A Great Threefold Message

Notes

1. "Adam and Eve received knowledge through direct communion with God, and they learned of Him through His works. All created things, in their original perfection, were an expression of the thought of God. To Adam and Eve, nature was teeming with divine wisdom. But by transgression man was cut off from learning of God through direct communion, and, to a great degree, through His works. The earth, marred and defiled by sin, reflects but dimly the Creator's glory."—Education, page 16.

2. "Adam had learned from the Creator the history of creation; he himself witnessed the events of nine centuries, and he imparted his knowledge to his descendants. The antediluvians were without books; they had no written records, but, with their great physical and mental vigor, they had strong memories, able to grasp and retain that which was communicated to them, and, in turn, transmit it unimpaired to their posterity. And for hundreds of years there were nine generations living upon the earth contemporaneously, having the opportunity of consulting together and profiting each by the knowledge and experience of all.

"The advantages enjoyed by men of that age to gain a knowledge of God through His works have never been equaled since. And, so far from being an era of religious darkness, that was an age of great light. All the world had opportunity to receive instruction from Adam, and those who feared the Lord had also Christ and angels for their teachers. And they had a silent witness to the truth in the garden of God, which for so many centuries remained among them. . . . Of Enoch it is written that he lived sixty-five years, and begot a son. After that he walked with God three hundred years. During these earlier years, Enoch had loved and feared God and had kept His commandments. He was one of the holy line, the preservers of the true faith, the progenitors of the promised Seed. From the lips of Adam he had learned the dark story of the fall, and the cheering one of God's grace as seen in the promise; and he relied upon the Redeemer to come. . . . Enoch became a preacher of righteousness, making known to the people what God had revealed to him."—Patriarchs and Prophets, pages 83-86.

3. "We beheld His glory." God's glory is His character; in other words, it is just what He is. Jesus Christ came to this world and took humanity upon Him, that He might reveal the character of God, which had been entirely misrepresented in the territory usurped by Satan.

4. "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." God's power is inseparably connected with His character. It is impossible to speak of one without speaking of the other. Therefore to deny the power of God is simply to deny His character. And to deny His character is not to know Him. With nature studied in the field of science, with the Bible in every home, and Christ preached about in every pulpit in the land, the character of God is wholly misunderstood.

5. This great threefold message is a gathering up of every ray of gospel light ever shed upon this world, and focusing that light upon the last generation of mankind. It is a revelation of Jesus Christ set forth in His Word and in the lives of His believing children—"Christ in you the hope of glory." In Christ's church the last generation of men is to see revealed the glory of His character and His power to save.

6. "Fear God and give glory to Him." This is an appeal to all who would be living when the light of these messages was about to be unfolded to continue to walk in that light. When the westering sun of light and truth was shedding its last beams upon the Jewish nation, God sent a similar message and appeal to that people. "Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." Jer. 13:16.

7. "Worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Here is clearly an appeal to the fourth commandment of the decalogue, calling attention of mankind to the downtrodden law of God as the great testing truth for the world.