THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE: WHAT IS IT?
The Third Angel's Message is, first of all, a warning against the worship of the Beast and his Image. In the studies of several weeks ago, we have abundantly seen what is the Beast. And in the nature of things, whatsoever is like it, is the Image of the Beast. In these studies we have likewise seen that, in this nation and before the eyes of all people to-day, there is abundance of effort revealing a perfect likeness to the efforts which were the making of the Beast; and which, therefore, in the nature of things, can result here only in the making of the Image of the Beast. Now, while it is true that the Third Angel's Message is a warning against the worship of the Beast and his Image, and this upon the basis of the keeping of the commandments of God, it is equally true that the law of God forbids the making of images, just as really as it forbids the worship of them. Indeed that law forbids, first of all, the making of images; and, plainly, if no images were ever made, no images would ever be worshiped. Therefore, when the awful warning of the Third Angel's Message is spoken against the worship of the Beast and his Image, and this upon the basis of the law of God, it is certain that this Message warns just as much against the making of the Image of the Beast as it does against the worship of that Image. Accordingly, it is just as certainly the giving of the Message, it is just as certainly the work of the people who must give that Message, to warn all people against the making of the Image of the Beast, as ever it can be, when that Image stands fully made, alive and active in its dreadful work, to warn them against the worship of the image. Simple Christian regard for mankind requires that the people shall be warned against the making of the Image; because thousands of persons will take part in the making of the Image of the Beast who would have no part at all in it if they knew what they were doing. Consequently, if they to whom is committed the giving of this Message to the world, really care for the spiritual welfare, and, in this time, even the temporal welfare, of their fellow men, surely they will be as earnest and active, while the Image is being made, to make known to all people, by every possible means, what is the making of the Image of the Beast, as they will have to be earnest and active in making known what is the Image of the Beast, and in warning against its worship, after it is made. This is yet further emphasized in the truth that whoever, professing to have that Message of warning, does not warn against the making of the Image, will not be likely to warn anybody against the worship of the Image when it shall have been made. How can he? If he is unable to discern the movements that enter into the making of the Image, will he be likely to discern the Image that is made by those movements, and which simply results from those movements which he is unable to detect? And yet further this is emphasized by the fact that the Third Angel's Message was opened to the world by the Lord long before the Image was made. Now, if the Message is a warning only against the worship of the Image, and not just as much against the making of the Image, then why should the Message ever have been opened up before the Image is made? Surely, it can not be worshiped until it shall have been made. Then, if the warning against the worship of the Image is the only true bearing and strength to the Message, there can be no place for that Message to be preached until after the Image shall have been made. But, instead of that, the Third Angel's Message was opened to the world more than fifty years ago—long before any of these definite steps had been taken toward the making of the Image of the Beast. This very fact makes it certain that the message must be given in warning against the making of the Image, just as certainly as against the worship of it after it shall have been made. In these studies we have called attention to the falling away from the gospel, in Christianity in this nation, just as there was a falling away in Christianity in the Roman Empire. And, as the result of this falling away in Christianity in this nation, we have traced, step by step, her theories and practices in the exact likeness of those that appeared in the falling away in Christianity in the Roman Empire. And from these things, no one who sees them can fail to see that there is being made here, to-day, the Image of the Beast. This is as certain as that those things that occurred in the Roman State were the making of the Beast. Six to ten years ago, Seventh-day Adventists, throughout this whole nation, were wide-awake and active in discerning the making of the Image of the Beast, and in warning people against it. Why are they not so active now? Have all the efforts ceased that were then being made in the formation of the Image of the Beast?—It is hardly possible that any person even thinks that those efforts have ceased. And if it were possible that there should be any who so think, it is certain that they would be thinking wrongly; because it is the truth that there has been not only no cessation of those efforts, but that all continue which were then in vogue, and many others have been added. And these new efforts are no less powerful in their working, and no less portentous in their meaning, than were the others: yea, they are even more portentous, because of the added strength of the original efforts, by the lapse of time; and because of this lapse of time itself, which brings us so much nearer the great culmination. The efforts which, six to ten years ago, were rife in the making of the Image of the Beast, and to which we were all so alive at the time, are summed up in the words—the repudiation by this nation of the principle of Protestantism. But the National Reform system—that combination which accomplishes the formation of the Image of the Beast—does not end with the repudiation of the principles of Protestantism: it includes also the repudiation of the principles of republicanism. The repudiation of the principles of both these was inherent in the National Reform movement from the beginning. The repudiation of republican principle inheres in the repudiation of the Protestant principle. This the National Reformers knew. Not only did they know it, but they proclaimed it. They said openly, and published it to the world, that “to appeal to divine authority in our legislation would be to fundamentally change the law of our land, or the principle adopted by our fathers when they said that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. I for one do not believe that as a political maxim. I do not believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And SO the object of this movement is AN EFFORT TO CHANGE THAT FEATURE OF OUR FUNDAMENTAL LAW. . . . And I see in this reform a providence teaching us the necessity of recognizing something else besides the will of the people as the basis of government.” It has been a repeated declaration of representative men of the National Reform movement, that “governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Accordingly the abandonment by the government of the United States of the fundamental principle of the nation, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, is not at all a new thing except in the mere acts in which the thing is manifested in practice. This practice is only the fruit of the evil seed diligently sown all over the land for more than thirty-five years by the National Reform organization. All these years their organization has been working and aiming definitely to turn the United States government into a government of another form. Accordingly that organization has denied and repudiated the fundamental principles of this nation as the nation was founded. All these years this organization has had its agents traveling throughout the length and breadth of the land, diligently teaching these principles, which are antagonistic to the principles of the nation. These agents have had unquestioned entry into the academies and colleges of the whole country; they have been prominent on the programs of Chautauqua assemblies; they have had the sympathy and support of the churches, and of religious and temperance organizations, everywhere. And all these opportunities they have employed to the uttermost. Now, in the discussion of this question in national circles to-day, it is recognized that it is the younger generation of public men who are leading in the path of world-glory at the expense of the fundamental principles of the nation; while the old men are the conservatives, and call for allegiance still to these principles wherever the jurisdiction of the nation may be extended. This is the truth. And this younger generation of public men of to-day were the boys in the academies and colleges of the country twenty to thirty years ago—in the time when the National Reformers were sowing that evil seed in the colleges and academies everywhere. These were the boys who in those academies and colleges were inoculated in those years with this virus of the National Reformers—that governments do not derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. And now when those boys, as the men of the younger generation in public affairs to-day, meet a crisis in which it must be decided whether the fundamental principles of the nation shall be adhered to or repudiated, they are prepared, and have long been prepared, to repudiate these principles in the interests of a will-o'-the-wisp of “the empire of the Son of God,” and in order to the execution of “his will”! This is the secret and the true philosophy of this national repudiation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the nation to-day—the repudiation of the principles of republicanism. Thus this national repudiation of the principles of republicanism to-day, is just as certainly an element in the National Reform movement, is just as certainly a part of that movement, as was the national repudiation of the principles of Protestantism seven to eight years ago. This to-day is just as certainly an element in the making of the Image of the Beast, as was that of seven to eight years ago. Is it possible that there are any who profess to know the Third Angel's Message, who can not see that this is so? And if this be possible, then is it not high time for them to awake out of sleep, and look diligently lest they themselves shall be found taking part in the making of the Image of the Beast? To-day, while it is called to-day, is the most thrilling and the most critical time that the people of the Third Angel's Message have ever seen. Who is awake to this time and its work? Who is studying the Third Angel's Message as for his life? Who is proclaiming the Third Angel's Message, as that message is to-day, for to-day?