John Thiel – mp3
We rejoice as we draw near to God. We praise His name for His goodness to us and especially for His answers that He gives us in His holy Word.
The Sabbath School Lesson Studies of the past quarter were titled the Remnant Church which has similarities, but most of all, things that we can personally identify with a little more. The purpose of our Divine Service today is to explore once more the identity of Christ’s church, leading right through to the very end, but focus especially on the experience that you and I can identify with in regard to this remnant development.
You no doubt enjoy this hymn as I do in number 400 where this question is always uppermost in the experience of those who are loving the Lord and want to find where His flock really does reside. The first four verses are very precious but notice verse five:
“A voice from the shepherd now bids me return by the way where the footprints are lying. No longer to wander, no longer to mourn, and homeward my spirit is flying.”
Then we sung that beautiful hymn, “Lord, guide us through this wilderness experience.” The Lord points us out through His Word where the footsteps of Jesus and His flock are. This is what I’d like us to pursue in discovering the footprints of Jesus and His flock through to the very end that we individually may be able to follow the footprints and be part of that flock.
The Benchmark of God’s Church
The benchmark of God’s church is the atonement of Jesus Christ. Believing contrite sinners in close intimate communion with Jesus Christ. I repeat, believing contrite sinners. Sinners who have a battle with sin, but who desire to be free from that sin. Jesus came and became at one with us with these people. Here the apostle writes in reference to the Apostolic Church:
1 John 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. 20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
This is the benchmark of what Gods church is. To have a knowledge of God and to be in Christ, to be part of Him in living communion, this is the true God and eternal life. The apostles understood the close intimacy of Jesus with His people. They said, “We know that we are of God.” They knew, even though Apostle Paul said, “I am chief of sinners,” they knew they were of God. How did they know? Because Jesus became at one with them. What is meant to be in Christ? Where did that come from the very benchmark of the church?
Ephesians 5:30 For we are members of His body of His flesh and of His bones.
We are members of Christ’s body, of His flesh, of His bones. This is the benchmark. You can study all about the theory of God’s word but if you do not understand these words in living reality you are just a study of a subject instead of someone who actually is experimentally in the path of salvation.
That He Christ might accomplish His purpose of love for the fallen race. He became bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. FLB 48
How can we be bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh? Because He became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. There was an intimate affiliation with the contrite sinner that Jesus came into it for the purpose of love to regain and reclaim us. To be bone of our bone and to be flesh of our flesh meant something to Jesus and means something for us.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For he God had made him, Jesus, to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
These words are not complicated, they are simple. Jesus was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. By so doing, He was made to be sin for us whom you know sin because we live in sinful flesh. We live in a material that is not only scarred by sin, but has sin flowing through it. Through the hereditary genetic make -up, it is called sinful flesh. Jesus was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh.
What flesh? Our flesh is weak, isn’t it? Because we are weak and according to our flesh and bone, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Here is the atonement, the benchmark of God’s people’s salvation. This beautiful uniting of Jesus with us being made to be sin for us is that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. A wonderful plan that God had established. This is beautifully exposed once again, where it says in His relation to Christ:
The believer will be bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh, one with Christ in a peculiar relationship. 7BC 926
Why? A peculiar relationship because Christ took the humanity of man.
He became subject to temptation endangering as it were His divine attributes. 7BC 926
What was it for Jesus to be made like us? It endangered His divine attributes but He was prepared to become at one with us so that we might endanger our sinfulness and become one with the divine attributes as we read in 2 Corinthians 5:21.
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 upon 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
A oneness with Christ that is an intimacy that even the angels of heaven do not know. Why don’t they know? It because they were never bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Jesus was and the experience of our fleshly sufferings that we suffer, we can find in Jesus and we can find an intimacy with Him and an experience of being lifted up as we go over the ground that Jesus went. We will be able to experience the attributes of divinity.
2 Corinthians 5:21 He was made to be sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
It is an experience that cannot be explained and yet this is the benchmark of true Christianity. As they enter into that close relationship with Him, they will strive earnestly to overcome as He overcame.
The Identification mark of the Remnant Church
I’m introducing here the very identification mark at the end of the remnant church. It lies within the cradle and the benchmark of this beautiful truth that I am just introducing into the subject. The atonement of Jesus Christ is the preoccupation of the people that are His church.
The Church of Jesus Christ is identified by this mind preoccupation. In my experience of the past, my mind has been preoccupied by that I have found people thinking, saying to me, “Why do you want to make an issue about that subject?” Well, it tells me something when they say that to me. They have not held the great central truth of the Saviour’s Atonement.
Ephesians 1:22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Here we get a correct understanding of why the church is His body because the true church that occupies its mind with the atonement has an appreciation of a relationship with Jesus that He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, that understands exactly what we are going through as we are striving to reach victory over sin and overcome, and that makes the church that is occupied with that the body of Christ. It’s a consequential reality. Understanding the truth of Jesus’ body makes the church His body. We see now that that body relationship with Jesus Christ has an objective at the end that is here delineated.
Ephesians 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: 14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Christ is the head of the body, and as the body comes to understand the true benchmark of Christianity—the atonement of Jesus Christ, who took upon Himself our humanity, our flesh, bone, and experience, and was made to be sin for us—this foundational truth brings all other biblical doctrines into focus. It is through this divine occupation and doctrinal connection that the full message of Scripture is illuminated.
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 theatre of His grace in which he delights to reveal His power to transform hearts, the theatre of His grace. AA 12
There in the church He is operating through this atonement message. God is actively at work in our lives and in our hearts, transforming us even within the limitations of sinful flesh. As He renews our hearts, He shapes us into the likeness of His Son. Through this transformation, we overcome—just as Christ overcame—and the Church is called to stand before the world as a full and final display of that overcoming purity.
Thus in the language of one who has divine authority, Christ gives His elect church into the Father’s arms. DA 679
The church enfeebled and defective as may be.
Though apparent impossibilities obstruct their way, by His grace they are to go forward. Instead of deploring difficulties, they are called upon to surmount them. They are to despair of nothing, and to hope for everything. With the golden chain of His matchless love Christ has bound them to the throne of God. It is His purpose that the highest influence in the universe, emanating from the source of all power, shall be theirs. They are to have power to resist evil, power that neither earth, nor death, nor hell can master, power that will enable them to overcome as Christ overcame. DA 679.3
Christ designs that heaven’s order, heaven’s plan of government, heaven’s divine harmony, shall be represented in His church on earth. The church, endowed with the righteousness of Christ, is His depositary, in which the riches of His mercy, His grace, and His love, are to appear in full and final display. Christ looks upon His people in their purity and perfection, as the reward of His humiliation, and the supplement of His glory. DA 680.1
What is the church to finally be displayed as? It says there where His love, His purity, His perfection will finally stand in full display. This is to be the remnant people of God He will finally stand like that. Jesus will come and He hasn’t come yet.
When He sees Himself perfectly reflected in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own. COL 69
Let us follow the footsteps of God’s church to that point as we were singing in the hymn where Jesus says follow the footsteps, follow as Jesus became one with man. They became one with Him in His church and how they continue to walk through earth’s history as He is perfecting them to bring them to the final remnant.
You actually have this church displayed right at the very beginning it reads about the church who is ready to give birth and Satan the dragon is ready to snap up the birth of the child that is born which is of course is saved. We know that’s Jesus and Satan the dragon is after the woman and she flees into the wilderness. There you have a quick overview of the experience of God’s church from the time that Christ was born through the experiences of the dark ages into the very last generation.
Revelation 12:17 The dragon was rough 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 Remnant of the Woman’s Seed
Let’s follow the steps through to see where this leads us to in the last generation. When you study the detail of chapter 12 go to Revelation 2 and 3 and there you have the seven churches. As you study the seven churches, we discover that the seven churches are really the history of God’s church through seven periods of time. God wants to have a church that will display the beautiful victory through Jesus Christ ultimately. This comment is made on the seven churches:
The names of the seven churches are symbolic of the church in different periods of the Christian era. The number seven indicates completeness and is symbolic of the fact that the messages extend to the end of time. While the symbols used reveal the condition of the church at different periods in the history of the world. AA 585
If you want to know the church of God, you need to study the church not by its name, because throughout all the history the Christian church. The name of the church has changed. You have the Apostolic Church, you have what became the Catholic Church, you have the Huguenots and the Waldenses. I don’t know what their names were in regard to a church organisation, but then you came to the Protestant churches which we can name; Methodists, Baptists and so on. Then we came through to 1844 and we have a name called the Seventh Day Adventist Church. All through the history, God’s church had various different names so let’s never get confused between the church and the name. The names vary, but the church is one.
As you study through the seven churches, you will see indeed the description of God’s church and its condition throughout those seven periods of time. You can follow the footsteps of God’s flock.
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, and God brought these witnesses into covenant relation with Him, and uniting a covenant relation withwith Himself. AA 11.2
That oneness again, uniting the church on earth with the church in heaven. He has sent His angels to minister to His church, and the gates of hell have not been able to prevail against His people. Doesn’t that give you a tremendous sense of assurance? When we sing the song, “Lead me where the flock is and where it’s resting,” here we have an assurance, yes, it’s there through every successive generation. It’s always been there. This is such a precious comfort to persecution, conflict and darkness, God has sustained His church.
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. AA 11.2
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. DA 12.1
I am no different to you. I am constantly asking the question, Lord, where is thy flock? I want to see it as you pointed out, not as I see it. I am sharing this divine service with you because I have found comfort in what I’m reading to you here. The gates of hell have not been able to prevail against His church.
From age to age, through successive generations, the pure doctrines of heaven have been unfolding within its borders. AA 12.2
As I look for the footsteps through the prophetic revelations of His church, I can follow to the very last generation.
To the end of time, the presence of the Spirit is to abide with the true church. ML 60.4
Can you see the argument of the churches of today? You all think you’re right, all the other churches are right too. There is this argument, especially amongst Adventism; “You’re in the wrong church, you should be with us.” You know that experience.
Quite frankly, I listen to these people and I hear them saying things and I go, “Lord, what’s your answer?” I’m not very sure within myself, of myself, and of my own discernments. I don’t trust them. “Lord, you show me the footsteps. I need to see them.” I hang my helpless soul upon the pure Word of God; that’s my only assurance. Apart from that, I’m going to go astray and I will lead others astray as well. My soul hangs heavily upon the declarations.
The Seven Churches
As I study the seven churches, it’s not too difficult to identify the true church through the past. It’s not very difficult.
Ephesus
The Ephesus church was the apostolic church.
Smyrna
The Smyrna church was the church that was persecuted by pagan persecution. All those who were who were eaten by the lions and who were massacred by the pagan Roman Empire, they were God’s true church at that time.
Pergamos
Pergamos, the church that had its headquarters shifted to Rome. You sit where Satan’s seat is. Yes, the church had its headquarters in Rome and there was great warning and as the church was being polluted by Constantine’s conversion, it developed very subtly into what we know is called the Catholic Roman Catholic Church.
It led into the period of Thyatira where the fallen church, the woman as it says there, that God was working for in Pergamos, Jezebel. I gave a room to repent, but she didn’t so she became corrupt. She was called Jezebel.
Thyatira
In the period of Thyatira she is doing her terrible work. God’s faithful church has identified the martyrs who were burnt at the stake; the Hugenots and Waldensees and so on and so on. All those people were the faithful church. We can identify them. Praise the Lord that they were there. If you were living there, would you have identified them? Would you have been able to know where His flock was? Good question.
Sardis
Sardis, you have a name that you live. What was the name of the churches that had a name that they lived? Protestants, protesting against Catholicism and they became a company of churches, protestant churches that could be identified as God’s church.
I find this a very interesting one because there were many names and they were all God’s Church. The Baptists were God’s Church, the Methodists were God’s Church, the Lutherans were God’s Church. They were all God’s Church, but they all had different names. Some people can’t get their head around that one. I’ve got no problems with names. We have to examine what they present; whether they are on the pure doctrines or not that were unfolding. There were certain things that hadn’t unfolded to them, but that was unfolding.
Philadelphia
We come to the Philadelphia and there was the awakening that Jesus was soon to come, and we know what church that was. William Miller and His associates, the people who were Wolf and Lacunza and all these men who were proclaiming that the coming of Jesus was soon to take place, they were God’s faithful people at that time.
Laodicea
We come to the last church period Laodicea. The people of the judgment or the judging of the people. We know we can identify clearly that in that generation of 1844 there was a faithful church that upheld the subject of the sanctuary and the judgment hour message. Faithful watchmen, sentinels that gave the message, the pure doctrines of heaven were unfolding in that church within its borders. Do we have any divine revelation as to which church by name was that church? We do indeed. The words to the Laodicean people:
Revelation 3:14 Unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans.
The angel of the church, who are they? They are the messengers, because the word angel in Greek aggelos means messenger.
The Seven Stars
When you read the beginning of Revelation, the angels are the seven stars in the hands of Jesus and He is guiding and keeping them and leading them. He is writing to the ministry of this church.
I was shown that the testimony to the Laodiceans applies to God’s people at the present time. 1T 86
She wrote that in 1856. Who would God’s people at that present time? This is what you will often hear people quoting to you; you are not in the Seventh Day Adventist church organisation today.
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. TM 50
There is but one church at the present time that are doing this work. One church at the present time. When is Ellen White wrote that, she was in that church and she was saying there is only one church organisation that is standing in the breach at the present time. Very vividly we know that according to divine illumination the church that was God’s pure church was the Seventh Day Adventist church at that time in that generation; no question. Just like the Lutheran church, at that time was God’s church and the churches ever before that, they were God’s church.
But would we join those churches now? In that generation, they were the faithful church. These are God’s church at the present time. How many generations ago was that? Remember every succeeding generation God has had His faithful church? How many to go?
At the present time, there is but one church that stands in the breach. TM 50
If I look back, Sister White would have to be my great grandmother. What makes me my generation now? How many generations? If Sister White was my great-grandmother, she would give birth to my grandmother, who gave birth to my mother, who gave birth to me. Which generation am I? The fourth generation. Sister White was the first one, her children were the second, and then my mother was the third, and then comes me. That’s the line up. As we look at the generation that was in Sister White’s time, we know that that was the generation that unfolded the pure doctrines of the three angels’ messages.
Notice what God has to say to that generation and thereafter. Can you see we can identify God’s true church in the generation of Ellen White? We carefully look for the footsteps of God’s flock. He speaks to them there in Revelation 3:14 to the angel of the last church.
Revelation 3:14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; 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…
I want you to repent. There is a clear suggestion that as that generation proceeds and it thinks it’s so good, Jesus is saying but no, I’m going to spew you out but please repent.
I saw that this message would not accomplish its work in a few short months. God will prove His people. Jesus bears patiently with them and does not spew them out of His mouth in a moment. 1T 186
That generation that was unfolding the pure doctrines who were now becoming lukewarm and becoming sure of themselves, He says, “I’m going to spew you out, please, repent, change.” Notice how the church continues and as that generation is being given its opportunities.
1888
There where God is trying to establish a body of people that are going to, in a full and final display of the love of God, that the world might be lightened with His glory. That the world will be lightened with His glory by the full and final display. Do we find this church actually representing that there in that generation? Not at all. In fact, when God came with the message of the angel in 1888, that full and final display was possible for that generation.
The light that is to light and the whole earth with its glory was resisted and by the action of our own brethren has been in a great degree kept away from the world. 1SM 234
Is that church able to give the final and full display of the glory of God when it rejected the very message that the glory of God would be seen through that message among His people? What did the next generation that followed Sister White, (second and third generations) what did these generations do? What did they do with the messages that they used to hold? It is a sad reality that you can actually trace this in your own experiences today as you look back at these generations.
During the lives of the apostles the church remained comparatively pure. But toward the latter end of the second century, most of the churches assumed a new form. The first simplicity disappeared and insensibly as the old disciples retired to their graves, their children along with new converts came forward and new modelled the cause. GC 385
That’s what happened how each generation went corrupt. The first generation was faithful and the next generation new models to cause.
Has not the same process been repeated in nearly every church calling itself Protestant? As the founders, those who possess the true spirit of reform pass away, their descendants come forward and new model the cause. GC 385
The next generation comes along and new models the cause because the last generation had lost its power because they were lukewarm. They were not there with the power of the Word of God that could actually warm the heart of the people. Very slowly things began to change and they say, “This is too boring. We’ve got to something better to give than what the church is giving.” That’s what transpired. Ellen White did not want to make this statement as she thought things had improved:
“Write it not. No change for the better has taken place. Teachings that are turning souls from the truth are being presented as of great worth. Doctrines are being taught that lead into bypaths and forbidden paths; doctrines that lead men to act in harmony with their own inclinations and to work out their unsanctified purposes; doctrines that, if received, would destroy the dignity and power of God’s people, obscuring the light that would otherwise come to them through God’s appointed agencies.” 8T 231.2
This was written in 1903. Her hand was stopped. What’s happening with that generation? They’re teaching doctrines that are turning away souls from the truth. As you’re following the train of thought through this message, you discover that generation that followed Ellen White’s generation was beginning to teach doctrines that were no longer the pure unfolding of the doctrines of God’s true church. As the guideline of the Spirit of Prophecy has given us that, we have the repetition of Jesus being pushed out of the church in His time taking place once again. Every generation has repeated the same scenario. The leaders of the church have rejected the beautiful message of Christ in the atonement and the faithful ones have to continue separately.
Often those who follow in the steps of the reformers are forced to turn away from the churches they love in order to declare that plain teaching of the Word of God, and many times those who are seeking for light are by the same teaching obliged to leave the churches of their fathers that they may render obedience. DA 232.2
A Repetition
As the church rejected the 1888 message and began to teach doctrines that were no longer in tune, they, like the other churches, became corrupt. Once more, the church that was once pure becomes a harlot and Jesus has to move on.
Revelation 3:20 Unto the angel of the church write.
Who does He write to now? Who does He speak to now in verse 20?
Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If who?
Revelation 3:20 If any man will open the door, I will come into Him and will sup with Him and He will be with me.
While the leadership of the first generation and the second generation, especially in 1888 afterwards, were given their opportunity to open the door, they were so slow in paying attention to the message of Christ and His righteousness that when they finally came to the door to open it, what happened? Interesting that what Jesus said to them in Song of Solomon 5. He took from Song of Solomon where He knocks on the door of His bride, of His lovely darling and what does she do? This is the woman the bride the church.
Song of Solomon 5:2 I sleep but my heart waketh it is the voice of my beloved, that knocketh, saying, open to me my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my locks with the drops of the night.
The Church says:
Song of Solomon 5:3 I have put off my coat. How shall I put it on? I have washed my feet. How shall I defile them? 4 My beloved put in His hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.
As she looked across, the fingers were trying to get in there to try and open the door, because the latch was on the inside, and her heart was touched. I’m a bit slow, aren’t I? I suppose I’ll get out of bed.
Song of Solomon 5:5 I rose up to opened to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet -smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock.
Can you see the lethargic approach?
Song of Solomon 5:6 I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul failed when he spake. I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer. 7 The watchman that went about the city found me. They smote me. They wounded me. The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
What happened to that church? Self -evident. This is the church of Laodicea, the angel of the church but if any man will open the door quickly, I will come into Him and will sup with him and that is what happened. There were a people who did take hold of the 1888 message. They ran with it and Jesus supped with them and they had precious experiences. They were the people of Revelation 18:1 because the angel of Revelation 18 is another angel who comes and gives another powerful message.
As you read there in verse 1, the earth was lightened with His glory because this beautiful message shone upon the darkness of the world. Of course the darkness didn’t comprehend it don’t forget. But the light of the glory of God shone in the 1888. The message has been shining. You have the description here of the angel of the church and then the any man. Who’s that?
Revelation 12:17 The angel was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant of her seed.
You have the seed of the woman which is Revelation 18:1 which are the faithful generation after 1888. The faithful people who stood firm on the principles of God’s law and were delineated before the mind’s eye. They stood faithful in the First World War, they were faithful in proclaiming the pure doctrines, they were disfellowshipped from the previous church. Self -evident. Can you follow the footsteps? Their experience was the same experience where they had to separate for what reason? Because they were not tolerated.
The statement in Great Controversy page 45 and 46 gives us a correct appreciation of our commitment to the faithful generation, the faithful people in that generation if you want to be part of that faithful people. This is what transpires.
After a long and severe conflict, the faithful few decided to dissolve all union with the apostate church, if she still refused to free herself from the falsehood and idolatry. GC 45
False doctrines were being taught and so ultimately it led to separation. They saw that separation was an absolute necessity if they would obey the Word of God. They dared not tolerate errors fatal to their own souls. Errors fatal to our own souls. By rejecting the 1888 message, we know as we study carefully the atonement message that I introduced that is no longer being held and that is fatal to our salvation.
The subject of the atonement of Jesus; Jesus becoming at one with me, f I don’t have that message, it is fatal to my soul.
They dared not tolerate errors fatal to their own souls, and set an example which would imperil the faith of their children and children’s children. To secure peace and unity they were ready to make any concession consistent with fidelity to God; but they felt that even peace would be too dearly purchased at the sacrifice of principle. If unity could be secured only by the compromise of truth and righteousness, then let there be difference, and even war. GC 45.3
This was the condition of God’s people being separated through the centuries and no different again. This principle that the church is separated, the faithful church is separated from the unfaithful, has been repeated here. The woman’s seed, the faithful people who stood faithful to the unfolding of the truth continues.
Notice that came to Revelation 3:20. Is there anything to follow after verse 20? Is that generation that constitute the angel of Revelation 18 the end? Are they the ones that have the full and final display?
Revelation 3:21 To Him that overcomeeth, will I sit, will I grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame, and am set with Him on His throne, on the Father’s throne.
Out of that any man which was the seed, there would be a remnant who would be faithful totally and will overcome as Jesus overcome. You can eat and drink with the Lord, you can feast with Him and you may still fall away. It is the overcomer that is the faithful remnant. Notice that since the generation of Sister White, we’ve had three more and those three generations have continued to be sifted to the point where you have the seed and then you have the remnant of her seed. The seed will continue to be sifted.
In Desire of Ages that they had to leave the previous church.
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. UL 131
As He did it all through the history, He’s got to continue to do on that same principle. We saw it now after 1888 and now the church of 1914, the company that opened their hearts to Jesus, it says:
When a church proves unfaithful to the work of the Lord, whatever their position may be, however high and sacred they’re 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. UL 131
They must overcome as Christ, there is still purification to take place.
If these do not purify their lives from every wrong action. If they do not establish pure and holy principles in all their borders, The Lord will grievously afflict and humble them, and unless they repent, will remove them from their place and make them a reproach. UL 131
Here is the seed and if they will not faithfully do everything right in their borders, then He will really purge them. He will give them a hard time like we can study in our Sabbath School lesson. He will remove them from their place and make them a reproach and the faithful little remnant continues that stands pure and 100 % cleansed from all wrong.
Here she stands in full and final display in the Scriptures.
Revelation 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.
Revelation 7:14 They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Full and final display; the remnant. If you want to be part of that remnant, we can identify the seed of the woman after 1914, but the purging goes on. Will you be where the flock is? Can you find the footsteps of the flock and identify, see with your own spiritual aside from the Word of God.
There was the seed of 1914 -15 and here we go. That was the previous generation to mine and now comes my generation. Where am I going to be? Am I going to be with the woman’s seed or with the remnant of the woman’s seed? What credentials are you looking for? Again, everything we’ve studied, the beauty of the Atonement of Jesus, you must be part of a church that understands that, the beauty of perfect obedience to Him. But in the beauty of perfect obedience to Him, what is the credential that will reveal the faithful remnant? This is real comfort to my soul. She speaks when the churches follow God’s ways.
They will love God supremely and their neighbour as themselves. Ephraim will not envy Judah and Judah not vex Ephraim. Divisions will then be healed and harsh sounds of strife will no more be heard in the borders of Israel. Through the grace freely given them of God, all will seek to answer the prayer of Christ. TMK 88
What was that? That His disciples should be one, even as he and the Father are one. Peace, love, mercy and benevolence will be the abiding principle of the soul. When you mingle with God’s remnant, what will you hear?
The love of Christ will be the theme of every tongue, and it will no more be said by the True Witness, “I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” [Revelation 2:4.] The people of God will be abiding in Christ, the love of Jesus will be revealed, and one Spirit will animate all hearts, regenerating and renewing in the image of Christ, fashioning all hearts alike. As living branches of the True Vine, all will be united to Christ the living Head. Christ will abide in every heart, guiding, comforting, sanctifying and presenting to the world the unity of the followers of Jesus, thus bearing testimony that the heavenly credentials are supplied to the remnant church. In the oneness of Christ’s church it will be proved that God sent His only begotten Son into the world. 9LtMs, Ms 84, 1894, par. 8
Can you remember the introduction of the Divine Service today? Bone of our bones, flesh of our flesh, united perfectly, led to perfection. Christ will abide in every heart, guiding, comforting, sanctifying and presenting to the world, follow carefully, presenting to the world the unity of the followers of Jesus, thus bearing testimony that the heavenly credentials are supplied to the remnant church. What are the heavenly credentials? Unity, love, mercy, benevolence, precious communication together of the same Jesus in each heart. That body of Christ in the full and final display that is to shine across the world. In the oneness of Christ’s church it would be proved that God sent His only begotten Son into the world. Can you begin to see as you follow the footsteps through the study of God’s Word and looking for the flock? Can you begin to observe the Lord Jesus doing this work? I can. I’ve been looking for it for many years.
I’m rejoicing as I’m sharing this with you that the Lord Jesus is achieving His ends. Although there is much fighting without, God’s faithful people will press together and there will be no divisions. There will be a patient concentration on Jesus together and the precious love that Jesus is one with us in body, bone and flesh so that we can be one in the divine communion with Him is that which pervades our mind and we think and talk of nothing higher and that it is my prayer that we will be willing to submit to the refining processes that bring us to that and thus be counted among the remnant. But the choice is left with you. I’ve made mine.
May God grant us to make those choices.
Amen.
