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HOW EXCLUSIVE IS THE CHURCH?
PART 2
By Darryl Henson
11/22/97
Three weeks ago I began a series on "How Exclusive Is The Church?" and we covered the information regarding the first resurrection, and I think it shows very conclusively, at least to this point, that there are one hundred forty-four thousand [144,000] in the first resurrection. No more, and no less. When you consider that out of fifty to sixty billion numbers of people who have lived on the face of the earth since Adam and Eve,... I don't know what that's based on, except that's what some people come up with,. . . that makes you what, if you're one of those one hundred forty-four thousand — one in about three and a half to four million. Now that's pretty exclusive if you stop to think about it, yet to begin with. Do we feel blessed with the knowledge we have? It's amazing to me that being as human as we are, it's so easy to get discouraged, to wallow in self-pity, to live in frustration, to wonder why we don't have more blessings, or things like going better for us in our lives than perhaps they might be at the moment. And yet in the perspective of how many people there have been who have lived, and the very few comparatively that God has given His spirit to, and given the awesome understanding of His truth to, — how could we get discouraged? Yet we get our minds on ourselves. That isn't the subject of this, but how can this be, that out of all these many six thousand years that mankind has existed, that only that many might be chosen to be in the first resurrection? Well there are some very clear clues in the Bible. Satan deceives the whole world, Revelation 12.9 says. So the whole world lies in deception, with some minor exceptions. That is the general overall statement He makes; but a very true one. We also know that Israel was concluded in unbelief. So most of Israel is included in those who are deceived. We saw through history that God has always worked with a very few, starting with a very very few from Adam until Moses, and from Moses on we saw that even in the Ten Commandments which was written to millions of people, He said I will have mercy on thousands — right in the Ten Commandments. So He only worked with thousands in any era so far, and we saw scripture showing that Christ will come with ten thousands of His saints. Not millions. Not billions, but tens of thousands. I don't want to re-preach last time's sermon, but just to give you a brief review of what we saw, and before we're done we will see even more proof of this concept that God is only working with and bringing to the place of the first resurrection one hundred forty-four thousand people.
But, how does this impact us now? Is this just a matter of intellectual curiosity? Does it really mean anything to us, except that we hope that we are part of that, or one of those one hundred forty-four thousand? Is it worthwhile discussing and talking about it, and is it important to understand? Where are we today in history? Are we supposed to be preaching the gospel to the world right now, and if so, or if not, what should we be doing, as opposed to that, if we should not be doing that?
Now we also saw last time that even as we were building the church, that a few thousand were converted right when it began in Acts 2, and a few thousand more, as they proceeded through the book of Acts. But never anywhere does anyone mention millions and millions of people, but only a few thousand, and they were meeting in homes. Most homes would not hold many people. So even in the early New Testament they were only working with a few thousand; but the ironic part of that is, that even with the twelve original apostles there, with Jesus Christ having just let them die, and they in very much the memory of the people in Jerusalem, the church began to fall apart, and the warnings of Jude, James, Peter, John, and the other apostles was that false apostles were coming in, the people were falling away from the truth. They had asked Jesus Christ at one point in Matthew 24, after He had talked to the "whited sepulchers," He called them in Matthew 23, verse 27 &endash the Pharisees, the Jews of that day, and He predicted that the church would
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fall apart. Now the disciples asked Him, and we will turn to Matthew 24, a physical fulfillment of Matthew 24, where He said the temple would be torn down, in verse 2, and that occurred just a few short years later in 70 AD That physical temple was torn down. Now does that just apply to then, or did it apply to beyond that? When the disciples asked Christ, in Matthew 24, verse 2, Jesus said to them:
Matthew 24.2 - There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?
He could have easily said, Well, it's going to happen in about forty years. But He didn't. He said it would happen at the end of the age. Well Christ looked beyond that physical fulfillment. He wanted this message to come to us, upon whom the ends of the world would come. So it was not just for then, it is for now. Now that physical temple was destroyed, and there were some ramifications to that we will get to a little later on. But the church was falling apart, even under the apostles' administration. I think that's important for us to understand now as we get into this end of the age now. Many, many people are having trouble understanding what is happening to the church, and why. Part of it has to do with this understanding of how big the church ultimately is going to be, or how big it is not going to be, because it is so easy for us to sort of hazily go through, as we've done in the past, and say Well, there's the hundred and forty-four thousand. I don't know exactly who they are. And then there's a great multitude. And it's sort of a hazy idea of how many people God is ultimately going to bring there, and it also allows us to live in haziness and laziness as to how hard we work in being a part of it. So to limit it to this, as I think we can see the scriptures are doing, is both alarming and sobering, and yet at the same time it's exciting to realize we might even be a part of the firstfruits that are clearly delineated in Revelation 7.14 and other places as the firstfruits, as the church.
Now we've been saying for quite some time that the Bible is written to the church, not just to physical Israel, that there is a duality, and that virtually all the Bible has to do with the church. Ultimately it will also fall on physical Israel, but not until later. Right now God is not dealing with physical Israel. God is dealing with the church, and therefore I have several times applied Ezekiel 5 to the church, not to just physical Israel that will be decimated, for we see decimation now happening in the church. And more and more as I travel about the country, and as I talk to different people here and there, I'm finding that the numbers, the proportions of Ezekiel 5 are coming closer and closer to truth, that there are seriously sick and dying and dead all over the world out of what used to be the Church of God. When I first went to Miami in the early 60s, there were 75 to 100 people in the church there. It was a very new church. About four years later when I left there, it was between five and six hundred people. They grew through the next several years until it finally reached about fifteen hundred, just about the time Mr. Armstrong died. Now I talked to someone down there, and he said if you put all the groups together of what's left of that church, combined them all, you would be pushing to get two hundred. In Cape Town, South Africa there were about five hundred in the church there. Now if you put all the groups together, you might have fifty. A hundred, if you count people who are on the list that aren't coming to the local church. The devastation is incredible! I was working with some people out of another group up in West Virginia where there had been three hundred in that congregation. About a year ago when I first started dealing with them, there were only thirty left. There's Ezekiel 5 for you. Three hundred, to thirty. Ten percent left. This is happening all over. Well the scattering is there, and Ezekiel said that there would be about ten percent left. And even out of those he took some hair out of his garment and threw them into the fire. So we're being put to the sword by Satan and by false ministers, and people are dying and falling around us &endash a thousand at one side, and ten thousand at the other.
Now let's go to Zechariah 13 and see this confirmed a little bit more.
Zechariah 13.7 - Awake! O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, says the
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LORD of hosts.
So this isn't just physical Israel. This is a shepherd.
V7 - Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.
The little ones are being destroyed.
V8 - And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, says the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. 9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, it is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
So two-thirds cut off and die of spiritual disease and the sword, and one-third is saved to work with, to go through the fire, and many, many of them are not going to make it, as Ezekiel 5 shows. The shepherds have been smitten. The sheep have been scattered. In Isaiah 1 He shows a little bit more of the proportions here.
Isaiah 1.9- Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant. . .
A remnant you will remember is about ten percent.
V9 -... we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.
So God is not going to stop this until it gets down to the proportions of Ezekiel 5, Zechariah 13, and Isaiah 1 and verse 9. It is going to continue. How far will it go? We might get a clue here in Isaiah 3.
Isaiah 3.1- For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, does take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water.
Amos did say that not a famine of bread, but a famine of the word with it in the end time. Well God says I'm causing a famine.
V2 - The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, 3 the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counselor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator, 4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
So He's going to take away the leaders, He says right here. I thought it was interesting in verse 3. Notice that He says the captain of fifty will be taken away. Now when Jethro went to Moses, and Moses set up a physical administration, they had captains often, captains of fifty, captains of hundreds on up. But He tells us here the captain of fifty will be taken away. Well, what's the increment down? The captain of ten. Is the church going to be broken that low? It would appear that that's exactly what Isaiah is telling us. The captain often does not rule over very many. That's almost down to the family level, whether it be ten families, or whether it be ten in a family, or two or three families that make ten; but probably ten families. God is going to keep breaking it down, breaking it down, scattering it. Some people are having trouble understanding this, but looking at these scriptures, the church is predictably right now getting smaller, not larger. What did He say about the wheat and the tares? Let them grow together, and that the seed would be sown, and some would fall on rocks, some would fall on thorns, some would fall on good ground, and so on. So it's coming out that different ones are not making it, for whatever reasons, wherever they fell. How long is this going to
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last? How far will it go? I'll give you another clue. God says that if we exalt ourselves, we will be abased. Clear? Incontrovertibly clear, as a scripture.
Once in awhile I come across someone who says "We are the very elect," or "We are the righteous," or "We are the Phildadelphians; everybody else is Laodicean." I heard recently of one church who called themselves "The Church of God - The Very Elect." I don't even know who was involved. I just heard the name. That's why I'm not getting after anybody here in particular, believe me. But just to me that attitude, or that thought of "We are the very elect," and will name a church that, bothered me, because I don't feel like the very elect. I feel like someone struggling to overcome human nature, to overcome my own sins, my own personality foibles, my own difficulties, my own discouragement, and to try to qualify to be a part of God's kingdom in any way. If the righteous scarcely be saved, where do the ungodly and sinner appear? And it scares me. It makes chills go up and down my spine to even consider that I might stand here and say "We are the very elect." I think that's God's judgment to make. It's not for us to assess and say, as opposed to the very elect, or as opposed to the Laodiceans - "I'm the very elect." I think we're setting ourselves up for a fall when we do that. Or to say, "We're Philadelphia. The rest are the Laodiceans." You hear that once in awhile. Well naturally, we'd like to think we've got the best, and we're the best, but I think that's tantamount to exalting ourselves. To me that is very, very scary, and God says if you do exalt yourself, you will be abased. Did we not do that in Worldwide Church of God? Now it's one thing to recognize by Bible definition that that was the truth. But I think along with that we began to get a swelled head as well, and to think that we were okay. Well, what does that do? That transforms you automatically into a Laodicean, doesn't it? And God said He would blow the Laodicean church out of His mouth, and that's exactly what has occurred. We all slumbered and slept. No one can stand above the rest and say "I'm the best sheep here." I believe that God has those sheep who are overcoming and growing scattered through all the groups. I don't believe there's any one group that is the true church, because any group you look at is going to have some people who are really working hard and growing and overcoming,. . .and that's the bottom line in Revelation 2 and 3,... and you will have some who are not. So how can one group say because I'm in this group, I'm okay? Again, that very attitude transforms a former Philadelphian into a Laodicean. Read Revelation 3.17 through 18. You think that you are okay, and God says as a result of that very thought process you aren't okay, and He will blow you out of His mouth. So until the whole church, or that part of the church that God is going to work with as He blows it apart, repents and conies to have the humility of the Publican, this will continue. It's got to. I would not be surprised to see some groups disappear. Maybe ours. Who knows? It depends on our attitude, whether we exalt ourselves or not. How can you exalt yourself above your fellows? Sounds like the disciples who said I want to sit on Your right hand and on your left. Aren't we better than these others? That was their attitude. We're the very elect. These other guys can sit down below us. We're Philadelphia. I think we have to be very, very careful with that.
Now let's go on in Matthew 24.1 don't have time with the subject matter at hand to go through Matthew 24 on a verse-by-verse basis. That deserves a whole sermon in itself, but the context here, if you apply it first to the church, later to physical Israel, indicates what we see in the church today.
Matthew 24.7 - For nation [people, groups] shall rise against nation [each other] and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in different places.