Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

There is a need for the hope. When you ex­am­ine the Wall Street col­lapse, the Wall Street melt­down, the surge of crime pul­sat­ing through­out the globe, the dis­in­te­gra­tion of fam­i­lies, the cries of youth as they get hooked on dan­ger­ous drugs, you recog­nise that the dev­il is ex­ploit­ing the weak­ness­es of hu­man­i­ty. He has an agen­da, and he is ac­cel­er­at­ing his ef­forts be­cause, ac­cord­ing to Rev. 12:12, he knows that he has but a short time. The evil force has pen­e­trat­ed the the­atres of pow­er where crit­i­cal de­ci­sions are be­ing made. It has pen­e­trat­ed ju­di­cial sanc­tu­ar­ies, gripped board­rooms or busi­ness­es where self­ish­ness reigns supreme. You trav­el across the globe, and in ma­jor pop­u­la­tion clus­ters, you find a sense of pow­er­less­ness and hope­less­ness dom­i­nat­ing the des­tiny of mil­lions. Some trip as the stress grows to un­bear­able pro­por­tions. Some get de­pressed and sui­ci­dal.

Lis­ten, we can­not live with­out hope. Hope en­hances our re­silience, the ex­pec­ta­tion that the tide will turn, that the storm will not last for­ev­er. As Chris­tians, we sing the song that we have "this hope that burns with­in our hearts, hope in the com­ing of the Lord."

Re­cent rev­e­la­tions re­in­force the idea that the heart of the hu­man prob­lem is the prob­lem of the hu­man heart. Hu­man­ists do not like the Bible text that states that the heart is "de­ceit­ful and des­per­ate­ly wicked." Look at the stun­ning in­for­ma­tion pro­duced by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh's archives. Josh San­burn's ac­count in the Oc­to­ber 10 edi­tion of Time mag­a­zine in­di­cates that US doc­tors in­fect­ed 700 Guatemalans with syphilis from 1946 to 1948 to test peni­cillin.

?The re­port jolt­ed our mem­o­ries to re­flect on the mul­ti-decade-long Tuskegee study in which "doc­tors de­nied treat­ment for black men with syphilis to study its ef­fects."?

We talk glibly about val­ues, about bioeth­i­cal con­duct, about not plac­ing vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple in dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions, about not ex­ploit­ing the weak and un­der-priv­i­leged. We talk about not abus­ing pow­er but then we learn of hor­rif­ic ac­tions that reek of un­prin­ci­pled be­hav­iour.?San­burn's list is mind-bog­gling, in­clud­ing hos­pi­talised pa­tients be­ing in­ject­ed with plu­to­ni­um, "atom­ic sol­diers" ex­posed to the ra­di­a­tion of nu­clear ex­plo­sions, and men­tal­ly hand­i­capped chil­dren giv­en ce­re­al with trace amount of ra­di­a­tion. Lis­ten, no man can change him­self. He will see oth­ers go­ing to jail for fraud and oth­er cor­rupt and dark prac­tices. But he will still seek to bribe and in­tim­i­date oth­ers–thirsty for the almighty dol­lar. Of course, he may be laugh­ing all the way to the bank un­til hand­cuffs are placed up­on his wrists. Then he and his fam­i­ly are sub­ject­ed to a reck­less me­dia and a wa­ter­fall of shame and em­bar­rass­ment.

In­ter­na­tion­al sports are al­so in­fect­ed with the tox­in of cor­rup­tion. How many of our ath­letes are clean? How many are just nar­co-zom­bies in their at­tempts to be­come the great­est??Amidst the shad­ow of be­tray­als there is a quest for truth and a cry for right­eous­ness. Peo­ple are scream­ing for change–gen­uine change, per­ma­nent change. This is what the gospel of­fers: trans­for­ma­tion. A sin­ner can­not trans­form a sin­ner. It takes the sin­less one–the Lily of the Val­ley, the Bright and Morn­ing Star, the Bread of Life, the Wa­ter of Life, the Rock of Ages, and the De­sire of Ages to pro­duce the re­quired change. When I pro­mote the con­cept of the glob­al flood, in­stant­ly peo­ple thought that the dis­cus­sion would fo­cus on Noah and the flood that cov­ered the Earth. This was the time when the very imag­i­na­tion of the thoughts of the hearts of men "was evil con­tin­u­al­ly" (Gen­e­sis 6). This was an era when vi­o­lence placed man on the list of en­dan­gered species.

But tonight I am talk­ing about the prophe­cy con­tained in Joel 2:28, "And it shall come to pass af­ter­ward, that I will pour out my spir­it on all flesh; and your sons and your daugh­ters shall proph­esy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see vi­sions."

God has promised to flood the earth with di­vine pow­er–the pow­er of the Holy Ghost. Youth will have vi­sions and se­nior cit­i­zens will have dreams. Some will project and oth­ers will re­flect. In the book of Acts, Holy Ghost pow­er is promised to fa­cil­i­tate the gospel wave. Matthew 24:14 in­forms us that the "su­per-pri­ma­ry-sign" is the gospel procla­ma­tion sat­u­rat­ing the globe and then "shall the end come." We are liv­ing, we are dwelling in a grand and aw­ful time.?The gospel wave is be­ing em­pow­ered by the flood of the Holy Ghost. God is look­ing for am­bas­sadors who have a pas­sion to re­ceive the Holy Ghost. Be­fore the cur­tain falls, every­one must hear the gospel. Hel­lo New York, a brighter day is com­ing. God is go­ing to es­tab­lish his king­dom and in­iq­ui­ty will not arise and in­ter­rupt the peace of the new Heav­en and the new Earth. These are the days of Eli­jah. The King is com­ing. Get ready, the trum­pet shall sound and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Re­cent­ly I read a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry about 2,000 im­pris­oned Amer­i­can sol­diers on the Philip­pine is­lands. Gen­er­al Dou­glas McArthur had ful­filled his promise and had re­turned. Youth leader ex­tra­or­di­naire Dick Bar­ron pro­vides an ex­cit­ing ac­count of the res­cue mis­sion in­volv­ing Ad­ven­tist ed­u­ca­tor Dr Stump and an Irish­man called Mac, who used to ring the bells for meals and as­sem­bly. One evening, short­ly af­ter the ra­dio had picked up the glad news that Gen­er­al McArthur had re­turned, Dr Stump and Mac were called in be­fore the Japan­ese au­thor­i­ties. There was great tense­ness in the room. The Japan­ese of­fi­cers re­alised that they had but a short time left be­cause the Amer­i­cans had re­turned, so they made a di­a­bol­i­cal plan. They said, "Mac, at 7.30 to­mor­row morn­ing, you are to ring the bell. And Dr Stump, you are to gath­er all of the peo­ple in­to the court­yard." The cap­tors planned to ma­chine-gun all the pris­on­ers at that time.

The next morn­ing at sev­en o'clock, both Dr Stump and Mac were out in the court­yard. Sev­en fif­teen came, then 7.20 am, and 7.25 am, and it was al­most time to ring the bell. Mac was ready to take hold of the rope when sud­den­ly they heard the sound of air­planes over­head. Look­ing up, they caught sight of Old Glo­ry paint­ed on the un­der­side of the wings of those air­planes.?Then the doors on the sides of the planes opened, and out flut­tered para­chutes, and un­der those para­chutes, a beau­ti­ful sight–Amer­i­can sol­diers! "They land­ed right there in the prison yard while Amer­i­can tanks rum­bled up and broke down the gates of the Bil­li­bid prison, and all were set free. Je­sus is com­ing again, and He will set us free.?Get ready, the King is com­ing.