The following is a portion of a book by William A. Spicer entitled “The Spirit of Prophecy in the Advent Movement.”
A Special Gospel Movement
“I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” Revelation 14:6.
As he listened in the vision, he heard the burden of the message that was preached by this world-wide missionary movement. He heard people everywhere making to men a proclamation, with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.” Verse 7.
A Judgment Precedes Christ's Coming
We know that there must be a work of judgment in heaven above before Christ comes. When He comes, the “dead in Christ shall rise” from the graves at His call. Only the righteous dead have part in this resurrection, which takes place instantly, as the Lord appears, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:52.
There is no time there for a judgment work to decide who are righteous. But this “first resurrection” unto eternal life comes only to those who have been adjudged worthy, as described by the Saviour: “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” Luke 20:35.
There is, then, an accounting, a work of judgment, in heaven before Christ comes, determining who are righteous and worthy of a part in “the first resurrection.” This judgment review must begin with the dead of all past ages. It is “the time of the dead, that they should be judged.” Revelation 11:18. The prophet John saw the coming of this judgment hour in heaven above, as the most holy place of the temple in heaven was opened. Revelation 11:19.
Necessarily, at its close, this judgment must come to the living, accounting those righteous whom the Lord shall change to immortality along with those who are raised from their graves. “The dead in Christ shall rise first,” says the scripture; “then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17.
The scripture order of final events, taking place in heaven before Christ appears, shows that there is to be a judgment review fixing eternally the fate of men for life or for death. When this judgment hour opens in heaven, according to the vision of John on Patmos, there must come on earth a world-wide movement giving to all nations the message, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come.”
A People Keeping the Commandments of God
In the vision of Revelation 14, the prophet saw the people who were to preach this message, and the kind of people who would be brought forth in all nations as the fruitage of the closing gospel work. The angel thus described them: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Revelation 14:12.
The pictured scenes of the prophecy are as clear as the noonday sun. In the last days, just before the coming of Christ in glory, a judgment work in heaven above was to open. And when that hour should open in the heavenly courts, a people keeping the commandments of God were to rise on earth, and go to every nation and people with the message, “The hour of His judgment is come.”
With this awakening cry of a judgment hour already come, goes the declaration of a spiritual falling away, and the warning against following the way of ecclesiastical tradition that makes void the law of God, (See Revelation 14:7-11.)
It was essential that the proclamation of the judgment hour should be made by a people keeping the commandments of God. The law of God is the standard of the judgment. No one could call men to prepare for the judgment without at the same time lifting up the standard of God’s holy law. As the Bible says: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14.
A Call to Reformation
So the message of the judgment hour, necessarily, must be given by a people who stress the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. The greater significance is given to this matter of loyalty to the law of God if we recall that the prophecy of Daniel forewarned of the falling away from the faith that was to come in the later times of the Roman Empire. An ecclesiastical power was to arise, of whom the prophecy said that he would “think to change times and laws.” Daniel 7:25. That power arose, growing into the historic Papacy. It was the great “falling away,” of which the apostle Paul warned the church. 2 Thessalonians 2:3. And all Christendom was led into setting aside the commandments of God in respect to holy time. The first day of the week, Sunday, was substituted for God’s holy Sabbath, the seventh day of the fourth commandment. The Catholic Church cites this change today as a sign of its authority.
No wonder the last gospel message calls men to turn from the transgression of God’s law, as they must soon meet that holy law in the judgment. And the call now is for men to take their stand on the New Testament platform of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
The crisis of the ages is at hand. It is no ordinary time, it is no common message that God sends into all the world. The vision to John on Patmos showed the opening of the judgment work in heaven, and the coming of the people keeping God’s commandments on earth, hastening to all nations and tongues with the message that we do well to repeat again and again, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come!”
That cry is sounding over land and sea today! For—mark the fact—when the hour of the prophecy came in heaven above, the people of the prophecy appeared on earth below,—a people keeping the commandments of God. And they are spreading to all nations, preaching everywhere the message of a judgment hour come, and bringing forth a people in all lands who follow Christ’s footsteps in the way of obedience to all the commandments of the holy law of God.
Daniel's Prophecy of the Judgment
No wonder the last gospel message calls men to turn from the transgression of God’s law, as they must soon meet that holy law in the judgment. And the call now is for men to take their stand on the New Testament platform of “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
The crisis of the ages is at hand. It is no ordinary time, it is no common message that God sends into all the world. The vision to John on Patmos showed the opening of the judgment work in heaven, and the coming of the people keeping God’s commandments on earth, hastening to all nations and tongues with the message that we do well to repeat again and again, “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come!”
That cry is sounding over land and sea today! For—mark the fact—when the hour of the prophecy came in heaven above, the people of the prophecy appeared on earth below,—a people keeping the commandments of God. And they are spreading to all nations, preaching everywhere the message of a judgment hour come, and bringing forth a people in all lands who follow Christ’s footsteps in the way of obedience to all the commandments of the holy law of God.
The Time Fixed
When did that judgment hour open? The seventh chapter of Daniel shows it opening in heaven while still the powers and peoples of earth are doing the last things. Daniel 7:9-13. But the next chapter of Daniel fixes the time. The cleansing of the sanctuary, this judgment work in the heavenly temple, was to come at the end of the long prophetic period of 2300 years, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days [prophetic days, literally years]; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Daniel 8:14. Or, as in the phrase of the seventh chapter, Then shall the judgment sit, and the books be opened.
The angel’s explanation of this vision of the time, shows that the period was to begin with the “going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.” Daniel 9:25. That was in the year 457 B.C. (Ezra 7:7, 8, 13-25.) The long period ran on from the midst of that year 457 B.C. through the centuries, the first portion touching the events of the first advent of Christ, and the full period running on to the fateful last year of the 2300, ending in our era, 1844.
William Miller proclaims soon coming fulfillment of the 2300 day prophecy.
In the year 1844, therefore, the last phase of Christ’s priestly ministry opened in the heavenly sanctuary, “The judgment was set, and the books were opened.” Daniel’s vision described the scene of heaven, and the vision of John on Patmos told what would take place on earth as the judgment work began in heaven. The people keeping the commandments of God would come, and they were seen going to all the world preaching, “The hour of His judgment is come.”
Like Clockwork
And when the hour of the prophecy struck, in 1844, the people of the prophecy came. In 1844 a little group of believers in Christ’s soon coming—Adventists they were—saw the truth of the unchanged Sabbath of the Lord their God, the sacred seventh day of the fourth commandment. They began fully to “keep the commandments of God.” Soon others joined them. The truth about the judgment hour in the heavenly sanctuary was erelong made plain as they studied with other believers. It was clear that a message of preparation for the judgment hour and the coming of Christ was to be preached to men,—the threefold message of Revelation 14:6-12.