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The UK Bible Students Website
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'GOD’S PEOPLE'?
All Scripture citations are to the New International Version, Anglicised edition.
Question: Who are ‘God’s people’ today?
Answer: According to the Scriptures, God accepts all those who accept His Son Jesus as their Saviour and King, regardless of creed, denomination, race, sex, or nationality (Acts 17: 30-32; Galatians 3: 28, 29; Colossians 3: 11). Some of these believers will consecrate give their heart, mind, and will over to God. Others will more or less linger on the fringes of the Christian faith, living lives which are for the most part just and noble.
Both types of Christians are justified by faith in Christ, and Christ alone.
The categories of believers may be subdivided further, but suffice it to say that each of these general types of Christians will actively bear witness, in varying degrees, to the principles and practices of Christianity, by publicising the Word of Truth and demonstrating its power by their godly conduct.
These people are the figurative 7,000 alluded to in 1 Kings 19: 18, and sectarianism has no place in the picture.
The actors in this particular scenario come in various guises, usually with differing emphases on aspects of the Divine message.
These aspects may take the form of an educated defence of the faith and God’s reputation against atheistic Evolution; the assertion of the Biblical view of sex and marriage as against contemporary variations; or godly living through Scriptural devotions; or they may lay emphasis on the work of Christ in saving sinners from various addictions; others may emphasise rigorous Bible study, and so on.
No one grouping has a monopoly on the Christian faith or the form the message takes.
For however and by whomever the work of God is carried forward, God’s witness must and will be advanced in these historic days.
Citing another analogy, Jesus averred that had the crowds remained silent during His processional into Jerusalem, the rocks would have had to cry out; that is, the prophetic witness cannot be shut up (Luke 19: 40).
No matter how secular or raw society may become, there will always be a witness delivered by the figurative 7,000, who cannot be driven out of existence. Many of these Christians might live over into the earthly Kingdom that is, they may not die during that transition, though there is no clear Scriptural text on this point.
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