In this week’s study, we begin a detailed study of the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6–12. Throughout Scripture, angels are portrayed as messengers of God. In the book of Revelation, angels flying in midair represent a heavenly message of divine origin, swiftly carried to the ends of the earth. These messages, of course, are to be proclaimed by God’s last-day people.
Just before the coming of Jesus, the message of the everlasting gospel, in the context of the judgment, speedily spans the globe. One of the focal points of this week’s study is to discover the depths of the gospel message. What is the gospel? Why is it called everlasting? Why must every human being on planet Earth be given the opportunity to respond to the gospel? Why does the salvation of each person, living in the last days of this earth’s history, depend upon his or her response? This week’s study will answer these questions and provide an in-depth understanding of the expression “the everlasting gospel.”
A second feature of this week’s study will be bettering our understanding of Christ’s mission to His last-day church. The angel flying in midheaven with the everlasting gospel proclaims this end-time truth to “every nation, tribe, tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6, NKJV). There is a largeness to this message. It calls us to give our best for the kingdom of God. It invites us to cooperate with Christ in His final appeal to humankind. This message appeals to us to place priority on God’s mission of redeeming lost humanity because that is where His priority is.
Part II: Commentary
God places His identifiable stamp of approval on His people to distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit. In the days of ancient Israel, when the heathen nations around them were polytheists who worshiped multiple gods, Israel’s clear, identifiable, powerful statement of faith was found in Deuteronomy 6:4, also known as the Shema.
Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, Jewish families repeated: “ ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!’ ” (Deut. 6:4, NKJV).
“ ‘Hear, O Israel.’ ” Throughout the centuries of their exile, the chanting of the Shema reminded Jews of the spiritual vision and path that united them as a people. The chanting of the Shema also strengthened the people’s resolve to resist the various attempts to force them to abandon their spiritual vision and path.
Deuteronomy 6:4 was one of the first verses that a Jewish child in ancient Israel was taught as soon as he or she learned how to speak. In addition, Jewish mothers continually taught their young children to chant the Shema before going to sleep.
There is an amazing example of the power of this faith identity point that took place immediately after the Second World War ended in 1945. Some leading rabbis visited Christian orphanages in search of Jewish children. During the war, many Jewish parents in Europe had placed their children in Christian orphanages to save them from the Nazis. It was the hope of these parents that they would later be reunited with their children after the war. If they (the parents) did not survive, they hoped that surviving relatives or friends would find their children.
After the war, most of the priests and nuns who ran these orphanages were unwilling to release the Jewish children back into the custody of their families. The priests and nuns often denied that they had any Jewish children in residence. During one visit, a leading rabbi asked the priest in charge of an orphanage to allow him to return in the evening when the children were going to sleep. The priest reluctantly agreed to the rabbi’s request. When the rabbi returned, he entered the children’s room, and as he walked through the aisles of beds, he chanted the Hebrew words of the Shema. One by one, children burst into tears and cried out, “Mama!” Many repeated the words of the Shema. The priests were caught completely by surprise. They were unable to erase these children’s memories of their Jewish mothers putting them to bed every night with the Shema on their lips. The head priest had no choice but to admit that he was “mistaken”; thus, these lost children of Israel were able to return “home” to their people and to their Torah.
Burned into the consciousness of these children, indelibly impressed upon their minds, were those words that confirmed their Jewish identity. “ ‘The Lord our God, the Lord is one!’ ” (Deut. 6:4, NKJV).
The Three Angels’ Messages: Our Rallying Point
For Seventh-day Adventists, the three angels’ messages in Revelation 14 are our Shema—our rallying point. They are our identifying statement of faith. They define who we are as a people and describe our mission to the world.
We find our unique prophetic identity outlined in Revelation 14:6–12, and it is here that we find our passion to proclaim the gospel to the entire world. Ellen G. White puts it this way: “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.”—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 19.
These messages are urgent, eternal, and universal. At their heart is the everlasting gospel. What is the gospel? It is the eternal good news of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, high priestly ministry, and soon return. It is the good news that Jesus saves us from our sin and empowers us to overcome. To understand the gospel is to grasp the significance of God’s undying, unfathomable, exhaustless love for us. The gospel begins in the heart of God. Before we have reached out to Him, He is reaching out to us. Before we ever sought Him, He was seeking us. Before we ever made one move toward Him, He was drawing us to Himself through the power of His love. The apostle John attests to this truth in these memorable words: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, NKJV). In Romans 5, the apostle Paul adds, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8, NKJV).
In the gospel, God, in Christ, takes the initiative in our salvation. Christ lived the perfect life we should have lived, died the death we should have died, draws us to Himself through the Holy Spirit, and, through His love, grace, and power, transforms our lives. Through the Cross, sin’s hold on our lives is broken. By receiving God’s grace, accepting His sacrifice, and believing His promise of eternal life, we become His sons and daughters.
This message of the everlasting gospel is at the heart of the three angels’ messages. These end-time messages are all about Jesus. They lead us to abandon all human pride and self-righteousness. They compel us to trust Jesus completely for our salvation. They lead us by faith to accept His righteousness in the place of our unrighteous behavior. The perfection of Christ’s life is ours when we receive Him as our crucified Redeemer. The gospel invites us to come to Jesus just as we are, but it does not leave us there. In response to Jesus’ love, we will desire to live godly lives. His grace not only covers our past, but it also works as a dynamic principle in our lives, empowering us to obey. The apostle Paul makes this point clear in Romans 1:5: “Through Him [Jesus] we have received grace and apostleship for obedience” (NKJV). The grace of God teaches us that we should “live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:12, NKJV). This is the incredibly good news of the gospel.
When we are saved by His grace, charmed by His love, and changed by His power, our natural response is to share with others what Christ has done for us. Our Christian witness is the overflow of a heart filled with God’s love. When the gospel breaks our hard, sin-polluted hearts, we long to tell the story of His grace. Understanding the everlasting gospel is the very foundation of our witness to the world. The gospel of Revelation 14:6 that is proclaimed to the ends of the earth is a gospel that each one of us has experienced personally in our own lives. The heart of this week’s study is understanding the gospel, experiencing the gospel, and sharing the gospel in the context of Christ’s soon return.
Part III: Life Application
For Personal Reflection: As you have studied this lesson together with your students, it is possible that many of your class members have wondered about their own salvation. Perhaps they have lacked the assurance that their sins are forgiven. Maybe they have experienced some deep sorrows in life and asked, “Where was God when we were going through the dark valleys?” Or is it possible that your students are struggling with some hidden habit or negative attitude that they seem unable to overcome?
Remind your students that the gospel is for everyone. The Christ that died for others, died for them too. His love is for each of His children. So is His grace and His power.
Ask for a volunteer to read aloud this quotation from Ellen G. White: “Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent. We may come with all our weakness, our folly, our sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.”—Steps to Christ, p. 52. This is the beauty of the gospel. We need not fear. Jesus does not stand with the whipping belt of guilt to condemn us. He stands with arms wide open to encircle us in His love, to forgive us, empower us, and send us out as mighty witnesses for Him in these last days to testify of the glory of His grace.
Ask your students to privately reflect on the following questions in class and throughout the coming week:
1. Do I have the assurance of salvation right now at this moment? If yes, why? If not, what is keeping me from believing that Jesus is waiting to bind up my wounds and encircle me in His arms of love?
2. How have I served this week as a witness to others of God’s forgiveness, mercy, and love? What else can I do to share His grace with people in my sphere?
Notes
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In this week’s study, we begin a detailed study of the three angels’ messages of Revelation 14:6–12. Throughout Scripture, angels are portrayed as messengers of God. In the book of Revelation, angels flying in midair represent a heavenly message of divine origin, swiftly carried to the ends of the earth. These messages, of course, are to be proclaimed by God’s last-day people.
Just before the coming of Jesus, the message of the everlasting gospel, in the context of the judgment, speedily spans the globe. One of the focal points of this week’s study is to discover the depths of the gospel message. What is the gospel? Why is it called everlasting? Why must every human being on planet Earth be given the opportunity to respond to the gospel? Why does the salvation of each person, living in the last days of this earth’s history, depend upon his or her response? This week’s study will answer these questions and provide an in-depth understanding of the expression “the everlasting gospel.”
A second feature of this week’s study will be bettering our understanding of Christ’s mission to His last-day church. The angel flying in midheaven with the everlasting gospel proclaims this end-time truth to “every nation, tribe, tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6, NKJV). There is a largeness to this message. It calls us to give our best for the kingdom of God. It invites us to cooperate with Christ in His final appeal to humankind. This message appeals to us to place priority on God’s mission of redeeming lost humanity because that is where His priority is.
Part II: Commentary
God places His identifiable stamp of approval on His people to distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit. In the days of ancient Israel, when the heathen nations around them were polytheists who worshiped multiple gods, Israel’s clear, identifiable, powerful statement of faith was found in Deuteronomy 6:4, also known as the Shema.
Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, Jewish families repeated: “ ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!’ ” (Deut. 6:4, NKJV).
“ ‘Hear, O Israel.’ ” Throughout the centuries of their exile, the chanting of the Shema reminded Jews of the spiritual vision and path that united them as a people. The chanting of the Shema also strengthened the people’s resolve to resist the various attempts to force them to abandon their spiritual vision and path.
Deuteronomy 6:4 was one of the first verses that a Jewish child in ancient Israel was taught as soon as he or she learned how to speak. In addition, Jewish mothers continually taught their young children to chant the Shema before going to sleep.
There is an amazing example of the power of this faith identity point that took place immediately after the Second World War ended in 1945. Some leading rabbis visited Christian orphanages in search of Jewish children. During the war, many Jewish parents in Europe had placed their children in Christian orphanages to save them from the Nazis. It was the hope of these parents that they would later be reunited with their children after the war. If they (the parents) did not survive, they hoped that surviving relatives or friends would find their children.
After the war, most of the priests and nuns who ran these orphanages were unwilling to release the Jewish children back into the custody of their families. The priests and nuns often denied that they had any Jewish children in residence. During one visit, a leading rabbi asked the priest in charge of an orphanage to allow him to return in the evening when the children were going to sleep. The priest reluctantly agreed to the rabbi’s request. When the rabbi returned, he entered the children’s room, and as he walked through the aisles of beds, he chanted the Hebrew words of the Shema. One by one, children burst into tears and cried out, “Mama!” Many repeated the words of the Shema. The priests were caught completely by surprise. They were unable to erase these children’s memories of their Jewish mothers putting them to bed every night with the Shema on their lips. The head priest had no choice but to admit that he was “mistaken”; thus, these lost children of Israel were able to return “home” to their people and to their Torah.
Burned into the consciousness of these children, indelibly impressed upon their minds, were those words that confirmed their Jewish identity. “ ‘The Lord our God, the Lord is one!’ ” (Deut. 6:4, NKJV).
The Three Angels’ Messages: Our Rallying Point
For Seventh-day Adventists, the three angels’ messages in Revelation 14 are our Shema—our rallying point. They are our identifying statement of faith. They define who we are as a people and describe our mission to the world.
We find our unique prophetic identity outlined in Revelation 14:6–12, and it is here that we find our passion to proclaim the gospel to the entire world. Ellen G. White puts it this way: “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.”—Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9, p. 19.
These messages are urgent, eternal, and universal. At their heart is the everlasting gospel. What is the gospel? It is the eternal good news of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, high priestly ministry, and soon return. It is the good news that Jesus saves us from our sin and empowers us to overcome. To understand the gospel is to grasp the significance of God’s undying, unfathomable, exhaustless love for us. The gospel begins in the heart of God. Before we have reached out to Him, He is reaching out to us. Before we ever sought Him, He was seeking us. Before we ever made one move toward Him, He was drawing us to Himself through the power of His love. The apostle John attests to this truth in these memorable words: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, NKJV). In Romans 5, the apostle Paul adds, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8, NKJV).
In the gospel, God, in Christ, takes the initiative in our salvation. Christ lived the perfect life we should have lived, died the death we should have died, draws us to Himself through the Holy Spirit, and, through His love, grace, and power, transforms our lives. Through the Cross, sin’s hold on our lives is broken. By receiving God’s grace, accepting His sacrifice, and believing His promise of eternal life, we become His sons and daughters.
This message of the everlasting gospel is at the heart of the three angels’ messages. These end-time messages are all about Jesus. They lead us to abandon all human pride and self-righteousness. They compel us to trust Jesus completely for our salvation. They lead us by faith to accept His righteousness in the place of our unrighteous behavior. The perfection of Christ’s life is ours when we receive Him as our crucified Redeemer. The gospel invites us to come to Jesus just as we are, but it does not leave us there. In response to Jesus’ love, we will desire to live godly lives. His grace not only covers our past, but it also works as a dynamic principle in our lives, empowering us to obey. The apostle Paul makes this point clear in Romans 1:5: “Through Him [Jesus] we have received grace and apostleship for obedience” (NKJV). The grace of God teaches us that we should “live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:12, NKJV). This is the incredibly good news of the gospel.
When we are saved by His grace, charmed by His love, and changed by His power, our natural response is to share with others what Christ has done for us. Our Christian witness is the overflow of a heart filled with God’s love. When the gospel breaks our hard, sin-polluted hearts, we long to tell the story of His grace. Understanding the everlasting gospel is the very foundation of our witness to the world. The gospel of Revelation 14:6 that is proclaimed to the ends of the earth is a gospel that each one of us has experienced personally in our own lives. The heart of this week’s study is understanding the gospel, experiencing the gospel, and sharing the gospel in the context of Christ’s soon return.
Part III: Life Application
For Personal Reflection: As you have studied this lesson together with your students, it is possible that many of your class members have wondered about their own salvation. Perhaps they have lacked the assurance that their sins are forgiven. Maybe they have experienced some deep sorrows in life and asked, “Where was God when we were going through the dark valleys?” Or is it possible that your students are struggling with some hidden habit or negative attitude that they seem unable to overcome?
Remind your students that the gospel is for everyone. The Christ that died for others, died for them too. His love is for each of His children. So is His grace and His power.
Ask for a volunteer to read aloud this quotation from Ellen G. White: “Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent. We may come with all our weakness, our folly, our sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.”—Steps to Christ, p. 52. This is the beauty of the gospel. We need not fear. Jesus does not stand with the whipping belt of guilt to condemn us. He stands with arms wide open to encircle us in His love, to forgive us, empower us, and send us out as mighty witnesses for Him in these last days to testify of the glory of His grace.
Ask your students to privately reflect on the following questions in class and throughout the coming week:
1. Do I have the assurance of salvation right now at this moment? If yes, why? If not, what is keeping me from believing that Jesus is waiting to bind up my wounds and encircle me in His arms of love?
2. How have I served this week as a witness to others of God’s forgiveness, mercy, and love? What else can I do to share His grace with people in my sphere?
Notes