Friday: Further Thought – Worship the Creator
Further Thought: Bible students have long seen a link between the call in Revelation 14:7, to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water” (RSV), and the fourth commandment, in Exodus 20:11, when the Sabbath points back to the fact that “in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them” (NKJV).
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
However closely related the language, there is a change in which the text in Revelation points to the Lord as the One who made “the fountains of water”.
Author John Baldwin argues: “Assuming divine intentionality behind the phrase ‘fountains of water’, why does Jesus have the messenger break the parallel listing of things mentioned in Exodus 20:11? Why does the angel mention ‘fountains of water’ and not some other class of created thing, such as trees, birds, fish, or mountains?
“Perhaps the reference to ‘fountains of water’ in the context of a divine announcement of the arrival of a unique time of divine judgment seeks to direct the reader’s attention to a previous period of divine judgment. . . Perhaps God intends that the possible allusion to the flood by the words ‘fountains of water’ should underscore the truth that He is indeed a God of judgment, as well as a God of everlasting faithfulness and graciousness (both evidenced in the narrative of the Genesis flood). If so, the personal and spiritual implications of the flood connotation triggered by the phrase ‘fountains of water’ might be to encourage the reader to take seriously the momentous arrival of a new end-time process of individual divine judgment now announced by the first messenger of Revelation Chapter 14”. — John Baldwin, ed., Creation, Catastrophe, and Calvary: Why a Global Flood Is Vital to the Doctrine of Atonement (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald® Publishing Association, 2000), p. 27.
Discussion Questions:
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Rev 14:7 is an an appeal to all people to recognise the one true God. Fear God means to turn away from evil because God is patient but His final judgement will not be put off forever.
Today's lesson states that "He (God) is indeed a God of judgement".
It may be a very worthwhile discussion in Sabbath School classes tomorrow to explore class-members views about what kind of judgement God undertakes - and the closely related issue of what kind of justice God operates under.
Here are some verses to compare and contrast with class-members views of what God's judgement and justice actually are and how they actually operate: Romans 6:23; James 1:15; Galatians 6:8; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 Cor 4:5; Romans 1:18 in conjunction with Rom 1:24,26,28.
And here is a paragraph from Ellen White to also compare and contrast:
"We are not to regard God as waiting to punish the sinner for his sin. The sinner brings the punishment upon himself. His own actions start a train of circumstances that bring the sure result. Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works in him a change of character, and makes it more easy for him to transgress again. By choosing to sin, men separate themselves from God, cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, and the sure result is ruin and death. 1st Selected Messages page 235."
I agree with the point being raised by John Baldwin regarding the linking of the flood with Rev 14:7. We talk about Jesus first coming and His second coming. We could rightfully also talk about God's first 'judgement' and His coming second 'judgement'.
If God had not intervened back at the time of Noah, humanity would have become extinct via self-annihilation.
Did God send a flood to destroy the world - or did He only need to cease holding back the 4 winds of strife (Rev 7:1) and allow natural consequences to run their course? If God were not to intervene with our environment, what would Satan and sin cause the environment to do? I would propose that self-annihilation would be the result because that is the inherent nature of sin/Satan - steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10).
Why does the angel mention ‘fountains of water’ and not some other class of created thing, such as trees, birds, fish, or mountains?
Fountains of water points us to the destruction of the earth by flood.
When we read the Creation account in proverbs chapter 28 it is God who had shut the fountains of the deep. He established a boundary for the waters to not cross over.
I am creator and I am holdings all things together. When I let go there will be no boundaries but destruction.
120 years Noah preached and people did not believe on the judgement.
Perhaps some of us are wondering where is the coming of the Lord.
“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken and will He not make it good and fulfill it?
Great is thy faithfulness
Phil, didn't God say He would bring the flood upon the earth(Gen 6:17), with a 120 year warning and invitation to be saved from the coming "cleansing"? How could the world, which God called "very good" at it's creation, have self destructed? Was the action of the flood a natural event or a deliberate act from God? Was God holding back this destruction in Eden before sin entered? Or are you suggesting the wicked brought on the flood, or Satan? (I'm sure you've read PP and know that even Satan feared for his own life. So we can remove him from the list of suspects, as well as those who perished from refusing to believe a flood would take place.) The bottom line is what God, who cannot lie, has said.
In regards to holding back the winds, yes, concerning the safety of the righteous, who were far outnumbered by the ungodly. We know that those given over to sin are controlled by Satan, and that the righteous are the objects of his greatest hatred(look at Job's experience), so the fact that Noah was unharmed during the 120 years of building/preaching speaks of God's protection, just as Job had been protected until allowed to fall a victim to Satan's hatred.
Now I will acknowledge that all things "consist" by the power of God, and at His desire, He could cease holding together the elements that make up our physical environment. But to be specific would require conjecture. Like the coming judgment promised, the flood was a deliberate act of God which He said He would bring upon the earth. Unlike the inhabitants of Nineveh, the men of Noah's day refused to repent.
Keep in mind that the God of Gen 6:17, had reasoned with those about to be destroyed for 120 years (1 Pe 3:19,20), and also came to die on the cross for their sins, had they repented. So I believe it safe to say that God does not hate, but He will act to preserve the righteous, just as a doctor would act to remove cancer from the patient's body. God delights in mercy and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. In the flood, He was preserving the path He would take to the cross, as He had promised Adam in the garden.
Thanks Newbegin and Robert for your feedback.
The points you raise lie across a range of dimensions so I will do my best to address them as succinctly as possible.
With regard to God saying He would bring the flood (Gen 6:17), it depends upon how you understand Bible inspiration to operate. Did God dictate the words to Bible writers, or did the Holy Spirit inspire their thought concepts but not dictate their words?
And then there is the hermeneutic principle of understanding the context of the original writer and audience. For example, in the OT, many things were ascribed to God within the understanding of the times that we would not necessarily agree with today. If I read 1 Sam 16:14; 18:10; 19:9 as though the words had been dictated by God, I would conclude that God sends evil spirits to torment certain people. Or if I read 1 Kings 22:22 like that, I would conclude that God also sends spirits to deceive people. This contrasts with the NT where we have much more ascribed to the activity of Satan - something that apparently was beyond the scope of the majority of the OT people to accurately understand (I'm not implying it was because they were 'stupid', but because of contextual factors that were in operation related to polytheism etc being the pervasive cultural understanding of the day that God was trying to draw them forward from).
As Newbegin says "When we read the Creation account in proverbs chapter 28 it is God who had shut the fountains of the deep. He established a boundary for the waters to not cross over. I am creator and I am holdings all things together. When I let go there will be no boundaries but destruction." I agree with this view. That God had shut the fountains of the deep implies that prior to that they were 'unshut'. That God established a boundary for the waters to not cross over implies that prior to that, their natural state was to be unbounded. It is God who holds things together - so what happens when God ceases to do this?
And why would God cease to hold things together? Because He allows freedom of His created beings to choose destruction (which by nature is self-destruction - that is the inherent nature of sin and the inherent nature of anything outside of the life-promoting/sustaining reality that God inhabits and creates in accordance with). Hence, Paul's accurate summary in Rom 6:23 - the wages (ie naturally occurring consequences) of sin is death.
It would appear that God has given humanity a temporary period of 'probation' during which he has temporarily suspended (or is holding back) what should be the full and immediate consequences of sin. I believe that on that fateful day in Gen 3 when Adam and Eve 'fell', the actual consequences should have been immediate cessation of life for them and for all associated forms of life (sin didn't only affect Adam and Eve - but all of nature and the environment. Hence the 'curses' or naturally occurring consequences that were outlined by God to Adam and Eve in Gen 3:17-19).
"Was the action of the flood a natural event or a deliberate act from God?" I believe it was a natural event that occurred when God ceased from "holding all things together". This principle is also reflected by Paul in Rom 1:24,26,28 where he talks about God giving people up/over to the natural consequences of their choices via no longer holding things together for them (because they want independence from God's doing so - ie from God's way). So, I believe it was not an act that God 'caused', but that it was an act that naturally occurred when God ceased his activity of holding things together.
"Was God holding back this destruction in Eden before sin entered?" Yes, I believe so via the boundaries He has 'created/utilised' that promote and protect abundant life.
"..are you suggesting the wicked brought on the flood, or Satan?" Yes, I would agree with that. And re the PP statement, I would propose that Satan messes with things he doesn't fully understand - and is at times 'surprised' by what he unleashes.
"Now I will acknowledge that all things "consist" by the power of God, and at His desire, He could cease holding together the elements that make up our physical environment. But to be specific would require conjecture." Does this require conjecture? Perhaps you might call it that, but that would also depend on what you understand by conjecture. I would call it reason - as in God's invitation for me to "come and reason" with Him. Is it pure speculation? I do not believe so. Rather I believe it is evidence-informed speculation - or reason - in that it is consistent with other threads of evidence from scripture regarding the nature, character and operation of God. God does invite us to study His Word under submissive reliance upon the Holy Spirit for the purpose of 2 Tim 2:15. And I am very mindful of my accountability to do so and of my accountability for the conclusions I come to and those that I share publicly.
"I believe it safe to say that God does not hate, but He will act to preserve the righteous, just as a doctor would act to remove cancer from the patient's body. God delights in mercy and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked." I agree with you, Robert. Consequently (and consistent with what I was briefly referring to at the outset regarding the Bible being first and foremost written to the original audience of a particular author), I would propose that if Moses were a person of the 21st century writing Gen 6:17 for today's reader under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he would write something along the lines of 'In response to people's choices to have me leave them alone, I will reluctantly do as they wish - I will cease holding things together. Consequently, because I will cease from maintaining the boundaries of the waters (in line with people's freedom to rebel against the way of life), there will soon be coming a flood of waters on the earth that will unfortunately destroy all life under the heavens in which their is the breath and spirit of life. And incase you are missing what I am saying, take note: everything that is on the land will be absolutely destroyed by these waters'.
"In the flood, He was preserving the path He would take to the cross, as He had promised Adam in the garden." Well said, Robert.
I found the flood analogy interesting. But then I looked at several translations and the original Greek word, and came away with a very different understanding. Most recent translations say "springs of water". One can understand a similarity if one thinks of the term "drinking fountain" or "water fountain". It would seem that the "fountains" in question may not be "fountains of the deep", as in Genesis, but rather springs of water--drinking water. The analogy then becomes the plagues in Revelation, which included making water toxic, and a flashback to the plagues of Egypt, which also involved unhealthy water. Just a thought.
Good critical thinking Wilton.
Pitty then that it doesn't say whether they are low pressure or high pressure springs!
I believe the fountains of water is a direct reference to the flood God brought upon the earth to cleanse it from wickedness, and to change nature up enough to help curb the multiplying of the wicked to some degree as God determined fitting for His divine purposes. The message is about preparing for a judgment, much like the flood, and thus the reference is very fitting and effective.
There were no such fountains before the flood as the earth was watered by a mist as mentioned in Genesis 2:6.
Jesus is the solution for sin! But how long will He hold back His 2nd coming? In order to fulfil His own words, sin and evil will have to be destroyed for ever... Are we prepared? Just look around, war, famine, disease, suffering. Are we all so accustomed to this insanity that we cannot see what's surrounding us? We should lift our heads and be glad, because the hour of our freedom is near!
No need to conjecture concerning the thief, for Jesus made a promise because He recognized genuine faith in the dying thief. We are saved by grace through faith. If anyone needs to know how this thief would live if spared death, they only need to be where he has been promised to be, in paradise. There they will see his faith as a partaker of the Divine nature, "with all them which are sanctified", dwelling with the Lord forever. Would Jesus get this wrong?
Isn't the better question: do we have such faith?
Isn't it clear how great the thief's faith was? He expressed the greatest confidence in Jesus' mission to save sinners and finally to set up an eternal kingdom, at a time that made such an idea look hopeless as this "savior" was dying on a cross among criminals, as one of them. Did the disciples believe at this time? Did the leaders of the nation who knew the law and promises of God so well?
The thief exercised a saving faith that shone like a light in a very dark place, and Jesus acknowledged it. His confession and repentance was there for all to witness, along with the angels who were recording every word uttered there that day. The unerring record of both faith and unbelief is kept in heaven to be brought forth in the judgment of men(Eccl 12:13,14, Matt 12:36,37).
I had a different thought for the first time when I read "springs of water" in Rev. 14:7 today. It brought to mind John 4:10 when Jesus himself refered to himself as living water. It also brought to mind in the desert how the Rock gave them water as they wandered around for 40 years. I know He was not made like heaven, earth and the sea however, He did make Himself a sacrifice that we may drink from His living water. His living water definitely deserves our worship.
Truly this is our opportunity to relinquish all our gods, including ourselves. A well timed lesson. We are to Worship God and Him alone. We can see in Exodus 20:1-3 why God is qualified to give the directive, 'Have no other gods before me'... I don't know about you, but I know the Egypt God has released me from. We each must know our 'house of bondage'. #Rev 14:6 is our opportunity for God. Be blessed, Flo Grace Friday 2th May 2018