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English Lecture Sab 3

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Journeying With the Jews: Return of the Remnant

  1. For a moment reflect with me on that retching of human history we still remember as the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were exterminated.
    1. I have stood in the haunted silence of Auschwitz on the day after Easter.
      1. And I have pondered the muted message its cold and dusty crematoriums yet speak to a world that still survives.
      2. But to my shame I confess that I did not cry.
    2. Illus: A few summers ago I stood with my little family in the sobbing stillness of Dachau.
      1. And beneath the hot midday sun of our summer vacation, we trudged the long pathway from the black and white museum with its pictures of utter horror and numbing tragedy to the small brick crematorium on the outskirts of that death camp.
      2. This time somebody did cry.
      3. We heard her sobs as we rounded the verdant foliage that now surrounds that place of death.
      4. She was only a student with a group of her classmates on some prescribed field trip.
      5. But they were Jews, these students, and she was a young Jewess.
      6. And there beside the memorial statue outside the crematorium, the young girl weeps, a classmate's consoling arm about her sobbing shoulder.
      7. To my shame I confess that I did not cry.
    3. But beyond the colossal proportions of this epic human tragedy, why should I cry and why should we weep, any of us?
    4. Or could it be that we have great reason to weep?
    5. For when the brief history of time is one day written, I believe it will show that like two matching bookends upon the shelf of sacred history there were and are two communities of truth that have occupied the beginning and the ending of salvation history's story, what in German is called the Heilsgeschichte.
      1. Two communities of truth and faith that are inextricably bound together by a shared fate--that being their divine calling to become the chosen ones.
      2. These two communities, more than any other two in the history of time and religion, will bear the epitaph, "the Remnant," and both shall know the meaning of the holocaust.
      3. One community of truth we have already surmised.
      4. And who is it that shall share fate's honor with the Jews?
      5. Come seek the answer.
  2. It is a curious calling, that name, "the Remnant," and you can trace its history to the pristine beginnings of time.
    1. Let's go back and read the beginning--Gen. 4:25,26 (p4).
    2. Thus are born two separate streams of time and strands of history: the community of Seth and the community of Cain, the community of the REMNANT and the community of rebellion, the community of loyalty to the Creator and the community of abandonment of the Creator.
    3. The die is cast, "and the dragon was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the REMNANT of her seed." (Revelation 12:17 KJV)
    4. What he does to Abel he will attempt to do with every REMNANT seed that will issue from the woman--the woman at the beginning and the woman at the end!
    5. And because the dragon was wroth with the woman, life on earth became irreparably evil.
      1. Genesis 6:5,6; 7:1 (p5)
      2. And a REMNANT is born again.
      3. Illus: Not a perfect remnant, because faithful, righteous, loyal Noah gets drunk after he emerges from the ark.
      4. Which only goes to prove that whenever God calls for a REMNANT, it is never on the basis of their innate holiness or advanced sainthood!
      5. But it is always on the basis of their willingness to be repositories of eternal truth, God's truth for their present generation, i.e., "present truth."
      6. They have a loyalty to God and His present truth in spite of their innate fallenness.
      7. And present truth in the time of Noah was the urgent proclamation that the world would end soon.
      8. But God preserved a REMNANT.
    6. Then comes the tower of Babel and apostasy all over again, and it seems the whole world will be decimated by the raging dragon.
      1. And so once again God steps in and calls out a REMNANT.
      2. Genesis 12:1,2 (p10)
      3. And the seed of the woman becomes the seed of Abraham.
      4. And the great people of Isaac and Ishmael and Israel were birthed in the loins of Father Abraham.
      5. But the dragon was wroth with the seed of the woman and now with the seed of Abraham and went to make war!
    7. And so once again God must dramatically intervene to raise up a REMNANT and save the community of truth!
      1. Genesis 45:4,5,7 (p45) let me read it from the NRSV: "Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'Come closer to me.' And they came closer. He said, 'I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; ... God sent me before you to preserve for you a REMNANT on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors."
      2. Please note that in the great cosmic battle between Christ and Lucifer, God and Satan, the battleground has ever centered upon the communities of truth that sought to be faithful to the Creator God.
      3. And just when it appears that the people of God are about to exterminated, God supernaturally raises up a REMNANT and delivers them from evil.
    8. The classic birthing of the remnant is found in Exodus 2:23-25, 3:7,8 (p 53).
      1. And the rest is history--some of the greatest history in the annals of humankind, as this liberated horde of slaves flees under the cover of dark in the mighty exodus of Israel!
      2. Thus is born one of the two lone communities of truth that, it will one day be shown, have been raised up by God to occupy the beginning and ending of salvation's Judeo-Christian story.
  3. And what is the great raison d'etre, the mighty reason and meaning for the existence of the remnant community that has occupied the beginning of the story?
    1. Read the glorious apex and summation of their divine calling--Deuteronomy 7:6 (p 173)
      1. WOW! Did you catch that?
      2. The Lord your God has chosen you! They were the Chosen Ones!
    2. And why was this people of God chosen?
      1. Was it for their prowess or their power, their prominence or their prestige, their perfection?
      2. No, Moses thunders from the mountainside!
      3. Read v. 7!
      4. In fact, if you really want to know the truth, Moses goes on in Deut. 9:6. Well, read it for yourself!
      5. It isn't very flattering to be called a bunch of stubborn nobodies!
    3. Then why on earth did God ever choose that rag-tag band of Israelite slaves in the first place?
      1. Read Deuteronomy 7:8!
      2. Illus: And here Moses chooses the identical word he used in his once-upon-a-time love story between Jacob and Rachel, "he loved Rachel more than Leah" (Genesis 29:30).
      3. You were chosen, because you were loved by God. For you are the beloved of God!
    4. There is a profound truth here that compels itself to be noticed!
      1. Illus: The late Henri Nouwen, the celebrated author and pastor, wrote a book, "Life of the Beloved".
      2. Written in the first person, it is a letter to a young Jewish professional living with his wife in New York City. Nouwen and he had become acquainted earlier when Nouwen had been teaching at Yale, and a deep and abiding friendship developed between the two.
      3. This book is in response to the young agnostic's plea for Nouwen to try to put religion in terms he and his friends of the city could understand.
      4. Along the way to making his point, Nouwen shares a profound insight into the meaning of being chosen by God:
        "I hope that the word 'chosen' speaks to you. It must be for you a word with very special connotations. As a Jew, you know the positive and the negative associations in being considered one of God's chosen people....Let me try to expand a bit on these words....From all eternity, long before you were born and became a part of history, you existed in God's heart. Long before your parents admired you or your friends acknowledged your gifts or your teachers, colleagues and employers encouraged you, you were already "chosen." The eyes of love had seen you as precious, as of infinite beauty, as of eternal value. When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded. (46,47)
      5. Illus: When many of us think of being "chosen," long-forgotten but still painfully-vivid memories of school days and recesses come flooding back, when the teacher asked the two biggest boys in the classroom to choose up teams for some sport where winning mattered.
        1. And everybody lined up and awaited fate's choices.
        2. And the longer you waited, the more painful the thought, "I'm not good enough--because I'm never chosen first, I'm always chosen last."
        3. Do you remember?
      6. But not so with God, Nouwen counters. "To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different. Instead of excluding others, it includes others. Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness. It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice."
    5. And so it was for the remnant community of Israel.
      1. But their "chosenness" did not herald the exclusion of the rest of the world.
      2. Rather it was simply because of God's passionate longing to include the rest of the world that God chose a people to be the repositories of His eternal truth and the reflection of His eternal love for all humankind.
      3. To be the Remnant was not a divine call to be exclusive; it was a divine summons to become inclusive!
      4. It was the heart of God's loving strategy to save the entire planet.
    6. How can we know? Listen to the provocative claim Jesus made to the Samaritan woman beside Jacob's Well!
      1. She has just tried to dodge a moral arrow aimed straight into the soul of her guilty conscience.
      2. She wants to know who's right, we Samaritans or you Jews?
      3. And in answer, Jesus makes an unequivocal claim which you must read for yourself--John 4:22 (p1028).
      4. SALVATION IS OF THE JEWS--period.
      5. Jesus could have flimflammed around as so much religion does today by declaring, All that matters is that God loves you and you love God- -so don't worry your pretty little head about such inconsequential particulars as truth and doctrine and revelation.
      6. But instead, looking her in the eye, He answered, If you're asking whether Samaritans or Jews have the truth, then you must know that the truth of salvation resides in the REMNANT community of the Jews!
      7. Christ wasn't being arrogant, but He was being honest.
      8. Illus: Buddhism is dead wrong and so is ecumenism. All paths do not lead to the top of the mountain.
      9. There is only one path, and the Jews have been entrusted with the truth about the pathway.
      10. So says Jesus to the Samaritan woman.
  4. That being the case, the question must be asked: What then did Israel, God's REMNANT community of truth, believe, embrace and witness to the world?
    1. Whatever truth God entrusted to them at the beginning of the salvation story, would it not follow that the matching bookend at the end of the story would embrace and espouse the same divine truth?
    2. Consider now eleven tenets that the REMNANT bookend at the beginning of the salvation story preserved and propagated (I am indebted to my friend, Clifford Goldstein, an American Jew who became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian and a most skilful apologist and writer, for all except one in the following list):
    3. Tenet number one, monotheism.
      1. Clifford Goldstein describes the preservation of this divine truth in an ancient world cluttered with gods and goddesses: "Then amid this parade of polytheism, a small nation of ex-slaves, refugees without their own land, wanderers without a country, proclaimed one of the most radical ideas in antiquity: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohanu, Adonai Achad, which means, 'Hear O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one' (Deut. 6:4)."
      2. Was monotheism some new-fangled proposition?
      3. Hardly. It was as old as the earth! Polytheism was what was new.
      4. And so God raised up a REMNANT community to restore the old, old truth.
    4. Tenet number two, the REMNANT community of Israel also embraced and propagated the truth about the seventh-day Sabbath.
      1. Hardly a new truth, this one stretched also all the way back to creation.
      2. But the Creator needed a people to champion that forgotten truth of that forgotten day.
      3. And so He raised up a REMNANT!
    5. Tenet number three, this REMNANT also had the Ten Commandments, God's ten precepts of human happiness, in their pure form.
      1. Oh yes, the surrounding nations had their civil and religious codes and laws.
      2. But nothing compared with the profound simplicity and all inclusiveness of the Decalogue.
      3. God needed a REMNANT to champion His Law.
    6. Tenet number four, they also championed the truth about creation.
      1. The most absurd and silly myths abounded in the pagan nations surrounding Israel when it came to the creation of the earth.
      2. Illus: Goldstein describes one myth, the Enuma Elish narrative, that taught that the earth was created as a result of a bitter battle between the gods, when some of the gods disturbed the sweet sleep of some other gods, erupting all of them into a cosmic battle!
      3. No, declared Judaism, a loving Creator God hand-shaped a perfect planet into existence in a single week of human time, culminating in the seventh- day Sabbath.
      4. It was not a new truth.
      5. Israel was raised up to champion the oldest truth of all!
    7. Tenet number five, to the remnant called Israel was also given the sanctuary of the Lord and the unique message it taught.
      1. Oh sure, the pagans had their sanctuaries and temples.
      2. But they also had human prostitution and human sacrifices.
      3. God raises up Israel so that the ancient truth of a divine sacrifice, the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world, that truth taught at the gates of Eden, might be firmly established and proclaimed throughout the earth.
      4. No other religion so profoundly confronted the sin problem of humanity and the salvation gift of God.
      5. God needed a REMNANT to champion in advance the glorious truth of Calvary to the whole world!
    8. Tenet number six, this remnant community of truth at the beginning of the salvation story also championed God's truth about death.
      1. The Hebrews were unique among all peoples in teaching that death was an unconscious sleep.
      2. Illus: The pagan Pharaohs and priests of Egypt had concocted an elaborate system of death based upon the false premise that the human soul is immortal.
      3. But God raised up a REMNANT community to champion the truth that only the Creator God can restore and resurrect human life, and He will do so at the end of time.
    9. Tenet number seven, Israel also had a health message.
      1. The great principles of a proper diet, birthed in Eden itself, were continued and propagated by the Jewish people.
      2. In a world that knew nothing about fat and cholesterol and heart disease and cancer, God instilled in His REMNANT the teaching of clean and unclean foods, principles of dietary health founded upon the ideal and natural diet of Eden.
    10. Tenet number eight, the REMNANT community of Israel also had an understanding of the great controversy between God and Satan.
      1. In fact in the oldest book of the Old Testament, Job graphically introduced that great cosmic theme of a battle between God and Satan for the loyalty of humankind.
      2. Their pagan neighbors offered a pantheon of philosophies and myths about this cosmic battle.
      3. Only the Hebrews championed the truth about it!
    11. Tenet number nine, the REMNANT of Israel also had the spirit of prophecy.
      1. And it is to the Hebrews that we still turn for the rich legacy of their prophets, both canonical and noncanonical, male and female.
      2. It was their divinely inspired messages that formed the very basis of all Judeo-Christian faith today.
      3. False prophets abounded in the world around them.
      4. But God raised up a REMNANT with the true spirit of prophecy to be a shining light in a dark, dark night.
    12. Tenet number ten, deep within their sanctuary service only Israel the REMNANT could champion the truth about the great Day of Atonement, the type of a final judgement and cleansing in the heavenly sanctuary above.
      1. No other religion even faintly captured this truth.
      2. But it was truth nonetheless, and God raised up a people who would proclaim it to the world!
      3. Judgement is coming, turn to the Savior God!
    13. And finally tenet number eleven, the REMNANT called Israel enjoyed great light about the truth of the coming Redeemer Messiah.
      1. They had the truth about both His advents, but particularly His first.
      2. The Jews were given special privilege in announcing His arrival, and they themselves were to prepare for it.
      3. Israel alone possessed the great Messianic prophecies of Isaiah 53, Daniel 9 and Psalm 22.
      4. Was this a new truth? Certainly not!
      5. All the way back to the cherubim-guarded gates of Eden was Genesis 3:15's promise to humanity that through the woman God would provide the Deliverer from sin and death.
      6. God simply needed a REMNANT community who would share the shining truth of the coming Messiah and His salvation with the rest of His world!
    14. And if only Israel had embraced the Messiah when He came to them.
      1. But the record is bitterly sad John 1:11 (p1025) "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him."
      2. Had they accepted Christ, there would have been no need for any further remnant.
      3. Israel would have carried God's truth to the end.
      4. They would not have been a bookend; they would have become the entire shelf of God's salvation story!
      5. But alas, having it all, they missed it all in Jesus Christ.
    15. But there they are, eleven ancient and eternal truths God has always needed a remnant community to champion.
  5. But there is a question that begs to be asked: If there were a remnant community to preserve and propagate those truths at the beginning of the salvation story, would it not follow that the same God who raised up the first remnant would also raise up a last remnant community to preserve and propagate those very same truths at the end of the story?
    1. Revelation 12:7 (p1182).
    2. The Apocalypse is clear: There is a remnant community today that has been raised up God, just as surely as He raised up Israel of old.
      1. They, too, are His chosen people.
      2. Not because they are greater than the rest. Israel wasn't, nor will they be.
      3. But because of the sovereign grace and love and providence of God, they have been raised up, as inheritors of ancient Israel's legacy, to share the glad and urgent tidings of these eternal truths with an endtime world.
      4. Their two-fold raison d'etre is the same as Israel's: to preserve in the world and proclaim to the world the truth of the Creator Savior God.
      5. Revelation 12:17 is not an apocalyptic call to arrogance; it is a prophetic call to faithfulness.
    3. And who is that remnant community today?
      1. All you need to do is take that list of eleven truths, center them all in Jesus Christ, the great summation of all truth, and then search the face of this endtime earth.
      2. Surely the Spirit of all Truth will lead every honest seeker to find that remnant of God today.
      3. There can only be one remnant community of truth on earth, one divinely-raised repository of what the Scriptures have taught from the beginning.
      4. Portions of these great tenets can be found in communities of faith the world over.
      5. But one community embraces all eleven: One Creator God, the seventh-day Sabbath, the Ten Commandments, the truth about creation, the sanctuary's message of sin and salvation, the truth about death, the health message, an understanding of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, the spirit of prophecy, the Day of Atonement and the cleansing judgement, and the coming Redeemer.
      6. Find the community that teaches and embraces and witnesses to all eleven as they are in Christ Jesus, and you will have found God's remnant at the end of the salvation story.
      7. Because the bookends match!
      8. For the last few evenings you and I have been journeying into the heart of these eleven great tenets of divine truth. The NeXt Millennium Seminar has been a very public and open examination of those truths.
      9. And while I state it with humility, I am bound before God to declare it to you without hesitation: The global community of faith that has brought you this satellite seminar night after night is the only community of faith on earth that espouses all eleven of these divine tenets of truth.
      10. It is not a perfect community but this community has been raised up by the Spirit of Jesus to proclaim God's perfect truth for this endtime generation.
      11. And so I must testify that the Seventh-day Adventist Church, of which I am a member and a pastor, is fulfilling the remnant mission of God in this final chapter of human history.
  6. So what shall we say then in conclusion?
    1. The truth about the bookends is also a passionate appeal to the men and women and young adults of earth who have yet to join God's remnant community of faith.
      1. To all of you I must appeal: Please do not look to that community for holiness or perfection, for neither Israel of old nor the remnant today have always lived up to the truths they espoused.
      2. But, my friend, you must take seriously the message God has entrusted to His remnant, chosen people.
      3. Because He has chosen you, too!
      4. It is high time you stand up for what you have found to be truth--eternal truth.
      5. Now is the hour, because God needs your remnant witness, too.
      6. Not everyone will understand your decision, but you must leave the consequences to God.
      7. He simply calls you to follow your conscience and His Holy Scriptures.
    2. But the truth about the bookends offers a second appeal and so I must include my fellow travellers in the remnant community of faith today.
      1. The sad and sombre story of John 1:11 has every potential and possibility of repeating itself in the remnant bookend on this side of the shelf!
      2. "He came unto his own, but his own received him not."
      3. Woe be to the Seventh-day Adventist heart lifted up in pride over its theological pedigree, its doctrinal orthodoxy or its ecclesiastical legacy.
      4. The story of the remnant bookend two thousand years ago is tragic proof enough that all the theological orthodoxy in the world can never save a community or a soul!
    3. The truth is that the verse that follows John 1:11 is the truth that we must all embrace, every attendee at the NeXt Millennium Seminar and every member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
      1. I wish to end with this one-line promise John 1:12 (p1025).
      2. Because you see, my friends: in the end what will matter most, what will matter last, will be a passionate and personal relationship with God through Jesus.
    4. Illus: The great Babe Ruth, who had hit 714 homeruns during his baseball career, was playing one of his last major league games.
      1. On that day the ageing star was playing for the Boston Braves against the Cincinnati Reds.
      2. But he was no longer as agile as he once had been.
      3. He fumbled the ball and threw badly, and in one inning alone, his errors were responsible for five Cincinnati runs!
      4. As the Babe walked off the field after the third out, the fickle crowd turned on their ageing hero and boo's and catcalls descended from the stands.
      5. The Babe dropped his head and kept on walking.
      6. Just then a young boy leaped over the railing and onto the playing field.
      7. Racing toward the Babe with tears trickling down his little cheeks, the boy threw his chubby arms around the stocky legs of his big hero: "Never mind the crowd, I love you, Babe!"
      8. And Ruth didn't miss a beat he reached down and scooped the little tyke up into his arms, threw him in the air, gave him a giant bear hug, placed him back on his feet, and with a playful pat on his head the two of them walked hand in hand back to the dugout.
      9. The reporters there that day said suddenly the booing stopped and a hush fell over that entire park.
      10. Why?
      11. Because in those brief moments the crowd saw a different kind of hero--a man who in spite of dismal day on the field could still care about a little boy.
      12. And now he was no longer being judged by his accomplishments-- neither his past successes nor his present failures mattered.
      13. For in the end a relationship made all the difference in the world.
    5. And that is the truth the Remnant must return to.
      1. Because in the end what will matter most, what will matter last, will be a personal relationship with God.
      2. As John 1:12 reads, "To all who received him."
      3. Can you think of anything, anyone better for you to receive than Jesus?




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