Lesson 8: “In the Psalms: Part 1”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine
Central Problem with This Lesson:
This lesson equates the 144,000 and the three angels’ of Revelation 14 with the Adventist “remnant” who keep the Law—God’s character written in their minds and hearts.
This convoluted lesson assumes the idea of the investigative judgment and the Adventist teaching that they, the remnant church, will have the Ten Commandments—also identified as the name or character of God—written on their hearts and thus will be marked by obedience and love for God. Their law-keeping will demonstrate their love, and they will be commissioned to carry the “gospel” to the world during the Time of Trouble.
The author refers to several Psalms and uses David as an example of one who demonstrated how salvation comes to us. The Psalms are also used to reinforce the Adventist paradigm of the “sanctuary”—Christ’s present, ongoing work of the investigative judgment where, EGW taught, Jesus makes atonement NOW whenever someone confesses his sins.
This lesson is based upon the cultic heart of Adventism. It is never clearly articulated, but it is assumed, and the words and questions in these lessons make sense only in the worldview of Adventism which has a false gospel including an incomplete atonement and the inclusion of sanctification as a requirement for salvation.
Because Adventism does not teach or believe that humans have immaterial spirits that are born dead and must be made alive through faith in the completed atonement of Jesus and in His shattering of the curse of death, they have no option but to deal with sin as something to be uprooted by committed discipline and prayer.
Getting Revelation 14 Wrong
Saturday’s lesson establishes a scenario that reveals Adventism’s identification of themselves as “God’s remnant church”. Even further, it identifies Revelation 14 as describing THEM. Here is what the lesson says:
A careful reading of the Psalms yields details that make the book of Revelation come alive, especially Revelation 14, which describes the final work of God’s remnant church on earth. God’s last-day people have been given the same assignment as Israel of old: we are to be a light to the nations, a final merciful call to all people to worship and obey their Maker.
First, Psalms 15 and 24, which are featured in Monday’s lesson, do not identify the people (nor the angels) who appear in Revelation 14. Psalm 15 asks who may dwell in God’s tent, and it identifies those who are blameless, righteous, and truthful, honoring the Lord, as those who appear in His presence.
Psalm 24 again identifies those who honor the Lord as being the ones who may ascend into His presence. Significantly, the last verses of Psalm 24 are distinctly Messianic and describe the ascension of the Lord Jesus into the presence of the Father as He returned, victorious, to heaven after His resurrection:
Lift up your heads, O gates, And be lifted up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! Who is this King of glory? Yahweh strong and mighty, Yahweh mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift [yourselves] up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! Who is He, this King of glory? Yahweh of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.—Psalm 24:7–10 LSB
The lesson, of course, completely misses this victorious welcome of the Lord Jesus and makes this psalm to be about the observant “remnant” who keep the law and are qualified to enter heaven. In fact, the author pulls in Revelation 14 and says that “it is almost as if Revelation 14 is answering David’s question” about who can enter God’s presence.
By this apparently random —but “great controversy mandated”—juxtaposition of David’s description of those qualified to enter heaven with the 144,000 of Revelation 14, the author moves the Adventist reader to the central chapter of Adventism’s unique “gospel”: the Three Angels’ Messages. The reader is on familiar Adventist ground here. Of course the righteous law-keepers described in the Psalms are the same righteous “virgins” described as the 144,000 who are commissioned to carry the last-day message to the world: the three angels’ messages which contain the gospel, the message of the investigative judgment, the call to come our of Sunday-keeping Babylonian churches, and the appeal to avoid the mark of the beast: Sunday worship!
No Christian reader would ever make these connections—one must be taught the esoteric Adventist worldview and private interpretation of the book of Revelation ever to arrive at the scenario which this lesson is creating.
Tuesday’s lesson moves the reader toward the next building block in the Adventist worldview: the identification of the Law with God’s glory and character. First the author states that the remnant on Mt. Zion (referring to the 144,000 righteous Jewish men described in Revelation 14:1–5) have the “name of the Father and the Lamb” inscribed on their foreheads. He then states that in the Bible, a name stands for character. Notice how the author connects ideas that fit the great controversy worldview but which objectively make no sense from a biblical perspective:
God’s glory is…is His character. The same is true with God’s name.…
How interesting, too, that when God describes Himself to Moses, He does it in conjunction with Moses’ receiving another copy of the Ten Commandments, which is also a transcript of His character. Likewise, the people who have God’s “name” in Revelation 14 are described as those who “keep the commandments of God.” Then notice the words found in Hebrews: “ ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,’ then He adds, ‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more’ ” (Heb. 10:16, 17, NKJV). What an expression of the gospel: though God’s law is reflected in our lives, we still need our sins to be remembered “no more.”
God’s name is His character. His moral law is a transcript of His character. And those who are gathered on God’s holy hill in the last days are infused with a love for God, a love manifested by obedience to His law.
Three Angels Are—ANGELS
The author has reinforced the notion that the Ten Commandments are the very transcript of God’s character, and those who will go to heaven and be in God’s presence will be those who have the Commandments written in their minds and hearts and who live to obey them.
Of course, the idea that the Law equals the character of God, or is a transcript of God’s character, is completely unbiblical. NEVER does Scripture equate the Law with God’s character!
Further, this lesson’s confusing attempts to equate the descriptions of David and other godly people described in the Psalms with the 144,000 in Revelation 14 is an egregious misuse of Scripture. Furthermore, the author identifies the 144,000 with the three angels and their final messages to the world described in Revelation 14:6–10!
So what does Revelation 14 really say?
First, let’s look at the 144,000 described in Revelation 14:1–5:
Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb [was] standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. … These are the ones who are not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These [are] the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. And NO LIE WAS FOUND IN THEIR MOUTH; they are blameless.—Revelation 14:1, 4–5 LSB
These undefiled virgins are the same 144,000 introduced in Revelation 7:1–8. In context, this passage is describing Jews who will be alive during the tribulation. These people will be sealed by God before the great trials of the tribulation are released onto the earth. John even heard the exact number of all who were sealed: 12,000 from each tribe of Israel! In fact, it’s very specific. The tribes are named, and each tribe has 12,000 representatives who will be sealed and protected for their witness during the tribulation.
In Revelation 14, as we quoted above, we see these 144,000 Jews again. We read that they have been “purchased from among men”, and they “are blameless” as they follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
Yet Adventism, on the authority of EGW, says that these 144,000 are the remnant church of the last days who are commissioned to deliver God’s last-day message to the world.
Even more out of context, Adventism equates its own members—the last day regents church of Bible prophecy—not only with the Jewish 144,000 but also with the three angels of Revelation 14!
All those with an Adventist background know the three angels’ messages, but let’s remind ourselves what they are. Importantly, Revelation 14:1–5, which we quoted from above in order to describe the biblical context and setting of the 144,000, occurs immediately before the verses which Ellen White has appropriated to define her unique end-time message. Here is Revelation 14:6–10:
Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who inhabit the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, “FALLEN, FALLEN IS BABYLON THE GREAT, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality.” Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, and he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His rage, and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.”—Revelation 14:6–10 LSB
Let’s observe the text. In no normal reading of this passage could we ever say that it is describing PEOPLE. It is describing ANGELS. Even more specifically, these verses are not describing either the 144,000 who were identified in the verses immediately preceding, nor are the messages of these angels being given to the 144,000 to deliver.
The 144,000 are Jewish men, and the three angels are—quite simply, angels.
God will send angels during the tribulation to deliver a universal call to the world to remember Him before He comes and destroys His enemies. These angels remind the earth to fear God and to worship Him. He is the Creator, the only one worthy of worship, and the hour of His judgment has come!
This judgment is NOT the investigative judgment which Adventism says it is. No! This is God’s final judgment, when His wrath is poured out on the earth and all unrepentant people will be destroyed. These angels are sent to call the world to turn back to God and to honor Him!
Further, these angels call people out of Babylon, a great financial and apparently religious power which is dominating the nations with seductive promises of power and wealth—but Babylon is about to be destroyed, and God sends His messengers to call the world to pay attention to Him and to extract themselves from the soul-destroying indulgence of greed and compromise.
Finally, God sends His messengers—who cannot be ignored as they call to the world to realize that they cannot worship the antichrist beast and the image to the beast without the consequence of eternal death. God delivers one last, inescapable message to the world to avoid receiving the mark of the beast—the worship of a false Christ who masquerades as the world’s Savior!
Even during the tribulation God’s mercy extends to the rebellious world three last calls to turn from evil, to acknowledge and worship the Creator, and to leave behind the seductive indulgence of greed, sensuality, and false worship. God alone is to be honored and worshiped!
Adventism Appropriates Revelation
Once again we see that Adventism illegitimately proof-texts itself into whatever parts of Scripture serve its narcissistic pleasure. This lesson demonstrates that Adventism equates itself with both the 144,000 Jewish men who are sealed by God to witness of the Lord Jesus during the tribulation, AND it equates its members with the three angels of Revelation 14:6–10. Even worse, Adventism equates the last heart-cry of God to the self-destructing world to repent and to turn to Him, to leave behind their compromise and their love of comfort and status and refuse to worship the dominant world power: the false Christ who pretends to be the only hope for the world.
Yet God calls the world to remember HIM—and Adventism writes itself into these verses and appropriates the work of God’s angels, calling themselves the ones who are sent to deliver the last-day message for the world!
Even more, Adventism interprets those three angels’ messages to be their own “gospel in verity”. They say that the first angel is calling people to remember God who created the world in seven days, and they are to return to worship God on the proper day: the seventh day. Yet read in context, the first angel’s call to worship God who made heaven and earth has absolutely NO hint of such a perversion!
Adventism further ascribes the angel’s declaration that the hour of His judgment has come to the investigative judgment. The second phase of the atonement has come, they say, and the Adventists’ emergence in the 1840’s and 50’s was God’s work of sending His last-day message to the world that everyone was to pay attention to Jesus’ supposed intercession in the heavenly sanctuary where He was finally blotting out the sins of professed believers as they remembered to confess them.
Believing this message of heavenly judgment, Ellen White said, marked true believers from the lost. Those who refused to believe this message of heavenly intercession were following Satan and would find themselves lost. So the warning that God’s judgment had come was the message of the Adventists as they formed themselves around this spurious, unbiblical doctrine and taught it as the one true gospel.
Finally, Adventists say that the third angel’s message is a call to leave the Sunday-keeping churches. The mark of the beast, they say, will be refusing to embrace the fourth commandment of the “transcript of God’s character”, and worship on Sunday will be the mark of the lost. Keeping the seventh day holy, Ellen White said, is the mark that divides the saved from the lost:
The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God.—EGW, The Great Controversy, p. 605
We see, then, that this Sabbath-school lesson is an exercise in false correlations and assumptions and illegitimate juxtapositions of texts. It never explains the verses contextually but assumes the reader will accept the author’s identification of the godly people described in the Psalms with Adventists and their commitment to their unique doctrines and their three angels’ messages.
What Gospel?
Finally, the lesson does mention the gospel a few times. For example, in Tuesday’s lesson it says in reference to Hebrews 10:17 where God says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more”:
What an expression of the gospel: though God’s law is reflected in our lives, we still need our sins to be remembered “no more.”
Further, in Thursday’s lesson the author says:
In Revelation 14, the three angels’ messages are founded on the “ever- lasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6). That is, even before the proclamations go out about worshiping the one “ ‘who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water’ ” (Rev. 14:7, NKJV) or about the fall of Babylon (Rev. 14:8) or about worshiping the “beast and his image” (Rev. 14:9), the foundation of the gospel, of salvation in Jesus, is proclaimed. And that is because the warnings and messages of the three angels mean nothing apart from the hope and promise that those who proclaim these messages have in Jesus and what He has done for them. Apart from the “everlasting gospel,” we really have nothing of any value to say to the world.
Yet—what actually IS the gospel? These mentions of it never define the gospel, nor do they explain how one may believe and trust it. Adventists simply do not know what the gospel is, and in their minds it is a confusion of Jesus’ example and of His pathetic cross, of keeping the Sabbath, avoiding the mark of the beast, and eating vegan. There is no declaration of the true gospel because Adventism has a false worldview that denies the nature of man.
It denies that we have an immaterial spirit that is born dead in sin and must be made alive. It denies that the Lord Jesus was born with no hint of sin in His flesh. Adventism has no idea that the Lord Jesus was born spiritually alive in contrast with every other human being since Adam. They do not know that sin is not defined by a degraded gene pool, and they do not know that salvation has absolutely nothing to do with honoring the Sabbath.
This lesson only serves to tighten the web of the Adventist worldview around the unsuspecting Adventist who reads it. Yet every Adventist needs to know the truth:
You are by nature dead in sin, a child of wrath and under eternal condemnation. Only by admitting that you need a RESCUE, not a good example to show you the way, can you trust the Lord Jesus and His finished work on your behalf.
You need to know that the Lord Jesus died for your sins according to Scripture, that He was buried, and that He rose on the third day according to Scripture (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). When you trust Him with your sin and your helplessness, He will make you new. He will give you spiritual life and place you in Himself, sealing you eternally with the Holy Spirit of promise (Ephesians 1:13, 14). You will pass at that moment from death to life (John 5:24).
Adventism does not teach the completed atonement. It does not teach the pure, simply gospel, and it will deceive and lead you straight to hell. Yet the Lord Jesus sees you, and He is calling you to trust Him alone.
Trust Jesus and ask Him to remove the lens of Adventism from your eyes. Let Him show you who you are and who He is—and pass today from death to life! †
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