Do You Think God Is With The Crowd Or With The Remnant?

Do you think God is with the crowd or with the remnant?

Isa 1:9 Unless the LORD of hosts Had left to us a very small remnant, we would

have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.

Throughout the history of mankind the tendency of the vast majority of God’s people has always been to turn away from God. However in the midst of this recurring apostasy or backsliding there has always been a remnant of God’s people, sometimes extremely few in number, who have remained completely faithful to God. Often it is out of such a remnant that God then rebuilds a people. Let’s consider some of the Bible’s examples of remnants:

Noah :1 Pet 3:20 ...In the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared (100 years) in which a few, that is, eight souls (out of millions?), were saved through water.

Joshua and Caleb: Num 14:29-30 …All of you who were numbered (over a million who

came out of Egypt) according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above, except for Caleb…and Joshua …you shall by no means enter the land…

Elijah and the 7000: Rom 11:2-5 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant…

Three Hebrew Men: Dan 3:12 There are certain Jews…Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego; these men, O king, have not paid due regard to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the gold image which you have set up. Obviously the rest did bow.

Remnant out of Babylon: Ezra 2:1-64 Now these are the people…who came back from

the captivity…whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon…The whole assembly together was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty (out of about four million that went into captivity)

God’s people reject their Messiah: John 1:11 He (Jesus) came to His own (The nation of Israel), and His own (as a nation) did not receive Him. Only a remnant did receive Him

Many disciples turn away from Jesus: John 6:66 From that time many of His disciples

went back and walked with Him no more. Only a remnant remained with Him

Asia turns away from Paul: 2 Tim 1:15 This you know, that all those in Asia have

turned away from me….

Only Timothy can Paul rely on: Phil 2:19-21 I hope that I will be able to send Timothy to

you soon, He is the only one who is like-minded and who really cares about you. Everyone else is concerned only with his own affairs, not with the cause of Jesus Christ. TEV/NKJV

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The Dark Ages – is an expression actually coined by the opponents of the Church to reflect the perceived dominance of the Church during the period 600 – 1500 AD and the absence of scientific enlightenment and reason. But this term more accurately depicts the spiritual darkness of this era in which the Pope reigned supreme, people were denied access to the Bible, Christianity was a front for politics, superstition replaced spirituality and many evils like the crusades and the inquisition were done in the name of Christianity.

Only a remnant of God’s people carried and proclaimed the gospel during these centuries.

The Age of Reason Over the last 150 years or so scientific discoveries, an explosion of knowledge, and massive social and economic advances have championed the widespread view that man’s intellectual powers of reason are supreme and make redundant the simple child like heart faith that is central to Christianity. This heralding of the human brain over the human spirit has hindered many from coming to Christ. It has also swelled the ranks of those who say they are Christian but in fact have never been born again as Christians. If my head can simply reason that I’m a Christian why do I need to believe in my heart a revelation directly from God of His word that Christ died for my sins? Hence the true Church is but a fraction or remnant of the professing Church.

Reason replaces faith in the Church Even within the true Church while heart faith in a spiritual revelation of the truth of God’s word is the universal first step in every real Christian’s life, after that, for the vast majority of Christians reason has usurped faith as the way of approach to God and His word. This has resulted in a Church that has had little or no spiritual growth after salvation. Consequently, without further spiritual light with which to see, a vast number of false teachings are widely prevalent in the Church, such as; fatalism, eternal security, the inevitability of sin, everyone has the Holy Spirit, a limited atonement, viewing the Bible as a rule book, perceiving God’s ways as not knowable and prayer therefore as uncertain, making no distinction between man’s two natures (flesh and spirit) and treating the dark kingdom of wicked spirits that rule the earth as an irrelevance.