Spiritual Mathematics

Spiritual Mathematic

Moses had been a gallant leader of a rebellious people for forty years. They had been wandering around in a desolate wilderness while God was trying to teach them His ways. Now it was time for them to enter the Promised Land. Moses deeply loved them even though they have given him many trials. He would soon be taken from them so he wanted to remind them of some important points and admonish them to be faithful.

We have all had this experience in one way or another. Your son or daughter is leaving home for the new adventure called college. You desire very much that they prosper in this new environment. You want to them to be happy and healthy, making wise decisions when you aren’t around to guide them. They have given you many trials but you love them and long for them to prosper. You stand at the door saying good bye along with some last-minute advice.

What council did Moses give to the children of Israel?

Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. Deuteronomy 12:8

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Deuteronomy 4:2

Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them (heathen), after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. Deuteronomy 12:30-32

Do what God commands. Don’t add to it or subtract from it. Don’t be a spiritual mathematician.

Does this Old Testament principle apply to the Christian era as well?

Did Jesus come to change the laws of the Old Testament? What does He Himself say?

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Matthew 5:17, 18

Jesus follows this statement with references to two of the Ten Commandments and to several other laws that God gave through Moses. How many laws were eliminated at the cross? What did Jesus say? Not one jot or tittle, not even a slight punctuation mark in the language. Heaven and earth have not passed away yet. So are we still to obey all the laws given in the Old Testament? Absolutely! The only thing that changed at the cross was the remedy for breaking the law, not the law itself. Jesus became the lamb sacrifice, the legal substitute to die for our sins.

Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Proverbs 30:5, 6

We are told not to add to or take away from what God said. Don’t be a spiritual mathematician. If God says something, He means it. If He wants something changed, He will tell us about it. This He did in Daniel 9.

And he (the Messiah) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. Daniel 9:27

Here we are told that Jesus, the Messiah, would cause sacrifice and oblation (burnt offerings) to cease.

The book of Hebrews explains more of what was changed at the cross. It speaks of Jesus being a better sacrifice than the animals burned on the Altar; a better priest than Aaron and his descendants; serving in a more perfect sanctuary than any on earth, even the magnificent one that Solomon built; introducing better promises of a heavenly inheritance rather than some earthly real estate. These are the things that were changed. Circumcision was replaced by baptism according to Colossians 2:11, 12. These all had to do with the remedy for breaking the law, not the moral law itself.

But modern day Christians have not only taken away what Jesus said He did not come to change, but they have also added many things that God did not command. Subtracting and adding—spiritual mathematics—can be dangerous business. The Christian world has rejected most of the Torah that God gave through Moses and added many of their own traditions. They say that all that is required of a Christian is obedience to the Ten Commandments. There are some who don’t even think they must do that. Their beliefs give the impression that it doesn’t matter whether one goes about killing, stealing, or worshiping idols. All that matters is that a person has the blood of Jesus covering them. But that blood is not a camouflage to cover evil. Rather, it is a body wash to cleanse the inward man from sin and the love of iniquity. Many religions have subtracted from God’s Holy Laws and added their own traditions and fables.

If we want to know what has been taken out in contradiction to Jesus’ words, just read the Torah; it’s right there for any to read who want to know what God requires of them. It includes laws about relationships, laws about employers and employees, about land management, the tithing system, laws against homosexuality and bestiality, health laws, dress code, education of our children, God’s festivals and much more! Are you taking God’s Word as He gave it or are you guilty of subtraction from His stated requirements? Beware! There are serious consequences for those who manipulate His Word by adding and subtracting!

What has been added? Many things were changed by the Roman Catholic church that are still retained in Christianity. Though we may not be part of that church, remnants of the changes that she made have filtered down to us thorough tradition. Here is a quote from a Catholic Cardinal that explains what was added by Catholicism.

The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. [John Henry Neuman. Development of Christian Doctrine. London, 1878] (emphasis added)

All these are of pagan origin. Let’s look a little closer at some of these items and see what is really meant by them.

Lamps, Candles, Processions:

Another peculiarity of the Papal worship is the use of lamps and wax-candles. If the Madonna and child are set up in a niche, they must have a lamp to burn before them; if mass is to be celebrated, though in broad procession is to be formed, it cannot be thorough and complete without lighted tapers to grace the goodly show. The use of these lamps and tapers comes from the same source as all the rest of the Papal superstition. That which caused the “Heart,” when it became an emblem of the incarnate Son, to be represented as a heart on fire, required also that burning lamps and lighted candles should form part of the worship of that Son; for so, according to the established rites of Zoroaster, was the sun-god worshipped. [Alexander Hislop. The Two Babylons. p. 191] (emphasis added)

Temples and Asylums:

How did the bishops, who were originally appointed for purely spiritual objects, contrive to grasp at such a large amount of temporal authority? From Gibbon we get light as to the real origin of what Guizot calls this “prodigious power.” The author of the Decline and Fall shows, that soon after Constantine’s time, “the Church” [and consequently the bishops, especially when they assumed to be a separate order from the other clergy] gained great temporal power through the right of asylum, which had belonged to the Pagan temples, being transferred by the Emperors to the Christian churches. His words are: “The fugitive, and even the guilty, were permitted to implore either the justice or mercy of the Deity and His ministers.” Thus was the foundation laid of the invasion of the rights of the civil magistrate by ecclesiastics, and thus were they encouraged to grasp at all the powers of the State. Thus, also, as is justly observed by the authoress of Rome in the 19^th Century, speaking of the right of asylum, were “the altars perverted into protection towards the very crimes they were raised to banish from the world.” This is a very striking thing, as showing how the temporal power of the Papacy, in its very first beginnings, was founded on “lawlessness,” and is an additional proof to the many that might be alleged, that the Head of the Roman system, to whom all bishops are subject, is indeed o anomos, “The Lawless One” (2 Thess. ii. 8), predicted in Scripture as the recognised Head of the “Mystery of Iniquity.” [Ibid., p. 260] (emphasis added)

Holy Water:

We have evidence that the purifying virtue of the waters, which in Pagan esteem had such efficacy in cleansing from guilt and regenerating the soul, was derived in part from the passing of the Mediatorial god, the sun-god and god of fire, through these waters during his humiliation and sojourn in the midst of them; and that the Papacy at this day retains the very custom which had sprung up from that persuasion. [Ibid., p. 142] (emphasis added)

Wedding Ring:

The wedding ring comes from paganism. It cannot be found in the Old or New Testaments. There was no practice among early Christians to wear finger rings as a sign of marriage or an engagement. Pope Gregory 1, in 860 AD decreed that as a required statement of nuptial intent, the groom to be had to give his intended an engagement ring. He further decreed the ring be of gold to signify financial sacrifice. The first diamond engagement ring is the one given by King Maximillian in 1477 to Mary of Burgundy. Wedding rings can be traced to idols and heathen religions. It is not just the image of the idol we are commanded not to possess, but rather any part of the idol itself. Thus, to make ones self after the image of the idol is to practice idolatry. All images of false gods and goddesses show the use of earrings, finger rings, bracelets, nose rings, and other jewelry. Where do we find this same practice associated with the God of the Bible? Did Jesus wear jewelry? Did the Apostles and early Christians? The answer is no!

The wedding ring originated in Babylon, the cradle of civilization. The most ancient ring discovered there is in the shape of the eternal serpent. The image of the serpent biting its tail to form the circle of the ring is an ancient satanic symbol. The same symbol is used by the Theosophy Cult. Satan as the serpent, that great dragon of Revelation 12, has by this symbol joined a man and a woman under his cult. [http://www.jesus-messiah.com/html/wedding_rings.html] (emphasis added)

Turning to the East:

…when the Inca, and his court, followed by the whole population of Cuzco, assembled at early dawn in the great square to greet the rising of the sun. “Eagerly,” says Prescott, “they watched the coming of the deity, and no sooner did his first yellow rays strike the turrets and loftiest buildings of the capital, than a shout of gratulation broke forth from the assembled multitude, accompanied by songs of triumph, and the wild melody of barbaric instruments, that swelled louder and louder as his bright orb, rising above the mountain range towards the east, shone in full splendour on his votaries.” Could this alternate mourning and rejoicing, at the very time when the Babylonians mourned and rejoiced over Tammuz, be accidental? As Tammuz was the Sun-divinity incarnate, it is easy to see how such mourning and rejoicing should be connected with the worship of the sun. [The Two Babylons, p. 117] (emphasis added)

Benjamin of Tudela, the great Jewish traveller, gives a striking account of sun-worship even in comparatively modern times, as subsisting among the Cushites of the East, from which we find that the image of the sun was, even in his day, worshipped on the altar. “There is a temple,” says he, “of the posterity of Chus, addicted to the contemplation of the stars. They worship the sun as a god, and the whole country, for half-a-mile round their town, is filled with great altars dedicated to him. By the dawn of morn they get up and run out of town, to wait the rising sun, to whom, on every altar, there is a consecrated image, not in the likeness of a man, but of the solar orb, framed by magic art. [Ibid., p. 162] (emphasis added)

Where do Easter sunrise services come from? Paganism. The worship of the sun.

Holy Days and Seasons:

Ques. What are the days which the church commands to be kept holy?

Ans. The Sunday, or our Lord’s day, which we observe by apostolic tradition, instead of the Sabbath. The feasts of our Lord’s Nativity, or Christmas day; his circumcision, or New Year’s day; the Epiphany, or twelfth day; Easterday, or the day of our Lord’s resurrection, with the Monday following; the day of our Lord’s ascension; Whit-Sunday, or the day of the coming of the Holy Ghost, with the Monday following; Trinity Sunday; Corpus Christi, or the feasts of the blessed sacrament. We keep the days of the Annunciation, and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We observe the feasts of All-saints; of St. John Baptist; of the holy apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. In this kingdom we keep the feasts of St. Patrick, our principal patron.” [Richard Challoner, The Catholic Christian Instructed, p. 209]

Notice whose authority is accepted when we keep these pagan holidays as “Christian.” Roman Catholic Church authority. Please note that this is in contrast to God’s authority and His holy days—the Biblical feasts. Let’s look at the papal and pagan origin of some of these “holy days”.

A New Calendar and Easter Observances:

About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ. [The Two Babylons, p. 103] (emphasis added)

Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The “buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens — that is, 1500 years before the Christian era… The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In this Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg…The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; [Ibid., p. 107] (emphasis added)

Christmas:

The festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation – viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. [Ibid., p. 91] (emphasis added)

How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way was very early developed; and we find Tertullian, even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. “By us,” says he, “who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia, are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro, new year’s day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.” . . . That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival, is beyond all doubt. The time of the year, and the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at this very time, “about the time of the winter solstice.” The very name by which Christmas is popularly known among ourselves — Yule-day — proves at once its Pagan and Babylonian origin. “Yule” is the Chaldee name for an “infant” or “little child,” and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors, “Yule-day,” or the “Child’s day,” and the night that preceded it, “Mother-night,” long before they came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birth-day observed. [Ibid., p. 93] (emphasis added)

The Christmas Tree:

It was no mere astronomic festival, then, that the Pagans celebrated at the winter solstice (Christmas). That festival at Rome was called the feast of Saturn, and the mode in which it was celebrated there, showed whence it had been derived. The feast, as regulated by Caligula, lasted five days; loose reins were given to drunkenness and revelry, slaves had a temporary emancipation, and used all manner of freedoms with their masters. This was precisely the way in which, according to Berosus, the drunken festival of the month Thebeth, answering to our December, in other words, the festival of Bacchus, was celebrated in Babylon… The Christmas tree, now so common among us, was equally common in Pagan Rome and Pagan Egypt. In Egypt that tree was the palm-tree; in Rome it was the fir; the palm-tree denoting the Pagan Messiah, as Baal-Tamar, the fir referring to him as Baal-Berith. The mother of Adonis, the Sun-God and great mediatorial divinity, was mystically said to have been changed into a tree, and when in that state to have brought forth her divine son. If the mother was a tree, the son must have been recognised as the “Man the branch.” And this entirely accounts for the putting of the Yule Log into the fire on Christmas-eve, and the appearance of the Christmas-tree the next morning. As Zero-Ashta, “The seed of the woman,” which name also signified Ignigena, or “born of the fire,” he has to enter the fire on “Mothernight,’ that he may be born the next day out of it, as the “Branch of God,” or the Tree that brings all divine gifts to men. But why, it may be asked, does he enter the fire under the symbol of a Log? To understand this, it must be remembered that the divine child born at the winter solstice was born as a new incarnation of the great god (after that god had been cut in pieces), on purpose to revenge his death upon his murderers. Now the great god, cut off in the midst of his power and glory, was symbolised as a huge tree, stripped of all its branches, and cut-down almost to the ground. But the great serpent, the symbol of the life restoring AESCULAPIUS, twists itself around the dead stock and lo, at its side up sprouts a young tree — a tree of an entirely different kind, that is destined never to be cut down by hostile power — even the palm-tree, the well-known symbol of victory. The Christmas-tree, as has been stated, was generally at Rome a different tree, even the fir; but the very same idea as was implied in the palm-tree was implied in the Christmas-fir; for that covertly symbolised the new-born god as Baal-berith, “Lord of the Covenant,” and thus shadowed forth the perpetuity and everlasting nature of his power, now that after having fallen before his enemies, he had risen triumphant over them all. Therefore, the 25th of December, the day that was observed at Rome as the day when the victorious god reappeared on earth, was held at the Natalis invicti solis, “The birth-day of the unconquered Sun.” Now the Yule Log is the dead stock of Nimrod, deified as the sun-god, but cut down by his enemies; the Christmas-tree is Nimrod redivivus — the slain god come to life again. [Ibid., pp. 96-98]

King Solomon was known for his wisdom but he had some serious blots on his record.

2 Kings 23:13, 14 (1 Kings 11:4-8). Memorials of Apostasy.– Goodness alone is true greatness. Everyone will transmit a heritage of good or of evil. On the southern eminence of the Mount of Olives were the memorial stones of Solomon’s apostasy. Huge idols, unshapely blocks of wood and stone, appeared above the groves of myrtle and olive. Josiah, the youthful reformer, in his religious zeal destroyed these images of Ashtoreth and Chemosh and Moloch, but the broken fragments and masses of ruins remained opposite Mount Moriah, where stood the temple of God. As strangers in after generations asked, “What mean these ruins confronting the temple of the Lord?” they were answered, “There is Solomon’s Mount of Offense, where he built altars for idol worship to please his heathen wives” [SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 2, p. 1039] (emphasis added)

More than three centuries later, Josiah, the youthful reformer, in his religious zeal demolished these buildings and all the images of Ashtoreth and Chemosh and Moloch. Many of the broken fragments rolled down the channel of the Kedron, but great masses of ruins remained. Even as late as the days of Christ, the ruins on the “Mount of Offense,” as the place was called by many of the truehearted of Israel, might still be seen. Could Solomon, when rearing these idolatrous shrines, have looked into the future, how he would have started back in horror to think of the sad testimony they would bear to the Messiah! [Review and Herald, February 15, 1906] (emphasis added)

We too can have a Mount of Offense to God. Many Christians worship at the shrine of Ashtoreth today in their celebration of Easter. They bow at the shrine of Baal in their observance of Christmas? What does true biblical Christianity have to do with these holidays? We can try to “Christianize” them but they are still just a variation of pagan worship! The Israelites made the golden calf and called it “the God that brought you out of Egypt” but God did not accept their worship. He told Moses to go down from the mountain because the people had corrupted themselves.

For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. Revelation 22:18, 19

It is time to quit playing mathematical games and start following true worship standards given in the word of God. Don’t add to or subtract from what God has said. God does not accept it!

January 7, 2019January 7, 2019

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History, Prophecy, and the Future

The French Revolution and The Beast from the Bottomless Pit

Beasts are used often in Bible prophecy to represent world powers. Let’s begin this study by having a quick review of prophetic history as it was shown to Daniel and recorded in Daniel 7.

Beasts of Daniel 7:

Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things. Daniel 7:2-8

I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. Daniel 7:16, 17

Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. Daniel 7:23-25

Here are the symbols Daniel saw and the history they foretold:

Lion = Babylon 605-539 BC
Bear = Medo-Persia 539-331 BC
Leopard = Greece 331-168 BC
Terrible Beast = Rome 168 BC-476 AD
10 Horns = Germanic Tribes 476-538 AD
Little Horn = Papacy 538-1798 AD (3 1/2 times, 1260 years)

Beasts are used as symbols in Revelation also. Here is a brief overview of their meanings.

The Beasts of Revelation:

The Great Red Dragon–

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. Revelation 12:3

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Revelation 12:9

We are told very clearly in these verses that the Great Red Dragon represents Satan.

The Ten-horned Beast–

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Revelation 13:1-10

This beast is a composite of the major features of the beasts of Daniel 7. Several points lead to the conclusion that this beast symbolizes the Roman Catholic papacy:

it received its power, seat, and authority from the dragon (verse 2): it is a continuation of the pagan Imperial Roman Empire;
it has worldwide influence (verses 3, 7): (catholic means universal);
it is a religious power (verse 4): it receives worship;
it is guilty of blasphemy (verses 1, 6): according to the Bible, blasphemy is claiming to forgive sins [Luke 5:21] and claiming to be equal with God [John 10:33]; the Roman Catholic Church makes both of these claims;
it had power for 42 prophetic months (1260 years) (verse 5): the papacy had almost total supremacy in European politics from A.D. 538 to 1798;
it received a deadly wound (verse 3): the pope was taken prisoner in 1798 by Napoleon’s general, Alexander Berthier, and died in exile;
its deadly wound was healed (verse 3): In 1929, Benito Mussolini granted the pope full authority over the state of Vatican City and the papacy has regained incredible worldwide power and influence since that time;
it persecutes the saints (verse 7): the papacy persecuted and killed millions of conscientious Christians during the Middle Ages and will do this again;
it has the mysterious number 666 (verse 18): One of the pope’s official titles is Vicar of the Son of God which is Vicarius Filii Dei in Latin (the official language of the church). When the letters in this name are given their Roman numeral value they equal 666 (I = 1, V [or U] = 5, L = 50, C = 100, D = 500).

The Lamb-like Beast–

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Revelation 13:11-17

Several points lead to the conclusion that this beast symbolizes the American Apostate Protestantism:

it rises out of the earth: since water symbolizes multitudes of people (see chapter 17:15) (the first beast in this chapter rose from an area of great population: Europe), earth would symbolize an area of low population (the U.S. developed out of the sparsely inhabited New World);
it appears after the first beast–the U.S. was becoming a nation at about the same time the papacy received its deadly wound in 1798;
it is portrayed as a lamb–the U.S. was not a great conquering empire like the other world powers portrayed in Bible prophecy as great beasts of prey;
it speaks like a dragon–the lamb symbolizes Christ, the dragon symbolizes Satan; the U.S. appears Christian but begins acting out Satan’s principles with great authority;
it exercises its power and does great wonders in the sight of or in the presence of, the first beast–the U.S. and the papacy exist concurrently as great world powers.

The Beast from the Bottomless Pit–

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. Revelation 11:7

The bottomless pit is a type of “medium-security prison” for demons. (see Jude 6) Consider the story of Jesus’ encounter with demons in Luke 8:26-39 where “the deep” (v. 31) is synonymous with “the bottomless pit.” Their freedom and access to humans is limited by an individual’s choice and God’s authority. (see James 4:7 & 1 Peter 3:22) This Beast from the Bottomless Pit represents Satanism or Atheism.

Babylon–

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. . . . And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. Revelation 17:1-6, 18

Throughout the Bible, God used a woman to represent His people. (see Jeremiah 3; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1, etc.) When she was pure and faithful, she represented His faithful, covenant people. (see Revelation 12) Many times a prostitute was used to symbolize His people when they were in apostasy. Babylon’s characteristics:

she is a prostitute, the mother of prostitutes, etc.–the source and continuation of all corrupt, ungodly, and mystical religion;
she sits on many waters and on the beast–controls large numbers of people and world governments;
she is drunk with the blood of saints, martyrs, prophets, etc.–is held responsible for all religious persecution (similar to Jesus’ statement against the Jewish nation in Matthew 23:34-36)

In Revelation 12, the virtuous woman flees to the wilderness to find refuge from persecution. Here, in chapter 17, the woman seen in the wilderness is very corrupted but is very influential in world governments. This harlot represents apostate religion, including apostate Protestantism, everything that is not pure Biblical Christianity, actually hostile toward God and His people–Satan’s “prostitute.” In the last days, the professed Christian church becomes very spiritually degraded and politically entangled.

In this chapter, we again see the Beast from the Bottomless Pit. We will have more to learn about this Beast a little later. Now we will look at some of the people, powers, and events that have shaped the world since Daniel’s and John’s time.

Papal Supremacy

In the late fifth century AD, the Roman Empire was disintegrating under the attacks of the Germanic Tribes (the 10 horns of the Beast of Daniel 7). Three of these tribes were eliminated by the Roman Church, the new power that was rising out of the Roman Empire, because they opposed some of its teachings: the Heruls in 493, the Vandals in 534, the Ostrogoths in 538. This act of the Papacy was symbolized in Daniel 7 by the Little Horn that uprooted three other horns in order to establish itself. During this time “the only living, growing force within the western provinces (of the Roman Empire) seemed to be the Christian Church.” (“Roman Empire”, World Book Encyclopedia) and, since the Pope was the leader of the Roman Church, he was the most powerful leader in the empire. From the time the Ostrogoths were eliminated in AD 538, the Church ran most of the affairs of Europe. “Almost every part of life centered around religion, and the Catholic Church was the most powerful force in Europe.” (“Renaissance”, World Book Encyclopedia)

This power and control by the church was finally brought to an end after 1260 years in 1798. When Napoleon came to power in the French army, one of his moves was to send one of his generals, Alexander Berthier, to Rome where he proclaimed on February 15, 1798 that the Pope would no longer exercise any function and that no successor would be allowed in his place. The Pope, Pius VI, over 80 years old, was arrested and brought back to France. He died in prison on August 29, 1799. Many people thought the Papacy was dead and gone forever. A new Pope was finally elected but he never had the same degree of power as before. It is interesting to notice that Napoleon later made peace with the Catholic Church and when he wanted to be officially installed as the new Emperor of France in 1804, he requested the new pope, Pius VII, to come to Paris to make that declaration; but as the Pope prepared to crown him, Napoleon took the crown out of his hands and placed it on his own head himself, making it quite obvious who he thought really held ultimate authority. Later, in 1809, he had a quarrel with the Church and this same Pope excommunicated him, but that didn’t stop him from taking over most of Europe in the next few years.

The Reformation

The Reformation began on October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses, calling for reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, to the door of the All Saint’s Church in Wittenburg, Germany. The Emperor of Germany, Charles V, was supportive of the Roman Church and tried to stop the new Lutheranism. He called all his princes to a meeting in Spires in 1529 to try to get them to cooperate with him and enforce a law that would stop the spread of the new teachings. Many Papists were there also to try to influence the outcome of the meeting. About half of the princes protested the plans of the Emperor and the Papists. They became known as Protestants and established the principle that, in matters of faith, the power of conscience is above the magistrate, and the authority of the word of God is above the visible church–the Bible, and the Bible only, is the rule of faith and duty. From Germany, the Reformation spread to other countries in Europe. Quite often it was accepted by the common people but rejected by the rulers. The Papacy still had a lot of influence in political circles and stirred up persecution in many places. The Order of the Jesuits was created and the Inquisition was re-established to try to force the heretics to conform. Thousands of Protestants were killed; about 75,000 were killed in France alone during the massacre that started on Saint Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, 1572.

The Jesuits

The Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, were started by Ignatius Loyola in 1534, partly as a response to the Reformation. They were one of the main forces that spear-headed a movement within the Catholic Church known as the Counter-Reformation. They were the strongest force opposing Protestantism during the Reformation and have become sort of the Pope’s secret police. Those who join this order vow to work “for the glory of God”, to defend the Roman Catholic Church from heresy, etc., and do anything the Pope tells them. They will use any method necessary to infiltrate and get control of other organizations, or get rid of someone that seems to be threatening the Roman Church. Outwardly they appear to be very good, being involved in education and doing missionary work (they are still very active today) but behind the face of a lamb is the character of a dragon. They were involved in the Inquisition when so many Christians were hunted down, tortured, and killed for their faith.

There was no crime too great for them to commit, no deception too base for them to practice, no disguise too difficult for them to assume. … By this code, lying, theft, perjury, assassination, were not only pardonable but commendable, when they served the interests of the church. Under various disguises the Jesuits worked their way into offices of state, climbing up to be the counselors of kings, and shaping the policy of nations. They became servants to act as spies upon their masters. They established colleges for the sons of princes and nobles, and schools for the common people; and the children of Protestant parents were drawn into an observance of popish rites. . . . The Jesuits rapidly spread themselves over Europe, and wherever they went, there followed a revival of popery. (The Great Controversy, pp. 234, 235)

Satan’s Council Meeting

Roger Morneau was involved in Satanism back in the 1940’s. A high priest in the Church of Satan told him that Satan held a special council meeting with his cohorts in the early 1700’s. He had been studying prophecy, especially Daniel 12:4 which says, “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased,” and he wanted to lay his plans as the world was approaching the Industrial Age. He and his demons came up with 3 strategies:

Strategy #1: Deceive people into believing that he (Satan) doesn’t exist.

None are in greater danger from the influence of evil spirits than those who, notwithstanding the direct and ample testimony of the Scriptures, deny the existence and agency of the devil and his angels. So long as we are ignorant of their wiles, they have almost inconceivable advantage; many give heed to their suggestions while they suppose themselves to be following the dictates of their own wisdom. This is why, as we approach the close of time, when Satan is to work with greatest power to deceive and destroy, he spreads everywhere the belief that he does not exist. It is his policy to conceal himself and his manner of working. (The Great Controversy, p. 516)

Many will be ensnared through the belief that spiritualism is a merely human imposture; when brought face to face with manifestations which they cannot but regard as supernatural, they will be deceived, and will be led to accept them as the great power of God. (The Great Controversy, p. 553)

In a survey conducted a few years ago, 75% of the Americans that were surveyed said they didn’t believe in a tangible Devil.

Strategy #2: Find a way to control people through mind control.

Hypnotism had been around as a tool of Satan and the occult for a long time; but now he planned to change it from being just a “devilish thing” to being an accepted science. He did this through Franz Mesmer (1734-1815), an Austrian doctor, who came up with some theories about “animal magnetism” and how one person can influence another person by this method. He began his work in Paris in 1778. “Although Mesmer shrouded most of his work in mysticism, modern scientific studies of hypnosis can be said to date from his efforts.” (“Hypnotism”, World Book Encyclopedia)

This is the science that Satan teaches. We are to resist everything of the kind. We are not to tamper with mesmerism and hypnotism – the science of the one who lost his first estate and was cast out of the heavenly courts. (Medical Ministry, pp. 110, 111)

Strategy #3: Destroy the Bible without burning it through the theory of evolution.

Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his control by withholding the Scriptures, he resorts to other means to accomplish the same object. To destroy faith in the Bible serves his purpose as well as to destroy the Bible itself. (The Great Controversy, p. 586)

According to Roger Morneau, Satan decided to personally tutor Charles Darwin (1809-1882) to accomplish this part of his scheme. Darwin was a British naturalist who traveled around the world to study plants and animals and published his book On the Origin of the Species in 1859. His theory was that life evolved through time strictly by natural processes and chance, that there is no God, and there was no special creation. His ideas were promoted by Thomas Huxley and soon were thought of as “true science.”

Satan considers anyone teaching evolution as a valuable minister of his great religious system. Anyone who believes evolution is basically disqualified from being a Christian because they throw out Creation, the Fall of Man, the Plan of Redemption, God’s authority, His Law, and many other essential beliefs. We can easily see how much influence this theory has had in our world. It is taught in almost all education systems and is one of the basic principles behind Communism. Adolf Hitler was a strong believer in evolution and thought he would speed up the process a bit by actively eliminating the inferior to make room for the superior who would then rule the world.

The Illuminati (and other Secret Societies)

The Illuminati started way back in the days of the Tower of Babel and Babylon with mystical religions that believed and taught doctrines of inner light (Illuminism), probing into the mysteries of the supernatural world, learning about the gods and demons. It was all Satanism.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 3:4,5
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. Genesis 11:4

Satan had told Eve that there were mysterious things to be learned that God didn’t want them to know. One of the reasons for building the Tower of Babel was to probe into heaven and learn some of those mysteries. Illuminism taught that a person could open their inner senses, become a Seer, and communicate with angels and demons and dead people. We see this stuff in the Bible (the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28), Simon Magus (Acts 8), Barjesus (Acts 13), etc.) and it continued down through history in various forms. These people thought of themselves as Enlightened Ones. They were in direct contact with Lucifer (they don’t call him Satan), the Morning Star, the Light Bearer (Isaiah 14:12).

Down through history, the snake has been a symbol of the One who reveals mysteries to humans, the man-instructing serpent. The Roman Church suppressed this to some extent, but it still survived, just like it did in Israel when God condemned it. There are still many Secret Societies such as Wicca, Rosicrucians, Church of America, the Order of Freemasonry, and the Order of the Eastern Star (Masonic Lodges) that are promoting Witchcraft today. All of these are offshoots of those old Babylonian Mystery religions. Freemasonry has had a significant influence around the world. There are Masonic Lodges everywhere and many of our national leaders have been (and still are) Masons; but Freemasonry is just a publicly accepted form of witchcraft, a modern version of the religion of Nimrod.

Albert Pike, a poet, a Confederate Brigadier General, and a high-ranking leader in the Masons in the 1800’s, gives us a little glimpse into what these secret societies stand for. He wrote: “The true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonai; but Lucifer, God of light, and the God of good is struggling for humanity against Adonai, the god of darkness and evil.” (“A History of the Jesuits,” video by James Arrabito)

We have this warning about secret societies:

A power from beneath is working to bring about the last great scenes in the drama–Satan coming as Christ, and working with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those who are binding themselves together in secret societies. Those who are yielding to the passion for confederation are working out the plans of the enemy. The cause will be followed by the effect. (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, p. 28)

On May 1, 1776, Adam Weishaupt, a professor of religion at the Jesuit university at Ingolstadt, Germany, started an Order of Illuminati. At first it posed as a political movement, known as Republicanism, to destroy tyranny and ignorance, and further the cause of reason, freedom and moral virtue. Its actual goals were to abolish:

all ordered governments
private property
inheritance
patriotism
all religion
the family

After these goals were accomplished, the Illuminati would create a world government with Lucifer as its ruler. Weishaupt and his followers called themselves “The Enlightened Ones”, or “The Enlightenment” and claimed that they were the only members of the human race who knew what was really going on and therefore the only ones with the mental capacity, insight, and understanding to govern the world and bring peace. They received their information and instructions directly from Lucifer, the Great Light-Bearer.

The Encyclopedia

Voltaire (1694-1778) was a French author, philosopher, and a promoter of Free Thought (Liberty). He professed belief in a Supreme Being (a god) but denied Jesus and the Bible. He once boasted, “I am weary of hearing people repeat that twelve men established the Christian religion. I will prove that one man may suffice to overthrow it.” He helped to promote the Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Reason, Sciences, the Arts, and Matter, known to us today as the Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedists and the Illuminists worked together to promote their Enlightenment ideas and were some of the main forces that stirred the people of France into the French Revolution.

Another prophecy from Revelation comes into focus at this point.

The 2 Witnesses–

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. Revelation 11:1-4

The two witnesses are the Scriptures (which can be thought of as consisting of the Old and New Testaments or the Law and the Prophets) that were so severely suppressed (clothed in sackcloth) during the 1260 years that the Papacy was in power. Near the time when the Papacy lost its power (in 1798), there were many events and forces that would continue to fulfill this prophecy.

The French Revolution (1789-1799)

The Papacy wanted absolute control and tried to accomplish this by keeping Scripture locked up in the Latin language so that no one but priests could understand it, and by killing off, driving out, or otherwise suppressing anyone who didn’t agree with her. She had done this to the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and other Protestants, the best quality of the common people. The Protestants in France, known as the Huguenots, were no exception. Because many of them were well-educated and skilled in business, they were a great asset to the country; but when they were killed or forced to flee elsewhere, France was weakened in many ways and her neighbors and rivals were strengthened. Biblical Christianity was driven out of France and the religion that was left, the Roman Catholic version, was viewed as tyranny by most of the people because of what they had seen the Church do.

This severe religious persecution along with the oppression of the poor peasants by the rich nobles and church leaders and the ideas promoted by the Illuminati and the Encyclopedists stirred up the common people until they rebelled against almost everything that was established: religion, law, social order, the family, the church, the state, anything that seemed to be restricting them. They gained some political power but had no wisdom or self-control to use it appropriately. They were so outraged by what they had suffered that they just went berserk in trying to get even. Different hate groups within the country fought against each other and anyone else who didn’t agree with them. Radical terrorist groups called Jacobin Clubs were organized and eventually sent the king, Louis XVI, to the guillotine. The Reign of Terror began and the guillotine was kept busy getting rid of anyone who was suspected of being against anyone who had some power. Church leaders were killed or tortured right along with all the others who were hated.

The French Revolution showed the world what happens when a nation rejects God completely. Radicals in Paris declared the the Revolution would not be complete until it had “dethroned the King of Heaven as well as the kings of the earth.” In this kind of environment, God’s Spirit is withdrawn and Satan’s cruel power has full control. Those who finally gained some political power didn’t have any religious principles to guide them in their decisions and they took off in high gear on the road of total atheism–godlessness. The Reign of Terror was the bloodiest when atheism was at its peak. Someone has said, “If your ladder is leaning against the wrong wall, every step you take is farther in the wrong direction.” In their Legislative Assembly, the French lawmakers officially declared that there was no God; and the people celebrated when they heard it. All religious worship was abolished, months were renamed, weeks were declared to be 10 days long instead of 7, and the weekly rest day was replaced by a holiday every tenth day that was devoted to reveling and blasphemy.

After getting rid of God, the National Convention brought in their new object of worship, a prostitute they called The Goddess of Reason. The orator who introduced her said, “Legislators! Fanaticism has given way to reason. Its bleared eyes could not endure the brilliancy of the light. This day an immense concourse has assembled beneath those gothic vaults, which, for the first time, re-echoed the truth. There the French have celebrated the only true worship, – that of Liberty, that of Reason. There we have formed wishes for the prosperity of the arms of the Republic. There we have abandoned inanimate idols for Reason, for the animated image, the masterpiece of nature.” (The Great Controversy, pp. 275, 276)

All this was as Satan would have it. This was what for ages he had been working to secure. His policy is deception from first to last, and his steadfast purpose is to bring woe and wretchedness upon men, to deface and defile the workmanship of God, to mar the divine purposes of benevolence and love, and thus cause grief in heaven. Then by his deceptive arts he blinds the minds of men, and leads them to throw back the blame of his work upon God, as if all this misery were the result of the Creator’s plan. In like manner, when those who have been degraded and brutalized through his cruel power achieve their freedom, he urges them on to excesses and atrocities Then this picture of unbridled license is pointed out by tyrants and oppressors as an illustration of the results of liberty. (The Great Controversy, pp. 284, 285)

And when they shall have finished (are finishing) their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. Revelation 11:7-11

This prophecy had a fulfillment during the French Revolution. The Scriptures had been giving their message “clothed in sackcloth” during the Dark Ages, the 1260 years of Papal supremacy, when they were so severely suppressed. Then, during the Reign of Terror, near the end of the 1260 years, they were completely done away with. The people had the same rebellious, anti-God attitude that the Pharaoh of Egypt had when Moses requested that he let the Israelites go.

And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go. Exodus 5:2

A comedian named Monvel (a priest of Illuminism) said, “God! if you exist, . . . avenge your injured name. I bid you defiance. You remain silent; you dare not launch your thunders; who, after this, will believe in your existence?”–(Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, p. 285) They also ended up living the same evil lifestyle that the people of Sodom did before God destroyed it. God’s institutions of marriage and the family suffered when a new law made divorce almost as easy as changing clothes: any two people could marry or divorce whenever they wanted to, an immediate divorce could be pronounced for mere “incompatibility of temper”, women were passed from hand to hand by a legal process, and the unwanted children that came from all this were just abandoned.

Intimately connected with these laws affecting religion, was that which reduced the union of marriage . . . to the state of a mere civil contract of a transitory character, which any two persons might engage in and cast loose at pleasure. (The Great Controversy, p. 270)

On November 26, 1793, the French Assembly legally got rid of God and the people of France celebrated because they thought they were free now to do as they pleased. But 3 1/2 years later, after seeing the terrible results of what they had done, on June 17, 1797, they reversed their decision and granted toleration to the Scriptures.

Now we will turn our attention to the Beast from the Bottomless Pit that is introduced in Revelation 11 and described in more detail in Revelation 17.

The Beast from the Bottomless Pit

The period when the two witnesses were to prophesy clothed in sackcloth (1260 years), ended in 1798. As they were approaching the termination of their work in obscurity, war was to be made upon them by the power represented as “the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit.” In many of the nations of Europe the powers that ruled in church and state had for centuries been controlled by Satan through the medium of the papacy. But here is brought to view a new manifestation of satanic power. It had been Rome’s policy, under a profession of reverence for the Bible, to keep it locked up in an unknown tongue and hidden away from the people. Under her rule the witnesses prophesied “clothed in sackcloth.” But another power, the beast from the bottomless pit, was to arise to make open, avowed war upon the word of God. According to the words of the prophet, then, a little before the year 1798 some power of satanic origin and character would rise to make war upon the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God’s two witnesses should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh (Egypt) and the licentiousness of Sodom. (The Great Controversy, pp. 268, 269)

This Beast from the Bottomless Pit is a new, different power: Atheism. It could be referred to by other names such as Satanism, Spiritualism, Luciferism, etc. I have chosen the name Atheism because it seems to include more than just the worship of Satan; it includes multiple aspects of the evil powers that are against God and His ways. It is closely associated symbolically with the man of sin, the Wicked (lawless) one, that is described in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-9. It showed up and started its activities around the time of the French Revolution and it continues in combination with the Woman, Babylon – apostate religion – at the very end of time. It is described further in Revelation 17.

So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. . . . And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. Revelation 17:3, 7, 8

Babylon, the Prostitute, represents Apostate Religion.

The Beast from the Bottomless Pit represents Atheism.

The confederacy of these powers is described with slightly different symbols in Revelation 16.

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Revelation 16:13, 14

The Dragon, Satan, represents Satanism / Atheism / Spiritualism. (see Rev. 12:9)
The Beast represents the Roman Catholic Papacy (the Leopard-like Beast, Rev. 13:1-10)
The False Prophet represents American apostate Protestantism (the Lamb-like Beast, compare Rev. 13:14 and 19:20)

Again, Satan’s forces combine with false religion and work together against God and His true, faithful people at the end.

Communism

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a radical thinker and writer who believed that only material things were real and nothing supernatural existed (including God, of course). Religion was just “an opiate of the people” that kept man from reaching his highest potential and forming a perfect social condition called “Communism,” where everything was fair and equal. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need.” He joined a group called The League of the Just, an offshoot of the Illuminati, and began writing propaganda for them, including an update of Adam Weishaupt’s writings and, with the help of his friend, Friedrich Engels, produced the famous pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto”, that laid out a plan for a worldwide revolution of the working classes against all established authority, against the “evil capitalists”, those who controlled the wealth of the world. Some of the basic goals of Communism are: 1) eliminate all private property and inheritance rights; 2) dissolve the family unit; 3) destroy religion. Those who advocate Communism claim that if its principles were followed properly, everyone could live in peace, prosperity, and freedom. There would be no more need for governments, police, or armies. Force and violence are inevitable now because there are many who resist and must be put down; but man is evolving toward perfection and soon all of humanity’s problems will be solved and everyone can enjoy utopia.

There is something significant in the various symbols of Revelation that relates to this that we should take notice of. Most of the symbols that have to do with God are associated with light – candlesticks, the sun, fire, stars, etc.

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. John 3:19

Light = truth

All the symbols that have to do with Satan are associated with power – beasts, heads, horns, etc. Satan is out to grab power and control. He doesn’t care how he gets it and truth doesn’t matter to him.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. John 8:44

Nicholai Lenin, who founded the first Communist party in Russia and led the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 when Communism took over in Russia, described his dictatorship as “power, based directly upon force, and unrestricted by any laws.” (“Lenin”, World Book Encyclopedia) One of the important tools he used for his takeover was the newspaper “Pravda” (meaning “truth”). That sounds just like Satan, doesn’t it – tyranny and lies. In 1924, shortly before he died, he said: “After Russia we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will encircle the United States which will be the last bastion of Capitalism. We will not have to attack it. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands.” Nikita Khrushchev summarized what their plans are: “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept Communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”

The Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, warned America: “The Communist ideology is to destroy your society. This has been their aim for 125 years and has never changed; only the methods have changed a little.”

The United Nations

The United Nations was established in the mid 1940’s for the purpose of being a world peace organization. It had high ideals: as Harry Truman expressed, “We must build a new world, a far better world, one in which the dignity of man is respected.” But the way the UN is organized and how it functions have made it obvious that it is headed in a different direction. Here are a few examples:

Many of the world leaders who helped found the UN were Socialists, Communists, or even Soviet agents.
The UN Security Council is composed of 5 permanent members: the U.S., Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China.
Each of the 185 members has one vote in the General Assembly. Any combination of small and/or Communist-influenced countries can easily outvote the U.S.
Every Secretary General since the UN was founded has been either a Communist or a Socialist. There isn’t much peace and security when Communist powers have that much influence.

Almost everything the UN stands for is against the individual freedoms we in America cherish. It continues to pursue the humanistic goals of those who started it, claiming to seek world peace while laying the foundation for a totalitarian, one-world government. Its real objective is not world peace but worldwide power. Some of the plans and actions on their social agenda have been pretty radical:

reduce population by encouraging abortion, sterilization, and other means of controlling human breeding;
guarantee children freedom of expression . . . freedom to seek, receive, and impart information . . . freedom of thought, conscience, and religion regardless of the wishes of their parents;
redefine marriage to include almost any kind of perverted relationship and redefine family to include non-related individuals.

In less than 100 years, 15 brutal dictators (most of them Communists) have used their uncontrolled authority to destroy over 150 million people, including many who were killed specifically because they were Christians. That is almost 4 times the number killed in all the wars during that same time. This is an example of what a world government with the same kind of power and philosophy could accomplish. After the Communist regime in Cambodia murdered almost a third of the country’s people, its foreign minister boasted, “We have cleansed our cities.” The UN General Assembly welcomed him with applause.

Where are we headed?

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. Revelation 12:12

Satan is working very hard scrambling around to establish himself as the ruler of this world, hoping that Christ will just give up on it and go away forever so he can have full power here. All of these movements and teachings and political powers (Illuminism, Communism, evolutionary theories, the New Age Movement, the New World Order, etc., all closely related to Atheism) are just parts of his (Satan’s) system, being used as tools to accomplish his goals. They are all totally against God; and if they sometimes appear to fight against each other, it isn’t because they are on opposite sides in the battle between good and evil; it is because Satan’s plan is for “only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5) and he wants to deceive and destroy as many people as possible using deception, prejudice, hate, and war. Satan claims to be the “god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and he doesn’t want to leave room for anyone else to receive the worship and honor he wants. He leads people in small steps to turn away from God by neglecting and disobeying and rejecting Him.

The aim of the great rebel has ever been to justify himself and to prove the divine government responsible for the rebellion. To this end he has bent all the power of his giant intellect. He has worked deliberately and systematically, and with marvelous success, leading vast multitudes to accept his version of the great controversy which has been so long in progress. (The Great Controversy, p. 670)

Satan wants to blame God for all the evil that he, himself has done. He “will continue to act a double part. Appearing to be the dispenser of great blessing and divine truths, he will, by his lying wonders, hold the world under his control; and at the same time he will indulge his malignity by causing distress and destruction, and will accuse God’s people as the cause of the fearful convulsions of nature and the strife and bloodshed among men which are desolating the earth.” (The Shape of the Coming Crisis, pp. 62, 63)

As quoted earlier, Albert Pike, a leader of the Masons in the 1800’s, wrote: “The true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonai; but Lucifer, God of light, and the God of good is struggling for humanity against Adonai, the god of darkness and evil.”

Everything that has been going on since Satan had his council meeting in the early 1700’s will come to a head in our time: … anarchy is seeking to sweep away all law, not only divine, but human. The centralizing of wealth and power; the vast combinations for the enriching of the few at the expense of the many; the combinations of the poorer classes for the defense of their interests and claims; the spirit of unrest, of riot and bloodshed; the world-wide dissemination of the same teachings that led to the French Revolution – all are tending to involve the whole world in a struggle similar to that which convulsed France. (Education, p. 228)

Here is a quote from a world history book commenting on the decline of Great Britain in the late 1800’s after it had been attacked by evolutionary theories, Socialism, and religious liberalism (which all have a very strong influence in America right now):

“The same false philosophies that led Britain into decline had also become prominent in continental Europe, where they were joined by the revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution. Acceptance of these ungodly philosophies would later have terrible consequences for both Europe and the entire world.” (World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective, p. 379)

Ellen G. White says many times that history will be repeated. What happened in France during the Revolution will happen again. The same forces and ideas that erupted then are gaining power and momentum now, and there will be similar results. Here are a few examples:

Then: For centuries, truth and error struggled for the mastery. At last the evil triumphed, and the truth of Heaven was thrust out. . . . The restraint of God’s Spirit was removed from a people that had despised the gift of His grace. Evil was permitted to come to maturity. (The Great Controversy, p. 265)

Now: God’s long-suffering has ended. The World has rejected His mercy, despised His love, and trampled upon His law. … Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one. Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble. As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. (The Great Controversy, p. 614)

Then: The selfishness of the wealthy and powerful grew more and more apparent and oppressive. … The estates were held by the nobles, and the laboring classes were only tenants; they were at the mercy of their landlords … The middle and lower classes were heavily taxed by the civil authorities and by the clergy … the farmers and the peasants might starve, for aught their oppressors cared. … The courts of justice would always listen to a noble as against a peasant … The throne was occupied by Louis XV, who, even in those evil times, was distinguished as an indolent, frivolus, and sensual monarch. (he was homosexual) (The Great Controversy, pp. 279, 280)

Now: Courts of justice are corrupt. Rulers are actuated by desire for gain and love of sensual pleasure. Intemperance has beclouded the faculties of many so that Satan has almost complete control of them. Jurists are perverted, bribed, deluded. Drunkenness and revelry, passion, envy, dishonesty of every sort, are represented among those who administer the laws. ‘Justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.’ Isaiah 59:14 (The Great Controversy, p. 586)

Then: When the restraints of God’s law were cast aside, it was found that the laws of man were inadequate to hold in check the powerful tides of human passion; and the nation swept on to revolt and anarchy. (The Great Controversy, p. 282)

Now: Let the restraint imposed by the divine law be wholly cast aside, and human laws would soon be disregarded. … Already the doctrine that men are released from obedience to God’s requirements has weakened the force of moral obligation and opened the floodgates of iniquity upon the world. Lawlessness, dissipation, and corruption are sweeping in upon us like an overwhelming tide. (The Great Controversy, p. 585)

Then: In the darkest times there were faithful men who loved God’s word and were jealous for His honor. To these loyal servants were given wisdom, power, and authority to declare His truth during the whole of this time. (The Great Controversy, pp. 267, 268)

Now: In this time of persecution the faith of the Lord’s servants will be tried. They have faithfully given the warning, looking to God and to His word alone. … They are hedged in with difficulties. Satan assails them with fierce temptations. The work which they have undertaken seems far beyond their ability to accomplish. … They remember that the words which they have spoken were not theirs, but His who bade them give the warning. God put the truth into their hearts, and they could not forbear to proclaim it. (The Great Controversy, pp. 608, 609)

Then: In the land where the testimony of God’s two witnesses should thus be silenced (France) there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom. (The Great Controversy, p. 269)

Now: It is pretty obvious from some of the recent actions of the courts, the American Civil Liberties Union, the President, the public media, etc. where they are trying to lead this nation and thus fulfill this prophecy.

America has been preserved from totally falling to these powers and influences but there are some scary things in place in our system already:

The Statue of Liberty, that we value as a symbol of the freedoms we enjoy in America, was given to the United States by France in 1884. Its proper name is Liberty Enlightening the World. Liberty means free thought. It is actually a statue of the Goddess of Reason that was introduced in France in 1793 as a symbol of their rebellion against the authority of God. They wanted to be free and enlightened.

On the back of our $1 bill is the Great Seal of the United States with the pyramid and the Latin words around it. The phrase at the top means God has smiled on our undertakings and at the bottom A new world order. It also has the all-seeing eye above the pyramid. This is a symbol of the Illuminati. The Federal Reserve System is not owned by the United States government; it is privately owned and run by people like the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, and other international bankers who are all part of the Illuminati. They are the ones our U.S. government is in such deep debt to. They control our money system. When will they decide to foreclose?

We are coming more and more under the power of the United Nations which is basically Communist. Many of the things our government does that seem to be good in themselves are following right along with the principles of Socialism and moving us slowly but surely toward absolute government control of everything. The U.S. Constitution and other documents that we see as guaranteeing our freedoms carry very little authority in the actual administration of our government.

Here is a hint (more than a hint, a prophecy) about where we are headed.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number his name. Revelation 13:15-17

This is describing absolute government control. It sounds very much like Communism that exists in many places around the world right now and is headed our way.

A Christian woman in Vietnam describes how things have been there: “Now the Tin Lanh (Good News) Church in Vietnam has a license from the government, but this has done nothing for them. They asked the government for permission to open an official Bible school for 100 students (the first in about 30 years under the communists). The government checked the biographies of the students and only allowed 50 students to study. The government forced the Bible school to accept four teachers (atheists) to teach political doctrines and evolution. So four of the 13 teachers mix their poison in with the gospel medicine. This is not progress. This is walking backward. This is not obedience to God. If we wait until the government gives us a license to have our own Bible school, Jesus will come back first. We cannot wait for this.” “For 15 years we have had meetings in our house. My husband went to prison for two years. The police have come into my house 12 times without permission or documents. If we had an official church building, we would go, but we would still use houses.” (“The Voice of the Martyrs” magazine)

In Iraq: One hundred believers had secretly crammed into a small, dim room. They had just finished singing a song when 15 plain-clothed agents, armed with pistols and walkie-talkies, burst through the door. One of the officers took out a paper and started calling out the names of the people in the room. They knew everyone in the room by name. The young evangelists later learned that Saddam Hussein had planted an infiltrator – a spy – into their church group. The church attendees knew their gathering was illegal, as Saddam’s regime only allowed Christians to worship inside church buildings registered with the government. While government officials had granted the believers a permit to gather for a party, permission was not given for praise and preaching. Eight of the church members were taken to prison. (They were released in April, 2003 when U.S. troops liberated Baghdad) (“The Voice of the Martyrs” magazine)

Much more could be said about the New Age Movement, the Harry Potter craze, the Gay Rights Movement, Hollywood productions, music and other types of media that are moving our culture toward Satan’s control. And Satan is not satisfied with partial control; he wants all traces of God and His ways and His people to be blotted out of existence. He is totally anti-God, the ultimate Atheist and the instigator of everything related to it.

There is something interesting to notice in Revelation 17, where we have a description of the team of the prostitute Babylon and the Beast from the Bottomless Pit, apostate religion and Atheism working together. One of the last events that John describes in this chapter is the 10 horns on the Beast hating Babylon and destroying her. Satan even gets rid of one of his most faithful allies: religion. He doesn’t want any competition for power.

What I have shared with you has been only a very brief look at what is going on in this world behind the scenes that is fulfilling prophecy. I’m sure there is a lot we don’t know about. Someone told me about a friend of his who was in the military. Part of his training involved night maneuvers. This friend was given the special advantage of having night vision equipment – he could infiltrate the “enemy” camp and see everything they were doing but they couldn’t see him in the dark. As long as he was quiet, he could work around them and they didn’t know a thing about it. That is just like Satan. We can’t see him and he can work around us without us realizing most of what he is up to; but we have been warned and given some very pertinent council:

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:10-13

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Bibliography

Arrabito, James. “A History of the Jesuits.” video.
“Hypnotism.” The World Book Encyclopedia, (1969).
“Lenin.” The World Book Encyclopedia, (1969).
Mansell, Donald E. The Shape of the Coming Crisis. Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1998.
“Renaissance.” The World Book Encyclopedia, (1969).
“Roman Empire.” The World Book Encyclopedia, (1969).
Smith, Uriah. Daniel and the Revelation. Nashville, Tennessee: Southern Publishing Association, 1944.
Thompson, George, and Combee, Jerry. World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective. Pensacola, Florida: A Beka Book, 1997.
The Voice of the Martyrs, published by The Voice of the Martyrs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
White, E.G. Education. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1952.
White, E.G. The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1950.
White, E.G. Medical Ministry. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1963.

White, E.G. Testimonies for the Church, Volume 8. Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1948.

January 17, 2017January 22, 2017

The Final Drama

The Last Days of Earth

Current conditions and events that were predicted over 100 years ago:

There will be many great failures in earthly banks, and speculations, including mining and real estate. (Ellen G. White, An Adventist Apocalypse, p. 23)

In the world gigantic monopolies will be formed. Men will bind themselves together in unions that will wrap them in the folds of the enemy. A few men will combine to grasp all the means to be obtained in certain lines of business. Trades unions will be formed, and those who refuse to join these unions will be marked men. (Ibid., p. 164)

Money will soon depreciate in value very suddenly when the reality of eternal scenes opens to the senses of man. (White, The True Missionary, January 1, 1874)

The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the strained, restless relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element, and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place – that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis.

Angels are now restraining the winds of strife, that they may not blow until the world shall be warned of its coming doom; but a storm is gathering, ready to burst upon the earth; and when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.

The Bible, and the Bible only, gives a correct view of these things. Here are revealed the great final scenes in the history of our world, events that already are casting their shadows before, the sound of their approach causing the earth to tremble and men’s hearts to fail them for fear. (White, Education, p. 179, 180)

Those who hold the reins of government are unable to solve the problem of poverty, pauperism, and increasing crime. They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a more secure basis. (White, The Ministry of Healing, p. 183)

There will soon be a sudden change in God’s dealings. The world in its perversity is being visited by casualties, – by floods, storms, fires, earthquakes, famines, wars, and bloodshed. . . . Who is prepared for the sudden change that will take place in God’s dealing with sinful men? Who will be prepared to escape the punishment that will certainly fall upon transgressors? (White, Special Testimonies on Education, p. 133)

I have seen the most costly structures erected, and supposed to be fireproof, and just as Sodom perished in the flames of God’s vengeance, so will these proud structures become ashes. I have seen vessels, seeking to breast the angry billows. But with all their treasures of gold and silver, and with their human freight they sink into a watery grave. . . . The time is right upon us when there will be sorrow in the world that no human balm can heal. The flattering monuments of men’s greatness will be crumbled in the dust, even before the last great destruction comes upon the world. (White, An Adventist Apocalypse, p. 143)

Human beings are suffering the results of their own course of action in departing from the commandments of God. The beasts also suffer under the curse. Disease in cattle is making meat-eating a dangerous matter. The Lord’s curse is upon the earth, upon man, upon beasts, upon the fish, and as transgression becomes almost universal, the curse will be permitted to become as broad and as deep as the transgression. Disease is contracted by the use of meat. The diseased flesh of these dead carcasses is sold in the market-places, and disease among men is the sure result. . . . There is no safety in eating of the flesh of dead animals, and in a short time the milk of the cows will also be excluded from the diet. . . . In a short time it will not be safe to use anything that comes from the animal creation. (White, Pacific Union Recorder, November 7, 1901)

On one occasion, when in New York City, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. These buildings were warranted to be fireproof, and they were erected to glorify the owners and builders. Higher and still higher these buildings rose, and in them the most costly material was used. Those to whom these buildings belonged were not asking themselves: “How can we best glorify God?” The Lord was not in their thoughts.

As these lofty buildings went up, the owners rejoiced with ambitious pride that they had money to use in gratifying self and provoking the envy of their neighbors. Much of the money that they thus invested had been obtained through exaction, through grinding down the poor. They forgot that in heaven an account of every business transaction is kept; every unjust deal, every fraudulent act, is there recorded. The time is coming when in their fraud and insolence men will reach a point that the Lord will not permit them to pass, and they will learn that there is a limit to the forbearance of Jehovah.

The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at the lofty and supposedly fire-proof buildings and said: “They are perfectly safe.” But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines. (White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 9, p. 12, 13)

The prophecies of Revelation are relevant for our time.

There are 3 very significant end-time powers mentioned in Revelation that are important for us to understand.–

Revelation 12–The Dragon

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: . . . And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Revelation 12:3-9

The dragon is clearly identified as Satan.

Revelation 13–The Beast like a Leopard

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Revelation 13:1-10

Several points lead to the conclusion that this beast symbolizes the Roman Catholic papacy:

1) it received its power, seat, and authority from the dragon (verse 2) – the papacy is a continuation of the pagan Imperial Roman Empire;

2) it has worldwide influence (verses 3, 7) (catholic means “universal”);

3) it is a religious power (verse 4) – it receives worship;

4) it is guilty of blasphemy (verses 1, 6) According to the Bible, it is blasphemy to claim power to forgive sins (Luke 5:21), to falsely profess to be God’s people (Rev. 2:9), and to claim to be equal with God (John 10:33) – the papacy makes all of these claims;

5) it had power for 42 prophetic months (1260 years) (verse 5) – the papacy had almost total supremacy in European politics from A.D. 538 to 1798;

6) it received a deadly wound (verse 3) – the pope was taken prisoner in 1798 by Napoleon’s general, Alexander Bertier, and died in exile;

7) its deadly wound was healed (verse 3) – In 1929, Benito Mussolini granted the pope full authority over the state of Vatican City and the papacy has regained incredible worldwide power and influence since that time;

8) it persecutes the saints (verse 7) – the papacy persecuted and killed millions of conscientious Christians during the Middle Ages and will do this again;

9) it has the mysterious number 666 (verse 18) – One of the pope’s titles is “Vicar of the Son of God,” which is “Vicarius Filii Dei” in Latin (the official language of the church). When the letters in this name are given their Roman numeral value they equal 666 (I = 1, V [or U] = 5, L = 50, C = 100, D = 500).

There are many similarities between this beast and the “Little Horn” described in Daniel 7 & 8 and the “King of the North” of Daniel 11. A similar description can be found in 2 Thessalonians 2:2-12.

Revelation 13–The Beast like a Lamb

Several points lead to the conclusion that this beast symbolizes the United States:

1) it rises out of the earth (verse 11) – water symbolizes multitudes of people (see Revelation 17:15) – the first beast rose from an area of great population (Europe); earth would symbolize an area of low population – the U.S. developed out of the sparsely inhabited New World;

2) it appears after the first beast – the U.S. was becoming a nation at about the same time the papacy received its “deadly wound” in 1798;

3) it is portrayed as a lamb (verse 11) – the U.S. was not a great conquering empire like the other world powers portrayed in Bible prophecy as great beasts of prey;

4) it speaks like a dragon (verse 11) – the lamb symbolizes Christ, the dragon symbolizes Satan; the U.S. appears Christian but begins acting out Satan’s principles with great authority;

5) it exercises its power and does great wonders “in the sight of”, or in the presence of, the first beast (verse 12) – the U.S. and the papacy exist together as great world powers.

It is important to understand that “great wonders” or miracles are not a positive sign that the miracle-worker, his message, or his works are from God. (see Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and Revelation 16:14) Since the miracles that this lamb-like power does are intended to deceive, they cannot be of divine origin.

Much of this description predicts what the United States will do when it becomes controlled by apostate Christianity and allies itself with the papacy near the end of time. It will:

1) cause everyone to follow and worship the papacy;

2) use miracles of Satanic origin for purposes of deception;

3) develop a religious system resembling the papacy;

4) eliminate religious freedom by imposing the death penalty on all who won’t obey;

5) develop a system of identification;

6) control business to force everyone to conform.

Near the end, these 3 symbolic beasts join together in an alliance against God –

And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon (Satan / spiritualism), and out of the mouth of the beast (the papacy), and out of the mouth of the false prophet (US / apostate Christianity [see Revelation 19:20]). For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Revelation 16:13, 14

The United States will join with the Papacy and Satan to influence the whole world against God.

God’s Law, His Ten Commandments, will be ignored, hated, and finally rejected and abolished by men –

The word of God plainly declares that his law is to be scorned, trampled upon, by the world; there will be an extraordinary prevalence of iniquity. The professed Protestant world will form a confederacy with the man of sin, and the church and the world will be in corrupt harmony.

Here the great crisis is coming upon the world. The Scriptures teach that popery is to regain its lost supremacy, and that the fires of persecution will be rekindled through the time serving concessions of the so-called Protestant world. In this time of peril we can stand only as we have the truth and the power of God. Men can know the truth only by being themselves partakers of the divine nature. We have need now for more than human wisdom in reading and searching the Scriptures; and if we come to God’s word with humble hearts, he will raise up a standard for us against the lawless element. (White, 1891 Manuscript, p. 318)

There are some very significant, misleading errors in popular Christian theology today –

ERROR: God’s law was nailed to the cross; we don’t need to be concerned about keeping it because we are saved by grace.

This idea is based on a misunderstanding of certain Bible verses:

(1) Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; Colossians 2:14

Correction: We are told clearly what was eliminated at the cross:

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, . . . Daniel 9:27

Only the law of sacrifice and oblation, of temple ceremonies and priestly rituals, ended at the cross. The covenant, which included the moral law of Ten Commandments, was confirmed and is still our standard for godly living.

(2) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8, 9

Correction: We are not saved because of our good works; but neither will we be saved without them. The very next verse tells us that God created us for the purpose of doing good works.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1 John 2:3, 4

If you love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. James 1:22-24

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. Revelation 22:14

Works is what we do and say, how we live, as a result of our faith. We do what God wants because we believe and love Him. If we do not live according to His righteous standards, He will not save us.

(3) For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. Romans 6:14

Correction: When Paul writes that we are not under the law, he means we are not condemned by the law. God’s grace delivers us from the curse of the law, death, but not from the obligation to obey that law. Grace is not a license to disobey; rather, it provides a release from condemnation. We are freed from death, which is the final result of sin, but we are not freed from obedience to the law. According to the very next verse, we still need to live by the law:

What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Romans 6:15

Sin is defined for us like this:

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. 1 John 3:4

The Catholic Church attempted to change the Ten Commandments by removing the 2nd, changing the 4th and making it the 3rd, and dividing the 10th into 2:

1. I am the Lord thy god. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.
2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
3. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day.
4. Honor thy father and thy mother.
5. Thou shalt not kill.
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
7. Thou shalt not steal.
8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.

(The General Catholic Catechism)

Correction: Here is the way God originally gave His Ten Commandments:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s. (Exodus 20:3-17)

“I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments . . . Whosoever abrogates the law must of necessity abrogate sin also.” (Martin Luther, “Spiritual Antichrist,” pages 71, 72)

No error accepted by the Christian world strikes more boldly against the authority of Heaven, none is more directly opposed to the dictates of reason, none is more pernicious in its results, than the modern doctrine, so rapidly gaining ground, that God’s law is no longer binding upon men. Every nation has its laws, which command respect and obedience; no government could exist without them; and can it be conceived that the Creator of the heavens and the earth has no law to govern the beings He has made? Suppose that prominent ministers were publicly to teach that the statutes which govern their land and protect the rights of its citizens were not obligatory – that they restricted the liberties of the people, and therefore ought not to be obeyed; how long would such men be tolerated in the pulpit? But is it a graver offense to disregard the laws of states and nations than to trample upon those divine precepts which are the foundation of all government?

It would be far more consistent for nations to abolish their statutes, and permit the people to do as they please, than for the Ruler of the universe to annul His law, and leave the world without a standard to condemn the guilty or justify the obedient. Would we know the result of making void the law of God? The experiment has been tried. Terrible were the scenes enacted in France when atheism became the controlling power. It was then demonstrated to the world that to throw off the restraints which God has imposed is to accept the rule of the cruelest of tyrants. When the standard of righteousness is set aside, the way is open for the prince of evil to establish his power in the earth.

Wherever the divine precepts are rejected, sin ceases to appear sinful or righteousness desirable. Those who refuse to submit to the government of God are wholly unfitted to govern themselves. Through their pernicious teachings the spirit of insubordination is implanted in the hearts of children and youth, who are naturally impatient of control; and a lawless, licentious state of society results. While scoffing at the credulity of those who obey the requirements of God, the multitudes eagerly accept the delusions of Satan. They give the rein to lust and practice the sins which have called down judgments upon the heathen.

Those who teach the people to regard lightly the commandments of God sow disobedience to reap disobedience. Let the restraint imposed by the divine law be wholly cast aside, and human laws would soon be disregarded. Because God forbids dishonest practices, coveting, lying, and defrauding, men are ready to trample upon His statutes as a hindrance to their worldly prosperity; but the results of banishing these precepts would be such as they do not anticipate. If the law were not binding, why should any fear to transgress? Property would no longer be safe. Men would obtain their neighbor’s possessions by violence, and the strongest would become richest. Life itself would not be respected. The marriage vow would no longer stand as a sacred bulwark to protect the family. He who had the power, would, if he desired, take his neighbor’s wife by violence. The fifth commandment would be set aside with the fourth. Children would not shrink from taking the life of their parents if by so doing they could obtain the desire of their corrupt hearts. The civilized world would become a horde of robbers and assassins; and peace, rest, and happiness would be banished from the earth. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 584, 585)

ERROR: The soul is immortal. When a person dies, their soul leaves their body and goes to its eternal reward – heaven for the good people, hell for the wicked.

Correction: We are not born immortal. The reward for a life of sin is death, not unending life in torment. Immortality in paradise is a special gift God gives only to those who come to Him through Jesus.

Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiel 18:4

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

Correction: These rewards are not given to a person at the time of their death, but at the end of the world when Jesus Christ comes.

And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11:39, 40

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. Job 19:25-27

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. Revelation 22:12

The saints who died before Jesus comes did not “receive the promise”, they were not “made perfect” before those who are still alive until He comes; and those who are alive at that time do not precede those who died. All saints go to be with the Lord at the same time – at His second advent. Even the great king David did not receive his eternal reward when he died.

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. . . . For David is not ascended into the heavens: . . . Acts 2:29, 34

The dead are merely “sleeping” in their graves, oblivious to everything that is happening on the earth.

These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. John 11:11-14

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in any thing that is done under the sun. Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Psalm 146:4

The only one who promised Adam life in disobedience was the great deceiver. And the declaration of the serpent to Eve in Eden,”Ye shall not surely die,” was the first sermon ever preached upon the immortality of the soul. Yet this declaration, resting solely upon the authority of Satan, is echoed from the pulpits of Christendom and is received by the majority of mankind as readily as it was received by our first parents. The divine sentence, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20), is made to mean: The soul that sinneth, it shall not die, but live eternally. We cannot but wonder at the strange infatuation which renders men so credulous concerning the words of Satan and so unbelieving in regard to the words of God. (Ibid., p. 533)

Upon the fundamental error of natural immortality rests the doctrine of consciousness in death – a doctrine, like eternal torment, opposed to the teachings of the Scriptures, to the dictates of reason, and to our feelings of humanity. According to the popular belief, the redeemed in heaven are acquainted with all that takes place on the earth and especially with the lives of the friends whom they have left behind. But how could it be a source of happiness to the dead to know the troubles of the living, to witness the sins committed by their own loved ones, and to see them enduring all the sorrows, disappointments, and anguish of life? How much of heaven’s bliss would be enjoyed by those who were hovering over their friends on earth? And how utterly revolting is the belief that as soon as the breath leaves the body the soul of the impenitent is consigned to the flames of hell! To what depths of anguish must those be plunged who see their friends passing to the grave unprepared, to enter upon an eternity of woe and sin! Many have been driven to insanity by this harrowing thought. (Ibid., p. 545)

The doctrine of man’s consciousness in death, especially the belief that spirits of the dead return to minister to the living, has prepared the way for modern spiritualism. If the dead are admitted to the presence of God and holy angels, and privileged with knowledge far exceeding what they before possessed, why should they not return to the earth to enlighten and instruct the living? If, as taught by popular theologians, spirits of the dead are hovering about their friends on earth, why should they not be permitted to communicate with them, to warn them against evil, or to comfort them in sorrow? How can those who believe in man’s consciousness in death reject what comes to them as divine light communicated by glorified spirits? Here is a channel regarded as sacred, through which Satan works for the accomplishment of his purposes. The fallen angels who do his bidding appear as messengers from the spirit world. While professing to bring the living into communication with the dead, the prince of evil exercises his bewitching influence upon their minds.

He has power to bring before men the appearance of their departed friends. The counterfeit is perfect; the familiar look, the words, the tone, are reproduced with marvelous distinctness. Many are comforted with the assurance that their loved ones are enjoying the bliss of heaven, and without suspicion of danger, they give ear “to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.

When they have been led to believe that the dead actually return to communicate with them, Satan causes those to appear who went into the grave unprepared. They claim to be happy in heaven and even to occupy exalted positions there, and thus the error is widely taught that no difference is made between the righteous and the wicked. The pretended visitants from the world of spirits sometimes utter cautions and warnings which prove to be correct. Then, as confidence is gained, they present doctrines that directly undermine faith in the Scriptures. With an appearance of deep interest in the well-being of their friends on earth, they insinuate the most dangerous errors. The fact that they state some truths, and are able at times to foretell future events, gives to their statements an appearance of reliability; and their false teachings are accepted by the multitudes as readily, and believed as implicitly, as if they were the most sacred truths of the Bible. The law of God is set aside, the Spirit of grace despised, the blood of the covenant counted an unholy thing. The spirits deny the deity of Christ and place even the Creator on a level with themselves. Thus under a new disguise the great rebel still carries on his warfare against God, begun in heaven and for nearly six thousand years continued upon the earth. (Ibid., p. 551, 552)

ERROR: Sunday is a holy worship day.

Correction: Saturday, the 7th day of the week, is God’s true, holy Sabbath; Sunday, the 1st day of the week, is a false, corrupted, worship day that should not be considered to be any more than an ordinary working day –

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Exodus 20:8-11

Thus saith the Lord GOD; The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days; but on the sabbath it shall be opened, and in the day of the new moon it shall be opened. Ezekiel 46:1

There is no statement anywhere in the Bible to indicate that the 1st day of the week should be considered a holy day. There are only eight texts in the New Testament that mention the first day of the week. (The term “Sunday” is not in the Bible) The first five texts deal only with Jesus’ resurrection:

In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. Matthew 28:1

And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun. Mark 16:2

Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. Mark 16:9

Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. Luke 24:1

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. John 20:1

We will now discuss the last three of these texts:

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. John 20:19

At this point in time, the disciples did not even believe that the resurrection had taken place (Mark 16:14). They had met in the upper room for “fear of the Jews” and had the doors bolted shut. There is no indication that they thought of Sunday as a holy day.

And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. Acts 20:7

According to the Bible, each day begins at sundown and ends at the next sundown. (Genesis 1:5, etc, and Leviticus 23:32) The dark part of the day comes first. Sabbath begins Friday night at sundown and ends Saturday night at sundown. This meeting was held on the dark part of Sunday, or on what we now call Saturday night because Paul was “ready to depart on the morrow.” (The New English Bible puts Acts 20:7 like this: “On the Saturday night in our assembly,” etc.) The meeting lasted all night, interrupted only briefly at midnight by Eutychus’ fall from the window and a meal. Paul was on a farewell tour and knew that he would not see the people again before his death (verse 25). No wonder he preached so long. (No regular weekly service would have lasted all night.) The “breaking of bread” has no “holy day” significance whatever, because they broke bread daily. (Acts 2:46) This expression merely means that they ate a meal together. On the day following this meeting (Sunday), the group of missionaries travelled on to their next destination. Paul walked and the others sailed by ship. They would not have done this if it had been considered a holy day. There is no indication in this Scripture passage that the first day is holy, nor that these early Christians considered it so. Nor is there the remotest evidence that the Sabbath had been changed. God has never asked anyone to observe Sunday as a holy day for any reason whatever.

Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. 1 Corinthians 16:2

There is no reference here to a public meeting. The money was to be laid aside privately at home. There was a famine in Judea (Rom. 15:25; Acts 11:26-30) and Paul was writing to ask the churches in Asia Minor to send some relief funds to their needy brothers. These Christians all kept Sabbath holy, so Paul suggested that on Sunday morning, after the Sabbath was over (which was the time they paid bills and settled accounts) they put aside something so it would be on hand when he came. Notice also that there is no reference here to Sunday as a holy day. In fact, the Bible nowhere suggests or commands Sunday-keeping.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, … Revelation 1:10

Here is another verse that is often misunderstood. Contrary to what many Christians believe and teach, and what many Bible margins and notes show, “the Lord’s day” spoken about here is not Sunday; it is Sabbath, the 7th day, Saturday.

And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath. Mark 2:27-28

God made the Sabbath holy at the time of creation. It has been kept throughout history and will be kept in the New Earth.

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. Isaiah 66:22-23

God made the 7th day holy at the time of creation and called it the Sabbath. It is the true Lord’s Day. He did not bless any other day.

“It is a fact generally admitted by Protestants that the Scriptures give no authority for the change of the Sabbath. This is plainly stated in publications issued by the American Tract Society and the American Sunday School Union. One of these works acknowledges “the complete silence of the New Testament so far as any explicit command for the Sabbath [Sunday, the first day of the week] or definite rules for its observance are concerned.” – George Elliott, The Abiding Sabbath, page 184.

“Up to the time of Christ’s death, no change had been made in the day;” and, “so far as the record shows, they [the apostles] did not . . . give any explicit command enjoining the abandonment of the seventh-day Sabbath, and its observance on the first day of the week.” – A. E. Waffle, The Lord’s Day, pages 186-188.

Roman Catholics acknowledge that the change of the Sabbath was made by their church, and declare that Protestants by observing the Sunday are recognizing her power. In the Catholic Catechism of Christian Religion, in answer to a question as to the day to be observed in obedience to the fourth commandment, this statement is made: “During the old law, Saturday was the day sanctified; but the church, instructed by Jesus Christ, and directed by the Spirit of God, has substituted Sunday for Saturday; so now we sanctify the first, not the seventh day. Sunday means, and now is, the day of the Lord.

As the sign of the authority of the Catholic Church, papist writers cite “the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of; . . . because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the church’s power to ordain feasts, and to command them under sin.” – Henry Tuberville, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, page 58. What then is the change of the Sabbath, but the sign, or mark, of the authority of the Roman Church, “the mark of the beast”? (Ibid., p. 447, 448)

Many Protestant thought leaders acknowledge that Sunday sacredness has no scriptural authority:

Anglican:

“And where are we told in the Scriptures that we are to keep the first day at all? We are commanded to keep the seventh; but we are nowhere commanded to keep the first day… The reason why we keep the first day of the week holy instead of the seventh is for the same reason that we observe many other things, not because the Bible, but because the Church, has enjoined it.” (Isaac Williams, Plain Sermons on the Catechism, pages 334, 336)

Baptist:

“There was and is a command to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will however be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, where can the record of such a transaction be found: Not in the New Testament – absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week.” (Dr. E. T. Hiscox, author of the “Baptist Manual”)

Dwight L. Moody:

“I honestly believe that this commandment [the fourth, or Sabbath commandment] is just as binding today as it ever was. I have talked with men who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.’ It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was-in fact, more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.” (D.L. Moody, “Weighed and Wanting,” page 46)

Southern Baptist:

“The first four commandments set forth man’s obligations directly toward God. … But when we keep the first four commandments, we are likely to keep the other six. … The fourth commandment sets forth God’s claim on man’s time and thought. … The six days of labour and the rest on the Sabbath are to be maintained as a witness to God’s toil and rest in the creation. … No one of the ten words is of merely racial significance. … The Sabbath was established originally (long before Moses) in no special connection with the Hebrews, but as an institution for all mankind, in commemoration of God’s rest after the six days of creation. It was designed for all the descendants of Adam.” (Adult Quarterly, Southern Baptist Convention series, August 15, 1937)

Biblical Encyclopedia

“Sunday was a name given by the heathens to the first day of the week, because it was the day on which they worshipped the sun, … the seventh day was blessed and hallowed by God Himself, and … He requires His creatures to keep it holy to Him. This commandment is of universal and perpetual obligation … The Creator ‘blessed the seventh day’-declared it to be a day above all days, a day- on which His favour should assuredly rest. … So long, then, as man exists, and the world around him endures,’ does the law of the early Sabbath remain. It cannot be set aside so long as its foundations last. … It is not the Jewish Sabbath, properly so-called, which is ordained in the fourth commandment. In the whole of that injunction there is no Jewish element, any more than there is in the third commandment, or the sixth.” (Eadie’s Biblical Cyclopedia, 1872 Edition, page 561)

John Milner:

“The first precept in the Bible is that of sanctifying the seventh day: ‘God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.’ Genesis 2:3. This precept was confirmed by God in the Ten Commandments: ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep It holy. … The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.’ Exodus 20: 8, 10. On the other hand, Christ declares that He is not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. (Matthew 5: 17.) He Himself observed the Sabbath: ‘And, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day.’ Luke 4: 16. His disciples likewise observed it after His death: ‘They … rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.’ Luke 23: 56. Yet with all this weight of Scripture authority for keeping the Sabbath or seventh day holy, Protestants of all denominations make this a profane day and transfer the obligation of it to the first day of the week, or the Sunday. Now what authority have they for doing this? None at all but the unwritten word, or tradition of the Catholic Church, which declares that the apostle made the change in honour of Christ’s resurrection, and the descent of the Holy Ghost on that day of the week.” (John Milner, “The End of Religious Controversy,” page 71)

The Sabbath will be an important issue in the near future.

In his work Satan pretends to be very religious. He finds this the most effective way of carrying on the work he began in heaven. Under his guidance the Christian world has made void the law of God by tearing down the seventh-day Sabbath, and exalting in its stead a common working day. As men depart further and further from God, Satan is permitted to have power over the children of disobedience. He hurls destruction among men. There is calamity by land and sea. Property and life are destroyed by fire and flood. (White, The Review and Herald, July 6, 1901)

The Sabbath will be the great test of loyalty, for it is the point of truth especially controverted. When the final test shall be brought to bear upon men, then the line of distinction will be drawn between those who serve God and those who serve Him not. While the observance of the false sabbath in compliance with the law of the state, contrary to the fourth commandment, will be an avowal of allegiance to a power that is in opposition to God, the keeping of the true Sabbath, in obedience to God’s law, is an evidence of loyalty to the Creator. While one class, by accepting the sign of submission to earthly powers, receive the mark of the beast, the other choosing the token of allegiance to divine authority, receive the seal of God. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 605)

The substitution of the false for the true is the last act in the drama. When this substitution becomes universal, God will reveal himself. When the laws of men are exalted above the laws of God, when the powers of this earth try to force men to keep the first day of the week, know that the time has come for God to work. He will arise in His majesty, and will shake terribly the earth. He will come out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the world for their iniquity. The earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. (White, The Review and Herald, April, 23, 1901)

Roman Catholicism is strongly opposed to liberty of conscience.

The papal church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she has done in her persecution of those who reject her dogmas she holds to be right; and would she not repeat the same acts, should the opportunity be presented? Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution.

A well-known writer speaks thus of the attitude of the papal hierarchy as regards freedom of conscience, and of the perils which especially threaten the United States from the success of her policy:

‘There are many who are disposed to attribute any fear of Roman Catholicism in the United States to bigotry or childishness. Such see nothing in the character and attitude of Romanism that is hostile to our free institutions, or find nothing portentous in its growth. Let us, then, first compare some of the fundamental principles of our government with those of the Catholic Church.

‘The Constitution of the United States guarantees liberty of conscience. Nothing is dearer or more fundamental. Pope Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854, said: The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error – a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.’ The same pope, in his Encyclical Letter of December 8, 1864, anathematized those who assert the liberty of conscience and of religious worship,’ also ‘all such as maintain that the church may not employ force.’

‘The pacific tone of Rome in the United States does not imply a change of heart. She is tolerant where she is helpless. Says Bishop O’connor: ‘Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world.’ … The archbishop of St. Louis once said: ‘Heresy and unbelief are crimes; and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes.’ …

‘Every cardinal, archbishop, and bishop in the Catholic Church takes an oath of allegiance to the pope, in which occur the following words: ‘Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord (the pope), or his aforesaid successors, I will to my utmost persecute and oppose.'” – Josiah Strong, Our Country, ch. 5, pars. 2-4. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 564, 565)

It was the policy of Rome to obliterate every trace of dissent from her doctrines or decrees. Everything heretical, whether persons or writings, was destroyed. A single expression of doubt, a question as to the authority of papal dogmas, was enough to cost the life of rich or poor, high or low. Rome endeavored also to destroy every record of her cruelty toward dissenters. Papal councils decreed that books and writings containing such records should be committed to the flames. Before the invention of printing, books were few in number, and in a form not favorable for preservation; therefore there was little to prevent the Romanists from carrying out their purpose.

No church within the limits of Romish jurisdiction was long left undisturbed in the enjoyment of freedom of conscience. No sooner had the papacy obtained power than she stretched out her arms to crush all that refused to acknowledge her sway, and one after another, the churches submitted to her dominion. (White, The Spirit of Prophecy, Book 4, p. 66, 67)

Protestantism will join with Roman Catholicism to create a system to persecute God’s people.

The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union (mentioned above, Revelation 16:13, 14), this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 588)

This union will not, however, be effected by a change in Catholicism; for Rome never changes. She claims infallibility. It is Protestantism that will change. The adoption of liberal ideas on its part will bring it where it can clasp the hand of Catholicism. (White, The Review and Herald, June 1, 1886)

When the early church became corrupted by departing from the simplicity of the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs, she lost the Spirit and power of God; and in order to control the consciences of the people, she sought the support of the secular power. The result was the papacy, a church that controlled the power of the state and employed it to further her own ends, especially for the punishment of “heresy.” In order for the United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 443)

When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.

The beast with two horns “causeth [commands] all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:16, 17. The third angel’s warning is: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” “The beast” mentioned in this message, whose worship is enforced by the two-horned beast, is the first, or leopardlike beast of Revelation 13 – the papacy. The “image to the beast” represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their dogmas. The “mark of the beast” still remains to be defined. (Ibid., p. 445)

Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium. (Ibid., p. 588)

The United States will make and enforce laws that require Sunday worship.

The enforcement of Sunday-keeping on the part of Protestant churches is an enforcement of the worship of the papacy – of the beast. Those who, understanding the claims of the fourth commandment, choose to observe the false instead of the true Sabbath are thereby paying homage to that power by which alone it is commanded. But in the very act of enforcing a religious duty by secular power, the churches would themselves form an image to the beast; hence the enforcement of Sunday-keeping in the United States would be an enforcement of the worship of the beast and his image. … There are now true Christians in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion, who honestly believe that Sunday is the Sabbath of divine appointment. God accepts their sincerity of purpose and their integrity before Him. But when Sunday observance shall be enforced by law, and the world shall be enlightened concerning the obligation of the true Sabbath, then whoever shall transgress the command of God, to obey a precept which has no higher authority than that of Rome, will thereby honor popery above God. He is paying homage to Rome and to the power which enforces the institution ordained by Rome. He is worshiping the beast and his image. As men then reject the institution which God has declared to be the sign of His authority, and honor in its stead that which Rome has chosen as the token of her supremacy, they will thereby accept the sign of allegiance to Rome – “the mark of the beast.” And it is not until the issue is thus plainly set before the people, and they are brought to choose between the commandments of God and the commandments of men, that those who continue in transgression will receive ‘the mark of the beast.’ (Ibid., p. 448, 449)

The dignitaries of church and state will unite to bribe, persuade, or compel all classes to honor the Sunday. The lack of divine authority will be supplied by oppressive enactments. Political corruption is destroying love of justice and regard for truth; and even in free America, rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor, will yield to the popular demand for a law enforcing Sunday observance. Liberty of conscience, which has cost so great a sacrifice, will no longer be respected. In the soon-coming conflict we shall see exemplified the prophet’s words: “The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Revelation 12:17. (Ibid., p. 592)

Fearful is the issue to which the world is to be brought. The powers of earth, uniting to war against the commandments of God, will decree that “all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond” (Revelation 13:16), shall conform to the customs of the church by the observance of the false sabbath. All who refuse compliance will be visited with civil penalties, and it will finally be declared that they are deserving of death. On the other hand, the law of God enjoining the Creator’s rest day demands obedience and threatens wrath against all who transgress its precepts. (Ibid., p. 604)

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: Revelation 14:9, 10

There are many, even of those engaged in this movement for Sunday enforcement, who are blinded to the results which will follow this action. They do not see that they are striking directly against religious liberty. There are many who have never understood the claims of the Bible Sabbath and the false foundation upon which the Sunday institution rests. Any movement in favor of religious legislation is really an act of concession to the papacy, which for so many ages has steadily warred against liberty of conscience. Sunday observance owes its existence as a so-called Christian institution to “the mystery of iniquity;” and its enforcement will be a virtual recognition of the principles which are the very cornerstone of Romanism. When our nation shall so abjure the principles of its government as to enact a Sunday law, Protestantism will in this act join hands with popery; it will be nothing else than giving life to the tyranny which has long been eagerly watching its opportunity to spring again into active despotism. (White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, p. 711)

When the United States makes a national Sunday Law, it will be considered by God to be national apostasy and He will condemn it to ruin.

A time is coming when the law of God is, in a special sense, to be made void in our land. The rulers of our nation will, by legislative enactments, enforce the Sunday law, and thus God’s people be brought into great peril. When our nation, in its legislative councils, shall enact laws to bind the consciences of men in regard to their religious privileges, enforcing Sunday observance, and bringing oppressive power to bear against those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath, the law of God will, to all intents and purposes, be made void in our land; and national apostasy will be followed by national ruin. We see that those who are now keeping the commandments of God need to bestir themselves, that they may obtain the special help which God alone can give them. They should work more earnestly to delay as long as possible the threatened calamity. If, in our land of boasted freedom, a Protestant government should sacrifice every principle which enters into its Constitution, and propagate papal falsehood and delusion, well may we plead, “It is time for thee, Lord, to work, for they have made void thy law.” Some may think that because it has been revealed in prophecy that our nation shall restrict the consciences of men, it must surely come; and that if we make an effort to preserve our liberty, we shall be acting the part of unfaithful servants, and thus come under the condemnation of God. (White, The Review and Herald, December 18, 1888)

The time has come when judgment is fallen in the streets, and equity cannot enter, and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. But the Lord’s arm is not shortened that it cannot save, and his ear is not heavy that it cannot hear. The people of the United States have been a favored people; but when they restrict religious liberty, surrender Protestantism, and give countenance to popery, the measure of their guilt will be full, and “national apostasy” will be registered in the books of heaven. The result of this apostasy will be national ruin. (White, The Review and Herald, May 2, 1893)

By the decree enforcing the institution of the papacy in violation of the law of God, our nation will disconnect herself fully from righteousness. When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal falsehoods and delusions, then we may know that the time has come for the marvelous working of Satan and that the end is near. (White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, p. 451)

When the legislature frames laws which exalt the first day of the week, and put it in the place of the seventh day, the device of Satan will be perfected. (White, The Review and Herald, April 15, 1890)

Force is the last resort of every false religion. At first it tries attraction, as the king of Babylon tried the power of music and outward show. If these attractions, invented by men inspired by Satan, failed to make men worship the image, the hungry flames of the furnace were ready to consume them. (see Daniel 3) So it will be now. The Papacy has exercised her power to compel men to obey her, and she will continue to do so. (White, Signs of the Times, May 6, 1897)

The rest of the world will follow the example of the United States.

As America, the land of religious liberty, shall unite with the Papacy in forcing the consciences of men to honor the false Sabbath, the people of every country on the globe will be led to follow her example. (White, General Conference Daily Bulletin, January 28, 1893)

God keeps a record with the nations: the figures are swelling against them in the books of heaven; and when it shall have become a law that the transgression of the first day of the week shall be met with punishment, then their cup will be full. (White, The Review and Herald, March 9, 1886)

When the accumulated figures in heaven’s record books shall mark the sum of transgression complete, wrath will come, unmixed with mercy, and then it will be seen what a tremendous thing it is to have worn out the divine patience. This crisis will be reached when the nations shall unite in making void God’s law. (White, Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, p. 523)

God’s faithful, commandment-keeping people will be considered enemies of society.

Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government. Ministers who deny the obligation of the divine law will present from the pulpit the duty of yielding obedience to the civil authorities as ordained of God. In legislative halls and courts of justice, commandment keepers will be misrepresented and condemned. A false coloring will be given to their words; the worst construction will be put upon their motives. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 592)

I saw the sword, famine, pestilence, and great confusion in the land. The wicked thought that (God’s people) had brought the judgments upon them, and they rose up and took counsel to rid the earth of us, thinking that then the evil would be stayed. (White, Early Writings, p. 33)

And then the great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils. The class that have provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God’s commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors. It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity. … As the wrath of the people shall be excited by false charges, they will pursue a course toward God’s ambassadors very similar to that which apostate Israel pursued toward Elijah. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 590)

The Final Trouble and Destruction:

(Angels) are mighty, and they excel in strength. On one occasion, in obedience to the command of Christ, they slew in one night one hundred and eighty-five thousand men of the Assyrian army. They can, and will, soon visit the earth with judgments. In quick succession one angel after another will pour out vials of wrath upon the inhabitants of the earth. (White, Signs of the Times, January 17, 1900)

The restraint which has been upon the wicked is removed, and Satan has entire control of the finally impenitent. God’s longsuffering has ended. The world has rejected His mercy, despised His love, and trampled upon His law. The wicked have passed the boundary of their probation; the Spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last withdrawn. Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one. Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble. As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. The whole world will be involved in ruin more terrible than that which came upon Jerusalem of old. (White, The Great Controversy, p. 614)

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. (Ibid., p. 627)

THE END: Jesus Christ Defeats the Devil and Rescues His People.

With shouts of triumph, jeering, and imprecation, throngs of evil men are about to rush upon their prey, when, lo, a dense blackness, deeper than the darkness of the night, falls upon the earth. Then a rainbow, shining with the glory from the throne of God, spans the heavens and seems to encircle each praying company. The angry multitudes are suddenly arrested. Their mocking cries die away. The objects of their murderous rage are forgotten. With fearful forebodings they gaze upon the symbol of God’s covenant and long to be shielded from its overpowering brightness.

By the people of God a voice, clear and melodious, is heard, saying, “Look up,” and lifting their eyes to the heavens, they behold the bow of promise. The black, angry clouds that covered the firmament are parted, and like Stephen they look up steadfastly into heaven and see the glory of God and the Son of man seated upon His throne. In His divine form they discern the marks of His humiliation; and from His lips they hear the request presented before His Father and the holy angels: “I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.” John 17:24. Again a voice, musical and triumphant, is heard, saying: “They come! they come! holy, harmless, and undefiled. They have kept the word of My patience; they shall walk among the angels;” and the pale, quivering lips of those who have held fast their faith utter a shout of victory.

It is at midnight that God manifests His power for the deliverance of His people. The sun appears, shining in its strength. Signs and wonders follow in quick succession. The wicked look with terror and amazement upon the scene, while the righteous behold with solemn joy the tokens of their deliverance. Everything in nature seems turned out of its course. The streams cease to flow. Dark, heavy clouds come up and clash against each other. In the midst of the angry heavens is one clear space of indescribable glory, whence comes the voice of God like the sound of many waters, saying: “It is done.” Revelation 16:17.

That voice shakes the heavens and the earth. There is a mighty earthquake, “such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.” Verses 17, 18. The firmament appears to open and shut. The glory from the throne of God seems flashing through. The mountains shake like a reed in the wind, and ragged rocks are scattered on every side. There is a roar as of a coming tempest. The sea is lashed into fury. There is heard the shriek of a hurricane like the voice of demons upon a mission of destruction. The whole earth heaves and swells like the waves of the sea. Its surface is breaking up. Its very foundations seem to be giving way. Mountain chains are sinking. Inhabited islands disappear. The seaports that have become like Sodom for wickedness are swallowed up by the angry waters. Babylon the great has come in remembrance before God, “to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.” Great hailstones, every one “about the weight of a talent,” are doing their work of destruction. Verses 19, 21. The proudest cities of the earth are laid low. The lordly palaces, upon which the world’s great men have lavished their wealth in order to glorify themselves, are crumbling to ruin before their eyes. Prison walls are rent asunder, and God’s people, who have been held in bondage for their faith, are set free. (Ibid., p. 635, 636)

The people see that they have been deluded. They accuse one another of having led them to destruction; but all unite in heaping their bitterest condemnation upon the ministers. Unfaithful pastors have prophesied smooth things; they have led their hearers to make void the law of God and to persecute those who would keep it holy. Now, in their despair, these teachers confess before the world their work of deception. The multitudes are filled with fury. “We are lost!” they cry, “and you are the cause of our ruin;” and they turn upon the false shepherds. The very ones that once admired them most will pronounce the most dreadful curses upon them. The very hands that once crowned them with laurels will be raised for their destruction. The swords which were to slay God’s people are now employed to destroy their enemies. Everywhere there is strife and bloodshed. (Ibid., p. 655)

Soon there appears in the east a small black cloud, about half the size of a man’s hand. It is the cloud which surrounds the Saviour and which seems in the distance to be shrouded in darkness. The people of God know this to be the sign of the Son of man. In solemn silence they gaze upon it as it draws nearer the earth, becoming lighter and more glorious, until it is a great white cloud, its base a glory like consuming fire, and above it the rainbow of the covenant. Jesus rides forth as a mighty conqueror. Not now a “Man of Sorrows,” to drink the bitter cup of shame and woe, He comes, victor in heaven and earth, to judge the living and the dead. “Faithful and True,” “in righteousness He doth judge and make war.” And “the armies which were in heaven” (Revelation 19:11, 14) follow Him. With anthems of celestial melody the holy angels, a vast, unnumbered throng, attend Him on His way. The firmament seems filled with radiant forms – “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” No human pen can portray the scene; no mortal mind is adequate to conceive its splendor.

“His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. And His brightness was as the light.” Habakkuk 3:3,4. As the living cloud comes still nearer, every eye beholds the Prince of life. No crown of thorns now mars that sacred head; but a diadem of glory rests on His holy brow. His countenance outshines the dazzling brightness of the noonday sun. “And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords.” Revelation 19:16. (Ibid., p. 640)

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