An email response from 2005

Hello everyone,

   My name is David.  I am grateful to reply on the subject of the church and state relationship.  An internet roundtable would be a wonderful thing if anyone wants to email back to me. And if you want to forward this to anyone, even better.  “In the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses every word may be established.” (Matt. 18:16).  And “in multitude of counselors, there is safety.” (Prov. 24:6). Communication is the key to any successful family, organization, or free society.

   I have been a United States Navy sailor.  I am glad to have served my country.  I have been a Christian since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.  I love God and know He loves me.  I pray to the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit.  I teach and lead out in my local church.  I helped construct our little church building.  I hope these credentials qualify me to speak in defense of the separation of church and state.

   I read the speech of the high school principal, and she misunderstands something.  It’s understandable that she misunderstands.  But unfortunate that she does.  I embrace her concern that our society is taking a downturn.  It seems we are hanging ten at the edge of a precipice which has no bottom.  Each generation has lost more capability or interest in holding up the moral standard.

   Materialism has done its evil work.  It’s the same thing that has happened all through the eons.  A people become strong in hardship.  They get a break and push to the top, where they begin to enjoy the luxuries and pleasures of the good life.  Once they have tasted of it, they become ravenous for more.  The world’s wealth pours in, and they use it all for themselves, rather than being the stewards of it to the world.  The convenience and ease, long having displaced honesty and hardship, give way to corruption, self-serving, self-indulgence; and the empire is left enervated and effeminate, ready to fall.  And they convince themselves that, although this condition caused all the previous empires to fall, it won’t happen to them!

   This definition of materialism, labeled idolatry (or covetousness) in the Bible (Col. 3:5), really pegs us all, inside the church and outside of it.  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  None of us, even in the church, can live without our modern conveniences.  It seems we can’t ever go back to the pioneer days of our colonial fathers and mothers who camped their whole lives. Modern Jeshurun has grown fat and kicked his Maker.  (Deut. 32:15).

   Our Constitution was based on self-government.  That is what has made our country great.  This could only happen because our revolutionary forefathers were the progeny of the Protestant Reformation.  Protestantism also is based on self-government. Everyone stands or falls in judgment because of himself, not because of a priest or a pope.  Along with that premise, no holy man can: 1) take my place in talking to God; 2) interpret the Bible for me; or 3) require good behavior from me in order for me to approach God, for all that God requires and all that I can do is come to Christ just as I am.  Those last three statements summed up the Reformation.  All three tenets can do nothing but develop courage and integrity, the stuff of self-government, in the privileged people to whom they are offered and who accept them.

    But although the United States Constitution was born out of the same principles as was the Reformation, this does not presuppose that we have a Protestant Constitution or a Christian Constitution.  Our Constitution is designed for civil government.  Protestantism is designed for spiritual or moral government.  Our Constitution isn’t even a moral document, but a civil one.  Morality comes from the heart.  It is borne out from our intents, and desires, our love for God.  Civil laws have no way of enforcing morality because they cannot detect an infraction in spirituality and they have no love to “restore such an one.” (Gal. 6:1).  I would hate to see the mess that would tie up the court system by trying to monitor and regulate the issues of the heart.

   Rather, ours is a civil government; one in which our forefathers saw wisdom in keeping its hands off the business that is God’s only.  Due to their experience with the Church of England and the overbearing monarchy, they knew first hand what happens when the church is in cahoots with the government.  All through Europe this cozy relationship was forcing an impossibly wide chasm between the wealth of the aristocracy and the impoverished working class, and brought persecution on anyone who wanted to worship or understand God, or even to think differently than did the established church.  Not many generations previous to them, people had burned at the stake, were drowned, or other unspeakable horrors, for their desire to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.

   So when James Madison drafted the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, he separated church and state.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Madison was apparently the most Christian of any of the forefathers.  He had a genuine desire to protect religion.  He also loved his new country for which he had suffered so much.  Knowing the dangers of the current union of religion and government, he realized that only by keeping religion and government separate entities would they both stay free from overbearing persecution.  Neither antagonistic nor friendly, they could coexist peacefully if detached completely.

   It’s not the church’s business to enforce or hamper the laws of any civil government.  The church’s kingdom is not of this world.  Similarly, it’s not the business of any civil government to enforce or hamper the work of the church.  In fact, it has absolutely no power to do that, not for the true church. Because the true followers of Christ and His cross will obey Him, even against all the armies of a civil government that trespasses on God’s ground and assumes the authority of God by legislating for Him.

   I applaud our government for keeping its hands off the business of the church, to the extent that it has.  But lately we’ve seen an insidious move by our government to go back on its hands-off promise, as built into its Constitution.  We’ve seen it fund the reconstruction of churches and church schools.  We’ve seen “faith-based initiatives” funded by tax dollars.  We’ve seen Congressional, Senatorial, Presidential candidates agree to pander to certain sectors of the church if they get elected and then when elected, due to the large religious voting machines, they feel it only right to abide by their agreements which they unconstitutionally made.

   Why shouldn’t good, upstanding citizens demand laws that will curtail any obvious dissolution of our society?  They should work to curtail anything dangerous to the nation! Alone or in a large civic group.  But when pastors are organizing thousands of churches to mass-email threats of no-further-votes to an elected official that they “put in office,” this is completely an altogether different matter.  This is getting dangerously close to a union of church and state. Yet multitudes of religious leaders see no danger here toward our government or defilement of the church.

   Government politics aren’t the best example of self-sacrifice and purity.  Therefore government politics is not the place for church pastors. In fact, our great first president George Washington strongly saw the need for a forceful sovereign government based solely upon self-interest.  And that is the direction he encouraged and pushed the new American government when he could.  Yet self-interest is 100% contrary to the Gospel.  How long will the church stay pure while it involves itself in politics?  Not many weeks ago, Ralph Reed, famed leader of the religious right, got mixed up in a scandal with a politician who was playing both sides of an issue while stopping the passage of an anti-gambling bill. Whether or not Mr. Reed knew he was accepting laundered money for funding his mass mailing operation, is another issue.  My question is, Why was he there in the first place?  That should be a warning shot over the church’s bow.  Will she learn from this the lesson that government is no place for the church if she wants to remain pure?  Will she back away from her own bottomless pit?  No, she has determined to go her own way. Now its power that she wants.

    Civil government is tasked to keep peace externally, using external measures.  It is the minister of God to execute vengeance, and it “beareth not the sword in vain.” (Rom. 13:4).  Kudos to our government, local, state and federal.  They’ve done a pretty good job keeping us and it straight.  The church is tasked by God to keep peace internally, using internal measure, “as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Rom. 12:3).  How has the church done?  Where is the self-sacrifice seen during the Dark Ages in Europe?  What is the moral condition of her field of labor in the world?  What fruit has she brought forth?  She gets a failing grade across the board.  I say this as one of them and party to their short-comings.  It’s State-1, Church-0.  When will we be sorry enough to repent?

   But the church cries out, “If it weren’t for the government getting in our way, we would be better at the task given us.  It’s that Supreme Court… or that Congress…or that White House.  They are the enemy!  We could clean up America if they weren’t such an obstacle.  We can’t compete!  No sooner do we clean part of the house, then they dirty it up again!  But we have a plan.  Our people will be in the Supreme Court and Congress and the White House.  Prayer will be in schools, commandments will be in courthouses, people will be in churches on Sundays.”

   It must be asked, Did the church of apostolic days ever work together with the government to clean up the messy society? What Would Jesus Do?  What did Jesus do?  At every opportunity, He put down any hopes that He would have anything to do with the Roman government.  He didn’t even have dealings with the Sanhedrin, because their kingdom was of this world, and His was not.  Obviously, the uniting of the kingdom of this world and God’s kingdom has been Satan’s effort from the beginning; and his often success.

   The pure apostolic church requested no worldly support.  She looked to God and His providences for the advancement of God’s kingdom.  Faith and prayer were her only weapons of war and the gates of hell could not prevail against her.  Why won’t the modern church use the same weapons?  If the churchs need worldly support, what does that say about their faith?  Jesus said, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith in the earth?”  (Lk. 18:8).  “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matt. 24:12).  It’s not the government pushing to rape the church, but it’s the church approaching the government for an illicit affair.  How much longer will God keep Himself from divorcing His bride and putting her away?  Unless she turns away from her efforts to a so-called “moral” union with the state rather than to the Husband she covenanted with, she will become what the Bible calls, “the mother of harlots and abominations in the earth.” (Rev. 17:5).

   Now, as one Christian to another, please consider what I’ve said.  Please reconsider the attempt to criticize the government or even the ACLU.  I’m not saying this because I am a member of the ACLU, but because the scriptures say it.  “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.”  (Titus 3:1,2).  “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.” (1Tim. 2:1-3).

    Let’s go back to using prayer and faith.  Just a mustard grain amount will turn the world upside down, in God’s own time.  “Shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them?  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.”  (Lk 18:7, 8).

The inspiration of Archbishop Gaspare Ricciulli at the Council of Trent

To those who don't know the story behind the failure of the Reformation against the Church of Rome I have copy/pasted from the website listed below. This says something about Revelation 13:3,

"And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed."

Today we are seeing the final developments of that council far flung in space and time, in the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this coming October 31st. Soon afterward we will see the end of the above verse, "...and all the world wondered after the beast."

http://biblelight.net/bssb-1443-1444.htm

Archbishop of Reggio's Sermonto the Council of Trent on the Power of the Church:
By Our Authority The Sabbath Was Changed To Sunday!

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THE JESUITS CAPTURE THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

    This Society of Jesus proposed to subordinate the Holy Scriptures and in their place substitute the interpretations of the Bible by the ecclesiastical writers of the first centuries whom they called the “fathers.” All the errors and vagaries of the allegorizers who confused and darkened the first three centuries were selected. The first great papal council which assembled after the Reformation, the Council of Trent (A. D. 1545-1563), was dominated by the Jesuits. This assembly laid down the law, and no papal authority has dared since to dispute it.
    In assembling this church council, Emperor Charles V gave the order that only the abuses in the church, not doctrine, should be considered. He was distracted to behold his realm divided between two contending churches, and it mattered little to him which creed prevailed. He only wished some general assembly to remedy conditions. The emperor desired Lutherans and Catholics to sit together in a general council, and he fondly believed Europe again would be united.
    The influence of the Jesuits was immediately seen when the pope ignored the imperial command to notify the Reformers. Weeks passed, and finally the council organized itself and accepted the following as its first four decrees: (1) The Vulgate was the true Bible and not the Received Text which the Reformers followed and which had been the Bible of the Greek Church, the Church of the east, and the true churches of the West through the centuries; (2) tradition was of equal authority with the Sacred Scriptures; (3) the five disputed books found in the Catholic Bible, but rejected by Protestant scholars, were declared canonical; (4) the priests only, and not the laity, were capable of rightly interpreting the Scriptures.⁷
    When the emperor learned that the Protestants had not been called to the council, he was enraged. Uttering severe threats, he demanded that his original plan be executed. Though the pope reluctantly and with long delay obeyed, the decrees already passed irrevocably compromised the situation. The Lutherans refused to accept the insulting notifications. In the meantime the pope had died and his successor advocated Jesuit policies. The deliberations proceeded as they had begun. Decree after decree was proclaimed; doctrine after doctrine was settled. Repeatedly the emperor was misled until he expressed his anger strongly to the Roman pontiff over the deceitful maneuvering.
    How were the church prelates to defend these doctrines which had no scriptural authority?
    Hours, weeks, and months; yes, many sessions went by with this anxious question in their hearts. Then, one morning, January 18, 1562, the archbishop of Rheggio hurried from his room and appeared before his confreres to proclaim that he had the answer. Protestants, he urgently reasoned, never could defend Sunday sacredness,⁸ If they continued to offer as their authority “the Bible and the Bible only,” it was clear that they had no Bible command for the first day of the week. According to Pallavicini, papal champion of the council, the archbishop said, “It is then evident that the church has power to change the commandments,” because by its power alone and not by the preaching of Jesus it had transferred the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.⁹ Tradition, they concluded, was not antiquity, but continuous inspiration. None could continue to fight the acceptance of tradition when the only authority for Sunday sacredness in the church was tradition. This discovery nerved the council to go forward with its work.
    All the doctrines against which the Reformers had protested were thus again formulated and strengthened by Rome. All the rites and practices which the Church in the Wilderness had straggled to escape were incorporated more strongly than ever into papal tradition by the twenty-five sessions of the council between 1545 and 1563.
    Henceforth, the Papacy was to have only one mission in the world, namely, to command nations and men everywhere to submit to the Council of Trent. The new slogan now invented, which must go reverberating throughout the earth, was, “The Council of Trent, the Council of Trent, the Council of Trent.”
⁷ Froude, The Council of Trent, pp. 174, 175; Muir, The Arrested Reformation, pages 152, 153; also M'Clintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, art. "The Council of Trent."
⁸ Holtzman, Kanon und Tradition, page 263. (see 1444 below)
⁹ Pallavicini, Histoire du Concile de Trent, vol. 2, cols. 1031, 1032.

Source: Truth Triumphant, the Church in the Wilderness, By Benjamin George Wilkinson, Pacific Press, 1944, reprints 1994, Teach Services, Inc., ISBN 0-945383-85-1, pgs. 317-318, and 2004, Hartland Publications, ISBN 0-923309-32-2, pgs. 308-310.

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1443. Sabbath, Change of, Cited as Proof That Tradition Is Above Scripture

Source: Gaspare [Ricciulli] de Fosso (Archbishop of Reggio), Address in the 17th session of the Council of Trent, Jan. 18*, 1562, in Mansi SC, Vol. 33, cols. 529, 530. Latin.  [ Gian Domenico Mansi,''Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio"]

[col. 529] Such is the condition of the heretics of this age that on nothing do they rely more than that, under the pretense of the word of God, they overthrow the authority of the church; as though the church, His body, could be opposed to the word of Christ, or the head to the body. On the contrary, the authority of the church, then, is illustrated most clearly by the Scriptures; for while on the one hand she recommends them, declares them to be divine, [col. 530] offers them to us to be read, in doubtful matters explains them faithfully, and condemns whatever is contrary to them; on the other hand, the legal precepts in the Scriptures taught by the Lord have ceased by virtue of the same authority. The Sabbath, the most glorious day in the law, has been changed into the Lord’s day. Circumcision, enjoined upon Abraham and his seed under such threatening that he who had not been circumcised would be destroyed from among his people, has been so abrogated that the apostle asserts: "If ye be circumcised, ye have fallen from grace, and Christ shall profit you nothing." These and other similar matters have not ceased by virtue of Christ’s teaching (for He says He has come to fulfill the law, not to destroy it), but they have been changed by the authority of the church. Indeed, if she should be removed (since there must be heresies), who would set forth truth, and confound the obstinacy of heretics? All things will be confused, and soon heresies condemned by her authority will spring up again. [See No. 1444.]

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Sed tempus est, ut ad illius auctoritatem (unde digressi sumus) revertamur : & in ea insistendum est; talis enim est hujus ævi hæreticorum conditio, ut in nullam rem magis incumbant, quam ut sub prætextu verbi Dei ecclesiæ auctoritatem evertant : ac si verbo Christi corpus ejus ecclesia, vel corpori caput posset adversari; quinimo auctoritas ecclesiæ tunc a scripturis maxime illustratur, dum eas commendat, divinas esse [530] declarat, nobis legendas exhibet, in dubiis fideliter exponit, & eis contraria condemnat, dum legalia in scripturispræcepta a domino eadem auctoritate cessarunt. Dies sabbati in lege celeberrimus transiit in Dominicam : circumcisio Abrahæ & semini ejus ea sub comminatione ordinata, ut cujus præputii caro circumcisa non fuerit, deleretur de populo suo : sic sublata est, ut apostolus obtestetur, si circumcidamini, excidistis a gratia, & Christus nihil vobis prodest. Hæc, & his similia non Christi prædicatione cessarunt (ait enim se venisse implere legem, non solvere) sed auctoritate ecclesiæ mutata sunt : etenim si ea tolleretur (cum oporteat hæreses esse ) quis ostendet veritatem, & hæreticorum confundet pertinaciam ? erunt confusa omnia, redeuntibus mox hæresibus illius auctoritate damnatis.

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* As noted in the decree issued the first day of the 17th session of the Council of Trent, January 18 was the Catholic festival of the chair of St Peter at Rome (Cathedrae Romanae S. Petri). Pope Paul IV had in 1558, in the midst of the Reformation, and the Council of Trent convened to deal with it, established this feast day to celebrate the power and authority of the Bishop of Rome and the Holy See; particularly his magisterial authority in proclaiming doctrine ex cathedra, (from the chair of Peter), which is to say with infallibility. In 1962 Pope John XXIII moved the feast to February 22, combining it and the feast of the chair of Peter at Antioch, though some traditionalist Catholics continue to observe separate feasts. At the Vatican, on the feast of the chair of St. Peter, now Feb. 22, and the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul on June 29, the enthroned bronze statue of Peter near the altar of St. Peter's basilica is customarily dressed in vestments and a papal triple tiara placed on its head in celebration of the authority of the papacy.
The full Latin text of de Fosso's sermon, given at St. Vigilio Cathedral on Sunday, Jan. 18, 1562, to the Council of Trent, is also found online in:
Monumentorum Ad Historiam Concilii Tridentini Potissimum Illustrandam Spectantium Amplissima Collectio: Complectens Conciones, Volume 1, Josse Le Plat, 1781.pgs. 309-318.

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1444. Sabbath, Change of—Cited in Council of Trent as Proof that Tradition Is Above Scripture

Source: Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition ("Canon and Tradition") (Ludwigsburg: Druck and Verlag von Ferd. Riehm, 1859), p. 263. German.

The Council [of Trent] agreed fully with Ambrosius Pelargus, that under no condition should the Protestants be allowed to triumph by saying that the council had condemned the doctrine of the ancient church. But this practice caused untold difficulty without being able to guarantee certainty. For this business, indeed, ‘well-nigh divine prudence’ was requisite—which the Spanish ambassador acknowledged as belonging to the council on the sixteenth of March, 1562. Indeed, thus far they had not been able to orient themselves to the interchanging, crisscrossing, labyrinthine, twisting passages of an older and newer concept of tradition. But even in this they were to succeed. Finally, at the last opening [see editors’ note] on the eighteenth of January, 1562, all hesitation was set aside: [Gaspar de Fosso] the Archbishop of Reggio made a speech [see No. 1443] in which he openly declared that tradition stood above Scripture. The authority of the church could therefore not be bound to the authority of the Scriptures, because the church had changed circumcision into baptism, Sabbath into Sunday, not by the command of Christ, but by its own authority. With this, to be sure, the last illusion was destroyed, and it was declared that tradition does not signify antiquity, but continual inspiration.

[Editors’ note: This "last opening" of the Council of Trent was not the last day, but the opening of the 17th session, the first meeting of the last series of sessions that was opened, after a lapse of time, under a new pope. The council was in session for longer or shorter periods over a series of years.]

Source for entries 1443, 1444: Neufeld, Don F.,  Seventh-day Adventist Bible Student’s Source Book, Don F. Neufeld and Julia Neuffer.—Washington, D.C., Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1962, pgs. 887-888.

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Adonque conforme alla presa deliberazione, venuto il di diciotta, si fece la Processione di tutto 'l Clero della città, de' Theologi, & Prelati, che, oltrei Cardinali, erano cento dodici mitrati, accompagnati dalle famiglie loro, & guardati da molti paesani armati, caminando dalla Chiesa di San Pietro alla Catedrale; dove il Cardinale di Mantoua cantò la Messa dello Spirito Santo: & Gasparo dal Fosso, Arcivescovo di Reggio, fece l'orazione: Hebbe per soggetto trattar dell'autorità della Chiesa, del Primato del Papa, & della potestà de' concilii; disse l'autorità della Chiesa non esser minore di quella della parola di Dio; che la Chiesa ha mutato il Sabbato, da Dio già ordinato, nella Domenica, & levata la Circoncisione, già strettamente dalla Maestà divina commandata; che questi precetti, non per la predicazione di Cristo, ma per autorità della Chiesa sono mutati. Rivoltosi anco a' Padri, gli conforto ad adoperarsi constantmete contra i Protestanti, con certezza che, si come lo Spirito Santo non puo errare, cosi eglino non possono ingannarsi.
Therefore in conformity with the resolution, when the eighteenth day was come, a procession was made of the whole clergy of the city of the divines and prelates, who besides the cardinals were one hundred and twelve that wore the mitre, accompanied by their families and guarded by many of the country people armed, going from St. Peter's Church to the Cathedral; where the Cardinal of Mantoua sang the Mass of the Holy Ghost and Gasparo dal Fosso, Archbishop of Reggio, made the sermon: His subject was the authority of the Church, the primacy of the Pope, and the power of Councils: he said that the Church had as much authority as the word of God and that the Church had changed the sabbath ordained by God into Sunday, taking away the Circumcision formerly commanded by the divine Majesty, and that the precepts are changed, not by the preaching of Christ, but by the authority of the Church. Turning himself unto the fathers, he exhorted them to labour constantly against the Protestants, being assured, that, as the Holy Ghost could not err, so neither could they be deceived.

Source: Historia del Concilio Tridentino, Second Edition, Book 6, 1629, by Paolo Sarpi (Pietro Soave Polano), pgs. 479 - 480.
Another 1629 printing online at Google Books.
An 1858 printing.

The great falling away, twice told

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves… having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” (2Tim. 3:1,2,5).

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (1Tim. 4:1,2).

As in ages past, the introduction of pagan doctrines into the chosen people is again on the upsurge and soon to overcome those who have held the truth in righteousness. The Trinity has no foundation in scriptures, according to the SDA-publication, The Trinity, Understanding God’s love, His plan of salvation, and Christian relationships. “While no single scriptural passage states formally the doctrine of the Trinity, it is assumed as a fact….” The Trinity. And the Vatican states that the Trinity is the foundation for all other “Christian” dogma.

“The holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth…. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them.” (Rev. 11:2-4,7).

“And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days…. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Rev. 12:6,17).

“   Thousands were imprisoned and slain, but others sprang up to fill their places. And those who were martyred for their faith were secured to Christ and accounted of Him as conquerors. They had fought the good fight, and they were to receive the crown of glory when Christ should come. The sufferings which they endured brought Christians nearer to one another and to their Redeemer. Their living example and dying testimony were a constant witness for the truth; and where least expected, the subjects of Satan were leaving his service and enlisting under the banner of Christ. 

     Satan therefore laid his plans to war more successfully against the government of God by planting his banner in the Christian church. If the followers of Christ could be deceived and led to displease God, then their strength, fortitude, and firmness would fail, and they would fall an easy prey. 

     The great adversary now endeavored to gain by artifice what he had failed to secure by force. Persecution ceased, and in its stead were substituted the dangerous allurements of temporal prosperity and worldly honor. Idolaters were led to receive a part of the Christian faith, while they rejected other essential truths. They professed to accept Jesus as the Son of God and to believe in His death and resurrection, but they had no conviction of sin and felt no need of repentance or of a change of heart. With some concessions on their part they proposed that Christians should make concessions, that all might unite on the platform of belief in Christ. 

     Now the church was in fearful peril. Prison, torture, fire, and sword were blessings in comparison with this. Some of the Christians stood firm, declaring that they could make no compromise. Others were in favor of yielding or modifying some features of their faith and uniting with those who had accepted a part of Christianity, urging that this might be the means of their full conversion. That was a time of deep anguish to the faithful followers of Christ. Under a cloak of pretended Christianity, Satan was insinuating himself into the church, to corrupt their faith and turn their minds from the word of truth. 

     Most of the Christians at last consented to lower their standard, and a union was formed between Christianity and paganism. Although the worshipers of idols professed to be converted, and united with the church, they still clung to their idolatry, only changing the objects of their worship to images of Jesus, and even of Mary and the saints. The foul leaven of idolatry, thus brought into the church, continued its baleful work. Unsound doctrines, superstitious rites, and idolatrous ceremonies were incorporated into her faith and worship. As the followers of Christ united with idolaters, the Christian religion became corrupted, and the church lost her purity and power. There were some, however, who were not misled by these delusions. They still maintained their fidelity to the Author of truth and worshiped God alone. 

     There have ever been two classes among those who profess to be followers of Christ. While one class study the Saviour’s life and earnestly seek to correct their defects and conform to the Pattern, the other class shun the plain, practical truths which expose their errors. Even in her best estate the church was not composed wholly of the true, pure, and sincere. Our Saviour taught that those who willfully indulge in sin are not to be received into the church; yet He connected with Himself men who were faulty in character, and granted them the benefits of His teachings and example, that they might have an opportunity to see their errors and correct them. Among the twelve apostles was a traitor. Judas was accepted, not because of his defects of character, but notwithstanding them. He was connected with the disciples, that, through the instruction and example of Christ, he might learn what constitutes Christian character, and thus be led to see his errors, to repent, and, by the aid of divine grace, to purify his soul ‘in obeying the truth.’ But Judas did not walk in the light so graciously permitted to shine upon him. By indulgence in sin he invited the temptations of Satan. His evil traits of character became predominant. He yielded his mind to the control of the powers of darkness, he became angry when his faults were reproved, and thus he was led to commit the fearful crime of betraying his Master. So do all who cherish evil under a profession of godliness hate those who disturb their peace by condemning their course of sin. When a favorable opportunity is presented, they will, like Judas, betray those who for their good have sought to reprove them. 

     The apostles encountered those in the church who professed godliness while they were secretly cherishing iniquity. Ananias and Sapphira acted the part of deceivers, pretending to make an entire sacrifice for God, when they were covetously withholding a portion for themselves. The Spirit of truth revealed to the apostles the real character of these pretenders, and the judgments of God rid the church of this foul blot upon its purity. This signal evidence of the discerning Spirit of Christ in the church was a terror to hypocrites and evildoers. They could not long remain in connection with those who were, in habit and disposition, constant representatives of Christ; and as trials and persecution came upon His followers, those only who were willing to forsake all for the truth’s sake desired to become His disciples. Thus, as long as persecution continued, the church remained comparatively pure. But as it ceased, converts were added who were less sincere and devoted, and the way was open for Satan to obtain a foothold. 

     But there is no union between the Prince of light and the prince of darkness, and there can be no union between their followers. When Christians consented to unite with those who were but half converted from paganism, they entered upon a path which led further and further from the truth. Satan exulted that he had succeeded in deceiving so large a number of the followers of Christ. He then brought his power to bear more fully upon these, and inspired them to persecute those who remained true to God. None understood so well how to oppose the true Christian faith as did those who had once been its defenders; and these apostate Christians, uniting with their half-pagan companions, directed their warfare against the most essential features of the doctrines of Christ. 

     It required a desperate struggle for those who would be faithful to stand firm against the deceptions and abominations which were disguised in sacerdotal garments and introduced into the church. The Bible was not accepted as the standard of faith. The doctrine of religious freedom was termed heresy, and its upholders were hated and proscribed. 

     After a long and severe conflict, the faithful few decided to dissolve all union with the apostate church if she still refused to free herself from falsehood and idolatry. They saw that separation was an absolute necessity if they would obey the word of God. They dared not tolerate errors fatal to their own souls, and set an example which would imperil the faith of their children and children’s children. To secure peace and unity they were ready to make any concession consistent with fidelity to God; but they felt that even peace would be too dearly purchased at the sacrifice of principle. If unity could be secured only by the compromise of truth and righteousness, then let there be difference, and even war. 

     Well would it be for the church and the world if the principles that actuated those steadfast souls were revived in the hearts of God’s professed people. There is an alarming indifference in regard to the doctrines which are the pillars of the Christian faith. The opinion is gaining ground, that, after all, these are not of vital importance. This degeneracy is strengthening the hands of the agents of Satan, so that false theories and fatal delusions which the faithful in ages past imperiled their lives to resist and expose, are now regarded with favor by thousands who claim to be followers of Christ.” Great Controversy, p. 42-46. 

Is a Hegelian dichotomy developing in Protestant America?

“Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” (Prov. 30:5,6).

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4).

“[We] have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2Cor. 4:2-4).

“In general, a single proposition cannot be treated in a vacuum. It must be contrasted (opposed with) another element to achieve meaning. However, thinking of things in terms of dichotomies (black and white thinking) is very limiting. To escape the constraints of analyzing everything through the lens of binary opposition, one must take a step back and respond to both simultaneously (synthesize).

As the Hegelian dialectic is an aesthetic fundamentally bent on usurping binaries in favor of trichotomies, it is a numerology based upon the number 3. Which isn’t to say it isn’t useful or that it’s somehow impoverished. Indeed, quite the opposite.” http://wiki.c2.com/?HegelianDialectic

The Hegelian dialectic can be summed up by the following formula: thesis + anti-thesis = synthesis. In this post I’m addressing the Hegelian dialectic thesis-antithesis approach to faith in order to see where today’s development may take us concerning the issues of faith in the Bible and in the God of the Bible.

There is no way to find truth, God, and the Lord Jesus through the aesthetic of Hegelian dialectic. “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;

But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1Cor. 1:19-25).

Satan is the mastermind of the dialectic form of argument. “The angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon [destroying angel], but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon [destroyer]” (Rev. 9:11) uses dialectics to destroy the whole world. “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Rev. 12:9). And he has a lot of help from the other angels who excel in intellectual strength, for where there is a multitude of counselors there is wisdom—and in this case, wisdom to deceive.

Satan chooses an error that is partially true. For example, let’s compare pure truth to 12 o’clock, and Satan’s falsehood then to be 3 o’clock. (His goal is a full 6 o’clock perdition, but he never starts there. He finds a half-truth comfortable to the “Bible believers”, and works his way to their total faith in falsehood.) Then in order to double his catch of souls, he creates another falsehood that is equally far from the pure truth (but not diametrically opposed to pure truth, as the 3 o’clock error also was). But that new error is diametrically opposed to the old 3 o’clock error, and is at 9 o’clock. The devil moves almost half of the world to join him at the old righteous, conservative 3 o’clock departure from the truth, and the other almost half of the world to join him at the new heathen, liberal 9 o’clock departure from pure truth.

Then the mastermind of evil re-educates each camp in their particular new truth so that they are completely convinced that they have the latest, greatest path to life. As they are re-educated they increasingly view the other camp as falling off the edge of the world into perdition, and in great need of evangelizing, conversion, and rehabilitation. The right camp will destroy the world with legalistic, fundamental religious traditions, and the left camp will destroy the world with lawlessness, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The right camp will destroy the world in causing a gulf between the super-rich and the super-poor, and foment wars against the enemies of religion; and the left camp will destroy the world by enabling the “lazy four- and five-generation welfare recipients”, and encourage the godless enemies of fundamentalist religion.

Soon enough, both camps are involved in legislating their particular path to life and enforcing the laws that they have designed, each forcing the other camp to bow to “the truth” as they see it. Each camp is very angry at the other camp for being in apostasy from the “original truth”, as each camp views the truth at the founding of the group be it the original Constitution, original religion, societal roots, organization, etc. Eventually, their nation is divided on each issue, and at each others’ throat. The people are not united and society is ready to cave in as civil strife ends with a nation in ruins.

“When our nation, in its legislative councils, shall enact laws to bind the consciences of men in regard to their religious privileges, enforcing Sunday observance, and bringing oppressive power to bear against those who keep the seventh-day Sabbath, the law of God will, to all intents and purposes, be made void in our land, and national apostasy will be followed by national ruin.--7BC 977 (1888).  {LDE 133.5} 

     It is at the time of the national apostasy when, acting on the policy of Satan, the rulers of the land will rank themselves on the side of the man of sin. It is then the measure of guilt is full. The national apostasy is the signal for national ruin.--2SM 373 (1891).  {LDE 134.1} 

     Roman Catholic principles will be taken under the care and protection of the state.  This national apostasy will speedily be followed by national ruin.--RH June 15, 1897.  {LDE 134.2} 

     When Protestant churches shall unite with the secular power to sustain a false religion, for opposing which their ancestors endured the fiercest persecution, then will the papal sabbath be enforced by the combined authority of church and state.  There will be a national apostasy, which will end only in national ruin.--Ev 235 (1899).  {LDE 134.3} 

     When the state shall use its power to enforce the decrees and sustain the institutions of the church--then will Protestant America have formed an image to the papacy, and there will be a national apostasy which will end only in national ruin.--7BC 976 (1910).” Last Day Events, p. 134.

A formerly strong nation is ruined. And they all went down satisfied that to be martyrs for their truth.

Yet, Jesus is the truth and the way to life. “Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” (1Cor. 1:30).

He is “the Word of life” (1Jn. 1:1). He is “wisdom” and “prudence” (Prov. 8:12). He “find[s] out knowledge of witty inventions” (Prov. 8:12). For any nation founded upon to His wisdom of self-sacrificing love and to depart from that eternal foundation is to end in national ruin. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Prov. 14:34). It matters not if the nation is not yet diametrically opposed to self-sacrificing love, and is not yet completely lawless and sunken in perdition and hedonism, or completely tyrannical in extreme fundamentalist morality. If they depart only one degree from Christ’s example and Law, over time they separate more and more from His Law and eventually they will be murders and involved in every kind of extortion, corruption, and vice.

The kings of northern kingdom of Israel were perfect examples of this. When each, indignant in his own righteousness, destroyed the previous dynasty that had corrupted the people, the new dynasty brought the people to a new low in corruption. The religion was never touched. Basic Baal worship always remained in place and intact. The true religion of Jehovah was never mentioned for deliberation over and repentance toward; a reformation to self-sacrificing love was never made an option for the nation. “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” (Jer. 5:31). The sin-loving people and leaders alike could never consider self-sacrifice or self-denial. Rather, self-exaltation, self-indulgence, self-salvation remained the national, official sacred cows. Therefore, in His providence, the Lord had to destroy them.

So today, what are we seeing in this Protestant nation? A small departure from the Reformation biblical foundation that, over the years, has magnified its departure from truth, little by little deviating more and more from the Christ’s call to self-sacrificing love. And the results are movements to legislate for a religious state in order to forestall the painful judgments of God that are obviously soon to break upon the whole nation. Prophetic pollsters are popping up to foment such a bold movement.

“The famous pollster, Gallup, released a poll in which it said that more Americans now believe that the Bible is a book of fables and history than those who believe it’s the literal Word of God and even fewer than a third of Christians say it’s to be taken literally. The poll follows another posted by Gallup that says that Christians are accepting of immorality more than ever.

‘Over the past three decades, Americans’ view of the Bible as the literal Word of God has been declining, while their view that the Bible is a collection of fables, myths and history recorded by man has been increasing,’ Gallup said.

Only 24 percent in total, said the Bible is ‘the actual Word of God, and is to be taken literally, word for word.’ A slightly higher 26 percent said that the Bible is ‘a book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man.’

Another 47 percent said they believe the Bible is ‘inspired by God, [but] not all to be taken literally.’ Gallup said it was the first time in its four-decade observations that biblical literalism has not surpassed biblical skepticism.

Belief in the Bible as the literal Word of God was lowest among young adults aged 18- to 29-year-olds, with 12 percent supporting such a view, and highest among the 50- to 64-year-olds, at 31 percent. College graduate students were also less likely than those with some college and those with no college to take the Bible literally.
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When it comes to Christians, Gallup recorded that 30 percent in total agree that the Bible is the literal Word of God, 54 percent said that it was inspired by God, and 14 percent offered that it was a book of fables.

 ‘Americans in all age groups still largely accept the Bible as a Holy document, but most of these downplay God’s direct role in it. That could mean people are more willing than in the past to believe it is open to interpretation — if man, not God, wrote the Bible, more can be questioned,’ Gallup said.

The poll showed that 10 percent of respondents had read none of the Bible at all; 13 percent only a few sentences; 30 percent several passages or stories; 15 percent at least half the Bible; 12 percent almost all of it, and only 20 percent said that they had read the entire Bible… ‘Even among worship attendees less than half read the Bible daily. The only time most Americans hear from the Bible is when someone else is reading it.’

‘It is one thing to treat the Bible as a book of good moral instruction, to be heeded so far as is consistent with the spirit of the times and our position in the world; it is another thing to regard it as it really is—the word of the living God, the word that is our life, the word that is to mold our actions, our words, and our thoughts. To hold God’s word as anything less than this is to reject it. And this rejection by those who profess to believe it, is foremost among the causes of skepticism and infidelity in the youth.’ Education, page 260.”

But, the hedonistic, secular left are bolstering themselves and digging in for a long battle against the conservative, Republican religious right. The secular half are already advancing their revolution of atheistic hedonism in order to keep off balance the religious half of the nation so that they remain unable to raise enough public awareness for the political power to overthrow those evil, secular, Democratic heathens. The “of-the-devil” liberals feel snug as a smug bug in a rug in their political majority, but they don’t know the Daniel 11 prophecy regarding the moral, religious King of the North, who builds up a force that comes against the arrogant, agnostic, and anti-faith King of the South, and bowls right over him. And the heretical King of the South is never seen again.

Since nature and revelation alike testify of God’s infinitely wise creative power and love, the atheistic secularists cannot see nature correctly. Science’s conclusions are off-base, skewed from disregarding all the evidences that point to a Creator. How can they have correct scientific truth if they are denying the geologic table’s evidence that the fossils must have settled in layers as receding world-wide waters would lay them down? They have dismissed whole trees vertically spanning many feet of geologic strata that must equate to the biblical Noaic flood. It is evidence that tears down the preposterous notion that trees could take billions of years to fossilize in a non-catastrophic settling of space dust upon Earth, which should have decomposed like every other tree does in the world today, and more so, even quicker in that moist, swampy, fertile world of the prehistoric past?

But, let not the religious creationist glory in his religiosity. The religious right want everyone to believe the Bible as it reads—that is, as they see the Bible reads. Yet, they are way off from the truth of the Bible. They don’t understand how the Bible communicates its pure truth. They are not at 12 o’clock, but at 3 o’clock.

They have made Christ’s metaphorical language literal, and His literal language metaphorical. Case in point, Job and Lazarus. Job says that when a man dies, he goes into the grave until resurrection. Until then his children mourn at his gravesite, but he does not know that they are.

“But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?

As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:

So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath be past, that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Thou shalt call, and I will answer Thee: Thou wilt have a desire to the work of Thine hands.” (Job 14:10-15).

“Thou prevailest for ever against him, and he passeth: Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away.

His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” (Job 14:20,21).

“For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.” (Job 19:25-27).

But, the Protestants today want to believe Rome’s lie that the righteous dead go straight to heaven, and the non-righteous dead go to purgatory for a century of burning and penance, or go immediately to hell when they die, there to burn forever. Countless souls have been driven to insanity at the tyrannical injustice of the so-called god of love to whom they felt indebted to serve. He died for them because of their 70 years of sin. And now they must serve this arbitrary god of inequity, (also spelled iniquity), even though they actually hate him. (And they should hate him, because he is the devil.)

So, in order to be in keeping with their Bible which they have twisted in order to keep in step with Rome, they must use a parable of Christ’s to prove that the dead go straight to their reward—the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:

For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” (Luke 16:19-31).

Since Job contradicts this parable, (even though both speak of the grave as painful to the flesh and mournful to the soul, albeit with completely different meanings) and since the Protestants refuse to give up the Roman falsehoods, they cling to the Catholic doctrine that Job is an allegory, and not real at all. None of it was true, therefore, none of its words are truth. Job’s hope in the resurrection was all a lie. There is no biblical resurrection (see Daniel 12:1,2; Matthew 24:30; John 5:25,28,29; 1 Thessalonians 4:16), because everyone goes straight to heaven, if they were good enough. But, of course all the wicked people like Nero go straight to hell.

The Protestants have forgotten that the Son of God, who inspired the whole Bible, was a master riddler. A greater than Samson and Solomon was here. He always had a truth to communicate, but not always in a literal format. He told the Canaanite woman that she was a dog. He told Moses that He was going to destroy Israel and start a new nation with Moses. He sent the lying spirit of Satan to tell Ahab what he wanted to hear, convincing him that God would be with the king in battle, which caused his death. The Spirit of truth inspired men to write that God tempted David to number Israel, and the same Spirit also had it written that it was Satan who had tempted David.

Bible students need to be careful how they interpret the Bible. “Gallup recorded that 30 percent [were] in total agree[ment] that the Bible is the literal Word of God”. What does this mean, “literal”? Do they mean that we should read the Bible just as it is, without comparing scripture with scripture? The only way to know the truth about Jesus’ apparent insult to the Canaanite woman was not to take Him literally, but to truly know Jesus as a person. Otherwise, even to this day, we should call all Palestinians dogs and should ignore them (and even give the smug, self-righteous nod to slaughter them in this devilish war on terror). We should say that there is no salvation for the Palestinians, “for salvation is of the Jews.” (John 4:22). You have to know the Inspirer of the Bible to understand the Bible. But, the Protestant world cannot understand “the Spirit of Christ” (1Pet. 1:11), “even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.” (John 14:17).

“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:40). The disciple did see the Spirit of truth in Jesus. “But ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you” (John 14:17). “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. Judas saith unto Him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:21-23).

The hard language by the Spirit of truth comes from the Law of God, which the Protestants aborted 170 years ago. Therefore, without strong conviction of sin, they have needed nothing from the Bible that would drive them to desperately study it. The fourth trumpet caused their enlightenment to be extinguished. When their light went out the Bible became a mystery to them. They never could uncover the falsehoods of Rome, and now they are completely set up for the fullness of the delusion that God has sent them since 1844—the secret rapture. The Protestant world is primed and ready for the impersonation of Christ by Satan. “As the crowning act in the great drama of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long professed to look to the Saviour’s advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come….” Great Controversy, p. 624.

“Cursed be the man what trusteth in man.” (Jer. 17:5).

An overview of my new book

I wrote a post on Monday, December 08, 2014. The title was, The Seven Trumpets and The Investigative Judgment. It was a brief overview of my recent book. I had hoped the book would come out soon after that blog post. I submitted the manuscript a couple days before Christmas 2014, but it took another two years before the book was truly ready for publishing. Each time I looked at it after submission I could not publish it like it was. So, after much editing and moving whole paragraphs and sections of chapters around (and continued extra costs), the book came out a couple of weeks ago.

So I want to give another brief overview in case anyone out there might want to read the book. It is in print now, and soon will come out in e-book form.

So, without further adieu…

Introduction

Revelation chapter 4 through 11 form the core storyline of the book of Revelation. The chapters that follow chapter 11 are brought in to expand and to add more details. The seals and trumpets are not optional to understand Revelation, they form the vital center of the last book of the Bible.

Chapter 1: Revelation chapter 4

The throne of God before sin began. The praises to God concern creation only, and no mention is made of a Redeemer.

Chapter 2: Revelation chapter 5

Sudden change in the angelic atmosphere of heaven. It’s the same picture of the throne of God, except God has a book (scroll) sealed up so tightly that only the crucifixion of Christ could open it. This book is the great controversy, the accusations against God and the issues over God’s Law. God is on trial. Has He been the proper leader? Has His government offered the best for the greatest happiness of the kingdom.

Chapter 3: Revelation chapter 6

The Lamb takes the seals off of the book, one at a time. Before the 7th seal is removed we see a scene of Christ’s second coming. This was not the actual return of Christ—it was the global Advent movement of the 1830s and early ‘40s. But, the people were not ready for His coming. Before He can return, His people must be sealed. The sealing will be the necessary preparation for the day of His visitation of judgments.

Chapter 4: Revelation chapter 7

This chapter introduces the sealing. That is such a major issue that it puts unsealing the sealed book pageant on pause to explain who will stand when the Lamb comes and who will run in abject fear. The answer is: Whoever gets the seal in the conscience will go with Jesus and leave this doomed world. And this chapter gives the first picture of how happily the great controversy will end.

Chapter 5: Revelation chapter 8

After the chapter 7 intermission, we need to come back to where we were when the 6th seal closed. So, the Lamb removes the 7th seal. The sanctuary scene that follows is connected with the 7th seal. Since the 6th seal ended and the seal of God is shown ascending from the east in 1844, then, chapter 8 picks up after the foretaste of all the happy celebration throughout eternity. Silence divides the chapter 7 intermission from the sanctuary scene; it separates the previous rejoicing at the end of the controversy from the solemn events to follow in order to set up a new mindset in the reader. It is a reminder that our celebration is promised, but not yet ours to have. We are the church militant that must first endure the rigors of the trumpet dangers yet to come. Through a special dispensation of faith by an abundant gift of His Spirit, Jesus gives us a way of escape in the Latter Rain, so that we are able to endure the great time of trouble.

The Angel High Priest is in the Holy Place, ready to enter the Most Holy. But, first He casts His censer to the earth and the 1st trumpet blows. We can say that the 1st trumpet is connected with the previous sanctuary scene because the contents of the censer and His blood are what fall from the sky onto the earth during the 1st trumpet. The contents damage “the third part” of the trees and all the fields of grain. This signified God’s overthrow of the denominations and the worst of the Protestants, which rejected the plain truth of the blessed hope of Jesus’ return. The Bible often compares people to trees and grain.

The 2nd trumpet blew and Mt. Sinai is quenched showing the churches’ abrogating the Law of God. Now most of the Protestants had no protection from Satan’s spells.

So, the 3rd trumpet blew and Satan is seen poisoning their hearts and minds, their whole way of viewing this world and the providences of God. Faith, true, genuine faith is gone from every American who remained in the new lawless Protestantism. Now that God is fictionalized by their rejection of His Law, this world is all that most of them can live for.

The 4th trumpet blew and the Sunday churches went totally dark spiritually, as institutions. But, the door of heaven was still open to them individually. Scriptures show that the darkened spheres of light symbolize that the Bible is no longer understood by Protestantism, and its central importance is lost. Now that Protestant America has lost its only resource for a spiritual compass in God’s word, an angel flies alarming the world of the three woes that come with the last three trumpets.

Chapter 6: Revelation chapter 9

The 5th trumpet blew. God looses Satan to ransack Protestantism and bring it and the world it that has blessed into subjection to the powers of hell. Every Protestant not being sealed, especially in Protestant America, is tormented with the same vexation of spirit that Solomon and King Saul experienced when they apostatized from the Lord. Moses forewarned of this for the whole nation in his curses of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, 29. Specifically, Deuteronomy 29:18-22 speaks to this 5th trumpet, as does Revelation 14:9-11. In fact, the 3rd angel’s message is all about the 5th and 6th trumpet plagues; the components of those two trumpets make up the message of the 3rd angel of Revelation 14—the torment and desolation of soul that comes from not getting to know Jesus and not taking God seriously, preparing for His judgment and final return.

The ancient false religion that caused such havoc to Israel was Baal worship. But, Baal worship was simply one face of thousands of false religions around the ancient and modern world, all spawned from Babylon. It is a religion that dares to approach God with the worshipers’ own contrived repentance and holiness. The modern counterpart of this is Spiritual Formation. In Spiritual Formation the reproofs of the Law, which bring us to need a Savior from sin, are set aside. Before Christ can be a Savior, He must be a Prince who wields His glittering sword. God will have it no other way. But, Satan, stepping in between God and His people, offers a more comfortable redemption, without the messy humbling which God requires. By peace and flattery he has destroyed many from the days of Cain, and now he is doing the same in the Advent movement. We are repeating the history of Israel at Baal-peor, and many Adventists are falling for it, including many of our leaders. This is the message of the 3rd angel and it speaks of the 5th and 6th trumpet plagues.

The language of the 3rd angel’s message comes from the 5th and 6th trumpets—another reason to believe that the trumpets happen during the heaven-ordained Advent movement and investigative judgment that precede the antitypical Day of atonement.

It only makes sense that all the trumpets should blow during the Advent movement, since the typical feast of trumpets was connected with the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary. There is a time period with the 5th trumpet—5 prophetic months, 150 years. I realize Ellen White made it seem to say that there would be no more time prophecies after 1844. I believe she only communicated what Jesus wanted her to give us at the time. If we had known we would be here for 150 years we would have apostatized into pagan celebration a long time ago.

One thing is very clear, Revelation 9:4 (the 5th trumpet) and 7:3 (1844) are unarguably speaking of the same thing—the seal of God in the forehead. So, my conclusion is that Revelation 7:3 introduces the sealing, and 9:4 explains how it is received. Sr. White wrote volumes on every other subject, while she wrote almost nothing about the trumpets, because Jesus gave her no light on the trumpets. The time must wait until the prophecy was over before its meaning would come to light. That time has arrived. I believe that the 5th trumpet began as we were hammering out our fundamental beliefs in the Sabbath conferences. In 1849, the California Gold Rush altered the face of Protestant America. In 1999, 150 years later, another gold rush occurred—the stock market gold rush of the late 90’s. These two events are the bookends for the 5th trumpet.

In between those years technology exponentially developed and drew the world-loving Protestant multitudes permanently away from God and His Law. And that separation has tormented them like Jesus was on the cross because His Father had left Him. During those 5 prophetic months, the Spirit of God had been leaving Protestant America and Satan had been moving in to fill the void. Largely through the earthly agencies of Rome and her Jesuit masters of deception temptations have stolen all the freedom and happiness that the original Reformers gave Protestant Americans. The Jesuits and the Vatican are the locusts of the 5th trumpet (they are called “the beast” in Revelation 11). Satan, propelling them across the land, is the black smoke.

The 6th trumpet blew. Now that Americans have departed from God and lived on His promised land of refuge without a single thought of Him, He allows for their complete possession by the god they love so much. As the 10 tribes of Israel lived for Baal for 200 years until the Lord vomited them out of His land, so is He doing to Protestantism today. Soon, and very soon, Protestantism’s old enemy of the Dark Ages will have conquered this nation by filling the leading offices of their CIA, FBI, NSA, FDA, FEMA, AMA, Jesuit controlled media, Federal Reserve banking system, and three branches of the U.S. Government. I won’t be surprised if the Vatican initiates the official desolation of free America as Protestantism is ended. By a united, official declaration and documentation, the union of church and state will happens at Protestantism’s 500 anniversary— Halloween 2017.

In the 6th trumpet, the locusts can do what they were forbidden to do during the 5th trumpet, that is, “kill” the soul. All of their torment until 1999 came from the work of separating the people from the one true God of their Reformation fathers. Now that the denominations are fully separated from the God of the Bible, they commit the unpardonable sin and become a persecuting nation. This explains the unjust destruction of Muslims based on the phony premise that Islamists caused the black flag operation of 9/11. All the evidence of 9/11 points to specially placed and protected individuals within American government agencies, who choreographed 9/11 under the purview of Rome. (Dan. 8:12).

9/11 has set the stage for the coming tribulation of all nations. We are in the very end of time. God has just about finished His scattering of the power of the holy people (Dan. 12:7).

When the 7th trumpet will blow, the 3rd woe will mean total world domination by Satan and his filling every heart with his mean anger. Then, the few who took God and His Law and His redemption seriously will stand out from the demon-controlled crowds. Everyone who played off the Spirit of Prophecy as unneeded during the 5th and 6th trumpets God will require it of them in the 7th trumpet.

Chapter 7: Revelation chapter 10

This chapter begins to show glory at the end of the long, dark, distressing tunnel. It opens during the unconscionable desolations by the conscienceless world of the 6th trumpet. Christ is seen clothed with a cloud of incense and glory. The little sealed book (scroll) which He took from His Father in Revelation chapter 5 is now opened after the trumpets have done their work of scattering the power of faith in His Protestant people (which includes the SDAs, as seen in Revelation 11). Christ roars like a lion because His forbearing work as Lamb is finished and it’s time to judge the world, and to end the controversy. With infinite thunder, God agrees with His Son.

So, He swears by His Father that the delay of the 6th seal is completed—the sealing is almost finished—and He can finally come in power and glory. But, first He will give humanity one last opportunity to be saved, as He gave the antediluvian world. He commands John to eat the book of the great controversy and to “prophesy again.” But, if we use scripture to interpret scripture, then this is not speaking of the Millerite Great Disappointment of 1844; it is speaking of an event within the final chapter of the seal/trumpet chronology.

When do we see any prophesying taking place since Revelation chapter 4? We don’t see any up to Revelation chapter 10. But, we do see it in the next chapter, almost immediately following the command in chapter 10 to prophesy again. We see it in Revelation chapter 11.

Chapter 8: Revelation chapter 11

This chapter ends the seal/trumpet story that is the core of Revelation. The chapter introduces its intent to judge the church by John being given a measuring rod. The church is found guilty of apostasy, except for a very small remnant that defends the truth “in the days of their prophecy” (Rev. 11:6). That very small remnant sweeps through 2,000 years to include the apostles, the church in the wilderness, and the Reformation. The fire of truth shoots out of the mouths of God’s champions and devours the enemies of His gospel. This campaign against Satan continues successfully until 1849 when the hosts of darkness fly out of an opened bottomless pit. Then, the Lord’s witnesses are warred against, later overcome, and eventually cease their prophesying. This point in the lengthy prophecy is where the Revelation 10 scene occurs. Thus, it is time to prophesy again.

Satan cannot immediately kill the Advent movement while Ellen White lives. But, he first makes war (also seen in Rev. 12:17), then he overcomes, and finally he kills the Advent movement. We lay dead in the aisles of the church for a period of time that figuratively expresses judgment on God’s people (Luke 4:25; Jas. 5:17). Then, when God has accomplished our total humbling and all of our self-sufficiency is gone, then He resurrects His two witnesses (a leaner Advent movement), gives them the Latter Rain, and the earth is reaped. This ends the 2nd woe, and the 7th trumpet blows. Total chaos rules the world and the last we see is an empty Most Holy Place in heaven because Christ has left there to come and get His people. The mystery of God’s character of love and fairness, as written in the little book, is finished. His judgment is finished, and He is exonerated by His character perfectly reflected in His children.

This ends the core of Revelation. I hope it wasn’t too hard to follow. The rest of the book of Revelation expands upon the main storyline of chapters 4 through 11.

I’ve heard much about chiasms. That subject all began with the book of Revelation. I’ve looked at charts that show the chiasms of Revelation, and it all seems good. I have yet to analyze the way they stand up next to my view of Revelation. But, as I began with in this blog post, I see Revelation 4 to the end of the book simply as basically two halves of one book. First, we have the 8 chapter core that give a bird’s eye view of the book, such as my overview does for my book. Then, the next 11 chapters give details that must be brought in at the correct places of the core storyline.

This method of writing the Revelation visions seems very simple and wise. Chiasms are a little too complicated for me. But, a simple storyline is what I can handle. Even children can understand the simple core storyline. Of course, the symbology is a deeper subject, and that makes the Bible a challenge for adults. But, I’m thankful that Revelation is much more understandable than most people think because of the way it was laid out by the Spirit of God as a simple story.

I hope you get and read the book.

Thank you for your interest.

My first book completed

I finally finished my first book. It is on Bible prophecy, Revelation in particular. I use Revelation chapters 4 through 11 to explain the whole of Revelation and how current events have been working perfectly to fulfill the trumpet prophecy. Chapters 4 through 11 make up the core of The Revelation that John saw. Then the second half of The Revelation add details to the first half’s satellite overview.

I have brought into Bible prophecy much of what I have learned of the good news of the gospel. If you appreciate my way of expressing the Bible’s good news (and bad news) then you will find them woven into the Revelation message of blessing and curses, its necessary plagues, as well as its healing and sealing. Even though God is Judge, Revelation shows Him “who liveth for ever and ever” accused as unworthy and being judged for His worthiness to lead His eternal kingdom.

I see a different way of viewing the trumpets, with different placements compared to most interpretations, and having different purposes. You will see that I place the seven trumpets beginning on October 22, 1844. They do not begin with the fall of Jerusalem or of the Roman Empire. They are not military campaigns that say nothing about Jesus. Thus, I see that the seven trumpets of Revelation are the anti-type of the Feast of Trumpets that signaled the approaching typical Mosaic Day of Atonement. Therefore, I see the trumpets as Advent Movement-related events that warn us of the coming of Judgment Day, when the Lamb returns sitting on the right hand of Power. The fifth trumpet’s 5 prophetic month time period concludes close to our day, at the end of 1999. Then the sixth trumpet begins in the first quarter of 2000, largely kicked off by 9/11, and soon to come into full swing. I believe that the signing of peace treaties this Halloween between the Church of Rome and the Lutheran Church, thus marking the legal end of the Reformation’s gift of peace to the world, will shift the sixth trumpet fulfillment into third gear of a five-speed eschatological transmission. Then, the last two gears “cometh quickly” (Rev. 11:14), the seventh trumpet and the Day of Judgment/Second Advent of Jesus in unearthly, divine power.

Let me add that my book seeks to reassure everyone that they still have time to make their calling and election sure. But, we must be in earnest now. It’s not all scary; in fact Revelation holds great promises for the people not swept up by all the deceptions on the right hand and the left. I have done my best in the book to lay out the path to have that assurance. I have sought to weave Jesus into everything I have written. To give you a taste, the website for Aspect Books (published by Teach Services, Inc.) lets you read the first 27 pages of the book. The Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you and give you peace. See you the second Sabbath at the Tree of Life on the far side of the River of Life!

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Burdick+Seven+Trumpets

http://aspectbooks.com/main/details/id/79

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-seven-trumpets-and-the-investigative-judgement-david-d-burdick/1125844018;jsessionid=1AB5806D66EE7242B6BD8DBDD17EED53.prodny_store01-atgap06?ean=9781479605026

Great prophecies fulfilled

Great prophecy fulfilled: The Vatican has Protestantism on the run. Protestant Americans in its Evangelicals are all backing the genius abilities of the Vatican to get them to point the finger of condemnation against the Muslims, rather than their old enemy and the old enemy of the gospel—the Papacy, the Vatican.

Our Reformation forefathers would never have done this. Didn’t Islam exist in their day? Yes; Islam began in 632 AD. Hadn’t the Muslims invaded Europe many times during its existence prior to the Reformation? Yes it had; yet our Protestant fathers still called the Church the “Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth” (Rev. 17:5). Being closer to the period of papal persecution and its age of corruption and deception, our Protestant forefathers’ spiritual discernment was far better and they knew better than their disobedient Protestant descendants that Rome was the truest heir of Babylonian mysteries that desolated the true religion of God through Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Prince Messiah and His apostles.

The Reformation fathers all pointed out the Papacy as the earthly adversary of God seen in Bible prophecy—the woman who rides the beast, the little horns of Daniel 7 and 8, and the vile king of the north/man of sin/Antichrist who began to stand up against Christ in verse 21 of Daniel 11 and finished at the standing up of Michael the great Prince of the covenant and the great time of trouble. It’s the Roman Papacy depicted in Revelation 9 fifth and sixth trumpets. It’s the Roman Papacy seen coming out of the bottomless pit in Revelation 11:7 to lead the world against the protectors and preachers of the righteousness by faith [“not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 4:6)], faithful witnesses who stand before “the God of the earth” (Rev. 11:4; Zech. 4:14). It’s the Roman Papacy who would stand in the holy place pretending to be God’s vicar and stand up against the Law and the gospel. It’s the Roman Papacy that ascends from hell and makes war against these witnesses, the church in the wilderness during the 1,260 year Dark Ages, and against the remnant of their seed after the close of that dark time. And it’s the Roman Papacy that would lead the sin-loving world back into another dark age under the same power of Satan that the Dark Ages had suffered under.

It’s the Roman Papacy in Revelation 13’s Beast power that blasphemed God and made war against the saints of God during the 1260 year period of papal supremacy and then has influenced the Reformation witnesses—the Protestant church—to end their proclamations against the Roman Church and even to heal the wound by the Protestant sword—the Bible sword of the Spirit. It’s the papal Beast that is encouraging the faithful Protestant voices from God to abandon their mission from heaven and to become a Balaam false witness—the false prophet of Revelation 19:20—and to do the same work of corrupting truth and grace that the papal Beast did during the fall of Imperial Rome. It’s the union of Roman and Protestant Evangelicalism, that “eighth Beast” worker of iniquity, which goes into perdition and then, at their Lord’s return in power and glory, is cast into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels, who Jesus spoke of in His first and last parables,

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matt. 7:15-23).

They both appear to have the fitness for heaven, but they never had the title to heaven. Justification could never be theirs because they walked away from hearing the Law of God that alone convicts and gives the need for a Saviour from sin. The testimony of Jesus was abundantly presented to them through the servant of the Lord, Ellen G. White. His standard was high and she faithfully presented His message as He desired. Against the forces of hell that assailed her, she was a witness against the Protestant church, and her voice and pen gleaned from it all who would be humbled and repentant, forgiven and justified.

“Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in:

Naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.

Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave Thee drink?

When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? or naked, and clothed Thee?

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.

Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt. 25:34-40).

The second beast of Revelation 13 is the United States of America—Protestant America—colluding with the religio-political Church of Rome, that would restore the kingdom of Satan in the earth. This collusion began a century and a half ago at the close 1844. But it has gained momentum at the turn of the 20th century and all during that century, so that when the 21st century began at the end of the Revelation fifth trumpet, then the colluding Roman-Protestant Revelation could kick off the sixth trumpet power with the 9/11 black flag, and rapidly drive Republican America and its holy religion of Bible faith into their eternal graves. A handful of Muslims could not coordinate the perpetration of 9/11. But, the Vatican with its army of Jesuits, their network of espionage and intelligence, and their positioning themselves in high places of every government (especially the mightiest nation on earth, the United States), could easily accomplish 9/11.

Today the large work of broadcasting the delusion that Muslims are global enemy #1, avenging upon them their attacks on Christendom in the Old World, and making war to rid the independent Muslim power from the face of the earth, is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy by the union of Vatican and Protestant America, thus forming Christian American. The Vatican-American union is the greatest fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the greatest evidence for trusting the Bible.

Let us rest our faith wholly on the Bible, not only in its prophecies, but in its guidance for peace with God through His provision in His only begotten Son. Let’s be consumed by the word of God as we read it, and let Jesus from His heavenly sanctuary use it to cleanse His earthly temple from its sins. “That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:26).

“Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21).

“For…unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” (Isa. 9:6).

“Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the first Begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.” (Rev. 1:5).