Proclaiming the Message
Christ’s Teaching Commission—Christ’s last words to His disci-
ples were: “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” Go to the farthest bounds of
the habitable globe, and know that wherever you go My presence will
attend you....
To us also the commission is given. We are bidden to go forth as
Christ’s messengers, to teach, instruct, and persuade men and women,
to urge upon their attention the word of life. And to us also the assur-
ance of Christ’s abiding presence is given. Whatever the difficulties
with which we may have to contend, whatever the trials we may have
to endure, the gracious promise is always ours, “Lo, I am with you
alway, even unto the end of the world.”—
Manuscript 24, 1903
.
The Message a Living Force—In the commission to His disci-
ples, Christ not only outlined their work but gave them their message.
Teach the people, He said, “to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you.” The disciples were to teach what Christ had taught.
That which He had spoken, not only in person, but through all the
prophets and teachers of the Old Testament, is here included. Human
teachings is shut out. There is no place for tradition, for man’s theo-
ries and conclusions, or for church legislation. No laws ordained by
ecclesiastical authority are included in the commission. None of these
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are Christ’s servants to teach. “The law and the prophets,” with the
record of His own words and deeds, are the treasure committed to the
disciples to be given to the world....
The gospel is to be presented, not as a lifeless theory, but as a living
force to change the life. God desires that the receivers of His grace
shall be witnesses to its power.—
The Desire of Ages, 826
(1898).
The Church Entrusted With the Message—We are now living
in the closing scenes of this world’s history. Let men tremble with the
sense of the responsibility of knowing the truth. The ends of the world
are come. Proper consideration of these things will lead all to make an
entire consecration of all that they have and are to their God....
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