Sabbath, Sunday, and the Abomination of Desolation

[Amo]

Sabbath, Sunday, and the Abomination of Desolation

1-The Harvest

Joel 3  9Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: 10Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. 11Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. 12Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. 13Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. 14Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. 15The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. 16The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 17So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.

The above prophecy is a message from the Lord about the gentiles, preparing for war.  It is about the gathering together of the heathen for judgment. The reaping of the harvest of wickedness, which is ripe. The multitudes of this world being in the valley of decision, where the Lord is near, and of the literal return of the Lord to deliver His people.

Before the Lord returns, there will be a gathering together of the gentiles preparing for war.  The message that prepares them for war, is a message from God. It is a message that will bring the entire world into the valley of decision. The Lord is near in the valley of decision. When all have heard this message, and made their decision in regards to it, then the harvests of the world will be ripe, and the sickle will be put into action. The harvests must be ripe before they are reaped. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of these harvests.

Matthew 13 24Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: 25But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

36Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

In the above parable, and explanation by Christ, we see again the people of the world being referred to as harvests. Christ being the one who sowed the good seed, and the Devil being the one who sowed the tares. The dilemma of the parable is that the wheat and the tares are growing so close side by side, that the tares cannot be removed without harming the wheat.  Thus, both are allowed to come to maturity before they are separated by Christ's angels at His coming.

Another element is brought forth in this parable though, that the prophecy in the book of Joel did not address. When Christ sends forth His angels, they gather together all things out of “His kingdom” that offend. This being the case, the tares are not just Gentiles, or heathen, but also many of those who profess to be a part of His, that is, Christ's kingdom.   

Matthew 7  21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

There will apparently be many professing “Christians” that will not really be a part of Christ’s kingdom. They may have prophesied in His name, even cast out demons, or performed wonderful works, but they are not part of His kingdom, for He never knew them. Although they professed to be Christ’s, they were workers of iniquity. 

The world will only produce two crops. One will be the fruit of the gospel in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, the wheat. The other will be all else, the tares. The tares will be composed of all the religions and philosophies of this world. Many of which, will have been an attempt to mix the false teachings and religions of this world, with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus the proclamation, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity”. 

The kingdoms of this world, and the politics of this world, are necessarily all about compromise. There are many different points of view, varying forms of government, and many different systems of belief and religion. To maintain order in this world therefore, the politics of this world must be based upon compromise. There is no compromise in the kingdom of God.  God’s authority is absolute. Not because, like us, He must strive for supremacy, but rather because He is the creator and sustainer of all things. Apart from Him, there is nothing.

This is why Christ’s kingdom, and the gospel of the kingdom, cannot be mixed with the politics of this world. They cannot be mixed with anything of this world. As soon as they are, they are no longer a part of Christ’s kingdom. For the two are, and always will be completely separate entities. The under lying principals of one, are in direct opposition to the other. God’s kingdom being built upon His absolute, and trustworthy authority. The kingdoms of this world being built upon the compromise of that authority.

The gospel of the kingdom is nothing less than the calling out of God’s people from the kingdoms of this world. From the authority of these kingdoms, and false religions. It is a call back to God’s authority, and His everlasting kingdom. A call back to faith in Him and in His word, the holy bible. This is why this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world, before the end comes.

Matthew 24  14And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

It is the preaching of this gospel in all the world that will bring both of the crops of the world to maturity. A message will go forth that will divide this world in two. There will be no middle ground. It will reveal the gospel in such simple and decisive terms, that it will force all who here it into the valley of decision. Not to fear though, the Lord is near in the valley of decision.  Those who put their faith in Him, will not be disappointed. We will close this chapter with a look at another biblical description of the harvest of the world being reaped.

Revelation 14  14And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. 15And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 16And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. 17And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

The gospel has been preached in the world now for almost two thousand years.  What is the message that will cause this great divide, and bring this world to its end?  How will this happen? 

[Amo]

2-The Message

 We began the first chapter with an examination of a prophecy found in the book of Joel. The prophecy contained a message from God that would cause the Gentiles to prepare for war, and bring the world to the valley of decision. The decision made would make the harvest of the world ripe for the sickle. We closed with a prophecy in the book of Revelation 14 about the reaping of this harvest. Having established from the scriptures, the harvest of the world, it’s reaping, and a message that brings the harvest to maturity, let us now examine that message.  It is also found in Revelation chapter 14 immediately preceding the prophecy about the reaping of the earth’s harvest. It is the message given just before Christ returns to reap the harvest.

Revelation 14 6And 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, 7Saying 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. 8And 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. 9And 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, 10The 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: 11And 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. 12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

The above verses contain the messages of three different angels to the world. The very first angel has the everlasting gospel to preach to all that dwell on earth. This is very significant, since in the previous chapter we established that before the end comes the gospel of the kingdom would be preached in all the world. So, we have a message to the world from three angels. This message contains the everlasting gospel, which must be preached before the end comes. Immediately following the giving of these messages, the harvest of the world is reaped. I think we better take a good look at these messages, don’t you?

The first angel tells us with a loud voice, to fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of his judgment has come. Then we are told to worship the creator. Worship Him who made heaven, the earth, the sea, and the fountains of water. Could this short and simple message be the everlasting gospel? Yes it is. Worship the creator, your creator, for the hour of His judgment has come. 

Is God your creator, or not? If He is, then you owe Him your respect, your worship, your obedience. Why is this world in the mess it is in? Where did it all start? It was back at the beginning, when our first parents chose to disbelieve and disobey God. They did this by believing and obeying the suggestions of Satan, the father of lies. This is the entire problem.  It is a question of authority. Is God in authority, or are you? Thus the message, “ fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come”. His message to bring all the world to the valley of decision has come, which we are discussing. Who is God, who is in charge, you, or God?  Make up your mind. To choose to obey any other voice than God’s, is to choose your own way over His. It is to go the way of Cain, who chose to bring an offering of his own invention instead of bringing the offering which God had commanded, by faith in His word. ( Heb. 11:4 & 1 John 3:12 )

This is the message of the first angel. It is a call back to the worship of the creator, a call to believe, and obey Him. The simplicity of this angel’s message can be found in the fourth commandment.  In fact, some of his message is a direct quote from that commandment.

Exodus 20 8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But 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: 11For 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.

The first angel’s message then, is a call back to the worship of the creator, and the observance of the Sabbath day which He instituted at creation. The day that was blessed, and sanctified as a memorial of God’s creative power, as our life giver, and sustainer. By our submission to God’s authority regarding this commandment, we reveal our faith in His word, and our willingness to obey it.

Genesis 2 1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 3And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

According to the verses above, the God who created this world and everything in it, also blessed and sanctified the seventh day when he was finished. During the act of creation, when God spoke, the thing was done. Thus this world exists, and we, and all other living things have life. So also, the Lord blessed and sanctified the seventh day at creation. He spoke, and the thing was done. From that time forward, the seventh day has been a holy day. These things were established at creation, and have not been undone. One may choose not to believe that God created the world, but this does not change the fact that he did. One may also choose to believe that the seventh day is not a holy day, but this does not change the fact that God has made it so.

John 1 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4In him was life; and the life was the light of men.................................
14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Jesus Christ is God, who created this world and everything in it. He is the one who instituted the Sabbath at creation. This holy day was made thus by Him, for us. To disregard it, is to disregard Him.

Genesis 1 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

We were created in the image of God, and therefore in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is that part of the Godhead that created this world. To be like the Son, is to be like the Father, and the Holy Spirit, for they are one. No one can separate them. Only for our salvation were they ever separated. It was for us, that the Son left the Father, and that the Father turned His back on the Son. Because of our sin, they were separated. 

Colossians 1  12Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: 15Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 19For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; 20And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

Again, Jesus Christ created, and sustains all things. In Him all things consist, and come together, that is, are reconciled. He is before all things, and in Him, all the fullness of God dwells. Not only did He create all things, but after the fall of humanity, it was through Him that all were reconciled. If only they would care to accept this gift. Now our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not only the one responsible for the creation of the world, but also for our recreation as new creatures in Christ Jesus. Through all of this, the seventh day remains the day which He blessed, and sanctified. A memorial of God’s creative, and sustaining power. Only now, it is not just a memorial of the creation of this world, but also of the creation of new creatures in Christ Jesus, unto salvation. He is not only our creator, but is our Lord and Savior who has transformed us from created beings fallen into rebellion, into the literal sons and daughters of God. Praise be His name.

 Therefore do I rest in His works, and strive to ever cease from my own. I do partake of His Sabbath rest, not only on the day that He blessed and sanctified, but moreover, in Him who blessed and sanctified it. For only God can bless and sanctify anything, let alone, a sinner such as myself. Therefore, I gladly obey His command concerning this day which He has sanctified, as a sign that it is He alone that sanctifies the sinner. For Christ in you, is the hope of glory.

Hebrews 4 1Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. 3For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: 7Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. 11Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. 12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 14Seeing 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. 15For 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. 16Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

The seventh day Sabbath is a sign of the rest spoken of in the above verses. It is observed strictly by faith in the word of God. It was put forth by God himself, as a sign, that He is the one who sanctifies. It is a symbol of entering into God's rest, and allowing His works to be performed within you. It is a sign that you have accepted His authority, and method of salvation. 

We are not to cease from our labors on the Sabbath for merely physical rest, but moreover, for spiritual rest. The Sabbath rest is a spiritual rest, not a physical one. It is resting in the promises of our Lord and Savior, and Creator, Jesus Christ. In His works, not our own.  Therefore we cease from all of our own. 

Jesus Christ, the one who created us, and all that is, has also saved us in our rebellion. He has become one of us. He knows what it is like to be tempted, and He has overcome the enemy. As one of us, He leads the way. The life He lived here on earth, as one of us, is our example. He not only observed the seventh day when here on earth, but spent more than just a little time teaching its proper observance. He is now in heaven as our High Priest, and He ever liveth to make intercession for us ( Heb. 7:25 ). We can, and should, have complete faith and trust in His word, submitting wholly to His authority.

So then, the first angel preaches the everlasting gospel, by calling all back to worship the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of heaven and earth. It is a call to put their complete trust and faith in Him, and His word. The observance of the seventh day Sabbath being a sign, that those who do so, accept this message and the authority of their creator.

[new creature]

tldr

Shorter OP would probably be better to start a debate about whatever you want to debate. imho

[Amo]

tldr

Shorter OP would probably be better to start a debate about whatever you want to debate. imho

They are chapters of a book, not posted simply for debate, but certainly open to the same.

[Amo]

         

3-BABYLON

Revelation 14 8And 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.

In order to understand this angel’s message, we will have to first know who Babylon is. What is the wine of her fornication that all nations are made to drink? We know that the angel cannot be referring to the literal nation of Babylon, it ceased to exist long before the above message was given to the apostle John. So we must find out who, or what, this Babylon represents.  Let us examine the scriptures for more details.

Revelation 16:17And 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. 18And there were 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. 19And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. 20And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. 21And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
Revelation 17:1And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 3So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 4And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

In chapter sixteen, we see that Babylon is around in the end to receive the judgment of God.  Her judgment is connected with the judgment of the world. In verse nineteen, we see that she is that great city, which is connected to the cities of the nations, which will all fall in the judgment of great Babylon. Babylon then, is the great city, and leader of a planet in rebellion against God and His people.

Chapter seventeen reveals more traits with which to identify Babylon. She is the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth. Being a mother, she must have children. The kings of the earth commit fornication with her. She has also made the inhabitance of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication. Her cup, which no doubt contains the wine, is full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication. Lastly, she herself is drunk with the blood of the saints, and the martyrs of Jesus. That is to say, she is responsible for the persecution, and murder of God’s people on earth.

That’s a lot of identifying marks. Let’s take a look at some of them. We’ll start with the fact that Babylon is the Mother of Harlots. What does a harlot represent in the scriptures?

Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. 9 And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.

Ezek 16:14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord GOD. 15 But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.

Ezek 16:28 Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. 29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.

Hosea 4:15 Though thou, Israel, play the harlot, yet let not Judah offend; and come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Bethaven, nor swear, The LORD liveth.

The nation of Israel was referred to as a harlot by God, when she had illicit relationships with the kings, or nations around her, and their gods. That is to say, when she trusted and relied upon the power of other nations, and their gods, over the true God of heaven and earth. The same no doubt will hold true for those who now claim to be God’s people, but have illicit relationships with the nations of this earth, and their gods. That is to say, with those who claim to be Christians, but are involved in the same.

The writer contends that the great city we are discussing is none other than Rome, and the harlot, is none other than the Church of Rome. For she is that original form of apostate Christianity, that first abandoned the power of the Holy Spirit in favor of the power of the state.  She leaned on the latter, because she had already lost the former. Through compromise, and mixing pagan practices with the true religion, which is an abomination to God, she lost the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus strove for the power of the state.

It is not such a simple thing as to say that the Church of Rome was that apostate Christian institution which first sought the power of the state, over the power of the Holy Spirit.  Moreover, she is the result of apostate Christianity seeking the power of the state, because she had lost the power of the Holy Spirit. Among the various apostate Christian entities of the day, she is the one who gained the favor of the state, to the furtherance of her ends. The struggle between these various groups of apostate Christians requires to much detail to address. The observation of which, would convince any true Christian of their fallen state. The purpose of the following is to establish the fact of her relations, and empowerment, with and by the kings of this earth.

In any case, Constantine, the first supposed Christian emperor of the Roman empire, was the first to give apostate Christianity the power of the state. He did so by enacting the first Sunday law. Observe the following.

The text of Constantine's Sunday Law of 321 A.D. is :
"One the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them the second time." Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated in History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, D.D., (7-vol.ed.) Vol. III, p.380. New York, 1884

Dr. A.Chr. Bang says regarding this Law :
"This Sunday law constituted no real favoratism to Christianity..... It is evident from all his statuatory provisions that the Emperor during the time 313-323 with full consciousness has sought the realisation of his religeous aim: the amalgamation of heathenism and Christianity." Kirken og Romerstaten (The Church and the Roman State) p.256. Christiania, 1879

In A.D. 321, to please the bishops of the Catholic Church, he issued an edict commanding judges, townspeople, and mechanics to rest on Sunday. Yet in this also his paganism was still manifest, as the edict required rest on "the venerable day of the sun," and "enjoined the observance, or rather forbade the public desecration, of Sunday, not under the name of
Sabbatum, or Dies Domini, but under its old astrological and heathen title, Dies Solis , familiar to all his subjects, so that the law was as applicable to the worshipers of Hercules, Apollo, and Mithras, as to the Christians."  (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, sec. 75, par. 5.-Schaff.)   ( The Great Empires of Prophecy by Alonzo Jones page 391 )

In the above quotes, we see some of the identifying marks of Babylon being fulfilled. The establishment of the first Sunday law came about through the illicit relationship of those who claimed to be God’s people, with unconverted and even pagan kings of the earth. In Constantine, we find the first Emperor of Rome to begin committing fornication with the Mother of Harlots, that is Babylon. Let’s look at some more from A.T. Jones.

Then came Constantine, the best imperial representative of the new paganism, and  the most devout worshiper of the sun as the supreme and universal deity, with the avowed purpose, as expressed in his own words, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." In Constantine the new paganism met its ideal, and the New Platonism -  the apostate, paganized, sun-worshiping form of Christianity - met its long-wished-for instrument. In him the two streams met. In him the aspiration of Elagabalus, the hope of Ammonius Saccas and Clement, of Plotinus and Origen, and the ambition of the perverse-minded, self-exalted bishops, were all realized and accomplished - a new, imperial, and universal religion was created.

Therefore, "the reign of Constantine the Great forms one of the epochs in the history of the world. It is the era of the dissolution of the Roman Empire; the commencement, or rather consolidation, of a kind of Eastern despotism, with a new capital, a new patriciate, a new constitution, a new financial system, a new, though as yet imperfect, jurisprudence, and, finally, a new religion." ( Milman - History of Christianity, book 3, chap. 1, par. 1 )The epoch thus formed was the epoch of the papacy; and the new religion thus created was the PAPAL RELIGION. ( The Great Empires of Prophecy by Alonzo Jones page 361 )

By instituting the first Sunday laws, Constantine gave the Church of Rome the power of the state. For this law commanded all, those in, and out of the faith, to observe this apostate Christian institution. This was the beginning of the realization of the Church of Rome’s purpose in having illicit relationships with the kings of the earth. By these relations, she hoped to establish herself in a position of power above all others. Though she claims to have been established by Christ, through the first Pope Peter, she was really established through the power of the kings of this earth. It was these with whom she committed spiritual adultery, and fornication. Let’s look at some more historical facts confirming these truths found in the book The Two Republics, by A. T. Jones.

“The Catholic Church demanded assistance in her ambitious aim to make her power and authority absolute over all; and for Constantine’s purposes it was essential that the church should be a unit. These two considerations combined to produce results both immediate and remote, that proved a curse to the time then present and to ages to follow. The immediate result was that Constantine had no sooner compassed the destruction of Licinius in A.D. 323, than he issued an edict against the Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, Cataphrygians, and “all who devised and supported heresies by means of private assemblies,” denouncing them and their heresies, and commanding them all to enter the Catholic Church. The edict runs as follows: —

“Victor Constantinus Maximus Augustus, to the heretics: Understand now, by this present statute, ye Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulians, ye who are called Cataphrygians, and all ye who devise and support heresies by means of your private assemblies, with what a tissue of falsehood and vanity, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inseparably interwoven; so that through you the healthy soul is stricken with disease, and the living becomes the prey of everlasting death. Ye haters and enemies of truth and life, in league with destruction: All your counsels are opposed to the truth, but familiar with deeds of baseness; fit subjects for the fabulous follies of the stage: and by these ye frame falsehoods, oppress the innocent, and withhold the light from them that believe. Ever trespassing under the mask of godliness, ye fill all things with defilement: ye pierce the pure and guileless conscience with deadly wounds, while ye withdraw, one may almost say, the very light of day from the eyes of men. But why should I particularize, when to speak of your criminality as it deserves, demands more time and leisure than I can give? For so long and unmeasured is the catalogue of your offenses, so hateful and altogether atrocious are they, that a single day would not suffice to recount them all. And indeed it is well to turn one’s ears and eyes from such a subject, lest by a description of each particular evil, the pure sincerity and freshness of one’s own faith be impaired. Why then do I still bear with such abounding evil; especially since this protracted clemency is the cause that some who were sound are become tainted with this pestilent disease? Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief by a public manifestation of displeasure? “Forasmuch, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, e give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, that you be deprived of all the houses in which you are accustomed to hold your assemblies: and our care in this respect extends so far as to forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatsoever. Let those of you, therefore, who are desirous of embracing the true and pure religion, take the far better course of entering the Catholic Church, and uniting with it in holy fellowship, whereby you will be enabled to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. In any case, the delusions of your perverted understandings must entirely cease to mingle with and mar the felicity of our present times; I mean the impious and wretched doublemindedness of heretics and schismatics. For it is an object worthy of that prosperity which we enjoy through the favor of God, to endeavor to bring back those who in time past were living in the hope of future blessing, from all irregularity and error, to the right path, from darkness to light, from vanity to truth, from death to salvation. And in order that this remedy may be applied with effectual power, we have commanded (as before said), that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings; I mean all the houses of prayer (if such be worthy of the name) which belong to heretics, and that these be made over without delay to the Catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering; in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemblies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public.” ( Eusebius’s- “Life of Constantine,” book 3, chaps. 64, 65. )

Some of the penal regulations of this edict “were copied from the edicts of Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and had pleaded for the rights of humanity.” ( Gibbon- “Decline and Fall,” chap. 21, par. 1. )

As is obvious from the above edict, the establishment of the Church of Rome had nothing to do with the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To the contrary, she was established through the power of the state, not the power of the Holy Spirit. The emperor that established her power did so for purely political reasons, the establishment of his authority above all civil, or religious entities of the day.

 As the emperor of Rome, Constantine was already the head of all the pagan religions of that empire, and was himself a devout worshiper of the sun. His supposed conversion to Christianity was nothing more than a political ploy to be the head of this new religion also.  Thus his purpose was, as already stated, "First to bring the diverse judgments formed by all nations respecting the Deity to a condition, as it were, of settled uniformity." This settled uniformity was to be under his authority, and complete control. Therefore, the establishment of the Church of Rome was brought about by the selfish motives of a pagan emperor who would embrace Christianity as a means of obtaining his goal. Not to mention the selfish motives and ambitions of apostate Christians who were themselves seeking the power, and prestige of this world.

Apostate Christianity, having entered the stage of the politics of this world, has never ceased to be entangled in the same. She is ever entrenched in the political strife, struggles for supremacy, and unquenchable thirst for power of the same. The Church of Rome is the Mother of all supposed Christian institutions which have become more concerned with the politics of this world, and its struggles for power, than the fulfilling of the gospel commission.  “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.”  ( Matt. 24:14 )

The following are more historical quotes, and facts regarding the establishment, or re-establishment of the Church of Rome’s authority. As a political entity of this world, her authority, and influence have continually, and are continually being challenged by others of the same. The history of her political struggles, and alliances with the kings of this earth, are sufficient proof that she is the Mother Of Harlots, who commits fornication with the kings of the earth. Thus, this identifying mark is fulfilled in her history. Of the many books that could be studied, for a more detailed history of her politics, the following are recommended by the writer. The Great Empires of Prophecy, and The Two Republics, both written by Alonzo Jones.

Gratian was but the tool of the bishops. Ambrose was at that time bishop of Milan, and never was episcopal ambition more arrogantly asserted than in that insolent prelate. Soon the mind of the bishop asserted the supremacy over that of the boy emperor, and Ambrose “wielded at his will the weak and irresolute Gratian.”  ( Milman- “History of Christianity,” book 3, chap. 8, par. 28. )

But above all things else that Gratian did, that which redounded most to the glory of the Catholic Church was his choice of Theodosius as associate emperor. Valens was killed in a battle with the Goths, A.D. 378. A stronger hand than that of a youth of nineteen was required to hold the reins of government in the East. In the establishment of the Catholic Church, the place of Theodosius is second only to that of Constantine. About the beginning of the year 380 he was baptized by the Catholic bishop of Thessalonica, and immediately afterward he issued the following edict: —

“It is our pleasure that the nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation, should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans,which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now professed by the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the apostles, and the doctrine of the gospel, let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: under an equal majesty, and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians; and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of “heretics,” and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.” ( Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” chap. 27, par. 6. )


This law was issued in the names of the three emperors, Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius. “Thus the religion of the whole Roman world was enacted by two feeble boys and a rude Spanish soldier.”  ( Milman- “History of Christianity,” book 3, chap. 9, par. 1. )

In the supremacy of the papacy, Justinian holds the same place as does Constantine and Theodosius in the establishment of the Catholic Church. “Among the titles of greatness, the name ‘Pious’ was most pleasing to his ears; to promote the temporal and spiritual interests of the church was the serious business of his life; and the duty of father of his country was often
sacrificed to that of defender of the faith.”  ( Gibbon - “Decline and Fall,” chap. xlvii, par. 23. )

“The emperor Justinian unites in himself the most opposite vices, — insatiable rapacity and lavish prodigality, intense pride and contemptible weakness, unmeasured ambition and dastardly cowardice.... In the Christian emperor, seem to meet the crimes of those who won or secured their empire by assassination of all whom they feared, the passion for public diversions without the accomplishments of Nero or the brute strength of Commodus,
the dotage of Claudius.”  ( Milman - “History of Latin Christianity,” book 3, chap. 4, par. 2. )


In the year 532, Justinian issued an edict declaring his intention “to unite all men in one faith.” Whether they were Jews, Gentiles, or Christians, all who did not within three months profess and embrace the Catholic faith, were by the edict “declared infamous, and as such excluded from all employments both civil and military; rendered incapable of leaving anything by will; and all their estates confiscated, whether real or personal.” As a result of this cruel edict, “Great numbers were driven from their habitations with their wives and children, stripped and naked. Others betook themselves to flight, carrying with them what they could conceal, for their
support and maintenance; but they were plundered of what little they had, and many of them inhumanly massacred.”  ( Bower - “History of the Popes,” Boniface 2, par. 2. )

THE CODE OF OUR LORD
THE MOST SACRED EMPEROR JUSTINIAN.
SECOND EDITION.

BOOK 1.
 

TITLE 1.
CONCERNING THE MOST EXALTED TRINITY AND THE
CATHOLIC FAITH AND PROVIDING THAT NO ONE
SHALL DARE TO PUBLICLY OPPOSE THEM.

   1. The Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius to the people of the City of Constantinople.
   We desire that all peoples subject to Our benign Empire shall live under the same religion that the Divine Peter, the Apostle, gave to the Romans, and which the said religion declares was introduced by himself, and which it is well known that the Pontiff Damascus, and Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity, embraced; that is to say, in accordance with the rules of apostolic discipline and the evangelical doctrine, we should believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitute a single Deity, endowed with equal majesty, and united in the Holy Trinity.
   (1) We order all those who follow this law to assume the name of Catholic Christians, and considering others as demented and insane, We order that they shall bear the infamy of heresy; and when the Divine vengeance which they merit has been appeased, they shall afterwards be punished in accordance with Our resentment, which we have acquired from the judgment of Heaven.
    Dated at Thessalonica, on the third of the Kalends of March, during the Consulate of Gratian, Consul for the fifth time, and Theodosius.
   2. The Same Emperors to Eutropius, Praetorian Prefect.
   Let no place be afforded to heretics for the conduct of their ceremonies, and let no occasion be offered for them to display the insanity of their obstinate minds. Let all persons know that if any privilege has been fraudulently obtained by means of any rescript whatsoever, by persons of this kind, it will not be valid. Let all bodies of heretics be prevented from holding unlawful assemblies, and let the name of the only and the greatest God be celebrated everywhere, and let the observance of the Nicene Creed, recently transmitted to Our ancestors, and firmly established by the testimony and practice of Divine Religion, always remain secure.
   (1) Moreover, he who is an adherent of the Nicene Faith, and a true believer in the Catholic religion, should be understood to be one [pg. 10] who believes that Almighty God and Christ, the son of God, are one person, God of God, Light of Light; and let no one, by rejection, dishonor the Holy Spirit, whom we expect, and have received from the Supreme Parent of all things, in whom the sentiment of a pure and undefiled faith flourishes, as well as the belief in the undivided substance of a Holy Trinity, which true believers indicate by the Greek word  These things, indeed do not require further proof, and should be respected.
   (2) Let those who do not accept those doctrines cease to apply the name of true religion to their fraudulent belief; and let them be branded with their open crimes, and, having been removed from the threshhold of all churches, be utterly excluded from them, as We forbid all heretics to hold unlawful assemblies within cities. If, however, any seditious outbreak should be attempted, We order them to be driven outside the the walls of the City, with relentless violence, and We direct that all Catholic Churches, throughout the entire world, shall be placed under the control of the orthodox bishops who have embraced the Nicene Creed.
   Given at Constantinople, on the fourth of the ides of January, under the Consulate of Flavius Eucharius and Flavius Syagrius.
    3. The Emperor Martian to Palladius, Praetorian Prefect.
  No one, whether he belongs to the clergy, the army, or to any other condition of men, shall, with a view to causing a tumult and giving occasion to treachery, attempt to discuss the Christian religion publicly in the presence of an assembled and listening crowd; for he commits an injury against the most reverend Synod who publicly contradicts what has once been decided and properly established; as those matters relative to the Christian faith have been settled by the priests who met at Chalcedony by Our order, and are known to be in conformity with the apostolic explanations and conclusions of the three hundred and eight Holy Fathers assembled in Nicea, and the hundred and fifty who met in this Imperial City; for the violators of this law shall not go unpunished, because they not only oppose the true faith, but they also profane its venerated mysteries by engaging in contests of this kind with Jews and Pagans. Therefore, if any person who has ventured to publicly discuss religious matters is a member of the clergy, he shall be removed from his order; if he is a member of the army, he shall be degraded; and any others who are guilty of this offence, who are freemen, shall be banished from this most Sacred City, and shall be subjected to the punishment prescribed by law according to the power of the court; and if they are slaves, they shall undergo severest penalty.
   Given at Constantinople, on the eighth of the Ides of February, under the consulship of Patricius.
   4. John, Bishop of the City of Rome, to his most Illustrious and Merciful Son Justinian.
   Among the conspicuous reasons for praising your wisdom and gentleness, Most Christian of Emperors, and one which radiates light [pg. 11]as a star, is the fact that through love of the Faith, and actuated by zeal for charity, you, learned in ecclesiastical discipline, have preserved reverence for the See of Rome, and have subjected all things to its authority, and have given it unity. The following precept was communicated to its founder, that is to say, the first of the Apostles, by the mouth of the Lord, namely: "Feed my lambs."
   This See is indeed the head of all churches, as the rules of the Fathers and the decrees of the Emperors assert, and the words of your most reverend piety testify. It is therefore claimed that what the Scriptures state, namely, "By Me Kings reign, and the Powers dispense justice;" will be accomplished in you. For there is nothing which shines with a more brilliant lustre than genuine faith when displayed by a prince, since there is nothing which prevents destruction as true religion does, for as both of them have reference to the Author of Life and Light, they disperse darkness and prevent apostasy. Wherefore, Most Glorious of Princes, the Divine Power is implored by the prayers of all to preserve your piety in this ardor for the Faith, in this devotion of your mind, and in this zeal for true religion, without failure, during your entire existence. For we believe that this is for the benefit of the Holy Churches, as it was written, "The king rules with his lips," and again, "The heart of the King is in the hand of God, and it will incline to whatever side God wishes"; that is to say, that He may confirm your empire, and maintain your kingdoms for the peace of the Church and the unity of religion; guard their authority, and preserve him in that sublime tranquillity which is so grateful to him; and no small change is granted by the Divine Power through whose agency a divided church is not afflicted by any griefs or subject to any reproaches. For it is written, "A just king, who is upon his throne, has no reason to apprehend any misfortune."
   We have received with all due respect the evidences of your serenity, through Hypatius and Demetrius, most holy men, my brothers and fellow-bishops, from whose statements we have learned that you have promulgated an Edict addressed to your faithful people, and dictated by your love of the Faith, for the purpose of overthrowing the designs of heretics, which is in accordance with the evangelical tenets, and which we have confirmed by our authority with the consent of our brethren and fellow bishops, for the reason that it is in conformity with the apostolic doctrine.


   The following is the text of the letter of the Emperor Justinian, Victorious, Pious, Happy, Renowned, Triumphant, always Augustus, to John, Patriarch, and most Holy Archbishop of the fair City of Rome:
   With honor to the Apostolic See, and to your Holiness, which is, and always has been remembered in Our prayers, both now and formerly, and honoring your happiness, as is proper in the case of one who is considered as a father, We hasten to bring to the knowledge of Your Holiness everything relating to the condition of the Church, as We have always had the greatest desire to preserve the unity of your Apostolic See, and the condition of the Holy Churches of God, as they [pg. 12] exist at the present time, that they may remain without disturbance or opposition. Therefore, We have exerted Ourselves to unite all the priests of the East and subject them to the See of Your Holiness, and hence the questions which have at present arisen, although they are manifest and free from doubt, and according to the doctrines of your Apostolic See, are constantly firmly observed and preached by all priests, We have still considered it necessary that they should be brought to the attention of Your Holiness. For we do not suffer anything which has reference to the state of the Church, even though what causes difficulty may be clear and free from doubt, to be discussed without being brought to the notice of Your Holiness, because you are the head of all the Holy Churches, for We shall exert Ourselves in every way (as has already been stated), to increase the honor and authority of your See.




One Hundred and Thirty-First New Constitution.
The Emperor Justinian to Peter, Most Glorious Imperial Praetorian Prefect.
PREFACE.
   We enact the present law with reference to ecclesiastical rules and privileges and other subjects in which holy churches and religious establishments are intrusted.
Chapter I.
   Concerning Four Holy Councils.
   Therefore We order that the sacred, ecclesiastical rules which were adopted and confirmed by the four Holy Councils, that is to say, that of the three hundred and eighteen bishops held at Nicea, that of the one hundred and fifty bishops held at Constantinople, the first one of Ephesus, where Nestorius was condemned, and the one assembled at Chalcedon, where Eutyches and Nestorius were anathematized, shall be considered as laws. We accept the dogmas of these four Councils as sacred writings, and observe their rules as legally effective.
Chapter II.
   Concerning The Precedence of Partriarchs.
   Hence, in accordance with the provisions of these Councils, We order that the Most Holy Pope of ancient Rome shall hold the first rank of all the Pontiffs, but the Most Blessed Archbishop of Constantinople, or New Rome, shall occupy the second place after the Holy Apostolic See of ancient Rome, which shall take precedence over all other sees.
 
Source: Corpus Juris Civilis (The Civil Law, the Code of Justinian), by S.P. Scott, A.M., published by the Central Trust Company, Cincinnati, copyright 1932, Volume 12 [of 17], pages 9-12, 125.

 The Church of Rome presently entertains diplomatic relations with over 170 nations of this earth. She has been, she is, and she ever will be, a political entity of this world. This is why she ever pursues greater power and influence in the same. She does not believe in the separation of church and state. Her rise to power within this country, is in conjunction with the crumbling of the wall which separates the two. 

The annals of history testify, that there is no true freedom without a separation of church and state. Maintaining freedom for our future, depends upon remembering the lessons of our past.  The following quote is from the late Pope John Paul’s, APOSTOLIC LETTER, DIES DOMINI.  This is no doubt, one law that the Church of Rome will work on passing.

"Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy."

It was through Sunday legislation that she usurped the power of the state in the past, and she will no doubt use the same proven method in the near future.

[DaveW]

They are chapters of a book, not posted simply for debate, but certainly open to the same.

I thought posting entire chapters violates copyright laws and therefore is a violation of the TOS.

And if it is not, then the copyright laws of the US deem that it should be.

[Amo]

They are chapters of a book, not posted simply for debate, but certainly open to the same.

I thought posting entire chapters violates copyright laws and therefore is a violation of the TOS.

And if it is not, then the copyright laws of the US deem that it should be.

I have permission from the author.

[Amo]

4-The Abominations and Filthiness of Her Fornication

Having already established the Church of Rome’s adulterous relations with the kings of the earth, let us move on to the abomination and filthiness of her fornication. As it is the intention of the writer to prove from history that the identifying marks of the Mother of Harlots apply to the Church of Rome, it is therefore necessary to examine the records of history. 

Before we begin to examine some of this history, let us first discover the meaning of an abomination from the scriptures. What did the Lord refer to as an abomination in the Holy Scriptures? The answer to this question, will determine what we will identify as such, within the Church of Rome. 

Deuteronomy 7 25 The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God. 26 Neither shalt thou bring an abomination[/u] into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.

Worshipping, or bowing down to, or owning idols, is an abomination to the Lord.

Deuteronomy 12 29 When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; 30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31 Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. 32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

Following the example of how other nations worshiped their god’s is an abomination unto the Lord.

Deuteronomy 17 1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God. 2 If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel: 5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

Offering and incomplete or blemished sacrifice to the Lord, is an abomination unto the Lord.  Worshiping other god’s, particularly the sun, moon, or stars, is an abomination unto the Lord.


Deuteronomy 18 9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. 13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.

It is an abomination for God’s people to learn to do after the people which the Lord has given into their hands. They should not worship their god’s, or incorporate their practices of worship into their own.

Deuteronomy 32 16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. 17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. 18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. 19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. 20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith

Incorporating the practices of other religions into the true religion, is an abomination unto the Lord.

II Kings 23 23 But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the LORD in Jerusalem. 24 Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD.

Those who spoke to the dead, practiced magic, worshipped images and idols, were an abomination unto the Lord.

Ezra 9 12 Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their wealth for ever: that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever. 13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this; 14 Should we again break thy commandments, and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? wouldest not thou be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us, so that there should be no remnant nor escaping?

Practicing the abominations of the nations around them, was the breaking of God’s commandments. The breaking of God’s commandments is an abomination. Not just that someone sinned, but that they accepted and believed, and practiced, that which was the breaking of God’s commandments. This is an abomination.   

No doubt, many reading have already associated many of the above abominations with the Church of Rome. For her adherents do pray to the dead in Mary and the saints. They do also bow down to images of the same. Many of these very images were incorporated from the pagan religions which permeated through the Church of Rome, through her absorbance of the pagan worshippers that were declared Christian by the edicts of kings and emperors. The effect of which, was the amalgamation of pagan and Christian practices. 

The vast majority of Christians worship God today, on the day of the Sun. They do not realize where, by whom, and how this day was even established. The previous chapter touched upon this subject briefly in order to show the Church of Rome’s connection to the kings of this earth.  Some of the same material will be repeated in this chapter, since the establishment of Sunday worship is synonymous with the harlot committing fornication with the kings of the earth, as well as having a cup full of the abominations of her fornication. These two go hand in hand, since it is by her adulteress relations with the kings of the earth that the practices of their pagan religions became intertwined with this apostate Christian entity. In any case, even though many may already know these things, here is some of the history of how they came about. The following is from The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Chapter 28.

The worship of the Christian martyrs
The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. They relate in solemn and pathetic strains; that the temples were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places, which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. "The monks" (a race of filthy animals, to whom; Eunapius is tempted to refuse the name of men) "are the authors of the new worship, which, in the place of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads, salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for the multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious death; their bodies, still marked by the impression of the lash and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the sentence of the magistrate; such" (continues Eunapius) "are the gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the veneration of the people." Without approving the malice, it is natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the spectator of a revolution which raised those obscure victims of the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible protectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the Christians for the martyrs of the faith was exalted, by time and victory, into religious adoration; and the most illustrious of the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honours of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after the glorious deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the Ostian road were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of those; spiritual heroes. In the age which followed the conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the generals of armies devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tent-maker and a fisherman; and their venerable bones were deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the bishops of the royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. The new capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves from whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of the apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded on the banks of the Thracian Bosphorus. About fifty years afterwards the same banks were honoured by the presence of Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's hands. The relics of Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet; the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings.  The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of the catholic world. The honours of the saints and martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason, were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and Jerome something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful.

General Reflections
In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model; and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.


I. Fabulous martyrs and relics.
I. The satisfactory experience that the relics of saints were more valuable than gold or precious stones stimulated the clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and primitive martyrs they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous legendaries; and there is reason to suspect that Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint.  A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world.


II Miracles
II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid and victorious if the faith of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles to ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city, related a very singular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard, a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of Gamaliel; and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus, and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added, with some impatience, that it was time to release himself and his companions from their obscure prison; that their appearance would be salutary to a distressed world; and that they had made choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still retarded this important discovery were successively removed by new visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop in the presence of an innumerable multitude; The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order; but when the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odour such as that of Paradise was smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the assistants. The companions of Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala; but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn procession, to a church constructed in their honour on Mount Sion; and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, or the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every province of the Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and learned Augustin, whose understanding scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is inserted in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares that he has selected those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons who were either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted or forgotten; and Hippo had been less favourably treated than the other cities of the province. And yet the bishop enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. If we enlarge our view to all the diocese, and all the saints, of the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we may surely be allowed to observe that a miracle, in that age of superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and established: laws of nature.

III Revival of polytheism.
III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the actual state and constitution of the invisible world; and his religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis of fact and experience. What ever might be the condition of vulgar souls in the long interval between the dissolution and the resurrection of their bodies, it was evident. that the superior spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. It was evident (without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the lively and active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was proved by experience that they were capable of hearing and understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries, who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of Martin. The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the persuasion that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the prosperity of the Catholic church; and that the individuals who imitated the example of their faith and piety were the peculiar and favourite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the places which had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of punishment were hurled against those impious wretches who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. Atrocious, indeed, must have been the guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men, if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were compelled to obey. The immediate, and almost instantaneous, effects, that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence, satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favour and authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace, or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted: and the MONARCHY of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheism.

IV Introduction of Pagan ceremonies.
IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian, or Lactantius, had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noon-day, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen or silken veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or dangerous journey, they requested that the holy martyrs would be their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate, with grateful thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favours which they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses of mankind: but it must ingenuously be confessed that the ministers of the catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.

( The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Chapter 28 )


The above account by Edward Gibbon, is a revelation of the repetitive cycle of the history of humanity in relation to God’s grace and mercy towards us. Just as the nation of Israel in the days of old, continuously fell prey to the dangers of success, so too did Christianity follow in suit. 

When God had blessed the nation of Israel, and had subdued her enemies round about, apostasy was soon at the doors. It was by trusting in alliances with other heathen nations, and incorporating the religious practices of these nations, and those which they had conquered, that the apostasy spread throughout Israel. These things were repeatedly denounced by God’s prophets, as abominations. So to, as soon as Christianity had conquered paganism, if you will, she made the same mistakes. Incorporating the religious practices and ceremonies of conquered paganism into her own ranks. It was thus, that she obtained the favor of those who once opposed her, including the kings of this earth. Having established their approval, they then entered into forbidden relationships with these kings, and their unconverted subjects.

That which was abominable in the sight of God during the old covenant, was, and is still abominable to Him today. The Church of Rome, is the Mother of all apostate “ Christian” entities of this world, that have incorporated these abominations within their ranks. That is, the religious practices and ceremonies of paganism, and the reliance upon the civil powers of this earth to enforce their dogmas. Let us examine some more history regarding the same.

“Popery, then, we hold to be an after-growth of Paganism,……………………… Its oracles had been silenced, its shrines demolished, and its gods consigned to oblivion; but the deep corruption of the human race, not yet cured by the promised effusion of the Spirit upon all flesh, revived it anew, and, under a Christian mask, reared other temples in its honour, built it another Pantheon, and replenished it with other gods, which, in fact, were but the ancient divinities under new names. All idolatries, in whatever age or country they have existed, are to be viewed but as successive developments of the one grand apostacy. That apostacy was commenced in Eden, and consummated at Rome. It had its rise in the plucking of the forbidden fruit; and it attained its acme in the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome,--Christ's Vicar on earth. The hope that he would "be as God," led man to commit the first sin; and that sin was perfected when the Pope "exalted himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Popery is but the natural development of this great original transgression. It is just the early idolatries ripened and perfected. It is manifestly an enormous expansion of the same intensely malignant and fearfully destructive principle which these idolatries contained. The ancient Chaldean worshipping the sun,--the Greek deifying the powers of nature,--and the Roman exalting the race of primeval men into gods, are but varied manifestations of the same evil principle, namely, the utter alienation of the heart from God,--its proneness to hide itself amid the darkness of its own corrupt imaginations, and to become a god unto itself. That principle received the most fearful development which appears possible on earth, in the Mystery of Iniquity which came to be seated on the Seven Hills; for therein man deified himself, became God, nay, arrogated powers which lifted him high above God. Popery is the last, the most matured, the most subtle, the most skilfully contriven, and the most essentially diabolical form of idolatry which the world ever saw, or which, there is reason to believe, it ever will see. It is the ne plus ultra of man's wickedness, and the chef d'oeuvre of Satan's cunning and malignity. It is the greatest calamity, next to the Fall, which ever befell the human family. Farther away from God the world could not exist at all. The cement that holds society together, already greatly weakened, would be altogether destroyed, and the social fabric would instantly fall in ruins.”

( History of the Papacy. By Rev. J.A. Wylie, LL.D. Chapter I. )

No sooner were the apostles removed from the stage of action, no sooner was their watchful attention gone and their apostolic authority removed, than this very thing appeared of which the apostle had spoken. Certain bishops, in order to make easier the conversion of the heathen, to multiply disciples, and by this increase their own influence and authority, began to adopt heathen customs and forms.

When the canon of Scripture was closed, and the last of the apostles was dead, the first century was gone; and within twenty years of that time the perversion of the truth of Christ had become wide-spread. In the history of this century and of this subject the record is, —
“It is certain that to religious worship, both public and private, many rites were added, without necessity, and to the offense of sober and good men.”  ( Mosheim - “Ecclesiastical History,” Murdock’s translation, century 2, part 2, chap. iv, par. 1. )

 And the reason of this is stated to be that —
“The Christians were pronounced atheists, because they were destitute of temples, altars, victims, priests, and all that pomp in which the vulgar suppose the essence of religion to consist. For unenlightened persons are prone to estimate religion by what meets their eyes. To silence this accusation, the Christian doctors thought it necessary to introduce some external rites, which would strike the senses of the people, so that they could maintain themselves really to possess all those things of which Christians were charged with being destitute, though under different forms.” ( Mosheim - Id., par. 3. )

This was at once to accommodate the Christian worship and its forms to that of the heathen, and was almost at one step to heathenize Christianity. No heathen element or form can be connected with Christianity or its worship, and Christianity remain pure.

Of all the ceremonies of the heathen, the mysteries were the most sacred and most universally practised. Some mysteries were in honor of Bacchus, some of Cybele, but the greatest of all, those considered the most sacred of all and the most widely practised, were the Eleusinian, so called because celebrated at Eleusis in Greece. But whatever was the mystery that was celebrated, there was always in it, as an essential part of it, the elements of abomination that characterized sun-worship everywhere, because the mysteries were simply forms of the wide-spread and multiform worship of the sun.

We will pause here between quotes for a brief moment to take note of the above statement.  The vast majority of the pagan rites and ceremonies adopted by apostate Christianity, were elements of the many, and varied forms of Sun worship. This same fact holds true also, to the varied forms of worship adopted by apostate Israel during the old covenant. This issue we will address in greater detail later in this book.

Among the first of the perversions of the Christian worship was to give to its forms the title and air of the mysteries. For says the record: —
“Among the Greeks and the people of the East, nothing was held more sacred than what were called the mysteries. This circumstance led the Christians, in order to impart dignity to their religion, to say that they also had similar mysteries, or certain holy rites concealed
from the vulgar; and they not only applied the terms used in the pagan mysteries to Christian institutions, particularly baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but they gradually introduced also the rites which were designated by these terms.”  ( Mosheim - Id., par. 5. )


It was to accommodate the Christian worship to the minds of a people who practised these things that the bishops gave to the Christian ordinances the name of mysteries. The Lord’s Supper was made the greater mystery, baptism the lesser and the initiatory rite to the celebration of the former. After the heathen manner also a white garment was used as the initiatory robe, and the candidate, having been baptized, and thus initiated into the lesser mysteries, was admitted into what was called in the church the order of catechumens, in which order they remained a certain length of time, as in the heathen celebration, before they were admitted to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the greater mystery.

“This practice originated in the Eastern provinces, and then after the time of Hadrian (who first introduced the pagan mysteries among the Latins) it spread among the Christians of the West.” The reign of Hadrian was from 117-138. Therefore, before the second century was half gone, before the last of the apostles had been dead forty years, this apostasy, this working of the mystery of iniquity, had so largely spread over both the East and the West, that it is literally true that “a large part, therefore, of the Christian observances and institutions, even in this century, had the aspect of the pagan mysteries.”  ( Mosheim - “Ecclesiastical History,” century 2, part 2, chap. 4, par. 5. )

  ( The Great Empires of Prophecy, A. T. Jones )



     

When Christianity conquered Rome the ecclesiastical structure of the pagan church, the title and vestments of the pontifex maximus, the worship of the Great Mother and a multitude of comforting divinities, the sense of supersensible presences everywhere, the joy or solemnity of old festivals, and the pageantry of immemorial ceremony, passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror.  The reins and skill of government were handed down by a dying empire to a virile papacy; the lost power of the broken sword was rewon by the magic of the consoling word; the armies of the state were replaced by the missionaries of the Church moving in all directions along the Roman roads; and the revolted provinces, accepting Christianity, again acknowledged the sovereignty of Rome.  Through the long struggles of the Age of Faith the authority of the ancient capital persisted and grew, until in the Renaissance the classic culture seemed to rise from the grave, and the immortal city became once more the center of summit of the world's life and wealth and art.  When, in 1936, Rome celebrated the 2689th anniversary of her foundation, she could look back upon the most impressive continuity of government and civilization in the history of mankind.  May she rise again.

(CAESAR AND CHRIST, A history of Roman Civilization and of Christianity from their beginnings to A.D.325. By Will Durant-1944)

“A law of the year 321 ordered tribunals, shops, and workshops to be closed on the day of the sun, and he [Constantine] sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day, a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo, quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun. IN DETERMINING WHAT DAYS SHOULD BE REGARDED AS HOLY, and in the composition of a prayer for national use, CONSTANTINE
EXERCISED ONE OF THE RIGHTS BELONGING TO HIM AS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS; and it caused no surprise that he should do this.”

( Duruy - “History of Rome,” chap. 102, part 1:par. 4 from end. )

The text of Constantine's Sunday Law of 321 A.D. is :
"One the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

(Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them the second time." Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated in History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, D.D., (7-vol.ed.) Vol. III, p.380. New York, 1884

Dr. A.Chr. Bang says regarding this Law :
"This Sunday law constituted no real favoratism to Christianity..... It is evident from all his statuatory provisions that the Emperor during the time 313-323 with full consciousness has sought the realisation of his religeous aim: the amalgamation of heathenism and Christianity." Kirken og Romerstaten

(The Church and the Roman State) p.256. Christiania, 1879

J. Westbury-Jones, an English writer, speaks thus: “ How such a law would further the designs of Constantine it is not difficult to discover.  It would confer a special honor upon the festival of the Christian church, and it would grant a slight boon to the pagans themselves.  In fact there is nothing in this edict which might not have been written by a pagan.  The law does honor to the pagan deity whom Constantine had adopted as his special patron god, Apollo or the sun [Constantine retained the motto “Soli Invicto” to the end of his life].  The very name of the day lent itself to this ambiguity.  The term Sunday (dies Solis) was in use among Christians as well as heathen.”

(Roman and Christian Imperialism, p. 210)

The retention of the old pagan name of “dies Solis” or “Sunday”, for the weekly Christian festival, is in great measure owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the “venerable day of the sun”.  His decree regulating it’s observance has been justly called a new era in the history of the Lord’s day.  It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution.

(A. P. Stanely, History of the Eastern Church, p. 184)

"Our observance of Sunday as the Lord's day is apparently derived from Mithraism. The argument that has sometimes
been used against this claim, namely, that Sunday was chosen because of the resurrection on that day, is not well supported."

Gordon J. Laing, "Survivals of Roman Religion," p. 148.

"As a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; and it is interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed
as Dominus, 'Lord,' Sunday must have been the 'Lord's Day' long before the Christian times."

A. Weigall,
 "The Paganism in Our Christianity," p. 145.


We have now established that the Church of Rome has unquestionably committed fornication with the kings of the earth, which resulted in her wielding of the cup filled with the abominations of the earth. We have also established that Sun worship played an extensive roll in filling this cup of abominations. This would include the fact that Sunday sacredness was established through this union of apostate Christianity and Sun worshipping paganism. Thus, Sunday sacredness, is as much of an abomination to God, as is any other of the pagan rites and ceremonies adopted by apostate Christianity. Let us move on to the establishment of the identifying mark regarding the blood of the saints.

[DaveW]

I have permission from the author.

Is that enough?  On the last site I was on, (faithcommunitynetwork.com) even BEING the author was not enough.

Discussion on this issue here:

http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/news-from-around-the-world/copyright-law/

[Amo]

I have permission from the author.

Is that enough?  On the last site I was on, (faithcommunitynetwork.com) even BEING the author was not enough.

Discussion on this issue here:

http://www.gracecentered.com/christian_forums/news-from-around-the-world/copyright-law/

I don't see anything about an author not being able to post their own materials. Apparently you don't want me posting what I have, is it just because you do not agree with it, or do you wish no one to be able to do such? Don't worry, soon enough all freedom to do such will once again be removed.

[Amo]

5-The Blood of the Saints

Excerpts from FACTS OF FAITH, Christian Edwardson

“The Cathohc Church is a respecter of conscience and of liberty .... She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a ‘horror of blood.’ Nevertheless when confronted by heresy she does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture. She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls the laws of the State to her aid, if necessary she encourages a crusade, or a religious war and all her ‘horror of blood’ practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed it, which proceeding is almost more odious-for it is less frank-than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low Countries, and above all in Spain the funeral piles of the Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henry II, in England under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century if she did not actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided, the religious wars. No one will deny that we have here a great scandal to our contemporaries .... “Indeed, even among our friends and our brothers we find those who dare not look this problem in the face. They ask permission from the Church to ignore or even deny all those acts and institutions in the past which have made orthodoxy compulsory.’’

- ’’ The Catholic Church, the Renaissance, and Protestantism,’’ pp. 182-134. London: 1908. This book bears the sanction of the Roman Catholic authorities, and of their “censor.”

Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) made the following decree for the destruction of all heretics, which is binding on civil rulers:
“Temporal princes shall be reminded and exhorted, and if needs be, compelled by spiritual censures, to discharge every one of their functions: and that, as they desire to be reckoned and held faithful, so, for the defence of the faith, let them publicly make oath that they will endeavor, bona fide with all their might, to extirpate from their territories all heretics marked by the Church; so that when anyone is about to assume any authority, whether spiritual or temporal, he shall be held bound to confirm his title by this oath. And if a temporal prince, being required and admonished by the Church, shall neglect to purge his kingdom from this heretical pravity, the metropolitan and other provincial bishops shall bind him in fetters of excommunication; and if he obstinately refuse to make satisfaction this shall be notified within a year to the Supreme Pontiff, that then he may declare his subjects absolved from their
allegiance, and leave their lands to be occupied by Catholics, who, the heretics being exterminated, may possess them unchallenged, and preserve them in the purity of the faith”

-”Decretalium Gregorii Papae Noni Conpilatio,” Liber V, Titulus VII, Capitulum
XIII, (A Collection of the Decretals of Gregory IX, Book 5, Title 7, Chapter 13), dated April 20, 1619.

The sainted Catholic doctor, Thomas Aquinas, says:

“If counterfeiters of money or other criminals are justly delivered over to death forthwith by the secular authorities, much more can heretics, after they are convicted of heresy, be not only forthwith excommunicated, but as surely put to death.”

-’’ Summa Theologica,” 2a, 2ac, qu. xi, art. iii.


Dr. J. Dowling says:

“From the birth of Popery in 606, to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than fifty millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, an average of more than forty thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of Popery”

-”History of Romanism,” pp. 54I, 542. New York: 1871.


W. E. H. Lecky says:

“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty, that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no power of imagination can adequately realize their sufferings.’’

-’’ History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationolism in Europe,” Vol. II, p. 32. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1910.

John Lothrop Motley, speaking of papal persecution in the Netherlands, says:

“Upon February 16, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office [the Inquisition] condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics .... A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution .... This is probably the most concise death warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines”

- ” The Rise of the Dutch Republic,” (2-vol. ed.) Vol. I, p. 626. New York.

Many Roman Catholic authors today have tried to prove that their church does not sanction persecution, but facts of history are too plain to be denied. Eternity alone will reveal what God’s dear children suffered during the Dark Ages. Accordingly as the Papacy attained to power, the common people became more oppressed, until “the noon of the Papacy was the
midnight of the world”-

”History of Protestantism,” J. A. Wylie, LL.D., Vol. I, p. 16. London.

The following excerpts are from ROMANISM AND THE REFORMATION by H. Grattan Guiness.

As I shall have to recur to this subject when treating of St. John’s foreview of Romanism, I will add nothing further on this point. I have said enough to show, that this sixth mark of the little horn attaches most distinctly to the Papacy, and indicates it alone among all the powers that have ever held sway on the Roman earth. It has martyred by millions the saints of God,
the best and holiest of men. Its persecuting edicts range over the entire period of its existence; the present pope has endorsed them by his approval of the syllabus of Pius IX., and he threw over them the mantle of infallibility.  ( page 46 )

In the sunny south of France, in Provence and Catalonia, lived the Albigenses. They were a civilized and highly educated people. Among these people there sprang up an extensive revival of true religion, and one of its natural effects was a bold testimony against the abominations of apostate Rome. Here is Sismondi’s History of the Albigenses. On page 7 he says of them and of the Vaudois: “All agreed in regarding the Church of Rome as having absolutely perverted Christianity, and in maintaining that it was she who was designated in the Apocalypse by the name of the whore of Babylon.” Rome could not endure this testimony; she drew her deadly sword and waged war against those who bore it. In the year 1208 the Albigenses were murderously persecuted. Innocent III (what a mockery his name!) employed the crusaders in this dreadful work. The war of extermination was denominated sacred. The pope’s soldiers prosecuted it with pious ardor; men, women, and children were all precipitated into the flames; whole cities were burned. In Beziers every soul was massacred; seven thousand dead bodies were counted in a single church, where the people had taken refuge; the whole country was laid waste; an entire people was slaughtered, and the eloquent witness of these early reformers was reduced to the silence of the sepulcher.  ( page 122 )

This folio volume is a faithful history of the Waldenses, written 217 years ago, by the Waldensian pastor Leger. It contains his portrait. I have often looked at it with interest. The countenance is scarred with suffering, but full of spiritual light. Leger tells with simple clearness the story of the Waldenses from the earliest times, quoting from ancient and authentic documents. He gives in full their confession of faith, and narrates the history of their martyrdoms, including the dreadful massacre in the vale of Lucerna, in 1655, of which he himself was an eye witness. This book was written only fourteen years after that massacre. It contains numerous depositions concerning it, rendered on oath, and long lists of the names of those who were its victims. It gives also plates depicting the dreadful ways in which they were slaughtered. These plates represent men, women, and children being dismembered, disemboweled, ripped up, run through with swords, impaled on stakes, torn limb from limb, flung from precipices, roasted in flames. They are almost too horrible to look at. And this was only one of a long series of massacres of the Waldenses extending through 600 painful years. ( pages 123& 124 )

Even the Romanists themselves shame you in their clear-sighted comprehension of the issues of this question. Cardinal Manning says, “The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the kingdom of the Son of God.” Cardinal Newman says, “A sacerdotal order is historically the essence of the Church of Rome; if not divinely appointed, it is doctrinally the essence of antichrist.” In both these statements, the issue is clear, and it is the same. Rome herself admits, openly admits, that if she is not the very kingdom of Christ, she is that of antichrist. Rome declares she is one or the other. She herself propounds and urges this solemn alternative. You shrink from it, do you? I accept it. Conscience constrains me. History compels me. The past, the awful past rises before me. I see THE GREAT APOSTASY, I see the desolation of Christendom, I see the smoking rains, I see the reign of monsters; I see those vice-gods, that Gregory VII, that Innocent III, that Boniface VIII, that Alexander VI, that Gregory XIII, that Pius IX; I see their long succession, I hear their insufferable blasphemies, I see their abominable lives; I see them worshipped by blinded generations, bestowing hollow benedictions, bartering lying indulgences, creating a paganized Christianity; I see their liveried slaves, their shaven priests, their celibate confessors; I see the infamous confessional, the mined women, the murdered innocents; I hear the lying absolutions, the dying groans; I hear the cries of the victims; I hear the anathemas, the curses, the thunders of the interdicts; I see the racks, the dungeons, the stakes; I see that inhuman Inquisition, those fires of Smithfield, those butcheries of St. Bartholomew, that Spanish armada, those unspeakable dragonnades, that endless train of wars, that dreadful multitude of massacres. I see it all, and in the name of the ruin it has wrought in the Church and in the world, in the name of the truth it has denied, the temple it has defiled, the God it has blasphemed, the souls it has destroyed; in the name of the millions it has deluded, the millions it has slaughtered, the millions it has damned; with holy confessors, with noble reformers, with innumerable martyrs, with the saints of ages, I denounce it as the masterpiece of Satan, as the body and soul and essence of antichrist. ( page 146 )

On the other hand, post-Reformation times have been times of Papal reaction and revolution. In the first place, the Protestant Reformation was encountered by a tremendous Papal reaction, the rising wave of life and liberty was met by a counterwave of resistance. Hardly was the ship of a Protestant Church set free and launched upon the deep than there arose a mighty tempest. The resurrection of the slain “witnesses” of Christ in the person of the reformers was answered by a resurrection of all the powers of the pit. The awakening of men’s souls brought war, ecclesiastical and civil, a war of anathemas and a war of extermination. Swords flashed forth, flames were kindled; Rome rose in its anger and its might, and did wondrously. She thundered excommunications, she slaughtered millions; not without an awful struggle would the prince of darkness give up his kingdom. No! Look to it, ye brave reformers; ye will need the armory of heaven and its help, for the hosts of hell are roused against you. Ye may conquer, but it shall be through strife and anguish, and seas of blood. ( pages 147&148 )

Excerpts from Christ and Antichrist, Samuel J. Cassels

Mede has calculated from good authorities,

“that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses there perished of these people, in France alone, 1,000,000. From the first institution of the Jesuits to the year 1580, a little more than thirty years, 900,000 orthodox Christians were slain. In the Netherlands alone, the Duke of Alva boasted, that within a few years he had dispatched to the amount of 36,000 souls, and those all by the hand of the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years, the Inquisition destroyed by various kinds of torture, 150,009 Christians.” Gibbon states it as a fact, though a melancholy one, that Papal Rome has shed immensely more Christian blood, than Pagan Rome had ever done. He gives but one illustration; that, however, a fearful one. “In the Netherlands alone,” says he, “more than 100,000 of the subjects of Charles V., are said to have suffered by the hands of the executioner.”

  (  Rome, chapter 16. )

Nor let it be said, that much of this bloodshed is to be ascribed to European princes’ and magistrates. With equal justice might the Jew affirm, that Jesus of Nazareth was condemned by Pilate, and executed by Roman soldiers. God, however, has charged the blood of his Son upon the Jews, by whose malignity and devisings Christ was crucified. Much more then, are the torrents of blood shed in Europe to be ascribed to the Papacy, to the Catholic church. These princes and magistrates were Catholic subjects, and they only executed the mind and will of the church. They were instigated by priests, yea, by the Pope himself. They were often complained of as being too tardy and too merciful; yea, some of them were involved in ruin, along with their heretical subjects, for their forbearance. Those of them too, who were most ferocious, who effected most brutally the work of ruin, received from Catholic dignitaries, and even from the Pope, the greatest amount of commendation. Thus Monfort, Catharine de Medicis, Charles IX., (whose remorse before death caused the blood to ooze from the pores of his body!) Louis XIV., etc., were congratulated by the Gregories, and innocents of their times, as faithful and zealous sons of the church, and as worthy the peculiar favor of heaven. This alliance, however, or rather identity, between the Papacy and policy of Europe in persecuting the saints, is matter of express and repeated prophecies. “These have one mind,” says John, “and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Again, ”For God has put it into their hearts, to fulfill his will, and to agree and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.”

Revelation 17. ( Christ and Antichrist, Samuel J. Cassels )


A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE
BAPTIST DENOMINATION
VOLUME 1
by David Benedict (Pages 28-30)

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE PERSECUTIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN
CARRIED ON BY THE CHURCH OF ROME.

This church, among other enormities, is covered with the blood of saints, which is crying for vengeance on its polluted head. The murders and cruelties of which this bloody community has been guilty, can be but briefly touched upon here; but it is supposed, if I mistake not, that three million lives have been sacrificed to the persecuting rage of the papal power. Among these, upwards of a million were of the people called Waldenses or Albigenses. On the fatal night of St. Bartholomews, August 24, 1572, about seventy thousand persons were murdered in Paris, in the most barbarous manner, by the influence of the pope, and by the instrumentality of the bloodthirsty Charles IX. Within thirty years, there were murdered in France 59 princes, 148 counts, 234 barons, 147,518 gentlemen, and 760,000 persons of inferior rank in life, but whose blood equally called for justice. Three hundred thousand of these were murdered in a few years, by that furious catholic, Charles IX. The massacre of St. Bartholomews happened in the following manner; a match was concluded between Henry, (afterwards Henry IV) the young king of Navarre, a protestant, and the French King’s sister. The heads of the protestants were invited to celebrate the nuptials at Paris, with the infernal view of butchering them all, if possible, in one night. This horrid scene is thus described by the author of the Trial of Antichrist: “Exactly at midnight on the eve of St. Bartholomews, (so called) 1572, the alarm bell was rung in the Palais Royale, as the signal of death. About five hundred protestant barons, knights and gentlemen, who had come from all parts to honor the wedding, were, among the rest, barbarously butchered in their beds. The gentlemen, officers of the chamber, governors, tutors, and household servants of the king of Navarre, and prince of Conde, were driven out of the chambers where they slept in the Louvre, and being in the court, were massacred in the king’s presence. The slaughter was now general throughout the city, and as Thuanus writes, “that the very channels ran down with blood into the river.” This was, however, magnified as a glorious action, and the king, who was one of the most active murderers, boasted that he had put 70,000 heretics to death. I might quote the words of a French author, who wrote the history of France, from the reign of Henry II. to Henry IV. and say, “How strange and horrible a thing it was, in a great town, to see at least 60,000 men with pistols, pikes, cutlasses, poniards, knives, and other bloody instruments, run, swearing and blaspheming the sacred Majesty of God, through the streets and into houses, where most cruelly they massacred all, whomsoever they met, without regard of estate, condition, sex, or age. The streets paved with bodies cut and hewed to pieces; the gates and entries of houses, palaces, and public places, dyed with blood. Shouting and hallooings of the murderers, mixed with continual noise of pistols and calivers discharged; the pitiful eries and shrieks of those that were murdering. Slain bodies cast out of the windows upon the stones, and drawn through the dirt. Strange noise of whistling, breaking of doors and windows with bills and stones. The spoiling and sacking of houses. Carts, some carrying away the spoils, and others the dead bodies, which were thrown into the river Seine, all now red with blood, which ran out of the town and from the king’s palace.” While the horrid scene was transacting, many priests ran about the city, with crucifixes in one hand and daggers in the other, to encourage the slaughter.”

(Trial of Antichrist, p. 134-5.)

In the short reign of the ever to be execrated popish Mary, queen of England, there were burnt in that kingdom, one archbishop, four bishops, twenty-one preachers, eight gentlemen, eighty-four artificers, a hundred husbandmen and laborers, twenty-six wives, twenty widows, nine unmarried women, two boys and two infants. Forty thousand perished in the Irish massacre, in 1641. In a very short time, there were hanged, burned, buried alive, and beheaded, 50,000 persons in the Netherlands. The single order of Jesuits alone are computed, in the space of thirty or forty years, to have put to death 900,000 christians, who deserted from popery. And the Inquisition, the bloody instrument of papal vengeance, in the space of about thirty years, destroyed, by various torture, 150,000.

(Trial of Antichrist throughout.)

No doubt, the above research doesn’t even scratch the surface of information pertaining to the blood of the saints in the annals of history at the hands of the Church of Rome. There is no question then, that this third identifying mark was strikingly fulfilled by the history of the Church of Rome. The writer contends that he has proven beyond doubt, that the Church of Rome is Babylon the great, and the Mother of harlots which the scriptures we are examining speak of.  She is that city which will reign above all the others of this earth, and above a world in rebellion against God. Let us now examine the second angel’s message in light of these established facts.

[DaveW]

I don't see anything about an author not being able to post their own materials. Apparently you don't want me posting what I have, is it just because you do not agree with it, or do you wish no one to be able to do such? Don't worry, soon enough all freedom to do such will once again be removed.

If it is ok with the forum admins then it is ok with me. 

I am just more use to a brief summary paragraph or 2 with a link to the rest.  I find it difficult to scroll thru long posts.

[Gerhard Ebersöhn]

I read nothing, not only because of the length, because with one glance I could see all that is in it, may be some facts, but mostly irrelevant and fruitless surmising and hollow 'prophecy'.

It gives me the creeps.

Has 'the author' heard there is a Book called 'The Bible'?

[Amo]

6-THE SECOND ANGEL’S MESSAGE

Revelation 14 8And 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.

The proclamation from this second angel, is that Babylon has fallen. One would think, by all that has already been established concerning her, that she had already fallen. However, the verse itself specifies that which finalizes her fall. Her fall is complete when she makes all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. To date, the Church of Rome has not amassed enough power to make all the nations of the earth do anything, though in the past countless millions have felt the choking grip of her power. However, her power and influence are growing daily on a global scale, having ambassadors from virtually every nation attending to her.

We have already discussed what the fornication is, that she will make all nations drink the wine of in previous chapters. It is by her fornication with the kings of the earth, that she will be empowered to make all nations drink of her wine. What then is the wine? Remember, the golden cup which the Mother of harlots holds in her hand is filled with the abominations and filthiness of her fornication (Rev. 17:4). It is none other than the abominable and intoxicating influence of those practices and doctrines of her faith, which came about through the amalgamation of apostate Christianity with the pagan religions of this world. Sun worship being the predominant factor of these pagan influences. 

It was the acceptance of these practices and doctrines by her, which enhanced her relationship with the kings of the earth. It is evident then, that through a union of power between the Papacy and the kings of this earth, all nations will be involved in establishing her abominations. Thus we have two major events transpiring simultaneously in this world before the Lord returns. The message of the three angels which we are examining reveals these events. The first, is that the everlasting gospel is going out to the entire world. The second is that Babylon is completing her fall by making all nations drink of the wine of her fornication. In short, the world is being split in two. 

All the inhabitants of this planet will either accept the everlasting gospel which is being preached in all the world, or they will drink of the wine of Babylon’s fornication. This they will do by accepting the abominations of her teachings, in place of the truths of God’s word. These abominations will be forced upon the world by its kings, or rulers who are involved in committing fornication with the mother of harlots, the Church of Rome.

Thus immediately after the giving of these three angels messages, we see the harvest of the world being reaped. All have made their decisions, the harvests are ripe, and the world is reaped. Christ having planted the seed of the everlasting gospel will return to reap the harvest of His sowing, and bring those that are His home to be with Him ever more. Satan having planted his seed, a world in rebellion against God will be reaped by the judgment of the one they have crucified in their hearts. 

Revelation 14 13And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. 14And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. 15And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 16And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. 17And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 18And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 19And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

These two events, the preaching of the everlasting gospel in all the world, and the making of all nations to drink the wine of Babylon’s fornication, will bring the history of this world to its climax and end. It is God who will allow these things to transpire so that all will make their decision in one generation, and the end of this world in rebellion can come about.  Notice that the gospel is preached in all the world by way of persuasion. God does not make all obey His gospel. On the other hand, Babylon makes, or forces all nations to drink of the wine of her fornication. Thus, her relationship with the kings of the earth in order to secure their power in her favor. Again, God will allow these things to take place so that before he returns there will be no middle ground. 

After the giving of these three angels messages, chapters fifteen through seventeen go on to reveal more about Babylon and her judgment, some of which we have already discussed. It is to be remembered, that the judgment of Babylon is the judgment of those of the entire world which choose to be in rebellion against God, under her leadership. After addressing these issues, the issue of Babylon’s fall is brought up again in chapter eighteen. We would do well to look at this chapter pertaining to that which we are discussing.

Revelation 18  1And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4And 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. 5For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. 7How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 8Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
9And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, 10Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. 11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: 12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. 14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. 15The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, 16And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 17For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! 19And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. 20Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. 21And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. 22And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; 23And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

In chapter eighteen, though we are addressing the same issue as the second angel of chapter fourteen, this message is obviously pertaining to the time after all the nations have drunk the wine of her fornication. Verse three clearly states this fact, as well as the fact that the kings of the earth have committed their fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through her. 

Verse four however, introduces something new. Although both the second angel and this fourth one, tell the world that Babylon is fallen, the fourth one also makes a call for God’s people to come out of her. Again, this is the separation that we have been discussing. All those who would follow God must separate themselves from Babylon and her abominations. The everlasting gospel that goes out to the entire world includes a message calling people out of Babylon. They must separate themselves from the abominable teachings and practices of the same. This call is made in advance of the judgments that God is about to bring upon Babylon, who again, consists of the entire world in rebellion under the leadership of this Harlot. There will be no middle ground. All will fall into one of two camps. Those under the leadership of God, and those under the leadership of Babylon, the MOTHER OF HARLOTS. Then the end shall come.

To understand the fulfillment of this prophecy requires only that one understand what the abominations of the Church of Rome are, and how they will come to be forced upon all humanity. We have already examined the history of the establishment of these abominations, though not the particulars of their spiritual significance. For a more detailed look at their over all effect upon the gospel of Jesus Christ, the writer recommends the book CHRIST AND ROME. The message of the third angel gives some more specifics regarding this issue. We will now examine this message.

[Amo]

7-THE THIRD ANGEL’S MESSAGE

Revelation 14  9And 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, 10The 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: 11And 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. 12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

This third angel brings a message of warning to anyone who will worship the beast, or receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand. They will face the judgment of God which will be executed without mercy. After this, by contrast, the patience of the saints is revealed. It is said of them, “that they keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” 

Let’s review what we have discussed concerning these three angels. The first angel preaches the everlasting gospel to the entire world. Its message includes a call to worship the creator.  The fourth commandment admonishes us to do exactly what this angel cries out for us to do.  The seventh day itself was blessed and sanctified by God immediately following creation, as a memorial of God’s creative power. The day remains, as God established it. Thus we have a call back to the true worship of the creator, on the day that was established by Him for this very purpose. This message is a part of the everlasting gospel that will be preached in all the world.

The keeping of the commandments of God, is pointed out as a difference between those who worship the beast, and those who do not. That is to say, that the saints keep the commandments of God, and those who worship the beast, apparently do not. Thus the contrast set forth by the third angel in verse twelve. The saints, that is those who accept and submit to the first angel’s message, which is the everlasting gospel, keep the commandments of God. This would of course include the fourth, which directs all to worship the creator.   Those who worship the beast therefore, will not keep the commandments of God, the fourth commandment in particular.

The second angel then declares that Babylon is fallen. The reason for her fall, is that she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. As has already been discussed, this wine is her false doctrines and religious ceremonies which came about through the amalgamation of Paganism and apostate Christianity. Her fornication is her illicit relationship with the kings of the earth. As is obvious, Babylon’s false teachings and form of worship, will also be preached in all the world, since she makes all nations drink of her wine. Therefore, it is the message of these two angels that divides the world into two separate groups, or harvests if you will, before Christ returns. The first of these being those who accept the everlasting gospel, the second being those who partake of the wine of Babylon.

As already discussed in earlier chapters, Sunday sacredness came about through the amalgamation of Sun worshiping paganism and apostate Christianity. Those who accept the authority of the Church of Rome, who is verily Babylon the Great, will accept Sunday the first day of the week as sacred. On the other hand, those who accept only the word of God as their authority accept the seventh day as sacred. These two days represent two completely separate faiths, and systems of worship. This we will address in greater detail in a later chapter.

The third angels warning is to the entire world, telling them not to worship the beast and his image, or receive its mark. This we know from Rev. 13: 11-18. The first angel calls us to the worship of the creator, followed by a second that tells us that Babylon is fallen because she made all nations drink her wine, followed by a third that tells us not to worship the Beast and his image. Without question, the primary issue addressed by these three angels, is worship.  God is calling his people back to a certain type of worship that they have apparently neglected.  Babylon is refuting this call by her false doctrines and religious practices. Finally, the Beast enforces a false type or system of worship upon all. This false form of worship is derived from none other than Babylon who has herself made all nations drink of her wine. It will be forced observance of Sunday sacredness. Those who accept this apostate form of worship, will receive the mark of the beast as a sign of their allegiance to the same.

From Rev. 7:1-3 we know that God’s servants also receive a mark, or seal. This seal is only placed on their foreheads though, not like the mark of the beast which is in the right hand or forehead. It has been suggested that God’s people are only sealed in the forehead because those that are his must believe what they are practicing in Him. The mark of the beast though, will be forced upon all. Even those who do not necessarily believe or accept the beasts rule, will go along in order to save themselves. In this manner, though they do not serve the beast with their mind, that is in agreement, yet they serve it by the works of their hands. An involuntary service. 

God’s seal is not visible to those of this world, but only to the angels of God. We know this from the sealing that took place upon the Jews in Ezekiel chapter nine. Only the angels saw this seal, and spared all those who had it. In Rev. 9:4 we see again that it is only those who have not the seal of God in their foreheads that are allowed to be hurt.

No one knows for sure, whether the mark of the beast will be a literal, visible one, or not. Not that it matters, the real issue is what choice the individual will make regarding the worship of the beast. This decision will determine which mark, or seal the individual receives. The consequences of which, will be eternal.

We know from Rev. 17, that Babylon the great, the Mother of harlots rides the beast. That is to say, that she steers, or controls the beast. Therefore, it can be easily deduced, that the type of worship forced upon the world comes directly from the false teachings and practices of Babylon, that is, the Church of Rome.

Revelation 17 1And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 2With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. 3So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 4And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: 5And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

That the Church of Rome is Babylon the great, and the Mother of harlots, we have already established. That a beast is a kingdom, or government, we know from Dan. 7:17&23.

Daniel 7 17These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth………………………
23Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms,………………………….

 The Beast is simply a form of government that is controlled by Babylon the great. That is, one which enforces her dogmas upon all. Verse one of the above scriptures states that the whore, “sitteth upon many waters”, verse fifteen of the same chapter tells us that the waters that she sits upon are, “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” As already pointed out, Babylon makes all nations drink of her wine, these are the waters which she sits upon. The woman is depicted in the book of Revelation as sitting upon the beast, and upon many waters.  This is because the beast is a form of government, made up, and supported by all the peoples and nations of this earth in rebellion against God. Verse eighteen of the same chapter says, “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Rome is that great city that reigns over the kings of the earth, and the beast is that form of government at the end, which Rome shall rule through.

Sunday sacredness is that point of doctrine which all apostate Christian churches, and all other false religions of the world will rally behind in defiance of the God of heaven. This they will do under the leadership of the Church of Rome. It will be a sign, or mark of their allegiance to a confederation of nations on a planet in rebellion against the authority of God. Of course Satan himself is behind all of this. Let us move on to a more thorough investigation of the Sabbath, and Sunday, and what they truly represent.

[Amo]

8-The Sabbath, a sign

Exodus 31 12And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 13Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you. 14Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death: for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. 16Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. 17It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. 18And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

The above scriptures have a vitally important introduction. Verse twelve says that the words following were spoken directly by God himself, to Moses. What we are reading in verses thirteen through seventeen are not the words of a man inspired by God, but words spoken by God himself. The Ten Commandments which were given to Moses by God, were written with God’s own finger. The fourth commandment being a vital part of the ten. It points out who God is, and why He has authority to give these commands. Twice, God said to Moses, that those who would not observe the day, should be put to death. This is how important the keeping of this commandment was to God. It was, and it is vital to humanity, that they be reminded at least once a week, who God is, and who they are in relation to Him. To forget this means certain death, for there is nothing apart from God. Those who choose to be apart from God, are choosing nonexistence. In our fallen nature especially, we need this constant reminder.

God said that the seventh day Sabbath is a sign that He is the one who sanctifies the sinner.  The seventh day is a holy day to all those who would be sanctified by God. It is a perpetual covenant between God and the people which He sanctifies, that is makes holy. The day is holy, and those who observe it by faith in the word of God signify that they wish also to be made holy. This is accomplished through faith alone, in the word of God. If we wish to be like God, we must believe that He is, who He is. He is the creator and sustainer of all life. The observance of the seventh day Sabbath is a proclamation of the same. Faith in God must embrace, and begin with this most basic fact.

Hebrews 11 1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear……………………………….........................
6But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

It is impossible to please God without faith. Our faith begins with the “understanding that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Chapter eleven of Hebrews goes on to testify of the accomplishments of those who had faith in God. All of these great men and women of faith believed that God was the creator and sustainer of all life. A faith which is promulgated, and perpetuated by the observance of the seventh day Sabbath. When we demonstrate our faith by observing the fourth commandment, we express our faith in Christ, for He is the creator. 

Ephesians 3 9And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 11According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: 12In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. 13Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. 14For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. 20Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

God created all things by Jesus Christ. He did so with a purpose of making known the manifold wisdom of God. This was, and is, “according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Part of this purpose was that Christ might dwell in our hearts by faith, and that we might come to understand, and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. The ultimate goal being, that we might be filled with the fullness of God. 

Christ created the world (John 1: 1-3&14). He sustains the world (Col. 1: 16&17). He became one of us, to redeem the world after the fall (Heb. 2: 14-18). He succeeded in redeeming the world (Col. 1:14). He now ever lives to intercede for those who have chosen to be His (Heb. 7:22-28).  He will come again and receive His own (John 14:1-3). Christ is all in all. When He has finished His work, He will subject Himself to the Father, that God may be all in all. This is the eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. That is to bring all creation back into harmony and willing submission to God. This He accomplished by revealing the true character and love of God (John 14: 9&10), which had been maligned by the accusations of Satan and his angels, and supported by fallen humanity.

1 Corinthians 15 20But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. 24Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Man rebelled against God, resulting in death. Christ became a man, and lived a life of perfect obedience to God. He then died the death that we deserve, and was raised from the dead as the first fruits of all those who believe in Him. Condemnation and death came to all of us through Adam, though we had nothing to do with his actions. So also, life and justification have come to all through the Lord Jesus Christ, though we had nothing to do with His actions. Now the choice is ours. Do we choose life through Christ unto righteousness, or do we choose death through Adam unto rebellion. It is all about authority. Who is in authority? Who can be trusted with authority? God, through His Son Jesus Christ, is both in authority, and has proven that He can be trusted with authority. 

The issue remains only within us then. Will we submit to the trustworthy authority of God, or will we continue in rebellion and the exaltation of self? Christ is the for-runner, He has shown us the way. Will we follow Him? How many have heard the question, what would Christ do.  There are bumper stickers, and hats, and shirts with that question on them. I ask you concerning the observance of the seventh day Sabbath, what would Christ do? There is only one answer to this question, for He did it. He faithfully observed all of the commandments of God when here on earth as one of us, including the fourth commandment. Again, it is simply a question of authority. Whose authority do you claim to obey? Whose authority do you really obey?

John 8 27They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. 28Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. 29And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. 30As he spake these words, many believed on him.

John 5 19Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. 20For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. 21For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. 22For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: 23That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. 25Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. 26For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; 27And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. 28Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. 30I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.[/u][/b]

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). No man can come to the Father but by him. It is through the Son, that we are to approach the Father. If we wish to be the sons and daughters of God, then we must follow the example of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.  Christ did not seek the accomplishment of His own will, but rather the accomplishment of the will of His Father. How about you? Do you seek to accomplish your own will, or do you seek to accomplish the will of your Father in heaven? Those who seek to do the will of their Father in heaven, will be called forth from the grave by the Son, to live forever with God in heaven. Or do you not understand that you have been made the literal sons and daughters of God by the sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ? If only you will accept this gift, and act accordingly. That is to say, as if you really believe that you are the sons and daughters of God. Our minds are not even capable of comprehending the depth of what has been done for us. To be made the literal flesh and blood sons and daughters of the living God.

Philippians 2 1If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, 2Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 4Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Let this mind be in you, that is the mind of Christ, not the mind of Satan. Christ did not strive to be equal with God though He was God. He humbled himself, and became obedient to God the Father, even to the point of death. Christ exalted the Father by submitting to His authority in all things. Satan on the other hand, chose to follow his own leading, even to the point of murdering the Son of God. This is where all self-exaltation leads. God alone is worthy of our praise and worship. Anyone who desires to have that which belongs only to God, wishes to be in God’s place. This of course is impossible, for the created being cannot take the place of the creator. For the creator is also the sustainer, which thing the created being is not capable of.

Ironically enough, this is exactly what God allowed in the crucifixion of His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He allowed created beings in rebellion against Him, to kill Him, in and through His Son Jesus Christ. This He did that all creation might understand where all sin really leads. It is a question of authority. What is sin, but the breaking of the commandments of God? Whose commands will you follow? The Ten Commandments came directly from the mouth of God, and were written directly by the finger of God. Will you acknowledge His authority or not? This is the question that will divide this world in two.

The fourth commandment is ignored by the vast majority of professed Christians. They will not submit to the authority of God concerning this vital part of the Ten Commandments. They forsake the commandment of God, in favor of upholding the traditions of man. They believe that because they profess the name of Jesus, they do not have to obey God. They do not understand that professing the name of Jesus means submitting to the authority of God the Father in all things. They do not understand that workers of iniquity will not be in heaven, even if they claimed to profess the name of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 7 21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

What is a worker of iniquity? Have we not all sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God? Is it only those who have become totally perfected in Christ that will be saved? If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). If we confess our sins, He is faithful, and just to forgive us of our sins (1 John 1:9). We have all sinned, and are all sinners. We can all however be forgiven of our sins, and herein lies the problem. To be forgiven of sin, one must confess their sins. The one who will not acknowledge sin as sin, will not confess it as such, and cannot be forgiven. Observe the following.

1 John 1 8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. All those who have truly accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, have confessed that they have sinned. This is why we accept Him, to be forgiven for our sins, and saved from their consequences. It is clear from the scriptures however, that many will make this general acknowledgement, while rejecting the truth regarding certain particulars of sin. To reject the truth, is sin. It leaves the one who does so, without hope of forgiveness or victory over deception and its result, which is sin. Let’s take a look at what the scriptures say regarding this matter.

2 Thessalonians 2 3Let 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; 4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. 5Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? 6And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. 7For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 8And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 9Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Those who perish will do so because they “ received not the love of the truth”. They choose to believe a lie. Therefore they cannot be forgiven, since they will never confess that sin, which they will not acknowledge as sin. Nor can they even begin recovery, since they will not admit their true condition. A drunk cannot recover from being a drunk until he or she admits that they are a drunk. Likewise with the thief, murderer, adulterer, and so on, and so on. So also, the one who will never acknowledge the validity of the fourth commandment, will never change their course of action in regards to it. Nor will they seek forgiveness for that which they do not believe to be sin. Thus, by choosing to believe a lie, they have cut themselves off from the saving arm of their God. Lest we forget, Jesus Christ is the Word of God, and the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Rejecting the truth of God’s word, is verily rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ.

The above scriptures are not only referring to a condition, but also a time. It is in the last days that strong delusion will be sent upon the world, because it has already chosen to believe a lie.  This is exactly what we are addressing in this book. The last message for this world, in its last days. Quite fittingly, it is the man of sin who opposes and exalts himself above God, that brings about this deception with all the lying wonders of Satan himself. This is the man who will establish sin in this world through deception. This man is also spoken of in the book of Daniel.

Daniel 7 23Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. 24And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. 25And 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. 26But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. 27And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. 28Hitherto is the end of the matter.

This beast speaks great words against the most high, it wears out the saints of the most high, and it thinks to change times, and laws. These things we know to be fulfilled by the Church of Rome, as we have already established. The changing of times and laws is exactly what we are discussing. The fourth commandment, is the only commandment dealing specifically with time. The Church of Rome has claimed authority to change the time of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. This is a lie. Those who accept this lie as the truth, have chosen to believe a lie. If they will not admit their true condition, they cannot be saved. These things transpire immediately before the Lord returns. This we will discuss in more detail, in following chapters.

As previously mentioned, it is a message from God that will divide the world in two before he returns. It is not the Devil’s deceptions that will bring about the end, but rather, a message from God regarding the truths of His word. These things will all take place because God’s word has said it will be so, not because Satan has power to make anything happen of his own accord. The Devil does not want this world to come to the point of decision, for he knows that when it does, it is the end for him. This is why the responsibility for giving this message to the world, so that Christ may return, lies squarely upon those who claim Christ as their Lord.

The observance of the seventh day Sabbath is therefore a sign in these last days especially, that one is a true worshiper of the true God. It is a sign that those who observe it believe that God is the creator of this world in and through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Exo. 20:8-11, & John 1:1-3 & 14). That He sustains this world and all life in it, in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ (Col. 1: 16&17). That He has saved this world in rebellion in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is salvation in no other (John 3:16, & Acts 4:12). That salvation comes to the believer by entering into God’s rest in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Which very thing the Sabbath itself is a sign of (Matt. 11:28&29, & Heb. 4). That He has provided continual intercession for all of humanity in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 4:14-16, & Heb. 7:22-28). That He will sanctify, yes make holy, those who have faith in Him in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Which thing also the Sabbath is a sign of (Exo. 31:12-18,  John 17:17-19, Acts 26:15-18, 1 Cor. 6:9-11, Heb. 10:7-17). That all of the above was and is according to the eternal purpose of God in and through His Son Jesus Christ. That is in the creation, preservation, and redemption of this world (Eph. 3:9-12).

The Sabbath is a sign that those who observe it believe that Jesus Christ is all in all. That He created the world. He sustains the world. He has redeemed the world. He ever liveth to make intercession for the world. He sanctifies His own in the world through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, whom he sends (John 14:26, 15:26&27). He came to this world as one of us, and is our example for living. He is the living word of God. As he himself has said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4). 

Those who observe the seventh day Sabbath, do so strictly by faith in the word of God. There is nothing about the seventh day that separates it from any of the rest, save the word of God pertaining to it. Nothing out of the ordinary happens on this day to anyone accept the believer.  The believer accepts by faith, that the day is blessed and holy, and therefore acts accordingly.  The result is first the exaltation of God, by the obedience of those who submit to His rightful and trustworthy authority. The second, is the establishment of that authority in the life of the believer, and the essential reminder to the believer of their proper place in relation to our infinite God. Thus the day is a reminder that God is all in all to those whom He has created. A day to set aside all else, and rest in the word of our creator, sustainer, and redeemer. The observance of the seventh day Sabbath is a perfect example of faith in God’s word, in action. We will close this chapter with the message of the first angel.

Revelation 14 6And 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, 7Saying 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.

[Amo]

9-SUNDAY, A SIGN

Genesis 4  3And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. 4And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. 8And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

In the above scriptures, we have the account of two different worshipers of God. These two men are the offspring of Adam and Eve, and there modes of worship are a fit representative of all the offspring of Adam and Eve that will ever inhabit this world. They are both bringing an offering to the God that they worship. However, God only respects the offering of one of them.  Why do you suppose God rejected one offering, and accepted the other? Cain is given a warning from God about his actions. What was it about Cain’s offering that was not well, and was a sign that sin was in his heart? To find the answer to this question, we must go to the book of Hebrews, which addresses this very issue.

Hebrews 11 4By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

According to the book of Hebrews, the offering or sacrifice of Abel was by faith, while the offering of Cain was apparently not. It is not possible to have faith regarding something to which you have no understanding. It is obvious therefore, that God had already instructed Cain and Abel as to what constituted a proper offering. All throughout the scriptures a lamb has been a type of Christ. It has been offered to God as a sacrifice, signifying the believer’s faith in the Messiah to come. There is no reason to believe that God left this important truth up to humanity to figure out for themselves. Accordingly, Abel’s offering was by faith in the word of God, by way of instruction concerning the promise of a coming Messiah.

Romans 10 16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. 19But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. 20But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. 21But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.

According to the above verses, faith comes by hearing and believing the word of God. The apostle Paul is speaking of the Jews in the above verses, testifying to the fact that although they heard the word of God, they did not believe it. Although God continually stretched forth His hands to Israel, they still did not believe, and were a disobedient people. God has not left His people in ignorance. The gospel has always been explained to those whom He calls His own. Paul testifies to this fact concerning Israel in the book of Hebrews. Let’s look at some scriptures that we have already discussed, pertaining to faith and entering into God’s rest.

Hebrews 4 1Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. 2For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. 3For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief: 7Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 8For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. 9There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 10For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

The Jews were given the gospel message as we are. Most would not believe it. That is to say, they would not let it have its desired effect. What is the desired effect of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Is it not the willing submission and obedience of the created being to their creator? Those who believe God, should act accordingly by submission to His expressed will. This is basic. The Jews gave God lip service, but would not follow through with their actions. Is not this the very thing that each and every one of us struggle with? This is where the buck stops, with each and every individual who claims to be one of God’s children. Our actions will reveal our faith. Does our faith in God result in obedience to Him, or is it just lip service bringing about no real change in our lives?

This is exactly what made the difference between the offerings of Cain and Abel. God does not leave us in ignorance concerning our salvation. Abel brought an offering of the firstlings of his flock, a lamb, because God had already instructed them that only the Lamb of God could save them from their sins. This is the essential truth, nothing from ourselves can in any way add to our salvation, which comes to us through Christ alone. We cannot make salvation a mixture of Gods offering, and my offering. The offering is Christ alone, and my complete submission to His example in all things. There can be none of me, it must be all of Christ, He must be all in all. 

This was the problem with Cain’s offering. He brought the fruit, of the labors of his own hands as an offering or sacrifice to God for sin. Cain thought he would bring the best that he had to offer. That which he had put so much time and effort into, for he was a tiller of the ground (Gen. 4:2). There is nothing wrong with giving God our best, we should, but it cannot save us. Christ alone saves, and the sacrifice to be offered typified faith in His sacrifice. Cain’s actions were not in accordance with faith in the word of God. He placed faith in a sacrifice of his own choosing, instead of the one which God had instructed. This is why obedience is better than sacrifice, because obedience is sacrifice. It is the sacrifice of our own wills, to the will of God.

1 Samuel 15 22And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 23For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

The sacrifice which God requires, has always been the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  Our God is not like the false god’s of this world, who require a gift to appease their anger. Our God is the one who gave the gift to us, for our salvation. That gift was His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The scripture is clear – John 3 16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

So what is this thing that God has done through His Son Jesus Christ? How is it that He has saved us from our sins? Observe the following.

Hebrews 10 5Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: 6In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. 7Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. 8Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: 12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; 13From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. 14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. 15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, 16This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

God takes no pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. Instead, He prepared a body for His Son to live in. That body was our body. It was our flesh and fallen human nature that Christ became one with (Acts 13:22&23, Rom. 1:1-4, Gal. 3:16, 2 Tim. 2:8, Heb. 2:10-18). This He did in order to become the true sacrifice and offering to God. He took away the first, in order to establish the second. That is to say, He took away the system of sacrificing animals as a type of Himself, in order to perform the true sacrifice. What then is the true sacrifice? It is the sacrifice of the will of the sinner in rebellion against God, to the will of God the rightful ruler of all creation.

Thus Christ came,“ to do thy will, O God”. To do God’s will in our fallen flesh, the body which God had prepared for Him. This was according to the eternal purpose of God the Father, through his Son the Lord Jesus Christ. “1By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Our sanctification is in and through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just that He hung on a cross for us, but that He sacrificed the will of his own flesh in doing so. Which flesh was our flesh, the lusts of which He denied all His life long. Where it ended for Him, It must begin for us.

Romans 6 1What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore 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. 5For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: 6Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 7For he that is dead is freed from sin. 8Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: 9Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. 10For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 16Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

This is where the rubber meets the road for all those who claim to be Christ’s. Have you died with Christ? Is it your intention to die to self, and live as unto God through His Son Jesus Christ in the body that was prepared for Him, which was our body. Jesus Christ came as one of us, and sacrificed the will of fallen flesh to the will of His Father, who is now our Father according to the eternal purpose of God in Jesus Christ. He has prepared the way. Will we pick up our cross and follow Him.

Romans 12  1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 3For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. 4For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: 5So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

Our bodies are the sacrifice of the new covenant. That is, if you are a member of the body of Christ. For Christ alone is the atoning sacrifice, therefore He became one with us that we might become one with Him, according to the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus. 

Ephesians 2 14For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15Having abolished in his flesh the enmity,even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 19Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

It was through Christ’s body and flesh, which became one with ours, that the enmity was abolished and the two were made one. All of us are brought together in Christ, because He brought humanity and God together in Himself. He sanctified us, by becoming one of us, and carrying out the will of His Father perfectly in our flesh. Now if we are in Him by faith, then He will be in us, and we will be one with Him as a member of the body of Christ. If we have died with Him, then we shall also live with Him. That is to say, if we have entered into His death, then he will enter into our life. Do you want to be one with God? Do you realize the implications of what I am asking you? What have we done to deserve this? That we should be called the sons and daughters of the living God. It is beyond our comprehension.

What kind of worshipper are you? Will you submit to the authority of the Father, through His Son Jesus Christ? Or will you choose another path, submitting to no authority but your own, as your own God? There is one, who is the father of all who choose such a path. Christ was the Son of God. Those who enter into His experience by faith, become the sons and daughters of God. Those who will not, become the sons and daughters of the prince of this world.

John 8 [42Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

Who is your father? Who will you submit to? Will you worship God according as He has instructed, or will you choose for yourself how to worship? Will you try to mix some of your own offering in with the pure and undefiled offering of the Son of God? Will you go the way of Cain, or Abel? Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We will go the way of Christ, or we will not go at all. Christ is God. He alone is the offering, and atonement for sin. He alone can sanctify the sinner with His presence in their life. He sanctified the seventh day of the week at creation, for God alone can sanctify anything. The observance of this day is a sign that you accept by faith, that God alone sanctifies not only this day, but also the sinner that puts their faith and trust in the word of God. A sign that you submit to the authority of God, and it is your desire to follow the example given by His Son the Lord Jesus Christ when here on earth.

The observance of Sunday on the other hand, is a sign that those who observe it, have gone the way of Cain. Though they acknowledge God, and even worship Him, they will not submit to His authority regarding the manner in which they should do so. Ignoring the word of God regarding which day He has chosen and sanctified for the purpose of worship, they have chosen a day commanded by another. They present a blemished offering, which is not acceptable to God. “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” They know what God has instructed, but they wish to go another way. Choose you this day, whom you will serve.

Deuteronomy 17 1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God.

You are the new covenant offering to God. If indeed you are among the body of Christ. Will you bring a spiritually blemished offering to the Lord? This is an abomination to God, and will not be accepted. We either make a complete sacrifice to the Lord, or we do not really make one at all. There is no half way in Christ, it is all the way, or not at all. 

Matthew 10 34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. 37He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Matthew 16 24Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

Are you satisfied with what you are, and the way you are? Or will you trust God through His Son Jesus Christ to help you find what you were really created to be?  Again I ask, what would Christ do, what did Christ do? Will you lose your life in Him, that He might save it? Or will you seek to save your own life, that is the life of the sinner, and lose the life which He is offering to each and every one of us? The truth could not be simpler. “ He that hath the Son, hath life. He that hath not the Son, hath not life.” (1Jn. 5:12)

The seventh day Sabbath was established at creation by Christ. It was, and still is, a sign that God created, sustains, redeemed, and sanctifies His own. When here on earth as one of us, Christ obeyed the fourth commandment, and taught its proper observance. He was our perfect example in all things. Those who wish to present the offering of God’s own choosing as Abel also did, will seek to follow His example in all things. This includes of course, obeying the fourth commandment.

Sunday sacredness is found nowhere in the word of God. Our Lord and Savior had nothing to say regarding its establishment, nor did any of His apostles. As has been proved already, it came about through the amalgamation of apostate Christianity and the worship of the Sun. It has been promoted as a holy day by the man of sin himself, who has no power to sanctify anything. God alone is holy and can make anything holy. This claim is therefore blasphemous. Those who choose this day as holy while rejecting the day that God Himself has made holy, are going the way of Cain. They have chosen to worship God outside of the living example provided by the Lamb of God. Their offering is blemished, and will not be respected by God, through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ.

These two days represent the two different modes of worship in this world. The choice made regarding them, will divide this world in two. This is the message that will prepare the way for the second coming of Christ. Will you worship God according as He has instructed, or will you join Babylon in rebellion against God, by choosing the day that she has promoted? The one is a sign of your allegiance to God, and the other to Babylon. As the writer has put the issue forcefully upon you, so to in the near future will God allow Babylon to apply its pressure to the same. The message from God is clear. Make up your mind!

Revelation 22 6And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. 7Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. 8And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. 9Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. 10And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. 11He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 12And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 13I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 14Blessed 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. 15For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

[Amo]

10-Sunday Sacredness and the Abomination of Desolation

Ezekiel 8 1And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me. 2Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. 3And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. 4And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. 5Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. 6He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations. 7And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. 8Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. 9And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. 10So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. 11And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth. 13He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. 14Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 15Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. 16And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east. 17Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose. 18Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

In the above vision given to Ezekiel, God recounts some of the abominations adopted and practiced by the Jews. As stated in a previous chapter, the Jews were continually adopting the practices and religious symbols and ceremonies of the nations around them. These they would incorporate into their own services of worship. These very things God warned them about, and referred to them as abominations. The reader is referred to chapter four regarding that which the Lord considers an abomination.

A. T. Jones said the following regarding Ezekiel chapter eight-

“All that is meant in this we cannot tell; but this much is certain, that, in the estimate of Jehovah, as bad as was the worship of Astarte, and however much it provoked to jealousy; as bad as was the worship of all manner of abominable beasts; as bad as was the worship of Tammuz; yet worse than all these, even though in them were embodied some forms of sun worship -- more abominable than all these was the setting of the face toward the east, in the worship of the sun itself. This was to turn the back upon the Lord; to leave him and his worship behind; and, in worshiping the visible sun, to choose all that was included in all the forms of its worship that might be known. This was open apostasy -- the renunciation of all that was good and the acceptance of all that was bad.” (The Two Republics, Chap.7, p. 158)

The greatest of the abominations above, was to face the east to worship the sun. These men between the porch and the altar literally turned their backs on the temple of the Lord, to face the sun in the east. In order to worship the sun, they had to turn their backs to the sanctuary that God had them build to worship Him. The place that He had chosen, to dwell among them (Exo. 25:8). This last and greatest abomination brought the full force of the judgment of God upon the Jews, their city, and temple. Those people who survived the famine and pestilence of the siege were slaughtered, or enslaved. The city of Jerusalem was destroyed, as was the sanctuary also. Desolation was the result of this abomination. 

Chapter nine of Ezekiel continues the vision begun in chapter eight. In this chapter, God tells one of his servants among those who were to destroy the Jews, to place a mark upon the foreheads of all those who sigh and cry for the abominations committed by the people. These men were not to be harmed by the destroyers. The rest of the Jews, men, women, and children, were slaughtered indiscriminately by the same. These judgments God brought upon Jerusalem through Babylon. The Babylonians were His chosen instruments of destruction. 

So it was, when the Jews turned their backs on God and His temple in order to worship the sun, the desolating judgments of God were poured out upon them. This particular abomination causes desolation. It is the climax, or end of rebellion against God. The limit to which there is no passing. The writer therefore concludes, that the future abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel and Christ, will involve the same procedure of rebellion. That which happened literally and locally to Israel, will happen spiritually and globally to those who profess to be God’s own during this new covenant era.

One might ask then, how are those who profess to be Christians turning their backs on the temple of God today?  Where is the temple of God today?  Let us examine the scriptures regarding this point.

Hebrews 7  25Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. 26For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; 27Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Hebrews 8  1Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; 2A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.

Christ is in the sanctuary, or temple in heaven.  “ He ever liveth to make intercession for us.”  Christ is actively involved in the forgiveness of our sins, the conviction of our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and the empowering of our lives by the same. Every believer has direct access to the throne of God through Him, in prayer (Heb. 4: 14-16). God is in His temple, directing all the affairs of creation. Christ is their also, continually interceding for fallen humanity. These are biblical truths, supported by the scriptures themselves. See, Ps. 11:4, 18:6, 29:9, Isa. 6:1-3, Hab. 2:20, Mic. 1:2-4, Heb. 8:1&2, 9:11,12,&23, Rev. 7:15, 11:19, 14: 15&17, 15: 5&7, 16: 1&17.

Countless millions of Roman Catholics are turning their backs on the ministry of Christ in His temple in heaven by seeking forgiveness of their sins, in and through the false priesthood of the Church of Rome. Likewise, they ingest crackers and wine as though they were the literal body and blood of Jesus, being administered by the same false priesthood. This they do in the place of seeking the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God, given only by Christ, to those who truly seek His intercession. They also seek intercession from the dead in their prayers to the “Saints”, instead of God in Christ’s name. For more details see the book Christ and Rome.

The vast majority of Protestant denominations, have rejected the scriptural regarding Christ’s intercession for humanity in the heavenly sanctuary, and its unavoidable connection with the judgment of the same. By their firm belief that everything was completed at the cross, they effectively deny Christ’s ministry for us now in heaven. By rejecting the priesthood and ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary, they are left with nothing but the false priesthood and ministry of the Church of Rome, “ BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” Thus Roman Catholics and Protestant denominations have more and more in common every day.

On top of this, the vast majority of Protestant churches submit to the authority of the Church of Rome by observing the day of worship established by her. Disregarding the seventh day Sabbath of the scriptures, they choose to follow the example of Rome by worshiping God on the day of the sun. They are effectively turning their backs on the temple of God, in order to worship the man of sin on the day of the sun. Who is the man of sin, but the one who has established the abomination of sun worship within the congregation of those who claim to worship the true God. By accepting the authority of the Church of Rome, they are turning their backs on the authority of God’s word, and therefore the continual ministry of Christ on their behalf. For Christ Himself is THE WORD OF GOD (Rev. 19:13). 

The following quote is from the Pope John Paul II's APOSTOLIC LETTER DIES DOMINI(Emphasis mine).

Therefore, also in the particular circumstances of our own time, Christians will naturally strive to ensure that civil legislation respects their duty to keep Sunday holy. In any case, they are obliged in conscience to arrange their Sunday rest in a way which allows them to take part in the Eucharist, refraining from work and activities which are incompatible with the sanctification of the Lord's Day, with its characteristic joy and necessary rest for spirit and body. (112)

That the Church of Rome intends to exalt her day of worship among the nations is evident.  She will be joined by those Protestant denominations which have firmly rejected the truths of God’s word, leading them straight back to Rome. Those denominations which have lost the power of the Holy Spirit by way of rejecting truth, are foremost in seeking the power of the state. Therefore will they unite with the Church of Rome, for she is the MOTHER OF HARLOTS, and they are her daughters. So will this world gladly join in the rebellion of Babylon the great, against the God of heaven and the authority of His word.

When Sunday sacredness is exalted in this world by law again, then will it become the abomination of desolation. Then will the swift judgments of God be poured out upon this world without mercy. The seven last plagues will do their work, and the end shall come. Let us examine the book of Daniel, and the words of Christ, pertaining to the abomination of desolation in the next chapter.

[DaveW]

Amo - you missed something important in your chapter 8: that is verse 17.  It is NOT a sign between God and the sinner - it is a sign between God and the children of Israel. That does NOT include gentile christians.

[Amo]

Amo - you missed something important in your chapter 8: that is verse 17.  It is NOT a sign between God and the sinner - it is a sign between God and the children of Israel. That does NOT include gentile christians.

Every child of Israel is and has always been a sinner just like the rest of us. The Sabbath was intended for all humanity, thus it was instituted at creation 2000 years before there ever was a Jew. When the Jews made a covenant with God to be His people of course they were instructed to keep His Sabbath, as His people. So should all people of all time that claim to be God's people, keep His Sabbath as He has commanded. I understand your jealousy as a Jew to keep yourself separate from what you consider Gentiles, but my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was a Jew and the Messiah of the Jews. He has invited us all into a covenant relationship with God His Father through Himself, and made Jew and Gentile one in Himself also. There is no difference now. Maintain that separation if you wish, I will not go against the scriptures. I have been admonished to keep the commandments of God by the scriptures form one end to the other, and by Christ Himself. Thus I will keep God's Sabbath as He has commanded us all to do.

[DaveW]

Amo - you are promoting replacement theology.  That is a lie from hell.

FYI: I am NOT Jewish. 

[Amo]

Amo - you are promoting replacement theology.  That is a lie from hell.

FYI: I am NOT Jewish.

Mt 21:42  Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? 43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. 44  And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. 45  And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them. 46  But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.

How about that, you just called Jesus Christ a liar from hell. I wouldn't want to be you, without having repented of the same.

[DaveW]

I am not calling our Lord a liar.  I am calling the faulty understanding of what HE said a lie.

If the "kingdom" was taken away and given to someone else does NOT mean that the new recipients ARE or even replace the former group. The gentile church is NOT Israel. Have they received the kingdom of God? Absolutely. But that does not mean that everything applicable to Israel is applicable to genitle christians.

Read and understand what happened in Acts 15 and 21.

[Amo]

I am not calling our Lord a liar.  I am calling the faulty understanding of what HE said a lie.

If the "kingdom" was taken away and given to someone else does NOT mean that the new recipients ARE or even replace the former group. The gentile church is NOT Israel. Have they received the kingdom of God? Absolutely. But that does not mean that everything applicable to Israel is applicable to genitle christians.

Read and understand what happened in Acts 15 and 21.

What can I say but what part of, "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.", do you not understand? Acts 15 and 21 do not change anything Jesus laid down so conclusively. The kingdom of God was taken from the Jews who rejected Christ, and given to those who accepted Him, and those who accepted His gospel preached by those same Jews.

[DaveW]

Big text, bold colors and underlining do not change the text. I understand it just fine.

Paul tells us in Romans 11 that God is not done with the Jews.  Yes - the kingdom was taken away but it will be restored at some point in the future:

Rom 11.15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

So the signs "between ME and the sons of Israel" STILL apply to the "sons of Israel."

[Amo]

Big text, bold colors and underlining do not change the text. I understand it just fine.

Paul tells us in Romans 11 that God is not done with the Jews.  Yes - the kingdom was taken away but it will be restored at some point in the future:

Rom 11.15 For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

So the signs "between ME and the sons of Israel" STILL apply to the "sons of Israel."

It seems you’re a little confused, I’m not trying to change anything. I’m just emphasizing what the verse actually says. Which you have declared a lie from hell.

God is not done with the Jews. The kingdom will be restored to any one of them at any time, if or when they will accept their Messiah Jesus Christ as such. It will never be restored to any of them that will not do the same. The kingdom has been taken away from all such, and given to those who bring forth the fruits of accepting Christ as their Messiah. The Jew first, and then the Gentile.

No literal nation of earth will ever represent God’s kingdom on this earth again, this side of the new heaven and new earth.

Jn 4:20  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 25  The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. 26  Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

The sons of Israel are no longer just the literal Jews.

Jn 1:11  He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12  But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Ro 8:12  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13  For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. 14  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Gal 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. 26  For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27  For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29  And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
4:1 ¶  Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2  But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3  Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5  To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7  Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Gal 3:6 ¶  Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. 7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 8  And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9  So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 10  For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. 11  But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. 12  And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. 13  Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: 14  That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

The promises to Israel are to the Israel above composed of the Jew first, and then the Gentiles who have accepted the promised Messiah. They do not apply to those who have rejected Him, the Jew first, and then the Gentile.

[Amo]

11-THE TRANSGRESSION OF DESOLATION SPOKEN OF BY DANIEL

Daniel 8 10And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. 11Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. 12And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered. 13Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? 14And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

That the above prophecy is pertaining to Rome, there is no doubt. The Ram, and Goat precede this power spoken of earlier in the same chapter. They are explained as being the Medo-Persian kingdom, and the Grecian kingdom consecutively later in the same chapter.  Rome was the next major kingdom to appear on the seen. The particulars of the prophecy though, are the most conclusive evidence that the prophecy pertains to Rome.

Some have suggested that this prophecy applies to Antiochus Epiphanes, but his circumstances do not fulfill some of the specifics of the prophecy. For one thing, the kingdoms addressed in Daniel eight are said to become greater in power successively (Dan. 8:4, 8, & 9).   Antiochus Epiphanes never reached such heights, and was himself a hostage to the Romans.  Apart from this, his attempts to Hellenize the Jews brought about the Maccabaean revolt, and actually increased the devotion of the Jews to their temple, and the sacrifices of the same.

Others have suggested that this prophecy applies to the Pagan Roman Empire. This holds more weight since the Romans did destroy the temple, which put an end to the sacrifices.  The writer however, believes this also to be a miss-application. Though they did destroy the temple which ended the sacrifices, the Lord Jesus Christ had already pronounced the desolation of their temple before this event took place. Notice the following-

Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! 35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

By the time the Romans had destroyed the temple, Christ had already pronounced its abandonment. He had already become the true sacrifice to which all the temple sacrifices had pointed. Christ was, and is, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). The sacrifices and offerings of the temple service had lost their significance long before the Romans destroyed it. It is the intention of the writer then, to show that this prophecy more accurately applies to Papal Rome than to Pagan Rome. The explanation thereof, applying to the message of this book.

Let’s take a look at what this power does. Verse eleven points out that it magnifies itself even to the prince of the host. It takes away the daily sacrifice, and it casts down the place of his sanctuary. Verse twelve says that a host was given it against the daily sacrifice by way of transgression, and it cast the truth down to the ground, and because of this it practiced and prospered. 

It is in the fact that this power casts the truth down to the ground that we may identify who the prince of the host is, what the sanctuary is, and what the daily sacrifice is. Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He is the High Priest of the heavenly sanctuary (Heb. 2:17, 3:1, 4:14&15, 5:10, 6:20, 7:26, 8:1, 9:11, 10:21). He is also the one that all the sacrifices of the Jewish sanctuary pointed too. The prince of the host is none other than Jesus Christ. No one else could be the prince of the host of heaven. We know from verse ten, that the host referred to in verse eleven, is the heavenly host.

The writer contends that Papal Rome, not Pagan Rome, has fulfilled all of these criteria. The Pope of Rome has claimed for himself a position that Christ has given to no man. Every individual has direct access to the throne of God in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. By putting himself between man and God, the Pontiff of Rome has magnified himself even to the prince of the host, Jesus Christ. He has attempted to assume the position of High Priest, which position belongs solely to Christ. To put oneself in the place of Christ, is antichrist. 

The Church of Rome has set up a false priesthood and ministry, in the place of the true priesthood and ministry of Christ. Her subjects look to this priesthood for the forgiveness of their sins, and a right standing with God. They should be looking to Christ for the same, who alone is able to grant either. Christ alone is the sacrifice for sins, forgiveness cannot be obtained in any other way. Christ in you is the hope of glory, and the only way that the sacrifice of yourself can amount to anything (Col. 1:24-29 & Rom. 12:1-5).

The Church of Rome has replaced the spiritual significance of partaking of the Lord’s Supper, with the ingestion of His literal body and blood through the false claim of Transubstantiation. She claims authority to change this bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Christ, and then claims all must partake of the same. This she does to make those who believe this lie, dependent upon her mediation. Thus she again exalts herself to the prince of the host, Jesus Christ. It is in Him alone that all humanity is to depend for mediation, and salvation. It is through the study of the word of God that we are changed into His image. By beholding we become changed.

She has replaced prayers to the Father through Christ, with prayers to and through Mary and a host of other dead people labeled by her as saints. Her adherents regularly pray to the dead, when they should be praying to Christ, who alone can hear and save them. Her priests, and ministers’ burn literal incense before God in their churches. This they do in place of the prayers of her adherents that should be rising to Christ instead of the dead, who cannot hear or help them. There is one who will answer those who pray to the dead, but it is not Christ, it is the prince of the same. This he will do only when Christ allows it, so that strong delusion may be brought upon this world who have already rejected the truth in Christ (2 Thess. 2:1-12).

She has claimed authority to change the law of God. Replacing the day sanctified by God himself, with a day she claims to have sanctified by her God given power. God alone can sanctify anything. By claiming the power to do so, the Church of Rome again exalts itself even to the prince of the host, the creator of heaven and earth who himself blessed and sanctified the seventh day. As the writer has already stated, these two days represent these two diametrically opposed systems of worship and faith. Being saved in Christ, means being transformed from sinners to saints. From being unholy, to being holy. From being unholy, to being sanctified. It is being transformed from the image of a fallen angel, to the image of the holy and undefiled God in whose image we were created. 

The purpose of changing this law was, and is, to prevent the sanctification of those who would be Christ’s. To keep them from submitting to the authority of Him alone who can save and sanctify them. This He wishes to do, to prepare them to meet Him face to face at His soon coming. Therefore will this controversy continue and increase in its intensity until all have made up their minds. For which purpose this book is being written. Make up your mind!  Choose you this day whom you will serve! Will you serve God alone, or will you serve Babylon the great, the Mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth. If you choose to hold on to any of her abominations in order to be accepted in and of this world, you will lose your place in the eternal world to come.

The question may arise, as to what the difference is between the transgression of desolation and the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel, and referred to by Christ. The Hebrew dictionary in the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the bible defines the word transgression as a revolt, or rebellion, sin. The word abomination on the other hand denotes something disgusting, or filthy, especially idolatrous, or concerning an idol. An abominably filthy or detestable idol. The writer contends, that the transgression of desolation is the rebellion or revolt against God’s ordained system of worship and salvation in Christ Jesus, which we have been discussing in this chapter. 

That is to say, the casting down of the truth that Christ is our High priest who is ever interceding for us in the heavenly sanctuary. This which was accomplished by an attempt of the Church of Rome, led by the devil himself, to replace that sanctuary and ministry of Christ with their own. By which, they hope to magnify themselves even to the Prince of heaven, Jesus Christ. The transgression of desolation is this revolt or rebellion in its entirety, while the abomination of desolation will be the exaltation of one particularly disgusting, filthy, and idolatrous abomination in all the world. One that fitly represents the transgression of desolation in its entirety. The apex of the same, if you will.

It was by replacing the truth of the heavenly sanctuary and Christ’s ministry in the same that the Church of Rome cast down the truth and the place of His sanctuary to the ground. It was through this false system of worship that the Church of Rome practiced and prospered. Without question, her success depended upon and did actually come about as a result of people believing her lies and subjecting themselves to her usurped authority. As already discussed in a previous chapter, she received a vast majority of her adherents through the power of the state, the edicts of princes and kings. It was thus, that she received a host against the daily sacrifice, and through this host who were subjected to her lies, she practiced and prospered. 

At this point, we will turn our attention to the daily sacrifice which was taken away by this same power. The word sacrifice is an added word. It is not in the original language, thus the proper interpretation would simply say that the daily was taken away. What is the Hebrew definition of the word daily? The word denotes something continual, or perpetual. Something that is constantly going on, or regularly performed. This is why it was interpreted as daily, and sacrifice was added, because the daily sacrifice was a service that continued regular and daily basis. The writer has a different perspective concerning this verse. I believe that the word continual, or perpetual would be a better translation. This is for the obvious reason that what the Church of Rome attempted to do away with, was the continual or perpetual ministry of Christ for humanity in the heavenly sanctuary. This includes the entire ministry of Christ, not just the sacrifice. 

The Church of Rome is the masterpiece of Satan himself. Its purpose was, and is to replace the ministry of Christ for humanity completely. In this way Satan has sought, and continues to seek to separate humanity completely from their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thus, he vehemently attacks the doctrine of the pre-advent judgment, which points to the cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven. It is not the purpose of this book to address that particular doctrine, though it cannot be separated from it. No other prophecy in the bible has directed more attention to the fact that Christ is our High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, and that He ever liveth to make intercession for us. The doctrinal truths connected to this biblical prophecy are a direct rebuke to the false priesthood and ministration of the Church of Rome. Those who reject these biblical truths, will inevitably end up subject to the false priesthood and ministration of the Church of Rome in one form or another. 

[Amo]

12-THE POLLUTING OF THE SANCTUARY

Daniel 11 31And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. 32And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. 33And they that understand among the people shall instruct many: yet they shall fall by the sword, and by flame, by captivity, and by spoil, many days. 34Now when they shall fall, they shall be holpen with a little help: but many shall cleave to them with flatteries. 35And some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even to the time of the end: because it is yet for a time appointed.

The above verses of Daniel chapter eleven are where we find the first mention of the abomination of desolation, or that makes desolate. According to these verses, the Church of Rome brings about three things. She pollutes the sanctuary of strength, takes away the daily sacrifice, and places the abomination that makes desolate. 

We have already discussed the taking away of the daily, or continual in the previous chapter.  We will now turn our attention to the polluting of the sanctuary. The arms of verse thirty one that stand on the part of the Church of Rome are the armies and civil magistrates of the kings of this earth.  Those with whom she has and does, commit spiritual adultery and fornication.  Her power is derived by her manipulation of these kings and their subjects. 

It is through her false doctrines, that she has polluted the sanctuary of strength, and taken away the continual. The temple of the new covenant is both in heaven where Christ ever liveth to make intercession for us, and on earth in the individual members of Christ’s body (1 Cor. 3:16&17, 6:19&20, 2 Cor. 6:16&17, Eph. 2:21&22). These two are intricately connected, and cannot be separated. The entire purpose and existence of either one, being woven together with the other. It is through the false doctrines of Rome that both are polluted. 

Without fallen humanity, there would be no need for a temple of mediation between man and God. There would have been no need of Christ becoming a man, and therefore being Himself the temple of God (John 2:19-21, Mark 14:58). Without that temple, or body of Christ, there would be no mediation and therefore salvation for humanity. The two are inseparable.

While it is not possible for the Church of Rome to pollute, or even begin to touch the sanctuary or temple of heaven, they certainly have access and influence among the individual members of the body of the same here on earth. It is through the individual believer who claims Christ as their Lord and Savior that the sanctuary is capable of being polluted. When the members of the body believe and practice the false doctrines of Rome, they pollute the body of Christ which is the new covenant temple. This is why the sanctuary must be cleansed before the return of Christ. There must be a separation from the abominations of the Church of Rome by all those who would claim Christ as their only sovereign. 


Ezek 44:6 And thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations, 7 In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations. 8 And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things: but ye have set keepers of my charge in my sanctuary for yourselves. 9 Thus saith the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.

The above sins of literal Israel were repeated by spiritual Israel, which is Christianity. Through the Church of Rome these abominations were repeated. As already discussed in previous chapters, countless unconverted pagans were brought into the ranks of those who claim Christ as their Savior, through the Church of Rome’s adulteress relationships with the kings of this earth. Thus the new covenant temple of God was polluted, and the pagan rites and ceremonies of these unconverted throngs were brought into the supposed church of Christ.  Before the Lord returns, a separation must take place. Those who would be Christ’s must separate themselves from the false doctrines and abominations of the Church of Rome. The sanctuary must be cleansed.

1 Corinthians 3 11For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. 14If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. 16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 17If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

1 Corinthians 6  15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. 16What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 17But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 19What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

The Church of Rome is the MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. Those who would be Christ’s, must separate themselves from her false and abominable doctrines and practices. She lays on her back before the kings and nations of the earth and invites them to partake of an illicit relationship with her. When they have, she manipulates them to carry out her own designs. Come out, come out from her, before the judgments of God are poured out upon her. 

Revelation 18 1And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ome out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. 7How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 8Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.


The message of the above angel is expounding upon the message of the second angel of Revelation fourteen which we have already discussed. It is intensifying the call to all in this world to separate completely from the Church of Rome. For which purpose this book has been written. Come out of her my people, for why will you die? The Lord Jesus Christ is coming back soon, will you prepare to meet your God face to face? Then you must separate yourself from this world, for His kingdom is not of this world. Therefore you must separate from the Church of Rome, for she is the church of this world, and of the prince of this world himself.  You must make up your mind. Will you stand with Babylon in rebellion against God, or will you stand in Christ who came to do His Fathers will. You cannot be a part of both.

It is to be noted that the Church of Rome pollutes the sanctuary, takes away the continual, and places the abomination that makes desolate. These are three separate events, though they may have transpired concurrently in the past. It was by polluting the sanctuary, that the continual was taken away. The setting up of the abomination that makes desolate will also pollute and separate those who accept it from the continual ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

According to verses thirty two through thirty five, there has been and will continue to be conflict between the Church of Rome, and those who know their God. Those who know their God will be strong, and do exploits. This is to say, that they will continue to reveal the truths of God’s word to the world, thus revealing the truth about the Papacy. Many of them though, will fall by the sword, the flame, and captivity. This is no doubt a reference to the persecution by Rome of all those who spoke the truth in the past. It would of course include the Protestant reformation, and the events yet future for those who would stand true to God. Verse thirty five, points out that these things will continue until the time of the end.

Let us move on to the abomination of desolation.

[Amo]

13-THE EFFECTS OF THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Daniel 11 31And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate. 32And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

Daniel 12  9And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. 10Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. 11And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. 12Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.

Matthew 24  13But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. 15When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 17Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: 21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

Daniel 11:31 says that they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate, 12:11 says that the abomination of desolation will be set up, and Matthew 24:15 says that it will stand in the holy place. We have already defined what an abomination to the Lord is in a previous chapter.  We concluded that mixing pagan religious rites and ceremonies into the worship of the true God, constitutes an abomination to Him. In general, it was different forms and variations of sun worship that polluted the nation of Israel during the old covenant, and also the Christian church as early as the second century of the new covenant era.

In Ezek 8:16 we find the apostasy of Israel culminating in the act of twenty five men in the house of the Lord worshipping the sun. They were between the porch and the altar bowing down and worshiping the sun while turning their backs on the temple to face east. This was the last and greatest of the abominations of Israel involving the amalgamation of true religion and pagan sun worship. The result being the desolation and destruction of the nation of Israel, of Jerusalem, and the temple with its services. The introduction of pagan sun worshiping rites and ceremonies into the worship of our true God then, is a precursor to the setting up of the abomination of desolation itself. Resulting in swift judgment from God.   

Having established the above in relation to the nation of Israel during the old covenant, as the writer has already suggested elsewhere, the same will hold true during our new covenant era.   If Sunday sacredness is the new covenant equivalent of the old covenant abomination that causes desolation, history will provide us with testimony validating the same. Let us examine history then, with these thoughts in mind. Speaking of the establishment of the Papacy within the Roman empire, A. T. Jones makes the following statement in his book Ecclesiastical Empire-

The immediate effect of this apostasy, which developed the papacy in the Roman Empire, was the complete ruin of the Roman Empire.(page 17) 

Let’s look at a few more scriptures concerning Israel before commencing our examination for the sake of comparison. We will now move on from the similarities between Israel and Christianity concerning the setting up of abominations, to the similarities concerning God’s judgments for the same.

Jer 1:13 And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north. 14 Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15 For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah. 16 And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.

Jer 4:5 Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities. 6 Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. 7 The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.

Jer 6:1 O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction.

Jer 6:22 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the earth. 23 They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against thee, O daughter of Zion.

Jer 10:22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.

Jer 13:19 The cities of the south shall be shut up, and none shall open them: Judah shall be carried away captive all of it, it shall be wholly carried away captive. 20 Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock? 21 What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee? for thou hast taught them to be captains, and as chief over thee: shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail?

Jer 25:4 And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them; but ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear. 5 They said, Turn ye again now every one from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and to your fathers for ever and ever: 6 And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. 7 Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. 8 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, 9 Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.

It was from the people and kingdom of the north, that God sent judgment upon Israel for their apostasy. The people of the kingdom of Babylon under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar brought destruction and desolation upon the nation of Israel. It was also the kingdoms, or barbarians from the north that brought destruction and desolation upon the Roman Empire.  This was a result of exalting a form of apostate sun worshipping “Christianity” within their empire, the Papacy. The aforesaid being as proposed, the abomination of desolation. History speaks – (all emphasis mine)

“The union of the Roman Empire was dissolved: its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.” See Gibbon’s “

Decline and Fall,”Chap. 33:last sentence.

But already had issued from the forests of the North the most effectual promoters of the papal power. The barbarians who had invaded and settled in the West, after being satiated with blood and plunder, lowered their reeking swords before the intellectual power that met them face to face. Recently converted to Christianity, ignorant of the spiritual character of the Church, and feeling the want of a certain external pomp in religion, they prostrated themselves, half savage and half heathen as they were, at the feet of the high-priest of Rome. With their aid the West was in his power. At first the Vandals, then the Ostrogoths, somewhat later the Burgundians and Alans, next the Visigoths, and lastly the Lombards and Anglo-Saxons, came and bent the knee to the Roman pontiff. It was the sturdy shoulders of those children of the idolatrous north that succeeded in placing on the supreme throne of Christendom a pastor of the banks of the Tiber.

(HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, BY J. H. MERLE D’AUBIGNE, D.D.,VOLUME FIRST., BOOK 1, STATE OF EUROPE BEFORE THE REFORMATION. CHAPTER 1)

 

The immediate effect of this apostasy, which developed the papacy in the Roman Empire, was the complete ruin of the Roman Empire. And, this consequence of the apostasy, which is traced in the first three steps of the two lines of prophecy of the Seven Churches and the Seven Seals, is sketched in the first four trumpets of the line of prophecy of the Seven Trumpets. And here it is — in the Seven Trumpets — that national history enters, as an incident, in this book of Church history; as in the rise of the little horn amongst the ten, in the book of Daniel, there enters Church history, as an incident, in that book of national history. The Seven Trumpets aptly enter here, because the trumpet is the symbol of war; and it was by the universal war of the floods of barbarians from the north, that there was swept away that mass of corruption that was heaped upon the Roman Empire by its union with the apostate Church, in the making of the papacy.

(ECCLESIASTICAL EMPIRE by Alonzo Jones pages 17 & 18)

And finally, in 476, when Odoacer, king of the Heruli, became king of Italy, the last vestige of the Western empire of Rome was gone, and was divided among the ten nations of barbarians of the North.

(THE TWO EMPIRES OR ROME AND THE U.S.A by Alonzo Jones page 423)

I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent was swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the spirit of conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new assailants. Such formidable emigrations can no longer issue from the North; and the long repose, which has been imputed to the decrease of population, is the happy consequence of the progress of arts and agriculture.

(General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West by Edward Gibbon)

The third event was the most important of all. We have seen, and shall see further, how the Western bishops were Just as disdainful as the Eastern of the Roman Pope's claim to rule them. But very soon after the establishment of Christianity in Europe there occurred the mighty downpour of barbarians from the forests of Germany which destroyed the Roman Empire and prepared Europe for the Middle Ages. This great catastrophe shattered the provincial churches — of Gaul and Spain and Africa — annihilated the Roman school-system, and brought a sudden and dense darkness upon Southern Europe and Africa. There are other points to consider before we examine this closely, but it must be mentioned, in anticipation, here as the third and chief event which enabled the Popes to enforce their fraudulent claim.

(SECTION I,THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, CHAPTER I, THE ORIGIN OF THE PAPACY by Joseph McCabe)

The barbarians of the North soon began their incursions and extended their conquests until the imperial power of the west expired in A. D. 476.

(Daniel and the Revelation by Uriah Smith, page 266)

Thus, before the Empire of the West fell, the Bishop of Rome had established substantially his spiritual supremacy. An influence of a manifold kind, of which not the least part was the prestige of the city and the empire, had lifted him to this fatal pre-eminence. But now the time has come when the empire must fall, and we expect to see that supremacy which it had so largely helped to build up fall with it. But no! The wave of barbarism which rolled in from the North, overwhelming society and sweeping away the empire, broke harmlessly at the feet of the Bishop of Rome. The shocks that overturned dynasties and blotted out nationalities, left his power untouched, his seat unshaken. Nay, it was at that very hour, when society was perishing around him, that the Bishop of Rome laid anew the foundations of his power, and placed them where they might remain immovable for all time.

( THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM, Rev. James Aitken Wylie, LL.D, Chap.3 page 54)


There are many who have researched the history of Rome, and tried to explain the details of its fall. The writer is of the firm belief that God Himself is the one who establishes or dissolves nations at His will. As apostate Christianity arose within the Roman Empire, the empire itself began to decline, as a direct result of the same. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was the establishment and empowerment of the Church of Rome. The abomination of desolation is just like its creator, Satan himself. The more its power is established, the more destruction and desolation come upon those by whom, and over whom it is established. The empire of Rome may have vanished, but the Church of Rome continued the legacy conceived by the adulterous relationship between apostate Christianity and the last Emperors of Rome, and the Roman state.

It is to be noted, that the Roman Empire in its entirety did not fall by A. D. 476. It was the western Empire that was dissolved by this time. The eastern empire, commonly known as the Byzantine Empire, continued long after the decline and fall of the western empire. There is neither time nor space to delve into the history of the division of the empire. This much though must be said, the influence and power of the Papacy never gained the ascendancy within the eastern empire that it exercised within the west. There was eventually a split also between the Christians of the western and eastern empires. The Eastern Church did not accept the authority of the Pope. Correspondingly therefore, neither was its decline and fall for the same reason, or at the same time as that of the western empire. Today we know the Eastern Church as the Eastern Orthodox.

Having established God’s judgments upon Israel and Christianity by way of the people and kingdoms of the north, for setting up abominations within themselves, let us move on in the next chapter to the establishment of Sunday sacredness in relation to the same.

[Hobie]

Amo - you missed something important in your chapter 8: that is verse 17.  It is NOT a sign between God and the sinner - it is a sign between God and the children of Israel. That does NOT include gentile christians.

You have to ask yourself. Was Christ the Creator, is He our Lord and Saviour who made the Sabbath, and has He existed from Eternity and was with Abraham before there was any Jew and saw his day?

[DaveW]

The sons of Israel are no longer just the literal Jews.

Amo: When you start referring to the Gentile believers in the church as "Sons of Israel" is when you start moving into the territory of "lies from hell." 

There is still a place and calling and function for the physical descendants of Jacob.  It is the devil's job to confuse and blur issues like this.

[DaveW]

Amo - you missed something important in your chapter 8: that is verse 17.  It is NOT a sign between God and the sinner - it is a sign between God and the children of Israel. That does NOT include gentile christians.

You have to ask yourself. Was Christ the Creator, is He our Lord and Saviour who made the Sabbath, and has He existed from Eternity and was with Abraham before there was any Jew and saw his day?

OF course.  But remember God was also long before any of the tribes of Israel came out of Egypt but He gave the priesthood ONLY to Levi.

There is a priesthood that exists ONLY for physical Israel as well. And that continues in the New Covenant era.

[Amo]

14 - THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION WITHIN THE ROAMN EMPIRE
(All emphasis mine)

Ignatius, Barnabas and Justin, whose writings constitute our major source of information for the first half of the second century, witnessed and participated in the process of separation from Judaism which led the majority of the Christians to abandon the Sabbath and adopt Sunday as the new day of worship. Their testimonies therefore, coming from such an early period, assume a vital importance for our inquiry into the causes of the origin of Sunday observance

  (Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D., Andrews University- FROM SABBATH TO SUNDAY:  A HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RISE OF SUNDAY OBSERVANCE IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY -Chapter 7 -ANTI-JUDAISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SUNDAY)

"Until well into the second century we do not find the slightest indication in our sources that Christians marked Sunday by any kind of abstention from work."

--W. Rordorf, Sunday, p. 157.

North African half-heathen Christians who led out in Christian worship on Sunday, were also the first to call Jesus Christ the true Sun-god, and to direct their prayers toward the east--the rising sun--to rise early in the morning that they pray facing the sun as it arose. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215 AD.) frequently called Christ the true Sun, and he urged the pagans to accept Him as such. Origen (c. 185-254) said, "Christ is the Sun of Justice; if the moon is united, which is the Church, it will be filled with His light." Cyprian (d. 258), Bishop of Carthage told believers "to pray at sunrise to commemorate the resurrection . . . and to pray at the setting of the sun . . . for the advent of Christ." "They took a much easier view of certain pagan customs, conventions and images and saw no objection, after ridding them of their pagan content, to adapting them to Christian thought."

--J. Danielou, Bible and Liturgy, p. 299.

"Cults of the sun, as we know from many sources, had attained great vogue during the second, third, and fourth centuries. Sun-worshipers indeed formed one of the big groups in that religious world in which Christianity was fighting for a place. Many of them became converts to Christianity . . . Worshipers in St. Peter's turned away from the altar and faced the door so that they could adore the rising sun."

--Gordon J. Laing, Survivals of Roman Religion, p. 192. [Dr. Laing(1869-1945) was a Canadian-born university professor and later dean at the University of Chicago].

It was the Roman Imperial plan on several occasions, to unite all religions of the Empire into one religion--sun-worship: "The Jewish, the Samaritan, even the Christian, were to be fused and recast into one great system, of which the sun was to be the central object of adoration."

--Henry Hart Milman, The History of Christianity, bk. 2, chap. 8 (Vol. II, p. 175). [Dr. Milman (1791-1868) was an important historian of England and dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London].

Though Sunday is mentioned in so many different ways during the second century, it is not till we come almost to the close of the second century that we find the first; instance in which it is called “Lord’s day.” Clement, of Alexandria, A.D. 194, uses this title with reference to “the eighth day.” If he speaks of a natural day, he no doubt means Sunday. It is not certain, however, that he speaks of a natural day, for his explanation gives to the term an entirely different sense.

THE HISTORY OF THE SABBATH by J.N. Andrews page 160

Tertullian, A.D. 200, is the next writer who uses the term “Lord’s day.” He defines his meaning, and fixes the name upon the day of Christ’s resurrection. Kitto says this is “the earliest authentic instance” in which the name is thus applied, and we have proved this true by actual examination of every writer, unless the reader can discover some reference to Sunday in Clement’s mystical eighth day.

Id  page 162

Origen, A.D. 231, is the third of the ancient writers who call “the eighth day” the Lord’s day. He was the disciple of Clement, the first writer who makes this application. It is not strange, therefore, that he should teach Clement’s doctrine of a perpetual Lord’s day, nor that he should state it even more distinctly than did Clement himself. Origen, having represented Paul as teaching that all days are alike, continues thus: — “If it be objected to us on this subject that we ourselves are accustomed to observe certain days, as for example the Lord’s day, the Preparation, the Passover, or the Pentecost, I have to answer, that to the perfect Christian, who is ever in his thoughts, words, and deeds serving his natural Lord, God the Word, all his days are the Lord’s, and he is always keeping the Lord’s day.”

  Against Celsus, book 8, chap. 29; Testimony of the Fathers, p. 87.  Id page 165

The “Lord’s day” of the Catholic church can be traced no nearer to John than A.D. 194, or perhaps, in strict truth, to A.D. 200, and those who then use the name show plainly that they did not believe it to be the Lord’s day by apostolic appointment. To hide these fatal facts by seeming to trace the title back to Ignatius; the disciple of John, and thus to identify Sunday with the Lord’s day of that apostle, a series of remarkable frauds has been committed, which we have had occasion to examine. But even could the Sunday Lord’s day be traced to Ignatius, the disciple of John, it would then come no nearer being an apostolic institution than does the Catholic festival of the Passover, which can be traced to Polycarp, another of John’s disciples, who claimed to have received it from John himself!

Id pages 166and 167.

“The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday. Perhaps at the end of the second century a false application of this kind had begun to take place; for men appear by that time to have considered laboring on Sunday as a sin.”

Neander’s Church History, translated by H. J. Rose, p. 186.

The following is taken from The Great Empires of Prophecy by A. T. Jones. Pages 349-351 and 357-359.

“ The next step in addition to this was the adoption of the day of the sun as a festival day. To such an extent were the forms of sun-worship practised in this apostasy, that before the close of the second century the heathen themselves charged these so-called Christians with worshiping the sun. A presbyter of the church of Carthage, then and now one of the “church fathers,” who wrote about A.D. 200, considered it necessary to make a defense of the practice, which he did to the following effect in an address to the rulers and magistrates of the Roman Empire: — “Others, again, certainly with more information and greater verisimilitude, believe that the sun is our god. We shall be counted Persians perhaps, though we do not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The idea no doubt has originated from our being known to turn to the east in prayer. But you, many of you, also under pretense sometimes of worshiping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sunday to rejoicing, from a far different reason than sun-worship, we have some resemblance to those of you who devote the day of Saturn to ease and luxury, though they too go far away from Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant.” — Tertullian “Apology,” chap. 16.

And again in an address to all the heathen he justifies this practice by the argument, in effect, You do the same thing, you originated it too, therefore you have no right to blame us. In his own words his defense is as follows: —

“Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray toward the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do
less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshiping the heavenly bodies, likewise move your lips in the direction of the sunrise? It is you, at all events, who have admitted the sun into the calendar of the week; and you have selected its day, in preference to the preceding day, as the most suitable in the week for either an entire abstinence from the bath, or for its postponement until the evening, or for taking rest and banqueting.” — Tertullian “Ad Nationes,” book 1, chap. 13.

This accommodation was easily made, and all this practice was easily justified, by the perverse-minded teachers, in the perversion of such scriptures as, “The Lord God is a sun and shield,” and, “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”  As this custom spread, and through it such disciples were multiplied, the ambition of the bishop of Rome grew apace. It was in honor of the day of the sun that there was manifested the first attempt of the bishop of Rome to compel the obedience of all other bishops, and the fact that this attempt was made in such a cause, at the very time when these pretended Christians were openly accused by the heathen of worshiping the sun, is strongly suggestive.

From Rome there came now another addition to the sun-worshiping apostasy. The first Christians being mostly Jews, continued to celebrate the Passover in remembrance of the death of Christ, the true Passover; and this was continued among those who from among the Gentiles had turned to Christ. Accordingly, the celebration was always on the Passover day, — the fourteenth of the first month. Rome, however, and from her all the West, adopted the day of the sun as the day of this celebration. According to the Eastern custom, the celebration, being on the fourteenth day of the month, would of course fall on different days of the week as the years revolved. The rule of Rome was that the celebration must always be on a Sunday — the Sunday nearest to the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish year. And if the fourteenth day of that month should itself be a Sunday, then the celebration was not to be held on that day, but upon the next Sunday. One reason of this was not only to be as like the heathen as possible, but to be as un like the Jews as possible; this, in order not only to facilitate the “conversion” of the heathen by conforming to their customs, but also by pandering to their spirit of contempt and hatred of the Jews. It was upon this point that the bishop of Rome made his first open attempt at Absolutism………………………………..................

“Accordingly, after having taken the advice of some foreign bishops, he wrote an imperious letter to the Asiatic prelates commanding them to imitate the example of the Western Christians with respect to the time of celebrating the festival of Easter. The Asiatics answered this lordly requisition by the pen of Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, who declared in their name, with great spirit and resolution, that they would by no means depart in this manner from the custom handed down to them by their ancestors. Upon this the thunder of excommunication began to roar. Victor, exasperated by this resolute answer of the Asiatic bishops, broke communion with them, pronounced them unworthy of the name of his brethren, and excluded them from all fellowship with the church of Rome.” — Mosheim “Ecclesiastical History,” century 2, part 2, chap. 4, par. 11. Maclaine’s Translation………………………

While this effort was being made on the side of philosophy to unite all religions, there was at the same time a like effort on the side of politics. It was the ambition of Elagabalus (A.D. 218-222) to make the worship of the sun supersede all other worship in Rome. It is further related of him that a more ambitious scheme even than this was in the emperor’s mind; which was nothing less than the blending of all religions into one, of which “the sun was to be the central object of adoration.” — Milman “History of Christianity”  book 2, chap. 8, par. 22. 

Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-225) held to the same idea, and carried it into effect so far as his individual practice was concerned. “The mother of Alexander Severus, the able, perhaps crafty and rapacious, Mammaea, had at least held intercourse with the Christians of Syria. She had conversed with the celebrated Origen, and listened to his exhortations, if without conversion, still not without respect. Alexander, though he had neither the religious education, the pontifical character, nor the dissolute manners of his predecessor, was a Syrian, with no hereditary attachment to the Roman form of paganism. He seems to have affected a kind of universalism: he paid decent respect to the gods of the Capitol; he held in honor the Egyptian worship, and enlarged the temples of His and Serapis. In his own palace, with respectful indifference, he enshrined, as it were, as his household deities, the representatives of the different religions or theophilosophic systems which were prevalent in the Roman Empire, — Orpheus, Abraham, Christ, and Apollonius of Tyana.... The homage of Alexander Severus may be a fair test of the general sentiment of the more intelligent heathen of his time.” — Milman Id., book 2, chap. 8, par. 24. His reign also was too short to accomplish anything beyond his own individual example. But the same tendency went rapidly forward.
On the side of philosophy and the apostasy, the progress was continuous and rapid. “Heathenism, as interpreted by philosophy, almost found favor with some of the more moderate Christian apologists.... The Christians endeavored to enlist the earlier philosophers in their cause; they were scarcely content with asserting that the nobler Grecian philosophy might be designed to prepare the human mind for the reception of Christianity; they were almost inclined to endow these sages with a kind of prophetic foreknowledge of its more mysterious doctrines. ‘I have explained,’ says the Christian in Minucius Felix, ‘the opinions of almost all the philosophers, whose most illustrious glory it is that they have worshiped one God, though under various names; so that one might suppose either that the Christians of the present day are philosophers, or that the philosophers of old were already Christians.’ “These advances on the part of Christianity were more than met by paganism. The heathen religion, which prevailed at least among the more enlightened pagans during this period,... was almost as different from that of the older Greeks and Romans, or even that which prevailed at the commencement of the empire, as it was from Christianity.... On the great elementary principle of Christianity, the unity of the supreme God, this approximation had long been silently made. Celsus, in his celebrated controversy with Origen, asserts that this philosophical notion of the Deity is perfectly reconcilable with paganism.” — Milman Id., par. 28.”

The text of Constantine's Sunday Law of 321 A.D. is :

"One the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for gain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th day of March, Crispus and Constantinebeing consuls each of them the second time."

Codex Justinianus, lib. 3, tit. 12, 3; translated in History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, D.D., (7-vol.ed.) Vol. III, p.380. New York, 1884

Here is the first Sunday Law decree of a Christian council. It was given about 16 years after Constantine's first Sunday Law of A.D. 321: "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [in the original: "sabbato"--shall not be idle on the Sabbath], but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day they shall especially honour, and as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out ['anathema,'--excommunicated] from Christ."

--Council of Laodicea, c. A.D. 337, Canon 29, quoted in C.J. Hefele, "A History of the Councils of the Church," Vol. 2, p. 316.

"Modern Christians who talk of keeping Sunday as a 'holy' day, as in the still extant 'Blue Laws,' of colonial America, should know that as a 'holy' day of rest and cessation from labor and amusements Sunday was unknown to Jesus . . . It formed no tenet [teaching] of the primitive Church and became 'sacred' only in the course of time. Outside the Church its observance was legalized for the Roman Empire through a series of decrees starting with the famous one of Constantine in 321, an edict due to his political and social ideas."[/b

]--W, W. Hyde, "Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire," 1946, p. 257.

"The Church made a sacred day of Sunday . . . largely because it was the weekly festival of the sun;--for it was a definite Christian policy to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance."

-- Arthur Weigall, "The Paganism in Our Christianity," 1928, p. 145.

"Remains of the struggle [between the religion of Christianity and the religion of Mithraism] are found in two institutions adopted from its rival by Christianity in the fourth century, the two Mithraic sacred days: December 25, 'dies natalis solis' [birthday of the sun], as the birthday of Jesus,--and Sunday, 'the venerable day of the Sun,' as Constantine called it in his edict of 321."

--Walter Woodburn Hyde, "Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire," p. 60.

"This [Constantine's Sunday decree of March, 321] is the 'parent' Sunday law making it a day of rest and release from labor. For from that time to the present there have been decrees about the observance of Sunday which have profoundly influenced European and American society. When the Church became a part of State under the Christian emperors, Sunday observance was enforced by civil statutes, and later when the Empire was past, the Church, in the hands of the papacy, enforced it by ecclesiastical and also by civil enactments."

--Walter W. Hyde, "Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire," 1946, p. 261.

"Constantine labored at this time untiringly to unite the worshipers of the old and the new into one religion. All his laws and contrivances are aimed at promoting this amalgamation of religions. He would by all lawful and peaceable means melt together a purified heathenism and a moderated Christianity . . . Of all his blending and melting together of Christianity and heathenism, none is more easy to see through than this making of his Sunday law: The Christians worshiped their Christ, the heathen their Sun-god. . . [so they should now be combined."

--H.G. Heggtveit, "illustreret Kirkehistorie," 1895, p. 202.

"If every Sunday is to be observed joyfully by the Christians on account of the resurrection, then every Sabbath on account of the burial is to be regarded in execration [cursing] of the Jews."

--Pope Sylvester, quoted by S.R.E. Humbert, "Adversus Graecorum Calumnias," in J.P. Migne, "Patrologie," p. 143. [Sylvester (A.D. 314-337) was the pope at the time Constantine 1 was Emperor.]

As we have already noted, excepting for the Roman and Alexandrian Christians, the majority of Christians were observing the seventh-day Sabbath at least as late as the middle of the fifth century [A.D. 450]. The Roman and Alexandrian Christians were among those converted from heathenism. They began observing Sunday as a merry religious festival in honor of the Lord's resurrection, about the latter half of the second century A.D. However, they did not try to teach that the Lord or His apostles commanded it. In fact, no ecclesiastical writer before Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century even suggested that either Christ or His apostles instituted the observance of the first day of the week.

"These Gentile Christians of Rome and Alexandria began calling the first day of the week 'the Lord's day.' This was not difficult for the pagans of the Roman Empire who were steeped in sun worship to accept, because they [the pagans] referred to their sun-god as their 'Lord.'

"--EM. Chalmers, "How Sunday Came Into the Christian Church," p. 3.

"Down even to the fifth century the observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing until it was wholly discontinued."

--Lyman Coleman, "Ancient Christianity Exemplified" chap. 26, sec. 2, p. 527.

"What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday."

--Huttan Webster, "Rest Days," pp. 122-123, 210.

"A history of the problem shows that in some places, it was really only after some centuries that the Sabbath rest really was entirely abolished, and by that time the practice of observing a bodily rest on the Sunday had taken its place . . . It was the seventh day of the week which typified the rest of God after creation, and not the first day. "

--Vincent Jo Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast day Occupations, 1943, pp. 15, 22 [This Catholic University Press publication was written by a priest of the Redemptorist order].

"The early Christians had at first adopted the Jewish seven-day week with its numbered week days, but by the close of the third century A.D. this began to give way to the planetary week; and in the fourth and fifth centuries the pagan designations became generally accepted in the western half of Christendom. The use of the planetary names by Christians attests the growing influence of astrological speculations introduced by converts from paganism . . . During these same centuries the spread of Oriental solar [sun] worships, especially that of Mithra [Persian sun worship], in the Roman world, had already led to the substitution by pagans of dies Solis for dies Saturni, as the first day of the planetary week. Thus gradually a pagan institution was engrafted on Christianity."

--Hutton Webster, Rest Days, pp. 220-221. [Webster (1875-?), was an author, historian, and professor at the University of Nebraska].

“The last day of the week was strictly kept in connection with that of the first day for a long time after the overthrow of the temple and its worship. Down even to the fifth century the Observance of the Jewish Sabbath was continued in the Christian
church, but with a rigor and solemnity gradually diminishing until it was wholly discontinued.”

Coleman  Ancient Christianity Exemplified, chap. 26, sec. 2.[/u][/b]

“During the early ages of the church, it was never entitled ‘the Sabbath,’ this word being confined to the seventh day of the week, the Jewish Sabbath, which, as we have already said, continued to be observed for several centuries by the converts to Christianity.”

Anc. Christ. Exem., chap. 26, sec. 2.

“The observance of the Lord’s day was ordered while yet the Sabbath of the Jews was continued; nor was the latter superseded until the former had acquired the same solemnity and importance which belonged, at first, to that great day which God originally ordained and blessed. But in time, after the Lord’s day was fully established, the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews was gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as heretical.”

  Anc. Christ. Exem., chap. 26, sec. 2.[/u][/b]

“The ancient Sabbath did remain and was observed together with the celebration of the Lord’s day by the Christians of the East church above three hundred years after our Savior’s death; and besides that, no other day for more hundreds of years than I spake of before, was known in the church by the name of Sabbath but that: let the collection thereof and conclusion of all be this: The Sabbath of the seventh day, as touching the alligations of God’s solemn worship to time, was ceremonial; that Sabbath was religiously observed in the East church three hundred years and more after our Savior’s passion. That church, being the great part
of Christendom, and having the apostles’ doctrine and example to instruct them, would have restrained it if it had been deadly.”

  Edward Brerewood, professor in Gresham College, London . Learned Treatise of the Sabbath, p. 77, Oxford, 1631.

And Sir Win. Domville says: —
“Centuries of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine in A.D. 321.”

  Examination of the Six Texts, p. 291.

"Our observance of Sunday as the Lord's day is apparently derived from Mithraism. The argument that has sometimes been used against this claim, namely, that Sunday was chosen because of the resurrection on that day, is not well supported."

Gordon J. Laing, "Survivals of Roman Religion," p. 148.

According to the many quotes above, we may determine that Sunday sacredness was being established among “Christians” somewhere around the end of the second century, or 200 A. D.  It gained momentum during the next few centuries until it had almost wholly replaced the seventh day Sabbath by the end of the fifth century, or 500 A. D. If, as the writer contends, the establishment of Sunday sacredness is the apex of the abomination of desolation, then the time of its establishment should coincide with the demise of the Western Roman Empire. Let us now examine the history of the same, and form our conclusion in the next chapter.

[Amo]

15 The decline and fall of the Roman Empire
(All emphasis mine)

ROME DIVIDED — THE ALEMANNI AND THE FRANKS. (THE GREAT EMPIRES OF PROPHECY by Alonzo Jones)

“In the reign of the emperor Caracalla [A.D. 211-217], an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery. The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.

 “This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense preparations of Alexander Severus [A.D. 234]; they were dismayed by the arms of his successor [Maximin, A.D. 235], a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius [A.D. 250]. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome [cir. A.D. 260]. And then, “laden with spoil, they retired into Germany; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the unwarlike Romans.” — Gibbons “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” chap. 10, pars. 26, 27.

In the reign of Aurelian, A.D. 270, again, a hundred and twenty thousand of “the Alemanni traced a line of devastation from the Danube to the Po,” and even as far as Fano in Umbria, “with a design of sacking the defenseless mistress of the world.” Aurelian met them in three hard-fought battles. In the first “the Romans received so severe a blow that, according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended.” In the third, however, the Romans inflicted upon them “a total and irretrievable defeat. The flying remnant of their host was exterminated, and Italy was delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni.” Chap. 11, pars. 18-22.

The following is taken from the book THE TWO EMPIRES OR ROME AND THE U.S.A by Alonzo Jones pages 421- 427

(In short, the same corruptions that had characterized the former Rome were reproduced in the Rome of the fifth century. “The primitive rigor of discipline and manners was utterly neglected and forgotten by the ecclesiastics of Rome. The most exorbitant luxury, with all the vices attending it, was introduced among them, and the most scandalous and unchristian arts of acquiring wealth universally practiced. They seem to have rivaled in riotous living the greatest epicures of Pagan Rome when luxury was there at the highest pitch. For Jerome, who was an eye witness of what he writ, reproaches the Roman clergy with the same excesses
which the poet Juvenal so severely censured in the Roman nobility under the reign of Domitian.” — Bower.  “History of the Popes,” Damasus, par. 14.

The following quotation, though touching upon some points already made, gives others of sufficient value to justify its insertion: “The mass of professing believers were found to relapse into the grossest superstitions and practices of the heathen.... The old heathen cultus, particularly that of the sun (Sol invictus), had formerly entwined itself with the Christian worship of God. Many Christians, before entering the Basilica of Peter, were wont to mount the platform, in order to make their obeisance to the rising luminary. Here was an instance of the way in which the ‘spirit of paganism,’ had found means of insinuating itself into the very heart of Christianity. Leo could say, with no great exaggeration, in looking at the moral position of the Roman Christians, ‘Quod temporibus nostris auctore diabolo sic vitiata sunt omnia, ut fere nihil sit quod absque idololatria transigatur’ [In our time, by the instigation of the devil, all things have become so corrupt that there is hardly anything that is done without idolatry]. The weddings of the Christians could not be distinguished from, those of the pagans. Everything was determined by auguries and auspices; the wild orgies of the Bacchanalians, with all their obscene songs and revelry, were not wanting.” — Merivale. “Conversion of the Northern Nations,” notes and illustrations, E.

And now all the evils engendered in that evil intrigue which united the State with a professed Christianity, hurried on the doomed empire to its final and utter ruin. “The criminal and frivolous pleasures of a decrepit civilization left no thought for the absorbing duties of the day or the fearful trials of the morrow. Unbridled lust and unblushing indecency admitted no sanctity in the marriage tie. The rich and powerful established harems, in the recesses of which their wives lingered, forgotten, neglected, and despised. The banquet, theater, and the circus exhausted what little strength and energy were left by domestic excesses. The poor aped the vices of the rich, and hideous depravity reigned supreme, and invited the vengeance of heaven. — Lea. “History of Sacerdotal Celibacy,” chap. 5. par. 20.

The pagan superstitions, the pagan delusions, and the pagan vices, which had been brought into the church by the apostasy, and clothed with a form of godliness, had wrought such corruption that the society of which it was a part could no longer exist. From it no more good could possibly come, and it must be swept away. “The uncontrollable progress of avarice, prodigality, voluptuousness, theater going, intemperance, lewdness; in short, of all the heathen vices, which Christianity had come to eradicate, still carried the Roman empire and people with rapid strides toward dissolution, and gave it at last into the hands of the rude, but simple and morally vigorous, barbarians.” — Schaff. “History of the Christian Church,” Vol. 3, section 23, par. 2.

And onward those barbarians came, swiftly and in multitudes. For a hundred years the dark cloud had been hanging threateningly over the borders of the empire, encroaching slightly upon the West and breaking occasionally upon the East. But at the close of the fourth century the tempest burst in all its fury, and the flood was flowing ruinously. As early as A.D. 377 a million Goths had crossed the Danube, and between that time and A.D. 400 they had ravaged the country from Thessalonica to the Adriatic Sea. In A.D. 400 a host of them entered the borders of Italy, but were restrained for a season.

In 406 a band of Burgundians, Vandals, Suevi, and Alani from the north of Germany four hundred thousand strong, overran the country as far as Florence. In the siege of that city their course was checked with the loss of more than one hundred thousand. They then returned to Germany, and with large accessions to their numbers, overran all the southern part of Gaul. The Burgundians remained in Gaul; the Vandals, the Alani, and the Suevi overran all the southern part of Spain, and carried their ravages over the greater part of that province, and clear to the Strait of Gibraltar.

In 410 again returned the mighty hosts of the Goths, and spread over all Italy from the Alps to the Strait of Sicily, and for five days inflicted upon Rome such pillage as had never befallen it since the day, nearly a thousand years before, when the Cimbri left it in ruins. They marched out of Italy and took possession of Southeastern Gaul from the Mediterranean Sea to the Bay of Biscay.

In May 429, the Vandals, in whose numbers of the Alani had been absorbed, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa, and for ten years ravaged the country from there to Carthage, of which city they took possession with great slaughter, October 9, A.D. 439; and in 440 the terrible Genseric, king of the Vandals, ruled the Mediterranean and sacked the city of Rome.

In 449 the Saxons and their German neighbors invaded Britain, of which they soon became sole possessors, utterly exterminating the native inhabitants.

In 451-3 another mighty host, numbering seven hundred thousand, of all the barbarous nations, led by Attila, desolated Eastern Gaul as far as Chalons, and the north of Italy as far as the Rhone, but returned again beyond the Danube.

And finally, in 476, when Odoacer, king of the Heruli, became king of Italy, the last vestige of the Western empire of Rome was gone, and was divided among the ten nations of barbarians of the North.

Wherever these savages went, they carried fire and slaughter, and whenever they departed, they left desolation and ruin in their track, and carried away multitudes of captives. Thus was the proud empire of Western Rome swept from the earth; and that which Constantine and his ecclesiastical flatterers had promised one another should be the everlasting salvation of the State, proved its speedy and everlasting ruin.

It was impossible that it should be otherwise. We have seen to what a fearful depth of degradation Pagan Rome had gone in the days of the Caesars, yet the empire did not perish then. There was hope for the people. The gospel of Jesus Christ carried in earnestness, in simplicity, and in its heavenly power, brought multitudes to its saving light, and to a knowledge of the purity of Jesus Christ. This was their salvation; and the gospel of Christ, by restoring the virtue and integrity of the individual, was the preservation of the Roman State.

But when by apostasy that gospel had lost its purity and its power in the multitudes who professed it; and when it was used only as a cloak to cover the same old pagan wickedness; when this form of godliness, practiced not only without the power but in defiance of it, permeated the great masses of the people, and the empire had thereby become a festering mass of corruption; when the only means which it was possible for the Lord himself\ to employ to purify the people, had been taken and made only the cloak under which to increase unto more ungodliness, — there was no other remedy: destruction must come.

And it did come, as we have seen, by a host wild and savage, it is true; but whose social habits were so far above those of the people which they destroyed, that savage as they were, they were caused fairly to blush at the shameful corruptions which they found in this so-called Christian society of Rome. This is proved by the best authority. A writer who lived at the time
of the barbarian invasions and who wrote as a Christian, gives the following evidence as to the condition of things: —
“The church which ought everywhere to propitiate God, what does she, but provoke him to anger? How many may one meet, even in the church, who are not still drunkards, or debauchees, or adulterers, or fornicators, or robbers, or murderers, or the like, or
all these at once. without end? It is even a sort of holiness among Christian people, to be less vicious.’ From the public worship of God, and almost during it, they pass to deeds of shame. Scarce a rich man but would commit murder and fornication. We have lost the whole power of Christianity, and offend God the more, that we sin as Christians. We are worse than the barbarians and heathen. If the Saxon is wild, the Frank faithless, the Goth inhuman, the Alanian drunken, the Hun licentious, they are, by reason of their
ignorance, far less punishable than we, who, knowing the commandments of God, commit all these crimes.” — Salvian. Quoted by Schaff, Id., section 12, par. 3.

“He compares the Christians, especially of Rome, with the Arian Goths and Vandals, to the disparagement of the Romans, who add to the gross sins of nature the refined vices of civilization, passion for the theaters, debauchery, and unnatural lewdness. Therefore has
the just God given them into the hands of the barbarians, and exposed them to the ravages of the migrating hordes.” — Schaff. Id.

And this description, says the same author, “is in general not untrue.” And he confirms it in his own words by the excellent observation that “nothing but the divine judgment of destruction upon this nominally Christian, but essentially heathen, world, could open the way for the moral regeneration of society. There must be new, fresh nations, if the Christian civilization, prepared in the old Roman empire, was to take firm root and bear ripe fruit.” — Schaff. Id. section 24, par. 2.

These new, fresh nations came, and planted themselves upon the ruins of the old. Out of these came the faithful Christians of the Dark Ages, and upon them broke the light of the Reformation. And out of these and by this means God produced the civilization of the nineteenth century and the new republic of the United States of America, from which there should go once more in its purity, as in the beginning, the everlasting gospel to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.

Chapter 22

THE SUPREMACY OF THE PAPACY.

As out of the political difficulties of the days of Constantine, the Catholic Church rose to power in the State; so out of the ruin of the Roman empire she rose to supremacy over kings and nations. She had speedily wrought the ruin of one empire, and now for more than a thousand years she would prove a living curse to all the States and empires that should succeed it.

We have seen how that, by the arrogant ministry of Leo, the bishop of Rome was made the fountain of faith, and was elevated to a position of dignity and authority that the aspiring prelacy had never before attained. For Leo, as the typical pope, was one whose “ambition knew no bounds; and to gratify it, he stuck at nothing; made no distinction between right and
wrong, between truth and falsehood; as if he had adopted the famous maxim of Julius Caesar, —

Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws, For sovereign power alone can justify the cause,’
or thought the most criminal actions ceased to be criminal, and became meritorious, when any ways subservient to the increase of his power or the exaltation of his see.” — Bower. “History of the Popes,” Leo, last par. but one.

Nor was the force of any single point of his example ever lost upon his successors. His immediate successor, —

HILARY, 461-467,
was so glad to occupy the place which had been made so large by Leo, that shortly after his election he wrote a letter to the other bishops asking them to exult with him, taking particular care in the letter to tell them that he did not doubt that they all knew what respect and deference was paid “in the Spirit of God to St. Peter and his see.” The bishops of Spain addressed him as “the successor of St. Peter, whose primacy ought to be loved and feared
by all.” He was succeeded by —

SIMPLICIUS, 467-483,
in whose pontificate the empire perished when the Heruli, under Odoacer, overran all Italy, deposed the last emperor of the West, appropriated to themselves one third of all the lands, and established the Herulian kingdom, with Odoacer as king of Italy. In fact, the more the imperial power faded, and the nearer the empire approached its fall, the more rapidly and the stronger grew the papal assumptions. Thus the very calamities which rapidly wrought the ruin of the empire, and which were hastened by the union of Church and State, were turned to the advantage of the bishopric of Rome. During the whole period of barbarian invasions from 400 to 476, the Catholic hierarchy everywhere adapted itself to the situation, and reaped power and influence from the calamities that were visited everywhere.)

As already noted in the previous chapter, it was toward the end of the second century, and in the beginning of the third, that Sunday sacredness began to take root within apostate Christianity in the Roman Empire. By the end of the fifth century, Sunday sacredness had almost completely replaced the seventh day Sabbath among Christians. As is obvious from the historical information we just examined, the downfall and ruin of the Roman Empire was concurrent to the establishment of Sunday sacredness within the apostate Roman Church, and therefore the empire. The abomination of desolation took its effect upon the Roman world. Its effect is the judgment of God upon the “Christian” nation that establishes it. When the children of Israel established it, God sent the Babylonians from the north as judgment for doing so.  When the “Christian” Romans did it, God sent the barbarians from the north as judgment for doing so. 

As the Roman Empire was ruined from within and without, the Church of Rome used the general state of confusion and desolation to seat herself in the place of power she had always sought. As the invading barbarians conquered and took over the reins of government, the Church of Rome simply lay on her back once again and invited the new civil authorities to become one with her. It is always the practice of Rome to commit spiritual fornication and adultery with the civil rulers of this earth. This she does in order to influence them to the furtherance of her own goals. Thus today, she has diplomatic relations with every single nation she can possibly seduce into spiritual adultery. Her goal is to rule this world. Biblical prophecy has foretold this very thing, which we are examining in this book.

It was the establishment of the Church of Rome, which precipitated the decline and fall of the empire. The establishment of her abominations through the civil powers, brought the judgments of God upon the empire. The establishment of Sunday sacredness, the abomination of desolation, was at the same time the ruin of the empire and the establishment of the Church of Rome. As stated already in a previous chapter, it was through the establishment of the first Sunday laws that the Church of Rome first received power from the state to enforce her dogmas upon all the subjects of the state. By the time Sunday sacredness had almost wholly replaced the seventh day Sabbath, that is the end of the fifth century, the ruin of the Western Roman Empire was complete.

This process has taken place many times over throughout the history of the Papacy, her rise to power is the ruin of those she would lead.  Observe the following quote from Rev. James Aitken Wylie, LL.D in one of his several books, THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM. -

“But the success of the Papacy, when closely examined, is not so surprising as it looks. It cannot be justly pronounced legitimate, or fairly won. Rome has ever been swimming with the tide. The evils and passions of society, which a true benefactress would have made it her business to cure -at least, to alleviate -Rome has studied rather to foster into strength, that she might be borne to power on the foul current which she herself had created. Amid battles, bloodshed, and confusion, has her path lain. The edicts of subservient Councils, the forgeries of hireling priests, the arms of craven monarchs, and the thunderbolts of excommunication have never been wanting to open her path. Exploits won by weapons of this sort are what her historians delight to chronicle. These are the victories that constitute her glory! And then, there remains yet another and great deduction from the apparent grandeur of her success, in that, after all, it is the success of only a few -a caste -the clergy. For although, during her early career, the Roman Church rendered certain important services to society -of which it will delight us to make mention in fitting place when she grew to maturity, and was able to develop her real genius,it was felt and acknowledged by all that her principles implied the ruin of all interests save her own, and that there was room in the world for none but herself. If her march, as shown in history down to the sixteenth century, is ever onwards, it is not less true that behind, on her path, lie the wrecks of nations, and the ashes of literature, of liberty, and of civilization.”

(Book Chapter 4)

This exact process is taking place again on a world wide scale, in no small part, due to the ever increasing influence and power of the Church of Rome within the legislative halls of United States. As the power and influence of the Church of Rome has been on the rise in this country and world, so too have calamities, natural disasters, and wars been on the rise in this world. Her exaltation in this world, will be the ruin of the same. When the abomination of her creation, (Sunday sacredness) is exalted in this world again through the civil authorities, desolation will follow. 

She will lead this entire world in rebellion against God, and His Son Jesus Christ. The result of which, will be the ripening of the harvests in this world. When the harvests are ripe, this world will be reaped by Christ and His angels. We have already discussed these harvests in an earlier chapter. The purpose of this book is the furtherance of this very goal, which is to bring this world to the point of decision that will ripen the harvests. This must happen before our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ returns for His own. Thus as the Church of Rome ever increases her power and influence in this world, the cry must go forth -

Rev 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4 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. 5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

[Amo]

The sons of Israel are no longer just the literal Jews.

Amo: When you start referring to the Gentile believers in the church as "Sons of Israel" is when you start moving into the territory of "lies from hell." 

There is still a place and calling and function for the physical descendants of Jacob.  It is the devil's job to confuse and blur issues like this.

Yes it is the devil's job to confuse this and all other issues. Of course I believe you are the one confused, not me. There is no Israel apart from Christ. There never has been an Israel apart from Christ, and there never will be an Israel apart from Christ. All Jews who have and do reject their Messiah Jesus Christ, were not ever and are not the Israel of God. THERE IS NO ISRAEL APART FROM CHRIST!

He established and led the nation of Israel. Their entire nation, economy, government, and religion completely centered around Christ and Him crucified for their sins, and the sins of the world. They do not exist as the Israel of God apart from Him, save in their own minds and the minds of those who accept this lie. Christ is not now and never has been dependent upon Israel. Israel is now and always has been 100% dependent upon Christ. They simply do not exist as God's nation apart from Christ, whom they still reject. Those who do not reject Him are the Israel of God. The Jew first, and then the Gentile.