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The Desire of Ages
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church, California, USA
Delivery: 2007-01-13
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2007-01-13 23:07Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kir-da.php
Once upon a time, God set course. Three unselfish persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, agreed. They determined to populate a universe with other beings, and that everything needed, every resource and help, would be given. The creatures would be enabled to be holy, healthy, and happy. They would share and experience good. The starry velvet night would be peopled by a community of kind and unselfish beings. They would be free to choose the beauty of holiness.
When you hear “once upon a time,” the ending you expect is, “and they all lived happily ever after.” This is how the Great Controversy War will end. Except for the confirmed rebels, the participants all will live happily ever after. For now, we find ourselves in the great between.
One of the dilemmas in Christianity is, What is the great in-between all about? Are we to be passive riders on a bus to heaven? Do we pull the bus up the hill with ropes? Do we wait along the side of the road for God’s tow truck?
This morning we review the Great Controversy War, Jesus our Champion, and the role of God’s end-time church. How does the universe get to the “happily ever after” part?
In the Beginning
God populated His universe. How many planets, how many orders of intelligent beings, populate the skies? We do not know. Solomon said, “The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have builded?” (1 Kings 8:27). How many beings and worlds, like earth, overflow with the beauties of the Master’s paintbrush?
But all the colors are not peace and harmony. Making free beings meant opportunity to develop various ideas. Rebellion thus become a possibility. And a rebel did arise. He began as a pure angel. We know His name as offered in Isaiah 14:12: “Lucifer,” literally, “bearer of light.” But underneath that Latin word is found the Hebrew “Heylel.” This is Satan’s name. We have all heard the word “hallelujah”? (given as “allelujah” in the KJV in Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6). “Hallelujah” means “praise to God.” Satan’s name means “Shining One,” and praise. And he decided that he should have a share in the praise. He who led Heaven’s choirs in adoration of Heaven’s Maker, twisted his own mind. He chose to desire for himself the praise of a god. Created beings may not safely indulge such praise; they are not made for it. He couldn’t have it.
Shining One chose to rebel, to demand what he insisted were his rights. He plotted against the Great King. He told lies. He proposed (and with all subtlety) that there were defects in the divine character and government. The rebel gathered his listeners. They milled innocently in the halls and foyers of heaven as he, in low, kindly musical tones insinuated his theories. No one had ever lied before. Shining One’s intellect was unequalled by any other created being. Hearts began to turn, minds to question.
God saw it all. He saw the holy angels in the hallways, becoming confused under Shining One’s representations. Remember, there was no talk of a Satan yet. The situation was very confusing. In the corridors of heaven unease, discontent, even distrust, percolated. And now God was ready to create humans, a new kind of being. His creation was on the point of a great clarification.
The Plan
Heaven did have a plan to address this eventuality. When the idea of making free beings had been discussed (by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), so was the concept of rebellion. Man would either be truly free or not, so if he insists, he must be allowed to make poor choices. But if man sins, he will break a law for which he cannot atone. He will damage himself psychologically so that he will need a healing that he is incapable of self-initiating. What then?
Jesus, God the Son, offered that He would become the means of restoration for the race. He volunteered to be the Father’s offering for the race; He would be “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8); He would give His perfect character to match man’s violation of the perfect law. He would also demonstrate how by faith men were to rely upon their heavenly Father and overcome.
Adam and Eve sinned, But as soon as there was sin, there was a Savior. Jesus promised to die for man. He clothed Adam and Eve with garments. He began revealing through His prophets the insights needed to guide humanity. God was engineering the defeat of Satan. He was providing Himself witnesses.
In the fullness of time Jesus came. For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in its physical, mental, and moral capacities. But Jesus took upon Himself these very infirmities. What a humiliation it would have been had the Son of God taken man’s nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam, He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. He walked dusty streets in flesh like ours and was tempted in a humanity like our own.
He overcame as we must overcome—by trusting in His Father. When planet earth needed hope, Immanuel showed where He stood: where we stood.
Universal Help and Universal Need
While all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 6:23), Jesus is the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:9). How many exceptions are left? Not one. Every man is lighted by Jesus, every man illumined.
A divine Power is working for the salvation of men. The grace of Christ is active to bring us a spiritual life that is contrary to our fallen nature. If we heed the light sent us, we will enter the kingdom of God. Our Father does not leave us alone to perish. He seeks to win us. This He would accomplish while respecting our freedom and yet counteracting the inclination to self-destruction that is in us.
We would like to build our own staircase to heaven. We don’t want to feel indebted to another, even to God. We would prefer to get at least to heaven’s door on our own. But then what a sense of entitlement we would have!
It is a fallacy to expect that we can become kind and loving people by merely developing the good that is within us. What good? The apostle writes, “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). In our fallen estate we are still drawn to the good even as we are drawn to the evil. We who are evil want good gifts for our children (Luke 11:13). In our flesh is no good thing, but we who are evil are led to repentance by the goodness of God (Romans 2:4).
When we see God’s love for us in Jesus on the cross, we personally realize the beauty of Christ, who said, “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (John 12:32). To think that the Father would give His Son for me? That the Son would die for me? Sure, someone who doesn’t know me well enough might be willing to die for me. Perhaps he might die for me out of a lack of knowledge about what I have been. But God knows all. And still He is willing to give all—for me... for you. And yes, with a full knowledge of what we have been.
But our religion is more than mere moral influence theory. Jesus’ death satisfies the penalty for our sins. But beside this, He returned to heaven to serve as our great high Priest. He intercedes for us and gives “Grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). He is closer to you and I right now, through the Holy Spirit, than He was to His disciples when they walked the dusty streets to Golgotha. We corrupt beings are His special project. He won salvation for us at the cross but now He is working so that that salvation is realized in us. He is still working. The day draws near when His mysteries will be seen and all His ways vindicated.
Victory Via the Last Generation
Consider John’s victory vision. In Revelation 14:1-5 we see Jesus standing on Mount Zion. But He is not alone. He stands midst the triumphant throng drawn from all nations. They would bow down to Him in a heartbeat, but they are not thus portrayed. In this picture, they are standing. Standing with Jesus.
Their description says that central to their experience has been Jesus, the Desire of Ages. Jesus is the express image of the Father (Hebrews 1:3). These have followed the express image “whithersoever He goeth” (Revelation 14:4). So it is no surprise that they stand victorious with Jesus. It is no surprise that they are described as “having His Father’s name written in their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1). It is no surprise that no guile is found in their mouths, and that they are without fault before God’s throne (Revelation 14:5).
That’s what happens when you determine to follow the Author and Finisher of faith (Hebrews 12:1, 2). Jesus draws us to His Father. So here you see a group who exemplify Him, and Him. They are the result of Jesus’ angel messages of Revelation 14 and 18. Those messages ripen the last generation so that they fully receive the Holy Spirit, fully copy the character of Christ. They are the reproduction of true man. Although their race was bent when they sinned in the garden of Eden, these, as admittedly degenerated progeny, have allowed Christ in them, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:26-29), through faith, to bring them to glory. The end result? Profound!
Those who believe on Christ and obey His commandments are not under bondage. To these, His law is the hallmark of liberty. It is the triumph of self-conquest through the power of grace from beyond. Everyone who believes on Christ, everyone who relies on the keeping power of a risen Saviour, everyone who resists temptation and in the midst of evil copies the pattern given in Jesus’ life, will through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ become a partaker of the divine nature. He will escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Everyone who by faith obeys God’s commandments will reach the condition of sinlessness in which Adam lived before his transgression.
And so, the work of Jesus echoes down through the ages. When Adam and Eve sinned, God made His promise. Genesis 3:15 lays it out: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” The Father would send Jesus. The longing of every sin-broken heart would be addressed. The door to the Father’s house stands open through Christ.
God promised to “put enmity.” When Adam sinned, he gave away his original enmity toward evil. As Esau sold his birthright for a pot of porridge, Adam traded a pure heart for the dubious enticements of sin. He found these enticements to be lies, but it was too late; he could not recover himself. God saw his predicament and His mercy overflowed. In the fullness of the time, Jesus would come as the Seed of the woman. A day would come when the Creator Himself stood face-to-face with His accuser. Shining One would tempt. Jesus would withstand. A triumph would be won at the cross. Shining One would be defeated. But even then the war would not be over.
Shining One was not destroyed when Jesus rose from His grave. Even then, the angels did not understand all that was involved in the war. Everything at stake was not yet understood. The contrast between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness was not yet fully clear.
Shining One had declared that the law of God could not be obeyed, that justice and mercy could not go together. Forgiveness, he claimed, would be injustice.
But he was wrong. He had sinned with a full knowledge of God’s goodness. In the streaming light of the righteous God, Shining One had chosen to shrivel, to love himself even more than the Giver of life. But when humans sin, it is without a sound knowledge of God’s goodness. The height and depth of His love they do not know. For them, hope remains. They may come to understand His love. By beholding His character they might be drawn to it.
Spirit-Saturated Believers at War
God did not change His law, but He sacrificed Himself, in Christ, for our redemption. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19). The law requires righteousness in a man—a righteous life, a perfect character. He does not have this to give. But Christ, coming to earth as man, lived a holy life, and developed a perfect character. These He makes available to us as a free gift. Everyone willing to receive, may have. His life stands for the life of men.
Thus we receive forgiveness. More than this, Christ saturates men with the attributes of God. He builds up the human character in the likeness of the divine. Thus, the very righteousness of the law is fulfilled in the believer in Christ. God can “be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). By His life and His death, Christ proved that God’s justice did not destroy His mercy, but that sin could be forgiven, and that the law is righteous, and can be perfectly obeyed. Shining One’s charges were refuted.
And so another deception was launched. Shining One declared that mercy destroyed justice, that the death of Christ abrogated the Father’s law. To abrogate the law would be to immortalize transgression, and place the world under the rebel’s control. It was because the law was changeless, because man could be saved only through obedience to its precepts, that Jesus was lifted up on the cross. Yet, the very means by which Christ established the law, Shining One represented as destroying it. Here will come the last conflict of the great controversy between Christ and Satan. That the law which was spoken by God’s own voice is faulty, that some specification has been set aside, is the claim which Shining One now puts forward. It is the last great deception that he will bring upon the world.
The warfare against God’s law, which was begun in heaven, will be continued until the end of time. Everyone will be tested. Obedience or disobedience is the question to be decided by the whole world. Every character will be fully developed; and all will show whether they have chosen the side of loyalty or of rebellion.
At the cross, even Shining One had not been destroyed. He had been largely, but not completely, unmasked. He had been devastated by Jesus, but our Lord had come to bring fallen man himself more fully into the battle. The risen Lord declared to His followers, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:18-20).
The work of Jesus would continue through His people. Jesus’ crushing of Shining One as prophesied in Genesis 3:15 was not to be accomplished completely at the cross. Years after Calvary, Paul wrote at the conclusion of his historic epistle to the Romans, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20). God had not, even then, fully fulfilled Genesis 3:15. In the divine plan, Christ’s work was to continue after the cross. He would live in the hearts of men. Paul added, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2:20). Christ through the Holy Spirit communes with His followers moment by moment from heaven. When they plead for help and victory, He is there. The Prince of peace bruises Satan—Shining One—under the feet of the believer. Genesis 3:15 is fulfilled by the death of Christ at the cross and the life of Christ manifest in the believer after the cross. Ours is an intimate experience with our Savior.
By a life of rebellion, Shining One and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them. At the beginning of the war, the angels did not understand this. Even at the murder on Calvary, key points remained unclear. But in the end it is made apparent.
When the Great Controversy War shall be ended, the plan of redemption will have been completed. The character of God will have been revealed to all created intelligences. His law will be seen as perfect and unchanging. Then sin has made manifest its nature, Shining One, his character. Then the extermination of sin will vindicate God’s love and establish His honor before a universe of beings who delight to do His will, and in whose heart is His law.
Conclusion
The conflict between good and evil is about what is right and what is wrong. Shall the universe run on selflessness or selfishness? If on selflessness, then the rights of every free being must be upheld. Then we need to be able to trust the management. Has God dealt fairly with sin or not? This is a serious question. Shining One says, No, He hasn’t. Jesus says, Yes, He has. Romans 3:4 shows that in God’s people, His character is being vindicated. “As it is written, That Thou [God] mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art judged.”
Revelation 14:6, 7 shows that an hour of judgment comes. This is true, both for God’s people and for God Himself. Does His gospel have power to help people live according to the moral requirements of His law? In the end, He raises up a people to whom He grants more light than has ever yet shone on fallen man. They are called to be His character witnesses. Can they, in His strength, keep the commandments of God?
So what is the great in-between all about? God is recreating the human race. He knows we are damaged, He knows we need His strength, He knows that Shining One, Satan, has engineered an assortment of counterfeit understandings of salvation, from the “work to save yourself” line to “do nothing, God has done it all.” We need neither pull the bus by ropes nor to be passive riders only. Nor are we to wait while God sends a tow truck for us. Jesus, the Desire of Ages, will walk with us, even in us, if we let Him. Through the gauntlet of these last days, through the attacks of Shining One, God walks with us. He seeks out the deceiver. He will finish bruising him under your feet, as your light so shines before men that they glorify Him (Matthew 5:16).
This is how the universe gets to “happily ever after”? Jesus is the key. Jesus is the only way. Jesus is the one who deserves our true Praise. Jesus is the Desire of Ages. GCO
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