Lesson 5: “The Nations, Part 2”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Central problem of this lesson:
Adventism’s eisegesis identifies itself as God’s church birthed in Revelation 10 and the United States as “the earth” harboring God’s people—obscuring God’s prophecy in Daniel and Revelation.
This is the second week of lessons this quarter addressing “the nations” from a great controversy perspective. The grid of Ellen White’s great controversy paradigm warps God’s revelation and confuses Adventists so they miss the clear declaration of God’s plans for the history of the world.
Read in context, the book of Daniel clearly prophesies the rise and fall of the gentile nations from the time of the Babylonian captivity until the coming of God’s kingdom. What Adventism obscured, however, is the fact that the prophecies of Daniel reveal how the gentile nations will interact with Israel until the end of time—but Adventists appropriate the identity of God’s people and interpret the words about Israel and make them about themselves.
Furthermore, they misinterpret Daniel 7, 8, and 9 and make the little horn arising out of Greece into the papal power of Rome. So the entire scenario of the investigative judgment and the persecution of God’s people is anchored to the prophecies about the gentile nations and Israel—and the meaning is lost in a labyrinth of non-contextual verses reinterpreted to represent Jesus embarking on a heretical second phased atonement and Seventh-day Adventists as the church prophesied to arise in the last days according to Revelation 10.
Are you confused? Frankly, you should be—and so are most Adventists.
Read contextually, though, the book of Daniel is clear. It was written to inform Israel how the gentile world would affect their nation throughout history, and it was also written to let the gentiles know that God is sovereign over them and will both bring them into existence and take them out according to His own timeline. Even more, if one reads the prophecies of Daniel 11 with a history text, it is easy to identify, down to the smallest detail, how each verse up to verse 35 has already been fulfilled in the time period between the Babylonian captivity and the coming of Christ. Verses 36 to the 45, however, have not yet occurred. They will happen during the tribulation at the very end time—as verse 45 states.
Yet this lesson cements Adventists’ understanding of prophecy more firmly in Ellen’s great controversy worldview. Adventists, according to their prophet, are God’s last-day church commissioned to deliver His last-day message to the world, and they see themselves as the central players defending God’s reputation until the very end when Jesus completes His investigative judgment and Adventists have to stand through the Time of Trouble without a mediator, not knowing whether or not they have passed the judgment but determined to honor the Sabbath in the face of death in order to “overcome” and be found worthy of salvation.
Nations are God’s idea, not man’s
As we pointed out last week, God is the One who insisted that post-flood mankind fill the earth and subdue it. Wicked men rebelled and, instead of scattering throughout the earth, they congregated on the Plain of Shinar and built the Tower of Babel. God judged their rebellion, however, and confused they languages so that they could no longer collaborate and function as a single people. He accomplished His own design of filling the earth by scattering the people of Babel throughout the earth where they congregated by language and built their own nations.
The lesson, however, takes the position that God’s plan was that mankind would live under His rule as the only sovereign in an environment like Eden. Nations and kings, therefore, are presented as the product of human rebellion. Saturday’s lesson states this:
This week, we will continue looking at the problems caused by the Fall and the desire for human government as opposed to God’s governance. These truths are powerfully revealed in the book of Daniel, which shows that God was right when He warned His people about what would happen when they turned away from Him and chose earthly monarchs instead. This is exactly what they got: earthly monarchs and sinners lording it over sinners—never a good combination.
In Sunday’s lesson author Boonstra marries the idea of forbidden knowledge with the pursuit of human, as opposed to God’s, government. He points out that God’s first command to humanity was not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and then he says:
How can some knowledge be forbidden? Isn’t it always useful to experience and to know more?
Not according to Scripture: God was intent on educating His people thoroughly while sparing them from the long-term suffering that some knowledge would cause, such as what would later happen when people chose to rule themselves rather than to be ruled by the Lord Himself.
Millennia later, when Israel asked for a king, the Lord laid out the consequences (as we discovered last week), and He informed His people that the decision to step away from His direct rule would last until the end of time…
Approaching the book of Daniel with this background in mind can be enlightening. Not only is the march of empires depicted in the book’s visions an indictment of “the nations”—the Gentiles—it is also an indictment of Israel’s failures, their refusal to follow His mitswot (commandments). Centuries of subjection, instead of the freedom first given in Eden, would become a new classroom in which willing hearts could witness the striking contrast between the kingdoms of this world and God’s kingdom.
And there, in one deceptive combination of unrelated ideas, Boonstra has missed the issue of the Fall and reinterpreted the revelation of Daniel.
The Fall was not primarily about “knowledge”. It was about trusting and believing God. Adam (who was the only one given the command not to eat from the tree—Eve was not yet created in Genesis 2:17) did not know what evil was. Adam’s sin lay in not believing that God knew what He was doing and that he could trust His word without understanding the details of His purpose.
Adam acted in unbelief, ate the fruit, and plunged the human race into spiritual death with its consequent physical death.
Death, not gnostic knowledge, is sin’s legacy
It wasn’t gnostic knowledge which Adam gained from his disobedience; it was actual death. The lesson creates an alternate story, however, saying that Adam’s decision resulted in the people choosing “to rule themselves rather than to be ruled by the Lord Himself.”
This idea is never the point of the biblical account. Adam’s decision was a choice that brought immediate spiritual death—a disconnection from the life of God—and the eventual death of the body. The people’s eventual choice to rule themselves was not sin—the sin lay in the fact that the people were spiritually dead and did not trust and believe God.
As we previously pointed out, God commanded the people to fill and subdue the earth. He did not intend for them to fill the earth and live in gardens and rural places without human authority. We see that civilization was actually part of God’s plan, and in the New Testament we see clearly that human authority is God’s provision for mankind. Look at what Paul says in Romans 13:1, 2:
Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist have been appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists that authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.—Romans 13:1, 2 LSB
The point was never to avoid human kings and rulers. What humanity inherited, however, is disconnection from the Lord God. We can see how perverted human rule becomes when people are unbelieving and intent on self-promotion. A godly ruler is a blessing to his subjects; an evil ruler, however, creates suffering.
In fact, God even gave Israel commands for how to live under kings in their future, and He instructed the nation as to how the kings were to behave. In the book of Deuteronomy, just before Moses died and the wilderness generation went into the Promised Land under Joshua, the Mosaic covenant was written again for that generation.
To be sure, God said that having kings would be so that they could be like other nations, yet God gave them instructions for how the kings should serve Him as they governed, and ultimately God raised up David and made an unconditional covenant with him that a permanent king would sit on his throne and rule forever. In Deuteronomy 17:18–20 we read:
“Now it will be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, to carefully observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he may prolong [his] days in his kingdom, he and his sons in the midst of Israel.”—Deuteronomy 17:18–20 LSB
God’s intention was the even the Israelite kings would fill their hearts with the knowledge of God and serve Him as they governed wisely and honored the Lord so that His name would be known and honored among the nations.
It wasn’t gnostic knowledge that was forbidden in Eden. God had been asking Adam to BELIEVE Him and to TRUST Him. It was in this that Adam failed. The interpretive grid of EGW’s great controversy worldview is the place where Adventists are fed gnostic knowledge. They are prevented from seeing that by not believing that God meant what He said even if he didn’t understand, Adam literally plunged the human race into spiritual death. Adventists are blinded to the fact that they have inherited original sin, that they are depraved, and that they are by nature children of wrath.
They are set up to believe the next level of Adventist gnostic knowledge: that they are God’s chosen “church” and are mentioned in the book of Revelation!
Adventist “narcigesis”
In Wednesdays and Thursday’s lessons we see the direct influence of EGW’s great controversy worldview. She literally wrote Adventism into prophecy and into the book of Revelation. This is more than mere “eisegesis”, or reading one’s own viewpoint into the text. This outright appropriation of prophecy! This is narcissism—a self-centered focus—on full display. As a good friend of mine says, this kind of biblical interpretation is “narcigesis”—narcissistically reading oneself into the text!
Wednesday’s lesson, for example, says this:
Seventh-day Adventists have understood Revelation 12:16 to refer to the migration of persecuted believers to the New World. If our understanding of land and sea is correct, what does this say about the founding of the American republic?
Could we consider it to be “the earth” in the same way that the “Promised Land” was—a place set aside for God’s people? Could this be why the land beast first appears to be lamblike?
On Ellen White’s authority, Boonstra reinforces the Adventist belief that American was raised up by God as a safe place to escape religious persecution. Now, I am not saying God did NOT raise up the USA at precisely the time He did for His own purposes (which we cannot fully know). I believe that He did. Yet this idea about the United States is NOT in Revelation 12:16!
Here is Revelation 12:16:
But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth.—Revelation 12:16 LSB
In context, while we cannot be completely certain about the fulfillment of all these details, the passage is not speaking of the formation of a nation; it is speaking of Israel and of God’s protection of the nation during intense persecution.
Then Thursday’s lesson states:
The remnant church was born in the New World, precisely where those seeking religious liberty had fled during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.…
Read Revelation 10:1–11, which describes the birth of the movement.…
The angel cries with a loud voice, much as the three angels of Revelation 14 and the angel of Revelation 18 do. This is an urgent moment in history when the work of the remnant church is established for the sake of “ ‘many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings’ ” (Rev. 10:11, NKJV).…
The world, at long last, will be lighted up with the glory of God, and the final messages of Revelation 14 are carried to everyone. As with Israel, our mandate as a church is to preach the gospel “ ‘in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come’ ” (Matt. 24:14, NKJV).
There you have it. The United States of America and the Seventh-day Adventist movement are written right into the book of Revelation. Boonstra didn’t make up this idea—this is straight out of the great controversy worldview immortalized in EGW’s book The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan.
Without the background of EGWs commentary and the pervasive great controversy worldview which defines Adventist reality, however, there is absolutely no possible way these idea could be inferred from the book of Revelation!
Adventism has appropriated the book of Revelation and has made it largely about themselves! The plain reading of the text of Revelation and also of Daniel is utterly lost.
No wonder people leaving Adventism have visceral reactions to even opening these books of prophecy! The terror and fear of the end times is deeply ingrained in Adventist reality, and most Adventists attempt to cope with the fear by avoiding the books they believe to be the source of their fear!
If only they realized that the real source of their fear is a false prophet who fabricated a diabolical worldview to hold her followers in terrorized loyalty to a false gospel that would lead them to hell!
The comfort of Daniel and Revelation
There is so much wrong with the Adventist view of prophecy and of their own role in it. First, Jesus said that the gates of Hades would not overpower His church (Mt. 16:18). Yet Adventism built itself on the supposition that the church had lost the Sabbath truth and the expectation of Jesus’ soon return.
Their supposition was a lie, of course—the truth of the clear gospel had never been destroyed even during the years of overwhelming suppression during the medieval period of spiritual darkness. But Adventism redefined the gospel and said they had been established to restore it—and “at long last”, the world “will be lighted up with the glory of God and the final messages of Revelation 14”—the infamous Three Angels’ Messages!
This blasphemy is blatant—and its effects are clear. Adventists fear the end times and the possibility that they may fail to keep the Sabbath. It is Adventism, not the Christianity that they call “Babylon”, that is suppressing truth and deceiving millions of people!
I have an assignment for anyone with an Adventist background—or, for that matter, for anyone who has been fearful of the books of Daniel and Revelation for any reason.
Begin with Daniel. It is a relatively short book, and it is built around stories that show the incredibly faithful protection and provision of our sovereign God. Get a notebook, and begin, a few verses a day, to copy the book of Daniel.
Ask the Lord to remove the grid of the great controversy and of EGW from your mind and to show you what He actually revealed through His prophet Daniel. Ask Him to show you what is real and true and to know what He wants you to know as you read.
As you copy, this bit of information may be helpful to you: this book was originally written in two languages. Chapter 1 through chapter 2:3 is written in Hebrew. Daniel 2:4 through Daniel 7 is written in Aramaic—the language of the Babylonians where Israel was exiled at the time Daniel wrote. Then, Daniel 8 through 12 are again in the Hebrew language.
All the places in Daniel that are written in Hebrew refer to the nation of Israel—including the last five chapters of the book. Remember that Daniel 8 through 12 are primarily focussed on the future of the nation of Israel and of how the gentile nations would affect Israel. The portion of the book that is written in Aramaic is primarily about the gentile nations, beginning with Babylon, and describing the progress of the gentile nations and their dominion over the world and over the nation of Israel. Significantly, the church is not in view in the book of Daniel; this book was written by a Hebrew prophet to his people, and God gave him the revelation of how the gentiles nations would interact with Israel throughout the future of the world.
As you read and copy, allow the Author of Daniel—the Lord who gave Daniel His insights, to calm your heart, to straighten out your thinking, and to erase the fear mongering of the false prophet who stole our joy in Jesus. Allow the Lord to reveal to you His faithfulness. He is sovereign, even over the nations. They have not spun out of His control. He see, and He knows. He has everything in His hand, and He has already accomplished the ending of all conflicts.
Allow the Lord Jesus to reveal Himself to you. And as you calm yourself in the stability of our God who has the world in His hands, let the Lord convict you of your need of a Savior. See the Lord Jesus as He hung on the cross and became sin for you, how He took God’s wrath in your place and died your death, being buried, and how He rose on the third day according to Scripture, breaking the curse of death into which you were born.
Believe that He has fully atoned for your sin, and trust Him with it. The fear of Adventist end times will dissolve, and you will know that you have passed from death to life. Believe Him—and you will finally have rest for your soul. †
This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
- April 26–May 2, 2025 - April 24, 2025
- We Got Mail - April 24, 2025
- Resurrection: The Singularity That Changed Nature - April 17, 2025