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- Welcome to part two of the Days of Noah series.
I'm your host, Jeff Reich.
If you've missed part one,
we revisited the story of Noah and examined
the physical evidence that has remained.
These physical evidences are an unerring
record of the global judgment that occurred
in the past and are therefore also warning
of a judgment to come.
Noah was given a message of warning to prepare
a people for the coming flood.
And at the end of time, in the 14th chapter
of Revelation, verses six through 12,
God sends another message with another warning of judgment.
This is the message of Noah for the last generation.
It is comprised of three messages given by three
angels and has therefore become known
as the three angels' messages.
- The purpose of the three angels' message
is to warn the world about issues
that will exist at the end of time.
We know that the three angels' message
is the last message of God to the world
because as soon as the third angel proclaims
his message in Revelation 14, the next scene
is Jesus sitting on a cloud with a sickle in his hand
and the earth is ripe.
He's gonna harvest the righteous and the wicked.
- The story of the ark basically parallels
the three angels' messages.
It is an end time message and it is a message
that actually prepares the world for the coming of Christ.
- Now, what's gonna happen with individuals
who hear the three angels' messages
and yet they reject the three angels' messages?
Well, the fact is, the same thing is gonna happen
as in the days of Noah.
The possibility of living forever
depends on accepting these three angels'
messages at the end of time.
Those who reject the messages will be lost
in simple terms.
- And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven,
having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them
that dwell on the earth, and to every nation
and kindred and tongue and people,
saying with a loud voice,
fear God and give glory to him,
for the hour of his judgment is come.
And worship him that make heaven and earth
and the sea and the fountains of waters.
- The hour of his judgment is come.
This is the message of the angel.
The hour of his judgment is come.
And we know that this judgment takes place
before the second coming, because once again,
when you look at the context of Revelation
chapter 14, the hour of his judgment comes,
that's verse seven, and towards the end of that
chapter, you find the reaping and the coming
of the son of man.
So the hour of his judgment
comes before Jesus comes again.
The judgment is that which determines
who will be ready for Jesus when he comes
and who will not.
- Jesus referred to the period of time just before
the flood as the days of Noah because in it
Noah was preaching a warning message about
the coming judgment.
The days of Noah was a judgment hour because
it was a last opportunity for people to accept
or reject the warning message before the
execution of the judgment by a flood.
In the judgment hour, the warning message
is given to prepare the world for the judgment
and at the end of time, the first of the three
angels' messages proclaims the hour of his
judgment is come.
Just as the message of Noah was the last warning
message before the judgment of the world by water,
so at the end of time, the three angels' messages
gives a last warning message before the judgment
of the world by fire.
In fact, let's go to the end of time right now.
I'm walking next to a giant timeline spanning
the length of an entire football field.
The Bible gives us a detailed lineage of
descendants from Noah to the time of Christ.
So we know the flood occurred about 4,315 years ago
around the year 2298 BC, which means Noah began
to warn the world 120 years earlier
around the year 2418 BC.
This means the entire judgment hour spans
exactly 10 feet on our timeline.
And here is where Christ was crucified.
Here we are near the other end of the field.
Since we don't have a date yet,
let's just say this spot marks the beginning
of the world's last judgment hour.
This is the time that the first angel's
message is referring to when it announces
the hour of his judgment is come.
As the message of Noah was sent to warn the world
of the coming flood, so at this time the three
angels' messages began to proclaim the last
warning message preparing the inhabitants of the earth
for the execution of the final judgment by fire.
So this date marks the beginning of the days of Noah
for the end of time.
In order to understand when these messages
would be proclaimed, we need to look at a
prophecy in the old testament.
For this we'll need to go back to the year of 1816.
It was in this year a man named William Miller
began the study of prophecy in the book of Daniel
and much to his surprise, it would reveal the
very year the world's last judgment hour would begin.
- How pleasing must it be beyond possible expression
for a loving parent to look forward in imagination
and behold a son or a daughter,
seated hereafter on the right hand of the judge,
among the nations of the saved.
- William Miller was a former Baptist and skeptic
of the Bible, but he was to become the first to
understand when the last judgment hour message
would begin.
One week he was chosen to read a sermon to the congregation
and the words he read to the people
stirred his own soul.
- Suddenly the character of a savior was vividly
impressed upon my mind.
It seemed that there might be a being so good
and compassionate as to himself atone for our transgressions
and thereby save us from suffering the penalty of sin.
- A brief view of God's loving character
was opened to Miller's mind for the first time.
The impression made upon him this day motivated
him to a study of the Bible that would last
the rest of his life.
He wanted to know with certainty if a divine being
such as this really existed.
- And William Miller decided he was gonna study scripture,
beginning with Genesis one verse one,
and he was only going to go as fast as he understood
each verse that he was studying.
- He systematically studied his Bible day and night
with only a concordance.
He wanted to know for himself what the Bible taught
and not to be influenced by others.
He eventually came across a prophecy in the book of
Daniel that speaks about the cleansing
of the sanctuary.
A diligent study of this prophecy would lead
William Miller to discover the very year
when the last judgment hour would begin.
- I then devoted myself to prayer
and to the reading of the word.
I determined to lay aside all my prepossessions
and to thoroughly compare scripture with scripture
and to pursue its study in a regular
and methodical manner.
- Then I heard one saint speaking and another saint
said unto that certain saint which spake,
how long shall the vision concerning the daily
sacrifice and the transgression of desolation
to give both the sanctuary and the host
to be trodden underfoot?
And he said unto me, unto 2,300 days.
Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
- Miller didn't know it at the time,
but this prophecy about the cleansing of the
sanctuary would reveal the very year
the last judgment hour would begin.
- And so we have to go back to the sanctuary
and understand the cleansing of the sanctuary
to really understand what's gonna take place
at the end of the 2,300 days that's referenced
there in Daniel 8:14.
- The sanctuary was a tent and courtyard structure
that was given to Moses by God.
This is where the Israelites were commanded
to bring their animals as a sacrifice
for the forgiveness of sins.
The penalty of violating the 10 Commandments is death.
But a way of forgiveness was provided
through a substitute.
To do this, the sinner was instructed to place
their hand upon the head of the animal
and confess their sins.
Through this confession, the sins committed
by the person were symbolically transferred
to the innocent animal.
The animal was then slain in the sinner's place
and the blood of the animal representing his sins
were taken by the high priest into the sanctuary
and sprinkled before the veil.
Through this process, the record of those sins
committed by the transgressor was transferred
into the sanctuary where they continued to
accumulate throughout the year.
- The idea was as you do your sins,
get them in the sanctuary, get rid of them.
So all these services led up to the day of atonement.
And the day of atonement was a yearly service.
And at the end of that year is when they would
blot out all the sins that were brought in
by all those different offerings.
- Those sins were taken by the high priest
out of the sanctuary.
In other words, the sanctuary is cleansed
from the sins of God's people
on the day of atonement.
- All the blood that was in there was now going
to be taken out and it was an opportunity to start afresh.
- It is a day of atonement to make an atonement
for you before the Lord your God.
For whatsoever it soul it be that shall not be
afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off
from among his people.
- If your sins aren't transferred in, you're cut off.
The term cut off meant they were killed.
They were being judged whether or not they had
transferred all of their sins there.
- William Miller was able to see that when he
read in Daniel chapter eight that there was
this cleansing that it was a judgment message.
- If someone had not transferred all their sins
into the sanctuary when the day of atonement
was done and the sanctuary was cleansed,
then they would have to bear the penalty
of their own sin, which was death.
And this is what is meant by the term cut off.
- In the days of Noah, and on the day of atonement,
a judgment took place that separated
the innocent from the guilty.
God made a covenant with Noah.
And those who did not enter into that covenant
relationship and receive forgiveness from God
were cut off.
- And I will establish my covenant with you;
neither shall all flesh be cut off anymore
by the waters of a flood;
neither shall there anymore be a flood
to destroy the earth.
- So the day of atonement would be equivalent
to the judgment hour message that Noah preached in his day.
- Understanding the day of atonement and the
cleansing of the sanctuary both referred to the
day of judgment, William Miller looked at the prophecy
in Daniel which said, unto 2,300 days then shall the
sanctuary be cleansed, and understood that it pointed
to the time when the earth's final
day of judgment would begin.
As William Miller saw this connection,
he conclude the first angel's message
saying the hour of his judgment is come
would begin when the sanctuary is cleansed
at the culmination of the 2,300 day prophecy
given by Daniel.
- 2,300 days, 2,300 days.
And he looked at that prophecy and
accepting a common perception at the time,
that the cleansing of the sanctuary
spoken of in Daniel 8:14 represented
the cleansing of the earth by fire at the second coming.
And so he equated the second coming of Christ
with the termination of the 2,300 days
when it said the sanctuary would be cleansed.
- I can see we should be guided to the probable
time of their termination.
And as God would not bestow upon us a useless
revelation, I regarded them as conducting
us to the time when we might confidently
look for the coming of the chiefest of 10,000,
one altogether lovely.
- This prophecy in Daniel holds incredible
significance for us living at the end of time,
because it tells us when the last judgment hour will begin.
William Miller had no idea what he was about
to discover when he tried to calculate this prophecy.
Others had tried before him, but until this point,
the timing of this prophecy had remained a mystery.
- Nobody really knew when the 2,300 days would end
because nobody knew when the 2,300 days began.
- I have appointed each day for a year.
Each day for a year.
- Following his rule of making scripture
its own interpreter, Miller saw in Ezekiel 4:6
and Numbers 14:34 that each day in Bible prophecy
was actually a symbol for one literal year.
- In the Bible it's pretty clear that
when interpreting these prophecies,
you're to apply a day for a year principle.
- Understanding the 2,300 day prophecy to be a literal
period of 2,300 years, he knew whenever it began
it would extend well beyond the time of Christ
and the Jewish sanctuary, which was destroyed in 70 AD.
For this reason, he was deeply impressed
with its significance and longed to know its meaning.
He knew the duration of the prophecy
but did not know when it began.
- The one most significant contribution
that Miller gave us was to link Daniel chapter eight
and Daniel chapter nine.
And the advantage is that a starting point
is given for Daniel chapter nine.
- The angel is telling Daniel he's gonna give him
the starting point for not only the 2,300 day prophecy
that you find in Daniel 8:14 but he introduces
another prophecy about when will the Messiah come.
- Know, therefore, and understand that from the
going forth of the commandment to restore and
to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, the prince
shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks.
It would be seven weeks plus threescore and two weeks
for a total of 69 weeks unto Messiah the prince.
In this prophecy however, the event marking the
beginning of the time to be calculated was given.
From the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.
With a new fervor and zeal to understand this prophecy,
Miller searched for the date of the commandment
to restore and build Jerusalem.
Whole nights and days were devoted to the study
of what now appeared to be of stupendous importance.
His study paid off and he found the commandment
to restore and to build Jerusalem
in the seventh chapter of Ezra.
I make a decree that all they of the people of Israel
and of his priests and Levites in my realm,
which are minded of their own free will
to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee.
It was given by King Artaxerxes the first,
which Ezra records was in the seventh year
of Artaxerxes the king.
- God is so good that when he gives an important
prophecy in the Bible, right in the prophecy he will
give us evidence so there's no question about the date.
In the same way in the book of Ezra,
he tells us right in the book of Ezra
that decree is given that is the starting point.
- William found the reign of King Artaxerxes the first
began in the year 464 BC.
The seventh year of his reign was 457 BC.
From this point, he could calculate the prophecy
unto Messiah the prince.
The period of 69 weeks with seven days per week
was a total of 483 days, which was a symbol
for 483 literal years, not counting the year zero,
which did not exist.
Miller eventually found the prophecy extended
from 457 BC, 483 years into the future
unto Messiah the prince, which was 27 AD.
In autumn of this year, Jesus was anointed
by baptism in fulfillment of the prophecy
to anoint the most holy.
And he began his ministry as the Messiah.
The apostle Peter testifies that God anointed
Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.
- In the book of Luke chapter three,
one of the most easily corroborated dates
is the date of Christ's baptism.
Luke gives more information there about who is ruling
and historians know that there's only one year
that, for instance, the 15th year of the reign
of Tiberius Caesar, and it tells who is high priest
and who is governor and all the different officials.
There's only one year when all of those dates overlap
and it was 27 AD.
- At his baptism, the last prophetic week of the
seven literal year period began,
marked by the anointing of the Messiah.
This was the 70th week.
The prophecy foretold he shall confirm the
covenant with many for one week.
And in the midst of the week,
he shall cause the sacrifice and oblations to cease.
On the cross, that system of sacrifices and offerings,
which for 14 centuries pointed to the lamb of God,
was ended, and the Messiah was cut off.
- I'm a Jewish Christian, but my mother was Jewish.
I know there are a couple of books in the Bible
that orthodox Jews forbid their followers to study,
one of them being Daniel chapter nine
that clearly tells from the commandment to
rebuild Jerusalem unto the Messiah
and they know that it lines up
when you use the day for year prophecy,
it lines up perfectly with Jesus.
And it causes them no small consternation when
Jews study that and find out and
accept Jesus as the Messiah.
- Having seen and confirmed the application
of the 70 week prophecy and its start date
of 457 BC, Miller now calculated the remaining
time from the 2,300 day prophecy to the cleansing
of the sanctuary when the judgment would begin.
- And as we follow that time prophecy down,
as we go from the date in which we finally began
and we move forward with the 2,300 day prophecy,
that's when we find that it comes to the year of 1844.
- William found that the 2,300 days of Daniel 8:14
would terminate in the year 1844, in his lifetime.
- I need not speak of the joy that filled my heart
in view of the delightful prospect,
nor of the ardent longings of my soul
for participation in the joys of the redeemed.
The Bible was now to me a new book.
It was indeed a feast of reason.
All that was dark, mystical, or obscure to me
in its teachings had been dissipated from my mind
before the clear light that now dawned on me
from its sacred pages.
Oh, how bright and glorious the truth appeared.
- Even in spite of his conclusions,
Miller hesitated to present them,
lest he should be in error
and be the means of misleading others.
Five years of further study left him fully convinced
of the correctness of his position.
At this thought, his soul was stirred with solemnity
and excitement, as were the tens of thousands
of others who would hear him preach in the following
years and be baptized.
- We've seen this story of William Miller to some degree,
at least, but he wasn't the only one.
And North America was not the only place.
There were others coming to similar conclusions.
Joseph Wolf, who was a Jewish convert to Christianity.
Edward Irving, who was an eloquent preacher
in England at the time
advocating the soon coming of Christ
and using many of the same arguments.
There was Robert Winter was also in England at the time.
Manuel de Lacunza was a Jesuit priest.
But he wrote a book on the second coming of Christ
about that same time saying it was gonna happen
and using the same rationale.
Johann Bengel in Germany, a Lutheran minister
who had similar thoughts and preached
that message through Germany.
- There were clergy from every denomination
imaginable in New England that were working
with William Miller in proclaiming this message.
- There were children who had no knowledge,
could not read, couldn't write,
but not only were they speaking on behalf
of Christ and Bible truth, present truth,
but they were also singing hymns of which
they had no knowledge.
- In Sweden, where laws forbade the teaching of
anything contrary to the state church,
God spoke in a miraculous manner through
little children as young as five.
In the summer of 1843, a young girl who had
never learned to read or sing stood up and
perfectly sang a Lutheran hymn.
And then with great power proclaimed
the hour of his judgment is come.
- So there was an awakening not only in the eastern
part of the United States but also in many
other places of the world, which gave additional
evidence to William Miller that he was on the right track,
because this prophecy was being fulfilled.
It was being announced that the hour of
God's judgment had come.
- The prophecies of Daniel fit perfectly.
Beginning with Artaxerxes decree in 457 BC,
these prophecies pointed to Jesus' baptism in 27 AD
and his death on the cross in the middle
of the 70th week.
This method of calculation pointed perfectly
to the first coming of Jesus,
and therefore it gave unquestionable validity
to the date of 1844 as the year the judgment hour
would begin, but Jesus did not return in 1844
as commonly believed.
So what went wrong?
- As the Bible students then looked at that in
more detail and more carefully, obviously realizing
that something had gone contrary to expectation,
they saw for the first time clearly that
this prophecy spoke of the sanctuary.
They were expecting the cleansing of the earth.
But it turned out that they were mistaken
in that equation.
If the sanctuary was to be cleansed at the
end of the 2,300 days, then that forced the
question of what sanctuary.
- There's a great danger in misunderstanding
Bible prophecy because if the prophecy doesn't come
to pass the way that people expect,
they can face a great disappointment.
And that disappointment will be proportionate
to how big their expectations are.
And that can cause many people to lose their faith.
- Hiram Edson and O.R.L. Crosier were walking
through the corn field the next day
to avoid the mocking crowds.
Both were firm proponents of William Miller's
conclusions and the Advent message.
When Jesus did not return when they had hoped,
their minds solemnly struggled to grasp what went wrong.
- They were on their way to visit some of the
other brethren that were also very saddened
by the fact that Christ had not come.
They expected him to come in 1844 and he didn't come.
- Hey, Hiram.
You coming?
- The day after Christ didn't come,
inspiration dawned on Hiram Edson
and he came to understand the key that would
unlock the mystery to their disappointment,
and it brought to their minds a new revelation
about the sanctuary.
- It's in Hebrews.
It's in Hebrews!
Look, look.
Look, look, chapter eight, verse one.
We have such a high priest who sat on the right
hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens,
a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle
which the Lord pitched and not man.
Do you see?
The sanctuary is in heaven.
(laughs)
- And they got excited about it and they said,
we weren't wrong with the date.
We were wrong with the event.
The cleansing of the sanctuary was not this
earthly sanctuary, but it's the heavenly sanctuary.
- The sanctuary is never used as a term
to represent the earth.
But they'd been misled by common thought.
So what sanctuary is there to be cleansed?
That turned their attention to the books of
Hebrews and of Revelation where it brings
to light the heavenly sanctuary.
- The Bible is really very clear that there's
a heavenly sanctuary and they didn't really
recognize that.
- The sanctuary was actually a scale model
that God showed Moses on the mount.
In other words, it's a miniature of the
true sanctuary in heaven.
- Everything they did in the earthly sanctuary
just pointed forward to the things that was
gonna take place in the heavenly sanctuary.
- But Christ, being come in high priest of
good things to come by a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not being made with hands,
that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood he entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us.
- After Jesus' resurrection, he ascended into heaven
into the holy place, which is the first room
of the heavenly sanctuary.
Just as the priests in the Old Testament
went into the holy place every day to
intercede on behalf of the sins of Israel,
so Jesus went into the holy place of the
heavenly sanctuary to intercede on behalf
of the sins of those who believe in him.
- But into the second went the high priest alone,
once every year.
- On the day of atonement when the sanctuary was
to be cleansed, the high priest then moved into
the most holy place to perform the work of judgment.
In fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy after the
2,300 years, Jesus our high priest moved into the
most holy place to cleanse the sanctuary in heaven
of the sins of mankind.
- And that's the work that Jesus is doing
in the heavenly sanctuary today.
It's the work of judgment.
- So as Jesus moves into the most holy place in 1844,
that means that today since we're past 1844,
we're actually in that time frame of the judgment.
- We are now living in the final day of atonement
where the sanctuary is being cleansed.
What we should be doing is sympathizing with the
work of our high priest in the heavenly sanctuary
as he performs the work of judgment.
- Jesus is our great high priest in the sanctuary in heaven
and we have not in high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities.
In these words, we see Jesus feels the infirmities
of the whole human family, the loss of a loved one,
the despair of loneliness, fear, the suffering
of the disabled, and the affliction of the sick.
All are felt by our high priest in heaven.
Christ feels the woes of every sufferer.
When fever is burning up the life current,
he feels the agony.
Jesus is sympathizing with the suffering of mankind
and during the judgment hour, we are to be sympathizing
with Jesus in his effort to put away sin
and relieve the suffering it brings upon the human family.
For in doing this work, we are relieving the suffering
of Jesus who said in as much as ye have done it
under one of the least of these, my brethren,
ye have done it unto me.
- Too often we think of judgment as a negative thing
and not as the vindication of the innocent
or the end of suffering in this world.
And even in our own unbelief, we might fear being
left outside the ark.
But we are going to learn exactly what the
ark is for those living at the end of time
and how we can enter into it.
Armed with the certainty of this truth,
doubt will fade away.
And like Noah, you'll find rest in the ark,
having removed all fear of the judgment to come.
We all look back in history to the days of Noah
and try to fathom what it must have been like
when Noah was preaching to the world.
And yet we are living in the final judgment hour
of which the days of Noah was just a symbol.
This means we are living in the days of Noah today.
- A lot of Christians view prophecy,
the prophetic portions of scripture,
as being too hard to figure out.
For us to turn from them will be disastrous,
just as it was for those in Noah's day.
- And it should stand to reason for everybody
that the Bible says behold the Lord comes
and my reward is with me.
Well, if the Lord is rewarding everybody when he comes,
some investigation takes place before he comes.
And that's what this pre Advent judgment
is really talking about is that there is a
time of judgment that happens
and we're living in that time now.
(inspiring music)
- Noah gave a specific message to prepare
people for the flood, and this angel that announces
the hour of his judgment has come also has
a specific message for our time.
Both of these messages are calculated to prepare
mankind for the judgment by calling us into
an ark of refuge.
We'll begin to understand what this ark of refuge
is for us today by closely examining
the message of Noah.
- In Second Peter, the book of Second Peter,
we're told that he was a preacher of righteousness
through whatever means and whatever manner
he was preaching righteousness.
- In Romans chapter one, Paul says therein is
the righteousness of God revealed.
But what is he referring to that reveals
the righteousness of God?
In the previous verse, he tells us it is the
gospel of Christ.
The Bible tells us Noah was a preacher of righteousness
and the gospel reveals the righteousness of God,
which simply means that Noah was preaching the gospel.
It also means that at the end of time
when the first angel is seen proclaiming
the everlasting gospel that this angel is
repeating the message Noah gave to the world
before the flood.
And because we are again living in the judgment hour,
the gospel must once again be given to the world
to bring everyone to a decision.
- For the time is come that judgment must begin
at the house of God.
And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be
of them that obey not the gospel of God?
- Peter tells us judgment will come to believers
and non-believers alike, and our acceptance or
rejection of the gospel will determine our fate
when the judgment is finally executed.
The apostle Paul answers his own question
regarding what will happen to those who reject the gospel.
- The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels in flaming fire,
taking vengeance on them that know not God
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- In other words, when the gospel is preached,
the gospel divides human beings into two groups.
Those who accept and those who reject.
And so the message of Noah was a message of judgment.
Because when he finished preaching his message,
how many groups were there?
There were two groups when he finished preaching.
Those that were inside and those that were outside.
When the message at the end of time is finished,
the world will be divided into two groups
and therefore the warning back then is a warning
for us today.
- The gospel message in the days of Noah
was a call to enter into the ark.
When we look at the word ark,
it's defined as a shelter or refuge.
So the principle behind the gospel in the days of Noah
was an invitation to enter into a place of refuge.
So what is the place of refuge for God's people today?
Again, when we look at the word ark, it's also defined
by the Oxford Dictionary as a vessel or a sanctuary.
Interestingly, the word sanctuary is also defined
as a place of refuge.
So an ark and a sanctuary are the same thing.
This is important for us to understand
because God gave man a sanctuary
to be a place of refuge.
- Now be not stiff necked as your fathers were,
but yield yourselves unto the Lord
and enter into a sanctuary which he hath sanctified forever
and serve the Lord your God that the fierceness
of his wrath may turn away from you.
- The everlasting gospel proclaimed by the first
angel's message is like the gospel Noah preached.
It was a call to enter into the place of refuge.
Every component of the sanctuary teaches us about
the everlasting gospel.
And by studying this ancient structure,
we will discover how it will provide a place
of refuge in the day of judgment and how like the
gospel message given by Noah, the sanctuary is pointing
us to the ark for God's people at the end of time.
- And the message has the everlasting gospel.
I like that because some people think the gospel
did not come until Jesus.
But the gospel really began back at the fall
in the Garden of Eden.
It's always been the gospel of trusting in
the sacrifice of the lamb.
- And the entire message of the everlasting gospel
and the final judgment and the final choice
is linked with the sanctuary message.
- In the Old Testament, the lamb was killed
at the entrance of the sanctuary.
This sacrifice pointed forward to the sacrifice
Jesus would make on the cross.
And this is why Jesus is called the lamb of God.
Therefore, the gospel was not first proclaimed
by Jesus when he came to earth.
It was revealed centuries earlier
through the sanctuary service and its symbols.
- Each article of furniture in the sanctuary
symbolized a particular aspect of the plan of salvation.
- There's a lot of biblical truth that is reflected
in those three dimensional symbols.
And the whole sanctuary, really,
is an allegory of salvation.
- It is difficult to comprehend the dynamics
of the gospel without understanding the foundation.
- It had the purpose of teaching Israel
and teaching us as we study it how Jesus
step by step saves human beings from the curse of sin.
- Thy way, oh Lord, is in the sanctuary.
And that's where you had the lamb that was slaughtered.
- You go right through the colors of the gate
and there you have the altar of sacrifice.
- You have the place of sacrifice, which is the altar,
representing the cross.
- The altar of sacrifice is where the animals
were sacrificed on a daily basis.
Children of Israel were supposed to understand
that this was pointing to the coming Messiah
who would die for the sins of the world.
- And if you go around that piece of furniture,
the next piece of furniture there in the courtyard,
you would find the laver.
- And it had water and the priests would wash there.
And that represents baptism.
- But when you entered the next part of the sanctuary
which would be the holy place, you're gonna find
there's three pieces of furniture there.
- The showbread represents the word of God.
Man shall not live by bread alone
but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
- So God is telling us, your spiritual life is
dependent upon the consumption of the word of God.
- And then when you came to that altar of incense
that represented the prayers that would ascend
into the presence of God.
- In Revelation chapter eight verses one through three,
the Bible tells us that an angel stands before God.
With this incense it was a symbol to show how
our prayers rise before God's throne.
- Well, it's through Christ and his merits
and his name that we pray and our prayers
are made acceptable to God.
You had the candlestick, which represents
the illumination of being a witness,
letting your light shine.
- And God says, you are my light and I want to use you
as a witness so that the world can see
what I have done through you.
- Now, the last 15 feet, it is separated by a veil.
And so you move into the most holy place.
Now you find the throne of God.
- And this is where the ark of the covenant was found.
- Everything was focused towards the ark of the covenant.
- And this is where the presence of God
dwelt within the sanctuary,
which is where the law of God is contained.
- In Deuteronomy it says that God wrote the 10 Commandments
on tables of stone and that the 10 Commandments
were his covenant.
- And he declared unto you his covenant,
which he commanded you to perform even 10 commandments,
and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.
- A covenant is a contract.
It's simply a promise.
God promises to save those who enter into the ark
and the gospel message
illustrated through the sanctuary
points us to the covenant containing God's
promise of mercy.
God promises by saying he will show mercy
unto thousands of them that love me
and keep my commandments.
You see, it was in the promise of mercy
given in his covenant that God's people
found the source of their refuge
in the promise they found an ark.
Remember we saw the word ark as defined
as a place of refuge.
So when you think of the ark of the covenant,
think of it as the refuge of the covenant.
There was safety in entering into the covenant.
To illustrate this, there's an interesting story
in the Old Testament about a king named Hezekiah.
He recognized God's covenant as a source of refuge
when he spoke these words to the priests of Israel.
- Now it is mine heart to make a covenant
with the Lord God of Israel
that his fierce wrath may turn away from us.
- By calling the people to enter into the covenant,
the king was preaching the gospel.
And before the flood, when Noah was preaching the gospel,
he too was calling people to enter into the refuge
of the covenant, and we see in this in Genesis chapter six.
- But with thee will I establish my covenant,
and thou shalt come into the ark.
In this verse, God reveals Noah entering into the ark
was synonymous with entering into the covenant.
- Noah's entering into the ark is a symbol
of entering into the covenant of grace.
I don't think we can separate both the ark and the covenant.
I think the two are united seamlessly.
Because the vehicle of the covenant is the ark,
so the covenant and the ark itself,
the promise in the ark itself,
they're just mutually inclusive in this particular case.
- Many have heard the story of Noah entering the ark,
but how many have understood this as a symbol
of Noah and his family entering into God's covenant?
With this lesson in mind, we can see Noah's ark was
in a sense the first ark of the covenant.
Therefore, when we see the first angel's message
at the end of time proclaiming the everlasting
gospel to them that dwell upon the earth,
we can see it's the same message echoed by Noah,
calling us to enter into the ark or the refuge
of the covenant before the execution
of the final judgment.
- For he cometh to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness.
- When we understand that righteousness means
right doing, it becomes very clear.
- And what is it that reveals what is right?
It's God's holy law.
- My tongue shall speak of thy word
for all thy commandments are righteousness.
- In other words, righteousness is conformity
with God's holy law.
- And so when Noah was a preacher of righteousness,
he was preaching the will of God that was reflected
in the commandments in the law of God.
- The fact is that the law is the law of love.
- The law, Paul tells us, is holy, just, fair,
righteous, and good.
All of these are attributes of God's character.
- The Bible tells us that God is good.
The Bible tells us his law is good.
God is just, his law is just.
God is holy, his law is holy.
God is eternal, his law is eternal.
Just about every definition you might find
for God and the character of God,
you'll find that's the same definition for his law.
- And love to others is the fulfilling of the law.
Basically, we might sum this up as generosity
versus selfishness or love versus self centeredness,
or something of that nature.
- Lucifer's argument demonstrated that it was
a love of self, that it was all about me, me, me.
- What we see in the biblical record,
it says that the imagination of the heart
was evil continually.
The principle of self interest and self preservation
was taking the preeminence.
- And this is how people live today.
- And he's the first one to go inside the store.
- Oh gosh, oh gosh.
- Who can ever get more?
Who can ever do more?
Who can ever have more?
Whatever it might be, it's all about me.
What's in it for me?
That's what the world says.
Christianity, on the other hand, pure Christianity,
is about how can I pour out myself
to be a blessing to others?
- Bear ye one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ.
- And so when we reject the law of God,
we are living wicked, selfish lives.
No matter what we might say, selfishness is sin.
- Sin is breaking the law, which always results in death.
And so the law is not there just because
God thought that would be a fun thing to do one day.
The law is there because it's the only means
to preserve the good things that he gives to us.
- The purpose of the 10 Commandments
is to preserve selflessness in the earth.
In a thousand ways and in a thousand forms,
we see the selfishness of man has lead our world
down an unsustainable path of sorrow, pain, and suffering,
revealing that our selfishness will ultimately
end in self destruction.
- In a universe without sin,
there has to be righteousness and harmony.
And once you get to know that,
you could fall in love with it.
Because imagine what a planet would be like
where people cared for each other
more than they care for themselves.
Selfishness, which is the basis of all human misery,
would be something of the past.
- Obedience to the law of God was to protect us
from all of this.
By beholding the perfection of selflessness
in the 10 Commandments, we see our true condition.
And by the knowledge of sin, we now understand
our need for the mercy of God.
And this is the purpose of the gospel message.
Pointing us to the law of God is not to condemn
us to punishment, but to show us our need to enter
the refuge of his mercy.
- And so God chose Noah because he still understood
that human dependence on God and the necessity
for incorporating God's righteousness
into the human life.
And so he spread the message
and warned mankind to make a choice.
- The laws of man are the standard of judgment
for the courts of this world.
And the law of God is the standard of judgment
for the courts of heaven.
The law of God is a transcript of his selfless character.
We've all fallen short of this standard
of selfless love because we've all been
overcome by selfishness.
In his covenant, God makes two primary promises
to restore the character of man from the
selfishness of sin.
- For this is my covenant unto them.
When I shall take away their sins.
- The purpose of the judgment in the days of Noah
and in our own day is to cleanse the earth of sin
without destroying us.
By removing from man the record of all his sins
and by restoring his character to that of selfless love,
God is able to destroy sin from the earth
and preserve alive those who have been
restored through his promises.
And in this way, the promise of mercy and the
promise of restoration are to all of them
that receive them an ark of refuge.
And the sanctuary illustrates how God will fulfill
these two promises in us.
- The 10 Commandments point us to Jesus,
who said I have kept my father's commandments.
To offer his perfect life as a substitute
for the sins of man, Jesus began his journey
by leaving the presence of God and his throne in heaven
to come to earth to offer his perfect life
as a substitute for the sins of man.
The candlestick also points to Jesus who said,
I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness
but shall have the light of life.
The altar of incense points to Jesus,
who became our intercessor in prayer.
He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man cometh under the father but by me.
Jesus became the bread of life and said,
I am the bread which came down from heaven.
Jesus became the living water and he became the
lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.
Through the sanctuary we see the path of Jesus'
condescension from the throne of heaven
down to earth to meet mankind at the cross.
- I now enter into the door of the sanctuary.
And I come to the cross.
And by faith, I turn my life over to Christ.
- When we are forgiven, we're freed from the punishment
that comes from breaking God's law.
This process by which Jesus left the throne of heaven
came to earth and died in our place so that we might
have mercy is called justification.
- Justification means that when I repent,
I confess my sin, and I trust in the life and death
of Jesus Christ, who lived and died in my place.
If I'm really sincere, Jesus takes his life
and his death and he applies them to my account
and I'm looked upon as if I never sinned.
- The very fact that Noah sacrificed a lamb
after the flood was not only a sign of worship
but it was a sign of appealing for redemption
for his sins and the sins of his family.
And that's what we can all do.
Every believer can continually turn to that
lamb for forgiveness.
- This covenant is God's promise to show mercy to man,
and by this mercy, man is justified and treated
by God as though he'd never sinned.
I like to say it this way so I don't forget.
God looks at me 'just if I'd,' never sinned.
- However, that is the beginning of the Christian life.
- It doesn't stop here.
So many people want to stop at the cross.
But we need to keep moving through the sanctuary.
- After the Christian accepts Jesus,
they are baptized, represented by the laver.
This is a public commitment acknowledging the death
of the old selfish nature and a commitment
to a new purified life in Christ.
The bread in the sanctuary represents our study
of the Bible, the word of God.
Jesus said man shall not live by bread alone
but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God.
As we depend upon food to live, so we are to depend
upon his word for spiritual life in the soul.
Through Jesus, the Christian is able to hold
direct communion with the father in prayer.
As the incense from the altar rises up before
the most holy place, so our prayers rise
up to heaven before him.
The candlestick represents the Christian's call
to minister and share the gospel with the world
as Jesus commanded when he said,
let your light so shine before men
that they may see your good works
and glorify your father which is in heaven.
Finally, the Bible calls the Christian to enter
into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
which is to enter into the most holy place,
into the presence of God and the ark of the covenant,
representing God's promise to restore us from sin
and bring our lives into harmony with his
commandments of selfless love.
This promise of restoration is called sanctification.
- Jesus' mission in coming to earth is not merely
to grant us pardon for our sins and to leave us
to be then perpetually overcome by its power.
But rather salvation also includes the
restoration of character.
And this is the second promise of his covenant.
- For this is the covenant I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, sayeth the Lord.
I will put my laws into their mind
and write them in their hearts.
- Christ renews the mind and the heart,
giving us a new desire to do right.
But we're powerless to do this in our own strength.
So when the sinner meets the lamb of God
at the altar of sacrifice,
human effort is united with the divine power.
Jesus gives us the desire.
Jesus gives us the power.
And with our willful cooperation,
the work of restoring our character begins.
- It takes a paradigm shift to work in harmony with God.
And it's not a magic wand.
It is a process.
It's called sanctification.
- Sanctification is the process whereby God
rids us of our iniquity.
Either he gives victory or he can't.
And if he can, then what can't he give us victory over?
- Here in the sanctuary, we see the workings of
the gospel illustrated by Christ's journey
from the throne of heaven to the cross
to offer man mercy for the forgiveness of his sins.
And by uniting his divine power with fallen man,
we see the restoration of man's character
in the journey from the cross into the refuge
of the covenant.
These are the two promises that show how God
fulfills his covenant to save man from sin.
- Instead of being written merely on tablets of stone,
God takes the 10 Commandments and he writes them
upon the tables of the heart so that we delight
to do God's will.
When Noah preached righteousness,
he was preaching that people should accept the Lord
and their lives should change.
Their lives should be righteous.
Because it wasn't only, oh, change your thinking
and keep on behaving the way you've been behaving.
When the Bible says that Noah was a preacher
of righteousness, he was calling people
to be righteous in their lives.
And this is an example of what God wants
from his people at the end.
- Now here we are at the end living in the world's
last judgment hour more than 4,300 years later.
The first angel's message, like the message of Noah,
is proclaiming the everlasting gospel,
calling all who will listen to enter
into the refuge of the covenant.
By this covenant, we're to receive the promise
of mercy through Jesus Christ and the promise
of sanctification through his power.
Meaning that God will grant us the power to bring
our lives into conformity to his commandments.
In the days of Noah, simply proclaiming the promises
to the people was not enough to save them.
In order to receive the promises, the people needed
to respond to the gospel call by entering into the ark.
But how do we enter into the ark of God's covenant
at the end of time?
The way into the covenant is revealed in three commands
given in the last part of the first angel's message.
- Fear God and give glory to him,
for the hour of his judgment is come.
And worship him that make heaven and earth
and the sea and the fountains of waters.
- And the first message of the three angels' messages
is to fear God.
Not a fearful fear, but to reverence God.
- Which is linked very frequently in the Old Testament
with keeping God's commandments.
- Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
- In this statement, Solomon links fearing God
or reverencing God with keeping his commandments.
Furthermore, he gives his reason why this is
important and says, for God shall bring every
work into judgment.
In this same way, the reason for the first angel's
command to fear God and therefore keep his commandments
is given for the hour of his judgment is come.
- So fear God, then it says give glory to him.
- How do you give glory to God?
Well, God says that let him that glories glory
in this that he knows me.
- The Bible says that this is how we know that we love God
when we love him and keep his commandments
and that his commandments are not grievous.
- In fact, in 1 John it says he who says I know him
and does not keep his commandments is a liar
and the truth is not in him.
So when the law is in the heart,
we delight to do his will
and people see a difference in our lives.
- The ultimate glory of God is to reflect his character
and to demonstrate the same attributes that he has.
So getting on the ark in the last days,
getting on the ark at the end of time,
is going to combine the principles of God's law,
which are love to God and love to fellow man.
The manifestation of his character,
this is how we bring glory to him.
It's not works of righteousness.
It's just simply the working out of the principle of love.
- God's love has to be manifested through us,
which can only happen through a total divestiture of self.
And instead of being motivated by selfishness
and love for self, when we fall in love with the Lord
and we're motivated by love for him and love for God,
we will be obeying this law.
Placing him above our own interests,
That's the character of God.
That's what God is all about.
And in his commandments, he's not asking us to do
anything that he doesn't do or wouldn't do himself.
He's asking us to live the same way he lives.
He's asking us to portray his attributes,
his characteristics.
- When our lives begin to portray the selfless
characteristics of Jesus, it's evidence that
we've entered into his covenant.
Because it reveals that Jesus is working in us
to fulfill his promise to restore our character.
Then God is glorified because it demonstrates
that he's able to fulfill his promise to restore us.
- When Noah and his family entered into the ark
it was evidence of their faith in God's promises.
So in the same way, entering into the covenant
today involves the demonstration of our faith
in his promises.
So if it's our desire to enter into the ark today,
we need to know what it is we are to do
that demonstrates our faith in the promises
of his everlasting covenant.
The answer is in the last command of the
first angel's message.
This message contains the world's last call
to worship the creator and the way we worship
God is also a demonstration of our faith
in the promises of his covenant.
- And worship him that made heaven and earth
and the sea and the fountains of waters.
- The first angel's message in a very specific sense
calls people back to worship the creator.
- The story of the flood is inherently bound up
with the story of creation.
The evidences of the flood are inherently
bound up with the story of creation.
And as we become familiar with the flood
and we recognize the physical evidence
which it left behind, it bears eloquent testimony
to the one who made heavens and earth,
the one whose day of judgment has come
and the one whom we're commanded to worship.
- If we give up on the idea of a flood
and a creation, a literal creation,
we lose all the basis for our faith.
We can't have a basis for worship because
the basis of our worship is God's creatorship.
- God ended His creation sequence
God ended His work in six days.
But He didn't stop there.
God set aside a seventh day.
God sanctified it.
None of the other days of Creation
were sanctified, set aside and made Holy. Why?
God set aside as a memorial to His creation.
- And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it;
because that in it He had rested from all his work
which God created and made.
- If I believe that God created
then why shouldn't I honor Him on the day that he set aside?
- And that day was for that sacred time to worship him.
- And there's no way you can talk about worship
without talking about the creator.
We worship God because he's our creator.
And the question is, what is the sign that God
gave us that he is the creator?
It's the Sabbath.
Wherefor the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath,
to observe the sabbath throughout their generations,
for a perpetual covenant.
It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever:
for in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, and on the seventh day He rested,
and was refreshed.
- The last part of that first angel's message
points us to the fourth commandment.
And we see that in the very fact that
it's almost a direct quote from the fourth commandment.
- and worship him that made heaven, and earth,
and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
The first angel's message not by coincidence
is pointing us to the first table of the decalogue
to the worship of the true God.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that in them is,
and rested the seventh day;
wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day,
and hallowed it.
- And so you find reference to the Sabbath
commandment even in the first angel's message.
- Every week when the Sabbath is observed,
we're announcing to the world that
God is our creator and our redeemer,
that we serve the true God.
So we worship God because he's the creator
and the sign of the creator is the Sabbath.
So worship the creation and the Sabbath
are all linked together.
(soft piano music)
- If God is the creator,
then God has the right to expect our worship.
He has the right to tell us what is right and wrong
and people don't want God telling them
that their sins are inappropriate or wrong
or that they'll be judged.
And so there is this massive effort
on the part of the devil and the world
to eliminate God from the equation.
- I find it fascinating that all of these issues
come to a head precisely at the point
where the 2,300 day prophecy ends
and that is a date which is called 1844.
What is significant about 1844?
- A number of very significant things were happening
on the world scene.
- You have two different worldviews clashing
right close together in time.
- As God gives a message in terms of trying to
get his people to come back to him,
the great adversary will do whatever it takes
to pull them away.
- Hey, how's it going?
- And so I have no doubts in my mind
that Satan knew that there was gonna be
a movement that would arise at the end of
the 2,300 day prophecy that would attract
the attention of people to the creator, to his Sabbath,
to the cleansing of the sanctuary, etcetera.
- So while people were preparing for the
eminent return of Jesus Christ,
there were other forces in conflict
with this particular message.
- And so I believe that the age of reason,
the age of enlightenment was Satan's
preemptive attempt to try and destroy
what prophecy had said that was gonna happen
in the early 1800s.
- The first angel's message is so loaded
with its command to worship him who made heaven and earth
to recognize the hour of God's judgment is come.
These were the things that science was moving away from.
You had a call for a much more formal and complete
abandonment of Christianity coming in with the
introduction of the concept of evolution.
- Darwinism develops in 1844 when he wrote his first
Origin of Species and sent it for discussion
to his various colleagues.
- They didn't want to address or to accept the creation
and there is in many hearts a strong desire
to avoid the hour of judgment.
- Darwinism removes the fear of a judgment
because we are hearing a process developing
towards something as opposed to humanity
is coming to an end in a great final judgment.
Ecumenism develops in 1844.
The ways to communicate.
The Morse code, the first information that goes
across the lines and the air waves of the world
happens in 1844.
Communism comes in 1844.
Spiritism raises its head in 1844.
- Spiritualism comes in here and says, look,
we go over here, we'll take the evolutionary part,
but now also we have additional.
We can talk to the spirits and they will guide us.
So we have all of these conflicting areas.
- You have these two in juxtaposition,
all of them developing around 1844.
- One message points to the creator.
The other message, on the other hand,
points to the adversary.
One, shall we say, based on catastrophism,
creation, the other based upon uniformitarianism.
And all these things were converging.
It was the birth of a new era.
- The three angels' message is a call, again,
to recognize God.
Mankind says, don't need God.
- And if we can see that he didn't really
create the world and that all of it happened
by accident, then we really become
the final arbiter, we become God.
And the Sabbath and the Bible,
it's a constant rebuke to that teaching.
It's under attack because of that.
It shows us that God made things
and we're to worship him.
- The first angel's message says,
his judgment is coming, you should fear him,
you should bring glory to our lives,
and we should acknowledge him specifically
as the creator, a fantastically important message
to come in the 1800s right when it did.
- By remembering that the Sabbath is a memorial
of creation, the first angel's message shows that
we confess that God is the creator.
But the Sabbath has much more significance
than this one fact.
The Sabbath identifies the author of the covenant,
and if we believe that God sanctified the seventh day,
then the Sabbath becomes a sign of God's ability
to sanctify us.
Noah's message to find refuge in God's covenant
began to be preached again in 1844
and in that same year, the Genesis account
of creation came under attack.
By proposing a counterfeit story of our origins,
Satan undermined the sign of God's authority
in the form of the Sabbath day,
which was given to be a sign of our confidence
in the promises of his covenant.
- The Sabbath really is, it's something that
God made holy, and if God can make a day holy,
if he can make a time holy,
then he has the power to sanctify,
and he needs to sanctify us.
That's why he told God's people in both
Exodus and Ezekiel, the Sabbath is a sign
that I am the one that sanctifies you.
I'm the one that makes you holy.
- Speak thou also unto the children of Israel,
saying verily, my Sabbaths ye shall keep,
for it is a sign between me and you
throughout your generations that ye may know
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.
- We're remembering that God has the power to create,
re-create us, and he has the power to sanctify
and to sanctify us to make us holy.
- We are to be transformed into the image of Christ,
which points us back to the Sabbath again
in terms of the fact that we are to be re-created.
- You know, keeping the Sabbath doesn't make me holy.
The Sabbath is an external sign of an internal
experience of rest with Christ.
- So the memorial in the Sabbath is a recreation
of the human soul into the image of Christ.
- We see the real significance of the Sabbath
in the very reason God gave for its observance.
He said the Sabbath was given that ye may know
that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.
I've often said that the Sabbath is an outward
sign of an inward work, because observing
the Sabbath is a sign that we acknowledge
only God can sanctify us, which also means
that it's a sign whereby we confess that
our works cannot save us.
Throughout the Old Testament,
the Israelites do not fully understand this.
And when God gave them his covenant at Mount Sinai,
all the people answered together and said,
all that the Lord has spoken we will do.
Shortly after making this promise, they broke it.
You see, the problem with the old covenant was
that it was based upon man's promise,
as if man somehow could sanctify himself by his own efforts.
This is why we read God was finding fault with them.
And so he sayeth, behold the day has come,
sayeth the Lord, when I will make a new covenant.
This new covenant mentions God's law,
which is the 10 Commandments.
But now it's based upon the promise of God.
He now says I will put my laws in their mind
and write them on their hearts.
Man can do nothing to save himself,
and this is why Jesus offers a better covenant,
which was established upon better promises
because it was established upon His own promise.
- From a spiritual perspective,
we are saying, Lord, I cannot save myself.
By keeping the Sabbath in a temporal means,
here on this planet from week to week,
demonstrates that we trust God,
that he is going to do all that he has said.
- It's an analogy of our entry into the rest of Christ
and that we believe his righteousness is adequate.
And this idea of the Sabbath is to be a sign.
A sign between God's people and God himself
that those who embrace the Sabbath,
those who cease from their labors,
in other words, stop trying to save yourself
and look at the covenant of grace,
embracing that, this is the idea of the Sabbath.
- The everlasting covenant has two signs or symbols
and one of those signs is the Sabbath.
- Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the
Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their
generations for a perpetual covenant.
It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.
- The Sabbath was a sign for perpetual covenant.
And the Hebrew word for perpetual
is the word everlasting.
And the everlasting covenant is the same covenant
God made with Noah.
- And the bow shall be in the cloud
and I will look upon it that I may remember
the everlasting covenant between God
and every living creature of all flesh
that is upon the earth.
And God said unto Noah, this is the token
of the covenant which I have established
between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
- Both of these signs of the everlasting covenant,
the Sabbath and the rainbow, each represent
one of the two promises God makes to man
in this covenant.
- The rainbow was given as a sign of the
everlasting covenant, and more specifically,
it represented the everlasting covenant's
promise of mercy.
This is further clarified in the book of Isaiah
when God said, as I have sworn that the waters
of Noah should no more go over the earth,
so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee
nor rebuke thee.
And he concluded the vow of his promise to Noah saying,
my kindness shall not depart from thee.
Neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,
sayeth the Lord that hath mercy on thee.
- In the rainbow of promise, we may behold the
emblem of mercy and forgiveness God has promised us
through the everlasting covenant.
- The rainbow is a sign of God's promise of mercy
and the Sabbath is a sign of
God's promise of sanctification.
- We see that God gave the Sabbath to be a sign
of our sanctification in Ezekiel chapter 20.
- Moreover also, I gave them my Sabbaths
to be a sign between me and them
that they might know that I am the Lord
that sanctified them.
- When we look at Noah, we see that he received
both the promise of mercy and sanctification.
- Looking forward in faith to the promise of mercy
that would come through the Messiah,
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
In the next verse, we read Noah was a just man
and perfect in his generations.
And Noah walked with God.
As Noah walked with God, he became more like God
and was sanctified according to the promise
of the everlasting covenant.
To make you perfect in every good work to do his will.
He was forgiven and sanctified.
That Noah's life was sanctified and brought back
to obedience to God is further clarified
at the end of the chapter where we read,
thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him,
so did he, and as a result, we read in the next verse,
and the Lord said unto Noah,
come thou and all thy house into the ark,
for thee have I seen righteous before me
in this generation.
- Both the promise of mercy and sanctification
are guaranteed to us as to Noah
through the blood of Jesus.
- The means by which God fulfilled this promise was
our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
The life and sacrifice of Jesus has guaranteed
for all generations the promise of mercy
and this is why it is called the everlasting covenant.
So the next time you see a rainbow,
remember this sign God gave Noah as a token of his mercy
is also a sign of his promise to show you mercy.
And this promise was paid for in full
by the blood of Jesus.
- The Sabbath and the rainbow are beautiful
emblems of the everlasting covenant
that Jesus desires to make with us.
The rainbow being a sign of mercy we receive
through Jesus' death and the Sabbath a sign of
sanctification or restoration from sin
that Christ is working to do in us.
- Both are promises of what God said that he would do.
They got on the ark, that was their covenant,
and it was sealed by the rainbow at the end.
And when we take a look and compare the rainbow
given unto Noah that said never again will I
bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy it.
The covenant of God's people today
is the invitation to enter into his rest.
The Sabbath is a sign of that covenant.
- From the beginning to the end of time,
the everlasting covenant has been the means
by which God saves man.
And God made the Sabbath a sign of this covenant.
This is why when you look in the Old Testament,
those from other nations who were not Israelites
could enter into the refuge of the everlasting covenant
through the keeping of the Sabbath.
- The Sabbath is not the Sabbath for the Jews exclusively.
In Isaiah 56, it says my house shall be called
a house of prayer for all peoples, even the Gentiles.
- Referring to the Gentiles, Isaiah writes,
also the sons of the stranger that join themselves
to the Lord to serve him and to love the name of the Lord,
to be his servants, every one that keepeth the
Sabbath from polluting it and taketh hold of my covenant.
Even them will I bring to my holy mountain
and make them joyful in my house of prayer.
According to this verse, it was by keeping the Sabbath
the Gentiles were to take hold of
or enter into the covenant.
- So even in the Old Testament period,
the Sabbath was not exclusively for the Jews.
It was a sign of the covenant for Jews, Gentiles,
eunuchs, whoever wanted to enter into
a covenant relationship with the Lord.
- And being made with Israel, we have to understand
that Israel in the new covenant or in the New Testament
symbolizes all who come to Christ.
- And so it is today that all who wish
may enter into the ark of the everlasting covenant
through the keeping of the Sabbath,
a sign of our faith and rest in the promises of God.
In the days of Noah,
all who entered into the ark were saved.
The door was open.
Anyone could enter in.
But only a few trusted in the promises of God.
Noah entered into the ark and found rest
in the promises of the everlasting covenant.
And this is a lesson for us today as we stand
on the precipice of eternity,
preparing for the culmination of earth's final judgment.
- Have you ever imagined yourself back in the days of
Noah, listening to him preach,
wondering what you might have done?
Well, realize this.
Right now you are in that exact same position.
- More than 4,300 years after the flood.
The first angel's message is now once again
proclaiming the everlasting gospel preached by Noah
to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
- The sanctuary showed us that right now even though
the house of his judgment has come,
Jesus is still in the most holy place
of the sanctuary in heaven,
interceding on behalf of man for the forgiveness of sins.
This is our last opportunity to confess our sins
upon the lamb of God and to receive his mercy.
- This is also our last opportunity to walk with
Jesus through his sanctuary and to enter into
the refuge of the everlasting covenant.
- The name Noah literally means rest.
And as Noah lifted up his hand, pointing at the
way into the ark, he was pointing out the only place
where the people might find rest for the judgment.
And that place of rest was in the promises
of the everlasting covenant confirmed by the blood of Jesus.
- So today the first angel's message is likewise
pointing our attention to the Sabbath
by commanding us to worship him that made
heaven and earth and the sea.
Because it's by remembering the Sabbath day
to keep it holy that we may too enter
into the ark of the everlasting covenant
to find rest in the promises of God.
- For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day
on this wise and God did rest the seventh day
from all his works and in this place again
if they shall enter into my rest.
- Those that embrace it and accept it
are really entering into an everlasting covenant.
And every Sabbath day that we keep,
the literal Sabbath represents that.
You find that in Hebrews chapter four.
Entering into his rest, entering into that covenant,
just like when Noah entered into the ark,
he entered into that covenant that God had made
to save him and his family.
- While Noah was calling the people to enter
into the refuge of the ark and to accept
God's everlasting covenant,
they had a multitude of excuses why they didn't need to.
I'm sure some of them said God won't judge the people.
God's a God of love.
He won't destroy the world.
Or things like, all things have continued as they were
since the beginning, so there's no reason to believe
that God will destroy the world with a flood.
Whatever the reason, they prevented the people
from entering into the ark and the same is true today.
The multitude of differing ideas will prevent
the vast majority of people entering into the ark
of the everlasting covenant.
However, many people are still seeking God
with all their hearts.
But for these people, Satan has prepared another deception.
A counterfeit covenant.
In the Bible, God warns us the entire world
will embrace this counterfeit covenant.
And even now the great body of Christ true believers
have placed their faith in its empty promises.
For those who really desire to know the truth,
God will not permit Satan to deceive them
about the issues of the controversy.
So in his love, Jesus sends another angel
with another message, this time addressed
to his own people, and this is the second angel's message.
The most meaningful revelation of the sanctuary for me,
was when I understood that the ministry of Christ
changed in 1844.
When I understood this truth, that the idea of the
investigative judgment was about
a God that wanted to save me, who wanted to prepare me
for translation,
that just floored me,
in a way that this message never has.
God is warning me, by giving me a picture
of what it means to be in the right character.
And that, if I join myself to Him
if I have the faith of Jesus
and I keep the commandments through Him, not of anything
that I do. But rather it's an outcropping of He who dwells
within me. As John the baptist said
He must increase but I must decrease.
There can be no piece of self left if I hope to make it.
Many erroneously teach that we're getting
better and we're getting better in terms of our walk with
Christ as I'm growing in grace,
and what not, so I become more righteous.
That's incorrect thinking.
That's evolutionism.
But rather we are losing more and more of self
as we allow Christ to come in.
He must increase, I must decrease.
When I saw that in the Most Holy Place message,
that made me have a deeper appreciation
for the God we serve
than I had ever had before.