Category Archives: The Time of Trouble

The Close of Probation

By John Thiel, mp3

To deal with the subject of the close of probation for Sabbath keepers, we need to understand correctly the gospel. This is to turn our thoughts to the work of Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation and understand the fall of man and know by experience the hopeless condition of a sinner and the power of sin over them.

How we are to be saved from this condition by Jesus Christ who came to save us? What is meant with the salvation of Jesus? Is He able to really save us from sin? The question is asked in Hebrews 7:25 where it says that He is able and we say is it really possible?

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11. Hiding Securely

By John Thiel, Facing Last Day Perils Conference, Study 11, mp3

Scripture reading: Isaiah 26:20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.

There are very troublesome frightening perplexities ahead of us and already upon us and there is a danger that when we look at them and focus upon them we may lose our focus upon Jesus. However Jesus is the one who will be with us through those perplexities. This must lace all the subjects that we pursue so that those perplexities, although they are perplexities are illuminated by the presence of Jesus so that while they are perplexing and fearful and awesome and awful, we will not be discomfited with those terrible realities. To complete our contemplations and to take with us an intelligent strength and comfort, we want to focus upon our hiding place, hiding securely in our hiding place.

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10. The Swelling of Jacob’s Trouble

By John Thiel, Facing Last Days Perils Conference, Study 10, mp3

Many people think that Jacob’s trouble is just bang, there it is. Is it true that Jacob’s trouble is something that swells into greater and more intense activity? This is what we want to examine.

In the 1840s onwards, perplexities began to threaten. In 1848 a world war was threatening but then it just suddenly stopped. From that time as we look back through the history, we got to the time of 1914 and there was the First World War and all the horrendous experiences that were involved there. But they were even small in comparison to the Second World War and to the terrible time of the depression that happened in between. Then it moved on to a time in which there was the cold war with men’s hearts failing them for fear of the things that were coming on the planet. Now we are seeing them gathering more and more momentum.

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8. Satan’s Subtle Warfare

By John Thiel, Facing Last Day Perils Conference, Study 8, mp3 

There is an object lesson to preface this study:

Have you ever watched a hawk in pursuit of a timid dove? Instinct has taught the dove that in order for the hawk to seize his prey, he must gain a loftier flight than his victim. So she rises higher and still higher in the blue dome of heaven, ever pursued by the hawk, which is seeking to obtain the advantage. But in vain. The dove is safe as long as she allows nothing to stop her in her flight, or draw her earthward; but let her once falter, and take a lower flight, and her watchful enemy will swoop down upon his victim. Again and again have we watched this scene with almost breathless interest, all our sympathies with the little dove. How sad we should have felt to see it fall a victim to the cruel hawk!  {MYP 103.2} Read the rest of this entry

2. Approaching Storm Clouds

By John Thiel, Facing Last Day Perils Conference, Study 2, mp3    

The heralds of the last days were preparing the minds of the people that the end has come in 1879 to 1844. There were heralds that were declaring the end. I will reveal to you said Gabriel, the end of the indignation. At that time even from 1755, the herald of the great Lisbon earthquake together with all that followed afterwards, Daniel standing in his lot pointed to the fact that from 1844 onwards the judgment would be set and the three angels’ messages were launched. That was only the beginning; it was only the heralding of the future. We want to look at the fact that back there in Sr White’s time the storm was only just approaching.

The period of development of the three angels’ messages was actually given to us in the words of the Spirit of Prophecy. E.G White was one of the heralds and God would speak through her in the spirit of the prophet Elijah to prepare a people. It is the Spirit of Prophecy that would show us the detail.

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9. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble

By John Thiel, Third Angel’s Message, study 9, mp3

In the beginning of the third angel’s message we learned that this message is in reference to the period of the harvest of the earth. The parable of Christ in regards to the harvest represents the end of the world, and it is also identified with the message of the shaking within God’s church. This is the third angel’s work in the time of the harvest:

I then saw the third angel. Said my accompanying angel, “Fearful is his work. Awful is his mission. He is the angel that is to select the wheat from the tares, and seal, or bind, the wheat for the heavenly garner. These things should engross the whole mind, the whole attention.” {EW 118.1}

This should engross the whole mind. We are living in the very last moments of this work of the third angel, and it should engross our attention now even more, because his mission is so awful that it actually separates human beings. Unless people occupy their minds with this event they will not recognize and appreciate what is happening. And because they don’t appreciate it they attack the people who are themselves embracing this message, and are being separated and shaken as a consequence of that. Read the rest of this entry

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