THE message for this generation is designed to detect and to expose the very perversion of gospel truth which Satan has prepared as a snare for this generation. Can we believe that, having made the sacrifice of himself in the person of his Son, and having endured for these centuries the burden of sin in the earth, our God will permit his salvation, his gospel, to be covered, hidden, perverted, misinterpreted to the world in this closing generation, and not let a great light shine upon it which will reveal the difference between the true and the false? I tell you Nay.
If the threefold message in Revelation 14 is the preparation for the coming of the Son of man on the white cloud, just according to the setting given to it, it is the revelation of truth to the world that will make that Son of man stand out in his true character before the world before he appears on the white cloud, that every cloud of darkness, misinterpretation, and deceit may be removed from him, and that the people may see the Son of man without clouds between them and him, before they see him coming on the cloud. That is the purpose of this message. This message, preached at this time as God would have it preached, will do that work. And if it is not doing that work under our ministry, it is our fault, and not the fault of the message.
Now note further in this setting of this message. This message in its beginning and its ending is built upon the very same idea that the prophecy of 2 Thessalonians, the second chapter, is built upon. That is, if the prophecy of 2 Thessalonians, second chapter, had been given to a people who had never heard of the salvation of God as set forth in the sanctuary and its services, that prophecy would not have been a light to them. Note that with clearness. I say again that if the prophecy of 2 Thessalonians 2 had been given to a people who had not been taught, and had not become personally acquainted with, the true salvation of God, as taught and set forth and ministered in the sanctuary and its services, that prophecy could not have been understood; but when to a people who knew God as their salvation, from the ministry that he himself had provided, there was read that prophecy which said, There shall arise one who will exalt himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he as God will take his place in the temple of God, and set himself forth as God, they knew what it meant; they knew that there would be such a perversion of the gospel of Christ as set forth in the sanctuary and its services, as would leave it simply the gospel of man, and not the gospel of God at all. And in the gospel of man there is no salvation. God is our salvation.
The prophecy of Revelation 14 is built upon the same basis. To one who knows the truth of God as set forth in the sanctuary and its services, the prophecy stands out with clearness. It fits into the prophecies from the same source which have gone before. It fits in exactly with that prophecy given so many centuries ago, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”
And this movement in this generation to preach the gospel of the kingdom anew in the way that the true idea and the true conception of God shall be made plain to the world as salvation, not as abstraction, but as personality, for a personal experience in the flesh,—this movement is not a thing apart from God’s other providences, or apart from the other experiences in this gospel work. This movement fits into every teaching and Scripture interpretation of the past in such a way as to make one undivided whole of it. The past would be incomplete without the present; the present would be incomplete without the past. Present and past are joined together in this message. The third angel’s message throws light upon the past; it gives us5understanding of the present; it throws light upon the future.
Now note how this is done in this scripture, in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation. First, “The hour of his judgment is come.” That is the first foundation stone, as it were. The everlasting gospel is to be proclaimed now with a great voice, “for the hour of his judgment is come.” And every one who was familiar with the great day of atonement in the sanctuary service, would know where that scripture applied; and through the prophecies he could fix the time. That of course brings in not simply the element of time, but the work for the time. It is not simply that the hour of his judgment is come, but his judgment is come. So that it is not simply to demonstrate that we have reached the time, but the message here involves the work also for that time. “The hour of his judgment is come,” which means that to the people of this generation must be made plain anew the whole teaching of the sanctuary and its services; which means that this truth, so familiar in the olden time, this truth which was like a great object lesson before the minds of young and old, familiar to them in every detail, but which by this perversion of the gospel had been set aside, and a new temple introduced, a new leader, a new sacrifice, a new service, a new priesthood, and no salvation,—it means that all that is to be brushed aside in this generation, and the old truth is to come forward in its vividness and saving power, the truth of salvation through faith in Christ, our sacrifice, our substitute, our surety, our great high priest, our God in the flesh. That, then, is as it were the foundation stone of this message in this day.
Now note again: just at the close, and as the result of this message, we have this statement, in the twelfth verse,—and this is after the most terrible warning given against the false worship,—“Here is the patience of the saints, they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” These expressions, when they are seen in the right light, will make clear where this issue centers; because the purpose of God in revealing himself as salvation in the person of his Son, the purpose of God in giving his Son to be our sacrifice, our substitute, our surety, the purpose of the whole ministry of the sanctuary in its reality, is not an abstract purpose, but a very definite and real purpose; namely, that, as the result, there should be developed those in this world, in the flesh, who should be the perfect revelation of what God had in mind in the creation of man in the first place. That is to say, that creative power and that wonderful glory which were revealed in the creation of the world through his Son at the beginning, are to be revealed anew in the re-creation through his Son in the flesh and the sanctuary ministry. And the sanctuary ministry is the channel of re-creation by which that law which was written upon the hearts of men in the first creation shall be written anew in the new creation.
So we read in the sixty-third Psalm, “To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.” And one who does not see, and who does not receive from the ministry of the sanctuary, creative power and divine glory, has not become acquainted with God in his personality as salvation. This makes it clear that the center of the controversy, as of old, is concerning the law of God, the commandments of God.
And the purpose of this perversion is plainly set forth in the very name that is given to the one who leads in the perversion, as stated in the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians, and that is, “the lawless one.” The lawless one works in the mystery of iniquity, and the purpose of it all is so to pervert the true idea and conception of God as salvation in Christ through the ministry which he has provided, that, instead of having the law of God as God knows it, as he himself has interpreted it to us in the person of his Son,—instead of having that law written upon the heart, that law shall be set aside, and at best the human idea of the law shall be written in the heart, which means no salvation.
Now the closing words of this message, or the verse which describes the result of this work in this generation, is, “Here is the patience of the saints: they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” It may not be quite so clear to your minds at the first that this statement involves the whole question of the sanctuary, just as does the first one; and you may not have seen with clearness that this threefold message is flanked on either side by the sanctuary question. But note the prophecy of the eighth chapter of Daniel, which sets forth the work of the same power mentioned in the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians. It is said that there shall a power arise that shall exalt himself against the Prince of princes; that he shall cast down truth to the ground; that he shall take away what is called “the daily sacrifice,” or, as it is translated in the Revised Version “the continual burnt offering.” In both of these cases supplied words turn aside the thought; because the word “sacrifice” and the words “burnt offering,” the supplied words, do not express the real thought of the prophecy. He shall take away the continual—burnt offering, says the text. He shall take away the continuance. Salvation is a question of continuance. Sin is a question of non-continuance. “The wages of sin is death.” “The gift of God is eternal life.” This gift of God comes to us through the gift of his Son, ministered to us through the sanctuary service.
If you can so pervert the sanctuary truth that that one thing is left out, you may keep all the rest, and no salvation is ministered. Salvation is a question of continuance. Without salvation from sin no one will continue. If you take out of the ministry of the sanctuary that principle,—not that thought, but that vital principle which means eternal life,—you have destroyed the sanctuary service as the ministry of God’s salvation to man. That principle of continuance was brought to the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, himself taking the flesh, and becoming in his own person the high priest, and ministering in himself his own presence, his own personality in the Holy Spirit. Leave out that connection with heaven, and you leave out salvation. Put your leader on the earth, put your temple on the earth, put your priest on the earth, and you have taken away the one thing in the sanctuary ministry which means salvation. It was prophesied by the prophet Daniel that this should be taken away; it has been taken away. It is the purpose of this message to restore in the sanctuary and its services, to restore in the church, and to the church, that which has been taken away. And when that is restored,—and it can be restored only through the restoration of the true sanctuary idea and the true conception of God as salvation through that ministry,—when that is restored, the work is done. When that is restored to the world through the church, that is the thing that accomplishes the work in this generation. That is restored by giving to Christ his own place, and to God in Christ as interpreted to the world in Christ, his true place in the gospel of salvation; and giving to man as man his true place: one in the dust, and the other on the throne.
When this work is accomplished, it will be said, just as in the words of this prophecy, “Here is the patience of the saints,” or as the marginal reading of the American Standard Version gives it, “Here is the steadfastness of the saints.” The very word used here and translated “patience” or “steadfastness” is the word that is used in the second chapter of the epistle to the Romans, eighth verse, where it speaks of those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality; and this expression “patient continuance” was simply the effort of the translators to give the meaning of this same Greek word in that connection. Now we have the whole thing here under this message, and as the result, the restoration of the truth that God is salvation, the giving to Christ his true place, and to the Word of God its true place; in other words, the simple, plain ministry of the gospel6as Christ himself taught it in the earth, taught now for this generation through the sanctuary and its services. There will be restored to the church as their salvation that presence and power of the continual One that will give them victory over all the power of the enemy, and bring them safely into the eternal kingdom.
That is the work of this message. That can only be done through the right gospel teaching of the sanctuary and its services. And in the prophecy, and in this threefold message which God has given to us as the basis of our work, this is set forth; and I say to you that there can never be a giving of this threefold message to the world in a way to accomplish God’s purpose for the world in this time, except it be given in the setting of the sanctuary and its services. To ignore that question in the true light of the Scripture now, or to pervert that question from the true light of the Scripture now, means to pervert this message. In view of this, it seems very evident to me that it is the duty of this whole people—and if we can emphasize at all, it is doubly the duty of the ministry of this people—to present the true gospel of God through the sanctuary and its services as set forth in the Scripture, because, bound up in that truth, set forth in that way, will be the whole truth of a complete gospel of salvation.
“Behold, God is my salvation.” “Behold your God!” “Behold, the Lord God will come.” “Behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.” “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!” “Behold, I come quickly.”