Ablaze With God's Glory
FIRST QUARTER 2023
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #13
JUNE 24, 2023
“ABLAZE WITH GOD’S GLORY”
As we finish our 13 lessons studying the three angel’s messages of Revelation 14, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves why it is that a 25,000,000-member Protestant Christian denomination would so closely identify with one single Bible passage that is relatively obscure to the vast majority of the Christian world! Why are we Seventh-day Adventists frequently studying and calling everyone’s attention to this one chapter in the last book of the Bible?
Remember that immediately following the three angel’s messages in Revelation 14:6-12 we find the harvest of the 2nd coming of Jesus! This tells us that the three angel’s messages are the final messages and warnings to be given to the world, ushering in the 2nd coming. This is why we give these messages such importance.
Remember also that the 1888 message given by A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner was identified multiple times by Ellen White as the essence of the three angel’s messages.
“The Lord in His great mercy sent a most precious message to His people through Elders Waggoner and Jones. . . This is the message that God commanded to be given to the world. It is the third angel’s message, which is to be proclaimed with a loud voice, and attended with the outpouring of His Spirit in a large measure.” — Ellen G. White, Testimonies to Ministers, p. 91, emphasis supplied here and onward.
Notice that the Jones and Waggoner message is “the third angel’s message.” Ellen White repeatedly uses the phrase “third angel's message” to refer to all 3 of the messages in Revelation 14:6-12. Thus, an appreciation for and proclamation of the message brought by A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner will be followed in short order by the second coming.
As Seventh-day Adventists, these messages are to be our primary focus. Yes, we should preach health reform. Yes, we should preach prophecy. Yes, we should preach doctrinal truth. Yes, we should preach education and lifestyle reform. But – all these truths need to be not “truths” merely, but TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS! This is the function of what Jones and Waggoner presented in the 1888 era as a most precious message, which is the three angel’s messages in verity.
“In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light bearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.” —Ellen G. White, Testimonies, Vol. 9, p. 19.
This is why Seventh-day Adventism, and the 1888 message in particular, is so focused on the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14.
Our lesson this week calls our attention to the fact that the message of the “4th angel” of Revelation 18 is really a recapitulation of that of the three angels of Revelation 14, but, with a worldwide effect; not a 4th message, but a more powerful and deeper understanding and proclamation of the first three angels’ messages.
The lesson rightly calls our attention to the fact that Revelation 18 informs us that this 4th angel has a message that is a revelation of the “glory” of God, and that the “glory” of God is a revelation of God’s character (see Exodus 33:18-34:9). This character is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”
Ellen White describes the 4th angel’s message (i.e., the combined 3 angels’ messages) in this way:
“At this time a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power. His character is to be made known. Into the darkness of the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His goodness, mercy, and truth. . . The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them.” —Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 415.
We need to be seeing in the 3 angels’ messages of Revelation 14, and the 4th angel of Revelation 18, God’s “goodness, mercy, and truth,” and “a revelation of His character of love.” And notice, a significant part of this revelation regarding God’s character is “what the grace of God has done for them.” This is the testimony of Jesus – our testimony about what the 1888 message has done for us, by shedding light on what Jesus has done for us.
Our lesson concludes with the vital point that the most prolific metaphor in the book of Revelation is not a beast, or a city, or gold, etc. The most prolific metaphor in the book of Revelation is a lamb. When Revelation speaks of a lamb, God is not hoping we will visualize a baby sheep. God wants us to visualize, and put into the prophetic narrative, Jesus on the cross.
When Revelation 13:8 says that “the lamb was slain from the foundation of the earth,” God wants us to discern that Jesus has been bearing the weight and burden of sin since it’s very inception in heaven and it’s continuance here```` on earth. When Revelation 14:9-11 describes the traumatic, self-inflicted experience that those who receive the mark of the beast will go through in the presence of the Lamb, God wants us to understand that at the cross, Jesus experienced the same traumatic weight of sin that the lost will experience having turned away from His love and grace.
May we choose, as the hymn lyrics encourage us, to have “nothing between the soul and my Savior, naught of this world’s delusive dream. I have renounced all sinful pleasure – Jesus is mine! There’s nothing between.”
The 3 angels’ messages are the 1888 message which will bring the latter rain! May we cooperate with Jesus in this final work.
“The time of test is just upon us, for the loud cry of the third angel has already begun in the revelation of the righteousness of Christ, the sin-pardoning Redeemer. This is the beginning of the light of the angel whose glory shall fill the whole earth.” —Ellen G. White, 1888 Materials, p. 1073.
~Bob Hunsaker