And so it was at this time that God created an independent race that had not seen what had gone on and He made them very much like God. Male and Female, with the capacity to enter into a creative process. Neither the male nor the female was complete of himself or herself, only together were they in God’s image. Everything on this earth was designed to answer the charges that Satan made against God. Now the first question was; "Is this first, pure, pair going to make good choices? How are they going to evaluate the issues that have been raised?"

To be fair God did not prevent Satan from having an access point to this first pair. In my estimation, the Two Trees were put there for their protection. God said to Satan; "You can access to these two people only at this one place." God told Adam and Eve that by not going near the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, especially alone, they could not be approached by Satan. Now, would they trust God in this area? I wonder what their questions were? Everything hinges on what they think of God. Every parent us faced with the perennial whys; "Why do I have to go to bed when I’m not tired, and get up when I am?" These aren’t really rational questions, they are registering a complaint. And eventually the wise parent will say,; "Trust me!" And if the parents are O.K. people the child may then accept that. It is important for a child to learn to trust when they cannot understand. But trust is central and at the very heart of trust, is to see worth in the person that you are trusting, and act accordingly, even when they don’t feel like it. Adam and Eve, designed to be a very glorious answer, became a very tragic problem. The central issue; will the universe serve God because of His character? Ultimately the Plan of Salvation, the whole issue in the great Controversy, comes down to a vindication of god’s character! Until God is clarified, until He is understood, until He is shown to be trustworthy, the universe will never be safe.

The same issues are seen all over again with Job. In fact, throughout scripture this same issue is raised; will God be served at the point of His character? Satan, who became the representative of this earth by default, was taunting God at the Gates of Heaven we read in Job 1 and 2, when the heavenly beings came together for conference, that no one on earth was a follower of God. So God asked Satan; "Have you observed my faithful servant Job?" "Fair weather friend, rice Christian. You pad his nest, he is serving You for what he gets out of You." Remember, he had previously said that the rest of the angels did not defect, because they were afraid, now he twists this argument and says; "It’s still not You, it’s what they get out of you." Ultimately there is always some extrinsic inducement, not the character of God. "He’s not serving You because he loves You. He’s a rich man, but let me take away all of these things and then You’ll see." And then God does a very strange thing, and ultimately God will be judged on what he does with job, and with you and me, because some very strange things are going to happen to the people of God in the days to come. And I suppose there will be some confusion here as there was with Job.

Satan, with God’s permission removes all of Job’s earthly possessions, including his children, and at the next meeting God says: "Now what do you think?" "Well you really haven’t let me touch his hide. Let me touch him, and then we’ll see." God says; "O.K. just don’t kill him." And so we see what happens. Poor Job, he gets the seven-year itch all over his body and he starts scratching, and he is miserable. And then his friends show up. These were caring, thoughtful, religious men, however they have a false picture of God than Job. They sat for a week with Job without saying anything, just sympathizing with him. They started in accusing Job of some hidden sin because God wouldn’t punish him otherwise. When Job appealed to God for Justice one even said that he wouldn’t seek to talk to God and give Him the opportunity to destroy him. Yet with all this humble yet bad theology Job hangs in there and finally when advised to curse God and die he says; "Even if God should slay me yet will I trust Him."

Now we transport our focus in time down to the Eschatol, the Final Event. From Revelation we understand that the issue will involve the keeping of the commandments, especially the 4th. One; the Sabbath command. Why this one? Isn’t this just an arbitrary legal requirement? With some variations the first three ask for exclusive, direct, sincere worship and the rest of the commandments all strike at some basic elemental human relationship; our social laws are based on these. Yet, some how the fourth one doesn’t have this native appeal. It is our task to discover and explore how this makes sense and at the same time vindicates the character of God, to understand the issues and see them in terms of a relationship with Christ. It is not just a day, but a person, in which the Sabbath becomes a vehicle for our own relationship with the person.

The purpose here is to help us see the larger sweep of history. How does God bring things to a focus? This is one of the very important questions in Eschatology. How does God close shop? Where does He find the switches and which one does he click? Of course God doesn’t close probation, we close it. If God closed it we wouldn’t be free. But at what point does God say: "O.K. that’s enough!"? If history can be brought to a moment where everyone can understand what the issues are and everyone has to decide, then under a crises situation, if people repeatedly make choices that are very intense in nature, their actions become a part of them. Thus, at some point in history God can say; "Alright, him that is let him be!" God doesn’t change anything, He just doesn’t suddenly spray them with shellac and that is the way they have to stay. They ARE this way, so be it. He simply announces this; He recognizes this. But history must be brought to a this point. What point? How is God going to do this?

I want to suggest an answer that will be discussed in greater detail later. God must answer the charges made against Him by Satan. One was that; "In a free universe You can’t get anyone to serve You just out of love." So far this phenomena has never been demonstrated in mass. In fact, until the Cross, Satan insisted that you couldn’t even have one person who could live like God. So he says; "Let me stand on the Mount of the Assembly. I can do a better job." And what happens to God’s first children on this planet? Within a short time span Adam and Eve have to leave the garden, and a few centuries later God has to send the flood in order to preserve the few that still revere Him but are in danger of being overwhelmed. Again within a few generations the world is again corrupt and there are almost none left who live a godly life. God chooses Abram and in order to preserve him sends him to a far off region. And even Abraham had moments of lack of trust in God’s providing for his needs. Satan must have taunted God with these failures even as he accused Job of only trusting god because of the advantages of material blessings. Then God demonstrated Abraham’s faith and trust; he was willing to sacrifice his son! And these people whom God chose to represent him eventually proved a disappointment as well. At Sinai when God was trying to form a relationship with them they made the golden calf of the Egyptians and had their orgies. Later the assembly of God split into Northern and Southern Kingdoms; many of their Kings being worse than the heathen around them. Instead of a flood God sent them into Babylonian captivity. And Satan says; "here are my people God, where are Yours?"

Finally God penetrates history with Himself. Christ, the Messiah, God Himself became human flesh. Do you think He could get a people to serve Him just because they loved Him? John says; "He came to His own people and they perceived Him not." They rejected Him! They wanted a different kind of Messiah. But what kind of Messiah did He give them? In their eyes, a very disappointing Messiah. Near the very end of His ministry He was with His disciples in Caeserea-Phillipi, they couldn’t even walk safely in Judea, the rulers had chased them out; He was not even welcome in His own country. He up in Gentile country, on the outskirts. One sad day as they were walking along, and all of the disciples had their chins on their chests as the rumors were fast and thick about how bad things were. And Christ asks them this question: "Who do men say that I, the Son of man Am?" Now, why does He call Himself the Son of Man, and not the Son of God? What a leading question! And they mention some of the prophets; Elijah, Isaiah, a great Person. "But who do you say that I Am?" Will they recognize Him for His character? Will they recognize Him for the kind of person He is? Or does He have to perform some kind of celestial majesty or miracle before they’ll trust Him? That’s what they were looking for, someone to unseat the Romans. And then they could all quibble over who gets to sit where. "Who do you say that I Am?" All of this is running through their minds. AS far as fulfilling their expectations, Jesus was a flop. Now; "Who do you say that I Am?" Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and speaking for the entire group says: "thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!" And Jesus said: "Now, I am going to build a people with this kind of stuff, with this kind of faith. I’m going to be the Chief Stone, the Rock, and all of you are going to be stones fitting into the structure. This is the stuff that My people are going to be made of!" How long did that people last? Within another generation, in fact before their bodies were even cold in their graves, apostasy had set in. By the time you get to the first part of the fourth century it was no longer God’s people, but a state religion. God’s people wherever they were, were underground; and Satan said: "Where are Your people God? Here are mine!"

And so they were driven into the wilderness and we see this massive state structure, and Satan could claim; "Here are my people, where are yours? I run a better government!" But we find that at the latter part of time God is going to form a remnant. This really gets Satan upset and we find in the 12th chapter of Revelation that Satan really gets furious. Satan is really going to go after this remnant to destroy it, because if it ever forms Satan is through. A long as that people never forms Satan can extend his time. The arguments were settled the charges were answered at the Cross; there can be a Holy life. Christ showed that there is a power that can infect human beings that can radically change them. Most of all He answered the charge that God would kill you if you don’t love Him. Yet God’s people have never been visible in mass. What happens? God brings history to a moment where this issue can again be clarified. What is the issue? Will you serve God because you love and trust Him? Is His demonstration of how He runs His government enough to secure your allegiance? Will your whole life be motivated by your relationship with Him? Would you do it even if you cannot buy or sell? Would you do it even if you might be killed? This is when God’s people will become visible to the whole world and the universe. In fact Politics becomes the way of visibilizing the church of God, Through human legislation, requirements will be made to require certain kinds of religious allegiance (which we will study in detail later on) that requires you to take a stand.

In answering Satan’s charges that God could not form a people, God can now point to them and say: "here they are, they keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus." This group of people is called, symbolically, the 144,000. But if this group is allowed to stand, Satan is through. So what does he do? He influences his human followers to pass legislation that this people are to be slain at a certain midnight hour. And at this time Satan appears as Christ and takes his seat in the temple of God; he makes his throne on the Mount of the Assembly and takes charge himself. He says that at midnight you are to march on these people and slay them who are bucking me. He has presented himself as an angel of light and brings them into a situation called Har Meggedon, which is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew expression of Isaiah 14, Har Mogad, which means Mount of Assembly, and from which we get Armageddon. What it says is; "Here are my people, and we are going to wipe out your people." Then God gloriously comes to the deliverance of His people. Now here they are, visibilized in mass. And what kind of people are they? Living at a time in earth’s history when heredity would have its worst impact. The environment has never been worse, this should be the weakest of the weak. And what does God present to the universe? They stand spotless. These are the people that will be living in Heaven for a thousand years and will eventually populate the new earth.

Who are these people, the 144,000? They do not come from any one denomination. They are made up of all people, no one will be left out who is safe to save. In Hebrews, Paul says God will save all that are trustworthy. Even the heathen has been given enough evidence in nature to know what is right and has the opportunity to develop integrity. God is going to prepare a people who have understanding, HE wants them to be able to express a certain message. We have looked at all these Eschatological freights, all of the horrendous things that are coming upon us, and our too often our first question is; "where can we run, where can we hide?" It sometimes seems that our motivation in wanting Christ to come is to get us out of this mess. How selfish can we be? What a great time to be alive and tell someone else the truth about God. If we could only see these larger issues; not; "where can I hide?" but, "Where God can OI be seen? Where can I tell other people the good news?" And God IS good news! We are told that the last message to be given to the world is a revelation of the love of God. Where is this revelation of the kind of person God is? What are we going to say when the crises hits? That’s why the winds of strife are being held, because God does not have adequate mouthpieces.

It is to prepare our earth for that moment of history, and to clarify the issues in the Great Controversy, and answer the question of what God is doing in His Sanctuary in heaven that is going to be the theme of the following classes. I hope you will study like you have never studied before, so that we can unite, not into some kind of mysticism, some kind of fright or hysteria, but that we can be rational and deeply involved in a relationship with Christ, being able to answer other peoples questions with answers that appeal to the reason.

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