 Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; Healing and salvation go together |
RH#5: Revealing Jesus
In the Last Generation
In the Last Generation
Jesus and the 144 K: People of Conscience
Let's turn to Revelation 14:1-5. While we're turning, may I ask, have you considered the idea of conscience?
Conscience, says the dictionary, means "the awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct." It comes originally from a Latin word meaning "to be conscious of." We are talking about knowing the difference between right and wrong, and acting in concert with that knowing. That is, if one is concerned about doing what is right, he will try to act in harmony with what he understands to be right. If one does not care, his inclination will be to do whatever he wants; whatever he thinks is right for him is what he will do. This is the thinking of modern relativism and post-modernism. It is very subjective, but let's not miss this--it is subjective because its basis for making decisions is that it strips away definitive moral boundaries. It opens the door to getting whatever we want. It is a mask for the pure indulgence of selfishness.
Perhaps a person wants to do what is wrong, but is afraid of being caught. Because the odds of getting caught are too high, someone who otherwise would do wrong, might be all smiles and sweetness--on the outside. On the inside however, they may not be having ethically good thoughts.
Someone put it like this once. While you are around the house, your dog or cat (if it is an indoors-privileged dog or cat) may be very obedient. It may stay off the kitchen counters or off of the couch. But when you are not present, does it still obey? You can't make ethical arguments with your dog or cat. They might understand that something pleases or displeases you. But you are not going to get them to understand why it is right or wrong. A dog or a cat is made in the image of a dog or a cat. They have consciousness, but they don't reason morally. Man alone is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Only the highest orders of being, (people and angels and God) so far as we know, both are self-aware and capable of choosing to act in harmony with moral measures. The holy Spirit illuminates our minds. God speaks to us. We react. We do right or we do wrong. But our heart is always somewhere.
Where are the hearts of God's followers in the end-time? Revelation 14:1-5 says this of them:
And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
These are ethical people. Moral people. Consider the description. Their Father's name is written in their foreheads. They sing a new song unique to their condition of purity and renewal. They are redeemed from the earth, which means they had sinned but are finally saved. God has changed them. They are followers of Jesus, completely on His side, completely mobilized to be with Jesus. They follow Him, it says, wherever He goes.
Wherever He goes.
Where did He go? What did He do? Where is He going?
Lamb on the Move
He descended from heaven to save miserable, hard-to-love people, naturally inclined (after the fall) to evil. What did it cost Him--what did He do, in order to bring these people from sin to His side, from evil to purity? The cost was high. Turn to Philippians 2:5-11 with me. Let's read:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
It says He "took the form of a servant." Literally, He "emptied Himself." The Bible translators were too scandalized by the thought that God would empty Himself, and they rendered it that He "made Himself of no reputation." Yet although He was/is God, He laid aside His divinity and came to live here in the guise of a mere man. More than God in costume, yet taking on the humanity of fallen man, Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). To accomplish this, He came without His divine accessories. He came into this world and to the very limitations that we have. Look with me for a moment at this startling text in the book of Romans 8:3-4:
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Because of man's fallen nature, the law could only condemn us. It was weak through the flesh. But God sent Jesus, not in the unlikeness, but in the very likeness of sinful flesh. He came in our flesh to do battle in our flesh. He had to if He was to solve the sin problem. So He came "in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin." And in doing that, the Bible says that He "condemned sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). It was the only way.
The only way to do what? To carve out an exit path for His people from the jungle of sin. As He went before them in the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night back in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan, so He came to the wilderness of our sin-ravaged world and entered our race. He walked in the pathway we had so abused. "He knew what was in man," the Bible says (John 2:25). Because it was in Him. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh. It pulled on Him just as it pulled on us. But He never answered the pull. He resisted. Not by His own divine power--He had set that aside. But He resisted in the same power available to us. He resisted by the power sent Him from the Father. Oh what hope this gives to us!
And that's why Romans 8:3 alone doesn't complete the thought. It is followed by Romans 8:4, which says that He did this so, "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." He came, took our nature, lived in the furnace of our nature, overcame by His Father's strength, died on the Cross, walked out of the grave, rose to heaven, and now ministers in our behalf. He is working.
To produce His 144,000.
He became as human as we are so that we could become as obedient as He is. He condemned sin in our flesh so that we could live righteously now in this present world in our flesh. (Titus 2:12). He crushed the serpent as prophesied bruising His heel (Genesis 3:15), so that we might crush the serpent under our feet and bring glory to the name that is above all names (Romans 16:20).
He emptied Himself and went to the Cross to die in our place. The Bible says that He became sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:20). The Bible ever hastens to add that Jesus never sinned. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that He "knew no sin." Hebrews 7:26 says that He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." Hebrews 4:15 said that He was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), whether inwardly or outwardly. To sin is to disobey. Jesus never disobeyed. He always obeyed, although He "emptied Himself" coming "in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin" and then "condemning sin in the flesh." All this so that sin might be condemned in our flesh.
He lived in the presence of pure evil and endured the assaults of all wickedness. He voluntarily suffered the tasting of the second death in our behalf. The depth of His sacrifice we will never know, but we do know that becoming as human as we are, He voluntarily and eternally limited Himself by entering His creation alongside His finite creatures. The Creator stepped into His creation and redeemed it. The project was expensive beyond measure.
On finishing His mission here, the plan of redemption was not yet complete. The benefits of His atonement must be transmitted to His needy people. He went back to heaven to serve as our great high Priest, to apply divine power to our needed repairs as we co-operate with Him. He ministers for us now in the sanctuary in heaven. He is finishing the atonement. He is repairing us. He is creating the 144 K. His 144 K. When He stands upon Mount Zion with His people, He'll look back to everything that's happened, to all His suffering in Gethsemane and on the Cross. He'll "see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied" (Isaiah 53:11). He'll see what it all meant and what was achieved. The universe will be new again. Sin will never be repeated.
The Lamb on Display
Which brings us to us. Jesus came here. He lived without sinning in our flesh and died on the Cross to buy back our race. He went back to heaven to prepare a place for us. He will return again to take us unto Himself, that where He is, we may be. (John 14:1-3). But we have a part in the process. No, we earn ourselves no credit or merit toward our own salvation--Jesus saves. But the passage in Philippians had two more verses we didn't read. Let's go back there and catch them in Philippians 2:12-13, now in connection with Jesus' incarnation.
Philippians 2:5 commanded us to have the mind of Christ. Then Christ is portrayed in His descent to help us, laying aside His divine power. He dies on the Cross never having taken that power up in 33 years, never having tapped it to do even one miracle. All His miracles were done through the Father's power (John 5:30). Christendom today is permeated with the idea that we have nothing to do in the salvation process; that, if we did
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
He speaks to all of God's people, for here Paul says "you" and "your own" salvation, and in the Greek those are plurals. He means "you believers," more than "you individuals." Heaven is preparing a group; a group who have worked out their own salvation. They've not been saved on their own, but have worked out their salvation with God, for the text says that the working out of their own salvation is God working in them, to will and to do of His good pleasure. Bluntly put, if we don't do our work in choosing to submit, He can't do His work of helping us submit. If we don't let Him repair us, He doesn't. He respects our choices. He gave us a conscience, not to be overruled or gone around, but to be our own. We get to choose. He graciously provides the power. He lovingly sends even the grace that enables us to respond to Him. But the choice remains with us.
Where do God's people go? They go to the mind of Christ. Whereas He emptied Himself of divinity, they empty themselves of humanity fallen. He becomes sin for us. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. Its all God's plan--not ours. Its so much bigger than we had ever dreamt of. It is the outworking of the true gospel. It is the extinguishing of sin from the universe. It is the end of the groaning of all creation. It is the revealing of the sons and daughters of God (Romans 8:19-21; John 1:12). It is the culmination of the journey of the universe. It is the end. It is the beginning. It is heaven's omega to Satan's alpha. Lucifer began the fight, lived out the mystery of sin to its bitter fullness, and God ends the fight, working out the mystery of righteousness in His people. His righteousness is revealed in His people (Romans 1:17).
At the end of the battle, Jesus will stand on Mount Zion with His 144,000. They have Christ in them "the hope of glory," at that point fully realized. But along the way they also lived out this hope and knew the inward working of God day by day, (Colossians 1:27-29). That's what they did. They lived in this world without being of this world. They lived in connection with Jesus.
Where are they going? They are not stopping here. Earth is but a waymark on our journey, friends. We are going to heaven. We are going "to ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
So what will we do? We'll descend from our tiny, provincial sin-filled "heavens," and surrender our indulgences in the pleasures of sin for a season. We'll repent. We'll battle thoroughly with self and plead thoroughly with God to change us. We'll hold still while He does the surgery with no anesthesia. We'll descend from what appear to be more luxurious destinies to bend down to the lowly and needy. We'll know where we are going. Our eternal destiny is on our mind. We'll forge our destiny by a constant communion with the Holy Spirit. We'll hand over to God our corrupted value system and embrace His value system through His Word. We'll become agents of His truth, representatives of His kingdom, standard bearers in the midst of apostasy, targets in the war of Satan.
And that will be O.K.
God Vindicated
God's character will be vindicated through us. Did you ever consider how He is on trial? You see, the final demonstration of what the gospel can do in and for humanity is still in the future. The 144,000 will make that demonstration in the power of God. Jesus forged the path and showed us how and empowers us to live for Him now. Our mission is simply to show that what God did in Christ He can do in us. This is the demonstration that the world has been waiting for. When it is accomplished, the end will come.
The last generation of people living on the earth will be those in whom God successfully makes this demonstration. Satan says that no one can keep God's law. God says, yes they can. But it will not be through two or three unusual people, super-saints sprinkled through the ages of the Bible, that He makes this demonstration. Satan could say, "Oh, those are exceptions." God will, in the last generation, demonstrate en masse what His gospel does in the lives of those who let Him remove sin.
All heaven is watching for this mighty demonstration. And they haven't seen it yet. Yes, in a life here and a life there, they've seen the hints. But something very different is going to happen in the last generation of Jesus-followers. That's where God has placed us on the map. At the end.
The Bible says that these are things that "angels desire to look into" (1 Peter 1:12). It says that when God is judged He will be vindicated (Romans 3:4). And it says that in the end, Christ stands victoriously on Mount Zion with His 144,000 (Revelation 14:1-5). See, each of our lives is a vote. In the end, when each life is evaluated in the judgment, the analysis will show who we voted for. Our life is a vote.
Who has your end-time vote?
That's what this showdown between Christ and Satan--the seal of God and the mark of the beast--is all about; who has your vote? Some of us will vote for Jesus and God's government and our lives will show it. Some of us will vote for Satan and his government and our lives will show it. Two groups are being developed.
One group let's the great Physician heal them. They give the last message with firmness at the end. Another group, please pardon this picture, goes around bleeding all over the place saying that God has saved them, while their wounds remain undressed. Their testimony to the world is confusing, their high profession is tangled with their strange living. They send a mixed-message at a time when God send the world an unmixed message. Life versus death, the seal of God or the mark of the beast--one or the other will be in each and every human forehead in the end. A people only who have known a gospel that saves, will be ready at that time to give that final warning. Sad to say, so sad, we cannot know how many will, because they accepted the premises of a false gospel, come up to those closing days and hours still nursing their cherished sins. And Our Lord Jesus will have to say to them--"depart from Me, you who work iniquity. I never knew you" (Matthew 7:23).
Followers Without Fault
Finally, let us turn to this text, one not often heard any more: Revelation 14:5: "And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God." At the end, Jesus' people have become like Him. So like Him, that the Bible can say of them, "there is no guile" found in their mouth. They, by connection with Jesus, have placed themselves beyond lying, beyond telling untruth in any way. They have embraced He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Not only their mouths, but their lives soundly represent Jesus and the kingdom of God to the onlooking universe.
Revelation also says, "they are without fault before the throne of God." No continuing sin can be found in their lives. They have voted for Christ. Completely. They are completely and unreservedly His. The command goes out finally in their behalf, "he that is holy, let him be holy still" (Revelation 22:11). They have overcome--fully--by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14). They made their robes white by the blood of the Lamb. They were changed, repaired by Jesus. Heaven rests its case.
God is vindicated.
That's why there is a great controversy friends. So that Jesus can help us to come unto the throne of grace and receive God's power (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19-20). How important--how infinitely important--that we take God up on His offer and become followers of Jesus here and now.
Revealing the Healing: A Gospel That Saves
To become followers of Jesus here and now, we need to invite the great Physician to heal us. Here and now. Let us turn to our last text in these meetings. Join me for a closing study through the passage of Jeremiah 17.
Let us read these verses 5-14.
Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters. Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise.
All trust in the "doctrines and commandments of men" is trust in man, is making flesh our arm. "Cursed" is the pronouncement upon that false gospel. No matter how creative, no matter how many letters from titled and degrees come after a name, no matter the credential card, only the teaching that harmonizes with what Jesus and the apostles and the Bible teach is the true gospel. Some of us here will remember back. Some of us here, whether not knowing any better or for whatever reason, had embraced a false gospel. Our experience then was the experience of the curse. Half-in, half out of God's plan, we were struggling and trying to make things fit that didn't fit, work that didn't work. We were under the curse.
In contrast, the Biblical gospel, the one that reveals the healing of God, speaks in a different way. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is." Do you hear that? Do you get that? Rather than like a dry, gnarled, parched little sagebrush in the desert, "For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." This is the experience we all must have.
Do you know why we can never trust or live Christianity successfully by the doctrines and commandments of men? Because of the next line: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." We can never teach truth if we insist on reading it out through the lens of a false gospel. The Lord searches the heart, the Lord knows what we need. He tests us, and grants us what we need to grow. "As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool." All the supposed riches we have in the false gospel will never take us home, never prepare a people. Those clinging to a forensic-only theology are like a bird sitting on her eggs, constantly warming them, constantly trying to hatch them, to bring them to maturity. But they will never hatch. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one" (Job 14:4). You can't get grapes from thorns. But God would give us gospel grapes.
Now, we understand that Jesus stands today ministering for us in heaven, seeking to cooperate with us, to bring healing to the ruin we all know so well. "A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters." The great Physician longs to heal.
Will we let Him?
The fourteenth verse puts it plain: "Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise." Will you, will I, be saved? Then we must also be healed. Will you give the true message in the end of time? Will I? Then we must be healed? Will we trust in the constructions of men, or the gospel of God, rich, and biblical, thirst-quenching, life-changing? No one can decide that for me but myself, for you, but you.
As we close this meeting this day, let us kneel before our Lord and seek Him afresh. The sands of time have trickled to but a few grains. God doesn't need great armies. Just those willing to follow Jesus--just a few humble fisher-folk in 2001. What do you say brothers? Sisters? Jesus is ready to take us home. Let us ask Him to prepare us to go. Let us now pray, that not one here, will be missing, and that all of us will let Jesus reveal His healing in us.
Without delay.
Warning: filemtime() [function.filemtime]: stat failed for http://www.collisionwithprophecy.org/rh/rhtrunk/rh5.trunk in /usr/www/users/drogue/collisionwithprophecy/rh/rh5.php3 on line 20
