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Selected Messages Book 1
God had committed to His people a work to be accomplished
on earth. The third angel’s message was to be given, the minds of
believers were to be directed to the heavenly sanctuary, where Christ
had entered to make atonement for His people. The Sabbath reform
was to be carried forward. The breach in the law of God must be made
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up. The message must be proclaimed with a loud voice, that all the
inhabitants of earth might receive the warning. The people of God
must purify their souls through obedience to the truth, and be prepared
to stand without fault before Him at His coming.
Had Adventists, after the great disappointment in 1844, held fast
their faith, and followed on unitedly in the opening providence of God,
receiving the message of the third angel and in the power of the Holy
Spirit proclaiming it to the world, they would have seen the salvation
of God, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts, the
work would have been completed, and Christ would have come ere
this to receive His people to their reward.
But in the period of doubt and uncertainty that followed the dis-
appointment, many of the advent believers yielded their faith. Dis-
sensions and divisions came in. The majority opposed with voice
and pen the few who, following in the providence of God, received
the Sabbath reform and began to proclaim the third angel’s message.
Many who should have devoted their time and talents to the one pur-
pose of sounding warning to the world, were absorbed in opposing the
Sabbath truth, and in turn, the labor of its advocates was necessarily
spent in answering these opponents and defending the truth. Thus the
work was hindered, and the world was left in darkness. Had the whole
Adventist body united upon the commandments of God and the faith
of Jesus, how widely different would have been our history!
It was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus
delayed. God did not design that His people, Israel, should wander
forty years in the wilderness. He promised to lead them directly to
the land of Canaan, and establish them there a holy, healthy, happy
people. But those to whom it was first preached, went not in “because
of unbelief” (
Hebrews 3:19
). Their hearts were filled with murmuring,
rebellion, and hatred, and He could not fulfill His covenant with them.
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For forty years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out
ancient Israel from the land of Canaan. The same sins have delayed the
entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. In neither case