"
The
first angel's message of Revelation 14, announcing the hour of God's judgment
and calling upon men to fear and worship Him, was designed to separate
the professed people of God from the corrupting influences of the world
and to arouse them to see their true condition of worldliness and backsliding.
In this message, God has sent to the church a warning, which, had it been
accepted, would have corrected the evils that were shutting them away from
Him. Had they received the message from heaven, humbling their hearts before
the Lord and seeking in sincerity a preparation to stand in His presence,
the Spirit and power of God would have been manifested among them. The
church would again have reached that blessed state of unity, faith, and
love which existed in apostolic days, when the believers " were of one heart
and of one soul," and " spake the word of God with boldness," when " the
Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." Acts 4:32, 31 2:47.
If God's professed people would receive the light
as it shines upon them from His word, they would reach that unity for which
Christ prayed, that which the apostle describes, " the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace." " There is," he says, " one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling one Lord, one faith,
one baptism." Ephesians 4:3-5. Such were the blessed results experienced
by those who accepted the advent message. They came from different denominations,
and their denominational barriers were hurled to the ground conflicting
creeds were shivered to atoms the unscriptural hope of a temporal millennium
was abandoned, false views of the second advent were corrected, pride and
conformity to the world were swept away wrongs were made right hearts
were united in the sweetest fellowship, and love and joy reigned supreme.
If this doctrine did this for the few who did receive it, it would have
done the same for all if all had received it." {GC 379.1-3}
"
The
Three Angels' Messages.--The proclamation of the first, second, and third
angels' messages has been located by the word of Inspiration. Not a peg
or pin is to be removed. No human authority has any more right to change
the location of these messages than to substitute the New Testament for
the Old. The Old Testament is the gospel in figures and symbols. The New
Testament is the substance. One is as essential as the other. The Old Testament
presents lessons from the lips of Christ, and these lessons have not lost
their force in any particular. The first and second messages were given
in 1843 and 1844, and we are now under the proclamation of the third but
all three of the messages are still to be proclaimed. It is just as essential
now as ever before that they shall be repeated to those who are seeking
for the truth. By pen and voice we are to sound the proclamation, showing
their order, and the application of the prophecies that bring us to the
third angel's message. There cannot be a third without the first and second.
These messages we are to give to the world in publications, in discourses,
showing in the line of prophetic history the things that have been, and
the things that will be." --Manuscript 32, 1896. {CW 26.2}

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