Revelation 14:12 "Here is the patience of the saints.
Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."
This is the verse Seventh-day Adventists like to see in themselves, especially when we call ourselves the Remnant (from Rev. 12:17), or when we aspire to be part of the 144,000 (from 14:1-5). This verse completes the Three Angels' Messages (Rev. 14:6-12), the core teaching of our church, the Bible's most succinct statement of our message and mission.
What is this message? It is history's worst warning wrapped in history's best good news; these are the most harsh words ever preached, --literally "fire and brimstone,"; verse 10-- encapsulated by the sweetest coating, on both ends: "the everlasting gospel" of verse 6 opens the Three Angels' Messages, "and the faith of Jesus" in verse 12 closes them. And there are amazing pictures painted in these Messages: Both God and the beast are seen being worshiped; humans experience both torment and patience in these verses.
Where do you see yourself in these verses? Are you in awe of God, glorifying and worshiping Him? Or are you afraid of Him, and what He'll do to you if you're not good enough for Him? Will the judgment find you keeping the commandments of God by the faith of Jesus, or trying and failing to keep them in your own strength? Are you experiencing the love, joy, peace, and patience of the everlasting gospel, or are you fallen from grace, like Babylon?
These are tough questions, but a church fitting the description Jesus gave to Laodicea needs to ask itself tough questions. Laodicea is a sick church, so sick it makes God Himself want to spit it out (Rev. 3:16). That's what I want to do with a drink I expected to be either hot or cold. But Jesus offers us a cure for our spiritually sick condition. Laodicea's remedy is gold, white garments, and eye medicine; faith, righteousness, and the Holy Spirit. Are we picking up that prescription? It's already paid for, waiting for us to obtain it from the heavenly pharmacist, who is Jesus. The first item on that prescription is faith. The faith of Jesus mentioned at the end of the Three Angels' Messages.
"Here is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." If we don't keep the faith of Jesus, we cannot keep the commandments of God. If we don't experience the everlasting gospel through the faith of Jesus, we have no good news to wrap these three warning messages in. We will have only the fearsome "fire and brimstone" kind of Christianity. Motivated by fear of the flames, we may become persecuting beasts, taking out all our fears on each other. Overwhelmed by their fear of the end, some escape the fear by ignoring the future altogether. Both kinds of Christians mix together to make a lukewarm church.
Are you a patient saint, or a persecuting beast? Is the faith of Jesus alive in you, or are you drowning in a lukewarm experience? Let's buy the gold of faith this morning.
What is faith?
A good definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1, but we should take the whole chapter into our definition. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Peterson's paraphrase calls it "our handle on what we can't see;" in other words, it is our spiritual eyes and ears. "We walk by faith, not by sight."
More than this, faith is dependence on God's power. This is what verse 3 teaches, combined with all the remaining verses in the chapter. "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." This is talking about God's power to create by just speaking a word, the same thing Psalm 33 (our Scripture reading) teaches. Humans can create things, too, but we can't do it just by speaking a word. Our words are pretty powerless, when you compare them to God's word. All the rest of Hebrews 11, also called the "hall of faith," lists the great things people in Bible times did when they depended on God's power, instead of their own (in other words, when they exercised faith). They all have that one thing in common, that they depended on God's promise, instead of believing the evidence of their eyes, or ears, or emotions, or past experience. This is the faith of Jesus, the faith we need. We can have it, too; there was nothing special about these Bible heroes, no advantage they had over you and me. We can have their faith.
Adventists rip away the gospel wrapping on the Three Angels' Messages when we indulge our fears of the future. The opposite of faith is fear. But Jesus said, "Don't be afraid." So when you hear about the last day events and the investigative judgment, persecution, the time of trouble, the Sunday law crisis, the economic boycott, standing in courts of law, the death decree, the mark of the beast, the 7 last plagues, standing in the presence of a holy God without a mediator-- whatever it is, don't forget to wrap it all up in the everlasting gospel, in which Jesus promised:
"I am with you always, even to the end of the age," (Mt. 28:20)
and "do not worry about how or what you should speak. . . for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you," (Mt. 10:19)
and "fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you," (Isaiah 43:1-2).
You can depend on God's power, and that power is contained in the promises of the everlasting gospel. That power is the only thing that will get anyone through any of these end-time troubles. It's the only thing getting any of us through our present troubles. God's power and grace are what saves us, and faith is the way it gets from Him to us.
Hebrews 11:6 says that faith is the only way to please God. You can't please God any other way. It's impossible, "thus saith the Lord." Faith is the only way to:
obtain a good testimony, Heb. 11:2
make an acceptable offering or acceptable worship, v. 4
be translated, v. 5
get righteousness, v. 7
obey God, v. 8
receive strength, v. 11
have assurance, v. 13
ETC.
Now, three gospel stories to build our faith. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," Romans 10:17. See in these stories how powerful God's word is, and how completely you can depend on it.
Matthew 8:8. The story of the healing the centurion's servant illustrates what Jesus called "great faith," verse 10. What was so great about it? What was unusual about his faith? What impressed Jesus so much was the centurion's statement in verse 8, "only speak a word." That Roman officer had grasped what so many Israelites had missed: the power of God's word! He knew he could depend on Jesus' word. Only say the word, Jesus, that's all you need to do. I know how powerful you are, you command the world just like I command a hundred soldiers under me. You don't need to touch my servant or even be in my house, just say the word, he will be healed. YOUR WORD IS ALL I NEED. That's what Protestant Reformers referred to as Sola Scriptura, only the Scriptures, the word of God is our only creed. The faith of Jesus only needs God's word; people who keep the faith of Jesus are sola Scriptura Christians, depending on God's word for spiritual power.
John 4:46-54, another story illustrating the power of God's word. In verse 47, we realize that this boy, another centurion's son, is 15 miles away in Capernaum, at the point of death, with a fever. Jesus meets up with the boy's father in Cana, and in verse 49 the centurion pleads with a father's desperate love: "come down before my child dies!" That anguished father had probably spent many hours at his beloved son's bedside, speaking powerless words. "Don't die, my son!" "Don't leave us!" "Stay with us!" But his words had no power.
But God's word contains the power to accomplish what He wants to do. And just three little words were spoken by Jesus 15 miles from the bed of this dying boy. Those words were mixed with the faith of a dependent father: "your son lives," verse 50. And they accomplished what God wanted to do. Verses 51-53 demonstrate that the healing was immediate, not gradual, and the miracle created more faith in the members of the boy's family.
John 11, the story of Lazarus. Verses 25 and 26 contain the key thought-- "I am the resurrection." "Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die." And Jesus asked Martha if she believed His word. She said she did, but she really didn't, because in verse 39, when they rolled away the stone, she was so afraid of a bad stench that she forgot to have faith in God's powerful word. That's why Jesus gently rebuked her, and all of us:
"Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?" So often, our forgetfulness lets our fears dissolve our faith.
"Lazarus, come forth!" verse 43. Again, just three words, a simple command, no magic words, no lightning or electric shock, no "Rescue 911," "Drama-In-Real-Life" excitement. Lazarus, come out! I miss you, brother; I want to see you again, I want you to be with Me where I am.
And as everyone's jaws dropped down, Lazarus got up from his grave, and stumbled toward the sound of God's Word. Jesus wakes everyone up from their dazed amazement, feeling sorry for His mummified friend. "Uh, let the poor guy out of his grave clothes; he's not dead anymore."
Every word in the Bible is just as powerful as the words which brought Lazarus back from the dead. Every promise in the gospel for our salvation carries just as much authority as Jesus' words for the centurion's son, "your son lives." Every one of us can have the faith of Jesus as we depend on God's word alone, sola Scriptura, just like the centurion whose faith amazed Jesus because he depended on the power in Jesus' words.
Then we will have no fear of the future events, we'll just take it one day at a time, as Jesus recommended. And this will make us patient saints, instead of persecuting beasts. We won't feel it our duty to persecute others into our image of the perfect Adventist. And we will be well on our way to recovery from our Laodicean disease, receiving the remedies of faith, righteousness, and the Holy Spirit.
My prayer is that Hebrews 4:12 will be fulfilled in each of us:
"The Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper that any two-edged sword."
When that verse is fulfilled in us, God will be able to point to us and say:
"This is the patience of the saints. Here are those who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."