The shape of things to come is being more sharply focused day by day—just as the Bible predicted. Two world movements are aligning themselves for the last great conflict: those who worship old covenant self-righteousness, identifying with the “beast” and his “image”; or those who worship clothed in the righteousness received by faith in the crucified Lamb’s promise of the new covenant (Rev. 13:4, 15; 14:4, 7). Those who accept the latter will worship the Lamb, the Christ of the cross who by His sacrifice “tasted death for every man,” and those who worship the beast and his image will worship self.
This final crisis of earth’s history will be a challenge to “worship the Lamb” alone, or to worship Baal (all worship of self, which is disguised as the worship of “Christ,” is Baal-worship). One group will have faith in the promises of God, the other in the “righteousness” of human promises. One will appreciate the breadth, depth, length, and height of “the agape of Christ, which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:14-21), while the other will believe a false view of the cross, a counterfeit misrepresentation of the gospel which will be the worship of a false “christ.” One will believe God’s one-sided promise: “I will put My law in their inward parts” (Jer. 31:33), while the other will believe the old covenant bargain with God to do everything just right: “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do” (Ex. 19:8). So clever will the deceptions be that “if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24).
The worshipers in Genesis represent the shape of the future. Two brothers attended the same church. On the one hand, the farmer worked hard, obeying God’s commandment, “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Gen. 3:19). He expected God to reward him for his labor [“man can depend upon his own efforts for salvation” (Patriarchs and Prophets [PP], p. 73), “self-dependence” (ibid., p. 72)]. Cain felt rejected and angry when God “had not respect” for his worship (Gen. 4:5).
What Cain missed was a simple heart-appreciation for the shed blood of the Lamb of God; his problem was “unbelief,” a failure to appreciate what it cost the Son of God to save him. On the other hand, Abel the shepherd was convicted as a sinner to worship God through the merits of Christ’s blood represented by the lamb (Gen. 4:4; PP 72).
Another example of true worship is Abram who believed God’s most precious one-sided new covenant promise, “thou shalt be a blessing” as well as receive a blessing from Him (Gen. 12:1-3); by getting “out of [his] country, and from [his] father’s house, unto a land that [God] will shew [him]” (vs. 1); in other words, he got out of “Babylon.” God did not ask Abram to make a promise of obedience. Believe God’s solemn promise and you will be happy and will always bring happiness to someone else.
Abram established the Old Testament gospel by “moonlight.” He worshiped God at the altar of sacrifice morning and evening (Gen. 12:8; PP 128). Daily two lambs were offered on behalf of sinners worldwide, whether they believed in the Saviour to whom they pointed or not. “God has encircled the whole world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air [we breathe]” (Steps to Christ, p. 68). Much later the New Testament gospel by “sunlight” was proclaimed by John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).