Devotional Message - September 30, 1999

By E Edward Zinke

The devotional message entitled "In the Fullness of Time--Prophetic Certainty" was presented by E Edward Zinke, President of Ann's House of Nuts in Jessup, Maryland, former President of the Adventist Theological Society, and a doctoral candidate at Catholic University. Scripture texts are taken from the New King James Version. 

You have just received an official-looking envelope from the United Nations. With anticipation, you tear it open. Excitement runs through your veins as you read the invitation to join the first international space team to land on the planet Mars. This team will be a select, highly trained group. What a privilege it is to have been chosen. What is more, you have been asked to select other participants to join you. While five additional persons are the absolute minimum, ten would be ideal. You immediately call your closest friends and relatives to inform them of this special event. You can hardly stop talking about it. Nothing this exciting has ever happened to you before.

You carefully choose ten people from around the world to join your team. Lift off will take place in six months. The preparation will be intense. Briefings will include everything from the scientific experiments to be conducted to the physical and mental preparation necessary to survive the trip. You will be taught to handle weightlessness, how to eat with a space suit on, how to sleep, and how to be productive in the environment expected on Mars.

You quickly realize that this upcoming event will dominate every minute of your life. Getting the proper food, rest, exercise, and training will all center on the moment of take off. The way you use your time, the things that you think about, and even the way that you relate to other people will all be affected by this major goal in your life. You are a person largely defined by this future event, a person who will soon be among the first to step foot on Mars. Furthermore, you are part of a team that quickly pulls together to accomplish this challenging task.

Just as final preparations for take off commence, your exuberance becomes mixed with feelings of frustration and loss. One of the ten participants has bought a new tractor to plow his farm. His excitement over trying out his new toy takes the place of his trip to Mars. Two of the team members became acquainted with each other and then engaged to be married while preparing for the Mars mission. They have just moved up the date of their marriage by six months, and therefore will also be canceling. Another has just bought a piece of property and needs to look it over with the realtor rather than take part in the expedition. Finally, one member has failed to adequately prepare. When the fullness of time has come, only five team members are ready to participate in this marvelous event. Yet, in spite of the disappointment, the mission is launched and the project is overwhelmingly successful.

Each of us has been handed a similar invitation, not from the United Nations, but from the King of the Universe; not for a temporal event of limited duration, but for eternity! Can anything be more exciting than the invitation from the Creator to explore with Him the vastness and the intricacies of the universe which He has created, and to live throughout eternity in His fellowship and that of our loved ones?

Would we find an invitation from the United Nations more captivating than this invitation from the Lord of the Universe? Would an invitation to be among the first humans to land on Mars be of greater significance to our lives than the invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb? Would preparation for a Mars landing be of more importance in defining who we are than is the hope of the Second Coming? If so, has the Second Coming lost something of its certainty, its urgency, its reality, and therefore its power to shape our lives?

Let us vow to reinvigorate our appreciation of the greatest event of all time. The invitation to this event has been delivered with special care through prophets, apostles, and God's own Son, Jesus Christ. It did not come wrapped in the formal attire of a business envelope delivered by an impersonal postman. It came from the outstretched arms of God Himself who longs to welcome us home.

God's invitation to come home is not simply an event to add to the twenty-nine other items already on your calendar! It is the event of the ages--the culmination of all that God has done to reconcile us to Himself. When you accept God's invitation, the magnitude of this future occasion will take center stage in your life. It will dominate your thinking, the use of your time, your personal relationships, and it will cement your relationship with God for eternity.

The invitation to participate in the Second Coming of Christ is paralleled by other occasions when God Himself has sent His servants at pivotal times in history to offer salvation to humanity. A study of the key elements involved in each of these events will clarify the issues just before the Second Coming of Christ.

As we study these events, a pattern emerges that parallels the event of the Second Coming of Christ. 

What was the key characteristic that was decisive for God when He chose Noah, Abraham, Caleb, Joshua, John the Baptist, and many others, to carry His special message to their generation? Hebrews 11 enumerates many of God's chosen messengers and emphasizes that they successfully carried out God's will for their lives because they responded to Him in faith. Not only did each of them preach a message of faith in God, they also lived by faith, a faith that implied the Second Coming (Heb 10:37, 38). Although they did not live to see the things that were promised by God, their faith gave them certainty, assurance that He would fulfill His promises and warnings (Heb 11:10, 13, 39). 

The event of the flood illustrates the pattern that we noticed above. In the days of Noah, God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the heart was evil continually (Gen 6:5). If humankind should continue on this course, the image of God would be eradicated from the earth. Therefore, God planned the destruction of this earth by a flood. But how could God destroy man whom He had lovingly shaped by the palm of His hand? God provided a way of salvation. As He has always done throughout history, God sent a messenger to summon humanity to depart from idolatrous ways and to return to the worship of the true God (2 Peter 2:5; Heb 11:7).  

Put yourself in Noah's place and try to understand the faith it required to fulfill God's call. There had never been a destructive flood. People were happy with their evil ways, with their designer gods who allowed them to live in sin. Yet, the God of heaven asked Noah to commit his resources and 120 of the best years of his life to a cause that was not only unpopular, but that seemed foolish in the eyes of the people.  

The scientists from the best universities made it clear that rain was out of the question. The most popular and prestigious theologians clarified the issue--a god of love would not destroy the creatures that he had created! The scholars condemned Noah "because he would not be turned from his purpose by reasonings and theories of men. It is true that Noah could not controvert their philosophies, or refute the claims of science so called; but he could proclaim the word of God; for he knew it contained the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and, as he sounded it everywhere, it lost none of its force and reality because men of the world treated him with ridicule and contempt" (ST 243, 244). Noah lived by faith in the Word of God. 

The God who revealed Himself through Noah was weighed in the balances by the antediluvians (the people of Noah's day) and found wanting? Good gods don't behave that way. They don't threaten by a flood, they don't destroy their creation, they don't act against the eternal laws of nature.  

The antediluvians created their own designer gods. They worshiped the gods who harmonized with their philosophy and science, who fit their culture, who justified their sin; and thereby they rejected the God of the universe, the God of revelation and salvation.

When the fullness of time was come, God acted in history to bring about the salvation of His people, of those who operated by faith in His Word. He warned them of impending doom and ushered them into the ark of safety. 

When the fullness of time had come, God again called upon another of His messengers. Abraham was asked to leave his own country, Ur of the Chaldeans, to go into a land which he knew not. "Relying upon the divine promise, without the least outward assurance of its fulfillment, he abandoned home and kindred and native land, and went forth, he knew not wither, to follow where God should lead" (PP 126).  

"He could not even explain his course of action so as to be understood by his friends. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and his motives and actions were not comprehended by his idolatrous kindred." (Ibid 126). 

Abraham's decision was based upon totally different principles than those of the world. The Word of God rather than worldly principles was the foundation of his action.  

Again, when the fullness of time had come, God called upon Israel to depart from Kadesh-barnia and invade the land of Canaan. The ten spies responded to the Word of God with doubt. From a human military standpoint the task was impossible. There were giants in the land. The Canaanites were well prepared for battle. They had the latest military techniques, the best weapons, and they lived in well fortified cities. Israel, by contrast, was untrained and unarmed. No god in his right mind would take a nomadic tribe into such potential slaughter. The designer gods of the age called into question the reasonableness of a God who would make such a command. By contrast, Caleb and Joshua responded in faith to the voice of God, and urged Israel to seize the land under God's blessing (Num 14:7-9, 24, 30).

The decision process of the antediluvians, the idolatrous friends of Abraham, and the ten spies was similar to that of Eve by the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Each started by doubting God's Word--"has God really said?" They then continued with a human analysis of the situation. The serpent has eaten of the tree and now has increased capabilities. If I perform the same experiment, why just imagine, I might become like God. Furthermore, a God of love would not destroy a creature that He has made. Thus they used the principles of science and philosophy as the foundation for their concept of god. They built a god who fit their analysis of the situation--a designer god--a god whom they could worship and obey according to their own liking.

If I could go back and rewrite biblical history, it would start like this, "By faith, when confronted by the serpent in the tree in the Garden of Eden, Eve was victorious through her allegiance to the Word of God. She responded to Satan, 'It is written, you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.'" Instead, Eve responded with methodological doubt in the Word of God. Doubt was for her a key ingredient in knowledge and faith. The humanistic world within which Eve, the antediluvians, the relatives of Abraham, and the ten tribes operated is in sharp contrast to the Christian principle of faith in the Word of God. Noah, Abraham, Caleb, and Joshua based their decisions upon God's Word rather than on human wisdom and doubt.

From the time of the entrance of sin, God has revealed Himself through His messengers in order that humanity might know Him and live in the hope of the coming Messiah. God's promise of a Redeemer was given to Adam and Eve immediately after their sin (Gen 3:15). It was kept alive by Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, and Noah. Abraham was promised that in him all families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:3). Jacob foretold that the scepter would not depart from Judah until Shiloh came (Gen 49:8-10). Moses saw the coming of a Deliverer like unto himself (Deut 18:15, 18). The patriarchal and Mosaic sacrifices pointed to the coming Saviour who would be "brought as a lamb to the slaughter" in order to take the sins of the people upon Himself and die in their place (COL 126, PK 681-686).

The prophecy of Daniel 9 foretold the mission of the Messiah: 

This prophecy would be consummated in the middle of the week when Christ would die on the cross and bring an end to sacrifice and offering (Dan 9:24-27).

The Messiah came at God's appointed time. "'When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son.' Providence had directed the movements of nations, and the tide of human impulse and influence, until the world was ripe for the coming of the Deliverer. The nations were united under one government. One language was widely spoken, and was everywhere recognized as the language of literature. From all lands the Jews of the dispersion gathered to Jerusalem to the annual feasts. As these returned to the places of their sojourn, they could spread throughout the world the tidings of the Messiah's coming.

"At this time the systems of heathenism were losing their hold upon the people. Men were weary of pageant and fable. They longed for a religion that could satisfy the heart. While the light of truth seemed to have departed from among men, there were souls who were looking for light, and who were filled with perplexity and sorrow. They were thirsting for a knowledge of the living God, for some assurance of a life beyond the grave" (DA 32). 

The Bible emphasizes that Christ came at the right time. Luke warns about those who are able to discern the weather, but are not able to discern the time of the Messiah (Luke 12:54-57). John proclaimed, "'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel'" (Mark 1:15). Jesus did not go up to Jerusalem, because His time had not yet come (John 7:5-10). At the appropriate moment, Christ declared, "My time is at hand" (Matt 26:18, cf. Luke 9:51-55). And finally, Paul emphasizes that "when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Gal 4:4, 5). 

As at the time of Noah, so also at the time of the coming of Christ, the deception of sin had reached its height. Darkness covered the people (Isa 9:2; 60:2). "Again men multiplied upon the earth, and again they took the attitude of rebellion against God. . . . Men made void the law, and naturalized the principles of sin. Those who did not disregard the law of God were subject to the strongest enmity; for every species of sin was legalized. Satan boasted before the angels of heaven that he held dominion over the creation of God. The unity of society was made by enmity to God. A corrupt harmony existed among men in their aversion to God, which bound them together in one vast army" (ST, March 5, 1896 paragraph 5). 

"The fullness of the time had come. Humanity, becoming more degraded through ages of transgression, called for the coming of the Redeemer. Satan had been working to make the gulf deep and impassable between earth and heaven. By his falsehoods he had emboldened men in sin. It was his purpose to wear out the forbearance of God, and to extinguish His love for man, so that He would abandon the world to satanic jurisdiction.  

"Satan was seeking to shut out from men a knowledge of God, to turn their attention from the temple of God, and to establish his own kingdom. His strife for supremacy had seemed to be almost wholly successful. It is true that in every generation God had His agencies. Even among the heathen there were men through whom Christ was working to uplift the people from their sin and degradation. But these men were despised and hated. Many of them suffered a violent death. The dark shadow that Satan had cast over the world grew deeper and deeper.  

"Through heathenism, Satan had for ages turned men away from God; but he won his great triumph in perverting the faith of Israel. By contemplating and worshiping their own conceptions, the heathen had lost a knowledge of God, and had become more and more corrupt. So it was with Israel. The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the foundation of every heathen religion; it had now become the principle of the Jewish religion. Satan had implanted this principle. Wherever it is held, men have no barrier against sin.  

"The message of salvation is communicated to men through human agencies. But the Jews had sought to make a monopoly of the truth which is eternal life. They had hoarded the living manna, and it had turned to corruption. The religion which they tried to shut up to themselves became an offense. They robbed God of His glory, and defrauded the world by a counterfeit of the gospel. They had refused to surrender themselves to God for the salvation of the world, and they became agents of Satan for its destruction" (DA 34-36).

Satan's purposes were progressive. His desire was to misrepresent the character of God. He accomplished this by bringing about a misinterpretation of the scriptures, which God had given as a revelation of Himself. If he could twist God's Word in the minds of the people, they would be open to designer gods and to associated sins. The image of God in mankind could be obliterated. Satan was most successful in involving the spiritual leaders in his plan to misrepresent God's Word.

"Sin had become a science, and vice was consecrated as a part of religion. Rebellion had struck its roots deep into the heart, and the hostility of man was most violent against heaven. It was demonstrated before the universe that, apart from God, humanity could not be uplifted. A new element of life and power must be imparted by Him who made the world" (DA 37).

Thus, the fullness of time came at the point of the deepest depth of sin and degradation of the image of God in humankind. The time was ripe for God to send His Son into the world to redeem fallen humanity.

All heaven marveled and rejoiced that the Son of God who Himself was all the fullness of the Godhead bodily should become one with us. Good tidings of great joy! Glory to God in the highest, for there is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord (Luke 2:10-14). His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6). He was the Redeemer of Israel, the Holy One of Israel (Isa 49:10), and the Desire of all Nations (Hag 2:7).

He himself was God--the Creator of all things. He had the power to create life on this world in six literal twenty-four hour consecutive days. He had the power to recreate and therefore to offer salvation. He was the Messiah, the Saviour. As our substitute, He would take our sins upon Himself and die in our place in order that we might have life (Hos 14:2; Isa 53:6,7; Rom 3:25).

When the fullness of time was come, Christ came into the world as the revelation of the Father (John 1:18). Christ Himself was the author of truth. He was the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). He was grace, love, truth, life, justice and freedom. He came to restore knowledge of the true God and to make possible the regeneration of the human race.

In the fullness of time, God became flesh and dwelt among us. But He had no form nor comeliness--no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected of men; a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we hid as it were our faces from him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not (Isa 53:2, 3).

The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator of the universe, the Saviour of humanity came to His own, and His own received Him not (John 1:9, 10). He was weighed in the balance and found wanting, for He did not fit the standard definitions of a designer god. He did not fit the expectations of the culture. The Majesty of Heaven came and we were ashamed of Him. We loved darkness rather than the light. While heaven rejoiced over this precious gift, we ignored and rejected Him, we plotted to take His life. We clung to our designer gods, asking for Barabas in place of our Creator and Redeemer.

He came as the way, the truth, and the life, and we put Him in our test tubes to discover whether He was truth. Quality control checked Him out in the spectrometer of history, science, and philosophy, and He failed the test. He was a stumbling block to the Jews who sought knowledge empirically, and foolishness to the Greeks who sought knowledge philosophically. Like Pilot, we asked, "What is truth?" when truth was standing right before us. We saw truth as a concept or as a fact, rather than as a person, and so we attempted to find a way to bring Him into our cannon of truth. Our attempt was to maintain control of the truth rather than to submit to Him who was the way, the truth, and the life. We thought that we were free to seek the truth, when, in fact, it is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32). In our human wisdom, we sought to find God, and we ended up with our designer gods--we worshiped the creature rather than the Creator (Rom 1:18-32; 1 Cor 1:21; 1SM 249, 250).

In the fullness of time, Christ came to His own, and they rejected him. "But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12, 13). "Satan was exalting that he had succeeded in debasing the image of God in humanity. Then Jesus came to restore in man the image of his Maker. None but Christ can fashion anew the character that has been ruined by sin. He came to expel the demons that had controlled the will. He came to lift us up from the dust, to reshape the marred character after the pattern of His divine character, and to make it beautiful with His own glory" (DA 37, 38).

Christ himself set for us an example in living by faith. In the wilderness of temptation, He overcame where Adam, the antediluvians, and the ten spies at Kadesh-barnia failed. Instead of operating humanistically, His decision was founded upon the Word of God.

The temptation of Christ took place immediately after the declaration at His baptism. God had said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt 3:17). Satan immediately gave Jesus the opportunity to doubt and test the Word of God for its validity. As if he were an angel of light, Satan came to Jesus declaring that a heavenly being had been cast out of heaven, and that the emaciated appearance of Jesus would indicate Him to be that fallen being. He then asked Jesus to prove His Sonship by turning the stones into bread.

Christ could have listened to the philosophical arguments of Satan--"a God of love would not leave His Son in the wilderness for forty days without food and companionship." He also could have yielded to the temptation to prove His divinity scientifically by turning the stones into bread. Instead he responded with faith in the Word of God. "It is written" was His answer. In so doing, He set an example for those who are preparing for the Second Coming.

Just as God was guiding history at the time of the flood, in the departure of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans, in the entrance of Israel into the promised land, and in the first coming of Christ; so, in the fullness of time, in God's own time, He will gather together those who have placed their trust in Christ and who have lived by His Word of truth (Eph 1:9-15). The Bible emphasizes that the time of the Second Coming and the judgment of the wicked is in God's hands. "The time is at hand. 'He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; . . he who is righteous, let him be righteous still'" (Rev 22:10, 11, italics supplied ). Daniel speaks about the time for the saints to possess the kingdom (Dan 7:22). And John the Revelator emphasizes that there will come a time when "there should be delay no longer" (Rev 10:6). There will also be a time for the great day of the wrath of the Lamb (Rev 6:16, 17 cf. 12:10-12; 14:14-19). The time of the Second Coming will be manifested in God's own time--it will be on His time schedule (1 Tim 6:14-17; Acts 1:7).

As in the days of Noah (Luke 17:27; Matt 24:38) so also the Second Coming will take place when the world is at the depth of iniquity. Lawlessness will increase (Matt 24:11, 12). There will be doubt and apostasy in the church, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teacher; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables." The antidote for such apostasy will be to present Bible truth. (2 Tim

4:2-4; cf. 2 Peter 2:1, 2). There will be a falling away before the coming of the day of the Lord. The man of sin will be revealed. For he will oppose and exalt himself above God and sit as God in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. Those who do not have the love of the truth will be destroyed with the man of sin (2 Thess 2:1-16). No wonder Christ asked, when the Son of Man comes--will He find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8).

Faith is the key ingredient for those who respond to God's call to salvation. Therefore, it is important for us to understand what faith is. Hebrews 11 describes the faith of those who look forward to the Second Coming and their heavenly home. Faith for them was not based upon the philosophies or the science of their age. Faith was itself the substance (vs 1). Faith was not a human creation, it did not come from the knowledge or wisdom of the age. Faith was the gift of God (Eph 12:8, cf. 1 Cor 1, 2, 7BC 940, Ed 253). Faith came by hearing the Word of God (Rom 11:17, cf. 2SM 243, DA 126).

The participants in the hall of faith did not rest their faith in the excellency of reason, or in the power of science, history, psychology, philosophy, or any other human discipline. They placed it in the power of the Word of God. That Word brought worlds into existence. It gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, life to the dead. It is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, capable of making its own way into the human heart (Heb 4:12). The foundation of faith in God's Word gave them the certainty, the assurance of their hope in the second coming.

The messengers of God operated upon a totally different system than did their contemporaries. They lived by faith in the power of the Word of God instead of by the power of human discovery and achievement. They operated in a different ballpark, based upon two totally different sets of rules. So often it is tempting for us to try to find a common ground between the system of God and that of the world, but there is no mid-point.

Consider, for example, the difference between ping pong and soccer. Is there a compromise between the two so that the games can be meshed into one? There would need to be agreement on the ball field, the ball itself, the rules of the game, the umpires, and the goals of the game. Imagine the ping pong player bringing his ball and paddle to a soccer game, or a soccer player bringing his ball and his foot to the ping pong table.

The two games are entirely different. God's system is even more distant than the systems of the world. Abraham could not even explain to his friends the basis of his decision, for spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Noah could not controvert the science and philosophy of his age, but he could proclaim the Word of God, and it lost none of its power because of the ridicule of the religious leaders. Instead of seeking a human foundation to answer the temptations of Satan, Christ relied totally upon the Word of God. 

Faith achieves its goal when we are restored to our original relationship with God. Christianity is a relationship with God which reaches its culmination in the Second Coming. Christ Himself defined salvation as a relationship--"And this is life eternal, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).

I would like to tell you about a college teacher who is a personal and very close friend of mine. We live at almost opposite ends of the continent, meaning that we do not have the opportunity of seeing each other very often. However, we look forward to those rare occasions, and cherish each moment we have together. I have never seen him without a smile. Even on bad hair days (if men have such), he talks about his difficulties with an exuberant sense that everything is all right because it is in God's hands. He is energetic, yet quiet mannered. His disposition is even, and he is pleasant to be around. There are always new projects and horizons to explore, because he is on the cutting edge of his discipline. But what I like about him the most is his interest in people. I suspect his students love him. I have seen him slide in next to a financially disadvantaged student in the cafeteria line and quietly pick up the student's charge on his own account.

Suppose I surmise that my friend is not really interested in people--that he only cares about what he can get out of them. That is why he appears to be such a nice guy. My suspicions would soon begin to affect our relationship. Not so much from his end--he would still be the same caring, outgoing friend--but from mine. Our relationship would alter because my attitude would begin to change towards him. I would be suspicious of his actions and I would be cautious in opening up to him. Our relationship would become strained, if not broken. A healthy relationship between us depends upon listening to him and acknowledging and accepting him for who he really is.

A healthy relationship with God also depends upon accepting Him for what He is. If I were to deny essential aspects of the character of God, it would distort, if not sever, my relationship with Him. Not because God has withdrawn His loving outstretched arms, but because I no longer see Him as having arms outstretched in my direction.

How would it affect my relationship with God if I were to decide that He is not loving and compassionate, but hateful and avenging? Suppose I said that the Bible is not His Word and therefore not His self-revelation? That the Bible is only a collection of reflections by religiously talented people about their encounter with God? What if I were to say, "God, I do not believe that You created me, that you sent Your Son to die as an atonement for my sins, that You are coming back the second time to take home with You those who have accepted Your Son as their Saviour?" What if I challenged, "God, I am not your servant, but your equal"? Suppose I did not accept that God will eventually destroy the wicked at the end of the millennium, or that God is interested in whether human beings keep His law?

If I were to affirm any of the above concepts, I would be denying portions of the character of the God as He has revealed Himself. In spite of God's outstretched arms of love, I would be putting myself outside of the reach of His love. I would be embracing an idol, a designer god, rather than the true God of the universe. God cannot take home with Him those who are attached to their idols, for it is not possible to have a unique, intimate relationship with those who attach themselves to someone or something else. We must give the God who has revealed Himself our complete allegiance if we are to enter a full relationship with Him. 

Christ did not say life eternal is knowing any designer god, whoever he is--He wants us to relate to the only true God. Paul states that God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:3). 

In the fullness of time, God is calling for a people to proclaim the everlasting gospel (Rev 14:6-12)--the fullness of the message that He has revealed in His Word. This message is a call to enter into a relationship with the true God whose hour of judgment has come. It is a call to worship Him as the Creator, an acknowledgment that takes place by accepting His Sabbath, His memorial of creation. This message is important in the last days because meaningful observance of the Sabbath relies solely on acceptance of the Word of God.

God's people are those who have not bowed the knee to Babylon, the capital city of designer gods--of gods that are of human creation and genius. They will keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus (Rev 14:12 cf. 1 Peter 1:3-13).

What is the faith of Jesus? Christ responded to the temptations of Satan with faith in the Word of God. He did not come to scripture with a sophisticated scientific or philosophical mindset. He did not start with doubt in order to prove God's Word. He answered with a simple, "It is written."

God is also looking for a people in the last days that are willing to stand with the faith of Jesus. For in the fullness of time, "God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible, and the Bible only, as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all reforms. The opinions of learned men, the deductions of science, the creeds or decisions of ecclesiastical councils, as numerous and discordant as are the churches which they represent, the voice of the majority--not one nor all of these should be regarded as evidence for or against any point of religious faith. Before accepting any doctrine or precept, we should demand a plain 'Thus saith the Lord' in its support" (GC 595).

Christ came to this earth to live as we must and to die in our place in order that we might be restored to His image. Why would He like to restore the image of God in humanity? Because He wants to fellowship with us, and sin distorts and destroys the possibility of that fellowship. "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2). Christ is coming for those who eagerly wait for Him (Heb 9:28). He is coming for those who know Him, for they have accepted Him, the only true God, the God who has revealed Himself through prophets, apostles, and Jesus Christ. The certainty of the prophecies concerning the Second Coming does not rest in doubt about who God is or what He has said or done. It rests upon accepting the God who has revealed Himself in the Holy Scriptures.

God's people accept the truth as it is in Jesus. As Christ's prayer for unity in John 17 points out, they have come out of the world and have accepted His Word as the basis of their life. Christ has given them God's Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world. They are united because they stand together on God's Word. They are operating in a different ballpark based upon different rules of the game. They have chosen God's rules instead of man's.

In the fullness of time, God will return for a people who love Him as He is. They have not bowed the knee to the designer god's of history, science, sociology, psychology, or any other human disciplines. They are not quibbling about the validity of God's Word. They are not left with uncertainty about the second coming. They have fallen in love with God for who He is-- the Creator of heaven and earth, the one who has the power, wisdom, and love to create life on this earth just as He said--in six days--the one who gave His life as a substitute for our sins, the one who on our behalf is ministering in the heavenly sanctuary. They accept the fullness of God and want to share the totality of His everlasting gospel with a dying world.

God wants the world to know Him, the only true God. He wants people to respond to Him as He is, in order that they might eternally enter the joy of fellowship with Him. Therefore, in the fullness of time, God will have a people upon the earth who will preach the everlasting gospel to the entire world--teaching all nations to observe all things that God has commanded. That is why we are here. That is our reason for existence.

Christ says, Surely I am coming quickly!

Let us respond, Even so, come Lord Jesus!