In the field of religious liberty, there are two poles. On the one hand, there are the sons of God, who have the glorious liberty that comes when Jesus Christ is accepted into the human heart. It is founded in and anchored to the authority of God, His Word, and His law; and it is the secret of all human liberty. When a people or a nation espouse Jesus Christ and His teachings, there can be found true liberty.
On the other extreme, there are the developments that are marked by the marshaling of the nations as Babylon weaves together the new world order. In order to understand the developments that are taking place, it is necessary to go beyond the superficial activities of everyday life. Only then is it possible to see the powerful movements that are taking place in our world.
I recently viewed a video depicting the life of Martin Luther. This film was produced with the assistance of the Lutheran Church long before the Vatican II Council took place. It reflected the respect that at that time was given to Martin Luther for his stand in the sixteenth century Reformation. At one point, there is a very dramatic scene when the vicar general of the order of the Augustines confronted Luther. The vicar said, “If you take away all the symbols, all these images, [all of these things that prop up the people’s faith in the thinking of the Roman Catholic Church], what are you going to put in their place?”
Martin Luther replied, “Christ. I will put Christ there.”
In producing the Bill of Rights, the founders of this country ushered in a new era for humanity; and in doing so, a cradle was made from which the proclamation of the three angels’ messages could take place. In the developments of the last thirty years, however, we have the product of blood, toil, and sacrificed lives being removed to make way for communism and socialism, which are taking hold in America with lightning speed.
If we could look from the perspective of the throne of God, where angels are rushing in and out doing His bidding, upon the diabolical elements working to bring about the final holocaust in earth’s experience, what a peace of mind we would have. That experience is to be ours because we are to sit in heavenly places with Christ. When you are aligned with God, there is nothing to fear.
In his book, The Keys of This Blood, Malachi Martin tells what is being planned in the Vatican. He writes, “Willing or not, ready or not, we are all involved in an all-out, no-holes-barred, three-way global competition. Most of us are not competitors, however. We are the stakes. For the competition is about who will establish the first one-world system of government that has ever existed in the society of nations. It is about who will hold and wield the dual power of authority and control over each of us as individuals and over all of us together as a community.” Notice how he puts it, authority and control—and that is the issue addressed by the third angel’s message.
There have been windows of opportunity throughout this century when the new world order people have sought to seize control, but the present time is the greatest window of opportunity that they have yet been presented with. When you consider the rapidity with which the supporters of the one-world order are moving and the speed with which the resistance against them is crumpling, it appears that we have very little time left.
We just produced a video this fall entitled “The Military Take-Over of America,” dealing with the behind the scenes developments. Things are changing rapidly, with lightning speed, in America.
We used to have years of food reserves in this nation. Today we have only a sixteen day supply. We first knew that something was taking place about a year ago when the General Conference told all of the pastors to keep a year’s supply of food in their home and to increase the food supplies in the community service centers. We did not then know the gravity of the situation.
In this country, ninety-five percent of the food supply is produced and marketed by about five or six multinational corporations. Recently, my brother-in-law was sitting on an airplane next to a representative of a major food supplier in the United States. He asked this person, “How many day’s food supply does your corporation have in reserve?” The representative replied, “About sixteen days. When it comes to perishables, we have about three day’s food supply.” Those who have studied the new world order believe that the ultimate weapon of the new order will be food.
Do you remember that Ellen White wrote, “The Protestant world have set up an idol sabbath in the place where God’s Sabbath should be, and they are treading in the footsteps of the Papacy. For this reason I see the necessity of the people of God moving out of the cities into retired country [places].” Country Living, 21
Soon it will be very, very difficult for people who live in cities. In Ellen White’s day, it was typical in an agrarian society of ninety percent or more farmers in the nation, that they had a year’s food supply at any given time. In the fall they stored up in their root cellar a year’s food supply so that it would last them until the next summer. That was typical then, it is now considered hoarding. Were you aware that there are laws against hoarding?
Under the Federal Emergency Management Agency executive orders, forty-three detention camps have been set up here in America and provided for with funding. These processing centers are to provide a place where dissenters can be dealt with.
Incidentally, the only people who are going to be able to stand up to this new world order are people who have the fear of the Lord, who tremble at the word of the Lord. There is no power in mere reaction, but there is power in Jesus Christ. If, because of your allegiance to His Word, His law, and His authority, you are put in a position that you must dissent from laws that conflict with that divine authority, you have the protection of the Almighty. “He that dwelleth in the secret place.”
Did you know that God has secret places? I have started looking up the secrets and the places of God. Does God know about privacy? Oh, yes, He does. But what does the new world order want to do with privacy? Utterly eliminate it. They are acting as if the Constitution did not even exist!
As this crisis comes upon humanity, the contrast between the kingdom of God—a kingdom of righteousness and peace, a kingdom whose only weapons are spiritual weapons of truth and righteousness—and the new world order will become more and more distinct.
Jesus knew that for humanity to change, the gospel had to reach the person individually; therefore, he did not involve Himself in armed insurrection. He preached the gospel, and the kingdom of God seized hold of people’s hearts. Even though that kingdom is not something that is materially visible, its effects are visible. When Christ rules in the human heart and takes possession of it, He rules over every aspect of the human life. Satan finds that he has a power to contend with that is more powerful than he is. “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” 1John 4:4. This is the most powerful force in the world—Jesus Christ! His principles of His kingdom of love and peace and righteousness are principles that will win in the end in the great controversy.
Yes, there is going to be a holocaust in this world that will dwarf into almost insignificance what happened in Nazi Germany and the Stalinist famines where thirty million people in western Russia were systematically starved to death. There will be utter desolation everywhere; but there will be a people who will be safe under God’s protection. Now that does not mean that there will not be martyrs in the little time of trouble, but we have the promise that nothing can touch those who are in Christ Jesus, except by His permission. (See Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 71.) And if you are called to suffer, it will be for the glory of God!
“Satan is now using every device in this sealing time to keep the minds of God’s people from the present truth and to cause them to waver. I saw a covering that God was drawing over His people to protect them in the time of trouble; and every soul that was decided on the truth and was pure in heart was to be covered with the covering of the Almighty.” Early Writings, 43. The only way the people of this world are ever going to have that covering is to be decided on the truth of the three angel’s messages, because the ultimate protection is from God.
When the new world order moves decidedly against God’s faithful, commandment-keeping people, they will be touching the apple of God’s eye; and “the Lord will come with fire and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many.” Isaiah 66:15
Yes, we are entering the climax. Things are going to look pretty grim for some time; but in the end, the Lord will assert his mastery as the King of kings and Lord of lords who has omnipotent power.
The crime wave sweeping America today is a result of failure to preach the law of God from the pulpits of our land. It is directly due to the rejection of the authority of God’s law. Because of that, human laws have been disregarded; and violence and crime—crimes unimaginable—are sweeping across our land. When this takes place, it is the time of opportunity for tyrants to remove liberty. They use the crime as an excuse for the removal of liberty.
Do we understand, do we grasp the significance of the three angels’ messages? The protection of humanity depends upon their acceptance of these messages. The Lord’s servant saw a covering that God was drawing over His people to protect them in the time of trouble; and every soul that was decided on the truth and was pure in heart was to be covered with the covering of the Almighty.
“Satan knew this [that the covering of the Almighty would be over these ones] and he was at work in mighty power to keep the minds of as many people as he possibly could wavering and unsettled on the truth.” Early Writings, 43. [All emphasis supplied] You see, we have to be decided on the truth; we have to be settled into the truth, intellectually and spiritually, to have the seal of the living God.
Isaiah 26:20 is a very precious passage on what we are talking about here. “Come My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut they doors about thee.” You see, this storm of human and satanic wrath will be such that there is only one safe place, and that is in the chambers of the Lord.
“Come My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” Ellen White comments on this and she says, “when tempted to sin, let us remember that Jesus is pleading for us in the heavenly sanctuary. When we put away our sins and come to Him in faith, He takes our names on His lips and presents them to His Father, saying, ‘I have graven them upon the palms of my hands; I know them by name.’ The command goes forth to the angels to protect them.” And, we are told, the weakest angel in heaven’s military is more powerful than Satan and all of his evil—the weakest one. God not only has one angel but He has an innumerable company, and they are all worshipers with us in the same congregation.
“Then in the day of fierce trial He will say, ‘Come My people, enter thou into thy chambers [it is time to hide now], and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast’ (Isaiah 26:20). What are the chambers in which they are to hide? They are the protection of Christ and holy angels. The people of God are not at this time all in one place. They are in different companies and in all parts of the earth, and they will be tried singly, not in groups. Everyone must stand the test for himself.” Ibid. What does that mean? That means that once again, Christ must assume the priority in our life. The Word of Christ, the relationship with Christ, must assume the priority. It must not be replaced by human relationships.
In Revelation 14:1 and following, we have pictured the Lamb standing on mount Zion and “with Him and hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father’s name written in their foreheads.” What is the significance of the Father’s name written in their foreheads? The name, in the Bible, is of great significance. The name signifies the character. When Jacob wrestled with the Lord that night at the brook Jabbok, hour after hour wrestling, finally, as the light began dawning in the east, he realized who had had been wrestling with—the Lord of Hosts, Jesus Christ Himself. Jacob clung to Him and said, “I will not let You go except You bless me. I did not know it was You; but now, bless me. I need Your blessing. I am not going to let You go unless You bless me.” It was not a presumptuous statement. It was was a pleading in self-surrender. Through self-surrender he gained the victory, and his name was changed from Jacob the supplanter to Israel, prince with God. “For as a prince thou hast prevailed,” Jesus said to him. So, these people have whose name written in their foreheads? They have the character of God Himself so deeply embedded in their cerebrum, in the area of their brain that does the thinking, the conscience decision making area where character is formed, that it is as the Father’s name written in their foreheads. They will be completely imbued with the character of the Father. These are the ones who make up the hundred and forty-four thousand.
“And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.” Revelation 14:2, 3. We are told in the Great Controversy that these hundred and forty-four thousand who have lived through this awesome time have lived through the time when the earth has been wasted with famine, when utter desolation was everywhere, and they are alive at the second coming of Jesus.
“Upon the crystal sea before the throne, that sea of glass as it were mingled with fire,—so resplendent is it with the glory of God,—are gathered the company that have ‘gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.’” The Great Controversy, 648, 649
The hundred and forty-four thousand have resisted every form of evil that could be brought against them. And they stand, “With the Lamb upon Mount Zion, ‘having the harps of God.’” At that time, we will see where the real physical location of the real church is, won’t we? That is the physical location of the church, right there in heaven. Then it will be brought down here to the new earth after the thousand years. “With the Lamb upon Mount Zion, ‘having the harps of God,’ they stand, the hundred and forty and four thousand that were redeemed form among men; and there is heard, as the sound of many waters, and as the sound of a great thunder, ‘the voice of harpers harping with their harps.’ And they sing a ‘a new song’ before the throne, a song which no man can learn save the hundred and forty and four thousand. It is the song of Moses and the Lamb—a song of deliverance.” Ibid.
Not only will we have all of the forces of evil unleashes but as those forces are unleashed, suddenly the seven last plagues will be poured out on those who have received the mark of the beast. And the judgments of God will be in the land, unmixed with mercy. Ellen White in vision looked around and saw utter desolation everywhere. But you see, the people of God are under special protection. They have that covering; they are under His wing.
I remember the first time that I read the story of a vision that Ellen White had that is recorded on page 270 of Maranatha. There was a heavenly messenger who suddenly appeared before her and said, “Gather your things and come and follow me.” She gathered her things and followed. Through a dark passageway they went through the forest, through the clefts of the mountains, to a remote location. There the messenger of the Lord turned to her and said, “The great time of trouble has come, but here you will be safe.” And there were others who had been similarly led there. The angels will lead God’s people to special hiding places.
Brothers and Sisters, there is a better land. And the hope of that better land sustains God’s people through whatever they may be called to face. In the days to come, we can sit in heavenly places with Christ. We can have within us One, even Jesus Christ, who is mightier than all of the powers that are on this earth. We can have the covering of the Most High because we are decided upon the truth of the three angels’ messages.
The End