2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
It is such a privilege to begin today’s message with the reminder that God has claimed ownership of His children. I don’t mean this in the sense that a master owns his slaves. Instead, my understanding of this is an attitude on God’s part of love, caring, and cherishing us as His children. All of us have a great need to be cherished, and what a privilege it is to be cherished by our always righteous Deity. As we pursue a better understanding of the oneness of our covenant relationship with Him, we turn our attention today to the mark of the covenant. This is too wide a subject to cover in one message, but if we go through it precept by precept, we will begin to have an appreciation for another facet of the depth of God’s love for each of us.
Back in Isaiah’s time [about 740-692 BC], the people of Jerusalem were steeped in their sinful ways. Sin, as you know, is defined as separation from God. IS 49: 14-16 reveals both their attitude and God’s. “But the people of Jerusalem said, ‘The Lord has abandoned us! He has forgotten us.’ So the Lord answers, ‘Can a woman forget her own baby and not love the child she bore? Even if a mother should forget her child, I will never forget you. Jerusalem, I can never forget you! I have written your name on the palms of My hands.’” The shallowness that is associated with refusal to obey God’s commands not only separates the unfaithful from God, but also from knowledge of the truth. These people had no idea of the love that God had for them. Such a predicament is certainly true for the humanists and others steeped in sinfulness today. RO 1: 18-32, which I hope you will review, demonstrates the mechanism by which this evil arises and spreads.
The adults of our congregation have been invited to spend the next school year during the Sunday school hour studying the book of Revelation with our scholarly senior pastor, Dean Nadasdy. I plan to be in that class, even though I have taught this book many times. This entire book is a vivid reminder of God’s love for us and His willingness to keep His covenant promises. Revelation is the story of how God, through Jesus Christ, will eventually wrest dominion over the earth from Satan’s evil hands and how evil will eventually be permanently conquered. REV 5: 4-6 reveals the limitations of mankind’s perspective (in this case, the author John’s) and the magnificence and power of God’s willingness to do what to man seems impossible. “I [John] cried bitterly because no one could be found who was worthy to open the scroll and look inside it. Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not cry. Look! The Lion from Judah’s tribe, the great Descendant of David, has won the victory, and He can break the seven seals and open the scroll.’ Then I saw a Lamb, standing in the center of the throne, surrounded by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb appeared to have been slain. It had seven large horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that have been sent through the whole earth.” We shouldn’t let the symbolism intimidate us.
The scroll represents the “mortgage” for dominion over earth. The Lion of Judah (surprisingly the symbol on modern Jerusalem’s flag), that great Descendant of David, is Jesus Christ Himself [see GA 3: 16]. The Lamb is also another symbol for Christ [see 1 COR 5: 6-8]. Seven is God’s number of perfection and completion. Those of us who had read Revelation know that the contents of the scroll are the judgments that must be imposed that will affect the final separation of sheep and goats [MT 25: 31-32]. That the Lamb was slain indicates the redemptive sacrifice that was made. The seven horns represent omnipotence [all-powerful], and the seven eyes represent omniscience [all-knowing]. I take REV 5: 6 is a reminder to us that those of us who are faithful will be protected from the judgments to come, because we have the benefit of understanding God’s omniscience and omnipotence through our study of His word, our prayer, and living “in Christ.”
Throughout the book of Revelation and in many other parts of the Scriptures, we can see a plan and the execution of that plan to separate the evil from the righteous. The efforts to bring about this separation have been a priority on God’s agenda from the time of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden [GN 3: 21-24]. The book of Revelation is the consummation of that plan and God’s covenant promises to us. His love for us is so evident in all of this. Readers who are going through the book of Revelation for the first time need to recognize that all the horror in it happens to the unrighteous who have rejected the opportunity for salvation given to them through Christ’s Atonement. What happens to the obediently faithful who endure in their faith is protection, provision, eternal life, joy, and fellowship with the Lord forever. That alone is sufficient reason for us to endure whatever challenges come to our faith in our personal lives. The Lord loves us each and places his mark of ownership upon us as a fulfillment of His covenant promises.
PRAYER: O Lord, at times there has been such a wide gap between mankind’s knowledge of You and the reality of the love You have for each of us. We stand in awe at the patience and compassion You have shown with mankind’s lack of perception and wrongful acts. It was Your decision to send Christ to earth to become incarnate and to offer Him as the Lamb to be slain on the cross for our redemption. It is also Your decision to eventually bring about an end to evil and the final separation of the unrighteous from the faithful as outlined in the book of Revelation. We have no reason to doubt You will keep that promise, just as You have kept all Your covenant agreements so far. A life lived “in Christ” is Your paradigm for how we can one day be fully sanctified. While the process isn’t always easy for us and we must often make major changes in our lives to further it, You have taught us that it is the only way to eternal life with You. To that end, You have, through Your grace, not only sacrificed Your Son and given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, but You have also given us the ability to have trust, obedience, and faith in You along with the tools to be victorious over the efforts of the adversary to thwart that progress. Dear Lord, You have placed Your mark of ownership on those of us privileged to have faith in You. For this and so much more, we approach Your altar today in humility to offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanksgiving. In Christ’s holy name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will examine where our covenant marks are in an effort to better understand this aspect of the oneness of our relationship with God. Each day our Lord blesses us individually with protection, provision, and a host of other things that we need. We are strengthened by the faith we have in Him to face all kinds of challenges in our lives. We can be encouraged by the expressions of His love found in the Scriptures, through prayer with Him, in the course of our relationships with other believers, and in the lessons coming to us by our circumstances. We are even blessed when opportunities to witness to our faith are presented to us. Each way that we choose to obey God blesses us. None of this would be possible or available to us without the foundation of love that motivates our Lord. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn