Our upcoming Sabbath School Lessons for the first half of 2025 are now available.

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ssl 2025 first half – the church triumphant

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Introduction

DURING the next six months we will be occupied with the subject of God’s church leading to its final manifestation as His church triumphant. In this first section we will explore Inspiration in its description of God’s church in the progressive periods from the Old Testament clear through to its triumphant entry into heaven.

It is a puzzling phenomenon that in each period throughout history those who have been declared as God’s visible church have deteriorated into apostasy from which only a remnant of faithful souls have passed on the relay baton to the next generation. Sadly, as each period passes, this phenomenon is repeated until we reach the close of earth’s history when once again only a small remnant remain as God’s church. As we now near this final conclusion we have the following testimony of Jesus to verify the experience:

“The Lord Jesus will always have a chosen people to serve Him. When the Jewish people rejected Christ, the Prince of life, He took from them the kingdom of God and gave it unto the Gentiles. God will continue to work on this principle with every branch of His work. When a church proves unfaithful to the word of the Lord, whatever their position may be, however high and sacred their calling, the Lord can no longer work with them. Others are then chosen to bear important responsibilities. But, if these in turn do not purify their lives from every wrong action, if they do not establish pure and holy principles in all their borders, then the Lord will grievously afflict and humble them and, unless they repent, will remove them from their place and make them a reproach.” —The Upward Look, p. 131.

This phenomenon is our study in this section, and may God fill us with the resolve to learn the lesson well that, to be members of the church triumphant we will have to engage earnestly to “purify our lives from every wrong action.”