THE
EDGE
of the
ABYSS
the EDGE
by E.L.CARDEY Director School of Bible Prophecy
Published by
THE BIBLE SCHOOL PRESS
154 Hurt Street, N.E. Atlanta, Georgia
DEDICATION
To My Wife Caryl
My devoted companion in service and to all who are seeking for the way of truth in this troubled hour.
CONTENTS
1 . One-Way Street	page 9
Are We Nearing Doomsday or a Better World?— D-O-E, "Death of Earth"—The Fear of Nations—
No Turning Back—Increase of Crime
2.	Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?	page 18
The Dark Ages Was One of Ignorance—True Enlightenment Comes From the Word of God— Decline of True Wisdom and Culture Today
3.	Remedy for A Sick World	page 28
Cause of Present World Revolution—Rising Tide of Evil—Christ as Priest, Man's Only Hope
4.	Behold He Cometh!	page 38
Promise of Christ's Return—Signs Now Fulfilling— How Will He Come?—Catastrophic Events Close Earth's History
5.	The War Nobody Wants	page 50
Are We Approaching the Long Feared Battle of Armageddon?—Effect of a Nuclear War—What Is Armageddon?—Third World War Approaches
6.	Freedom or Slavery	page 70
America the Bulwark of Freedom—Age Old Effort Revived to Control Human Minds—Why Are the Protestant Nations the Advanced and Prosperous Ones Today?—Present Dangers Confronting Freedom in America
7.	When Man Explores the Universe	page 96
Why the Present Craze to Reach Other Planets?— Satan's Plans Unfolded—The Cover God Has Placed Over the Earth—Sin Is Quarantined to This World—God's Better Plan for Space Travel
8.	God’s Last Warning Message	page 106
God's Plan to Save Mankind in Ages Past—His Present Truth Unfolded in the Three Angels' Messages—The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast—Who Will Be Sealed?
9.	Stand Up and Be Counted!	poge	122
God's Will for Mankind—What Is Bible Salvation?—The Four Steps to Citizenship in God's Kingdom—This Hour Calls for Personal Decisions Regarding What Is Truth and What Is Error
10.	God's Tomorrow	page	132
Loss of Hope Prepares the Way for One Half Million Suicides Yearly—God's New World a New Order, Not Formed Out of Present Society— New Jerusalem Comes Down to Earth—Life on This Earth Thereafter
Bibliography	page	142
FORWARD
As LONG AGO as the days of King Solomon, he could declare "of making of many books there is no end." Ecclesiastes 12:12. Today good and bad books flood the market by the millions. The reader must use great wisdom in separating the bad from the good, the chaff from the wheat. This need for discretion is equally true of religious books. The standard was given long ago whereby one may know how to distinguish the true from the false. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them," declares the word of God. (Isaiah 8:20.)
Many requests pour into our office for literature or small books which can answer the questions now confronting the nation. Are we nearing earth's final end and the coming of Christ? Will there be another great war? What has God told us in the Bible prophecies about our day and the final outcome of the trouble among the nations? These and many similar questions come to us. In the ten chapters of this book we could not exhaust the subjects introduced to answer these questions. But the way has been pointed out, and scripture has been compared with scripture in seeking satisfactory answers.
We trust the reader will be inspired to dig deep into the word of God. Through greater study of the Word and through prayer an experience will be gained that will sustain one in these fateful days in which we live.
The Author.
One-Way Street
Chapter 1
WHEN WE passed from the horse and buggy days to our modern transportation age, the one-way street appeared. When one finds himself in his car driving down a narrow, one-way street, he knows there is no turning back; he must drive on to the end.
About a half century ago the human race started down a one-way street, from which there has been no back or side turning, and never will be. We have traveled too far and have been crowded between too narrow walls to turn back now. The nations must drive on to the end of the street. What will they find there? Doom's day or the beginning of a new and better day for the world? When World War II ended a number of world leaders talked of "the brave new world" into which we were entering. It has turned out to be neither brave nor new, unless one can think of the A- and H-bombs creating such a world. They have created a world of fear, instead of one of hope. The scientists who created the bombs have declared; "We are frightened men, frightened for ourselves and for the whole world, knowing what might happen if other
10	The Edge of the Abyss
nations are able to create these death-dealing instruments of destruction. "
When they expressed their fear, the United States alone possessed the A-bomb. Then during a special broadcast in the early fifties President Truman declared, "Russia has exploded an A-bomb." The secret of the A- and H-bombs was soon known, and those countries that had the money were following the pattern set by America—Russia, England and France for instance. It is almost certain now that China will soon have its own nuclear weapons. What then? We may well shudder as we contemplate the outlook.
Total Destruction?
Just before the high level meeting of President Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev in Vienna, the columnist, Drew Pearson, pointed out the reason for such a meeting as follows: "The public doesn't know what the initials stand for, but in due time they will probably hear a lot about D-O-E. This stands for 'Death of Earth,' and the initials are being used in secret papers inside the Pentagon to describe how much nuclear devastation is required to bring death to the earth by making it completely uninhabitable.
"Pentagon experts calculate that it would take
800.000	megatons to wipe all life off this planet.
"The United States already has 35,000 megatons of nuclear weapons which is enough to make a wasteland of the Soviet Union. Russia, in turn, has an estimated
20.000	megatons which is considered enough to make the United States uninhabitable.
"This is the real reason why President Kennedy is so anxious to sign a nuclear control agreement at Geneva. It's also why the initials D-O-E will be stamped in the minds of both Kennedy and Khrushchev in Vienna, if
11
One-Way Street
not actually stamped on their diplomatic papers on the conference table.11
For some few years a commission has been meeting in Geneva to work out an inspection plan regarding the control of nuclear test bombs. No progress has been made, and testing has begun again. However, a new bomb, called the N- or neutron bomb, is receiving much attention because of its deadly effect in the target area on human lives without destroying property or filling the air at any great distance with deadly radiation.
"Is the neutron bomb ready?" asks the Time magazine of July 7, 1961 . "Out of the ominous debate over nuclear testing, an ominous phrase, 'the neutron bomb,1 echoed across the U.S. last week. It resounded through Congress, leaked into the press, was broadcast on TV and radio. Connecticut's Democratic Senator Thomas J. Dodd, the N-bomb‘s most enthusiastic proponent, told the Senate: 'We are in mortal peril. More than a year has passed since I first spoke on the folly of the test-ban moratorium. I mentioned the neutron bomb would operate as a kind of death ray. It would do next to no physical damage and result in no contamination, but it would immediately destroy all life in the target area. Today I doubt there is a single nuclear physicist of repute who would challenge the neutron bomb from the standpoint of feasibility. It can be built, but nothing can be done to build it until we are free to resume nuclear testing.' Dodd hinted that the Russians may soon get the neutron bomb. 'At that point,' he warned, 'we might find ourselves confronted with the terrible choice between surrender and all-out thermonuclear war.' . . .
"If a small, pure-fusion bomb could be built to work without a fission detonator, theorists believe that it would send its neutrons farther than the destructive
12
The Edge of the Abyss
reach of its heat or blast. Starting with 14 MEV (million electron volts) of energy, the neutrons would traverse about a half-mile of air and still have enough punch to kill humans protected by several feet of earth or concrete. There would be blast and heat too, but if the N-bomb was just the right size and was exploded at just the right height above the ground, it would kill by neutrons without setting fires or blowing buildings apart. The effective radius of action would be small —
1,000	yds. or so—because neutrons are rapidly absorbed by the surrounding air.11
Because of the many bombs which she has been exploding in the air, there is every reason to believe that Russia is now seeking to perfect the neutron bomb. Senator Dodd's warning therefore is very much in line with the rapid-moving events that will produce this latest weapon of all weapons—the N-bomb.
The Important Question
Since Russia set off its many "dirty bombs" in the air, leading up to the 50-megaton bomb, a fear and hatred has swept the world such as man has never known before. Adlai E. Stevenson, our ambassador at the United Nations, expressed this thought clearly when he declared that the explosion of Russia's superbomb, despite the almost unanimous appeal of the members of the United Nations, had turned the world backward toward anarchy and disaster.
The fallout from these bombs and others which will be set off by other nations has rightly produced this mounting fear of death without warning for the human race. People are asking if there is any sound reason for building a shelter, since there would be little or nothing to come out of the shelter to, after weeks spent
One-Way Street
13
there. Suppose the entire population of a city goes underground into survival shelters! In what condition would that city be found after weeks of being untended and uninhabited? No one has yet come up with an answer to this question.
In simple language that the layman can understand, Dr. Robert Rohrer of Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia), professor of physics and assistant professor of radiology, declared in the Atlanta Journal of October 20, 1961:
"Radiation is an invisible force which moves through the air, like light. It passes through walls, through people, through anything not thick enough to stop it.
"It is the same force that penetrates your body in a flashing instant for the purpose of medical X ray. In that tiny dose, it is harmless; in a continuous, intense dose, it is fatal.
"It has its deadly effect on living cells. On people, plants, animals. It destroys living cells, or the ability to reproduce cells.
"It leaves no effect, after passing, on that which is not living. Canned food. Water. Frozen food. Stored food supplies. Wheat. Cured hams. The radiation passes on through and leaves the matter as it was.
"Radiation comes from a nuclear bomb blast, riding on 'fallout.1 On particles of dust in the atmosphere, particles which drift with the wind, slowly settling and projecting deadly rays.
"Heavy fallout would turn the heavens above into a deadly, giant X-ray machine which only the passage of time could deactivate."
The minds of men are concentrating on one thing— how to kill the most people in the shortest time. The public press has been reporting for some time that a
14
The Edge of the Abyss
German scientist has found a way to create A-bombs at a cost of $1,000 each, but he is not yet permitted to reveal his secret lest all the nations of the world start on an atom bomb rampage that would indeed spell finis for humanity.
When communism took over in Russia after World War I, it was felt that such an ungodly, oppressive system would soon die out in the light of present day democracy and Christian culture. While no country has willingly or by vote of the people followed their lead, yet by force of arms or deceiving propaganda they have already started one half of the human race down that one-way street which leads to national ruin.
What God Says
Take your world map and look at it closely. Put your finger on a single nation or country, if you can, where winds of war are not blowing or appear to be ready to blow into a fury of destruction. Now, while the map is before you, take your Bible and read Jeremiah 25:31, 32. "A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. "
Surely the conditions the prophet describes are today all around us. Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, plus the islands of the sea, are in a state of ferment and turmoil. Race hatreds have almost reached a breaking point. Communism threatens the very existence of democratic government. All efforts to allay these evil forces seem utterly useless. A stalemate, an impasse, confronts the whole world on the matter of peace or war.
One-Way Street
15
The "population explosion," as some call it, is thought to be of greater danger to the world than the A- and H-bombs. Two babies are born every three seconds, and for each three births there is said to be two deaths. That means that each year a new nation nearly the size of Japan is being added to the earth's population. Joel's prophecy comes forcefully to mind when we think of the multitudes now inhabiting the earth. Speaking of the last days when God shall take a hand in the affairs of men, he declares, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision (threshing - margin): for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Joel 3:14. Again the Lord likens the struggling peoples of earth in these last days to the surging waves of the sea blown by mighty winds. (Revelation 7:1, 2; 17:15.)
Jeremiah's prophecy of whirlwinds stirring the whole earth is certainly being fulfilled now, but the next phase of the prophecy is yet to be fulfilled. "And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground." Jeremiah 25:33. Such a loss of human life sweeps beyond our imagination. Such a catastrophic engulfment of mankind could never have been accomplished by war until our time. Now it can happen even in a matter of hours.
"Each breeze that sweeps the ocean Brings tidings from afar Of nations in commotion,
Prepared for Zion's war. "
—•Samuel F. Smith, The Morning Light.
Possibly one of the greatest danger signals that the world has gone a long way down that narrow one-way
16
The Edge of the Abyss
street to destruction is the ever-increasing tidal wave of crime that is afflicting all nations.
A Sign of Danger
In recent months John Edgar Hoover, headof the FBI, has issued warnings on the increase of crime that are startling to say the least. In the public press of March 4, 1961 appeared the following: "Writing in the March issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Hoover said:
"'There is little chance that the dikes of decency and morality in America can long withstand the surging tidal wave of crime threatening our nation unless every citizen, just as in flood-menaced communities, is willing to pitch in to help stem the tide.1
"Hoover announced the FBI is making available on request to law enforcement agencies, civic and service organizations a new poster designed to rally public help.
'"Of the more than 158 million sets of fingerprints on file in the FBI's identification division,' Hoover said, 'there are at any given time almost 90,000 cards which bear small, red tabs.
"'These tabs mean that the owners of these fingerprints are wanted by some law enforcement agency in connection with crimes—90,000 fugitives walking in our midst at all times!
"'Surely, America must be concerned, for this is merely an indication of the actual number of men, women and youthful criminals who are ready to spring into violence at the slightest provocation.'"
Then in April he issued a still more striking and startling statement: "This nation is hurtling toward a frightful internal crisis. Indeed, I am convinced that we have already reached a crossroads we have been
17
One-Way Street
heading for since the beginning of World War II; and that if we fail to admit the deadly nature of this crisis and to meet it quickly and aggressively, we will pay with the life of our republic.
"The crisis manifests itself in what some call juvenile delinquency, and what I call youthful criminality, for that is what it is. I refer to the vicious acts of vandalism, wanton brutality and mounting savagery which typify today's arrogant teen-age gangs. . . .
"Today youthful offenders account for one half of the burglary and larceny arrests in this country and nearly two thirds of the arrests for automobile thefts. And their rate of participation in more serious crimes— assault, robbery, rape, murder—is steadily rising."1
For a generation now the affairs of our world, both morally and militarily have been moving toward a universal crisis—driving down that one-way street that ends—where?
Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?
Chapter 2
AN AMERICAN economist tells that when he was traveling in Iran a young Iranian said to him: "You give us your money, but that is not what we need most. We need to know what made America what it is today. Give us this knowledge and we too will become great."
What, we ask, did make America great? What did cause our forefathers to lay down the broad principles of freedom, both civil and religious, that set a pattern for freedom-loving men the world over to admire and seek to follow? These are important questions which we shall try to answer.
The Dark Ages
The Dark Ages stretched in general from the destruction of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, to the age of literature and enlightenment of the fifteenth century. During that time—for at least one thousand years—a pall of cultural and spiritual darkness covered all Europe, and really the whole world. True, there
19
Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?
were some great artists and musicians, but few seats of learning which, although bearing Christian titles, were pagan in their philosophy.
That renowned scholar, Dr. John Lord, speaking of the passing of the Roman Empire, and its immediate result which brought on the Dark Ages says, "In the fifth century nothing could have saved the Empire. Its decline had been rapid for two hundred years, until at last it became as weak as the Oriental monarchies which Alexander subdued. It fell like a decayed and rotten tree. As a political State all vitality had fled from it. The only remaining conservative forces came from Christianity; and Christianity was itself corrupted, and had become a part of the institutions of the State.
"It is mournful to think that a brilliant external civilization was so feeble to arrest both decay and ruin. It is sad to think that neither art nor literature nor law had conservative strength; that the manners and habits of the people grew worse and worse, as is universally admitted, amid all the glories and triumphs and boastings of the proudest works of man. 'A world as fair and as glorious as our own,' says Sismondi, 'was permitted to perish.' Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Athens met the old fate of Babylon, of Tyre, of Carthage. Degeneracy was as marked and rapid in the former, notwithstanding all the civilizing influences of letters, jurisprudence, arts, and utilitarian science, as in the latter nations—a most significant and impressive commentary on the uniform destinies of nations, when those virtues on which the strength of man is based have passed away. An observer in the days of Theodosius would very likely have seen the churches of Rome as fully attended as are those in New York itself to-day; and he would have seen a more magnificant city—and
20	The Edge of the Abyss
yet it fell. There is no cure for a corrupt and rotten civilization.11 2
With the fall of Rome began a decline in morals because the established Church of Rome absorbed every false doctrine of paganism and created a religio-political system comparable to all that communism is today. Of the oppressive nature of the papal empire, Dr. Lord declares, "We associate with Hildebrand the great contest of the Middle Ages between spiritual and temporal authority, the triumph of the former, and its supremacy in Europe until the Reformation. What great ideas and events are interwoven with that majestic domination—not in one age, but for fifteen centuries; not religious merely, but political, embracing as it were the whole progress of European society, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Protestant Reformation; yea, intimately connected with the condition of Europe to the present day, and not of Europe only, but America itself! What an august power is this Catholic empire, equally great as an institution and as a religion! ... It has proved to be the most wonderful fabric of what we call worldly wisdom that our world has seen—controlling kings, dictating laws to ancient monarchies, and binding the souls of millions with a more perfect despotism than Oriental emperors ever sought or dreamed. " 3
Then What Made the Dark Ages?
The Dark Ages were, without doubt and speculation, the result of the apostasy of the Church of Rome in the third and fourth centuries. Was there a pagan doctrine or practice that Rome failed to incorporate in her teaching and enforce with her anathemas and the arms of the church-state? During the days of her supremacy
21
Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?
millions paid with their lives for attempting to read and scatter the word of God and to exercise their God-given right of freedom of thought and of worship.
Another historian brings this fact to our attention. "The accession of the Roman Church to power marked the beginning of the Dark Ages. As her power increased, the darkness deepened. Faith was transferred from Christ, the true foundation, to the pope of Rome. Instead of trusting in the Son of God for
forgiveness of sins and for eternal salvation, the people looked to the pope, and to the priests and prelates to whom he delegated authority. They were taught that the pope was their earthly mediator, and that none could approach God except through him; and further, that he stood in the place of God to them, and was therefore to be implicitly obeyed. A deviation from his requirements was sufficient cause for the severest punishment to be visited upon the bodies and souls of the offenders. Thus the minds of the people were turned away from God to fallible, erring, and cruel men, nay, more, to the prince of darkness himself, who exercised his power through them. Sin was disguised in a garb of sanctity. When the Scriptures are suppressed, and man comes to regard himself as supreme, we need look only for fraud, deception, and debasing iniquity. With the elevation of human laws and traditions, was manifest the corruption that ever results from setting aside the law of God." 4
Final Plunge Into Darkness
Not many seem to sense the real cause of the spiritual darkness of the Middle Ages. Surprise is manifested when it is pointed out that the lapse into pagan darkness at that time came as the fulfillment of
22
The Edge of the Abyss
the prophecy of Daniel 7:25. Daniel deals with a power which was to arise out of the pagan Roman Empire designated as the little horn. "I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; . . . and he shall be diverse from the first [kingdoms], . . . and he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.11 Daniel 7:21, 24, 25.
How was this power different or diverse from all other kingdoms that came before it?
1 . It was not merely a church, but a church-state government. "'Out of the ruins of political Rome, arose the great moral Empire in the "giant form" of the Roman Church.1,1 5
2. It would attempt to change God's law. In the Ten Commandments, as taught in the catechism of the Church, the second commandment is left out entirely because it prohibits the worship of images. And the fourth commandment is made to read: "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day." The command is emasculated by the change since no time is given that indicates which day is the Sabbath, whether the first day or the seventh day of the week.
We quote again from that well-known volume, The Great Controversy: "The arch-deceiver had not completed his work. He was resolved to gather the Christian world under his banner, and to exercise his power through his vicegerent, the proud pontiff who claimed to be the representative of Christ. Through half-converted pagans, ambitious prelates, and world-loving churchmen, he accomplished his purpose. Vast councils were held from time to time, in which the dignitaries of the church were convened from all the
23
Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?
world. In nearly every council the Sabbath which God had instituted was pressed down a little lower, while the Sunday was correspondingly exalted. Thus the pagan festival came finally to be honored as a divine institution, while the Bible Sabbath was pronounced a relic of Judaism, and its observers were declared to be accursed.
"The great apostate had succeeded in exalting himself 'above all that is called God, or that is worshiped.1 He had dared to change the only precept of the divine law thar unmistakably points all mankind to the true and living God. In the fourth commandment, God is revealed as the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and is thereby distinguished from all false gods. It was as a memorial of the work of creation that the seventh day was sanctified as a rest-day for man. It was designed to keep the living God ever before the minds of men as the source of being and the object of reverence and worship. Satan strives to turn men from their allegiance to God, and from rendering obedience to His law; therefore he directs his efforts especially against that commandment which points to God as the Creator.11 6
Modern Protestantism in many cases has lost sight of all these facts and would have us believe that the Dark Ages was caused solely by political confusion. Though that confusion played its part, the days of the glory of the Catholic Church was the midnight of the world, and the poverty and degradation of nations was the direct result of the ignorance of the populace which was created and fostered by the Church of Rome.
We were more than surprised and pained to read a statement in a recent book, written and edited by Presbyterians, entitled The Church Faces the Isms. It places the Catholic Church among the "ism" churches
24
The Edge of the Abyss
because of many of her false teachings. One writer makes this unwarranted and unhistorical statement about the Church of Rome: "The history of the Christian church for one thousand years is the history of the Roman Catholic Church, as far as western Europe is concerned. The first debt of gratitude we owe the Roman Church, then, is for preserving the Church itself. If it had gone out of business with the coming of the Dark Ages, it is most doubtful whether what we call the Reformation would have come at all.
"Another debt of gratitude we must pause to pay is for the Roman Church's preservation of the Bible. That church claims credit for the production of the Bible in the first place, but this is generally denied by Protestants. To affirm that the apostles Paul and John, not to name other New Testament writers, were Roman Catholics, is like saying they were Presbyterians or Baptists. All Christians owe these pioneer prophets a great deal, but pinning our labels on them will not do. However, there is no doubt that by the sixth century what eventually became the Roman Catholic Church was a going concern. And one of its great concerns was the preservation and teaching of the Word. It did much to preserve the Bible in Western Europe.
"The Roman Church for a thousand years preserved order in western Europe. Not that it was a very orderly place, as we look back on it. We may think it a mess, even with the church; but it would have been a most unholy mess without it.
"Under the shelter of the mighty church, too, it was possible for our western culture to arise. The great universities of Europe, and some in the New World, were founded under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church. The Dark Ages were really dark; but that they were followed by centuries of increasing light, we owe
25
Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?
to the Roman Church and its institutions, especially some of the monasteries. There the light of learning was sheltered and cherished even when great darkness lay upon the world. " 7
This is a misstatement of facts. There would have been no need of the Reformation had there been no Dark Ages, and there would have been no Dark Ages had there been no apostasy in the third to fifth centuries.
Again, what false reasoning it is to say, "Another debt of gratitude we must pause to pay is for the Roman Church's preservation of the Bible." Even the casual student of history knows that Rome through the centuries suppressed the Scriptures in every conceivable manner. It was the men of Reformation times who published the Bible in the languages of the common people. With the advent of the printing press and the invention of movable type in 1452, a new and enlightened era came to the world. The first book printed was the Holy Bible, called the Gutenberg Bible after the inventor of modern printing.
What Made America Great?
As we now trace the history of nations since the Bible was placed in the hands of the common people, we readily discover the secret of America's prosperity up to this time. England in 1400 was scarcely large enough to be named among the larger nations of earth. She was a little island kingdom. But because she accepted the Reformation with the open Bible, that little kingdom was swept on to such greatness that it could be said the sun never set on her empire. When England was small, Spain was the greatest kingdom on earth. In her glory she turned her back on the Bible and the Reformation principles, and within a few
26
The Edge of the Abyss
centuries she became the lowest of kingdoms, having lost her possessions and reduced her people to poverty.
Why has only the United States and Canada of all the countries on the American continent risen to the greatest heights of freedom and prosperity of which history has any record? In these countries the message of God's Word has had, until recently at least, first place in our thinking and teaching. This Book was the honored treasure of most families in the early days of our history. South of us the lands with similar natural resources still lie in poverty and illiteracy. The Church of Rome has suppressed the Bible, keeping it out of the hands of the people. The ignorance of the masses suits well the schemes of a church which can thrive only where the Bible is not read or studied. The liberty that God's Word teaches is the secret that made the U.S.A. great. No nation, be it Iran, India, or Spain will rise to greatness and continue so while resisting the teachings of God's Word. Russia's greatness is doomed to destruction unless God and His Word are honored.
Another Dark Ages
That statement brings us to the question in hand. Is the world, including even the professed Christian nations, in danger of lapsing back into another Dark Ages? Possibly not so far as the physical sciences are concerned, but there is a darkness more devastating and ruinous than the loss of a material civilization. It is a spiritual darkness which sooner or later brings on national peril and destruction.
In the latter years of the last century Dr. Lord, not seeing what would come so soon in our beloved country, wrote: "The punishment of the enervated and sensual Roman was by war. We in America do not fear
27
Are We Facing Another Dark Ages?
this calamity, and have no present cause of fear, because we have not sunk to the weakness and wickedness of the Romans, and because we have no powerful external enemies. But if amid our magnificent triumphs of science and art, we should accept the Epicureanism of the ancients and fall into their ways of life, then there would be the same decline which marked them—I mean in virtue and public morality— and there would be the same penalty; not perhaps destruction from external enemies, as in Persia, Syria, Greece, and Rome, but some grievous and unexpected series of catastrophes which would be as mournful, as humiliating, as ruinous, as were the incursions of the Germanic races. The operations of law, natural and moral, are uniform. No individual and no nation can escape its penalty . " 8
Were he alive today and could read J. Edgar Hoover's statement in the previous chapter, he would raise a similar warning of the danger that confronts our Republic. In one of his evangelistic sermons Billy Graham said recently: "Unless the nation turns to Christ soon, we may be witnesses to the funeral of a mighty nation that had the greatest opportunity in the history of the human race.11
What are the signs that this country and the whole world are rapidly approaching the conditions that caused the fall of the Roman Empire and ushered in the Dark Ages? Crime waves, dishonesty in government and business, the increasing rate of the liquor traffic, race hatreds producing internal and external strife—all these conditions bear evidence to the fact that we may face another Dark Ages unless God steps in and takes charge. In the language of the French scientist, Bercheldt, "God will come down to earth with His big bunch of keys and will say to humanity, 'It is closing time.'"
Remedy for a Sick World
Chapter 3
A BUSINESS man was standing on a street corner in Tokyo not long ago looking down the street. There he saw thousands of youth with their elders snake dancing and crying for the downfall of their government. Turning to a friend with a harrassed look on his face, he asked, "What has gone wrong with our citizens? What is the matter with our generation?"
A policeman stood on the sidewalk across from San Francisco's city hall and watched angry youth assemble to seek to close the meetings of the Congressional un-American Activities Committee then in progress. He asked, "What has come over these people? I never thought it could happen here. "
A statesman sat in the assembly of the United Nations. While listening to some wild and threatening speeches, he was heard to ask a colleague, "Has the human race lost its balance and is it headed for destruction? What is wrong with the world?"
Why? why? why? is on everyone's lips. What is the cause of this apparent world-wide revolt against the laws of both man and God? This question can be
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Remedy for a Sick World
answered only by the knowledge that we are involved in the greatest spiritual battle this world has ever known. The forces of Satan and his angels are arrayed in the world in open warfare against God's government. To accomplish his purpose he is seeking to capture the minds of the whole human family.
The First Rebellion
Satan began his rebellion while in heaven in the very presence of the Creator. His purpose was to overthrow the government of God and to set his throne even above God. The Bible declares: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High." Isaiah 14:12-14. In this battle Satan and his angels lost out and were cast out of heaven. About one third of the angels were cast out with him. (Revelation 12:1-9.) Sin had now entered the universe, and having a false concept of the laws and purposes of God, he who was the first liar (John 8:44) soon attempted to export his rebellion to other worlds. Adam and Eve accepted his lie as truth when he said "ye shall not surely die" and brought the world and all future generations down to the pit and to death. Ours is the only world in open rebellion against God. Satan has been permitted to continue to work out his evil designs for nearly 6,000 years, that it may be shown to men and angels—the whole living universe—how terrible are the results of rebellion against God and His law. When the mercy of God is exhausted, justice will be
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revealed, and God will say to Satan and his hosts of evil followers: "Thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." "I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth . . . and never shalt thou be any more." Isaiah 14:15; Ezekiel 28:18, 19.
Until that time arrives, we may expect to see the forces of evil mounting higher and ever higher, "for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." Revelation 12:12.
Rising Tide of Evil
Of these last days the Bible says: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. " 2 Timothy 3:1-4.
Dr. Otto Dibelius, chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany, states the world situation clearly: "The powers of darkness, however, have never been so consistent nor violent as they appear to be this century. Never before has the entire sphere of human relations been so much obscured as we perceive it in our present technical age. From the nineteenth century, stupendous tasks were left over largely unsolved. From spurious seeds implanted with the scientific revolution beginning two centuries ago, a harvest of bitter fruitage is now being reaped in gigantic dimensions. Willful speculations and experiments have added to man's pride and self-sufficiency. Scientific man pretended to be autonomous and absolute. The result of those
31
Remedy for a Sick World
experiments has been the waging of two world wars. To the problem of the twentieth century, those wars have offered no solution because warmongers would never consult the Bible. Nor did the advocates of material exploitation ever look up to the word of God as a guiding light. Instead of helping the human being to become instrumental in fulfilling God's design through acts of neighborly concern, the intellectual drive became entirely self-satisfied. Instead of using the material gifts inherent in God's creation as His committed fellow-laborers, the doctrinaires of emancipation have exalted the autonomy and the gravity of earthly matter to a degree where the inner sphere of man is considered negligible." 9
God’s Plan for Survival
When sin entered our world, God announced a plan for the destruction of Satan, and the ultimate triumph of good over evi I.
God said to Satan: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Genesis 3:15. Satan knew then that ultimately he would be destroyed; the "seed of the woman" would triumph over him. As the first Adam failed, the second Adam, Christ, the true "seed," (Galatians 3:16) triumphed over sin. He would be bom of a woman, live for thirty-three years in human flesh, and be "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15.
This was the only remedy God could provide for a rebellious world. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.
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The Edge of the Abyss
Speaking by the Holy Spirit, Peter declared, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved . " Acts 4:12.
With the sacrifice of God's Son on the cross of Calvary, the remedy had been provided, but the results of that remedy were still to be applied. By His vicarious death on the cross, Christ obtained the right to represent the human race before the throne of God. Satan no longer could boast that he represented this earth in the councils of heaven. (Job 1:7.) All heaven rejoiced at the resurrection of Christ, for "now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." Revelation 12:10.
Not as an accuser, but as an advocate for man, Christ entered the heavenly sanctuary. "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16.
The English word "priest" is a contracted form of the Latin word "presbyter" or elder. It applies to one who is duly authorized to minister in sacred things as a mediator between God and man. When sin first entered the world, a form of the priesthood was established in the family. At once the true and the false mediatorial work appeared. Abel appears in Genesis 4 as a true priest offering a victim and his shed blood to typify the coming Redeemer. Cain introduced a bloodless sacrifice, which denied the necessity of a blood
33
Remedy for a Sick World
atonement for man's salvation. This issue of the true and false priesthood and mediator for sinners has existed since that day. The true priesthood has offered a blood sacrifice, while the false has offered a bloodless one. Keep this in mind as we trace through the history of the priesthood—both true and false.
The Family Priesthood
The record is clear that during the age of the patriarchs, such men as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Job served as the priest in the family. (Genesis 8:20; 22:13; 35:3; Job 1:5.)
When Abraham was living in Palestine in his later life, a representative of an organized priesthood appeared to whom Abraham paid tithes. The record reads, "And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all." Genesis 14:18-20. The Melchizedek priesthood was ordained of God to represent the coming priesthood of Christ, thus it was said of Melchisedec that he had "neither beginning of days, nor end of life." Hebrews 7:3. And Christ was made "a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec" (Verse 17), therefore his mediation is continual—he ever liveth to make intercession for us. The priesthood of Melchisedec overlapped another called the priesthood of Aaron. It is clearly taught in Verses 5-28 of this chapter that the latter was temporary and served the people only until Christ should appear as the real mediator between God and man. The Aaronic or Levitical priests were many, "because they were not suffered to continue by reason
34
The Edge of the Abyss
of death: but this man (Jesus Christ), because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood." Verses 23, 24. The true priesthoods, Melchisedec and Aaronic or Levitical, offered various animals for a blood sacrifice for "without shedding of blood is no remission." Hebrews 9:22. Then it follows that Christ became an eternal priest by the sacrifice of His own blood. (Verses 12, 23, 24.) He does not need to shed His blood yearly as lambs were slain, but once. We read, "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Verses 25, 26. Then the apostle concludes, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Verse 28.
All the human priesthoods passed away when Christ became our high priest, ministering in the "true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Hebrews 8:1, 2. There is, therefore, "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Timothy 2:5.
The papal church, the great apostate movement, however, has a priesthood and a sacrifice unknown in the gospel. Its priests claim to stand between God and men, and they have erected a barrier on the road to heaven with toll gates along the way. What the Church calls the Eucharist, or the sacrifice of the mass, is a bloodless sacrifice such as Cain offered to God, and such as the heathen world has offered to its gods down through the ages.
35
Remedy for a Sick World
Christ the King
Th is mediatorial work of Christ is not to continue forever. Some day He will lay off the mediatorial robes of an high priest, take on the garments and crown of a king, and become "King of kings, and Lord of lords." Revelation 19:16.
The prophet Daniel was given the following account of the close of Christ's mediatorial work: "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. ... I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Daniel 7:9, 10, 13, 14.
Here is described the opening of the investigative judgment when Christ as High Priest passed from the holy place, where He had carried on His mediatorial work through the ages since His ascension to heaven, into the most holy place where is God's throne resting over His eternal law—the Ten Commandments.
Christ was then given authority over the kingdoms of this world to judge, and to ultimately destroy with a sharp sword. "And he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." Revelation 19:15, last part.
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The Edge of the Abyss
John the revelator was given a similar view of the closing work of Christ's ministry: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." Revelation 11:15. This prophecy tells us when all this will take place: "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets." Revelation 10:7. The seventh-trumpet angel began sounding when the sixth trumpet ceased, which was in 1840 when Ottoman supremacy passed away. (Revelation 9:13-16.) After that date and during the days of the seventh trumpet, the mystery of God, which is the gospel, would be finished. Also during those years the following would take place: "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth . " Revelation 11:18.
The Final Victory
The mediatorial work of Christ was a means to an end—the final overthrow of sin and the giving of His reward to His "servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great." (See also Hebrews 2:14.)
Just how Christ will accomplish His purposes He made clear to the sorrowing disciples when He promised: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father^ house are many
37
Remedy for a Sick World
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.
For nearly two millenniums God's saints, small and great, have looked forward to the fulfillment of that promise. They have known as we know, that all His mediatorial work will be of no avail unless and until He comes in person the second time to reign as King. This is the final remedy for our sin-sick world. Every indication is that He will soon redeem His promise and return.
Behold He Cometh!
Chapter 4
THE GREAT English preacher, C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), in his last address in Exeter Hall, London preached on the subject "Thou shalt call his name JESUS." Matthew 1:21. In broken accents as he closed his sermon, he exclaimed: "Let my name perish, but let Christ's name last forever. Crown Him Lord of all! You will not hear me say anything else. These are my last words in Exeter Hall. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Crown Him Lord of all. "
That crowning day for Jesus, the day He becomes King of kings and Lord of lords, has been the sustaining hope of all true Christians ever since the day He ascended bodily into heaven from the Mount of Olives.
The sorrowing disciples, thinking they might never see Christ again, stood gazing up into the blue dome of heaven, and suddenly "two men [angels] stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:10, 11. The affairs of our present world have
Behold He Cometh!	39
become so involved and withall so wicked, the second coming of Jesus as King of kings is the only hope of mankind.
Jesus planned to return in bodily form to our world when He said goodby to the disciples. He had already told them a little of what He would be doing while away, when He said: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you . I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3. Now for nearly 2000 years He has been preparing that place on the planet we call heaven, far beyond the solar system, beyond Orion and the starry heavens we see with the naked eye. There the New Jerusalem is being prepared, and one day Jesus will ride forth, coming down the vaulted skies "with all His holy angels, " to redeem His promise that He would come again.
When Will He Come?
When will He return to earth? has been the question men have asked during the past two millenniums. Paul said: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." 2 Thessalonians 2:1, 2. Paul evidently believed that in his time the day of Christ's coming was far away.
Martin Luther said he expected Christ would come within 300 years after his day. He hit the mark almost exactly (he died in 1546)—not when the actual
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appearing of Christ would be seen in the heavens, but when the great second advent movement, proclaiming "the hour of his judgment is come, " began to prepare the way for the return of Jesus.
Evangelist Billy Graham often says in his sermons he believes the second coming of Christ is at hand, and is the only hope of our distraught world .
Prophecies Coming Into Focus
What are the evidences that this event will take place soon? Many prophecies of the Bible relative to the end of the world and the return of Christ are coming into focus and are being fulfilled. We name herewith only some of these prophecies:
1 . War and strife among nations on a scale never known before. There have been more people killed by the wars of this century than have been destroyed in all the wars of the past two thousand years. Nation has surely risen against nation and kingdom against kingdom in the past fifty years. (Matthew 24:7.)
2.	Preparation now going on in the nuclear race for total world destruction revealed through these prophecies:
"Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left." Isaiah 24:6.
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung upon the ground." Jeremiah 25:32, 33.
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Behold He Cometh!
"Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong." Joel 3:9, 10.
3.	The great increase of crime over the country and the whole world. Of these last days Jesus said: "But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. " Matthew 24:37.
The Apostle Paul wrote: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, . . . evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." 2 Timothy 3:1, 2, 13.
Crime on the Increase
Statistics confirm the prophecy: "Crime in the U.S. is still on the increase. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported a 'startling' 9 per cent spurt in the number of serious crimes committed during the first half of 1960, compared with the same period in 1959.
"Increases were reported from all parts of the country, and in all types of crimes.
"Mr. Hoover's report listed increases of: 13 per cent in the number of robberies; 12 per cent in burglaries; 8 per cent in larceny cases involving $50 or more; 6 per cent in murders; 5 per cent in forcible rape; 5 per cent in auto theft, and 4 per cent in aggravated assault." 10
4.	The decline of spiritual power among the professed Christian churches. Many church leaders believe about the same as Bishop Pike. The Redbook magazine for August, 1961, published the survey they had made of the beliefs of young ministers. In the
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The Edge of the Abyss
opening paragraphs of the report entitled "The Surprising Beliefs of Our Future Ministers, " it is stated: "The Reverend James A. Pike, Episcopal Bishop of California, recently startled many United States churchgoers when he declared that he does not believe in the Biblical account of the virgin birth of Christ. It is a primitive religious myth, he says, and Joseph, Mary's husband, was probably the physical father of Jesus.
"Asked to name other religious myths, Dean Pike mentioned Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and the existence of a sky-high heaven and a red-hot hell.
"The dean's 'revolt' has made many a Protestant congregation sit up and take sharp notice of the fact that a new kind of young man seems to be answering the call to the ministry. If 47-year-old Dean Pike is a harbinger of the new clergyman, what will tomorrow's Protestant minister be like? What kind of sermons will ring from the pulpit a few years from now? In what strange vineyards will we be asked to labor in God's name?"
The Bible says when pointing to this decline of spiritual concepts in the last days: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Timothy 4:3, 4.
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." 2 Peter 3:3, 4.
5.	The rapid rise of the papal power in this century definitely fulfills Revelation 13:3, 8.
Behold He Cometh!	43
The papal power was wounded in 1798 when the French took the Pope prisoner, and all his states were taken away from him by 1870. Mussolini healed that wound in 1929, when the Lateran treaty was signed, and the Catholic Church became again, not a church only but a church-state in Vatican City. Forty-two countries now have ambassadors or representatives at the Vatican, and some forty-five countries have a member of that church as head of state. According to Scripture all this was to take place just before the end of time. (Revelation 17:13, 14.)
6.	The fear that today fills the hearts of the leaders of all nations, and of the man on the street as well. Jesus described this present condition: "Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." Luke 21:26, 27.
7.	Jesus pointed to still another definite sign: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matthew 24:14. One or two hundred years is a short time when measured by the 2000 years since Christ gave this prophecy. Five hundred years after Christ spoke these words, the evidence that they would ever be fulfilled was as bleak as the day when He spoke them. It was the same 1000 years, even 1500 years, after He ascended to heaven.
Something Began to Happen
Then something began to happen in our world. Printing with movable type was invented in 1452, and tracts and small books began to stream from printing
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presses. The Bible, which up until that time had been hand written in the classical languages, began to appear in the language of the common people. Translation after translation came from the Bible societies which were organized in London and New York early in the eighteen hundreds. Now the Bible or some portions of it are translated in over 1100 languages of earth. The Bible Societies tell us that 99 per cent of earth's inhabitants now have the word of God in their own language. The message of the first angel in Revelation 14:6, 7 is seen being carried to "every nation, kindred, tongue and people." Thus is fulfilled, or nearly so, the prophecy of Jesus and of the Revelation. Jesus concluded His statement with the words, "Then shall the end come. "
8.	Possibly the greatest sign of all is the battle now going on to control the minds of men. On one hand it is the naked brute power of the Communist world which holds nearly one half of the earth in its fearful grasp and seeks to destroy all personal liberty. On the other hand, the beast power of Revelation is making rapid progress for a take-over of America, even as she holds 500 million other souls in the darkness of a politico-religious system based on the pagan philosophy of the individual's subservience to a one-man regime.
The recent Supreme Court decision making Sunday laws legal in certain states, paves the way for universal religious laws. Then this prophecy will be completely fulfilled: "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13:15-17.
Many years ago this warning was written: "When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon
Behold He Cometh!	45
such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result. . . . The 'image to 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. " 11
"The scenes to be enacted in our world are not yet even dreamed of. Satan is at work through human agencies. Those who are making an effort to change the Constitution, and secure a law enforcing Sunday observance, little realize what will be the result. A crisis is just upon us. " 12
The Time Is At Hand
As we carefully review these prophecies and witness their startling fulfillment on every hand, we can say that truly the time for Christ's second advent is not hundreds of years away but is "even at the doors. " For this we can be glad, because now not parts of the world are a battleground in the war between Christ and Satan as heretofore, but the entire civilized world is involved. There are no longer any frontier areas on earth where a new and more peacefully minded civilization can be established and built, as was the case when the new world was discovered. Now East has traveled West until both meet again in a cycle that began at the scene of the destruction of the tower of Babel some 2200 B.C. The cycle of history has made a complete turn and the time has come for Christ to appear and establish a new heaven and a new earth.
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We can rejoice in that hope, and say, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
How Will He Come?
It is of primary and vital importance to know what the Scriptures say about the manner of Christ's second coming. In His own language He Himself said, "there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets" and "many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ." Matthew 24:5, 24. He has warned us. We must be on guard. Some will say and are saying, "He is in the desert, " others will say, "He is in the secret chambers." Jesus warns, "Believe it not. " Verse 26.
No, He does not fulfill His promise to come again by returning at one's death, nor in the seance chambers of Spiritualism, nor out in the Utah deserts. His coming will not be secret in any way. He declared, "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Verse 27. Again He has promised, "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him." Revelation 1:7. To the sorrowing disciples the angels said, 'This same Jesus . . . shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:11.
His coming will usher in a series of the most catastrophic events this world has ever seen. Here is a brief rundown of the events that accompany His appearing:
1.	He comes in His own glory, the glory of the Father, and the holy angels. (Matthew 16:27; 25:31.)
2.	The whole world will witness that event and the wicked will call for the rocks and mountains to fall on them. (Revelation 1:7; 6:13-17.)
3.	Probation for sinners will have closed. God's
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voice saying "it is done" shakes down the mountains and cities of earth. (Revelation 16:17-21 .)
4.	The living wicked are slain by the glory of God and the brightness of His coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:8-12.)
5.	The living saints of God, "the 144,000" who have the seal of God, and the "Father's name in their forehead" will be changed from mortality to immortality and caught up to meet Christ in the air. At the same time the righteous dead of all ages will come forth from the grave to receive eternal life. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:51-56.)
These scriptures make it very clear how the Lord Jesus will come again. No one need be deceived today, as the Jews were relative to Christ's first advent. Then the people were largely dependent on the teaching of the rabbis who had misapplied the Scriptures, teaching the people to look for a Messiah who would destroy the Roman Empire, and make Israel a world-wide nation. Today, the Bible is in the languages of 98 per cent or more of earth's inhabitants. Nearly all may read for themselves what the w,ord of God teaches about His second coming. Yet sad to say, the Christian churches in enlightened Europe and America are filled with confusion regarding the nature of His coming. Few believe what the Scriptures teach regarding that event as set forth so plainly in the above texts.
The Great Deception
Let the reader beware and avoid all the fanciful teaching that is sweeping the world today, for a number are saying "I am Christ" and are deceiving many. Those who look for Him to come in the manner He said
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He would come will be ready to receive Him. The common teaching of most Protestant, as well as Catholic, churches is preparing the people to receive a Christ who will come silently and in various places on the earth. Such a false Christ will appear and will be an almost overwhelming delusion. Note these words of warning: "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. In different parts of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John in the Revelation. The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by anything that mortal eyes have yet beheld. The shout of triumph rings out upon the air, "Christ has come! Christ has come!" The people prostrate themselves in adoration before him, while he lifts up his hands, and pronounces a blessing upon them, as Christ blessed His disciples when He was upon the earth. His voice is soft and subdued, yet full of melody. In gentle, compassionate tones he presents some of the same gracious, heavenly truths which the Saviour uttered; he heals the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and commands all to hallow the day which he has blessed. He declares that those who persist in keeping holy the seventh day are blaspheming his name by refusing to listen to his angels sent to them with light and truth. This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion." ,3
In fact, the Bible teaches that at Christ's second advent He will not even touch the earth. Paul the
Behold He Cometh!
49
apostle declares: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord .11 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17.
One thousand years after His second coming He returns again with all His saints, and with the city He has prepared for His people. Then the earth will be renovated, made pure, and made a place "wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2 Peter 3:10-14; Revelation, chapters 20 and 21 .)
The Only Remedy
Christ is the only remedy God has provided for our world—Christ who came, died, was resurrected and became our High Priest; Christ who is coming again to fulfill His promise to resurrect and translate His people. He will give His reward then to the saints and prophets, small and great.
For such an hour the world has waited 6,000 years. Now the closing events hasten on and it will soon be a reality. Who will be ready? The Scriptures declare: "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.11 Hebrews 9:28. "And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." Isaiah 25:9.
The War Nobody Wants
Chapter 5
IT IS ON everyone's lips: "Are we on the brink of an armed conflict in Europe? If so, will it turn into a nuclear war? Will it be Armageddon?"
General Douglas McArthur declared in 1945, when signing the Japanese peace treaty, that unless the nations learned the ways of peace and stopped the armament race, Armageddon would be upon us. Since 1945 instruments of total destruction have been invented which were undreamed of then, therefore all the dire prophecies of Armageddon could be fulfilled in the matter of a few days.
Mr. Harry Ferguson, manager of United Press International, writing from Berlin August 2, 1961, expressed this thought: "Is something about to happen here that will start World War III? A nuclear war, that is, with missiles raining death on New York and Moscow, Leningrad and London, Kiev and Paris? Is the awesome prophecy in the Book of Revelation about to come true—that the armies of the world are assembling at Armageddon for the ultimate battle in which 'the cities of the nations fell . . . and every island fled away and no mountains were to be found?"'
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The Road to Armageddon
It is a world-wide preparation for armed conflict. Of the days before the final battle when "the cities of the nations fell" Jesus made a remarkable prophecy.
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. " Matthew 24:7, 8.
"And upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; . . . Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth." Luke 21:25, 26.
The Apostle Paul also prophesied of the last days as follows: "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3.
When Ferdinand de Lesseps, digger of the Suez Canal, was awarded the honor of admission to the French Academy, President Renan said: "You have set your seal upon one of the great battlegrounds of the future." This was almost a prophecy, for then the golden streams of oil had not yet begun to flow from the desert lands of Arabia where are found over half of the known oil deposits of the world. Europe must have oil to keep her factories going. The Suez Canal is often called "the lifeline of Europe" because through this waterway comes much of the needed oil. Over one half of the total imports of France alone come through the canal. Iran—Persia—is back in the news again, with Russia giving that country warning of a takeover if revolution breaks out there, basing their action on a treaty signed in 1921^^p£jiflfl| Russia the right to
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establish order in Iran should trouble arise. Of course Russia will attempt to stir up trouble. The United States has guaranteed the independence of Iran. All these moves fit into the preparation of armed conflict in the "valley of Euphrates."
When Esau sold his birthright to Jacob (Genesis 25:30-34), and when Isaac, their father, said to Esau, "By thy sword shalt thou live" (Genesis 27:40), he spoke by the Spirit of divine prophecy of the religious and political controversies and conflicts which have raged in those lands through all the succeeding ages. In the Eastern world today, as in the past, Mohammedanism stands as the great anti-Christian religion. Communism and totalitarianism stand in opposition to the free institutions of the Western world. Here, then, on the plains, deserts, and waterways of the Middle East the age-old controversies of the descendants of Jacob and Esau will finally draw the world into conflict.
Nuclear Suicide
The inventions for mass destruction have been so great and so terrible since the first atom bomb (which was equal to 20,000 tons of TNT) was dropped on Japan in 1945, that their total destructive power is almost beyond our comprehension.
Writing in Look magazine of September 12, 1961, Arthur T. Hadley states: "If the United States and the Soviet Union fired all their nuclear weapons at each other today, 96 per cent of the population of each country would be destroyed.
"Yet the United States is now manufacturing plutonium, one of the basic nuclear explosives, at the fastest rate in its history—this at a moment when the weapons in the U.S. stockpile have an explosive power
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roughly equivalent to 35 kilomegatons. This is one and three quarter million times as much explosive as the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, or 10 tons of TNT for every human being in the world."
Then projecting his thoughts into the future he says: "Like it or not, in the latter half of the twentieth century we all live on the frontier. It is a frontier from which there is no retreat to a more civilized rear. And the hostile tribes are armed with the same weapons as ourselves. There is constant danger, if we are bellicose, if we are passive, if we panic. No matter what we do, we may have to use our weapons, even if we have arms control. But hopefully, the possibility that nuclear weapons will be used diminishes with arms control." With all this in mind, President Kennedy said in his news conference on October 11, 1961, that we are now faced with the greatest danger ever to confront the human race.
No preacher on Bible prophecy in the past ever painted as dark a picture as this.
Then as if writing a comment of Jeremiah's prophecy "The slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried" (Jeremiah 25:33) Mr. Hadley concludes: "There are those who see in this secure system of mutual deterrence the best hope for peace. The United States and the Soviet Union will both be able to destroy each other's populations, but not each other's weapons.
"In effect, we are back in the barbarian world where hostages are exchanged. America's population is hostage to the Soviet Union for the behavior of American leaders. And the Russian population is hostage to America for the behavior of Soviet leaders. No matter who starts the war, the hostages may be
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destroyed. Even in international relations, a field where there aren't many strong reeds, this is a weak reed on which to build hope for continuing peace. Left to itself, the balance of terror is not a stable balance. . . .
"There is no doubt, after the United States delivers an 18- to 20-kilomegaton attack, that the Soviets have lost. Between 85 and 90 per cent of their population become casualties in the first 60 days. Their major cities and seven eighths of their industry are gone. Their leaders have miscalculated the effects of seizing Berlin. But while the Soviets have lost, has America won? In war games, it is often assumed that the Soviets could deliver, as a second-strike capability against the United States, a 2.5-kilomegaton attack. Many feel this is a conservative figure. The actual weight of an attack in the mid-sixties can perhaps best be calculated at 5 kilomegatons. A 5-kilomegaton attack against the United States in the present state of civil-defense preparation will kill about 140million people, between 75 and 80 per cent of America's population, in the first 60 days. (A lesser amount of nuclear explosive will do much greater damage to the United States than to the Soviet Union because of America's geography, urbanization and weather pattern.) The number of dead will continue to rise over a further period as long-term fall-out, epidemics, lack of food and medical supplies take their toll."
The latest figures released on the preparedness for nuclear war shows a power now in the hands of this country little dreamed of by the average citizen. The United States today has 35,000 to 40,000 atomic bombs, warheads and other nuclear weapons in stockpile.
In destructive power, this equals 35 billion tons of TNT.
The War Nobody Wants To deliver that power—
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1,700 B-47, B-52 and B-58 bombers of Strategic Air Command
2,000 fighter-bombers of the Air Force, many near Soviet borders
1,500 Navy carrier planes, including heavy attack bombers
90 Thor and Jupiter missiles at bases in Europe
80 Polaris missiles aboard submarines at sea
50 Atlas missiles in place at U.S. bases
200 Hound Dog missiles which arm SAC bombers
300 Mace and Matador missiles at Red frontiers
50 Regulus missiles aboard ships in the Pacific
In the first 24 hours of all-out war, the United States could pull the trigger on the equivalent of 16 billion tons of TNT—4,000 times the total dropped in World War II.
There is indeed little wonder that the leaders of the nations are filled with fear "for looking after those things which are coming on the earth."
Quite recently an English class in a university in the Midwest was asked by the instructor to write papers on what the world would be like in 1985. One third of the class, after describing the outlook on nuclear war,
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decided that nobody would be left on the earth by 1985. That is indeed a hopeless picture, but it may not be far from the actual truth.
Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina said, when speaking to the U.S. Senate Prayer Breakfast group: "Our nation—indeed the world—today stands in our gravest time of peril, from the standpoint of human survival on earth. Nuclear, thermonuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and the swift means to deliver these weapons of mass destruction to virtually any point on earth, carry grave signs that perhaps the Biblically-prophesied Battle of Armageddon may not be too far away. Many who once scoffed at this prophecy . . . are now concerned for fear of its validity."
Destruction of Jerusalem and World Compared
The well-known columnist, Joseph Alsop, painted a picture quite as dark in one of his recent columns in the daily press. After predicting the possibility of a world conflict before the year is out because of the Berlin crisis, he stated that the President of the United States and the leaders of the Western world "must first peer long and hard into the inferno" before they decide whether they can let loose the awful instruments of war which are now ready to destroy whole nations in a matter of days. Mr. Alsop asked the question whether the great nations are ready to fight to the last man to uphold their ideals, and compared them with Jerusalem of old in the following words: "To be sure, cities and nations and peoples have sometimes in history fought to the last man. How often this has happened is easily forgotten in this rather flaccidly comfortable age. Anyone who wishes to be reminded only needs to read such records as the historian Josephus's account of the
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siege and destruction of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus.
"Yet two things set the present question apart from the question that was so firmly answered by the iron-willed Jewish zealots who manned the walls of their Holy City with such fearful and unyielding courage. First of all, the defenders of Jerusalem had consciously made their choice, whereas today this country is thinking about everything on earth except the choice that has to be made. And secondly, the scale of the choice is different.
"If the Berlin crisis results in a thermonuclear exchange, the peoples of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. will by no means die to the last man. But a great many millions will quite certainly die, whereas the bloody toll of the fall of Jerusalem was still counted only in tens of thousands. "
As we read this statement from Mr. Alsop, we were quite sure he did not know the Bible prophecies and the statements of God's messenger that the whole world is to witness a scene similar to that of the overthrow of Jerusalem. History tells us that Titus would gladly have spared the city of Jerusalem and its beautiful temple had the Jews surrendered and evacuated to save themselves and their city. Their leaders however answered his appeal with only bitter curses. They determined to resist to the very last. As a consequence "thousands perished from famine and pestilence. Natural affection seemed to have been destroyed. Husbands robbed their wives, and wives their husbands. Children would be seen snatching the food from the mouths of their aged parents."14 At last the city was destroyed, and an estimated million perished in its destruction.
Now follows a statement which we would do well to consider thoughtfully as we look into the inferno which can be let loose if a third world war—a nuclear conflict—comes.
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"The Saviour's prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon Jerusalem is to have another fulfilment, of which that terrible desolation was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the doom of a world that has rejected God's mercy and trampled upon His law. Dark are the records of human misery that earth has witnessed during its long centuries of crime. The heart sickens and the mind grows faint in contemplation. Terrible have been the results of re jetting the authority of Heaven. But a scene yet darker is presented in the revelations of the future. The records of the past—the long procession of tumults, conflicts, and revolutions, the 'battle of the warrior, with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood'— what are these, in contrast with the terrors of that day when the restraining Spirit of God shall be wholly withdrawn from the wicked, no longer to hold in check the outburst of human passion and satanic wrath! The world will then behold, as never before, the results of Satan's rule.
"But in that day, as in the time of Jerusalem's destruction, God's people will be delivered, every one that shall be found written among the living."15
When Is the Time?
That is a dark picture of the final windup of things in this world. We do not wish to frighten anyone regarding the very near future, but we must now earnestly study and look penetratingly into the possible happenings of the next few months. Recently the Soviet Union, in a great parade of air power, indicated that it was capable of meeting any threat to destroy it or backing up any threat it might make to destroy the Western world. Apparently both sides—the Eastern or
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Communist world and the Western free world—are well armed and prepared to destroy each other. This fact is confirmed by almost every statesman who is now appearing on the scene to warn us of the disaster the future holds.
Many Bible prophecies in both the Old and New Testaments clearly point out that when sin has run its course there will be world-wide destruction. One of the clearest of the prophecies is found in Isaiah 24. Speaking of the end, the prophet declares: "The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left." Isaiah 24:3-6. For half a century the world has been traveling the road that can end only in Armageddon.
What Is Armageddon?
"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments,
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lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." Revelation 16:12-16.
This is the only place in the Scriptures where the term Armageddon is used. However, the expressions "the battle of the great day of God" and "the battle of the day of the Lord" do appear elsewhere. It is clear from these scriptures that God will have a purpose in this last battle, for it will be the final contest between Christ and Satan, between truth and error. Nevertheless, the battle of Armageddon will be a literal one fought with weapons, the invention of which can only be spoken of as miracles of Satanic conception and design for total destruction.
In the verses here quoted the terms "the great river Euphrates," "the spirits of devils working miracles," "the kings of the earth and the whole world" are used also to designate it. In Scripture water represents multitudes, nations, and tongues. (Revelation 17:15.) We must consider the drying up of the water of the Euphrates River as symbolical, not literal, for that small river did not stand in the way of the armies of the ancient world, much less will it hinder the marching armies of today. It, therefore, must represent the peoples living where the Euphrates flows. It is remarkable that the Near East has become the dividing line between the nations of the Orient and those of the Occident. We have projected in prophecy then a time when the people who have stood as a barrier between the East and the West will be dried up or wiped out, making a way for the kings of the East.
Peoples of Armageddon Territory
As previously mentioned, the descendants of Ishmael and Esau are the Arabian peoples who now occupy all
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the Near East except Palestine, consequently we have here a religious element involved—Mohammedanism. Nations have fought over the question of religion more savagely than over any other. In a general summation we may say that the Western World represents Christianity, the Middle East represents Mohammedanism, while the Far East, India and China and the island nations of Southeast Asia, are dominated by what is called pagan or heathen religions. Communism has fully allied itself with the pagan world, denying the existence of God the Creator, and teaching that "religion is the opiate of the people."
In the 38th chapter of Ezekiel we are given a picture of the movements of nations as the end approaches. While the language is figurative, we are able to catch a glimpse of the struggle of nations that will bring the end of our age. Ezekiel challenges our attention thus: "Son of Man, set thy face against Gog and the land of Magog, the Prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal." Verse 2, R.V. In verse 6 we are told "Gomer and all his bands, the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands" will come against the mountains of Israel.
Who are the people here mentioned as Gog, Meshech, Tubal, Rosh, etc.? If we will turn to Genesis 10:1, 32 we read that the earth was peopled and divided by the three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, andJapheth. Ham and the Hamitic race included the colored races, as the Egyptians, Africans, the early inhabitants of Palestine, Sodom, and Gomorrah and the "children of the East." The children of Shem, the Semitic race, included the Hebrews, the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians, and Arabs. The children of Japheth, the white race, are Gomer, Magog, Tubal, Rosh, Meshech, Togarmah, Tarshish. (Genesis 10:1-5.) These settled in the north countries and the "Isles of the
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Sea." Russia and Europe are peopled by the descendants of Japheth. The land of their first choice is called therefore: "Rosh, in the uttermost parts of the North. " Ezekiel 38:1-6, R.V.
The name Rosh has been identified as the early name of Rus, or Russia. "Gesenius regarded it as indicating the Russians who are mentioned in Byzantine writers of the tenth century under the name Rhos. He adds that they are also noticed by Fosslam (same period) under the name Rus, as a people dwelling on the river Rho (Volga)." >6
It is of interest to note in passing that the Hamitic or colored races ruled the earth from the time of the Flood down to Israel's deliverance from Egypt in 1491 B.C. They completely failed in their rulership. Because of their great sins, God had to burn up their chief cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. Egypt filled up the cup of her iniquity during these years and was cast down, never to rise again as an independent nation. The early inhabitants of Palestine were completely destroyed because of the depths of their degradation. Then the descendants of Shem took over the leadership of the human race. The Hebrews, Babylonians, Medo-Persians, and Asiatic Greeks held sway for about the next 1300 years.
The children of Japheth, or the white races of Europe, have held sway since Rome became a world power in 168 B.C.
In connection with this prophecy of Ezekiel 38 and of Revelation 16:12-16 which points definitely to world conflict centering in or caused by events in the Middle East, Joel's prophecy should be noted. "Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the
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harvest is ripe: . . . Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision (margin, concision, cutoff): for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. " Joel 3:12-14.
Communism occupies the heartland of Eastern Europe and Russia. China as it now embraces the totalitarian doctrine of Communism occupies most of Asia including Tibet, Mongolia, and is seeking to control Southeast Asia and the island nations thereabout.
Stalin, before he came to power after the death of Lenin, was asked to draw up plans for the conquest of the world by Communism, both ideologically and militarily. He pointed out that Russia must first infiltrate Turkistan, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, then the countries of the Middle East—all connected by land routes with Russia. The United States government information sources are now pointing out that this plan is in operation for complete takeover in these countries by Communism.
How easily then the river Euphrates or the Arabian peoples of the lands of the Euphrates could be wiped out or "dried up" in a very short time by those forces of Communism in the North and the East and seemingly fulfill to the very letter Daniel's prophecy of the end of time. "But tidings out of the east and out of the nprth shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many." Daniel 11:44.
The Place of Armageddon
As previously stated, the word Armageddon is found but once in the entire Bible—Revelation 16:16. Students generally have connected it with Megiddo which is mentioned twelve times in the Old Testament.
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"Megiddo" must be symbolic too, since the original meaning of the word was mountain or hill. One authority gives the meaning as "a place of troops;" another authority gives "a place of troops or squadrons;" still others, "a place of slaughter."
For many years Bible commentators have applied the word to a vast triangular plain in the northern part of Palestine about sixty miles north of Jerusalem. These plains and the mountain ranges nearby have probably seen more fighting than any other similar area on the face of the earth. This section is sometimes spoken of in the Bible as the Valley of Jezreel. (Hosea 1:5.) It is shown on Bible maps as "the plain of Esdraelon." It has indeed been a valley of slaughter throughout the ages. Joel 3:14 mentions it as such when referring to the last battle of earth's history.
The Encyclopedia Americana applies the term Armageddon to "the great battlefield where occurred the chief conflicts between the Israelites and their enemies." It was and is a military key to Syria, commanding the highway which runs across the plains to the east to Damascus and the rich valleys of the Euphrates.
The Cause of This World Conflict
The historian, George Cormack, marks that region as an "inevitable" battlefield. "The vale of the Kishon and the region of Megiddo were inevitable battlefields. Through all history they retained that qualification; there many of the great contests of southwestern Asia have been decided. . . . It was regarded as a predestined place of blood and strife."17 We can scarcely think of the armies of the earth being brought together in that small spot of the world, but something is to happen there which will spark a world conflict.
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Apparently the cause of the coming world conflict will be the drying up of the waters of the river Euphrates. As previously mentioned, the waters of the Euphrates are only symbolic, referring to the peoples in that crisis territory. On the desert plains near the Euphrates are found the great oil wells from which the factories of Europe are kept going. The real issue in the conflict between the East and the West centers around these rich deposits of oil, and the nations will go to war to control them. It is a matter of life and death as they see it.
The Associated Press some months ago sent one of its foreign correspondents, William L. Ryan, to visit the Middle East countries. In beginning his report, he said that Russia was determined to "squeeze the West out of this area, and make Moscow master of the great sea route that connects East and West." It is clearly seen today that is what she is trying to do, following the instruction left her in the will of Peter the Great. Doubtless, the late Secretary Dulles had this in mind when he said that all the forces and plans which brought on World War II were at work in the Middle East and could easily plunge us into World War III. Berlin, Laos, or some other section of the world may be the danger spot at times, but in the end the main issue involved is the crisis in the Arabian lands which will trouble the world the most severely. Israel's existence there is most uncertain and greatly aggravates the whole matter.
As the United Nations began its special session on the Middle East crisis in August, 1959, a leading Arab spokesman said, "The Middle East problem will never be eliminated until the question of Israel is solved. There can be no peace in the Middle East until the Jews have been pushed into the sea." We have no
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evidence that the Egyptian and Arabian countries have changed their plans since then.
These are the reasons why leaders are wondering whether the problems of the Near East, with its vast oil resources on which Western Europe depends absolutely for its very existence, can be settled without recourse to an armed conflict. If such a conflict should come, would it not be the end of civilization, the final war of wars—the Battle of Armageddon?
Armageddon a World-wide Conflict
All the nations of earth will be concerned in the final battle of the great day of God Almighty. The prophet Jeremiah speaks of it in the following words:
"A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord.
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth." Jeremiah 25:31, 32.
The prophet Joel speaks of all the men of war and of all the heathen gathering together in the final conflict. Jesus speaks of it as "upon the earth distress of nations." In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, John gathers up the prophecies that have gone before and pinpoints the last conflict by saying "the kings of the earth and of the whole world" will be gathered together for the battle "of that great day of God Almighty." Armageddon is to be a world-wide conflict.
All nations are linked together in an organization known as the United Nations. This organization is
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trying to speak with a single voice to close the gap between the conflicting interests of the East and the West and prevent a third world war. We see how the drying up, or the seizing of the rich oil lands which are drained by the river Euphrates, by one nation, could quickly cause a world conflict. That such a move is on the boards now can scarcely be doubted by any intelligent reader.
The Arab world, with Egypt, may call a holy war. But the pawn in this crisis is not primarily religion, but the riches of the Near East. He who can seize and hold the rich oil deposits, along with the Suez Canal and the Dardanelles, could control Europe and possibly the whole world. The western nations will not allow Russia and the eastern nations to do this. We have apparently reached an impasse—we await the final spark that will set off Armageddon.
Aftermath of Armageddon
"And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done." Revelation 16:16, 17.
Armed conflicts among the nations have always been used by Satan to thwart the plan of God to redeem men. When men and nations have loved iniquity and hated righteousness until there seemed to be no other remedy, God has permitted the evil one to throw the nations into war. The time is coming, however, when war will be no more for God will step in and say "It is done, " that is, the long reign of sin has come to an end. Armageddon will be an interracial, interreligious, as well as an international, war. There is no
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remedy for sin but destruction. When God's voice sounds down the skyways saying, "It is done, " there will be "voices and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
. . . and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." Revelation 16:18, 20.
"When the voice of God turns the captivity of his people, there is a terrible awakening of those who have lost all in the great conflict of life. . . . The swords which were to slay God's people, are now employed to destroy their enemies. Everywhere there is strife and bloodshed." 18
The battle of Armageddon will bring to a close the human strife which has afflicted our world for 6,000 years. God's day of days will then be ushered in and sin will reign no longer.
Have You A Refuge?
"I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. . . . His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." Psalm 91:2, 4.
The war of all nations will be interrupted by an event long anticipated by the church—the personal return of Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords. When about to return to heaven after His earthly ordeal He said: "I go to prepare a place for you . . . I will
come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:1-3.
This promise is about to be fulfilled. All the signs of His coming given in the Bible either have been fulfilled or seem to be in the process of fulfillment. Now this, the greatest of all signs—the crisis in Berlin, Europe, and the Middle East—points unmistakably to
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the trial of the nations and to the triumph of God and His people.
As we face this issue it is well for each one to ask himself, "Have I a refuge from the coming storm?" No cave of earth or bomb shelter will be sufficient. An H-bomb exploded in the Pacific wiped out an entire island. We need a better refuge than the physical earth can provide.
Some years ago that well-known statistician and counselor to executives, Roger Babson, predicted: "The chances are nine out of ten that Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other coastal and border cities will be totally destroyed within the next twenty years . . . Nobody knows when, but the damage will be done in a matter of minutes—before defense prearrangements can be utilized . . . Have you a refuge?" 19
There is a refuge for each one provided by the Lord of heaven and earth. The Psalmist declared, "His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." God will honor those who honor His truth revealed in His holy Word.
Freedom or Slavery
Chapter 6
"THE PEOPLE never give up their liberties but under some delusion," declared Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the famous English orator and statesman. He lived to see how true was his analysis of liberty as the French Revolution approached its climax. One of the leaders in that revolution, Barere (1755-1841), spoke truly when he said, "The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants." While he himself became a tyrant as president of the French Convention that condemned thousands to death, he paid dearly for his betrayal of personal liberty and freedom. It has always been true that tyranny flourishes for a time, then the forces of liberty, born in every human heart, spring forth and set men free, at least for a time. Our own great statesman, Thomas Jefferson, spoke a great truth when he declared, "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." From the day that sin entered our world the principle of individual liberty and the spirit of oppression have been arrayed one against the other. God could have held Adam back from eating of the forbidden fruit, but in so doing
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He would have sustained Satan's charge that the government of heaven was one of oppression and not of liberty and freedom of choice.
Cause of Oppression
Cain killed his brother because Abel did not worship God in the form and manner that he conceived was right. Religious and civil liberty were at stake, and for the time being the forces of oppression were triumphant. God made it clear to Cain, however, that he should have been his brother's keeper and not his oppressor. That is what God has said to men and nations from that day to this. "Any man, be he minister or layman, who seeks to compel or control the reason of any other man, becomes an agent of Satan, to do his work, and in the sight of the heavenly universe he bears the mark of Cain. " 20
In the murder of Abel, Cain was but carrying forward the great apostasy Satan had begun previously in heaven when he rebelled saying, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will be like the most High." Isaiah 14:13, 14. The war begun then in heaven was against the law and authority of God. It must be demonstrated now before the whole universe whether God's created creatures are happier under totalitarian rule or under democratic rule, where the individual is paramount and is privileged to exercise freedom of choice.
Cain merited death for he was a murderer. God permitted him to live, however, and take his wife to "the land of Nod"—doubtless a place some distance from the Garden of Eden, but not too far away for the descendants of Cain to mix freely in after years with the descendants of Seth, and soon fill the earth with violence. "For some time the two classes remained
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separate. The race of Cain, spreading from the place of their first settlement, dispersed over the plains and valleys where the children of Seth had dwelt; and the latter, in order to escape from their contaminating influence, withdrew to the mountains, and there made their home. So long as this separation continued, they maintained the worship of God in its purity. But in the lapse of time they ventured, little by little, to mingle with the inhabitants of the valleys. This association was productive of the worst results. 'The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair.1 Genesis 6:2. The children of Seth, attracted by the beauty of the daughters of Cain's descendants, displeased the Lord by intermarrying with them. Many of the worshipers of God were beguiled into sin by the allurements that were now constantly before them, and they lost their peculiar, holy character. Mingling with the depraved, they became like them in spirit and in deeds; the restrictions of the seventh commandment were disregarded, 'and they took them wives of all which they chose.' The children of Seth went 'in the way of Cain;' (Jude 11) they fixed their minds upon worldly prosperity and enjoyment, and neglected the commandments of the Lord. Men 'did not like to retain God in their knowledge;' they 'became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.' Therefore 'God gave them over to a mind void of judgment.' Romans 1:21, 28 (margin). Sin spread abroad in the earth like a deadly leprosy. " 21 Wickedness had become universal because:
(1) "God had given men his commandments as a rule of life, but his law was transgressed, and every conceivable sin was the result. The wickedness of men was open and daring, justice was trampled in the dust, and the cries of the oppressed reached unto heaven."22
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(2) The men of that day were giants in wickedness and in the oppression of others. "These 'giants,1 nephilim, were not the product of mixed marriages, as some have suggested. The LXX translated nephilim by gigantes, from which the English 'giant' is derived. In Num. 13:33 the Israelites reported that they felt like mere grasshoppers in the sight of the nephilim, which the KJV translates 'giants.' There is reason to believe that this Hebrew word may come from the root naphal. and that the nephilim were 'violent' ones, or terrorists, rather than physical 'giants.' Since in those days the entire human race was of great stature, it must be that character rather than height is designated. The antediluvians generally possessed great physical and mental strength. These individuals, renowned for wisdom and skill, persistently devoted their intellectual and physical powers to the gratification of their own pride and passions and to the oppression of their fellow men."23
Oppression Survived the Flood
Almost immediately after the Flood, this contest between individualism and classism began again. The Bible records the geneology of Noah's sons in detail. Of Ham we read: "The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush became the father of Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore it is said, 'Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.' The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-lr, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and
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Calah; that is the great city." Genesis 10:6-12, Revised Standard Version.
It was Nimrod who organized the first kingdom after the Flood. He is called "a mighty hunter," but it is generally agreed among commentators that he was a tyrant among men. He built large cities and finally built the tower of Babel. Alexander Hislop in his famous book, The Two Baby ions, quotes the ancient historian Justin regarding Nimrod: "'Ninus strengthened the greatness of his acquired dominion by continued possession. Having subdued, therefore, his neighbours, when, by an accession of forces, being still further strengthened, he went forth against other tribes, and every new victory paved the way for another, he subdued all the peoples of the East.1 Thus, then, Nimrod, or Ninus, was the builder of Nineveh; and the origin of the name of that city, as 'the habitation of Ninus,' is accounted for, and light is thereby, at the same time, cast on the fact, that the name of the chief part of the ruins of Nineveh is Nimroud at this day."24
Thus Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, brought the new world after the Flood under his control through his tyranny and his control of the human mind. "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:4.
The mind and endeavors of nearly all the human race were under the control of one man, Nimrod. He was also the first great apostate and laid the foundation for all the pagan false philosophy about God and His plan for human salvation that has cursed the world and even the Christian church to this day. Again totalitarianism had triumphed and individual liberty was lost. The descendants of Ham through Nimrod occupied Egypt,
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Africa, and also the land of Caanan until they were destroyed by the command of God through the Israelites. Tyranny and oppression have flourished there through all the ages since Nimrod's day.
Individualism Survived
When it seemed that the human race would be forever bound under the false teaching of the descendants of Ham and Nimrod, and liberty would be lost forever, God intervened, destroyed the tower of Babel, and scattered mankind over the earth speaking many and various languages.
Abraham was called out to build a new nation, founded on the principle of individual liberty and freedom. Thus he became the father of the faithful, and the progenitor of the nation of Israel. (See Genesis 12:1-9.)
One of Satan's greatest efforts to destroy human liberty was next seen in Egypt, where the descendants of Abraham and Isaac were driven to seek food because of famine in all the eastern countries. The very medium God used to save the Israelites was misused by Satan through the oppressive government of Egypt which desired to control and subjugate a nation that now numbered a million or more persons. One of the best known and greatest oppressions of all history is that of the Israelites in Egypt. Again God intervened and brought out a nation which would be dedicated to the principle of religious and civil liberty. The philosophy of Israel's government is stated thus: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." Leviticus 25:10.
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The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia has inscribed on it the words from this text: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof."
The Challenge of Rome
As we pursue our investigation of the struggle between freedom and oppression, we must hasten down through the ages after the establishment of the liberal government of Israel in the fourteenth century B.C. to the rise of Rome—that nation of the west which was destined to occupy such a large and fateful place in history. Bible prophecy had foretold the rise and progress of this empire, calling it a kingdom of iron. (See Daniel 2:40.) Like iron it broke in pieces all the known kingdoms of the world even when it was a Republic. The historian, Gibbon, describes this government:
"'The arms of the Republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome.1"25
By the year 168 B.C., the pagan empire of Rome had conquered the then known world. Of that period and the ages that followed, Gibbon rightly records:
"'The empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. ... To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly .'" 26
Who can think of those ages of oppression, when the destiny of all peoples was tied to the chariot wheels of Rome, without giving thanks to God that when freedom appeared dead forever, a new force was to arise in the
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world which would silently but persistently shatter the empire of Rome, and let the world breathe again the pure air of liberty and freedom?
That Force Was Christianity
When Jesus Christ, God's own Son, was born in this world of the virgin Mary, the whole world seemed to be hovering over the abyss of destruction. The gods of all nations had met in the city of Rome and had destroyed themselves. The nations still under the iron rule of Rome were losing confidence in all government. The rumbling of discontent presaged the final destruction of the world's greatest empire. Of that age one writer says: "The gods were not as good as the best men of the period and could command respect only if the stories about them were treated as myths and allegorized. The age had in it much of moral corruption. Yet it also had consciences which revolted against the excesses of the day. A religion which offered high moral standards and the power to attain them would be welcomed by the more serious.
"The times brought with them much of insecurity. In the comprehensive political unity many individuals were uprooted from their accustomed environment and either as slaves, as soldiers; or by free choice found themselves unsupported by the social group in which they had been reared. While in part outwardly preserved and even strengthened, the old city states which had characterized the Mediterranean world and which gave their free citizens a sense of community were basically weakened, absorbed in the large impersonal Empire. Millions were disinherited and deracinated, slaves on the great landed estates or in city mansions, many of them from distant parts of the Empire. They were hungry for a faith which would
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bring them self-respect. They sought sustaining companionship, many of them in fellowships which combined religious with social purposes. . . . When, towards the close of the second century, disasters began to overtake the Roman Empire and society was threatened with progressive disintegration, many turned to religion for the remedy.11 27
Apostate Christianity Oppresses
The world was ready for a message of deliverance. The Jewish rabbis had taught that the Messiah would come and would by physical force break the Roman yoke and make Israel the next world empire. When Jesus declared, "My kingdom is not of this world, " they cried, "Crucify him, crucify him."
Jesus had already introduced a doctrine and principle which would ultimately destroy the Roman Empire, and all other governments that seek to control the mind, body, and soul of men and women. When pressed by His detractors for His position toward the government of Rome, Christ declared, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Matthew 22:21 . With these few words Jesus set the stage for a revolt against all the tyrannies of mankind from that age down to and beyond our time. Religious and civil liberty were reborn in the world, and the movement now known as Christianity would be forever the bulwark of human freedom.
However, another principle must be recognized in the spread of Christianity over the world, whether it would become a gospel of freedom or one of oppression. Jesus further declared: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ... If the Son
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therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." John 8:32, 36.
So long then as truth, God's truth, is the basis of the teaching of an individual or nation, there will be freedom. When error takes the place of truth oppression follows.
The apostasy in the Christianity of the third and fourth centuries paved the way for the professed Christian movement to become the greatest oppressor of all time. On this subject one writer declares: "Pagan Rome persecuted the Christian church relentlessly. It is estimated that three million Christians perished in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. Yet it is said that the primitive Christians prayed for the continuance of imperial Rome, for they knew that when this form of government should cease, another far worse persecuting power would arise, which would literally 'wear out the saints of the Most High,1 [Daniel 7:25] as this prophecy declares. Pagan Rome could slay the infants, but spare the mothers; but papal Rome slew both the mothers and infants together. No age, no sex, no condition in life, was exempt from her relentless rage."28
A New Birth of Freedom
As the small nations of Northern and Central Europe threw off the oppressive yoke of the Roman Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, a new breath of freedom was felt for a time, especially in Southern France, Northern Italy, and the British Isles. Then appeared another power sitting in the seat of pagan Rome, and destined, in the name of Christ, to become the greatest oppressor of mankind the world has ever known. Again Satan took the instruments that God had ordained for man's freedom, and turned them into man's greatest oppressor.
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On the ashes of Western Rome, there arose this church-state regime of which an historian rightly declares: "And yet, of what crimes and abominations has not this government been accused? Ifwegoback to darker ages, and accept what history records, what wars has not this Church encouraged, what discords has she not incited, what superstitions has she not indorsed, what pride has she not arrogated, what cruelties has she not inflicted, what countries has she not robbed, what hardships has she not imposed, what deceptions has she not used, what avenues of thought has she not guarded with a flaming sword, what truth has she not perverted, what goodness has she not mocked and persecuted? Ah, interrogate the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the shades of Jerome of Prague, of Huss, of Savonarola, of Cranmer, of Coligny, of Galileo; interrogate the martyrs of the Thirty Years' War, and those who were slain by the dragonnades of Louis XIV., those who fell by the hand of Alva and Charles IX.; go to Smithfield, and Paris on Saint Bartholomew; think of gunpowder plots and inquisitions, and Jesuit intrigues and Dominican tortures, of which history accuses the Papal Church,—barbarities worse than those of savages, inflicted at the command of the ministers of a gospel of love!"29
The Reformation and Liberty
Thus for a thousand years and more, all Europe had suffered under this oppressive power, the papal church . Again it appeared that this yoke of the darkness, ignorance, and superstition of the Dark Ages was never to be broken. God must intervene, and He did through the work of the Reformers.
The Waldenses of Northern Italy for centuries kept the lights of freedom burning in their mountain
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fastnesses, declaring their right to worship Gocf as they believed the Bible taught them.
Then Savonarola of Florence, Italy, held higher the lamp of freedom, for which he paid with his life by being burned at the stake in his beloved city.
Wycliffe of England (13207-1384) lighted the torch of truth when he translated portions of the Holy Bible into the language of the common people.
Huss and Jerome caught the spark of truth from Wycliffe's writings and soon Eastern Europe was on the march toward religious and civil liberty.
Then Martin Luther, as a burning firebrand from heaven, nailed his theses to his cathedral doors in Wittenberg, Germany (October 31, 1517) striking a blow against the errors and oppressions of the Papacy, that was destined to free all Europe, pave the way for democracy in America, and topple from his seat the one-man ruler of the Church of Rome. The "deadly wound" of Bible prophecy was then inflicted. (See Revelation 13:1-5.)
A New Age Dawns
At the dawn of the Reformation period a tremendous discovery was made—the art of printing with movable type. Johann Gutenberg (14007-71468) after much experimenting produced the printed page, and his first whole book was the Holy Bible. A new age had now dawned. Men could read for themselves in the Scriptures what really is God's truth. The Bible teaching, wherever it was accepted, brought light and liberty. Such great nations as Great Britain, the United States, and smaller nations such as Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia, and Canada enjoy prosperity and liberty because they accepted the Bible as God's book and its teachings as God's plans for
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man. Germany found a freedom she had never known when she accepted the scriptural truths brought to her by Martin Luther.
Turn the pages of history and read the story of the nations which failed to follow the light God revealed during the Reformation. Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, France, all Latin America—clung to the false teaching of the Papacy. They have enjoyed(?) the blessings which are supposed to come when the state signs a concordat with the Papacy—accepting the Catholic Church as the state church to the exclusion of all others, giving the Church the privilege of directing all avenues of education, and making it a duty of the state to suppress any teaching which is inimical to or contrary to the teaching of the established church.
Let the up-to-date history of these countries answer the question as to which nations have prospered—those who followed the light of the Reformation that streamed from the Word of God, or those who turned their backs upon that light and tied their future to the false philosophy of Romanism. We must face these facts of history, odious as they may be to many, that we may rightly estimate the dangers that again face the forces of freedom in all the world.
Freedom's Frontiers
The Protestant nations have for three centuries battled for religious and civil liberty on every frontier of human life. Our forefathers who came to the shores of New England determined to establish a nation without a king and a church without a pope. Among the foremost of those early pioneers was the Baptist, Roger Williams (16037-1683). Perry Miller, the Harvard historian, writes as follows: "'For the subsequent history of what became the United States,
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Roger Williams possesses one indubitable importance, that he stands at the beginning of it. Just as some great experience in the youth of a person is ever after a determinant of his personality, so the American character has been molded by the fact that in the first years of colonization there arose this prophet of religious liberty ... As a figure and a reputation he was always there to remind Americans that no conclusion than absolute religious freedom was feasible to this society.111 30
Then within a short century the charter of American freedom—the Declaration of Independence—waswritten and was followed by the historic Constitution, the first amendment of which read: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
No nation prior to this had ever so completely separated the church and the state, and had given to every man, woman, and child the complete treedom toward which God had led, and for which good men had fought and bled through all ages.
All the liberty, freedom, and prosperity which nations have enjoyed during the past two centuries have emanated directly or been reflected from the Protestant Reformation. The "backward nations" who failed to follow the light now receive billions of dollars from these Protestant nations to assist them in their economy.
For two centuries Satan's plans to enslave the human race have been largely thwarted. Judging from all past history, these evil forces will not count the bat le lost, but will redouble their efforts again to ensl ive the whole world. How, we may ask, have the / been succeeding?
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From its infancy these United States have been the bastion of liberty and freedom—to these shores came first the liberty-loving men and women of Britain, Scotland, Holland, Northern Ireland, and the Scandinavian countries. These new settlers were tied to no creed or form of government, but sought a new way of life.
In the past 100 years a great change has taken place in the racial and religious strains of immigrants coming to our shores. They have come by the millions from Catholic countries, from Southern Ireland in the north to Southern Italy in the south. These came with little understanding of civil and religious liberty. Moreover, they were attached to a church that through the ages has subjected the individual to the authority of a church-state regime. The long arm of that church-state power in Rome has reached down to our time and to our land and still seeks to make a monolith of its followers wherever they may live. This was made evident by Pope John XXIII. On May 17, 1960, the Vatican newspaper, Osservator Romano, published on its front page an unsigned pronouncement that "the church has the right and duty to intervene in political matters" for the good of the flock, and that laymen "must never disregard the teaching and direction of the church" in any area of life. That philosophy, as any intelligent American knows, is totally contrary to the American way of life, and to the principles of the Constitution.
With possibly 20 per cent of our inhabitants members of the Catholic faith, whose teaching throughout has been diametrically opposed to American democracy, one can readily understand why some great changes have come in the thinking and voting of many politicians. One reason for this is stated by a
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well-known writer as follows: "Inside the closed cultural system the priest is supplied at second hand with all the arguments against Catholicism, and the stereotyped answers. He takes his religion from others above him as a matter of duty because he has always been taught that submission to Church authority is the essence of 'freedom.1 Likewise, the members of the parish church are taught to take religion in turn from the priest, with what has been described by one Catholic writer as 'the apron-string mentality which leaves the clergy to do all thinking for the faithful .‘"3|
The Effect of False Thinking
The effect of all this false thinking is now manifesting itself in every avenue of our American way of life. For some years we have heard of the Catholic Action party in this and other countries. The American newspapers and magazines print nothing that in any way reflects on the Catholic Church.
That well-known ex-priest, Emmett McLoughlin, now superintendent of the Memorial Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, i n his recent book, American Culture and Catholic Schools, makes a statement that should be carefully considered: "For the first time in American history, Roman Catholics now constitute the largest religious bloc in the Congress of the United States. The effect of this power is obvious in the actions of the Congress and the prejudicial religious favoritism of federal agencies.
"Representative McCormack of Massachusetts has done yeoman service for the hierarchy. It has resulted in his receiving high honors from the Vatican. He is the one who engineered the bills through Congress, with all the Masonic congressmen strongly concurring, that gave over nine hundred thousand dollars to
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the Pope to repair the damage an American bomb accidentally did to the Vatican summer palace. The Lutherans lost out completely in not pressing for American funds to rebuild the churches destroyed by Americans in Germany.
"Something over twenty million dollars was voted to rebuild Catholic institutions in the Philippines—again with McCormack handling the strategy so well that the Protestants concurred.
"The abject subservience of American federal agencies to Roman Catholic control is unbelievable in a country that is supposed to be a democracy."32
Then he concludes his statement as follows: "It is a tremendous tribute to the strength of the Protestant and Jewish stability that our society has survived. The strange code of ethics that I found in Phoenix years ago was that prostitution must be condoned, other crimes must be glossed over, if the 'super-proper' citizens contributed enough to the Church and the amenities were taken care of.
"With this happening in a nominally Protestant city, it is not difficult to picture the Catholic control in San Francisco, Milwaukee, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New Orleans or Boston, or any number of Other American cities that have been admittedly sucked into the orbit of Roman Catholic (usually Irish, Polish or Italian) political and moral control.
"The 'moral' control is usually an anomaly because it means only the control of things the Catholic hierarchy does not like. Again this power is exercised by the hierarchy through the devoted percentage who will vote right and be responsive when they are elected." 33
Rome claims it has 500 million followers in the world. In arriving at such figures they include all
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inhabitants of predominantly Catholic countries, as Italy, Spain, Latin America, etc., which of course gives them an exaggerated and untrue figure. Nevertheless, Romanism stands today as the great threat to civil and religious liberty in all the world.
Dangers oi Communism
Equally as great are the world-wide forces of Communism, working along the same lines as Romanism, to subject the individual, both body and soul, to the dictates of one man and to the demands of the State. Both these systems are seeking world-domination. Each may use force to secure its ends—the Communist state by an arms race and subversive propaganda, and the hierarchy by using the influence of the Church to drive the civil power into war if necessary to accomplish its ends—the final exaltation of the Church above all nations where she can say, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Revelation 18:7, last part.
Uniformity
Another danger to freedom is the world-wide drive for uniformity. In recent years the mania of unity has spread to all phases of our national life. Everybody is urged to join something or some movement, so that pressure or influence can be brought on dissenters to persuade all to do or think alike. This idea is being strongly fostered even in the religious world. One world and one church are successively paraded through the religious press as the utopia of Christianity.
There is such a thing as unity in diversity, as seen in all nature. No two leaves are alike, no two snowflakes are the same, no two persons are identical. Finger-
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prints may look alike, but no two have ever been found to be the same, and never will be. Yet in all these there is a wonderful unity. God desires it to be so, and for that reason He made every person different. One writer expresses it thus: "The drive toward a Unified world will smooth the path for the march of communism. It is much easier for a totalitarian power to seize control of a centralized and unified society than a decentralized, voluntaristic one. A legend is told of a very devout Saint who warned Satan: 'I will organize goodness and defeat you!' The Devil replied laughing: 'You organize goodness, and I'll run the organization.1" 34
The Plans of Satan
All history shows that Satan's constant effort has been to mold the minds of men and women into a single pattern. The end result of this makes it difficult and almost impossible for people to act differently from the society or religion into which they may be cast. Thus, the Mohammedan faces death if he attempts to break away from his class society and accept Christianity. To a lesser degree, but exercising an equal power of control, this same spirit is found in all the great religious movements of the world—pagan, semipagan, and many forms of Christianity.
The spirit of confederacy and uniformity, which is being urged upon the Protestant churches, leads not to the unity of the Spirit, but to human unity, mind control, and ultimately to the loss of all freedom and liberty.
God's warning to His people anciently is still a warning for our modern times. "Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A
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confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid." Isaiah 8:12.
Confederation, or regimentation, has one purpose in mind—filling opposers with fear of the consequences if one fails to go with the herd. Opposed to human confederacies in which men are urged to place their confidence, God invites us to "sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, . . . and he shall be for a sanctuary." Verses 13, 14.
Lodges, unions, various forms of religions that are built on human schemes and false theories of God bring not peace but fear, distrust, oppression, and ultimate disaster. A Bible prophet describes the situation in which millions find themselves today.
"All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border: the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee; they that eat thy bread have laid a wound under thee: there is none understanding in him." Obadiah 7.
The human spirit cries out for personal freedom. Today over half of the human race is bound hand and foot, both in body and mind, by political ideologies. Hitler was able, with a few like-minded men, to influence the German nation in ten short years to believe preposterous falsehoods about a master race. He was permitted to slay millions of helpless human beings who did not fit into the master race plan according to his ideas.
The blood of millions of martyrs before his day cries out for judgment of the church-state power, the Papacy, which for over a thousand years largely controlled the thinking of the masses of Europe.
Today the human race is caught in a web of mass thinking and mass movements such as the world has never known since the descendants of Noah were scattered from the plains of Babylon over all the earth.
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God said when He destroyed the tower of Babel, "Behold the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to buHd the city. " Genesis 11:6-8.
Evidently those who were building the tower were controlled by one mind—possibly that of Nimrod "the mighty hunter" or "tyrant, " as some translate the name. Today the problem is not the direction of the thinking and work of a few thousand as at Babel of old, but the rapid formation of a world of two and one half billion persons into a human monolith responsible, not for its own decisions, but taught to think as the commune director thinks; to think as his labor union prescribes; to worship, read such books, attend such places of worship as the Church dictates.
The Bible Warning
The Scriptures are not silent on the dangers to world freedom and liberty as the controversy between truth and error nears its close. Prophecy has made it very clear that in the end of time there would be a consolidation of evil forces which would attempt to engulf the entire human race in destruction.
The prophet Daniel declared: "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep
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in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Daniel 12:1-3.
Prior to these events which come at the very end of things earthly, the Bible prophecies speak of movements among the nations which would bring in a world-wide church-state comparable to that which ruled Europe during the Dark Ages.
The Beast and Its Image
The thirteenth and seventeenth chapters of Revelation present very briefly a rundown of nations from the days of Babylon to the end of time. Using the symbol of a beast, John describes a church-state power that would oppose God and His true church. "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." Revelation 13:3-7.
Two outstanding points are made in these chapters:
(1) The wound of the beast is healed and all the world wonders after the beast. The wound was inflicted on the Papacy in 1798 when the French took the Pope
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prisoner and later when the papal states were taken away in 1870. The wound was healed in 1929 when Mussolini signed the Lateran treaty and made the Papacy a civil power again among the nations. Surely all the world is rapidly wondering and following after the beast, for today she boasts of having forty-two ambassadors at Vatican State representing that many nations of the earth. Nearly every great nation and many smaller ones now have a Catholic as head of state—forty-five to be exact. Papal influence in Europe and in the Americas has never before reached the height of popularity and power that it has today. This part of these chapters of Revelation is being fulfilled to the very letter.
(2) The free world would make an image to the beast and cause those who would not worship this image should be killed.
Nebuchadnezzar, king of ancient Babylon, set up a golden image on the plain of Dura near Babylon and commanded all "the people, nations, and languages" to fall down and worship the golden image. (Daniel 3: 1-6.)
In the last, dying throes of spiritual Babylon all the world is again to be called upon to worship an image— the image to the beast. What is an image? It is a replica of the original. The image to the beast then must be another combination of false religion and civil power such as formed the beast. The beast or papal power was finally and fully developed in A.D. 538 when the famous letter of Justinian made the bishop of Rome the head of the church and clothed him with civil power. Religiously the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week now took on new meaning, and the papal church could say she changed God's Sabbath by right of papal authority despite the
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fact no authority was given in the Scriptures for such a change.
For eighty and more years Seventh-day Adventists have taught that this country, by the authority of the Supreme Court, would yet exalt Sunday as the day of worship, even though the Bible gives man no such authority. This people has believed that Protestant America would follow in the steps of Rome and make religious laws contrary to the laws of God and the Constitution of the United States. Now it has come to pass.
Danger in Supreme Court Decision
On May 29, 1961, over the radio and television twelve o'clock news casts suddenly came the startling announcement that the Supreme Court had upheld Sunday laws. The action covered the states of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. In reality when such a ruling is handed down for one state, it becomes applicable in every state—it is national in effect. So, before the day closed news commentators were saying that all the states of the Union would soon be affected by the Sunday ruling. In effect then this ruling may soon create a national Sunday law.
Chief Justice Warren, who wrote the majority opinion, so regarded the Court's ruling for he said: "It is common knowledge that the first day of the week has come to have special significance as a rest day in this country. . . .
"Sunday is a day apart from all others. The cause is irrelevant. The fact exists. It would seem unrealistic for enforcement purposes and perhaps detrimental to the general welfare to require a state to choose a common-day-of-rest other than that which most persons would select of their own accord. " His thought is that Sunday
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should be regarded by all the nation as a day of rest. We are pleased to note that Justices Stewart and Douglas dissented. Justice Douglas declared that this ruling balanced "the need of the people for rest, recreation . . .against the command of the First Amendment that no one need bow to the religious beliefs of another. There is in this realm no room for balancing. I see no place for it in the constitutional scheme."
In the light of Bible prophecy, what does this mean in relation to the close of man's opportunity to accept salvation from sin through Christ? It can mean but one thing—that the prophecies of Revelation are meeting their final fulfillment and for those out of Christ it will be forever too late. The prophecy further declares: "These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. . . . For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled." Revelation 17:13, 14, 17.
Universal Wickedness
Here is clearly described the whole world with one mind making war against the Lamb of God and His people. Finally the fact is revealed that God permits this agreement among the nations to give their kingdom and strength unto the beast that the purpose of God might be finished. In the last end of time Satan is to be allowed to do his work in an unprecedented manner, that the victory of the Lamb may be the more pronounced and decisive.
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Who Will Come Out?
God's call for all men today is clearly stated. "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities." Revelation 18:4, 5. It is a call to obedience of the commandments of God, for we are told of those who heed this call: "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14: 12. At this hour the door of mercy is still open and Jesus stands waiting to let you in. Will you not come now, take His hand, and let Him be your Saviour?
When Man
Explores the Universe
Chapter 7
IT COST the taxpayers of this country about $2.50 for every man, woman, and child to put our first man into space, ora tota I of about $400,000,000. With this great cost our first space man soared only 115 miles above the earth in a fifteen minute ride. The first Russian astronaut spent ninety minutes in
space as he circled the earth.
A veritable craze seems to have captured the imagination of mankind to get into space and explore the moon and the planets. Billions of dollars would be required to get to the moon, to say nothing of a trip to Mars. "It is estimated that a man will need about seven pounds of food and water per day. Since a round trip to Mars might take 520 days and require two tons of food for each man, there is a point in space navigation at which the cost of victualing a single crew could equal the Gross National Product."35
Some scientists are working on the idea that a man could be quick-frozen and left so until he nearly reached Mars. He perhaps could be thawed out then and live to direct his landing on the planet. One
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reason for this desire to enter and conquer space is well stated in the Digest article referred to above: "The first heat of the great man-in-space race between the United States and the Soviet Union will probably be run off sometime this year—possibly even before these words are read. Both sides will try to shoot men into orbit in a breath-taking gamble aimed at the ultimate domination of the solar system .1(36
Man In Space
How far man is going in his attempt to conquer space and the universe is well illustrated in the following quotation in which the proposed "ion engine" is described: "Pluto and ion engines are as far out as anything can be in this solar system. Project Mercury is striving to get an astronaut into a 120-mile-high orbit this year; Project Apollo hopes to send men on the 230,000-mile transit to the moon by 1967. But the ion engine boys are already thinking in terms of spaceships, gently powered by an ethereal beam, making the twenty-year-long, 3.6 billion-mile trip to Pluto.
"Unreal as it sounds, the ion engine makes down-to-earth sense to space planners; the government is now backing a $7 million research effort at seventeen different laboratories. ... As ion enthusiasts view a mission to Pluto, a chemical rocket would lift the ion spaceship into orbit around earth; then, the ion engine would push the ship in gradually widening circles until it breaks free of earth's gravity."37
The desire to dominate the solar system sounds much like Satan's boast when he defied the government of God. He declared, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
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I will be like the most High." Isaiah 14:13, 14. However, God said of Satan's effort to dominate not only this earth but our solar system and all the universe, "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. " Verse 15.
From that day to our age Satan has never given up his idea that he will carry his rebellion into other planets. He has been utterly unsuccessful in deceiving any other planet except our own, but now if he can drop a sinful man from this earth on another planet, among beings created in God's image as we are, then he would go a long way toward accomplishing his purpose to dethrone God, and make himself the god of the universe. Such a thing will never happen, but who cannot see in the activities of our modern Babel-builders an effort on man's part to reach heaven by human effort?
God quarantined this world when man sinned. He placed over and around it certain forces and elements that make it impossible for a man to leave it. A few years ago the scientist, Van Allen, discovered a belt of radiation extending from 500 miles to 52,000 miles out from the earth. According to recent studies made, it would require at least 1,000 pounds of shielding material to get a man through this radiation belt. It would require, therefore, 500 tons of take-off equipment to get started to the moon. So far the weights of our satellites have been only a fraction of that figure.
Testimony of the Prophets
The prophet Isaiah, speaking by inspiration, told the world many ages ago that God had placed a covering over the earth for "man to dwell in." He called it a "curtain" and a "tent." (See Isaiah 40:22.) It is
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interesting that modern scientists and writers often speak of the Van Allen belt as a "curtain" spread over and around the earth .
More recently it has been discovered that a "dust" belt also surrounds the earth. "On June 6, the team sent an Aerobee-Hi rocket on a straight up-and-down flight from White Sands, N.M. At an altitude of 47 miles, a set of leaf-like plastic-and-metal traps blossomed out to catch micrometeorites, submicroscopic particles of cosmic dust that sift through space.
"The scientists expected to catch one or two particles during the 150-second climb to a peak altitude of 102 miles. Instead they found particle hits running into the millions. Many particles had dug craters in the traps and vaporized, suggesting to team leader Robert Soberman that they were traveling at tremendous speeds. Other 'slower' particles were brought back to earth intact and will be analyzed to determine their possible origin and size range.
"But the volume of hits already indicates that an 'envelope' of space dust, of undetermined width, surrounds earth ." 38
Ever since man was shut away from the presence of God because of sin, there has been in the human breast a desire to leave this earth in bodily form and see God's great domain. Enoch was the first one to have such an experience. For three hundred years he "walked with God" on this earth, that is, he lived so close to his Lord that he could be trusted to associate with angels and holy beings of other planets. It was then "God took him." (Genesis 5:21-24.) Some 3,500 years later he was still enjoying the blessings of heaven, for Paul speaks of him as living for he had been translated. (See Hebrews 11:5.) Elijah was taken through this curtain, or Van Allen belt, in a chariot of
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fire. (2 Kings 2:11 .) One thousand years later he was still alive, for he appeared on the mount of transfiguration and talked to the Lord Jesus. (Matthew 17:3.)
These men did not need a thousand pounds of lead insulation to pass through the curtain or tent covering. They were two of God's righteous men who had conquered sin in their own lives through His power while living in a wicked generation. They could therefore be trusted to associate with holy beings.
Can one imagine God opening this belt or curtain of radiation so some wicked, unbelieving infidel, or even a good-intentioned man unregenerated by the blood of Jesus, could pass through and associate with holy beings? Never, never can this happen. There is only one way that man will be able to ascend into the heavens—beautifully expressed in an inspired statement: "By obtaining a knowledge of God's word, and giving heed thereto, men may rise from the lowest depths of sin and degradation to become the sons of God and associates of holy angels."
The Center of the Universe
As finite man thinks of conquering the universe or (•raveling through its depths, he may imagine he can travel even to God's throne which doubtless is found in the center of the universe as all the stars, systems, and galaxies swing around it. The moon is about 240,000 miles from the earth, the sun about 93 million miles from the earth, while Pluto, the planet which moves at the outer edge of our solar system, is some 3,670,000,000 miles from the sun. Our entire solar system is swinging around some common center, for "suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order [are} circling the throne of Deity.1,39
The outer edge of our solar system, as far distant as
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it is, is measured by a drop in the ocean or a grain of sand on the seashore when compared to the distances of the universe.
The Glory of Orion
For many years astronomers have been viewing the mighty nebula in Orion. Some have pointed to it as the gateway to God's dwelling place. This nebula is 600 light-years from us, or the distance covered by light in a year, traveling at the speed of 186,000 miles a second. Orion, however, is not the center of the universe, for astronomers declare they have discovered galaxies millions of light-years away through the great telescope on Mount Palomar in California. There is something about Orion, however, which has caused prophets and saints to write about it. The Lord God asked Job, "Const thou . . . loose the bands of Orion?" Job 38:31 . Usually bands are placed about an object, but in this case the thought seems to be that the bands of Orion encompass an open space or hole in the heavens.
Over a century ago a young woman, Ellen G. White, who at that time had never looked inside a book on astronomy, made a remarkable statement when speaking of the events hovering around the coming of the Lord. By inspiration she said, "The powers of heaven will be shaken at the voice of God. Then the sun, moon, and stars will be moved out of their places. They will not pass away, but be shaken by the voice of God.
"Dark, heavy clouds came up and clashed against each other. The atmosphere parted and rolled back; then we could look up through the open space in Orion, whence came the voice of God. The Holy City will come down through that open space.1140
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"What is 'the open space in Orion1? Is it that which was suggested by Huyghens of the seventeenth century? He is supposed to have discovered the nebula in 1656. It struck its distinguished observer with amazement, as something totally different in its nature from those sidereal aggregations of which nebulous objects had hitherto been found to consist. 'The aspect of the heavens around this nebulous light was intensely black, a circumstance which suggested to Huyghens the idea of the phenomenon's being occasioned by looking through an aperture in the heavens into a luminous region beyond.' (History of Physical Astronomy, by Robert Grant, page 563.) Or as another astronomer puts it, 'Even Huyghens, the discoverer, . . . was already of the opinion that in viewing it we saw, as it were, through an opening into a region of light.' (The Universe of Suns, Richard Proctor, quoting from Herschel.) I believe that Huyghen's own words, describing his sensations, were, 'a curtain opening, through which one had a free view into another region, which was more enlightened.'"41
That well-known astronomer, Edgar Lucien Larkin, when director of the Mount Lowe Observatory, declared that the opening in Orion is over three and one half trillion miles across, and the depth some 50 trillion miles. Astronomers have been almost lost for words as they have sought to describe the beauty of this mighty gateway into heaven from whence comes the voice of God and the mighty Holy City which John saw coming down from God out of heaven. Mr. Larkin writes, "'The outlying portions of the nebula are resolved, in these transparencies, when further magnified, into areas of streamers, wisps, sprays, filaments, and starry lace; and these are well seen in the great telescope up here on Echo Mountain. But all these are less in glory
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than the supernal vision of the interior of the cavern— the abyss, the chasm in infinity. . . .
"'Human speech is impotent. Pen of writer, brush of artist, alike are lifeless and inert in any attempt even to describe this interior. Mammoth Cave glories in Kentucky, illumined by electric lights, are so beautiful that words cannot be used in their description. What, then, should be said of the mighty cavern in the depths of depths of Orion's nebula? Torn, twisted, and riven masses of shining gas, irregular pillars, columns and stalactites in glittering splendor, and stalagmites rising from the mighty floor! The appearance is that of light shining and glowing behind Herculean walls of ivory or pearl, and these studded with millions of diamond points—shining stars.'" 42
God’s Space Trip
God has made provision that man, when changed from mortality to immortality, shall pass through this shining gateway to God's throne and with undimmed vision behold the glory of the highest heavens. Not by rocket but by translation will all this come to the saints of the Most High. Down through the ages He has held this hope before mankind, called in the Bible the hour of translation and/or of resurrection. Paul expresses it clearly and beautifully: "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Corinthians 15:51, 52. "For the Lord himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
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clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. " 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17.
The Hour Is Late
Satan knows that his time is short, that translation day is near at hand. He is working therefore with all speed through human instruments to put his agents into space and onto a sinless planet. He will not succeed, but God, through His Son Jesus, will succeed. Not far in the future the hope of all the ages will be realized. The mossy old graves where the saints are sleeping will break open, and they will arise to life. Then they and the living saints who have kept God's commandments, will ascend to meet the Lord in the air and forever be with the Lord.
"Amid the reeling of the earth, the flash of lightning, and the roar of thunder, the voice of the Son of God calls forth the sleeping saints. He looks upon the graves of the righteous, then raising His hands to heaven He cries, 'Awake, awake, awake, ye that sleep in the dust, and arise!' ... He will change our vile bodies, and fashion them like unto His glorious body. The mortal, corruptible form, devoid of comeliness, once polluted with sin, becomes perfect, beautiful, and immortal. All blemishes and deformities are left in the grave. Restored to the tree of life in the long-lost Eden, the redeemed will 'grow up' (Malachi 4:2) to the full stature of the race in its primeval glory. The last lingering traces of the curse of sin will be removed, and Christ's faithful ones will appear 'in the beauty of the Lord our God,' in mind and soul and body reflecting the perfect image of their Lord. Oh, wonderful redemption! long talked of, long hoped for, contemplated with eager anticipation, but never fully understood.
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"The living righteous are changed 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.' At the voice of God they were glorified; now they are made immortal, and with the risen saints are caught up to meet their Lord in the air. Angels 'gather together the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.' Little children are borne by holy angels to their mothers'
arms. Friends long separated by death are united, nevermore to part, and with songs of gladness ascend together to the city of God . " 43
All this may seem unrealistic and impossible to an unbeliever in God's word. But those who believe and who love God above every earthly endearment know it is all to happen in the near future. Earth's hour is late, but the day of all days for the saints is about to begin; the morning of eternal joy will soon break upon them with unsurpassed splendor.
God’s Last Warning Message
Chapter 8
GOD HAS NEVER permitted the world to face a crisis without first sending a message to meet that crisis.
It was so in Noah's day when a wicked world faced destruction by a universal deluge. Ample time was given for that generation to become fully acquainted with the stern warning which for 120 years the Lord sent through His servant. (See Genesis 6 and 7.) The Bible calls Noah "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5). That is a wonderful comment on the nature of the message he gave in a time when "God saw that the v/ickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Genesis 6:5. In the midst of that perverse generation Noah warned men to repent and prepare for the coming flood.
Again, when the world had sunken into almost complete heathen darkness, God sent His messenger, John the Baptist, to prepare men for the greatest event the universe had then witnessed—the appearance of God's Son in human flesh. John's message was "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matthew 3:1, 2.) Though it was God's message to the world but
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few of the leaders of Israel ahd, so far as .we know, none of the leaders of the great nations gave any heed to it. God, nevertheless, did all He could to prepare the way for men to receive His Son.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the civilized world lay helpless in ignorance and darkness which the Roman Catholic Church had brought upon the world, God sent His messengers with a simple message, "The just shall live by faith." (Galatians 3:11 .) Under Martin Luther and his colaborers a new, enlightened world emerged.
Our Day
Could it be that God would leave the world unwarned and unprepared for tjie greatest physical event men and angels have ever witnessed—the coming of Christ "in the clouds of-heaven with power and great glory"? That could not be, for the Bible says: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing,* but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." Amos 3:7. We are to learn from past history, as. well as from the writings’ of the prophets, what God's will is for our generation. "The work of God in the earth presents, from age to age, a striking similarity in every great reformation or religious movement. The principles of God's dealing with men are ever the same. The important movements of the present have their parallel in those of the past, and the experience of the church in former ages has lessons of great value for our own time. . . . Even the prophets who were favored with the special illumination of the Spirit, did not fully comprehend the import of the revelations committed to them. The meaning was to be unfolded from age to age, as the people of God should need the instruction therein contained. " 44
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A world engulfed in the darkness of the middle and later ages slowly arose out of that intellectual and spiritual darkness because of the light that came from God's word. The Reformation made great progress but clung to many errors that had brought on the Dark Ages. Before Jesus comes every error that crept into the church in the great apostasy of the first five centuries of our era is to be swept away by the revelation of Bible truth. God's last message is to contain all the truth He has ever revealed to men and no false teaching that Satan has thrust upon the world. This revelation is to be God's final effort in the controversy between truth and error. "Ever since Adam yielded his mind to Satan's device, the conflict has raged between right and wrong, between God and Satan. Connected with the doing of right there is a power that Satan cannot overcome. Righteousness has a vitality that is divine. Truth will triumph at last over falsehood, and God will vanquish the enemy.1145
The One Hundred Forty-four Thousand
The seventh chapter of Revelation brings to view God's restraining power over the nations. "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four comers of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree." Revelation 7:1 . Angels do have a definite part to act in the affairs of this world. In Daniel's day an angel sought for three weeks to influence the prince of the kingdom of Persia to make a decision that would benefit God's people. (See Daniel 10:1-13.) Now, in these last days, God commissions His angels to hold in check the fierce
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winds of war that will finally engulf the whole world in the Battle of Armageddon. We have the following instruction regarding the work of these angels. "Four mighty angels hold back the powers of this earth till the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. The nations of the world are eager for conflict; but they are held in check by the angels. When this restraining power is removed, there will come a time of trouble and anguish . " 46
As the winds are held a special message is sent to all the world. "And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads." Revelation 7:2, 3. The result of the proclamation of this message is a company of people known as the 144,000. This is not a literal number but a figurative one, for the twelve tribes next spoken of are not the literal tribes of Israel since these have largely disappeared from the earth today. The tribes are spiritual Israel, for "if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Galatians 3:29. The mystical number twelve is God's kingdom number. The twelve sons of Jacob became the twelve tribes of Israel; twelve stones were gathered from Jordan to form a memorial of the miraculous crossing of Israel over Jordan. There were twelve precious stones in the high priest's breastplate. In the New Testament we have the twelve apostles of Christ, the twelve gates to the New Jerusalem, the twelve foundations of the wall around the city, and the tree of life yields its fruit twelve times a year. The height of the wall of the New Jerusalem is 144 cubits or 12 x 12,
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and the circumference of the city is 12,000 furlongs. The number 144,000 is the square of 12 multiplied by 1000. Here is a complete cycle of the number 12. Thus when God's work comes to a close, it embraces the perfection of ecclesiastical reckoning, and the time has come for the perfection of His church.
It is of interest to note that while the multiple of the number twelve is used to represent the perfecting and completion of God's kingdom of grace, the number six is often used to represent sin, either its representatives or its results. There were six cities of refuge to which a murderer might flee for protection. Goliath's height was six cubits. The great image which Nebuchadnezzar built, which represented in his mind all the power of the nations, had a breadth of six cubits. The climax of apostasy is represented by the man of sin whose number
is 666. (Revelation 13:8.)
The 144,000 who are gathered out while the angels
are holding the four winds are said to have the seal of God in their foreheads. This company is next seen in Revelation 14 in heaven with "the Father's name written in their foreheads." Verse 1 . Therefore, God's last message which calls out 144,000 must have in its teaching some truth that especially honors the name of God and is His seal.
It should be noted before proceeding further, that the message of Revelation 7 was to be given after the opening of and during the days of the sixth seal, before the opening of the seventh seal. We can easily find when the sixth seal opened. "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind." Revelation 6:12, 13. For over a century Bible
in
God's Last Warning Message
students have shown that this prophecy was fulfilled by the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the Dark Day of May 19, 1780, and the great star shower of November 13, 1833. These events opened the sixth seal and we have been living in the days of this seal for over a century and a quarter.
The seventh seal marks the close of the investigative judgment and the coming of Christ with all the angels of heaven. (See Revelation 8:1; Matthew 25:31 .) Now note the marvelous timing of the prophetic word. The perfection of the company called out during the days of the sixth seal, who have the Father's name in their foreheads is described. "And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God." Revelation 14:3-5.
A Message of Power
The nature of the message that could produce a people who are not defiled with false doctrine is next brought to our attention. "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. " Revelation 14:6, 7.
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Here are two great truths which were to bring perfection to God's remnant people: (1) The message of the judgment hour—not to have come in the distant past, or to come some unknown future day, but in the present—"the hour of his judgment js_ come." (2) Because the judgment hour ^s. come, God calls upon all men to "worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." This could not be evolutionary preaching which loses sight of a creative God. It must be a teaching that exalts God as the only true God, creator of all things, animate and inanimate. This is the message of power which places man squarely before his Maker in the judgment hour, and sets forth the truth of Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary interceding in man's behalf.
The Judgment and the Sanctuary
The study of Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary sets forth a number of great truths which every Christian, as well as non-Christian, should fully understand. Let us make the subject clear and easily understood.
At the time of his bodily ascension to heaven (Acts 1:9) He became our high priest "who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." (Hebrews 8:1, 2.) It was here that Stephen some months later saw the Lord and exclaimed to his persecutors: "Behold,
I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. " Acts 7:56.
Since His ascension Jesus, our High Priest, has been ministering in the sanctuary in heaven, applying the efficacy of His shed blood to atone for our sins. "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,
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that we, being dead to sins should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed . " 1 Peter 2:24. This daily work of Christ was shown in type by the priests who ministered daily in the first apartment or holy place of the earthly sanctuary.
The time came each year, however, on the tenth day of the seventh month, when the earthly high priest lifted the veil separating the holy from the most holy place and entered to cleanse the sanctuary of Israel's confessed sins of the past year. (See Leviticus 16.) That day was the great Day of Atonement or Judgment which the Jews still celebrate in the fall of every year. Paul declared: "Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God . But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people." Hebrews 9:6, 7.
The time would come, if antitype was to meet type, when Christ would pass from the holy place of the heavenly sanctuary into the most holy place. Peter, looking forward to that time said, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." Acts 3:19-21. The work of "blotting out" sin is the work of the investigative judgment. The message of the first angel of Revelation 14 was the judgment hour message due the world and was proclaimed in 1844. It was then that Christ entered the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, in the days of the sixth seal after the last of
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the heavenly signs of His coming—the falling of the stars—appeared.
When Christ went into the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, what did He find? "And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; and over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly." Hebrews 9:3-5.
In the most holy place in the earthly tabernacle was the ark representing the throne of God. On the ark stood two golden angels with outstretched wings overshadowing the mercy seat. Underneath that seat was the law of God, written with God's own finger on tables of stone. God's law is the foundation of His throne. It was here in the presence of God the Father that our great High Priest entered a century and a quarter ago to begin the work of the investigative judgment. (See Daniel 7:9, 10.)
The Standard of the Judgment
The standard by which all peoples will be judged is the law of God, the Ten Commandments. The Bible so declares: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." James 2:10-12.
In the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary where Christ, the Son of God, has been ministering as
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priest-judge for over a century, the original copy of God's law stands, before whom the cases of all, both men and fallen angels must be judged. John the revelator had a view of that scene and his attention was especially called to the ark containing God's law. "And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." Revelation 11:19.
The message of the first angel of Revelation 14:6, 7 embraced all this truth—setting forth God the Son as creator, mediator, judge, and as ministering before the throne of God and the ark wherein is God's law covered by the mercy seat. Moreover, the message will prepare a people to receive God's seal and have the Father's name written in the forehead.
What Is God’s Seal?
The very use of the word "seal " in Revelation 7:3, 4 suggests law or laws. All laws must be signed and sealed before they become operative. The seal must have within it the name of the lawgiver, the office he holds and the country or territory over which he presides. The President by his signature makes an act of Congress a law. His signature reads, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, embodying all the requisites of a seal. We affirm that God's seal is found, as it should be, in His law and in the fourth commandment: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for
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in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Exodus 20:8-11. This commandment gives us the name of the lawgiver, God; His work, Creator of heaven and earth; the territory over which He presides, all creation. Destroy this commandment and the heart of the entire Ten Commandments is destroyed. Little wonder that Satan fought against the Sabbath commandment through all the ages until he gained the victory. In the third and fourth centuries, under his persuasion, the leaders of the apostate church changed that commandment, substituting Sunday, the first day of the week, for God's true Sabbath or Saturday, the seventh day. The Sabbath commandment reads "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day" in the Catholic catechisms. This commandment in some Protestant catechisms also reads the same. The changed wording makes Sabbathkeeping impossible, since no day at all is designated, and it destroys entirely the essentials of God's seal. In fact it destroys the foundations of the entire law of God and seeks to dethrone God Himself. The prophets foresaw all this war against God's law. Daniel wrote: "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." Daniel 7:25.
Paul expressed this attempt to dethrone God in the following language: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so
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that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. The Roman Church which exalts the Pope as God's vicegerent, really set itself above God when it attempted to change His law.
Well over a century ago Seventh-day Adventists began to bring these truths to the attention of the church and the world. When the time came for the proclamation of the first angel's message, the people arose saying the hour of God's judgment had come, and called upon all to worship God and keep His commandments, the fourth included. Hundreds of thousands have heeded that call and in nearly every land, island, and nation on earth today are found companies of Sabbath-keepers who meet every seventh day of the week to honor the God of creation and praise the name of Jesus as man's only Saviour and Redeemer.
The Second Angel’s Message
There is another message due the world today. It follows the message of the first angel and reads as follows: "And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Revelation 14:8.
According to Revelation 17:5 spiritual Babylon, which has been shown to be the Church of Rome, has daughters for she is called the mother of harlots. Now if it was the confused, heathen, idolatrous teaching and practices of ancient Babylon that made the Roman Church spiritual Babylon, then any and all who drink of the cup of her "abominations," become her offspring, or daughters.
When the advent people began their work over a century ago they called the attention of the religious
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world to the fact that in keeping Sunday as the Sabbath, the Protestant world was really following in the footsteps of the Papacy as the Papacy had followed in the steps of ancient Babylon. (Babylon, by the way, made sun worship the center of its religion, and there is much evidence that the people worshiped the sun on the first day of the week.) At that time the Protestant world taught universally that God's law, the Ten Commandments, was binding upon all Christians. When the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment was almost universally rejected, there followed a rapid descent into the slime pits of evolution, humanism, the social gospel, and an almost total rejection of the Genesis account of creation. Protestants have been sowing to the wind, and now they are reaping the whirlwind.
We have begun to reap a whirlwind of disobedience to all law because the professed Christian churches of the land have for a century been seeking to get around the claims of the fourth commandment by declaring that all the law of God had been abolished by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Large denominations have been teaching actual hatred against God's law. The most popular evangelist in the world today recently declared, "The law of God was never intended to be kept."
"The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the Christian world would be their rejection of the law of God, the foundation of His government in heaven and earth. The precepts of Jehovah would be despised and set at naught. " 47
Rapid indeed is the descent into universal lawlessness today, especially among the youth. Note these facts: "The U.S. juvenile delinquency rate was up 6% last year (j 960] over 1959, has more than doubled over the last twelve years. In Houston, where there has
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been little juvenile delinquency in recent years, police report a 30% increase in teen-ager arrests this summer. In San Francisco, recorded illegitimate teen-ager pregnancies are 64% above last year's totals. . . .
"'This is typical of what we are up against,' said Captain Jim Glavas of the Los Angeles police department's juvenile division. 'A complete disregard for everything—you can't give a reason for it. It seems to be a national malady. The standards seem to have disappeared, and we have kids without standards.'"48
The Third Angel’s Message
Yet another angel was seen sounding a message—the most awe-inspiring of any found in the Bible. "And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:9-12.
The beast powers are opposed to God and His law. They always have been and always will be. When God proclaims His Sabbath or seal more clearly, we may expect the counterfeit mark or seal of the beast to be proclaimed and exalted. True to the prophecy, it is even so.
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What does the Papacy set forth as the mark or sign of its power and authority?
Answer: The act of changing the Sabbath to Sunday. On page 58 of An Abridgment of Christian Doctrine, by Rev. Henry Tubberville, D.D., we find this statement:
"Question: How prove you that the church [Catholic Church] hath power to command feasts and holy days?
"Answer: By the very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, which Protestants allow of."
In a letter written in November, 1895, Mr. H. F. Thomas, chancellor to Cardinal Gibbons, replying to an inquiry as to whether the Catholic Church claims to have changed the Sabbath, said: "Of course, the Catholic Church claims that the change was her act,
. . . and the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority." Since the keeping of the true Sabbath is a sign of loyalty to the true God, it is self-evident that the keeping of the false sabbath is a sign of allegiance to an anti-Christ power.
The so-called Sunday-Sabbath bears the same relationship to the Catholic system as the Sabbath does to God's system. The Bible reveals the Sabbath as a sign of Christ's mighty power to create and to redeem. The Papacy holds up Sunday as a mark of its power to make religious laws binding upon all men, and to prescribe what they must do in matters of religion. Each of us must choose under whose banner we will march.
God’s Message Today
God's message today is a call to come out of Babylon, to keep all of His commandments, including the Sabbath, and be prepared for the glorious appearing of Christ. To such a company the Lord Jesus will say, "Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:12.
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This verse sums up the foregoing verses of the fourteenth chapter of Revelation where the three angels' messages are so clearly presented. It is as though God were saying: "Here are they who have heeded the three angels' messages, have turned from the commandments of men, are not defiled with false doctrine, and therefore are keeping all the commandments of God, including the fourth or Sabbath commandment." For this God commends them, and they will be forever honored by the great Lawgiver and Ruler of the universe.
Stand Up and Be Counted!
Chapter 9
CECIL RHODES, the great nation-builder and statesman of South Africa, left among his documents this written statement: "If there is a God and He cares for men, then the most important thing in the world for me is to find out what He wants me to do and then to go and do it." That is indeed a high ideal and one to which every honest soul wi 11 respond .
What Is God's Will?
How can we know what the will of God is for us as individuals? Some knowledge of His wisdom, holiness, and greatness may be learned from the lesson book of nature; but His Word, the Bible, is the only source from which we may fully learn His will and how we should relate ourselves to it.
"What must I do to be saved?" has been the innermost cry of every human heart since Adam subjected the human race to sin and death. A thousand human schemes and theories have been foisted upon humanity through the ages as an answer to that question. The focal point of all heathen religions is
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the idea of "God appeasement,11 since the people believe that God is angry with mankind and is ready to pounce upon him and destroy him at any moment. This idea has led to the false theory that God can be appeased by some great physical sacrifice. The "holy men" of India spend months, even years, going to some distant shrine, traveling the long, long way by lying down the length of their bodies on the earth, then rising and putting the feet where the head was. Many die of course before they arrive at the holy place. It is a sad fact that millions of professed Christians have no higher concept of the gospel of Christ than do these poor heathen.
The false teaching of "indulgences," against which Luther contended with Tetzel, stemmed from this same false concept of God. "As Tetzel entered a town, a messenger went before him, announcing, 'The grace of God and of the holy father is at your gates.1 And the people welcomed the blasphemous pretender as if he were God Himself come down from heaven to them. The infamous traffic was set up in the church, and Tetzel, ascending the pulpit, extolled indulgences as the most precious gift of God. He declared that by virtue of his certificates of pardon, all the sins which the purchaser should afterward desire to commit would be forgiven him, and that 'not even repentance is necessary.' More than this, he assured his hearers that the indulgences had power to save not only the living but the dead; that the very moment the money should clink against the bottom of his chest, the soul in whose behalf it had been paid would escape from purgatory and make its way to heaven." 49
Satan seeks to make it appear that the road back to God is so difficult and hard to find that false inventions of man must be used if one is to be saved. The Jewish
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rabbis built up many hedges to prevent a soul from being saved. Jesus uttered one of His most severe rebukes to them when He said: "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Matthew 15:13, 14. "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. . . .Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Matthew 23:13, 24.
That, in a few words, is God's estimate of any individual's religion or any system of religion which is built upon human theory and speculation.
Four Steps to Bible Salvation
It is true that Jesus said: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Matthew 7:14. Jesus also said, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6:37.
There are four simple steps which must be taken in order for one to become a child of God.
1 . The New Birth. Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3. Under Peter's preaching the multitudes were convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and they cried out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Peter answered: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." Acts 2:37, 38.
By nature we are sinners, separated from God and condemned to eternal death. Our first birth is a failure. There must be a different relationship to God
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than is provided by our natural birth, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23. The change in our relationship to God and His righteousness comes through repentance and the new birth. The new birth is accomplished by our acknowledgment of our unrighteousness—confession of sins that are past—and our consent to God's righteousness. (Romans 3:25.) Then follows the outward act of baptism by which one declares to the world that he is now a citizen of heaven.
Faith, repentance, and baptism are the required steps for entering into the new birth experience. As everyone knows, babies cannot exercise faith or repent, therefore it is against the very purpose of baptism to baptize infants. That custom was a part of certain heathen rites and came into the Catholic Church in the third century.
2. Baptism . The importance of baptism is shown by a statement Jesus made when He gave the gospel commission to His disciples. "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." Mark 16:15, 16. Baptism is a step which everyone must take if he would be saved. The question now is when and how shall one be baptized?
According to Peter, baptism follows confession. When God shook open by an earthquake the jail doors where Paul and Silas were confined, the Greek jailer cried out, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized,
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he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house." Acts 16:30-34. The ordinance of baptism requires belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and faith that he has forgiven every confessed and forsaken sin.
Buried With Him
The mode of baptism is clearly shown in Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 6, verses 3-6. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Buried, planted in the watery grave, is the true way that shows one's faith in Christ's burial and resurrection. A sprinkle of water put on the head as a symbol of Christ's death and burial is bringing to the altar of God strange fire, even as the priests, sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before the Lord and were instantly consumed by the wrath of God. God's judgments for disobedience to His will are now delayed, but they will come in the final reckoning. Baptism by immersion is the baptism that the Bible teaches and which God recognizes.
3. New Creature in Christ. God looks upon the sinner who has taken these steps as a new man. A new nature has been given to him. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
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2 Corinthians 5:17. The old man has been crucified and buried in the watery grave. (See Romans 6:6.) The new man "created in Christ Jesus" is "alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:11 . The food of the "old man" was the lust of the flesh, with all its wicked desires, such as, "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, reveliings, and such like: of the which I tell you before as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5:19-21 . The birth of this new man starts up a war in every person's heart and life. "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Galatians 5:16, 17. The converted soul must feed the new man with the food the Spirit provides, else he will starve to death. Peter writes, "as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." 1 Peter 2:2.
When one is bom of the Spirit, he is a small plant in the garden of God—a newborn babe, as it were. As the young plant that fails to get nourishment dies, or the newborn babe that fails to partake of milk dies, so the newborn Christian will soon die spiritually if he fai Is to feed upon the word of God. There is no truth in the theory of "once in grace, always in grace." Such teaching is against all the processes of natural or spiritual growth and has no Bible foundation whatsoever.
4. A Citizen of Heaven. The converted man or woman, having become a citizen of the kingdom of
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grace, must be willing to live up to the laws of that kingdom. He must walk in the light, as John puts it. "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." 1 John 2:6. When giving the gospel commission after His command to baptize in three names—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost Jesus added: "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Matthew 28:20. Salvation requires obedience to the will and commandments of God. This life is a training ground where one is fitted to live a life that compares with the holiness of heaven. No one will float into that holy place on a flowery bed of ease, doing nothing. The "new man" must "put on the whole armor of God" and fight as "a good soldier of Jesus Christ." God has made provision for our failures if we keep walking and growing for we are told, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our's only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby do we know tnat we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. " 1 John 2:1 -5.
Stand Up and Be Counted!
Every age has had its peculiar tests for God's people. The general plan of human salvation has been the same for all generations, but special emphasis has been laid on certain truths as circumstances in the world demanded. Noah's message was a warning of the coming Flood. The rejection of that message meant
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eternal loss. Israel's apostasy in the days of Ahab called for Elijah's message of decision. Elijah declared: "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him." 1 Kings 18:21. That message called for the people to stand up and be counted. The prophets of Baal—450—sat on their hands, and Elijah by the command of God had them slain.
The Jewish nation also had unfolded to them through the prophets the glorious truths of the plan of salvation. Their test came when they turned their backs on the message of Jesus. They failed the test and cried, "Crucify him, crucify him;" "His blood be on us and on our children." What a price they have paid for their rejection of the Messiah the history of every age since then records!
Now as we have come to the final phase of God's great plan for men's salvation, a message is proclaimed that requires a decision. Men and women are required by the very nature of the times in which they live and the nature of the message they hear, to stand up and declare themselves. This is the message of the three angels of Revelation 14:6-12. It is calling for obedience to all of God's commandments. Never since the Flood has the whole human race been forced at one time to make a decision for or against God's law. Elijah said to Israel of old: "Ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Baalim." 1 Kings 18:18. The Christian churches of today have done likewise. Baci was a sun god and was usually worshipped on the "sun's day"—the first day of the week. Now the Christian world follows in the steps of Rome and worships God not on His true seventh-day Sabbath, but on a day dedicated to the sun.
Before Jesus comes every living soul on earth must and will take his or her stand for or against God's
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commandments. Note the following words written many years ago.
"In the warfare to be waged in the last days there will be united, in opposition to God's people, all the corrupt powers that have apostatized from allegiance to the law of Jehovah. In this warfare the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will be the great point at issue; for in the Sabbath commandment the great Lawgiver identifies Himself as the Creator of the heavens and the earth." 50
God has especially watched over America. "The United States is a land that has been under the special shield of the Omnipotent One. God has done great things for this country, but in the transgression of His law, men have been doing a work originated by the man of sin. Satan is working out his designs to involve the human family in disloyalty."51
The time is near, however, when decisions for Christ and His truth must be made if one is to resist the mark of the beast. "Sundaykeeping is not yet the mark of the beast, and will not be until the decree goes forth causing men to worship this fdol sabbath. The time will come when this day will be the test, but that time has not come yet. " 52
The Law Made Void In America
"A time is coming when the law of God is, in a special sense, to be made void in our land. The rulers of our nation will, by legislative enactments, enforce the Sunday law, and thus God's people be brought into great peril. 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,
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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.11 53
"From the first, the great controversy had been upon the law of God. Satan had sought to prove that God was unjust, that his law was faulty, and that the good of the universe required it to be changed. In attacking the law, he aimed to overthrow the authority of its Author. In the controversy it was to be shown whether the divine statutes were defective and subject to change, or perfect and immutable." 54
The Hour Is Come
Everything in the world indicates that God's angel of mercy is soon to take her flight from this wicked world. Probation's hour is closing. The midnight hour is soon to strike. The atomic scientists say, "Two minutes to midnight." This is the hour for decisions! Shall we honor God and keep His commandments or shall we follow in the way of Baalim, which is the way of the multitudes? Jesus invites you, dear reader, if you have not already done so, to make haste and decide for Him and His eternal law and truth.
"There's room for you to anchor safe in heaven."
God’s Tomorrow
Chapter 10
Longfellow, in one of his poems, said,
"When Christ ascended Triumphantly from star to star
He left the gates of Heaven ajar.11
Those gates still stand ajar for this last generation. Soon a triumphant throng of the resurrected righteous dead and the righteous living will pass through those gates to attend the wedding supper of the Lamb.
Not long ago a Canadian consul in Egypt committed suicide. Ir< his coat pocket a note was found which he had written—his last thoughts and words. It read, "I have lost cl: hope in life, and see no reason for living longer." About the same time one of the most popular fiction writers of our time also took his own life and left a few words for others to read somewhat like this, "I have no reason to keep on living. I have lost hope in myself and in the world about me.11
It is estimated that over the world half a million people take their own lives each year and in every case these persons have lost all hope for the present or the future. Behind the iron curtain, we are told, thousands
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are taking the easy way out of their troubles by taking their own lives. They have lost hope and have nothing to live for. This state of affairs will become more and more prevalent as men's hearts "fail them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth." Luke 21:26.
President Kennedy's remarkable address before the United Nations on September 25, 1961, gave weight to this hopeless fear that rests upon all nations as he dramatically declared, "The events and decisions of the next ten months may well decide the fate of man for the next ten thousand years." Then, to make the matter very clear as to what will happen if a nuclear war breaks out, he added that the human race will be burned up on its own funeral pyre. That sounded almost like the prophet Isaiah speaking when he wrote of earth's end: "Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: [without hope], therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left." Isaiah 24:6.
Looking out upon the world today and the fast moving events which seem to be crowding the human race over the brink into some world-wide catastrophe, little appears to inspire hope.
There Is Ground for Hope
The outlook may be hopeless, but to those who have a faith built upon God's word, the uplook was never so hopeful and bright as today. A new day is about to dawn. The long night of sin and anguish is drawing to a close and the rays of the eternal day may even now be seen by the eye of faith.
However, before the full light of that eternal day is seen, we must steel our hearts and strengthen our faith for a fierce conflict such as this world has never seen.
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"The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." Revelation 12:12. A time of trouble such as "never was since there was a nation" will overtake the world, then Michael—Christ—will stand up and deliver His people. (See Daniel 12:1-3.) The peace and safety cry which is now heard so loudly from every nation will fail and "sudden destruction" will come. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3.)
God must intervene to save even a remnant of mankind. Jesus will come in the clouds of heaven with powerand great glory that He may fulfill His promise to come again and receive us unto Himself that where He is, there we may £>e alsoJ (John 14:1-3.) That, dear friend, is the hope that holds one in this hour of fear. Paul speaks of it: "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Titus 2:13.
Result of Christ’s Coining
He comes the second time not as a lowly babe in Bethlehem's manger. He comes not to be spat upon and crucified. He will corneas King of kings and Lord of lords, wearing many crowns of victory. It is then the dream of Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar will come true. "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." Daniel 2:44. Concludes the prophet, "And the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom" which "shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High." Daniel 7:22, 27.
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God's Tomorrow
Where Will the Kingdom Be Set Up?
The earth was not created in vain. (Isaiah 45:18.) It is here on this earth that God's people are to be recompensed (Proverbs 11:31); for Jesus promised in His first great sermon, "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. " Matthew 5:5.
The meek can never rule in this world as long as Satan and his angels are here. He and all who follow him must be destroyed first. That is one reason for the plan of redemption. Christ came and lived in human flesh "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Hebrews 2:14.
Let us trace briefly the events which are yet to take place before the full light of the eternal day shines upon the earth. There is much said and written today about Christ setting up His kingdom on this earth and converting the nations. Confusion upon confusion regarding this matter is heard on every hand. What are the facts according to the word of God?
The Bible Says
1 . The affairs in this world will come to an end when the nations are in a titanic struggle of global extent called in the Scripture, "the battle of that great day of God Almighty"—Armageddon. Revelation 16: 14-16.
2.	At this juncture the voice of God says, "It is done." Jesus said of Himself: "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." Revelation 16:15-17. Paul uses similar language when he speaks of Christ's second coming. "For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a
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thief in the night." 1 Thessalonians 5:2. These scriptures describe the second advent of our Lord as sudden and unexpected to the world, but not so to the Lord's people. Paul further declares:	"But ye,
brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. " 1 Thessalonians 5:4, 5.
3.	It is as the Lord descends from heaven that the first resurrection takes place. When He calls, the sleeping saints of all ages will come forth to life everlasting. (See John 5:28; 1 Corinthians 15:35-50; 1 Thessalonians 4:16.) The living saints, also changed from mortality to immortality, with the resurrected dead are "caught up together with them £the resurrected righteous] in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. " 1 Thessalonians 4:16. (See 1 Corinthians 15:51-56.)
4.	The wicked living are destroyed by the brightness of His coming (2 Thessalonians 2:8), and the earth is made desolate. The cities are destroyed, there is no man, and even the animal and bird life disappear. (See Revelation 16:18-21; Jeremiah 4:23-28.)
5.	This chain of events will make the earth a bottomless pit in which Satan and his angels will be confined, chained, for 1000 years. This is the millenial period when the earth will "rest" from its long curse of sin, while the righteous of all ages are in heaven with Jesus sitting upon thrones of judgment. (See Revelation 20:1-6.)
6.	At the end of the millenium or 1000 years, Satan is loosed from his prison by the second resurrection when all the wicked who have ever lived will be called to life by Jesus as He again descends to the earth. The New Jerusalem now comes down from God out of
God's Tomorrow	137
heaven to settle on the earth. The righteous are inside the city—the lost are outside. Satan immediately seeks to rally all the evil forces of all ages to capture the beloved city to make it his own and to continue the race of sinners indefinitely. However, God, by His mighty power, steps in and fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them. (See Revelation 20:6-15; 21:1-4; John 5:29.)
The Last Struggle
We quote one of the most startling and graphic statements ever written regarding the last struggle of Satan.
"In the presence of the assembled inhabitants of earth and heaven the final coronation of the Son of God takes place. And now, invested with supreme majesty and power, the King of kings pronounces sentence upon the rebels against His government, and executes justice upon those who have transgressed His law and oppressed His people. . . .
"The whole wicked world stand arraigned at the bar of God, on the charge of high treason against the government of heaven. They have none to plead their cause; they are without excuse; and the sentence of eternal death is pronounced against them. . . .
"As if entranced, the wicked have looked upon the coronation of the Son of God. They see in His hands the tables of the divine law, the statutes which they have despised and transgressed. They witness the outburst of wonder, rapture, and adoration from the saved; and as the wave of melody sweeps over the multitudes without the city, all with one voice exclaim, 'Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King
138	The Edge of the Abyss
of saints;1 (Rev. 15:3) and falling prostrate, they worship the Prince of life. . . .
"Satan sees that his voluntary rebellion has unfitted him for heaven. He has trained his powers to war against God; the purity, peace, and harmony of heaven would be to him supreme torture. His accusations against the mercy and justice of God are now silenced. The reproach which he has endeavored to cast upon Jehovah rests wholly upon himself. And now Satan bows down, and confesses the justice of his sen-fence....
"Notwithstanding that Satan has been constrained to acknowledge God's justice, and to bow to the supremacy of Christ, his character remains unchanged. The spirit of rebellion, like a mighty torrent, again bursts forth. Filled with frenzy, he determines not to yield the great controversy. The time has come fora last desperate struggle against the King of heaven. He rushes into the midst of his subjects, and endeavors to inspire them with his own fury, and arouse them to instant battle. But of all the countless millions whom he has allured into rebellion, there are none now to acknowledge his supremacy. His power is at an end. The wicked are filled with the same hatred of God that inspires Satan; but they see that their case is hopeless, that they cannot prevail against Jehovah. Their rage is kindled against Satan and those who have been his agents in deception, and with the fury of demons they turn upon them....
"The day has come that shall burn as an oven. The elements melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein are burned up. (Malachi 4:1; 2 Peter 3:10.) The earth's surface seems one molten mass—a vast, seething lake of fire. It is the time of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men — 'the day of
God's Tomorrow	139
the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.' (Isaiah 34:8.)" 55
7.	As the earth is cleansed by fire from the curse of sin, God remakes it as it was in the beginning. Peter declares: "Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter 3:12, 13.
This is the new earth where Christ will reign forever as king and His people shall enjoy forever their homes in the New Jerusalem. The description of those homes is so glorious that it surpasses one's highest imagination. The Holy City is foursquare, being 375 miles on a side or 1500 miles in circumference. The streets are of pure gold, and nothing that defiles, or works abomination, or loves or makes a lie shall enter therein. God shall wipe away all tears, for there shall be no disease or death or crying there. (See Revelation 21:4-27.) Outside the city the people of God will build houses and plant vineyards and forever enjoy the work of their hands. (See Isaiah 65:17-23.) Every Sabbath day they shall come to worship before the Lord, thus seventh-day Sabbathkeeping will continue forever in the earth made new. (See Isaiah 66:22, 23.)
This life God has given to us that we might prepare to live with Him forever. It goes almost without saying that we must love Him and keep His commandments now if we are to do so in the life to come. Satan knows well that if he can persuade professed Christians and others to fight against God's eternal law, there will be no place for them in the new earth where from week to week the saints meet to honor Him who made heaven and earth and all that in them is. (See Exodus 20:8-11.)
140
The Edge of the Abyss The Controversy Ended
Now the earth is at rest. The whole universe has witnessed the great controversy between Christ and Satan for some six thousand years. Now all see that God is love and yet just. No longer will there be a foe to tempt God's children to sin.
"Every faculty will be developed, every capacity increased. The acquirement of knowledge will not weary the mind or exhaust the energies. There the grandest enterprises may be carried forward, the loftiest aspirations reached, the highest ambitions realized; and still there will arise new heights to surmount, new wonders to admire, new truths to comprehend, fresh objects to call forth the powers of mind and soul and body.
"All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God's redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar—worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of human woe, and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul. With unutterable delight the children of earth enter into the joy and the wisdom of unfallen beings. They share the treasures of knowledge and understanding gained through ages upon ages in contemplation of God's handiwork. With undimmed vision they gaze upon the glory of creation—suns and stars and systems, all in their appointed order circling the throne of Deity. . . .
"The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all
God's Tomorrow	141
things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love." 56 We must be there, dear Friend o' Mine. No so-called sacrifice we may make here can compare to the glory that awaits those who obey God and live for Him. The gates of heaven now standing ajar will then open wide as the voice of Jesus sounds sweetly over that vast throng of the saved saying, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. . . . Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Revelation 22:14; Matthew 25:34.
Bibliography
1 . Hoover, John Edgar, "These Fighters Against Youth Crime Need Your Help," Reader's Digest, Vol. 78, No. 468, April 1961, pp. 145, 146.
2.	Lord, John, LL.D., Beacon Lights of History, New York: James Clark and Co., 1883, Vol. 4, pp. 353, 354.
3.	Ibid., Vol. 5, pp. 95, 96.
4.	White, Ellen G., The Great Controversy, Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911, p. 55.
5.	Flick, Alexander Clarence, The Rise of the Mediaeval Church, p. 150. Quoted by R. E. Finney, Jr., "History's Greatest Hoax," These Times, Vol. 70, No. 7, July 1961, p. 18.
6.	The Great Controversy, pp. 53, 54.
7.	Rhodes, Arnold Black, Editor, The Church Faces the Isms, New York: Abingdon Press, 1958, pp. 159, 160.
8.	Beacon Lights of History, Vol. 4, pp. 354, 355.
9.	Dibelius, Dr. Otto, Christianity Today, November 9, 1959.
10.	"'Startling' Spurt in U.S. Crime, "U.S. News & World Report, Vol. XUX, No. 9, August 29, 1960,
p. 8.
11 . The Great Controversy, p. 445.
12.	White, Ellen G., Testimonies for the Church, Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1882, Vol. 5, p. 753.
13.	The Great Controversy, p. 624.
14.	Ibid., p. 32.
143
The Edge of the Abyss
15.	Ibid., pp. 36, 37.
16.	"Rosh,"	The	International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia.
17.	Cormack, George, Egypt in Asia, p. 83.
18.	The Great Controversy, pp. 654-656.
19.	Babson, Roger, quoted in Signs of the Times, May 1947.
20. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Washington, D.C.:	Review and Herald	Publishing
Association, 1953, Vol. 1, p. 1087.
21.	White,	Ellen	G., Patriarchs and	Prophets,
Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1913, pp. 81, 82.
22.	Ibid., p. 91 .
23. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol. 1, p. 251 .
24.	Hislop,	Rev.	Alexander, The Two	Babylons,
London: A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1939, pp. 24, 25.
25.	Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3, chap. 38, p. 634. Quoted by Uriah Smith, The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1944, pp. 54, 55.
26.	Ibid., Vol. 1, chap. 3, pp. 99, 100. Quoted in The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, p. 55.
27.	Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A Hi story of Christianity, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953, pp. 22, 23.
28.	The Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, p. 135.
29.	Beacon Lights of History, Vol. 5, pp. 100, 101 .
30.	Miller, Perry, The New England Mind, p. 16. Quoted by Vernon C. Grounds, "The Baptists and Religious Liberty," Christian Heritage, Vol. 22, No. 6, June 1961, p. 14.
144
Bibliography
31.	Blanshard, Paul, American Freedom and Catholic Power, Boston: The Beacon Press, 1949, p. 35.
32.	McLoughlin, Emmett, American Culture and Catholic Schools, New York: Lyle Stuart, 1960, p. 234.
33.	Ibid., pp. 249, 250.
34.	Christian Economics, March 17, 1959.
35.	Manchester, Harland, "The Senseless Race to Put Man in Space, " Reader's Digest, Vol. 78, No. 469, May 1961, p. 65.
36.	Ibid., p. 64.
37.	"Rocketry: Light Push, Long Pull, " Newsweek, Vol. LVIII, No. 1, July 3, 1961, p. 63.
38.	"Meteorites: Ping Ping Ping," Newsweek, Vol. LVIII, No. 1, July 3, 1961, p. 63.
39.	The Great Controversy, p. 677.
40.	White, Ellen G., Early Writings, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1907, p. 41 .
41 . Reed, Lucas A., M.S., Astronomy and the Bible, Mountain View, California: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1919, p. 237.
42.	Ibid., pp. 250, 251, 254.
43.	The Great Controversy, pp. 644, 645.
44.	Ibid., pp. 343, 344.
45.	White, Ellen G., The Faith I Live By, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1958, p. 72.
46.	Our Firm Foundation, Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1953, Vol. 2, p. 287.
47.	The Great Controversy, p. 22.
48.	"YOUTH—For Its Own Sake," Time, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 11, September 15, 1961, p. 29.
49.	The Great Controversy, pp. 127, 128.
50.	Seventh -day Adventist Bible Commentary,
Bibliography	145
Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1957, Vol. 7, p. 983.
51 . Ibid., p. 975.
52.	Ibid., p. 977.
53.	Ibid.
54.	Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 69.
55.	The Great Controversy, pp. 666-673.
56.	Ibid., pp. 677, 678.