We will begin tonight with the first verse of Revelation 14:--
"And I looked and lo a Lamb stood on the mount Sion and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads." This same number is referred to in the 7th chapter and 4th verse, but I read from the first verse, however: "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them that were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand."
All we read these two scriptures for is to get the connection, which shows that the seal of God and the name of God are inseparably connected. The 144,000 had the name of their Father in their foreheads, and they were sealed with the seal of the living God in their foreheads. Then, when we find out what the name of God is, we shall know what the seal of God is, for that which will bring to us His name and put in our minds His name and put upon us and in us His name will be the seal of God.
Now turn to Exodus 3:13, 14. This refers to the time when the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush. He sent Him to deliver the people of God from Egypt: "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? and God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." The Lord had said to Him so far only this, as we read in the sixth verse, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
Now, Moses asks, "When I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? and God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. and God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."
But what is His name? "I AM THAT I AM." He had said, and they knew, that he was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," and the God of their fathers. They knew their fathers had a God whom they worshiped. These folks had heard of the God of their fathers. They remembered, though dimly now, the God of their fathers, but now he reveals to them that the God of their fathers is the God whose name is 'I AM THAT I AM," and "this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."
Then the name of God and His memorial go together. Do you see? But, what is His name? "I AM," only? No. His name is not simply 'I AM," BUT 'I am" what? "I AM." That is the idea of "that"; "I AM" that which, or what, "I AM." Now it is not enough you see for the Lord to state to men that He is, but we need to now that He is what He is, for the knowledge of Himself to do us any good. Existence is to us not enough to know of God--it is not enough for us to know that He exists, but we need to know what He is and what He exists for in respect to us. Therefore He did not say simply, "'I AM,' that is my name." No, but "I AM" what 'I AM." That is His name and if we will know God truly, we must know not only that He is, but that He is what He is and until we know what he is, we do not know Him.
The same thought is expressed in Heb. 11:6: "Without faith it is impossible to please Him (God): for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Well, what is the reward which God gives to those who seek Him? It is Himself; Himself, all He is, and all that He has. But, if we had all that He has without having Himself, what good would that do us? You see, if we had all that He has, and were still ourselves, we would be simply supreme--well the next thing to devils, would we not? To give a man all that God has and he still remaining the man that He is, it would be a fearful thing. Therefore it is nothing to us that God gives us all that He has, unless He gives us what He is, unless He gives us Himself. Therefore, when He gives us what He is, giving us Himself, His character, His nature and His disposition, then we can use what he is as well as what He has, in his fear and to His glory. Consequently the same thought is there, not only that He is, but He is what He is, and "He that cometh to God must believe that he is" and that He is what He is.
Well, then, to follow this thought, what is God first of all to all things and all persons in the universe? [Congregation: "Creator."] Assuredly! The first thing that He is to anything, animate or inanimate is Creator; for by Him all things exist. He is author of all things. Then the first thing for men, for angels, or intelligences is to know Him as Creator. Now, He says, 'I AM THAT I AM." Then the first that comes to any creature as to what He is; that is, understanding His name, is that He is Creator. So we have found that in connection with His name His memorial stands inseparable. And therefore "this is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."
Turn to Ezekiel 20:20. You are familiar with the scripture: "And hallow my Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." What is the Sabbath a sign of, then? A sign that He is the Lord God. But that He is the Lord God in point of existence, that is not His name. It is more than that, but the Sabbath being the sign that He is Lord God, is it not the sign that He is what He is, as well as that He is? [Congregation: "Yes."] Now, think of that. Is it? [Congregation: "Yes, sir."] The Sabbath being the sign that He is the true God--and He having told us that He is what He is, therefore the Sabbath is the sign of what God is as well as the sign that He is. See? [Congregation: "Yes."] Then that being His name, "I AM" what "I AM," and the Sabbath being the sign that He is what He is, don't you see how that is His name forever, and that is His memorial forever? Then, He has given the Sabbath. "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." He has given that as the memorial that He is the Lord. Consequently, "that is my name forever." That is His memorial.
[Voice: "Please repeat that."] All right. Let us go back and take the thought at the beginning. The Sabbath, He says "ye shall hallow," and it shall be a sign. Saturday is not a sign of the true God. Saturday is not anything. A man who keeps Saturday can do so without knowing the Lord just as He can keep Sunday without knowing the Lord, but He can't keep the Sabbath without knowing the Lord. There are three classes of observers of a day in the world: There are Saturday-keepers, Sunday1893 keepers, and Sabbath-keepers. What God wants is Sabbath-keepers. But there has been too many Saturday-keepers pretending to be Sabbath-keepers. That is the mischief of these last days.
"Hallow my Sabbaths, and they shall be a sign." That is the thing to start with. Then the Sabbath is a sign which He has set for us, which He Himself has given, "that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." The Sabbath being the sign that He is the Lord God, He is not only God in point of existence, but He is, and He is what He is, for that is His name. See? "I AM" what "I AM," The Lord God. The Sabbath is a sign that He is the Lord God. The Sabbath, therefore, is a sign that He is, and that He is what He is. But His name, He says, is "I AM THAT I AM." "This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." The sign that He is what He is is what? [Congregation: "The Sabbath."] But He says, "The Sabbath is my memorial." "He hath made a memorial for His wonderful works," and so on. Then, don't you see that that which is the sign that He is what He is, that being His name forever, that is His memorial forever? Now, shall I say it over? [Voice: "No, I can see that."] Have you got that now? [Congregation: "Yes, sir."]
Well, now let us go on with it. The Sabbath being the sign that He is, and that He is what He is, and the first thing that He is is Creator, the first thing that the Sabbath then must signify is Creator. But, is that the only thing that it will signify? No, because He is more than that not more than that in the sense of being different from that--because all things are in that, but what He is in that is more largely expressed in other places, so that we can know more fully what He is in that. Well then Exodus 31:17: "It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed." Now, it is a sign "that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." And wherein is it this sign? Is it not because "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." It being a sign of that because He did that, it is a sign of Himself in the doing of that. Is that so? [Voice: "Yes."]
Now put the two together: It is a sign that He is the Lord, because "in six days" He "made heaven and earth." Then, as we have found,the first thing that God is is Creator. The first thing that the Sabbath signifies is Creator, in signifying what He is. But the Sabbath commandment is, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work. . . . For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."
Now remember the Sabbath day. What is the Sabbath day? As we have already read in the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel: "A sign that ye may know that I am the Lord." Remember that thing which signifies that I am God. We are to remember that thing which signifies that He is God. Then is not that the memorial which brings Him to people's remembrance? For that is what a memorial is for, to bring to remembrance. He wants to be brought to the remembrance of His creatures and has given that which will do it. And now He tells us "remember that thing which will do it."
Now a thought right there: We are to remember the thing that brings Him to remembrance, or, in another word, brings Him to mind. When He is brought to mind, He is not only brought there as He who exists, but as what He is. And when He for what He is, is brought to our minds, that is His name, is it not? Where is the name? [Congregation: "In the forehead."] "With the mind I serve the law of God." See? Then God wants to be in people's minds? And the Sabbath is that which brings Himself-- not a theory of Him--but Himself, to bring Him to the remembrance, to bring Him to mind, because the Sabbath is the sign "that I am the Lord your God." And now remember the sign, remember that which signifies and brings to mind Myself, brings to mind the Lord thy God. And He is what He is. To bring Him and what He is to your mind. That is the thought. Then is not that His memorial?
The very purpose of a memorial, the very object of it is to bring the thing that is touched upon to mind. So you can see that that being the case, the name of God and His memorial, His Sabbath, cannot be separated at all. Consequently when He told Moses that "I am that I am," that is His name forever, and that is His memorial to all generations; because the memorial brings Him to mind, and bringing Him to mind, as what He is, that puts God into the mind in His real name, and so the Father's name in the minds of those people who are mentioned is the seal of the living God in their foreheads.
The first thing, then, that is signified thus in the Sabbath is Creator, creative power, but that is brought to mind through the things which are made. It is a sign that He is the Lord because He made all these things. Consequently the Sabbath is the sign, the memorial of the Lord our God as manifested in creation.
Now let us study a moment how He manifested Himself in creation. Heb. 1:1,2: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds."
And the first verses of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Now the 14th verse: "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
There is another verse we will read right upon the same thing, which tells it in a different way. Eph. 3:9, and the last words of the verse: "God, who created all things by Jesus Christ."
Then God in creation manifested Himself in and through Jesus Christ. Is that so? [Congregation: "Yes."] Then the man who does not know Jesus Christ, will he get right ideas of created things, of creation? [Congregation: "No."] He will not find God there; he will not find the ideas of God there, because God is manifested in Christ in creation.
Now further: How did He manifest Himself in Christ in creation? In creating, we had better say, perhaps, because we are at the origin of all things now. How, then, did He manifest Himself in Christ in creating? Ps. 33:6, 9: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." "For he spake, and it was; he commanded, and it stood fast." I was there.
Heb. 11:3: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." So far we have found that God manifested in creation is the first thing in which what He is can be known. But God is manifested in creating, in Jesus Christ; and God is manifest in creating in Jesus Christ, by His word. And that word by which He created all things has in it the power to make a thing appear which before could not be seen at all, because it was not. See? "The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." Then after God spoke, things were seen which before He spoke did not appear at all. Nobody could see them. Then there is power in the word which God in Jesus Christ speaks, that is able to make a thing; in other words, able to produce the thing which He names in the word He speaks. That is, God can call those things which be not as though they were and not lie. A man can speak of those things which be not as though they were, but there is no power in His word to produce the thing which He speaks, and consequently He lies.
And there are many people who do that thing. They speak of those things that are not as though they were, but it is a lie. And the reason that it is a lie is that there is no power in them or their word to produce the thing. They would willingly have it that way, they would willingly have what they are speaking to be real; but it is not so, and they speak of it as though it were, yet it is a lie, however much they would like to have it be real. There is no power in their word to produce the thing desired in their minds when they speak the word.
But God is not such. The thought that is in His mind, expressed in a word, the word produces the thing that was in the thought. The creative energy, the divine power, is in the word which God speaks. Consequently, when there were no worlds that appeared at all, God in Jesus Christ spoke, and there the worlds were, and there they are yet, because He spoke then.
Now let us read two verses that have these thoughts in them. Not only does the word of God which He speaks, produce the thing that is in the thought, but it keeps that thing in existence after it is produced, and in the place where God wants it, after it is produced. I want you to see that the word which God shall speak has all that power in it.
Now turn to Col. 1:14. He is speaking of Christ the Son of God, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by him all things consist." Or by Him all things hold together. But what made them? What made this world as it is? The power of His word. [Voice: "He commanded and it stood fast."] The world is quite large. There are a good many ingredients in it, but when He spoke, it came, with all the ingredients in it. The word, then, that produced it holds it together in the shape that it is.
Well then, now the other thought in the third verse of Heb. first chapter: "God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power." What holds these up since they were made? [Congregation: "The word of His power."] Has he been compelled to keep on talking since He spake that time, in order to keep these things in place? [Congregation: "No."] Is it necessary that He should keep on talking to the world every day, to hold it together? [Congregation: "No."] Is it necessary that He should keep on talking all the time to the worlds and the planets to keep them in their courses and in their places? No. the word which produced them in the beginning has in it the creative power which holds them together and holds them up.
2 Peter 3:1-7: "This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance; that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets." Mindful of what? The words which were spoken before by the holy prophets. Why are we to remember them? Because He wants us to find out what those words are worth, and, remembering the words, to obtain in our minds, in our lives, the strength and the force of the words. Because the words which were spoken by the prophets were the words of God, which they spake by "the Spirit of Christ which was in them, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow."
Mindful of those words, then; "and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of" --that is, people that talk that way, that all things continue as they were from the beginning, are willingly ignorant--"that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."
By what did the world overflow with water? [Congregation: "The word of God."] God spoke. "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire." What does he call our attention to there, in respect to the word which he wants us to remember. He wants us to be fully minded of the words of God, because that word at the first produced the worlds; that word holds them there; that word brought the flood; that word rescued the earth from the flood, and still keeps it.10 Then that word that can produce worlds and recover worlds; that word he would have us to keep fully in mind, that we may know the power of that word.
Well, then you see in all this there is the same thought still, that that word which produced all, holds all together, holds all up, and preserves all, until God speaks again. When He speaks again, then everything goes to pieces; for when that day comes in which there comes "a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done," then there are thunderings and lightnings and voices and an earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great, and "every island fled away, and the mountains were not found"; and the cities of the nations fall; the heaven itself splits open and rolls away. I tell you when that day comes the man who is fully minded of the word that does it all, he is perfectly safe. Because when that word which produces these things is my confidence, when that word is my foundation, when that word itself is my trust, why, no difference if the earth does go, His word remains; that is all right.
So then God was manifest in Christ by His word in creating and is still manifest thus, in the created things--in creating, in preserving, holding together, and holding up. So that gravitation is God in Jesus Christ. Science tells us that the law of gravitation holds things up, you know; but what is gravitation? "Why, that is what holds things up." There is a better answer than that. That answer is gravitation, the law of gravitation, holds all these things up and in their places. But what is gravitation? It is the power of God manifested in Jesus Christ in creation; that is gravitation.
Cohesion, in science, is to hold together. But what is cohesion? All the answer that science can give is, The word "cohesion" is from two Latin words, co and haerere, signifying to hold together; in other words, cohesion is cohesion; that is the answer. There is a better answer than that. There is God's answer, and He tells us that cohesion is the power of God manifested in Jesus Christ in creation; for by Him all things consist, cohere, hold together; that is cohesion.
The origin of all things is not spontaneous generation; it is not evolution. It is God manifest, the power of God manifested in Jesus Christ by His word producing all things that are seen, which before did not appear at all. Then God in Jesus Christ is the origin of all things; that is creation. God in Jesus Christ is the preserver of all things; that is cohesion. God in Jesus Christ is the upholder of all things, and that is gravitation.