FIRST QUARTER 2023
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #3
APRIL 15, 2023
“THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL”

 

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people (Revelation 14:6).

 

This verse captures the spirit, mission, and heart of the Seventh-day Adventist movement. It was first proclaimed with power in the 1830’s and 1840’s as students of prophecy affirmed that the hour of His judgment had come. Known as the “Midnight Cry,” this warning message was sounded to the ends of the earth. Christ is coming! Prepare to meet thy God! The earth—in that day— was stirred with conviction at the startling message of Christ’s soon return and the pre-advent judgment.

 

But as foretold in Christ’s parable of the ten virgins, somewhere along the way God’s waiting church grew tired and sleepy. More aptly, she became distracted by the things of this world. After the great disappointment a corresponding lag in energy led to complacency. Seventh-day Adventism—begun as a movement—slipped into the comfortable path of being another denomination.

 

Last Sabbath afternoon we went door to door in a wealthy California neighborhood. The door approach was simple: “Hi! My name is _____ and this is _____. We are from the ______ Seventh-day Adventist Church. We are praying for this community, and we are just wondering if you have anything you would like for us to pray about?”

 

The response was overwhelmingly the same. Smiling, the person at the door would say, “No thanks, I’m good.” Only one man admitted the need for prayer (if Anyone up there is listening, he added), but didn’t want me to pray for him.

 

We did share literature with several who didn’t care for prayer. But it just made me think about what Jesus said, “Because thou sayest, ‘I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). These people were rich, and they were also “good.” Maybe that isn’t the same as “increased with goods,” but their choice of words struck me, especially since every single person said the same thing except one!

 

Are we, too, rich and increased with goods? The Scriptures say we think we are. It’s ironic—but it’s also hopeful—that the Lord would choose Revelation’s seventh church, the church of Laodicea, to be the bearer of the most solemn warning message ever given to man.

 

The Lord has entrusted our church with the proclamation of the everlasting gospel, the “mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to his saints” (Colossians 1:26).

 

The everlasting gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). And this power is contained in “the message of the cross” which is “foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

 

The Bible teaches that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and that “in Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

 

Without Christ, the world is without hope. It must be the case that many or most of us fail to grasp the gravity of our situation apart from Christ. “I’m good.” But the gospel only has meaning when we realize what we were saved from — eternal death and God abandonment. It’s hard to comprehend how bad that is since none of us have experienced the second death except Christ.

 

At any rate it is true that without Christ we are without hope, and in Christ, “all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

 

While Adam’s sin brought condemnation upon the entire human race, Christ did something not equal to, but greater than, what Adam did. His much more abounding grace encompasses all sinners. Therefore, all who have sinned and come short have also been “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

 

We are slow to see the full import of Romans 3:24. The same ones who sinned are the ones He justified freely by grace in Christ. We are not justified in Adam. We are condemned. “Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Romans 5:18).

 

This and so much more is encompassed in that phrase “the everlasting gospel” which is to be proclaimed to those who dwell on the earth. We cannot share what we do not believe. In ancient times Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They failed to enter Canaan because of unbelief.

 

Isaiah said, “Who hath believed our report?” (Isaiah 53:1).

 

Israel failed to believe the report of Caleb and Joshua.

 

In these last days the Lord again sent two messengers to His people with a good report. Could it be we have also failed to enter because of unbelief?

 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

 

For further study I have added more extended commentary on Revelation 14:6 from the Lord’s messengers, A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner, to whom the Lord blessed with a message especially designed to prepare God’s people for translation. Please pray, read, be blessed, and share!

 

~Patti Guthrie

 

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From A. T. Jones:

 

In 1840-1844, the first angel began his work. This message was rejected, and in 1844 the second angel's message announced the fall: "Babylon is fallen;" and out of that falling away there comes the image of the mystery of iniquity, the image of the beast; and the third angel's message is the warning against the worship of the beast and his image.

 

As the beginning of this was in 1844, then began the time when the mystery of iniquity was to be broken off, and the mystery of God once more to stand forth in all its glory in the world. But Ezekiel and the Laodicean message show that there was to be a time of dearth. But now even that time of dearth is past, and the times of refreshing have come from the presence of the Lord, and soon he will send Jesus.

 

Therefore, now is the time when that everlasting gospel, the mystery of God, is to be preached in all its fullness, which means Christ in men in all His completeness. And as the Sabbath of the Lord, in the fullness of its meaning, is but the sign of what Christ in all His completeness is to those who believe in Him; so when Christ in all His completeness is formed and found in us, there will stand the Sabbath as the witness, the sign, the seal of the blessed consummation.

 

And so this threefold message, revealing in its fullness the mystery of God, which is Christ in men, the hope of glory, thus puts upon the people of God the seal of the living God, and saves them from the evil and the ruin of the mystery of iniquity, the beast and his image, his mark, and the number of his name. —A. T. Jones, The American Sentinel, August 25, 1892, pp. 258,259.

 

 

But behold, Jesus has a people today who are maintaining His Sabbath, and God's idea of the Sabbath as He reveals it to the world. To this people He says by the voice of the angel, "Go ye into all the world, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people." This thing concerns every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, because the influence of this nation is worldwide, and that which this nation has done in this land, will lead all the other nations in the same evil way, and the ruin that falls on this, takes the others in.

 

Well, then, the message now is, Go forth, as certain as it was then, to all the world, because it is doomed. Go, bearing the everlasting gospel to save such as will be saved from the ruin that is fixed by this which has been done.

 

But before those disciples could go, and before they went, Jesus said unto them, "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high;" "but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Then the world is that far along.

 

Now let us look at our side of the question. We too are that far along. They did not go until Pentecost had endowed them with the power. Where are we? — We are in the presence of the second Pentecost. Will you seek for that power? Even as he said to them, you cannot carry this message without it. You cannot be faithful to the Sabbath of the Lord as Jesus Christ was, without His living presence which that Holy Ghost brings. And therefore, His message now is to go to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. And you are called, have been called all these years, to give it. Are you ready to give it? Are you ready to go out to the ends of the earth to give it? God is calling for a people of that kind now; not necessarily preachers. Go. Ask Him whether He wants you to go. Do not go without that. It is only loss to go without the endowment of the Holy Spirit, without the credentials that God gives.

 

But the Lord is calling for hundreds and (sic) families to go into all the world. Then ask him whether He wants you to go. Why are you dallying around here, lingering around some farm and holding on to it, trying to get a living, when you can do it just as well, or even better, somewhere else where God calls you. There are thousands more Seventh-day Adventists in the United States, and even in Michigan, than there should be now; the Lord calls upon His people to scatter and go into all the world. This message means business now; and such business as many have not yet thought of. Persecution for Sabbath-keeping is certainly coming, and that very soon; and we need the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to keep us faithful. And shall we wait for persecution to scatter us abroad, in order to preach the word? God forbid! Let us go by genuine faith, and in the faithfulness of Jesus, who came voluntarily when God called.

 

"Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." Will you? Now the call comes to us! Go to all the earth and preach this gospel to every creature, that there may be saved out of the world such as will escape the ruin that is so certain to fall, and that speedily, too. Yes, it is ever so much nearer than one in a thousand of Seventh-day Adventists ever dreamed of, — ever so much nearer than that. We and this nation are now standing where they were that night when they rejected Jesus Christ, and when the doom of that nation was fixed. We stand now where they stood then, and it is only a question of time as to when that ruin will certainly fall. And that question of time, of longer or shorter, depends to a considerable extent upon what use you and I make of the truth God has given us. Shall we carry this gospel of the kingdom to all the world, that the end may come? When that is done, the end will come. And if you can do it in a little moment, the end will come. If you do not, and the Lord has to wait, and wait, and wait, longer, why, we shall be just that much longer out of the kingdom than we need to be. —A. T. Jones, The Home Missionary, November 11, 1893, pp. 221,222.

 

 

From E. J. Waggoner:

 

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Revelation 14:6, 7.

 

The time when this message is due to the church and the world is when the judgment of God is impending. In past centuries we are told of a "judgment to come," of a day when God will judge the world (Acts 17:31; 24:25), but in this message the judgment of God is come; it is already here. It is the adjudication of cases in the heavenly courts, the accounting worthy of those who have been faithful, and who will be raised to immortality at Christ's coming to give reward. (See Luke 20:35; 1 Corinthians 15:52; Revelation 22:11, 12.)

 

"Fear God," says the divine message, "and give glory to Him." It implies that the church has given glory to men. Tradition has made void the commandments of God. Cold, dead creeds have displaced the living Word. Elaborate rituals have dispossessed simple worship. The pagan solar holiday is accepted as the Lord's holy day in the place of the Sabbath of the Lord, one memorial of Him Who created the heavens and the earth. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.”

 

Reverence of God leads to obedience. "Worship him." Turn from the worship of the false to the true. The highest worship is obedience, or service. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve," are the words which Christ made His own, and which God would have the church make her own, and so return from Babylon, confusion, to Jerusalem, unity and peace.

 

As the everlasting Gospel brought union in the early church, which came from Pharisee, and Sadducee, and Essene, and publican, so if it had been received when first proclaimed in 1840, and onwards, it would have brought into one all the churches of modern Babylon. God did not condemn them for being in Babylon. He desired to call them out. "We would have healed Babylon," is what God said, but the sad result is "she is not healed." Jeremiah 51:9. And so has it been. —E. J. Waggoner, Signs of the Times, November 25, 1897, p. 723.