Future Expectations

WHAT can the faithful student of prophecy expect to take place between now and the return of Jesus? What role will the Papacy play in these events? Revelation and Daniel both depict the Papacy as a persecuting power.

This persecution is directed toward the true followers of God. In recent years, the religious and the political climates have not been as conducive as in past ages to persecution. But religious groups, step by step, will give their allegiance to the Papacy. As nation after nation recognizes the Papacy as the great cohesive force in the world, the religious and the political climates are being altered. Persecution of God’s faithful people will follow. This persecution will be accepted as an appropriate weapon against those who will have nothing to do with a religious ecumenism established upon apostasy. Let us not forget that the Roman Catholic Church has never officially repented of the grave evils that it perpetrated against God’s saints during the Middle Ages.

Once again, the state will execute the dictates of the church. As history repeats itself, we can expect this union of church and state to exercise persecution and terror upon faithful Christians. The forces presently advocating church/state unity are already strong in the United States. Sadly, its own statements make it clear that, when the circumstances are right, the Roman Catholic Church will again resort to ruthless persecution. In the nineteenth century, the archbishop of St. Louis shared his conviction and purpose concerning his clerical duties:

God’s authentic people will increasingly depend upon Christ alone for their strength and courage. The Word of God will provide the sole foundation for their faith and practice. They will cling to the Lord for strength to gain victory over every deceptive art of the evil one. They will be sanctified by the truth. With all other faithful people, they will receive the divine power of the latter rain, which will enable them to take the gospel of the soon-coming Saviour to every person upon the earth.

At the time of Pentecost, the apostles received the former rain.

This power enabled the early Christians to take the gospel to all parts of the world. Writing about a.d. 64, Paul was able to report that the gospel had, in just three decades, spread worldwide.

The latter rain will give power to God’s faithful remnant to take the message of Christ’s soon coming to every part of the planet. The gospel that will be preached worldwide will be the everlasting gospel.

This gospel (see chapter 22, entitled "Come Out of Her My People") will be especially directed toward the faithful who are presently in the Roman Catholic Church and those Protestant churches which have surrendered their allegiance to the Papacy. But it will also spread to every non-Christian land.

At that time, all the world will be emphasizing unity (political, economic, social, and religious), and the Papacy is seen as the great peacemaker and leader in social justice. The efforts of God’s faithful people to call His people out of Babylon will be viewed as divisive, disruptive, and counterproductive to worldwide peace initiatives. This small, scattered group of faithful will increasingly become the object of examination by the enemies of truth. After all efforts to "convert" them to papal allegiance fail, state-administered persecution will be directed against them. This is the witness of prophecy. No doubt, such action will be defended by claiming that the saints alone are responsible for the failure to achieve total peace and unity upon the earth. They will be represented as traitors. The efforts of the faithful to convince the masses that biblical truth alone is the foundation of true Christianity and genuine peace, will prove futile.

All except the most sincere will reject the pleas of the faithful and will turn their wrath against them, because most are biblically illiterate and drunk with the false beliefs of the Papacy. The masses will not have the least thought that they are rejecting the final invitation of a loving, longsuffering Saviour. By their actions, they will reject God’s law. In so doing, they reject the One of whose character the law is the very transcript.

It is self-evident that the day of worship will provide the central issue in this final test of loyalty to God. The Scriptures foretell that this false church will attempt to change the times that God had established. The only time of worship that God has perpetually established is the Sabbath.

It is certain that no human authority can change God’s law or His ordained time for worship. The Papacy has succeeded in convincing most of the Christian church that it has that authority; thus it is not surprising that the Roman Catholic Church has long boasted that its claim to church authority is superior to biblical authority. Her claim is that her power is vested in the change of Sabbath worship from Saturday to Sunday observance. Here are a few examples:

Question: Which is the Sabbath day?

Answer: Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Question: Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

Answer: We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday. (Peter Geiermann, The Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine, 1977 edition, p. 50)

Question: Have you any other way of proving that the church has power of instituting festivals or precepts?

Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her. She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority. (Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism, 1876, p. 174)

The Roman Catholic Church has always claimed the homage of the Protestant churches because of their observance of Sunday as their day of worship.

It is true that the Roman Catholic Church has instituted many other non-biblical practices; for example, the rosary, penance, purgatory, limbo, and infant baptism are Roman Catholic innovations not founded upon the Word of God. But none of these have assumed the symbolic importance to papal authority that the change of the Sabbath has achieved. The Sabbath has become the basis upon which the papal church has established its authority above the authority of the inspired Word of Scripture. This fact should not be surprising, for the Sabbath was established as God’s special sign of authority. It establishes the fact that Christ is our Creator. By worshiping on His Sabbath, we accept His sovereignty in our lives. By rejecting the Sabbath, the Roman Catholic Church has rejected the Lord of the Sabbath. (Mark 2:28)

All sorts of spurious arguments have been used in a vain effort to sustain Sunday sacredness. Some have attributed the "solemnity" of Sunday to the fact that Christ rose from the dead on that day. But Jesus instituted only two ordinances of the church to commemorate His resurrection—baptism (Romans 6:3–8) and the communion service (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). Christ never implied that Sunday should be observed in place of the Sabbath. The pagan origin of Sunday observance is clearly recognized by the fact that the first day of the week, Sunday, is observed from midnight to midnight, a practice instituted by the pagans (instead of observing the divine time schedule from sundown to sundown). We could properly ask the Christian world why it did not instead choose Friday as its day of worship, as our Lord died on that day. In 1985, the London Daily Telegraph reported that thirty-one of the forty-two Anglican bishops surveyed did not believe in Christ’s resurrection. It would be most difficult for these bishops to argue Sunday sacredness as the basis of a resurrection in which they did not believe.

The Bible emphasizes that the Sabbath seal is central to God’s seal of loyalty to be placed in the foreheads of God’s final faithful people.

Scripture specifies that the Sabbath is the sign of sanctification.

In the Bible, the sign of God is synonymous with the seal of God.

Those who will be God’s loyal people at the end time will be Sabbathkeepers. The Word of God is clear that these end-time saints will be keepers of the law, irrespective of persecution, deprivation, and death threats.

God’s true saints who are faithful unto death will keep all God’s commandments in the divine strength provided by Christ. These saints will live eternally with Him.