Then Shall the Sanctuary Be Cleansed

Chapter Eight

THE 'TRUE TABERNACLE' AND THE REMNANT

What would happen today if a deacon should arise in the church with as deep an understanding of sacred history as Stephen had and with the same conviction to proclaim the truth? Would his speech before today's Sanhedrin have the same effect? If he called us "stiffnecked" and told us we "always resist the Holy Ghost," how long would we listen?

As we look back and read sacred history, what is our reaction? As Stephen was stoned there was a young man in the crowd by the name of Saul who stood by and watched him die. He had all the authority of the nation behind him, but he was on the wrong side. He had to be made blind before he could see. The disciples were equally ignorant, and only seeing Jesus with their eyes after He arose could make them understand how from the beginning they had been blind. What they preached about the Messiah was right but what they had understood was wrong. Their vision was filled with the throne, the crown, and the glory and they failed to see the shame and agony of the garden, the judgment hall and the cross of Calvary.1

Our own church forefathers in the days of William Miller were troubled with the same kind of dim vision and poor understanding of God's total plan. Their immeasurable longing to get out of this world provided zeal and produced hymns of hope that ring clear and beautiful to this day. But to a large degree their desires were egocentric and there was a veil over their eyes. Human opinions, traditions, popular errors and the false teachings of men blinded them so they could only partially grasp the truth they needed to know.

As Seventh-day Adventists we face the same danger. The farther we travel from our beginnings the greater the peril that we will disregard our heritage. It took only four generations from Noah to Nimrod to obliterate from their minds the history of world destruction by flood and to set up Babylon the Great. Likewise Israel quickly forgot their deliverance from Egypt. But their failures have been "written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" (1 Corinthians 10:11).

The very fact that the church is far into the second century since the Great Disappointment should bring us to a solemn review of our history. How does all this extended time relate to the Day of Atonement? What can make us understand the problem and the delay of the second advent? Some suggest persecution will do the required work. But this is to ignore that persecution does not precede but rather follows godly living (2 Timothy 3:12). But more than this, the Lord cannot stoop to this level to arouse the last generation. How could the Heavenly Bridegroom at the very end of the courtship presume to force His Bride to take His hand? No amount of persecution could create genuine love in the heart of the Bride. As the Bride was Laodicea, she did not appreciate that she was "wretched," and in contrast to Adam when he sinned, she did not know she was "naked." As she was removed by many ages from her first parent, so her sin was buried the deeper, but the contrasting victory would be the more glorious.

The Remnant Must Grow Up

There is a glorious inheritance awaiting God's people. But they cannot receive it until they sense its splendor, understand its value, and appreciate what is involved. The father of the prodigal was not reckless enough to bestow his entire estate into the hands of his wayward son until his son grew up. The young man did not recognize his Laodicean blindness until his sense of values was drastically altered. It was in the pigsty that the son received his sight. He came to abhor the husks of his own egocentric values and this maturity brought to the surface his own need. He saw his nakedness and his hunger was a reflection of his famished soul. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6).

Israel, like the prodigal, viewed the gifts of God through the blindness of her own selfish national pride. They were consumed with the thought of national greatness and their eternal inheritance became a barren desert. In the hands of lustful, blind prodigals the oracles of God were like pearls before swine. Can the remnant see this danger? We too are children of Abraham.

The prodigal son had to mature before he could appreciate all that his father had done for him. From infancy to his self-important youthful age he had been nurtured and protected with every need supplied. What his eyes saw and what his mind comprehended were far apart. He was blind to the fact that the "best robe" in the house and the signet ring of his father's seal had to be withheld until "he came to himself" and understood the value of the heritage (Luke 15:11-32). In all history has there been a "prodigal" like the seventh church? Has the love of the Father ever before been so persistantly ignored and stubbornly misunderstood?

What this wayward child saw and experienced in type in the conscious mind had to be purged by experience until "he came to himself." Then his unconscious folly was revealed, and the antitype became the truth of his life. He had to go from mental symbols of grandeur to the sobering knowledge of real life substance. He had to learn repentance, and with heart-felt anguish proclaim, "I will arise and go to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee" (Verse 18). When he saw his sin was "against heaven" things could change. It was then he was given the "seal" of his father's approval. And so it will be with the last church.

Immaturity in a child or a youth is normal. But there comes a time when this must give way to responsibility, and the accountability of an adult is not only expected but demanded. Childhood fantasies, bedtime stories and nursery rhymes must be replaced with the real issues of life. "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil" (Hebrews 5:12-14). And the epistle goes on to say we need to leave the elementary teachings about Christ and grow to maturity not laying over and over the foundation of repentance from sins that lead to death (Hebrews 6:1).

There is no stronger meat in all God's Word than the three angels' messages. Only mature people who have been weaned will have eyes strong enough to endure its full glory. Those who choose to remain children feeding on milk will be the ones to "drink of the wine of the wrath of God" and they will not be able to abide "in the presence of the Lamb" (Revelation 14:6-12).

The Lord Jesus tried to explain this terrible truth as He portrayed events coming "at the time of the end." When He said " woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days," was He laying a burden on those who happened to be pregnant (Matthew 24:19, 20)? Likewise when He pled with His hearers, "pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day," was His chief concern with the hardships of cold weather and of breaking the Sabbath? All this is in the setting of the Apocalypse when the "abomination of desolation" has reached its climax.

Is there not a deeper truth? Was Jesus telling His people then, and more important is He telling us now, that children still on mother's milk are in peril and cannot survive when the the woes of the end-time fall? Only those in the unity of the faith having a true knowledge of the Son of God, those who are fully grown, mature, and who attain unto the full stature of Christ, will be able to stand in that great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world (Ephesians 4:13; Matthew 24:21).

And when He said "winter" was His concern with snow and ice rather than a time when truth is dormant, there is no growth, no blossoms, no fruit, a barren time? A people who had to flee in such a time would have no spiritual resources and would be bound up in the cold legal symbols of the Sabbath which were so manifest among the Jews. They despised Jesus for what He did on the Sabbath because the spiritual truth of the Sabbath had eluded them. Similar perils face us.

This should help us understand that when Christ tried to tell the Jews that new wine cannot be put into old bottles He was stating a principle. He was proclaiming that truth is not static. It grows or it turns to corruption. The character of God Himself will evermore increasingly be revealed.

Eternity will be unending progress, everlasting advancement and success. The character of God must be seen in this setting. Even mortal man senses with his finite comprehension that the universe is infinite, ever expanding in harmony with an infinite Creator. This provides the basis for a ceaseless challenge in a new earth, a re-creation with sin blotted out. But for now, "at the time of the end," when "the mystery of God should be finished," our understanding must be enlarged. The universe is waiting.

As a feeble illustration, consider the work when a home is constructed. First a foundation must be laid. On this the floor, the walls and the roof will be placed. Each phase prepares for the next and must precede in order that the building may be completed.

But suppose the excavator should barricade the building site he has prepared for the foundation and proclaim it off limits to all persons. So he puts up a fence to keep everybody out. He is not prepared for anyone to destroy the symmetry of the work he has done. Why should they be allowed to unload concrete, timber and all the other supplies on the site he has so carefully smoothed out? Was he not hired to level the land and this is what he has done? Such a situation would require severe mental gymnastics to comprehend. But it is not so ill-founded as may appear. Indeed, there is a parallel in sacred history.

The Hebrew nation had been given prophecy after prophecy to edify and enlighten them to know Messiah was to come. He was to bring progress. The entire sanctuary service and the old covenant system was to prepare a site on which to build an everlasting temple of truth. The service of types and shadows was the foundation for the marvelous structure.

But they, like the narrow-minded excavator, barricaded themselves in their system to protect it from desecration. But the need for progress was too great. Though they ignored all counsel and explanation the construction had to proceed. The Chief Cornerstone was lowered into place and the objectors were crushed who considered the site alone was ample. Progress demanded that the edifice be "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone" (Ephesians 2:20).

Their mental poverty and their spiritual blindness was a video tape of Laodicea. They were "rich and increased with goods" and had need of nothing. There was no doubt in their minds, they were children of Abraham; they were fulfilling their divine appointment. They knew the truth. They had learned much in captivity. Their prosperity and survival as a people were inseparably bound up with the rituals that made them a nation. Their neglect and folly, even idolatry had brought them great sorrow. So they built a wall, a barricade of self-satisfaction that also would eventually cut them off from God.

In their zeal to protect the building site, their entire system of salvation became a citadel of Satan. He became the builder and the people became his agents, his building crew. The temple and its rituals became an end in themselves while the priests and rulers lost contact with God. The immense perversion of truth was staggering. They hoarded the living manna and it turned to corruption. "They robbed God of His glory, and defrauded the world by a counterfeit of the gospel."2 God's ordained means of salvation was hijacked by Satan. The nation of Israel, in whose very name there is profound spiritual significance, the people whom God had called to be the pillar and ground of the truth, became representatives of Satan. The manifest glory of the living God which had once dwelt in their midst and given divine benediction to the sanctuary service was now gone. The Enemy of God and man brought darkness to the nation.

We may wonder how such blindness should overtake them. How could Israel fail to recognize their wickedness? The very system founded with the intent of revealing Messiah is manipulated into rejecting and murdering Him. What has happened once in sacred history is a warning to modern Israel at the time when the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

The God-given sanctuary service which Israel had followed for centuries and which in principle had been given at Eden was faced now with a radical change. To those who lacked the "eyesalve" it appeared that the "new" would destroy the "old." With our keen 20/20 hindsight we know that nothing was destroyed, only fulfilled. The True Lamb was emphatic, "I came not to destroy . . . but to fulfill. . . . 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 5:17, 18). But this was hard to accept.

For 4000 years God's people had received assurance in His prescribed way, but the plan was now being turned upside down. The whole sacrificial system with its beauty and immense symbology was on the verge of ending. The temple that had stood at the center of their spiritual hopes and dreams was about to give way to a more perfect temple not built with hands. To the best and honest God-fearing Israelite such a transition presented a spiritual crisis. Everything he had depended upon for salvation appeared to be threatened. Consequently, the followers of Christ and the disciples themselves faced great internal anguish when the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

The light which had in former times been reflected only dimly over the top of the veil was now to be seen in full splendor as the Light of the world was manifested in the "true tabernacle," the Saviour Himself. All that had been hidden in the most holy place was now revealed and in type the deepest recesses of the human heart were to be exposed. The consequences for the universe were so vast that yet another eighteen centuries must elapse before man could grapple with the total intent of the gospel at the end of the 2300 days. At that time the plague of the cosmos, the vehicle of death, sin itself was to be blotted out. The scripture is clear, "then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Something new was to take place in the universe and it would never be the same again.

For the disciples there was no detour around this agony of soul as they faced Light and the inconsistencies of their expectations were revealed to them. All of their hopes were dashed to the ground. This was a catastrophic spiritual debacle. But there is a greater one facing Adventism "at the time of the end."

The Remnant Must Go Through the Open Door

Seventh-day Adventists have leveled out a place for themselves and are drawing plans for the mansions they hope to build. But the Divine Architect has priority and eternal truth must take precedence. The Stone that is cut out of the mountain without hands will crush all man-made plans. Adventism is called to complete the temple of truth which contains the entire design for salvation. But this building can never be completed and occupied unless it is built according to the plans of the Divine Architect. Our own religious system, our human proposals and our selfish egocentric dreams must be remade to conform strictly to heaven's pattern. The trauma this creates will be greater than that which faced the Jews.

Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Any building not built on the Rock is doomed to fall. "See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.' The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things so that what cannot be shaken may remain" (Hebrews 12:25-27 NIV).

This involves far more than restoring the gospel to its apostolic and Reformation purity. This means there will be constructed an edifice of truth never seen before, a new creation built according to the plans of the "everlasting gospel." This would be a temple to "give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come." For Adventists it would be an upheaval as shattering as the Jews' experience when the veil of the temple was rent in twain at the crucifixion.

The holy place ministry of Christ is to be understood and heralded as a work completed. The ministry of salvation that has sustained the faithful from the days of the apostles to the Reformation and on through all seven churches to the end-time, must give way to the all-important, mature, final phase of the atonement. This work in the most holy place brings the culmination and the victorious completion of the original promise to "bruise the head" of the serpent. At last the children of Adam take the place God intended for them. The work of substitution comes to an end.

The door of hope and mercy by which men had for 1800 years found access to God was closed at the end of the 2300 days, but another door was opened. This door led into the very presence of the glory of God and the grand final blotting out of sin in the most holy place. Sin cannot abide in His presence, which is a consuming fire. The High Priest opened this door and "no man can shut it." But the Jews who refused to enter the first door at His ascension were left in total darkness. "That door by which men had formerly found access to God, was no longer open."3 The Jews refused to seek Him in the only way whereby He could be found.

As Adventists approach the splendor of the most holy place they move toward a crisis. If we cling to the typical nature of Evangelical orthodoxy and are content with the routine substitutionary gospel of forensic, legal justification, we too will find ourselves rejecting the final work of the High Priest which is to minister salvation from sin. This work is accomplished only in the most holy place. Because of its supreme importance Satan appeared to move in to try to carry on the work of God.4 His success with our spiritual forefathers in the days of Christ must be a warning to us. His compelling interest to deceive has not changed. As long as he can make God's people content and happy with an immature and corrupted idea of what the cleansing of the sanctuary is to accomplish, just so long he can hold them in his power.

This means that Satan will endeavor to commandeer the whole system of substitution just as he took over the old covenant system to fight against Christ and the preaching of the new covenant. He will proclaim that the gospel of the Reformation, the preaching of Luther, is sufficient to prepare a people for the second advent, and the Lord will come when we have done enough proclaiming. He will insist that substitution is sufficient and there is no need for repentance and cleansing. As long as he can veil apostasy in the garb of orthodoxy, he has the Remnant deceived in the same way he had the Jews deceived. As they were enveloped in the routine of the sanctuary services being the goal of life and guaranteeing their salvation, so we have been content to have the blood of the Lamb provide a legal cancellation of the record in the books of heaven without the law being written in the heart. In each case truth has been compromised, for these were only a shadow of the real heart-cleansing God intended to teach. People who appeared as adults were actually children in their understanding. And so are we.

Growing out of this there have been thousands of sermons about the deplorable condition of Laodicea while the root has been untouched and left intact. The real problem is satisfaction with self; we have all we need, we are content, we know the plan of salvation as verily as the Jews knew Abraham. But they received not the promise and they are all in their graves and they will stay there until we understand that God has provided some better thing for us, "that they without us should not be made perfect" (Hebrews 11:40). This consummation of redemption rests upon the shoulders of the final generation, a responsibility that can only be met when that generation senses the travail and distress it has caused, but which in its immaturity has mercifully been hidden from it.

We are that generation! We have not fathomed the pain which the Lamb has borne since the inception of sin nor perceived the continued agony of the human race as the result of our blindness. We have yet to learn "that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverence, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call" (Joel 2:32).

We are that Remnant. The repentance of the ages is still in the future. We have yet to receive that which heaven would pour out upon us, for the promise is: "I will pour out upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have peirced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem" ( Zechariah 12: 10, 11).

For years we have been praying for the latter rain, and the cry becomes ever more insistant as time goes on but the latter rain can never come until our eyes are opened and we understand what the former rain did as it tore down all the types and shadows that had been in vogue for 4000 years. When we come to understand that, then the latter rain can come to us and it will tear down all that Babylon has erected in 6000 years, including all the idols modern Israel has set up. Our failure to comprehend the whole truth of the message we have been given can only compare with the blindness of the Jews to perceive the work which Christ came to accomplish. The results are equally disasterous. Christ was "set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; . . . that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Luke 2:34, 35). The thoughts of our hearts have not been revealed yet.

The latter rain will not produce shining faces which astonish the world and satisfy an ego clamoring for vindication, and longing for a remarkable display of power. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, . . . saith the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8). The power which the Holy Spirit brings will be in the message. That message will enable us to hear, and to see, and to know, that which we now resist. The Holy Spirit in that message will expose every deception, unveil every apostasy, and cast down all man-made policies. It will make God's glory and righteousness manifest in the remnant, "for the hour of his judgment is come."

Adventists and Adventism as embodied in this people must recognize that they are the antitype of all that has ministered salvation prior to their existence. They could not come on the scene until the end of the 2300 years. They cannot complete their work now until they understand that the latter rain, the Comforter in person, is to reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. This imperative of the Holy Spirit must first of all include the church. What Jesus could not say to the disciples then, He wants to say to us now (John 16:12). The Spirit of truth "will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). This will not win friends and influence people. This will not produce charts that show the number of countries entered and the languages being used and the impressive achievements that please human ego. This is the message that will judge the world in righteousness. This will gather out a people willing to face travail, "hated of all nations for my name's sake," offended and betrayed by one another. The church, indeed the whole world is waiting to see "this gospel" (Matthew 24:9, 10, 14).

"This gospel" will be seen when the "body" of Christ understands the significance of the road He traveled. He was called out of Egypt; so the "body" is called out of sin. He was baptized because He was willing to listen to the message of John and took "the necessary steps in repentance, conversion, and faith" which also is a vital experience for His "body."5 He is the Bridegroom and the church is the Bride and they twain shall be one, one in purpose, one in faith, one in overcoming "that they also may be one in us. . . . that they may be made perfect in one" (John 17:21, 23). This "body" was prepared for Him (Hebrews 10:5).

Jesus is therefore infinitely more than either a "model," an "example," or a "substitute." He is a "minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Hebrews 8:2). He ministers in our behalf. He is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). Now in this great day of final atonement when sin is to be blotted out from our hearts, our Lord Jesus is the supreme type. We are the antitype. We are the "body," the shadow, the counterpart, that are sanctified and perfected with His law written in our hearts and minds. "Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for this cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Hebrews 2:11).

At the end of the 2300 days, time was to be no longer and the destiny of the human race was to be unsealed (Revelation 10:6, 7). The "revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began" was to be made plain (Romans 16:25). The reproach upon God's name was to be removed. The unbelief of the ages was to be overcome as the oracles of God bore fruit and His faith in His "body" was rewarded. He would overcome when He was judged (Romans 3:1-4). The mystery of God would be finished and His church, His living "body" would cling to Him and go to the cross with Him.

The Bride Must Be an Adult Woman

Surely the time has come for Adventists to know that the cleansing and restoration of the "true tabernacle" is not merely a "doctrine" to be ridiculed by Evangelical Christianity and questioned by this generation of Adventists. Rather, it is a living, vital, flesh-and-blood experience of the remnant that has a definite relation to current denominational history and the imminent outcome of that history. The experience of Christ's Bride will be different from the experience of any previous generation. Even though throughout history there have been numerous misunderstandings in the experience of God's people, and these in the providence of God, yet this situation must change in order for the gospel to fulfill its mandate. It must be understood for what it is, "the power of God unto salvation" from sin. The truth about the character of God must stand revealed in that final glory which lightens the earth. Sin must be known for the death that is in it. The hour will have come when time "shall be no longer," doubt and uncertainty will cease, for the end of sin has come. The church will know truth for what it is and appreciate that the new covenant is so vital that the Creator had to be personally involved. He came "into this world, that they which see not might see," and to "see" is to "know" (John 9:39).

The supreme interest of Jesus, our High Priest, is to win the heart of His Bride which will make the atonement complete. Her reticence to accept her Divine Lover is the result of her immaturity. Her fickleness and her consorting with the princes of Babylon grow out of her childish appreciation of what her real Lover has given and gone through to win her hand. He saw sin with all its deception.

He went to battle with the mystery of iniquity so that the mystery of godliness might be verified. He submitted to the struggle with self to prove that Lucifer need not have been overcome as he was when he surrendered to his ego, and became the slave of his own will. Jesus came not to do His own will, but the will of His Father that sent Him (John 6:38). He is waiting for His Bride to grow up and cease her playful infatuation with the human honor that comes one of another, but which destroys faith (John 5:44).

His Bride is to be the woman that is "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" (Song of Solomon 6:10). Her consummate beauty is not just because she has put off her whoredoms and ceased from sin, but because she knows and appreciates the struggle her Lover has endured to obtain victory and she as an army in battle has gone through the same struggle. She has gone to the cross with Him. She has grown up in this conquest and her soul longs to be at the side of her Lover.

She will understand what it means to have the assurance of the Spirit because she has received Christ by faith and His life has become her life. Her union with the Bridegroom provides much more than the forgiveness of sin. Her sin is not only taken away but the vacuum is filled with the Holy Spirit. This means divine illumination, humanity joined to divinity. Here will be the wife committed to the marriage of the Lamb; she has made herself ready and she is arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, clothed with the righteousness of saints (Revelation 19:7, 8).

This means the Remnant will be brought back to understand truth as Adam did before the fall. They will rejoice in the presence of God. They will understand that the history of sin is but the outworking of hatred against Him. The total woe of the universe is but the fruit of this enmity. Therefore the work of Christ is of vital importance to the church today, but this remains significant and relevant in direct proportion to the understanding the church has of its unconscious "sin."

In the meantime, Jesus patiently waits for those who can see as He sees and thereby overcome as He overcame. Hidden within our immature rituals of salvation is the key to reach our inmost souls, represented by the "holiest of all." Deep in this unconscious depravity of the soul Jesus probes by His Spirit. It is here that the throne of God is to have its final position of authority. It is here that the Adventist heritage of the sanctuary truth is to be understood and the deepest recesses of the mind unlocked. Here is the conflict of the cross. It is here that the Bride must come to grips with her infatuation with lukewarmness and decide she wants to be married.

The work begun in 1844, at the end of the 2300 years, is unique in the universe and brings Christ and the Remnant into a new kind of union. There will be a mutual understanding which makes His Remnant go with Him into the most holy place.6 There the wedding is consummated. There sin is blotted out. There Christ sits down with His Remnant, and He assures them that the "true tabernacle," His abiding place, is cleansed. His victory in conquering self is a guarantee that He has in all points been tempted like unto His brethren for every sin is born of a love of self. Thus as they abide with Him in the most holy place, they will by faith be uniting their humanity to His divinity, and they will be one with Him in purpose and thus be "married" to Him. They will have the faith of Jesus which keeps mortals from sinning. Then the work of the Mediator will be finished, the sanctuary will be cleansed and restored to its rightful place, the heart of the 144,000 will have been purged. Sin will not rise again. This experience awaits the remnant whenever they choose to accept the eyesalve of heavenly insight offered by the True Witness. And when her blindness is gone and at last she can "see," then the Bride will sit down with the King on His throne, as He has promised, for both have overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

The Laws of Science Prove the Law of Life

The remnant church has in its hands an immense potential awaiting discovery. In the year 1905, one of the blood sons of Abraham, Albert Einstein, formulated his equation of the theory of special relativity. Forty years later in 1945, as a direct result of that theory, the first atomic bomb was exploded and the atomic age was born. In 1905, only a theory existed, only some symbols recorded on paper; but inherent in these was power to move mountains and produce light equal to the sun. It took forty years for the formula of Einstein to become a living vital creation, eminent proof of the premise.

More than a century ago, in 1848, the early Adventist believers held a series of six conferences where the major truths of the remnant church were formulated, the "landmarks" were established on Scripture. Forty years later the Lord planned that these truths bear fruit and bring a harvest when He sent the "most precious message" in 1888. It was a "message . . . to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour. . . . It invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ. . . . All power is given into His hands, that He may dispense rich gifts unto men, imparting the priceless gift of His own righteousness to the helpless human agent. This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel's message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure. . . . Christ is pleading for the church in the heavenly courts above, pleading for those for whom He paid the redemption price of His own lifeblood. . . . We are ever to bear in mind that there is One that can take away sin, and save the sinner. . . . God gave to His servants a testimony that presented the truth as it is in Jesus, which is the third angel's message, in clear, distinct lines."7

But now after more than a century the formula of truth remains on paper, largely ignored, certainly not tried. Yet inherent in the truth given to this people is the sum total of the power of the Creator of the universe. The whole earth is to be lightened with a glory never before seen by mortal man. The truth in the possession of this people is fit to overshadow every gem of thought ever conceived by all the philosophers of past ages and to silence the current theological fantasies of mankind.

The pioneers of this message, by prayer, faith and study of God's Word, established a bastion of truth that cannot be gainsaid by Satan and all his angels. The pioneers had "present truth," and it is still true today, but it is not present truth. The truth of Einstein's equation has not altered nor diminished one particle to this day, yet the real truth of his formula was proved by the product that it created. That made it "present truth." The truth of the formula in the hands of the remnant church is to be found in the product it creates. Though more than a century has gone by, the earth still waits to be "lightened with his glory." The truth we have been given remains a theory, but it will be proven, the result is sure. The remnant church will indeed become the "true tabernacle." The sanctuary "shall" be cleansed. When His people come to know and understand the message that has been placed in their hands and puts it to the test, it will be proven eternally right. The confrontation with Him and His truth still awaits us. How long will we wait?

* * * * *

"The Jewish tabernacle was a type of the Christian church. . . .

"The church on earth, composed of those who are faithful and loyal to God, is the 'true tabernacle,' whereof the Redeemer is the minister. God, not man, pitched this tabernacle on a high, elevated platform. This tabernacle is Christ's body, and from north, south, east, and west, He gathers those who will compose it.

"Through Christ the true believers are represented as being built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

"A holy tabernacle is built up of those who receive Christ as their personal Saviour.

"Christ is the Minister of the true tabernacle, the High Priest of all who believe in Him as a personal Saviour."8


NOTES:

  1. Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 348.
  2. Ellen White, Desire of Ages, p. 36.
  3. Ellen White, The Great Controversy, p. 430.
  4. Ellen White, Early Writings, p. 56.
  5. Ellen White, General Conference Bulletin, 1901, p. 36.
  6. Ellen White, Early Writings, pp. 55, 251, 255, 261.
  7. Ellen White, Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 91-93.
  8. Signs of the Times, February 14, 1900, p. 98.

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