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Sinful Independence, part 1

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In the great family of heaven, each one has his own individual personality, each has freedom, yet no one misuses that freedom to act independently, for all are held together by the cords of humility toward self and love toward one another. As the bee extracts the honey and leaves the pollen, so in heaven, each one receives in order to give—each works so as to benefit one another. Thus there is perfect harmony, yet with each maintaining his own identity, uniqueness and function.

Even God does not act independently. In fact, we should say especially God! Everything He does is for the well being of His creatures. In all that He does, He elicits the love and cooperation of those He has created. Consider the creation of Adam. As soon as he was created, God set him to work to assist Him. God asked him to name the animals. How much easier it would have been for God to have named the animals without Adam’s help. When Adam was created God programmed his mind with words and language—but He intentionally left out of his vocabulary the names of the animals, so that Adam could unite with Him, as far as possible, in the work He was doing. The Bible says, “We are God’s fellow workers.” 1 Corinthians 3:9. [Texts are from the NKJ Version.]

Then God went far beyond merely having Adam name the animals. He told Adam and Eve that they and their descendants were to continue the work that God had begun of populating the earth. God created just enough people so that they could continue His work. Again, how much easier it would have been for God to simply create, in a moment of time, enough people to populate the earth at the beginning—and they would have all been perfect! No one would have been raised by faulty parents! What a risk God took, and how poorly most people have done in carrying on the pro-creation work of God by the way they have raised their children. Yet, in spite of failure, God has not taken the responsibility away from the human family. God would rather suffer loss than to act alone without our cooperation. God has gone to more trouble than any other being to elicit our cooperation, calling us “kings and priests” (Revelation 1:6), rather than to act alone and independent.

As it was on earth with Adam and Eve, so it was in heaven with the angels. God did not create a hierarchy or a dictatorship, but a family. That is why there was a war in heaven. When Satan chose to rebel, God could have simply spoken the word, and Satan would have been banished from the society of heaven. But God did not do that, for the angels were His fellow workers, and even in this crisis situation He did not take the reins into His own hands, but allowed the angels, as far as possible, to decide the issue. (See Revelation 12:7.)

Even after the war, Satan seems to have been allowed to come back to represent the earth at the councils of heaven. In the book of Job, God presented Job’s fidelity and challenged Satan’s claim to represent the earth. Satan did not represent all the inhabitants of the earth, but evidently the angels allowed him to remain. But that time of tolerance ended at the cross. I have often contemplated the account by Ellen White where she was shown that, “All the angels that are commissioned to visit the earth hold a golden card, which they present to the angels at the gates of the city as they pass in and out.” Early Writings, 37. Why must the angels who visit the earth present a golden card at the gate? Before the crucifixion of Christ, the angels continued to allow Satan access on what he considered official business (Job 1), because many still had some sympathy for him. At the cross, Satan’s “disguise was torn away . . . Henceforth his work was restricted. Whatever attitude he might assume, he could no longer await the angels as they came from the heavenly courts, and before them accuse Christ’s brethren of being clothed with the garments of blackness and the defilement of sin. The last link of sympathy between Satan and the heavenly world was broken.” Desire of Ages, 761. [All emphasis supplied.]

Thus the angels decided that Satan could no longer visit heaven as the representative of earth. Jesus was henceforth to be the only representative of this planet. But how were they to keep him out? They evidently decided to issue golden identification cards to all who were commissioned to visit the earth, which they were to present upon exit and entry. Heaven is a very real place, and the angels have far more to do with the running of the government than most realize. Heaven is not run like a communist hierarchy or like the totalitarian government of Satan, but as a loving family, each with his own part to act, each with a voice and each with total faith in the wisdom of the Father.

Today there is a judgment going on in heaven. And why a judgment? Does God need a judgment? Of course not! He knew who would be saved and who would be lost from the very foundation of the earth! (See Ephesians 1:4 and Isaiah 46:10.) The reason there is a judgment is because God is not running a hierarchical dictatorship. He has made the beings of heaven His fellow workers and in order for them to be a practical part of the process, they need a judgment. They do not have all knowledge like God has. They must keep records and review them. God could have decided the eternal destiny of each, with complete accuracy, in a moment of time. But what He could do instantly by Himself takes much longer when He involves the cooperation of the angels. He is willing to expend the extra effort and energy in order to work with His angels rather than apart from them.

What a lesson for parents. How much easier it is when children are young for parents to make the beds, do the dishes, fix the food and change the oil in the car by themselves without the help of the little ones. The “help” the little ones give takes so much more of the parents’ time! It is so much easier to simply tell a child to go off and play for awhile or to watch TV while we do the work without him. But that is not the way God works. He says: “I want the cooperation of men and angels, even if it costs more work, trouble and heartache.”

A CHANGE TAKES PLACE IN HEAVEN

So heaven is built on the principle of cooperation and unity, and thus it had always been throughout all the ceaseless ages of eternity, until one arose to begin his own independent ministry and organization. This was sinful independence, for it sought to work apart from God and His plans and organization. Independent ministry and self-supporting work were never a part of God’s original plan. But there was one who came along in a perfect environment, a perfect government, and began his own ministry in competition and opposition to the regular and established ministry of heaven which had been in operation for ages.

When that spirit of independence came to earth, this world entered into the darkness and misery of sin. The first great temptation of man was to be independent. The Bible says, “And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God does know that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ ” Genesis 3:4, 5. Thus the serpent tempted Eve with the thought that she would be wise enough to act independently, knowing good and evil herself, without having to depend upon God for guidance. Multitudes still cling to this lie.

Thus this earth became a part of the independent ministry of Satan, which made things rather confusing on planet earth because nearly the whole population of earth, with a few exceptions such as Noah, became loyal to Satan’s independent ministry. Now those who remained loyal to God, became themselves independent of the rebellion that persisted on earth. Thus those who were independent with Satan became the establishment, while those who humbly remained loyal to God appeared to be independent. The appearance was the opposite of the reality.

GOD’S TRAINING FOR HEAVEN

God’s plan has always been for humble cooperation. God is trying to teach each one of us the essential character traits of humility and submission. This is the character of heaven. Every experience of life is to instill within us these precious traits of character so that we can fit into that society which Satan forfeited because of his pride and independence. That is why Paul tells us in Romans 13 that we are to learn to be submissive to the civil government and to obey their laws. Ephesians 6:5, 6 tells us that we are to learn to be submissive to our employers. That is what is fundamentally wrong with labor unions. We can choose where we want to work and whether we want to continue to work in a certain place, but, while there, we are to “be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh.” Peter tells us that the younger are to be submissive to the elders, that the elders are to learn the principle of submission also, and are to show themselves thus unto the younger. “Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, ‘for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ ” 1 Peter 5:5,6. Many people do not like the idea of submission, unless they are the ones who are “on top.” Many husbands revel in Paul’s counsel for wives to “submit to your own husbands,” but they overlook the verse before which says that both husbands and wives are to submit to each other. Ephesians 6 tells us that children are to learn the lesson of submission. God wants everyone to be saved—husbands, children, workers, older people and younger people, and thus He is trying to teach each one the lessons that will allow them to fit within the society of heaven.

The Spirit of humble submissiveness will be exemplified in the life and character of the 144,000 The Bible describes them as “the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes.” Revelation 14:4. There is no spirit of independence here. And yet they appear to be independent to human appearance, for “these are the ones that are not defiled with women, for they are virgins.” Ibid. Women, in the Bible, represent churches and religions; so the 144,000 are those who are not defiled with false religion and false religious philosophies that predominate throughout the world. They are independent from man-made tradition, yet the Bible says they are “followers”—followers of the Lamb.

BEING SUBMISSIVE YET INDEPENDENT

From the beginning of sin, those who have remained submissive and dependent upon God by “following the Lamb wherever He goes,” have found themselves out of step and independent from the world. Think of Noah. He was given the warning of the coming flood and he determined to follow the Lamb and to build the ark as God had directed, yet, the rest of the world remained independent of God and His counsels. The churches and religious leaders counseled and legislated against the project. Only Noah and his family remained submissive to God. How alone and isolated Noah and his family seemed. How aloof from counsel he appeared to be! How independent they were accused of being! And yet they were the only truly non-independent ministry on earth.

Satan scored a major victory in the days of Noah when he succeeded in causing the whole world to join him in his independence. Yet his greatest victory came when he caused the whole church, God’s church, to become independent of God and of His counsels. God established His church with the children of Israel and He led them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses. But the people rebelled against Moses and the leadership of God.

From the very beginning the “church in the wilderness,” Acts 7:38, showed their independence from the Lord’s direction. Upon the return of the faithless spies “all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation [the Old Testament word for church, see Acts 7:38] said to them . . . ‘Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt.’ So they said to one another, ‘Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.’ ” Numbers 14:2–4. This was the first great nominating committee of the Hebrew church. They were going to select their own leader instead of the one God had chosen for them.

Caleb and Joshua remonstrated with the people, saying, ” ‘Do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.’ And all the congregation said to stone them with stones.” Ibid., verses 9, 10. Caleb and Joshua, in this instance, became independent of the organized church—they did not accept the leader the church was choosing nor the decisions they were making—and so the church chose to disfellowship them by stoning! (Stoning is the ultimate in disfellowshipping.) Thus those who refused to become independent from God became independent from an independent church. And the penalty for independence from the church was disfellowshiping by stoning.

Now the question at stake is, Who was right—those who remained loyal to the church or those who appeared to be independent and were therefore disfellowshipped? It is easy to give the answer when looking back at the Bible account, but not so easy when faced with the situation.

In the old covenant types, God often revealed His pleasure or displeasure immediately as a “type” of the future reward and punishment of the new covenant which will be fulfilled at the last judgment. (See Revelation 22:12.) In this case, the unfaithful leaders “died by the plague before the Lord.” Ibid., verse 37. Yet, so entrenched was this spirit of independence and insubordination in the heart of the people that not even the direct intervention of God seemed to be able to uproot it from their midst—and yet they thought they were just right, the holy people of God!

MOSES ACCUSED OF BEING INDEPENDENT

Two chapters later in the book of Numbers, this sinful spirit of independence sprang up again in the rebellion of Korah. “Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown.” Numbers 16:1, 2.

Like our church, the Israelites had a representative form of government. Today, when representatives of the church come together, we call it a constituency meeting or a General Conference.

These “representatives of the congregation” were “men of renown,” and Korah was their chosen leader, with Dathan and Abiram his assistants. These leaders of the people “gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, ‘You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourself above the congregation of the Lord?’ ” Numbers 16:3.

Moses and Aaron were accused of being independent from the church and taking too much upon themselves without the approval of the church. After all, it was God’s church that Korah and his associates represented, and the church, they said, was holy, for God had chosen it for Himself. Surely, when the entire church, through their appointed representatives, decides on something, it is as the voice of God to the people! How could Moses and Aaron not come under the authority of the church and the leaders the church had chosen? How could they justify their “independent” ways?

Yet, Moses and Aaron were not independent—again, as in Noah’s situation, they were the only truly non-independent ones within the church. Appearance was again deceptive. The church body

had become independent, whereas those accused of being independent were the ones who had remained loyal and true to the government of heaven.

A peripheral reading of this story might lead to a false conclusion. I have heard ministers and leaders liken their ministry to that of Moses, and anyone who is not in harmony with their plans or the plans of the conference, regardless of their reasons or convictions, are likened to Korah, Dathan and Abiram.

But, in writing to the leaders of the church, Ellen White warns:

“The question of religious liberty needs to be clearly comprehended by our people in more ways than one. With outstretched arms men are seeking to steady the ark, and the anger of the Lord is kindled against them because they think that their position entitles them to say what the Lord’s servants shall do and what they shall not do. They think themselves competent to decide what shall be brought before God’s people, and what shall be repressed. The Lord inquires of them, ‘Who has required this at your hand? Who has given you the burden of being conscience for My people? By what spirit are you guided and controlled when you seek to restrict their liberty? I have not chosen you as I chose Moses—as men through whom I can communicate divine instruction to My people. I have not placed the lines of control in your hands. The responsibility that rested on Moses—of voicing the words of God to the people—has never been delegated to you.’ ” Manuscript Release, vol. 18, 223.
It should be noted that Moses was not the elected leader of the children of Israel—he was never elected by the people. Rather, Moses was the one whom the people rejected (Acts 7:35). Moses was a type of Christ (Deuteronomy 18:15) whom the leaders of the church hated and crucified. He was a prophet chosen by God. The elected leader whom the people chose was Korah! “And Korah gathered all the congregation [or church] against them [Moses and Aaron] at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” Numbers 16:19.

Did God recognize Korah’s position simply because the whole church was behind him? Would to God that we, today, would remember the lessons of Korah and seek more for the will and direction of God rather than for position, victory at the polls, or referendum mandates. Will we learn the lesson that no committee or conference or power on earth has the authority to change one precept of truth, as the beast power claims to be able to do? God is seeking the cooperation of His fellow workers on earth, but He has not abdicated the throne, nor will He allow mankind to develop and assume kingly and controlling power over His heritage, which are His purchased possession.

To be continued…

The Shaking

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We are now in the time when everything that can be shaken will be.

I have repeatedly presented before you and others that there would come a shaking time, when everything that can be shaken will be shaken, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. We are now entering upon that time. 1888 Materials, 331.

Before a person is shaken out a secret work takes place.

How often our hearts have been pained by some sudden revelation in the outward actions of those for whom we had hoped better things, bringing to light their true character, that had heretofore been hidden from the sight of all! When held up before the light of God’s word, the character is found to be like the moth-eaten garment, which, when shaken out and examined,reveals the destructive work that has been going on secretly for years. While they have a form of godliness, sins small in their eyes have been eating into the warp and woof of their character; and that which at a casual glance appeared lovely, is unsightly and disgusting to look upon. Could the actor, as he entered upon this path of wrong, have seen himself as he appeared when his true character was opened to the light, he would have been as terrified and startled as was Hazael when Elisha told him what a wicked and cruel course he would pursue in the future. Youth Instructor, December 15, 1886.

People will be shaken out all the way until the end of the time of trouble.

They fell all the way along the path one after another, until we heard the voice of God like many waters which gave us the day and hour of Jesus’ coming. Word to the Little Flock, 14.

Only overcomers will not be shaken out.

God leads His people on, step by step. He brings them up to different points calculated to manifest what is in the heart. Some endure at one point, but fall off at the next. At every advanced point the heart is tested and tried a little closer. If the professed people of God find their hearts opposed to this straight work, it should convince them that they have a work to do to overcome, if they would not be spewed out of the mouth of the Lord. Said the angel: “God will bring His work closer and closer to test and prove every one of His people.” Some are willing to receive one point; but when God brings them to another testing point, they shrink from it and stand back, because they find that it strikes directly at some cherished idol. Here they have opportunity to see what is in their hearts that shuts out Jesus. They prize something higher than the truth, and their hearts are not prepared to receive Jesus. Individuals are tested and proved a length of time to see if they will sacrifice their idols and heed the counsel of the True Witness. If any will not be purified through obeying the truth, and overcome their selfishness, their pride, and evil passions,the angels of God have the charge: “They are joined to their idols, let them alone,” and they pass on to their work, leaving these with their sinful traits unsubdued, to the control of evil angels. Those who come up to every point, and stand every test, and overcome, be the price what it may, have heeded the counsel of the True Witness, and they will receive the latter rain, and thus be fitted for translation. Testimonies, vol. 1, 187.

If we do not study our Bibles carefully we will be shaken out.

None but those who have fortified the mind with the truths of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict. Great Controversy, 593, 594.

Many leaders will be shaken out.

Many a star that we have admired for its brilliancy will then go out in darkness. Chaff like a cloud will be borne away on the wind, even from places where we see only floors of rich wheat. All who assume the ornaments of the sanctuary, but are not clothed with Christ’s righteousness, will appear in the shame of their own nakedness. Testimonies, vol. 5, 81.

Ministers of God, it is too late to be contending for the supremacy. The solemn time has come when ministers should be weeping between the porch and the altar, crying, “Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach.” It is a day when instead of lifting up their souls in self-sufficiency, ministers and people should be confessing their sins before God and one another. The law of God is made void, and even among those who advocate its binding claims, are some who break its sacred precepts. The Bible will be opened from house to house, and men and women will find access to these homes, and minds will be opened to receive the word of God; and when the crisis comes, many will be prepared to make right decisions even in the face of the formidable difficulties that will be brought about through the deceptive miracles of Satan. Although these will confess the truth and become workers with Christ at the eleventh hour, they will receive equal wages with those who have wrought through the whole day. There will be an army of steadfast believers who will stands as firm as a rock through the last test. But where in that army are those who have been standard-bearers? Where are those whose voices have sounded in proclaiming the truth to the sinning? Some of them are not there. We look for them, but in the time of shaking they have been unable to stand, and have passed over to the enemy’s ranks. Review and Herald, December 24, 1889.

Nature Nugget — Luminescent Creatures

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Bioluminescence is the ability of certain living things to give off light and is the result of chemical processes that go on in their tissues. Most luminescent animals are found in the oceans, especially in the deeper depths where no sunlight can reach. Numerous creatures such as fish, shrimp, jellyfish, squid and plankton have luminescent parts of their bodies which they use in various ways, such as to lure prey, attract mates, communicate and to defend themselves.

Luminescent lights, near the eyes of one deep sea fish, shine forward like a flashlight, allowing the fish to see where it is going and helping it find its prey. Another species has a luminescent lure which it uses to attract smaller fish, thus bringing them close enough to capture. Some fish have the ability to turn their lights on and off. You may be familiar with how a squid defends itself from predators by squirting out a black inky cloud to confuse the predator and cover its trail so it can escape. Well, there is a deep sea species of squid that does the same thing except it squirts out a luminescent cloud in defense.

Terrestrial examples of bioluminescence are fireflies, glowworms and certain fungi that grow on dead wood. Fireflies, also called lightning bugs, use their flashing lights to attract mates. In the tropics, fireflies are often placed in jars and used as lanterns. In Cuba, women sometimes attach luminescent click beetles to their clothing as ornaments.

We as Christians need to be more luminescent. Jesus says, “Ye are the light of the world . . . Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 5:14, 16.

“The word was spoken to me, ‘Speak to the people all the words that I shall give thee. Wake up the mighty men. Let them become fully aroused, that they may with pen and voice stir up the people to whom God has given great light, that they may let their light shine forth in clear, steady rays to the world. A world is to be warned; and when the third angel’s message goes forth with a loud cry, minds will be fully prepared to make decisions for or against the truth.” 1888 Materials, 510.

What a solemn responsibility we have in regard to the light we have been entrusted with. Let us share this light with others, for the Lord will not come until this light is shared with the whole world.

The Godhead

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What did Ellen White teach about the Godhead ?

When Jesus was here, one of the major contentions of the Jews was over the fact of His deity. In fact, this was one of the major reasons offered by the high priest why they had to crucify Jesus, because He claimed to be Jehovah—the eternal God. Four thousand years or more before that time, Lucifer had brought up a similar contention, challenging the absolute authority of Christ. Lucifer said that he should be equal with Christ. “Satan was jealous of Jesus.” Spiritual Gifts, vol. 1, 17. “Lucifer was envious of Christ, and gradually assumed command which devolved upon Christ alone.” The Story of Redemption, 13. It was this envy of Lucifer that Christ should be equal with the Father that resulted in his fall and the rebellion against the government of God. He is still attempting to prove that Christ is not or should not be equal with the Father.

Since the times of the early church, innumerable variant teachings have been developed in regard to the Godhead and the deity of Christ. A principle one of these teachings was the development in the fourth century of Arianism, the idea that there was a time when Christ was not, or stated a different way, that Christ was the first of all created beings. Arianism is still a teaching of some churches today. Many fights and battles occurred, both military and spiritual, over the issue of the Godhead. This was one of the principle controversies for a period of at least two hundred years between the fourth and sixth century.

In the development of Adventism, as people came into the second Advent movement from many different churches and backgrounds, it is not surprising that there would be different individuals who had contrary ideas on the subject of the Godhead. Before looking at this controversy there are two points that we should understand. First of all, since the Godhead is one of the oldest controversies in Christendom, we should expect it to be revived among God’s people toward the end, because Ellen White predicts that old controversies will be revived. “Those things which have been, will be repeated. Old controversies will be revived, and new theories will be continually arising.” Selected Messages, vol. 2, 109. “We are standing on the threshold of great and solemn events. Many of the prophecies are about to be fulfilled in quick succession. Every element of power is about to be set to work. Past history will be repeated; old controversies will arouse to new life, and peril will beset God’s people on every side. Intensity is taking possession of the human family . . .Impostors of every caste and grade will claim to be worthy and true, and there will be a magnifying of the common and impure against the true and the holy. Thus, the spurious is accepted, and the true standard of holiness is discarded, as the word of God was discarded by Adam and Eve for the lie of Satan.” Review and Herald, August 31, 1897. “The whole earth is to be lightened with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the channels of the great deep. Prophecies are being fulfilled, and stormy times are before us. Old controversies which have apparently been hushed for a long time will be revived, and new controversies will spring up; new and old will commingle, and this will take place right early.” Special Testimonies, Series A, 38.

A second point that we need to understand, before looking at this old controversy which has been revived just as Ellen White predicted, is that if we accept as authoritative and divinely inspired the writings of Ellen White, the special messenger to the remnant, we will be protected from all the delusions that will come upon the world. Ellen White wrote to Elder Simpson, an Adventist minister, (Letter 50, 1906), “The Lord never denies His word. Men may get up scheme after scheme and the enemy will seek to seduce souls from truth, but all who believe that the Lord has spoken through Sister White, and has given her a message will be safe from the many delusions that will come in these last days.” So, we see that the Lord has given us, through the Spirit of Prophecy, a safeguard against the many delusions that will come in; a point of reference to turn to when there is any old or new controversy arising, by which we can be stabilized in Bible truth, and kept from all delusions.

We go now directly to the controversy over the Godhead, not in religious history in general, but in the developing second Advent movement. Many, if not most, of the leaders in the early second Advent movement, after 1844, were Arian in belief. For example, Uriah Smith wrote that Christ was a created being. Not only this, but Uriah Smith did not believe that Christ was the Alpha and the Omega, except in a very qualified sense (i.e. the Alpha and Omega of the plan of salvation). Also, Uriah Smith was unwilling to say that the phrase, “the one who is, and the one who was, and the one who is to come” could be applied to Jesus Christ. Moreover, people such as Uriah Smith, D.M. Canright and J.N. Loughborough had the position that the Holy Spirit was not really a personality, not a person, but was simply some type of a divine emanation or influence. E.J. Waggoner also said that there was a time when Christ had not existed, that His life was derived from the Father. Statements concerning the equality of Christ to the Father were interpreted to mean that He had an equality that was conferred upon Him.

One of the main reasons that these beliefs disappeared from Adventism was that in 1898, Ellen White published a book called The Desire of Ages, which made unequivocal definitions of Christ’s place, power and authority, and also spoke of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Godhead. The reason that the controversy over Arianism was solved without the church splitting was because our pioneers had implicit faith and confidence in the Spirit of Prophecy. This faith and confidence in the writings of Ellen White as being a true prophet of God had been built over many decades so that by the latter part of the nineteenth century, when she made statements totally contrary to what they believed, they surrendered their ideas and believed what the Lord had told them through the Spirit of Prophecy.

We look now at statements concerning the Godhead from the pen of Ellen White. First of all, we must understand that the Godhead is a subject that is beyond the mind of man, and that we will never fully understand it throughout eternity. She said, “Do not try to explain in regard to the personality of God. You cannot give any further explanation than the Bible has given. Human theories regarding Him are good for nothing.” Counsels to Writers and Editors, 94. Also, “The revelation of Himself that God has given in His word is for our study. This we may seek to understand. But beyond this, we are not to penetrate. The highest intellect may tax itself until it is wearied out in conjectures regarding the nature of God; but the effort will be fruitless. This problem has not been given us to solve. No human mind can comprehend God . . . Let none indulge in speculation regarding His nature. Here silence is eloquence. The Omniscient One is above discussion.” Testimonies, vol. 8, 279.

A second point that we notice in Ellen White’s writings is that she speaks of one God. She does not teach that there are three Gods, but that there is one God. And yet, at the same time, as we will see, she teaches that this one God includes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which are three personalities mysteriously united as one. We will now quote statements that indicate this. “With solemn dignity, Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I Am.’

“Silence fell upon the vast assembly. The name of God, given to Moses to express the idea of the eternal presence, had been claimed as His own by this Galilaean Rabbi. He had announced Himself to be the self-existent One, He who had been promised to Israel, ‘whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.’” Desire of Ages, 469, 470. “There are light and glory in the truth that Christ was One with the Father before the foundation of the world was laid. This is the light shining in a dark place, making it resplendent with divine, original glory. This truth, infinitely mysterious in itself, explains other mysterious and otherwise unexplainable truths, while it is enshrined in light unapproachable and incomprehensible.” SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 5, 1126. [All emphasis supplied.]

Ellen White speaks of the Father and Son as being of one substance: ” ‘Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not; the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.’ With what firmness and power he uttered these words. The Jews had never before heard such words from human lips, and a convicting influence attended them; for it seemed that divinity flashed through humanity as Jesus said, ‘I and my Father are one.’ The words of Christ were full of deep meaning as he put forth the claim that He and the Father were of one substance, possessing the same attributes. The Jews understood His meaning, there was no reason why they should misunderstand, and they took up stones to stone Him.” Signs of the Times, November 20, 1893.

Ellen White teaches that the “I am” refers to Christ and the Father, both Christ and the Father are self existent. And she states unequivocally that the “I am” is one. Notice, “Heavenly beings, sustained and guided by the hand beneath the wings of the cherubim, were impelling these wheels; above them, upon the sapphire throne, was the Eternal One; and round about the throne a rainbow, the emblem of divine mercy . . . The history which the great I AM has marked out in His word, uniting link after link in the prophetic chain, from eternity in the past to eternity in the future, tells us where we are today in the procession of the ages and what may be expected in time to come.” Education, 178. Notice, there is One upon the throne and this Eternal One is also the great “I AM.” But we have already seen from the Desire of Ages that the “I AM” includes Christ as well as the Father. (See John 8.) So this “Eternal One” must include both the Father and the Son. In this passage she is commenting on Ezekiel 1:4, 26, and 10:8. Notice, there is One upon the throne. There is one God, but this one God includes both Christ and the Father. The God who gave the ten commandments is spoken of by Ellen White as the “Eternal One.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 329. But, Ellen White speaks of this Eternal One as both the Father and the Son: “When they came to Sinai, He took occasion to refresh their minds in regard to His requirements. Christ and the Father, standing side by side upon the mount, with solemn majesty proclaimed the Ten Commandments.” Evangelism, 616. So both Christ and the Father are included in that term “the Eternal One.”

Concerning the Holy Spirit Ellen White said, “‘The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities;’ and the Spirit, being God, knoweth the mind of God.” Signs of the Times, October 3, 1892. Ellen White taught that all three members of the Godhead were God in the fullest most complete sense: “All these spiritualistic representations are simply nothingness. They are imperfect, untrue. They weaken and diminish the Majesty which no earthly likeness can be compared to. God cannot be compared with the things His hands have made. These are mere earthly things, suffering under the curse of God because of the sins of man. The Father cannot be described by the things of earth. The Father is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.

“The Son is all the fullness of the Godhead manifested. The Word of God declares Him to be ‘the express image of His person.’ ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ Here is shown the personality of the Father.

“The Comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Savior. There are three living persons of the heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers —the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—those who receive Christ by living faith are baptized, and these powers will co-operate with the obedient subjects of heaven in their efforts to live the new life in Christ.” Evangelism, 614, 615.

We see in these statements that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all referred to as being the “fullness of the Godhead,” and that they are referred to as persons, specifically as three persons. We will now see further evidence that these three Persons, each of whom is the fullness of the Godhead, are all “one God.”

The world was created by one God, as you can read in Testimonies, vol. 8, 256. It is generally conceded that this one God includes the Father, but we now see that it included the Son and the Holy Spirit also. Notice, “‘When He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth.’ John 16:13. Only by the aid of that Spirit who in the beginning ‘was brooding upon the face of the waters;’ of that Word by whom ‘all things were made;’ of that ‘true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,’ can the testimony of science be rightly interpreted.” Education, 134.

We next come to the term “Jehovah.” “Jehovah, the eternal self-existent, uncreated One, Himself the Source and Sustainer of all is alone entitled to supreme reverence and worship.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 305. But “Jehovah is the name given to Christ.” Signs of the Times, May 3, 1899. Although this word generally refers to Christ in the Scriptures, sometimes it can refer to the Father: “In His wisdom the Saviour teaches us to approach God with the confidence of a child. He instructs us to call Jehovah by the endearing name of ‘Father,’ that we may not separate from Him in awe and coldness. Constantly He points us to the emblems of fatherly love, seeking to encourage faith and confidence in God. He pleads with us to have a correct idea of the Father.” Signs of the Times, January 20, 1898.

Next, we see again an emphasis in Ellen White’s writings that there are three distinct personalities in the deity. Notice, “The mighty power that works through all nature and sustains all things is not, as some men of science represent, merely an all-pervading principle, an actuating energy. God is a spirit; yet He is a personal Being, for so He has revealed Himself.” Ministry of Healing, 413. “Christ is one with the Father, but Christ and God are two distinct Personages.” Review and Herald, June 1, 1905. “The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, existed from eternity, a distinct person, yet one with the Father.” Selected Messages, vol. 1, 247, or Review and Herald, April 5, 1906. [Notice when the word eternity is used, the writer is referring to an infinite number so that you can not say that there was ever a time when Christ was not a distinct person from the Father. This completely destroys the teaching that some infer from Proverbs 8 that there was a time when Christ was not a distinct person from the Father. The term “bring forth” does not there have implications of a bringing forth in the sense of a birth or beginning of existence—as we will see, no more can this be said about the Son than about the Father. The sense of “bring forth” in Proverbs 8 is the same, or similar, as in Psalm 18:19 where it is speaking of a change in location and has nothing to do with beginning of existence.] “There is a personal God, the Father; there is a personal Christ, the Son.” Review and Herald, November 8, 1898. “The scriptures clearly indicate the relation between God and Christ, and they bring to view as clearly the personality individuality of each.” Ministry of Healing, 421. “The unity that exists between Christ and His disciples does not destroy the personality of either. They are one is purpose, in mind, in character, but not in person. It is thus that God and Christ are one.” Ministry of Healing, 422.

The Holy Spirit is a person also.

“The Holy Spirit is a person, for He beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.” Evangelism, 616.

We come now more specifically to the point of the pre-existence of Christ. Ellen White bears much witness to the fact of the eternal pre-existence of Christ. “But the life of Christ was unborrowed. No one can take this life from Him. ‘I lay it down of myself’ (John 10:18), He said. In Him was life, original, unborrowed, underived.” Signs of the Times, April 8, 1897. (See also Desire of Ages, 530.) “Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent, Son of God . . . In speaking of His pre-existence, Christ carries the mind back through dateless ages. He assures us that there never was a time when He was not in close fellowship with the eternal God.” [Fellowship, means by definition that two distinct intelligences are referred to, there is no fellowship with one’s self.] Signs of the Times, August 29, 1900. “Christ shows them that, although they might reckon His life to be less than fifty years, yet, His divine life cannot be reckoned by human computation. The existence of Christ before His incarnation is not measured by figures.” Signs of the Times, May 3, 1899. Well did the disciples understand this love as they saw their Saviour enduring shame, reproach, doubt, and betrayal, as they saw his agony in the garden, and his death on Calvary’s cross. This is a love the depth of which no sounding can ever fathom. As the disciples comprehended it, as their perception took hold of God’s divine compassion, they realized that there is a sense in which the sufferings of the Son were the sufferings of the Father. From eternity there was a complete unity between the Father and the Son. They were two, yet little short of being identical; two in individuality, yet one in spirit, and heart, and character. Youth Instructor, December 12, 1897.

Concerning the equality of the Father and the Son, Ellen White makes many statements which show that Christ was equal with the Father before His incarnation, during His incarnation, and forever. For example, “Though he took humanity upon himself, he was divine. All that is attributed to the Father himself is attributed to Christ.” Review and Herald, May 19, 1896. “Christ was God essentially, and in the highest sense. He was with God from all eternity, God over all blessed forevermore.” Review and Herald, April 5, 1906. “To save the transgressor of God’s law, Christ,the One equal with the Father, came to live Heaven before men, that they might learn to know what it is to have heaven in the heart.” Fundamentals of Christian Education, 179. “But although Christ’s divine glory was for a time veiled and eclipsed by His assuming humanity, yet he did not cease to be God when He became man. The human did not take the place of the divine, nor the divine of the human. This is the mystery of godliness. The two expressions human and divine were, in Christ, closely and inseparably one, and yet they had a distinct individuality. Though Christ humbled Himself to become man, the Godhead was still His own.” Signs of the Times, May10, 1899. “The only way in which the fallen race could be restored was through the gift of His Son, equal with Himself, possessing the attributes of God. Though so highly exalted, Christ consented to assume human nature that He might work in behalf of man and reconcile to God His disloyal subject.” Review and Herald, November 8, 1892. Notice, that in this preceding statement, Ellen White makes the claim that only by One who was equal with the Father could man be redeemed. If Christ was a junior God or in any way not equal with the Father, as Arians have claimed, Ellen White claims that the atonement would not be complete. This claim completely destroys the Arian position.

We next come to the question about what happened to Christ’s deity when He died. On this question, Ellen White is very specific. She said, “Humanity died: divinity did not die.” Youth’s Instructor, August 4, 1898. The reader might also see statements in the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5, 1113, 1129. Also, The Desire of Ages teaches that when Christ came forth from the tomb, he was raised by His own divine power. See Desire of Ages, 785.

Last of all, Ellen White describes the Holy Spirit as a personality, a deity, and not an inferior emanation or influence, but in every sense, part of the Godhead. Notice, “The Holy Spirit has a personality, else He could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits that we are the children of God. He must also be a divine person, else he could not search out the secrets which lie hidden in the mind of God.” Evangelism, 617. “The prince of the power of evil can only be held in check by the power of God in the Third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit.” Special Testimonies, Series A, number 10, 37. “Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power. It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer.” Desire of Ages, 671. Ellen White does not speak of the Holy Spirit as an emanation, an influence or something subordinate or inferior to the Father and the Son. She speaks of the Holy Spirit as the fullness of the Godhead. “The comforter that Christ promised to send after He ascended to Heaven, is the Spirit in all the fullness of the Godhead, making manifest the power of divine grace to all who receive and believe in Christ as a personal Saviour. There are three living persons of the Heavenly trio; in the name of these three great powers—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—those who receive Christ by living faith are baptized, and these powers will co-operate with the obedient subjects of heaven in their effort to live the new life of Christ.” Special Testimonies, Series B, Number 7, 62, 63. Many have written treatises on the above subject but one of the best ones that this writer has seen which contains most of the references used in the above article is a Thesis on the Arian views in Seventh-day Adventist Literature and the Ellen G. White Answer by Erwin Roy Gane, submitted to Andrews University Seminary June, 1963.

Three Gardens

by

We are in a contest of time and space and circumstance which creates a very real need for a strong, true, vibrant faith. You may think you have heard enough about faith, so let me try a different approach to get past your guard and plant some thoughts as seeds in your mind about faith. Our study will be divided up into three sections, each one about a garden.

Section One:

Our Father Meets an Enemy in a Garden

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Genesis 2:8, 15. That was a pretty nice garden. They are not making gardens like that now. We think about compost and vegetation, and things that die to make other things live. But, they were not working on that basis in this garden. Nothing had to die in order to make something live. The soil was so perfectly rich and balanced in all the nutrients, that you did not have to add anything. It was all there, perfectly created by the Master Gardener Himself. All you had to do was cooperate with the laws of nature, and the results were wonderful. That is what our father, Adam, was doing.

The soil, of course, did not have rocks like New England. When I went to Atlantic Union College, I bought a little piece of land in order to build a home in the country. I noticed rocks sticking up here and there all over the land. I noticed fences made out of rocks. I thought, “Well, I’ll get a bulldozer in here and we’ll smooth this all out and I’ll plant grass.” Then a friend told me, “Don’t bring any bulldozer in here. It will turn up ten rocks for every rock you scrape off. There’s no end to the rocks here. It’ll just stir up the soil and you will have a big, big harvest of rocks; that’s all you’ll have.” So I left it the way it was and let nature take care of it.

You can see, we have handicaps here that they never thought of in our father’s garden in Eden. Another example is the adobe soil in California. This is strange soil—almost hard as concrete when it is dry, and soft like slush when it is wet. But the garden of Eden had the right texture all the time. There is a statement that it was watered from underneath. Have you been to the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and wondered about those miles and miles of underground tunnels there, and the tunnels back in Kentucky which they tell me are larger still? The water in Eden was probably flowing underneath and came up to the soil. That is the ideal arrangement. I have no use for rain. I have lived in some very rainy places, both here and in the tropics, and I can get along fine with no rain at all if we could water things without it. So, I see the ideal as a land where the water seeps up from underneath and waters everything, but the top of the soil is always dry. You could lie down on it and not get wet.

The temperature must have been something like Hawaii, an average of about 70 degrees. The fruit was magnificent. The vegetables were marvelous. The flowers were beautiful beyond compare. Our father—your father and my father, loved that garden. He loved to work it. It was his to dress and tend. I suspect that he had pathways prepared with little colonies of this kind of a plant, and little plantings of that. It was a place of marvelous beauty.

But Adam was being closely watched, because our father had an enemy. He was not fully aware of why this enemy should have it in for him, but he did. Lucifer was studying our father, watching his every movement and wondering: “How can I get to this created human being in such a way that I can influence him and cause his heart to rebel against the Heavenly Father who created him?” As Satan watched, he observed something. The most precious thing to our father upon this earth, was his wife, Eve. That gave Satan an idea. “If I can work through her, and cause her to be damaged or destroyed, I could get to Adam.” So he studied Eve. He watched carefully to see what her mind considered beautiful and what her thoughts were. It did not take him long to see that Eve was a lover of beautiful things. Just about the most beautiful thing around the garden, was the serpent that had wings. Practically in all mankind, there is, in their tradition, a story of the winged serpent. In the discoveries of stonework down in Central and South America they find carved pictures of a serpent with wings. This tradition goes way back into the memory of man, the serpent with wings, the flying serpent. The devil arranged things so that every time Eve enjoyed admiring the beauty of that serpent with wings, the serpent was a little closer to that forbidden tree. Finally his purpose was accomplished. You know what happened, she was deceived. She took of the fruit and ate it. When this became known to Adam our father, it blew his mind. This is what the devil planned.

Adam was confronted with a problem that he thought was too much for God to handle. You see the point? That is still a problem today. Every one of us have had that sort of situation, at least temporarily—a problem that looked like it was too much for God to handle. “God can do a lot of things, I’m sure, but He can’t handle this. There’s no hope. There’s nothing even God can do about this.” That is typical of the human family. We see so many examples of it. When Abraham got into the country ruled by Abimelech, he decided that his beautiful wife, Sarah, was going to be at risk. He said, “You tell them that you’re not my wife. Tell them that you’re my sister.” He seemingly thought God could not handle this problem. He was in the foreigner’s territory, and was at the mercy of the king. He could not defend himself against the power that was in control. He figured, “God can’t do anything about this. I’ll have to seek another solution.”

We could also think of the people of Israel coming to the border of the promised land at the edge of the Jordan River and pausing there to send the spies into the land. When the spies came back with their ten spies giving a terribly dismal report, what was the reaction? “It’s hopeless, it’s hopeless, it’s hopeless. God has not the ability, or the strength, to handle this problem. He can’t deal with this.”

Let us bring it up to our modern times. This is something that everybody goes through when they decide to start keeping the Sabbath. Those of us who came in from the world, had to struggle with that problem. I was working in a plywood factory in the state of Washington on Friday nights. I was warned by some that if I tried to keep the Sabbath they would fire me, because it had happened to others before. I had to struggle with that problem. Is the Lord able to handle this, or is He not? I finally decided I would rather lose my job than lose my soul. But, I will never forget the struggle. I have done some hard things in my life, but I do not believe anything was harder than for me to go into the office where that rough old lumber man stood who owned the mill. He was chewing tobacco, chewing on a cigar, and spitting his tobacco juice into a spittoon on the floor—just as rough a character as you will ever find. How do I talk to this man about spiritual things? But I did—by the grace of God I did it.

As an evangelist, I have seen so many men and women come up to this awesome situation, and they have the question, like Adam had—”Can God handle this problem? Can I keep the Sabbath on this job? If I lose this job, can God help me get another job?” It is a powerfully big problem. They either take the advanced step and say, “I will begin keeping the Sabbath,” and discover something—that God is watching, and that He has a plan all the way from there to the kingdom for each one. Or if they do not take that step of faith, they never know anything about that plan.

What can we learn about all of this from Adam? He saw a problem, and in his view, it was beyond any solution. He decided he would rather be lost with Eve than live without her. Those two choices were not the only choices, because God had already solved the problem before it started. Take a look at the scriptures. “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace.” Now look at this carefully: “which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” 2 Timothy 1:9. [All emphasis supplied.] “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, [that is the anti-Christ,] whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Revelation 13:8. God was not taken by surprise by the sin of Eve. It was certainly a sad situation, but to think of it as something that God could not handle, that was the big mistake. It was not by any means something that God could not handle. We find a statement like this: “The plan for our redemption was not an afterthought, a plan formulated after the fall of Adam.” Desire of Ages, 22. It was made long before the fall of Adam. “It was a revelation of ‘the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal.’” Romans. 16:25, R.V. “From the beginning, God and Christ knew of the apostasy of Satan, and of the fall of man through the deceptive power of the apostate. God did not ordain that sin should exist, but he foresaw its existence, and made provision to meet the terrible emergency.” Ibid.

The point is that God has no problems in the sense that we humans think of them—as being something that He cannot handle. No problem is any harder for God than any other problem. No problem is any easier for God than any other problem. To Him, they are all just a matter of His will, that is all. We want to think about that when we consider the principle involved here. This statement makes it personal. “If we surrender our lives to His service, we can never be placed in a position for which God has not made provision.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 173. Notice the past tense. No matter what kind of a situation you get into, God was there ahead of you. God sized the whole situation up ahead of us. He decided just what avenue of escape He would have ready for us. It is no problem to Him. God makes decisions, but He has no problems at all. Adam’s great mistake was to feel that this problem was too much for the Lord.

In our modern times, we find people struggling with believing that God can solve their problems. We should remember to look back across the years. It is clearly stated that God foresaw the problem of Israel wanting a king. Patriarchs and Prophets, 603. He foresaw the problems that would lead to the captivity of Israel. Prophets and Kings, 408. Jesus foresaw the treachery of Judas. Bible Commentary, vol. 5, 1102. But look especially at this thought: God foresaw the delusive doctrines of the last days. Testimonies, vol. 8, 201.

If I would ask you what our biggest problem is now, many would say: “The horrible false doctrines that are assailing the church, the apostasy in the church.” God foresaw it. God foresaw that you would be living in these last days seeking a place of refuge on Sabbath mornings, not wanting to listen to error from the pulpit, but wanting to hear the pure Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy expounded. God knew exactly what He was going to do about this problem of apostasy, and these last day delusions. In Review and Herald, September 6, 1898, is a similar statement about how God foresaw the last day arts and devices of Satan. So God has no problems! We have a most horrible problem if we ever suspect that anything has happened to us that God cannot handle. God can handle it! He can handle the problems of the church. He can handle the problems of our individual lives. He can handle anything and everything that comes along, because He was there first. He is watching the whole thing from above, where He sees ahead.

Section Two:

Our Brother Meets an Enemy in the Garden

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, which he entered, and His disciples.” John 18:1. “They came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and He said to His disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” Mark 14:32–35.

Compare this problem with Adam’s problem. Adam’s problem was that he might lose his companion. The comparison is one sided, because Christ is facing the problem of being cast into non-existence, (which will be the equivalent of the sinner’s death) a much greater problem. If anybody would have a temptation to think “This is too much for the Lord,” it would be Jesus. He struggled. Yes, we have to admit, He struggled. The struggle is easy to understand when we consider what He was giving up—the dominions of all the universe, the glory and the adoration from all.

But if you look at these two garden scenes there were differences. Our Brother in the garden of Gethsemane appeared much smaller than our father in the garden of Eden. He did not look a lot like him. The garden itself, instead of being the beautiful scene that we talked about in Eden, was a rough and rocky hillside. The best thing they could grow there was olive trees.

The Man Himself, our Savior, our Brother, was weaker than Adam. Notice this comment,”When Adam was assailed by the tempter, none of the effects of sin were upon him. He stood in the strength of perfect manhood, possessing the full vigor of mind and body. He was surrounded with the glories of Eden, and was in daily communion with heavenly beings. It was not thus with Jesus when He entered the wilderness to cope with Satan. For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power, and in moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity. Only thus could He rescue man from the lowest depths of his degradation.” Desire of Ages, 117.

To study this for yourself, read the chapter “Gethsemane” in Desire of Ages. There you will have a look into the heart of Jesus, a look right into His soul, to see what he was fighting with. It describes what being numbered with the transgressors meant. The guilt of fallen humanity He must bear. Upon Him who knew no sin must be laid the iniquity of us all. He is tempted to fear that it will shut Him out forever from His Father’s love. He is staring annihilation in the face—non-existence. He falls prostrate to the ground. The thought of being separated from His father was so broad, so black, so deep, that His spirit shuddered before it. This agony, He must not exert His divine power to escape. He could have. He could have backed out even then.

He stretched out on the ground and tried to cling to the soil with His hands, as if He were going to be shaken loose from it. Three times He went back to the disciples to see if He might get some comfort and encouragement from them, some realization that what He was doing had value in their sight. But they were asleep, all the while. He did not get any help there at all. Finally, when He made that supreme decision, “He fell dying to the ground.” He would have died right there except for miraculous intervention. He would not have gotten to the cross at all. Jesus had an enormously stronger reason to judge the immensity of His problem than Adam had. But, He said, “My Father has no problems. My Father is in control. All that my Father gives shall come to me.” This time it was victory, instead of failure!

To make this personal—do you ever feel a sense of panic? Events among the nations, events in our church, events in our own lives—that is where it comes close to us. Remember our father’s experience? He decided that God could not handle his problem, so he gave in. But God had it all solved. Christ would have died for Eve if nobody else had ever sinned. There was a problem but, there was a solution available. So remember our father, and remember our Elder Brother, and never doubt God’s power.

The Spirit of Prophecy focuses on this particular problem—feeling that God can not handle it, and that things are out of control. Do you think anything ever happens to you when God is not looking, that He just does not care about? There is nothing about you that He does not care about. There is nothing that He is not interested in. Every aspect of our entire life experience is important to Him, but He is taking a long view.

Sometimes we take the short view. We will look at a few lines to remind us of what is said to us about this particular question: “Can God handle this? Or is God off somewhere paying attention to other things and not watching?” “Many who sincerely consecrate their lives to God’s service are surprised and disappointed to find themselves, as never before, confronted by obstacles and beset by trials and perplexities. Like Israel of old they question, ‘If God is leading us, why do these things come upon us?’ [Here is the answer.] It is because God is leading them that these things come upon them. Trials and obstacles are the Lord’s chosen methods of discipline and His appointed conditions of success.” Ministry of Healing, 470, 471. “God’s care for His heritage is unceasing. He suffers no affliction to come upon His children but such as is essential for their present and eternal good. [No affliction, from the largest, to the smallest.] All that He brings upon His people in test and trial comes that they may gain deeper piety and greater strength to carry forward the triumphs of the cross.” Acts of the Apostles, 425.

Does God really take personal interest in you? “He who is imbued with the Spirit of Christ abides in Christ. Whatever comes to Him comes from the Saviour.” Ministry of Healing, 489. Look at that carefully. That is a bold statement. “Whatever comes to him comes from the Saviour.” You mean all of this hard luck, all of these disappointments? Yes, everything. There are no exceptions. “Nothing can touch him except by the Lord’s permission. All our sufferings and sorrows, all our temptations and trials, all our sadness and griefs, all our persecutions and privations, in short, all things work together for our good. All experiences and circumstances are God’s workmen whereby good is brought to us.” Ibid., 488. “God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose which they are fulfilling as co-workers with Him.” Ibid., 479.

Faith is like a diamond—it has many facets. We are studying a couple of those facets in this article. We have looked at your trials and your faith. Let us look at another aspect of faith—your words and your faith. We are told, “It is a law of nature that our thoughts and feelings are encouraged and strengthened as we give them utterance. While words express thoughts, it is also true that thoughts follow words.” Ministry of Healing, 251, 252. You can talk yourself into a lot of discouragement and doubt. You can talk yourself into total doubt, total unbelief, total abandonment of the truth, just by talking about how bad things are. “Talk of faith, of light, and of heaven, and you will have faith, light and love, and peace and joy, in the Holy Ghost.” Testimonies, vol. 1, 168. If you love darkness, talk about it—it will come. Ibid., 699. “Those who talk faith and cultivate faith will have faith, but those who cherish and express doubts will have doubts.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 302.

In Ministry of Healing, 250 we are told, “When temptations assail you, when care, perplexity, and darkness seem to surround your soul, look to the place where you last saw the light” and talk about that. Our words have a reaction upon ourselves. If we express our gloomy thoughts, “Oh, how terrible this is, how terrible that is,” we will talk ourselves into a bad condition, because thoughts follow words. But we can train ourselves to say, “That is bad, but it is no problem to the Lord.”

We live in a time when some terrible things are happening. It will get us down if we are not careful. It will depress us and discourage us. We must fight that depression and discouragement. We must fight that awful feeling of goneness when we see horrible things happening. “God calls upon His faithful ones, who believe in Him, to talk courage to those who are unbelieving and hopeless.” Christian Service, 234. “If we will restrain the expression of unbelief, and by hopeful words and prompt movements strengthen our own faith and the faith of others, our vision will grow clearer. The pure atmosphere of heaven will surround our souls. Be strong and talk hope.” Testimonies, vol. 6, 462. “Never allow yourself to talk in a hopeless, discouraged way. If you do you will lose much. By looking at appearances and complaining when difficulties and pressure come, you give evidence of a sickly, feeble faith.” Now look at this line, “Talk and act as if your faith was invincible.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 147.

Section Three:

Our Father Meets Our Brother in a Garden.

This is a beautiful scene talking about the redeemed coming to the gates of the Holy City. “As the ransomed ones are welcomed to the City of God, there rings out upon the air an exultant cry of adoration. The two Adams are about to meet. [Christ and Adam] The Son of God is standing with outstretched arms to receive the father of our race—the being whom He created, who sinned against his Maker, and for whose sin the marks of the crucifixion are borne upon the Saviour’s form. As Adam discerns the prints of the cruel nails, he does not fall upon the bosom of his Lord, but in humiliation casts himself at His feet, crying, ‘Worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was slain!’ Tenderly the Saviour lifts him up, and bids him look once more upon the Eden home from which he has so long been exiled.” Great Controversy, 647. Did you know that the garden of Eden is in heaven? Pretty nice. I want to be there. Don’t you? Faith is the victory. We have got to have faith that will never look at any problem of any dimension and say, “This is too much for the Lord.” Nothing is too much for the Lord! He has it all figured out. He knows exactly what his response isgoing to be to every trial that comes along. All we have to do is hang on to Him for dear life, and never let ourselves doubt in any way.

Thank You For Your Help For the Work in Ghana !

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The plans to help our brothers and sisters in Ghana were entered into after prayer and communication with missionaries and local people who had worked there for years. Although the evidence indicated that at present this was the best place where we could help the work in Africa go forward, this work from the beginning faced much opposition from almost every quarter. (The reason that we believed Ghana was the best place to begin, was that God’s faithful people there had a church organization that was based on the New Testament model. This developed after much trouble and trial as well as Bible-study, over a twenty year period.) In fact, it was opposition to the work in Ghana that partially influenced a disruption with some staff right at Steps to Life. It was then predicted that the poor people in Ghana would be disappointed because promises had been made that would not be realized. Rumors have been sent all over the country and attempts have been made to get accusations against the orphans and the orphanage. This of course would stop support for the project. In the midst of all this opposition, we never knew from one month to the next where support would come for either the orphanage or for Steps to Life to continue sponsoring the project, since so many false accusations were being made.

At the same time we could not fail to see their desperate need for a means to communicate the gospel more effectively. We believed in spite of the frailty of our humanity it would be a dishonor to the Lord for us to quit as long as the Lord held the door open for us to help them with the work. What has happened, as you can see from the above article and picture, we believe to be a result of God’s great grace. It would never have happened with the amount of opposition against it, except that the Lord worked a miracle. We believe that there will be a multitude of these people in heaven and we want to have that unity and harmony with them for which Christ prayed in John 17. We also want to be in unity and harmony with God’s children all over the world and are praying for those who want to be our enemies —we want unity and harmony with them too. We want to have perfect unity and harmony with you too, brother or sister —we absolutely must have it if we are going to heaven together. Any and all wrongs must be made right and we must all be heart to heart together.

Many things have been learned from the work in Ghana. One thing is that great progress cannot occur for God’s work in any city or country until there is New Testament church organization. Is your home church organized according to the New Testament? (See Acts of the Apostles,

155–165, 188–200, 593–602.) New Testament church organization is not hierarchical and no hierarchical organization is in harmony with the New Testament. There are several other countries in Africa asking for help. We hope that Ghana will become a center for giving the Third Angels’ Message to all the English-speaking countries in Africa. If we can become unified, as the Lord is calling for, the work in Africa and in other countries could receive help and be finished quickly.

One of the ways that there has been an attempt to stop the Ghana projects is by false accusations that Steps to Life was in some way dishonest or not accountable with finances. We have had full financial audits for the last two years. We have also had accounting reviews by an independent accounting firm for the two years previous to that. Anyone who is supporting God’s work at Steps to Life is welcome to come to our office and look at either our audited statements or our books.

We are receiving increasing calls for help from many parts of the world. We have no way to help all these people except as the Lord through His Holy Spirit impresses His true and faithful people to help finish the work all over the world. Please join us in prayer for divine instruction and assistance that the work can be finished quickly. Don’t you want to go home soon too?

Reporting from Kumasi, W. Africa

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Editors Note: September 10, 1996, witnessed many good-byes, as farewells were said to friends and loved ones. A total of seven people set to the air for Ghana, W. Africa. Most were to stay for three months and several more joined them mid-November. It is all a part of our mission to give the Third Angel’s Message to the world—of which the health message is the right arm. Those serving for 3 months are: Dr. Loeffler, a chiropractor from Hemet, California, Mike and Shari Casey, health workers from California, Amanda Clark and Benjamin Reeves. These people are working to establish a clinic based on our health message. Dr. Loeffler reports.

One of our top priorities in establishing a natural health clinic in Ghana was to see that we were within the laws of this nation. A visit to the office of the Minister of Health made us realize that not only was there a known need, but also a willingness on the part of the health officials to encourage “alternative medicine” practitioners. Next we visited regional and national offices to insure that there were no serious objections. They indicated their willingness to make a “special category” for us, making us the first clinic in the nation to use only natural medicine.

On October 22, 1996, we received permission from the government of Ghana to open a clinic. They stated the following: “The Ministry has no objection to the establishment of a clinic using natural remedies,” also, “The Historic Adventist Church can be allowed to establish their clinic. They will have to re-register the clinic with the private Hospitals and Maternity Homes Board when they are ready with the requisite staff to use allopathic drugs.”

It is my personal opinion that we should not use drugs, however when we go into the sanitarium phase of this plan with in-house patients, we should have the right to use any remedy for the protection of our patients.

The clinic is located on a busy street with easy access by auto and taxi. Our location provides us with good advertising. The sign we have posted on the building is all that is necessary to draw a good group of patients.

Our building is a remodeled multi-unit dwelling, constructed of solid concrete block and reinforced concrete. Adjacent to the building is another two story structure where the Historic Adventist Church has their headquarters. On the same upper level there are guest rooms, kitchen, dining room and bath. This is where we eat and sleep and are wonderfully taken care of. The lower floor has the potential of becoming our first sanitarium. We have already received several inquiries about using it as a place for a mid-wife to work. There is also a new structure attached to the clinic that will seat about 400 people. It is designed as a church, but could also serve for other purposes.

Our team consists of a chiropractor, a native herbologist, a naturopathic doctor, and a water therapist. We also call upon the Great Physician regularly and realize that without His help we could do nothing. This multiple discipline approach is a first in Ghana, and possibly a first anywhere.

By combining our knowledge of the natural healing arts, the end results are not just unique, but very effective. According to our records to date about one third of the patients have a treatable spinal problem; i.e., one that will respond to chiropractic manipulation. Two thirds of our patients will receive one or more medicinal herbs. There are other conditions that respond to deep massage and exercise, and still others that require the proper application of water in some form. Many cases receive a combination of therapies including the use of native and imported herbs.

So far we have treated patients with conditions ranging from malaria to cancer, to arthritis, infertility, ulcers, parasites, and injuries, just to name a few. Ghana is not a wealthy nation, yet we see little actual hunger. The forests and farms provide plantain, corn, rice, beans, yams, bananas, pineapple, papaya, coconut and many other sources of inexpensive food. Yet, there are still many dietary problems here. Young children, who have been recently weaned, seem prone to B-vitamin and protein deficiencies. The adults have many problems that result from lifestyle preferences. Palm nut oil is abundant, inexpensive and palatable. Most of the traditional dishes are filled with this harmful product, and the results are evident in the typical degenerative diseases that we see frequently, such as: atherosclerosis, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and etc.

Many people in Ghana have a gross lack of knowledge in why and how to select wholesome foods. Over half of the patients we see are not eating as well as they should and could. Many are eating next to nothing that is raw.

This is where the Historic Adventist Clinic demonstrates one of its strong points. Not only do we believe in health reform, we strive to live the health reform. Every patient is told the importance of eating a well balanced, wholesome, yet simple diet and how these foods will help to bring about health. Most of the patients are very willing to cooperate with diet changes and are anxious to improve their health.

One patient who had a tumor removed from her liver some time ago, was told by the doctors to go home and die. She came to us for help, and was taught to use only wholesome foods and how to prepare them. She was also instructed in how to use water, nutritional supplements and some native herbs. We also had prayer with her on several occasions. Within a month’s time she walked by herself to the clinic, not cured, but very grateful, able to smile and full of hope.

Another patient came to us after being operated on by a drunk doctor, who, instead of removing her appendix like he was supposed to, operated on her naval. She had been experiencing severe pain at the sight of the operation. Now, by God’s grace, she is responding well to daily hydrotherapy treatments. Her pain is almost completely gone.

We are often visited by Moslem patients, and have had opportunities to witness to them. One man has started Bible studies with us, and he and several friends have promised to read a copy of Steps to Christ that we gave them. This is an excellent way to reach Moslem and other non-Christian religions, because they are wide open to natural medicine.

The people are very receptive to a natural, drugless approach to treating diseases. There has been a gradual reduction in the confidence of the average person in the effectiveness of drugs. If there has ever been an opportune time for the drugless practitioner to be accepted in Ghana it is now. This is the place, if someone is interested in using natural remedies in mission work. Many church members here are very interested in being trained as medical missionaries. I interviewed a young person today who was willing to work for nothing just for the opportunity of observing and learning the therapies. A Nigerian women is even here to observe and learn.

How long can we hold these people off? Is it not time for a teaching sanitarium to be established here? There needs to be a joint effort in establishing such an institution that can not only care for the sick but also train young people to become medical missionaries.

If you want your donation to go a long way, consider the exchange rate in Ghana of 1700 to one. Many people in the United States are living in houses that would bring enough money to establish or build a whole sanitarium. The way is wide open for this work here. I recently received a call from a chief who heard that we were starting up a clinic-sanitarium. He offered land in his village where an institution could be built.

The Lord is calling us to spread the gospel to all the world, and He has many means through which this can be done. Just imagine what a witness it would be if institutions like this could be set up in many locations. The harvest is truly ripe, but the laborers are few. Keep the work and the workers here in your prayers.

Editorial — Press Together

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“Press together, press together; that you may not be destroyed as were the inhabitants of Jerusalem . . . Persecution is coming, and God calls upon all to stand firm in Christian love,their hearts knit together, of one mind and one judgment. His people are to cleave to Him, and they are to love one another as He has loved them. Christ’s life is to be their example. In love, in meekness, in humility, they are to follow Him.” Signs of the Times, October 31, 1900.

This inspired statement shows that we must press together or be destroyed as the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem is a symbol of what will happen to the whole world at the end. In spite of this inspired counsel, we see more division and unsanctified independence in Adventism today than ever before. The devil is determined that this unity will never be accomplished.

“Satan well knows that the combined strength of Satanic agencies with that of evil men is but weakness when opposed to a band of faithful, united servants of the great King, though in number they may be few. In order to overcome the people of God, Satan will work upon the elements in the character which have not been transformed by the grace of Christ, and through these unsanctified characteristics, he will seek to bring about disunion among the people of God. Unless these persons who become agents of Satan are converted, their own souls will be lost, and the souls of those who have looked up to them as men led of God will be destroyed with them, because they are partakers with them of their sins. Satan endeavors to create suspicion, envy, and jealousy, and thus lead men to question those things that it would be for their soul’s interest to believe. The suspicious ones will misconstrue everything . . . and if this spirit is allowed to prevail, it will demoralize our churches and institutions.” Review and Herald, May 14, 1895.

Is not this prophecy fulfilled all around us? To fulfill the longing of Christ as expressed in John 17 that God’s people might not be totally destroyed, we must press together and come into perfect unity. We must unify in the way God has specified or we will never have true Christian unity: “We have a testing message to give, and I am instructed to say to our people, ‘Unify, unify.’ But we are not to unify with those who are departing from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. With our hearts sweet and kind and true, we are to go forth to proclaim the message, giving no heed to those who lead away from the truth.” Selected Messages,book 3, 412. “Christ calls for unity. But He does not call for us to unify on wrong practices.” Selected Messages, book 1, 175.

“The God of heaven draws a sharp contrast between pure, elevating, ennobling truth and false, misleading doctrines. He calls sin and impenitence by the right name. He does not gloss over wrongdoing with a coat of untempered mortar. I urge our brethren to unify upon a true, scriptural basis.” Selected Messages, book 1, 175. “We are to unify, but not on a platform of error.” Battle Creek Letters, 111. “Unify, unify is the word from heaven. The work of bringing about perfect harmony cannot be done in a moment. It will take close examination and careful study on the part of those who bear responsibilities. Not a selfish thread is to be drawn into the web.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 19, 149.

If we are united to Christ, we will be united to one another. When this happens, the church on earth will be a symbol of the church in heaven. “It is those who are not worked by the Holy Spirit that mar God’s plan. Another spirit takes possession of them, and they help to strengthen the forces of darkness. Those who are sanctified by the precious blood of Christ will not become the means of counter working the great plan which God has devised. They will not do anything to perpetuate division.” The Kress Collection, 17.

We want to invite every Historic Seventh-day Adventist person and institution to pray for unity
and to press together. This is no time for independence; it is time for the prayer of Jesus in John 17 to be fulfilled. It will never be fulfilled among those professed Adventists who have essentially rejected the Spirit of Prophecy and who do not believe in the investigative judgment and the other truths of the Three Angels’ Messages. It will never happen to those who are willing to compromise with error or who are unwilling to protest the apostasy. It will never happen to those who reject the New Testament concept of the nature of the church. It can only happen among Historic Seventh-day Adventists. Will you be part of it?

Is It Time to Give Up Milk?

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Many years ago we understood that animal products like milk could be wholesome additions to our diet if used in small amounts at a time. As Seventh-day Adventists we also had read from the writings of Ellen G. While that we should anticipate a day to come that we could no longer do that with any assurance of safety. We were warned in 1902 “that the time will soon come when there will be no safety in using eggs, milk, cream, or butter, because disease in animals is increasing in proportion to the wickedness among men.” Counsels on Diets and Foods, 356. 1902 was a long time ago and the world is certainly more wicked than in that time. That day has come! The diseases in animals have become very widespread and so intense that they have begun to pose a serious threat to humans. Scientists have always proclaimed that it was impossible for many diseases to cross the specie lines from animals to man. It appears now that long held belief does not always hold true.

Diseases now are being transmitted across specie lines in two categories: prion diseases and retro-virus caused diseases. Prions still are not totally understood. We are not sure exactly how they act in transmitting disease but researchers have found positive correlations between their presence of the transmission of at least one disease; that of BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in animals and the occurrence of CJD (Creutzfeld Jacob) disease in humans. BSE is more commonly known as the “mad cow disease.” Prions are simple protein molecules and how they could transmit disease is not yet understood. What is understood is that neither cooking or even pasteurization can kill or inactivate them. In fact, research has proven that they can survive 300 degrees centigrade for extended periods of time. This temperature would reduce the meat or milk to carbon or ash but the prion would still be quite intact! There is no safety in ingesting any form of animal products, even cheese and gelatin. The makers of gelatin maintain that they have so processed the animal product that it has now become a pure chemical and could not therefore cause disease. Those who have examined the technique they utilize in processing have seen that the prion can easily survive all six of their procedures.

A second category of disease transmission involves the retro-viruses. This new family of viruses poses an even greater danger to humans than even the prion. A retro-virus has the ability to incorporate itself in to one’s genetic makeup. That is to say that it actually becomes part of the host. The virus now becomes basically immune to all the weapons of the human immune system because the body does not recognize it as being foreign. The only way to totally eradicate the viruses is to kill it’s host! Lets avoid these viruses at all cost. Some of the diseases caused by retro viruses are HIV, BPV, BLV, and BIV. BPV or Bovine Papilloma Virus, a disease associated with cancerous tumors in cattle, has been isolated in commercially prepared milk available in retail outlets as long ago as 1979. It appears that as SDA’s we should have seen the light on discontinuing these food sources long ago. In the United States it is estimated that up to 80% of the commercial dairy herd may carry BLV or Bovine Leukemia Virus. This disease can be transmitted from the infected lymphocytes of a diseased animal since milk is made up largely from lymphocytes it seems very prudent to avoid milk at any cost. There is evidence that it is very possible for infected lymphocytes to cross the intestinal membrane barrier and enter the blood stream in a virulent state. Also there is no guarantee that the genetic information of the retros is deactivated by pasteurization. Even though the active virus may have been “killed” by the heat, the particle can still be absorbed by the intestines. It is entirely possible that the genetic information from the particle may still be incorporated into the human. It is estimated that 40% of the dairy herd may be infected with BIV or Bovine Immunodeficiency Virus. BIV is the Bovine counterpart of the human HIV, the virus that eventually turns into AIDS. One very startling discovery is that HIV and BIV have common genetic material: the “Trans-activating gene” or more commonly called a Ta T gene. The reason this is so frightening is that even though humans may not be susceptible directly to BIV, the BIV Ta T gene may be able to trans-activate or trigger latent HIV particles in the human and indirectly cause HIV in humans. Some medical researches feel that many more humans than is presently imagined are carrying either latent or deactivated HIV viral particles in their bodies that their immune system has been successful in controlling. With sufficient dietary “doses” of BIV infected foods, these latent particles have an excellent possibility of being activated and the human host developing a full blown case of AIDS. Tests with chimpanzees which have similar anatomical and physiological make up as humans have clearly demonstrated how real this possibility is.

These things may sound quite frightening, but we must remember that God so loves us that He gave us warnings in advance so that we would be able to avoid these diseases by simply not eating those things that are no longer safe. In Romans 1:17 we are told that “the just shall live by faith.” Those who survive the end times will have to be so full of faith in God’s wisdom that they will accept His directions for every aspect of life

Destruction of the French Protestants

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“Henry IV had adjured his mother’s faith, in the hope of thereby purchasing from Rome the sure tenure of his crown and the peaceful possession of his kingdom. He fancied that he had got what he bargained for; and being, as he supposed, firmly seated on the throne, he was making prodigious efforts to lift France out of the abyss in which he had found her.” Wylie 309, 310. The so called “civil wars” which were in fact crusades by the government against the Protestants, had left the nation scarred. Henry IV had gone far to efface these frightful traces and to rid the nation of debt. He had, however, also formed political alliances with Protestant nations and was preparing to go to war against the House of Austria, a strong Catholic force. “His heretical foreign policy excited a suspicion that although he was outwardly a Roman Catholic, he was at heart a Huguenot. In a moment, a Hand was stretched forth from the darkness, and all was changed.” Ibid. The dagger of Ravaillac, the monk, brought him and his policy to an end.

His eight year old son, Louis XIII, succeeded him on the throne and Parliament immediately made his mother, Maria de Medici, regent. “Maria de Medici lacked the talent of her famous predecessor, Catherine de Medici, but she possessed all her treachery, bigotry, and baseness. She was a profound believer in witchcraft, and guided the vessel of the State by her astrological calculations. When divination failed her she had recourse to the advice of the Pope’s nuncio, of the Spanish ambassador, and of Concini, a man of obscure birth from her native city of Florence.” Ibid., When Louis XIII grew a few years older he hoped to break his bonds, so he banished his mother to Blois and hired assassins to rid him of Concini. Soon he was under the influence of a favorite, equally worthless. With the court caught up in intrigue and blood, the nobles retired to their estates and lived like independent kings and awaited the civil broils yet to come on their unhappy land.

Evil Tidings

There were many signs to warn the Huguenot of the sure approach of evil times. One was the reversal of the foreign policy of Henry IV. Louis XIII disconnected himself from his father’s allies, and joined himself to his father’ enemies by a double marriage. He took the hand of the Spanish Infanta and his sister he offered to the Prince of Austria. This renewed influence of Rome and Spain, once more in France, boded of persecution and war, and some reported that the price of this double alliance was the suppression of heresy.

The court continued to speak soft words to the Protestants but the priests wanted all of the rights gained by the Edict of Nantes to be abrogated one by one. There were still voices calling for toleration, but the clergy was ever reminding those who voiced such opinions that the king had taken an oath to exterminate heretics. Parliament was told that “all treaties sworn to the Huguenot were provisional; in other words, that it was the duty of Government always to persecute and slay Protestants, except in one case—namely, when it was not able to do it.” Ibid., 311.

War was not long in coming. First the king placed himself at the head of an army whose mission was to retake the territory of Lower Navarre and Bearn in the mountains of the Pyrenees, the hereditary kingdom of Jeanne dAlbret. This kingdom was one of the most flourishing in all of Christendom and was nine-tenths Protestant. A decree was issued giving all of the ecclesiastical property to the Romish clergy. The Jesuit Arnoux, the King’s confessor, reasoned that since this property belonged to God it could not be lawfully held by any but his priests. The Bearnese were not silent but the King’s army forced their submission to the reestablishment of the Popish religion by use of the cudgel, the dagger and a multitude of violences. This was the first of the dragonnades which were repeated afterwards in France at large.

The Protestant now divided France into eight circles and appointed a governor over each with the power to impose taxes, raise armies, and engage in battle. The majority, however, opposed hostilities and determined to fight only in self-defense. The pope and cardinals came to the King’s aid with 1,400,000 crowns to defray war expenses. In the battles that followed, the king was very successful. The Protestants lost all but two of their cautionary towns: La Rochelle and Montauban.

Cardinal Richelieu

The queen-mother introduced Cardinal Richelieu to the council-table of her son and the cardinal quickly rose to the top place. “He put down every rival, became the master of his sovereign, and governed France as he pleased.” Ibid., 316. He was a man of great schemes with genius and activity to carry them out. He resolved to make the throne a greater power in France and to break the power of the nobles. He also sought to reduce the Austrian power and was dear to the anger and alarm his policy awakened in Rome. But he felt that before he could accomplish any of these projects he must first subdue the Huguenot, for their political rights were an obstacle in his path.

He determined to strike a fatal blow at La Rochelle. He saw this city as a symbol of the political and religious power of the Huguenot. Richelieu raised vast land and naval armaments and besieged the city in 1627. He raised a dike to close the channel to the sea and prevent help from that route. Attempts by the Duke of Rohan to raise an army of Huguenot to come to the aid of their brethren in La Rochelle fell on deaf ears. After fifteen months of siege, with two-thirds of the population dead from starvation and battle, the city surrendered. The Huguenot fell as a political power in France. All ancient privileges were annulled. Cardinal Richelieu put off his armaments, washed his hands and sang the first mass to reestablish the Roman Catholic religion in the city.

The Roman Catholic nobles had assisted Richelieu in putting down the Huguenot. Now they found that they had cleared the way for their own suppression. “It was the design of God to humble one class of his enemies by the instrumentality of another, and so Richielieu prospered in all he undertook. He weakened the emperor; he mightily raised the prestige of the French arms, and he made the throne the one power in the kingdom.” Ibid., 320 Having succeeded in all of his goals and having triumphed over all attempts to end his life by assassination, he held power until his death. “The cardinal first, and six months after, the king, were both stricken, in the mid-time of their days and in the height of their career. They returned to their dust, and that day their thoughts perished.” Ibid.

“We have now arrived at the end of the religious wars. What has France gained by her vast expenditure of blood and treasure? Peace? No; despotism. The close of the reign of Louis XIII shows us the nobles and the mob crushed in their turn, and the throne rising in autocratic supremacy above all rights and classes. One class, however, is exempted from the general serfdom. The Church shares the triumph of the throne. The hand of a priest has been laid upon the helm of the State, and the king and the clergy together sway the destinies of a prostrate people. This ill-omened alliance is destined to continue—for, though one cardinal minister is dead, another is about to take his place—and the tyranny which has grown out of it is destined to go on, adding year by year to its own prerogatives and the people’s burdens, until its existence and exactions shall terminate together by the arrival of the Revolution, which will mingle all four—the throne, the priesthood, the aristocracy, and the commonality—in one common ruin.” Ibid.

Cardinal Mazarin

Louis XIV, a child of four and a half years, is now king. His mother, Anne of Austria is sole regent and she calls upon Richelieu’s disciple Cardinal Mazarin to aid as prime minister. His work was to keep all that Richelieu had won and this was no easy matter. “Extravagance created debts; debts necessitated new taxes; the taxes were felt to be grievous burdens by the people. First murmurs were heard; then, finally, insurrection broke out.” Ibid., 321. In this War of the Fronde, the nobles and the mob were not successful in throwing off the yoke, however, the troubles of the country were a shield for a time over the small remnant of Protestantism which had been spared in France.

Shut out from political activity, the Protestants transferred their talents and activity to the pursuits of agriculture, of trade, and of manufactures where they excelled. In agriculture the crops of the Huguenot seemed to produce seven fold, in manufacture their craft and skill made them superior, in trade their honesty, especially in contrast to the doubtful integrity of the Catholics, placed almost all foreign trade in their hands. Protestants took a foremost place among the learned physicians, the great lawyers, and the illustrious orators of France. As a religious body, they were under constant threat of extermination and so their courage and zeal for building up their churches was weak. They were weak. Despite spiritual decay in French Protestantism as a whole, there were still individual Protestants whose names and labors drew the attention of Europe and French Protestant literature blossomed in the stormy seventeenth century.

Mazarin succeeded in war, not only against his own citizens but also in war against Spain and Austria, humbling both and transferring to France their political and military preponderance. It is interesting to note “that two princes of the Roman Catholic Church were employed in weakening a power which was the main support of that Church, and in paving the way for that great Revolution which was to reverse the position of all the kingdoms of Europe, striping the Papal nations of their power, and lifting up the Protestant kingdoms to supremacy.” Ibid., 327. Mazarin prospered in his plans but like Richelieu he died before he could enjoy the fruits of his anxious labors.

Louis XIV

When the death of Mazarin, Louis XIV, who had been on the throne for eighteen years, now began to govern. He told his ministers that they were to give council only and he would reign as he pleased. Seldom has a monarch had more power. His own well-known words express it— “The State, it is I.” He was the sole master of the rights, liberties, and consciences of his subjects. His reign would be either a source of blessing or of far-reaching misery.

“The error of Louis XIV, as a man, was his love of pleasure. He lived in open and unrestrained licentiousness. This laid him at the feet of his confessor, and sank him into a viler vassalage than that of the meanest vassal in all his dominions. The ‘Great’ Louis, the master of a mighty kingdom, whose will was law to the millions who called him their sovereign, trembled before a man with a shaven crown. From the feet of his confessor he went straight to the commission of new sins; from these he came back to the priest, who was ready with fresh penances, which, alas! Were but sins in a more hideous form. A more miserable and dreadful life there never was. Guilt was piled upon guilt, remorse upon remorse, till at length life was passed, and the great reckoning was in view.” Ibid., 327.

Since the penances imposed by the King’s confessor often involved treachery against the Protestants, conditions of the Huguenot became worse from the moment Mazarin breathed his last and Louis XIV began to reign. Throughout his reign his policy toward the Protestants was to work toward their extinction and to revoke the Edict of Nantes. His first act in this line was to send out commissioners two by two—one Protestant and one Catholic—into all of the provinces to hear grievances and settle quarrels. In every case they found for the Catholics and against the Protestants. Next came a decree against “Relapsed Heretics.” This enabled the state to seize and bring to tribunals any person who entered a Protestant church if they had ever at any time in their life had any relationship with the Catholic church or given any suspicion of having leanings toward Catholicism. Other ordinances authorized a priest and a magistrate to visit every dying person and urge them to join Catholicism on their death bed. Children could adjure Protestantism at the age of seven and their parents were required to pay for their maintenance under a Catholic roof. Spies haunted Protestant sermons and any minister who spoke a word against the Virgin or any saint was indicted for blasphemy. Protestants were excluded from all public office and from the practice of law or medicine and in fact from all of the professions. They were forbidden to sing psalms nor could they bury their dead except before dawn and at the edge of night and not more than ten mourners could attend a burial. But the priests declared that more must be done to cause this “formidable monster of heresy to expire completely.” Under this tyranny Protestants began to flee from their native land.

Persecutions heightened. New ordinances and arrests struck the Protestants. Protestants could only print books with permission; worship had to be suspended if a bishop was visiting; their domestic privacy was invaded and parental rights were violated; their temples were demolished. “But perhaps the most extraordinary means employed was the creation of a fund for the purchase of conscience.” Pellison, a former Calvinist, was in charge of this office which had clerks and books and “daily published lists of articles purchased, these articles being the bodies and souls of men…The daily lists of adjurations amounted to many hundreds; but those who closely examined the names said that the majority were knaves, or persons who, finding conversion profitable, thought it not enough to be once, but a dozen times converted.” Ibid., 329

“Louis XIV was now verging on old age, but his bigotry grew with his years…No fitter tool than Louis XIV could the Jesuits have found. His Spanish mother had educated him not to hesitate at scruples, but to go forward without compunction to the perpetration of enormous crimes.” He now fell under the influence of Madame de Maintenon the granddaughter of the Protestant historian Agrippa d’Aubigne and a former Calvinist. The king secretly married her after his queen died and she and Father la Chaise, his confessor, became counselors and partners in deeds of tyranny and blood that brought further darkness and horror over the life of the king. “It was deemed bad economy, perhaps, to do with money what could be done by the sword. Accordingly the dragonnades were now set on foot.” A regiment of cavalry was sent into each province and the majority of the soldiers were quartered in Protestant homes where they were given permission to carry out any type of horror short of killing the family. “The details must be suppressed; they are too horrible to read…Thousands rose to flee from a land where nothing awaited them but misery. The court attempted to arrest the fugitives by threatening them with the galleys for life. The exodus continued despite this terrible law.” Ibid., 329

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

“Everywhere there was a Reign of Terror; and the populace, entirely in the hands of ruffians, who, if they forbore to kill, did so that they might practice excruciating and often unnamable tortures upon their victims, now came in crowds to the priests to adjure. ‘Not a post arrives,’ wrote Madame deMaintenon, in September, 1685, ‘without bringing tidings that fill him [the king] with joy; the conversions take place every day by the thousands.’ Twenty thousand adjured in Bearn, sixty thousand in the two dioceses of Nimes and Montpelier: and while this horrible persecution went on the Edict of Nantes was still law…

“The king, on the 18th of October, 1685, signed the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Revocation swept away all rights and liberties which Henry IV and Louis XIII had solemnly guaranteed to the Protestants.” Ibid., 332 The execution of the edict began immediately.

“The Protestants amounted to between one and two million; their factories and workshops were to be found in nearly all parts of France; their commerce and merchandise upheld its great cities, their energy and enterprise were the life of the nation; and to be all at once flung beyond the pale of law, beyond the pale of humanity! They were stupefied. Their churches were laid in ruins and everywhere “booted apostles” scoured the land carrying on the work of “converting” as Louis XIV reasoned, “for had not the Saviour said, ‘Compel them to come in?’ ” Ibid., 333

One clause of the Revocation demanded that all Protestant pastors leave the country while another made it a death penalty for a layman to flee. “The frontiers were jealously guarded; sentinels were placed at all the great outlets of the kingdom; numerous spies kept watch at the seaports; officers patrolled the shore; and ships of war hovered off the coast to prevent escape.” Ibid., 334. But despite all of these efforts it is estimated that upwards of one half a million Protestants emigrated. Nearly every country in Europe became their refuge with England, Holland and Germany receiving the largest numbers. “The Duke of Saint Simon says in his Memoirs that all branches of trade were ruined, and that a quarter of the kingdom was perceptibly depopulated.” Ibid., 335. “In short, not an art was cultivated, not a trade was carried on in France which did not suffer from this blow; not a province was there where the blight it had inflicted was not to be seen in villages half-depopulated, in habitations deserted, in fields lying unploughed, and in gardens and vineyards overgrown with weeds and abandoned to desolation.” Ibid., 336. The fleets of foreign ships all but disappeared as the trade of the Protestants took this foreign trade and wealth to the lands where they fled.

By this act Louis XIV drove away the genius and learning, the art and glory of his realm, and scattered it among the nations of Europe. He did more to weaken France than all that Richelieu and Mazarin had done to strengthen her and in this his folly is as conspicuous and as stupendous as his wickedness. It was not alone in France that the effect of the Revolution worked against those who had invoked it. “It was the treachery and cruelty of the Revocation that, above most things, aroused the Protestant spirit of Europe, and brought about that great Revolution which, three short years afterwards, placed William of Orange on the throne of Great Britain.” Ibid., 338.

The Prisons and the Galleys

The sincerity of the conversions of the “New Catholics” was seriously doubted by the Jesuits even though they loudly boasted publicly of their successes. So, new ordinances were enjoined requiring frequent examination of those who have adjured their Protestantism. There proved to be an insufficient number of priests to perform this task, so Capuchins were called upon to instruct the new converts. These men proved to be so ignorant that a mere youth could silence them. “To gorss ignorance they not infrequently added a debauched life, and in the case of Protestants of riper years, their approach awakened only disgust, and their teaching had no other effect on those to whom they were given, than to deepen their aversion to a Church which employed them a her ministers.” Ibid., 339

“When the first stunning shock of the edict had spent itself, there came a recoil. The more closely ‘the new converts’ viewed the Church into which they had been driven, the stronger became their dislike of it. Shame and remorse for their apostasy began to burn within them.” Ibid. They began to desire their old religion again and so they withdrew from the cities in numbers and began to seek the mountain wildernesses and forests that they might practice their worship in the caves and on the tops of mountains. “There they promised one another to live and die in the Reformed faith.” Ibid.

When the king and his counselors learned of this, they were enraged. ” ‘Afterwards,’ says Quick, ‘they fell upon the persons of the Protestants, and there was no wickedness, though ever so horrid, which they did not put in practice, that thy might enforce them to change their religion…In Paris there was a desire to conceal from Louis the formidable proportions of the actual horrors. But in other parts of France no check was put upon the murderous passions, and the brutal lusts, and the plundering greed of the soldiery.” Ibid., 340. The prisons were filled with those who tried to escape and when there was not room to contain them they were shipped to Canada. If they survived the horrors of the trip they were sold into a slavery so cruel that in most cases they soon perished. “Those who were thus dragged from the pleasant fields of France, and put under the lash of barbarous taskmasters in a foreign land, were not the refuse of French society; on the contrary, they were the flower of the nation.” Ibid., 341. Others were sent into the galleys to suffer indescribable tortures. Hundreds suffered this fate. “It was not till 1775, in the beginning of Louis XVI’s reign, that the galleys released their two last Protestant prisoners.” Ibid., 343.

The Church in the Desert

The hidden churches were ministered to by men who had not received their training in any school or college but who had the anointing of the Holy Spirit. “More arrests, more dragoons, more sentences to the galleys, more scaffolds; such were the means by which they sought to crush the ‘Church of the Desert.’ ” When companies were found they were slaughtered. Exact lists of the massacred in different places included encounters where 300-400 old men, women and children were left dead upon the spot. “But no violence could stop these field-preachings. They grew ever larger in numbers, and ever more frequent in time, till at last, we are assured, it was nothing uncommon, in traversing the mountain-side or forest where they had met, to find, at every four paces, dead bodies dotting the sward, and corpses hanging suspended from the trees.” Ibid., 345. Years of persecution could not extinguish them. They continued though in chains. “At last, amid the clouds of sevenfold blackness, and the thunderings and lightenings of a righteous wrath, came the great Revolution, which with one strike of awful justice rent the fetters of the French Protestants, and smote into the dust the throne which had so long oppressed them.” Ibid., 347.