You know, of course, that our church was established on the belief that the coming of Jesus was just around the corner. That is why we are called Adventists. I have in my possession a little white dish. This dish has an interesting story to tell.

One day my dad was out selling books for his tuition. He was a young man then, and he was studying for the ministry at the time. He went to a house, knocked on the door, and the people invited him in. He went through his canvass, hoping that the people would buy some books. But in the end they decided not to buy.

If you knew my dad then, you would know that he wouldn't leave the people without giving them a Bible study or something. And so he began to talk with the man about the coming of Jesus.

The man listened with growing excitement, and then he said to dad, “Come here in the dining room; I want to show you something.” In the china closet was a large set of dishes. The man told dad that his grandfather had bought that set of dishes in 1844 from a family that was selling out because they explained Jesus was coming and they wouldn't need them anymore. Betty and I have sold all our household possessions several times in the course of our mission experiences, but I know of very few who have sold out these days because they believed Jesus was coming soon.

When my dad saw the dishes, he was very impressed and asked the man if he could have a little dish. And I have it today. Just think what that dish means, friends. That is what we might call faith in action!

You remember the story. Believers in the Second Advent set a date for the coming of Jesus. It was going to be October 22, 1844. They had suffered a disappointment after setting an earlier date, but they believed they had calculated incorrectly. So as October 22 approached, they were not less ready but more.

But they were disappointed again. It wasn't all bad, however; because out of that disappointment our church was born. When you think about it, there was no other way for our church to come into existence, given the special work it must do in these last days.

Interestingly, people have continued to set a dates for the coming of Jesus. This has not been mal-intentioned. Of course, every time someone sets a date and nothing happens, it seem as though more people fall off the wagon, so to speak.

So many people have been setting dates lately that some time ago the church declared publicly that officially we don't believe in setting dates. This is cause for concern, also. It is almost a lose-lose situation. If you set a date, you lose; and if you say you don't believe in setting dates, then the masses go back to sleep. Soon you have a Catch 22 situation--you can't get there from here.

We will never know, in this world at least, the problem God has in trying to get the human race ready for the day of reckoning that is coming. The human race basically doesn't care about the true God. We might say that we are religious, but we would rather create or manufacture our own gods rather than serve the true one.

From God's point of view, how does one go about getting a planet ready for the end of the world? It's a huge problem, not unlike the matter of earthquakes in California. If seismologists were able to predict with certainty the day an earthquake was to happen, the resulting panic could be as socially devastating as the quake itself.

It's the same with the coming of Jesus. The kind of preparation necessary for the coming of Jesus is infinitely more complicated than to prepare for an earthquake. Getting ready for the coming of Jesus is not a matter of getting under the bed or in a doorway. It involves a preparation of the heart--that is, the mind.

Yes, getting ready for the coming of Jesus is much more complicated that fleeing to the mountains. It is about making a total heart commitment to this God who for the time being we cannot see and then allowing Him through His Holy Spirit to change us into completely new people. That is a rather bazaar concept, to the uninitiated. Speaking of not being able to see God, not long ago I saw a cute little thing about notes children write to God. One note asked, “God, are You really invisible, or is that just a trick?”

Don't ask me how it happens or what the Holy Spirit looks like. Even Jesus said that we would not be able to understand it but we would know when it happens to us. When the Holy Spirit is getting us ready for the coming of Jesus, we will naturally become doers of the Word. Make no mistake about it. A person who is being prepared by the Holy Spirit for the coming of Jesus will live a Godly life.

Did you catch that? I said a person “. . . who is being prepared by the Holy Spirit . . .” You see, preparing for the coming of Jesus is not something we do for ourselves, though we definitely have a part to play. The preparation necessary for a people who will be alive when Jesus comes is something that God does for them. If I may use this as an illustration, we can't do eye surgery on ourselves, but we must cooperate in every way with those who will do it for us.

As time goes by, I am beginning to catch a little glimpse of how complicated it is to be prepared for the coming of Jesus. It is not like getting ready for a hurricane. A person can evacuate for a hurricane and not even be there when it makes its landfall. But when Jesus comes, we'll all be in the eye of the storm.

Preparing for the coming of Jesus isn't like preparing for a flood, either. There have been a lot of destructive floods in the past few years, haven't there? A flood tends to build gradually. Water rises higher and higher until it overflows onto human habitat. Unless a person has no means of communication, people can usually get out of the area. Flash floods can occur suddenly, however, and sweep everything away in its path. Jesus said, “Therefore whosoever heareth these saying of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon the house and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell and great was he fall of it (Matt. 7:24-27).

Speaking of being ready, you are aware, I am sure, that there are many members of the church who don't believe in the Investigative Judgment. They are not the only ones who have trouble with the concept. When people outside of the church criticize our doctrines, it is often the Investigative Judgment they are after. Some time ago when I was in the Atlanta airport, I met a popular Evangelical TV personality. As we talked, one of the first questions he asked me when I told him I was an Adventist minister was, “Does the Adventist Church still believe in the Investigative Judgment?”

I really don't know what the problem is or why the Investigative Judgment seems to bother some people. I don't think we have much of an idea of what it is going to be like to go through the tribulation and then to see the sky full of holy angels and Jesus Himself.

At that time, Jesus will not be disguised as a young man from Nazareth. Rather, He will be there in power and glory. Scripture says that those who aren't prepared for that day will want to commit mass suicide. They will call for the rocks and mountains to fall on them to hide them from the presence of Him Who is sitting on the throne (Rev. 6:16).

In this world we battle with selfishness, pride, lust, bitterness and resentment, anger, and lack of self control. And we console ourselves by saying that when Jesus comes He will change us in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and will take all those bad things away from us and leave just the good.

But let's ask ourselves a question: If Jesus hates those bad traits of character, and He wants what's good for us, why wouldn't He take away those things from our lives now? On the flip side, if we are not willing for Him to take them away now, what makes us think we would be willing then?

Maybe you think you would be willing then because you would be scared out of your wits. But remember, “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still” (author unknown). Before Jesus comes, He will have said, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still” (Rev. 22:11).

And then He says, “Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22:12). It seems clear from this text that, before Jesus comes, the kind of person we are will have been settled. It's as though Jesus were saying, “Freeze!” At that time, what a person is at that moment, they will be forever.

Jesus won't change us unless we want to be changed. And He won't force a change on us. Our three choices are to be holy now, to be holy later, and not to be holy ever. So whether or not we are changed is up to us. But He has the right to call “Time” whenever He sees fit. If Jesus could wait until the moment of His coming to change people who refused to be changed before, then the devil could ask to be changed, too. We would like to think that we are in control, that the plane will wait for us, that we can get ready at the last moment. But “. . . He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained” (Acts 17:31). Let's not be fooled. God knows what is in our heart. He knows when we want to do what's right and when we put off repenting because we enjoy the sinful pleasure.

Now the rules are a little different for the people who die before Jesus comes. God knows their heart, also, and recognizes when a person had a spirit of repentance and with all of his heart wanted to do the will of God, even though he wasn't always sure what it was. When that person dies, Jesus takes the will for the deed and finishes the job on them while they sleep.

But for those of us who are alive and remain when Jesus comes, it is a different matter. It will be like having surgery without anesthetic. We will be awake for the whole cleansing process. We will submit to it, and even plead with Jesus to get on with it, as painful as it may be. We will plead with God to do what He has to do, and that is to do away with the selfishness, pride, bitterness, anger, lust, and lack of self- control, and then to engraft the fruit of the Spirit into our hearts. Those who are alive when Jesus comes will be doers of the word and not hearers only. They will be living a Godly life in the midst of unprecedented wickedness.

But these things take time. The process of preparing a living generation to meet a Holy God is not a three-week evangelistic campaign. The devil has degraded this race for nearly six thousand years. Sometimes a person who is injured needs physical therapy. Physical therapy takes time. Some treatments last for months and months. The injured party may eventually get their faculties back, but it is little by little, slowly but surely.

Sin has been a huge accident and we were all the victims. So great is the spiritual damage caused by sin that it has affected every aspect of our being. Solving the sin problem is not about taking a Tylenol and calling the doctor in the morning. Our rehabilitation requires us to be in treatment twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week until Jesus says, “It is finished.”

Let's me go back to the matter of 1844. That date begins the last lap of the race, so to speak. It is the time during which the whole plan of salvation, leading up to the Second Coming of Jesus, the Resurrection of the dead and the Translation of the living, is dealt with and brought to a glorious fulfillment. During that time, God has no problem with those who are sleeping in Jesus and who will be resurrected. But He definitely has a challenge with those who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord. This is why we must understand that salvation since 1844 is not about being prepared to die but being prepared to meet Jesus face to face.

A number of years ago, Betty and I were called to work in Chile, South America. We were there for five years. Before we left the States, we went to language school to study Spanish. We studied and read about the history of Chile, its culture, and its people. We made all of the preparation we could in the time we had.

Speaking of preparation, before a person can be a commercial pilot, he must take flying lessons. He must spend so many hours in the air and pass various kinds of tests. To be a doctor requires years of preparation. Doctors must spend years in study and more years in supervised practice. They must pass both internal exams and external exams before they are licensed to practice medicine.

What makes us think, then, that less preparation is needed for the greatest event of all time, the time when those who have been in rebellion against God (in fact, the Bible calls them God's enemies) will be completely rehabilitated?

Since 1844 Jesus has been in the process of preparing His faithful ones to meet Him face to face without dying. Inasmuch as sin has done such tremendous damage to us, the preparation that He is doing sometimes takes several generations. So what is wrong with teaching that since 1844 Jesus has been preparing those who are living and those who are dead for the Second Coming and the End of the World?

Speaking of the End of the World, you must be aware that before Jesus comes the devil will make a great effort to take over the planet. At the present time he already has most of the people on his side. But the last great push will be to take back those who have gone over to the Lord's side. The devil will be satisfied with nothing less than 100%. Everyone who refuses to take his side will be condemned to die (the Death Decree).

Scripture says that just before Jesus comes there are illusions so strong that they almost deceive the very elect. We are talking, ladies and gentlemen, about the good guys. Whatever happens is so powerful that even the majority of those who had thought they were Christians cash in their chips and begin to follow the antichrist.

This is precisely the reason God raised up the Seventh-day Adventist Church. We ought to say that there are two reason He raised up the Adventist Church. But, then, come to think of it, there are three reasons! One reason is that the Church provides a social environment where those who are being prepared by Jesus to meet him alive when He comes will feel safe and be nurtured by others.

Another reason is that the SDA Church, like the other evangelical churches, is to be preaching the gospel to the lost. Billy Graham and other great evangelical preachers are preaching a gospel that will save you, provided you die before Jesus comes; but that gospel will not prepare you to meet Jesus face to face without seeing death. Why not? Because Jesus must have a people who have put away all sin in their lives and are perfectly obedient.

The last reason, and maybe the most important reason, is that the Adventist church has been given the secret formula, so to speak, that will keep those who believe in Jesus from being deceived and loosing their salvation when the great deception and Time of Trouble comes on the world.

So, 1844 is about time. History has always been about time. The flood of Noah came after a certain predicted time--120 years and then seven days after Noah and his family went into the ark.

Jesus came on time. The Bible says that He came “in the fullness of time” (Gal. 4:4). And He died on the exact day that had been predicted. God has worked in time and on time with this planet since sin begin here about 6000 years ago. And so in the same way the work will finish in the context of time.

The last block of time in the history of this world began in 1844. This time is a time of preparation, a time of warning. We don't know how long this time block will be or when it will end. If we knew the day and the hour, we would try to prepare ourselves or we would focus on the physical details. But the great Tribulation and Time of Trouble is not like a flood or a hurricane or an earthquake, it is worse and even more difficult.

For those who are not ready, the coming of Jesus will be the worse disaster since the flood. The majority who are alive when Jesus comes will be killed, and the earth will be left uninhabited like the moon for 1000 years. Only the devil and his angels will be around. During those years it will be so hard on the devil that, after the 1000 years are over, he will be so crazy that he will launch a suicide attack on the Holy City.

These days as never before, Adventists and people of other faiths are trying to set dates for the coming of Jesus and the End of the World. We most not react so strongly that we begin to think that His coming is not near. Scripture says that would be a danger. Some will say, “Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Peter 3:4).

If it is a mistake to say that He will come on a particular date, it is also a mistake to think that it is business as usual. We don't know the day or the hour, but Scripture has definitely told us signs that would show His coming is near. A person would have to be born yesterday not to see what is going on all around us these days.

However, we have a bigger problem than not knowing the day or the hour of Jesus return. That problem has to do with our will. Will we let the Lord get on and finish what He has begun in our life? Will I use my influence to encourage others to let Him prepare them? Am I willing to tell those who love Jesus as much as I do but who are members of other Christian churches that the devil himself is going to perpetrate a huge deception just before Jesus comes, and if they don't know how things are suppose to be when that happens, they run the risk of falling for it and losing their salvation?

Even bigger than not knowing the day or the hour of Christ's return is the challenge to communicate to the lost that in Jesus they can be saved if they will accept Him and all that this means. They need to know that if they will confess their sins He is faithful and just to forgive them their sins and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

This is no time to get hung up on the 1844 thing. This is time to get into what 1844 is about--the hour of His judgment has come. He is right now preparing a people who will not fall when the devil stands up to deceive the whole world. Right now He is preparing a people who will stand up and say, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa 25:9), but the wicked all around will be falling down and crying for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sits on the throne.

This is no time to debate how we are saved and if we have to be obedient and live Godly lives or not. Of course, we do. To ask if a person who loves Jesus is obliged to be obedient to His word is like asking if a person who loves his wife is obliged to be faithful to her. Give me a break!

Some of the discussions going on in some Adventist Sabbath school classes (and even some sermons that are being preached these days) are irrelevant at best and misleading at worse. Jesus Himself has called us to be doers of the word and not hearers only; and He said that if we don't get with it, we will be washed away. Another way of saying that is that we will be lost.

We who are being saved, we who have committed our lives to Jesus Christ and who love Him with all our hearts, have been called to live Godly lives in the midst of this evil and perverse generation. We have been called to not only preach the word but to practice what we preach.

The most relevant thing we could be doing in our Sabbath school classes and in our preaching is discovering what it means to be doers of the word. The most relevant thing we could be doing anywhere is to discover what it means to live godly lives.

We spend time studying the abnormal and the dysfunctional. It is time that we spent a little effort studying what normal is. What is holiness? what is Godliness? what is victorious living? It is time we stopped holding up as role models the losers and the ne'er-do-wells and hear the testimonies of those who are experiencing the power of God in their lives that is breaking the chains of sin that are driving us crazy and messing up our lives. It is time we heard a little from someone who can tell us what it is like to be a winner instead of a loser.

In a meeting I was attending, a man stood up and said he used to be an alcoholic, but God had healed him. When he sat down, I asked the congregation, “Did you hear what he just said? He said he used to be an alcoholic—past tense. That is not what the support groups today teach us. They say once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

Friends, follow me now. A person who does not drink is not an alcoholic. Alcoholism is a disorder, a dependence, not a disease. The dictionary definition for alcoholism is “a disorder characterized by the excessive consumption of and dependence on alcoholic beverages, leading to physical and psychological harm and impaired social and vocational functioning. Also called alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence.” Pop psychologists would have us believe that some people are predisposed to alcoholism, that the sufferer can't help himself.

The difference between an alcoholic who doesn't drink and a person who never drank is absolutely zero. Those who call others alcoholics are drinkers themselves. They may drink in moderation and therefore consider themselves superior or in control. But it's just a matter of degrees. If a person doesn't drink at all, he is not an alcoholic.

What does this have to do with anything? We have all told lies at one time or another, yet we don't call ourselves liars. A person may have stolen something at one time or another, yet should he be forever called a thief? We all have weaknesses and propensities to certain sins. But if Jesus is giving you the victory, claim it. There is a philosophy these days that never lets us forget our past, that makes it difficult for us to get a new start.

The Bible text that tells about victory and getting past our sins and on with our lives is the one in Philippians 3:13,14 that says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

It may not be very scientific or physiologically correct, but I think that when our lives are hid with God in Christ, when we are under the blood, it is not necessary to go backwards, look backwards, or live in the past.

I happen to be one who believes that if Jesus could heal leprosy, He can heal an alcoholic. I don't mind if you want to say that you used to be an alcoholic, if you insist. But don't think, for my sake at least, that you need to say you are still one. That seems to be like an accident waiting to happen.

God has called us to be doers or the word. This is a call to Godliness, and He is the One who makes it happen in our lives if we will not resist. Since 1844 God Himself is preparing a people who will meet Him face to face without passing through the grave.

We live in a time of unprecedented evil, not only because there is always some new evil, but if nothing else instant communication has made it possible for the whole world to bear the iniquity of the age. The news itself is pornographic these days. The human spirit is being attacked on so many fronts that we are practically beside ourselves trying to keep on top of everything. Our children are being literally abducted at times but mentality abducted all the time. We are being tempted on every hand to break the Ten Commandments, which are the only protection we have in a society that is bent on destroying itself.

Speaking of the Ten Commandments and on being doers of the word, the other day I was thinking that of all of the commandments the one that is most ignored or perhaps the least mentioned is Number Ten. Some of the biggest trouble we are in these days is because we are breaking Number Ten big time--the one that says we should not covet. Why do I think so? Because of the amount of debt we are in.

What does debt have to do with covetousness? Only everything. I don't know if you have ever thought of it before, but the whole purpose of advertising on the massive scale it is done today is to create greed. Advertising stimulates greed. I looked up the word greed in the Thesaurus, and a synonym for greed is covetousness. Back in the old days before credit cards, you could be greedy (covetousness) and you just had to “eat your heart out.” But not anymore, not in this generation. You no longer have to sit helplessly and watch your neighbor get a new car or a new boat. The credit card and the home equity loan means that they can be all yours, too. Make it happen!

By the way, here is a little financial trivia. Let's say you owe $3750 on a credit card that charges 19.8% interest and you pay it back at the rate of $15 a week. Surprise! You will pay indefinitely without a putting a dent in the balance.

I don't know about you, but it seems as though two or three times a month I get letters in the mail offering me another credit card. The letter tells me what a marvelous person I am and that I can have some guaranteed ridiculously low rate of interest. Read the small print and you will find out that it is only an introductory rate. After a while, the rate climbs to an amount that used to be illegal and classified as usury. The credit card companies make it seem like they love us and only want us to be happy. What they don't tell us is that if we don't pay up, they will blow our knee-caps off!

I was with a group of friends when something was said about slavery. Everyone agreed that these days we don't know what slavery is about. But I interjected, “Oh yes, we do. Debt is slavery.” It is true, isn't it? We are a slave to the extent that someone else has claims to our income. The more of our income goes to pay someone else, to that extent we are in a type of slavery. The Scripture say, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Prov. 22:7).

Are you surprised to learn that approximately two-thirds of the parables Christ used in teaching dealt specifically with finances? The reason for that is very simple. He chose a topic with which everyone could identify. In Luke 12:15 He gave us the warning: ”Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has abundance does his life consist of his possessions.”

There are many people who have little or no regard for material possessions. They accept poverty as a normal living condition, and their major concern is which doorway they will sleep in. On the other side, there are the affluent. These people have the best society has to offer at their disposal. Their homes are community showplaces, their summer cottages are small hotels, and their automobiles cost more than most family houses.

The majority of warnings in Christ's messages were to the wealthy, not the poor. With the poor, the issues are usually clear cut--honesty or dishonesty. In affluence, it is much more subtle. In America, the majority of people would be graded as wealthy by any Bible-times standard. Our anxieties and worries in this country are not so much related to the lack of things but rather to the loss of things. Many, if not most of us, inwardly fear that we might lose the material goods we have acquired. Therefore, we often compromise God's best for our lives to hang on to the very way of life that brings us so much worry and turmoil.

In our society it is uncharacteristic to step down once a certain standard of living has been reached. Even in the face of almost certain financial disaster, people will continue to maintain their style of living, going deeper and deeper into debt. I was surprised to learn that in 70 to 80 percent of divorce cases, finances play a major role in the break-up of the family.

The Scriptures are clear when they call on us not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world; and that the love of the Father is not in the one who loves the world (1 John 2:15). When will we understand that the devil is working on every hand to destroy our families and cause us to loose eternal life? We have discussed and debated the other nine Commandments. Now I believe it is long over-due that we get into the significance and importance and even the necessity of keeping the tenth Commandment.

We must understand that our greed and covetousness are destroying our personal happiness and even our marriages. If we are going to survive these last days, we must pray that the Lord will give us self control. We must pray that He will help us to apply Godly discipline to our lifestyles.

God knows that we have certain legitimate needs. He knows that we need food, clothing, and shelter. These are basic necessities. But He invites us, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (Matt. 6:31, 32). We often get hung up and sick with worry about things that aren't necessities. Many have forgotten to put first things first and have become obsessed with obtaining frills and things that don't really matter.

You might be thinking, Pastor O'Ffill, mind your own business. I can live my life the way that I want to. Of course you can. But God is not mocked. What we sow we will also reap.

You have heard the old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Allow me to explain what this is trying to say: It is easier to prevent something than to cure it. If we will live Godly lives and become doers of the word, we will avoid the very things that are taking others down all around us. It is time that we got smart. Some have been fighting the Ten Commandments and as a result have been suffering needlessly. Since 1844 God has been preparing a people who will be able to stand in the last days. As the Word says, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked” (Psalm 91:7, 8).

Those who are not living Godly lives and who are not doers of the word will not only be lost in the end but will be lost all along the way. Why resist what God wants to do in your life?