Stoutness

....even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. Daniel 7:20

"One element in the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Empire that is impossible to be ignored is
--Theological Controversy;
 and another is
--Episcopal Rivalry and Ambition of Supremacy.
These two elements were easily made to combine: each to promote the other, and both to contribute to the exaltation of the bishop of Rome.

....because in every controversy in theology, each party strained every point to get the bishop of Rome to its side, and commit himself to the phase of doctrine held by that party;

and when the controversy had been decided by a general council, there was, by the defeated party, invariably appeal to the bishop of Rome:

and in every contest of rival bishops, and especially of rival patriarchs, it was the same way. In these rivalries, whether manifested through theological controversy or in episcopal ambition, the appellants, even though they were emperors, were ever ready to employ whatever flattering title, and to concede whatever honor, was most likely to win to their side the bishop of Rome."
A.T. Jones

Puritan Corner - Trees...

It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit because there is no winter there.
by John Bunyan (1628-1688)
  And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
Luke 13:9

11 Points to the Sabbath in the Times of Christ SERIES: 11

"The Ten Commandments are not ten separate laws, but one law. By breaking any part of the ten, the whole law is broken.


“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them’ ” (Exodus 24:12)."
StepsToLife

Papal Notes - Live from Panama....

"Pope Francis made the news for naming Mary “the influencer of God.”
He tweeted:

This should not come as a shock. The Roman Catholic Church has long held the belief that Mary was, and is, someone who can

change God’s mind." P&P
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
2 Timothy 4:3

Creation Moment 1/31/2019 - Epigenetics Transcends

"Here’s where epigenetics gets down and close to us individually. Kevin Mitchell, Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, begins:

In the battle of nature versus nurture, nurture has a new recruit: epigenetics – brought in from molecular biology to

give scientific heft to the argument that genes are not destiny. The overwhelming evidence for genetic effects on our psychological traits conjures up a fatalistic vision for many people, one in which we are slaves to our biology, not in control of our own psyche and our own behavior. Epigenetics, a mechanism for regulating gene expression, seems to offer an escape from genetic determinism, a means to transcend our innate predispositions and change who we are." CEH

 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
Psalm 139:14

Within Reach of the Throne of God

"No distinction on account of nationality, race, or caste, is recognized by God.

--He is the Maker of all mankind.

--All men are of one family by creation,

--and all are one through redemption.

Christ came to demolish every wall of partition, to throw open every compartment of the temple courts, that every soul may have free access to God.
His love is so broad, so deep, so full, that it penetrates everywhere. It lifts out of Satan's influence those who have been deluded by his deceptions, and places them within reach of the throne of God..."
Prophets & Kings E.G.W.
There...is neither bond nor free...for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28

11 Points to the Sabbath in the Times of Christ SERIES: 10

"The royal law, which was not abolished, includes the ten commandments and consequently embraces and enforces the Sabbath of the Lord. James 2:10–12 says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.” There is no doubt that the “law of liberty” is the Ten Commandments."
StepsToLife

Notes from the author of Lamentations

The author of Lamentations Noted:

--The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
---his mercies never come to an end;
----they are new every morning;
-----great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23

IN the NEWS - Contention & Mutual Rejection?

Are you one of those of Contention & Mutual Rejection?
Let's Hope So...

"Unity among the many denominations within Christianity is

making progress despite a few holdouts of “mutual rejection and contention” among some, according to a Vatican City official.
Farrell noted as examples that in recent times there have been several interdenominational dialogues on theology “as well as international meetings organized by the World Council of Churches and the Global Christian Forum and other ecumenical associations.” CP
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
Revelation 13:3

IN the NEWS - 22 of Kansas City

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
Genesis 13:13

"The Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas on Friday released the names of 22 priests in its files who have had

substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors made against them in the past 75 years.
“Each name on this list represents a grave human tragedy,” said Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann in a statement published Friday in The Leaven, the archdiocesan newspaper. “Each name represents a betrayal of trust and a violation of the innocent.” KansasCityStar

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/living/religion/article225075480.html#storylink=cpy

Creation Moment 1/30/2019 - "Codes"

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Psalm 139:14 NLT

"The science of epigenetics burst the dam of the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology, the view that DNA is a “master molecule” over genetics.

This 1960’s-era dogma claimed that information flows down from DNA to protein, not the other way around. Epigenetics (“above genetics”) is now acknowledged as a contradiction to the Central Dogma.

Evolutionary explanations that fail to take this into account risk being badly skewed, if not incorrect.
There’s no longer just a genetic code in DNA;

there are epigenetic codes,

membrane codes,

molecular machine codes,

histone codes,

splicing codes

and numerous other sources of information flowing in all directions.

The information in these codes is often heritable. A cell is now seen as a system of codes and regulators that operate on the DNA library." CEH 

Those Spiritual Inverse Relationships

"You are responsible to God for the indulgence of vain thoughts; --for from vain imaginations arises the committal of sins,
--the actual doing of those things upon which the mind has dwelt.

--Govern your thoughts,
--and it will then be much easier to govern your actions.

Your thoughts need to be sanctified.
Paul writes to the Corinthians: "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
Testimonies For The Church vol.3,E.G.W./2 Corinthians 10:5

11 Points to the Sabbath in the Times of Christ SERIES: 9

"Many years after the crucifixion of Christ, the authority of the fourth commandment was recognized. We read in Luke 23:54–56, written many years after the cross: “That day (when Jesus died on the cross) was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.”
StepsToLife

IN the NEWS - The Biloxi 3

"Three priests in the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi were removed from ministry, and one was incarcerated, because they “were credibly accused of sexual misconduct of minors,” the Diocese announced Thursday.

The Diocese identified them as former priests Jose Vazquez Morales, Jerome J. Axton and Vincent The Quang Nguyen. In all three cases, the Diocese notified the District Attorney’s Office, a news release said.
Morales’ name came as no surprise. He was sentenced to prison for 10 years in 2016 for the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old boy in Jones County. Vazquez at the time was pastor at St. Francis Xavier in Wiggins and St. Lucy Mission in Lucedale. Before that, he was a parochial vicar at Immaculate Conception in Laurel and Sacred Heart in Hattiesburg." SunHerald

Read more here: https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/article225033970.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.sunherald.com/news/local/article225033970.html#storylink=cpy

Creation Moment 1/29/2019 - Honest Atheist on Evolution?

In the beginning God created.... Genesis 1:1

"Austrian theorist Gerd Müller has proposed radical change to orthodox evolutionary thought because he says it can’t properly explain how complex structures arise.
He and others want a revision or even a replacement of the standard theory of evolution. His main objection is that evolution “largely avoids the question of how the complex organizations of organismal structure, physiology, development or behavior—whose variation it describes—actually arise in evolution.”
CMI

11 Points to the Sabbath in the Times of Christ SERIES: 8

"The Sabbath in the new earth will be a perpetual reminder of the

Creation. “ ‘For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,’ says the Lord, ‘So shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 66:22, 23).
It would make no sense that in the new earth throughout eternity that every Sabbath all flesh is to come and worship before the Lord if the Sabbath was obliterated at the cross."
StepsToLife

Jurieu to Agier

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words,
and seal the book, even to the time of the end:
many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Daniel 12:4


"Pierre Jurieu (1637-1713), minister of the French Protestant church in Rotterdam published a book on the Papacy, which made consider­able stir.' Jurieu identified the Roman Cath­olic Church

Jurieu

with the mystic Babylon of Reve­lation, and saw the antichrist in the Papacy.
This proposition, of course, was not a new thing, having been held by Luther, and long before him by the Waldensians and other op­ponents of the papal theocracy.
But in Jurieu's book this teaching was presented with rigor­ous logic and a remarkable abundance of arguments.


Fiercely attacked by the French priest and celebrated critic, Richard Simon (1618-1712),' Jurieu defended himself in his book on the fulfillment of prophecy.' Simon answered without delay,' and then Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1724), bishop of Meaux, de­cided to enter the debate.' Jurieu had proved that "the Babylon of Revelation 17 and 18 is antichristian, papal Rome, not pagan Rome."

Bossuet

 In contrast to Jurieu, Bossuet maintained that "as a constant tradition among the Fathers since the beginnings of Christianity, Babylon, whose fall was predicted by St. John, was conquering Rome with her empire; and so falls to the ground the Protestant system, which fails to seek, as the Fathers do, the fall of a great empire and of a Rome mistress of the universe through her victories, rather than the fall of a Christian church, which St. Peter's chair put at the head of the Christian churches."'

In order to "vindicate the insult made to St. Peter's chair by those who consider it as the seat of the antichristian kingdom,"  Bos­suet adopts the Praeterist system of the Jesuit, Alcazar (1554-1613), according to which the first twenty chapters of the book of Revela­tion have been entirely fulfilled in the past history of pagan Rome. Coming to chapter 17, he says: "St. John explains clearly that the beast and the woman are, in the main, the same thing, both being Rome with her em­pire."'

Bossuet, nevertheless, perceived the difficulties of his position. After he had resolutely set aside the futuristic interpretation of the book of Revelation, he admitted that its proph­ecies might have a further fulfillment in the last days.
He said: "I cannot consent to the argument of those who put off the fulfillment at the end of the age." But a little farther on we find: "Who is not able to see that it is very easy to find a connected and literal ex­planation of Revelation, perfectly fulfilled in the sack of Rome under Alaric, without ex­cluding any other possible fulfillment at the end of the age ?""



Pope Clement XI

Everybody knows how the jansenists have separated their cause from the cause of Prot­estantism. But they also vehemently attacked the Jesuits, considered as responsible for the constitution Unigenitus (1713), by which Pope Clement XI condemned Quesnel.

Fight­ing at the same time against both Protestants and Catholics who approved the constitution, a Jansenist brought out a very interesting book on spiritual Babylon.
First appears this state­ment: "I repudiate with abhorrence the im­pious idea that the Babylon of St. John is the Roman Church ;" and then the author adds: "I assert without any fear that the Roman court, with her pride, her false pretensions, her teachings, her deportment; briefly, all the corruption found in her and the spirit so radi­cally opposed to her church and to the see of St. Peter that animates her, constitute the Babylon of St. John." 
                                                                                                               This idea was welcomed by an Italian Benedictine monk from Bergamo, Giangirolamo Caleppio."
A Jansenist also, Caleppio laments the apos­tasy of the Catholic Church; he says God will finally reject her, and order the faithful Chris­tians to come out of this spiritual Babylon.

At the same time when Caleppio's first dis­sertation was printed, a Jesuit from Chile, Manuel de Lacunza y Diaz (1731-1801), began the study of Biblical prophecies.

Banished from Spain and all Spanish possessions with the other


Manuel de Lacunza y Diaz

Jesuits, he had settled in the town of Imola, near Bologna. Having lost every hope of being reestablished in his former office, after his order had been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV (1773), Lacunza dedicated him­self to long meditations and wrote a large book, in Spanish, upon the second coming of our Lord.
 -*-Lacunza reminded the followers of Bossuet that pagan Rome has never been guilty of fornication with the kings of the earth;
-*-that the destruction threatened to Baby­lon cannot be a past event, as it belongs to the seven last vials;
-*-that Alaric's invasion, which did not bring the total ruin of ancient Rome, happened when Rome had already made a pro­fession of Christianity.

He then impugns the futurist interpretation, according to which Rome will be ruined when, having ceased to be Catholic, it will be pagan again. He thinks Protestants have taken an unfair advantage of the prophecies in their controversy with Catholicism, but acknowledges that they have mingled truth with fables. Then he con­cludes:
"Rome, not idolatrous but Christian, not the head of the Roman Empire, but the head of Christendom, and center of unity of the true church of the living God, may very well without ceasing from this dignity, at some time or other incur the guilt, and before God be guilty of fornication with the kings of the earth, and amenable to all its consequences. And in this there is not any inconsistency, however much her defenders may shake the head. And this same Rome, in that same state, may receive upon herself the horrible chastisement spoken of in the prophecy." "

In France, at the beginning of the nine­teenth century, Abbot Bernard Lambert (1738-1813) came to the same conclusion: "We must either boldly contradict Revelation's prophecy on the terrible catastrophe threatened to Rome, or frankly admit that these threaten­ings concern Christian Rome and will be de­layed until a time still future."



Agier

No wonder the books of fathers Lacunza and Lambert were put in the Index of pro­hibited books. It is only strange that those of Jean-Pierre Agier (1748-1823) escaped the same fate. A Jansenist and a Galilean, he pre­sented the same theories.
Explaining Revelation 17 in his "Comm. sur l'Apoc.," t. II, Paris, 1823, p. 124, Agier says, con­cerning Babylon: "Christian Rome, present Rome."
To be sure, the Protestant position must be very strong in order to draw out such admis­sions from writers who were born in Catholi­cism and remained Catholic until their death."
Ministry 1938/AlfredVaucher

Those 2 Covenants

"Under the new covenant, the conditions by which eternal life may be gained are the same as under the old. The conditions are, and ever have been, based on perfect obedience.

--Under the old covenant, there were many offenses of a daring, presumptuous character, for which there was no atonement specified by law.
--In the new and better covenant, Christ has fulfilled the law for the transgressors of law, if they receive Him by faith as a personal Savior.
As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God (John 1:12). Mercy and forgiveness are the reward of all who come to Christ trusting in His merits to take away their sins. We are cleansed from sin by the blood of Christ Jesus our Savior."
Letter 216, 1906, E.G.W.

IN the NEWS - Rhode Island Next?

That they may do evil with both hands earnestly.. Micah 7:3

"State legislators in Rhode Island have introduced a pair of bills meant to legalize abortion up to the moment of birth, echoing a new law in New York.

State Representative Edith Ajello of Providence, introduced the Reproductive Health Care Act earlier this month, said in a statement “It is clear that Roe is in real danger with the U.S. Supreme Court changes and as this president has promised to strip away our reproductive rights.”
State Senator Gayle Goldin has introduced a matching bill, with Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo having expressed her support for the legislation on social media.
On Tuesday, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the New York state Legislature passed a bill Tuesday making it legal for doctors and other health care professionals, such as midwives and physician assistants, to perform abortions up to birth for any reason." CP

IN the NEWS - The Superintendent

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

Genesis 13:13

"A retired priest and former superintendent of Maryville Academy in Des Plaines has been accused of sexual abuse and asked by Cardinal Blase Cupich to step aside from ministry.

According to the Archdiocese of Chicago, Father John Smyth has been accused of sexually abusing minors from 2002 to 2003 while he was superintendent at Maryville Academy.
The Archdiocesan Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review received the allegation and reported it to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County State’s Attorney."
CBSChicago

Creation Moment 1/28/2019 - Neandertals smarter than thought

"Based on the studies of DNA remnants in the tartar on the teeth of Neandertals, scientists have concluded that Neandertals used a

plant source of aspirin and possibly dosed themselves on penicillin by eating the penicillin mould.
“Their behavior and their diet looks a lot more sophisticated and a lot more like us in many ways,” said Professor Alan Cooper, the New Zealander who is director of the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA.
“You know, we’ve got a guy self-medicating …And, here he is eating aspirin [poplar bark] and we’re finding penicillin mould in him.” CMI
 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;
1 Corinthians 1:27

On the Streets of Babylon: Visions of the Dead?

Babylon is fallen, is fallen,... 
Come out of her, my people,
Revelation 14:8/18:4

There seem to be some seeing"visions from the Dead" on the Streets of Babylon...

"Bakker had on Loren Sandford. Sanford, a pony-tailed preacher who fancies himself a pastor and prophet.

Sandford then explained his own prophetic vision (which cannot be verified) that John Paul Jackson came to him from beyond the grave to give him a few special words about the state of charismatic Christianity.
Jackson was a “prophet” who died in 2015 and he hosted a “dreams and visions” program on Daystar television. He was a member of the “Kansas City Prophets” along with Mike Bickel. In spite of being a faith healer and revolving his entire ministry around the healing ministry, Jackson died of cancer and not a single one of his charismatic healer friends was able to help him.
According to Sandford, Jackson – who ostensibly came from Heaven – was crying and upset because so many “prophets” were being inaccurate." P&P 

11 Points to the Sabbath in the Times of Christ SERIES: 7

"The Lord’s instruction to His disciples concerning their flight from Jerusalem, which was to occur many years after the crucifixion, recognized the sacredness of the Sabbath, as found in Matthew 24:20: “Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath.”

Opponents of the Sabbath came up with the argument against this verse saying they could not flee on the Sabbath because the gates of Jerusalem would be shut and they could not get out. This is pure speculation and not only can it not be proven, there is pretty good evidence that it just wasn’t so.

Nehemiah 13:15–19 says, “In those days I saw people in Judea treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys with wine, grapes, figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. Men of Tyre dwelt there also, who brought in fish and all kinds of goods, and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, ‘What evil thing is this that you do, by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did not your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath.’ So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates, so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day.”
Verse 22 says, “And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should go and guard the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day.”

The gates were guarded to prevent people from hauling their carts back and forth on the Sabbath with all their merchandise for selling. A person was not prohibited from going in or out of the city on the Sabbath. Jesus often came from the Mount of Olives and into the temple to teach the people on the Sabbath.
Jeremiah said, “Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. Thus says the Lord: “Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers” ’ ” (Jeremiah 17:20–22).

--These instructions were given to prevent trading and carrying on business on the Sabbath.
--It was not wrong to carry something on the Sabbath.

Jesus was accused when He healed the man by the pool of Bethsaida on the Sabbath day when He told him to take his bed and go. The man rolled up his mat, his bed, and put it on his shoulder. When he started to walk away, he was accused of breaking the Sabbath. It was not wrong to carry his mat with him on the Sabbath. He would need it when it was time to sleep again.
Our Lord’s instruction to His disciples concerning their flight from Jerusalem, many years after His crucifixion, recognized the sacredness of the Sabbath (Matthew 24:20)."
StepsToLife

How "Present Truth" works

Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
2 Peter 1:12

“New light will not manifest itself in a form that is altogether different from the light the church already possesses.

It will take the form of a further advancement of "Present Truth". It is a fuller, clearer, and brighter unfolding of the old truth.

 

There will be harmony with

-the theological landmarks,

-the Spirit of Prophecy,

-and historicist principles of Bible interpretation.

Thus it will not replace, substitute, radically change, or tear down the foundations of Adventist faith and practice.” 
P. Gerard Damsteegt Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 2/1 (1991): 77-92

IN the NEWS - Vermont Next? Scott will Sign??

Who hate the good, and love the evil; Micah 3:2

"Not to be outdone by New York’s recently enacted law to permit abortions at virtually any point in pregnancy as a “fundamental right,” lawmakers in Vermont have introduced an abortion-protection law that may in some ways be even more extreme.

More than 90 members of the state House are cosponsoring legislation to codify a “fundamental right” to “have an abortion,” CBS affiliate WCAX reports. The bill is meant to ensure abortion remains legal in Vermont regardless of a future Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

“States are a critical backstop to the further erosion and restriction of reproductive health care,” said Meagan Gallagher of Planned Parenthood-Northern New England. “We must pass the House abortion rights bill and the Senate equal rights constitutional amendment to ensure that reproductive rights are protected in Vermont.”

The pro-abortion proposal has the support of liberal Republican Gov. Phil Scott.

At National Review, the Discovery Institute’s Wesley Smith warns that the bill’s explicit denial of any prenatal rights “would fully authorize the horrible fetal-part selling practices in which Planned Parenthood was caught engaging,” and “could also permit odious practices beyond abortion, for example creating a free space for germ-line genetic engineering” or keeping preborn humans “in an artificial womb for purposes of experimentation.”
The last scenario may sound like science fiction, he says, but actually happened as far back as 1968, as a 26-week-old fetal human was kept alive in an “artificial placenta” for five hours before dying. The American Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology even gave an award to the study."
Lifesite

IN the NEWS - Gonna Have to Rename

But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
Genesis 13:13

"When John T. O’Connor retired in 1997 after 50 years as a priest, parishioners at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Newington named their parish hall after him.

On Tuesday, after the Hartford Archdiocese included O’Connor in a list it made public of Catholic clergymen who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, the current parish priest said O’Connor’s name would be stripped from the hall.
“Certainly we’re going to remove his name and anything else with his name attached,” the Rev. Shawn Daly of Annunciation Parish said."
HartfordCourant

Creation Moment 1/27/2019 - 20 Year Prophecy?

"Within two decades there won’t be any creationists left in the world, according to Bill Nye, who’s well known in the US as the Science Guy.
Nye’s bold claim was made on a television show in which he insisted that “in another 20 years, those guys will be just about out of business”. CMI
I have seen the foolish taking root: Job 5:3

Point by Point: Everlasting Gospel

"The first and second messages were given in 1843 and 1844,
and we are now under the proclamation of the third;
but all three of the messages are still to be proclaimed.

It is just as essential now as ever before that they shall be repeated to those who are seeking for the truth. By pen and voice we are to --sound the proclamation,
--showing their order and the application of the prophecies that bring us to the third angel's message.
--There cannot be a third without the first and second.

The book that was sealed was not the book of Revelation, but that portion of the prophecy of Daniel which related to the last days.

The Scripture says, "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" [Dan. 12:4].
When the book was opened, the proclamation was made, "Time shall be no longer." [See Revelation 10:6.] The book of Daniel is now unsealed.

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice,
--Fear God, and give glory to Him;
--for the hour of His judgment is come:
--and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
 [Rev. 14:6, 7].

The only true God has been forsaken,

His law has been discarded,

His sacred Sabbath institution has been trampled

in the dust by the man of sin.

 

The fourth commandment, so plain and explicit, has been ignored. The Sabbath memorial, declaring who the living God is, the

Creator of the heavens and the earth, has been torn down, and a spurious sabbath has been given to the world in its place.
Thus a breach has been made in the law of God.
A false sabbath could not be a true standard.
In the first angel's message men are called upon to worship God, our Creator, who made the world and all things that are therein.

The message proclaimed by the angel flying in the midst of heaven is the everlasting gospel, the same gospel that was declared in Eden when God said to the serpent, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" [Gen. 3:15].

Here was the first promise of a Savior who would stand on the field of battle to contest the power of Satan and prevail against him.

Christ came to our world to represent the character of God as it is represented in His holy law;

for His law is a transcript of His character.

 

Christ was both the law and the gospel.
The angel that proclaims the everlasting gospel proclaims the law of God; for the gospel of salvation brings men to obedience of the

law, whereby their characters are formed after the divine similitude.

In the fifty-eight chapter of Isaiah, the work of those who worship God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth, is specified: "They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations" [Isa. 58:12]. God's memorial, His seventh-day Sabbath, will be uplifted.

*The message of Revelation 14, proclaiming that the hour of God's judgment is come, is given in the time of the end;

*and the angel of Revelation 10 is represented as having one foot on the sea and one foot on the land, showing that the message will be carried to distant lands, the ocean will be crossed, and the islands of the sea will hear the proclamation of the last message of warning to our world.
And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer [Rev. 10:5, 6]. This message announces the end of the prophetic periods.

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities
 [Rev. 18:1-5].

Thus the substance of the second angel's message is again given to the world by that other angel who lightens the earth with his glory. These messages all blend in one, to come before the people in the closing days of this earth's history.

Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:12). Here we stand, under the third angel's message.

All the world will be tested, and all that have been in the darkness of error in regard to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will understand the last message of mercy that is to be given to men.  
 
Our work is to proclaim the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. "Prepare to meet thy God" [Amos 4:12], is the warning given to the world. It is a warning to us individually. We are called upon to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us." Manuscript Releases vol.17,p.6-10,23 E.G.W.