Parallel Warnings - Number Three

We closed the last article identifying that all three of the angels of Revelation fourteen have a message in their hands. The second and third angel are identified as having a “parchment,” with them as they descend with their message. Each angel represents a message, and the arrival of each message causes an effect. The first angel arrived in 1798. That message was unsealed and there was an increase of knowledge concerning the impending judgment. That increase of knowledge produced two classes of worshippers. When the second angel arrived the message of the Protestants’ fall was unsealed and there was an increase of knowledge and two classes were produced. When the Midnight Cry message arrived on October 22, 1844, it was unsealed at Exeter camp meeting and there was an increase of knowledge and two classes of virgins were produced. When the third angel arrived on October 22, 1844 the message of the third angel and all that it represents was unsealed and there was an increase of knowledge and two classes were produced.

Another characteristic that can be found in the angels has to do with the empowerment of the angel’s messages. The message of the second angel was empowered by the message of the Midnight Cry, as the previous article showed, but the Midnight Cry is not represented by a singular angel, it is represented by many angels. The history that corresponded to the second angel and the Midnight Cry shows that the second angel’s message was empowered when the Midnight cry joined with it. In the same book we are told:

The Midnight Cry joined the second angel, and the angel of Revelation eighteen joins the third angel, and when he joins the third angel, he is repeating the joining of the Midnight Cry and the second angel in the beginning of Adventism. Based upon two witnesses, the second and third angel, every angel’s message has a secondary message that empowers it. These two witnesses teach that when the first angel’s message arrived in history, there had to come a point thereafter where that message was empowered by a secondary message. This was of course also true of the first angel. In the first paragraph of the long passage, we just set forth, Sister White identifies the same characteristics to the first angel as John assigns to the angel of Revelation eighteen when she states, “I was told that his mission was to lighten the earth with his glory, and warn man of the coming wrath of God.” It is clear in the passage she is referring to the first angel.

The first angel’s message arrived in 1798, and it was thereafter empowered on August 11, 1840, when the Ottoman supremacy ceased. At that point the mighty angel of Revelation ten came down out of heaven and placed one foot on the land and one on the sea. He represents the empowerment of the first angel, and this is what identifies the work of the first angel as the same work as the angel of Revelation eighteen. Both were to lighten the earth with their glory, but the angel of Revelation eighteen joins the third angel, just as the Midnight Cry joined the second angel and just as the angel that descended in Revelation ten joined the first angel.

Therefore, when the first angel arrived, a message was unsealed that produced two classes of worshippers. When the first angel’s message was empowered by the angel of Revelation ten, he had in his hand a little book that he commanded John to eat, identifying that he brought a message, unsealed it and it produced two classes of worshippers. When the second angel, Midnight Cry and third angel arrived there was a message unsealed that tested and produced two classes of worshippers.

The passage we are addressing emphasizes by comparing the history of Christ with the history of the Millerites that the sequential testing process that took place in the Millerite history also took place in the days of Christ, which was the end of ancient Israel. If a sequential testing process took place at the beginning of spiritual Israel and at the end of ancient Israel, then there will be a sequential testing process at the end of spiritual Israel, as there was at the beginning of ancient Israel.

In Millerite history this would represent five unsealing’s that tested and produced two classes of worshippers from 1798 until October 22, 1844. The passage clearly teaches that if you fail a test, you will not pass the next test, for you wont even try. It is also clear that in the time of Christ the testing process concludes with the former chosen covenant people being in total darkness in regards to the plan of salvation. Daniel and John represent those who listen to the voice behind them, those who passed through a progressive testing process that required individual investigation of each new truth that was unsealed.

The books of Daniel and Revelation are one book, and Daniel and John are the two witnesses of that one book. One witness is the beginning of the book, and the other witness is the end of the book. Both witnesses suffered death and resurrection symbolically; one was persecuted by the Medo-Persian kingdom, (typifying the United States) and the other persecuted by Rome, (typifying the papacy). John is being persecuted because he is a Sabbath-keeper in agreement with Daniel being persecuted for refusing to change his worship practices. Together they represent those at the end of the world who are persecuted for refusing to accept the worship of Sunday in place of the seventh-day Sabbath.

The people represented by Daniel and John have been or will be those that are sealed, for when Daniel was placed in the lion’s den for not obeying the king’s “decree,” the king sealed the stone, in order that the purpose might not be changed. Daniel was sealed for eternity, because the king’s decree and also the authority of his seal could not be changed, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians. The king’s seal was placed upon a stone and the door was shut. The door is shut at the Sunday law, and no man can open that door, just as the door was shut on October 22, 1844. This was a simple illustration of the importance of considering not only the prophetic events that are set forth in a prophecy, but also the importance of applying the circumstances surrounding the prophet when he is illustrated within the story.

Yet this is also an illustration of the power of considering the beginning (the book of Daniel) with the end (the book of Revelation) together as two witnesses of the same prophecy, for two witnesses are what is required to establish a biblical fact. The predicted events and the illustration of the prophets’ activities in connection with the prophecy are both inspired.

If the predicted events of the Bible are illustrating the end of the world, then the illustration of the prophet and his surroundings when he receives and testifies of the prediction are an illustration of the end of the world. Therefore, when a prophet’s surroundings and activities are prophetically illustrated—the prophet is an illustration of God’s people at the end of the world. With that understanding in place, when we bring the line of Malachi’s Elijah prediction together with the lines of Revelation fourteen and eighteen, they all testify of the history of the final warning message—but their testimony is two-fold.

The message consists of predicted events that are external to God’s people and a secondary testimony consists of the prophet’s experience while receiving and proclaiming the message. The prophetic concept of two prophetic lines representing the external and internal of the same history was recognized and put into the public record by the pioneers of Adventism. The classic example of this application by the pioneers, in my mind, is when they identify that the seven churches of Revelation and the seven seals of Revelation are parallel histories that identify the internal and external history of the church. The seals represent the external history the churches the internal.

The Elijah message of Malachi, Revelation chapters fourteen and eighteen identify the same final warning message that is also addressed as “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” in chapter one of Revelation. In chapter one God the Father gave the message to Christ, who then gave it to Gabriel, who then gave it to John who then sent it to the churches. Elijah’s message, as well as the messages represented in Revelation chapters one, fourteen and eighteen are the very same message.

It is always the same message, for the “prophets are subject to the prophets.” The word translated as “subject” in the verses means, “to subordinate; reflexively to obey: – be under obedience (obedient), put under, subdue unto, (be, make) subject (to, unto), be (put) in subjection (to, under), submit self unto.” All the prophets agree with each other and are in subjection to one another or the message they gave would produce confusion.

All the prophetic illustrations of the final warning message represent the same message. It is the Lord’s design that those who are considered the “wise” in the parable of the ten virgins, who are also called the “wise” that “understand” “the increase of knowledge” when the book of Daniel is unsealed; it is the Lord’s will that the “wise” recognize the special message when it is unsealed. That recognition is accomplished by applying the methodology of biblical study that is specifically identified within the Bible itself. That methodology is accomplished in agreement with Isaiah twenty-eight through the process of bringing the various prophetic lines that address a biblical subject together in parallel to one another in order to establish the correct prophetic events.

I solicit your patience as we conclude this article here and will continue these thoughts in the next article.