God’s Last Generation
Throughout
history God has had a special people with a special message. From Adam to
Abraham to Elijah to Jesus
to the Waldensians to Martin Luther to William Miller, God’s message has been
proclaimed for their time. In our study we
will discover who God’s special people are in this
age.
1. Who did God say
were His people?
Ezekiel
34:30, 31 (Hebrews
8:9-10)
34:30 Thus shall they know that I
the LORD their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people,
saith the Lord GOD.
34:31 And ye my flock, the flock
of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.
8:9 Not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my
covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
8:10 For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put
my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a
God, and they shall be to me a people:
2. Is God, then,
dependant upon the literal descendants of Abraham to have a
people?
Matthew 3:9,
10 (Matthew
21:43)
3:9 And think not to say within
yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able
of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
3:10 And now also the ax is laid
unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good
fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
3. In God’s sight,
are all of Abraham’s descendants a part of the true “house of
Israel?”
Romans 9:6,
24-26 (Romans 2:28,
29; John 8:39,
44)
9:6 Not as though the word of
God hath taken none effect. For
they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
2:28 For he is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly; neither
is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly; and
circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose
praise is not of men, but of God.
4. How can we
become a part of God’s true
Israel?
Galatians
3:7, 9, 14,
26-29 (Colossians
2:10-13)
3:7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are
the children of Abraham.
3:9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham.
3:26 For ye are all the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus.
3:27 For as many of you as have
been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
3:28 There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus.
3:29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye
Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise
5. Is there any
hope for Jews/Gentiles who refuse to become “true Israelites” through Jesus
Christ?
Ephesians
2:11-14 (1 Peter 2:6,
9,
10)
2:11 Wherefore remember, that ye
being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that
which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from
the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope, and without God in the world:
2:13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
2:14 For he is our peace, who
hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of
partition
between us;
6. Besides the
name, “Israel,” by what other terms does the Bible refer to God’s
people?
Ephesians
1:22, 23 (Colossians
1:24)
1:22 And hath put all things
under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
1:23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that
filleth all in all.
7. How far will
God’s people take His message in the last days
?
Revelation
14:6 (Matthew
24:14)
14:6 And 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,
In Greek the
word “angel” means God’s “messenger” and often refers to God’s church when used
symbolically in
prophecy.
8. What other
symbol does God use to represent Israel (or Zion) in
prophecy?
Jeremiah
6:2 (Isaiah 51:16;
Ephesians 5:23; Revelation
19:7)
6:2 I have likened the daughter
of Zion to a comely and delicate
woman.
9. What will the
dragon do to the woman, which symbolizes God’s last day
church?
Revelation
12:17 (Ephesians
6:12)
12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to
make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the
commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
10. What other
identifying marks does God give to help us recognize His true
people?
Revelation
12:17 (Revelation
14:12)
12:17 And the dragon was wroth
with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have
the testimony of Jesus Christ.
11. God’s people
will keep all the commandments, including the Sabbath commandment. They also
will have “the testimony of Jesus Christ.” What is this “testimony of Jesus
Christ?”
Revelation
19:10 (Revelation
22:9)
19:10 And I fell at his feet to
worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant,
and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy.
12. Who inspires
prophets to write or speak God’s
messages?
2 Peter
1:21 (Jeremiah 1:5;
Hosea 12:13; Luke
1:70)
1:21 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.
13. Did God have
any women as
prophets?
Judges
4:4
4:4 And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she
judged Israel at that time.
14. What other
women did God call to be His
prophets?
Luke
2:36 (Exodus 15:20;
Isaiah 8:3; 2 Kings 22:14; Joel 2:28, 29; Acts
21:9)
2:36 And there was one Anna, a
prophetess, the
daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived
with an husband seven years from her virginity;
Miriam
(Exodus 15:20), Huldah (2
Kings 22:14), Phillip’s daughters (Acts
21:9).
15. When God
appoints a prophet, where is the prophet
placed?
1 Corinthians
12:28 (Ephesians
4:11-14)
12:28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles,
secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then
gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
God’s last day
church will be a Christian, worldwide, commandment-keeping church that has the
gift of prophecy. This church
will have a prophet to prepare them to meet their Lord at His second coming,
just as the prophet John the Baptist prepared God’s people to meet Jesus at His
first coming. Please realize that the Church spoken of in the Bible is “the body
of Christ” and not necessarily a denomination. God saves
people, not denominations. But God also
has law and order… gospel order, and has organized His people on the platform of
truth to do the work of
ministry.
In 1844, God
gave His church, the body of Christ, the promised gift of prophecy (Rev
19:10). At this time, a
17 year old girl by the name of Ellen Harmon (later to be Mrs. Ellen G. White)
received her first vision from God. Throughout her
life, Ellen White received approximately 2000 visions, wrote 54 published books,
and recorded over 25 million words of testimony to the church! She passes all
Biblical tests of a true prophet of God and we cannot ignore this or we will be
guilty of “quenching the Spirit.”
Jesus said, “By
their fruits, ye shall know them” and also “If Satan be divided against himself,
how shall his kingdom stand?”
Therefore, the
spirit of Satan would not inspire someone to write about the need to obey God’s
laws, the need to fully surrender our wills to Jesus, or that Jesus came in the
likeness of sinful flesh, yet these were the main themes of Ellen White’s
writings… remember a bad tree cannot produce good
fruit!
On the other hand, the writings of other so
called “prophets” who arose about the same time as Ellen White, such as Joseph
Smith of the Mormons, Mary Baker Eddy of the Christian Scientists, and Charles
Taze Russell of the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not meet the Biblical tests for true
prophets or Holy Spirit inspired writers. For example, the three mentioned wrote
against the need to obey the fourth commandment, the seventh-day Sabbath. They are therefore condemned by Isaiah 8:20
and are not true prophets from
God.
16. What kind of
people does God often choose to do His
work?
1 Corinthians
1:27-29 (Zechariah
4:6)
1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise;
and God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
1:28 And base things of the world, and things
which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and
things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
1:29 That no flesh should glory
in his presence.
Ellen White
had only a limited, formal education, yet she wrote profound truths about Jesus,
the Scriptures, education, health, marriage, administration, prophecy, and
latter-day events that we see happening today. In fact, she
is the most published female author in history, truly proclaiming the Elijah
message and preparing the church to meet Jesus at His second coming.
Beloved, as
responsible human beings in search of salvation, we must identify two very
important things: (1) God’s
last true church and (2) the reformation messenger God promised to send before
His second coming. But if we find one we have found them both, for the prophet
is placed within the church. So far in our study, we have found the reformation
messenger and now we will see if the Bible can tell us who is the last true
church, “God’s Last Generation”.
Now we are
going to study the prophecy found in Revelation chapter 10. In this prophecy
God
17. What did the
mighty angel of Revelation have in his
hand?
Revelation
10:1, 2
10:1 And I saw another mighty
angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his
head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:
10:2 And he had in his hand a
little book open: and he set his right foot
upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth.
18. What little
book of the Bible had been closed until the “time of the
end?”
Daniel
12:4 (Daniel
12:9)
12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up
the words, and seal the
book, even to
the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be
increased.
Daniel is the
only Bible book that had been closed and was thus to be opened in the last days…
our days.
19. What message
did the angel proclaim from the book of Daniel after it was
opened?
Revelation
10:5-7 (Daniel 2:44;
7:9, 10, 27, 27;
8:14)
10:5 And the angel which I saw
stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
10:6 And sware by him that liveth
for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the
earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are
therein, that there should be
time no longer:
10:7 But in the days of the voice
of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be
finished, as he hath declared to his servants the
prophets.
This prophecy
foretells the rise of a people to whom God would speak by opening up the meaning
of the prophecies of Daniel. These people believed Jesus was coming soon, at a
time revealed in the book of Daniel. Thus there would be “time no
longer.”
20. When was this
message to start and then take
affect?
Daniel
8:14
8:14 And he said unto me, Unto
two thousand and three
hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
In explaining
“the vision” of the 2300 years to Daniel, Gabriel said that 490 years of it (70
prophetic weeks) were “determined” (the word “determined” in Hebrew literally
means to “cut off.”) upon the Jews. The starting
point for this 490 year period is the year 457 B.C. (the year that the
three-fold decree went forth to restore and build Jerusalem was 457 B.C.; Ezra
5:13; 7:13, 14; ).
The 490 years
lasted from 457 B.C. until 34 A.D. at which time Stephen was stoned and
probation closed for the Jewish nation (they were “cut off”). So 490 years of
the 2300 year prophecy can be subtracted, leaving 1810 years remaining in the
prophecy to be added to the year 34 A.D. Adding 1810 years to the year 34
A.D. will tell us
that the year the cleansing of the sanctuary will happen is
1844.
21. As they
received (or ate) the message, how did it
taste?
Revelation
10:8, 9 (Psalm
119:103)
10:8 And the voice which I heard
from heaven spake unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book which is
open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the
earth.
10:9 And I went unto the angel,
and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and
eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth
sweet as honey.
22. Though the
prophecies of the book of Daniel, were “sweet” to contemplate, they were not fully
understood. When time did not end the way the people expected it to with Jesus’
second coming, how did those who had received the message of Daniel
feel?
Revelation
10:10
10:10 And I took the little book
out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey:
and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter.
This prophecy
was fulfilled in the Second Advent Movement headed by William Miller, who, in
1831, began a great revival by preaching Daniel’s message about the cleansing of
the sanctuary, which he expected to take place around 1844. Eventually the exact
date was determined to be October 22, 1844. This was the correct date that
foretold the beginning of the judgment in the heavenly sanctuary, not the second
coming of Jesus. God permitted them to misunderstand the word “sanctuary” to
mean the earth, instead of the real sanctuary in heaven where the judgment must
take place and Christ receive His kingdom before He returns. Thus, when the
judgment hour arrived, they were expecting Jesus to come, and they were bitterly
disappointed.
23. After October
22, 1844, there was “[prophetic] time no longer”—Jesus could now come as soon as
His final movement finished their work—but these Adventists joyfully thought
there would be “[literal] time no longer.” Why were they “bitterly”
disappointed!
Revelation
10:11 (Matthew
24:14)
10:11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and
nations, and tongues, and kings.
Their work was
not yet finished as they had
hoped.
24. Who else had
been bitterly disappointed because they had misunderstood the prophecies, and
had expected Jesus to set up His earthly
kingdom?
Luke
24:17-21 (Luke
19:35-40)
24:17 And he said unto them, What
manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk,
and are sad?
24:18 And the one of them, whose
name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in
Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these
days?
24:19 And he said unto them, What things? And
they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in
deed and word before God and all the people:
24:20 And how the chief priests and our rulers
delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.
24:21 But we trusted that it had been he
which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to
day is the third day since these things were done.
25. The disciples had the right time but misunderstood what was to happen and were scoffed at; but did either the scoffing or their misunderstanding prove the prophecy wrong?
1 Corinthians
1:18, 23, 24 (Romans
1:16)
1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them
that perish foolishness; but unto us which are
saved it is the power of God.
1:23 But we preach Christ
crucified, unto the Jews a
stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
1:24 But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of
God.
26. To help
generate and establish His final, Second Advent Movement, Jesus promised to give
certain signs that would immediately follow the tribulation period. What were
they?
Matthew
24:29, 30 (Revelation
6:9-14; Joel 2:31; Luke
21:25-33)
24:29 Immediately after the
tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the
Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and
they shall see the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory.
The tribulation
of prophecy is that period of persecution that existed during the 1260 years of
papal dominion (see Daniel 7:25, Revelation 6:9-13). Toward the end of this
period, just after persecution ceased, came the historic “Dark Day” on May 19,
1780. Next came the greatest star (or meteor) shower of history on November 13,
1833, which was just two years after William Miller began preaching. Many, at
the time, recognized these signs as fulfilling Christ’s prophecy, and it gave
great impetus to the Advent
Movement.
27. The Greek word for “generation” (genea) “literally means those descended from a common ancestor”, but it may also mean the lifetime of a person, movement, or nation. It is the generation of God’s final movement, or church, that concerns prophecy. How long would “this” generation (movement) that God began at the time of these heavenly signs, last?
Matthew
24:32-34 (Psalms 22:30,
31)
24:32 Now learn a parable of the
fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that
summer is nigh:
24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things,
know that it is near, even at the doors.
24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
28. Was this a
conditional
prophecy?
Matthew
24:35 (Jeremiah
18:7-10; Jonah 3:10; Genesis 41:32; Daniel
2:45)
24:34 Verily I say unto you, This
generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but my words shall not pass away.
Some prophecies are conditional – i.e.,
“IF you do this, THEN this will happen…” Others, as this one, are unconditional.
Beloved, the Advent Movement of Revelation 10, which proclaimed the special
messages of Daniel and Revelation, the Three Angel’s Messages, IS God’s
Last Generation.
Friends, any church that fits
the Bible criteria for God’s last day people… must be Christian, worldwide,
commandment keeping-all Ten, and have the gift of prophecy, are members of God’s
last generation that will not pass away until Jesus comes. Would you like to
become a part of God’s final movement that is preparing for Jesus’ second
coming?