Three Cosmic Messages
The Three Angels’ Messages
On October 15, 1844, one week before the Great Disappointment, a boy had been born into a pious Lutheran family in Germany. His name was Friedrich Nietzsche, who would become one of modernity’s most influential atheists. Believing that the Christian God was dying in the West, Nietzsche railed against the Christian religion’s continued moral influence, deriding it as a “slave morality,” the morality of the weak who, in an attempt to protect themselves from the stronger, concocted such silly notions as “Love your enemies.” For Nietzsche, modernity needed to get beyond antiquated notions of “good and evil”; a character in one of his books (Thus Spake Zarathustra) declared, “Smash the old law tablets!” (meaning, of course, the Ten Commandments).
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The year 1844 was also important for Karl Marx, the founder of communism. Called the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” this work had been written by Marx that year, even if not published until 1932 by the Soviet Union. The manuscripts show the early development of Marx’s ideology in which he argued for a totally materialist reality that moved through various economic stages until the workers of the world would unite, overthrow their capitalist oppressors, and create a utopia on earth.
The year 1844 had been an important one for Charles Darwin, too. In what has become known as the “Essay of 1844,” Darwin produced one of the earliest expressions of his evolutionary theory, even if it was not then made public. Only in 1859, with the publication of On the Origin of Species, did Darwin publicly promulgate his view that all life on earth originated from a common ancestor by natural and chance processes alone.
The year 1844 was, however, the fulfillment of the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8:14, and the same year that, out of the leftovers of the Great Disappointment, seeds were planted that would burgeon in a worldwide movement whose core message repudiated the guts of Marxist, Nietzschean, and Darwinian ideology.
Contra Marx, the Seventh-day Adventist movement proclaimed that the great controversy between Christ and Satan, not a materialist flow of history, explained world history that would end, not in a man-made communist utopia but in the supernatural establishment of God’s eternal kingdom.
Contra Darwin, the Seventh-day Adventist movement taught that life originated, not in the natural and chance process of random mutation and natural selection, but by the power of the Creator God, who in six days created life on earth and rested on the seventh.
And contra Nietzsche, the Seventh-day Adventist movement proclaimed, not only that God exists but that His universal code of morality (the “Old Law tablets”), the Ten Commandments, remains God’s ultimate standard of judgment and binding on all humanity.
A coincidence that all these events happened in 1844? One should not think so.
Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin — three influential figures whose work has caused humanity irreparable harm. But amid all these errors, God did not leave the world without a witness to His truth, which is why, amid these destructive ideologies, He raised up a movement that would, over time, morph into the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that would proclaim His last-day truth to the world — the three angels’ messages. These are messages that, at their core, refute the errors and misconceptions promoted by those three terribly deceived men.
The three angels’ messages are, in a sense, the marching orders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And at their core, they are the gospel, pure and simple, but the gospel presented in the context of “present truth” (2 Peter 1:12, NKJV).
And this, the three angel’s messages, is our study for the quarter.
A native of Connecticut, U.S.A., Mark Finley, an internationally known evangelist, was a vice president at the General Conference from 2005-2010. After retiring from full-time employment, he became an assistant to the president of the General Conference. Pastor Finley and his wife, Ernestine, have three children and five grandchildren.
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Marx, Nietzsche, and Darwin are soft targets for Seventh-day Adventists. We dismiss them because of their anti-God stereotypes and claim some sort of moral high ground over their philosophies. It is however useful to do a "101 Development of Nineteenth-Century Philosophy Course" to understand not just what these men were saying, but rather how they came to develop their ideas.
In a nutshell, these ideas were developed during the period when the wheels fell off institutional religion. God was portrayed as authoritarian for the purposes of control. Religion was linked largely with national interests. In many respects, these men were reacting against a false picture of God that had institutional and political support.
A full study of this development is beyond the scope of these lessons, but it is worth remembering that the symptom is only a reflection of the cause.
Please look at the four angels in the River Euphrates.
I have looked, Runnin Mudsuzi. But I am not sure why you have drawn my attention to these four angels. Would you like to expand on that a bit?
The book of Revelation chapters 10 and 11 reveals quite a bit of information from an inspired source as to what was going on in the years just prior to, including and following 1844.
In chapter 11 of Revelation we have the rise of the atheistic movement, throwing off the perceived restraints of God and the Bible.
See Rev.11:3, Rev.11:7-11
We understand the two witnesses are the old and new testament. The Bible was suppressed during the 1260 years (42 prophetic months) 538-1798, when the papal church held control of the religious worship of the European nations.
When this time period was coming to an end, a "beast from the bottomless pit" manifests itself, (Rev.11:7) whose aim is to rid the world of the Bible and God, of priests and kings, and promote worship of only human reason.
For an inspired commentary on this read Great Controversy pages 268-269, 273, 285-286. Or read the whole chapter. Indeed it was a reaction against established religion and its wrong picture of God, which reached its most horrific result in the country that earlier had engaged in fierce persecution against people who upheld the Bible instead of complying with the recognized church.
Remember this whole thing relates to the battle that was started by the fallen angel (the dragon) in heaven (Rev. 12:7-9) whose whole aim was to release angels and now human beings of the restraints of God's law. (Rev.12:17)
People are the prize being fought over.
God is also working to draw people to Himself, to give them life and light and to show them His law is the true way to liberty and equality.
So in Revelation chapters 10 and 11 we see the rise of two movements.
Revelation ten is about God working to establish the people who will give the three angel's message.
They take the "opened book" (Rev. 10:8) and start studying the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. They find the 2300 day prophecy,(Daniel 8:14) but misunderstand what the cleansing of the sanctuary means, and believe it means Jesus would come.
(Rev. 10:9-10) How sweet the message tasted, but the disappointment was very bitter.
They were given more light and told they had a mission to share the message of prophecy again. (Rev. 10:11) Thus the three angels' message was to go out to the world.
Both sides had their message.
1844 was indeed a decisive time in history.
One side has the message -- Worship and give glory to Him that Created everything. (Rev. 14:7)
The other side has the message -- There was no creation, it's evolution, God, if He exists at all, isn't that particular, His law isn't binding, human reason and wisdom is master.
We are the prize and the stakes are extremely high as to which side we are on, and who we chose to serve. There is no middle ground.
The practices of Christian hypocrisy and superstition have been the most effective agents for conversion of millions to atheism and materialism. To these fatal idolatries, the Way, the Truth and the Life is the only antidote.
Darwin’s ideas are a direct counterfeit to the call to relive the Sabbath of Creation. Darwin took true evidence of small evolutionary changes and made giant leaps of logic that evolution can jump across species.
All dog breeds can interbreed with each other because, regardless how they now look, they are simply all dogs. Similarly all camelids can interbreed -- i.e. an alpaca and a camel are genetically similar enough to interbreed.
Similarly, humans from different parts of the globe look different but are all humans. We don’t know why Chinese look different from Europeans or Africans, but presumably it's got to do with how people selected for mates, and likely goes back to when God selected people by language at the Tower of Babel.
One of the great things about Adventists is how we respect the Bible account of Creation and recognize God’s awesome work. We were made by God, not by chance. Then Jesus came to save us by joining us in our pitiful state to die for our sins.