The Bible plainly teaches that God’s final work of judgment does not begin with the nations, but with His professed people.
“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.”
— 1 Peter 4:17
Ellen G. White confirms this order:
“The judgment begins at the house of God.”
— 3 Testimonies, pp. 266–267
This judgment is not the executive judgment of the wicked, but the investigative and purifying judgment of the living church, preparing a people to stand.
Revelation shows a deliberate pause in destruction:
“I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds… till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
— Revelation 7:1–3
This holding back of the winds means:
No universal crisis
No Sunday law enforcement
No final judgments
until the sealing is completed.
Ellen White explains:
“The angels are holding the four winds, that no destruction may come until the servants of God are sealed.”
— Early Writings, p. 38
Therefore, the sealing precedes the Sunday law, not follows it.
The sealed servants are identified as:
“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth… being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.”
— Revelation 14:4
Ellen White states:
“Let us strive with all the power that God has given us to be among the hundred and forty-four thousand.”
— 7BC 970
The 144,000 are not sealed while the church is corrupt and unpurified.
Purification must occur first.
Ezekiel 9 reveals the final separating work among God’s professed people:
“Begin at My sanctuary.”
— Ezekiel 9:6
Ellen White applies this prophecy directly to the Seventh-day Adventist Church:
“Here we see that the church—the Lord’s sanctuary—was the first to feel the stroke of the wrath of God.”
— 5 Testimonies, p. 211
And again:
“The judgment begins at the house of God… the ancient men… are the first to fall.”
— 3 Testimonies, pp. 266–267
This is not symbolic discipline alone; it is heaven’s decisive act of separation between:
Those who sigh and cry for abominations
Those who tolerate or participate in them
This marks the close of probation for the unfaithful within the church.
Ezekiel 9 does not occur:
After the Sunday law
During the plagues
After probation closes for the world
It occurs before the loud cry and Sunday law crisis, because:
A purified church must give the final warning
An unsealed church cannot stand under universal pressure
Ellen White confirms the sequence:
“The church may appear as about to fall, but it does not fall. It remains, while the sinners in Zion will be sifted out.”
— 2 Selected Messages, p. 380
Once the church is purified and sealed:
The four winds are released
The loud cry begins
The Sunday law is enforced
The world is tested
Only then does the conflict move from the church to the nations.
Judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17)
Four angels hold the winds (Revelation 7:1–3)
God’s servants are sealed (144,000)
Ezekiel 9 purifies the SDA Church (3T 266–267; 5T 211)
The church is prepared and empowered
Sunday law crisis follows
The final warning goes to the world
Before the Sunday law is enforced, God must have a sealed, purified people who can stand without an intercessor and give the final message with power.
Ezekiel 9 is Heaven’s final work within the SDA Church, fulfilling the divine principle that judgment begins with God’s own house.
This is not a message of destruction—but of mercy, warning, and preparation, that God’s faithful remnant may live and stand in the closing scenes of earth’s history.