Welcome to Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist church here in Sacramento, California. We're so glad that you are tuning in, whether you're watching live on our website at 'saccentral.org', listening on the radio, or on the various television networks - however you're joining us we're so glad. And today is no exception, we sing your favorite songs and I hope you have had a good week and are ready to sing with us because we're all warmed up and we're ready to go here. And, of course, today we're going to sing my favorite - we'll sing that as the next song, 'silent night' - but we're going to start with 'angels we have heard on high' - #142. So pull out your hymnals, those of you at home, and join with us here.
'Angels we have heard on high' - we're going to sing the first, second and fourth stanzas - #142. Thank you andrea, bianca, elina, and dimitar in bulgaria, tony in ghana, merin in ireland and judy in saint kitts and nevis and many more for choosing their favorite Christmas song. And if you have a favorite that you would like to sing with us on an upcoming program, it's so simple. Just go to our website at 'saccentral.org', click on the 'contact us' link and you can send in your favorite song and we will sing that with you on an upcoming program. Our next one - this is from noel and margaret in australia, marian in new zealand, betsy in panama, and roselyn, naomi, nathan, natasha, and rachel in vanuatu and a whole bunch more and myself.
'Silent night' - we're going to sing all four stanzas - #143. Thank you so much for sending in 'silent night'. At this time I would like for you to bow your heads as we pray. Father in Heaven, thank you so much. Thank you for giving up the glories of heaven and coming down here to this world where you knew you were going to be mistreated, misunderstood, and crucified.
But you gave it all up because you love us and I pray that our hearts will be overflowing with that love today for you that you have for us. Be with us as we open up your word and we study together. Be with Pastor Doug as he brings us the lesson study and thank you so much for this beautiful Sabbath day. In Jesus' Name, amen. At this time our lesson study is going to be brought to us by Pastor Doug Batchelor.
He is our senior pastor here at Sacramento central seventh day adventist church. Thank you debbie and our musicians. And it's always a nice time of year when we get to sing those beautiful songs that are so classic and enduring. How is everybody? Did you survive thanksgiving okay? Anyone have leftovers leftover? I want to welcome our friends - of course, this is broadcasting a few weeks after thanksgiving, but for us here it just happened and I want to welcome those who might be studying with us. We have a number of online members - we welcome you.
And those of you who are interested in - what does that mean? We have people around the world who have no local church they can attend, for some reason, and so through either the internet or satellite they've become some of the online members of Sacramento central and if you'd like to know more about that you can go to 'saccentral.org' and there'll be some information there on how you can be part of our family as well as we can do it through the internet. And we are going to be getting into our lesson in just a moment. We have a free offer that goes along with our study today and this is from the series called 'storacles of prophecy'. If you want this, call the number on your screen -study-more - you'll really enjoy it - 866-study-more and ask for offer #804 and that number is 788-3966. We're continuing - we're on lesson 12 in the study on the sanctuary and today's lesson, in particular, is dealing with the cosmic conflict over God's character.
The sanctuary is dealing with the subject of God's goodness and his efforts to redeem a man from badness. There is a battle between good and evil. You know, one thing I noticed is - I was not always a Christian or a seventh day adventist Christian, and I worshiped with a number of different denominations, but even before I was a Christian I was involved in buddhism, yoga, transcendental meditation, sylvan mind control - I mean, I was dabbling in all kinds of different religions - hinduism - you know, back in the beatles' era the eastern religions were the thing. Some of you remember. And so we were exploring that, reading the bog divida, siddhartha and all those books, trying to learn how to be at one and I even got involved in some of the American indian religions and one thing I noticed with virtually every religion, they all recognize that there is a battle between good and evil.
They call it the good spirit and the bad spirit, the Spirit of light and the Spirit of darkness, the great spirit and the Spirit of evil, Christ and the devil, satan and God, I mean, it just seemed like everyone recognized that there is a battle in this world between the forces of good and evil and the Bible bears that out as well. Now the big question that people want to understand: 'if God is all-powerful and if God made all things, and if God created everything, then he must have made a devil.' And people don't understand. No, God did not make a devil. 'Well, if God's in control of everything.' God isn't in control of everything. Now it doesn't mean he can't be.
That means God has laws and he allows certain things to happen. He allows his intelligent creatures to have a will and they make their own choices and then there are consequences of those choices. Why do we pray in the Lord's prayer, 'thy will be done'? Is God's will always done? If God's will is always done then why do we pray that? God's will is not always done. People choose to do their own will and sometimes, instead of love, people choose selfishness. And so there's this tension.
There's a conflict between good and evil in the world and our lesson delves into that today with a little bit of the background or the backdrop of the sanctuary to help us understand that. We have a memory verse: Revelation 16, verse 7, and you can find that either in your lesson or in your Bible - it's right there at the top of lesson . Revelation 16:7 - I appreciate if you want to say it with me. I think this is out of the new king James version. Are you ready? "And I heard another voice" - I'm sorry - "and I heard another out of the altar say, 'even so, Lord God almighty, true and righteous are your judgments.
'" And so, from the altar a declaration is made: 'true and righteous are thy judgements.' Alright, well there is a revolt in the heavenly sanctuary. Now when we say sanctuary, the words tabernacle and sanctuary are used a couple of different ways in the Bible. Your body is called the temple of God, right? We're talking about the sanctuary. And, you know, in the - in the earthly sanctuary there was an altar where there was a fire burning. Did you know that your bodies are constantly burning energy? And in the sanctuary then, there was a laver for cleansing - your body has a circulatory system that is cleansing.
And in the sanctuary you went into the holy place there was bread - where they stored food. Well, your body stores food. Some of us store more than others after thanksgiving. And in the sanctuary there was a light and that represented - Jesus said the light of the body is the eye. And then the sanctuary - there was this ethereal smoke that went up into the presence of God like the Spirit of man.
And in the sanctuary there was an ark and in it was the truth - the covenant - the law of God. 'Thy word I have hidden in my heart.' That's like the mind of man - the presence of God. You know God doesn't speak to you through your elbows and your knees. He doesn't speak to you through your cheeks and your chin. He speaks to you through your mind.
And so some have said, you know, you could even see a pattern for the body in the sanctuary. Paul - who was it? Peter said, 'God has shown me' - 'Jesus has shown me that I must put off my earthly tabernacle.' It was a tent. It was a dwelling place. So sometimes it wasn't always a place of sacrifice. Sometimes the sanctuary was a dwelling place.
So when we talk about the sanctuary - the dwelling place of God in heaven - there was a revolt. Now when you went into the holy of holies - I'm assuming that most of you have been with us and you know these things - there was a golden chest - box - in the middle. What was that called? Ark of the covenant. And there were two prominent figures on top. What were they? They were cherubim - they were angels, right? They were called the covering cherubs because they then used to shadow the ark with their wings.
They were dwelling in the presence of God. Now those golden angels were figures of the very real angels of God. Now when I was a kid I had a matchbox car and we had hot wheels and we'd play with them. We had all different kinds of hot wheels. You couldn't climb in and drive it, they were just miniatures.
They actually make them to scale, did you know that? They're 1/100th scale of the real vehicles. It's an interesting science how they do that. But it was a miniature - very inferior - you never started it up and heard it run. Those golden angels on the earthly ark, they were a miniature of very real, living, breathing angels by the throne of God. You see them in Isaiah chapter 6 where it's got these seraphim that flank the Lord - with six wings - that say, 'holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
' One of those angels, who was the highest of those angels, his name was lucifer. He was called the covering cherub. He rebelled against God. Now let me start reading. I'm just telling you the story, but let's get a background.
Go with me in your Bibles to Ezekiel and as you read some of these verses that tell about the origin of evil, you're going to have a question that I need to answer about 'why does it seem to drift?' Go to Ezekiel chapter 28 please and we'll be starting with verse . "Moreover the word of the Lord came to me," - Ezekiel 28:11 - "saying, 'son of man, take up a lamentation for the King of tyre, and say to him, 'thus says the Lord God:''" - now the King of tyre was - you have the cities of tyre and sidon - they were ancient cities - you can read about them back in the time of David. They had an alliance. the King of tyre was friends of David - helped him build his temple - friends with Solomon. Even during the time of Jesus - he went up to the region of tyre.
That's where Elijah fled when he ran from jezebel. He stayed with a widow up in sidon. Tyre and sidon, they went together. They were very wealthy because they were the phoenicians. They had a sea port - all the trade around the mediterranean - that was their principle port.
And you can even see the ruins of that today on Google earth. Now, first of all, this letter is historical - this message - this prophecy. the King of tyre was a very wealthy man. According to the Greek historian diodorus saleucius, he wrote in biblioteca historica - this is an ancient history book - that the name of this king of tyre was ethbaal or ethobalis. Now you remember jezebel had a father who was a king of tyre, named ethbaal.
It's a different one. It's a common name. And it says that he was a very capable man. He was accomplished. He was famous.
But when Nebuchadnezzar attacked tyre, he was destroyed because of his iniquity, according to Matthew henry. So there really is a king of tyre. But the vision of Ezekiel - he begins to go behind the power that was manipulating the King. There's several examples in the Bible where you see a king is doing something wicked and the prophet then takes you to the power behind the King. You have in Revelation 12 - it talks about this dragon and the dragon wants to destroy the man-child as soon as he's born.
Who's the man-child that is caught up to God's throne? Christ. Who was the King that tried to destroy Jesus as a baby? Herod the great. Do you remember that? He sent his soldiers into Bethlehem? But in the vision it talks about the devil working behind the roman empire to try and destroy the child. Did the devil make an effort to destroy a Savior in Egypt during the time of Moses through the pharaoh? Was it just the King that had a whimsical idea that he would kill all the baby boys or was the devil, knowing that a Savior was coming, trying to stop it from happening? Because he's just killing the baby boys. And then you can read about when you go to the book of Daniel - it talks about this battle between Michael and the prince of persia.
Well, it's really a battle between Christ and satan. You've got Michael and his angels and the dragon and his angels have a war in heaven and there's this battle between - you see, the devil is operating between earthly powers to persecute and oppress God's people. So it starts out talking about the King of tyre and then the vision transitions to the power who's really behind the King of tyre. Now notice if you don't agree. Alright, so I'm still at verse - verse 12 - ".
..take up a lamentation for the King of tyre, and say to him,...' You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in eden, the garden of God;''" - now was the King of tyre ever in the Garden of Eden? The Garden of Eden was caught up to heaven before the flood. Just like the new Jerusalem will come down from heaven, the Garden of Eden was preserved because the Garden of Eden is in the new earth. So it - it's not on the world anymore today and so was there any earthly king in eden? No. Must be talking about someone else.
"''You were in eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardis, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.''" - Was there music in the sanctuary on earth? And was there music around the throne of God in heaven? You read about that in Revelation - the singing going on constantly in Revelation around the throne of God and there was singing - David had people constantly singing to God in heaven. But there was no sacrifice happening in heaven before sin. Back when lucifer rebelled, his job as representative - you know, I don't want to use the word 'priest' per se in except that he was to be a representative to glorify God, to praise God in that respect, but there was no sacrifice and blood because there was no sin before the devil rebelled. But you see, the sanctuary there is like the dwelling place of God.
It's not the place of sacrifice where there's an altar and so forth - and blood is being sprinkled. So let me read on here. Go to verse - well, I read verse 13 - oh, I want to read - yeah, let me finish 13 - "''...sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created.''" - Now there's another clue: the King of tyre - ethbaal - was he created or was he born like other humans? Was the devil born? Do angels marry and give in marriage, or are angels created? They are created to be ministering spirits of God, the Bible says. They are all unique.
And if you have any other doubts, look at verse 14 - Ezekiel 28:14, "''you were the anointed cherub who covers;''" - you were - "''I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, til iniquity was found in you.''" - Now no earthly man was perfect. It's talking about lucifer now, who had been manipulating the King of tyre. The prophet of God is going behind the scenes, the veil is being pulled aside and we are seeing the origin of the devil. - "''You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, til iniquity was found in you.
By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned;''" - this trading is probably a reference to as he went about the other angels he began to sow seeds of discord. - "''Therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain''" - the dwelling place - the Kingdom of God - that's heaven. Satan was cast out of heaven, Revelation 12 - "''and I destroyed you, o covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before Kings, that they might gaze at you. You defile your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading; therefore I brought fire from your midst; it devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you.
All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a horror, and shall be no more forever.''" So there it's telling about the fate of the devil. 'I'll bring forth a fire from the midst of you and it will devour you.' So this is sort of an overview. Now let me just give you the background and then I'll go to a passage in Isaiah that also talks about it. And some of you, I think, have verses you're going to help me read. His name was lucifer.
Matter of fact, I should probably read Isaiah and then I'll tell you - just to kind of give you an overview. Go to Isaiah 14 - Isaiah 14, verse 12. Another similar passage - matter of fact, I'm going to turn there quickly because I want you to notice - it says in Isaiah , verse 4, "...take up this proverb against the King of Babylon" - and then this lamentation begins. Who does it start out talking about? Ezekiel it starts out with the king of tyre. Isaiah it starts out with the king of Babylon and then he begins to talk about the power behind the King of Babylon who was persecuting God's people.
You see, the King of the sidonians were persecuting and oppressing Israel because they'd been carried off by the assyrians and they began to take the territory and to boast and to oppress God's people. the King of Babylon destroyed the temple oppressing God's people. So the power behind that is the devil. Now go to verse 12 and you'll see that. "How you are fallen from heaven, o lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights'" - by the way, sometimes the devil's called the king of the north or he's the power behind it - "'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high.
' Yet you shall be brought down to sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit." - The bottomless pit is where the angel casts him - isn't that what we read in Revelation 20? And so, just to give you the background - and by the way, I read - I recommend you read a book that just really explains it in the most beautiful way I've ever seen. It's a book called 'patriarchs and prophets' and it talks about the origin of sin and if God is good and if he's loving and powerful, why did he allow the devil to carry on his rebellion? Quick story - all the universe was pure and peaceful. God had countless angels that served him. They were his ministering spirits bringing messages and joy back and forth to his limitless creation, and the highest of his angels - the first of his created works - I mean, the first thing you'd make if you were starting out to make a creation is you'd have your chief executive officers - you'd have your prime minister, your chief angel, and so lucifer was the most intelligent, most beautiful, most gifted of all of God's created works - just below God and Christ himself in power. And, by the way, who created lucifer? God The Father or The Son? 'All things that were made were made by him.
Without him was not anything made that was made.' Who's that talking about? Jesus, right? And it says that he began to start to think, when he saw the other creatures worshiping God, 'I'm so powerful.' He enjoyed when they praised him for his singing and his power and his decisions and he began to feel thoughts of jealousy that he was not God. And when God engaged in the work of creation he thought, 'I can do almost everything God can do. How come I can't create?' And you might be thinking, 'why did lucifer think those thoughts? Did God make him with a defect where he wasn't wired properly?' That's a normal thought. 'There must have been some factory defect.' Well, the difference is between a computer and between a creator is that God makes his creatures genuinely free to think independent thoughts and lucifer, he was able to process a zillion thoughts just like you can. All kinds of things went through his mind and the fleeting thought came through his mind once, 'I'm not God.
I can't do everything God can do. Why not? I would like to have the worship of God. I would like to have the power of God.' Now when that thought came, his conscience told him, 'I should be so thankful that I am where I am - closest to God - highest - but instead, he nurtured that wrong thought. It started out just as a - a musing. You know, when you have a wild thought go through your mind it's not always a sin.
Sometimes you'll have a strange thought - I'm having some right now - sometimes you'll have a strange thought go through your mind and it doesn't mean it's necessarily a sin because your wires get crossed - people think all kinds of goofy things - and you just need to put those things out of your mind. But lucifer clung to that and he nurtured it and he cultivated it and he cherished it and he magnified it and he kept thinking and he kept chewing on it and saying, 'how come I'm not God? Is there any way I could be God? How come I can't create? How come I'm not worshiped? Will I ever get promoted or is this a dead-end job? Am I going to stop right here at chief angel or do I get to be God of my own universe?' And he began to think thoughts like that and pretty soon, when he realized that God was not going to step over and let him share divinity, he resented it. And he began to think, 'you know, God's powerful but I'm powerful too. And if I have all the support of the angels in heaven, I can pressure God into giving me all of his powers and then I'll take over completely. I know that sounds crazy to me and it hopefully sounds crazy to you, but the creature would think it could overpower the creator, right? But sin will make you stupid.
Selfishness will make you do some really dumb things. And the devil began to nurture that thought. And then he began to sow discord - his trading the Bible talks about - among the other angels and say, 'you know, if I was God, we would have more freedom. If I was in charge - you know, God, he doesn't trust us and that's why we have this law.' Now, what was the covering cherub's job? He was stationed above the ark, facing the ark. He was in the presence of God's perfect law and his will.
And the angels all - they all obeyed God's law because they loved God, they loved each other. They probably didn't even think about there being a law. It probably came to them as a surprise but then they thought, 'you mean there are restrictions on our freedom? You know, when you love God and you love your neighbor, the law kind of comes naturally. And it wasn't an effort. Angels didn't go around day after day saying, 'oh, better not lie today.
Better not steal today. Oh, it's going to be so hard.' They don't think about it. It was their desire to do God's will, right? But he began to plant seeds of doubt and, gradually, he was even able to recruit one-third - that's a lot, because there are billions of angels. These are the ministering spirits of the army - they're called the host of God - the army of God - they fan out into the whole cosmos and do God's will. And we know for every person born God has a guardian angel.
He may also have a guardian angel and a recording angel. I don't know if they're one and the same. They can probably multi-task, but he's got lots of angels out there. Lucifer managed to get one-third of the angels to follow him in his rebellion. And, finally, it broke out into an open revolt and they were cast out of heaven.
You can read about that in Revelation chapter 12. That - heaven there kind of represents the sanctuary - the dwelling place of God. Another angel has taken lucifer's place. Some suspect we know his name. Gabriel.
There's a good chance that gabriel took lucifer's place so I don't think they get along very well. It's the only other angel that's named. Now you have Michael the archangel in the Bible, but he's - that's a different name. That's really a title for Christ. Jesus is not an angel.
The archangel means the greatest messenger. It's talking about the general of God's armies. Just like the word 'dragon' in the Bible is a symbolic name for the devil, Michael is a symbolic name for Christ in the Bible. That's why you see him coming to resurrect Moses and that's why you see him - it says, 'the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout of the archangel.' the Lord descends from heaven with the shout of the archangel, right - and the trumpet of God. So it's a figure and he inspired this rebellion.
You might be thinking, 'well, doug, as soon as he rebelled and he sinned and one-third of the angels followed, why didn't God just, you know, snap his fingers or wiggle his nose or do something and say, 'kazam! You're dead.'? Couldn't he have done that? Why didn't - why, as soon as he rebelled and all the angels were following lucifer out of heaven - what that war looked like - I don't know what kind of weapons they used - it's hard to say, but there was some kind of conflict and satan and his angels were cast out. If the Lord had destroyed lucifer, there might - even among the good angels - there might have been some that still had questions about satan's accusations and they said, 'you know, maybe.' And then they would have thought, 'i'd better obey God or he's going to vaporize me.' God does not want his creatures to obey because he's going to destroy them if they don't. He wants us to obey willingly and freely. So satan was cast out - excuse me - and then, when he came to this earth - he went through the universe trying to find other worlds to follow him. He couldn't find any until he came to our planet and that's when he began to insinuate doubts about God and say, 'God's hiding something from you, eve.
You eat this fruit, you'll be like God. Now he doesn't want you to be like him.' That's exactly what the devil wanted. So he inspired within humanity his own desire. 'You will be like God.' And the foundation of many false religions is that you will be like God. I know when I was in a number of eastern religions - you meditate and you keep reincarnating and eventually you'll be God.
And the world says, 'you are number one. You are God. Live for your self-satisfaction. Have everybody work for you. You could be rich and famous.
You will be God.' Isn't that what the whole message of the media is? You can be the star. You can be the idol. I mean, it's all about you. That's the devil implanting in humanity his own desire to be God. You'll never be happy that way.
You'll be cast out of heaven that way. If you want to go to heaven you must submit to God and worship God and that's where you really find - find your life. Alright, well I need to get back to our lesson. There's a lot to cover here. We're going to talk about - satan is called the accuser of the brethren.
Someone look up Jude verse 9 - Jude 9 - you got - let's get a you a microphone. Right there - they'll hand you a microphone. Now I'm going to read in - in job 1, verse 6. Satan is called 'the accuser of the brethren'. "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and satan came among them.
And the Lord said to satan, 'from where do you come?' So satan answered the Lord and said, 'from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.'" Now here's a meeting that is not on earth - where these sons of God - these - you know, adam was called The Son of God, right? You and I are sons of our parents. Adam was a Son of God because God was his father literally and before sin adam would have come to this celestial meeting and represented our world. But after sin, satan said, 'look, adam and eve listened to me. I am the prince of this world.' Even Jesus said 'the prince of this world comes and has nothing in me.' The reason the devil offered Jesus - said, 'all these kingdoms I'll give you if you fall down and worship me.' The devil claims this world as his own. He sort of kidnapped it.
And so, part of what happens in the sanctuary is redemption. Through the lamb a price is paid. Through the sacrifice of Jesus a ransom is paid to redeem a planet that has been hijacked or kidnapped by satan. But he calls himself the prince of this world. And while he's there he says, 'these people now, on this planet, God, they don't worship you.
They worship me. They don't obey you. They obey me. They sin.' And so he was accusing and saying 'the world is mine.' And God said, 'oh really? What about job? There's a man on that world that worships me.' Isn't it sad that God could only name one name? And the Bible says that - 'have you considered my servant job that there's none like him in the land, a perfect man that fears God and hates evil?' And then the devil says - he accuses him in verse - job 1, verse 9, "so satan answered the Lord and said, 'does job fear God for nothing? Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!'" - This is very important.
First of all, you know what this tells us? Was the devil right that God can produce a hedge about his people? the Lord would not let the devil curse job. God had set a blessing - a hedge around him. So that's good to know that God can create a hedge about us, but sometimes he allows us to be tested and that protection is removed. And so God said, 'alright, I'll remove my hedge of protection but don't touch his body.' So job loses all of his possessions and God says, 'have you considered' - to the devil God says, 'have you considered job still serves me even though you moved me against him?' He said, 'oh, that's just because he doesn't care about his stuff, he only cares about his physical comfort. You touch his body he'll curse you to your face.
' There he is again, accusing. God said, 'okay, I'll let you afflict him physically, but do not take his life.' And I can't imagine the affliction that job went through because the devil himself got involved, but it was from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. He was suffering misery and lost everything - lost everyone - and does he curse God? No, he says that even though he sorry he was ever born - he wishes he could die - he still knows that we receive good from God - we receive evil and he trusts the Lord. There the devil is accusing. Alright, read to us Jude 9 - I don't say chapter because there's no chapters - there's one chapter, it's verse 9.
Jude 9, "yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, 'the Lord rebuke you!'" Alright, so here Michael comes to resurrect Moses. Now this is not in the Bible, but in Jewish tradition it says, three days after Moses died the Lord raised him. Because you were supposed to be raised before your body began to corrupt or decompose. And that's also kind of a type of Christ. Now we do know Moses was raised.
How do we know that? He appears in the new testament, for one thing, in the mount of transfiguration. And the Bible tells us that when Michael came to raise him the devil contended - he contested and said, 'you can't take Moses. He sinned. He's mine.' But God said, 'the Lord rebuke you. He repented of his sins.
He has been redeemed. He is mine.' Because of what happened in the sanctuary with the sacrifice of the lamb, Moses claimed the blood of the lamb, he was forgiven and he was rebuked. Now does the devil sometimes come to you and say, 'you don't really love God. You're mine.' And if you have repented of your sins and accepted the Lord then Jesus says to the devil, 'the Lord rebuke you. He belongs to me.
She belongs to me.' And so here he is again accusing the brethren. Go to Revelation 12 - who has that? Over here. Revelation 12, verse 10. And while we go there, I'm going to read Matthew 26:60, when they wanted to condemn Jesus - they had to find false witnesses. "But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came" - but they couldn't agree - "at the last came two false witnesses, and said, 'this fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.
''" Isn't that interesting? Now, Jesus did say something similar to that, but they twisted it. Jesus said, 'destroy this temple made with hands and in three days I will make one without hands.' He was speaking of his body - that he would raise up his body. And - but here it is, they have false witnesses - the thing that they found to accuse Jesus of is destroying the temple. Did Jesus come to destroy the temple or to raise up the temple? Physical temple wasn't important - the temple of his church - his body. His resurrection is a type of the church being born.
You are the body of Christ. You are the temple of God, right? Alright, Revelation 12:10. "Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'now salvation and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." What is it that causes him to be cast down? It's because of what happens in the sanctuary. You notice in Revelation all of this is transpiring in the sanctuary. First chapter of Revelation Jesus is among the candlesticks.
Then you read about the altar and you read about the laver and all of this is seen in the temple of heaven. And so, it's in the context of the sanctuary the accuser is cast down because of the blood of the lamb that is slain. What do you see in chapter 4? A lamb that had been slain - of Revelation, right? And so you've got these pictures - actually, it's chapter - yeah, it's chapter 5. You've got these pictures in Revelation of the sanctuary taking place. And what cast down the accuser? It's the sacrifice of Jesus.
That's what - what right would any of us have to stand before the Lord in the judgment if it wasn't for Jesus. You know, in the book 'Christ's object lessons' page 167 - and this is in your lesson - Ellen white says that "satan is accusing the children of God and making their case appear as desperate as possible. He presents before the Lord their evil doings and their defects." You ever heard the expression that a person who is always pointing a finger at everybody else has three fingers pointing back? And it's often people who are the most critical and accusing of others - they're really using it as a diversionary tactic because they feel guilty and the way they cope with their guilt is by pointing out the misdeeds of everybody else. And so you need to ask yourself when you're pointing the finger at everyone else, is it really a mechanism to deflect attention from yourself and your own guilt and your own sins? You know there's one other quote I was going to read you and this is from the book 'patriarchs and prophets'. "Lucifer, son of the morning, was the first of the covering cherubs, holy and undefiled.
He stood in the presence of the great creator and upon ceaseless beams of glory that enshrouded the eternal God rested upon him." Just he was in the beautiful presence of God. Alright, now, still talking about the accuser of the brethren, go with me to Zechariah - the minor prophet Zechariah chapter 3 - here's a clear picture of it also in the context of the sanctuary and this comes from the niv version. "Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and satan standing at his right side to accuse him. the Lord said to satan, 'the Lord rebuke you, satan! the Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?'" So here you have a picture. Who does the high priest represent? The job of the high priest is he makes intercession for the people.
Who bore the sins of the people into the holy of holies on the day of atonement? The high priest, right? So when the devil is accusing the high priest, what is he indirectly accusing? God's people. He's accusing God's people of their sins. He's pointing - what kind of garments did the high priest have on? Dirty garments. Was it true? Yes, his garments were dirty. And the devil's pointing saying, 'look at the sins of your people.
How can you save this people?' I think I covered with you in a previous study on the sanctuary - can you think of another story of the religious leaders pointing to the sins of somebody in the temple? When that woman, possibly mary magdalene was caught in the act of adultery - she was cast down at the feet of Jesus - where was that? In the temple? Were they accusing her? Were they pointing? Were they condemning? Were they saying 'stone her! According to the law she's guilty'? Why did they come to Jesus? Why didn't they take her and stone her? There they are - actually, they're trying to use that as a mechanism to condemn Jesus. And what does Jesus say? He starts to - he says nothing at first - writes in the dust of the temple floor their sins. Do you want the Lord to write your sins? Be careful that you are not categorized with the devil as an accuser of the brethren. Now you transition to the next section, 'vindication at the cross' and you read the rest of Zechariah - the devil accuses but what does God say? Zechariah 3 - now someone look up for me 1 John, 4:10 - who has that? We gave - I think we gave them out - 1 John, 4:10 - if you've got that, hold your hand up. You got it? Alright, we'll get to you in just a second.
Zechariah 3, verse 3, "now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, 'take off his filthy clothes.' Then he said to Joshua, 'see, I have taken away your sin," - what do the filthy clothes represent? All of our righteousness is like filthy rags - it says, "'take off his filthy clothes...see, I have taken away your sin and I will put fine garments on you.'" - What is that garment? That represents the robe of Christ's righteousness. "Then I said, 'put a clean turban on his head.' So they take away his filthy clothes, and filthy turban - they put on clean robes, clean turban on his head - "while the angel of the Lord stood by." And so, who has the right to provide that robe for him? And that's Christ - is, I believe, one of those messengers standing in that scene. And so, we're vindicated because the sin is taken away. Where do we get our robe? What did Jesus leave behind on the cross? A blood-stained robe was the only thing he left.
Alright, read for us 1 John, :10. 1 John chapter 4, verse 10, "in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins." Alright, propitiation means to be substitute - to be the replacement - to cover for us. God sent his son to be the covering - to be the replacement - the substitute for our sins. Not for our sins only, but it says for the sins of the whole world. And so we are vindicated because Christ said that he will take our place.
Now there are three phases in this salvation that we talk about. You've got justification, sanctification, glorification. Justification means you come to the Lord just as you are. You don't have to change anything. When you first come to the Lord, you come to him with your sins - just as I am - without one plea.
He then embraces you, he will cover your sins, then if you really love him and you're forgiven, you want to be cleansed and sanctified as well. So as soon as you're justified by Christ he declares you clean, you're not on probation, you're righteous by faith in his sacrifice. But then, if you want to retain that forgiveness, you then live a new life, you turn - the Bible tells us - you repent, you confess, and a sanctification happens where you're learning to do good, ceasing to do evil. There's a growth that transpires and all of that Christ provides to vindicate us so we can ultimately be glorified and be with him in the Kingdom. Romans 3:23, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.
" So when you come to Jesus he passes over all the sins that were what? Previously committed. All of your prior sins are forgiven. He's not giving you a license for future sin. Some people believe that the grace of God - you come to Jesus, you're forgiven, and he's forgiving you and saying, 'I'm not only going to forgive your past sins - any other sin you might be interested in, help yourself.' No, that's a very - but I've heard it preached that way before. That's not what it says.
It says 'sins that were previously committed.' You're to repent of your past sins and you're wanting to live a new holy life, right? It's not a license for new sin that Jesus is providing. If you do sin - notice that word 'if'. He's not saying, 'help yourself.' If you do sin then we have an advocate with The Father and he does cover us. But we should do everything, by God's grace, to turn from that life of sin. "To demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
" So, a final thought that we're going to have time for here is just the vindication that takes place then in the judgment. And someone look up for me Revelation 19:2 - you got that ray? Alright, we'll get to you in just a second. It says here in 2 Timothy 4:8, "finally" - Paul says - "there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearing." God is the righteous judge. By the way, Paul wrote that when he was about to be executed by nero and he knew that nero was an unrighteous judge. He said, 'I'm not worried about that judge, I'm looking forward to the reward the righteous judge is going to give me because he's forgiven me.
' Alright, go ahead please and read - what did I say? - Revelation 19:2. "For true and righteous are his judgements, because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her." And so here he declares God's judgments are true and righteous. You know, we really get to participate with God in that final judgement and the Bible tells us - of course, we - at that point we've got his spirit, his mind, and his heart - it says, 'do you not know that saints will judge the world?' But we are vindicated because of the sacrifice of Jesus. The final section 'cosmic spectacle' - that's basically saying that everything that is happening here is happening in the presence of heavenly agencies. Angels are watching what's going on here on earth.
And so, as the sanctuary was sort of like a theater in which God's salvation was acted out here on earth, our planet is showing the whole universe - the plan of salvation is being acted out - that war between good and evil - in our world. Well our time is up but we want to remind everybody we have a special offer that talks about the fall of lucifer and this cosmic conflict between good and evil. It's called 'the rebellious prince', we'll send it to you for free. Just ask for offer #804 when you call and the number is -788-3966. And our time is up for our study today.
Hope you learned something and were blessed and, God willing, we'll study together again next week. God bless. In 3 - 2 - 1 - action. This documentary covers a span from the first coming of Jesus and what was going on in the church up until just before the second coming of Jesus. It shows the great apostasy that crept into the church and then, ultimately, the great revival through the great reformation.
This is a life and death battle. It's not just something that's happening in hallucinations of a prophet, those things are played out in real history. This is an exciting day. This is not only our first shoot for studio for Revelation, but this is also our first real shoot in this studio. When we started this project, the paint was literally drying on the blue screen that we shot most of the scenes on and we literally put in the flooring and all the pillars and everything to shoot the scenes with Pastor Doug Batchelor.
When we created our scene breakdown, we decided that there were about 68 scenes that were really pivotal to telling this story - to make it what we dreamed and imagined it could be. We had a wish list of things we wanted to recreate, but you also have to deal within reality and a budget and so we needed to pick, you know, which of the scenes that we needed to communicate the drama and emotion of what has really happened in religious history from the time of Christ's first coming up until where we are today. We made the choice to actually send a film crew to different parts of the world to get fresh footage of some of the scenes of the reformation in europe and some of the catacombs in rome. Now we're in rome and we're actually in a catacomb where the Christians would bury their dead. This is the catacomb domatilla and this one is one of the most, I guess, most fascinating ones because it's seventeen kilometers in distance.
That's almost ten and a half miles of burial spots. You've got so much artwork on the walls. You've got areas where people have engraved tombstone or you've got - you've got some of the symbols which come from the constantine era. So it's been very, very exciting to see all of this history all in one place - where the Christians actually came, not just to bury their dead but to escape - to be able to continue in their faith. Getting the actual shots of the places where these events transpired brings it to life and makes it real.