Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents

Understanding Ellen White

 - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    Three angels’ messages of Revelation 14

    The messages proclaimed symbolically by three angels in Revelation 14 form the basis of Adventist self-understanding and missionary consciousness. In the first message, an angel proclaims the everlasting gospel and the hour of God’s judgment to all nations (Rev. 14:6, 7). The second message proclaims the fall of Babylon (verse 8), while the third message warns against the mark of the beast (verses 9-11). References to these messages were made during the Millerite Second Advent movement. William Miller and his associates used the imagery of the first angel’s message to teach that the time of God’s judgment had arrived and that Christ would soon return. Charles Fitch seems to have been the first to preach on the second angel’s message, on July 26, 1843. This message referring to the fall of Babylon never really “caught on” among Millerite preachers, although many believers accepted it. Previously, Protestants had tended to identify Roman Catholicism with spiritual Babylon. Fitch broadened the category to include contemporary Protestants who had turned from the doctrine of an imminent Second Advent. Although the Millerite movement had been fairly well received by most Protestant denominations until then, in fact it had been an ecumenical movement; however, Fitch’s message caused a rift and much antagonism. Joseph Bates was the first Sabbatarian Adventist minister to articulate and integrate all three angels’ messages with the doctrines of the Sabbath and the heavenly ministry of Christ. In his pamphlets published between 1846 and 1848, he argued for the eschatological importance of the Sabbath and that the keeping of Sunday was a mark of the beast. Revelation 14:12 concludes these three messages by pointing out that in the last days, as a result of the preaching of these three messages, God’s remnant people will be identified as those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.UEGW 111.3

    Adventists have understood these messages to be a divine commission to warn the world of the soon coming of Christ and to invite all people to observe all of God’s commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath, and to follow the example of the life of Jesus and to rely on His mercy and grace for salvation. During the late 1840s, Ellen White wrote little on the three angels’ messages; her role was limited to endorsing the presentations made by other speakers and writers with the exception of one vision on the seal of God she received in December 1848 that enriched Bates’s understanding of the subject at that time. In later years she continued to affirm the value of the three angels’ messages as key to Adventist identity and purpose. 11Ellen White wrote in 1909, “In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light bearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention. The most solemn truths ever entrusted to mortals have been given us to proclaim to the world. The proclamation of these truths is to be our work. The world is to be warned, and God’s people are to be true to the trust committed to them.” EGW, Testimonies for the Church, 9:19.UEGW 112.1

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents