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Third Angel’s Message
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in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed
the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” [
Exodus 20:8-11
.]
The Spirit of God impressed the hearts of these students of his
word. The conviction was urged upon them, that they had ignorantly
transgressed the fourth commandment by disregarding the Creator’s
rest-day. They began to examine the reasons for observing the first
day of the week instead of the day which God had sanctified. They
could find no evidence in the Scriptures that the fourth command-
ment had been abolished, or that the Sabbath had been changed;
the blessing which first hallowed the seventh day had never been
removed. They had been honestly seeking to know and do God’s
will, and now, as they saw themselves transgressors of his law, sor-
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row filled their hearts. They at once evinced their loyalty to God by
keeping his Sabbath holy.
Many and earnest were the efforts made to overthrow their faith.
None could fail to see that if the earthly sanctuary was a figure
or pattern of the heavenly, the law deposited in the ark on earth
was an exact transcript of the law in the ark in Heaven, and that an
acceptance of the truth concerning the heavenly sanctuary involved
an acknowledgment of the claims of God’s law, and the obligation
of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Here was the secret of
the bitter and determined opposition to the harmonious exposition
of the Scriptures that brought to view the ministration of Christ in
the heavenly sanctuary. How hard men tried to close the door which
God had opened, and to open the door which he had closed! But “He
that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth,”
had declared, “Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no
man can shut it.” [
Revelation 3:7, 8
.] Christ had opened the door,
or ministration, of the most holy place, light was shining from that
open door of the sanctuary in Heaven, and the fourth commandment
was shown to be included in the law within the ark; what God had
established, no man could overthrow.
Those who had accepted the light concerning the mediation of
Christ and the perpetuity of the law of God, found that these were
the truths brought to view in the third message. [
See appendix, note
7.
] The angel declares, “Here are they that keep the commandments
of God, and the faith of Jesus.” This statement is preceded by a
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solemn and fearful warning: “If any man worship the beast and his