Matthew 24:36-39 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Welcome to the days of Noah!

The end-time events before the coming of the Lord are likened to the “days of Noah.” During the antediluvian period, life was good for those with power and life was terrible for those without. Life went on as normal for some and life was in an uproar for others. Life was reasonably predictable for some and yet life was totally unpredictable for many. Self-centeredness and violence were common. Pleasure and self-seeking were the norm of the day. A preoccupation with gluttony was pervasive. Fancy food and intoxicating liquor were captivating. Very few cared about others and most focused on themselves. Those were the “days of Noah.”

On any given day in 2018, go to the Associated Press website, my “go-to” news app, and you will read a litany of explanations that don’t differ much from the “days of Noah.” The world is literally falling apart. Politicians can no longer “fix” problems. The social and cultural norms of the past built on a biblical foundation or similarly-honored customs are disappearing fast. Homosexuality and other sexual perversions are wrong according to the Bible. On this subject, stand firm on your campuses for the Word of God. Yes, love people, but bring them to the foot of the cross where Christ can control their lives.

The ecumenical landscape is changing daily to reflect the fulfillment of Revelation 13 with the “world wondering, marveling, and following the beast” how ironic that we should be meeting in Rome. Not far from where we are is one of the vital centers of the great controversy and the great controversy is raging. If you don’t believe it just wait and see.

Economic stability is uncertain even though the stock market is artificially charging ahead don’t be fooled, what goes up can easily come down” the days of Noah.”

Into this ancient and ever-so-current setting, Seventh-day Adventist have been called to proclaim Christ, His Word, His righteousness, His sanctuary service, His saving power in the great controversy, His three angels’ messages, His health message, His last-day mission to the world including the need to plead for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit, and Christ's soon second coming.

In these “days of Noah,” we are called to lift up Christ and His righteousness as we focus on the three angels’ messages going to the great urban centers through Mission to the Cities and showing the love and grace of Christ through Comprehensive Health Ministry with everyone participating in Total Member Involvement. These are the “days of Noah” and Jesus is coming soon!

What a privilege to be part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church… a prophetic movement proclaiming a prophetic message on a prophetic mission.

I know God is working on the hearts of many around the world for the great last cry. As I view what is happening in so many situations around the globe, I see that the end of time is upon us. The day of the Lord is at hand. He is coming soon! This is the eschatological perspective of Seventh-day Adventists. God is working in an unusual way and the latter rain is about to fall. What a privilege to be part of His Advent movement.

I have strong faith in how God will focus His faithful, remnant people for the last, great mission of proclaiming Christ and His messages of Revelation 14 and 18 to prepare the world for the culmination of earth’s history… these are the “days of Noah” and you, as biblical scholars, university and seminary theology professors, Bible teachers, and campus spiritual leaders are to give the trumpet a certain sound… not your own sound, not the sound of the world, not a reflection of the tune played by scholars little-acquainted with the prophecies of Daniel, Revelation, and Matthew 24 but the sound of those who lift up the trumpet and loud let it ring for Jesus is coming again!

Our interpretations of prophetic, apocalyptic, and eschatological biblical texts and narratives are to be based on the historical-biblical method of Bible study and the historicist approach to prophetic understanding. You and I are to stand on the firm foundation of Seventh-day Adventist belief in the soon coming of our Lord as interpreted by the pioneers who spent so much time agonizing with the Lord for an understanding of the Bible and its prophetic instructions. At the time of the Millerite movement, the last physical sign of Matthew 24 was seen according to “Christ in His Sanctuary,” pages 92-93: “In 1833, two years after Miller began to present in the public the evidences of Christ’s soon coming, the last of the signs appeared which were promised by the Savior as tokens of His second advent. Said Jesus: ‘The stars shall fall from heaven. Matthew 24:29. This prophecy received a striking and impressive fulfillment in the great meteoric shower of November 13, 1833. After these signs, John beheld, as the great event next impending, the heavens departing as a scroll, while the earth quaked, mountains and islands removed out of their places, and the wicked in terror sought to flee from the presence of the Son of man.” We are living in that time… let’s not forget what our pioneers studied, believed, and preached. We are now just before Christ’s coming. The eschaton is upon us. Remember what our pioneers have proclaimed.

This October, the General Conference Executive Committee will meet in Battle Creek for the 2018 Annual Council. We will be working under the beautiful theme of “The Past with A Future-Looking Back to Move Forward. In fact, that’s the reason for the beginning of my beard…. we have encouraged those who attending Annual Council to identify with our pioneers and God’s leading. We will encourage those in attendance to wear simple clothing of that period on Friday and Sabbath of Annual Council. Women will probably wear long dresses and we will probably provide them with shawls. Men will wear string or bow ties and perhaps top hats and beards. There is no religious significance to this other than to remind ourselves that we must not forget how God has led us in the past. That heartwarming quotation from Life Sketches page 196 is so appropriate for us in this academic setting of the International Bible Conference as it also is for the entire church: “In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”

As we focus in this conference and in our daily work on the great hope of Christ’s soon coming, the subject of eschatology, let us never forget how God has led us, His current guidance, and His future leading. God never changes and neither does His truth as we come closer to Christ’s soon appearing during these “days of Noah.”

The antediluvian world was saturated with violent self-centeredness the same as we see today. Genesis 6:5-8 says, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

When God looks on us in these latter “days of Noah” do we find grace in His eyes? Is He pleased with what we are doing as academicians, theologians, administrators, and Bible scholars? Does he find us faithful as Noah was? Thank God that in the “days of Noah” there was Noah! By the grace of God, we can also be faithful to the calling of a last-day remnant people… people, who by God’s grace and righteousness, will be His last generation on earth as we proclaim this eschatological, Advent message. In Matthew 24, as Jesus likened the days just before His second return to the “days of Noah,” He was undoubtedly thinking of His evaluation of earth in the first setting of the “days of Noah.” Genesis 6:12 says, “So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”

Patriarchs and Prophets, page 92, indicates, “The world was in its infancy; yet iniquity had become so deep and widespread that God could no longer bear with it; and He said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth.’”

Genesis 6:13, 14, and 18 indicate, “ God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch. But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.”

The saving of God’s people in the ark of safety during the original “days of Noah” is God’s same purpose in the eschatological understanding of Christ’s second coming during the latter “days of Noah” when He will gather us into the ark of safety in the heavenly clouds. The absolute importance of this literal, second coming at the end-time “days of Noah” is vital for all Seventh-day Adventists.

We are to stand resolutely like Noah in our proclamation of eschatological events. Patriarchs and Prophets encourages us in our great task by looking to Noah’s example as indicated on page 96, “But Noah stood like a rock amid the tempest. Surrounded by popular contempt and ridicule, he distinguished himself by his holy integrity and unwavering faithfulness. A power attended his words, for it was the voice of God to man through His servant. Connection with God made him strong in the strength of infinite power, while for one hundred and twenty years his solemn voice fell upon the ears of that generation in regard to events, which, so far as human wisdom could judge, were impossible.”

The same opposition to eschatology seen in our day is foretold in II Peter 3:3-4, “knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 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 creation. For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.” Do not fall for the “days of Noah” syndrome casting doubt and cynicism on the eschaton. Let’s continue to proclaim the end-time events pointing to Christ’s soon return just as Noah proclaimed his last-day message. The second coming of Christ is what drives me and my hope for the future. What a privilege to look forward to the climactic events of biblical prophecy our redemption draws nigh!!

The coming of the Lord is the salvation to which we look forward in unabashed anticipation of eternal life regardless of the cynicism and ridicule of the world. That same heavenly grace that saved Noah in the “days of Noah” will save us in the last “days of Noah.” The truth and purpose of Christ’s eschatology is only understood when seen in His love, righteousness, and grace. This is why the Gospel and eschatology are so intimately entwined. Ephesians 2:8-10 proclaims in the New Testament era what Genesis 3:15 proclaimed in the Old Testament era and for all time.

Ephesians 2:8-10 testifies, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” In contrast to the self-actuated living of these latter “days of Noah,” Christ calls us to an understanding that His death on the cross, His current intercession for us in the literal most holy place of His literal heavenly sanctuary, and the promise of eternal life at His soon second coming are all gifts to us through His grace. The promise of Genesis 3:15 is about to be fully revealed when God said, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” What a promise packed with God’s authority, saving power, future destruction of the devil, and eschatology the promise of eternal life through the victory of Christ over the devil.

Last month, I had the privilege of preaching an evangelistic series in Tokyo, Japan, along with many others across Japan. We were part of “All Japan 2018 Maranatha.” A Japan-wide Total Member Involvement evangelistic series covering the entire Japan Union Conference with 161 evangelistic sites taking place at different times during the period of March to June with pastors and lay people proclaiming the word in the pulpits and in everyday life everyone doing something for Jesus. It has revolutionized our aging 15,000-member church of Japan where proactive evangelism had essentially died out. Churches, members, and pastors are now revived, reformed, and on fire for the Lord as they renew their focus on eschatology and our ultimate reward to be with Jesus. Total Member Involvement encompasses every aspect of seed-sowing, nurturing of the seed, reaping the seed, and challenging members to sow more seed!

Testimonies for the Church, Vol 9, pages 116-117, indicates, “The leaders in God’s cause, as wise generals, are to lay plans for advance moves all along the line. In their planning they are to give special study to the work that can be done by the laity for their friends and neighbors. The work of God in this earth can never be finished until the men and women comprising our church membership rally to the work and unite their efforts with those of ministers and church officers.”

Total Member Involvement engages all in a year-round program of comprehensive evangelistic witnessing and outreach in all its forms all with the undergirding and motivating focus on eschatology living and proclaiming Christ in the “days of Noah” just before Christ’s soon return.

The first evangelistic sermon that I preached last month on Friday night, May 4, at the Amanuma Church was on Daniel 2 one of my favorite subjects full of eschatology full of Christ’s prophetic power full of God’s authority in history and the future. I preached many evangelistic sermons last month and every time I preach those sermons I am “reconverted” all over again I am revived and reformed through the written Word and the Living Word! What a loving message about Christ, His righteousness, His three angels’ messages, and His salvation! What a message about prophetic understanding and God’s guiding hand in eschatology and historical events.

I strongly urge every one of you within the hearing of my voice to preach an evangelistic series this coming year. I mean professors and researchers and teachers and administrators everyone going back to your true roots of why we are here to proclaim eschatology to the world not just to the classroom or the academic setting, but to the world and ask your students to join you! Preaching an evangelistic series every year will revolutionize your teaching, your classroom, your students, your life, and your personal commitment to eschatology. I have been preaching an evangelistic series every year for the past few years. If you say you don’t have time, think of my schedule. You have time for everything for which you make time.

Hold an evangelistic meeting in a town, a village, or a city focusing on Mission to the Cities and utilizing Comprehensive Health Ministry. A number of you are doing this with your students and I praise God for that! You will find that there will be far less disagreement in your classroom and academic setting when you participate in doing mission through the Holy Spirit’s power evangelism and mission unite you like nothing else can! The power of the spoken Word is so exciting coupled with personal interaction and nurture of those interested in learning the truth!

When we lived in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, I used to travel a lot during the approximately nine years we lived there. I would come home to the Abidjan Airport and as you exited the airport terminal, you would see a large sign with a famous saying from the president of the country, Dr. Felix Houphet-Boigny. He was a very wise leader and known in French by the very respectful term, “Le Vieux” "the old one.” The saying on the large sign said, “La Paix: Ce n’est pas un mot, c’est un comportement.” “Peace: It is not a word, it is a way of life.” I would like to slightly adjust that to say, “Evangelism: It is not a word, it is a way of life.”

There is nothing like preaching the prophetic and eschatological sermons pointing to Christ’s soon return! It revitalizes you. You become enthralled with eschatology you live eschatology you share eschatology your life reverberates with eschatology you live in the expectation and anticipation of the final fulfillment of eschatology Christ’s soon coming! The best result from the “All Japan 2018 Maranatha” TMI evangelistic meetings was that church members across Japan were revitalized and focused on soul winning and evangelism. They are excited about mission outreach.

As you preach these messages, you see hearts melt with the Holy Spirit’s power, you see lives miraculously changed, and your heart beats with a renewed zeal for the prophetic beliefs of our pioneers. You sense anew the reason for the Seventh-day Adventist Church it is more than a denomination, more than a church organization, more than a religious body it is a movement the Advent movement an eschatological and prophetic movement! It is God’s remnant church proclaiming the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14 and 18 preparing the world, through the power of the Holy Spirit, for the “eschaton” the climatic event of all history the final chapter and fulfillment of Genesis 3:15!

Regarding the amazing plan of salvation agreed upon by the Godhead and explained to the angels in heaven, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 65, indicates that, “Christ assured the angels that by His death He would ransom many, and would destroy him who had the power of death. He would recover the kingdom which man had lost by transgression, and the redeemed were to inherit it with Him, and dwell therein forever. Sin and sinners would be blotted out, nevermore to disturb the peace of heaven or earth. He bade the angelic host to be in accord with the plan that His Father had accepted, and rejoice that, through His death, fallen man could be reconciled to God. Then joy, inexpressible joy, filled heaven. The glory and blessedness of a world redeemed, out measured even the anguish and sacrifice of the Prince of life.”

In evangelistic meetings, as you share the life-changing, prophetic messages of Daniel and Revelation, and of the rest of Scripture, Christ’s righteousness and His plan of salvation reign supreme you and your audience recognize that Christ is our All in All. As God’s last generation of people, and I certainly hope we are who in this room would not want to be part of God’s last generation and see His coming without seeing death all through Christ’s righteousness we are to exemplify His justifying and sanctifying righteousness in our living and witnessing during these last “days of Noah” all this through His power the righteousness of Christ is the central core of the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14. Our messages in the classroom, in the pulpit, on the streets, in the neighborhoods, and in our homes, will be Christ and Him crucified, risen, ministering for us in the Most Holy Place, and coming again! Christ, whose righteousness accepted by faith, gives us the power to overcome. Christ’s righteousness unfolded in the sanctuary service is one of the most powerful connections with the developments in eschatology as the sanctuary service and its activities in the Most Holy Place come to an end in the near future. That marvelous cleansing of the literal sanctuary in heaven began in 1844 and is ongoing at this very time. I hope you believe and promote our biblical understanding of prophetic interpretation. What a humble Lamb, High Priest, and Judge we have all at the same time in our precious Savior. As “Christ in His Sanctuary” portrays on page 55, “That sanctuary, in which Jesus ministers in our behalf, is the great original, of which the sanctuary built by Moses was a copy.” I recently watched online when a pastor in one of our largest Seventh-day Adventist churches said, “The sanctuary is a person not a place.” How misleading and untrue the heavenly sanctuary is a real place with a real High Priest who is ministering on our behalf as the eschaton approaches! The sanctuary is a place….and the Person, in the form of Jesus Christ our Advocate, is absolutely vital and pivotal for the fulfillment of eschatology. All this is wrapped up in Christ and His righteousness which is the very core of the sanctuary service and the core of the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14. May that message be proclaimed with ever increasing power in your classrooms, the pulpits, in homes, and in our lives.

The Great Controversy, page 623, indicates, “It is in this life that we are to separate sin from us, through faith in the atoning blood of Christ. Our precious Savior invites us to join ourselves to Him, to unite our weakness to His strength, our ignorance to His wisdom, our unworthiness to His merits. God’s providence is the school in which we are to learn the meekness and lowliness of Jesus.”

The gospel message is so intimately tied to our understanding of eschatology and how our pioneers established their understanding of it. Do not underestimate the leading of the Holy Spirit in establishing our foundational truths and biblical landmark beliefs in the early and profound days of our church’s history. Those Adventist pioneers pled with the Lord in fervent prayer as they earnestly studied the prophecies and deep biblical truths that have become our bedrock beliefs and Scriptural understanding. Let us not stray from those beliefs. Our Seventh-day Adventist pioneers established a marvelous biblical foundation of the historical-biblical or historical-grammatical approach to Bible interpretation. Let us not invent new methods of Bible study or hermeneutical principles. Their understanding and our longstanding commitment to the historicist approach to prophetic interpretation is to be championed by all of us today during the “days of Noah.” Let us not think of ourselves as smarter than those earnest, dedicated pioneers. Let us not invent or promote new understandings of the foundational biblical truths entrusted to us from heaven itself at the formation of this great Advent movement. Let us not think of ourselves wiser than the Spirit of Prophecy with its amplifying and revealing instruction and absolute affirmation of God’s Holy Word. Let us not succumb to supposed new approaches for lifting up Christ and forgetting His actual beliefs, doctrines, teachings, and instruction. His doctrinal beliefs are part and parcel of who He is. Every doctrine we have has Christ at the very center. The distinctiveness of the Seventh-day Adventist message is to be proclaimed with Holy Spirit power since it is the embodiment of the three angels’ of Revelation 14 and the fourth angel of Revelation 18. The errors of Christianity and false worship are to be clearly shared as some of us have done last month in Japan and many are doing all over the globe in Total Member Involvement. Satan will not give up his fight to neutralize the distinctive eschatological messages entrusted to Seventh-day Adventists to be proclaim in these last days. Seventh-day Adventists are to make plain the Bible truth as it is in Jesus so that no one will be deceived by the great deceiver, Satan.

I speak to you as your pastor not your president. I appeal to you leaders on campuses: If you have been tempted to drift towards the use of the historical-critical method of Bible interpretation, towards theistic evolution, towards process theology, and towards progressive theology, I urge you to return to the time-honored, historical-biblical approach and the historicist understanding of prophetic interpretation. Theistic evolution and non-historicist approaches are inconsistent with Seventh-day Adventist belief and will lead you out of Bible truth. I appeal to you and to myself to ask the Holy Spirit to guard us and keep us in the center of God’s solid Word. We need to seek humility from God the type of academic humility and consecration exhibited by that great Seventh-day Adventist scholar, John Nevins Andrews.

The Great Controversy, page 588, says, “Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.”

The eschatological events unfolding before us at the present time with political, cultural, and societal norms in complete disarray tell us that the time is very soon to come when attempts will be made to force the union of church and state. The Sabbath is so crucial in the eschatological setting that it will become the focus of attention by the world. The Great Controversy, page 605, says, “The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false Sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God.”

Those eschatological events will be so pronounced that God’s power will be seen in what is done by His few faithful followers who will be working with Holy Spirit power to proclaim the full message of Revelation 14 and 18. The Great Controversy, page 606, indicates, “Thus the message of the third angel will be proclaimed. As the time comes for it to be given with greatest power, the Lord will work through humble instruments, leading the minds of those who consecrate themselves to his service. The laborers will be qualified rather by the unction of His Spirit than by the training of literary institutions. Men of faith and prayer will be constrained to go forth with holy zeal, declaring the words which God gives them. The sins of Babylon will be laid open. The fearful results of enforcing the observances of the church by civil authority, the inroads of spiritualism, the stealthy but rapid progress of the papal power----all will be unmasked. By these solemn warnings the people will be stirred. Thousands upon thousands will listen who have never heard words like these.”

The last events will be rapid ones and will be actuated by the power of the Holy Spirit working in humble people who are interested in the eternal destiny of souls around them. As eschatology comes to its climax, The Great Controversy, page 612, states, “Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. By thousands of voices, all over the earth, the warning will be given. Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers. Satan also works, with lying wonders, even bringing down fire from heaven in the sight of men. Revelation 13:13. Thus the inhabitants of the earth will be brought to take their stand. The message will be carried not so much by argument as by the deep conviction of the Spirit of God.”

Faces of the servants of God lighted up with Holy Spirit power taking the last-day message to the world this is eschatology it is not just a religion class requirement, a three hour seminary credit, a theological subject, or even a novel way to spend an International Bible Conference eschatology is our last-day core focus as Seventh-day Adventists since it embodies everything that Christ has done and will do for us---created us, lived for us, died for us, interceding for us, preparing heaven for us, changing us, living in us, saving us, proclaiming His Word through us, and coming back to take us home.

It is part of our very name we are Adventists we are first and foremost proclaimers of Christ and His eschaton! As pastors, teachers, administrators, institutional leaders, local elders, and church leaders, let us speak much more of the eschatological events culminating with Christ’s return! People long to hear of the hope of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Preach it. Teach it. Proclaim it. Live it.

Let us earnestly plead with God for the outpouring of the latter rain of the Holy Spirit as we humble ourselves before God and prepare our own hearts for the final, Holy Spirit-inspired proclamation of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Luke, recording Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, shares Peter’s reference to Joel’s prophecy in Joel 2:28-32. Both passages in Joel 2 and Acts 2 predict the latter rain of the Holy Spirit to fall on all who are committed to Christ. Men, women, young, and old, will receive special blessings of the Spirit poured out upon all it has nothing to do with professional clergy, ordained or unordained, the educational elite it has everything to do with complete spiritual submission to God by every believer in the last days being used to share the last-day Advent message what an example of Total Member Involvement. Joel 2:23 proclaims, “ rejoice in the lord your God; For He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you the former rain, and the latter rain”

Acts of the Apostles, page 54, explains in eschatological language that, “ near the close of earth’s harvest, a special bestowal of spiritual grace is promised to prepare the church for the coming of the Son of man. This outpouring of the Spirit is likened to the falling of the latter rain; and it is for this added power that Christians are to send their petitions to the Lord of the harvest ‘in the time of the latter rain.’”

Last month, a lady began coming back to the Amanuma Seventh-day Adventist Church during our evangelistic series. She had grown up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church but met a Catholic and married him becoming a Catholic herself. However, after a nasty divorce, she felt impressed to come back to the Adventist Church through the witness of her daughter who had remained a faithful Seventh-day Adventist. She attended the meetings with two friends, Norio and Yuko Masuda, whom she had introduced to each other and who had eventually married. Yuko was a Seventh-day Adventist, but her husband, Norio, was a non-believer. However, as he began attending our evangelistic meetings he was so impressed with the Sabbath truth and the second coming of Christ. At the beginning of the series, He was polite but not visibly convicted. However, when we talked about the Sabbath truth and the attempted deception to turn the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday, he was very impressed and continued to come to the meetings. I could see in his face a person who was becoming convicted by the Holy Spirit. Norio came to use one night and said, “I want to be baptized as soon as possible!” You could see his faith in Jesus growing by the day. Norio was baptized on Sabbath, May 19, at the Amanuma Church. When we left on the final night of the evangelistic series, on Sunday, May 20, we received a beautiful thank you card from Norio and Yuko which said, “We really appreciate all of your warm support to be baptized and let us know the truth. Through our presentation, I did know the truth of God’s love, the importance of the seventh-day, following the Bible and the Advent. I’m so grateful to know about that and to be a member of the SDA. From now on, I will have my life with God, Jesus, Bible, SDA and my wife who brought me to the Amanuma Church.” We praise God for what He has done in Norio’s life and is doing in others. Their Catholic friend on the final night indicated she wanted to continue with studies and be rebaptized. What a privilege to see what God’s last day message will do in the hearts of people through the power of the Holy Spirit as we approach Christ’s soon return!

One of these days very soon, we will look up and see a small, dark cloud about half the size of a man’s hand eschatology in full view! It will get larger and larger and brighter and brighter all of heaven poured out for this climactic, eschatological event millions of angels making up that marvelous cloud with a brilliant rainbow above and lightning beneath the cloud. Right in the middle of that incredible cloud will be the One we have waited for the object of eschatology the One who is altogether lovely, our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, coming as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. No more sermons or lectures about eschatology this is the fulfillment! We will look up and say, “This is the God we have waited for” and Christ will look down and say, “Well done, good and faithful servants, enter into the joy of your Lord.” We will rise up to meet Him in the air after those who have died in Christ will have risen at His call and we will go to heaven to be with Him forever. What a day that will be! I want to be there that day by the grace and righteousness of Christ.

If, at this 2018 International Bible Conference, that is your wish and you want to humbly submit to Him who can save you through His robe of righteousness and through His sanctifying power make you more and more like Him and you want to go home with the Lord to heaven and ask Him to use you in Total Member Involvement and in your classroom and outreach settings to share His love and prophetic messages in this end-time hour of earth’s history would you join me in standing right now in commitment to Christ, to proclaiming His amazing eschatology, and to point people to His soon second coming?

5-13-18; 6-1-18; 6-2-18; 6-17-18