2.What should we do in view of the fact that such people are witnessing what we are doing today?

We should lay aside everything that would in any way hinder our walk in Christ. We should lay aside the sin that so easily entangles us. We should run with patient endurance the race set before us.

The patriarchs have helped us greatly by the sincerity and diligence with which they served the Lord. The Kingdom of God has been brought nearer to completion by their willingness to sacrifice themselves in order to do the Lord’s will. We are witnesses of their faith and are guided by their example.

Now it is our turn. We have gained from their prayers, obedience, and example, and now they will gain if we pray, obey God, and bring forth the aspect of the Kingdom of God that has been assigned to us. They are watching us. They are profiting from what they are witnessing. They are marveling at the wisdom and goodness of God.

In eons past there arose in Heaven a doubt concerning God’s Character. Instead of responding immediately God set in motion a long range (by our standards) plan designed to produce a bride for the Lamb, a temple for God, and judges, priests, and rulers for the nations. In addition to these outcomes of His working, God is speaking through the Church to the personages of the heavens concerning His Character and His will.

To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by [through] the church the manifold wisdom of God (Ephesians 3:10).

God could have spoken directly to the exalted rulers and powers in the spirit realm. Instead, God chose to bring forth His Word through creatures of dust—a masterpiece of irony.

Not only is God’s Word, the revelation of His Kingdom, coming forth through the dust of the ground, but it is being refined in us; proven in us. It is not enough that we believe God is faithful; His faithfulness is proved in us through fiery trials. God’s Word is refined in earthen vessels.

The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times (Psalms 12:6).

God’s Character is proved in us as we endure fiery trials. By means of our pilgrimage through the valley of the shadow of death, God demonstrates to the personages in the heavens the faithfulness and goodness of His Character as well as His wrath against those—angels and men—who rebel against His love. God speaks to the heavens from the mouths of dust.

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth (Deuteronomy 32:1).

We always are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. Wicked spirits as well as righteous spirits, angelic and human, study carefully that which God reveals through people. God withdrew above the heavens and conceived His Kingdom in detail. Now the Kingdom is being revealed, one small area at a time. No one can know the personages and timing of the Kingdom—not even the Lord Jesus—until the Father is ready.

. . . but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father (Matthew 20:23).

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father (Mark 13:32).

Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth (Psalms 57:5).