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Homosexuality, Marriage, and the Church
and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come.” We
have rightly seen the quotation from the Sabbath commandment in
the next phrase: “and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the
sea, and the fountains of waters.” We have recognized the mission of
the Seventh-day Adventist Church as Repairers of the Breach (see Isa.
58:12) in God’s law, especially with regard
The chuvch
to the seventh-day Sabbath (see Isa. 58:13-
must become
14). But the call of the third angel for the
Uhospital for
“endurance of the saints...those who keep
s in n e r s .
the commandments of God” (Rev. 14:12)
includes all the commandments of God, not just the fourth.
Some have proposed that the Three Angels’ Messages concern
both the Sabbath and marriage:26the references to sexual immorality
in the Second Angel’s Message, allusions to the “image of the beast”
as a counterfeit of the image of God in Genesis 1, and the reference to
“fire and brimstone” as an allusion to the destruction of Sodom for
its sins, particularly its practice of “sodomy” (same-sex intercourse).
In the introduction to the Three Angels’ Messages, Revelation 14:4
describes God’s special people as a chaste people. In Revelation 19
we find reference to “the marriage of the Lamb” in which “His wife
has made herself ready” (Rev. 19:7-8). Although the metaphors of
marriage and immorality are applied in a spiritual sense to doctrinal
purity, the very use of such a metaphor also implies the sexual purity
of God’s people. Elsewhere in Revelation is a special call for believ
ers living in the end times to be pure, with numerous references to
sexual immorality as especially displeasing to God (see Rev. 2:14,
20-21; 9:21) and even disqualifying worshipers from entering the
New Jerusalem (see Rev. 22:15).
In the eschatological context of Revelation, it is not surprising to
have an emphasis upon creation, the Sabbath, and marriage/family,
and to indicate that all of these will come under attack
in
the last
days. According to Revelation, the final remnant
will keep “the
com
mandments of God” (12:17; 14:12), including
the fourth, the seventh,