Finishing the Mystery of God

Larry Kirkpatrick,  Fairplain Seventh-day Adventist Church

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Introduction

The end of all things is very near. Here we stand in the closing moments of the year 1997. The world in which we live is characterized by change, tragedy, change, immorality, change, apostasy, change, murderous destruction. Debt increases, killings increase; in fact, most things the most evil increase. And this tired and wired world keeps on spinning. It careens madly through space, round and round the sun, and a confused planet broadcasts to itself a myriad of competing and conflicting ideologies, religions, and causes. A passing spaceship, stopping to listen in, might well be excused for thinking we were a pretty mixed-up bunch. And all in all, we are. A race living onthe outer boundaries of the last of the last of days, experiences a great deepening darkness. And we realize that this darkness is enfolding our world. But in the utter end, something is to happen that will change all of this. Something is to happen among God's people that illuminates not only our world, but a universe. We see a glimmer of this in Isaiah 60:1-3...

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

Yes, darkness shall cover the earth, a darkness that the Bible calls a "gross darkness." We come to a time of polarity; of sharp contrast; a time when "many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased" (Daniel 12:4), yet a time as well when God "Will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it" (Amos 8:11,12). So today we will consider what is on God's agenda for us in His appeal to us to "arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." Turn with me to Revelation 10:7. There we find these words, indicating that God does indeed have a supreme agenda. If there were no other words in the Bible, still this passage would confirm the existence of a great controversy between Christ and Satan, good and evil; for God has begun something, and He is bent upon finishing it! Listen:

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

This is what we will look at today, namely, (1)what is the mystery of God here spoken of, (2)when shall it be finished, and (3)what would God have us each do individually to be personally prepared and to hasten its completion?

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What is the Mystery of God ?

We will look at two aspects of this mystery: its experiential and its revelatory. That is, what does it mean for us to live out the experience of God's mystery, and what is God's mystery meant to reveal about Him? But first, can we even talk of understanding divine mysteries? Our God does not drop mysteries on us and then say "Ha ha. Not going to tell you what it is!" Rather, that which is revealed is revealed for us (Deuteronomy 29:29). But Ephesians shows that the mystery is made known so that it can be presented to the world. (Ephesians 3:2-5). God is in the business of revealing. He wants eyes to see and ears to hear, so that we can be healed. There is no impertinence in us when we earnestly seek to understand God and His will for us.

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The Experiential

So what does it mean to live out the mystery? Colossians 1:27-29 gives us the answer:

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

The mystery is Christ living in Me. His being in me--His mind being in me--is the needful element bringing the realization of God's character lived out within me. And that can happen only through my submission to God's will. Why did Paul say that he taught and warned every man? So that they could be presented perfect in Christ! Let me share a very meaningful quotation with you from the book Great Controversy, by Ellen G. White. And by the way, she is not just a favorite author. Seventh-day Adventists have compared her life and ministry with the Bible tests for prophets, and we understand her to have fully met those tests, and that she has shown herself to be every bit as prophetic as any Bible prophet. She is not part of the Bible, but I present this quotation to you as I understand it: an authoritative Word from God to us. I present it without apology. This is found on page 623:

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

1997 - A year has gone by. Are we, through the grace of God drawing nearer to this condition? With His help, I believe that many of us have, and with the new year coming up before us now, we all have opportunity to become more serious about becoming like Jesus in the year to come. Can Satan come to you and find nothing--no foothold, no place of advantage--no place to stand close enough to you to turn your darkest temptations into weapons to destroy you? He is seeking to devour you. The statement just presented defines what it means to become perfect in Christ. God is signaling us and warning us that now is the time for us to grow spiritually. Our danger is very great, but our Lord is greater. He presents to us to precious opportunity to know Him and live the mystery of His closeness. Only since its prophetic arrival in 1844 have we been in a time when the bright light of heaven has openned the way for this unique experience. But you may ask, are you saying that we are to be saved in a different way than Christians of the past? And I answer, no. But there is more light shining upon us than any other generation of humankind has ever had. To us God offers no unique salvation, but He does present to us--because of the intensity of the end-time--the opportunity to be Lamb-Followers. Turn with me to Revelation14:4,5 for their description: These are they which were not defiled with women [they removed themselves from false religious systems and bodies] for they are virgins [wherever they were when God got through to them, they have since then sought out personal purity] These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth [They have such a close personal connection with Christ that they know the intimacy of the mystery of being in Him and His word dwelling within them] These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God. Yes. When their names come up in the judgment, heaven investigates each life minutely, heaven exhaustively evaluates every soul. And they pass the bar. Through His grace actively applied in their lives they have become so like Him that they are walking echoes of His perfection. They fully retain their own personality and individuality, but they are also perfected reflectors of their Redeemer. They have purified themselves, even as He is pure, and when they see Him, they will be like Him in character. See 1 John 2:28-3:3. No, never could they equal Jesus in character, but they are enabled through faith connected to God's power to live here and now in this darkened world without sinning. Their experience is unique. They are singled-out in Revelation 14 as "these are they who...:" a distinct group. They sing "a new song, before the throne, and before the four beasts, and before the elders." Before God and before the angels and before the onlooking universe, they live-out an experience that no other group of beings have ever had. They have been tempted, not by Satan as a crafty but immature intellect firing off his first pyrotechnics of deception, but by a Satan having perfected all the mind sciences he has watched and developed over 6000 years, using his own unsurpassed intellect--a mind second only to that of God Himself. They are a group who have been assaulted by more sensory stimuli than any other generation ever have. They are a group who have had more carefully crafted, theologically finessed error thrown at them than any other. No other group has had such relativistic principles pressed upon them, such subjectivism presented for their acceptance as they. No other group has needed to so carefully cultivate the spiritual discernment that would enable them to know which impressions are self-generated, and what are the true movings of the Holy Spirit. No other generation has so needed the help of the Bible, and the protection of the Spirit of Prophecy. And they have taken the fullest advantage of the resources God has offered them. And they are... ...us... ...We hope. To you God offers the intense fellowship of living His mystery, of partaking of His nature and His presence richly and transformingly. You and I can be and must ultimately be those who have "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Revelation 7:14.

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The Revelatory

Notice that Revelation speaks of seven angels sounding their trumpets in succession, one after another. This takes us back in thought to the book of Joshua, as God's people sought to take possession of the promised land. At the very outset of their conquest, they faced the mighty fortifications of the city of Jericho. Some forty years earlier, when Moses sent the spies into the land, and they brought back tales of walled cities they described as "very great" (Numbers 13:28), and "fenced up to heaven" (Deuteronomy 9:1), surely Jericho was one of those mentioned (PP 388,487). At the entrance to the promised land stood this mighty and proud fortified city, one said to have been the very center of the idolatrous and sensual religion of the Canaanites (PP 487). God made the conquest of this city an example. Every morning for six days the Israelite army marched around the city, a mighty host, followed by seven priests sounding seven trumpets, followed by the ark of God containing His Law. On the seventh day, you will recall that they marched around the city seven times, finally sounding trumpets and a shout, and at that mighty crescendo, God caused those towering battlements to come down in ruins. Those trumpets were the signal of judgment; they were God's means of showing to the inhabitants of Jericho their impending doom, and they sounded over a period of seven days. Day by day God's people were faithfully living out His directions, and day by day the city's ultimate doom was progressively ripening. Don't miss this: over time, God's judgment was being heralded, and over time, God's people were demonstrating their faithfulness in following His directions, in obeying their God. Friends, that week of time was an illustration to us of what our work stands for in these last days! Just as God has taken some 6000 years to allow the results of Satan's theory of government to show its fruits, so too He has commissioned His people throughout history to show the universe the fruits of following God's plan of government. Could God's condemnation of the city of Jericho have stood if He could not produce an obedient people? Wouldn't the onlooking universe have thought God arbitrary and fickle if He condemned a people for immorality, while not Himself producing a moral people? Remember, Satan has charged God with being unfair in patterning the universe's moral laws according to righteousness. Satan declared that His principles were as good as God's. He said "I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the farthest sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13,14). Yet the universe has watched for six millenia while God's government produced righteous people, and Satan's produced murderers, liars, and sensualists. The fruit is now all but ripened. Under the time of the seventh trumpet (which we will consider shortly), God says He will finish His mystery! He will present to the universe not only a standard of judgment, but He will show the universe a people who have followed Him fully. In essence, He will vindicate His name, His character, His government of this universe through a people who show that His laws can be obeyed. Completely. The evidence for God's case is not only what Jesus lived and died, but what His people will live out. Brothers and sisters, our lives are the finishing of the mystery of God! Look at what God says in Ephesians 3:9,10:

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

The word "men" is added; literally, the text reads, "To make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery. Everybody. A whole universe full! It is made known unto them "by the church." Ephesians 3:21 says that God's glory--His character--is to be made known to them "in the church." That's you and I, here and now! Here we see the revelatory aspect of God's mystery. The church is the arena where God displays what He can do. The proof in the pudding--the rubber meeting the road--the evidence, if you will, is displayed here. The universe will see whether it is fool's gold, or the real thing. Don't forget what Revelation 10:7 said, "as He hath declared to his servants the prophets." Turn now to the passage in 1 Peter 1:5. There we find assurance that we are born again to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that we are kept by the power of God through faith unto what? "Salvation." What salvation? A salvation in verse nine "Ready to be revealed in the last time." It speaks of our receiving "the end" of our faith, that is, the goal or completion of it, that being "the salvation" of our souls. "Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you" What did the prophets enquire and search diligently about? Our "salvation." "Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." They were trying to understand what this salvation meant. They knew it involved two elements here: (1)the sufferings of Christ, and (2)the glories that should follow. They knew it involved Christ living a life of unspotted obedience before His Father and the onlooking universe for 33 years as a man with the same flesh as we bear. But they also knew that linked to this incredible condescension was a glorious future for humankind. With intensity they sought to understand what this meant; what would be the outcome of God's grace actively applied in the lives of His followers? Verse 12 shows us that it was revealed to them that they did not minister the things of the gospel to themselves, but to us. They ministered primarily to us in their prophetic office--us, who live in the last days. But although they inquired and searched diligently, it is the angels who want to bend low and consider deeply all that is happening here. We are living "things the angels desire to look into." Our little world is the lesson-book of the universe. The unfallen worlds that we look up at in the night sky, twinkling stars and unnumbered planets circling them--believe you me--their eyes are on us. What will our lives reveal about God's government? We are on center stage; we who claim to follow Jesus. What do our lives say about God's claim that He will make man more valuable than the golden wedge of Ophir? The purest and most valuable gold found in the ancient world. What character will be revealed in us, God's last-day people? And who else will join in with us? How will others hear this message and receive its hope? Hear this from 6 Testimonies, pg. 19:

The word of truth, "It is written," is the gospel we are to preach. No flaming sword is placed before this tree of life. All who will may partake of it. There is no power that can prohibit any soul from taking of its fruit. All may eat, and live forever.Mysteries into which angels desire to look, which prophets and kings and righteous men desired to understand, the remnant church will carry in messages from God to the world. The prophets prophesied of these things, and they longed to understand that which they foretold; but to them this privilege was not given. They longed to see what we see, and to hear what we hear; but they could not.

Mighty privileges are ours. How will we treat them? Will we understand and carry these messages to a failing world; a world covered in "gross darkness?" Will "the glory of the Lord" be seen upon us? Is what Ellen G. White said in Lift Him Up, pg. 256 true? "When the gospel is received in its purity and power, it is a cure for the maladies that originated in sin. The Sun of Righteousness arises, 'with healing in his wings.'"

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When Shall the Mystery of God Be Finished?

When the seventh angel shall begin to sound. When is or was that? Some are today placing the time of these trumpets in the future. And there are some compelling reasons to look at that possibility. Yet it is also true that we have, as a people understood these trumpets as mostly past occurrences along the developing pathway of history. Revelation 11:15-19 shows that it was at the seventh trumpet that the ark of God's covenant was seen in heaven, and we have understood and presented to the world for a century and a half that the seventh trumpet began to sound in October of 1844. In other words, we believe that the time when God's mystery will be finished... ...is here. It began in 1844, and has been underway since then and to this day. We are now living in the time when God is ready to finish this 6000 year test-pattern. We live in a time which many prophets and righteous men desired to see, and have not seen. It is our privilege to drink so fully at the well of salvation that it is finished in our life-time, and we walk into eternity, having never seen death. We who are alive here and now have the opportunity to experience translation when Jesus comes. If we're ready.

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What Shall We Do To Become Ready, and Hasten the Mystery's Completion?

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

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

The day of the Lord draws near. We live in the end-time. Let us each make a fresh start as we close out the year. Let us permit God to arise, and use us. I want to close again with those mighty texts we began with, Revelation 10:7:

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

And Isaiah 60:1-3:

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