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Third Angel’s Message
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the sea, and all that 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-
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
[381]
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.
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. The angel
declares, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and
the faith of Jesus.”
Revelation 14:12
. This statement is preceded by
a solemn and fearful warning: “If any man worship the beast and his
image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same
shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out
without mixture into the cup of His indignation.”
Revelation 14:9,
10
. An interpretation of the symbols employed was necessary to an
understanding of this message. What was represented by the beast,
the image, and the mark? Again those who were seeking for the
truth returned to the study of the prophecies.