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Counsels to Writers and Editors
our people a clear explanation of Revelation. We are to give them
the word of God just as it is, with as few of our own explanations as
possible. No one mind can do this work alone. Although we have in
trust the grandest and most important truth ever presented to the world,
we are only babes, as far as understanding truth in all its bearings is
concerned. Christ is the great teacher, and that which He revealed to
John, we are to tax our minds to understand and clearly to define. We
are facing the most important issues that men have ever been called
upon to meet.
The theme of greatest importance is the third angel’s message,
embracing the messages of the first and second angels. All should
understand the truths contained in these messages and demonstrate
them in daily life, for this is essential to salvation. We shall have
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to study earnestly, prayerfully, in order to understand these grand
truths.—
Letter 97, 1902
.
The Landmarks Defined—In Minneapolis God gave precious
gems of truth to His people in new settings. This light from heaven
by some was rejected with all the stubbornness the Jews manifested
in rejecting Christ, and there was much talk about standing by the
old landmarks. But there was evidence they knew not what the old
landmarks were. There was evidence and there was reasoning from
the word that commended itself to the conscience; but the minds of
men were fixed, sealed against the entrance of light, because they had
decided it was a dangerous error removing the “old landmarks” when
it was not moving a peg of the old landmarks, but they had perverted
ideas of what constituted the old landmarks.
The passing of the time in 1844 was a period of great events, open-
ing to our astonished eyes the cleansing of the sanctuary transpiring in
heaven, and having decided relation to God’s people upon the earth,
[also] the first and second angels’ messages and the third, unfurling
the banner on which was inscribed, “The commandments of God and
the faith of Jesus.” One of the landmarks under this message was the
temple of God, seen by His truth-loving people in heaven, and the ark
containing the law of God. The light of the Sabbath of the fourth com-
mandment flashed its strong rays in the pathway of the transgressors
of God’s law. The nonimmortality of the wicked is an old landmark.
I can call to mind nothing more that can come under the head of the
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