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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Norman McNulty

Bible Study on the Third Angel’s Message

My plan today is to talk about the third angel's message, the history behind it, the development of it, and the purpose of it for today.

And we're going to talk about some things in prophecy that aren't often talked about in a standard evangelistic series or a standard revelation seminar.

And some of these things many Adventists probably aren't aware of just because it's not studied that often.

But hopefully as you see these things you will see how it adds force to the third angel's message.

So why don't we go ahead and open up with a word of prayer and we will start.

Father in heaven thank you for this Sabbath day.

Thank you that we have the opportunity to come together and study the Bible I pray that your spirit would be with us and enlighten our minds That we would have a better understanding of your will for our lives through Through the power of prophecy, So I pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen.

So we are going to be talking about some prophecies today and how important do you think prophecy is for us?

Is it just some interesting facts that we throw together that give us an understanding that perhaps makes us different from other people or is it more than that?

Is there a reason why we have the knowledge of prophecy that God has given to us.

And I wanted to start by reading 2 Peter chapter 1 starting in verse 16 reading through verse 21.

2nd Peter chapter 1 verses 16 through 21 and this is the Apostle Peter speaking where he says for we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory.

This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount." So Peter's reminding us that he was an eyewitness to the Mount of Transfiguration when Moses and Elijah and God the Father came down and ministered to Christ just before he passed through his experience on the cross.

What he's saying is, I was an eyewitness to this, and that is a sure thing.

I was there, I heard it with my own voice, I saw it with my own ears, I saw it with my own eyes.

I saw Elijah and Moses, I heard the voice of God the Father.

I was there with Jesus for 3 and a half years and I was there when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration.

But the next point is the crucial point that lays the foundation for the study this afternoon.

Verse 19 says, We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." And so what Peter is telling us here is he surely was an eyewitness to Jesus and his ministry and to the Mount of Transfiguration and that whole experience way back 2000 years ago, but what he's telling us here in this passage is that What we can rely on that's even more sure is the more sure word of prophecy So that's why we study prophecy And I would challenge you if you haven't made much of a study of Bible prophecy what you will find especially in the books of Daniel and Revelation is that it enhances and brings out more clearly who Jesus is and what his purpose is for us in our lives.

It's not just to learn a bunch of symbols and facts that are interesting historical pieces of information.

It actually sets things up so that we have a much clearer picture of who Jesus is and what he's doing.

And so that's why we are going to study what we're going to study this afternoon.

So I'm looking forward to what we're going to look at today.

So the first thing I want to look at is in the book of Revelation, and we're just going to look at this briefly, in the book of Revelation we have a sequence of sevens as we call them.

We have 7 churches, 7 sills, and 7 trumpets, and they follow right after each other.

Although there is a little bit of an interlude in chapter 4 and 5 talking about before the opening of the sills, and then chapter 6 gets into the 7 sills.

So what is the purpose for the sequence of sevens?

Well if you study these things, and we're just going to look at this briefly, the 7 churches, 7 sills and 7 trumpets follow each other in succession for a reason.

Now I'm just going to look at 1 particular aspect of these sequence of sevens, at least in the churches and the cils before we get to the trumpets.

In the 7 trumpets we have our last church being Laodicea.

And the thing that, if you are looking at the unwritten reaction of John the Revelator, and if you're paying attention to the sequence, some churches are better than others, but none are worse than the last church just before Jesus comes.

Laodicea is the last church, and it's the worst church.

And that's basically the end of the 7 churches, and then you move on to Revelation chapter 4.

And so you're left with the question, is that how God's church is before Jesus comes?

And if so, how can that be possible if Jesus is coming in the time of that church?

And so that's sort of the unspoken reaction of John the Revelator.

And the 7 sills are in Revelation chapter 6, and although the seventh sill actually ends up at the beginning of chapter 8, as there is an interlude in chapter 7 there.

But in the 7 stills we see that in God's last day church the 144, 000 come out of the last day church.

So in the 7 churches we are left with almost the hopeless thought, this is the condition of God's people before he comes.

But yet in the 7 seals we find that it is the 144, 000 that come out of God's last day church.

And at the end of the 7 trumpets you have this parenthetical chapter in the book of Revelation, Revelation 10, which describes the rise of the Advent movement.

And so it sort of answers the unspoken question of where do the 144, 000 come from?

The 144, 000 are prepared by the Advent movement.

And then After chapter 10, of course, there's Revelation 14 and the 3 angels' messages.

But just so that gives you a big picture of the beginning, the first half of Revelation, the sequences of sevens, because we're going to get into a little bit of the detail of the 7 trumpets that often are not talked about.

And many people are ignorant of the details of the 7 trumpets just because it's never talked about.

But I think it's important so that you understand the basis for putting specific time periods and following the prophecies and hopefully you'll see some interesting connections.

So that gives you the big picture, you have the sequence of sevens, there's a lot of detail that we obviously didn't talk about in the 7 churches, the 7 sills and the 7 trumpets And maybe we can study some of those things some other time.

If you want to hear a good sermon on the 7 churches, on audioverse.org, listen to Peter Gregory's Sermon on the Nicolaitans.

And he goes through the 7 churches in very clear detail and talks about the doctrine and the teaching of the Nicolaitans and how it's linked to each church and how it comes up in God's last day church.

We're not going to get into all that detail, but you can listen to that on Audioverse, and I would encourage you to.

But what we're going to look at now is briefly some things in the Sills and the 7 trumpets and how that led to the rise of the Advent movement in prophetic history and the third angel's message especially.

So in the 7 sills in Revelation chapter 6 verse 10 which is under the fifth seal, actually we'll start in verse 9, Revelation chapter 6 verses 9 and 10 says, And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.

And they cried with a loud voice saying, How long, O God, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Now if you study the Sills, we'll see that there's a persecuting power that persecutes God's people, and we know from history that this was pagan and papal Rome that persecuted God's people.

And so, figuratively speaking, the saints are crying, how long, O Lord, holy and true, does that not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Well, interestingly, that takes us to the 7 trumpets.

And the 7 trumpets start in Revelation chapter 8 verse 2.

And Revelation chapter 8 verse 2 says, and I saw the 7 angels which stood before God and to them were given 7 trumpets.

And another angel came and stood at the altar having a golden censer and there was given unto him much incense that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.

And the angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar and cast it into the earth and there were voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake, so let me ask you a question when you See a picture of an angel taking a sensor and casting that sensor down what what kind of image image imagery or what kind of event does that make you think of a Sensor being cast down Okay, Jesus in the sanctuary and what specifically, what's that?

Okay, so and that's exactly the point that this is making.

What we have here is imagery of the close of probation and judgment being pronounced, the censor being cast down.

And in Revelation chapter 8 though, we know that this is not the end of the world, so to speak.

It's actually talking about the judgment of God upon a specific empire.

Now What God is doing here, he's using future language, and what I mean by that is he's using the language of the close of probation at the end of time to describe something that happens before the end of the world.

And what I mean by that is in the 7 sills we just saw how pagan and papal Rome persecuted God's people and killed many of God's people.

And so in Revelation chapter 8 and 9, the purpose of the 7 trumpets is to show that God is casting judgment upon the Roman Empire.

So that's, historically speaking, Revelation 8 and 9 are, and the 7 trumpets, actually the first 6 trumpets especially, are talking about the judgment of God upon the Roman Empire.

And we're gonna look at some specific details and we'll try to go through this quickly, but essentially The first 4 trumpets are in Revelation chapter 8, and this is the judgment of God upon the Western Roman Empire.

And they are being judged, and God is allowing barbaric tribes to come in and afflict Rome for the persecution of God's people that happened in the first century.

And then in chapter 9, the 5th and 6th trumpet, it's judgment on the Eastern Roman Empire which had moved to Constantinople over in Turkey.

So here's what I want to do briefly I'm just gonna run through my notes and I'm gonna write these things down so the first trumpet And we're not going to go through all the details because I want to get to the more interesting stuff But this is important God has it in the Bible for a reason.

So we don't want to just pass over it and say this doesn't matter.

God put it in the book of Revelation for a reason.

So the first trumpet, we have fire and hell mingled with blood, and specifically this with blood and specifically this was literally fulfilled between 395 to 410 AD when Alaric, when Alaric, the king of the Visigoths, came and attacked the Roman Empire.

So the time period of 395 to 410, Alaric the king of the Visigoths came in and attacked the Roman Empire.

And that's the literal fulfillment of Revelation chapter 8 verse 7.

And 1 thing just as an aside, what's interesting is the language that's used to describe the 7 trumpets is also basically the same language to describe the 7 last plagues in Revelation 16.

The plagues 2 through 7 are very similar to trumpets 2 through 7.

And of course that is spiritual realm that has been judged in the 7 last place.

So then the second trumpet, so that's the first trumpet.

Second trumpet is in Revelation chapter 8 verses 8 and 9, it talks about the mountain burning with fire.

With fire and this was literally fulfilled between 428 and 468 AD and this was Genseric, the king of the Vandals who led this part of prophecy.

And this was all predicted before it happened.

So, Genseric, king of the Vandals, between 428, that's kind of a long siege, 40 years the Vandals afflicted the Roman Empire and Gen Siric was the 1 responsible for that.

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Bible Study on the Third Angel’s Message

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