Here we stand in the closing moments of the year 1997. The world in which we live is characterized by change, tragedy, change, immorality, change, apostasy, change, murderous destruction. Debt increases, killings increase; in fact, most things the most evil increase. And this tired and wired world keeps on spinning. It careens madly through space, round and round the sun, and a confused planet broadcasts to itself a myriad of competing and conflicting ideologies, religions, and causes. A passing spaceship, stopping to listen in, might well be excused for thinking we were a pretty mixed-up bunch.

And all in all, we are. A race living onthe outer boundaries of the last of the last of days, experiences a great deepening darkness. And we realize that this darkness is enfolding our world. But in the utter end, something is to happen that will change all of this. Something is to happen among God's people that illuminates not only our world, but a universe. We see a glimmer of this in Isaiah 60:1-3...

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

Turn with me to Revelation 10:7. There we find these words, indicating that God does indeed have a supreme agenda. If there were no other words in the Bible, still this passage would confirm the existence of a great controversy between Christ and Satan, good and evil; for God has begun something, and He is bent upon finishing it! Listen:

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.

But first, can we even talk of understanding divine mysteries? Our God does not drop mysteries on us and then say "Ha ha. Not going to tell you what it is!" Rather, that which is revealed is revealed for us (Deuteronomy 29:29). But Ephesians shows that the mystery is made known so that it can be presented to the world. (Ephesians 3:2-5). God is in the business of revealing. He wants eyes to see and ears to hear, so that we can be healed. There is no impertinence in us when we earnestly seek to understand God and His will for us.
 

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.

Let me share a very meaningful quotation with you from the book Great Controversy, by Ellen G. White. And by the way, she is not just a favorite author. Seventh-day Adventists have compared her life and ministry with the Bible tests for prophets, and we understand her to have fully met those tests, and that she has shown herself to be every bit as prophetic as any Bible prophet. She is not part of the Bible, but I present this quotation to you as I understand it: an authoritative Word from God to us. I present it without apology. This is found on page 623:

Now, while our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become perfect in Christ. Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation. Satan finds in human hearts some point where he can gain a foothold; some sinful desire is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power. But Christ declared of Himself: 'the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me.' John 14:30. Satan could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable Him to gain the victory. He had kept His Father's commandments, and there was no sin in Him that Satan could use to His advantage. This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble.

These are they which were not defiled with women [they removed themselves from false religious systems and bodies] for they are virgins [wherever they were when God got through to them, they have since then sought out personal purity] These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth [They have such a close personal connection with Christ that they know the intimacy of the mystery of being in Him and His word dwelling within them] 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.

Yes. When their names come up in the judgment, heaven investigates each life minutely, heaven exhaustively evaluates every soul. And they pass the bar. Through His grace actively applied in their lives they have become so like Him that they are walking echoes of His perfection. They fully retain their own personality and individuality, but they are also perfected reflectors of their Redeemer. They have purified themselves, even as He is pure, and when they see Him, they will be like Him in character. See 1 John 2:28-3:3. No, never could they equal Jesus in character, but they are enabled through faith connected to God's power to live here and now in this darkened world without sinning.

Their experience is unique. They are singled-out in Revelation 14 as "these are they who...:" a distinct group. They sing "a new song, before the throne, and before the four beasts, and before the elders." Before God and before the angels and before the onlooking universe, they live-out an experience that no other group of beings have ever had. They have been tempted, not by Satan as a crafty but immature intellect firing off his first pyrotechnics of deception, but by a Satan having perfected all the mind sciences he has watched and developed over 6000 years, using his own unsurpassed intellect--a mind second only to that of God Himself. They are a group who have been assaulted by more sensory stimuli than any other generation ever have. They are a group who have had more carefully crafted, theologically finessed error thrown at them than any other. No other group has had such relativistic principles pressed upon them, such subjectivism presented for their acceptance as they. No other group has needed to so carefully cultivate the spiritual discernment that would enable them to know which impressions are self-generated, and what are the true movings of the Holy Spirit. No other generation has so needed the help of the Bible, and the protection of the Spirit of Prophecy. And they have taken the fullest advantage of the resources God has offered them. And they are...

...us...

...We hope. To you God offers the intense fellowship of living His mystery, of partaking of His nature and His presence richly and transformingly. You and I can be and must ultimately be those who have "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Revelation 7:14.
 

Those trumpets were the signal of judgment; they were God's means of showing to the inhabitants of Jericho their impending doom, and they sounded over a period of seven days. Day by day God's people were faithfully living out His directions, and day by day the city's ultimate doom was progressively ripening. Don't miss this: over time, God's judgment was being heralded, and over time, God's people were demonstrating their faithfulness in following His directions, in obeying their God. Friends, that week of time was an illustration to us of what our work stands for in these last days! Just as God has taken some 6000 years to allow the results of Satan's theory of government to show its fruits, so too He has commissioned His people throughout history to show the universe the fruits of following God's plan of government. Could God's condemnation of the city of Jericho have stood if He could not produce an obedient people? Wouldn't the onlooking universe have thought God arbitrary and fickle if He condemned a people for immorality, while not Himself producing a moral people?

Remember, Satan has charged God with being unfair in patterning the universe's moral laws according to righteousness. Satan declared that His principles were as good as God's. He said "I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the farthest sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13,14). Yet the universe has watched for six millenia while God's government produced righteous people, and Satan's produced murderers, liars, and sensualists. The fruit is now all but ripened. Under the time of the seventh trumpet (which we will consider shortly), God says He will finish His mystery! He will present to the universe not only a standard of judgment, but He will show the universe a people who have followed Him fully. In essence, He will vindicate His name, His character, His government of this universe through a people who show that His laws can be obeyed. Completely. The evidence for God's case is not only what Jesus lived and died, but what His people will live out. Brothers and sisters, our lives are the finishing of the mystery of God! Look at what God says in Ephesians 3:9,10:

And to make all [men] see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.

Don't forget what Revelation 10:7 said, "as He hath declared to his servants the prophets." Turn now to the passage in 1 Peter 1:5. There we find assurance that we are born again to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that we are kept by the power of God through faith unto what? "Salvation." What salvation? A salvation in verse nine "Ready to be revealed in the last time." It speaks of our receiving "the end" of our faith, that is, the goal or completion of it, that being "the salvation" of our souls.

"Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you" What did the prophets enquire and search diligently about? Our "salvation." "Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." They were trying to understand what this salvation meant. They knew it involved two elements here: (1)the sufferings of Christ, and (2)the glories that should follow. They knew it involved Christ living a life of unspotted obedience before His Father and the onlooking universe for 33 years as a man with the same flesh as we bear. But they also knew that linked to this incredible condescension was a glorious future for humankind. With intensity they sought to understand what this meant; what would be the outcome of God's grace actively applied in the lives of His followers? Verse 12 shows us that it was revealed to them that they did not minister the things of the gospel to themselves, but to us. They ministered primarily to us in their prophetic office--us, who live in the last days. But although they inquired and searched diligently, it is the angels who want to bend low and consider deeply all that is happening here.

We are living "things the angels desire to look into." Our little world is the lesson-book of the universe. The unfallen worlds that we look up at in the night sky, twinkling stars and unnumbered planets circling them--believe you me--their eyes are on us. What will our lives reveal about God's government? We are on center stage; we who claim to follow Jesus. What do our lives say about God's claim that He will make man more valuable than the golden wedge of Ophir? The purest and most valuable gold found in the ancient world. What character will be revealed in us, God's last-day people?

And who else will join in with us? How will others hear this message and receive its hope? Hear this from 6 Testimonies, pg. 19:

The word of truth, "It is written," is the gospel we are to preach. No flaming sword is placed before this tree of life. All who will may partake of it. There is no power that can prohibit any soul from taking of its fruit. All may eat, and live forever.

Mysteries into which angels desire to look, which prophets and kings and righteous men desired to understand, the remnant church will carry in messages from God to the world. The prophets prophesied of these things, and they longed to understand that which they foretold; but to them this privilege was not given. They longed to see what we see, and to hear what we hear; but they could not.

...is here.

It began in 1844, and has been underway since then and to this day. We are now living in the time when God is ready to finish this 6000 year test-pattern. We live in a time which many prophets and righteous men desired to see, and have not seen. It is our privilege to drink so fully at the well of salvation that it is finished in our life-time, and we walk into eternity, having never seen death. We who are alive here and now have the opportunity to experience translation when Jesus comes.

If we're ready.
 

Not by buying another devotional book. Not that you can't buy a good one; but getting a new devotional won't substitute for rolling up our spiritual sleeves. No. I offer you seven tried and true suggestions:

• How is your understanding of the gospel? Do you understand how the Adventist gospel is different than others? Can you set apart the time to begin to learn it--not from uninspired authors writing second hand--but from the Bible and EGW writings themselves?
• Are you in the Bible every day--every morning--for at least some period of devotional time?
• Are you personally due for a re-reading, or even reading for the first time, the books Great Controversy, or Early Writings by Ellen G. White?
• Can you reinvest time that you spend with television or other things and carve out some time for personal Bible study?
• Can you afford not to carve out time to read through your Bible. Starting through it maybe even today?
• Are there church services that you can be present at, or ministries like the prayer ministry, etc. that you can be involved in?
• How is your prayer life? Are you asking God to forgive your sins and empower you to obey Him day by day?

But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets.

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

Last Modified 21 March 2000