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But little did these Protestant preachers realize the results of such preaching, for they were doing away with God's Law, they were condoning sin. They were planting the seeds that led to the lawlessness that is now found everywhere in this country.
For everyone now feels he is free to do as he pleases and for over 150 years in America this teaching has existed among Protestant preachers and has become a part of their Bible doctrine. As a result, we live today in a Godless age. God's Law is no more, as has been taught by Protestantism. The result is that our country has become like Sodom.
But for your encouragement we ought to know that there has been a change coming in Protestantism. People are so fed up, they realize that something has gone wrong and there is a demand coming for law and order.
They say, we can't go on like this, we can't go out of our houses without risking to be shot at. We can't go shopping, we are not feeling safe anymore and free to walk around. And every agency in the government is desperately looking for an answer.
What are they going to do?
And silently, within the churches today, there is developing within Protestantism what many feel is the answer to lawlessness and rebellion. Protestantism is now becoming pregnant with an illegitimate child, and this child has the characteristics of Romanism. And we can see in this religious change a development of the image of the beast beginning to take place. Their cry is heard now as saying,
`We are taking America back.'
Here is what we can discover in a book published by the Presbyterian fundamentalists. [100]
In this book we discover a complete switch in Protestant teachings regarding the law of God. It is a very amazing and hard to believe switch. The book teaches that there must be a return to Bible doctrine and it sounded much like I was reading an historic Adventist book. What follows are some quotations from the first 40 pages of the book.
Listen carefully.
Remember, this comes from the Presbyterian Church. It starts out by talking about heresy.
"What is modern heresy today?" and we are quoting, "It is modern heresy to hold that the law of God has no meaning nor any binding force for man today."
Next it tells us about grace and law, telling us that it has always been the same and always will be the same. Listen:
"The God of scripture whose grace and law remain the same in every age, because God as the sovereign and absolute Lord who changes not, nor does He need to change."
If that doesn't sound like Adventist doctrine, one may not know what does.
"The time has come that we must get down to business ... as we study the Bible we must study the law."
"To attempt to study the scripture without studying the law is to deny it."
Adventists reading this can hardly belief their eyes. He goes on,
"... that Christ's atonement was to restore man to law keeping."
Just the opposite from what Protestant preachers had been preaching as you hear them on the radio and television, in their books and articles. Listen:
"The purpose of Christ's atoning work was to restore man to a position of covenant keeping. To enable man, to keep the law by freeing him from the law of sin and death, Rom. 8:27. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, Rom. 8:4. Man is restored to a position of law keeping."
What is happening in the mind of this Protestant author, may be even his church?
Then he proceeds to talk about sanctification and how its purpose is to keep the law.
"In man salvation, in man sanctification, that man grows in grace as he grows in law keeping, for the law is the way of sanctification."
It is truly a rare Protestant book which would say such a thing about the law of God. Listen to this statement:
"Man's justification is by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Man's sanctification is by means of the law of God."
Well, many Adventists could say `Amen' to that. Then the author tells us, that the purpose of grace, and get this, the purpose of grace is to help you keep the law. It doesn't take the place of the law ... Quoting now we read:
"The purpose of the law is not to set aside the law, but to fulfill the law and enable man to keep the law. If the law was so serious in the sight of God that it required the death of Jesus Christ, and the only begotten Son of God to make an atonement for man's sin, doesn't it sound strange then for God to proceed and abandon His law?"
This is the kind of message the tent preachers would preach after they pitched their tent. It is what Adventists would tell in Bible studies given at the home of inquirers. It sounds like this man has read the books of the Spirit of Prophecy. It sounds like he is acquainted with Ellen White.
"The law is a revelation of God and His righteousness." [200]
Then he goes on to say that there is no contradiction between law and grace. He writes:
"There is no contradiction between law and grace."
Then he tells us, that today's teaching of no law is the teaching of Polytheism, that is Baal worship. We read:
"We hold, as churches do, such as the Roman Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, and all others virtually, that the law was good for Israel but that Christians and the church are under grace without the law or under some higher, newer law - that is implicit Polytheism."
One can easily say `Amen' to that.
And then it talks about the atonement of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, it says,
"Jesus died in our place. The whole doctrine of Christ's atonement on the cross upholds the unity of the law and judgment and grace."
We recognize that as the Three Angels messages of Revelation chapter 14. Are you surprised now, that the book also uses the word `obedience'? In the ecumenical movement there was for some time a growing sense of,
`Don't talk about obedience.' `That may discourage people in having a love experience with God.'
Listen to this:
"Some are afraid of the word `obedience' as if it would weaken love and the idea of a new creation. Obedience, and the keeping of the commandments of the one we love, is the proof of that love and the delight of the new creation. ...
Did I do all right and not do it in obedience?
I shall do nothing right, because my true relationship and heart reverence to God would be left out. `This is love, that we keep his commandments.'"
These messages sound very much like Adventism. This is historic Adventism. Then he says,
"The lawlessness that is in the world today is the result of preachers that have been preaching that there is no law."
Listen to this statement:
"The alternative to law is not grace, it is lawlessness."
The next statement is especially surprising.
"When you change the law you are changing gods."
"One absolute, unchanging God means one absolute, unchanging law. Man's social applications and approximations of the righteousness of God may alter, they may vary or waver, but the absolute law does not. To speak of the law as for Israel, but not for the Christians, is not only to abandon the law but to abandon the God of the law. Since there is only one true God and His law is the expression of His unchanging nature and righteousness, to abandon the biblical law for another law system is to change gods. The moral collapse of Christendom, all is lawlessness, is a product of this current process of changing gods."
It is difficult to find anything so clear and concise as to what is the problem in America as to its lawlessness. But all this divine, Seventh-Day-Adventist doctrine comes to a screeching halt when the author discusses the fourth commandment.
In that whole chapter there is not one text given from the Bible - nothing is quoted which relates to the fourth commandment, seventh day.
"The Christian sabbath," the first day, "commemorates Christ's triumph over sin and death and hence it is celebrated on the day of the resurrection, the first day of the week and to reject this day is to reject Christ's redemption and to seek salvation by another inadmissible way." [230]
All one can say is, God forbid. What the Presbyterian leaning author has been talking about all the way through about the law and its purpose and to change it is like changing gods, when it comes to the fourth commandment they openly do what they have been condemning.
But Adventists realize that there are millions in these churches, who, when this strange doctrine is finally brought together in the development of the image of the beast they are going to see, as you and I can see more clearly and they will decide not to change gods and join with the true Sabbath keepers. This is going to happen sometime in the future.
But in this new teaching and zeal for the law, they are also saying that the law has a penalty today, just as it had in the days of Moses in Old Testament times, and that the death penalty must be brought about today as it was in the past.
And they are going even further, in this book they say that all the ceremonial laws of Moses are still binding, and today we are to have the death penalty. And it is here that we discover the image of the beast developing in apostate Protestantism.
What is the image of the beast?
The image of the beast represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their dogmas.
The book also talks about a new kind of doctrine referred to as `Dominion Theology of Biblical Law', and they give three proofs for this new doctrine. In Genesis 1:26, God said, `Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let him have dominion ...'
Then they quote Psalms 8:6:
"Thou madest him to have dominion."
Lastly they quote Micah 4:8:
"And thou, o tower of the flock," talking about Jesus, "the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem." [235]
We do not know at this time, how many Protestants are considering dominion theology in the place of doing away with God's law and challenging the church members that this is what God expects the church to do.
Among the supporters of the Ten Commandments Sunday you'll recall the name of D. James Kennedy. I understand that he is to preach concerning the Sabbath this May 7th, 2006 on a satellite broadcast. You may be interested in what he said five years ago in another broadcast. His topic then was "The Gift of Rest."
"There is an old saying that goes, 'As goes the Sabbath, so goes the nation,' because when the Sabbath becomes profaned and desecrated, church attendance is ignored, the teaching of God's holy word and His morality and spiritual life is forgotten, and the nation sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of sin.... it [the Sabbath] was changed [from Saturday to Sunday] by Christ, and by His Apostles by their example.... Did Constantine the Great change the Sabbath? Not at all. He simply recognized the day which, for 300 years, Christians had been celebrating. So, it is the first day of the week, it is the Lord's day, it is the Christian Sabbath, it is our day of rest, our day of joy and gladness." [240]
God only knows what this man would do had he behind him the power of a national Sunday law.
We proof him wrong in this assessment of what happened in the centuries following the ascension of Jesus Christ in our Lord's Day History! Where does he get that `old saying' from anyway? D. J. Kennedy puts himself at odds with Thomas Jefferson.
President Thomas Jefferson, on Religious Presidential Proclamations
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743-{1801-1809}-July 4, 1826) wrote the draft that became the Declaration of Independence. Some may or may not remember that he served as president of the United States from 1801 - 1809. In 1808 he was urged by clergyman Samuel
Miller (1769-1850) to declare a national day of fasting and prayer. I thought you might be interested to hear his response written to Mr. Miller at that time.
"Sir—I have duly received your favor of the 18th and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with. I consider the government of the U S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U.S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct it's exercises, it's discipline, or it's doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it.
I am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But I have ever believed that the example of state executives led to the assumption of that authority by the general government, without due examination, which would have discovered that what might be a right in a state government, was a violation of that right when assumed by another. Be this as it may, every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents.
I again express my satisfaction that you have been so good as to give me an opportunity of explaining myself in a private letter, in which I could give my reasons more in detail than might have been done in a public answer: and I pray you to accept the assurances of my high esteem & respect." [250]
After Jefferson's time, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was added and seen to enforce adherence to the First Amendment upon all the states of our Union. So the states's rights element in Jefferson's argument above has been obsoleted by the amended Constitution. But it remains noteworthy that Jefferson, of Declaration of Independence fame, refused even to use his office as president, to declare a voluntary day of prayer and fasting. How right he was, in urging that "Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it."
Jefferson, as all men, doubtless was flawed. But his understanding here is sound. If these zealots want to make an observance, they say, in support of the Ten Commandments, on Sunday, they may. But when the rhetoric behind their plea urges that in standing with them, one is standing against United States Supreme Court decisions that they feel "threaten the very fabric and foundation of our culture and faith," I grow wary. They have embarked on what is an alliance of ignorance, and their ignorance may result one day, sooner than they imagine, in an establishment of religion by the state, in contravention to the very principles they think they are upholding. Protestants have given up being Protestants. Now they are slaves to Rome.[260]
What follows is the experience of one Sabbath keeper.
One evening someone called to me. He desired to speak with me a moment. "Yes, what is it?"
"I wish to speak with you about the Sabbath."
We stood side by side, with our shoulders against a wall near a door.
He began by saying, "Your people are committing a great wrong in keeping the seventh-day Sabbath."
"How so?"
"The Christian people of this land are having a great struggle with saloon keepers, infidels, and wicked people generally, to maintain the Christian Sabbath and sometimes it looks as if the forces of evil would prevail in spite of all that we can do; and you, a Christian people, weaken the hands of God's servants, and strengthen the hands of the wicked by saying, `Sunday is not the Sabbath of the Lord at all.' Yes, I think you people commit a great wrong in so doing. I think it is displeasing to God."
He certainly made out a plausible case, in his own eyes, at least.
I replied, "If I do wrong, and displease the Lord by keeping the seventh day, I commit sin, do I not?"
"Certainly."
"And if I commit sin I must answer for it on the day of judgment, isn't that right?."
"Yes, that is so."
"Very well, suppose the day of final reckoning has come, and I stand before the judge of all the earth, and he demands of me why I kept the seventh day, what reply could I make? Could I not say, `The great God came down from heaven, and stood upon the trembling mount, amid smoke and flame, and with awe-inspiring majesty proclaimed with His own divine voice, "The seventh day is the Sabbath; in it thou shalt not do any work?"'
"Not only so, but the divine finger traced the same words upon the imperishable stone, and in that world of sin and rebellion against God, amid scorn and ridicule, at the loss of reputation, friends, and worldly preferment, I kept the seventh-day Sabbath because I loved the Lord, and trembled at His word. I kept it because I sincerely desired above everything else to honor God and keep His commandments."
"So, what do you think will the great God do with me?"
He thought a moment, and said; "Oh, Brother, you will be saved."
Now think of the flip side of this conversation.
If a Sunday keeper were asked in the judgment, ''Why did you keep Sunday?'' could he point to any divine command for its observance?
No.
All he could point to would be the commandments and traditions of men.
That is why Christ said,
''In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'' Matt. 15: 9
Sunday keepers may say, `We keep Sunday because all the world keeps it.'
Yes, they certainly do but "the whole world lieth in wickedness." 1.John 5: 19.
It is not good for a Christian to love the world; for "if any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him." 1.John 2: 15.
To be in harmony with the world is to be in harmony with the beast, as it is written, "All the world wondered after the beast." Revelation 13:3.
The Protestant Dilemma
A Protestant said:
"The original Sabbath being a perpetual memorial of God, the Creator calling man to imitate God in the observance of the same, man could not keep the original Sabbath and forgot God." [270]
Fifty-two times each year Christ displays before the entire world this sign of His creative power, He who is the world's only Savior. If we want God to know that we regard Him as the true God, we must keep His Sabbath. But that is the day the whole world has forgotten.
The Protestant world finds itself in a great dilemma today over this matter of which day to keep as the Sabbath. The Episcopalian Rev. George Hodges (1856-1919), pastor of one of the largest churches in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, said some years ago:
"The seventh day, the commandment says, is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. No kind of arithmetic, no kind of almanac, can make seven equal to one, or the seventh mean the first, nor Saturday mean Sunday ... The fact is that we are all Sabbath-breakers, every one of us."
The Protestants claim that the Bible is their only guide, and yet are not able to find Bible authority for keeping Sunday, which puts them into an embarrassing situation.
Great efforts have been put forth by Protestant ministers to find some authority for the keeping of Sunday. Alexander Campbell, a Baptist minister, said:
"But, say some, it has been changed from the seventh to the first day.
Where?
When?
By whom?
No man can tell." [280] [Explaining the First Day Texts!]
There are many of those who claim that Christ changed the Sabbath. Others try to prove that the apostles changed it. But nowhere in the Bible can proof be found. In fact numerous offers have been made to those who could find any such text.
Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, Author of "The Baptist Manual", said:
"To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years' walk with His disciples, ... he never alluded to any transference of the day; also, that during forty days of His resurrection life, no such thing was immitated." [290]
Isn't it strange that some people think that when Jesus died, it brought the Sabbath to an end? But Jesus' mother and His followers certainly did not know anything about that, for, while Jesus rested in the tomb on that Sabbath day, they rested in their homes, Luke 23:56.
In the House of Representatives, Mr. Bowers of California, once said:
"Saturday is the only Sabbath day. It was the Sabbath when Christ was on earth, and it is the Sabbath day now." [300]
If a change is to be made in a man's will it has to be done before he dies. Everything that Christ wanted His followers to do He revealed to them before His death. We cannot change a man's will after he dies. Neither can we change the commands of Jesus Christ after His death.
The Catholic author Vincent J. Kelly said:
"The fact, however, that Christ until His death, and His Apostles at least for a time after Christ's Ascension, observed the Sabbath is evidence enough that our Lord Himself did not substitute the Lord's day for the Sabbath, during His lifetime on earth." [310]
Alexander Campbell, of the Christian church expressed his opinion on this subject rather strongly:
"It is all old wife's fables to talk of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day. If it be changed, it was that august personage changed it who changes times and laws ex officio - - I think his name is Doctor Antichrist." [320]
T.C. Blake, a Presbyterian minister, said:
"God Himself made the Sabbath. ... Until, therefore it can be shown that the whole Moral Law has been repealed, the Sabbath will stand. No one, of course, will assert that this has been done, for such a thing would dethrone God, and would permit, without condemnation, angels and men to become devils!" [330]
The Catholic R.B. Ray said:
"From this same Catholic Church you have accepted your Sunday, and that Sunday, as the Lord's day, she handed down as a tradition, for you have not an iota of Scripture to establish it." [340]
Still more quotes includes this one:
"Christianity has abrogated the Sabbath. It has altered the day of the week, the hours when it begins and closes, and likewise the grounds for, and the manner of, its observance." [350]
"We say we shall observe one day a week as a day of rest and we agree on the first day of the week; it is a Matter of Convenience for the largest number, a matter of being able to act in common." [360]
The Presbyterian Philip Schaff said:
"The Sabbath is not a degradation ... It is not a legal ceremonial bondage, but rather a precious gift of grace, a privilege, a holy rest in God ... a foretaste and pledge of the never - ending Sabbath in heaven." [370]
They Want Teeth in Laws
In another book we read:
"Christians are challenged by God to reclaim the political realm for Jesus Christ. It is God's goal that his earthly followers eventually exercise authority over the earth in his name. In short, we must take authority over the nations with the applied rule of Jesus Christ." [380]
Then he goes on to explain what they are talking about. In a time when there is intolerance in our country, they say:
"Why should rapists be put back on the streets? Why should criminals be free again? Why should we be taxed to house and to feed murderers to the cost of $18,000 to $25,000 a year ...?"
The author upholds the old Mosaic law. Then he says,
"Why should gangs reign in our cities streets? Bring the army in ..."
"Why permit welfare for unwed mothers?"
As far as we know there are at least four states now which will pay for one child but not a second or third or fourth anymore.
There is an intolerance coming. Why permit drug related violence? This dominion theology has the answer so they say. It is a call to raise up a biblical mandate, to occupy secular government - vote in whom they want in that office and they demand that he carry out the laws of the Old and New Testament and the capital penalty.
Read now too this statement:
"The concept that Christians are biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions - the government, the police department - everyone - and become the central, unifying ideology for the Christian Right ..." [390]
Some well known Christians are the leaders of this movement.
These men want to start with the home, they want to clean things up and get rid of adulterers and treat them the OT way along with murderers, Rom. 5:18. They want to clean up society and get rid of such sinners. And the law will be that you must go to church on Sunday. If you don't keep the Sunday-Sabbath, you will also be eliminated.
"Warfare is not child's play, it is a grim and ugly matter. The Canaanites were under judicial death sentence by God. They were spiritually and morally degenerate. The law shall serve a still valid, general principle. If warfare is to destroy evil, then an evil order may be overthrown, and in some cases, some or many people must be executed." [400]
What is developing in Protestantism?
Consider this quotation:
"The death penalty is under girded in the New Testament by Christ's atoning death which makes clear that the penalty for man's transgression is death without remission, and to oppose capital punishment as prescribed by God's law is to oppose the cross of Christ."
Can we see finally that law and order is becoming such a problem that every pastor in the Protestant churches with the cross in back of him says, `Listen, if you don't line up and destroy these people you are not in favor of the cross.'
Think of what that will do.
Notice the implication. I am quoting:
"Sabbath violations were capital crimes. Capital crimes are major crimes. If the Hebrew Sabbath is morally binding today, its implications and applications are equally binding. If the standards of the Hebrew Sabbath are binding, then entering a place of business on the sabbath is morally a capital crime." [500]
Today we go shopping on Sundays, but someday, probably not long from now, the last movements will be rapid ones. Something is going to happen and over night we will find religious liberty gone as a thing of the past.
Could it be in an upcoming presidential election as the stakes of these are getting so high today? We urge you to consider these things and be true to God and His real law and not that made by men.
Someday, probably soon, the law will state, if you don't worship the image you will be killed.
This is God's final test. Are you getting ready for it? When this final test comes, would you rather die then sin? Are you willing to die over the Sabbath question?
God's Word says, if you are, you shall be worthy to walk through the pearly gates.
If you are compromising today over the Sabbath, you will compromise when that test comes. Are you watching the edges of the Sabbath? That your bath is taken, that your shoes are shined that you women try to get the food ready in advance as much as possible - I am talking about compromising, are you working until the sun gets down and then shower? What are you doing today, if you are compromising today, you will compromise then. But if you are standing firm for God's Sabbath today, by God's grace, you will stand firm tomorrow.
I do want to be true to God, but ...
Some may think or say,
`Yes, I do want to be faithful to God and keep His commandments. I understand what you say about the Sabbath and I will pray about it.'
That is a dangerous course of action. There should be no reason to delay to promptly keep the law that God has made holy and emphasized throughout the whole Bible. Delaying to obey is just another way of saying,
`Oh, I wished I could find a way out of having to obey God.' We should never follow such a line of thought which is the line that Balaam followed after he met the angel of the Lord as he rode on his donkey to curse God's people. We must decide for God on this matter without hesitation.
Notes & References
[0010] The lamb like beast of Revelation 13 has long been seen as the United States on the following basis. All other world empires like Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome are pictured as arising out of the sea, the vast sea of people inhabiting the world. The lamb, however, is described as arising out of the earth (Rev. 13:11). That has been understood in contrast to the sea, the symbol for vast numbers of peoples, as representing a part of the world not inhabited by vast numbers of people having a history comparable to the Orient. This fits North America closely.
[0020] Roland Bainton's study on persecution of Catholics and Protestants established three prerequisites for persecution: The persecutors must believe 1. that they are right, 2. that the issue is important, and 3. that coercion will be effective. {Christa & Alan Reinach, Politics & Prophecy, Pacific Press Publ., 2007, p. 124. Quoting B.G. Hankins, "Religious Coercion in a Postmodern Age," Journal of Church and State 1 (1997): 5.}
[0050] There are many beautiful Christian people in Catholicism. What we are referring to is the RC as an organized system, the system which supports places like the cathedral of Cologne and similar churches. There one can observe the idolatry which may not as obviously show itself in a small parish church.
Today, according to the Gonzaga Law Review, they have infiltrated probably all the law schools with Jesuit ideology -basically that means sue everybody for everything [Dec. 25, 2001(?), Newsweek, `Lawsuit Hell']. Basically what we have in place today is described in an article titled, `The Catholic League and Suppression of Freedom of the Press Today'. This article reveals that the `Catholic League' was founded in 1973 by the Jesuit priest Virgil Blum. William Donahue assumed its leadership in 1993. It has now a membership of ca. 200,000. According to Donahue, `The Catholic Church is there to provide a heady antidote to today's mindless ideas of freedom.' This `arm' of Rome attacks large, mainstream media and corporations, like: `The Associated Press, Disnay, The Orlando Weekly, FOX TV, Ann Landers, ABC, PBS, HBO, Sony, The University of Michigan, the White House, etc. The article says that any criticism of the Vatican, no matter how just, is off limits. The same `off limits' teachers of Darwinian evolution assert for themselves. You will expect to hear words like this as Rome is taking over this nation! Donahue also said, they don't bother at this time to take over small fringe groups. This way God is holding back the `winds' until His servants can reach the masses with His mighty Three Angels' messages. These messages need to be delivered fast. [The Life and Death of NSSM 200]
Revelation reveals that those uniting with this power, the leaders of mas. included, will lose.
[0070] Some strange, perhaps even ominous or dangerous trends are showing up just these last few days. It appears Satan is ensnaring people on both fronts - the ungodly and those involved in false religion. While they oppose each other, they all seem to match those of which the apostles have warned God's followers. We heard a speech warning for Islam and the violent reaction by Muslims, we hear about youth being trained by `Christian' teachers to react like the jihad warriors for Christ. We could go on but are not trying to engage in scare methods. We must be true to God's Word in obedience, patience, long-suffering, mercy and Christian agape love. We must go through a trying time and be spiritually strong, equipped with the Word of God in our mind and hearts, shun fanaticism (defined as, `Fixation on one rigid idea in isolation from others.'), misplaced emotional outbursts and the like. We must follow the words of John the Baptist when he said, "Do violence to no man." (Luke 3:14). Jesus will come soon. We must be ready. Pray for one another not to fall into the snares of Satan.
[0080] A typical method of interpretation of the Bible which resulted from Bible criticism of the variety of Wellhausen and Bultman was to ask a key question to scrutinize the Bible with. Such a question was to ask for `den Sitz im Leben' (literally: `the seat in life)' of a particular Bible passage. In our view, it is better to scrutinize how Jesus and the actual authors of Bible books applied Old Testament passages and how He Himself and through his chosen witnesses interpreted them and use only that method.
[0082] This sermon was delivered long before any of the terrible events in our schools for example took place. Please note the eye opening message of Josh McDowell (?spelling) on this subject.
[0100] Rousas John Rushdoony, `The Institute of Biblical Law', The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973.
[0200] E.G. White, `Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 580.
[0230] Please be reminded that according to the Bible, baptism is the memorial of the death, burial and resurection of Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches we are to preach often on the cross, burial and resurrection - to lead people to Christ - (as the apostles did), not keep it for a holy day every week. Jesus died and rose once, not every week, likewise we get baptized only once.
[0235] As there are two covenants, the old (temporal) and the new (eternal), so there are two cities to which they pertain. The city of Jerusalem which is now pertains to the old covenant - to Mt. Sinai. It will never be free but will be replaced by the City of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, Rev. 3:12; 21:1-5. It is the city which Abraham looked forward to, the "city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Hebr. 11:10; Rev. 21:14,19,20. -- There are many who build great hopes - all their hopes - on the present Jerusalem. For such "to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted." 2.Cor. 3:14. They are in reality looking to Mt. Sinai, the old covenant, to slavery, for salvation. But it is not to be found there, Hebr. 12:18-24. But whoever worships with his face toward the New Jerusalem, he who expects blessings only from it, is looking to the new covenant, to Mt. Zion, and to freedom; for "... Jerusalem which is above is free" (Gal. 4:26). From what is it free? It is free from sin. Is it free from the law? Yes, certainly, for the law does not condemn those who keep it because they are in Jesus Christ. Coming by faith to Mt. Zion, to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling as He serves now in the Most Holy in the typical, heavenly sanctuary of God, we become free from sin. This tells us that the foundation of God's throne in "Zion" is His law. It is from this throne of God that proceed the same lightenings and thunderings and voices (Rev. 4:5; 11:19) as from Sinai (Ex. 19:16), because exactly the same law is there by His "throne of grace" (Hebr. 4:16). - The queston then is, `Why did not the Lord bring the people directly to Mt. Zion where they could find the law as life, and not to Mt. Sinai where it was only death?' The answer is, `Because of their unbelief.' When God brought Israel out of Egypt, it was His purpose to bring them to Mt. Zion as directly as they could go. When they had crossed the Red Sea, they sang an inspired song, of which the following was a part,
"Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." ... "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established." Ex. 15:13,17. If they would have continued singing this song, they would have very soon come to Zion. For the redeemed of the Lord "come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy upon their heads." Isa. 35:10. The dividing of the Gulf of Aqaba Red Sea was the proof of this, Isa. 51:10,11. But they forgot the Lord and murmured in unbelief. Therefore the law "added in transgressions." (Gal. 3:19) It was their own fault - the result of sinful unbelief - that they came to Mt. Sinai instead of to Mt. Zion. -- Christians all over the world today make these same choices. Many are rather slaves to sin by breaking God's law every week, rather then direct their gaze away from this old world to the heavenly Zion to help end the vicious cycle of sin.
[0240] D. James Kennedy, "The Gift of Rest," Sermon broadcast on November 4, 2001.
[0250] Letter To Rev. Samuel Miller from United States president Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1808 (President of the United States 1801-1809). The Seventh Day Sabbath—Not Sunday, is Ten Commandments Day. (From gc.org)
[0260] After 1943 on the issue of school prayer the Supreme Court reversed earlier decisions saying, "The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections." The Supreme Court rejected the notion that patriotism required trampling on the rights of individual religious freedom. The language of the Court's decision is inspiring and deserves to be read very carefully. "To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. . . . Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." {West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 639, 642, 643, (1943) as quoted in Christa & Allan Reinach, Ed., `Politics and Prophecy', Pacific Press Publ. 2007, p. 119, 120.} {See also Gaustad, Edwin S., `Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America.}
Even though some claim that Jefferson in his private life, and while being president, supported missionaries in India, held another position on a school board, and advocated the teaching of the Bible and Watt's Hymnal in schools, the above citation does speak of what separation of church and school ought to be like. In reality, however, it is not what Jefferson did about it but how the Bible teaches that important truth particularly in the Book of Daniel and the trial of Jesus.
[0270] Heralds of Gospel Liberty, June 19, 1870.
[0280] The Christian Baptist, p.44.
[0290] This was in a paper read before a New York Minister's Conference held November 13, 1893.
[0300] Congressional Record, July 12, 1892.
[0310] Forbidden Sunday and Feast Day Occupations, pp. 19-20.
[0320] The Christian Baptist, Feb. 2, 1824.
[0330] T.C. Blake, `Theology Condensed', p. 474.
[0340] R.B. Ray, The Papal Controversy, p. 179.
[0350] Dr. Robert Hanry Charles, The Decalogue, p. 156.
[0360] T.G. Wallace, Canon of St. James, London, Canada, in `The Religious Digest', November 1942.
[0370] Philip Schaff in the `History of the Christian Church', p. 479.
[0380] Gary Nord(?), `The Biblical Practices for Biblical Action', The Dominion Press.
[0390] Sara Diamon, `Spiritual Welfare - Politics of the Religious Right', p. 138.
[0400] Rousas John Rushdoony, `The Institute of Biblical Law', The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973, p. 279.
[0500] Ibid., p. 77. Of course when this author writes `Sabbath' he means Sunday, their illegitimate first day sabbath.
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Now these ministers knew very, very well that there was nothing in the Old or New Testament which said that God had changed the Fourth Commandment from the Sabbath to Sunday. But by preaching, that the law was no more, that it was no longer binding they were able to convince the membership of their churches not to have anything to do with that crazy Seventh Day Adventist minister who had come to their town to preach to them, telling them they ought to obey God and keep His Commandments.
Miller