INTRODUCTION — A SIGNAL FROM FAR AWAY
Forty-five years ago, NASA launched a space probe the size of a small table—Pioneer 10. Its mission was modest: fly past Jupiter, take a few photographs, and send them home. At the time, nothing built by human hands had ever gone beyond Mars. The plan sounded ambitious, maybe even unrealistic.
But Pioneer didn’t just pass Jupiter.
It kept going.
One billion miles… it slipped past Saturn.
Two billion… it drifted beyond Uranus.
Then Neptune. Then Pluto.
Then beyond the reach of our own solar system.
It was designed to last three years.
But for thirty—even when it was more than eight billion miles from Earth—Pioneer kept sending back a signal. A tiny whisper of data, crossing a universe of darkness, saying:
“I’m still here.”
“I’m still on course.”
“I’m still moving forward.”
There’s something about that image that stirs me. Because in a way, Pioneer 10 is a picture of the gospel. A signal from Someone who seems far away… a promise made so long ago… a voice that keeps speaking across time and distance:
“I’m still here.
I’m still faithful.
I’m still coming.”
And this morning, we’re going to talk about that promise.
Not with fear.
Not with charts.
Not with anxious speculations.
But with hope.
Because the message today is simple:
The best is yet to come.
THE TOPICS PEOPLE FEAR MOST
There are topics that make church members nervous—
death, judgment, hell, the time of trouble.
They’re heavy themes. They trigger anxiety.
But they all orbit around one central truth: the second coming of Jesus.
Whether you’re talking about last-day events, the end of suffering, the resurrection, or the final judgment—everything points toward the Blessed Hope.
Yet we look at our world and sometimes think:
“It feels out of control.”
“Everything is collapsing.”
“How much worse can it get?”
We suffer from end-time information overload—
wars ? pestilences ? disasters ? moral decline ? political chaos.
And when Sabbath comes?
Many of us just want to sit in our pew, breathe deeply, and hear something that lifts the heart instead of tightening the chest.
Something true.
Something steady.
Something that gives comfort.
Something that reminds us that Jesus has not abandoned this world.
So today we return to a promise that has held Adventists together for more than 180 years.
THE NAME IN OUR IDENTITY
Our topic this morning has to do with the word “Advent.”
It’s right there in our name.
Seventh-day Adventist.
Advent means:
“The coming of Someone so important that His arrival changes the world.”
The pioneers believed it.
Our grandparents believed it.
Our parents believed it.
Every generation thought they might be the last.
So here we are in 2025, asking questions that Christians have whispered for centuries:
“Is Jesus’ return still near?”
“Why hasn’t He come yet?”
“Has something changed?”
“Should we tone down the urgency?”
“Is there an identity crisis in the church?”
But beneath all those questions lies a deeper one:
How much does the Second Coming still shape the way we live?
Because if we really believe He’s coming again,
then that belief must translate into:
How we love people
How we forgive
How we repent
How we treat the church
How we pursue Jesus daily
Which leads us to the verse that anchors this entire message:
THE PROMISE AND THE DELAY — 2 PETER 3:9
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish…”
Let’s unpack that.
“The Lord is not slack.”
He hasn’t forgotten.
He hasn’t gotten distracted.
He hasn’t changed His mind.
“As some count slackness.”
In other words, your definition of delay is not heaven’s definition of delay.
You and I think delay is inactivity.
God thinks delay is mercy.
“Longsuffering toward us.”
Not toward the world.
Toward the church.
Toward us.
Peter wasn’t writing this to pagans or unbelievers.
He was writing to believers—people who were tempted to get tired of waiting, who were losing the sharp edge of expectation.
Heaven is saying:
“I’m waiting—not because you are patient with Me…
but because I am patient with you.”
This is not a God dragging His feet.
This is a Father refusing to shut the door while one more son or daughter might walk in.
A Father who counts every tear, every prayer, every struggle, every soul.
He delays because His heart won’t allow Him to leave one willing person behind.
REPENTANCE IS NOT FOR “THEM”—IT’S FOR US
Peter says the reason for the delay is that God wants:
“…all to come to repentance.”
When we hear that word, we instinctively think:
“The world needs to repent.”
“The culture needs to repent.”
“Those people over there need to repent.”
But the text is speaking to the church.
God’s people.
Us.
Why?
Because the greatest danger to the people of God has never been persecution from the outside… but pride on the inside.
The Laodicean message is not aimed at atheists:
“You think you are rich…”
“You think you need nothing…”
“You don’t know you’re poor and blind…”
We sing about Jesus’ coming
We preach about it
We post about it
We debate prophecy about it
But none of that matters if the heart is:
Self-sufficient
Self-confident
Unyielded
Unrepentant
God delays because:
He is giving time for His own church to rediscover humility, dependence, and personal repentance.
Which leads us to the parallel story Scripture gives us as a warning—and a mirror.
PAUL’S WARNING TO THE LAST GENERATION — 1 CORINTHIANS 10:11
“All these things happened to them as examples,
and they were written for our admonition,
upon whom the ends of the world have come.”
Israel’s experience
= the end-time church’s experience.
Not in some vague symbolic way—
but in a deeply prophetic, spiritual, and practical way.
Their journey mirrors ours.
Their patterns warn us.
Their victories and failures teach us exactly what stands between us and the Promised Land.
So let’s walk with them awhile.
ISRAEL AT THE RED SEA — SALVATION BY GOD ALONE
Exodus 14 paints a dramatic picture:
Israel has left Egypt.
Pharaoh and his army are closing in.
The Red Sea blocks the path forward.
The people panic:
“Were there no graves in Egypt?”
“Why have you brought us out here to die?”
But Moses says:
“Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord!”
In other words:
“You can’t save yourself.
But God can.”
God splits the sea.
They walk through on dry ground.
The enemy is destroyed behind them.
They break into song—
the Song of Moses and Miriam:
a victory hymn to the God who saves, delivers, rescues, and redeems.
And yet…
Three days later
they’re complaining again—this time about water.
MARAH — THE BITTER EXPERIENCE TURNED SWEET
The waters at Marah were bitter.
Undrinkable.
Unusable.
Moses cries out to God,
and God shows him a piece of wood.
When it touches the water,
the bitterness becomes sweetness.
That wood is a symbol of the Cross.
Because every bitter experience—every disappointment, every heartbreak—only becomes sweet when the Cross enters into it.
You know that from your own life.
I know it from mine.
Without Jesus, bitterness corrodes the spirit.
With Jesus, bitterness becomes testimony.
And Adventists know Marah personally.
We lived it in 1844.
The great disappointment.
The bitterest day in our history.
But when believers turned their eyes to Christ’s ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, bitterness turned sweet.
SINAI — A PEOPLE FORMED, SHAPED, AND CALLED
Israel now stands at Sinai.
God gives them:
The Sabbath
Health principles
Moral law
Ceremonial system
A way of life shaped around His character
This mirrors our own experience as a movement.
After 1844 came:
Doctrine
Organization
Health reform
Mission focus
A clear prophetic identity
God organized this people as surely as He organized Israel at the mountain.
He formed us.
Taught us.
Shaped us.
Gave us a message.
We had a Sinai.
And then—as with Israel—
God said:
“It’s time to enter Canaan.”
THE PROMISED LAND WITHIN REACH
Spies were sent.
Twelve princes returned.
The land was good.
The fruit was abundant.
The promises were sure.
But ten said:
“We can’t.”
“The giants are too big.”
“The cities too strong.”
“We should go back.”
Joshua and Caleb said:
“If the Lord delights in us, He will give us the land.”
And here’s the core truth of Israel’s failure:
It wasn’t about giants.
It was about faith.
God had proved Himself at the Red Sea.
He had healed the water at Marah.
He had fed them with manna.
He had spoken at Sinai.
But when the moment came to enter the Promised Land,
they looked at themselves instead of God.
They measured the mission by their strength—not His.
And they wandered for forty years.
THE WILDERNESS WANDERING — A STORY GOD CHOSE NOT TO WRITE
The forty years that followed are some of the saddest in the Bible.
And yet Scripture says almost nothing about them.
Why?
Ellen White once said the record is thin because it was a story of repeated rebellion and grief—a chapter God did not wish to dwell on. A generation that refused faith and chose fear. A people who preferred wandering to surrender.
It wasn’t that God abandoned them.
He still fed.
Still led.
Still gave manna.
Still guided with cloud and fire.
But their hearts stayed tied to Egypt.
Every time God called them forward, their fear called them backward.
Every time God invited them to trust, their doubts dragged them into delay.
That is the danger the end-time church faces today.
Not persecution.
Not external enemies.
Not the giants in the land.
The danger is this:
A heart that knows truth but resists surrender.
A mouth that sings about Jesus but a will that won’t follow Him.
A mind full of doctrine but empty of faith.
Which brings us to one of the most revealing chapters in the whole Israel narrative.
BALAAM—THE STRATEGY THAT STILL WORKS TODAY
As Israel approached the border of Canaan the second time—after the forty years—the enemy realized something important:
He couldn’t defeat Israel while Israel was connected to God.
He couldn’t curse them.
Couldn’t overpower them.
Couldn’t break through the shield of divine protection.
So Balaam gave Balak a different strategy—a strategy so subtle, so deadly, it still works today:
“If you want to destroy them…
break their relationship with their God.”
Not their diet.
Not their culture.
Not their music.
Not their organization or structure.
Their relationship.
If the relationship collapses, everything collapses.
So Balak targeted them through compromise—
through seductive influences—
through relationships that pulled their hearts away from loyalty to God.
And Israel fell into apostasy on the very borders of the Promised Land.
Just before they were to enter Canaan…
they stumbled.
Friends, this is where Adventism stands today.
We are at the border.
We are in sight of the promise.
We are on the edge of home.
And the enemy knows he cannot destroy a people who cling to Christ.
So his goal is very simple:
Distract them. Divide them. Dilute them.
Not through open rebellion—
but through:
a thousand little compromises,
a drift from personal devotion,
a fascination with controversy,
an obsession with the faults of others,
a spirit of criticism,
a subtle cooling of love for Jesus.
The devil doesn’t have to turn you into an atheist.
He only needs to make you spiritually distracted.
OUR PARALLEL — THE ADVENTIST STORY IN PROPHECY
Now we turn a corner—
from Israel’s wilderness
to our own denominational journey
and how perfectly it fulfills prophecy.
This section remains in your sermon,
but rewritten with warmth, clarity, and forward movement.
1. We had our midnight cry.
“Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!”
A worldwide revival.
A great awakening.
Tens of thousands expecting Jesus on October 22, 1844.
2. We had our Marah experience.
The Great Disappointment was bitter—
the bitterest day our movement has ever known.
But when believers lifted their eyes to the heavenly sanctuary and saw Jesus entering His final phase of ministry, the bitter became sweet.
Not because the disappointment disappeared,
but because the Cross and the priesthood of Christ interpreted it.
3. We had our Sinai.
After 1844:
Sabbath truth
Sanctuary doctrine
Health reform
Gospel order
A worldwide mission
A prophetic identity
The three angels’ messages
These weren’t human inventions.
They were God’s gifts—truths extracted from Scripture in prayer, fasting, and deep Bible study.
Our pioneers didn’t drift into truth—they wrestled for it.
They disagreed, debated, prayed, and agonized until light broke through.
This movement was forged at the foot of Sinai.
4. We had our approach to Canaan—1888.
Ellen White’s voice became urgent:
“The Lord longed to pour out the latter rain.”
“It is time to enter Canaan!”
“The message of Christ our righteousness is the third angel’s message in verity!”
But we weren’t ready.
The church became divided.
Personalities clashed.
Self-sufficiency overshadowed simplicity of faith.
Just like Israel, we hesitated at the border.
5. And now—here we are.
A church of nearly 25 million believers.
A message in nearly every nation.
A movement raised up, protected, and guided by the hand of God.
We are once again standing at the border of Canaan.
And the question is:
Will we repeat their story?
Or will we finish ours?
THE REAL DANGER IN THE LAST DAYS
David, here’s the heart of it:
The last great conflict is not liberal vs. conservative.
It is not traditional vs. contemporary.
It is not institutional vs. independent.
Those are distractions.
The real line of division is this:
Those who depend on Christ for righteousness
vs.
those who depend on themselves.
Those who surrender daily
vs.
those who try to stand in their own strength.
Those who cling to the Cross
vs.
those who cling to their opinions.
Those whose identity is rooted in Jesus
vs.
those whose identity is rooted in arguments.
Satan is content with either extreme—
as long as he pulls our eyes off Jesus.
THE CHURCH IN CRISIS — AND THE CALL OF GOD
We live in a time when the church feels divided.
Tensions rise.
Accusations fly.
People murmur.
Social media burns.
Suspicion spreads.
But Scripture says:
“We are one body.”
“If one member suffers, all suffer.”
“If one rejoices, all rejoice.”
When there is sin in the camp, it affects everyone.
Which means:
This is not the time to criticize the church.
This is the time to pray for the church.
This is not the time to point fingers.
It’s the time to bend knees.
This is not the time to abandon the ship.
It’s the time to trust the Captain.
And let me be clear:
Jesus is still the Captain of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Storms will come.
Shaking will come.
Testing will come.
But the boat is not going down.
The boat is going through.
Why?
Because the One who leads us is faithful.
Because the message is God-given.
Because the movement is prophetic.
Because the blood of Jesus still covers His people.
Because the best is yet to come.
WHAT DO WE DO WHEN THERE IS SIN IN THE CAMP?
Moses shows us the biblical pattern:
He didn’t stand up and condemn the people.
He didn’t form a faction.
He didn’t split the camp.
He didn’t post angry messages on a tribal newsletter.
No—Moses did the one thing modern believers often neglect:
He prayed.
He wept.
He interceded.
He stood between the people and judgment.
Why?
Because Moses knew something we forget:
My brother’s sin affects me.
My sister’s fall weakens me.
Their crisis is my crisis.
Their repentance is my repentance.
And their salvation is bound up with mine.
Ellen White puts it plainly:
“The powers of darkness stand a poor chance
against believers who love one another.”
—RH, 1891
Division weakens the church.
Love arms the church.
Unity protects the church.
Prayer strengthens the church.
So the question is:
Do we want reformation or just criticism?
Do we want revival or just opinions?
Do we want Canaan or just arguments?
Because revival never begins with a speech from the pulpit.
It begins with a surrender in the heart.
And that leads us to the divine call in Joel.
THE TRUMPET CALL — JOEL 2
When judgment was approaching and the Day of the Lord was near, the prophet didn’t say:
“Point out who’s wrong.”
“Publish a list of faults.”
“Draw lines in the sand.”
“Divide into camps.”
No.
He said:
“Blow the trumpet in Zion.”
“Call a sacred assembly.”
“Gather the people.”
“Sanctify the congregation.”
“Let the priests weep between the porch and the altar.”
In other words:
Unite.
Pray.
Repent together.
Seek God together.
Fast together.
Weep together.
Return to the Lord together.
Every age of revival has begun this way.
And every delay in salvation history has ended when God’s people returned to humility and prayer.
PART 3 — STANDING ON THE EDGE OF HOME
There comes a point in every journey when you can feel the destination before you see it. Israel felt that when they came to the border of Canaan the second time. The land stretched out before them. The promise hovered over them. They could almost taste the future God had prepared.
We are living in a similar moment.
A moment that is solemn, hopeful, dangerous, and sacred all at once.
A moment when heaven leans close and the Holy Spirit whispers,
“You are nearer than you’ve ever been.”
Everything in Scripture, everything in prophecy, everything in our own history as Seventh-day Adventists is converging on this season. And the question placed before us is the same one Israel faced:
Will we step forward into faith, or slip back into wandering?
Because the real battle for the last generation isn’t fought with charts or politics or theological fences. It’s fought inside the human heart. Not between labels or factions, but between trust and self-trust, surrender and self-sufficiency, Christ-centeredness and self-centeredness.
And God, in mercy, is allowing His church to feel pressure—not to break us, but to loosen our grip on anything we’re holding on to besides Him.
THE JUDGMENT THAT IS GOOD NEWS
One of the most liberating truths in this message is often the one we forget:
In the judgment, Jesus stands where you should stand.
That is why Peter could speak of the judgment with hope. That is why Adventists call it “the hour of His judgment” with joy and not dread. Because when your name comes up in heaven, Jesus doesn’t take a seat. He stands. And He stands for you.
He stands not as a distant observer, but as your Substitute. He stands not with a clipboard but with scars. When the record of your life appears, He says to the Father, “Do not look at what David has done—look at Me. I am the One who took his place.”
And God accepts that.
He accepts Christ on your behalf, not because He overlooks your failures, but because He honors His Son’s sacrifice.
Judgment, then, becomes the final revelation of God’s mercy—not a search for a reason to keep you out, but the unveiling of every reason to bring you in. Judgment is God refusing to lose the people Jesus died to save.
THE KIND OF HEART GOD CAN REVIVE
When we talk about repentance, we often imagine God holding out a checklist, demanding itemized confession. But repentance is not an inventory—it’s an awakening. It is the moment when a believer stops trying to manage their inner life and simply admits, “Lord, it’s me. All of me. The whole of who I am needs the whole of who You are.”
It’s not one area, or one weakness, or one thing you need to fix.
It’s the entire inner world—your motives, your impulses, your restlessness, your fear of surrender, the ways you rush past prayer, the subtle disappointment that sometimes steals into your faith, that small hardness that creeps in when love is tested.
Repentance is the moment when you say, “Lord, I’m not here to negotiate improvements. I’m here to surrender.”
And God, who never despises a humble heart, breathes new life into that surrender.
THIS IS WHAT GOD LONGS TO DO FOR HIS PEOPLE
Joel understood this.
When he saw judgment approaching and the Day of the Lord drawing near, his message was not about accusation or condemnation. It was a call to gather, to pray, to return, to stand together, to plead with God not as adversaries but as a family.
He pictured the people—old and young, leaders and laborers, couples and children—all coming before God as one body, one heart, one desperate community saying, “Lord, restore us. Heal us. Bring us back to Yourself.”
Joel saw that when God’s people turn to Him together, something powerful happens. Heaven begins to move. Mercy begins to descend. The Spirit begins to stir.
He saw a moment when God Himself, moved by the tears of His people, would rise to defend them. He saw the moment when God would say, “Enough”—enough oppression, enough accusation, enough demonic interference, enough wandering. He saw the moment when God would cleanse, protect, and empower His people for the final work.
And then he saw the outpouring—
the promise we have prayed for, preached for, waited for:
the latter rain.
This is not a poetic image.
This is the final act of God’s mercy before the coming of Jesus.
THE PEOPLE GOD CAN USE
When the latter rain falls, it will fall on people whose hearts have been softened, not hardened; humbled, not inflated; united, not divided.
People whose first instinct is love, not suspicion.
People who refuse to weaponize truth and instead choose to embody it.
People who pray for each other instead of hurting each other.
People who care about saving the lost more than winning an argument.
People who know Jesus not merely as doctrine but as Companion, Savior, and Life.
These are the people who will carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.
These are the people who will finish the work.
These are the people in whom the world will see Christ.
When that happens, the message will go with a force we have not yet witnessed. Barriers will fall. Nations will open. Hearts will burn. The world will not be persuaded by eloquence or strategy but by a revelation of Jesus lived out in His people.
This is what God is waiting for.
Not perfection from us, but permission.
Permission to pour His Spirit into hearts ready to be emptied of self.
THE JOY THAT FOLLOWS CLEANSING
Israel had a day of repentance, a day of cleansing, a day when the sanctuary was made right. But the story didn’t end there.
After the Day of Atonement came the Feast of Tabernacles—a week of joy, singing, celebration, gratitude, and fellowship. God commanded them to rejoice. To build booths. To feast. To remember that forgiveness leads to joy just as surely as night leads to morning.
The same pattern holds for us.
The cleansing work of Jesus does not leave us in heaviness.
It leads us into joy—the deep, unshakable joy of forgiven people who know they are loved and claimed by God.
And that joy will characterize the last generation.
Not fear.
Not dread.
Not fanaticism.
Not gloom.
But joy.
The joy of knowing Jesus.
The joy of belonging.
The joy of being ready.
The joy of going home.
The church’s best days are still ahead.
THE PROMISE OF HOME
Let me bring this home to your heart.
There is nothing you are carrying today that is unseen by God. Nothing you fear that He has not already measured. Nothing you regret that He cannot redeem. Nothing in you that He cannot cleanse, restore, or transform.
He longs for the day when the gates of the New Jerusalem swing open and the whole family of God steps inside. He longs for the moment when the great multitude without number gathers around His throne. He longs for the embrace, the welcome, the joy.
And He longs for you.
Personally.
Individually.
By name.
You are on His heart right now.
You are the reason He delays.
You are the reason He waits.
You are the reason heaven is patient.
Because He is not willing to lose you.
We are standing at the border of Canaan.
Everything in prophecy points to this moment.
Everything in Scripture affirms it.
Everything in Adventist history prepares us for it.
And the message could not be simpler:
The best is yet to come.
Not someday.
Not in a distant age.
Not in the sweet by and by.
But soon.
Very soon.
APPEAL
So I ask you—
not as a preacher to a congregation,
but as one traveler to another—
is your heart ready?
Not perfect.
Not polished.
Just ready.
Ready to surrender pride.
Ready to let go of self-reliance.
Ready to return to your first love.
Ready to let Jesus take the place He has been waiting to fill.
Ready to be part of a people united at the foot of the Cross.
If you want that—
if your heart whispers yes—
then bow your head where you are,
and let this be your prayer:
“Lord, I’m coming home.
Take the whole of me, and make it Yours.
I give You what I am so You can give me what You are.
Lead me into Canaan with Your people.
I surrender.”
Because for the believer,
for the forgiven,
for the redeemed,
for the surrendered—
the best is yet to come.
Amen.
