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A Remnant Prepared

 

 

Because the previous reprinted prophecy mentions God's purpose in the "remnant prepared," it would be well to take a look at the principle of the "remnant" in the Bible. The word "rem­nant" simply means a part of the whole: literally the remainder, a few in comparison to the whole. When God was telling Isaiah of the judgment coming on Israel because of their sins, Isaiah asked the Lord "how long?" The answer came back: "until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. And the Lord have re­moved men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose sub­stance is in them, when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof (Isa. 6:11-13). God assured Isaiah that though most of the people would forsake Him and be destroyed or led away captive in judgment, that yet in the land there would be "a tenth" of the people who would return to the Lord, and it would be as a "holy seed" or remnant, and God would consider this remnant as the "substance" of the whole through which He could continue to work out His purpose in His chosen people. We read in Isa. 10:20-22, "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again rely on him that struck them; but shall rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return. "

 

This principle is repeated again and again in the scriptures. No matter how far most of His people strayed from Him, God always had His faithful remnant. God even told Isaiah to name one of his sons, "Shearjashub", which means "a remnant shall return" (Isa. 7:3), and this was to be a SIGN to him and to the people. During the years that Isaiah prophesied, a righteous king arose by the name of Hezekiah, and during his reign, un­der the tutorship of the great prophet Isaiah, a remnant of the people did return wholeheartedly to the Lord, and as a result one of the greatest spiritual awakenings and revivals recorded in the scriptures took place. You can read about it in II Chron. chaps. 29-33. But Isaiah's son's name had even a more far-reaching significance. For after Hezekiah's righteous reign, the people of God went into their final decline and apostasy, lead­ing to their captivity by the Babylonians. But God gave the sign that eventually (after 70 years) a remnant of the captive Jews would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and city and prepare for the coming Messiah.

 

The remnant principle was repeated when the time approached for the Messiah to arrive. Only a small spiritual remnant was eagerly anticipating and preparing their hearts for His corn­ing, such as Anna the prophetess (Lk. 2:36), and Simeon, a de­vout man (Lk. 2:25-35). Others were prepared by the ministry of John the Baptist, and then responded to Jesus' call to follow Him. But though multitudes heard Him teach and crowded Him because of His miracle working power, John 6:66-68 shows that most were willing to follow Him only so far and then turned away; only a remnant wanted to give themselves totally to Him, and become instruments of God's purpose in the nation. By the time Jesus' ministry had ended, and His death and resurrection had taken place, a small remnant of 120 had sufficiently com­mitted themselves to gather in the upper room in obedience to Jesus' command to wait for the promise of the Father. Paul re­fers to such faithful ones in Rom. 11:5 as "a remnant according to the election of grace." He then goes on to say that "Israel has not obtained that which he seeks for; but the election obtained it, and the rest were blinded" (Rom. 11:7). But look what was accomplished after the Holy Spirit was poured out on that waiting remnant. A great harvest of souls was brought forth to God, beginning with the Jews and then reaching to the Gentiles, as is vividly portrayed in the book of Acts.

 

Can we not see that the Lord is again preparing to fully pour out of His Spirit on a prepared remnant in a second Pen­tecost, or "latter rain"? God is moving by His Spirit now, to be sure, but this is only a foretaste and forerunner of that which is to come. We are presently seeing the restoration of the early rain, with a few preliminary drops of the latter rain, as a means of gathering, teaching, and disciplining God's worldwide rem­nant in preparation for the great harvest time to come. God is raising up local Churches in these times of refreshing and restoration which are coming into submission to the Headship of Christ, and in submission to one another as members of the Body of Christ, and who are seeking to be disciplined in the ways of God, to function in His divine order in unity and love. Many thousands throughout the world are feeling the effects of this present move of the Spirit and are responding to the call of the Master to take up their crosses and follow Him all the way. But still this is but a "remnant" in comparison to the vast multitudes of nominal, lukewarm Christendom. However, the Lord must call and prepare this totally committed remnant before the great and mighty outpouring and harvest can come.

 

It would take a volume to show how God has worked down through history through chosen remnants, but this is not the time or place for such a study. A couple of illustrations will suffice to further demonstrate this principle in the Old Testament. Eli­jah prophesied during a time of great wickedness and apostasy when the weak king Ahab was on the throne and his foreign wife Jezebel was destroying all the true prophets and demanding the worship of Baal. Elijah felt he alone was being true to God when God spoke to him and said, "I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal" (1 Kings 19:18). Yes, God had His faithful remnant in the midst of all that wickedness. We could show in much detail the time of crises in the days of Gideon, when judgment was coming on God's people from the Midianites and Amalekites (see Judges chaps. 6-7). When the people cried to Him, God wrought a great deliverance through Gideon and his 300 men. This small company was the "remnant"— that which remained devoted and faithful—willing to be prepared, after almost 32,000 had turn­ed back from the battle. As a final illustration, take the ex­ample of Joseph, the "remnant" of the sons of Jacob; he who ended up in Egypt because of the betrayal of his brothers. Yet he was willing to trust God, and through great testings and dis­ciplines, he was prepared to be used to be the instrument which saved the lives of his brethren and brought forth a great deliverance (Gen. 45:5-7).  Surely, Joseph is a type of that rem­nant that God is preparing in this day.

 

What portion of His people in terms of numbers God consid­ers as sufficient as His "remnant" and which He sees as the "sub­stance" of the whole through which He can work, we cannot say for sure. This would vary in any given situation, as we have seen in the examples given: 7,000 were mentioned in Elijah's day, Gideon's 300 were sufficient in his day, and one man—Joseph—became the means of God's deliverance for the house of Israel in his day; but of course, he was a type of a remnant company or group which God is preparing so his life is sym­bolic. But all through the scriptures, the one portion which God declares is always HIS in a special way is the holy TENTH. We cannot limit God, and we have noted how his remnant is often less than a tenth. But looking again at the scripture with which we began, we note these words: "and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall RETURN (Isa. 6:12-13). One wonders if in the day in which we live, as God is preparing for a great outpouring of His Spirit and a great harvest, that He is waiting for ONE-TENTH of those who call themselves Christians, to FULLY RETURN their whole lives over to Him in complete dedication and without reservation, making Him Lord of ALL.

 

To illustrate the principle of the holy tenth in relation to the remnant principle, let's take a look at a significant inci­dent that took place in Jesus' ministry as recorded in Luke 17: 11-19.  The cleansing of the ten lepers in this narrative took place while Jesus was on His last journey to Jerusalem. In 17:11 we read, "and it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee." His go­ing to Jerusalem for the LAST time, the city of the great King, the center of Israel's government, where the multitudes hailed him and shouted his kingship, is a TYPE of His return to this earth when He shall take up His power to reign. On His way to Jerusalem, it says He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. "Samaria" comes from a Hebrew word which means a "watchtower." Without taking time to demonstrate this truth from other scriptures, "Samaria" thus becomes a type of the Heaven-world, which is the "high watchtower" over the earth. "Galilee" is derived from the fairly circular or heart-shaped sea by that name; thus its meaning is that of a circle or ring, and is a type of the "circle" or circuitous area of the whole earth. The statement that Jesus passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, together with the fact that it was his LAST journey sets the stage for a prophetic picture of the LAST days of our age, We shall see more clearly the significance of this shortly,

 

While passing along the border of Samaria & Galilee, Jesus meets ten lepers. All were cleansed by Him, Ten is the num­ber of the Gentiles, and leprosy is a type of sin. Thus we see the symbolic picture of the vast numbers of the Gentiles who have and are being cleansed by the provision made by Jesus through His sacrifice for our sins. The fact that they were all cleansed, shows by type that they all represent saved people, made clean through the blood of Christ.  But Luke 17:15 says, "And ONE of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks; and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. "We need to see that there is a dif­ference between being cleansed of our leprosy of sin through the blood of Christ, and letting our lives RETURN FULLY to Him to GLORIFY Him in everything, "falling down" at His feet to worship Him with our whole being. Only one out of ten was willing to do this.  The rest of the "cleansed" went their own way without letting their lives fully glorify Him.

 

We notice in Lk. 17:11 that this miracle-drama took place as Jesus was "passing along between (or along the borders of) Samaria and Galilee." (NAS version). We saw that Samaria represents the heaven-world and Galilee the whole earth to which Jesus shall return. So the fulfillment of this prophetic miracle-drama was to take place in the end-time when the church would be on the BORDER between the end of this age and the coming of Christ—the over-lapping of dispensations, We might say that the prophetic picture shows that when Jesus passes through the heaven-world (Samaria) taking care of the final details of preparation for His return to this earth, giving instructions to the angelic hosts, etc., and His work is almost completed throughout the whole earth (Galilee), THEN it is time for the final fulfillment of this prophetic type of the leper's re­turn to glorify Jesus; just before the Lord's return to this earth, Thus, before Christ returns to this earth, a chosen remnant must RETURN with their whole heart to Him to GLORIFY Him in an end-time ministry of love and devotion. Whether this final remnant will be a literal ten percent of all Christians I do not know, but the principle of the "holy tenth" is there, and God is determined in His purpose that what truly belongs to Him in a special way, will become an instrument in His hand.

 

Let's look at this principle from a different perspective from a passage in Mal. 3:8-11. The prophet rebukes the people be­cause they have robbed God of His holy tenth; they had not given their tithes and offerings. In its primary application we can rightly apply this to their failure to give of their material substance to the Lord. But let's look at it a different way, in light of that which I have been presenting—a people as a holy tenth.  In Mal. 3:10 the prophet states God's promise that if He receives the tithes (tenth) that belongs to Him, He will sure­ly "open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Has not God promised to pour out of His Spirit (and a great blessing) on His church in these last days? Are we not waiting for the "latter rain" when God shall open the "windows" of heaven and send refreshing to His people as never before? Looking at scripture in Malachi from this perspective, we can see how the promised outpouring is WAITING on the TENTH to return to God: a tenth of His people to fully give themselves to Him as His own "special portion" in this end time. THEN He will open the windows of heaven and pour out the "latter rain" on us,

 

There's a passage in Ezekiel that illustrates this same prin­ciple. God spoke through Ezekiel to the people of Israel con­cerning His purpose to bring them out of their scattered condi­tion and back to the Promised Land. But He would deal with them until a "remnant" would be willing to respond; the rest being left in their rebellious condition. We read in Ezek. 20:33-38: "As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, will I rule over you. And I will bring you out from the people and will gather you out of the countries wherein you are scattered.  And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.   Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, says the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and will bring you Into the bond of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the rebels: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and you shall know that I am the Lord."

 

Notice the expression in the above passage, "I will cause you to pass under the rod." This is an allusion to the practice of numbering the animals as they passed under the shepherd's rod or staff so that every TENTH one could be separated for the Lord, for His portion (the tithe). God's instructions concerning this are given in Lev. 27:32-33: "And concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to the Lord. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it: and if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed." Thus we can see that this pat­tern was used by Ezekiel to indicate God's dealing with His people to bring a willing remnant back INTO the Promised Land (the fulness of their inheritance), and the same pattern applies in God's dealings with his people TODAY, that a prepared remnant might be brought into the fulness of their SPIRITUAL IN­HERITANCE, and as His special portion (the holy tenth). To "pass under the rod" means that God is marking or selecting out those who are willing to fully give themselves to Him in this day.

 

But we need to see further just what the ROD symbolizes. Without taking time to fully develop this thought, let me just simply state that I believe the "rod" represents God's WORD. We can see this in Isa. 11:4 where the Messiah is pictured as smiting the earth (the carnal nature) with the rod of His MOUTH. Moses did mighty signs with the rod or shepherd's staff (see Ex. 4:1-5, 7:17-20, etc.). This speaks to us of God's Word, which is the authority for performing His works.  To "pass under the rod" means that God purposes to bring us under the RULE and AUTHORITY of His Word. The "remnant" that God is going to anoint with power must increasingly hear the admonition: "let the WORD of Christ dwell (tabernacle) in you richly in all wis­dom" (Col. 3:16). We must be willing to hear and declare "all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27).   "Passing under the rod" also speaks of God's disciplines and corrections (even chastise­ments if necessary), that He might truly "rule over us" as the KING who not only holds the royal scepter (rod) of rulership over the earth, but is also preparing a people to share that rul­ing scepter with Him (Rev. 1:5, 5:10). Finally, "passing under the rod" speaks of His providential care and protection for those who are fully trusting Him, for we know that the promised ex­perience of the Psalmist is also ours: "yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your ROD and your STAFF they comfort me" (Ps. 23:4). This is the "heritage" of the Lord's chosen.  

 

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