June, 06, 2026 Sabbath-School Review

 Derek West

Source material: Three Angel’s Message, Part 1, Audio Study, 18-Oct-2013

This audio study reveals the meaning of what we Adventists call the Three Angels’ Messages.  They are described in Rev 14 and have great theological significance because the three angels complete the Gospel commission to reap the world’s harvest of souls.  My contribution in this blog is to more fully emphasize the reasons why the Three Angels’ Messages (abbreviated with the acronym, TAM) is unique only to the Seventh-day Adventist Church and why it validates her divine calling to finish the Gospel.   

Much has been said, and much will be elaborated upon in the upcoming weekly studies on this subject.  This blog also brings into focus the Second Angel’s Message (no acronymic abbreviations used).  The TAM reads as follows:

“ 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, ⁷ Saying 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. ⁸ And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” —Rev 14: 6-8

This, you know, is coded speech written for the one man in the universe whom the Bible designated to be he who can unravel its meaning.  This makes him the light of Israel and the son of David.  However, today is June-2026, and the TAM significance was given in 1844 so that, throughout the ensuing 182 years of Adventist history, it could be elevated as an essential end-time doctrine.  This fact suggests that, like a growing plant, only the harvester, as proven by Rev 1: 1-3, can yield the fruition (fruit) of its maturity.  This blog, I remind you, shall only highlight the Second Angel’s Message.   Before so doing, we praise our founding fathers for amplifying its value.  In their time span, the mission was merely to nurture, give audience to, and to carefully cultivate its value.  These preliminary functions assure us that, upon first blossom in the day of harvest, today, the world can discern that God’s true people, living or soon-to-be-resurrected Adventists have been honored to properly appraise the text when all others in Christian history have slighted and minimized its doctrinal value.  Again, I say that the exhaustive efforts to make the TAM a key point of focus was God’s end-time tactic to show the marvels of true SDA calling and inspiration.  To this end, we must note that the fall of Babylon is the clarion call of the Second Angel’s Message.  So significant is that fall that he, the angel, stutters by declaring it twice.  He says, Babylon is fallen, is fallen.

The audio study of our listening today emphasized that this fall was to be applicable to the dominating and ethical standards deployed in the world by the 17th century, English-speaking high society: ethics of God’s preliminary ordination.  We will see in upcoming studies that this text is harmonized with the Loud Cry, Behold the bridegroom cometh as depicted in Matt 25.  It says,

 “​¹ Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. ² And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. ³ They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: ⁴ But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. ⁵ While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. ⁶ And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him… ⁸ And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. ⁹ But the wise answered, saying, Not so … and the door was shut.” —Matt 25: 1-6, 8-10

Both Scriptures, Matt 25 and Rev 14: 8, have been depicted as parallel prophecies.  But my comment in this blog speaks —to not just the fall of the churches that comprised Babylon but, more importantly— to the diminution of the vaunted, governing standards of Babylonian high-browed ethics.  Ethical and virtuous concepts exist in the heads of men; thus, much training is required to perpetuate the necessary social weeding process.  This ideological and theological battle began in 1844 when nominal Christians displayed their antagonistic ethics by ridiculing Adventists for their apparent false prophecy about the return of Jesus.  The claim that Babylon is fallen expressed the Lord’s verdict in this dispute claiming that Adventists stood on the higher ground.  And more than that, their (Babylon’s) fall was expressed by Jesus’ divorce of nominal Christians —only to commensurately devote Himself to the scorned and humiliated Adventists.  They were correspondingly ordained to expose all of Babylon’s falsehoods; this would show their fall.  This turn of events was called the “Shut Door” in early Adventist circles —a reference to the entry denial of the foolish virgins.  Jesus became exclusively devoted to the ministry of His most esteemed disciples, the 1844 Adventists. 

The issue surrounding the Adventists’ Great Disappointment —to heaven— was one of testing and not one of failed prophecy.  Jesus knew all the Adventists’ flaws, but He attributed them to be detractions or besetments from which they must, in His time, grow to resolve.  Flaws, I say, for in Bible prophecy, His union with them was a manifestation of a tumultuous marriage: It was depicted as the prophet Hosea taking Gomer, a wife of whoredom (see Hos two) —so you see, God knew of the blights that accompanied His Adventist ministry.  His calculation was that they were defects of lesser severity.  Mental obtusity precluded them from doing any better in 1844 because, as shown in Rev 11, speaking of Jesus, it says, “…they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” —Rev 11: 3. In other words, the two prophets, aka Jesus’ gospel conjoined with Moses’ teachings, revealed the gospel in partial understanding to meet with man’s limited comprehension.  Accordingly, Jesus withdrew His commitment to the general body of Christian believers because they failed the test of faith, the test of graduated maturation.  Beyond that, they mocked His beloved who cherished a scriptural devotion, and they did so in the face of Bible-substantiating evidence that validated the doctrines of Adventism.  To boot, they mocked a people whose theology was far advanced to that of their own.  In fact, their mockery has continued over the ensuing 182 years.  Such made out the Comforter’s work, His mission to guide into all truth —as shown in prior studies of Zech One— to be a hoax.  This manifested the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unpardonable sin making it a divinely ordained and legitimate standard for divorcement.  After all, we have already been told, “…and if any man will hurt them (the Two Witnesses), he must (by fire and brimstone) in this manner be killed.” —Rev 11: 5.  Therefore, the Second Angel’s Message, as connected to Matt 25, was a spiritual announcement of Jesus’ commitment to Adventism, His marriage to them.  The doors of salvation were shut to the rest of Christendom meaning they no longer were authorized to evangelize saints into the Gospel Kingdom.  Such was to be the exclusive duty for Adventism.  But, the Second Angel’s Message proclaims that Babylon is fallen, is fallen.  

In careful reiteration, the audio study of this week portrayed this to mean that her ethical standards were condemned of heaven to be proper gauges for societal ethics.  Bear in mind White Anglo-Saxon ethics were nurtured over Christian history, ethics and laws set —not for permanent perpetuity or etched in stone as was the Law but for— the establishment of world culture to uplift humanity.  This was to prevail until the time of repeal in the day that the Church would stand even taller under Davidic maturation.  It is akin to the cultural disruption that can be anticipated when a family moves from China to a land with a higher culture, America.  The glowing light of this blog then is the message that the entire path of the SDA faith, over the span of 182 years, would reveal the toxic decline of Babylon’s ethics.  The culture is not so bad, some may think: The same reaction, medicine has shown, occurs with the beginning stages of cancer.  Not all diseases kill instantaneously.  The Second Angel’s Message then can be reduced to the claim that Babylonian culture is on a 182-year path of self-destruction.  In stead of this meaning, we have trained our immature minds to think of a different “fall”: of a military collapse or a political decline.  All these declines first begin with cultural and social erosion.  But I reassure all that the fall speaks of a decline of moral ethics by nominal Christians, a cancerous deterioration that slowly advances; meanwhile, a simultaneous and opposite maturation began in 1844 within Adventism. 

The meaning of the message outcry, Babylon is fallen, is only discernable to he that hath an ear —and how logical since only people who have ears can hear an outcry.  He published, but true to this claim, none in his targeted community of Adventism, none except the mustard seed adherents, have even the slightest regard for the theme of the cry.  This we know since the Paulene teaching of doctrinal maturation has also escaped the attention of all.  They, Adventists were set on a different path making their purposeful ignorance worse than Babylon’s failure.  It is like the dog turning back to his vomit.  This leads to their own Adventist hazard.  It will be one that brings a second and more complete manifestation to the Matt 25 message, the day when Christ —not Jesus— shuts the Door on Adventism.  The first manifestation came in 1844 when Christians blasphemed the Spirit by rejecting Jesus’ call.  The second will yield the same when —not Jesus but—Christ marries His efforts with those of the son of David.  It is expressed in Rev 14 as the Fourth Angel uniting with the third angel in the day when the TAM are combined.  Perhaps the vision of a prepubescent teenager with a growth chart will give clarity.  With each advancing enlightenment, the righteous in the church separated —not into a cult but—into a sub-CULT-ural ethical body or church, one that divested itself further and further from Babylon’s doctrinal sewer water.  Imperceptible during the growing season, her progress became micro-measurable, and he that hath the ear is the only one with the accurate growth-chart gauge.  Why is this so, because —to add an additional Bible-affirming Text— with the end of the prophetic hour of Matt 24, doctrines flooded, not the world but the church.  This caused her growth to accelerate all-the-more but only for the faithful brethren.  In other prophetic words, the faithful servant began to feed meat in due season to all who heeded the Lord’s command to watch for him.  Without those doctrines, the other doctrines do not matter. 

Today, the floor has become full of wheat, wine, and oil.  Thusly is the announcement of the Second Angel’s Message stated with a stutter: Babylon is fallen, is fallen. The second fall today shows that Babylon’s cancer has caused her political and military collapse —not just her moral fall.  The invasion of Congress by MAGA and the failed invasion of Iran by the nation of Israel and America, exposes her fall.  It is her broken arm that began 182 years ago with her moral decline: her vulgarity to mock the Spirit of Prophecy.  But we should reflect on the initial doctrines that are now fundamental to Adventism.  This we should do to measure ourselves against the Adventist growth chart.    

• Consider the Judgment: Have your beliefs grown to recognize the meaning of —not just Jesus’ but of— Christ’s return?
• The State of the Dead: Have you turned back to yesterday’s vomit by speaking of the spirits of the deceased looking down upon you in concern for your lives? Also, have you grown beyond that to believe that all who have died will be resurrected?
• The Second Coming: Do you stand tall on the doctrine that Jesus is different than Christ; thus, they return in different episodes?
• Do you believe in the Living Spirit of Prophecy; and if you claim to so do, have you honored your heavenly appointed commissioner to become compliant to his ministry in your life?
• Are you careful to pay an accurate tithe even though your commissioner, the highest among you, does not, by verbal emphasis, stress that obligation upon you?
• Have you become like Adam to allow people who have become emotionally linked to you to, in cancerous fashion, gradually control your ethics and morals?
• Have you become a culture isolated unto the Lord himself by openly giving acknowledgement —not just of Jesus but— of Christ’s involvement in your life by clarifying His separate identity when appropriate context presents itself? Or, are you careful to hide your connection to Him by use of common clichés of generic identity of Christ?
• Are you careful to guard the Sabbath Law?
• When under social pressures, do you ignore Bible-enforced, Adventist ethics? Or do you whimper in coyness and dampen your manhood when social circles compel you to violate Moses’ prohibitions of unclean foods and shameful practices?
• Have you surrounded yourself by love influences whose honor you extol above God causing you to capitulate to their illegal and 182-year degradation of righteous standards?

This list could go on and on.  But in synopsis, it shows your strength to be salmonic, to struggle against the white-water currents that fight your zeal to swim back home to the Adamic kingdom. 

One of the more powerful swimming strokes that all must make is the stroke against American Slavery.  In fact, the founding fathers began that stroke by a vocal appeal as Abolitionists.  Such was first articulated early on in Adventist history by our prophet, EG White.  She understood that, for a Christian nation to enslave another portion of the human family, any of Noah’s children, infers a heart controlled by racial superiority.  Is this your profession too?  This I ask because it has been the most dominant-ethic Babylonian cherishment.  You know that for the Christian world to have harbored such an ethic means that, at sometime in Bible history, heaven had to have allowed it.  How else could Babylon have deployed a cruel people to punish another group, Israel, with such great severity?  Any such Christian had to have been pre-ordained to effectively subordinate, as children, others and do so as a cruel school master.  The Bible says,

“²⁴ Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.” —Isa 42: 24

God gave Jacob to the spoiler.  Ignorance of the Paulene doctrine of Christian growth makes this teaching a hard saying yesterday.  But today, the mustard seed uses Christ and Jesus to reveal the depth of Israel’s revival: again, Babylon is fallen.  This means that, regardless of her stature yesterday, she has now become disqualified to be our school master.  Thusly and primarily does the Lord now, with this message, extol the vaunted 144,000 to be numbered from the sons of America’s former slaves and to be made great today in the day of their liberation.  So, the Second Angel’s Message comes with a great challenge: Resistance is sure because men cherish her exalted stature and ethics as enforced yesterday.  They want to eternally extol as permanency, the doctrine of White Supremacy.  And since the fall of Babylon is a repetitive out-cry, then we can know why the Lord didn’t punish the Confederacy yesterday, and why he waited until today: He graciously gave this land 182 years to condemn her own sin and, when the fall of Babylon is made complete, then the MAGA advocates will be made to give an eternal accounting for their crimes.  Why have they not internalized the Christian Gospel?  Why have they refused to swim back home to receive the Lord’s embrace, will be the question?       

But Babylon’s fall does not yet prove to be our rise.  We must incessantly, as Mustard Seed Adventists continue to grow, to honor, and to advance in our uplifted standards.  The Bridegroom Coming now takes on new meaning: It is the union of Christ with the son of David.  And for such an honor to fall on a man who is of African American extraction, for such a man to inherit dominion on earth and be esteemed by God to be His elect, I say, to receive this message, is the greatest manifestation that, in your heart, Babylon has fallen. No other will be given the charge to rule Noah and his triplets: to multiply and replenish the earth. 

Sincerely,

Derek