The Mysterious Fourth Angel’s Glory

Proclaiming the Death of the Lord

The fourth angel’s glory is the Sabbath truth of the righteousness of the Messiah, which will bring an end to sin; then the gospel promise of His Kingdom can come to fruition, starting in the New Jerusalem and then, after the Judgment, the whole earth. Every phase of the gospel happens on Elohim’s holy days, and they are holy proclamations of the process and completion of the perfect creation of the Messiah’s righteousness—first the provision of His righteousness, or glory, then the reign of His righteousness, when His glory is made manifest; hence, the two phases of the Messianic Kingdom.

However, there is a major barrier. We must address it before we get to some powerful new light. Some reading this may even still have the persistent thought that the “feasts” (as they are often called) were for the Jews, because they all involved animal sacrifices, which were to end at the cross since they had no power to remove sins and only pointed to the Messiah. But that is the very point! The same blindness that the Jews had is upon Christendom. By saying, “No, that is for the Jews,” is saying that those were the real festivals, and the Jews accomplished Elohim’s intent for them.

How far from the truth! Here is the truth of the matter: How the Jews performed the holy days and festivals was not real. It was typical. The animal sacrifices did not make any real atonement for sins. They were acting out a parable of what was to come. The holy days were yet to have their true application. And lest one may think that the Messiah does everything after that point without any observance by His people, here are His words to His disciples:

When did that power come? On the Holy Day of Pentecost. If the disciples had not been all in one place celebrating it, the power would not have come. The same is true with the Day of Covering (aka. Atonement) in 1844 CE. If the Adventists had not been watching and waiting for the Messiah on that day when it came to Israel, the whole Midnight Cry and the tarrying for the Second Advent would have meant nothing.

Christendom has allowed the one thought that “those feasts are for the Jews” and have no more value for observance after the cross to blind them from seeing how the apostolic Assembly continually observed Elohim’s creation calendar and its appointed times; this can be seen all through the Book of Acts. It blinds them from seeing the prophecies in Isaiah of future holy day and New Moon observance. It blinds them from the reality that it is impossible for a holy day or festival to be spiritual. A day is a time. Time cannot be spiritualized. A festival is a celebration. A celebration cannot be spiritualized. In other words, there cannot be a day outside of time or a celebration without celebrating it. These are practical things. It should be common sense, but instead there is a twisting of Scriptural truths into false theories.

So it is that Christendom makes the holy day and festival observances of the Jews the real thing, just as the unbelieving Jews did. But here is what the Bible says:

How the Jews were to observe the special seasons indeed was symbolic. Thus, priestly holy day observance before the cross was not the real thing. The real thing was to come, after the Messiah offered Himself on the cross through the eternal Spirit.

Now this may be even more of a shocker: Even the cross—and the human death that took place there, with body and blood—is not the real thing. It is a symbol of the real death. The truth is spiritual. The cross did not kill the Messiah. It was an illustration of sacrifice and of death and of the cruelty of Satan. What is behind the symbol—the unseen—is what is real and effectual. The truth is that Elohim, the Father, killed His SON.

Through the eternal Spirit, Elohim placed our sins upon His SON, and this is what killed Him. But far more than that took place on the cross. There was a fountain opened . . .

The water and the blood that came gushing out of the side of the Messiah, when thrust with a soldier’s spear, is not what this verse is referring to, for it was not the reality, but the record of the reality.

The water and the blood are the two physical records, but “it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (v. 6). Only those with the Messiah at the cross saw the physical witnesses, but John bore them to the world by his gospel and epistle, and it is solely the Spirit that bears the witness to our conscience. Again, “the Spirit is the truth.” The eternal Spirit is the reality and bears witness of it to us, in our consciences.

Instead of responding to Pilate in words, the Messiah responded in action. He demonstrated His true death on the cross by His human death and blood; and His true death was the ultimate truth—the glory hidden to the world. Again, the water and blood were only records of the truth; but “the Spirit is the truth.” And this truth is depicted by the light of glory. Here is a vision of it; and this is what the fourth angel’s message alludes to:

This is of course a depiction of the Second Advent; however, it also reveals that the Messiah is a Fountain of light—the Holy Spirit proceeding from Him. His physical wounds will eternally depict the truth—His true death on the cross.

What we need to see is the relationship between His death and His righteousness, and that with the real (non-typical) observance of appointed times—which the Jews could not do before the cross, since the fountain had not yet been opened in the realm time. Here is another ancient prophecy, which weaves that which physically happened at the cross with what spiritually happened; I quote of the latter:

We as people have accounted Him smitten and stricken of Elohim on a physical account, but we miss the two infinite realities of that which is spiritual—the truth. Firstly, He bore our sins. This was not make-believe where He did something that was symbolic, pretending to be us as a Substitute by some arbitrary legal act so that His death is accounted as ours. No, no, no! We have had it backwards! The truth is spiritual. There was no demonstration of a substitutionary sacrifice; it was reality!

These Scriptures reveal the first part of the awesome truth about what really happened at the cross. The truth is that: we were there; and we died there. No, not we who are Christians, but we who are humans.

The two individuals being spoken of are the two Adams—the original, of which our DNA damaged from sin came from, bringing us into a dying condition, and the second One, the Messiah, who, at the cross, took upon Him all humanity, yea, everyone who has been or ever will be born, the same ones that were in the loins of the first Adam. That is precisely what makes Him the second Adam. “While we were yet sinners”—that is, in the state of active sinning—”the Messiah died for us”—not merely substitutionary, but He died for every one of us, and not merely a physical death, but the death that we will all face in the Judgment if we do not accept His righteousness that reigns unto eternal life.

This comes back to the reality of the “eternal Spirit.” It can travel both backward and forward in time; if it could not do this, we would not have the remarkable fulfillment of many prophecies. It is written that “the HIGH AND LOFTY ONE … inhabiteth eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). We has humans dwell in time, but by the direction of Elohim, the Messiah entered into that realm of time travel for every human. That is why it is true that He was “tempted in all things.” He was tempted as an orphan, a widow, an abused wife, and each and every one of us—tempted in every circumstance that has ever existed. Hence, we find this written:

The Messiah on the cross experienced every temptation to sin, and all sufferings as the result of sin—so much so that all of our sufferings are called “His sufferings.”

And not only did He experience every temptation and feel every suffering from sin, but He experienced the wrath of Elohim for every sinner in the Judgment, which involved the experience of death for every sinner in the fiery tortures of hell, for it was ordained “that He, by the grace of Elohim, should taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9). It was at this stage that He cried out, “My Elohim, my Elohim, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Yet, this is when the Father was personally present, for He had to be to bring the lives of all mankind before His SON; nevertheless, His presence was not only concealed from the world but also from His SON.

The Messiah did nothing to invoke the wrath of Elohim—separation from Elohim due to His anger against sin—that the wicked experience in the judgment as they are left to die, feeling the full weight of their sins. The Lord Jehoshua was “without sin.” Therefore, the Torah had nothing against Him. It was not condemning Him in tortuous judgment personally.

The Torah does not lie. And either do the New Testament Scriptures lie when they say that “all were dead.” The truth is that we were all in the Messiah on the cross—not us consciously, but the Spirit of Elohim taking the records of our lives in time to the cross, with the Messiah entering into them to feel just what they feel.

Therefore, it was not Him but us in Him, thus satisfying the Torah. It was still substitutionary in that it directly involved Him without us having to experience everything ourselves (unless we reject His righteousness), but it was not an arbitrary substitution since it was our very lives being played out in Him. Many struggle accepting a substitutionary sacrifice, especially those of other religions, and for good reason; it is often taught in an arbitrary way in which the sinner’s life is not involved, as if Elohim’s anger is appeased as long as there is suffering and blood shed. The in the Messiah motif is left out; and we will see this come out clearly in other Scriptures as we look into the second aspect of the truth of what actually happened at the cross—the most powerful aspect and indeed part of the mysterious glory of the fourth angel.

Not only did the Messiah have to die our death but He had to live our life—both to justify us and to provide for us. Let us review this Scripture, regarding the justification:

Everyone was justified at the cross to live. This includes each human being with breath. Every moment of our lives was purchased at Calvary. It was by one “righteous act,” with one choice to do it, which was a struggle to make:

The drinking of the cup was the bitter experience heretofore described, but with the addition of a very important component: experiencing every temptation, not merely to feel what it feels like, but to conquer it and make the right decision, just as He did in deciding to drink the cup. For many temptations, it is very difficult to make the right choice and can be a very bitter experience. But He did—in every case! This includes the martyr who is presented with the stake and torture and many similar cases.

And it was at the stage of completing this for every moral decision for every human being that “Jesus cried, ‘It is finished.’ ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit’. A light encircled the cross, and the face of the Saviour shone with a glory like the sun. He then bowed His head upon His breast, and died” (Desire of Ages, p. 756). This is the mysterious glory of the fourth angel—the Sabbath glory of the finishing of the work of salvation for every human being, the glory of the Messiah’s righteousness, which Elohim used in Him to reconcile the world back to Him.

There again we are in Him. This is the most foundational part of the gospel, yet it is the part most frequently left out! What this means is that the Messiah, at least where all moral decisions are concerned, lived out every life perfectly! That means you, and that means me. You have a perfect record in the Messiah, and that is why you now live. Adam’s sin condemned us all to death; and though nothing was done to remove this, we all have a probationary life before it and a resurrection from it, on one side or other of the great millennium. No one can take this gospel truth away from us; and no one can die except the Lord allows it. It is unconditional salvation for all—not to eternal life, but for temporal life and a fair trial thereafter. “It is finished.” Our salvation is secured in the Messiah!

Out of all the Scriptures, the next two—especially the second one, which is a Pauline masterpiece—most clearly convey this glorious reality, in addition to the glorious reality of our existence in the Messiah after the cross. Let us take one at a time.

This is the Sabbath truth, as it is proclaimed on the first holy proclamation of the year—the foundational fountainhead for all other proclamations. We are a perfect creation in the Messiah Jehoshua. Again, He lived out every moral decision we will ever have to make perfectly. It is our very lives—lived out by Him. It is the righteousness of the Messiah—custom for the unique you, for the unique me, for every situation we shall ever face. It is an underappreciation, if not total unawareness, of this truth, as well as a lack of practical application of it (which we will learn shortly) that keeps us held in sin. Not clearly realizing that the Messiah already lived our lives perfectly for us and that this perfect you and perfect me can be downloaded into us through faith, we tend to try to be righteous of ourselves, trying to do what is right by our own efforts, even if we know better. His righteousness is too distant, too indistinct, too generalized to have faith to tap into without this glorious knowledge. But it will take time for all this to sink in.

It is terribly unfortunate how misunderstood and mistranslated this controversial passage is, because it so powerfully conveys not only the truth of our Sabbath (finished/completed) reality in the Messiah (first paragraph) but also how this complete righteousness of His becomes reality in us (second paragraph). The first thing to know about this passage is the historical context and how it relates to the heresy Paul is writing of. It has nothing to do with the Judaizing teachings that he deals with in other epistles, as can be seen in the context.

There was a widespread heresy spreading around in Paul’s day called Gnosticism. Instead of getting into all the details here as I do in my book Seventh Month Revival, we will just go with what is evident in the text. The gnostic teachers encouraged human dogmas of self-abasement, including restrictions of eating and drinking. The idea was that there were elemental spirits ruling through the physical forces of the world, and these were all evil, along with everything physical, imprisoning the inner soul that must be freed. Therefore, the physical urges of the human body had to be suppressed by only drinking water and abstaining from certain foods and fasting at certain times; then the elemental spirits would be appeased and the inner soul, which is good, could be unleashed and secret knowledge (gnosis) attained for salvific purposes. It is alive and well today in various forms, most purely in Theosophy, and it largely contributed to the development of the Roman Catholic Church, especially in the ascetic communes.

Paul confronted it with the truth—the true saving knowledge: that we have all been made complete in the Messiah, fully forgiven of our sins and fully righteous with His righteousness, and that the body that we need to be religiously concerned with is His body, not the human body. Physical eating and drinking—generally, but especially on the occasion of celebrating a holy day, New Moon, or Sabbath—is but a shadow of the nourishment we are to receive as we partake of, and become, the body of the Messiah. This is the great mystery of the gospel, and in confronting this heresy, a tremendous amount of light is communicated—but only to those who are willing to part with the “tradition of men” and diligently seek to discern the Scriptures and learn more deeply of our Lord Jehoshua. So this is the truth that we are going to dwell on for the rest of this article. Let us read the second part again.

Notice that contextually the body of the Messiah is His spiritual body—having many parts, but “knit together” into one. Ephesians—the twin book to Colossians addressing the same gnostic heresy—sheds more light on this, saying that Elohim gave the Messiah “to be the Head over all things to the Assembly, which is His body—the fullness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23). This is amazing! The Assembly is to be the fullness of the Messiah; but this will only happen in growing “the growth of Elohim,” until there is Sabbath perfection.

What we need to see is how this happens, so that we can practically make it happen! For this is why the Messiah endured so much at the cross. He could only reach His fullness by doing so, for He was born to be a King—His entire purpose (Jn. 18:37)—and a king without a kingdom is, well, not a king. Therefore, He had to live every life perfectly, so that He would someday have a full and complete body of people that receive that righteousness authored by Himself to live it out themselves. “For the Kingdom of Elohim is … righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). And since the Holy Spirit originates from Elohim, that is how His Law is a transcript of His character, for He has no father or mother to honor, and He kills and makes alive, but the lives that were lived perfectly in His Spirit is the righteousness that fulfills the Law, and the righteousness that you and I need.

But to properly understand how it works for His people to receive it, that they may come unto the fullness of that high stature as the spiritual body of the Messiah, we must dwell on the physical body of the Messiah, coming full circle back to how we began this article. We were musing on the thought that the body and blood of the Messiah is not the real thing, but signifies it. And now we can understand what is signified. It is His infinite sacrifice—His bearing all sin incurred by wrong choices in temptations and then overriding that with making the right choices, thus creating “the new man, which after Elohim is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). That is what we are to “put on,” and this putting on is growing the growth of Elohim.

The shadowy “eating and drinking” of our Colossians 2 text is then a symbol of feeding on the body and blood of the Messiah, which itself signifies His sacrifice on the cross. That is what we are to repeatedly spiritually feed on!

Verse 63 later reveals that we spiritually feed on Him by feeding on His “words”; and this can be done daily on an individual basis, especially the morning appointed time, to prepare us for the day. But Paul’s context is corporate in nature, when the body comes together, when we can expect greater blessings. In fact, Paul indicates that “when therefore ye come together into one place, it is ”supposed to be “to eat a Supper of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:20), which the Assembly at Corinth was struggling to properly do. We also know that the early Assembly was “daily … breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:46)—likely due to the fact that many were being converted each day and it was a celebratory meal after their baptism. But the idea that we are only to eat the Supper of the Lord occasionally, such as once a quarter, is unbiblical. Whenever the body in an area comes together in one place, this holy meal is to be eaten—and not just a bite and a sip, but one in which, if not done properly (as was the case in Corinth), “one is hungry, and another is drunken.” The symbology is to convey spiritual nourishment—being filled with the fullness of the Messiah. It is thus to be a full, nourishing meal; but the false teachers of Colossae were forbidding it in fear of the elemental spirits.

When the Assembly ate supper on a holy day, New Moon, or Sabbath Day, it was always the Supper of the Lord, for they were come together in one place on these days. The theme they dwelt upon as they ate would have matched the theme for the day. For example, on Sabbath they would have remembered how their Lord rested in the grave on that day after perfecting righteousness for them in Himself. But the purpose each time, no matter what day it is, is to feed upon the Messiah—specifically His sacrifice, as represented by the emblems for His body and blood. Thus it is that in partaking of the body of the Messiah, the Assembly becomes the body, spiritually.

Are the emblems the actual body and blood of the Messiah? It certainly sounds that way.

That is strong language. However, the Catholic idea is superstition. Physical objects themselves (or the supposed metaphysics behind it) cannot be the Son of Elohim, who is in Heaven. But with that said, the Supper of the Lord is more than the mere partaking of the emblems. The way it is described in 1 Corinthians 11—with people getting sick or even dying if not celebrated in proper discernment of the Lord’s body (see vv. 29-30)—makes it sound like it is something serious that involves more than taking the emblems. Paul calls the eating and drinking itself a “shadow,” but then gives the spiritual reality of being nourished.

So, when the Lord says, “Take, eat: this is My body,” we ought to take it literally—not the emblems, but the experience. As we partake of the emblems, we are to partake of the sacrifice of the Messiah. His sacrifice is made present—again, not in the emblems, but in our minds and souls. Remember, by His eternal Spirit, the sacrifice is not a mere event in time; it is rather a reality that travels through time—and this not only when there are temptations to overcome, but also when a believer in faith partakes of the sacrifice. It is thus made present to partake of, and especially on the occasion of the Supper of the Lord—the spiritual supper when we are to feast upon the sacrifice of the Lord by partaking of symbolic emblems of it.

What does it mean to proclaim His death? Recall the seven holy proclamations that proclaim the Sabbath more fully. It is the same concept. But what does it mean? It is not spoken words doing the proclaiming, though there may be spoken words involved. Having the sacred occasions themselves—the very experience—proclaims the meaning of the death of the Lord to the depths of the heart of each one present. The Holy Spirit uses the opportunity to speak messages—to the conscience, to the mind, to the heart—of the death of our Lord Jehoshua, which was not His expiration but rather the whole of what brought His death, being His sacrifice, and what truly died: the carnal human flesh and all the sins of the world being laid on Him; this was an eternal death, and a spiritual one.

Though it was one visible death on the cross, it was really a death of every individual sin committed, as well as every single sin awakened in the flesh by temptation but died to before it could manifest in the life—this is the key principle. The one sacrifice, the one surrender, made on the cross, embraces each surrender we will ever make; and the Supper of the Lord is a reminder of this fact that His sacrifice is made present in every temptation—which is an opportunity for surrender. We much choose to make that surrender to forsake the sin, which, when in the flesh, is simply a fleshly desire. The Holy Spirit gives us the impression to surrender the desire, but we much choose to make it.

All sin in every form must die at the cross; this is what the Torah requires, and justice is served. The choice is whether we let it die while still in the flesh—with our life in the Messiah enduring the temptation through surrendering the desire, which is victory—or let the desire conceive sin in our life to bring forth the death that involves shame and guilt, which is defeat. It is our choice whether or not to allow the Messiah to experience the latter—the defeat—which breaks His heart, but He always experiences the former—the victory—for us. If we forsake the sin, it still remains in our flesh until the final shower of latter rain comes when our flesh is cleansed, but it will not rise up into the life and affect our character. Again, this is what the Messiah did for every one of us. This is the Way that we are to walk in. It is the Way of life, which is the Way of surrender, of sacrifice.

The Supper of the Lord is a memorial to us that His sacrifice is a present reality in every temptation, not just the occasion of the holy meal. When we face temptation, the Holy Spirit can bring to our mind the last time we ate the supper, where we demonstrated that we choose to partake of His sacrifice—that is, surrender the sinful desire so that sin is not conceived into the life, so that there is no shame, only the noble suffering of endurance. We can remember our decision we made collectively with the Assembly body—to partake of the sacrifice, in our partaking of the bread and wine—and we will surrender.

So, though the occasion of the Supper itself is a proclamation—to those present—the broader proclamation is what goes forth from the holy table. In the sequel study, “Our Royal Blue Priesthood,” this table is described as the royal throne of the saints, who are “kings and priests” (Rev. 1:6; 5:10). A king makes decrees from his throne, and they go forth from the throne to be acted out in his kingdom. Now our collective decree at the throne, where we gather in assembly, is that we choose to partake of—and, yea, become—the sacrificial body of our Lord. This is what we are declaring when we come to break bread. Our decree is thus that we shall endure temptation, and sin not. And this is precisely why someone actively living in sin is not allowed to participate in this holy communion and is to be cut off from membership of the body unless there is repentance. It is why we are our brothers’ keepers: to make sure our decree stands, for one person’s sin makes the collective decree into a lie. Thus, elders are to repeatedly visit members to make sure they are firm in the faith and in good spiritual health and assist in ministry wherever there may be a need for more nourishment through counsel.

The proclamations, then, that go forth from the royal throne of the Messiah’s sacrificial governing body are the decrees in living action, as the last message of mercy to a dying world:

This is what it fully means to “proclaim the death of the Lord till He come.” The unspoken, but living, proclamations going forth from the sacrificial throne at the appointed times are manifest to the world at all times between the holy meals.

We can prepare for the memorial by making things right with our brethren, washing each others’ feet, praying, and mentally preparing in meditating upon the meaning and import of the meal—that we shall make our decree to sacrifice and sin not with clear consciences and not in vain. If it is a Sabbath occasion, we could pray that the righteousness we receive in our act of faith sustain us for the next week in every moral decision we shall make. During the meal, as we eat and drink, we simply believe we receive; there is no reason to doubt. Thus, we are spiritually nourished; and just as we are to partake of physical food regularly to stay physically nourished, so are we to regularly partake of this spiritual food in order to have spiritual nourishment and strength. And “the things to come” can include even the immediate things before the next Supper of the Lord is eaten—the temptations to arise up until that time, which are, again, opportunities for surrender.

Yet we should still partake of His words in the gospels throughout the week to feed on Him thereby as well, for the feeding upon the Messiah and His righteousness, though festively partaken of annually, monthly, and weekly, is but one continual feast—both for ourselves, and for others that feed on the Messiah they see in us through our good works. Thus we shall effectually grow the growth of Elohim. This latter rain doctrine will help prepare the last generation to live without sin.

Now, back to the idea that the fountain was opened for sin and uncleanness on the first holy proclamation of the year; water and blood gushed out, as signs for the greater glory that would soon come forth. And the Pentecost after that the Holy Spirit was unleashed in fullness. Since then, bright beams of righteousness ever pour out. We are to receive that glory; and that glory is especially poured upon us, to become the glory of righteousness in us, on the holy proclamations—again, when the Holy Spirit proclaims the righteousness to those exercising faith to receive it; and His people in response proclaim praises to the Father of Him whose Spirit proclaims His “mighty love.” This is the power that will so quickly transform sinners into sealed saints, and the loud cry will echo this powerful proclamation of Sabbath truth—the truth of a perfect finished righteousness for every man, woman, and child, opened at Calvary and specially poured out at the appointed holy times—throughout the world.

Why were there sacrifices, sometimes several or numerous ones, on each of the appointed times and festivals, especially the annual ones? I believe it is because as they were observed in the Purity Parable, they were typical occasions. That is, they typified how holy days and festivals would be when they are observed in the reality—after the cross, when the gospel is much better understood, when it is no longer the types making the proclamations but the reality—the real sacrifice, partaken of through the emblems of the Supper of the Lord, and proclaimed in us by the Holy Spirit.

The essence of the Holy Spirit comes to us from the Messiah, pouring out His righteousness—which was created for each one of us at Calvary—through His open wounds so that we can receive it; for we have a living SAVIOUR. He is our High Priest, in the highest Heaven, whose stripes bring healing, whose wounds bring salvation.

There is real blood being sprinkled in Heaven for penitent sinners, making effectual in time what was done in the timeless sacrifice, with the unconditional justification of temporal life provided at the cross becoming faith-driven justification of eternal life, which is righteousness, provided from the heavenly sanctuary. This two-fold justification was demonstrated in the types, with (1) corporate sacrifices provided at the appointed times, including daily, irrespective of an individual’s actions, and (2) individual sacrifices initiated by the actions of a penitent sinner. The antitypes of the former were fulfilled at the cross and the antitypes of the latter are fulfilled in the heavenly sanctuary.

This blood is to speak “better things than that of Abel” to the saints living in the last days; it is to proclaim an unparalleled “mighty love” like nothing else can do. The truth that He still sheds His sacred blood today builds our faith in the truth that He is crucified among us when we sin and for the healing from sin; and like nothing else, it inspires His people to put an end, a shabbat, to sins. It conveys that the Messiah has fresh wounds, and He bears the pain—not physically, but in His Spirit—each and every time we sin. The services of the Tabernacle of Appointed Times in Heaven are thus inseparably connected to Calvary.

How foolish we have been to think that the holy day and festival observances involving an earthly priesthood were the real thing before the cross, to then just come to an end! Those animals were not the real sacrifices. Only One having the eternal Spirit can make the sacrifice; and only then can we truly observe the realities that were typified in the old observances.

We have a choice to make. Will we have the rich experiences Jehovah has designed us to have in these last days to perfect us as the body of His SON, so that He is made full and can return in all His kingly glory, or will we follow the traditions of men as the gnostic heretics did who forbade the proper celebration of holy days, New Moons, and Sabbaths?

SEQUEL: Our Royal Blue Priesthood

Hark! The Fourth Angel Crying

Verse 1
Hark! the fourth angel crying
O’er the earth with glory bright;
All God’s truths therein are lying,
Hidden from the world’s dim light.
‘Tis the Sabbath proclamation,
Final message of His grace,
Messiah’s full salvation,
For a fallen, ransomed race.

Verse 2
See the Cross! a veil is rending,
Not the death that men behold;
‘Tis on Christ our sins descending,
Myst’ries more than can be told.
There the cup of wrath He drained,
There for us He felt the rod;
By His grief our joy He gained,
Sinner, by His wounds made whole.

Verse 3
In His Person, lo! we suffer’d,
In His death, our death we died;
By His grace our souls are offer’d
Full and free, and justified.
He hath known our every trial,
Conquer’d every sin and snare;
Lived our life without denial,
We are perfect in Him there.

Verse 4
Cast thy soul on this sure promise,
Cease from thine own works to strive;
He hath finish’d, He hath won us,
In His righteousness we live.
O the glory, deep and wondrous,
Of this final gospel call!
To the Rock that cannot sunder,
Come, O sinner, one and all!

Amen, Amen.

SEQUEL: Our Royal Blue Priesthood