save them, because, again, if they get to heaven they’re going to be nice people! I can’t think of anybody that I can’t recommend that you pray for. Now then, when these people would come by, they’d come over and stop and watch for a bit. And several of them would come over and say, “What are you all diggin’ for?” And so I’d say, “The Ark of the Covenant”. And they’d look at me right funny and they’d say, “SURE!” and they’d go on their way.

CAN I HELP YA?:

This one man came by one day around noon and he watched for a bit and then he said, “Look, can I help ya’?” I said, “Sure.” So we let him carry buckets of dirt and debris from the top of the dig (of course the dig was down in the cave and that day my turn was up on the top – I had to go round up some things, and so I was working up there) – we let him carry the buckets off to where we were dropping the palings. And so he started asking a few questions and we had a conversation about a few things. And he said, “You know, I’m going through a religious training school over on the other side of Jerusalem and I wish you could come over there and talk to the rest of the students and our teachers.” And he said, “Is that sort of thing possible?” And I said, “Sure. If you’ll give me a time I’ll try to get over there.” And so he excused himself. He said, “I’ll go make a phone call and then find out what would be a good time.” So he was gone for a few minutes, came back, and he said, “How’s Wednesday evening?” And I said, “That would be fine.” And so he gave me directions how to get to the place where this school was located and he put it on the back of a piece of paper and I stuck it in my pocket.

MIRACULOUS ENCOUNTER:

Wednesday came, and I knocked off a bit early, got washed up and I got a “rent-a-wreck” car. (You can get them quite inexpensively – they’ve all been wrecked but they still run so that’s the main part! None of them have air conditioning, or at least the ones I got didn’t, so I had the windows rolled down.) I was proceeding across Jerusalem all on these streets that were on the little sketch and I got to one place and I couldn’t find the street and I was going back and forth along this road looking for that street and it just simply wasn’t there! So after about a half a dozen passes, I said, “Lord, if You want me to talk to these people You’re going to have to help me find them, ’cause I simply can’t find the street here.” And I asked that in Jesus’ name. (Probably if I’d done it the SECOND trip it wouldn’t have taken so long!.) But anyway, I decided, “I’m just going to go down and make one more pass and if I don’t find it I’m just simply going back to the hotel and try again some other day.” I turned around and started back up the street, and there was a little old man tottering along the edge of the pavement. He was having a terrible time keeping his balance. He wasn’t drunk, he was just simply, you know, one foot on the dirt and the other one on the black-top and some stones and stuff there and so he would wobble out in the road a bit. And I stopped. I decided I’d forget about that other thing. And I said, “Sir, can I take you home or wherever you want to go, ’cause you’re going to get killed out there like you are.” And so he said, “Yes, Thank you!” And so he got in the car and I said, “Now, I’m lost already, so you’ll have to tell me where to turn.” And he said, “Well, I’m going to a little shop at the foot of the hill up here.” And I said, “OK. You just tell me where to turn and I’ll take you there.” And so we went up the street a little ways and he said, “Turn here.” And so I turned down that street and we got to the bottom of the hill and here was this market and I said, “Are you sure this is where you want to go?” And he said, “Yes.” Well, the market was all boarded up. It had sheets of plywood over the windows and doors, and weeds and saplings were growing up all around the thing – it was quite obvious to me that it hadn’t been used in several years! That’s why I asked him “Are you sure this is where you want to go?” He said “Yes.” So anyway, he got out of the car and he turned around and stuck his head back in the window and he said, “The young man you are looking for is up that road at the top of the hill.” [pointing] Said, “You go through one gate and it’s the first house on the right.” Well, I hadn’t said a word to him about no young man or anything like that…. When he pointed I looked to make sure I saw what direction he was pointing and when I looked back to say “thank you” he was gone….

Well, we had a REAL good meeting that night…!!! But folks, God’s angels have been given orders to do anything they can to facilitate the finishing of God’s work. And if you want to have these kinds of experiences yourself, just be sure you know what to tell people. That they must go to the Father in the name and blood of His Son and ask for forgiveness and rehabilitation, and that God’s law is binding throughout eternity. In Ps. 89 verse 34 He says, “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.” Now we’ve been sharing that thought with people for some time and the other day I was reading in the Spirit of Prophecy and ran across a statement where she is talking about the last work and she said “the workers will remind the world that God does not alter the thing that has gone out of His lips.” Well, I don’t know about you, but that is quite reassuring to me to know that the Lord impressed me to state that and that she had predicted that that would be a part of the last message!

GOD DOES NOT ALTER HIS WORDS:

So anyway, there’ll be those who will say, “Well, that’s Old Testament.” Bless their hearts, when God says He doesn’t alter anything that has gone out of His lips – He spoke the commandments from the mountain top, but then in Matthew chapter 5 verse 18 (and all of these I believe you will find in this paper that you just received) Christ Himself said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Well, it hasn’t! But I always point out to them, “Has heaven and earth passed away? If it has I missed something!” And we need to be kind, but we need to be bold about sharing the words of God. Some will listen and benefit thereby. Others will not. But our responsibility is to share the Words of Life with people and some will go on to be saved. Others will simply be deprived of any excuse they might have in the future. They won’t be able to say, “Well, nobody told me.” So this is what it’s all about.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WORTH MUCH:

And I would like to quote another passage from the Spirit of Prophecy where she says that one personal experience of this nature is worth more than a multitude of other people’s experiences that we listen to or that we hear. And what I would like to challenge you folks to do is to remember these Words of Life. Remember Genesis 1:26 where it says, “Let us make man in Our image” and where He gave men access to the fruit of the Tree of Life whereby they had eternal life. And then how that was lost when they sinned and how that will be restored at the end, in Rev. 22:14, but only to those who “keep the commandments of God.” And ask the Lord to send angels to help you and invite His Spirit to help you know what to say and have that soul-winning influence with people.

GOD’S LAST MESSAGE:

This is God’s last message – the blood of His Son on the mercy seat. And I’ll give you a couple of texts you might want to look up (they’re in this paper also). 1 John 5:8,9 “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this [the blood and the water on the mercy seat presented through the power of the Holy Spirit] is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” So that is God the Father’s proof to the inhabitants of this world that His Son indeed died for all of us. When that’s presented to the world through the power of the Holy Spirit then what was talked about today about God’s vineyard, He will be able to say, “What more could I have done in my vineyard that I have not done?” and the work will be over. And I refer to Rev. 11:19. You find John in heaven, in vision, and he has stated many, many times the things that he saw — the throne of God, 4 beasts, 4 & 20 elders, the souls under the altar, the angel having the 7 last plagues and on and on, the Lamb as though it were slain opening the 7 seals – and then in 11:19 he says “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.” Well, folks, that is the 7 last plagues. Immediately when this is revealed to the world through the power of the Holy Spirit, the WORK IS DONE. And that work is being shared verbally now. It will be shared visually as soon as God is ready. He is trying a bunch of people who are claiming to be His followers, or His servants, that are not, so that their true colors will be seen by innocent people and then it will be shown visibly. And then it’s all over.

CHAMBER IS TEMPLE OF GOD ON EARTH:

Now this chamber where the Ark of the Covenant was placed – that is the temple of God on this earth. The Ark of the Covenant is His earthly throne. And although the Shekinah glory is not present there any longer, it has not been abandoned. The four angels that were placed on duty at the time the 10 commandments were put in the ark [4 S.G. p.102] are still there. That chamber has been cleaned out. All the furnishings of the tabernacle (of the temple – which were the same) are set in perfect order. The only difference is that the Ark of the Covenant is sitting against the end of the chamber wall. The staves have been removed. And to my understanding that means it’s not going to ever be moved again. And behind the Ark of the Covenant is a beautiful wall of transparent crystal, glass, or something and the colors of the rainbow are radiating out above the earthly throne of God. I haven’t seen the one in heaven but I know it’s described as a rainbow over it.

TEMPLE TO BE OPENED:

So anyway, that is God’s temple and will be opened and God’s people will be able to see on video the blood of the Son of the living God on that mercy seat, so that they will know that they have been redeemed. And of course, many will take advantage of that and go on to be saved, but others will not be able to say that they were not warned. And you remember at the end of the thousand years when the Holy City comes back to this earth and when all the wicked are resurrected and Satan stirs them up and brings them up against the city to attempt to take it by force and then Christ, who died for all of us, takes the tables of stone in His hands and goes up on the great white throne and holds this up. And it says that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess and say just and right are Thy ways Thou King of saints. Then it will all be over.

ETERNAL LIFE AT STAKE:

But folks there are people whose eternal lives are in the balance as we sit here this afternoon and our fervent prayer should be that God will not allow anyone to perish who He can use us some way to help them come to Him and be saved. Now I don’t know where they are and you don’t know where they are but God does and He knows how to make the contacts if you will go to the Father and ask that He will do what is necessary in your life and help you to be able to speak the words of life through the power of the Holy Spirit, that these souls might be saved. In the last chapter of Great Controversy it says that He will look upon the travail of His soul and be satisfied. And she talks about the righteous, that there they will meet those who they had an influence upon that helped them be saved, and those in turn influenced other people and only then will we become aware of what a far-reaching effect the power of God can have as a result of our faithful witnessing. So remember these things, folks, and watch for opportunities to bear a saving witness to every one we come in contact with and make that a subject of prayer.