Parallel Warnings - Number One

The “Revelation of Jesus Christ” is opened up to God’s people when “the time is at hand.” The final warning message for mankind is given just before the close of human probation and that final message is represented in several prophetic lines in the Bible. In Revelation fourteen that final warning message is represented by three angels.

In chapter eighteen of Revelation the very same message announces the fall of Babylon.

The prophetic line of history, or we might say, the sequence of events represented by the angel that lightens the earth with his glory in chapter eighteen represents the events that lead to the close of judgment, the close of probation and the seven last plagues. The prophetic history represented in chapter eighteen runs “parallel” to the line of prophetic history represented by the three angels of chapter fourteen.

The three angels of chapter fourteen flying in the midst of heaven, symbolizes a worldwide message that concludes with the mark of the beast and the close of probation. In chapter eighteen the entire earth is lightened by the glory of the angel whose message also concludes with the close of probation.

The message that is symbolically represented by three angels in chapter fourteen and that is also represented by the angel that descends in chapter eighteen are two illustrations of the same warning message. There is nothing redundant in the Bible, nothing wasted. The fact that the very same message is identified more than once by John is an emphasis on the importance of the message and it illustrates the divine method of teaching that is a biblical rule called “repeat and enlarge.” Bringing two lines of prophetic history together reveals truths that would not be recognized in either line when considered apart from the other line. Today if you brought two witnesses of the same event into court to testify, they might very well give opposite reports based upon their political or social ideology. This is not the case with Bible witnesses, they always agree, and if it appears to you that they don’t agree, then you are looking at something incorrectly.

The two illustrations we are considering are the very same warning message that the book of Malachi represents as the return of Elijah the prophet. All three of the messages arrive in advance of the close of probation—for the warning message contained in all three lines of prophecy are not simply given in advance of the close of probation, but the close of probation is the very point of reference, the subject if you will, of each of those warning messages. In fact, if any warning message is proclaimed or illustrated by any prophet, it’s the same warning as Revelation fourteen, eighteen and Malachi’s Elijah prophecy.

These three lines of prophecy can easily be shown to run parallel to each other. That being said there are two primary sources of information in biblical prophecy. One is the identification of the sequence of events that unfold at the end of the world. The other source of information is the illustration of the prophets’ activities connected with the message outlining the future events.

There are two rules worth considering in connection with these ideas. The first is that all the prophets speak about the end of the world, which is where probation closes.

All the prophetic messages of the Bible are “in force for us” “upon whom the ends of the world are come.” That rule, in conjunction with another rule that identifies “matters” which the Holy Spirit has “shaped,” “both in the giving of the prophecy and” also “in the events portrayed” add strength to the claim that prophetic events at the beginning of a prophecy typify and run parallel to the prophetic events at the end of any given prophecy.

The “Holy Spirit has so shaped matters, both in the giving of the prophecy and in the events portrayed.” In “giving of the prophecy and in the events portrayed” “matters” have been “so shaped” by “the Holy Spirit” that both “the giving of the prophecy” and “the events portrayed,” are to be recognized as inspired and applied to the prophetic illustration of the end of the world.

John was given the prophecy from Gabriel and told to write it in a book and send it to the churches. He was then being persecuted by Rome; he was exiled in a fashion that would parallel what in the world today would call a black-site. In that history John was as isolated from mankind as is any prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.

John identifies that the vision took place when he was worshipping on the seventh-day Sabbath, which is the Lord’s Day.

While worshipping in the Spirit, he heard a great voice behind him.

John, his surroundings and the circumstances identified describe him as one that is being persecuted for being a seventh-day Sabbath worshipper, but one who is also being persecuted because they believe in both the Bible and the writings of Ellen White, which is the “testimony of Jesus.” He hears a great voice behind him, which he turns to see, and in so doing he represents a Seventh-day Adventist at the end of the world who hear a voice behind them saying, “this is the way, walk ye in it.”

All the lines of prophecy parallel each other at the end of the world.

Any prophet that hears a voice behind them, aligns with John in the illustration of God’s people at the end of the world. John heard a voice behind him that gave him instructions. Isaiah also heard a voice of instruction.

God’s remnant people hear a voice behind them identifying which way they should walk. They then need to decide if they will listen or not listen. The people represented by John and Isaiah are people at the end of the world who wait for the Lord while He tarries, and Isaiah informs us he tarries because He is a God of judgment. From the beginning of Millerite history in 1798 until the close of probation for Adventism at the Sunday law, God is accomplishing the judgment in the heavenly sanctuary. The promise is that those who wait for the Lord during the judgment period will be blessed.

God’s people who are blessed for waiting, are represented by the virgins who wait for the Bridegroom in the parable of the ten virgins. All ten fell asleep, and then at midnight a crisis arrives that separates the sleeping virgins into two classes. One class had heard a voice behind them and turned to see the voice which instructed them as to which way to proceed, and the other class refused to turn around and hear the voice—in spite of the fact that the message that runs throughout the book of Revelation is, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

John represents the Adventist people who turn to the past in order to understand the future. When they “hear a word behind” them as John did, the word also includes the instruction given in Isaiah’s testimony of this identical event. Isaiah’s instruction was, “this is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.” The wise virgins in Daniel twelve understand the increase of knowledge at the end of the world, because they had “run to and fro” in the word to understand the life-giving knowledge that was unsealed.

The prophets we are considering represent Seventh-day Adventists in the history where judgment comes to a conclusion and probation closes. Those represented as the wise virgins hear a voice behind them saying this is the way to walk and He promises to guide them on the path when they turn to the left or the right. “Running to and fro” as the wise virgins do when the book is unsealed is a symbol for Bible study. Nature informs us that in order to run, you first must learn to walk and Isaiah’s testimony says that if you listen to the voice behind you, he will guide you in the study of His Word whether you turn to the Old Testament (left) or the New Testament (right). Open the Bible and He will guide you by His voice. But for Seventh-day Adventists at the end of the world it also means He will guide you when you open the Bible (left) and when you open the Spirit of Prophecy (right).

The way to walk is even more specific when Jeremiah’s testimony is added.

There are two classes of worshippers in the passage. One group considers all the “ways” and chooses the “old paths” to walk in. They were capable of selecting the “good way” from all the other possible “ways,” because they are those who listened to the voice behind them, and that voice informed them, “this is the way, walk ye in it.” John represents those that hear the voice from behind, a voice from the “old paths.”

But there is another group in Jeremiah’s line and that “congregation” as he identifies them, have built a house representing a new faith, and that house falls because it was not built upon the rock. That house is the Seventh-day Adventist church, or as John identifies the very same church—the synagogue of Satan.

To refuse to hear is to reject, his “words” and his “law.” Due to their rebellion against returning and walking in the old paths and also their refusal to hear the trumpet message of the watchman, God is going to bring evil upon the people Jeremiah identifies as a “evil congregation.” How God deals with the Seventh-day Adventist church of Laodicea is a subject of Bible prophecy. The prophet Hosea contributes to the characteristics of the “evil congregation” when he speaks about why they are rejected.

They are rejected for lacking knowledge, which represents a message that is unsealed at the time of the end. God is ending here His covenant relationship with His people in the passage, for He directly calls them, “My people!” Because they rejected Christ, and have forgotten His law they will be no priest for God. When God’s people enter into covenant with God, He makes them priests and kings. When God entered into covenant with ancient Israel he stated through Moses:

When God entered into covenant with the Christian church he stated through Peter:

Peter in these verses addresses the transition from ancient Israel as God’s chosen covenant people unto the Christian church, when he states that “in times past were not a people, but now are the people of God.” When the Jews divorced themselves from God, the Lord entered into covenant with the Christian church. Both were considered as nations of priests while they were married to the Lord.

To be rejected as a priest indicates that you once were a covenant people. Seventh-day Adventists entered into covenant with the Lord at the beginning of Adventist history. The church in the wilderness came out of the Reformation but rejected the Millerite message, and thus divorced themselves from God during the history of the first and second angels’ messages. The final separation was the arrival of the second angel and the pronouncement was that they were no longer a daughter of Christ, but had become a daughter of Babylon. Immediately after, during the Midnight Cry, God called His new bride to the covenant marriage.

The two tables that were the symbol of the covenant for ancient Israel were the two tables of the Ten Commandments, and the two tables for spiritual modern Israel are the two tables of Habakkuk as represented by the 1843 and 1850 charts. The covenant people that inspiration has identified repeatedly as Laodicea rejected the old paths, refused to listen to the voice behind them, and they therefore repeat the ending history of ancient Israel as they are spewed out of the mouth of the Lord. Why does this happen to those He calls, “My people?”

The parable of the ten virgins, which illustrates the experience of Adventism is twice fulfilled, once at the beginning and then at the ending of Adventism. Sister White teaches that the parable has been and will be fulfilled to the very letter, and also that the parable is always to be understood as present truth, just as is the third angel.

Millerite Adventism fulfilled the waiting of the parable between their failed prediction of 1843 and the correct prediction of October 22, 1844. The prophetic details of this history are many and important, but I simply wish to identify that the parable of the ten virgins is directly connected to the third angel as Sister White just stated.

From 1798 until October 22, 1844, the message of the first angel announced the opening of the judgment. Just before the judgment began the Midnight Cry of the parable of the ten virgins was fulfilled. Therefore, when the third angel announces the close of judgment, the announcement of the Midnight Cry will once again be repeated.

The recognition that the Protestant churches had rejected God’s message, thus becoming the daughters of Babylon, was the arrival of the second angel’s message and the beginning of the tarrying time in the parable that was being “fulfilled to the very letter.” The Lord did not return in 1843, He tarried to test and bless the virgins. The announcement of the second angel identifying the Protestant churches as daughters of Babylon was a call for those still in those fallen churches to come out and stand with the Millerites and their understanding of the prophecies. At the Exeter camp meeting Samuel Snow provided the evidence necessary to confirm the Lord’s coming on October 22, 1844, and the message of the Midnight Cry swept across the land like a tidal wave. Then the third angel arrived at the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844.

This was a brief summation of a beginning history that I have left out many points, in order to isolate a few points that seem more relevant to what we are addressing.

We will continue these thoughts in the next article.