Three points to ponder

1. Notice the linguistic similarities between the first angels call to fear and worship the Creator with the fourth commandment to remember the Creator.
"Fear God" worship Him that made the heavens and the earth and the seas and the fountains of water.

Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy "for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that in them is."

2. When the three angels messages began to sound in the 1840 it seems the devil launched a strong and militant counter thought process called evolution

3. Could the Sabbath be far more important in the whole role of the gospel than we have realized and addressed

powerful post dedication!!!! Yes, when these messages began to be sounded in the 1840s, the devil did indeed launch a strong and militant counter thought process through evolution. He takes facts and blows them out of proportion and tries to get us into a simple two camps that he can divide and conquer.

There is room to argue over the age of the earth, and what is implied in the terms translated "without form and void". Mrs. White gives two periods of changes in animals; the change from the fall and the change after the flood. And she sees these as fairly rapid. Satan gets some of us to want to reject these changes, and he gets others to think that these changes were very, very slow and that evolution is upward progressing and the ORGINE of creation.

As we learn more about the Sabbath we will see this better. As we dig into Revelation 14 we will come across treasures. It is sad that while Mrs. White and the pioneers tell us to study this, I see too many who believe that we know all there is, and instead of digging for the treasure, we have built on these verses a palace to the glory of the Seventh-day Adventist church and the demonizing of all others. But someday, and I believe your post are a start, we are going to turn our eyes from our greatness and to turn our eyes upon Jesus, and dig for the treasure Mrs. White and the pioneers tell us we will find here.

The one infinite God to communicate with finite beings reveals himself through trinity: God as great power, creator, different essence that what we are. God as approachable, friend. God as working with our subjective, existential experience. Satan has three deceptions, one against each of these revelations. God the Father is creator and difference essence than we are/ evolution says creation is only an act of nature, that if God does exist, he is only of the same essence as we are, part of evolved nature, and thus has no right to place a law over us. Then the idea that justice destroys mercy attacks the special love and relationship shown in God the Son. And the idea that mercy destroys justice, that the law has been done away with attacks the work of the Holy Spirit who works with our subjective and existential experience to write God's law on our heart.

God's law is self sacrificing love, no more and no less. But it is presented from general to specific. This great principle is broken down into supreme love for God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. How to do this, we have the 10 commandments. Then we have the so called "law of Moses" which is simply every day applications of God's law of self sacrificing life. God's law is absolute, but these applications are not absolute. One of the problems some Jewish people had around the time of Christ was that some tried to make both the law and the applications absolute, and when the Bible makes different applications, they spent hours and hours trying to make both be a one size fits all. (often conservative believers in what ever faith community we find ourselves end up trying to do the same thing).

Now, when we meet the Exodus 20 version of the 10 commandments, we find that they break into three equal thirds. The first third are 3 commands that teach us how to love God supremely, and reflect the role of God the Father, and what is attacked by the first deception of Satan. The last third has 6 commands on how to love our neighbor as ourselves, reflect the role of the Holy Spirit, and is attacked by the third deception of Satan.

The middle third consists of only 1 command, but this one unites both ideas of loving God supremely and seeing him as a different essence than we are, that he is indeed our creator, and how this flows into loving our neighbor as ourselves, and this is NOT done by our works, but by resting in a relationship with this amazing creator God. This middle third describes the role, the ministry of God the Son. It is attacked by the second deception of Satan. This one is Satan's special target because it is the only one that unites the loving God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves, and makes it possible to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves.

We have two big approaches to the Bible. One is focused on me being a sinner and how can I convince God to let me into heaven instead of sending me to hell. The other is focused on just who God is, how he loves us and how he is ministering to the entire universe to develop a mature love. This second way is the urgent message of the three angels. They are connected to answering the three deceptions of Satan and fulfilling the three thirds of the Exodus 20 version of the 10 commandments.

Mrs. White writes on the eschatological issue on two levels. One is the ultimate level of liberty of conscience. Our individual responsibility to follow truth as we understand it, and the freedom to allow others to follow their liberty of conscience. Then she illustrates and applies this principle through the Sabbath-Sunday issue and Sunday laws. Sadly, we tend to only look at her illustration and application. When we read or hear what she says about the larger principle, we have an "auto correct" between our eyes and brain and ears and brain, so that our brain misses the greater principle and only sees the local application.

In dealing with the issue of who is God, which is the true creator, the unique God, or simply mother nature, the ultimate issue of origin, the Sabbath is the cultic sign that what ever the details may be, how ever long ago it happened, we are NOT the products of mother nature alone, but that there was indeed special creation with the true creator God.

The sabbath also becomes a special test because we find nothing in the Bible commanding us to give up the sabbath or it being moved to another day. The principle of the seventh-day Sabbath is consistent in scripture. I've posted in other posts about the importance of the understanding of freedom that we find in a special way in the life and teachings of Roger Williams, and Jefferson/Madison, especially as deepened through the age of Jackson. I'm making this post too long, so I'll stop here and return instead of a long meander.

I don't know if I'm following you correctly.

There are more than two ways that people interpret the Bible.
Its true that one way is focused on me being a sinner and how can I convince God to let me into heaven instead of consigning me to everlasting death.
But there is nothing I can do to convince God to let me, a sinner into heaven. So that is not how we are to interpret things.

And yes, another way is to think that I can understand just who God is, how he loves us and how he is ministering to the entire universe to develop a mature love. But that statement can be interpreted in a number of ways. I would see it more as God allowing sin to demonstrate itself so everyone is absolutely convinced in their own hearts and minds that God's ways of righteousness are the ways of love and happiness, and Satan is a big liar.

And what about the Biblical view
that, me being a sinner and me being convinced just how much I need a Savior to justify me by His blood and cleanse me, and by His power and Spirit to make me fit to be His child for all eternity. Yes, that is very much part of God's love -- "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Romans 5:7,8 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." By walking with Christ we begin to reflect His character.

From Selected Messages Vol. 2 by EGW


The Three Angels' Messages in their
Larger Setting


The proclamation of the first, second, and third angels' messages has been located by the Word of Inspiration. Not a peg or pin is to be removed. No human authority has any right to change the location of these messages ... {2SM 104.2}

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. These messages we are to give to the world in publications, in discourses, showing in the line of prophetic history the things that have been and the things that will be. {2SM 104.3}

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" (Daniel 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 the revelation made by Christ to John is to come to all the inhabitants of the earth. By the increase of knowledge a people is to be prepared to stand in the latter days. {2SM 105.1}

The Sabbath the Great Issue

"And I saw another angel[i] 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" (Revelation 14:6, 7).[/i] {2SM 105.2}

This message, if heeded, will call the attention of every nation and kindred and tongue and people to a close examination of the Word, and to the true light in regard to the power that has changed the seventh-day Sabbath to a spurious sabbath. 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. {2SM 105.3}

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. They have paid homage to an institution of the Papacy, making of no effect the law of Jehovah, but there is to be an increase of knowledge on this subject. {2SM 106.1}

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" (Genesis 3:15). Here was the first promise of a Saviour 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. {2SM 106.2}

In the fifty-eighth 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" (Isaiah 58:12). God's memorial, His seventh-day Sabbath, will be uplifted. "Thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath [no longer trample it under your feet], from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him,... I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for mouth of the Lord hath spoken it" (Isaiah 58:12-14). {2SM 106.3}

The history of the church and the world, the loyal and the disloyal, is here plainly revealed. The loyal under the proclamation of the third angel's message have turned their feet into the way of God's commandments, to respect, to honor, and glorify Him who created the heavens and the earth. The opposing forces have dishonored God by making a breach in His law, and when light from His Word has called attention to His holy commandments, revealing the breach made in the law by the papal authority, then, to get rid of conviction, men have tried to destroy the whole law. But could they destroy it? No; for all who will search the Scriptures for themselves will see that the law of God stands immutable, eternal, and His memorial, the Sabbath, will endure through eternal ages, pointing to the only true God in distinction from all false gods. {2SM 107.1}

Satan has been persevering and untiring in his efforts to prosecute the work he began in heaven, to change the law of God. He has succeeded in making the world believe the theory he presented in heaven before his fall, that the law of God was faulty, and needed revising. A large part of the professed Christian church, by their attitude, if not by their words, show that they have accepted the same error. But if in one jot or tittle the law of God has been changed, Satan has gained on earth that which he could not gain in heaven. He has prepared his delusive snare, hoping to take captive the church and the world. But not all will be taken in the snare. A line of distinction is being drawn between the children of obedience and the children of disobedience, the loyal and true and the disloyal and untrue. Two great parties are developed, the worshipers of the beast and his image, and the worshipers of the true and living God. {2SM 107.2}

For #1, they dovetail together and those who are spiritually attuned can see it. Unfortunately, most reject what is plain to see.
For #2, I am seeing many manifestations of Satans false angels talking to people, even in our church one of the leaders said he had a angel giving him messages and the others in the leadership became very anxious of it. But he refused to give up talking to them and then suffered a medical issue and he has not come back. Many others in the forums are having similar contacts and others are trying to warn them, but they seemed to be locked into these angels, which seemed to be not of God to say the least.
For #3, the climate change agenda seems to be fixed on pushing the 'green sabbath' on many fronts to 'reduce the carbon footprint', so it is coming from a odd direction, but still is a substitute to the Sabbath.

For #1 Yes, it's sad that most reject the similarities between the wording of the fourth commandment and the message of the first angel's message. Yet when we look even further at the surrounding context of that message we see that:
a. The devil (dragon) is out to war against those who keep God's commandments (12:17)
b. While God's saints are defined as those who keep God's commandments (14:12)

#2 Yes, there is a whole realm of spiritual beings (usually not visible to human eyes) that are contending for our thoughts. God's angels vs the dragon's angels. The whole evolution paradigm thought is directly opposed to the urgent call of the first heavenly angel's call to worship the Creator. Atheist evolution takes God right out of the picture. While theistic evolution presents us with a different God -- a cosmic god, not the Creator God. No six days of creation, and thus no seventh day Sabbath as the memorial of creation and the Creator.

#3 The importance of the Sabbath, is that it links us with the True God!
Sunday, as the first day of the week, is the memorial of a cosmic god and it represents the day "creation" began. This "creation" supposedly then developed into higher forms through evolutionary means in undefined lengthy periods of time, and is now pushing humanity to its next level of evolutionary development -- a leap into super human race.
The seventh day (commonly known as Saturday) is the memorial of the perfect creation that God spoke into existence in six literal days. Mankind was created fully formed, PERFECT, male and female, without sin, without death, in the image of God. Sin messed up this perfection big time, and salvation is offered through Christ and His death and righteousness, to cleanse, and restore mankind to their original state.

dedication: WOW!!! What a powerful post. Thank you.

While we tend to ignore this, Abraham Joshua Heshel points out that the Exodus 20 version of the 10 Commandments breaks up into three thirds; with the Sabbath being the entire middle third.

Looking at that statement in view of the Great Controversy; The first third consists of 3 commands on how to love God with all your heart and soul and mind; and a description of the ministry of God the Father. The last third describes the work of the Holy Spirit to change us into becoming loving and lovable people. The middle third is the key to the first and last third and ties the two sides together; that the only way we can love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves is through resting in a friendship, a relationship with our wonderful God. Resting and trusting in Him who created us. The Sabbath commandment says "Come unto me ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest." The Sabbath commandment is the description of God the Son. The Sabbath commandment is Jesus. For those who see the truth of the Sabbath and reject it; they are rejecting the special life changing relationship with Jesus.

Yes, the Sabbath is all about Jesus!

He is our Creator
John 1:3 All things were made by him (Christ); and without him was not any thing made that was made.
1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
Ex. 20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. (11)For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

He is our Redeemer Who died that we may be forgiven and "bought back" from the slavery of sin.
Revelation 5:9 Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood
Deut. 3:15 And remember that you were a slave... and that the LORD your God brought you out with a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

He is our Sanctifier,
Ezekiel 20:12 "Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.

BABYLON IS FALLEN?

What is Babylon?
Writers in the first centuries sometimes referred to Rome as Babylon. Peter most likely refers to Rome as Babylon in 1 Pet. 5:13. Eusebius claimed that Peter composed that letter in Rome itself, which he (Eusebius) himself indicates refers to the city metaphorically as Babylon? (HE 2.15.2) An early Church "Father", Tertullian in his answers to the Jews, says: ?Babylon, in our John, is a figure of the city Rome, as being equally great and proud of her sway, and triumphant over the saints? (chap. ix)
Commentators state Babylon is Papal Rome in the New Testament:

The Reformers saw the references to Babylon in Revelation as referring to Papal Rome. The symbolic "woman" in both Rev. 12 and 17 represent religious bodies, one pure, the other, Babylon, the harlot.

Protestant reformers were all "children" of Papal Rome, who realized "Babylon is fallen" and first tried to reform the church, but were persecuted and broke away. For a time Protestantism pursued truth in scripture, resurrecting many precious beliefs from it's pages.

SO WHAT CAUSED PROTESTANTISM TO LOSE THEIR PROTEST?

The big showdown came at the Council of Trent in 1562. Would Sola Scripture become the authority of the Protestant Christian community, or would Catholic Tradition be the final authority. In the Council of Trent the Protestant position of Sola Scripture was defeated and the Catholic Tradition upheld BECAUSE THE PROTESTANTS THEMSELVES WERE UPHOLDING THE TRADITION OF SUNDAY WORSHIP.

on January 18, 1562 Archbishop Reggio came with an argument that completely took the wind out of the sails of the Protestants and won the battle for tradition over the Bible.


he Protestants had no answer. They themselves had admitted that Sunday was a child of the Papacy, yet they were worshiping upon it, and rather vigorously upholding it, rather than keeping the Biblical Sabbath day


The main body of Protestant reformers never did let go of Sunday worship.



However, in the 1840's the three angel's messages began to sound!
Thanks to 7th day Baptists the 7th day Sabbath was introduced to the Adventist community, and its validity studied in scripture. Soon the message of the seventh-day Sabbath began to be proclaimed, first by a small group, then carried world-wide by the newly formed Seventh-day Adventist members. For over 175 years the call to come back to worshipping the Creator on His sanctified and blessed Sabbath, has been sounding.

The Protestant world had a choice -- a decision to make.
There were some who accepted the 7th day Sabbath, but as a whole Protestantism rejected the message and have built up a huge array of reasons to bolster their rejection of the day God asks us to remember.

What are we seeing today? The protestant movement has been declared dead and unity with Catholicism is well underway. Declarations signed


And Sunday legislation is agitated, both by Sunday keeping formerly Protestant churches as well as under cover of saving the planet from climate change.

Babylon is Fallen


Protestantism severed their ties with Babylon but now the gulf created is being bridged.

Why did Protestantism arise?
When looking through the web for answers one finds things that facilitated the reformation (increased education, development of the printing press, nationalism, bibles more readily available, the renaissance) Yes, those things all facilitated the reformation, '
but what caused Protestantism to sever itself from Papal Rome, and what rendered the Protestant movement so important that people would die to promote it? And why is its downfall and reabsorption into Babylon so serious?

The Reformation sprang forth from a three fold discovery:
1. The Rediscovery of Christ and salvation only in Him.
2. The acknowledgment of the Holy Scriptures as the only ultimate foundation for religious faith
3. The discovery of the identity of Antichrist and his subversions from the prophesies

1. Salvation in Christ,
NOT in doing penance, making pilgrimages, gathering or earning merits, "saints" can't store up merits and share them with people who don't have enough merits, nor is salvation by having relatives praying and/or paying for the dead to release them from purgatory, nor in buying absolutions, not in confessing to human priests, human priests cannot forgive sins or absolve anyone of their sin. Nor does salvation come through sacraments..
The Protestant position is -- Justification comes from Christ alone. And then the justified live by faith in harmony with Christ.

BUT PROTESTANTISM has. to a large extent, ceased their protest on this key point, and have locked arms with Rome once again.

The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) is a document created and agreed to by the Catholic Church's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999 as a result of extensive ecumenical dialogue. It states that the churches now share "a common understanding of our justification by God's grace through faith in Christ.
To the parties involved, this essentially resolves the 500-year-old conflict over the nature of justification which was at the root of the Protestant Reformation.THE PROTEST IS OVER, IT IS DEAD> The World Methodist Council adopted the Declaration on 18 July 2006. The World Communion of Reformed Churches (representing the "80 million members of Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, United, Uniting, and Waldensian churches"), adopted the Declaration in 2017.

2. Holy Scripture the ultimate foundation and authority on faith?
or does tradition hold a precedence over the word of God?
Scripture is the Word of God, traditions are the teachings of men and aren't necessarily bad, UNLESS they stand higher than God's word and contradict or change it.
Jesus demonstrated the evil of traditions -- "In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrine the traditions of men".
Protestants were strong on denouncing any traditions that stood in the place of the requirements of God. Matt. 15:9
The biggest blow to Protestantism's defence against tradition, and for scripture alone, took place January 18, 1562, at the council of Trent, on the Sabbath issue (also described in the previous post)
"The Protestants claim to stand upon the written word only. They profess to hold the Scripture alone as the standard of faith. They justify their revolt by the plea that the church has apostatized from the written word of God and follows tradition. Their profession of holding the Scripture alone as the standard of faith, IS FALSE. Proof: The written word explicitly enjoins the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. They do not observe the seventh day, but reject it. If they do truly hold to Scripture alone as their standard, they would be observing the seventh day as is enjoined in the Scripture throughout. Yet they not only reject the observance of the Sabbath, but they have adopted and do practice the observance of Sunday, for which they have only the tradition of the Church. Consequently the claim of :Scripture alone as the standard,' fails; and the doctrine of ?Scripture and tradition' as essential, is fully established, the Protestants themselves being the judges."

3. THE discovery of the identity of Antichrist from prophecy.
The Reformers were by no means united on all points of doctrine, and their search into scriptures by no means complete, but one thing they were unanimous on, and that was applying most of the prophecies of Anti-Christ to the Papacy. It was this clear understanding of the prophetic symbols that gave them such extraordinary courage and effectiveness to protest against Rome and to resist her tyranny, even if it meant death to themselves. The prophecies of Daniel, John and Paul were applied to the Papacy with tremendous effect.
Today Protestants are willing to clasp the hands of Catholism even though THEY KNOW they have great differences in doctrines (purgatory, penance, justification, images, Mary,) THEY KNOW that "Roman Catholics have not now adopted the Lutheran Position" THEY KNOW that the pope will never give up his stand on papal supremacy. Yet they eagerly embrace Catholicism and the pope with great reverence and honour.




The three parts of spiritual Babylon represent the three main categorical divisions : Paganism, Catholicism, Protestantism.

Babylon has fallen, come out of her my people.
Many of God';s people are in Babylon -- that's why the last warning message of the three angel's is so urgent in their call for us to come out of her.