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Advent Productions

Benjamin Ng

The Peculiarity of God’s People

Father in heaven, thank you for this time that we have to come and study your Word together.

Illumine our minds with your Spirit, especially on this beautiful and blessed Sabbath day, that you would speak directly to each and every 1 of us.

Please guide us, O Lord, is our earnest plea and prayer.

The title of the message this morning is The Peculiarity of God's people.

And let's go to our very first text here this morning in 1st Peter 2.9.

The Bible says, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth the praises of Him who had called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." You know, when you look at this passage in the light of maybe the book of Daniel, you will realize that God's people, they really don't stand out in ways that we sometimes imagine it to be.

When Daniel and his friends were brought to Babylon, they changed their names from Hebrew to Babylonian names.

They changed their diet, even though they continued to eat pulse at the end of it.

They changed very much everything, their education.

And at the end of 3 years, everyone came out looking the same, even sounding and speaking the same, and in the same way, living the same way as well, right?

So, you know, even in our day to day, let's admit it, we are not that peculiar.

We are very much like the world and I'm not saying that you know everyone's chasing after the world and we're living just like the world there.

No, but look our dress it's very similar.

We don't have very outstanding dress from a Seventh-day Adventist point of view.

You know, you walk down the street people don't go, oh they're so different.

That's not like, you know, we're not like the Muslims in a sense where all the Buddhists and where were they dress and it's very different.

We don't stand out like that And I don't think we should.

I don't think there's any, what do you say, there's no virtue in standing out like that.

Even our diet, you know, there are many people out there that are vegetarian or even vegan and is from a religious standpoint.

Even in Taiwan where I pastored and I was there for 3 and a half years, you know, there were many, many, many vegetarian restaurants because Buddhists are namely usually vegetarian.

And so I don't think we stand out that much in our diet either.

And even our education system is very similar.

In the Adventist schools, you can study accounting, you can study business, you can study to be a doctor or an engineer or a mechanic or whatever it is or working in media.

So even the Seventh-day Adventist schools, Not to say it's bad, but it's very similar to worldly education out there.

Other universities have very similar courses.

And we are very similar in many, many ways.

And so when the Bible says in 1 Peter 2, 9 that we are a peculiar people, What is it that distinguishes us, that separates us from everybody else, that sets us apart from the rest of the world and even from the rest of the Christian denominations out there?

How do we even know that we're in the right church?

And I want to bring us to our next text found in Daniel chapter 12 verses 3 and 4.

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book even to the time of the end.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The Bible says that the book of Daniel would be shut up, would be sealed, until when?

And at the beginning of the time of the end, the prophecies of Daniel would be opened and unsealed and would begin to understand them.

And of course by saying that, we know that's, I'm alluding to the fact that it's in the history already.

Well Let's continue reading in Daniel 11 and verse 33.

God's people, they are described as those that understand.

When it says that they'll fall by sword and by flame, by captivity and spawn many days.

And so Those that understand, those that have this sort of wisdom, they're being persecuted.

Well let's continue reading in verse 35 of Daniel 11.

These are those that are being persecuted.

They shall fall to try them and to purge them and to make them white, even to what?

The time of the end, because it is yet for a time appointed.

So God's people will be persecuted until the time of the end.

And that's when Daniel's book would be unsealed and open and begin to be read and understood.

But friends, who's doing this persecuting?

We're Continuing in Daniel 11, verse 36, Friends, who is this king?

Obviously, he has political power, but do you see there it says, he shall do according to his will and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above what?

So he's not just working in the political realm, he's also in the religious realm as well.

And so we kind of get an understanding, especially in the book of Daniel, who this is.

There is only 1 religio-political power that is described in Daniel.

And we find that in Daniel chapter 7 verse 25.

He shall speak great words against the Most High and wear out the saints of the Most High.

There you see that they're persecuting God's people and they'll think to change times and laws and They'll be given into his hand until a time and times and dividing of time friends This is the little horn power and this is what we find in Daniel chapter 7 There are actually 10 identifying marks to identify who this is, but he persecutes for 3 and a half prophetic years, which turns out to be 1, 260 years from 538 to 1798.

So really, at the end of this 1260 years, persecution will be stopped.

They will fall by sword until the time of the end.

And so that brings us to the conclusion of the time of the end, which is in 1798.

It's the end of the 1260 year prophecy that we see in Daniel 7 and also in Revelation 12.

And so that, my dear friends, is when the time of the end begins.

And this is a time that in Daniel 12, we are told that the book of Daniel would be unsealed.

It will be shut up until this time and then that book will begin to be opened to be read and to be understood.

And so look, When you look at the book of Daniel, was the whole book sealed until 1798?

Do you think people understood Daniel 1 when they read Daniel and going to Babylon and the diet and all of that and God giving him wisdom?

Do you think they understood that chapter when they read it?

And then you go to Daniel 2, that the king had a dream of this metal man whose head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, right?

Feet iron and clay and a stone comes and hits it.

Do you think when they read it they understood it?

During those dark ages from 538 to 1798, they absolutely understood it.

They knew what kingdom was coming next and all that was history to them already.

Do you think when they read that, pardon me, Daniel 6, Daniel 3 was the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar set up and threw the 3 Hebrew boys into there.

Do you think that when they read that they understood?

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The Peculiarity of God’s People

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