| God Reveals His Secrets in Every Age |
Today's Text:
But there is a God in heaven that revealeth king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Daniel 2:28
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The Message:
In past ages the Lord God of heaven revealed His secrets to His prophets, and this He does still. The present and the future are equally clear to Him, and He shows to His servants the future history of what shall be. The Omniscient looked down the ages and predicted through His prophets the rise and fall of kingdoms hundreds of years before the events foretold took place. The voice of God echoes down the ages, telling earth's inhabitants what is to take place. Kings and princes take their places at their appointed time. They think they are carrying out their own purposes, but in reality they are fulfilling the word God has given through His prophets. They act their part in carrying out God's great purposes. Events fall into line, fulfilling the word God has spoken.
The unbelieving and godless do not discern the signs of the times. In ignorance they may refuse to accept the inspired record. But when professed Christians speak sneeringly of the ways and means employed by the great I AM to make His ways and purposes known, they show themselves to be both ignorant of the Scriptures and of the power of God. The Creator knows just what elements He has to deal with in human nature. He knows that means to employ to obtain the desired end. The Christian who accepts the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth will look at Bible history in its true bearing. The past, the history of the Jewish economy from the beginning to the end, instead of being spoken of contemptuously and sneered at as "the dark ages," will reveal light, and still more light, as it is studied.
The word of men and women fails, and those who take their assertions as their dependence may well tremble, for they will one day be as shipwrecked vessels. But God's Word is infallible and endures forever. Christ declares, "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." [Matthew 5:18.] God's Word will endure through the ceaseless ages of eternity. God lives and reigns. His glory is not confined to the temple made with hands. He has not closed heaven against His people. As in the Jewish age, so in this age God reveals His secrets to His servants the prophets.
The image shown to Nebuchadnezzar [Daniel 2] in the visions of the night represents the kingdoms of the world. The metals in the image, symbolizing the different kingdoms, became less and less pure and valuable. The head of the image was of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the sides of brass, [the legs of iron], and the feet and toes of iron mingled with clay. So the kingdoms represented by them deteriorated in value. The result of making void the law of God may be seen in the immorality of these several kingdoms. If they had kept the fear of the Lord ever before them, they would have been given wisdom and power which would have bound them together and kept them strong.-Manuscript 39, 1899 (see also The Review and Herald, February 6,
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Commentary:
My friend, God reveals His secrets to all that would study His word. In times past God spoke to His people through prophets, that through them His character may be revealed. From Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, God had preserved a knowledge of Him thorough patriarchs and prophets. By the time the children of Israel were redeemed from the land of Egypt, that knowledge had diminished.
God had led Israel into Egypt, and had preserved them in the land of Goshen where they remained a separate and distinct people, but over time they had lost their knowledge of Him. To bring them back to a knowledge of Him, He brought them to Mount Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments, and the ceremonial law that through it they would be brought into a better knowledge of Him.
The law and the ceremonial system, pointed forward to the Son of God who would more clearly reveal the love of God to the world. Jesus, the Son of God, is the only being in all the universe that could reveal the character of God to man. He was the embodiment of the law and through Him we see God. Of this Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." (John 14:6, 7). In Him is the fullness of divinity, and the express image of the Father. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." (Colossians 2:9).
"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;" (Hebrews 1:1-3).
Too many times we as Seventh-day Adventists look to the law and try to keep its precepts, but ultimately we fail. Though we will not admit it, we have become legalistic in our religion. We approach the problem of sin in a legalistic way, when we need to focus our lives upon Jesus. The law and the prophets were given to us for a reason, and that reason was to point us to the Son of God, who is the embodiment of the law. He is the express image of the Father.
My friend it is time for us to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
God bless,
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Video of the Week
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| The Glory of Jesus - David Clayton |
A sermon from the 2018 Roan Mountain Camp Meeting
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