Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people...  Revelation 14:6, NKJV

If you had one message to share with the world, what would it be?  My guess is it wouldn't be an announcement about a recent shopping deal you found online or your opinion about the best ice cream flavor.  When we asked this question last Sabbath during church, some of the responses I overheard were:  "God loves you!" and "Jesus is coming soon!"  One message at this hour of earth's history should focus on eternal things, things that have eternal consequence and lasting impact.  And in Revelation 14, God's last-day message is revealed through three angels who are introduced as "having the everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14:6).  Yes, the precise script of each of these angels may sound different, but as we discovered last Sabbath, they have a unified message.  It's the "everlasting gospel," the good news that always has been and always will be an invitation to simply look to Jesus and not to ourselves, to trust in what He does to save us rather than what we do for ourselves. 

FROM THE BEGINNING

Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.  Genesis 3:21, NKJV

It must have been a strange experience.  There in the Garden of Eden, humanity's parents witnessed death for the very first time in God's perfect creation.  Adam & Eve had just eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and although death had been the expected consequence of distrusting and disobeying God, they probably didn't expect that it would lead to the death of something than themselves...let alone be clothed with the skins of that innocent substitute.  In concrete fashion, God provided them garments that more substantively replaced the covering of fig leaves they sewed for themselves.

What they attempted to do for themselves could only be provided by God's divinely appointed substitute and sacrifice.  

We may not verbally hear the gospel message articulated in Genesis 3, but we surely see the gospel demonstrated from the very beginning, which is why Revelation refers to Jesus as the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8b).

That gospel message -- that only Jesus can save and that all our efforts to save ourselves fall short -- is a message that constantly needs repeating and rehearsing lest we revert to relying upon our own efforts to cover sin's shame.  We see the need for this in the story of Cain and Abel in the very next chapter.  We may know this as a tragic story of sibling rivalry, but before the violence of the story is the confusion about what recommends us to God.  

It's not the fruit of our own hands but our faith in an innocent sacrifice that restores our broken relationship with God.  

The lamb Abel brought was "a more excellent sacrifice" because it was offered "by faith," and it consequently preaches the everlasting gospel message that we can ever and only trust to the merits of the One this lamb pointed, not the merits of our own hands.  

This good news gets repeated in the story of Abraham and his obedience to God's seemingly uncharacteristic instructions to offer his "only son" Isaac as a sacrifice to God (Gen. 22:2).  In this experience, Abraham dealt with two tensions of faith:  1) regarding the promise of God to multiply his descendants through the one he had been asked to sacrifice, and 2) regarding the promise of God he thought he understood that God Himself would provide atonement for our sins.  In the social context of the Ancient Near East, child sacrifice was widely practiced and considered the norm, but Abraham knew the God of heaven and the reality that we could never produce that which restores our connection with God.  This is why, in response to Isaac's observation that they hadn't brought a lamb with them, Abraham still confesses:  "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering" (v. 8).  This is the gospel message that the father of our faith leaned into and embraced both before reaching the top of Mt. Moriah...and after.  The climax of the story is found not just in the Angel's timely intervention to stay Abraham's knife.  The climax is really in what Abraham finds thereafter:  

Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.  Genesis 22:13

It was then that Abraham called upon God with a different name:  Jehovah Jireh, a gospel-declaring title meaning "The Lord will provide."  Do you hear it?  It's the gospel message from the Garden of Eden, the one revealed through Abel's sacrifice in contrast to Cain's:  what restores our relationship with God is not what we do or perform but only what, or better yet, WHO God Himself provides.

TO THE END

At the end of time, this is the same everlasting gospel specifically addressed to people "who dwell on the earth" (Rev. 14:6) because these are the very ones worshiping the beast (13:8), which is a counterfeit Christ and false system of salvation.  The messages go on to identify that counterfeit system as broken, labeling it as "Babylon," (14:8) whose essence can be described as the intent to reach heaven through human power (cf. Gen. 11:4).  And for those who persist in subscribing to that kind of self-reliant approach to salvation, the messages warn that such stubbornness is a refusal of the One who already drank the cup of God's wrath and of the only One who can truly give us rest (Rev. 14:9-11).  That's the one message God has declared from the beginning that will continue to resound to the end of time.  Revelation 14's three angels may bear messages that sound different, but they give a singular invitation to look to Jesus alone, to trust that only what God has promised and provided for our soul needs is sufficient, and to turn away from the relying upon our own human efforts to reach the heavenly goals we may pursue.  

Friends, do you know the everlasting gospel?  Have you received the everlasting gospel today?  Whether in pursuit of a restored relationship with God or of any other heavenly goal, let's look to Jesus alone.  Let's lean on only what He Himself provides and lay aside all trust in our own merits or performance.  May we experience the gospel day by day and be part of those who can share this good news with all in our spheres of influence.