Study Focus: 2 Peter 1:12, Revelation 14:6-12, Revelation 14:14-20, Revelation 19:11-18.
Part I: Overview
In our Sabbath School Bible study guide this quarter, we have especially focused on Jesus as our example in relating to people, revealing the character of God, and explaining the eternal truths of His kingdom. His witness was not only the witness of His words. It was the witness of His life. His actions revealed the truthfulness of His Words. His life was a testimony that what He taught was true. As Jesus sacrificially ministered to those around Him, hearts were touched. The barriers of prejudice were broken down and multitudes responded to His gospel appeals.
All effective witness flows from a heart that is filled with love for Christ and His Word. New Testament believers were passionate about witness because they were passionate about Jesus. In Christ, they saw the fulfillment of prophecies, centuries old. In His life and teachings, they were eyewitnesses to the glory of God. Describing the experience of the early church, the apostle Peter says that they were established in “present truth.” Present truth is an expression that he uses to define truth that is both relevant and urgent for that generation. Christ had come. There was nothing more important for them to proclaim when they shared their faith. Jesus the Messiah was the fulfillment of prophecy. Salvation was available to all.
In our lesson this week, we will study Jesus’ final message to a dying world. We will discover His “present truth” message for an end-time generation, preparing for His return. We will discover anew the message of His everlasting love, His abounding grace, and His eternal truth in the Bible’s last book—Revelation and, specifically, in Revelation 14:6-12.
Part II: Commentary
The book of Revelation is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1). Each prophecy of the Bible’s last book uncovers gems of truth about Jesus. This is especially true about Jesus’ final message in Revelation 14. Revelation 14:6, 7 states, “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (Rev. 14:6, 7, NKJV).
Here is a message that is urgent—the angel flies in mid-heaven. It is eternal—the angel has the everlasting gospel, and it is universal. It is to be proclaimed to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.
The Eternal Gospel
The phrase “everlasting gospel” speaks of the past, the present, and the future. When God created humanity with the capacity to make moral choices, He anticipated that they would make errant choices. Once His creatures had the capacity to choose, they had the capacity to rebel against His loving nature. The plan of salvation was conceived in the mind of God before our first parent’s rebellion in Eden. (See Rev. 13:8.)
Ellen G. White states it this way: “The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ‘the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.’ Rom. 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne.”—The Desire of Ages, p. 22.
The phrase “everlasting gospel” speaks of a God who loves the beings He has created so much that although He fully knew the consequences of their choices, He made provision for their eventual rebellion even before they sinned.
There is another sense in which the gospel is everlasting. To a generation starved for genuine, authentic love, longing for meaningful relationships, the gospel speaks of acceptance, forgiveness, belonging, grace, and life-changing power. It speaks of a God of unconditional love who cares so deeply for humanity that He will go to any length to redeem us because He wants us with Him forever.
Into All the World
According to the urgent, end-time message of the first of these three angels, the “everlasting gospel” is to be proclaimed to “every nation, tribe, tongue and people.” Here is a mission so grand, so large, so great, so comprehensive that it is all-consuming. It demands our best efforts and requires our total commitment. It leads us from a preoccupation with our own self-interest to a passion for Christ’s service. It inspires us with something larger than ourselves and leads us out of the narrow confines of our own minds to a grander vision.
There is nothing more inspiring, more fulfilling, more rewarding than being part of a divine movement, providentially raised up by God to accomplish a task far bigger, far larger than any one human being could ever accomplish on his or her own. The commission given by God described in Revelation 14 is the greatest task ever committed to His church.
Fear God
The aged apostle John, a prisoner on Patmos, continues his urgent end-time appeal in Revelation 14:7 by declaring that the angel says, “with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (NKJV). The Greek New Testament word for “fear” in Revelation 14:7 is phobeo. It is used here not in the sense of being afraid of God but in the sense of reverence, awe, and respect. It conveys the thought of absolute loyalty to God and full surrender to His will. It is an attitude of mind that is God-centered rather than self-centered. The essence of the great controversy revolves around submission to God. Lucifer was self-centered. He refused to submit to any authority except his own. Rather than submit to the One upon the throne, Lucifer desired to rule from the throne.
The first angel’s message calls us to make God the center of our lives. In an age of materialism and consumerism when secular values have made self the center, heaven’s appeal is to turn from the tyranny of self-centeredness and the bondage of self-inflated importance to place God at the center of our lives.
Giving Glory to God
Giving glory to God speaks of our actions. Giving glory to God also deals with how our inner convictions translate into a lifestyle that honors God in everything we do.
The apostle Paul explains what it means to give God glory in his urgent appeal to the church at Corinth. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31, NKJV). When God is the center of our lives, our one desire is to give glory to Him in every aspect of our lives, whether that has to do with our diet, our dress, our entertainment, or our music. We give glory to God as we reveal His character of love to the world through lives committed to doing His will.
An End-Time Judgment
Our passage continues, “ ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come’ ” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV). The issues in the great controversy between good and evil will be finally settled. The universe will finally see that God is both merciful and just. He is both loving and righteous. He is both compassionate and fair. The judgment reveals that God has done everything He possibly can to save every human being. It reveals before a waiting world and a watching universe that God will go to any lengths to save us. There is nothing more that He could have done to redeem us. The judgment sweeps the curtain aside and reveals the cosmic drama in the great controversy between good and evil. It reveals God’s character of self-sacrificing love in contrast to Satan’s selfish ambition. In the judgment, all wrongs will be made right. Righteousness will triumph over evil. The powers of hell will be defeated. Injustice will not have the last word— God will. All of life’s unfairness will be gone forever.
Revelation 14:7 ends with an appeal to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (NKJV). This is a clarion call to worship the Creator at a time when most of the scientific world and the religious world has accepted the theory of Darwinian evolution.
Creation speaks of our value in God’s sight. It speaks of our worth to Him. We are not alone in the universe. We are not some speck of cosmic dust. No, God created us. He fashioned us. He made us. We did not evolve. We are not a genetic accident. Creation is at the heart of all true worship. The Sabbath speaks of a Creator’s care and a Redeemer’s love. It reminds us that we are not cosmic orphans on some spinning globe of rock. It points us to a Creator who created us with a purpose and loved us too much to abandon us when we drifted from that purpose. The Sabbath reminds us of the One who has provided all the good things of life for us. Sabbath is an eternal symbol of our rest in Him.
True Sabbath rest is the rest of grace in the loving arms of the One who created us, the One who redeemed us, and the One who is coming again for us. It is the eternal link between the perfection of Eden in the past and the glory of the new heavens and the new earth in the future. The three angels’ messages present the gospel in an end-time setting that meets the heart needs of a postmodern generation desperate for belonging, identity, community, purpose, fairness, justice, compassion, and worth.
Part III: Life Application
All present truth is present because it makes a difference in our lives in the present. New Testament Christians who believed the prophecies of the Old Testament testified to Christ as the Messiah and were radically changed. They believed that the message of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and high-priestly ministry make an eternal difference. The reason they were so passionate about witnessing is because the message they shared made such a difference in their own lives. Discuss the following questions with your class.
What difference does the end-time message of Revelation practically make in our day-to-day lives?
Describe aspects of this first angel’s message that impress you most?
Suppose you have a friend who knows little about the Bible but has heard about the prophecies of Revelation and does not know how to make sense of them. How can the message of Revelation 14:6, 7 be the key that unlocks the theme of the entire book of Revelation?
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Key Text: Revelation 14:1-12
Study Focus: 2 Peter 1:12, Revelation 14:6-12, Revelation 14:14-20, Revelation 19:11-18.
Part I: Overview
In our Sabbath School Bible study guide this quarter, we have especially focused on Jesus as our example in relating to people, revealing the character of God, and explaining the eternal truths of His kingdom. His witness was not only the witness of His words. It was the witness of His life. His actions revealed the truthfulness of His Words. His life was a testimony that what He taught was true. As Jesus sacrificially ministered to those around Him, hearts were touched. The barriers of prejudice were broken down and multitudes responded to His gospel appeals.
All effective witness flows from a heart that is filled with love for Christ and His Word. New Testament believers were passionate about witness because they were passionate about Jesus. In Christ, they saw the fulfillment of prophecies, centuries old. In His life and teachings, they were eyewitnesses to the glory of God. Describing the experience of the early church, the apostle Peter says that they were established in “present truth.” Present truth is an expression that he uses to define truth that is both relevant and urgent for that generation. Christ had come. There was nothing more important for them to proclaim when they shared their faith. Jesus the Messiah was the fulfillment of prophecy. Salvation was available to all.
In our lesson this week, we will study Jesus’ final message to a dying world. We will discover His “present truth” message for an end-time generation, preparing for His return. We will discover anew the message of His everlasting love, His abounding grace, and His eternal truth in the Bible’s last book—Revelation and, specifically, in Revelation 14:6-12.
Part II: Commentary
The book of Revelation is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:1). Each prophecy of the Bible’s last book uncovers gems of truth about Jesus. This is especially true about Jesus’ final message in Revelation 14. Revelation 14:6, 7 states, “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (Rev. 14:6, 7, NKJV).
Here is a message that is urgent—the angel flies in mid-heaven. It is eternal—the angel has the everlasting gospel, and it is universal. It is to be proclaimed to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people.
The Eternal Gospel
The phrase “everlasting gospel” speaks of the past, the present, and the future. When God created humanity with the capacity to make moral choices, He anticipated that they would make errant choices. Once His creatures had the capacity to choose, they had the capacity to rebel against His loving nature. The plan of salvation was conceived in the mind of God before our first parent’s rebellion in Eden. (See Rev. 13:8.)
Ellen G. White states it this way: “The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ‘the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.’ Rom. 16:25, R. V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God's throne.”—The Desire of Ages, p. 22.
The phrase “everlasting gospel” speaks of a God who loves the beings He has created so much that although He fully knew the consequences of their choices, He made provision for their eventual rebellion even before they sinned.
There is another sense in which the gospel is everlasting. To a generation starved for genuine, authentic love, longing for meaningful relationships, the gospel speaks of acceptance, forgiveness, belonging, grace, and life-changing power. It speaks of a God of unconditional love who cares so deeply for humanity that He will go to any length to redeem us because He wants us with Him forever.
Into All the World
According to the urgent, end-time message of the first of these three angels, the “everlasting gospel” is to be proclaimed to “every nation, tribe, tongue and people.” Here is a mission so grand, so large, so great, so comprehensive that it is all-consuming. It demands our best efforts and requires our total commitment. It leads us from a preoccupation with our own self-interest to a passion for Christ’s service. It inspires us with something larger than ourselves and leads us out of the narrow confines of our own minds to a grander vision.
There is nothing more inspiring, more fulfilling, more rewarding than being part of a divine movement, providentially raised up by God to accomplish a task far bigger, far larger than any one human being could ever accomplish on his or her own. The commission given by God described in Revelation 14 is the greatest task ever committed to His church.
Fear God
The aged apostle John, a prisoner on Patmos, continues his urgent end-time appeal in Revelation 14:7 by declaring that the angel says, “with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (NKJV). The Greek New Testament word for “fear” in Revelation 14:7 is phobeo. It is used here not in the sense of being afraid of God but in the sense of reverence, awe, and respect. It conveys the thought of absolute loyalty to God and full surrender to His will. It is an attitude of mind that is God-centered rather than self-centered. The essence of the great controversy revolves around submission to God. Lucifer was self-centered. He refused to submit to any authority except his own. Rather than submit to the One upon the throne, Lucifer desired to rule from the throne.
The first angel’s message calls us to make God the center of our lives. In an age of materialism and consumerism when secular values have made self the center, heaven’s appeal is to turn from the tyranny of self-centeredness and the bondage of self-inflated importance to place God at the center of our lives.
Giving Glory to God
Giving glory to God speaks of our actions. Giving glory to God also deals with how our inner convictions translate into a lifestyle that honors God in everything we do.
The apostle Paul explains what it means to give God glory in his urgent appeal to the church at Corinth. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31, NKJV). When God is the center of our lives, our one desire is to give glory to Him in every aspect of our lives, whether that has to do with our diet, our dress, our entertainment, or our music. We give glory to God as we reveal His character of love to the world through lives committed to doing His will.
An End-Time Judgment
Our passage continues, “ ‘Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come’ ” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV). The issues in the great controversy between good and evil will be finally settled. The universe will finally see that God is both merciful and just. He is both loving and righteous. He is both compassionate and fair. The judgment reveals that God has done everything He possibly can to save every human being. It reveals before a waiting world and a watching universe that God will go to any lengths to save us. There is nothing more that He could have done to redeem us. The judgment sweeps the curtain aside and reveals the cosmic drama in the great controversy between good and evil. It reveals God’s character of self-sacrificing love in contrast to Satan’s selfish ambition. In the judgment, all wrongs will be made right. Righteousness will triumph over evil. The powers of hell will be defeated. Injustice will not have the last word— God will. All of life’s unfairness will be gone forever.
Revelation 14:7 ends with an appeal to “worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (NKJV). This is a clarion call to worship the Creator at a time when most of the scientific world and the religious world has accepted the theory of Darwinian evolution.
Creation speaks of our value in God’s sight. It speaks of our worth to Him. We are not alone in the universe. We are not some speck of cosmic dust. No, God created us. He fashioned us. He made us. We did not evolve. We are not a genetic accident. Creation is at the heart of all true worship. The Sabbath speaks of a Creator’s care and a Redeemer’s love. It reminds us that we are not cosmic orphans on some spinning globe of rock. It points us to a Creator who created us with a purpose and loved us too much to abandon us when we drifted from that purpose. The Sabbath reminds us of the One who has provided all the good things of life for us. Sabbath is an eternal symbol of our rest in Him.
True Sabbath rest is the rest of grace in the loving arms of the One who created us, the One who redeemed us, and the One who is coming again for us. It is the eternal link between the perfection of Eden in the past and the glory of the new heavens and the new earth in the future. The three angels’ messages present the gospel in an end-time setting that meets the heart needs of a postmodern generation desperate for belonging, identity, community, purpose, fairness, justice, compassion, and worth.
Part III: Life Application
All present truth is present because it makes a difference in our lives in the present. New Testament Christians who believed the prophecies of the Old Testament testified to Christ as the Messiah and were radically changed. They believed that the message of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and high-priestly ministry make an eternal difference. The reason they were so passionate about witnessing is because the message they shared made such a difference in their own lives. Discuss the following questions with your class.