ASI Southern Union 2024: His Capital Gains

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ASI Southern Union

Norman McNulty

Why Jesus Waits

Before I start the message this morning, I'm going to have a prayer and ask the Lord to be with us as we go through the presentation this morning.

Father in heaven, we thank you for bringing us to Gatlinburg for this special time of ASI Southern Union.

And I pray now that as we get into the message for this hour, that you would guide my mind and give me the right words to speak.

And we pray that we would be challenged and encouraged and that you would guide and lead us, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So this is an opening presentation talking about, from a spiritual perspective, the capital gains that God is looking for in his people.

And this afternoon I will continue this series where this presentation here is more about character preparation, but then in the afternoon it goes to the evangelistic nature that character preparation produces.

So this afternoon we'll talk about end-time Saul winners in the first presentation and then in the second presentation it will be the Adventist message during the Sunday Law.

But this first presentation is a look at the character that Jesus is working to produce in his people as we are waiting for Jesus to come.

So the title for the presentation this morning is Why Jesus Waits.

Now sometimes people debate as to whether or not there is a delay in the coming of Jesus.

And if you look at the Bible, the Bible's actually pretty clear about this.

If you open up your Bible, and we're going to just look at some highlights from this parable of Matthew chapter 25 as we start here.

But on Matthew chapter 25, we see this parable that Jesus tells where he talks about what his church will be like before he comes back.

He talks about his kingdom being like 10 virgins, a virgin being a pure woman, so this is a pure church.

The lamp is the Word of God from Psalm 119, 105, so this is a pure church studying Scripture, and based on their study of Scripture, they go forth to meet the bridegroom, meaning that when they study Scripture, they come to an understanding that Jesus is coming back.

They are looking for the second coming of Jesus.

So naturally, it would be safe to assume that in this parable, Jesus is talking about Adventists before he comes back.

And when you look at this parable, and we're not going to go through all of the points of the parable, but there are the wise and the foolish, they all fall asleep because in verse 5 it says, while the bridegroom tarried, that's King James language, but it means while the bridegroom was delayed, that's the word chronizo in the Greek, everyone fell asleep." You know, here we are in the year 2024, and you look at the history of Adventism and you think about how Adventism began with the Millerite movement, the great Second Advent awakening, and the message that Jesus was coming in 1844 with a misunderstanding of the 2300 days and the rise of the Second Advent Movement and then eventually the Seventh-day Adventist Church organizing in the 1860s and onward and Here we are all these years later in the year 2024.

And Jesus himself predicted that there would be a delay.

Now, Jesus, when he was on this earth, said that, "'No man knows the day or the hour, but his father only.'" So the father has known all along when his coming would be, but it was never the plan of Christ to wait this long to return to take his people home.

So Jesus himself said there would be a delay.

So in this year, 2024, it is fair to say that nearly 180 years now since October 22 of 1844, that we have been here far longer than any Adventist ever would have anticipated.

I'm not the oldest person in the room nor the youngest, but man, when I was 25, I didn't think that I would be, to live to be 46 before Jesus would come back.

Nobody would think another 20 years would go by from now until the coming of Jesus.

And yet those of us who have been here for a few decades can say, yeah, you know, the decades have clicked along and we're still here.

So there is a delay in the coming of Jesus.

And the question is, Is there an answer or an explanation for why there has been a delay?

You know, if you go to James chapter 5 verses 7 and 8, another familiar passage for many of us, James chapter 5 verses 7 and 8, we see what Scripture says.

And James chapter 5, turning there quickly, says, Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord.

Behold the husbandman, that's Jesus, waits for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he received the early and the latter rain.

Be ye also patient, establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord your God.

Now here's something that's very interesting In this passage of scripture, Jesus the husbandman is waiting for the fruit of the earth to ripen, and what is necessary is for the early and the latter rain to be poured out.

Now, for those of us who do any type of gardening or planting or agriculture, we understand the point of the early and the latter rain, that the early rain helps our plants to start growing in the springtime and by later time in the summer when it is time for the harvest to pick our plants, whether it is tomatoes or corn or cucumbers or whatever it may be, that rain later in the summer is what helps those plants to fully ripen.

Now notice a few statements from Ellen White.

This is Testimonies for the Church, volume 6, page 450.

"...had the purpose of God been carried out by his people, in giving to the world the message of mercy, Christ would, ere this, have come to the earth, and the saints would have received their welcome into the city of God." Now, this was written in the year 1900.

So by the year 1900, we're already being told of a delay that has taken place.

I mean, that's 124 years ago, so the delay has continued.

Now remember the context of our theme this weekend is God's capital gains, and in a spiritual sense we are to be God's capital gains, where he has a people who are ready, who are giving the message of mercy to the world, and we're going to talk about the evangelistic portion of this afternoon in my seminar.

Had Adventists, after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast their faith and followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God, receiving the message of the third angel, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation of God.

The Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts, the work would have been completed, and Christ would have come ere this to receive his people to their reward.

Now notice, this was written where she says, "'After the disappointment in 1844.'" So if shortly after 1844, God's people had stayed united, Christ would have come prior to where we are now.

And shortly after 1844, in fact, and I don't have the statement in my presentation here, but we're told that William Miller, if he had accepted the third angel's message, could have lived to see the second coming.

So there's plenty of statements to describe a delay.

Now let's make this a little bit more practical because we can talk about things in a theoretical sense, but what about us and how it applies to us?

This is written in 1883, Evangelism, page 696, but it's quoting from manuscript 4, 1883.

For 40 years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan.

You know, I've been reading stories of the children of Israel since my childhood.

I mean, not that this makes me better than anyone else, but I first read Patriarchs and Prophets when I was 9 years old, and I remember at 9 years old reading through those stories and saying, what is wrong with these people?

But of course, as you become older and you're not 9 years old anymore, and you're reading the same stories in Patriarchs and Prophets again, and Prophets and Kings and Desire of Ages, and the Bible, of course, and you're not 9 years old anymore, you're like, ouch, that's me.

Notice, she goes on to say, "'The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan.

So it was unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion.

Now notice, in neither case were the promises of God at fault.

It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord's professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years.

Now, we could do a whole series of sermons about unbelief, worldliness, unconsecration, strife.

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but the later we get in Earth's history, you know, it becomes somewhat hard to understand and yet at the same time easy to understand because we realize we're in a great controversy where the devil is doing everything he can to attack God's people.

But it's hard to understand sometimes how worldly we as God's people have become.

For lack of a better illustration and at the risk of offending some people, I mean, if you wanna describe worldliness and Adventism right now, all you have to do is see political preferences among Seventh-day Adventists every 4 years around election time.

And then that leads right into unconsecration and strife because I see people taking on the characteristics of their preferred political candidates and we forget that Jesus has said, my kingdom is not of this world.

And yet I see Adventists fighting over who will be in power in Washington over a four-year period.

And we feel as if we can align ourselves with the proper political party in Washington that somehow we can advance God's kingdom on this earth.

And, you know, it's hard for me to understand this, but, you know, I know some people who've never seen a policy from the Democratic Party that they thought was a bad idea.

Conversely, I've seen some people who've never seen an idea from the Republican Party that they thought was a bad idea, and some people think that either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is an extension of the third angel's message.

Those parties are fighting for power on this earth, and we as God's people have a better cause to fight for.

We are supposed to be God's capital gains for the coming kingdom, but by beholding, we become changed into the worldly spirit of unconsecration and strife.

Now we could talk about worldliness with respect to many other things, and it all comes back to this, a lot of people have lost sight of Jesus.

If we were truly connected to Jesus, a lot of these things wouldn't be happening.

But you know, 1 of the things that really burdens me is the strife among the Lord's professed people.

Because when we have unbelief, worldliness, and unconsecration, ultimately strife will follow.

You know, I've been around long enough to know that even the best-looking churches that are supposedly, for lack of a better term, they're supposedly conservative, and they have the right standards and preach the right kind of messages.

Boy, all it takes is something like COVID to unmask all of that.

You know, I saw some of the worst fighting attitudes and issues that have popped up in Adventism that I've ever known of after COVID came in.

And you know, whatever side of the aisle you may have been about whatever was going on, the strife that existed among the Lord's professed people was an evidence that we're not ready for Jesus to come.

And I shudder to think, you know, if something worse than COVID were to come along, boy, our initial dry run of being united as a people when COVID hit sure doesn't give me confidence, humanly speaking.

Now, this is where I have to step back and say, I'm so thankful that God is in control and that he guides the hearts and minds of his people.

But we didn't do very well as a church when COVID hit, when attitudes developed.

And I'll tell you what, we're still dealing with the fallout today.

There are still people today who have attitudes towards others on the other side of the aisle based on how you handled COVID.

So we can talk about, oh, look at the ancient Israel and look at what they did and how they murmured and complained and they didn't believe in God's promises and they were worldly and they were unconsecrated and they fought and they had strife.

And yet you look at us and we have to ask ourselves the question, I mean, what was your church like during COVID?

Were you guys taking sides and were there 2 camps in your church and people wouldn't look at each other during that time because you didn't agree with each other about this or that?

I mean, that's an evidence that we're not ready for Jesus to come, if we're honest with ourselves.

That's what the servant of the Lord tells us.

We may have to remain here in this world because of insubordination many more years as did the children of Israel, but for Christ's sake, his people should not add sin to sin by charging God with the consequence of their own wrong course of action.

Now, I wanna talk about, yes, there's a delay.

Yes, there are reasons why there is a delay, but you know what?

The Bible makes it very clear that we're not going to stay on this earth forever, amen?

Jesus really is coming again, and he really is coming back, and he will have a harvest that will be ripened when he returns.

Why Jesus Waits

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