How can we have spiritual security amid the widespread insecurity found in today’s world? There in none outside of obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ.Jesus made this clear in His story of the two house builders, which He told in His sermon on the mount. Having laid down principles of discipleship, He observed that the man who heard those truths and did not obey them was kike a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. When a storm came, his supposed security became utter destruction.
The man who heard Jesus words and obeyed them was like a wise man who “built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock” (Luke 6:48). He had real security amid insecurity.
Every person who understands the truths we have set forth in these pages will be like one or the other of these two men. The most essential thing for you and me is that we be obedient to these truths to the en and so maintain eternal security.
When you are on your way to a particular destination, you want to have the certainty of being on the right road, when you put your money in a bank, you want certainty that the bank is sound. You want certainty concerning your exact balance. You want certainty in the title to land you purchase.
As eternal life is more important than temporal life, so certainty in or religious beliefs is much more important than certainty in our temporal concerns. But how can we have this needed certainty in the religious way we choose to follow?
Those who accepted the message of John the Baptist, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord” Matt. 3:4), had accepted a message settled I the highest possible certainty and security. Why? Because they had accepted the very message the god of all truth had appointed in Isaiah 40:3 to be preached, believed, and obeyed at that time. In that, they had the highest authentication and endorsement from God.
Even so, those who accept the threefold message we are discussing, and identify themselves with those who are bearing it, have the highest possible grounds for certainty and security for their decision. This is so because they have accepted the very message that the God of all truth has appointed to be preached, believed, and obeyed at this time.
While clinging to Christ’s timeless truths from former generations, we must guard against neglecting to obey His truths for our day. It was thus that the vast majority of God’s professed people made a serious mistake at that crucial hour when the Messiah was to be manifested. They clung to truths from former times, as they interpreted them, but refused to accept God’s truth for their time, as foretold in Isaiah 40:3 and proclaimed by John the Baptist. In so doing they “rejected the counsel of God against themselves” (Luke 7:30).
What a sad fate! What a warning to the millions of Christians today who stand for Christ’s timeless truths but make a serious mistake in failing to heed Christ’s truths for our day, as set forth in His threefold message.
Suppose it is the time when John is sounding the message “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” and you live in Judea. You go to ten of the most learned theologians in Jerusalem and ask them, “It there any real connection between the preaching of John the Baptist and the message he is using from Isaiah?”
You get a series of negative answers. They cannot see the fulfillement of Isaiah 40:3 in the message of John, or if they do, they close their eyes to it.
Even so today, if you were to ask many theologians, “Is the preaching of the Adventists a fulfilment of Revelation 14:6-12?” there would doubtless be a series of negative responses. It is as Jesus prayed, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so. Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Matt. 11:25-26).
In the preaching of John and Jesus and His apostles, and of Seventh-day Adventists, the people heard, or are hearing, truths fulfilling what Christ had appointed to be preached and believed and obeyed in their respective times. Yet, the pattern is that the vast majority of God’s professed followers do not accept these truths.
Are the words of Jesus, applying a prophecy of Isaiah to the Jews of His day, being fulfilled in the lives of professed Christians today? “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaies, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest ant any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear” (Matt. 13:14-16).
The disciples of Jesus were not just another religious sect, such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, or the Essenes. They were God’s appointed messengers for the times, despite their appointed messengers for the times, despite their apparent feebleness and unpopularity, and the opposition they received. Even so, Sevenht-day Adventists, who are proclaiming the God-appointed message of preparation for Christ’s second advent, are not merely another denomination. They represent God’s last-day, threefold-message movement of Revelation 14. The threefold message is not merely interdenominational, but supradenominational it is for “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (verse 6).
Becoming an Adventist is not like joining some club or society. It is becoming a part of God’s last-day movement. Seventh-day Adventists are organized as a world church, its focus being the communicating of Revelation’s threefold message to all the world.
If the Jewish religious teachers in the time of John had preached “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” there would have been no need for John’s special mission. Similarly, if the Protestant churches had preached the timely truths of Revelation 14:6-12, there would have been no need for a church called Seventh-day Adventists.
If the prophecies of Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 – “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” – had not been in the Old Testament, john would not have come preaching his message, for God always paves the way for His messengers. So, if the prophecy of Revelation 14:6-12 had not been in the Bible, the Adventists would not be here preaching these distinctive truths. There in no justification for their existence as a separate people aside from this last-day, world-wide, threefold-message movement, as God foretold many centuries ago in Revelation.
It was no mere coincidence that preceding 1844 there was a great awakening concening the impending return of Jesus. In early March, 1844, about forty Christians in Washington, New Hampshire, began to observe the seventh-day Sabbath. As the years went by, other Christians followed their example. For about sixteen years they were not organized and had no official name.
In October, 1860, these Sabbathkeepers adopted the name Seventh-day Adventists. A year later the Sabbathkeepers in Michigan were organized into a conference. That first group on New Hampshire Adventists has grown into a worldwide church of more 20 million Sabbathkeepers scattered in practically every nation.
This Advent Movement, as it is sometimes called, is not something that originated with men – it was heaven-born. It is not here by happenstance or accident. It is here because the prophecy of Revelation 14 called for such a movement in this end-time, and “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). When the time comes for a certain prophecy to be fulfilled, it never fails.
Note one example: When Christ made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, even the children shouted for joy, “Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” (Matt. 21:9). Some, objecting to this shouting, asked Jesus to command the people to stop. But He said, “If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40).
That event had to take place at that time because, five hundred years before, the prophet Zechariah had foretold that when the Messiah would make His entry into Jerusalem, the people would shout for joy (cap. 9:9). The hour for the fulfilment of the prophecy had come. The shouting had to be done, prophecy had come. The shouting had to be done, event if by a miracle the stones should do the shouting.
The prophecy of Revelation 14:6-12 includes a call to “worship him that made heaven and earth” (verse 7). These words echo Exodus 20:11, and are a clear call to honor the Creator and to worship Him on the day He hallowed. This is a major reason why that company of Sabbatkeepers who came into existence in 1844 in an obscure New Hampshire village has grown into a worldwide movement.
This threefold message is the ultimate answer to worldwide strife, confusion, crime, greed, and all troubles. The preaching of this present truth to all the world will bring the return of our blessed Lord. Then sickness, sorrow, old age, and death will be banished forever for all of God’s people. Then all the saved from all generations will stand triumphant before the throne of God. Close to the throne will be those who were true to the threefold message: “I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the best, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints” (Rev. 15:2, 3).
This group will have suffered trials, persecutions, hardships, imprisonment, and even death for obedience to God. But all of these things failed to turn them from the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
In this message are found new dimensions in righteousness by faith that are truth for this time. This aspect could not have been preached by Luther, Calvin, Knox, or Wesley, because in their day the time had not yet come for the preaching of what God calls for in His message of Revelation 14:6-12 for this end-time.
This is true for two main reasons. First, the dimensions of righteousness by faith in the light of the cleansing of the sanctuary and the arrived hour of God’s judgment were not due in any reformation of past centuries. Second, the truth of the seventh-day Sabbath had largely been lost sight of.
God is giving a new initiative to the preaching of truth in these last days and calls all to obey His commandments. This includes the keeping of Christ’s true Sabbath as an outward sign of the inner experience of righteousness by faith. Unless God’s judgement-hour message, including the truth of Christ’s mediatorial ministry in the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, is preached, and unless obedience in Christ to all the Ten Commandments, including the true Lord’s day, is presented, there is a lack in the message.
In the days of the apostles the acceptance of Christ’s truths for their day, plus adherence to Christ’s timeless truths in their application to that time, was “the way of the Lord” (Acts 18:25; cf. 24:14) and “present truth (2 Peter 1:12) for all people at that time. So today adherence to the timeless truths of the gospel from former times, plus the acceptance of Christ’s truths for our day in His threefold message, is “the way of the Lord,” “present truth” for all people. These truths are the unshakable foundation of the Adventist faith.
In the time of John the Baptist there was no other religious teaching that fulfilled Isaiah 40:3, and that showed the people what God wanted them to do. This presented to each Jew a most impelling incentive for making a decision to become one of John’s disciples in preference to belonging to one of the disciples in preference to belonging to one of the Jewish sects. What else could a truly honest follower Of the Lord do but respond to the call of God in the teachings of John?
So it is now. There is no religious group aside from Seventh-day Adventists that is proclaiming to every nation the truths of Christ’s threefold message of Revelation 14:6-12. This is a most impelling incentive for every honest-hearted person to make a decision to belong to this last-day-message movement. What else can he do but respond to the call of God to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus?
On Christmas night, 1978, an American radio and television network devoted a segment of its world news to the peril of the bizarre cults. It was reported that there are 3.000 of these cults ensnaring millions, which is a matter of real concern to the established denominations. The network interviewed certain leaders of Catholicism, Judaism, and Protestantism concerning the remedy. None had a decisive answer.
God’s threefold message of Revelation 14 is God’s answer to the errors in the religious teachings God’s answer to the errors in the religious teachings of our day. His last-day message is the best defence against the delusion of all the un-Biblical cults, and against the admixture of truth and error in the mainline churches.
In this time of uncertainty and swift change, many are looking for a religion that meets their needs. They are asking themselves, “Where can I find something secure that I can follow?”
This is a modern version of the question asked by King Zedekiah, of Judah, when the Babylonians were about to overthrow his kingdom: “Is there any word from the Lord?” (Jer. 37:17). Yes, there is the clear and decisive word for our day in the message of Revelation 14. wise and secure are they who take an unyielding stand upon that message – the keeping of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (verse 12).
Are you one of these? In not, then take that step now. “To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 3:15).
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