A. T. ROBINSON
THE fact can not be too strongly emphasized that our message is the “Third Angel’s Message.” (Rev. 14:9-13) This is the center from which all our activities should radiate. The more closely we work from that center, the more speedily the work committed to this people will be accomplished. But what is the Third Angel’s Message?
Definition
The Third Angel’s Message is that which gathers up, into a glorious system of truth, every ray of gospel light that has ever shown upon this world, and focuses that light upon the last generation of mankind. Anything short of this falls short of being the message for the hour. Whatever portions of truth men may proclaim, nothing short of the truth, the whole truth, and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, will meet the specifications of the great threefold message outlined in the fourteenth chapter of Revelation.
Giving the Message
No man can give to another what he does not himself possess. Therefore the only one who can give this message is the one who can do so in a testimony backed up by an experience in the life, of all that is in the message itself. Anything short of this falls short of giving the third angel’s message. There may be the correct form of the message, and it may be given in such clear lines as to convince multitudes of its truthfulness. But the only one who can give that heaven-sent message, with the authority that is back of the message, is the one whose testimony is backed up by an experience in his own life of all that is in the message.
Let me illustrate this point by a quotation from the greatest of all teachers, and a statement concerning his manner of teaching: “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works, for they say, and do not.” Matt. 23:2, 3. Now what was wrong with the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees? We have the inspired testimony that they had the correct “form of the truth.” But they were robbed of all the authority that belonged to the truth they were telling, because that truth was not an experience in the life of those who were telling it. “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Matt. 7:28, 29. He not only taught the people concerning the way, the truth, and the life, but he could truthfully say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” His word was with authority because it was backed up by an experience in His own life of all that he taught.
Let us see if we do not find this in the message itself — in the very words of the message. “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel.” Ah, the people symbolized by those three angels have something. What is this thing which they have? — “Having the everlasting gospel.” What do they have the ever- lasting gospel for? — “Having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth.” That is the point. They must first have the message, it must be an experience in the life before they can preach it to others. The testimony of the great apostle is right to the point: “When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen.” Gal. 1:15, 16. He might have preached about Jesus, he might have shown the time, place, and manner of his coming, so clearly as to convince all who listened to him that every specification of the prophecy had been fully met. But to preach Him fully — to preach Jesus — He who is “the power of God and the wisdom of God,” must be fully revealed in his own life.
In order to give this message with a loud voice, which is to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord, like him who was the herald of His first advent, one must be the message himself. John, who gave that message “in the spirit and power of Elias,” could say, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, . . . as said the prophet Esaias.” One of our ministers, in the western part of Nebraska, who preached this message in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit, was pointed to as he walked the streets, with such expressions as. “There goes the third angel’s message,” or, “There goes the signs of the times.” The great outlines of prophecy may now be presented in such clear lines that it will convince the intellect; but we can never go forth proclaiming this message in all its Elijah spirit and power until everything in the message becomes an actual experience in the life.
The gospel is declared to be “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Rom. 1:16. The gospel being the power of God unto salvation from sin, and the Third Angel’s Message being the everlasting gospel, what less than the everlasting power of God to save from sin can this message be? But how can any man give such a message as that, backed up by the authority which belongs to the message, unless he can present in his own life the evidence that there is power in the message to accomplish that thing? We must be able to say, like one of olden time, “Such as I have, give I thee.” But being thus delivered from all conscious sin is nothing more nor less than the
“righteousness of God by faith.” Then what is the third angel’s message but righteousness by faith? No one need fear that this is getting away from the “old landmarks.” The Spirit of Prophecy has told us that righteousness by faith is “Third Angel’s Message in verity.” I bless God that I am learning more and more that this grand old Third Angel’s Message, which has made us a people, is the everlasting power of God to save from sin now, and to deliver from the dominion of sin every day. That same power of God that will keep the one hundred and forty-four thousand from sin, for at least one whole year after the close of probation, is the power of God that is in the Third Angel’s Message now.