So I want to start today with some amazing news. And here's the amazing God's kingdom wins. That's the news. God's kingdom wins. Maybe you knew that. Maybe that's not news to you. That is a message that's been out there for a little while. But there was times in history where different ones were wondering about the kingdoms of the world and what the future might hold and what it might look like in the end.
[00:19:10]
It's worth noting here that the Lord is always faithful to cover everything, especially during the times of intensity when it seems to us most like everything's come off the rails. And if you were to look at what was going on right then, you would think, has God forsaken us? But the truth was, God's great plan was still going forward. God will see his purposes achieved in every generation. And we as his people are always given the chance to be a part of of his plan.
[00:25:28]
But here's an important point you need to know. God will succeed with his plan, even if we as a people completely fail him. Or maybe I should better say, even when we as his people completely fail Him, God will still succeed. Just like you remember the disciples that night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus didn't need much, just somebody to stay awake with Him. How did we do that night? Yeah, we failed, but that's kind of our theme and we'll get to that when we get to the second angel. We keep failing, but God keeps succeeding anyway.
[00:26:19]
Such is the reality of the kingdoms of man. They rise for a season, and they seem to be all powerful, but then they fall when their season is past. Yet the vision does not end with the endless line of failing kingdoms of man. There is something else that happens. A kingdom of a completely different nature, and not a kingdom that humans have anything to do with establishing.
[00:34:28]
This stone represents the culmination of the victory of God. This is God's great plan. And the victory of God will be final when his kingdom, cut out of his mountain, with no help from human hands, has destroyed the kingdoms of men and filled the earth. And on that day, the earth will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.
[00:35:19]
The Everlasting Gospel is the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And it is when we believe the gospel that we become Christians. This is the place where faith begins. It is through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that God has won the victory. And when you confess that you believe reality to be as the Bible claims, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, when you believe both parts of this identity statement, that Jesus really is the one prophesied about in the Old Testament and that he literally is God's Son, it is on the day you believe this that you become a Christian.
[00:37:43]
If God is not creator, then he has no right to make any law that we are expected to keep. And further, he has no right to bring judgment against us for violating that law. If God is not creator, he is an outside power trying to take over and we are not only justified, but noble to resist him. So you see, it holds by logic that if God is not creator, the entire enterprise of the face crumbles.
[00:42:15]
Why is judgment part of the victory of God? Well, let's look at it this way. In the beginning, God creates a world. And then he creates for that world a race of people called humans who are to be his image bearers in that world. Then he gives those humans us authority over the world he created with the assignment that we are to care for it and make it prosperous.
[00:44:26]
But God did not want to see this creation destroyed, so he made a plan. Now, in truth, it seems he already knew we would fail and had already made his plan to redeem us and win the victory of God even before he began the creation. But that's definitely a concept beyond our scope today. So let's try to keep it as simple as we can. So here was the plan. His Eternal Son, who will ultimately be given the name Jesus when he is born, will enter the creation, one of us, a human. And as a human, Jesus will win back the authority that God gave us in the beginning, but that we lost to the enemy of God.
[00:46:06]
Why would God and His eternal Son, and by extension the Holy Spirit, make and then implement this incredibly difficult plan? I'll give you a very simple answer. John 3:16. You ever heard this one? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's the why. God loved this creation and he loved us. And there's no length to which he would not go to save his creation and to save us.
[00:48:17]
But how in the world do we get from the age that we're in to the age to come? One word Judgment. But how does it all work? So Jesus came and won the victory. But we've been living in the years after Jesus was victorious, and yet the world is still a mess, right? So how do we get from here the mess to there the glory?
[00:51:00]
If there isn't a point somewhere along the timeline where God restores the original created order, then what was the point of sending Jesus into the world? If the victory that Jesus wins does not enable God to restore the original intent, then there's actually only one conclusion we could draw, and that is sin was too big of a problem for God to solve. If what Jesus did can't take us back to what God originally intended, then it was too big of a problem.
[00:52:08]
Any theology that teaches an ages to come scenario that does not restore us to an earth made new is an insult to the power of God, a despising of the work of Jesus. Now most who make this mistake do so from ignorance. And God is gracious. So we don't need to be ugly on this point, but don't be a part of such faithless thinking. The glorious future that lies before us is one of full restoration to the way God intended at the beginning. With all of us who have put our trust in the victory of God, living eternally in this universe that God created for us to inhabit with this earth now made new as our eternal home.
[00:53:55]
Judgment is the means by which God will re establish his original created order. And the announcement that the hour of judgment has come is the middle portion of the first angel's message. All three parts of the first angel's message are critical to the victory of God. In the beginning, God creates, then according to the timeline, in the middle, Jesus wins the victory. And then at the end, judgment. Judgment is the means by which God restores the original created order.
[00:55:07]
If you only understand one prophecy in the Bible, make sure you understand Daniel too, because every other prophecy will fit in this outline.
[00:56:29]
But do you remember what comes next in this vision? The next event is not something achieved by humans. Because the next event is the stone cut without hands that strikes the feet. In the days of those kings, in the days of the division, the stone strikes and destroys the history of the failure of man. And the stone which represents the kingdom of God grows and fills the earth. The next great kingdom to rule will not rule because of human might, but will rule because of God himself and will be set up in a time when no single nation dominates. This is what the prophecy says.
[00:59:51]
To call ourselves Seventh Day Adventists is to say we are fourth commandment honoring believers who believe Jesus will come again soon. That's what it means. It's a very simple and descriptive name. Just like Christian means a person who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. An Adventist is a person who believes Jesus is coming again soon.
[01:02:01]
First, only God can set up a kingdom that never ends. All the kingdoms of humans rise and fall, but only God can set up an eternal kingdom. Second, God will set up this kingdom without our help. How is the stone cut? Do you remember this? It's in the text repeatedly. The stone is cut without human hands. This understanding is very important for us to remember in our day.
[01:02:47]
It never works because power corrupts Christianity every time. Just wait until we get to the message of the second angel and the failure of man. It never works because in my efforts as a believer to enforce righteousness, I must inevitably turn to persecution because so many of you just refuse to do right or at least refuse to do right according to how I think you should do right now. A day does need to come when those who refuse to align themselves with the principles of God's kingdom do need to be dealt with. But that is an action we must leave for God to take through Jesus. Why? Because Jesus alone is the only human with enough grace, mercy and wisdom to truly judge and then to truly rule justly.
[01:03:46]
When God on His own sets up his kingdom that will never end, he will, at that time, bring to an end all the kingdoms of the world. The stone will crush them all, and the wind will blow them away. This is the final event in the victory of God. And the first angel comes with the words of warning that the stone is on its way. The hour of judgment has come.
[01:05:26]
Any desire that God would delay judgment is in fact a sign of a privileged existence. Because any person actually living their life in the midst of persecution and hardship, or in the midst of fear and pain, or in the midst of torture or slavery or abuse. Anyone in such a state fills heaven with prayers for judgment. Why? Because it is through judgment that justice is established. It's only when our life isn't all that bad that we worry judgment might cost us something. And it is also when our lives aren't so bad that we are most at risk of being the ones against whom the cries for judgment go forth.
[01:07:16]
But in truth, it is the saints who cry for judgment. Revelation, chapter 6, verse 9. Then he opened the fifth seal. I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried with a loud voice, o sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Now, this is a symbolic description of those who have suffered persecution for the faith through the ages. But this symbolic description chronologically takes place before the time of the three angels.
[01:08:12]
So you see the point. Judgment is the means by which justice is established in the earth. And if the hour of judgment never comes, the injustice that is endemic to the failure of man will go on forever. Or at least until we all kill each other or so destroy the earth, we can no longer live on it.
[01:09:33]
But if we have put our confidence in Jesus and asked him to fill us with the Holy Spirit, and we truly desire to see our lives aligned with his will, then know this, we've done everything we can do. And as long as we aren't actively resisting the transformational work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our hearts, we long to see justice in God's world, then we can truly join with the saints under the altar with the cry, how long, sovereign Lord?
[01:10:36]
Judgment is a key component of the victory of God because it is the final step, the step where the work that Jesus accomplished for us gets manifest as a literal reestablishing of God's original created order. We can't get to the next age where God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven without this step.
[01:12:02]
The first angel comes with three very important things to say. Put your trust in Jesus. Believe that God created this world and and know that the hour of his judgment has come. An interesting truth about all three of these things is that we can't really prove those things with our senses. Even if you'd walked the earth when Jesus was here, seeing him was not enough to know who he really was. And none of us were there when creation happened, so we didn't see that. And until the judgment takes place, any warning of it is unprovable. We won't know the stone has struck the image until it does. We must therefore receive these words and believe these words by faith.
[01:12:26]
The first angel has come to say God's kingdom wins and the age to come is about to begin. The hour of judgment is at hand when the failed kingdoms of man will be crushed to fine powder by the stone. That's the judgment. Now, I can't tell you for sure when the stone will arrive, but to be a Seventh Day Adventist is to believe it's already been cut and it's already on its way to that end. I have but one thing to say, Father. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
[01:13:58]
