In 1844, a week before the Great Disappointment, Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Germany. He would become one of modernity’s most influential atheists.
For Nietzsche, modernity needed to get beyond notions of “good and evil”. In fact, a character in one of his books declared, “Smash the old law tablets!” (a reference, of course, to the Ten Commandments).
The year 1844 was also important for Karl Marx, the founder of communism. It was the year that Marx wrote the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” These manuscripts show the early development of his ideology in which he argued for a totally materialist reality that moved through various economic stages until the workers of the world would unite, overthrow their capitalist oppressors, and create a utopia on earth.
The year 1844 had been important for Charles Darwin, too. Darwin wrote “Essay of 1844,” one of the earliest expressions of his evolutionary theory, although it had not been made public.
The year 1844, however, was also the fulfillment of the 2300-day prophecy of Daniel 8:14, and the same year that, out of the leftovers of the Great Disappointment, seeds were planted that would burgeon in a worldwide movement whose core message would repudiate the ideology of Nietzsche, Marx, and Darwin.
Amid these destructive ideologies, God did not leave the world without a witness to His truth. He raised up the Seventh-day Adventist Church to proclaim His last-day truth to the world—the three angels’ messages. These messages, at their core, refute the errors and misconceptions promoted by Nietzsche, Marx, and Darwin.
The three angels’ messages—this quarter’s study focus—are, in a sense, the marching orders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. At their core, they are the gospel, pure and simple, but the gospel in the context of “present truth” (2 Pet. 1:12, NKJV).