God's holy Word controlled the past, is controlling the present, and will control the future. "He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true" (John 3:33). God does not change. He who would follow the Lord Jesus in victory must become the Amen of God.

In the beginning God created all things. At that time God created not only the physical world but everything else through to the installation of the new Jerusalem on the new earth. The Christian who does not understand that all things were completed from the creation of the world will have a difficult time entering the "rest" of God.

The redeeming Lamb was slain, man and the universe were created, the brothers of Christ were created in His image and also glorified, the Wife of the Lamb was brought to total maturity and unity, wars were fought, Satan was overthrown, and the Kingdom of God was brought down from Heaven to the earth. Finally God rested. All this happened in the vision of God. Then God created the heavens and the earth.

It is the sole duty of man to enter that rest through the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to enter the program of God, which is carrying us as an individual forward to the place in the new world which was created for us.

Christ is the Amen of God. One of the issues surrounding the church of the Laodiceans is that of saying Amen to the will, the Kingdom of God. He who would be an overcomer, a member of the spotless Bride of the Lamb, must become part of the Amen— the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those who add their Amen to that of the Lord Jesus will enter the rest of God, ceasing from their own works. Those who do not add their Amen to the Amen that is Christ will fall in the wilderness of unbelief. They will be overcome by the pressures of life.

Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. (Hebrews 4:11)

After God created the heavens and the earth, man's environment, God spoke four proclamations concerning man—a fourfold Divine declaration. Then God rested. It is the whole duty of man to say Amen to each of these four proclamations, thus entering the rest of God.

Satan, Antichrist, Babylon, our bodily lusts, and our self-centered soul all work desperately to keep us from saying Amen to the Divine declaration and from entering the rest of God. It is because of such strong opposition that we are required to labor, to fight in order to enter the rest of God (Hebrews 4:10, 11). We must overcome Satan in every instance by the word of our testimony, that is, by proclaiming that what God has said is true and unchanging.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27, 28)

The four pronouncements of God, of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the Amen, the Verification, concern four areas of being, behavior, and destiny:

Man will be in God's image.

Man will be male and female.

Man will be fruitful.

Man will have dominion.

To be continued.