Tom, the following manuscript seems to reflect your view, a view which Ellen rejected:

As they reasoned in Noah's day they reason today, when the warning message is proclaimed to fear God and keep His commandments. The wrath of God is soon to fall on all the sinful and disobedient, and they will perish in the general conflagration. Professed servants of Christ who are unfaithful, who do not reverence God and with fear prepare for the terrible future event, will lull themselves to carnal security with their fallacious reasoning, as they did in Noah's day. "God is too good and too merciful [they reason] to save just a few who keep the Sabbath and believe the message of warning. The great men and the good men, the philosophers and men of wisdom would see the Sabbath and the shortness of time, if it were true." They do not believe a merciful God who made men will consume them with fire because they do not believe the warnings given. This, they reason, is not in accordance with God. . . . {12MR 207.1}

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. {12MR 207.2}

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 a 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. {12MR 208.1}

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. {12MR 208.2}

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. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God drowned the vast world. Lot would have had no right to inflict punishment on his sons-in-law, but God would do it in strict justice.--Ms 5, 1876, pp. 1-3.

"Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work." I agree with Ellen.

You seem to be saying the paragraph I posted, when taken in context, means evil angels, not holy angels, will personally cause the devastation portrayed by the seven last plagues. You also seem to be saying holy angels have never personally caused death or destruction. Did I misunderstand you?

Also, Ellen wrote - "A single angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning." Is she saying a holy angel caused the first-born to die?

Then, she wrote - "When David offended against God by numbering the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was punished." Is Ellen saying a holy angel caused the terrible destruction?

Next, she wrote - "The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits." Is Ellen saying holy angels exercise destructive power when God commands?

Finally, she wrote - "There are forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desolation everywhere." Is Ellen saying evil angels will cause the destruction portrayed by the seven last plagues?

God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. (DA 764)

I was shown that the judgments of God would not come directly out from the Lord upon them, but in this way: They place themselves beyond His protection. He warns, corrects, reproves, and points out the only path of safety; then if those who have been the objects of His special care will follow their own course independent of the Spirit of God, after repeated warnings, if they choose their own way, then He does not commission His angels to prevent Satan's decided attacks upon them. It is Satan's power that is at work at sea and on land, bringing calamity and distress, and sweeping off multitudes to make sure of his prey. And storm and tempest both by sea and land will be, for Satan has come down in great wrath. He is at work. He knows his time is short and, if he is not restrained, we shall see more terrible manifestations of his power than we have ever dreamed of. {14MR 3.1}

We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and protection which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. But when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed. God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown.(GC 37)

Personally, I believe Jesus said it best through the SOP:


His "strange act" is the execution of justice and judgment, which happens when sinners pass the limits of mercy and divine forbearance. God executes justice and judgment in several different ways, and through it all He is in control of the depth and degree of punishment. He leaves nothing to fate, or evil men and angels, or natural law. He alone is in control.

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. Says the revelator, in describing those terrific scourges: "There fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image." The sea "became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea." And "the rivers and fountains of waters . . . became blood." Terrible as these inflictions are, God's justice stands fully vindicated. The angel of God declares: "Thou art righteous, O Lord, . . . because Thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and Thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy." Revelation 16:2-6. By condemning the people of God to death, they have as truly incurred the guilt of their blood as if it had been shed by their hands. In like manner Christ declared the Jews of His time guilty of all the blood of holy men which had been shed since the days of Abel; for they possessed the same spirit and were seeking to do the same work with these murderers of the prophets. {GC 627.3}

You say you do, but it doesn't appear to me that your posts reflect this idea. Instead what I have often seen is the idea that God uses Satan, the Romans, and others, as pretty much puppets to do His bidding.

I'm seen you make many statements that God visits punishments upon the wicked by direct decrees, but can't think of even once when you've said that it is Satan who does this, as a way to conceal his own work.

"Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work." I agree with Ellen.


You say you do, but it doesn't appear to me that your posts reflect this idea. Instead what I have often seen is the idea that God uses Satan, the Romans, and others, as pretty much puppets to do His bidding.

I'm seen you make many statements that God visits punishments upon the wicked by direct decrees, but can't think of even once when you've said that it is Satan who does this, as a way to conceal his own work.

MM:Again, I believe God uses several different methods to execute justice and judgment. One of them is permitting evil angels to cause death and destruction within the limits He establishes and enforces.

M: You seem to be saying the paragraph I posted, when taken in context, means evil angels, not holy angels, will personally cause the devastation portrayed by the seven last plagues. You also seem to be saying holy angels have never personally caused death or destruction. Did I misunderstand you?

T: I understand that the previous paragraph explains that the same principles will be used in the future destruction as was used in the destruction of Jerusalem. Isn't that clear? For example:

1.The restraint which has been upon the wicked is removed.
2.The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last withdrawn.
3.Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one.
4.Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble.

After saying this she then says it will be like the destruction of Jerusalem. When she was discussing the destruction Jerusalem, she said was like what the future will be like.

M: Also, Ellen wrote - "A single angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning." Is she saying a holy angel caused the first-born to die?

T: She says the same principles were at work in the Egyptian plagues that will be at work in the final plagues. The four points I quoted brings out what those principles are.

M: Then, she wrote - "When David offended against God by numbering the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was punished." Is Ellen saying a holy angel caused the terrible destruction?

T: Yes, and she explains how in the previous paragraph.

M: Next, she wrote - "The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits." Is Ellen saying holy angels exercise destructive power when God commands?

T: Yes, and she explains how in the previous paragraph.

M: Finally, she wrote - "There are forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desolation everywhere." Is Ellen saying evil angels will cause the destruction portrayed by the seven last plagues?

T: Yes, and she explains how in the previous paragraph. She made comparisons, as clear as possible, that the destruction in the future would be *like* the destruction of Jerusalem. She enunciated the same principles, and she said it was like Jerusalem, and when she wrote of Jerusalem, she explained that that was like what the future would be.

Also, something else to bear in mind, is that God will act like Jesus Christ acted while here with us in the flesh. Jesus Christ was a full and complete revelation of God. This is one of the problems I see with your point of view. It would have God acting contrary to what Jesus Christ taught and revealed.

Another problem is that it doesn't seem to present sin as having consequences (that aren't arbitrarily imposed). For example:


Wouldn't separating oneself from the fountain of life result in death? And isn't this something the sinner himself does?

In the view you say you agree with, *Satan* is the one responsible for the death and destruction. But in *your* view, God is responsible.

So you don't really agree with what she said. The great deceiver can't be hiding his own work by accusing God if God is really the one responsible for the death and destruction.

Tom, the following manuscript seems to reflect your view, a view which Ellen rejected:

As they reasoned in Noah's day they reason today, when the warning message is proclaimed to fear God and keep His commandments. The wrath of God is soon to fall on all the sinful and disobedient, and they will perish in the general conflagration. Professed servants of Christ who are unfaithful, who do not reverence God and with fear prepare for the terrible future event, will lull themselves to carnal security with their fallacious reasoning, as they did in Noah's day. "God is too good and too merciful [they reason] to save just a few who keep the Sabbath and believe the message of warning. The great men and the good men, the philosophers and men of wisdom would see the Sabbath and the shortness of time, if it were true." They do not believe a merciful God who made men will consume them with fire because they do not believe the warnings given. This, they reason, is not in accordance with God. . . . {12MR 207.1}

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. {12MR 207.2}

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 a 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. {12MR 208.1}

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. {12MR 208.2}

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. Noah would have displeased God to have drowned one of the scoffers and mockers that harassed him, but God drowned the vast world. Lot would have had no right to inflict punishment on his sons-in-law, but God would do it in strict justice.--Ms 5, 1876, pp. 1-3.