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The World Class Straw Man, part 2

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In the previous issue, we drew attention to the astonishing distortion of Seventh-day Adventist history that is being attempted in the recent publication, The Nature of Christ, by Roy Adams, associate editor of the Review. In this volume, we who are trying to cling to the historic faith of our church in regard to the human nature of Christ and in regard to the doctrine of sanctification are charged with many faults. It is represented that we are neither following the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy nor yet the mainstream of historic Adventist theological opinion. It is alleged that we are rather following the individual and erroneous thinking of A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner, as amplified and promoted by M. L. Andreason.

In our last article, we presented part of the mass of historical evidence that negates this incredible fantasy and described it as a “world-class straw man.” We promised that in this article we would examine some of the bundles of straw that were used in the erection of the structure.

The Reviling Straw Bundle

Adams represents himself as attempting to write with no ill will toward those whom he accuses. Was this attempt successful? Let the reader decide. He applies the following terms to us, either directly or indirectly:

Sour, festering, self-appointed, infected with the virus of judgmentalism and suspicion, disease, martyr complex, seasoned controversialists, spirit of accusation, outraged, aghast, scandalized, pathetic, self-confessed expert, misguided, wrong-headed, steeped in their cherish position, impenetrable to any theological logic, irresponsible, almost dishonest, deluded self-appointed prophets, turn-coats, charlatans, and scoundrels.

He applies the following descriptive terms to our reasoning:

Mumblings, innuendoes, broken faith with the church, specious theology, perfectionistic agitation, petty, picayune, disgusting, speciousness, repetitive, exasperating, subtle spin, overblown, vacuousness, subtle legalism, anger, irritation, anger to new heights, radical articulation, fuss, ingenious theological gymnastics, willfulness, mischief, dishonesty, far-fetched explanations, artificial and contrived, totally fabricated, thoughtlessly, narrow, shallow, facile admonitions, simplistic pietism, shrill, provincial, manipulate, like Jim Jones and David Koresh, dogmatism, trap of perfectionistic legalism, frustration, heated, quoted piously, specious reasoning, vehement, inordinate insistence, maliciously accusing, sharpened tongues, navel-gazing, and self-flagellation.

Can you feel the warm Christian love in this language? For some reason, I cannot. But should this surprise us? By no means. We have been forewarned:

“Men of talent and pleasing address, who once rejoiced in the truth, employ their powers to deceive and mislead souls. They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren. When Sabbath-keepers are brought before courts to answer for their faith, these apostates are the most efficient agents of Satan to misrepresent and accuse them, and by false reports and insinuations to stir up the rulers against them.” The Great Controversy, 608.

We are not yet seeing the entire fulfillment of this prediction, but it is certainly coming into view, both in Adam’s book and in the tragic Issues book, which he applauds. This is a foretaste of what we must be prepared to endure in the last days.

We are reminded of Christ’s warning against reviling others, in Matthew 5:22, and of His own example in refusing to bring a railing accusation against Satan himself (Jude 9). We remember also that Adams repeatedly refers to Andreason and the Historic Adventists of our time as persons who are intensely angry. We ask, where in our writings can there be found language that can be remotely compared to the venom of Adams’ irritation?

And why? What is our crime? Simply that we wish to cling to the purity of our historic faith. For this we must needs be buried under an avalanche of personal abuse and false accusation, which reaches its climax on page 106 of Adams’ book:

“Human society cannot move forward unless people are prepared to leave the past behind. Wherever a people or a society finds this impossible, there is bloodshed and backwardness. Look at the Middle East today. Look at Northern Ireland. Look at Yugoslavia. Look at Sudan. Yet this is what people like Wieland and Short wish on us.”

The sheer enormity of this viciously false accusation makes comment unnecessary, but it may be taken as a sampling of what we can expect from false brethren in the future. We note, in passing, the great difference between Adams’ thinking about the past and the thinking of Ellen White when she wrote: “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.” Selected Messages, Book 3, 162.

The Casuistry Straw Bundle

The word casuistry may be simply defined as subtle and evasive reasoning, deception by degrees. It is a technique that is used to avoid the resistance that might be aroused by more bold and direct deception. In his attempt to make it appear that M. L. Andreason was a disciple of Jones and Waggoner, Adams encounters a problem. The writings of Andreason do not support such a theory. Adams inadvertently reveals this in the following ingenious statement:

“Why M. L. Andreason did not more openly flaunt his connection with these two luminaries is not quite clear to me.” (Translation: Adams found no support for his theory in Andreason’s writings.)

But the lack of evidence did not deter him. He continued to enlarge on his theory by alleging that there is a fundamental theological similarity between the position of Jones and Waggoner regarding sanctification and the position of Andreason. What he does not tell his readers is that there is a much stronger similarity between Andreason’s views and those of Ellen White, as well as other church leaders.

Adams next endeavors to show that Andreason got his concept of the “final generation” who will stand without a Mediator in the last days, not from Ellen White, who originated the idea, but from some unidentified persons who, after World War I, were speculating bout the nearness of Christ’s return. The result is a classic demonstration of casuistry, making it appear that evidence exists where in fact it does not exist. Notice the carefully leading and manipulative statement on page 39:

(Andreason) “did not participate in these deceptions”

“He despised the fantastic speculations”

“Their manifest failure must have impressed him”

“leading him to articulate a theological reason for their delay”

“Andreason’s theology developed against the background of those controversies and was shaped by them.” [All emphasis supplied.]

This is an insult to the reader’s intelligence. It could be argued with equal logic that Adams’ theology was shaped by the thinking of Wieland and Short. Adams would undoubtedly pronounce that kind of reasoning utterly nonsensical—and so do we. And are we to suppose that Andreason had never read Ellen White’s description of that “final generation” in her well known The Great Controversy, 613–634; in Patriarchs and Prophets, 195–203; and in Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, 467–476? This would be rather peculiar in view of Adams’ own characterization of Andreason as a “self-confessed expert” on the writings of Ellen White.

Continuing his attempt to separate Andreason from the Spirit of Prophecy, Adams alleges that on the matter of character perfection, Andreason “followed in Ballenger’s footsteps.” He thus attempts to discredit Andreason by linking him with a man who later apostatized. We who knew Andreason would consider it preposterous to describe him as following in any man’s footsteps. But in any case, Ellen White’s views on this point, written and published at least 4500 times, were essentially the same as Ballenger’s before his apostasy, as well as Andreason’s and the other leaders of the church. Then to paint us with the same brush, Adams adds that the views of the Historical Adventists of our time on this subject are “virtually identical to that held by Andreason and Ballenger.” This has all the logical strength of an argument that because Ballenger believed in God and in the Second Coming of Christ, we who now believe those doctrines are followers of Ballenger.

Having used this casuistry to condition his reader’s minds, Adams then proceeds to openly picture Andreason as dishonest. (Pages 52, 53.) I had heard Adams make this charge against Andreason in a public meeting and wondered what could be its basis, since I had known Andreason as a man of sterling character and strict integrity. I am astonished at Adams’ “evidence.” It consists of nothing more than Andreason’s understanding of Ellen White’s use of the word passions, and is presented as if she only used the word in one way. In our The Word Was Made Flesh, we provide a seven-page word study of Ellen White’s uses of the terms “passions” and “propensities” (which Adams dismisses with a sneer.)

The evidence makes it clear that Ellen White did not always use these terms in the same sense or with the same identical meaning. Consider:

“He had all the strength of passion of humanity.” In Heavenly Places, 155.

“. . . not possessing the passions of our human, fallen nature.” Testimonies, vol. 2, 509.

This is in accordance with her own recognition that:

“Different meanings are expressed y the same word. There is not one word for each distinct idea.” Selected Messages, Book 1, 20.

In our word study, we record 28 uses of the word passions by Ellen White and draw conclusions that are in harmony with the evidence. We will refer the reader to The Word Was Made Flesh for details, but will here simply state that we regard Adams’ accusation against Andreason as grossly unfair, far beyond the boundaries of responsible scholarship, and altogether unchristian. I find it mind-boggling that Adams, who professes to have suffered great personal distress over Andreason’s alleged dishonesty, applauds the Issues book with its manifold misrepresentations.

Continuing in this unpraiseworthy work, Adams paints Andreason as a “self-confessed expert” on Ellen White’s writings (page 52) and tells us that Andreason “claims to be an authority on her writings.” (Page 67.) Such braggadocio would be impossible to harmonize with the modest and unpretentious character of Andreason, as we knew him. We therefore, sought for the basis of these accusations and were amazed to find that it was nothing more than this line from a letter Andreason had written to Elder Figuhr:

“In my more than sixty years of official connection with the denomination, one of my chief aims has been to inspire confidence in the Spirit of Prophecy. The last two hears I have spoken on the subject 204 times.” (Page 52.)

What kind of a mentality would construe this earnest and innocent statement to be boastful self-exaltation? And what kind of a mentality would refer to Andreason’s legitimate concerns about the discussions between Walter Martin and some of our leaders like this:

“Almost certainly one reason for Andreason’s reaction was that he had not been consulted.” Page 45.

To complete his hatchet job on the character of a great and good man, Adams purports to have found a deathbed confession of wrongdoing by Andreason. The document, however, is undated and unsigned. No committee of scholars and no court of law would tolerate it as evidence for a single moment. But it was apparently good enough for Adams’ work of character assassination.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” Isaiah 5:20.

The Sneer Straw Bundle

Since reference has been made to our 365 page research report, The Word Was Made Flesh, we will here mention our mystification at Adams’ failure to deal with the evidence there presented. We found and recorded 1200 statements published by our church leaders during the one hundred years 1852–1952 that Christ came to this earth in the human nature of fallen man. Four hundred of them were from the inspired pen of Ellen White. This is manifestly the evidence that Adams has to overthrow in order to maintain his position. But instead of addressing this material as a scholar should, he by-passed it and selected a modest thirty page tract by Joe Crews as his target.

How does he deal with the mass of evidence presented in The Word Was Made Flesh? Only by sneers. Here are the nine sneers that he directs at our fully and carefully documented research:

  • “. . . startling allegation . . . patently unfounded.” Page 20.

 

  • “. . . claims on its title page . . .” page 21

 

  • “. . . counters again and again. . .” page 22

 

  • “. . . assumption. . .” page 26

 

  • “. . . ingenious theological gymnastics. . .” page 53

 

  • “. . . labored, forced, and unconvincing. . .” page 69

 

  • “. . . gone to great lengths. . .” page 72

 

  • “. . . far-fetched . . . ingenious . . . totally fabricated. . .” page 72

 

Not a shred of evidence is offered in support of any of these sneers. May we respectfully suggest that it will take more than sneers to overthrow the 1200 statements that are brought together in our research report?

The Breathtaking Straw Bundle

We come now to the two most astounding propositions that Adams puts forth in his rewriting our history. They are so bold and brazen as to be utterly breath taking. In the first, he soberly assures us that the Christological problem that we have been grappling with since 1957 is actually imaginary. Here are his words:

 

  • “I don’t run into many Adventists defending a prelapsarian position.

 

  • “And in all the samplings I’ve done in preparation for this book, I’ve not seen a single instance in which one of our concerned or disaffected brethren has managed to produce a direct prelapsarian statement from a contemporary Adventist author.” Page 27.

 

  • May we respectfully recommend the following sources:

 

  • Ministry, September, 1956

 

  • Questions on Doctrine, page 650

 

  • Movement of Destiny, L. E. Froom, page 497

 

  • Christ Our Substitute, Norman Gulley

 

  • The Man Who is God, Edward Heppenstall

 

  • Perfect in Christ, Helmut Ott

 

We find it difficult to understand why Adams, with his position of advantage at the heart of our work, would have trouble laying his hand on any of these sources, not to mention materials published in the Review. But if that proposition is astonishing, the next is stunning:

“We believe—and have always believed—that Christ did take upon Himself the form and nature of fallen human beings.” Page 27.

When you have recovered your breath, you may have some questions. Why, then, was Andreason so bitterly denounced and so ruthlessly dealt with? Why was the opposite view affirmed in Questions on Doctrine? Why is this not being taught at our seminary and in our colleges? Why is it so difficult to find a pastor who believes it? And why does Adams’ own book vilify those who believe it?

Here is a suggestion. Show that statement to your pastor, your conference president, or your college Bible teacher. Watch his reaction, and draw your own conclusions. Someone is wildly out of touch with reality. In our final article, we will examine some specific differences between Adams and the Spirit of Prophecy. Meanwhile, let us remember the words of James Russell Lowell:

“Though the cause of evil prosper, yet ‘tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.”

The Gun Powder Plot And The Vatican

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The destruction of the Armada drew England together. The nation seemed to realize that if it did not draw together in the work of the Reformation, all of the various factions would fall prey to a common enemy. The years that followed were years of prosperity and added to the glory of England. Unfortunately, however, Elizabeth appreciated the Reformation less for the freedom it gave to the conscience than for freeing her throne. One of her chief aims was to reconcile the English Catholics leading her to dread the complete separation of the Church of England from Rome. She loved splendor in worship and finding the Puritans to be an intolerable nuisance, exercised great intolerance toward them.

Elizabeth has been called great, but her greatness lay largely in the greatness of those she surrounded herself with. The Reformation had set England on the road to greatness; and as the head of state, Elizabeth was lifted up along with it.

Elizabeth died in March of 1603. When it became apparent that she would soon breathe her last, the Catholic interests took steps to see that none would take her place who were not deeply attached to Roman Catholicism. James VI, the king of Scotland, whose Protestantism was open to question, was anxious to obtain the throne. He received warnings from Elizabeth and her counselors that unless his Protestant interests were above suspicion, he would never be accepted by England. In 1600 he gave strong assurances that he would maintain the profession of the gospel. This strong assurance doubtless quieted the fears of the English statesmen; but at the same time, it awakened the fears of the Roman Catholics.

The conspirators who had seen their hopes dashed by such a strong statement, appealed to Pope Clement VIII to use his influence to bar Jame’s ascent to the throne. Clement was not hard to be persuaded in the matter and sent two bulls—one addressed to the Roman clergy, the other to the nobility and laity. Both bulls were of similar tenor and urged that no one should be allowed to ascend the throne who had not only sworn to tolerate the Roman Catholic faith but who would, to the utmost of his power, uphold and advance it.

When Elizabeth died, the Catholic faction immediately dispatched a messenger to the court of Spain, seeking Philip’s interposition on their behalf. The memory of the Armada was still fresh in Philip’s mind. The loss that he had sustained, as well as the blow that the national spirit had received, was too great to allow him to do anything but wish them well.

“The Order of Jesus is never more formidable than when it appears to be least so. It is when the Jesuits are stripped of all external means of doing harm that They devise the vastest schemes, and execute them with the most daring courage….The Jesuits in England now began to meditate a great blow. They had delivered an astounding stroke at sea but a few years before; they would signalize the present emergency by a nearly as astounding stroke on land. They would prepare an Armada in the heart of the kingdom, which would have inflicted had not the ‘winds become Lutheran,’ as Medina Sidonia said with an oath, and in their sectarian fury sent his ships to the bottom.” J.A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, vol. 3, 527

Catesby, a gentleman of an ancient family, proposed in one sweeping blow to destroy the king and Parliament. In short, he proposed to blow up the House of Parliament with the gunpowder when the king and the Estates of the Realm were all assembled. The plot was entrusted to about twenty persons. They were able to hire a coal-cellar under the Parliament building in which they placed thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. Over these they placed stones and iron bars.

In order to more deeply conceal their real feelings of the conspirators, there was a petition that was published in which they begged the king’s toleration, professing great fidelity and unfeigned love for his Majesty and attesting to their loyal behavior. Shortly before the time for the plot to be executed, Guy Fawkes, one of the ringleaders in the plot, was sent to Rome with a letter to Clement requesting an order from his Holiness, or else the head of the Jesuits, ordering a cessation of all disturbances among the Catholics of England. The Protestants were deceived by these pretensions, not realizing that the very men who were loudest in their protestations of loyalty and brotherly concern were all the while storing gunpowder under the House of lords, counting the hours until they could wreck ruin on England.

All that prevented the horrible crime from being executed was the failure on the part of one of the conspirators. Losing heart, one of the men involved wrote a letter to Lord Monteagle. A search was made and the plot was discovered.

Instead of learning from these events, James later sent the Earl of Bristol to Spain to negotiate the marriage of his son Prince Charles to the daughter of Philip. Though it eventually came to nothing, he gave fresh life to Romanism and laid the foundation for the miseries which would later overtake his house and England. Believing that the religion of his subjects was a weakness rather than the strength of his throne, he labored to destroy it; and in so doing, he alienated the nation.

James VI sank to his grave in 1625 and Charles I replaced him as reigning monarch of England. The year of James’ death was rendered memorable by the birth of a spiritual revival in Scotland. Even men of the world were impressed by the evidence of the working of a supernatural influence. The moral character of whole towns, villages, and parishes was suddenly changed.

The first error of Charles was his marriage to the French princess, a member of the Roman Catholic faith. His second was his dismissal of Parliament because they refused to vote him a supply of money until they had been given a redress of grievances. His second parliament was dismissed for the same reason. Then deciding that he could do as well without a parliament, Charles ruled by prerogative alone. Under this arrangement he could tax his subjects whenever and to whatever extent that he chose. Many unjust and severe taxes were levied.

History confirms that civil tyranny cannot maintain itself along side of religious liberty. Whenever it is confronted by liberty of conscience, it must either extinguish that freedom or suffer itself to be extinguished by it. So was the case in the days of Charles.

The bishop who was over the diocese of London, Bishop Laud, was a man of remarkable character. Becoming one of Charles’s leading counselors, Laud bent his whole energies to molding the religion of England in the direction of the Roman Church. Candlesticks, tapers, and crucifixes began to appear in the churches. Those clergymen who questioned his policies were subject to fines and imprisonment. He made use of forms of prayer that were taken directly from the Mass Book. In his diary, Laud reveals that the pope twice made him the offer of a red hat.

Alarm and discontent, along with the smoldering spirit of insurrection, pervaded all of England. Superstitious rites replaced the pure scriptural forms of the Reformation, and civil and ecclesiastical tyranny were the rule of the land; but before it resulted in open rebellion, events in Scotland took such a turn as to bring deliverance to both Scotland and England.

The Scottish bishops, in a letter to Laud, expressed their desire to maintain a nearer conformity with the Church of England, confirming that this was also the wish of the people. With Charles, however, the wishes of the people mattered nothing. Rather than condescend to the wishes of the Scottish church, Laud imposed upon them the Liturgy, which upon examination was found to be alarmingly popish in nature. The 23rd of July, 1637, was fixed as the day on which the new services were to be implemented.

On that Sunday morning, the reader appeared in the desk of St. Giles’ and went over the usual prayers. Having ended, with tears in his eyes he turned to bid the people good-by, informing them that this was likely the last time he would ever read prayers in the church. At the stated hour, he was followed by the Dean of Edinburgh who appeared to institute the new services. As the dean, Liturgy in hand, worked his way to the desk, the scene became more animated. Scarcely had he begun to read when his composure was shaken by the whiz of a missile passing dangerously close to his ear. Tradition tells us that Jane Geddes, who kept a stall on the High Street, finding nothing more convenient, flung her stool at the dean, with the rebuke, “Villian, dost thou say mass at my lug?” Ibid., 542. The dean hastily shut the obnoxious book and fled with all speed. Thinking that perhaps his greater dignity would effect to gain the reverence of the people, the Bishop of Edinburgh ascended to the desk. His appearance, however, was the signal for a renewed tempest which was more fierce than the first. He managed to escape, the magistrates escorting him home to protect him from the fury of the mob.

If the hatred of the Scottish people had been limited to the unpremeditated outbreaks of the lower classes, the king would have triumphed in the end; but along with these surface demonstrations, there was the strong determined resistance that pervaded all ranks of society. The Privy Council of Scotland, sensing the firm attitude of the nation, sent a representation to the king stating the true feelings of the people. Charles insolently responded by issuing another proclamation, insisting that the Liturgy be used and branding with treason any who opposed it. This expression of tyranny was sufficient to thoroughly arouse the slumbering spirit of the Scots and served to unite them in their opposition.

In the opinion of Charles, nothing remained for him to do but to resort to force. In April 1640, the king summoned Parliament to vote him supplies for a war with the Scots, but they refused to do so. The king then turned to the clergy to raise the necessary funds. The queen addressed a letter to the Roman Catholics who, far from being indifferent spectators, raised a considerable amount of money. As a result, Charles raised an army and marched to the Scottish border.

The Scots were not unaware of what was taking place and had prepared to meet the invasion. Thirty thousand able-bodied men answered the call to service for their country. Hardly had their preparations been completed when the announcement was made that the English forces were approaching.

The Scots were overall victorious as they represented the flower of Scotland, whereas the English soldiers had little heart for fighting. Negotiations were soon opened and a treaty of peace was concluded. Though the terms were vague, the Scots still had a great deal of loyalty to their king and willingly agreed to terms that would never have been acceptable with a foreign enemy. This devotion was repaid by Charles’ perfidy, and the next year he again prepared to invade Scotland. Not waiting for the English armies to reach their boarders, the Scots entered England and completely discomfited the king’s forces at Newburn, almost without striking a blow. With his army dispirited and his nobles lukewarm, the king was forced to again open negotiations with the Scots.

In November, 1640, Parliament met at Westminster. This parliament, known as the Long Parliament, boldly discussed the grievances under which the nation groaned. The king’s two favorites, Strafford and Laud, were impeached and brought to the block. Other reforms were instituted, and many of the effects of the recent years of despotism were swept away by the spirit of reform. It seemed for a time that even the king was converted to the changes. The dark clouds of war seemed to be diminishing; and the king, who had betrayed the faith of his subjects a score of times, was almost trusted by a rejoicing nation.

At this critical moment, terrible tidings arrived from Ireland. A slaughter of Protestants by the Roman Catholics began on October 23, 1641, that rivaled that of the slaughter of St. Bartholomew in France. The butcheries were similar to those imposed on the Waldenses, and the estimates of the total number killed ranged from the low of 50,000 upwards to 300,000. The northern parts of Ireland were nearly depopulated. The persons involved in this atrocity pleaded the king’’ authority and produced Charles’s commission with is broad seal attached to it, reviving the former suspicions of the king’s sincerity and hurrying the king and the nation to a terrible catastrophe.

After the breakdown of a series of exchanges between the king and Parliament, Charles marched to Nottingham where he set up his standard on August 22, 1642.
The first battle between the forces loyal to the king and those recruited by Parliament was at Edgehill, Warwickshire. Both sides claimed the victory over the hard-contested field. From there the tide of battle shifted from one side to the other with the Royalists initially holding the upper hand. The Royalists had the superiority of arms and their soldiers were well discipline, led by commanders who had learned the art of war on the battlefields of the Continent. In contrast, the armies of Parliament were new recruits. As time passed, however, and the new recruits gained skill and experience, the fortunes of war began to shift. Brave from principle and with the consciousness of a noble cause, the army of Parliament was inspired with ardor and courage. The longer the war lasted, the greater became the disparity between the two opposing armies. Finally, on July 1, 1644, at Marston Moor, the virtual fate of the war was decided. From this day on, the king’s fortunes steadily declined.

When the king eventually became a prisoner, England came under a dual directorate, one half of which was a body of debating civilians and the other a conquering army. Parliament soon lost control of the situation and ceased to be master of itself. Cromwell, the virtual head of the army, put himself at the head of affairs and brought the debating to an end. Colonel Joyce was sent to Holmby House, where Charles was confined, and showed such good authority—namely and armed force—that Charles was immediately turned over to him. Colonel Pride was next sent to the House of Commons; and taking his stand at the door with a regiment of soldiers, he admitted only those who could be relied upon. The number to which Parliament was reduced to by this action was no more than fifty or sixty members. This body, known as the Rump Parliament, drew up papers accusing Charles Stuart of high treason. Brought before this tribunal, Charles declined to accept its jurisdiction and was quickly condemned as a traitor and sentenced to be beheaded.

The scaffold was erected before Whitehall on January 30, 1649. An immense crowd filled the street, along which shotted cannon were turned assuring that no tumult would interrupt the unfolding events. A scaffold receiving their sovereign’s blood was a spectacle that England had never before witnessed, and it was a drama they could scarcely believe would go to its end. At the appointed hour, the king stepped to the scaffold, bearing himself with dignity.

For thirty years the popish powers had attempted to overthrow the Protestant movement. Massacres and devastation had overtaken the cities and villages of Bohemia and Hungary. These nations, Protestant when the war began, were forced back and trodden into popish superstition and then into slavery by its end. This period, known as the Thirty Years’ War, continued to sweep over the forces of the Protestant kingdoms of Germany until Gustavaeus Adolphus of Sweden had rolled it back. After his death, Romanism seemed to gain a fresh force; but by this time, England and Scotland had become even more important theaters than Germany was. Knowing that without the overthrow of Protestantism in these two countries their triumphs in other parts of Europe would by to no avail, the Jesuits with their intrigue, sought to corrupt Great Britain and thereby recover both England and Scotland. Their design seemed to be on the very threshold of success when it all ended at the scaffold at Whitehall.

“So sudden a collapse had overtaken the schemings and plotting of thirty years! The sky of Europe changed in almost a single day; and the great wave of popish reaction which had rolled over all Germany, and dashed itself against the shores of Britain, threatening at one time to submerge all the Protestant States of Christendom, felt the check of an unseen Hand, and subsided and retired at the scaffold of Charles I.” Ibid., 556
In the overthrow of the popish plans, Protestantism ascended to a higher platform than it had ever before attained.

The fall of the monarchy in England was soon followed by a military dictatorship, headed by Oliver Cromwell. If Cromwell was a tyrant, he was so in a very different way than Charles had been. Under his government, England suddenly broke forth from a position of weakness to one of great prestige. She again became a force to be reckoned with in Christendom. The massacres were brought to an end in the Waldensian valleys, and even the pope trembled in the Vatican when Oliver threatened to make his fleet visit the Eternal City. For the remainder of his rule, as Lord Protector, until his death in 1658, the people of England experienced the spirit of liberty; and her people could breathe more freely.

The End

Eradication of Liberty

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“Romanism as a system is no more in harmony with the gospel of Christ now than at any former period in her history. The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done. Catholicism is gaining ground upon every side.” The Great Controversy, 565, 566

Rome has a great history behind her of 1,500 years of exercising supremacy and control over the nations of the world. At this moment, she is moving in Eastern Europe, in Russia, and in Mexico. She is moving in the United States. In one month, our President goes to meet with the pope at the Vatican. This President is Jesuit-trained; and from all indications, he is forming his policy, at home and abroad, in accordance with the general features of liberal Jesuitism that have developed since Vatican II. Rome is moving very swiftly. Through His inspired Word, Christ enables us to cut through the propaganda of the media of our day to get to the bottom of what is happening.

A Roman Catholic conservative author has written that the United States Civil War was a religious war. In her astounding book, The Star Spangled Heresy, Americanism, 110, Solange Hertz writes, “One aspect of the Civil War which has been studiously ignored by establishment historians is its character as a war of religion. Protestants found themselves pitted against Catholics and Anglo-Catholics in a death struggle over two incompatible ways of life.” There is no getting around the fact that the only foreign power to recognize the Confederacy and receive its envoys was the Vatican from whose vantage point in the already-threatened papal states the issues could be distinguished with excessive clarity. When the U.S. authorities remonstrated with the Vatican, Secretary of State Cardinal Antonelli, for providing asylum to Confederates, according to an official report, the Cardinal replied that he intended to take such rebels under his special protection. Mary Surratt’s son, John, sought for complicity in Lincoln’s assassination, was even admitted into the papal states.

A physician friend recently sent me a most significant document. It is an article entitled The Vatican and Russia, by Deacon Herman Ivanov Treenadzaty, of the St. Nicholas Parish in Lyon, France. It opens to us a field of view of Rome’s activity with reference to Russia for hundreds of years. You see, ever since the split with Eastern Orthodoxy in A.D. 1054, Rome has been the implacable enemy of Greek and Russian Orthodoxy. This man, obviously a Russian Orthodox cleric living in Lyon, France, delivered the lecture in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, at the 24th Russian Youth Congress in the Jubilee Year of the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus’. He states, “It appears to us that Roman Catholicism is a great danger, threatening both present and future Russia; more dangerous than communism which is already on the decline.” And I would submit that it would not be so much on the decline as might be thought. It is assuming a new form because Rome has, in its encyclical, indicated that she is not in favor of the Stalinistic type of communistic or the laissez faire capitalism, but wants a middle path between the two. Quoting from Dostoyevesky, a Russian writer. He states that, “Roman Catholicism is more dangerous than atheism since it presents to us a profane and desecrated Christ, usurping the earthly throne. The pope took the sword and added lies, intrigue, deception, fanaticism and villiany.” Ivanov then comments that Catholicism is dangerous precisely because it offers a counterfeit Christ.

Ivanov reviewed hundreds of years of Russian history with reference to all of the political, psychological, and diplomatic efforts that the Vatican has made to try to overthrow Orthodoxy in Russia, showing how the Vatican has tried to rewrite the history of the introduction of Christianity to Russia. He reveals how propaganda was introduced through the media in Russia to try to destabilize the situation and pave the way for the Vatican to increase its power there. And even this current pope, today, is part of this picture, he points out. Soon after the overthrow of the czar Nicholas II in 1917, the Fatima visions which have indicated that if certain conditions were fulfilled, Russia would be converted to the papacy. It is now believed that those conditions have been met and that Perestroika is the conversion of Russia to the papacy.

All this sheds light on the gigantic struggle between Orthodoxy and the papacy. It reveals that though historians believed that the Crimean War was largely a human, political, and inter-governmental war, the archbishop of Paris, at the start of the Crimean War, declared that “it is a sacred deed, a God-pleasing deed, to ward off the Orthodox heresy, subjugate, and destroy it with a new crusade. This is the clear goal of today’s crusade. Such was the goal of all the crusades, even if all their participants were not fully aware of it. The war which France is now preparing to wage against Russia is not a political war, but a holy war. It is not a war between two governments or between two peoples, but it is precisely a religious war and other reasons presented are only pretext.” And then he comments that the case could not be more clearly stated.

He pointed out that the Vatican found the destruction of the czar, who had been the protector of Orthodoxy, and the Bolshevik Revolution a great opportunity to gain control in Russia and how disappointed they were when things did not work out the way that they had expected. And yet, they felt that somehow communism could alter the whole picture in Russia so that ultimately the Vatican could move in and take advantage of the devastation wrought by communism.

Why is this so significant? Well, by the early 1980s, more than half of the Orthodox priests in Eastern Europe were prepared to accept the primacy of the pope; and Rome realized that the time had come to strike. Using the solidarity Labor Union, which had been largely developed and fostered by the papacy, she began a chain of evolution in Eastern Europe that toppled one government after another with breath-taking speed.

Rome wants to radicalize nations, to drive them into left wing and right wing, and then, out of the insecurity that develops because of the contending factions, she feels that she can take advantage of the situation to impose a new order. This is exactly what took place in pre-war Germany. The communists were fighting the Free Corps which ultimately became the Nazi Wehrmacht. Both national socialism in Germany and international socialism in Russia had the same common basis. Friederick A. Hayek, an Austrian-born author who was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974, has written several volumes exposing how the very principles that led to Nazism’s triumph in Germany and Stalinist communism’s triumph in Germany and Stalinist communism’s triumph in Russia are at work in the Western countries through socialism. We are now, in our nation, going into an enormous plunge of socialism based upon the thinking that has been developed in the Institute of Policy Studies. The social security card which was to be kept inviolately secret when it was introduced, never to be known publicly, has now essentially become our national ID card. Now, when through a health care program you have to fill out forms in order to get any medical assistance, delineating every aspect of your life, and the government can begin to control people from birth to death, all your privacy is gone.

The Russian constitution, under the USSR, made provision for religious liberty; but it also stated that if the security of the state was at risk, then those liberties could be suspended in the name of protecting the state. The very same thing happened in World War II in America when tens of thousands of Japanese were interned under the Preamble of the Constitution that it was for the common good. Socialism has, at its basis, the basic Jesuit principle that the end justifies the means.

The European Community is headed by Jacques Delors who is a devout Roman Catholic. When he took control about ten or eleven years ago, he took the European Community from a state of shambles and made it into a very dynamic force. Now we have the North American Free Trade Agreement which is similar in nature.

We have had in our country, for decades now, the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. This organization is now exerting enormous influence in this country. In his book, Secret, F. Stephen Powell documents how the Institute for Policy Studies, started by a communist a number of decades ago, has now found hundreds of front organizations for influencing American policy. It reveals that some of the top advisors to Bill and Hillary Clinton are some of the chief figures in this organization which has worked closely with the KGB for years.

Speaking of the treaty-making power of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I say the same as to the opinions of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution.” On April 11, 1952, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said, “Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Constitution, treaties become the supreme law of the land. Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example can cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.” What better way to repudiate the Constitution than to bring in a whole new framework of law. How acquainted are you with the North American Free Trade Agreement? It was written in such ambiguous language that there is a ninety-man commission that will be required to interpret it. Does that sound familiar?

Do you remember what happened to the Bohemians? When Rome wanted to subjugate Bohemia, she brought against them the greatest forces in Europe. She marshaled all of the nations of Europe, virtually, against little Bohemia. She gave the promises of paradise to thieves and murderers and brigands if they would only join and fight against Bohemia and subjugate it for the papacy. But as long as the Bohemians were faithful to the Lord, they could not be overcome, even by the most mighty armies. But there came a day when Bohemia decided to enter into a treaty with Rome. Rome granted all kinds of liberties, but they reserved the right to interpret this treaty. Bohemia was thrown into civil war, and it was a great catastrophe.

Now think of a ninety-man commission, with thirty from Mexico, thirty from Canada, and thirty from the United States. What is the religion of Mexico? There is a large portion of Canada which is French Canadian, which is what religion? Much of the rest of Canada is Anglican which is a step-sister; in fact, Solange Hertz calls them Anglo-Catholics. And then there is the United States. What is the premier school that produces foreign service personnel, the excerpts on international law? Georgetown University, the premier Jesuit university form which Bill Clinton graduated. The administration has chosen to keep secret the names of the people who will be on the commission from United States. They were going to release, them, but then they decided to keep them secret.

Meanwhile, from the Washington Post, Sunday, April 17, 1994, I read, “Clinton Policy Allows Public Housing To Be Searched Without a Warrant.” As you know, this has becoming a growing issue. “The Clinton administration yesterday introduced a new policy to permit police without warrants to raid and search apartments in gang-ridden public housing, but said the plan will not violate the constitutional rights of tenants.”

Harry Martin, editor of the Napa Sentinal, who has been editor and involved in at least six different defense intelligence magazines, has released the contents of a secret memo from the White House regarding the plans of the Administration to completely exterminate private weapons ownership and even camouflage clothing, ultimately, or anything having to do with anything that will enable the citizenry to resist a tyrannical government. This is the very reason, according to our founding fathers, why the Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.

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John F. Kennedy conceived of the plan for all of the armies of the world’s nations to be downscaled gradually, while an international force, such as the UN, would be continually building up and increasing in power. Now, as our nation’s military is scaled back, there are reports of foreign vehicles, foreign military aircraft, and other troops pouring in.

At the same time, we see the UN decide to invade Somolia without being asked to come, setting a precedent for UN intervention. We see environmental laws blanketing the globe and a call for an environmental police force to enforce this internationally.

We know, according to Revelation 17, that ultimately there will be a grand unity of the nations. “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.” Revelation 17:12-14

Commenting on this passage, the Spirit of Prophecy tells us, that, “‘These have one mind.’ There will be a universal bond of union, one great harmony, a confederacy of Satan’s forces. ‘And shall give their power and strength unto the beast.’ Thus is manifested the same arbitrary, oppressive power against religious liberty, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, as was manifested by the papacy, when in the past it persecuted those who dared to refuse to conform with the religious rites and ceremonies of Romanism. In the warfare to be waged in the last days there will be united, in opposition to God’s people, all the corrupt powers that have apostatized from allegiance to the law of Jehovah.” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 983

The law of Jehovah is the foundational question. The law of God is the expression of His character. It is the foundation of His government, and rebellion against His law is rebellion against God. “In this warfare the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will be the great point at issue; for in the Sabbath commandment the great Lawgiver identifies Himself as the Creator of the heavens and the earth.” Ibid., So we have been warned that there is going to be a grand confederacy at the end of time. There will be a grand union, a grand harmony of all of the forces opposed to God’s law; and it will ultimately come down to the testing of spiritual loyalty to God and to His law or else unity with these forces that have confederated themselves against the government of God.

“Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, the excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah.” Psalm 47:1-4. He is awesome in His power. His glory, and His majesty. He will arise one day and vindicate the honor of His law which has been violated by puny man. These little specks of dust down here think to enter into rebellion against the great King of the universe.

God calls upon us to have spiritual loyalty in these last days, to know our King, and to act upon His principles. For the gospel of Jesus Christ provides a solution for every human contingency that we may be called upon to face in these last days so that we may emerge as overcomers—more than overcomers—triumphant in Christ.

The End

Good Men Good Church

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“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Revelation 3:14-17 (KJV)

How could a people or a church ever become so blind that they are actually naked and think they are clothed? It is because they have learned to depend upon their own works and their own righteousness rather than the righteousness of Christ. And, though they think they are clothed, their own righteousness cannot clothe them.

It is a situation similar to the one Jesus spoke of in Luke 18:10-14. “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector [or publican]. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’” Today, Pharisees are looked down upon; but back in Jesus’ day, they were respected. Publicans, on the other hand, were the worst of people in the eyes of the Jews. They did not respect God’s church, and the Jews considered them to be collaborating with the Romans. Yet Jesus said, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I have often studied with sadness the history of Saul. Here was a man who was chosen and ordained of God. He knew that he had been ordained by God to lead his church. When he went out to fight God’s battles, God fought for him. But when God told him to destroy the Amalekites, he failed to do as he was told. He reasoned, “Let’s take these animals and show our appreciation and gratitude for God. Instead of just killing them and wasting them, we will sacrifice them to God.” Look, however at God’s assessment of what had taken place. “So Samuel said, ‘when you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the LORD anoint you king over Israel? Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the LORD? And Saul said to Samuel, ‘But I obeyed the voice of the LORD, and gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.’ So Samuel said: ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubborness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king.’” 1 Samuel 15:17-23

Saul thought he was so good, but he was blind. He thought he was clothed with righteousness, but he was absolutely naked. It says in verse 23, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king.” It is a solemn reality that whom God ordains for service, He can remove; and what He has ordained for service He can also remove. God ordained the children of Israel to be His people. Of them, He said, “Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (The LORD of hosts is His name): if those ordinances depart from before ME, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Jeremiah 31:35, 36. Even if the sun, moon, and stars should be removed, Israel would not be removed from being His people.

The children of Israel reasoned in Jesus’ day, “We are God’s people’ nothing can change that. The tide is still coming in; there are still the sun, moon, and stars.” But somehow they forgot that what God establishes, He can also remove. Though God had established Saul, he also removed Him. As with Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, though God appointed them, He also removed them. Thus it was with the leadership in Jesus’ day, and thus it is today. When men begin to think that they are good because of position or works, they are absolutely blind. There is not a position or work in which we can engage that can make any one of us good. If there is any goodness in it, it is the goodness of Jesus that comes by faith in Him. But men have come to the place where they believe that they can break the Sabbath and be held guiltless. They believe that they can lie and bear false charges as the scribes and Pharisees did against Jesus in His day in order to preserve the system because it is for a good purpose, and somehow still be guiltless.

Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were in the holy service of God. They had come out of Egypt and gone through the Red Sea; they had eaten manna and drunk the water from the rock. More than that, some of these leaders, possibly even Korah, Dathan, and Abiram themselves, had gone up on Mt. Sinai with Moses. God chose them, through Moses, to be representatives for Him. Moses, on the other hand, was not a representative of leadership; he was a prophet. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, since they were elected and had all of the evidence of God’s leading, came to the place where they became good in their own eyes. They thought that they were “rich and had need of nothing and knew not that they were miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” They came to the place where they thought that they could do things that God had never given them permission to do.

In A.D. 364, the Council of Nicea declared that the sanctity of the Sabbath had been changed from the seventh day to the first day of the week. They did not do this by God’s authority but by church authority and church decree. They did so because they were leaders of God’s church.

It has interested me how people study the Bible and seem to twist everything to their own wishes. That was taking place in Ellen White’s day in the 1890s. The leadership was likening themselves to Moses, and anyone who did not go along with them was like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. You see, in 1888, God had chosen Jones and Waggoner and others to give the message of Christ our righteousness; but the leaders said, “Listen, this message did not go through us. What right do these people have to preach? They are not ordained by us; they have not come through our authority. We are the leaders of God’s church.” Do you know what Ellen White says about that? They were actuated by the same spirit that inspired Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.” 1888 Materials, 1067. This is just one place where she says that the leaders were likened to Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

I have been shocked by the way committees of the church today can somehow come to believe that they have been vested with authority to disregard God’s commandments and laws. When we suppose that we can overlook all of God’s counsels on competitive sports and introduce intercollegiate sports into our schools, are we not committing the sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? Are we not coming to the place where we think that we can go against God’s counsels and make our own decisions? When we follow the practices and policies of the world instead of those laid down in the Word of God, are we not committing the sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? When Ellen White says that God will not even hear the prayer of those who go to court against a brother, and we go to court against our brethren, which the Bible strictly prohibits and condemns, are we not committing the same sin as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? When the church fights the very ministries that God has called into existence, are we not committing the sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? That is the sin of the papacy; and, dear friend, it is becoming the sin of the church today. It is the sin of anyone who decides that they are so good that they do not need to follow God exactly; they can make their own decisions in life.

In Jesus’ day, the church of God had been sending some of their promising young men to the universities of Greece, especially down to Alexandria, Egypt. Of course, they remained members of God’s true church; but they learned and brought into it the Greek philosophy, which is the basis of higher education.

The Greeks had come the place where they believed that the way to be truly educated was to reject everything until it has been proved. When you incorporate that philosophy with the Word of God, it is disastrous because the word of God must be studied by faith and not by doubt. I talked with an educator at one of our colleges, an ordained Seventh-day Adventist minister, teaching according to the principles of Greek philosophy. He was asking people how they could know that God had really created the world in seven days. I asked him, “How can you instill this doubt into students’ minds?” He said, “I believe that the way we are educated is to doubt everything. That is the way we learn. This is true faith.” He said, “Faith is when you doubt so much that you come to doubt your doubts and that is faith.”

When this system of doubt is applied to the Word of God, it destroys faith. You cannot study God’s Word except by faith.

In Jesus’ day, the Jew who was not educated was looked down upon as being a heathen because everyone was supposed to have a Christian education; that was a duty of a Jewish parent. The educational system, however, had been taken over by a group of liberals called the Sadducees. They rejected much that was in the Old Testament although they claimed to be true followers of God. What could not be proved, they reasoned away.

You know, it is interesting that there is not a record of a single Sadducee being converted or accepting Jesus as his Saviour. It is a deadly disease, this liberal philosophy that causes people to doubt the Word of God and put human reason and human logic above the Word. But in reaction to the Sadducees came a group of conservative people who said, “We do not believe in this liberal philosophy that puts logic above the Word. We believe the Word simply because God says it.” They were called the Pharisees; but sadly, they became so conservative that they began to look at themselves as good people because they were doing everything the Bible said. As time went on, they began to confuse conservatism with structuralism and to place more and more faith in a structure and in a system rather than in God. They began to worship the church instead of God. In fact, the church was so sacred and so important that if anyone suggested that the church would be destroyed or said that the temple would be destroyed, as Jesus said it would be, that person was worthy of death and they sought to kill him because he was blaspheming God. Any criticism of the structure became criticism of God in their minds, so they killed the person who said that the church would be destroyed.

Do you know what is interesting? The Pharisees were the ones who became the most bitter enemies of Jesus, much more so than the Sadducees. In their minds, anything that did not go through the structure was wrong and was not of God.

The Elijah message was the message that John the Baptist had to bring to the people in his day. (See Matthew 3:7-10). It is interesting that this same message that was to prepare a people before Jesus’ first coming is the same message that is to be brought back to the church today before Jesus’ second coming. Ellen White says, “In this fearful time, just before Christ is to come the second time, God’s faithful preachers will have to bear a still more pointed testimony than was borne by John the Baptist. A responsible, important work is before them; and those who speak smooth things, God will not acknowledge as His shepherds. A fearful woe is upon them.” Testimonies, vol. 1, 321

As Saul so sadly learned, what God ordains, He can also remove. John the Baptist told the people of his day that God could raise up children to make a church out of the stones, and God did it. He took the stony hearts of the Gentiles and fashioned them into the true church of Israel in the New Testament. Paul says in Galatians 3, Ephesians 2, and Romans 2, that the Gentiles had now become the true church of Israel. The church survived, but it was made up of different people. John the Baptist said “Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father [we are the church]’….Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree [not just the trees in John the Baptist’s day but every tree from Saul’s day until Jesus’ second coming] which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The truth will go through; the movement will go through; God’s true Seventh-day Adventist people, the movement that He has ordained for these last days, is going through. God promised it would go through. This is the last church, but the church is more than a structure. The structure is only an aspect of the church. God can raise up children to this church from the stones.

God says that every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down. In Jesus’ day, the church had become so structuralized that God could not reach it through the system. God had to send John the Baptist as an independent minister, independent of the system. When Jesus came down, He also came as an independent minister. He was never sanctioned or ordained by the church. The church never laid their hands upon Him, and they did not recognize Him.

It is interesting to note that even among those who were in independent ministry, pride and self-sufficiency often came in. We find it in Peter and John. They, thankfully, eventually overcame. But this became the spirit of Judas; and Jesus Himself was betrayed by someone from the independent ministry, from the self-supporting work, even from His own group.

Jesus said that the prevailing problem with the church in the last days would be the problem that has been with the church in all ages—self-righteousness. That is what has brought in all of the errors of the Christian church. It is that righteousness that makes a person so righteous that they no longer need to obey God and they can decide for themselves what is right or wrong. That was the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. “God knows that in the day you eat this fruit, that you will be so wise and so good that you will know yourself what you should do and what you should not do.” Self-righteousness, the fig leaves of self-righteousness.

God has a message to the church today. It is called the Elijah message—the Laodicean message. It is a message of love. God says, “I love you too much to let you go. If you will accept Me as your Lord and Saviour, if you will simply come and follow Me, I will give you righteousness; you will not have to earn it. I will give it to you as a free gift, and then you can obey Me because you love Me. I will give you the power to obey every precept from a heart of love.” You will no longer try to find out how little you can do to get to heaven. No! You will have salvation because God has given it to you, and you will be doing everything you can do because you love Him. None of if will earn you a place in heaven; that was earned on the cross of Calvary two thousand years ago. Praise the Lord! But it is a gift to the obedient.

The End

Living Stones

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Speaking about the church, Peter describes it as a spiritual house. He says, “Coming to Him [Christ] as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4, 5. Another definition that the Bible uses of the church is that it is a temple. It is a spiritual building; and the material is not concrete blocks or marble blocks, as the temple in Jerusalem, but living stones—people. You can read about these living stones in Acts of the Apostles. There Ellen White describes these living stones as people who have been quarried, chiseled or cut out from the quarry of the world. They are brought as building materials to be laid up as a living temple—a living temple of living stones, as the Bible describes this spiritual temple of God’s church.

We are looking here at the Christian church and the question arises, How do Christians offer up sacrifices? Do they bring acceptable sacrifices to Christ? Yes, but it is a very special type of a sacrifice that they bring to God; and without this sacrifice, they will not be acceptable to Him.

Turning to Psalm 51:16, 17, we discover the sacrifices that are acceptable to God when offered by His people—those who comprise His church, this living temple. This is the psalm David wrote, you recall, after being reproved by the prophet for committing that terrible sin with Bathsheba. He realized that his sin had been discovered, and here he offered up one of those acceptable sacrifices to God. “For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.” So what are the acceptable sacrifices that God’s people are to bring to Him if they are going to be living stones? They bring the sacrifices of a broken and a contrite spirit. In other words, they are repentant. And these are the sacrifices that they bring, trusting in Jesus’ merits.

Friends, we cannot be living stones in God’s temple if we are living in sin. The prerequisite to being a part of God’s temple is that they “offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” Let us also notice something else. Going back to God’s church as it was under the Jewish system, they were told time and time again to repent of their sins. They claimed to be God’s people. God had called them to fulfill a purpose; but their lives, time and time again, disqualified them from being living stones. Many times they brought sacrifices, they went through all the protocol, they did all of the outward things that were necessary; but with those burnt offerings, those sin offerings, there was not a broken and contrite spirit and they could not be accepted by Him.

The Jewish people had a literal temple of polished marble, but they missed the point that it was but a symbol of the living temple that they were to be. Speaking to them God said, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” Isaiah 1:16, 17. “Look,” God says, “you claim to be My people, but you are in sin. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil.”

The wonderful thing is, when we cease to do evil, the Lord is so merciful to us. “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’” Isaiah 1:18. Wonderful, precious, merciful God, even to those who are deliberately sinning against Him.

Sadly, the people had been bringing the wrong kinds of sacrifices. “‘To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts?’” Isaiah 1:11, 12. They were offering the sacrifices, but it might as well have been a slaughterhouse. They did not offer them with a broken and contrite spirit.

What did God tell them? “Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.” Isaiah 1:13-16. Then He says, “Come now, and let us reason together. I want to forgive you, but it has to be on the right basis. I want to forgive you, and I will. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow.”

Though God is a very merciful God, He expects certain conditions; and if we want to be a living stone in that living temple, we must abide by the conditions that He has laid down. “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people [a peculiar people], that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2:9. Here Peter is using the same terminology which God had used in the Old Testament in referring to Israel. Speaking to Israel, God had said, “‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” Exodus 19:6

So, these living stones were to be a holy nation, a royal priesthood; but again, it was only under certain conditions. “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.” Exodus 19:5. Only in obedience could the people meet the conditions of the covenant.

Just as there were conditions to being a living stone in the Old Testament, there are conditions being a living stone in God’s spiritual temple in the New Testament. “That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2:9. So, friends, if we are living stones, we are called to come out of the darkness and to show forth “the praises of Him” who has “called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

What kind of darkness is this speaking about? This is the darkness that Peter made reference to when he said, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” Ephesians 5:8. Specifically, what does the darkness mean? “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” Ibid., verse 11. So, the darkness is the unfruitful works; in other words, it is sin. You cannot be a living stone if you are still living in sin, if you are still in spiritual darkness. It just does not work.

The Bible uses some very specific terms to describe those who choose to remain in spiritual darkness and sin. “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:6, 7 The only way that we can be justified is to come out of the darkness and walk in the light.

Remember when Solomon dedicated the temple in Jerusalem? There was the table of shewbread, the candlestick, the altar of incense, and the gorgeous tapestry veil. In the second apartment, the Most Holy place, there was the ark of the covenant, inside of which were the tables of God’s Law. There were the priests in their beautiful, gorgeous costumes; everything was according to the direction that God had given. But there was something missing. Do you remember? It was the presence of God, the Holy Spirit. God’s shekinah glory was to come down into that temple. Remember that wonderful prayer of Solomon’s as he knelt there before the temple and prayed? As he prayed, what happened? The glorious presence of God was seen to come down and fill that temple. Now that it was filled with the Holy Spirit, it was fulfilling the purpose for its existence.

Jesus wanted to make the apostolic church a habitation for His Spirit; but before Pentecost could take place, those stones had to be made ready to be a fit habitation for the Spirit. For three and a half years Jesus had labored with these men. They were privileged above every other group of people; but the very night that He knew that He was going to be betrayed, there was strife over who was the greatest. He had been grooming them, preparing them to be this building that He could pour His Spirit in, that, like fire in the stubble, they might take the gospel to the then-known world; and here they were, His very last night, contending as to who would be the greatest?

It was customary, as you recall, for someone to wash the feet of the guests. As no one was willing to do it, Jesus got up and, laying aside His robes, got down upon His knees and started pouring out the water. Those last few hours of the life of Jesus were the culmination of what He was seeking to accomplish for them. This act did more to turn those men around than anything else.

You know that whom the Lord loves He chastens, reproves, and prunes. Have you ever received some chastening and reproof? Has God been pruning you recently? Friends, we have to submit to this process because it is part of the polishing that prepares us to finally become the recipient of the latter rain just before Jesus comes. Jesus had to reprove and correct His disciples very often so that they might become qualified to be these living stone, and He has to reprove us.

Well, something did happen to the disciples. As they saw the wonderful love of Jesus, as they beheld that love, that unselfish, self-sacrificing love for them, it just broke them completely. They witnessed the love that He had for them when they deserved it the least. This is the only thing that can break the stubborn, human, sinful heart that rises up against reproof. So there they were in one accord, and God was now able to fulfill His purpose through them. This is why we are told that every day it would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour on the life of Christ, particularly the closing scenes. (See The Desire of Ages, 83.)

When we make the same complete surrender to Christ, friends, as the apostles and the believers did, then God will be able to give us that full outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and He will finish this work very quickly. We are told in Testimonies, vol. 1, that back in the 1850s, which was even before the Seventh-day Adventist Church had taken its name, that Jesus could have come. All of this shows that, while God is willing to use organization and all of our modern methods of communication, he does not need them. He has means of getting this message out that we do not even understand. What He does need is a people who are surrendered. It may be only a few, as in the apostolic age when there were just twelve apostles and a few followers. Though few in number, through the power of Christ, in a few short years they reached the world. Friends, He will do the same today if we will be yielded and allow ourselves to become those polished stones.

About 1859, James and Ellen White were concerned about the spiritual condition of God’s professed people. They thought they were the Philadelphia church, the church of brotherly love; but James and Ellen White came to the conclusion that the church was in the Laodicean state. James White wrote some articles in the Review and Herald and said, in so many words, “Folks, we are Laodicea. We are poor, miserable, blind, wretched, and naked; and we do not even realize it. We need to accept the reproof of the true witness.” James and Ellen White wondered if the people of God would receive this reproof.

By and large, they did; and as they accepted that reproof, they started to get down upon their knees and pray. They started to confess and repent of their sins. They started to receive from Christ that rich cup of grace that they needed. At the very same time that the people of God were surrendering to Christ, there took place out in the world and across this nation a great religious revival. Historians are at a loss as to how to describe how it happened, but it is well chronicled. Even in the stock exchange there were prayer circles.

At the time that this great revival was taking place in America, Ellen White wrote, “As this message affected the heart, it led to deep humility before God. Angels were sent in every direction to prepare unbelieving hearts for the truth.” Testimonies to the Church, vol. 1, 186. God was sending His angels out to work upon hearts and minds and consciences of multitudes of people to prepare them to receive the loud cry of the third angel that was about ready to be given by that little nucleus of Adventists.

Sadly, the people of God did not persevere. They pulled back, and the great work that God was wanting to accomplish came to almost nothing. Then in 1861 there was a civil war. Half a million sons, brothers, and fathers were swept into oblivion. This need not have been the case. Jesus was ready then to pour out His Spirit upon His people, to fill that living temple with the latter rain. That message would have gone around this whole world, and the Lord would have come.

Friends, Christ is still longing to prepare a people to receive the latter rain and give the loud cry of the third angel. When it comes, if we are to be a part of it, we must be among those who have been willing to submit to reproof, to counsel, and to correction that comes through the Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy.

“The church is the repository of the riches of the grace of Christ; and through the church will eventually be made manifest, even to the ‘principalities and powers in heavenly places,’ the final and full display of the love of God.” Acts of the Apostles, 9. May the Lord help us to be those who are part of this, who see it as part of this grand and final display of the love of Jesus Christ.

The End

The Armada, part 2

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Sunday, morning, July 31, witnessed the first encounter between the great navy of Spain and the little fleet of England. Medina Sidonia gave the signal for an engagement; but to his surprise, he found that the ability of accepting or declining battle lay entirely with the English. Howard’s ships were stationed to the windward and the sluggish Spanish galleons could not close with them. The English vessels, however, which were light and skillfully handled, would run up to the Armada, pour a broadside into it, and then as swiftly retreat beyond the reach of the Spanish guns. Sailing right into the wind, they defied pursuit. This was a method of fighting most frustrating to the Spanish, but they were unable to change it. All day the Armada moved slowly up-channel before the westerly breeze; and the English fleet hanging upon its rear, continued to fire into it, now a single shot, and again, a whole broadside. This action was repeated over and over again. The Spanish guns, seeking to return the fire, found that their shots, fired from lofty decks, passed over the English ships, falling harmlessly into the sea beyond them. It was in vain that the Spanish admiral raised the flag of battle, for the wind and the sea would not permit him to lie to. His nimble foe would not come within reach, unless it might be for a moment to send a cannonball through the side of some of his galleons and then make off, laughing to scorn the ungainly efforts of this bulky pursuer to overtake him. As yet there had been no loss of either ship or man on the part of the English.

In addition to the damage inflicted on them by the English guns, the Armada sustained other damage. As night fell, its ships huddled together to prevent dispersion. The galleon of Pedro di Valdez, fouling with the Santa Catalina, was damaged and fell behind, becoming the booty of the English. This galleon had onboard a large amount of treasure and, what was of even greater importance to the captors, whose scanty stock of ammunition was already becoming exhausted, many tons of gunpowder. A loss of even greater significance to the Spanish than the money and the ammunition was that of her commander. Pedro di Valdez was the only navel officer of the fleet who was acquainted with the Channel.

Later the same evening a yet greater calamity befell the Armada. The captain of the rear admiral’s galleon, much out of humor for the day’s adventures and quarreling with all who approached him, accused the master gunner of careless firing. Greatly offended, the man went straight to the powder magazine, thrust a burning match into it, and threw himself out of one of the portholes into the sea. Within seconds, in a momentary burst of splendor, the explosion lit the surrounding ocean. The deck was upheaved; the turrets at stern and stem rose into the air, carrying with them the paymaster of the fleet and 200 soldiers. The strong hulk, though torn by the explosion, continued to float and was seized in the morning by the English who found in it a great amount of treasure and supply of ammunition which had not ignited.

On the very first day of conflict, the Armada had lost two flagships, 450 officers and men, the paymaster of the fleet, and 100,000 ducats of Spanish gold, a sum equal to about 50,000 of English money. This was not a favorable start of an expedition which Spain had exhausted herself to outfit.

The following day the Armada continued its way slowly up-channel, followed by the fleet under Howard, who hovered upon its rear but did not attack it. On Tuesday the first really serious encounter took place. As the morning rose, the wind changed to the east, which exactly reversed the position of the two fleets, giving the weather advantage to the Armada. Howard attempted to sail around it and get to the windward side, but Medina Sidonia intercepted him by coming between him and the shore and compelled him to accept battle at close quarters. The combat was long and confused. In the evening the Spanish ships gathered themselves up and forming into a compact group, went on their way. It was believed that they were obeying Philip’s instructions to meet the duke of Parma and then, with his army, strike the decisive blow. The shores of the English Channel were crowded with anxious spectators, breathlessly watching their brave little fleet battling against the mighty ships of the Spanish invader. From every port of the realm, English merchant vessels were hastening to the spot where England’s very existence hung on the outcome of the battle. While the many small additions added greatly to the appearance, they did very little to the effectiveness of the queen’s navy.

On Wednesday a few shots were exchanged, but no general action took place. By the following day, the wind had once again changed to the east, giving the Armada once more the advantage. The sharpest action yet to be fought began. The ships of the two fleets engaged yardarm to yardarm, and broadside after broadside was exchanged at a distance of about 100 yards. The English admiral, Lord Howard, in his ship the Ark, and by the shock unshipped her rudder and rendered her unmanageable. Six Spanish galleons closed around her, never doubting that she was their prize. In an instant the Ark’s own boats had her in tow; and passing out of the hostile circle she was off, to the amazement of the Spaniards. The fight continued several hours longer. When evening fell, it found the English fleet, who had all through the conflict seen the Spanish shot pass harmlessly over it, burying itself in the sea, showing no sign of battle, with scarcely a cord torn and its crews intact. The sides of the galleons, however, were pierced and riddled with the English shot, and their masts were cut or splintered.

The following day the procession up-channel was resumed in the same order as before, the mighty Armada leading the van and the nimble English fleet following. By Saturday afternoon the Spaniards were approaching the point at which they were to be joined by the Duke of Parma. As he had not arrived yet, Medina Sidonia decided to cast anchor and wait.

The critical hour had arrived when it was to be determined whether England should remain an independent kingdom or become one of Philip’s numerous satrapies; whether it was to retain the light of the Protestant faith or to fall back into the darkness and serfdom of a medieval superstition. In the skirmishes that had preceded this moment, the English ships had fared well; but now the moment had come for a death struggle between Spain and England. The Armada had arrived on the battleground comparatively intact. It had experienced rough handling from the tempests of the Atlantic and had received some heavy blows from the English fleet; several of the galleons which had glided so proudly out of the harbor at Lisbon were now at the bottom of the ocean, but these losses were hardly felt by the great Armada. It only awaited the arrival of the Duke of Parma to be perhaps the mightiest combination of navel and military power which the world had seen.

As evening drew on, low, rapidly moving clouds gave evidence of an approaching storm. The waves of the Atlantic, forcing their way up the Channel, uneasily rocked the huge Spanish galleons. The night wore away and with the return of light, Medina Sidonia could be seen scrutinizing the eastern ocean, looking for the approach of the Duke of Parma.

Meanwhile, Parma was himself as anxious to join the Armada as they were to have him. A fleet of flat-bottomed vessels was ready to carry this powerful host; but one thing was wanting, and its absence rendered all of these vast preparations fruitless. In order to join the Spanish fleet, Parma needed an open door from his harbors to the ocean, and the Dutch saw to it that he had none. They drew a line of warships along the Netherland coast; and Parma, with his sailors and soldiers, was imprisoned in his own ports. It was strange that these circumstances had not been foreseen and provided for. In this oversight is revealed the working of a Hand powerful enough by its slightest touches to defeat the wisest schemes and crush the mightiest combinations of man when directed against a people who were leaning on Him for help.

Parma repeatedly wrote to both Philip and Medina Sidonia telling them of his predicament, but Philip either would not or could not understand.

In the meantime, anxious consultations were being held onboard the English fleet. The brave and patriotic men who led it recognized the gravity of the situation. If the Armada was joined by Parma, it would be so overwhelmingly powerful that it seemed nothing could hinder its crossing over to England. The men of the English fleet feared that before another dawn had come, Parman’s fleet would anchor alongside that of Medina Sidonia and the opportunity for striking a preemptive blow would be past.

A bold and somewhat novel idea was decided upon. Eight of the volunteer ships were selected, their masts smeared with pitch, and their hulls filled with powder, all kinds of explosives, and combustible materials. Once prepared they were set adrift in the direction of the Armada. The night favored the execution of this design. Dark clouds hid the stars while the muttering of distant thunder reverberated in the sky. The deep, heavy swell of the ocean that precedes the tempest was rocking the galleons, rendering their positions every moment more unpleasant. On the one side they found themselves close to the shallows of Calais, with the quicksand of Flanders behind them.

Suddenly, about the hour past midnight, the watch discerned dark objects emerging out of the blackness and advancing toward them. They had scarcely given the alarm when suddenly these dark shapes burst into flame, lighting up sea and sky in gloomy grandeur. Steadily these pillars of fire continued to move over the waters straight toward the Armada. The Spaniards gazed for one terrified moment upon the dreadful apparition; and then, divining its nature and mission, they instantly cut their cables, and, with the loss of some of their galleons and the damage of others, fled in confusion and panic.

With the first light, the English admiral weighed anchor and set sail in pursuit of the fleeing Spanish. At eight o’clock on Monday morning, Drake caught up with the Armada; and giving it no time to collect and form, began the most important of all the battles which had yet been fought.

The English ships drew close to the galleons, pouring broadside after broadside into them. From morning to night the rain of shot continued. The galleons, falling back before the fierce onslaught, huddled together. The English fire, pouring into the mass of hulls and masts, was doing fearful work, converting the ships into shambles. Rivulets of blood poured form their scuttles into the sea. By this time, many of the Spanish guns were dismounted; those that remained active fired but slowly, while the heavy rolling of the vessels threw the shot into the air. Several of the galleons were seen to go down in the action, others reeled away toward Ostend.

When evening fell the fighting was still going on. But with the shifting of the breeze to the northwest and the increasing rise of the sea, a new calamity threatened the disabled and helpless Armada; it was being forced upon the Flanders coast. If the English had had strength and ammunition to pursue them, the galleons would have that night found common burial on the shoals and quicksand of the Netherlands.

The power of the Armada had been broken; most of its vessels were in sinking condition. Between 4,000 and 5,000 of its soldiers had been killed and received burial in the ocean, and at least as many more lay wounded and dying onboard their shattered galleons. Of the English, not more than 100 had fallen.

Thankful was the terrified Medina Sidonia when night fell, giving him a few hours respite; but with morning his dangers and anxieties returned as he found himself between two great perils. On the windward of him was the English fleet. Behind him was that belt of muddy water of the Dutch coast, which, if he struck was lost. With every passing moment the helpless Armada was drawing nearer to those terrible shoals. Suddenly the wind shifted to the east, and the change rescued, at least for the moment, the Spanish galleons on the very brink of destruction.

The English fleet, having lost the advantage of the wind, stood off; and the Spanish admiral, relieved of their presence, assembled his officers to deliberate on the course to be taken. The question to be decided was: Should they return to their anchorage off Calais or go back to Spain by way of the Orkneys? To return to Calais involved a second battle with the English; and were this to take place, the officers were of the opinion that for the Armada, there would be no tomorrow. The alternative of returning to Spain in battered ships, passing without pilots through unknown and dangerous seas, was a solution nearly as formidable; nevertheless, it was the lesser of the two evils to which their choice was limited, and it was the one adopted.

No sooner had the change of wind rescued the Spanish from the destruction which seemed to await them than it shifted once more and, settling in the southwest, blew with ever increasing intensity. The mostly rudderless ships could do nothing but drift before the rising storm into the northern seas. Drake followed them for a day or two without firing a gun, having spent his supply of ammunition; but just the sight of his ships was enough for the terrified Spaniards and they fled.

Spreading the sail to the rising gale, the Armada bore northward. Drake had been uneasy, fearing that the Spaniards might seek refuge in Scotland; but when he saw this danger pass and the Armada speed away toward the shore of Norway, he resolved to return before famine should set in among his crews.

No sooner did Drake turn back from the fleeing foe than the tempest took up the pursuit. Suddenly a furious gale burst out, and the last the English saw of the Armada was the vanishing forms of their retreating galleons as they entered the cloud of storm and became lost in the blackness of the northern night.

Carried on the tempest’s wings around Cape Wrath, they were next launched amid the perils of the Hebrides. The rollers of the Atlantic hoisted them, dashing them against the cliffs or flinging them on the shelving shore. Their crews, too worn with toil and want to swim ashore, were drowned in the surf and littered the beaches with their corpses. The winds drove the survivors farther south until they reached the west coast of Ireland.

There came a day’s calm; hunger and thirst were raging on board the ships; their store of water was entirely spent. Seeking to relieve their desperate situation, the Spaniards sent some boats on shore to beg supplies. They prayed piteously, willing to pay any amount of money but were unable to obtain any. The natives knew that the Spaniards had lost the day and should they comfort and assist the enemies of Elizabeth, they would be held answerable.

The storm then returned in all its former violence and raged for eleven days. During that time, galleon after galleon came on shore, scattering its drowned crews by hundreds upon the beach.

The sea was not the only enemy these wretched men had to dread. The Irish, though of the same religion as the Spaniards, were more pitiless than the waves. As the Spaniards crawled through the surf up the beaches, the Irish slaughtered them for the sake of their velvets, their gold brocades, and their rich chains. In addition, prompted by the fear that the Spaniards might be joined by the Irish and lead them in revolt, the English garrisons in Ireland had received orders to execute all who fell into their hands. It was calculated that in the month of September alone, 8,000Spaniards perished between the Giant’s Causeway and Blosket Sound, 1,100 were executed by the government officers, and 3,000 were murdered by the Irish. The rest were drowned. The tragedy, witnessed of old on the shores of the Red Sea, had repeated itself, with wider horrors, on the coast of Ireland.

The few galleons that escaped the waves and rocks crept back home, one by one. The terrible tragedy was too great to be disclosed all at once. When the terrible facts became fully known, the nation was shocked. There was scarcely a noble family in all of Spain which had not lost one or more of its members. Of the 30,000 who had sailed in the Armada, scarcely 10,000 ever returned; and these returned, in almost every instance, to pine and die. The Duke of Medina Sidonia, the commander in chief, was almost the only one of the nobles who outlived the catastrophe; but his head was bowed in shame. Envying the fate of those who had perished, he buried himself from the eyes of his countrymen in his countryseat.

The sorrowful Philip was deeply wounded from a quarter from which he looked for sympathy and help. Pope Sixtus had promised a contribution of a million crowns toward the expenses of the Armada; but when he saw the outcome, he refused to pay a single ducat. In vain Philip urged that the Pope had instigated him to the attempt, the expedition had been undertaken in the sacred cause of the Church, and that the loss ought to be borne mutually. To his entreaties, Sixtus was deaf.

The Armada was the mightiest effort, by force of arms, ever put forth by the Roman Catholic powers against Protestantism; and it proved the turning point in the great war between Rome and the Reformation. Spain was never after what she had been before the failure of that expedition. It said in effect to her, “Remove the diadem; put off the crown.”

Almost all of the military genius and the naval skill enrolled in the service of Spain were lost in that ill-fated expedition. The financial loss could not be reckoned at less than six million ducats, but that was nothing compared with the loss of Spain’s prestige. The catastrophe stripped her naked. Her position and that of the Protestant powers were to a large extent reversed—England and the Netherlands rose, and Spain fell.

The tragedy of the Armada was a great sermon, the text of which was that the ordinary course of events had been interrupted; the heavens had been bowed, and the Great Judge had descended upon the scene, working out a marvelous deliverance for England. While dismay reined within the popish kingdoms, the Protestant states joined in a chorus of thanksgiving.

The End

Reformers and the Church

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In Matthew 16:13, Jesus asked His disciples who He was. This is an important question because a correct understanding can make all the difference between eternal life and eternal death. “And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘blessed are you, Simon BarJonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’” Now in verse 18 there is a play on words that does not come through in the English translation, so I would like to insert the Greek words. “’And I also say to you that you are [petros] Peter, and on this [petra] rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’” Matthew 16:18, 19. This is tremendous authority –not just earthly authority that has to do with eternal life.

Before we examine this question of church authority, let us look first of all at the text that says, “you are petros.” The word petros, which in Latin is the same as Peter, means a stone, while a petra is a very large boulder or rock.

On what rock is the church built? Let us allow Peter to give us his understanding of what Christ meant by the statement He made to him. “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.’ Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.” 1 Peter is talking about Jesus Christ as the Chief Cornerstone.

This agrees with the apostle Paul, who said, “Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:19-22

All through the Scriptures you will find that Jesus is described as that supernatural, living Rock in which His children hide and find security, stability, safety, and salvation. Jesus spoke of Himself as the Cornerstone when He said, “And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Matthew 21:44

In Matthew 18:19, it appears that the keys were given to Peter, though, as we look in other Scriptures, it is evident that they were given to the rest of the apostles and to the entire church. (See John 20:21-23.) It was by the misuse of Jesus’ statement to Peter that the bishops of Rome attained authority over the nations of Europe during the Dark Ages. They said, “We have received apostolic authority from Peter. We have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and we can shut you out and send you to hell, or we can give you eternal life.” When Bible-believing Christians dissented, before they were burned at the stake they were clothed with robes and miters on which there were painted demons, snakes, and devils. The church authorities would say, “Not only are you going to die, but we are consigning you to hell; and you are going to burn there forever.”

Before Jesus conferred authority on His apostles, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (See Ibid.) This is also clear from Jesus’ statement to Peter when He said, “for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” Only people who are filled with the Holy Spirit have the divine authority of the church.

The question of apostolic succession has agitated the minds in the Christian world for hundreds of years. Who are the successors of the apostles? The way to understand this is to ask a question that was commonly asked in Christ’s day. Who is the true church? Who are Abraham’s seed?
This is a question that agitated the minds of the Jews a good deal. The Jews told Jesus that they were Abraham’s descendants. (See John 8:33.) They believed that they were saved; but Jesus said, “You don’t live like Abraham, You’re not working the works of Abraham. Therefore, you really are not Abraham’s seed.” He denied that they were Abraham’s seed because they did not have a character like Abraham.

The Bible says that we are going to be judged according to our works. That is the same as saying that we are going to be judged according to our character. Historic Seventh-day Adventists still believe that judgment is on the basis of your works—your character. This is why Ellen White said that the day of God would be a day of bitter disappointment to most of the Christian world because they make a profession, but they do not have a character that goes along with it. In the day of judgment, they are going to find out that their profession is worthless unless their character coincides with the profession. (See Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 970.)

Now if you profess to be Seventh-day Adventist, you profess that you are a member of that church that is mentioned in Revelation 12:17 “who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.” You profess to be a part of that group of people that it talks about in Revelation 14:12 where it says, “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” That is what you profess; but if you do not keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus, if you do not have the testimony of Jesus, what good is your profession going to do? It will do no good.

Where did the concept come from that the church is the congregation of goodly men only? It came from the New Testament. Wherever you have a group of people who are filled with the Holy Spirit and are living godly, righteous lives, when they meet together and assemble and worship, that is a church. The Reformers all taught this concept; the Waldenses believed it. By the way, if they had not believed it, they could not have had a church. There would not have been a Reformation. They could not have remained true unless they understood who the church was. That time is coming again. It is right upon us. If you do not understand who the church is, the pressure will be so great that you will not be able to remain faithful and true.

The Bible teaches that it is character that counts. Now do not misunderstand; you do not earn salvation. Salvation is a gift; but let me tell you, it is a conditional gift. If you do not have the character qualification, you are not going to receive the gift. The apostles Paul, Peter, James, and John are all clear about that.

This concept was clearly understood by the great Protestant Reformers. One of the early leaders of the church, Claude of Turin, said, “Know thou that he only is apostolic who is the keeper and guardian of the apostle’s doctrine, and not he who boasts himself to be seated in the chair of the apostle, and in the meantime doth not acquit himself of the charge of the apostle.” J.A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, vol. 1, 22

There was a remnant of the apostolic church in the land of Italy known as the Waldenses. They were terribly persecuted; and if you read such books as Martyrs Mirror, you will find that one of the main issues in the understanding of the Waldenses was the issue of who and what the church is. The Waldenses believed that they were the spiritual descendants of the apostles, and, therefore, they were the church. They were a perpetual reminder of what the church used to be; and as long as they were around, they testified to how far professed Christendom had departed from the original faith. For this reason they were bitterly persecuted.

You see, the battle of the Reformation had largely to do with the vital issue of who and what the church is. As long as people were afraid that there was someone who could say, “I am going to shut the kingdom of heaven against you and send you to hell,” there could be no Reformation.
On one occasion Tyndale was in a debate with a Roman Catholic by the name of More. During this debate, More said: “We must not examine the teaching of the church by Scripture, but understand Scripture by means of what the church says.”

Tyndale: “What! Does the air give light to the sun? Or the sun to the air? Is the church before the gospel or the gospel before the church? [Now notice his reasoning] Is not the father older than the son? God begat us with His own will, with the word of truth. James 1:18. If he who begets is before him who is begotten, the word is before the church. Or to speak more correctly, before the congregation.”

More: “Why do you say congregation and not church?”

Tyndale: “Because by the word church, you understand nothing but a multitude of shaved and shorn and oiled, which we now call the spirituality or clergy, while the word of right is common unto all the congregation of them that believe in Christ.”

More: “The church is the pope and his sect of followers.”

Tyndale: “The pope teaches us to trust in holy words for salvation, as penance, saints, merits, and friars codes. Now he that has no faith to be saved through Christ is not of Christ’s church.”

Calvin went through a period of great struggle and doubt in his mind over this issue. “The doubts by which his soul was now shaken, drew in strength with each renewed discussion. What shall he do? Shall he forsake the Church? That seems to him like casting himself into the gulf of perdition. And yet can the Church save him? There is a new light breaking in upon him, in which her dogmas are melting away; the ground beneath him is sinking. To what shall he cling?….

“’There can be no church,’ we hear Calvin saying to himself, ‘where the truth is not.’…

“In fine, Calvin concluded that the term ‘Church’ could not make the society that monopolised the term really ‘the Church.’ Highsounding titles and lofty assumptions could give neither unity nor authority; these could come form the Truth alone; and so he abandoned ‘the Church’ that he might enter the Church—the Church of the Bible.” J.A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, vol. 2, 152, 154

Of John Knox, the Scottish Reformer, it is said, “Knox’s idea of a Church was, in brief, a divinely originated, a divinely enfranchised, and a divinely governed society. Its members were all those who made profession of the Gospel; its law was the Bible, and its King was Christ.” Ibid., vol. 3, 496

Taussan was a Danish Reformer. He drew up a confession which became the confession of the Protestants in Denmark. In this confession it was declared that the Holy Scriptures were to be the only rule of faith, “and the satisfaction of Christ in our room the only foundation of eternal life. It defined the Church to be the communion of the faithful, and it denied the power of any man to cast any one out of that Church, unless such shall have first cut himself off from the communion of the faithful by impenitence and sin.” Ibid., vol. 2, 42

The church is where Christ is. There can be no church without the presence of the deity. “Where Christ is even among the humble few, this is Christ’s church, for the presence of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity can alone constitute a church.” The Upward Look, 315. The church is where the Holy Spirit is. It is where Jesus is, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6. That is the spiritual building of the church. Now if I leave the truth, what have I done? I have left the church.

For many years Romanists have accused the Protestants of heresy and of separation from the true church; but Ellen White says in The Great Controversy, 51, that this accusation applies rather to themselves because they are the ones who laid down the banner of Christ and departed from the faith that was once delivered to the saints. And when you depart from the faith, when you leave the truth, you have left the church. The church stays right there with the truth because the church is “the pillar and ground of the truth.” The Great Controversy, 376. It was when Calvin began to understand this that it set his mind free. “‘There can be no church,’ we hear Calvin saying to himself, ‘where the truth is not.’… In fine, Calvin concluded that the term ‘Church could not make the society that monopolised the term really ‘the Church.’ High-sounding titles and lofty assumptions could give neither unity nor authority; these could come from the Truth alone.” J.A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, vol. 2, 154. What is it that gives unity and authority? It is the truth; and if you leave the truth, you have no authority.

It is time for Historic Adventists to wake up to the reality that our profession must coincide with our character or our profession is worthless. (See The Desire of Ages, 107.)

Have you heard somebody say, “Well, the church is going through”? Well, I believe that. In fact, I believe that the church has always gone through. I believe that the church went through in Samuel’s time. Most of the professed people did not go with it. I believe the church went through in Jeremiah’s time and Daniel’s time, and I believe the church went through in the time of Jesus and the apostles. Who was the church in the time of Jesus?

Let me ask you a question. When Jesus came down to this world, do you think that He was here in the flesh? Of course He was. The church is His mystical body. He was the head of it then, and He is the head of it now. So who was the church when Jesus was here? It is very simple, friends; it was the people who followed Jesus. That is who it was, and that is still who it is.

 

A church is not just bricks and mortar or corporations or theology. A church is people who are filled with the Holy Spirit; and as a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit, they are spoken of in the Bible as living stones, stones that emit light all around. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” Mathew 5:14

The Jews of Christ’s day called themselves the true church. Jesus said, “If you do not believe that I am the One, you are going to die in your sins.” That is about the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone. If you are a Christian, death is just a moment of silence and darkness. That is not the problem. But if you die in your sins, death will be forever. One of our greatest dangers is that we will be deceived, thinking that we are part of the church because we make a profession but not having a character to back it up. Unless we live the life, we are lost. The time is coming when every eternal destiny will be fixed. May the prayer of each one of our hearts be, “Lord Jesus, help me to have a character that will coincide with my profession.”

The End

The Eternal Weight of Glory

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To be prepared for the time into which we are entering, every treasured moment that we can spend with our Lord, we need to spend in drinking in the wonders of His love, His peace, His grace, and His goodness. Whatever may be the circumstances of the Christian, however dark and mysterious may be the ways of providence, however great the deprivation and suffering, he may look away from them all to the unseen and the eternal. The things of the present time are not considered worth mentioning when compared with the eternal weight of glory that awaits him when the warfare will be over. These very afflictions are God’s workmen ordained for the perfection of Christian character.

Paul says, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17, 18

We have been blessed in America with the most amazing political experiment in the history of mankind, outside of the theocracy of Israel when it was obedient to God. Our constitution was established for a free people who believed in the Creator and who believed that men had certain inalienable rights granted them by the Creator, rights that no government can interfere with. What an outgrowth of the principles of the gospel! We have been so blessed by God.

When, however, an apostate Protestantism loses its understanding of the gospel and unites with the papacy, there will be a persecution like no other time in the history of humanity. Just as Jesus sought to prepare His disciples for His crucifixion, I believe that we need to face the reality of what lies ahead for us. When we realize the gravity of the hour in which we are living, it will make us sensitive to the urgency of treasuring up in our soul every ray of light and every experience of love and joy with our Saviour and our Redeemer. If, in viewing it, we keep it in perspective with the superior reality of the eternal weight of glory, we may know that whatever happens to us in this world, if we are faithful, the day will come when we will walk through those pearly gates and will cast our crowns at Jesus’ feet. We will walk by the river of life and see that crystal stream that flows out from the throne of God. We will see the trunk of the tree of life on either side of the river with its branches arching over the river of the water of life. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

What will it be like to experience the reality of worshiping in the actual presence of God and to live in a world of fadeless day, where there is no night? The light of the moon is as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun is seven times brighter than it is at noon time now. It is a world of incredible light. And, despite the fact that we have no merit coming to ourselves and that all of the works we have done have been done through His name, Jesus will honor us for them.

When a storm hits in the physical world, if you have not made preparation before hand, you are in trouble. We live in an area of the mountains where there are flash floods. One year while there was still snow on the ground, several inches of rain fell in a half-hour period of time up in the Black Hills. In some of the canyons, a torrent of water thirty feet high came rushing down. The dam broke and a flood of water, in which 272 people lost their lives, came down Rapid Creek. You have to be prepared for the storm when it hits. That is why we, as a people, must be treasuring this experience of the eternal weight of glory. If we will bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, the Holy Spirit will be given to us without measure.

There are many, many people who are going to lose their salvation because they have not learned to think correctly. There are some fundamental principles that we need to understand at this time in which we live. At the very origin of our thinking process, there must be the Word of God. The human heart must be fully in harmony with Christ and His gospel in order to understand some other very important things. If the character of Christ is not understood because our thoughts have not been brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, there are going to be a lot of misconceptions about other dimensions of human life.

One of those dimensions is the area of the nature of the church. Have you noticed that there are differing views and understandings about the church? I have a very interesting book by Reinhold Seeberg, a Lutheran scholar, who discusses Luther’s understanding of the church. It had come to the point in Luther’s day where the papacy was so controlling the minds of the people that they were like the Jews in Jesus’ day. They were afraid to even discuss certain things. You did not dare lift your head and acknowledge that you believed in the teachings of John Huss, who was burned at the stake. It was only after Luther had spent some time studying the Word of God that he finally said, “We have all been Hussites and we never even knew it.”

That Word led Luther to reexamine the whole idea of the nature of the church; and do you know what he found? He discovered the same truth that John Grosboll has been preaching for some time. He found that the foundational, non-negotiable element of the church is that inner union of a heart that believes in faith in Jesus Christ. IT is those who have this experience of salvation who make up the body of Christ. As Luther searched, he realized that, yes, there is a visible dimension to this church, but any legitimate, visible demonstration or exhibition of the church rests upon that non-negotiable foundation of the invisible union of the heart with Christ. It was the understanding that the church is made up of those who are united with Him, who are one with Him, that enabled him to break with Rome. It was because of this clear understanding that the Protestant Reformation was born.

Luther understood that a visible entity, calling itself the church but which was not grounded in this heart union with Christ, was a fraud. He went on to say that the thing which marks the true visible church is the preaching of the pure doctrine of the gospel. If false doctrine is preached, that is not the true church. This is a wonderful concept and one that we need to be anchored in.

Today we find that people are in a state of flux. The shaking is going on and it is shaking the entire movement. Those who have broken free from the human bonds in the glorious liberty of the sons of God have been advancing steadily, but they must understand that they must be solidly grounded in the Word of God so that the thought processes are correct. This has led to a division and separation from those who were content with Laodicea, satisfied with the structure.

Incidentally, I began doing a little research. Though I have not investigated this thing in depth, I found that the Roman Catholic Church talks about both a visible and an invisible church. I have a whole section on my shelves of the papal encyclicals for the last several hundred years, and I pulled down the encyclicals written by Pope Pius XII, who was the pope who signed the concordat with Hitler’s Germany. Pope Pius XII used the term “invisible” church. I found that the concept of the papacy is this: The visible head of the church on earth, which is the pope, controls the mystical body of Christ, which is the invisible dimension of the church. Whereas the Reformers said, No, Christ is the head of the church. It is the invisible union with Him that determines whether or not a person is a believer and a church member. Out of that group of believers, out of that body arises the visible church where the pure preaching of the pure doctrine of the gospel takes place and the correct administration of the sacraments.

People are confused today. What do you do with a structure that is not preaching the pure principles of the gospel, that is no longer preaching victory over sin? What do you do with a structure that teaches that one goes on in sin right up to the second coming of Christ, that it is impossible to obey? What do you do with the structure?

If you had been living in the time of Jesus, what would have been your reaction? You have listened to the leaders say, “This Man is a deceiver. He is motivated by Beelzebub. Pay no attention to Him. If you listen to Him and go along with Him, you will be thrown out of the synagogue.” Would you have had that vision of the eternal weight of glory and seen in Christ the character of the Messiah as described in the Old Testament and longed to possess it?

Before there can be an understanding of the nature of the church, there must be a deep personal experience of submission to the Word of God. Once we are thinking correctly, with our thinking founded on the Word of God, allowing nothing to divert us from submission to that Word, we are prepared to be stable and reliable in our commitment.

Do you want to be a theologian? Martin Luther said that there are three things that make a theologian. First you must have oratio. This refers to reading the Word aloud, as this makes a deeper impression upon the mind. Then you must have meditatio. You must meditate on the Word; that is when you digest the food of the Word. As Ellen White said, it is not enough to just read the letter of the Word, but the Word must be applied by the Holy Spirit. Then there must be anfechtung, a German word which refers to the application of the Word to the heart and all of the inner turmoil and struggle that take place when it runs into conflict with all of the natural tendencies as it is applied to the life. Luther said that the heart smarts under the application of the Word, but it is when the word of God is actually applied to the human heart that we really begin to have a correct theology.

When we have this experience of practical godliness, we are then prepared to understand the nature of the church. Only then are we prepared to do evangelism, to bring people to a knowledge of truth. If your theology is not right, if your experience is not right, how can you be an evangelist? You may launch out on an evangelistic project, but if there is not the inner correct thinking and understanding of bringing every thought into obedience to Christ, it may all collapse around you in ruins. The Jews crucified Christ because they had not learned to think in submission to the Word of God. They expected a different kind of Messiah, and they rejected Him because He did not meet their presuppositions, their preconditions as to what they believed the Messiah should be. In nailing Him to the cross of Calvary, the Jewish nation broke the bond of the theocracy with God.

What an awesome lesson about not digging deep enough. They did not dig deep enough in the Old Testament. They did not have the depth to understand what He was doing on the Sabbath day; therefore, they considered that He was a Sabbathbreaker. The whole book of Hebrews was written by Paul because of the misconception of the Hebrew people regarding the sanctuary and their failure, therefore, to realize that the sanctuary services on this earth were terminated and they had begun in heaven. Incidentally, because of incorrect thinking, virtually the whole Christian world have failed to correctly understand the book of Hebrews.

The Jews failed in not going deep enough to understand the kingdom, and John had to bring them a knowledge of the kingdom.

Jeremiah was sent by God to go to the very steps of the temple and tell the people that unless they started obeying God, they were going to go into captivity. (See Jeremiah 7.) He told them that to say that they had the structure as their security was a lying word.

The heathen had a perversion of the truth; but those who did inquire into the Hebrew economy, who wanted to know truth at all cost and were willing to dig deeply, came to an understanding of the knowledge of the truth, like the Magi who came to worship Jesus. At the end of time, the whole world will be shaken by the Sabbath/Sunday issue. The Sabbath will reveal those who have made their supreme allegiance to God, to his truth, to His kingdom, to all that is encompassed in the Word of God. And those who are prepared to go with man, to go with the flow of humanity in a direction that is alien to the Word of God, will accept the mark of the beast, the sign of submission to human authority over and against the authority of God.

So the whole world is going to be tested on whether or not it has gone deep enough in its experience with God. Our movement today of historic Adventism is being tested. Every individual is being tested. Ultimately, every individual in this world will be tested. Have they gone down deep and fastened themselves, riveted themselves to the Eternal Rock. Ellen White said that, “when the love of Jesus is abiding in the soul, many who are now but withered branches will become as the cedars of Lebanon ‘whose root is by the great water.’ The cedar is noted for the firmness of its roots. Not content to cling to the earth with a few weak fibers, it thrusts its rootlets, like a sturdy wedge, into the cloven rock, and reaches down deeper and deeper for strongholds to grasp.” Review and Herald, June 20, 1882

How is it with your life? Are the tendrils of the roots of your life going down into Christ? Down into the crevices of the Rock Christ Jesus, anchoring themselves? You know, rock climbers have to find ways of wedging their fingers and toes into the rock. They wedge pitons into the rock, and their life is suspended by such things. How is it with you and the Rock of Ages? Are you content with “a few weak fibers” like the palm trees that go over when the hurricanes come through; or are you like a cedar of Lebanon that has its rootlets going down like a sturdy wedge into the cloven rock, reaching down deeper and deeper for strongholds to grasp? How deep are you?

What a goodly cedar might not every follower of Christ become if he were but rooted and grounded in the truth, firmly united to the Eternal Rock. Yes, humanity is having to come to grips with how it is thinking. How deeply are you being anchored?

The End

Editorial – Why?

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Often God’s people ask the question, “Why do we preach and teach about unity and yet there seems to be more division and separation among God’s professed people than ever before?” Though we do not have specific answers to each particular situation, we do have a general description in inspired writings of what we are going through right now in Adventism.

There are some who have entered the work, but who were not fitted to do so. Though they have a theory of the truth, they have not experienced true sanctification. God will allow circumstances to develop that will weed out those whom He has not appointed, leaving a pure, true, sanctified ministry prepared for the latter rain. A winnowing process is going on just as it did in the days of Christ; and by it, many will be separated from God’s work.

“It is wholehearted, thoroughly decided men and women who will stand now. Christ sifted His followers again and again, until at one time there remained only eleven and a few faithful women to lay the foundation of the Christian church….These are salt that retains the savor. It is when the work moves hard that the churches develop the true helpers.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 130 [Emphasis supplied]

What is the reason for this winnowing process?

“The dark hours of trial are to come to every one as a part of his education for higher work, for more devoted, consecrated effort. The storm was not sent upon the disciples to shipwreck them, but to test and prove them individually. Before the great trouble shall come upon the world such as has never been since there was a nation, those who have faltered and who would ignorantly lead in unsafe paths will reveal this before the real vital test, the last proving, comes, so that whatsoever they may say will not be regarded as voicing the True Shepherd. The time of our educating will soon be over. We have no time to lose in walking through clouds of doubt and uncertainty because of uncertain voices.” 1888 Materials, 1002

One of the great reasons for many of the trials is that only those who have fortified the mind with the truth of the Bible will stand through the last great conflict we go through. God will have a people who do not make decisions based on emotion or feeling but on His Word alone.

“If we would maintain our fidelity to God, in this time of danger and deception, we must constantly rely upon the power of Christ. We must be often before God in prayer, holding every emotion and every passion in calm subjection to reason and conscience, banishing all unholy imaginings, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. By earnest prayer and living faith we can resist the assaults of Satan, and keep our hearts unspotted from pollution.” Signs of the Times, October 4, 1883

“In His Word the Lord declared what He would do for Israel if they would obey His voice. But the leaders of the people yielded to the temptations of Satan, and God could not give them the blessings He designed them to have, because they did not obey His voice but listened to the voice and policy of Lucifer. This experience will be repeated in the last years of the history of the people of God, who have been established by His grace and power. Men whom he has greatly honored will in the closing scenes of this earth’s history pattern after ancient Israel.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 13, 379

In this great apostasy many of our leaders will fall and only a few will be faithful to truth. “I am in great distress and agony as I see how determined are some who have often been warned in their refusal to hear the words of entreaty. They have linked their arms in the arm of the deceiver, and are led captive by him at his will. I heard the words spoken, “So long have they been impregnated with the life and customs of the enemy that they have no desire to break away from his companionship.” Ellen G. White Pamphlets (“Perils Increase Till Jesus Comes,” 1) in the Concordance, vol. 2, 103

“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

“To stand in defense of truth and righteousness when the majority forsake us, to fight the battles of the Lord when champions are few—this will be our test. At this time we must gather warmth from the coldness of others, courage from their cowardice, and loyalty from their treason. The nation will be on the side of the great rebel leader.” Ibid., 136

The End

The Body of Christ, part 2

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As we approach the Second Coming of Jesus, the signs of the times are coming in upon us so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up. We are seeing developments taking place with lightning speed just as Ellen White said that they would. We see God’s judgments in the land, and we see a new world order taking shape. We find Vatican insiders, such as Malachi Martin, writing books, The Keys of This Blood, which provide us an astounding picture of the developments taking place as the pope strives to gain control of the world, undoing all that Protestantism has done and establishing persecution once again.

One of the most significant factors facing humanity is the disintegration of the sense of reality. It is as George Orwell wrote years ago in his book 1984. The totalitarian systems rule by dislocating the people’s sense of reality. As God’s people approach the Second Coming of Jesus, one of the great challenges is to have a correct perception of truth, of reality, a correct understanding of what is happening around us in the field of human thought. This is particularly difficult and yet important when we have a media that is being used as a propaganda tool for the new world order.

Over and over again my thinking has been brought back to the fundamental statement in the first verse of the Bible. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” One of the fundamental problems with humanity at this time, which has unleashed all manner of evil in the world, is a failure to recognize and worship the Creator. It is this issue that is addressed by the first angel’s message. “Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him.” Revelation 14:7. The whole concept of worship rests upon the idea of the Creator-creature distinction which our society has lost. Having lost the concept of the creatorship of God, humanity today has lost its orientation. It no longer knows who God is, who we are, and who humanity is. The entire sense of reality has been shifted and warped in preparation for totalitarian systems to revive in the world.

The first chapter of the book of John begins much the same as the first verse of the Bible. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake [that is a literal translation right out of the Greek] it.” John 1:1-5

The very foundation of all human life is the Word of God. He spake and it was done. He commanded and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. That Word is omnipotent, it is all powerful, and it is the voice of God to our souls, transforming human life and bringing us into contact with reality. So when we look at all of human life, we have to dig deep. As Ellen White says, hunt for the Rock and make sure we are grounded on the Rock, Christ Jesus, who is the Word of God.

In the time in which we live, and particularly since Vatican II, the Protestant churches, which are virtually asleep, are being led step by step back into the fold of Rome. Soon to be raised is the issue of whether a power on this earth can exalt itself against the law of God, challenging his sovereignty, and whether the rest of humanity will yield allegiance to that power. We must never forget that the fundamental question of the Sabbath-Sunday issue at the end of time is, will divine authority be in its rightful place or will human authority replace divine authority and pervert humanity? J.A. Wylie in his The History of Protestantism, which paints for us the struggle that has gone on through the centuries between the forces of Protestantism and the Papacy, points out that human liberty depends upon its recognition of divine authority.

In 1215, the barons of England forced King John to sign the Magna Charta. Wylie points out, however, that the great charter for England was not, in reality, the fundamental charter of liberty for the English-speaking people; it was the Word of God. When the Word of God sank down into the hearts of Englishmen, it transformed all of human life in England and exalted England to greatness. When divine authority is present, it demands freedom to obey God and is a fundamental principle of all liberty.

But we live in a society that has rejected the authority of God, laying the foundation for human tyranny. In England the teachings of evolution destroyed the concept of the creatorship of God. For some time the American nation has been driven hard to the left into immorality and homosexuality, and we may except to soon see a hard shift back to the right. Already, Patrick Buchanan, regarded as a staunch conservative, is holding seminars across this land asserting that the only way to save America is to make it Catholic.

Soon, every person in this nation is going to have to come to grips with issue of what they are going to do with the creatorship of God and with the authority of His Word. Even in Adventism we are wrestling with this issue, and it is the result of a regard for the authority of God’s Word that we see the independent movement today.

When Luther, in reading the Scriptures, found that Christ is the head of the body, he began questioning whether there was any head of the whole church other than Christ. There came a point in his experience where he was engaged in the Leipzig debates, and, as a result of that experience, Luther began coming to grips with the issue of authority in the church. He finally came to doubt whether, after all, any other head of the whole church had been appointed upon earth except Christ. Once he accepted the principle that the authority of God’s Word is above counsels, popes, and all human authority, it began to transform all human life, changing even people’s concept of the church.

Once Luther established the principle of the supremacy of the Word of God, he began energetically applying it to every phase of human life. The outgrowth of that principle is reflected in our Constitution in the principle of the free exercise of religion. The whole Bill of Rights rests upon this principle of the supremacy of divine authority. But what has happened in America? As the creatorship of God has been destroyed by the teachings of evolution, we have lost the concept of inalienable rights, and we now have a government that is contemptuous of the Bill of Rights.

In 1958, the year before the pope called for Vatican II, a European theologian sounded a warning. He did not know what was coming, but he pointed out that unless we begin to have an experience with the Word of God so that our entire life rests upon it and unless we have placed our feet so firmly on the Word that we can say we know with certainly what we believe, we will eventually come back under the dominion of Rome. He sent out that warning to the world. The next year, the ecumenical council was called. Vatican II met from 1962-1965, and the religious world has never been the same since.

But the people are not going deep enough. They are skimming the surface and are not rooted on the Word of God. Therefore, they do not know how to evaluate what is taking place, and after a while they begin to adjust, adapting to the new realities of Socialism as it comes in like a flood. Meanwhile, a totalitarian system of enormous proportions is being set up in our nation and around the world.

It was Luther who observed that, “A council cannot make divine right out of that which is not by nature divine right. To establish the Romish papacy by divine right is a ‘new dogma’ which is not binding. The church needs no head. The hierarchical system is not biblical, nor of divine right. The whole canon law [set up by Rome] begins to totter.” The History of Doctrines, 290

When the human being submits to the authority of God and His law of liberty, he finds true freedom; and he is delivered from human tyranny. The central orientation of the Protestant worship was the Word of God, not the charisma of the speaker. The movement of the three angels’ messages of Adventism will triumph as it adheres to this principle of the primacy of the Word of God.

And so, the principle of the supremacy of the Word of God was adopted by Luther in the Reformation, and it transformed his idea about the church. Because he had bowed to the supreme authority of Christ, who is the head of the church, he no longer felt that he had to somehow stay within the confines of the papacy. It was out of the fountain spring of personal salvation that a whole new conception of the church was born, bringing Protestantism into being.

Luther first develops this doctrine in detail in a tract in which he observed that the church is an assemblage of all Christian believers on earth and is made up of those who are of His flesh and of His bone, who are united with Him by faith. He further pointed out that as this is a community of saints and is represented as a spiritual fellowship, the principle of its unity is not to be seen in a body such as Rome, or the papacy, but in Christ. He went on to say that it is Christ operating upon the members that unites them into one community. (See Ibid., 291.)

Remember, Ellen White says that the groups of believers at the end of time are bound together by the truth; and the truth rests, of course, upon Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. As the head, Christ infuses His disposition, temper, and will into the community. The church is, therefore, the spiritual association of those who believe on Christ, those established and sustained by Him.

“Where two or three are present who love and obey the commandments of God, Jesus there presides, let it be in the desolate place of the earth, in the wilderness, in the city enclosed in prison walls.” The Upward Look, 315

The idea that the true church is the spiritual fellowship where Christ presides is an entirely new concept of the church that came about from the study of the Word of God in the Protestant Reformation.

“By the word church is also understood the organized association of those who believe on Christ, ‘an outward thing with outward actions,’ and the order of the clergy. This ‘outward, bodily church’ and the ‘inner spiritual church’ are to be carefully discriminated, but not separated. They are related to one another as body and soul in man.” The History of Doctrines, 291. And in the Protestant Reformation, the concept that Jesus enunciated when He said the kingdom of heaven is within you, is an internal, spiritual kingdom of righteousness and peace. This is the non-negotiable element of the church that Luther seized upon in the Protestant Reformation. And then that spiritual fellowship that are of His flesh and of His bone have a visible, external manifestation as they gather together for the preaching of the Word and administration of the Lord’s ordinances, such as the Lord’s Supper and Baptism.

Luther recognized that the outward, bodily church and the inner, spiritual church are related to one another as body and soul to man. He asserted that, “It is, of course, of chief importance that we belong to the spiritual church, but this membership stand in close connection with membership in the external church.” Ibid. He went on to say that it is the Word of God, the preaching of the Word, externally set forth that calls into existence the inner, spiritual church. “The church is therefore in one aspect, an external, visible association. But this is not ‘the true church which is believed.’ Since, however, the Word and the sacraments are here operative, faith concludes that here in the external association may be found a community of saints. Thus the church is an object of faith and not the visible, ‘for what is believed is not bodily nor visible.’” Ibid., 292

Basically, what Luther was saying is that the invisible, inner relationship with Christ is the foundational concept of the church, just as Paul says here in Ephesians 5:30, “For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.” And out of that inner relationship with Christ, there comes a visible, external manifestation of the church as the community of faith comes together and hears the Word of God preached to them. The church is the assembly of all believers, the holy Christian nation, the regenerated. It is holy because the Holy spirit reigns in it. Those who belong to it are all priests in the spiritual sense. It is the new creation of God, the product and sphere of the redemptive work of Christ, the kingdom of God in which Christ reigns through the spirit and faith.

The Reformers went on to say that, “If the question be raised, which of the two churches, the Romish and the Evangelical, is the ‘true’ one, the answer cannot be given on the basis of their comparative morality. But, sense the object of the outward organization of the church is to bring Christ to men through the Word, therefore, it can lay claim to the title, ‘true church,’ just in proportion as its preaching of the Word is in harmony with this purpose, i.e., is truly evangelical.” The History of Doctrines, 294. And so, the mark of the true church, Luther said, is that in it, the gospel is purely preached.

This entire movement of historic Adventism rests upon this principle of the primacy of the Word of God because we believe that, where the truth is purely preached is the sign of the true church. Martin Luther said that this true church must have the “teaching, faith, and confession of Christ. This can be known from the agreement of its doctrine with the ‘Word of Christ.’ That the true church holds with me to God’s Word.’ Our doctrine is ‘the Scriptures and the clear Word of God.’ The ‘pure doctrine’ is therefore of the highest importance, since every corruption of it must immediately influence the life. Hence, the church dare not tolerate false teachers.” Ibid., 295. That is the sixteenth century Reformation.

The struggle that we are involved in in Adventism today is that we are faced on the one hand with a structure that has very subtly shifted its emphasis from the authority of God and His Word to the authority of man, as is evidenced by the fact that we find men who profess to speak for the structure exalting the church manual as being an inspired document. Recently, a man from the General Conference, who was delivering a sermon at a baccalaureate service, asserted that, yes, we have the authority of Scripture, but we also have the authority of tradition which is to be interpreted for all by the community of faith. These are Roman Catholic concepts.

On the other hand, there is the celebration movement. This movement is right out of Vatican II.

The issue that Seventh-day Adventists are now having to come to grips with is, what are they going to do with a pastor who is going in a different direction, with a conference structure that is going a different direction? This is not a situation that is taking place only in Adventism but throughout the churches. We have Baptists who, as soon as their Adventists neighbors get Freedom’s Ring, want to borrow it. They recognize that this is happening in their church. I was just talking to Texe Marrs; some of you know who he is, exposing the occult, exposing spiritualistic forces, exposing the new world order in a remarkable way. He said to me, “You know, I was brought up as a Baptist. My mother was Pentecostal. But you know, I didn’t go to church very much; and when I was in the Air Force, Wanda, my wife, and I gave our hearts to the Lord and began pursuing truth. When we got out of the Air Force, we went to attend the Baptist church.” And he said, “It was nothing like the Baptist faith I had known about.” This is happening in all of the churches. I have a friend who went, just out of the appeal of his Lutheran family, to attend a Lutheran service in North Dakota. The whole sermon was New Age, about the God within. I have a book by a conservative Roman Catholic who tells how New Age is all through their schools and all through their whole movement.

Part 2

As we approach the end, the people of God are called upon to proclaim the Sabbath more fully. The Sabbath rests upon the principle of the creatorship of God. It is the memorial of Creation, a sign of the power and love of Christ. As it is a sign and memorial of Creation and thus a memorial and sign of the power of Christ to recreate our hearts, every week it exalts the authority of Christ above all human authority. It is a foretaste of eternity; and as we proclaim the Sabbath more fully at the end of time, it involves this exaltation of Christ who is the head of the church, the true head of the church. As Luther said, “The inner unity of the church is established through Christ as its head, so its external unity is secured through the pure doctrine of the gospel.” The History of Doctrines, 295. This is why Satan is trying to attack this movement of historic Adventism with every form of fanaticism to pervert the pure preaching of the Word of God.

Our security from all of the forces that are harassing humanity at this time lies in our submission to the Word of God and the authority of Christ who is the Word made flesh. The power and love of Christ, and only a holy people, can keep the Sabbath day holy; therefore, the Sabbath is a sign of righteousness by faith. What a wonderful thing, every week to have the Sabbath come on Friday evening. Rest, rest from our labor that earns our living through the week and the rest of faith, as Paul said in Hebrews 4. A rest from our own labors and a resting in Christ. It is exactly what humanity needs. It is exactly what the whole human race needs. It exalts Christ to His proper sphere and thus eliminates human tyranny. It is the answer for a world that is racked with fear as it sees the new world order coming upon it.

We have no idea of what is hanging over the human race right now, but we are told in Early Writings that she saw a covering being drawn over God’s people, over all those who were settled into the faith of the three angels’ messages. But if their knees were shaking and they were not settled into the truth, intellectually and spiritually, that covering was not drawn over them, and they were left shelterless in the storm of human and demonic wrath at the end of time.

Martin Luther said, “This unity of the church is not said to be, and is not, the having and holding of any one form of outward government, law, or ordinance, and church customs, as the pope and his crowd profess and wish to have all excluded from the church who will not in this be obedient to him…It is called one holy catholic or Christian church, because there is here one pure and uncorrupted doctrine of the gospel and outward confession of the same.” Ibid.

And so, as we come to grips with what is happening in our own movement, we must come to grips with what is the church and the fundamental issue of where the church is really located. When we recognize that the head of the church is Christ and the church is made up of those who are of his flesh and of His bones, who keep His commandments and have the testimony of Jesus, when we understand the biblical definitions of the church, it sets us free to go ahead and proclaim the message to the entire world. The sovereignty of God is at the very foundation of this entire question. It is also at the basis of the entire question. It is also at the basis of the entire Sabbath-Sunday question. The point to which I am leading up to is that if we accept the exaltation of human authority above the authority of the Word of God in the sphere of the church, are we not setting ourselves up for the exaltation of human authority in the implementation of the mark of the beast? It is the same principle. Therefore, the Word of God calls upon us to be the Lord’s free people, secure in our understanding of our relationship with God, in our personal salvation, and in our understanding of what the Bible teaches regarding the nature of the church.

According to the Protestant concept, as brought forth from Luther’s writings, the church is first and foremost that invisible relationship with Christ of those who are of His flesh and of His bone, who are united with Him by faith. Therefore, it has an external manifestation of the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the Lord’s ordinances. The next question is, What is the legitimate expression of the visible church? The answer is that it must be a part of the invisible church of those who are united with Christ, by faith, and who hold to the pure doctrine of Christ. There is no legitimacy for a visible church that is in apostasy from the Word of God, that is no longer teaching and preaching the pure Word of God. They cannot lay claim to being the visible church. This is the point that we are at in this struggle to understand what the church really is.

In Jesus’ day, He had to somehow break the chains of the hierarchy that were holding the people from following the word of God. That is why He preached the woes on the Pharisees in Matthew 23; the Pharisees had to be exposed. The whole system had to be exposed for what it was so that the people would be free to follow the Word of God and to join His kingdom. Many people, however, were afraid to confess Christ for fear of being put out of the synagogue. In John 9, when Jesus healed the man who had been born blind and this man confessed Christ, the One who had given him physical and spiritual eyesight, he was cast out because of his confession of Christ. Ellen White says that they did not throw him out in any gentle way. It was a very rough disfellowshiping. Jesus came to see this man, Ellen White says that Jesus took him into His fold. (See The Signs of the Times, December 4, 1893)

In John 10, which follows right on the heels of this incident, Jesus tells where His fold rally is. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.” John 10:1-4. This is an entirely new concept regarding the fold of God. The Pharisees, priests, and scribes felt that they determined who was in the fold of God and that if they excommunicated and disfellowshiped this man who confessed Christ, and everybody else who confessed Christ, they were putting them out of the fold. They thought that they had the final authority over who was in the fold and who was not, but Jesus came to the man and told him that he was a member of His fold. Later on in John 10, He turned to those men who had disfellowhiped the healed man and told them that they were not His sheep. Not only were they not His sheep, they were not even in His fold. What was He saying? The fold depends upon the inner, spiritual following of Christ.

In verses 7-9, “Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” And in verse 11, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” He said, in verses 27, 28, “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.”

What can give you the assurance of following your conviction and the truth that you are on the right course when an entire local church may disfellowship you for following you conscience? It is found in these words: “My sheep hear My voice… they follow Me. And I give unto them eternal life.” And then he says, “They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” Christ is making it very plain that He is not only the head of the church, not only the good shepherd, but He is the guardian of the flock, and no one can take anyone out of His hand because that hand is omnipotent. And then He goes on to say, “My Fathers, 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.” Verses 29, 30. When that voice of Christ comes to you through the Word of God, do you acknowledge it and bow before it as the voice of One who is one with the Father? Jesus asserted that no man can take you out of His hand.

If you are listening to His voice, coming to you through His Word, and you are following it and no one can take you out of His hand, and the Father is grater than all and no one can take you out of the Father’s hand, you are absolutely secure. Then why is this issue such a big issue right now? I believe it is this: It is not going to be long and God’s people are going to have to be living outside of the confines of the legal and economic system of the new world order. You will not be able to buy or sell unless you have the mark of the beast and submit to the human authority that is a rival of God’s authority. You will be living in the most desolate places of the earth. You may be in caves and dens of the earth, in forests, in a torture chamber, or a prison cell. But if you are going to be faithful to the authority of God in your life, the Bible is very clear that you are going to be living outside of the legal and economic confines of the new world order.

When Jesus told the church of His day where the fold of God really was—in the final analysis where the church of God really was—it led them to want to murder Him. It was a critical issue in Jesus’ day because if you did not understand where the fold of God really was, you would have remained in subjection to the primacy of human authority and been destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem instead of stepping out and following Christ.

What does all of this mean for the movement of historic Adventism and the proclamation of the three angels’ messages today? It is just this: When Luther finally discovered from the Word of God what the church really was, that Christ is the head of the church and that it is composed of those who are of His flesh and of His bone and have an inner, spiritual union with Him, it enabled him to break free from the chains that had bound him and to launch the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century.

In our day, the same recognition of the primacy of the authority of God’s Word and the true understanding from the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy regarding the nature of the church will enable us to have the power, conviction, and ability to take the three angels’ messages to the world and to give the loud cry. No longer crippled by an inadequate understanding of what the church really is, we will take our stand under the full authority of Christ and His Word and valiantly give this message to the world. And, regardless of where we may be found at the end of time, we will have the secure conviction of knowing that we are in the fold of God because we are hearing His voice and following it and are in submission to His authority above all else. Unless this principle of the primacy of Christ is deeply ingrained in our souls in every dimension of our life, we will never have the spiritual power or perception to even understand what is coming upon us and to range ourselves on the right side of the question of the Sabbath-Sunday issue. The temptations of Satan are being prepared for God’s people, and those who years ago thought that they would never drift have subtly drifted by the thousands and tens of thousands because they have accepted the principle of following human authority rather than the authority of the Word of God.

“It is the first and highest duty of every rational being to learn from the Scriptures what is truth, and then to walk in the light, and encourage others to follow His example. We should day by day study the Bible diligently, weighing every thought, and comparing scripture with scripture. With divine help we are to form our opinions for ourselves as we are to answer for ourselves before God…When the testing time shall come, those who have made God’s Word their rule of life will be revealed…. In summer there is no noticeable difference between evergreens and other trees; but when the blasts of winter come, the evergreens remain unchanged, while other trees are stripped of their foliage. So the falsehearted professor may not now be distinguished from the real Christian, but the time is just upon us when the difference will be apparent. Let opposition arise, let bigotry and intolerance again bear sway, let persecution be kindled, and the halfhearted and hypocritical will waver and yield the faith; but the true Christian will stand firm as a rock, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, than in the days of prosperity.” Maranatha, 94, 195. This will be the experience of the true Christian.

As I watched the Waco tragedy unfold, I saw the searchlights playing on those buildings night after night to keep the people awake so that could get no rest. Recordings of screaming rabbits being slaughtered, Tibetan chants, and rock and rap music were played to try to dislocate the sense of reality of those who were inside, destroying their ability to resist. I wondered what was really going on with those people inside. And now we have the testimony on video tape that has just been released of one person who was in there. She was questioned by one of the leading NBC newsmen and asked, “What was it like? What was the impact of all the psychological warfare that was unleashed on you?” She said, “It didn’t bother us at all. Our faith is greater than that. Our faith sustained us.” How will it be with the true Seventh-day Adventist?

Texe Marrs has just released a tape about all of the evil, psychological warfare that is being developed. It has now come out that in Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, our military tested all kinds of psychological and mental torture on Vietnamese prisoners to see what would drive the human mind mad. There are now men risking their lives to come forward and expose these things. What will sustain God’s people? Their faith and their knowledge of God’s Word and their conscious awareness of being in harmony with Christ.

The greatest hour in earth’s history is right upon us; and just as all or these evil forces are being unleashes, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard for His people and the Holy Spirit will be poured out as never before. We are told in Maranatha, 205, that the persecution will be more intense than it was when the papacy ruled the world and almost exterminated the religion of Jesus Christ. She says that it is impossible to describe the experience of God’s people because at the same time, they will walk in the light that streams from heaven through the gates ajar and they will receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as never before. Are we preparing for that? Do we have the depth of experience that will give us that kind of triumphant witness, even in the face of death? Is our faith supreme?

Our environment today offers many challenges. There is great danger that our thinking will become confused and the clarity of the features of our faith will become blurred, replaced with the desire for social prestige and other interests that will corrupt the purity of our faith. The challenge for us is to preserve our hours of communion with God, our time for personal study. If we preserve the primacy of Christ’s authority in our life above all else, He will bring us through to a triumphant victory.

The End