John Thiel mp3

The last of the seven churches series. We have discovered as we have been through these seven church periods, that God has one church and not multiple churches which travels through the seven periods of time.

From the time that Jesus left with His disciples to take care of His church, right through to our time. We have arrived in our last study at our time, identified as the period of Laodicea. We have a dilemma that is expressed in the hymn that we have been singing:

O tell me thou life and delight of my soul,

where the flock of thy pasture are feeding?

Where in these times in which we live with the multitude of churches, are God’s people feeding?

O tell me the place where the flock are at rest,

The Tempest now rages, my soul is distressed.

And why should I stray with the flocks of thy foes,

In the desert where now they are roving;

Where hunger and thirst, where contentions and woes,

where fierce conflicts their ruin are proving?

There’s no peace out there. In the period of Laodicea, the overcomers that came out of the period of Philadelphia, overcoming the terrible disappointment of the 2300-day prophecy where they thought that Jesus was coming in 1844 but sadly they were bitterly disappointed. They overcame their disappointment by careful Bible study. There was the beginning of the Laodicean period in which the Seventh Day Adventist Church was born and came into existence. That was God’s church.

As we’ve traveled on, we saw that God is not happy with the angel of that church. He is saying to them that ‘you say you are 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.’

We then saw that there would be any man that He turned to where in the time of the demise of the organisation arose a people called the SDARM – the Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement and the International Missionary Society. Then all the independent ministries that have risen ever since the First World War. The hymn that we were singing was taken from the Song of Solomon:

Song of Solomon 1:7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

This is the cry in the confusion of Christendom of today in the confusion that exists in the mainstream SDA conference church, the SDARM, the IMS and the independent ministries today. We all love Jesus. He is whom our soul loveth. In this confusion, what answer does the one that we love, the one that is expressed with such affection who is life and delight of my soul, Jesus my delight, are you hungering for Him to show you where you will be able to feed without confusion? Here is the answer.

THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE FLOCK – THE OVERCOMERS

Song of Solomon 1:8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

Through the study of the seven churches, have we not been following the footsteps of Jesus’ flock? What were the footprints of His flock? He told the disciples:

Matthew 28:20 …and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

He told to the overcomer of Ephesus:

Revelation 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Him that overcometh is His sheep.

Then He said to the overcomer of Smyrna, that terrible time of pagan persecution:

Revelation 2:11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

There is the footprint. In the period of Pergamos, He says to the overcomer:

Revelation 2:17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.

There are the true people of God, the overcomers out of that period.

Again He calls the overcomers out of Thyatira. Here it is the footprints of the true sheep:

Revelation 2:26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

Then the shepherd is identifying the flock of the overcomers out of Sardis:

Revelation 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Then the overcomer come out of Laodicea:

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.

As we looked at these periods of earth’s history, as we were reading here out of each period there is the flock, the overcomer. That’s why I have entitled this divine service the church of the overcomers. The overcomers, this is God’s church in each period.

The church is God’s fortress, His city of refuge, which He holds in a revolted world. Any betrayal of the church is treachery to Him who has bought mankind with the blood of His only-begotten Son. From the beginning, faithful souls have constituted the church on earth. In every age the Lord has had His watchmen, who have borne a faithful testimony to the generation in which they lived. These sentinels gave the message of warning; and when they were called to lay off their armor, others took up the work. God brought these witnesses into covenant relation with Himself, uniting the church on earth with the church in heaven. He has sent forth His angels to minister to His church, and the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against His people. AA 11.2

Who are His people? Faithful souls, overcomers, the sheep that leave behind the footprints.

Through centuries of persecution, conflict, and darkness, God has sustained His church. Not one cloud has fallen upon it that He has not prepared for; not one opposing force has risen to counterwork His work, that He has not foreseen. All has taken place as He predicted. He has not left His church forsaken, but has traced in prophetic declarations what would occur, and that which His Spirit inspired the prophets to foretell has been brought about. All His purposes will be fulfilled. His law is linked with His throne, and no power of evil can destroy it. Truth is inspired and guarded by God; and it will triumph over all opposition. AA 11.3

As I’m reading this, can you see here that it’s important to understand the prophecy to find the answer to the question; where is He feeding His flock today? It’s plainly stated that it is the faithful people and that prophecy has been able to tell us exactly what would occur in every given situation. We’ve looked at the past, but now the present is the hard one to identify by so many people.

During ages of spiritual darkness the church of God has been as a city set on a hill. From age to age, through successive generations, the pure doctrines of heaven have been unfolding within its borders. Enfeebled and defective as it may appear, the church is the one object upon which God bestows in a special sense His supreme regard. It is the theater of His grace, in which He delights to reveal His power to transform hearts. AA 12.1

REVIEW OF THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES – EPHESUS TO PERGAMOS

From Ephesus, which is the apostolic church through Pergamos, the church was guided by Jesus. There was one Christian Church right up to Pergamos. The church was corrected by the True Witness. But the church had deteriorated, and He was appealing to them, because now they were in the glory of being accepted after all the persecution, rejoicing that now they were free to worship without any interference.

PERGAMOS TO THYATIRA

But what was taking place? Corruption had come where Constantine the emperor of Rome became a Christian and bonded together pagans and Christians. The Christian church became affected and infected by pagan ingredients. Jesus gave them warning, He asked them to repent. We came to the period after they have not repented as a church, so then God called the church Jezebel, that woman of the papal church. He gave her room to repent but she didn’t. In that period, the faithful watchmen continued as the Waldenses, the Huguenots, and Columba from Ireland. They all continued as God’s faithful church but the other church had fallen as Babylon.

THYATIRA TO THE REFORMERS

As we came to the to the period in the mid sixteenth to seventeenth century, the reformers continued as the faithful ones, strong to defend the pure truth and turning away from the papal church. The reformers such as Martin Luther, John Wesley, John Knox, all those men who had been upholding the recovery from the papal church.

The Reformers formed the protestant churches, Sardis. As we came through those footsteps to the reformers, they generated the protestant churches. In the period of Sardis two or three centuries after changes were started by the reformers, Jesus warned them that something is wrong with the Sardis churches. Now they had become in a fallen State. He asked them to repent but do they?

SARDIS TO PHILADELPHIA

The overcomers that continued faithfully come to the period of Philadelphia while the other churches were dead.

Revelation 3:1 that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.

They were left behind, the Catholic church was left behind and then the protestants were left behind as the faithful footsteps and footprints continued. It’s interesting that the people who came out of those churches left behind; the Baptists, the Methodist, the Lutherans and others as well such as the Mormon Church that came into existence in that same period after the disappointment in Philadelphia, the Christadelphians, and the Jehovah Witnesses, all these churches were left behind by the faithful ones and it led to the overcomers out of Philadelphia – the pioneers of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination.

PHILADELPHIA TO LAODICEA

In the time that Sister White lived, that was the only church that continued to defend the pure law of God and the Sabbath that was restored by them. That was the Laodicean period. In that church, there were false members who generated certain people to teach and to preach so that in Sister White’s time that church was already Babylon.

There is but one church in the world who are at the present time standing in the breach, and making up the hedge, building up the old waste places; and for any man to call the attention of the world and other churches to this church, denouncing her as Babylon, is to do a work in harmony with him who is the accuser of the brethren. TM 50.2

The only church that existed at that time that was defending the pure law of God was the SDA Church. When we read Sister White’s statements, we have to remember the time and place when she said that statement. At that time, it was the only church standing in the breach and anybody that pointed to that church organisation as Babylon, was untrue.

The enemy of righteousness left nothing undone in his effort to stop the work committed to the Lord’s builders. But God “left not Himself without witness.” Acts 14:17. Workers were raised up who ably defended the faith once delivered to the saints. History bears record to the fortitude and heroism of these men. Like the apostles, many of them fell at their post, but the building of the temple went steadily forward.

The workmen were slain, but the work advanced. The Waldenses, John Wycliffe, Huss and Jerome, Martin Luther and Zwingli, Cranmer, Latimer, and Knox, the Huguenots, John and Charles Wesley, and a host of others brought to the foundation material that will endure throughout eternity. And in later years those who have so nobly endeavored to promote the circulation of God’s word, and those who by their service in heathen lands have prepared the way for the proclamation of the last great message—these also have helped to rear the structure. AA 598.1

We concluded that in Sister White’s time, the SDA denomination was the only church that existed then that could be identified as the faithful flock.

FROM LAODICEA TO TODAY

Footprints from Laodicea to today, another coming out. Let’s now follow carefully what we had studied last Sabbath and look for the footprints for today from Sister White’s time. She writes in her time that there was a problem in the church:

It is a solemn statement that I make to the church, that not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as the common sinner. ChS 41.1

The membership as she wrote that was 40,000 in the Seventh Day Adventist Church and out of those 40,000 not one in 20 were prepared to close their earthly history and would be as verily without hope as the common sinner.

They are professedly serving God, but they are more earnestly serving mammon. This half-and-half work is a constant denying of Christ, rather than a confessing of Christ. So many have brought into the church their own unsubdued spirit, unrefined; their spiritual taste is perverted by their own immoral, debasing corruptions, symbolizing the world in spirit, in heart, in purpose, confirming themselves in lustful practices, and are full of deception through and through in their professed Christian life. Living as sinners, claiming to be Christians! Those who claim to be Christians and will confess Christ should come out from among them and touch not the unclean thing, and be separate…. ChS 41.1

She made that statement in 1893 so the only organisation that existed then that was faithful had in it these professed Christians and it’s exactly the same as we have been reading in every generation from the words of Jesus: repent, come clean.  God was giving the Adventist people their opportunity by sending these messages to them and the faithful people who will be Christians confessing Christ coming out from close association with these others in the great majority, and Sister White was among them. She was working together with those faithful ministers that were still hanging on to the pure truth. This little number, not one in twenty who were called upon now to be aware of the falsehood in the church.

I was confirmed in all I had stated in Minneapolis, that a reformation must go through the churches. Reforms must be made, for spiritual weakness and blindness were upon the people who had been blessed with great light and precious opportunities and privileges. As reformers they had come out of the denominational churches, but they now act a part similar to that which the churches acted. We hoped that there would not be the necessity for another coming out. While we will endeavor to keep the “unity of the Spirit” in the bonds of peace, we will not with pen or voice cease to protest against bigotry.—The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 356, 357 (1889). LDE 48.1 

The faithful flock were being used to call for reformation in the Seventh Day Adventist Church of her time.

Of those who boast of their light and yet fail to walk in it Christ says, “But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum [Seventh-day Adventists, who have had great light], which art exalted unto heaven [in point of privilege], shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”—The Review and Herald, August 1, 1893. [The bracketed comments are by Ellen White.] LDE 48.2

The church is in the Laodicean state. The presence of God is not in her midst.—Notebook Leaflets 1:99 (1898). LDE 49.1

She’s talking to the Seventh Day Adventist leadership who boast of their light yet fail to walk in it. Here are the faithful, Sister White, Waggoner and Jones and all those faithful people at that time protesting. We don’t want to leave the church, we want to keep the unity, can you see the same mentality of Jesus speaking to the others before they fell? Please repent, don’t continue in bigotry.

Such strong, discouraging influences as these have been a tide almost too strong for the church to stand against. Ten members, who were walking in all humbleness of mind, would have a far greater power upon the world than has the entire church, with its present numbers and lack of unity. The more there is of the divided, inharmonious element, the less power will the church have for good in the world. 5T 119.1

She is lamenting over the church, and she says how only ten  faithful members can do a far greater work in the whole world than the entire church denomination. That sounds a bit like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Only three and Daniel.

Many will stand in our pulpits with the torch of false prophecy in their hands, kindled from the hellish torch of Satan. If doubts and unbelief are cherished, the faithful ministers will be removed from the people who think they know so much. “If thou hadst known,” said Christ, “even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” TM 409.3

FROM LAODICEA TO ANY MAN

A warning that the faithful ministers will be removed and if there were 10 members that were faithful, they would also be ultimately removed if the church doesn’t repent. That’s why Jesus says that He is going to turn away from the angel of the church, the leadership of the church denomination, and go to any man.

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.

The church is sleeping, and Jesus is knocking at the door. She doesn’t open quick enough and eventually she gets to the door and He’s gone and so He turns to any man who opens the door. There’s the prophecy for the last days that we can see is transpiring. Where is the angel of the Laodicean church? Because you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, I’m going to spew you out of my mouth.

We must as a people arouse and cleanse the camp of Israel. Licentiousness, unlawful intimacy, and unholy practices are coming in among us in a large degree; and ministers who are handling sacred things are guilty of sin in this respect. They are coveting their neighbors’ wives, and the seventh commandment is broken. We are in danger of becoming a sister to fallen Babylon, of allowing our churches to become corrupted, and filled with every foul spirit, a cage for every unclean and hateful bird; and will we be clear unless we make decided movements to cure the existing evil? 21MR 380.1

She is warning here. It hadn’t yet taken fully place but she’s warning there that we are in danger of becoming a sister to Babylon, to other fallen churches. Now can you see the message getting stronger:

Will the churches heed the Laodicean message? Will they repent, or will they, notwithstanding that the most solemn message of truth—the third angel’s message—is being proclaimed to the world, go on in sin? This is the last message of mercy, the last warning to a fallen world. If the church of God becomes lukewarm, it does not stand in favor with God any more than do the churches that are represented as having fallen and become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

Those who have had opportunities to hear and receive the truth and who have united with the Seventh-day Adventist church, calling themselves the commandment-keeping people of God, and yet possess no more vitality and consecration to God than do the nominal churches, will receive of the plagues of God just as verily as the churches who oppose the law of God. Only those that are sanctified through the truth will compose the royal family in the heavenly mansions Christ has gone to prepare for those that love Him and keep His commandments. 19MR 176.1

Can you see the writing on the wall in Sister White’s time? She is warning and warning and God says I’m going to spew you out. A church that continues to function, but Jesus has spewed it out, what does it mean for Him to spew them out? Do they stop worshiping? Do they stop functioning as a church denomination?

The figure of spewing out of His mouth means that He cannot offer up your prayers or your expressions of love to God. He cannot endorse your teaching of His word or your spiritual work in anywise. He cannot present your religious exercises with the request that grace be given you. 6T 408.2

Here is a church that if they don’t repent and continue to function, and Jesus has spewed it out. Where do we stand today?

THE FOOTPRINTS FOR OUR TIME

The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result? The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error.

A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure. 1SM 204.2

Here are the footprints for our time. The faithful souls would continue while the church is being spewed out and it puts in a new form of presentation to what the pioneers did. New order of books would be written, the old Adventist books that used to be taken to the public were put aside and new books would be written altering what had been taught by the Seventh Day Adventist church in Sister White’s time.  That’s where we stand regarding the SDA church.

As overcomers in the past centuries left behind the fallen churches, those who are the overcomers of Laodicea leave behind in their faithfulness to the Lord, they can no longer continue there. What is the church at this time? The last overcomers. As we’re living now in the period of Laodicea, is there another church period? No.

THE LAST OVERCOMERS

Song of Solomon 6:8-9There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. ⁹My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

In prophecy a woman is a church. Here you have precisely all the fallen churches that have been left behind over those seven periods in multitudes of numbers. There is only one church in the last days, one faithful virgin with all the others having become fallen. It is my dove, my undefiled is but one . She is the remnant of the seed.

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.

The woman gave birth to the seed. The seed has a remnant. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? It takes you back to the church of the apostles with the twelve crowns. Here she is at the end as well.  The apostles were not recognised by any church; they were not recognised by the Jewish Church. It is the same at the end.  

CONCLUSION: A FINAL VICTORIOUS COMPANY

Revelation 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

This is the description the third angel; they are the footprint. They are the people now who are faithful and loyal to everything that has been accumulating over the years from the time of the apostles. They are in the apostle’s doctrine. They are a final victorious company.

God has a church. It is not the great cathedral, neither is it the national establishment, neither is it the various denominations; it is the people who love God and keep His commandments. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Where Christ is even among the humble few, this is Christ’s church, for the presence of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity can alone constitute a church. UL 315.5

They are those that keep His commandments and have the faith of Jesus. That is His church. The only thing that distinguishes God’s church is faithfulness to the commandments of God and faithfulness to the faith of Jesus. Those are the people, the faithful ministers or the ten members removed who in all humility do a greater work at the end than the entire denomination with its confusion.

There are many quotes that I could read how Sister White said that the ship is going out to sea without chart or compass. That happened through the 1888 rejection. Or where she says in many different quotes that there is going to be only a little remnant that’s going to stand faithful at the very end.  

The Bible is full of that little remnant, and if we are going to be part of that final church, that final overcomer that’s the faithful church which has gone through lots of test, trials and calls for repentance and they have responded to the call for repentance, and make their lives right with God, these people are to join that final church.

SUMMARY

The life of Christ was a life charged with a divine message of the love of God, and He longed intensely to impart this love to others in rich measure. Compassion beamed from His countenance, and His conduct was characterized by grace, humility, truth, and love. Every member of His church militant must manifest the same qualities, if He would join the church triumphant. The love of Christ is so broad, so full of glory, that in comparison to it, everything that men esteem as great, dwindles into insignificance. When we obtain a view of it, we exclaim, O the depth of the riches of the love that God bestowed upon men in the gift of His only-begotten Son! FE 179.3  

Jesus who is the one who is the center of that church, the beautiful gospel in its reality, the love of God for sinners was that Jesus became part of and died at the cross with our sins.  

The church militant is not the church triumphant because whether it be the woman of Revelation 12:17, the Laodicean woman or the any man, these are still the church militant and there you have them in the world around us today.

Jesus is about to come is he not? Are we not right on the verge of the close of probation as we’re looking at the situations around us? We are to come into full victory. We are to join the church triumphant. I trust that our Scripture reading furnishes us with the clear deduction of the seven churches to see and follow in those footprints to be part of the church of the overcomers, the church triumphant.

May God give us wisdom and the Holy Spirit in our hearts to know where we need to be and feel assured of this confidence that we have seen in the footprints that have gone before us. It’s my prayer that we will not let anything disturb and destroy us.

Amen