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North Aurora Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Shaking

P. Gerard Damsteegt

1. The Shaking: Has it Begun?

I appreciate the invitation of your pastor to come and talk about the shaking.

A number of years ago, I presented this as GVSC, and the context was different.

Now we have progressed nearly 10 more years, and it becomes clearer than ever before what the shaking is going to be.

And yet many of our people are concerned about it, haven't studied about it, and are very uncertain about it.

My intention is to take away that fear and give you a clear insight of what it is so that you are prepared.

In fact, tomorrow morning, I will talk about how to prepare for this so that it will not affect you, it will not destroy your faith, it in fact strengthens your faith and preserves you to participate in the loud cry and let the rain.

So this subject that some fear is not at all something to be afraid of.

At this time I ask the Lord specially to bless me.

Dear Heavenly Father, may the words I speak come from you and strengthen each 1 that is present tonight in Jesus' name.

And This is a study from both the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy.

I've looked at all these statements that she has recorded, stated, and whatever, and out of this comes the presentation tonight, and specifically the presentation tomorrow afternoon about the current challenges.

And the challenges are now clearer than ever before.

You see it around you and you can experience it.

Here's a picture of the situation in San Francisco.

And we know that in the beginning of the 1900s, San Francisco was terribly shaken.

This was left over from the same picture as you saw before.

And so this is a physical shaking, and we see this more and more often when I talk about the judgments of God are in the land.

The shaking, Biblically speaking, in an agricultural community, you have the harvest and you then use a sieve to shake out what you don't want.

And what remains is what the pure food that you want to have.

And the beautiful harvest of grain is the result.

And that is what we are looking for in this shaking.

Yes, a number of things will be passed on, passed on.

All the imperfections are being removed and the pure gold bars are the results of this.

And what is left over is the dross, which we show, but we remove.

So here are some of the biblical insights that the Bible gives.

The shaking in scripture, Isaiah 19 verse 16, shows a very interesting picture, in that they shall Egypt be like unto women, and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the Lord of Hosts, which he shakes over it.

Here, the shaking of Egypt is compared with the shaking and the terrible pain that a woman goes through during the pregnancy and the birth of a child.

The Lord does the shaking of the enemies of his people.

The shaking is directed to God's enemies and will benefit God's people in a very special way.

If you study your Bible very carefully, you see that, "...when thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree as of the gleaning grapes when the vengeance vintage is done again the shaking But what is this kind of shaking?

The shaking reveals the faithful remnant.

So yes, the Lord takes care of the enemy, but at the same time it reveals the Lord's faithful remnant.

And here when you shake the olive trees, what do you want to have?

And at the same time here the grapes, it shall be as the shaking of the olive trees and of the gleaning of grapes.

And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking, And the bones came together, bone to his bone.

Remember, that was the valley of the dry bones.

And then when the Lord intervened, and what did the dry bones represent?

But it was not the condition that the Lord was interested in.

And so the observation was the Lord uses the shaking to do what?

So you focus on the destruction of God's enemies, the purification of God's people, and then the shaking revives His people.

The shaking of scripture, Ezekiel 38 verse 19.

For in my jealousy And in the fire of my wrath I have spoken.

Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel.

The shaking is associated with the judgment on the persecutors of God's people.

And this is again an aspect of the purification.

And tomorrow morning I especially will focus on what happened in God's church.

And you have here the spiritual and the carnal.

And they come to church, they pay tithe, they keep the Sabbath.

But the Lord's shaking will purify his people.

Nehemiah 5 verse 13, Also I shook my lap and said, "'So Lord, shake out every man from his house "'and from his labor that performeth not this promise.

"'Even thus be he shaken out and emptied.

And all the congregation says, Amen, and praise the Lord.

God shakes out again the oppressors of his people.

Remember Nehemiah when he came back and went back to Israel to fortify and encourage the people there?

They sat down and they had not made hardly any progress.

And when Nehemiah came, in a very short time, everything was taking place.

And so here you should see the importance of spiritual leaders and good pastors.

The Lord shakes the enemies of his people.

The shaking reveals the Lord's faithful remnant.

In time of prosperity, it is difficult to see the Lord's remnant.

But at the right time, it's very, very important.

2. Surviving the Shaking

Heavenly Father, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.

And the Bible gives some interesting insights here.

What is the condition of God's people when we get a shaking.

And there are some texts here, the experience among God's people.

And if you, it deals specifically with the remnant, and if you take your Bible, in fact, your scripture reading, What was your scripture reading talking about?

Let us see what your scripture reading is all about.

And there, Paul addresses his church in Corinthians and he says, Dear brethren, I could not speak unto you as all spiritual, but unto carnal.

Here are church members, some are spiritual and some are Carnal.

No, they still hope for the best and don't come to the church.

So because you have then the spiritual and the carnal in the same congregation, You think that is fine all the time?

No, you get some tensions, opinions, all kind of things.

And so that is then what Paul talked about.

Now I can only give you the meat, not the meat, the milk, because you're babes.

And what is here, what is a sign of the babes?

The sign of the babes is that, you know, they say, oh yeah, I like that preacher.

I like Pastor Voigt, but the other pastor I don't care for.

I like Dwight Nelson, But the bachelor, no, no, no.

And so they follow the speaker that pleases them most genuinely.

We go to church to worship, not to hear special speakers.

And even if you don't care for the speakers, remember there's always a scripture reading.

And so you can turn the speaker off and you can go to your Bible.

And if you do that, you still have a blessing.

Because we go to church not to please the pastor, but to please our Lord Jesus.

In fact, the Old Testament, the word to worship is procrastinate, Prostrate, prostrate yourself before the mighty and adore him, admire him, read the word in the Bible and say, praise God that there is a place on earth where we can come together.

The world, the governments, they are fighting on big conflicts, major conflicts, shutdowns.

But in the church there is not a shut down there is an open door an open door to the Father through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so what are now some of the conditions?

Okay, we go then to Joel, chapter 2, Verse 15 through 17.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather these children and those that suck.

And then, Verse 17, let the priests and ministers of the Lord weep between the ports and altar and let them say spare thy people O Lord and give not inheritance to reproach that the heathen should rule over them.

Wherefore should they say among the people, where is your God?

So you know, so in other words, the pastors, the leaders are so concerned about the people because of their condition.

Then in James, James now what do we read in James chapter 4?

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw nigh to God and he will dry near to you.

Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to heaviness.

Humble yourself in the light of the Lord and he shall lift you up." Now here are some very sober things, but some positive things also.

The Lord will lift you up if you meet those conditions.

So he speaks here to the church, and what does the church do?

And so, friends, Those are conditions for the shaking.

If nothing helps, the Lord needs to shake.

Again, in Sephaniah 2, verse 1 through 3, you find another section and whatever, but you will not stand up about this.

And so what is now the experience during the last church period, our period, the last period?

Revelation 3, verse 15 through 17, which verse 15 through 17, which is especially relevant for us today.

No, I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.

So then, thou art lukewarm, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of your mouth.

Because you say I'm rich, increased with goods, and have need of nothing.

And knowest not that thou art wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

And so even if the condition is poor, what does the Lord say?

Buy gold right in the fire, that thou mayest be rich.

White raiment, that thou mayest be closed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear.

And anoint thy eye with eye salve, that thou mayest see.

And so all those things here, friends, are not good, but the Lord gave the message, the remedy.

And so here then the solution is a testimony that revives God's people.

And if you hear only pleasant, comfortable messages, yeah, there is time for those things, but not all the time.

So here are some spirit of prophecy insights.

The effect of the straight testimony that people may not like.

And you know the topic is here today, how to survive the shaking.

So you may hear certain messages that you're not familiar with, but don't throw them out.

It reveals the condition among God's people.

It reveals 2 classes of people, the spiritual and the carnal.

Those who accept the testimony, those are the spiritual, and those who oppose them are carnal.

3. The Shaking: Today’s Challenges

This afternoon, my topic is shaking number 3, today's challenges.

And this will bring you to the very time in which we are living.

And you never realize how clear after this presentation you will be sensitive to the streams of doctrine that are going around us.

And if you know where the wind is blowing, then you can be calm and thank the Lord that he has guided the majority of our church in the right direction.

Because it would be tragic if you see all kinds of things go left and forth and you don't even know where our church stands.

And so at this time I try to reveal where the majority of our church stands and we can praise the Lord that he guided our church through the Bible and the writings of Ellen Knight.

And this is then the most important presentation that I'm going to make.

But we need to have the Holy Spirit enlighten our understanding.

So let us ask the Lord to bless our prayer.

Heavenly Father, we ask you to be with us, give us deeper insight in what is going on and how we can be a support of the church as we are a part of the Advent Remnant Movement.

Send your Holy Spirit that we may understand it in Jesus' name, amen.

I will have a few summary statements before we are going to look here at what is taking place right around us.

The biblical insights, as we have seen, about the shaking in Scripture, are as follows.

The shaking reveals God's faithful remnant.

Yes, because we are not need to be confused.

The Lord uses a shaking to revive his people.

And then God shakes out the oppressors of his people, so the good people will not be shaken out.

But those that are not faithful cannot stand anymore the truth and will leave.

Those that will leave during the shaking are not the true people.

They will stay with the ship, no matter what.

And that purification is a painful experience, but it is necessary.

And so our observation is the enemies persecute God's people and are shaken out and it reveals God's faithful people.

Spirit of prophecy, the shaking is in the future.

Yes, the shaking testing time will come to everyone regarding the Mark of the Beast.

Now presently we are not yet in that critical situation.

We know the Mark of the Beast, it has to do with Sabbath and Sunday, But we don't need to be afraid yet, because it is not the topic of the present administration.

It is to purify God's church and his people.

It will divide the church into 2 parties.

And if people say, yeah, we have to be united, united, united, Yeah, you can say that, but ultimately the 2 cannot walk together.

It brings the latter rain and the loud cry of Revelation 18, verse 1.

That light that will shine all over the world and will call people out of Babylon, that call God's people that are in Babylon in all the fallen churches, it will call them back.

So we have seen the shaking in the future, especially about the Mark of the Beast, but now there is also a present shaking.

There was an, it was affirmed in the 1880s, in the 60s, in the 80s, in the 90s.

So the summary, the shaking is caused by a reaction to the straight testimony.

If there's no straight testimony, The good and the bad can enjoy it, and the bad are not disturbed by it.

The testimony results in disunity, fighting against it.

The acceptance leads to repentance and obedience.

Disregard of the testimony leads to conflict.

It is caused by the rebellion against the truth.

So there will be a rebellion against those things.

It is caused by the introduction of false theories that affects the surface readers of the scriptures, which fits the tenor of their feelings of bitterness.

So if you are solid study of the Bible, student of the Bible, it will not affect you because you know.

But service readers are very much easily disturbed by those things.

Is there a shaking taking place since the 2015 General Conference?

Are people allowed to go on their own with the ordination of women or not?

Yes, very positive the vote was for a majority, but it was very negative to a minority.

How should we deal with today's situation?

Yes, we have seen the judgment of God falling upon our nation, not only our nation, but throughout the world.

And that is, of course, a picture of the beginning of a shaking.

Then, secondly, the actions of the 2010 General Conference forms the background to the 2015 General Conference.

Are there here people who attended the 2015 Conference?

We were delegates there, and we enjoyed this very, very much.

The decisions, however, were made of the 2010 General Conference in regard to the sensitive issue.

At this session, 2010, there was a request for an official church study on ordination.

That was requested, it was allowed, and so the General Conference Administration informed the session of the commitment quote, to establish a process to review the subject of ordination and will report back to the annual council during the quinquennium, which is the period of 210 to 215.

And so, finally, after so many years of debating on this issue, the Jan Conrad said, now is the time to get something together officially and study it, and let us then act according to the outcome.

So, it was an attempt, quote, to bring about an understanding of what a theology of ordination was." End quote.

It was a general conference theology of ordination study committee, abbreviated TOSC, Theology of Ordination Study Committee, that was established.

And its membership included more than 100 persons of both genders, male and female, serving the church as theologians, pastors, administrators, and laypersons, mostly from the North American Division.

They met for 2 times in 2013 and 2 times in 2014.

Here you see the session of the people coming together.

My wife and I were delegates on that committee.

And so what are the results after 2 years of study?

And the disagreement was that the study committee did not agree on a biblical position.

So they couldn't see that the Bible could give any light.

Or Alan White's counsel didn't agree on that 1 either.

Or whether or not ministerial ordination should include male or female.

However, it was, and so the conclusion, it was inconclusive.

However, there were some agreements because there were some people that said, get rid of ordination completely.

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The Shaking

1. The Shaking: Has it Begun?

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