Saturday

The end of the world, and events leading up to it, are, as we know, no joke. The world faces the most serious crisis since the Flood. In fact, Peter himself uses the story of the Flood as a symbol of the end, warning that just as the world of old perished by water, in the end times, “the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10, NKJV). Having been warned about what is coming, we now need to be prepared for it, as well.

Sunday: Fear God

The Greek New Testament word for “fear” in Revelation 14:7 is 'phobeo'. It is used here not in the sense of being afraid of God but in the sense of reverence, awe, and respect. It conveys the thought of absolute loyalty to God and full surrender to His will. It is an attitude of mind that is God-centered rather than self-centered. It is the attitude of Christ, who, though “being in the form of God … humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:6, 8, NKJV).

Monday: Fearing and Obeying God

Heaven’s urgent appeal is for those saved by grace to be obedient to God’s commands (Eph. 2:8-10). Grace does not free us from obeying the commands of God. The gospel sets us free from the law’s condemnation, not from our responsibility to obey it. Grace not only delivers us from the guilt of our past, but it empowers us to live godly obedient lives in the present. The apostle Paul declares that “we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations” (Rom. 1:5, NKJV). The Christ of Scripture never leads us to downplay His law, which is the transcript of His character. The Christ of Scripture never leads us to minimize the doctrines of the Bible, which reveal more clearly who He is and His plan for this world. Christ is the embodiment of all doctrinal truth. Jesus is truth incarnated. He is doctrine lived out.

Tuesday: Living a God-centered Life

In an age of consumerism, when secular values have made self the center, heaven’s appeal is to turn from the tyranny of self-centeredness and the bondage of self-inflated importance and to place God at the center of our lives. For some, money is the center of their lives. For others, it is pleasure or power. For some, it may be sports, music, or entertainment. Revelation’s message is a clarion call to fear, respect, and honour God as life’s true centre. To fear God is to make Him first in our lives.

Wednesday: Giving Glory to God

According to the apostle Paul, our bodies are a sanctuary, the dwelling place of the Spirit of God, a temple made holy by the presence of God. The Scriptures give us a clarion call to glorify God in every aspect of our lives. When God is the centre of our lives, our one desire is to give glory to Him, whether with our diet, our dress, our entertainment, or our interaction with others. We give glory to God as we reveal His character of love to the world through our commitment to doing His will. This is even more important in the light of earth’s end-time judgment.

Thursday: Revelation's Overcomers

“Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). This is the depiction of God’s faithful people in the last days. Yet, the only way anyone can keep the commandments of God, then or now, is through the faith of Jesus. Faith is a gift given to each believer. When we exercise the faith that the Holy Spirit puts in our hearts, that faith grows. We overcome, not by our willpower, but by the power of the living Christ working through us. We overcome not because of who we are but because of who He is. We can overcome because He overcame. We can be victorious because He was victorious. We can triumph over temptation because He triumphed over temptation.

(This is taken directly from the SDA Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly Q2 2023, Lesson 4. Please access the full lesson here )

Saturday:

Throughout the centuries, the chanting of the Shema (the name of the prayer, based on the Hebrew word for “hear”) reminded the Jews of the spiritual vision that united them as a people and that strengthened their resolve to maintain their unique identity as worshipers of the one true God. For Seventh-day Adventists, the three angels’ messages in Revelation 14 are our Shema. They define who we are as a people and describe our mission to the world and it is here that we find our passion to proclaim the gospel to the world.

Sunday: A Grace-filled Book of Hope

When most people think about the Bible’s last book, Revelation, they do not think about God’s grace. When they consider God’s last-day message, their thoughts often turn immediately to frightening beasts, mystic symbols, and strange images. The book of Revelation scares as many people as it reassures, which is unfortunate because it is, indeed, saturated with grace and filled with hope. Revelation is all about Jesus. It is His message to His people and is especially applicable to His church in the last days. It is a grace-filled message of our end-time hope. A blessing is promised to those who read, under-stand, and act on the truths revealed.

Monday: The “Everlasting” Gospel

The gospel is the incredibly good news of Christ’s death for our sins, His glorious resurrection, and His ever-present love and concern for us. By faith in His shed blood and His resurrection power, we are delivered from both sin’s penalty and power. Christ was at the center of Paul's teaching and preaching. The crucified Christ redeemed him from the condemnation and guilt of his past. The resurrected Christ gave him power for the present, and the returning Christ gave him hope for the future. Christ’s grace is unmerited, undeserved, and unearned. Jesus died the agonising, painful death that lost sinners will die. He experienced the fullness of the Father’s wrath, or judgment, against sin. He was rejected so that we could be accepted.

Tuesday: A Story of Grace

The three angels’ messages are a story of grace. They are the story of a Saviour’s love beyond measure — a story of Jesus who loves us so much that He would rather experience hell itself than have one of us lost. They are the story of a boundless, unfathomable, incomprehensible, undying, unending infinite love. “The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam. It was a revelation of ’the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.‘ Romans 16:25, R.V. It was an unfolding of the principles that from eternal ages have been the foundation of God’s throne.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 22.

Wednesday: Into All the World

According to the urgent, end-time message of the first of these three angels, the “everlasting gospel” is to be proclaimed to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Here is a mission so grand, so large, so great, and so comprehensive that it is all-consuming. It inspires us with something larger than ourselves and leads us out of the narrow confines of our own minds to a grander vision. The commission given by God described in Revelation 14 is the greatest task ever committed to His church. It is an earnest appeal to give our lives to heaven’s grandest task to reveal God’s incomprehensible love just before Jesus’ return.

Thursday: A Mission Movement

The preaching of the everlasting gospel leaps across geographical boundaries. It penetrates earth’s remotest areas. It reaches people of every language and culture. Eventually, it will impact the entire world.

(This is taken directly from the SDA Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly Q2 2023, Lesson 3. Please access the full lesson here)

Saturday:

The three angels’ messages is Jesus’ final message of mercy, a call that leads us from trusting in our own righteousness to trusting the righteousness of Jesus to justify us, to sanctify us, and, at the end of time, to glorify us.

Sunday: Eternal Choices

There will come a day when every human being on planet Earth will make their final, irrevocable decision, either for or against Jesus. Revelation’s message of Christ’s righteousness, delivering us from the condemnation of sin, as well as the grip of sin in our lives, will echo and reecho throughout the earth.

Of course, every day, by our choices even in the so-called “little things,” we are choosing either for or against Jesus. It’s not likely that someone constantly making the wrong choices in their life now, will suddenly, at the final crisis, come down on the side of Jesus, especially when the force of the whole evil world is against them. Now, today, and every day we must choose to be faithful to Christ and to His commandments. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1 John 5:3, NKJV)

Monday: The Son of Man Returns

Revelation 14 contains the key texts in regard to the Lord’s last-day message to His people and to the world. Central to it all is the return of Jesus, the fulfillment of His promise that “you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven“ (Mark 14:62, NKJV).

Tuesday: The Heavenly Judgment

John states that “I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man” (Rev. 14:14, NKJV). When Jesus ascended to heaven, Luke records in Acts 1:9 that as the disciples stood gazing up into heaven, “while they watched, He [Jesus] was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight” (NKJV). Jesus ascended in a cloud of angels and will return with a cloud of angels. The angels then declared to the amazed disciples in Acts 1:11, “This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven“ (NKJV). There is a divine truth embedded in this passage that may not be apparent. This “same Jesus,” the “Son of Man,” the One who walked the dusty streets of Nazareth, ministered in the crowded streets of Jerusalem, healed the sick in the villages of Israel, and preached on the grassy hillsides of Galilee is coming again.

Wednesday: The Victor’s Crown

John describes Jesus as the “Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle” (Rev. 14:14, NKJV). The word for “crown” is stephanos. It is a victor’s crown. When an athlete won an important contest, he was given a stephanos, a crown of honor, of glory, of victory.

Jesus once wore a crown of thorns, symbolizing shame and mockery. He was once despised and rejected of men. He was reviled, ridiculed, spat upon, beaten, and whipped. But now He wears a crown of glory and comes again but now as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Thursday: Every Seed Produces a Harvest

In Revelation 14 there are two harvests. The harvest of golden grain represents the righteous, and the harvest of gory grapes represents the unrighteous or the lost. Both harvests are fully ripe. Every seed sown is fully mature.

Here is the urgent prophetic message of Revelation 14. Every seed has gone to harvest. The grain is fully ripe, and the grapes are fully ripe. The people of God reveal His image of grace, compassion, mercy, and love before the universe. The character of Jesus is revealed in one group and the character of Satan in the other.

The universe will see in the people of God a revelation of righteousness that, perhaps, no generation before it has ever witnessed. The universe will see the full results of rebellion against God. The contrast between good and evil will be apparent to all the universe, to both humans and angels.

(This is taken directly from the SDA Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly Q2 2023, Lesson 2. Please access the full lesson here)

Saturday: 

We are in a life-and-death battle with a wily foe. We are outnumbered, fighting against incredible odds. The forces of evil appear invincible. We seem to be facing certain loss. Defeat seems inevitable. From a merely human perspective, it seems that Satan’s forces will overwhelm us.

But, thank God, though we are outnumbered, though the odds are (humanly speaking) stacked against us, though Satan’s attacks are vicious, through Jesus we will win at last. The theme of the Bible’s last book, Revelation, is this: Jesus Wins, Satan Loses. The heart of this battle is outlined in Revelation 12, the focus of our study this week. This study will give a good preparation for understanding Revelation 14 and the three angels’ messages.

Sunday: The Battle in Heaven

Revelation 12 presents a stream of dramatic episodes, snapshots of the age-long conflict between good and evil that began in heaven but will end here on earth. These episodes take us down the stream of time, from the opening scene of Satan’s rebellion in heaven to his vicious attacks on God’s people in the last days.

The power of choice is closely aligned with the ability to love. If you take away the power of choice, you destroy the ability to love, for love can never be forced or coerced. Love is an expression of free will. Every angel in heaven was faced with the choice either to respond to God’s love or to turn away in selfishness, arrogance, and pride. Just as the heavenly angels were confronted by love with an eternal choice, Revelation presents each one of us with eternal choices in earth’s final conflict.

Monday: Satan’s Attack

From the start, Satan (see Rev. 12:4, 5) sought to destroy Christ. Yet, in every attempt, Satan failed. At Christ’s birth, for instance, an angel warned Joseph and Mary about Herod’s vicious plans, and they fled into Egypt. Jesus faced Satan’s most enticing temptations in the wilderness with an “It is written,” and thus found protection in the Word of God. In His death on the cross, He revealed the magnitude of His love and delivered us from the penalty of sin’s condemnation. In His resurrection, as our living High Priest, He delivers us from the power of sin in our lives.

Tuesday: Accepting Jesus’ Victory

As depicted in the Bible, Jesus has never lost a battle with Satan. He is the mighty conqueror. The victor over the powers of evil. It is one thing to believe that Jesus was victorious over the temptations of Satan; it is quite another thing to believe that Christ’s victory is our victory, as well.

When we accept by faith what Christ has done for us, our debt is cancelled, and we stand perfect in the sight of God. Our sins are forgiven (Col. 1:14, Eph. 1:7, Col. 2:14), and the “accuser of our brethren … has been cast down” (Rev. 12:10, NKJV). We are redeemed, victorious, and saved, not because of our own merits but because of Christ’s victories in our behalf.

Wednesday: The Woman in the Wilderness 

Revelation 12:14 declares that the woman was “nourished” in the wilderness, and Revelation 12:16 declares, “The earth helped the woman.” At times of severe persecution, God provided for His church. As He did then, He will do the same for His end-time remnant.

Thursday: God’s End-time Remnant

The devil has been at war with Christ since his rebellion in heaven (Rev. 12:7). Satan’s purpose then and his purpose now is to seize control of the universe (see Isa. 14:12-14). The focus of his attention in the last days of earth’s history is upon God’s people. Revelation 12:17 emphatically declares that the dragon (Satan) was wroth (angry) with the woman (the church) and went to make war with the rest of her offspring. This expression, the rest of her offspring, is also translated “the remnant” in the King James Version. God’s remnant remains loyal to Christ, obedient to His truth, and faithful to His mission.

(This is taken directly from the SDA Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly Q2 2023, Lesson 1. Please access the full lesson here)

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