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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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
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.
AFTERNOON TALK:
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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