The remnant church is a movement of believers who desire to fulfill God’s will foretold in the book of Revelation. It is God’s people who must prepare for the closing events of Earth’s history.
God has always had a remnant of people faithful to Him. The history of God’s Church shows how tirelessly Satan fought against the Most High through His people and destroyed the foundation of faith upon which the Church was built.
In our day, a similar struggle continues, but God provides special advantages for those who heed the message to Laodicea and begin to seek and thirst for what is offered in it.
By acquiring all the Heavenly goods, God’s people obtain a special faith and the power of love, through which they will be able to know God very deeply and closely and allow Him to write His law in their minds. This will protect all God’s children during the time of trouble and trial.
The Lord will gather all His faithful followers under His protection and establish them in truth and love, entrusting this people with a special mission for the last days.
We read in Revelation 12:17: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The remnant are God’s people who have preserved their faithfulness and decided to obey God’s commandments despite universal deception and traditional apostasy.
There was a time when those who believed in Jesus as their Savior testified by word and deed to His love and God’s grace, but at the end of time God will add to such testimony a special message for those living at the end of the ages. It is already sounding, but it can hardly be heard. This message was foretold by God and will be fulfilled in all the power ordained by the Most High.
We read about it in Revelation 14:6–12. It is called the Three Angels’ Messages and describes the characteristics of those who will proclaim it. Verse 12 says: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
Keeping God’s commandments is one of the criteria that identify the remnant people. But the distinguishing feature of this obedience is not merely to agree intellectually with the truths of God’s law, but to allow God to write this law in the mind and heart, so as to submit to it not according to the letter, but according to the spirit.
As long as this law remains written on tablets of stone, it will not cease to testify against me, and I will continually break it and repent of this. My life will become like being tossed upon the waves. But if I allow God to write the living words upon the tablets of my heart, I become a doer of the law and live in the obedience of the spirit under grace, not under the curse. Grace is given to me not to cover sins, but as the power to resist the dominion of lawlessness.
And by keeping God’s commandments, I become very dear to Jesus, for I trust in Him and have His faith.
What determines my faith? It is my ability, during crisis, struggle, and trials, to rely upon God’s faithful word and to trust the Lord completely that He will fulfill what He has promised specifically in my life and will do what came from His mouth as a promise. God is unchanging in His word, but He is seeking those who will believe Him and steadfastly, with trust, hold on to what He has promised, watching and praying as they await the fulfillment of everything that was foretold.
Will the remnant keep the commandment of love? Yes. This is what has been foretold concerning God’s people. God’s message without God’s love among the messengers sounds like a verdict without any possibility of repentance. But this distinguishing feature of God’s children—their love for one another and for God—will allow the Lord to use His Church in all its power to proclaim the final warning. It will be heard by all who know God and obey His voice.
In John 10:16 we read: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd.” These words accord with the message of Revelation 18:4: “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” God will call His people and gather them.
Mission without love is not God’s plan for the last days. Love without mission is a distortion of the truth. Love is God’s convincing power that God exists, that He acts, and that He will bring to pass everything He has foretold. Faith which worketh by love is God’s driving force for those who love God and obey Him in everything.
For example, how would you regard everything I write in this school if you learned that I break God’s commandments and live in sin? I think you would first try to discover the reason for my apostasy and the depth of my lawlessness, and then you would attempt to explain to me that it is not hearers and readers who please God, but doers of His will. And if I heeded these warnings and repented, you would gladly continue studying my writings, because in them you would find a reflection of my obedience. But if I remained in sin, this would soon become known to everyone, and all my writings would be outlawed and contemptuously rejected as misleading. Being aware of all this, I carry out my ministry with fear and trembling. Your prayers and your responsiveness to my love for you support me greatly. By nature I am a sinner who greatly needs the Savior, but I have allowed God to write His law in my heart, and it has become a power within me to resist my inborn inclinations toward sin; and it is not I, but Christ in me and His power, that gain the victory over lawlessness. And I am convinced that if I am faithful to God unto death, I will receive the crown of life.
I look with sadness upon those who speak of their faith in God but do not keep His commandments, or who replace them with human ordinances and traditions, partly appealing to the fact that some of the early Christians decided to worship God in this way.
But Romans 13:10 states: “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
God’s law does not call me to legalism; it calls me to obedience. But obedience without love is precisely the legalism and fanaticism against which Jesus openly spoke and continues to speak to this day. Love without obedience is adultery, for if I love my wife but am unfaithful to her, this is not love, but only a name. And I believe that this definition contains the truth, no matter how I may try to justify myself by saying that one of the heroes of faith had several wives.
And very soon God’s remnant will stand before the whole world in the most solemn proclamation of the third angel’s message. The messages of the first and second angels are already sounding, but few heed this voice. Yet when the death sentence is pronounced upon the world and presented very clearly and loudly by those who love one another according to the commandment, all God’s children will hear this voice of the Spirit and leave their fallen churches, never again to support them by their presence. They will be expelled and persecuted by the wicked and by the authorities of this world.
But God’s people will receive God’s seal and will be safe. Satan will obtain complete power over those who accept his image. The remnant church, however, will fulfill its mission and meet the One Whom it loves, awaiting His Coming in love for one another.
Questions for Reflection
Please read John 13:34–35; Daniel 7:9–14; Isaiah 1:9; 11:11; Jeremiah 23:3; Micah 2:12; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 1 Peter 1:16–19; 4:17; 2 Peter 3:10–14; Jude 3, 14; Revelation 12:17; 14:6–12; and 18:1–4 in the light of this chapter. What new things did you learn from this chapter? How do you understand the word “remnant”? What do Paul’s words in Romans 6:14 mean: “for ye are not under the law, but under grace”? Then please read Romans 6:14–16 in full and answer once again. By whom were the Ten Commandments given—God or Moses? And who can abolish or change them? To whom was God’s law given in the form of the Ten Commandments? Should we keep it? Does it belong only to the Old Testament? Does God have any other messages for the salvation of the world after the Three Angels’ Messages? Whom does God desire to save through the third angel’s message? Why does He call people’s attention in precisely this way? Could this not be said more gently? Do you desire to take part in proclaiming this message together with the three angels?