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Author
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Topic: End-time encouragement for the saints.
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Aaron
unregistered
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posted
I think most of us anticipate Christ returning in our life-time; we see the signs and hear the Spirit saying "Be ready". The following teaching gave me great comfort and encouragement. It is my wish that you, likewise, receive the same comfort and encouragement from reading it.
The Fourth Option - The Way of Escape
By Sam Soleyn
Going to the Foundation
Welcome again to our continuing discussions in the kingdom of God. I'd like to begin today's discussion with a reading from the book of Matthew, and here in chapter 7 of Matthew, verse 24 to the end of the chapter. Now, this is generally regarded as the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and this is what it says. Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount by saying, "'Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.' When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law." (inserted - Mt. 7:24-29)
That was the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus talked about hearing the sayings of the Lord Jesus and doing them or not doing them, and then He spoke of a time when for both those who do and those who do not - for both of them - a time will come when the rains will fall, when the streams will rise, and when the winds will blow. It is true that whether or not what you do is founded upon the rock, the rains will fall, the floods will rise, and the winds will blow.
All of those things will happen because, you see, at the end of the age, what was begun in the book of Genesis will culminate. The book of Revelation speaks of the culmination of many things, but it's, of course, not the only book in Scripture that speaks of culminations of things. There is meant to be a culmination of what God began in the beginning. God began in the beginning with the desire to have a children for Himself, a people who belong to Him. In the end of the age, guess what? God will have His people.
In fact, I believe that it is already known in the mind of God. And Biblically, that is clear because the apostle John in the book of Revelation saw as he was taken up in chapter 4 - this record comes in chapter 4 - he saw a door open into heaven, and for the remaining several chapters until chapter 20, many of the things that are to happen were revealed in the book. But in chapter 20, he talks about the great white throne of God and the judgment by the One who sits upon the throne. He talks about the books being opened in which there are the records of the lives of human beings and the dead being judged out of those things that are written in the books. He talks about the Book of Life, the Lamb's Book of Life, that contains in it the names of those who are the children of God. This is the family registry of all of those who are the sons of God, without respect to male or female, Jew or Gentile, bond or free. (inserted - Rev. 20:11-15) As the age culminates in judgment, there will be, in fact, a time of great trial, a time of great tribulation, a time of intense trouble upon the Earth. (inserted - Mt. 24:21) The reason for this is that it's meant to separate between those who are of God and those who are not.
In a previous program, I spoke to you from the 13th chapter of the book of Matthew, and we looked at the tares and the wheat or the weeds and the wheat as a comparison, and this is another such comparison. It's, if you like, a comparison that is made to the foundation upon the rock and the foundation upon the sand. In this story in Matthew, the analogy is to foolish men and to wise men. Men are thought foolish who build upon the sand. Men are thought wise who build upon the rock. What is the sand, and what is the rock? There's little mistake as to what the rock is or, perhaps, I should say as to who the rock is, for He is the foundation stone of the kingdom and this was a teaching on the kingdom of God. No other foundation can be laid than that which is laid, and the foundation is Christ Jesus. (inserted - actual verse - "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." - 1 Cor. 3:11) He is, in the words of the old song, He is the Rock of Ages.
Jesus represented the eternal in time. He was the eternal God, living and moving in linear time - time being the realm of man; God being from the eternal. God comes into time, and God moves in time, as a man, and God declares the eternal, in time, to His disciples. And when He returned from whence He came, He said, "I'm returning to the Father from whom I came." (inserted - Jn. 16:28) When He returned, what He left and those who were His followers who remained, remained the eternal in time, for the truths that He spoke were not of time. They did not have their origins in time. The truth He spoke was eternal and is eternal. And what is produced in time by the declaration of His truth is not temporal. What is produced is the eternal. And those who have lives in God have eternal life because they know Him who is from the Father. And through Him, they know the Father because by the covenant of marriage, as I pointed out in a previous discussion, by the covenant of marriage, we have become the bride of the Lamb and have access to the Father.
So, building upon the rock, then, is a matter of embracing the person of the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives and for our lives. It is Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, in us who is our hope of glory. And His presence in us by His Holy Spirit transforms us from being creatures of this world and of this age to creatures of the eternal realm, sons of God. This, my brethren, is the truth of the kingdom. This is life founded upon the rock.
The Eternal Cannot Pass Away
This life cannot pass away because it is the eternal operating in time. Anytime the eternal touches time, it cannot pass away because it is not born out of time nor is it a product of this age. "This world and all that is in it will pass away, but the man of God remains forever." (inserted - 1 Jn. 2:17) Anytime the eternal touches time, it remains forever. When a widow gave two mites, that was an eternal act committed in time. (inserted - Lk. 21:1-4) When a woman broke open a box of ointment and poured it on the [head] of the Lord Jesus Christ, that was an eternal act committed in time. (inserted - Mk. 14:3-9) Because of that, it transcends time because the thing in question was not the act itself, but it was the heart that motivated the act.
When the widow gave her two mites, it was said of her that this was her entire substance. It was the entirety of her fortune, of her life. It doesn't seem like a fortune. Indeed, it was not according to the measurement of man. But because it was an act symbolic of giving her life to the Lord, which is an eternal act, it cannot pass away. It is, it is inextricably tied to the declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the same way, when a woman broke upon a box of ointment and poured it on His [head], Jesus said - Jesus superimposed the meaning - He said, "She has done this out of understanding of who I am. I am about to be sacrificed, and she has anointed Me for burial." (inserted - actual verse - "She has done what she could. She has come beforehand to anoint My body for burial." - Mk. 14:8)
In the same way, all that we do in this world, in this life, that is motivated by the Spirit of God within us comes to be eternal - an eternal act operating within time. The sum total of these things come to be eternal acts from the point of view of the kingdom in time. That is what it means to build upon the rock. It is to walk in the Spirit, moment by moment, as Christ is being revealed to us by the Holy Spirit. Because this is so, when the rains fall, when the winds blow, when the floods rise, your foundation is not in time. It cannot be swept away by the elements of time.
But make no mistake - the rains will fall, the winds will blow, and the floods will rise. In this moment, our nation is about to be engulfed in an avalanche of lawlessness; and if our foundations - if our church foundations - are not His foundations, these floods will see the sweeping away of our faith and our confidence. Unless it is founded upon the rock, it cannot endure the coming of the rain, the wind, and the flood. A man who builds upon emotions and feelings, unconnected to the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ through the person of the Holy Spirit is building upon the sand. Jesus said, "In vain, they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (inserted - actual verses - "He..." (Jesus) "...replied, 'Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: 'These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. They worship Me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" - Mk. 7:6- 7; see also Isa. 29:13) Whenever we embrace the ideas of men and become the followers of men, the inevitable result is that we build upon the sand.
Building on Sand
One such sandy foundation today is the idea that the kingdom of God can, in fact, in any way be promoted through the political process. The thought that God will subject Himself and His kingdom to popular votes and the operations of governments of any kind - any kind - is a basically false assumption. And because this is so, whoever follows the view that you're doing something good for God, through the political process, is building upon the sand - and I assure you the rains will fall, the floods will rise, and the winds will blow.
This might be offensive to some of you listening to me because we've been steeped in the idea of doing good things for God. But if what I'm saying is true, if what I'm saying is true, this will be no more than a warning to you not to place your hope in the arm of flesh.
You say, "But, brother Sam, how are we to escape in the days that are to come if what you're saying is true? Should we not, in fact, take the time to build our political alliances so that we could make the government not oppose the church?" Brethren, it has been said from the beginning that "you'll be hated by all the nations because of Me" in the end of the age. Matthew 24. (inserted - Mt. 24:9) What, then, is your escape if indeed the winds will blow, if indeed the rains will fall, if indeed the floods will rise? What is your escape?
See, the problem with us is that we have thought about a way of escape that we can manage. So, we have all kinds of Christians going around today telling us to put assets into gold and silver and certain types of bonds and stocks. "Gold and silver will be thrown into the streets," the Word says. (inserted - actual verse - "They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be an unclean thing. Their silver and gold will not be able to save them in the day of the Lord's wrath. They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it, for it has made them stumble into sin." - Ezek. 7:19) A loaf of bread will be sold for a day's wage. (inserted - actual verse - "Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, 'A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!'" - Rev. 6:6) What confidence could we possibly derive from placing our hope in the security of our money? That is to continue to build on the sand. It is an attempt to save oneself from the floods, the rain, and the wind by our own abilities to figure out ways to invest and to get around it.
You see, we think that we're so smart that the enemy has not plugged all the loopholes, that if we know the right loophole we could get through those loopholes, and we'll be safe even though the rest of the world is in trouble. Well, let me ask the Christian this: What happens if you, in fact, end up quite wealthy and most of your brothers and sisters are suffering and dying around you? Could you possibly hold out and hoard food and resources for yourself when your brothers and sisters are around you, dying? Wherein would the love of God be in you? How would you be motivated by the love of God and still do that? Alternatively, we hear people talk about hoarding guns and weapons and barricading themselves in mountain communities. Are we prepared to sit there and kill people all day long so we could preserve our lives? Is this what the gospel of Jesus Christ has been reduced to? Is this the great power of Christ Jesus in His kingdom? No.
The Divine Option
Brethren, there is a fourth option available to the church. Let me explain. You say, "A fourth option? I don't know what the other three are." I'll give you an example to illustrate what I mean. When the rains come, when the winds blow, when the floods rise, you will have one of two or three options: You will try to flee, you will try to fight, or you will submit.
My example was of Israel, of the Hebrews being made free or set free by the hand of God from Egyptian bondage. Pharaoh pursued them rapidly into the desert, and he found them in a desperate situation. The wilderness was all around them, and their backs were to the sea. (inserted - Ex. 14:1-12) When they saw the oncoming of Pharaoh's armies, in their natural minds they had only three choices: They could submit to the oncoming armies of Pharaoh and hope for mercy. They could scatter and flee into the wilderness, every man for himself, and hope that the sheer numbers of them would result in some of them escaping. Or they could fight, a human wave, go after Pharaoh's chariots and hope that they could overwhelm them because the armies of Pharaoh could not literally kill all of them before some of them overwhelmed them. Those were the three human options.
And much of the options that are planned today in the church are like that: Surrender to the forces of the enemy that will oppress and press upon the church, or flee from it and hope that enough of your brethren will be killed that maybe you will get away or submit to it and become part of it. And the funny thing is, for the most part, this will be what happens to those who claim to be of the body of Christ but for the rest of them - the true body of the Lord Jesus Christ - a fourth option will open. And that fourth option is the path through the sea, the path through the sea. That is the divine option. It's the one that man does not control. It is when God, who knows the end from the beginning, elects to intervene and open up a dimension that human beings can neither predict nor assume. In other words, they cannot predict when it will happen nor can they assume how it will happen because it is entirely the discretion of God.
I'll give you an example of that. When human beings were lost in sin and without hope, God did not appoint a human option, that is, an option that originated with human beings. God appointed a divine option and that was when God came into time and opened up a veil, opened up a way through the veil, that is to say His flesh. In His flesh, the veil of the temple was symbolically rented, and man now could come to the presence of God because God chose to intervene to bring about the salvation of those whom He would call to be His children. (inserted - Heb. 10:19-22) By the way, this is characteristic of how God acts in relationship to His people in their times of trouble.
In the days of the trouble of the young Jewish boys taken into captivity in Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three of them. Daniel would be another. When they were pressed by King Nebuchadnezzar, and their options were again to submit to the king, to try to run away from the king, or to fight, none of those options would have resulted in what happened in the book of Daniel. They chose to fight. They said, "We will not submit nor will we run." But on account of their faith, God opened the fourth option, the divine option, if you like, and that option was that they walk through the fire. They entered the place from which they were secure from their enemies. They went into the fire. That would be an unthinkable human option, but the enemy assisted in throwing them into the fire. The enemy pursued them into the fire, as it were. But it was in the fire, that they met the fourth Man. It was in the fire that they lost their chains. It was in the fire that they were free from their enemies. (inserted - see Dan. 3:1-30)
When the children of Israel went down into the flood, into the Red Sea, they entered the path of the fourth option. The enemies attempted to follow them and were swallowed up in defeat because God's option is what He prepares for His people. (inserted - Ex. 14:13-31) That is a promise of the 23rd Psalm: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." (inserted - Psa. 23:5) The fourth option, the divine option, is the salvation of the church in the end of the age. The winds will blow, the rains will fall, and the floods will rise. And in that day and in that hour, only that which God has provided will be able to remain. Nothing else can be sustained in that incredible deluge.
I read in the Scriptures where Jesus said that He will send forth, the Father will send forth His angels to assist in the gathering of the harvest. (inserted - actual verse - "The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness." - Mt. 13:41) We talked in the previous program about the harvest, the gathering in of the wheat into the barns, the gathering in of the saved from the four winds, the gathering of the elect to Him. Now, in that particular reference to the gathering at the end of the age, it is said that God will be assisted. He will elect to be assisted by angels. One of the characteristics of the conclusion of the age will be the frequent interaction of angels with the church. What if you have a theology that doesn't believe in that? How willing are you going to be to participate in the fourth option?
Frankly, we have no ability to participate in what God has provided for us based upon our agreement with the doctrines of men. "In vain, they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," Jesus said. (inserted - Mk. 7:6-7; Isa. 29:13) It is when we have approached God's solution that there remains any hope for us. The final and ultimate test of the truth of religious dogma is whether or not it stands in the day of the rain, of the flood and of the winds.
These are the orchestrations of God to test what is of Him. These orchestrations of God will be both supernatural and natural. They will be supernatural in the sense that they will be the elements under the control of God. They will be natural in the sense that they will be the storms created by man, the depravity of man in full display at the end of the age, man under the sovereignty of the evil one, giving over his mind and his heart totally to the depravity of those days. That's why the Scriptures say, "Perilous times shall come..." (inserted - 2 Tim. 3:1- 5)
I realize that most people don't want to hear these things today because we're still relatively comfortable - but hold onto your hat. If the Scriptures are correct - and, indeed, they are - perilous times shall come. The rains will fall, the floods will rise, and the winds will blow. The question is: Where is your house established? What is the foundation upon which you are built? It will determine whether or not you can participate in the fourth option, for the fourth option is the option of faith.
This is Sam Soleyn. I thank you for joining me. Continue to study with us in this series. God bless you.
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