The Three Angels’ Messages

“The wine of the wrath of God”

Warning given first—The Lord God of heaven will not send upon the world His judgments for disobedience and transgression until He has sent His watchmen to give the warning. He will not close up the period of probation until the message shall be more distinctly proclaimed. The law of God is to be magnified; its claims must be presented in their true, sacred character, that the people may be brought to decide for or against the truth. Yet the work will be cut short in righteousness. The message of Christ’s righteousness is to sound from one end of the earth to the other to prepare the way of the Lord. This is the glory of God, which closes the work of the third angel.—Testimonies for the Church 6:19 (1901) 3AM 95.3

Never visited upon sins of ignorance—The most solemn warning and the most awful threatening ever addressed to mortals is that contained in the third angel’s message. The sin which calls down the wrath of God unmixed with mercy must be of the most heinous character. Is the world to be left in darkness as to the nature of this sin? Most assuredly not; God does not deal thus with His creatures. His wrath is never visited upon the sins of ignorance. Before His judgments are brought upon the earth, the light in regard to this sin must be presented to the world, that men may know why these judgments are to be inflicted, and may have opportunity to escape them.—Manuscript 51, 1899 (April 2) 3AM 96.1

God bears long—The third angel’s message increases in importance as we near the close of this earth’s history. It is the last offer of mercy to the world, the most solemn message ever given to mortals. In heaven there is a record kept of the impieties of nations, of families, of individuals. God may bear long while the account goes on; calls to repentance and offers of pardon may be given; yet a time will come when the account will be full, when the soul’s decision will have been made, when by his own choice man’s destiny will have been fixed. Then the signal will be given for judgment to be executed.—The Signs of the Times, January 25, 1910 3AM 96.2

Judgment delayed but certain—God’s judgments will be visited upon those who are seeking to oppress and destroy His people. His long forbearance with the wicked emboldens men in transgression, but their punishment is nonetheless certain and terrible because it is long delayed. “The Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act.” Isaiah 28:21. To our merciful God the act of punishment is a strange act. “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” Ezekiel 33:11. The Lord is “merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, ... forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” Yet He will “by no means clear the guilty.” “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.” Exodus 34:6, 7; Nahum 1:3. By terrible things in righteousness He will vindicate the authority of His downtrodden law. The severity of the retribution awaiting the transgressor may be judged by the Lord’s reluctance to execute justice. The nation with which He bears long, and which He will not smite until it has filled up the measure of its iniquity in God’s account, will finally drink the cup of wrath unmixed with mercy.—The Great Controversy, 627 (1888, 1911) 3AM 96.3

God will punish those who attempt to compel their fellow men to keep the first day of the week. They tempt them to deny their allegiance to God. They accept the fruit of the forbidden tree, and try to force others to eat it. They will try to compel their fellow men to work on the seventh day of the week and rest on the first. God says of them, “They shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” [Revelation 14:9, 10.]—Letter 98, 1900 (July 10) 3AM 97.1

Final judgment unmixed with mercy—When Christ ceases His intercession in the sanctuary, the unmingled wrath threatened against those who worship the beast and his image and receive his mark (Revelation 14:9, 10), will be poured out. The plagues upon Egypt when God was about to deliver Israel were similar in character to those more terrible and extensive judgments which are to fall upon the world just before the final deliverance of God’s people.... 3AM 98.1

... All the judgments upon men, prior to the close of probation, have been mingled with mercy. The pleading blood of Christ has shielded the sinner from receiving the full measure of his guilt; but in the final judgment, wrath is poured out unmixed with mercy.—The Great Controversy, 627-629 (1888, 1911) 3AM 98.2

Misrepresentations of God’s love—God’s love is represented in our day as being of such a character as would forbid His destroying the sinner. Men reason from their own low standard of right and justice. “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Psalm 50:21. They measure God by themselves. They reason as to how they would act under the circumstances and decide God would do as they imagine they would do. 3AM 98.3

God’s goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy exercised to His subjects, will not hinder Him from punishing the sinner who refused to be obedient to His requirements. It is not for man—a criminal against God’s holy law, pardoned only through the great sacrifice He made in giving His Son to die for the guilty because His law was changeless—to dictate to God. After all this effort on the part of God to preserve the sacred and exalted character of His law, if men, through the sophistry of the devil, turn the mercy and condescension of God into a curse, they must suffer the penalty. Because Christ died they consider they have liberty to transgress God’s holy law that condemns the transgressor and would complain of its strictness and its penalty as severe and unlike God. They are uttering the words Satan utters to millions, to quiet their conscience in rebellion against God. 3AM 98.4

In no kingdom or government is it left to the lawbreakers to say what punishment is to be executed against those who have broken the law. All we have, all the bounties of His grace which we possess, we owe to God. The aggravating character of sin against such a God cannot be estimated any more than the heavens can be measured with a span. God is a moral governor as well as a Father. He is the Lawgiver. He makes and executes His laws. Law that has no penalty is of no force. 3AM 99.1

The plea may be made that a loving Father would not see His children suffering the punishment of God by fire, while He had the power to relieve them. But God would, for the good of His subjects and for their safety, punish the transgressor. God does not work on the plan of man. He can do infinite justice that man has no right to do before his fellow man.—Manuscript 5, 1876 3AM 99.2