By John Thiel, Third Angel’s Message, study 8a, mp3

As we look at the people of the third angel, who proclaim the three angels’ messages, we recall that the series on the second angel’s message concluded with “Reformation within the church” (the last study). We had there identified that in the second angel, Babylon is fallen, all the churches that rejected the message of the first angel fell, and even within the church that proclaimed the first and second and third angels’ messages there is also a need of identifying those who are faithful to the message they are proclaiming, and those who are not. The people who are represented by the three angels are just as vulnerable as all the church members in the previous church periods, which turned into Babylon.

Isaiah 1:21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 

They were all faithful in the beginning, but then they became corrupt. The very church that is faithfully preaching the three angels’ messages can also fall into a state of harlotry. While they present the message of the three angels there is an internal sifting and polarization that takes place within the very church that is proclaiming these messages. This is expressed by Jesus in Matthew 24, where He speaks of these times, and of His second coming. As we know, the third angel gives a message that concludes with the coming of Jesus in the clouds, and referring to this coming event Jesus speaks these words to His disciples:

Matthew 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

As He speaks about the coming of the Son of man in an hour that is not expected, He now goes to say in reference to that period of time:

Matthew 24:45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? 46 Blessed [is] that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. 47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

This is speaking about the servant of God that is proclaiming the three angels’ messages, the coming of Jesus. Then He continues, and gives us to understand that there are two kinds of servants in this period of time:

Matthew 24:48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; 49 And shall begin to smite [his] fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; 50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for [him], and in an hour that he is not aware of, 51 And shall cut him asunder, and appoint [him] his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It is a polarization within the three angels’ message people. The servants that are giving the messages are fellow servants. Verse 49 says that this wicked servant will begin to smite his fellowservant. Within this company of people there are servants, one servant is giving meat in due season, and the other one, while he is mouthing it off, says in his heart, My Lord delayeth His coming. The picture that Jesus is demonstrating is that, in these times of the three angels’ messages there is a condition of sifting and polarization within the very company.

In the studies that we have had on the third angel, as we went through the subject of the wheat and the tares, of the Sunday laws, the latter rain, the loud cry, the little time of trouble, we saw that there were going to be a people who received the latter rain, and others who could not recognize it although it would fall on hearts all around them. The third angel proclaims a message saying that the people who are fallen are going to be destroyed. Verse 51 says that God will cut this fellowservant asunder.

The very message that is being proclaimed by these people turns upon them, because they themselves are eating and drinking with the drunken.

Revelation 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive [his] mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

This is the message that these servants are proclaiming. There is the one that is giving meat in due season, and the other one says, My Lord delayeth His coming, and he eats and drinks with the drunken. Who are the drunken? They are those who are drunk by the false doctrines. The very message that this servant is mouthing is going to turn on him himself, because the Lord will cut him asunder.

There are kingdoms that have already fallen, and now, within the church, there are some that will fall.

Amos 9:8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD [are] upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD. 9 For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as [corn] is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

Here you have the fallen churches. They are the sinful kingdom that will be destroyed under the announcement of the third angel, they will be burnt. However, it says, I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob. In others words, the house of Jacob, the true church, will have an opportunity to escape. But how will that happen? These people who are preaching the three angels’ messages are going to be sifted, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. The faithful people, that faithful servant that is giving meat in due season, is going to be sifted and separated from the unfaithful servant.

Amos 5:2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; [there is] none to raise her up. 3 For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out [by] a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth [by] an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

The faithful people that are giving the message in due season are within a company which is identified here as the virgin of Israel. They fall, but the ones that are faithful within it will come forth. That is the very issue of our study, the remnant. While everything is heading towards destruction, as we have seen in our studies of the third angel, there is a point in which there is going to be a final destruction, but before that final time of trouble comes there is going to be a little time of trouble. During that period of time of the little time of trouble the picture of sorting out and sifting the very people who are giving the three angels’ messages is taking place.

This is the challenge that God’s faithful people will be placed under:

Now is the time for God’s people to show themselves true to principle. When the religion of Christ is most held in contempt, when His law is most despised, then should our zeal be the warmest and our courage and firmness the most unflinching. To stand in defense of truth and righteousness when the majority forsake us, to fight the battles of the Lord when champions are few–this will be our test. At this time we must gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their cowardice, and loyalty from their treason. {5T 136.2}

Here you can see a direct reference to the experience within the body, the test that is laid upon everyone. The majority will forsake us. We have to fight the battles of the Lord in a period when champions are few. This will be our test. There is going to be coldness around us, there is going to be cowardice, and we need to gather warmth from that coldness, and courage from that cowardice.

This little time of trouble is again identified in the following statement, and we can see the faithful versus the unfaithful within this three angels’ message people:

As trials thicken around us, both separation and unity will be seen in our ranks. {6T 400.3}

In the ranks of the three angels’ message people, as trials thicken in the time of that little time of trouble we know that there is this separation and unity, this sifting.

This sifting, this separation and unity, is very vividly identified in Selected Messages Book 2:

A new life is coming from heaven and taking possession of all God’s people. But divisions will come in the church. Two parties will be developed. The wheat and tares grow up together for the harvest. {2SM 113.3}

The work will grow deeper and become more earnest to the very close of time. And all who are laborers together with God will contend most earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. They will not be turned from the present message, which is already lightening the earth with its glory. {2SM 114.1}

The separation within the church which is expressed in Testimonies vol. 6 p. 400 is here identified in connection with the Revelation 18 angel, that new life coming from heaven, and this angel is the source of segregating members within the church. There are two parties within the very church that proclaims those three angels’ messages.

This is what we are to expect within the very people who proclaim the message of these three angels:

As the storm approaches, a large class who have professed faith in the third angel’s message, but have not been sanctified through obedience to the truth, abandon their position and join the ranks of the opposition. By uniting with the world and partaking of its spirit, they have come to view matters in nearly the same light; and when the test is brought, they are prepared to choose the easy, popular side. Men of talent and pleasing address, who once rejoiced in the truth, employ their powers to deceive and mislead souls. They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren. {GC 608.2}

These are short testimonies to help us appreciate the development of the remnant within the ranks of the three angels’ message people. This is identified in the message of Laodicea.

Laodicea

The meaning of Laodicea is “the people of the judgment.” The people who are preaching the three angels’ messages, The hour of God’s judgment is come, are the people of the judgment. What transpires in this passage that helps us to understand that a remnant is developing?

Revelation 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write;

The angel is the messenger, the servant. Here are the servants that are being addressed:

Revelation 3:14 … These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

He is speaking to His ministry in the last days, in the period of the three angels. He is speaking to them all and is saying, You’ve got something to repent of. Then He says:

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

He is actually calling to the ones who will listen to this Laodicean call. He is knocking on the door. Who is going to respond? The any man.

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

Here is the actual description of the servants of God in this period of the third angel. There is a remnant developing. We want to see the emerging and arising of these tested ones out of this period of time, who will finally end up as a pure, holy and sealed people.

In the time of the latter rain, which is in the period of the little time of trouble, which is all this period of the three angels’ messages, this scripture is directly addressing the little remnant that comes out of this period of time:

Joel 2:32 And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

Verse 30 was the precursor to the three angels’ messages, And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. Then there is the outpouring of the latter rain under the third angel, and here is where the remnant comes into existence.

The People of Laodicea and the Development of This Remnant

In Revelation 3:14-17 is identified the class of the lukewarm, unfaithful servants, among which are mingled the faithful servants. As we have already seen in the third angel, this leads to the destruction of those who are unfaithful. Here is the very message of imminent destruction for those who are not listening and responding favourably to these three angels’ messages:

Isaiah 65:12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer;

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock?  When I called, ye did not answer.

Isaiah 65:12 … when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose [that] wherein I delighted not.

You can identify that with the wicked servant of Matthew 24. It’s exactly what he did. Therefore he’s going to be cut off. This is the Laodicean messenger. But God is appealing to them; He calls and wants them to come out of their condition. If they don’t, then they are numbered to the sword.

Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and [that] the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

He is appealing to these very messengers who are talking about the destruction of those who worship the beast and his image. But, as we read, they eat and drink with the drunken. He says, “You are going to be naked, you are going to be found without eyesalve, you are going to be blind.”

Revelation 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 

He wants them to open the door so that He can come in, and save them from the destruction which they themselves are announcing to the world. He says, Open the door, I want to come in and sup with you, and you with Me. What does this actually mean? What is Jesus actually saying? “I want to sup with you.”

You have to go to the words of Jesus in John chapter 6 in order to understand what He meant by eating and supping with Him. There, in John chapter 6, is the point where Jesus was saying to them, You must eat My flesh and drink My blood; and that was the very message that separated the seventy disciples from Him. It is the same message for us today.

John 6:53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

“Open the door, I want to come in to you. You must eat and drink with Me.” This is what Jesus is referring to as He speaks to the any man in the Laodicean period that will open the door.

This is the supping with Him, the eating and drinking with Him:

Ephesians 5:30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

It is very intimate – Him coming into us, and we supping and eating together with Him.

In his relation to Christ [the Christian] will be bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, one with Christ in a peculiar relationship, because Christ took the humanity of man. He became subject to temptation, endangering as it were, His divine attributes. Satan sought, by the constant and curious devices of his cunning, to make Christ yield to temptation. Man must pass over the ground over which Christ has passed. As Christ overcame every temptation which Satan brought against Him, so man is to overcome. And those who strive earnestly to overcome are brought into a oneness with Christ that the angels in heaven can never know. {7BC 926.5}

“I want to come into you, I want to sup with you.” Are we picking up the picture of what it actually means? To sup with Christ, to have Him with me and in me, produces a condition, a mental appreciation, that is identified by the people themselves. They identify this. Who then are those who are supping with Him?

To him that says, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” the Lord of heaven declares, Thou “knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” But to the lowly, the suffering, the faithful, the patient, who are alive to their weakness and insufficiency, {5T 484.2}

To those who can’t say, I am alright, thank you very much, to those are awake to their weakness and insufficiency,

… are given words of encouragement: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” {5T 484.2}

Here are the people. The company that open their hearts’ door to Him are a company who are not saying in their hearts, My Lord delayeth His coming, they are not saying, I’m alright, thank you very much. They are the people who are awake to their weakness and insufficiency, they are suffering, they are faithful, and they are patient in this little time of trouble that is heading up to the very end. This is the vivid picture of a remnant people within the company of the Laodicean people.

But as they open the door to Him, and let Him eat with them and they eat with Him, as they partake with Him and proclaim this beautiful experience that is contained in Revelation 14 and 18, preaching the three angels’ messages with the fourth angel, just because they have opened the door and constitute a company of people such as we have identified, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily the overcomers. They still have to overcome. But they are eating and drinking with Him so that they can learn to overcome. That is the 20^th verse of Revelation chapter 3. Jesus wants to eat and drink with the any man.

Notice in the following scripture what Jesus will say to the people who will come to the end and may have eaten and drunken with Him, but are not overcomers. People are always wanting to have something about themselves that is acceptable in their eyes towards God, and they claim that they are there, when in reality it doesn’t mean that they are there yet. This is the actual scripture where Jesus is addressing the very people that we are now studying about:

Luke 13:24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. 25 When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: 26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. 27 But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 28 There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you [yourselves] thrust out.

Here is another reference to that wicked servant who will be weeping and gnashing his teeth. The people who come out of the Laodicean condition into an eating and drinking with Christ are still in danger of being amongst these people. It is still possible, because they have not yet come to verse 21.

It is possible to eat and drink with Christ, it is possible to have an intimate relationship with Him, and still be lost.

Hebrews 6:4 For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

They have eaten the word. They have tasted it.

Hebrews 6:6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [him] to an open shame.

To be the ones who open the door and sup and eat with Christ does not yet mean that everyone who has done that is going to be free of the final destruction. They are not going to be immune as yet.

The remnant are those who are addressed in the next verse of the Laodicean call, verse 21:

Revelation 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

When Jesus was on earth He ate and drank with us, now we are to eat and drink with Him. It means to be the people who are conscious of their weakness and who need to overcome as Jesus overcame. They are working and labouring. These are the ones to whom He is saying, Come, let us do it together, to overcome temptation. But that doesn’t mean they have yet. It is the ones that have overcome as He overcame who are the remnant. This is so important.

In this particular study we are identifying the experience and the condition that the remnant must be in, and how they come into existence. The condition of this remnant people who come through this period of supping with Him is here identified:

Those who come up to every point, and stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may, have heeded the counsel of the True Witness, and they will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation. {1T 187.1}

They have overcome. They have eaten and drunken with Christ and then overcome. The ones that didn’t open the door to Him in the Laodicean condition, they are the evil servants. But these people who are awake to their weaknesses open their hearts to Jesus, they have an encouragement, Yes, we are coming through with Christ. They will persevere, they are patient, they are labouring, and they are suffering together with Christ. As they come to every point, if they stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may, they have heeded the counsel of the True Witness, and they will be the people of verse 21. They will receive the latter rain, and be fitted for translation.

The other text that delineates this experience of the Laodicean, the any man, and the remnant, is this one:

Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

This is a direct line-up of the three stages. There is the Laodicean angel that turns out to become the wicked servant who smites his fellowservant, that’s the woman (Rev. 3:14-17). Then comes her seed who open their hearts’ door to Jesus (Rev. 3:20). Then comes the remnant of her seed (Rev. 3:21). That is the threefold demonstration. These are the people who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus. They have overcome.

Amen.

Next… The Remnant Part 2… http://sabbathsermons.com/2009/10/07/8-the-remnant-church-part-2/