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Eden Valley SDA Church

Frank Fournier

The Patience of the Saints

We have another opportunity to look into God's Word.

And what a blessing we can have if the preacher knows what he's saying.

I'd like to invite you to turn with me to Revelation chapter 14.

We've been studying the last 8, 9 months this concept of righteousness by faith.

And it seems to me that the longer I study righteousness by faith, the less confident I am that I can do the topic justice.

The topic is so broad and so deep and so comprehensive that I've come to see that it is the foundation upon which everything is built.

And there's no way of surrounding this thing.

And I would like to surround this thing somehow.

I would like to be able to say I understand it.

I've also come to realize that understanding it is not an intellectual exercise, that it's an experience.

There's a God in heaven who looks down and he sees his people.

And instead of focusing on our faults, he focuses in on our need.

Jesus is willing to take our ruined lives and to give us His perfect life.

He's made the transaction already and it's for us to, by faith, receive all that he has done on our behalf.

He takes upon himself our sins, pays a whole penalty for it, and he gives us His perfect righteousness.

If we believe what Jesus says that He's done for us, then we may be pardoned.

We have the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Jesus has gone to the cross already for you and for me.

Somebody in Sabbath school this morning, of course, Tom in Sabbath school this morning talked about the lady caught in adultery And it you know it just occurred to me That Jesus says he that has no sin let him cast the first stone Well, he could have cast the stone.

As a matter of fact, he said, neither do I condemn thee.

He dumped on her lap the gift of salvation, and she had it if she wanted it.

Do you know that He does the same thing for all of us?

I don't know who you are, all of you, and in any case, I don't know what you've done.

Jesus comes to us and he says, I've gone to the cross for you, and my righteousness is yours.

And when God looks down from heaven, what does he see?

And we have the privilege this day of believing that we have the righteousness of Jesus Christ accounted to us, and we have the righteousness of Jesus Christ imparted to us, and we may as well act accordingly because it's true.

Now, in order to help us to believe that, and in order to help us to experience that, God of course has given us the Word of God so that we can read it, and we can believe it, and we can have the experience.

And in the Word of God, there's the 3 angels' messages, which I believe are special messages that if we would study them and if we would receive them and if we would appropriate them to ourselves, then of course We know as we study Revelation chapter 14 where the 3 angels' messages are that we can be perfected.

They seal God's people with a seal of the living God in their foreheads.

In other words, the character of God comes into them.

And after that, the 144, 000 go on to enlighten the whole world with God's character so that His name is vindicated and his government also is vindicated.

Well, after that, and this is what I've had you turn to, did I have you turn to Revelation 14?

Then, I believe in verse 12, there we see God pointing to his people after they have received his character, after they have believed what he has offering them, after they receive his faultlessness, how should I say it, says they're faultless before the throne of God, they receive all of that.

And then he is able, because it's been 6000 years, that he's been working on his people, trying to prepare them to be just like Jesus.

Finally, he finds the people that are just like Jesus.

Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

And I want you to notice in the verse, there are 3 qualities that he points out.

The correct translation would be patient endurance.

So, here are they that have patient endurance.

Apparently, there are some things before it's all over that we will have to endure.

Well, you don't have to look at the time of trouble.

There are probably a few things you have to endure today, right?

As a matter of fact, in Matthew 24, and it's around verse 11, 10, 11, 12, it says, he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.

So apparently there are things to endure.

And the other 2 qualities that are pointed out is that They keep the commandments of God and they have faith.

They have the very faith of Jesus Christ.

Now, I've always wondered, often wondered, why it is that God couples – well, there's 3 entities or 3 qualities there – that God puts in the same verse this thing called patience with the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ.

I would look at the commandments of God as way up there and the faith of Jesus Christ as way up there, and we can understand how wonderful that is.

And then he puts a little quality called patience in with that.

And so, if you notice the title for the message this morning, it says, The Patience of the Saints.

And so, I want to talk about that this morning.

I suppose we could have a Sabbath-like discussion over this issue.

Why does Jesus put patience in with commandment keeping and the faith of Jesus?

I think it would be really interesting if we could just, you know, sometimes I think I'm not going to preach.

I'm just going to ask a question and have you answer it.

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The Patience of the Saints

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