The Gospel

The Everlasting Gospel

There is one living and true God, the Father, “of whom are all things, and we in Him.” He is the only true God whom Jesus Himself addressed as Father, infinite in wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness, truth, and mercy, and everywhere present by His Spirit. With Him, from the days of eternity, was His only-begotten Son, not a mere title or office, but truly “the only begotten of the Father,” by whom “were all things created” that are in heaven and in earth. The Holy Spirit is the personal Spirit of God, proceeding from the Father and the Son, the great Agent in inspiration, conviction, regeneration, and sanctification.

(See 1 Cor. 8:6; John 17:1–3; John 3:16; John 1:1–3, 14, 18; Col. 1:15–17; Ps. 139:7–10; John 14:16–17, 26; 16:7–13; 2 Pet. 1:21.)

This God has not left the world to ignorance. In creation, in providence, in conscience, and above all in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, He has revealed Himself. Those Scriptures were given by inspiration of God, contain a full revelation of His will to man, and are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. No tradition, council, or private impression may stand alongside them as an equal standard. Every doctrine, spirit, and experience must be tried by this Word.

(See Ps. 19:1–3, 7–11; Rom. 1:19–20; Rom. 2:14–16; 2 Tim. 3:15–17; 2 Pet. 1:19–21; Isa. 8:20; John 17:17.)

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth in six literal days and rested on the seventh. In the creation record, we find no account of God as author of a heliocentric, terraqueous spinning globe hurdling through endless space. Rather, we read that He commanded light into existence, made the firmament called Heaven, divided the waters under the heaven from the waters above, gathered together the waters under the heaven called Seas, formed the dry land called Earth, and set the sun, moon, and stars within the firmament to rule the day and the night, and appointed them for signs, seasons, days, and years. He formed man of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and made him in His own image, under that same moral law which Christ afterward ratified at Sinai unto Israel in ten commandments. While man remained loyal, there was life and peace. Through unbelief and disobedience, sin entered, and with sin came death; from that hour the whole race has been fallen in Adam, subject to death, disease, and decay, unable by any works or wisdom of its own to recover what was lost.

(See Gen. 1–2; Exod. 20:8–11; Ps. 33:6, 9; Gen. 2:7; Gen. 1:26–28; Rom. 5:12–19; Rom. 3:10–19, 23; Rom. 6:23; Isa. 24:4–6.)

Yet the Everlasting Gospel declares that God, in love, gave His only-begotten Son “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Son who was with the Father before the world was, took our nature upon Him, was born of a woman, lived without sin under the very law we have broken, and died upon the cross as a real, substitutionary sacrifice, bearing in His own body the curse of the broken law. He rose again the third day, ascended to the right hand of God, and ever lives to make intercession for us. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Salvation is therefore wholly of grace. No works of law, no ceremonies, no sufferings of our own can atone for one sin. God now “commands all men everywhere to repent.” The sinner is called to repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ—to confess and forsake his sins, to renounce trust in his own goodness, and to rest in the merits of Christ’s blood and risen life alone. All who thus believe are justified freely, counted righteous for Christ’s sake, and adopted as children of God. The same grace that pardons also renews. In the new birth, the heart is changed, the law of God is written within, and the believer begins to walk, not in the lusts of the flesh, but in obedience to the commandments of God. The law is not made void through faith, but established.

(See John 3:14–17; John 1:1–3, 14; Gal. 4:4–5; Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:21–24; Isa. 53:4–6; 1 Cor. 15:3–4; Acts 1:9–11; Heb. 7:24–27; Heb. 8:1–2; Acts 4:12; Eph. 2:8–9; Rom. 3:19–26; Acts 17:30–31; Acts 20:21; Rom. 5:1; Rom. 8:14–17; Heb. 8:10; Ezek. 36:26–27; Rom. 3:31; 1 John 2:3–6.)

The Scriptures also teach that man is mortal and dependent. There is in him no inherent immortality. When a man dies, his thoughts perish; he returns to the dust, awaiting the resurrection. Immortality is brought to light in the gospel and will be bestowed, at the resurrection, upon those who are in Christ. At His second coming, the dead in Christ shall rise incorruptible, and those who are living and faithful shall be changed in a moment; so shall they ever be with the Lord. The wicked will not live on through eternity in conscious torment; they will be judged, sentenced, and finally destroyed in the lake of fire. Sin and sinners will come to an end; righteousness alone shall dwell in the new earth.

(See Gen. 2:7; Ps. 146:3–4; Eccl. 9:5–6, 10; Job 14:10–15; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 Cor. 15:51–54; 1 Thess. 4:13–17; Rom. 6:23; Mal. 4:1–3; Rev. 20:11–15; Obad. 15–16; 2 Pet. 3:10–13; Ps. 37:9–11, 29.)

Prophecy and the Judgment Hour

Prophecy is given as part of this revelation, not to minister to curiosity, but to guide the people of God. It outlines, from Daniel’s day onward, the rise and fall of great kingdoms and the history of the visible church down to the setting up of God’s everlasting kingdom. In Daniel 2 and 7, four empires are traced in order: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Out of the fourth, Rome, there arises “another little horn,” diverse from the rest, speaking great words against the Most High, thinking to change times and laws, and wearing out the saints. History and Scripture together show this power to be the Papacy—the Roman Church clothed with civil authority, exalting human tradition above the Word of God, changing the law of God in practice by putting a human rest-day in place of the Sabbath, and persecuting those who resist its claims.

(See 2 Tim. 3:16–17; Deut. 29:29; Ps. 119:105; 2 Pet. 1:19; Dan. 2; Dan. 7; Dan. 7:8, 19–25; Rev. 13:1–8; 2 Thess. 2:3–4.)

In Daniel 8, a longer period is given: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Taking the prophetic day for a year, this period extends from the decree to restore and build Jerusalem down to 1844 of our era. Advent believers in that year looked for the Lord Himself to appear and the earth to be cleansed by fire. The time was correct; the event was misunderstood. The sanctuary to be cleansed was not the earth, but the heavenly sanctuary, where Christ ministers as our great High Priest. In 1844 He entered upon the last phase of that ministry, the antitypical Day of Atonement, in which the cases of men come in review before God and the sins of the truly penitent are finally blotted from the record. We are now living in the antitypical judgment hour.

(See Dan. 8:13–14; Dan. 9:24–27; Ezra 7:11–26; Heb. 8:1–5; Heb. 9:6–12, 23–28; Lev. 16; Rev. 14:6–7; Acts 3:19–21; Rev. 11:18–19.)

The Final Powers: Leopard-like and Lamblike Beasts

It is in this time that the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Revelation come to the front. In Revelation 13 the first beast is seen, “like unto a leopard,” with the features of the beasts of Daniel, receiving his power from the dragon, speaking blasphemies, persecuting the saints, and having authority over all kindreds and tongues. This leopard-like beast is the same papal power already traced in Daniel—the Papacy, combining church and state, claiming prerogatives that belong to God alone, and enforcing its decrees by civil penalties.

(See Rev. 13:1–8; Rev. 12:3–6, 13–17; Dan. 7:7–8, 19–25; 2 Thess. 2:3–4.)

A second beast is then seen, “coming up out of the earth,” having “two horns like a lamb,” yet speaking “as a dragon.” It arises after the first beast has received its deadly wound; it comes up, not among crowded nations, but in a comparatively sparsely inhabited land; and in its lamblike youth it professes civil and religious liberty. This symbol answers in all points to the United States of America—founded on principles of republican government and Protestant freedom, yet destined, according to prophecy, to speak as a dragon, to exercise all the power of the first beast before him, to cause the earth and those who dwell therein to worship the first beast, and to enforce a mark upon the conscience of men.

(See Rev. 13:11–17; Rev. 14:9–12.)

The Three Angels’ Messages

Revelation 14 then sets forth, in words that cannot be mistaken, the message God commits to His people in this very hour. It is called “the everlasting gospel,” yet it comes in a special form, borne by three angels to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people.

(See Rev. 14:6–12.)

The First Angel

The first angel cries with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” It calls men back to the worship of the one true Creator—the Father, through His only-begotten Son. It announces that the judgment is not merely coming, but come. It summons the world to reverence, obedience, and glory given to God alone. In its words, which echo the fourth commandment, the memorial of creation is brought again to view. The seventh-day Sabbath, the day God blessed and sanctified at creation, stands forth as the sign of His authority and the test of loyalty to His government.

(See Rev. 14:6–7; Exod. 20:8–11; Gen. 2:1–3; Acts 4:24–27; Rev. 4:11; Ezek. 20:12, 20.)

The Second Angel

The second angel follows, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” Under the name Babylon, Scripture gathers the confused and fallen state of professed Christendom—those churches and systems which have departed from the simple faith of the gospel, mingled truth with error, exalted human authority above the Word of God, and sought the favour and power of the world. Their fall is seen in their rejection of light sent from heaven, their union with civil power, and their leading men to drink of the wine of false doctrine. To all who would be faithful to Christ, the call is given, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

(See Rev. 14:8; Rev. 17:1–6; Rev. 18:1–4; Isa. 52:11; Jer. 51:6–9.)

The Third Angel

The third angel utters the most solemn warning ever addressed to mortals. He declares that if any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, “the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture.” This message gathers all the issues of the controversy into a single, searching test. It warns that the time is coming when the Papacy, through the influence of the United States and other powers, will enforce the observance of a false sabbath—the first day of the week—in place of the Sabbath of the Lord, and will demand obedience to human laws in open contradiction to the law of God. The “mark of the beast” is not a mere device or number; it is the stamp of allegiance to that apostate power in the very point where it has presumed to change the divine law. To accept that mark, when these things are clearly set forth, is to yield conscience to man in the place of God.

(See Rev. 14:9–11; Rev. 13:11–17; Dan. 7:25; Matt. 15:3, 9.)

In contrast, the prophecy points to a people who stand firm under this pressure. “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” They trust wholly in the atoning blood and present mediation of Christ. They keep, not nine commandments, but ten. They honour the Sabbath of the Lord as the memorial of creation and the sign of His authority. They refuse the mark of the beast, though it cost them the loss of earthly support, liberty, or life itself. Their obedience does not purchase salvation; it proves the reality of the faith by which they have laid hold of Christ.

(See Rev. 14:12; Rev. 12:17; Exod. 20:1–17; James 2:10–12; 1 John 5:3; Heb. 7:25; Rev. 2:10.)

Health as the Right Arm of the Gospel

Within this solemn framework, the health message has its appointed place as the right arm of the gospel. The same Creator who spake the world into existence and wrote His law upon tables of stone has written simple laws into the body and into nature for the preservation of life. The same Jesus who now ministers as High Priest once walked among men as the Great Physician, healing the sick, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, and then saying, “Sin no more.” The same Spirit who convicts of sin and guides into all truth presses upon the conscience the duties we owe to God in the ordering of appetite, rest, labour, and the use of the plain remedies He has provided.

(See Ps. 33:6, 9; Exod. 31:18; Rom. 1:20; 1 Cor. 6:19–20; 1 Cor. 10:31; Matt. 4:23–24; Matt. 8–9; John 5:5–14; John 8:11; John 16:7–13.)

Health reform, rightly understood, does not offer another way of salvation. It calls men to receive the body as the workmanship of God, redeemed by the blood of His Son, and to care for it in obedience to the eight simple laws of health He has appointed—pure air, sunlight, temperance, rest, movement, a plain, nourishing diet, the wise use of pure water, and trust in divine power. It exposes those indulgences which darken the mind, burden the blood, and make obedience more difficult. It unmasks the sorceries and false sciences by which men are taught to trust in human devices while neglecting the laws of God. And it seeks, by God’s grace, to restore in man the image of his Maker, that body, mind, and spirit may be more fully available for the last work of warning and mercy.

(See Eph. 2:8–10; Ps. 103:2–5; Gal. 5:19–23; Rom. 12:1–2; 3 John 2; Rev. 18:23; 2 Cor. 3:18.)

Present Truth and Final Appeal

All these things are not theories only; they are present truth. This world is hastening to its close. There will be no temporal millennium of peace before Christ returns. Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse. The judgment is even now in session. Soon He who is now Advocate will lay aside His priestly garments, and the solemn word will be spoken, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still… and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Then He will come the second time without sin unto salvation, to raise the righteous dead, to change the living saints, to execute judgment upon the ungodly, and to make all things new.

(See 2 Pet. 1:12; 2 Tim. 3:1, 13; 1 Thess. 5:1–6; Rev. 14:6–12; Dan. 7:9–10; Heb. 9:24–28; Rev. 22:11–12; 2 Thess. 1:7–10; Rev. 20:11–15; Rev. 21:1–5.)

In view of these realities, this message comes to you as both warning and invitation. It warns you against trusting in man, in churches that have departed from the Word of God, in a gospel that makes void the law, or in a health that begins and ends in self. It invites you to turn to the only true God and to His only-begotten Son; to repent of sin and believe the Everlasting Gospel; to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus; to come out of Babylon and refuse the mark of the beast; and to bring even the care of the body into harmony with the light God has given, that you may stand in the day of God and be found “without fault before the throne.”

(See Jer. 17:5–7; Matt. 7:13–23; Rev. 14:6–12; Rev. 18:1–4; Rev. 14:1–5; Acts 3:19; Rev. 3:19–21; Rev. 22:14.)