There is somebody that is on your track. We have been studying during this campmeeting about methods of mind control and I have used as an example the experience of our soldiers who were taken captive during the Korean war by the Communists and their experience with the Chinese in the concentration camps. And before any person or group or organization attempts to use some form of mind control on a person, individual or groups of people--and by the way, mind control is not just something you can do with small groups, as we have given as an illustration, it can be done on television with entire populations--but before this is attempted any group or individual who wants to exercise mind control on somebody else, they always study the group or the person to discover something about their psychological make-up, something about their spiritual and psychological make-up.

And there is somebody that is on your track. Somebody that has been studying you, friend, ever since you were born; to find out what are the weak points in your psychological or spiritual make-up, so that a temptation can be framed that would attack you at your weakest point. And we have studied earlier this week how that this, what was first called brainwashing, and then as it was further developed during the time of the Viet Nam conflict it was called Cybernetic warfare and we have studied how when this was used on our soldiers in Korea it was very, very successful. As I mentioned the other day, our government was aghast at what happened. They did not expect something like that to happen at all. I mean nobody escaped. It was completely different from World War II, just less than ten years before. And as I mentioned, they did not have a lot of armed guards, they had about six armed guards to take care of several hundred people and they did not have electric, barbed wire-type fences. It was a minimum security sort of place, but nobody escaped because they had control of their minds.

That is the ultimate type of control that you can have over another individual. It is just as affective as bricks and concrete. These people were put in a type of mental, solitary confinement. But to do something that successful you have to know something about who you are going to try to perform an operation like that on. And these people that did this in China and North Korea, as I mentioned before, they were highly trained in the field of Psychology and the Social Sciences in American and European universities. And our government intercepted some messages mainly from a message written by the Chief of Intelligence of the Chinese peoples volunteer army in North Korea to the Chief of Intelligence of the Chinese peoples Republic in China and these messages I am going to read.

This is a composite of two or three of these messages. Now these messages were written in Chinese. They are translated into English. It was never intended that any American should see these. These messages were written only for Communist eyes to see. These messages give a synopsis, with some conclusions, about what they had studied about the American soldier. Because if you are going to perform mind control on somebody, you need to know something about how they think, their mental make-up. And as I have studied this and thought about the condition of the Adventist people today and what we are about to walk into, if you didn't have faith in God, it would be absolutely terrifying. I want to read to you now how they sized up the American soldier. This is what they said,

"Based upon our observations of the American soldiers and their officers captured in this war for the liberation of Korea from capitalistic, imperialistic aggression the following facts are evident: the American soldier has weak loyalties to his family, his community, his country, his religion and to his fellow soldiers. His concepts of right and wrong are hazy and ill-formed. Opportunism is easy for him. By himself, he feels frightened and insecure. He underestimates his own worth, his own strength and his ability to survive. He is ignorant of social values, social tensions and conflicts. There is little knowledge or understanding, even among U.S. university graduates of American political history and philosophy, the federal, state and community organizations, state and civil rights, freedom safe-guards, checks and balances and how these things allegedly operate within his own system.

"He is insular and provincial with little or no idea of the problems and the aims of what he contemptuously describes as foreigners and their countries. He has an unrealistic concept of America's eternal and inherent, rather than earned or proven, superiority and absolute military invincibility. This is his most vulnerable weakness. He fails to appreciate the meaning of and the necessity for military or any form of organization or discipline. Most often he clearly feels that his military service is a kind of hateful and unavoidable servitude to be tolerated as briefly as possible and then escape from as rapidly as possible with as little investment as possible. He is, what he himself calls sometimes, a peace-time soldier. And both of these latter types look upon military service either as a soft and safe job or hardship and sacrifice which are unfair and unreasonable to them personally.

"Based upon these facts, about the imperialist, United States aggressors, the re-education and indoctrination for American prisoners proceeds as planned."

Well, it proceeded alright. And it was very effective. And they had very accurately figured out the psychological make-up of our people. As I have thought about this and I realize that there are supernatural agencies, evil agencies, that are on your track and my track and they are doing an analysis on your spiritual make-up and on your mental make-up and trying to figure out what type of mind control technique would work on you.

The first thing it mentions is that the American soldier has "weak loyalties to his family, his community, his country, his religion and to his fellow soldier." How is your loyalty tonight to God and to His cause? How is your loyalty to your fellow believers? If you were put under pressure, how long would you stay loyal? I remember several years ago when I read the book Flee the Captor, it told a story in there of a young lady who was taken captive by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. And unfortunately, she had on her person, (which was something she never should have had) she had a list of people that were working in the underground and helping people to escape. And she had to make a terrible decision. They took her into the torture room and there was a man there that was strapped down to the table and there were, I think, three different officers that were beating him one at a time. Bam, bam, bam. Torturing him. And they told this young lady, "You either tell us what these names are in this little booklet you've got, who these people are, or you are going to the table." She knuckled under.

Do you know what happened because she knuckled under? There were a whole bunch of people that got taken prisoner and not just tortured, but lost their lives. Her loyalty to the people she was working with in the underground was not strong enough to endure the test.

The Communists said, concerning our soldiers, they have weak loyalty to their family, community, country and religion and fellow soldiers. And they capitalized on that principle. How is your loyalty tonight? You know, friend, there is a decision of loyalty that the whole world has to decide. Everybody, all will be called to choose between the law of God and the laws of men. And we just studied in our panel, that there is going to be some pressure applied. You will not be able to buy or sell, eventually there will be a death decree. Friend, as pressure is applied, is your love for God and your loyalty to Him so strong that you will be able to say, "I am going to be faithful to the Lord and obey Him and you can kill me if you want to, but as long as I'm alive, I'm going to serve the Lord and obey Him. I want to obey His law and keep His Sabbath whether I have any food to eat or whatever happens."

"All will be called to choose between the law of God and the laws of men. Here the dividing line will be drawn. There will be but two classes. Every character will be fully developed; and all will show whether they have chosen the side of loyalty or that of rebellion." Desire of Ages, 763

Everybody is going to show whether they are loyal or whether they are rebellious against the government of God. And the way they are going to show that is by whose law they are going to keep.

Are you praying about this? Have you thought it through? Before my brother Marshall died, I used to pray--I never told anybody about this prayer--that he was in the thick and heat of all theological conflict and conflicts in the church and I knew where these things could lead.

I studied some of these things that we are talking about right now. I knew how psychological and physical pressure could be put on people to betray somebody else. And I knew we were headed for more and more trouble. And I used to pray, secretly, I would say, "Lord, I know, I know that we are in times of trouble and that this trouble is going to get worse and I know there are going to be all kinds of pressure applied and I pray that You will give me grace, that if they threaten to torture me or do anything that I will never, ever, betray my brother in the battle." And those prayers came up to me very forcefully after he died and I said to the Lord, "Lord, the devil can't ever get him now. And I don't need to pray that anymore. But I still pray, that if I am threatened with torture, whatever it is, that I will be loyal to You and Your cause and Your people and that I will not ever betray somebody else because the pressure is on." And let me tell you friends, there is a great danger that we will not know ourselves. Peter did not know himself. He said to the Lord, "I wouldn't deny You. If I died with You, I wouldn't betray You or deny You. I wouldn't do it." And he really meant it. Ralph Henderson studied that with us just the other day. Peter really meant it, but he did not know himself. His loyalty was a lot weaker than he thought. Have you prayed about this? Have you asked the Lord to help you develop a loyalty that will stand up under pressure and will not give way?

But there was a second thing that we read in that description that the Communists wrote, the description of the American soldier and the second thing was this sentence, "His concepts of right and wrong are hazy and ill-formed." What a description of an American, of all the nations of the world. "His concepts of right and wrong are hazy and ill-formed." Are your concepts of right and wrong hazy and ill-formed or are they crystal clear in your mind?

Some years ago, I was already an Adventist minister, but I was attending a Seventh-day Adventist university and I was in a class and actually what we were studying was one of the aspects of behavioral psychology. The teacher was giving a lecture, and I was older and had been out working as a minister and was now going to school at this time, so I was older than most of the students in the class and somehow young people do not often understand it, but as you go through life you do not stop the maturation process when you get to be twenty. The person who is thirty is more mature than the person that is twenty. And the person who is forty should be a lot more mature than the person who is thirty. And that maturation process should keep going and after you have lived a little longer, you can sit back and evaluate things and I was in this class and the topic of the lecture was on values clarification. That was the topic of the lecture and it was a long lecture. I mean, this was not a five or ten minute lecture.

I was looking around at these students and they had their pencils and pens on their pads and they were taking notes and they were watching the teacher and taking notes. And the teacher was going on and on and on, a very intelligent person. The lecture was not boring, it had good delivery and I was starting to evaluate what was happening. It is a scary thing to do, especially when you look around and start to wonder if you are the only person in the room that is thinking. That is not a joke. In the educational process, we shoot information at people so fast and so heavy and with such pressure to memorize things that they have no time to think. That really happens. And I started to evaluate what was going on there. Why do I need to be interested in this? After all, I am a Seventh-day Adventist minister and I know the Ten Commandments. Now I will confess that when I was a very young child and I read the Ten Commandments, I did not understand when I was a very young child what the seventh commandment meant, but all the other nine commandments I could understand when I was in the first grade. And a few years later, I could understand what all ten of the commandments meant and I was thinking in my mind, by the way, I have never heard anybody even bring up the Ten Commandments in lectures on values clarification which is one of the greatest paradoxes in a Seventh-day Adventist university. You talk about values clarification and never bring up the Ten Commandments. Maybe they do now, maybe it is different, but they didn't when I was going to school.

And I was thinking in my mind, "I know the Ten Commandments. Maybe I need to meditate on the Ten Commandments more because the Bible says that the righteous man meditates on the law of God day and night. But I don't know anything in the Ten Commandments that doesn't seem to me to be clear, that needs to be clarified. And I have a value system and I don't need somebody to explain and clarify it, I already have one and it works." But a lot of people spend a lot of time in these classes trying to understand values clarification, when it should not be that complicated if you know the Ten Commandments. Because the Ten Commandments is an all-inclusive value system that works. And it tells you the difference between what is right and what is wrong and a little child can understand it, at least most of it. And an older child can understand all of it.

How is it in your mind? Is your concept of right and wrong crystal clear? Or does somebody need to clarify your value so you know what it is, so you know what right and wrong is? The Communists said concerning American soldiers, "His concepts of right and wrong are hazy and ill-formed."

I would like to read to you some statements on this subject from Signs of the Times, June 5, 1901, "A government, of whatever character, requires a governor. This world has a governor--the God of the universe. His guardian care is universal extending to man and beast, reaching even to the little sparrow. [She quotes Matthew 20:29.] In God's moral government, which is a government based upon a distinction between right and wrong. . ." Now what is God's government like? It is a "moral government," she says, that, "is based upon a distinction between right and wrong, law is essential to secure right action. God's law is the expression of His character, and in His word it is pronounced holy, just and good. Lucifer took the position that as a result of the law of God, wrong existed in heaven and earth and on this earth. Thus brought this against God's government the charge of being arbitrary. But this is a falsehood, framed by the author of all falsehoods. God's government is a government of free will. . ." This is very important to understand. This is a total contradiction to behavioral psychology, that is the truth.

Now listen to this, "God's government is a government of free will, and there is no act of rebellion or obedience which is not an act of free will. As Creator of all, God is governor over all, and He is bound to enforce His law throughout the universe. To require less from His creatures than obedience to His law would be to abandon them to ruin. To fail to punish transgression of His law would be to place the universe in confusion. The moral law is God's barrier between the human agent and sin. Thus infinite wisdom has placed before men the distinction between right and wrong, between sin and holiness." And David understood this that is why he said, "I love Your law." "God is supreme. It is not for finite man to question His right to govern the universe. God asserted His right to rule when He declared 'Thou shalt have no other gods before Me; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.' He is the Creator and Preserver of the worlds. He upholds the universe by the word of His power. Nature and science bear witness that He has a right to govern His own creation. Angels are subject to His rule; therefore let man bow in adoration before Him. The Scriptures make it plain that God is Ruler, and that man is under the highest obligation to acknowledge this, and to obey His law with heart and mind, trusting in His power for help and protection. This law which man is called upon to obey as a standard of right for the universe, is the wise and holy counsel of God. It is a moral law and has its foundation in the difference between right and wrong. Moral law is universal; positive law is not necessarily universal, but may be restricted or extended according to the will of the lawgiver. Moral law must be immutable," The word immutable means unchangeable. You cannot change it. "while positive law may be changed or abolished, as the lawgiver may choose. The Decalog, or moral code of God, consists of ten precepts, engraven on stone by the finger of God. These precepts contain the whole duty of man. . . To admit that God made a law so imperfect that it needed to be changed would be to stamp God as changeable and imperfect." Ibid. Do you see? This is right at the root of the whole Sabbath/Sunday controversy. The controversy is not over just a day, friends, the controversy is over who is going to be God. That is what the controversy is over.

"God has spoken on this point. Let us heed what He says. 'My covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that has gone out of My lips.' Psalm 89:34." Jesus said, "Till heaven and earth pass, it is going to endure."Luke 16:15. The apostles had no authority to change, the church has no authority to change it. Do you realize, friends, this whole world is just a speck compared to God's universe and the entire universe is governed by this moral law. "The Lord has given this rule of righteousness,--the foundation of all true religion,--and it must be obeyed." Ibid. Oh friend, how is your concept of right and wrong?

The first point was, where is your loyalty and is your loyalty strong enough that when the pressure is put on you will still be loyal and the second point is, is your understanding of right and wrong crystal clear or is it like these American soldiers and is just hazy and ill-formed and you are just not sure?

The third point that they discovered about the American soldier is that "when he is alone he is frightened and insecure." Can you maintain yourself when you are all by yourself. Now for the Christian, we have the assurance that we are never totally alone. And we need to have that assurance or we are not going to make it through the times that are coming when we might be separated from every earthly friend. You will find this statement in Upward Look, 334, "The perversity and cruelty of men will reach such a height that God will reveal Himself in His majesty. Very soon the wickedness of the world will have reached its limit, and as in the days of Noah, God will pour out His judgments. But even when wickedness is at its height, we may know that our Helper is close by our side."

Oh, friends, we are approaching, very rapidly, this limit. We do not know where the limit is, God has not told us. But God says that there is a limit and when this limit has been reached, He will reveal Himself. Now I can show you from some other statements some indications we have that show us when we are reaching a limit, but that is not our subject tonight. But even as you are approaching this limit and wickedness has reached the height that God will allow it to reach, we can know that our Divine Helper is right by our side. Do you have that faith? Friends, in whatever trials or difficulties you are going through right now, you need to be developing that faith. Say, "Lord, help me to realize and sense Your presence with me at just the right time, so that my faith will grow. So that I will know that even if I am all alone, in solitary confinement, my Divine Helper is close by my side."

I can tell you many stories about this. Maybe I will tell you one. A Bulgarian pastor, who was taken into the white room, the interrogation room, the torture room, in various concentration camps for many years, one time they had a new camp commander of the concentration camp where he was and this man became so furious at him because he would not yield his Christian convictions that he said, "I'm going to throw you down into a dark hole and you are never going to come out of there. You are going to rot in there." And they put him down in this dungeon and there was no light. And do you know what happens if you are in total darkness and hours go by and days go by, do you know what happens?

One of the things that happens is that you become totally disoriented in regards to time. When you become totally disoriented in regards to time it affects every system in the body because your whole body runs on time and is regulated by the sun. But when you are in total darkness, 24 hours a day, that does not work and your body and your mind become completely disoriented and you can very easily go crazy.

He was down there and he was struggling with himself and he was saying to himself, it got so bad that he said, "What am I going to do to keep from going crazy?" And he was praying and it got so bad that he just didn't think he could take it anymore. He said, "Then I saw a light. That light came over to where I was, but that light was a person. And that Person picked me up and held me in His arms and after He held me in His arms, I was all right." Oh friends, the worse it gets, the more help you are going to receive if you put your faith and trust in Jesus.

This is from Signs of the Times, November 17, 1898, "Christ had such an experience in His humanity that He desires to be close beside every one who passes through suffering for the truth's sake.-- those who are tortured, imprisoned in dungeons, and bound in chains. He ministers to all such. He is the friend of all who love and fear Him, and He will punish those who dare to lead them from safe paths, or put them in positions of distress as they conscientiously endeavor to keep the way of the Lord."

Oh, friend, what are you going to do when you are alone? Part of their strategy in Korea was that they found the American soldier insecure and frightened when he was alone. What are you going to do when you are alone? If you make your faith and trust in Jesus strong enough, you know that He is going to help you just when you need it.

A fourth point that they understood about the American soldier, I will read it just the way they stated it, "He is ignorant of social values, social tensions and conflicts." You know, friends, as we enter the last conflict, the final conflict, there are going to be a lot of social tensions and conflicts between members of the same family. Jesus said, "Now brother will deliver up the brother to death." I memorized that text many years ago and when I understood my weakness that is why I began to pray and say, "Lord, help me to be loyal to You and loyal to Your people and to never betray my brother or anyone in my family. Help me, I am weaker than Peter. I need special help." Are you ready for the social tensions and conflicts that are coming? Jesus said, "The brother will deliver up the brother to death and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death." You see, there is going to be torture applied and children will say in their minds, "I don't want to do it, but I'm either going to the torture chamber or I won't have anything to eat if I don't do what they tell me to do." And there will be some strange things that will happen.

"And you will be hated," Jesus said, "by all for My name's sake." Is that social tension and conflict? "But he who endures to the end shall be saved." Matthew 10:21,22. I would like to read to you the comments Ellen White makes on those verses of Scripture that I just quoted found in.

She says, "We aught to be thankful that these words are left on record. Every child of God that is brought into difficulty and trial because of his faithfulness to Jesus, may claim the promise, and will receive sufficient grace for every emergency." Review and Herald, April 15, 1890. The grace is going to be sufficient for every emergency.

Oh, friend, are you ready so that you will stand and not fall when the test is applied? You are preparing day by day. You are preparing day by day either to stand or to fall when the test is applied. Will you be loyal to God, to your family, to God's people, to your church, to the people of God? Will you know crystal clear the difference between right and wrong? Will it be clear in your mind? Will you be ready when you are all alone and you are told that everybody else--that has been done many times, too. Somebody comes and tells you that everybody else is doing it. Everybody else is giving in, how about you? Will you have the strength to stand and say, "Lord Jesus, by Your grace, I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to be true. Help me." And you will receive the grace that you need to stand all alone, when it may look like you are the only one left in the world.

By the way, that is a big part, I believe, of the time of trouble. You will have to go through it alone and your father or your mother or your wife or your husband or your children, they cannot go through it for you. Some of us have been in situations where we had a loved one that was going through a terrible experience and we thought to ourselves, "I wish I could just bear their pain for an hour to relieve them of it." And have you noticed how impossible that is? We each one, individually, have to be ready. We have to be ready to endure when there is a social tension and conflict and to say, "My loyalty is to God and to His law. I'm going to be faithful no matter what happens. If my family forsakes me, if the people I go to church with forsake me, if everybody all around forsakes me and I'm left all alone, by the grace of God, I'm going to obey the Lord and do His will."

A fifth point that these Communist psychologists learned about our soldiers, they have a whole paragraph on it, I will summarize it by saying that they learned that we had little understanding of our system. They said that even university graduates, they had little understanding of the American political history, philosophies and how the government works, at federal, state and local levels. They do not understand it; not even university graduates. They have that figured out. And I want to tell you, they used that to tremendous advantage. Now we could never have that kind of a problem, could we? Little understanding of our own system.

From Prophets and Kings, 723, I read this statement, "Often the church militant is called upon to suffer trial and affliction; for not without severe conflict is the church to triumph. 'The bread of adversity,' 'the water of affliction' (Isaiah 30:20), these are the common lot of all; but none who put their trust in the One mighty to deliver will be utterly overwhelmed." Great Controversy, 593, 594, "Those who endeavor to obey all the commandments of God will be opposed and derided. They can stand only in God. In order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed in His word; they can honor Him [that is God] only as they have a right conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in accordance with them."

Now, I want to ask you this question. Right tonight, do you understand the character of God, the government of God and the purposes of God? And are you acting in harmony with it? If you don't, you will not be able to stand through the time of test that we are approaching. You see, the American soldier, even though they had been through the university, they did not understand the American political system and how it worked. They did not understand their own system where they were from. And I want to tell you, these people took advantage of that. We are to be heirs of the kingdom of God. We are to be the people of God and we need to know the system that we are operating in. We need to understand God's character and His purposes and His government, the nature of His government, the nature of His character and His purposes; we need to understand those things. Do you understand them? Or if you came up to the test tonight, would your spiritual enemy be able to say, "This person doesn't even understand their own system."? Ellen White says that if you do not understand the character of God, His government and His purposes, you will not be able to honor Him; you will not be able to make it.

It says, "None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict. To every soul will come the searching test: Shall I obey God rather than men?" Ibid.

Oh, friend, I plead with you, now this is not our subject tonight, God's character, His government, and His purposes, we did show what was the foundation of His government, that is the law, but this is something that every Seventh-day Adventist should study. We should know what the character of God is like. How do you find out? You find out by making a detailed study of the life of Christ. Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." John 14:9. "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." John 1:18. And Jesus said to His disciples, He said, "If you have seem Me, you have seen the Father." That is what God is like. That is what His character is like.

"Well," I have had a person say to me, "Pastor John, Jesus was so loving and kind." And this person I was talking to did not believe in the justice of God. They did not believe that God would actually burn people up. And they used the life of Christ to try and prove it. And I looked at this person and I said, "Listen, Jesus spoke about the terrors of hellfire more than any of the prophets. It was Jesus Christ who said concerning hellfire, you would be better to cut off your hand or poke your eye out than go there because when you go there the fire won't be quenched and the worm will not die." Don't take any of this soft, syrupy talk that is all one-sided about the character of God based on a partial understanding of what Jesus is like. Read all the scriptures of what He said. Yes, Jesus is loving and kind and merciful, but He is just. And He will not connive at your sins and my sins that He expects us to overcome. Do you understand the character of God? You see, a misunderstanding of the character of God prepares people to fall. Because people that believe, people that believe that you can just go on and live in sin and then Jesus will come and, snap, everything will be all right, when the pressure is put on to break the law of God, what are they going to do? They are going to believe you cannot keep it anyway. If there is a death decree if you keep the law of God and you do not believe you can keep it anyway, what are you going to do?

You see, you have to understand the character of God and you have to understand the government of God which is based upon His character which includes, and the devil has been arguing about this for thousands of years, that you cannot be both just and merciful. God says that you can, and the cross proves that God is right. His character, His government, and His purposes, you have to understand those things, friends; you have to understand the system that you are supposed to be a part of if you are going to stand through the last great conflict.

A sixth point that these people learned by studying the American soldier was this, they said, "He is insular and provincial with little or no idea of the problems and aims of what he contemptuously describes as foreigners and their countries." In other words, he does not understand the enemy that he is fighting against. Now, that is a big subject. God wants you and me to understand the enemy that we are fighting against and to be alert and on guard at all times. We are never, as Christians, to let down our guard. We are to be like a soldier that has armor on from head to foot. Ephesians 6. Signs of the Times, August 5, 1886, says, "We should study the nature, character, and extent of this spiritual wickedness in high places, lest we become the dupes of the powers of darkness." That is why I have been trying to study with you some of these things that we have been studying so that we understand what is going on, the attempt to gain control of the mind without your even knowing about it. We need to understand this she says, otherwise we will become the dupes of the powers of darkness.

And then she says this, "But how difficult it is to awaken minds to realize the continual activity and great earnestness of our wily foe, notwithstanding the warnings and cautions of the Bible, and the experience of many who have been overthrown by his subtlety. The testimony loses its force; the warning passes out of the mind. Men cease to watch and pray; they do not solicit the aid of holy angels, who would lift up for them a standard against the enemy." Ibid.

Oh, friend, I hope that will not be your experience. I hope what we have been studying will stimulate you so that you will make a covenant with the Lord and say, "Lord, I'm going to watch and pray and ask for your divine help and have continual communion with Jesus so that I will not be overcome by forces that are trying to take over my mind without me knowing about it."

And then the seventh point, that they learned about the American soldier was, "He has an unrealistic concept of America's eternal and inherent, rather than earned or proven, superiority and absolute military invincibility. This is his most vulnerable weakness." What is his most vulnerable weakness? "Oh," he says, "just relax, the church is going through." You are vulnerable if you believe that because I just read to you from Prophets and Kings, 723, that not without, what? Severe struggle and trial, is the truth going to triumph. The church is not going to just sail through without a terrible battle that is beyond your imagination. And if you are just relaxing, like so many people are, and saying, "Don't worry, just stay on board, this ship is going through." And they are not ready for the terrible war they are going right into. And when you are not prepared, you are going to lose. And what people think is the church, how do they know it is going to go through?

Do you see why it is important to know who and what the church is? If you think something is going through and you cannot prove from the Scriptures and the Spirit of Prophecy that that thing is going through, you might be headed for a terrible disappointment. Oh, friends, do not have a lackadaisical attitude. Some people ask me, "Do you believe the church is going through?" Yes, I believe the church is going through, but the question is, who and what is the church?

And the eighth point they learned and this is a scary one, too. And this would be a long discussion, but we do not have time for a long discussion.

Concerning the American soldier, they said, "He fails to appreciate the meaning and the necessity for military or any form of organization or discipline."

Oh, friend, do you understand the meaning and necessity for organization and discipline among God's people? Or are you one of these people who thinks that everybody can just go their own way and we can all go into heaven separately? Now this is a big subject and we do not have time to canvas it tonight, but that was also one of the big items of information that they were able to capitalize on and bring our men into absolute mental submission because of this principle.

You cannot successfully resist unless you are organized. In this document here where all this information is, this document from a high official in our military, he has a long section about that whole concept that revolt or rebellion cannot succeed unless there is organization. It is impossible!

Ellen White has a lot to say about this. Let me just read to you a couple of things. You can find this in Prophets and Kings, 617, and also in the Review and Herald, February 13, 1908, she says, and I will read just one sentence, "Ezra recognized the necessity and value of order and organization in connection with the work of God." It is not optional, friends, it is a necessity. In your home church or wherever you are, you must be organized if God's work is to be finished in your area. We must be organized according to New Testament principles.

Testimonies to the Church, Vol. 1, 211, "I was shown the wrong stand taken by Brother B in the Review in regard to organization, and the distracting influence he exerted. He did not sufficiently weigh the matter. His articles were perfectly calculated to have a scattering influence, to lead minds to wrong conclusions, and to encourage many in their slack ideas of managing matters relating to the cause of God. Those who do not feel the weight of this cause upon them do not feel the necessity of anything being done to establish church order."

Are there still people like that today? There are, unfortunately. But friends, God's work is going to be finished by people that are as "terrible as an army with banners." That is the way they are described in the Song of Solomon at the end. They are organized. They are not organized in a hierarchy, they are not organized the way the devil organizes people with one person having absolute control over another person's conscience and controlling his mind. Not that way. That is demonic. But they are organized according to the New Testament gospel order that you find described in the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts. They are organized.

Now, if it has seemed that I am racing through the material, I am. I wanted to get done early and the reason I wanted to get done early is because that after examining all of these things, there are probably some people here tonight that are quaking in your heart, wondering how you are going to make it. We just had a panel discussion on the great time of trouble and all these things that the Bible says are going to happen and you are scared. And I wanted to get done a few minutes early so I could read to you some wonderful promises.

Here is one from the General Conference Bulletin, October 1, 1899, "The Lord Jesus Christ, when in human flesh, successfully resisted every temptation of the enemy. His efforts of superhuman love, made to save the race, were successful. From Him, men and women may receive power to overcome if they will consent to cease from sin." If you are willing to quit sinning, Jesus will give you the power. "Christ gave every son and daughter of Adam unmistakable evidence that through the provisions that God has made they may overcome. Each one must rely on the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour. He takes every repenting soul into covenant relation with Himself." Isn't that beautiful?

Jesus wants to come close to you and impart to you divine power. The most wonderful thing is that at the same time He imparts to you divine power, He gives you of His love and grace and it nourishes and supports and sustains and satisfies your spirit.

Here is another one from Review and Herald, June 16, 1896, "The soldier of Christ must meet many forms of temptation, and resist and overcome them. The fiercer the conflict, the greater the supply of grace to meet the need of the soul. . ." Isn't that exciting? The worse a conflict is, the more help you are going to receive. God has promised that and He cannot lie. "The very nature of the grace received will enlarge the capacity of the servant of Christ to know God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent." Ibid. Can you comprehend that? As the battle gets fiercer, you are going to receive more grace and as you receive more grace that will enable you to comprehend more what God is like.

Here is another one from Selected Messages, Vol. 3, 146, "Some few in every generation from Adam resisted his every artifice [that is the devil's] and stood forth as noble representatives of what it was in the power of man to do and to be-- Christ working with human efforts, helping man in overcoming the power of Satan. Enoch and Elijah are the correct representatives of what the race might be through faith in Jesus Christ if they chose to be."

Now that is an exciting statement. There are some people who think that there are ordinary Christians and then there are saints. Have you ever heard of that concept? The New Testament concept is that every Christian is to be a saint, a holy person.

Do you realize, friends, that God holds out to you the opportunity to have the same kind of character development that Enoch and Elijah had? They are examples of what the whole human race could be if we are all willing. Are you willing? Are you willing to make a covenant with God and say, "Lord, I want to have this holy character. A character to reflect Jesus Christ. I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that love and joy and peace can be a part of my every-day experience." That is what God wants you to have.

And then this last one found in Review and Herald, January 11, 1887, and this is one of the great, beautiful promises to God's remnant people, to us today. Here is what it says, "The important future is before us. To meet its trials and temptations, and to perform its duties, will require great faith, energy, and perseverance. But we may triumph gloriously; for not one watching, praying, believing soul will be ensnared by the devices of the enemy." Isn't that exciting? If you are watching, if you are praying, if you are exercising faith in Jesus, not one will be ensnared by all this mind control stuff, not one, she says, will be ensnared by the devices of the enemy.

"All heaven is interested in our welfare, and waits our demand upon its wisdom and strength. Neither wicked men nor evil spirits can hinder the work of God or shut out His presence from His people, if they will, with subdued, contrite hearts, confess and put away their sins, and in faith claim His promises. Every opposing influence, whether open or secret, may be successfully resisted, 'not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.' If the Lord had a company of workers who would rely wholly upon Him, He would accomplish a great work through them. One could chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. God is just as willing now as anciently to work through human efforts, and to accomplish great things through weak instrumentalities. We shall not gain the victory through numbers, but through full surrender of the soul to Jesus. We are to go forward in His strength, trusting in the mighty God of Israel." Ibid.

Oh, friend, do you want to have that experience? "Every opposing influence, whether open or secret, may be successfully resisted, 'not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.' " Great Controversy, 529.When you receive the Holy Spirit in your life and Jesus is abiding within, He puts His love into your heart and into your mind. Then you have something wonderful to give to the other members of your family. You will even have something wonderful to give to your enemies, as long as you are in this world, you have the love of God inside. Do you want that experience? Do you want this divine miracle to take place inside your mind so that your mind will be a fortress for Jesus Christ that will be impregnable to all the assaults of Satan? If you want to have that experience, I invite you right now to kneel with me and pray.