they began to look upon God as, like themselves, a stern, forbidding, exacting
judge, who was angry with them, and waiting only for the opportunity to punish
them for their evil doing. Therefore they thought they must offer sacrifices to
appease him, and the more precious and costly the sacrifice, the more favor they
should gain, and so they were led to sacrifice their own sons and daughters.
Thus the sacrificial system, which God had given to Adam, and which was
observed by Noah, and which was included in the covenant with Abraham, was
altogether perverted and lost sight of in this apostasy of the nations. And the
descendants of Abraham, in their unfaithfulness, through their association with
the nations, and amid the darkness of Egypt, also lost sight of the true, the
simple, and the significant service that God had given to Adam, and had
continued with Abraham. Accordingly, when they came out of Egypt, the Lord
renewed to Israel the sacrificial system, with definite instruction in it, that they
might, according to his own direction, offer his sacrifices in purity, and according
to truth; that they might see in these the true meaning that God put there at the
beginning, which was the sacrifice that he had made,–the offering of his only
begotten Son,–the firstling of his flock,–the best of all that he had.
Thus it is plain that the sacrificial system that was given to Israel was for the
enlightenment and instruction of all the people of the world as certainly as it was
for Israel; because it was Israel's likeness to all the other nations in their
darkness that made it necessary that this should be given to them.
God has no favorites, and never had any. All that he ever had is free to all
people. All that he ever gave to anybody is free to all others, and he gives to any
only that they may pass it on to all others. And those who receive, and do not
pass it on to all others, but confine it to themselves, lose that which God has in
truth given, and can cling only to the empty form of the truth, absolutely dry and
barren.
This principle is present truth to-day, to the people of the Third Angel's
Message. There is positive danger, and there has been for years, that these shall
repeat the history of the Jews.
"Back Page" Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, 77, 4 , p. 64.
LAST week in the United States Senate, in a speech that has been accepted
as expressing the intent of the nation, it was declared that if the late and present
course of the United States in the farthest East "be imperialism, its final end will
be the empire of the Son of God;" and that "the American people move forward to
the future of their hope, and the doing of His will." Thus the evil seeds of National
Reform that have been sown in these thirty-five years are springing up now
everywhere, and soon will be producing their baleful fruit everywhere.
January 30, 1900
"The Third Angel's Message. What Is It?" Advent Review and Sabbath
Herald, 77, 5 , p. 72.
THE hour of God's judgment is come. This is the basic fact of the great
threefold message, which forms the complete Third Angel's Message.
The Third Angel's Message is therefore the judgment message. This has
been already shown to some extent, and will be seen more and more as we
advance in the study of the message.
This message is to prepare for the judgment all who will be prepared for that
crisis of human destiny. Accordingly all who accept this message will enter into
the judgment, they will subject themselves to all the tests of the judgment.
They will open the whole life to Him who is the Judge; for "God will bring
every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether
it be evil." Eccl. 12:14. And because God will bring every work into judgment, with
every secret thing, all people are exhorted to "fear God, and keep his
commandments." Verse 13.
This word in Ecclesiastes is complemented and emphasized in the word of
this great threefold message, in which the everlasting gospel is preached to them
that dwell on the earth,–to every nation and kindred and tongue and people,–
saying, with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his
judgment is come. . . . Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and
the faith of Jesus."
They that have sinned in the law, that is, with a knowledge of the law of God,
"shall be judged by the law; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men
by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." And since now the "hour of his
judgment is come," and since all to whom this message comes will be judged by
the law of God, it is certain that all who accept the message will set their whole
