"Why do you spend...your labor for that which does not satisfy?..." Isaiah 55:2

    Jesus understood the transitory satisfaction of possessing "things." He said,

"... a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
Luke 12:15

     People today are becoming weary of chasing elusive rainbows; they sense the need of a power outside of themselves. This is nothing new, ever since man chose to go his own way in the Garden of Eden, man has had this strange emptiness that only God can fill. God allowed the children of Israel in their wilderness wanderings to become hungry so they would recognize their need of Him. God spoke to the Israelites through Moses, saying,

"So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, ...that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord." Deuteronomy 8:3

     Evidently God allows modern mankind to sense an inner hunger and restlessness, so they will reach out and let God satisfy their longings. Today, we see a great interest in various forms of religion. With the tremendous emphasis today on ecumenism and the push to break down denominational walls, there is much more study and thought concerning various forms of religions and the church.

     New churches are rapidly springing up around the world. Each of them, it seems, claim to be teaching the one true faith. Each claims to be God’s special people with a message of guidance for everyone on earth. Yet, the briefest consideration of those claims would make it obvious that not all claims can be true. For while they each claim the Bible as the foundation for their beliefs, their teachings are most divergent.

     Perhaps you are wondering how the average person on the street can ever sort out all the claims and counterclaims of these religious organizations and know for certain what is the real thing. Does God really have a special group within Christendom that He recognizes as His church today? Evidently, for Paul wrote:

"There is one body and one Spirit-just as you were called in one hope of your calling--one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all..."
Ephesians 4: 4-6

     Paul wrote to his young friend, Timothy,

"...I write you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." I Timothy 3:14,15

     Quite a statement, wouldn’t you say? And, perhaps he has placed his finger on the heart of the question which occupies the quiet moments of millions. But, where do we start? There are so many denominations, so much controversy, so much confusion in the religious community. And you cannot help wondering why God did not make it easier to sort it all out-to quickly be able to find His last-day church. Well, according to Scripture, Jesus never intended there to be any confusion, and certainly not all these denominations. Just before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed:

"...that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You;
that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."
John 17: 21

     Jesus wanted the world to be able to recognize His followers by unity and love. Christ did not want any divisions in His church. In fact, Paul wrote:

"That there should be no schism in the body;..." 1 Corinthians 12:25

     But Paul said, that apostasy would come, and with it division! We read:

"Therefore take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock...to shepherd the church of God...For I know this, that after my departing savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves."
Acts 20:28-30

     As we turn the pages of church history, we discover that that is exactly what happened . False teachers arose and some accepted their untruths and left. Others became confused. Disciples were drawn away, and there was a gradual branching off the original body. But through it all God has had a church which remained faithful to the teachings of Christ. But you say, "Wouldn’t it take a lifetime to study in depth all the teachings of every religion to find which is the true church of God?" Indeed it would!

     But there is a simpler way, a better way. Government experts tell us that it is quite easy to distinguish a genuine bill from a counterfeit. You see, they study the characteristics of the genuine bill in depth. They know the fibrous texture of the paper, the color fastness of the ink, the symbols and the proper order of serial numbers of the genuine.

     As they look at a bill they can quickly compare it with the distinguishing features of the genuine. If it lacks any one of the characteristics, it is a counterfeit. And it is the same with truth. We do not have to study the teachings of all the denominations and schisms for exhaustive hours if we know the characteristics of God’s true church as given in the Bible. You see, God does not leave man to guess which one it is, for God has given us the facts in His Word:

"Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth His secret unto his servants the prophets." Amos 3:7 KJV

     In the Book of Revelation, the Book that God gave Jesus to summarize all of the prophecies of the Bible, and to give His people a special insight into the last days, predicts the apostasy and religious confusion that exists in these last days of Earth’s history. It predicts the conflict between Christ’s church and Satan. Chapter 12 gives a panoramic view of church history from Christ’s time to the end of the world:

"...There appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered." Revelation 12: 1, 2

     Here God pictures a woman in white, clothed with the sun, standing on the moon with a crown of 12 stars on her head. What does it all mean? In Bible prophecy a woman represents God’s people-His church. The prophet Jeremiah wrote:

"I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman."
Jeremiah 6:2

     And who is "Zion"? Through Isaiah, God said,

"...Say unto Zion, ‘Thou art my people.’" Isaiah 51:16

     As we link these two texts, we see that God used a virtuous woman to represent His true church. The apostle Paul uses the same terminology to describe the Corinthian church.

"...For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Corinthians 11: 2

     However, John was also shown another woman, which he described in Revelation 17.

"...I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy...
The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And upon her forehead a name was written:

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." Revelation 17:3-5

     This symbolic language describes an impure, adulterous woman-the false church, or that part of Christianity which has been unfaithful to Christ and has compromised in its relationship to the world. James used similar words to  describe those who forsake God’s teachings and join the world:

"Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?..." James 4:4. 53

     A fallen woman, then, represents a false church, and a pure woman represents a pure church. Let’s look again at the prophecy of the pure woman.,

"...She being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.....And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." Revelation 12:2, 4

     Who is this dragon that stood before the woman to devour her child as soon as he was born?

"And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Revelation 12:7-9

     Revelation also describes the child:

"She bore a male Child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God, and His throne." Revelation 12:5

     Only one child in the history of the world was to "rule all nations with a rod of iron, And be "caught up unto God, and to his throne," and that was Jesus. Speaking of the second coming of Christ, John said,

"...Out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, and with it He should strike the nations. And He, Himself will rule them with a rod of iron..." Revelation 19: 15

     Paul tells how Jesus was

"caught up unto God’s throne," when God "...raised him from the dead, and set him at His own right hand in the heavenly place." Ephesians 1:20

     The war that began in heaven moved to our world. Working through pagan Rome, Satan tried to take Jesus’ life as soon as He was born. Herod, the Roman Governor decreed that all male children two years and under should be killed, but an angel warned Mary and Joseph to escape with Jesus into Egypt. The devil dogged Jesus’ steps throughout His ministry, hoping to block God’s plan to save our fallen world. As Christ’s body hung on the cross, Satan thought he had won the battle. But an empty tomb was Satan’s Waterloo. Christ arose and ascended to His father’s throne. The prophecy was on schedule, just as predicted!

     Failing in his attempt to destroy God’s Son, Satan turned his wrath on the woman, or the Christian church. All but one of Christ’s disciples died a martyr’s death. And the Apostle Paul was beheaded outside the walls of Rome. Christians were tortured and thrown in dungeons, many sealing their testimony with their blood.

     As long as the disciples were alive the church stood firmly for the truth. But with second and third generation Christians, came compromise and apostasy.

"Toward the latter end of the second century, most of the churches assumed a new form; the first simplicity disappeared as the old disciples retired to their graves."
                                                                                 Ecclesiastical research, page 51.

     In the fourth century, Emperor Constantine tried to hold the Roman Empire together by uniting pagans and Christians in one great system of religion. As a result, Christianity lost much of its old stigma, becoming, in fact, very popular. Heathen people were baptized into the church who brought many of their pagan beliefs and practices with them. One historian wrote,

"The new Christians were, as far as thinking and habits went, the same old pagans....Their surge into the churches did not wipe out paganism. On the contrary, hordes of baptized pagans meant that paganism had diluted the moral energies of organized Christianity to the point of impotence."
                                                Centuries of Christianity: A Concise History, page 58

     However during this time many Christians remained faithful to God’s truths and protested the changes that had crept into the church. They refused to compromise their position, and many were persecuted for their stand. Soon the Roman emperors issued edicts making it a crime punishable by death to reject the false practices of the state church. Historian Archibald Bower writes,

"Great numbers were driven from their habitations with their wives and children, stripped and naked...(and) many of them (were) inhumanly massacred."
                                                                  -The History of the Popes, vol. 2, page 334

     Foreseeing it all, John wrote,

"...The dragon...persecuted the woman which brought forth the man Child."  Revelation 12:13

     And what happened to the woman? She

"...fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days." Revelation 12:6

     Notice that God tells the time that His people were to be persecuted: 1,260 days. We have already discovered that each day in Bible prophecy stand for a year of literal time. Ezekiel wrote,

"...I have appointed thee each day for a year." Ezekiel 4:6

     So the oppression of God’s faithful people, as predicted in Revelation, was to continue for l,260 years. History accurately confirms this Bible prophecy. Roman Emperor Justinian, ordered the Roman general, Belisarius, to wipe out three Arian powers that opposed the church in Rome. The last of these powers was eliminated in 538 A.D. 87 and Justinian declared the bishop of Rome to be "the head of the church, the true and effectual corrector of heretics." The reign of intolerance for so-called "heretics" began.

     And faithful Christians who continued to cherish the truths revealed in God’s Word found that the only way to preserve their faith was to flee, just as Revelation predicted. The woman fled into the wilderness. The Waldenses and the Albigenses in the Piedmont Mountains, the Huguenots all over France and Bohemia, and other faithful Christians fled to the Alps in northern Italy and southern France, settling in secluded valleys, remote caves, and high mountains.

     They were hunted down as common criminals, and many were slain. Their crime? They would not give up the teachings of Jesus. Millions of Christians died rather than compromise their faith. Some historians estimate the death toll to be as high as 50 million. And many of those who died were martyred by other professed Christians who believed they were doing the will of God!
                                                                               [See Great Controversy pp 97-279]

     God’s truth finally triumphed. The Bible, long chained to monastery walls and cathedral pulpits, was translated into the language of the common people and scattered throughout the world. No longer was God’s truth to be hidden. It must be revealed! Courageous Reformers boldly proclaimed God’s Word. Some like Huss and Jerome, were burned at the stake. Others, like Luther, Wycliffe, and Tyndale, were hunted and persecuted.

     However, with the discovery of America, new freedom and a new refuge were provided for the persecuted Christians of Europe. On the shores of a newborn nation was laid the foundation of civil and religious liberty. France commemorated America’s freedom by presenting the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States. The era of compromise and persecution predicted in Revelation 12, finally came to end in 1798, when atheistic government of Napoleon sent General Berthier to take the Pope captive-exactly 1,260 years after the period of persecution began in 538 A.D. 97.

     At the end of the eighteenth century, when this prophetic time period came to a close, God still had a group of faithful believers who clung to the Bible and its teachings. The prophecy foretold that Satan turned his fury upon the church of God that remained after this prophetic period.

"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." Revelation 12:17

     A remnant, for anyone acquainted with fabrics, is the last piece of cloth on a bolt of fabric. Just so, the "remnant" of God’s Church is the last part of that church-the church that exists at the very end of time just before Jesus returns to earth again. So translating this verse literally, we would say, "The devil was angry...and went to make war with the last-day church." Satan is furious that God’s people still follow God’s truths in these last days. John describes two characteristics by which we can recognize this remnant, last-day church:

"The dragon was wroth [angry] 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." Revelation 12:17

     "The remnant " are those who "keep the commandments of God"-not only the Ten Commandments, but all the commands given in God’s Word. But doesn’t every church teach that Christians should obey God’s commands? Not exactly! But many religious bodies today teach their members, in one way or another, to disobey some of God’s instructions.

     For example, some congregations are taught to bow before images. Others ignore the sacredness of God’s name. And most of the religious world has lost sight of the memorial of creation described in the fourth commandment:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor,
and do all  your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God..." Exodus 20:8-10

     Not only was God’s remnant, or last-day church to keep the commandments of God, but the prophecy also says that it will "have the testimony of Jesus." Revelation 19:10 Says,

"...the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

     God’s last-day church will have the gifts of the spirit, including the spirit of prophecy. God gives several other characteristics to help us in our search for His last-day church. His people will be engaged in the mission of reaching the world with the gospel, for Jesus commissioned His church:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age..." Matthew 28: 19,20

     The command to preach the everlasting gospel in all the world is symbolized in Revelation 14 by three angels flying in the heavens. The first part of this three-fold message emphasizes two great truths to be shared with every person:

"I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and fountains of waters.’" Revelation 14: 6,7

     This is a warning to those living in Earth’s last hours to remember that the Day of Judgment has come. It is also a reminder of the great memorial of God’s creative power, the seventh-day Sabbath. The second part of this three-fold message is found in verse 8:

"And another angel followed, saying, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of  her fornication.’" Revelation 14:8

     This message calls God’s true people to separate from the confused religious world. Their attention is to be called to the apostasy in religion today. The last, and most solemn, appeal is given in the third portion of this prophecy:

"The a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, he himself shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God..." Revelation 14: 9, 10

     The world is to be warned against worshiping the beast and his image or receiving his mark. The reception of any of the three brings the seven last plagues. Jesus said,

"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one fold, and one shepherd." John 10:16

     God has faithful followers in all churches, but there will come a time when there will be one fold, or one church. Jesus said His sheep will have to be called out of these other folds that have not carefully followed the teachings of God’s Word. John the revelator wrote:

"I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and least you receive of her plagues." Revelation 18:4

God’s faithful followers will be called out of the religious error and confusion that exists at the end of time.

"Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus... And I looked, and behold a white cloud , and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of Man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle." Revelation 14: 12, 14

     Let’s just briefly review some of the distinguishing characteristics of God’s last-day church as given in the Bible:

God’s remnant church was to appear after the period of terrible persecution which ended in 1798.

They will have the faith of Jesus which leads them to keep all the commandments of God.

They will proclaim the special warning messages of Revelation to all the world to prepare a people for Jesus’ return.

They will have the gifts of the Spirit, including the gift of prophecy.

     All churches may look alike at first glance, but as you study God’s description of the genuine in His Holy Word, it is quite easy to eliminate the ones that do not measure up. Perhaps you have been searching, trying to cull through the confusion in the religious world today, looking for God’s lastday church. As we have studied this remarkable prophecy, you can clearly see that God does have a special message, and a special people to carry that message to the whole world.

     But it is not enough to know these biblical facts.

     To have peace and happiness that comes from a complete walk with Jesus Christ it is also necessary for you to step out and follow the truth as revealed in God’s Word, for Jesus said,

"If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." John 13: 17

     Do you believe you have heard God’s truth proclaimed during this series? Do you believe the Holy Spirit has been impressing your heart during this series? When we hear God’s Word, when we listen to God’s truth, the Holy Spirit impresses us to make a decision.

Now is the time for a decision.