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CHAPTER 24
THE REMNANT CHURCH SUCCEEDS THE
CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS
Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?
(Song of Solomon 8:5.)
IT WAS a glorious hour when the church came up out of the wilderness. She
had done her work well; she had been faithful to her task. She emerged from the
wilderness condition to lay the treasures of her hard-fought battles at the feet
of the church of the last period, that era which the Redeemer called "the
times of the Gentiles." (Luke 21:24.) The contest had been long. It had not been
a Thirty Years' War, or a Hundred Years' War, but a 1260-year straggle. It had
been cruel for the Church in the Wilderness. Though she never had peace from
battle, she always had peace in battle. The torture chamber, galley chains,
burning at the stake, hard labor, and a plebeian status had been forced upon
her. Yet, as victor, what had she won for humanity? Had she not won liberty,
enlightenment, and the right to worship God according to the dictates of
conscience?
The tendency of modem writers is to reflect upon the erroneous idea,
assiduously built up by the interested parties, that the Papacy is the
connecting link between the church of the apostles and the Christianity of the
present time. Even among Protestants and nonreligious people there is much false
reasoning. The following quotation will exemplify this. Says a modem writer:
"Protestantism must never forget that its faith was communicated through
Catholicism. The Roman Church remains the only link during many centuries
between the modem world and the early Christian enthusiasts."1
This book has sought to make it clear that the Church in the Wilderness,
of the 1260-year period, is the connecting link between the apostolic church and
our time. To her, we are indebted for the learning and the treasures of truth
preserved throughout the Dark Ages. As to the transmission of the pure text of
the Holy Bible, credit should not be given to the Papacy, which has placed
tradition above the Bible, but to the faithful churches who adhered through
years of darkness and superstition to the original apostolic writings and their
uncorrupted translations. This volume, in some small measure, pays tribute to
these unsung heroes of the past of the true Christian church. The Wilderness Period Ends
"The vision is yet for an appointed time," said the prophet. (Habakkuk
2:3.) God works by fixed times. He allots to each period of history the
prescribed task. The stars in the heavens are commissioned to mark off the years
designated by the appointed prophecy. He who guides the heavens, guards the
sacred oracles. The origin, growth, and spread of the true church in Great
Britain, Europe, Africa, and Asia have been followed. When the 1260-year
prophecy expired, God's church laid aside her wilderness life and prophesied
"again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues." (Revelation 10:11.)
It was impossible to hold back, or to miss the "appointed time."
When the marvelous chains of prophecy were given to the prophet Daniel,
the angel Gabriel distinctly singled out the close of the 1260-year time period
as the hour set for the unsealing of the divine predictions. "But thou, O
Daniel," he said, "shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the
time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (Daniel
12:4.)
What could be meant by that expression, "the time of the end"?
Note, it was not the end of time. Evidently, the phrase was intended to
describe a comparatively short final stretch of years between the close of the
1260- year prophecy and the end of the world. At "the time of the end"
the church would be unfolding to a listening world the meaning of the symbols
which had passed before the captive prophet. This in itself would indicate that
the church had emerged from the wilderness. Daniel had seen a lion, a bear, a
leopard, and a beast with ten horns. These were succeeded by a little horn that
would wear out the saints of the Most High and would continue 1260 years. Other
chains of symbols were made to pass before him. All these, the angel said,
represented successions of kingdoms, and stupendous events affecting the history
of the church. "The time of the end" thus signalizes the hour when no
further time prophecies would begin, when all prophetic chains would be
understood, when the seals were to be broken and the church would teach no
longer in terms of symbols, but with the burning lessons and warning contained
in the foretelling and fulfilling of the events.
Jesus, the prophet Daniel, and the apostle John laid great stress on the
tribulation running through the 1260-year period. Jesus said: "For then
shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to
this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened,
there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be
shortened." (Matthew 24:21, 22.) Note, Christ repeatedly mentioned "those
days." The fact that the imperious horn of Daniel 7:25 would be forced to
terminate the oppression of the saints at the end of the 1260 years,
fore-shadowed, at their close, a respite from tribulation for the oppressed. The
Redeemer Himself distinctly predicted this close. This accounts for the
statement of the revelator that the end of the tribulation would be marked by a
deadly wound delivered to the oppressor. (Revelation 13:3.)
Before considering what is meant by "those days" in the
foregoing scripture, the length of "those days" should be determined.
The apostle John wrote: "The Holy City shall they tread underfoot forty and
two months. And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy
a thousand two hundred and threescore days." (Revelation 11:2, 3.) Counting, as
the Bible indicates, a month to be thirty days, forty-two times thirty equals
1260.
What is meant in Matthew 24 by Christ's expression, "great
tribulation"? There have been three periods of tribulation for the
Christian church: the first, reaching into the fall of Jerusalem, during which
time the Jews persecuted the Christians; the second, reaching to A.D. 325,
during which period the pagans greatly afflicted the church; and the third, the
1260-year period (mentioned directly seven times in the Scriptures) when the
politico-ecclesiastical power persecuted the Church in the Wilderness. A careful
consideration of the many angles of the Savior's prophecy in Matthew 24 will
definitely show that by the expression "those days" and "great
tribulation," He meant the 1260-year period. In Daniel 11:31-35,
prophesying of the same "great tribulation," the prophet begins it
from the time "the abomination that maketh desolate" is set up, or the
Papacy was given independent dominion (verse 31), and terminates it with
"the time of the end" (verse 35). When the prophet previously (Daniel
7:25) dealt with this same treading underfoot of the saints, he began the
1260-year period with the plucking up of the third of three horns which were to
be plucked up. The date of this event was evidently A.D. 538. 2
During the Dark Ages, therefore, one would not find the true church
favored by princes and kings, but constantly pursued by wolves in sheep's
clothing. During those 1260 years the Church in the Wilderness did not ally
herself with governments to form a state church, neither was she clothed with
the robes of an imperial hierarchy. Otherwise, she could not have been singled
out by the Redeemer to suffer a tribulation so deep and long that the church
could not have endured it unless the days were shortened.
The unutterable sufferings during the years of the "great
tribulation" increased as the Papacy secured additional power over the ten
kingdoms. By the time of the famous Lateran Council held in Rome in 1215, more
nations were forced into the armies of the persecutor. In the days of Claude of
Turin (c. A.D. 800) and his leadership in the Church in the Wilderness, this
church was fairly strong. Passing on to the tenth and eleventh centuries, one
can plainly see the growing voice of dissent and the extensive increase of New
Testament believers throughout Europe. All these bodies have been falsely and
persistently accused of Manichaeism. It was the splendid work of the Albigenses,
however, which aroused the alarm of the Papacy and led to the Lateran Council of
1215. This same year will be remembered as the date when the Magna Charta, the
first step toward constitutional government, was written by the barons of
England. The growth of Bible preaching had evidently been influencing political
thinking.
From 1215 on, the increasing severity of papal persecution is seen. This
is followed by the spread of the Church in the Wilderness in all lands. Again
the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church. Two examples of this may
be cited. The Waldenses, and the churches who believed as they did, though
bearing other names, spread all over Europe. Mosheim has already been quoted to
prove that, prior to the age of Luther, there lay concealed in almost every
country of the Continent, especially in Bohemia, Moravia, Switzerland, and
Germany, many peoples in whose minds the principles maintained by the Waldenses,
the Wycliffites, and the Hussites were deeply planted. Also in former chapters
there has been traced the spread of the true church throughout Syria, Persia,
India, central Asia, China, and Japan. Important Dates in Church History
Several chains of prophecy were given which run more or less parallel
to the 1260-year period. Four dates stand out prominently in the latter part of
the 1260-year period. In a special sense the movement mirrored in these events
brought the Church in the Wilderness out from her unrecognized leadership into
the foreground. These dates were: 1453, when Constantinople was conquered by the
Turks; 1483, when Martin Luther was born; 1492, when Columbus discovered
America; and 1491, when Ignatius Loyola was born. A consideration of the new era
ushered in by each one of these events throws light upon the steps of the church
as she comes forth from the wilderness.
Forty years before Columbus discovered the New World, Europe discovered
the Ancient World. The locating of the Western Hemisphere was such a
revolutionary event that it is easy to overlook the great discovery in 1453. The
treasures disclosed to wondering humanity by the finding of America meet their
counterpart in the literary wealth thrown upon Europe by the fall of
Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Until that time, the Greek
manuscripts containing the knowledge possessed by a brilliant antiquity were
confined to the Eastern Roman Empire, often called the Greek Empire. The fall of
Constantinople before the armies of the Moslem Turks opened to Western Europe
the empire's libraries with their thousands of manuscripts. The nations west of
Constantinople awoke from the sleep of centuries. For nearly a thousand years
the ecclesiastical power of Rome had eliminated the study of Greek language and
literature. "Knowledge of the Greek language died out in Western
Europe," says one whose pro-Roman leanings are well known.3 Italy, France,
Germany, and England were stunned by the sudden revelations in history, science,
literature, and philosophy which came to them. Immediately they appropriated
their newly found treasures. Scholars were as much intent upon manuscript
hunting as Columbus was upon continent hunting.
The greatest treasure accruing to the world by the fall of Constantinople
was the recovery of multiplied manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. The vast
majority of these manuscripts were the Received Text. Having had only the Latin
Bible of Rome, called the Vulgate, the western world in general lacked the exact
words written by the apostles of the revelations of Jesus.
At this moment appeared the astounding scholar of the age. In erudition
Erasmus of Holland has never been surpassed, in the opinion of many. He brought
his gigantic intellect to bear upon the realm of classical literature. He was
ever on the wing, ransacking libraries and every nook and comer where ancient
manuscripts might be found. He divided all Greek New Testament manuscripts into
two classes: those which followed the Received Text, edited by Lucian; and those
which followed the Vaticanus manuscript, the pride of the Vatican library. He
specified the positive grounds on which he rejected the Vaticanus while
receiving the other.4 And when he brought forth his edition of the Greek New
Testament, a new day dawned. This was the edition which all the Protestant
churches of that period used. It became the text for Luther's Bible in German
and for Tyndale's translation in English. Tyndale, an accomplished scholar in
seven languages, had been a student of Erasmus' Greek edition. Luther and the Reformation
The next epochal date is 1483, the year of Luther's birth. The name
of Luther is almost synonymous with that of the Reformation. As a monk in his
cloister cell, his spiritual struggles with God were so powerful that the waves
of evangelical feelings which later swept over Europe were, to a certain extent,
but the expressions of Luther's own experience. The Reformation made vocal the
longings of the people for a new heart, a heart like Christ's, in place of their
sinful heart. At first, even for some time, Luther had no thought or desire to
break with the Church of Rome. However, the ever-growing power of gospel truth
was exalting the Bible above the church. The Papacy refused to surrender its
claim that the church was above the Bible. The people were weary with the swarms
of monks and nuns who were propagating a vast round of processions,
genuflections, prayer beads, amulets, images on the walls of the churches,
glorification of relics, and much ado about purgatory - all of these resembling
the minutiae of the Pharisees which Jesus came to abolish.
The break came in 1517 when Luther challenged the Papacy by nailing his
ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittenberg. Apparently the majority of
citizens throughout Europe were members of the Church of Rome; but actually a
vast spiritual work had been done in the hearts of the masses before this time.
Thomas Armitage shows that in 1310, two hundred years before Luther's theses,
the Bohemian brethren constituted one-fourth of the population of Bohemia, and
that they were in touch with the Waldenses who abounded in Austria, Lombardy,
Bohemia, north Germany, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Moravia. Robert Cox has
cited the fact that Erasmus pointed out how strictly Bohemian Waldenses kept the
seventh-day Sabbath.5
The Reformation was a mighty movement, much like the departure of the
children of Israel from the land of Egypt. It rejected the supremacy of the
pope, and tore practically all of northern Europe away from the Papacy. At first
there was in it no abolition of the union of church and state; nevertheless, it
did not use the state for the widespread, cruel persecutions which darkened the
history of Rome. It was a movement struggling toward the light. It abolished the
vast gulf which separated the clergy from the people. It acknowledged the Bible
as the supreme and only authority in doctrine. It rejected purgatory, worship of
saints and images, and took its stand against the orders of monks and nuns. It
rejected the celibacy of the clergy. Unquestionably, it was a movement of God;
and although it did not attain to the complete purity of doctrine and separation
from worldliness as did the early evangelical bodies which fought the prolonged
battle through the Dark Ages, to a great extent it restored primitive
Christianity to northern Europe which later would pass on these great benefits
to the Americas. William Muir says:
It is a serious error to think of the Reformation era, glorious and
fruitful as it was, as if it were the golden age of the church, or as if
everything was perfect even when it was at its best. The best is yet to be; the
best for which all ages have done their work.6
The Reformers in general took a wrong attitude on the Ten Commandments.
They respected them as a code of teaching, but not as a law of binding
obligation. Most all the Reformers could be quoted, but only one statement will
be given, from the English Reformer Tyndale: "As for the Saboth, a great
matter, we be lords over the Saboth; and may yet change it into the Monday, or
any other day, as we see need; or may make every tenth day holy day only, if we
see a cause why.7
From the teachings of the leading evangelical Reformers it can be seen
that they received from the Papacy the conviction that down through the ages
Sunday never had any standing whatsoever, because the Roman Catholic Church
always took the attitude that Sunday was simply a festival day like Christmas or
any other holiday. The Papacy did not recognize the obligatory observance of the
Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Therefore, during the 1260 years, whenever
the fourth commandment had its proper place, it was always the work of
Sabbathkeepers of the Church in the Wilderness. We have seen the crises brought
on by the powerful antagonism of the Papacy to the Sabbath of the fourth
commandment. The Background of the Day of Worship
It was a great moment in the agelong struggle between the Bible and
tradition when, in 489 the Roman emperor in his zeal for hierarchical doctrine,
closed the notable college established by the Assyrian Church at Edessa. This
act resulted in the erection of a barrier between the evangelical East and the
papal West. The Church of the East promptly left Edessa, which was just within
the border of the Roman dominion, and moved the institution to Nisibis, a few
hundred miles within the Persian Empire. Here, near the Tigris River, a great
university was established, which for a thousand years not only confirmed the
Persian Christians in the Judean type of teachings as against the papal type,
but also spread Greek culture and Roman civilization to the nations of the
Orient. Nine years later (A.D. 498) the Assyrian Church, in council assembled,
renounced all connection with the church of the Roman Empire. Many writers point
out the Semitic nature of the nations in the midst of which this new college was
placed. This settled once and forever that the teachings of Semitic Abraham and
his descendants, not the state religion of the West in its pagan philosophy,
would color the churches of Asia. Thus, the graduates of Nisibis as they stood
like prophets before the sovereigns of China and Japan would preach the Sabbath
of the fourth commandment.
It was attested by the early church historians, Socrates and Sozomen,
already cited, as well as by other authorities, that at this time all the
churches of the world, except Rome and Alexandria, sanctified with divine
services the worship of the Sabbath of the Decalogue. Wherever Sunday was also
observed, it was with memorial resurrection services. The papal church, yes,
even the Reformers, did not recognize Sunday as a continuation of, or a
substitute for, the Sabbath. Sunday was in no way considered as having been
instituted by a divine commandment, but only by a church ordinance. The Civilization of the Church of the East
It has been noted how in the ninth century the civilizing education
system of the Church of the East dominated the golden age of the mighty Arabian
Empire - so much so that it permeated the literature of China and Japan in the
east, and paved the way for the founding of universities in Europe.
When the papal armies made a temporary conquest of the city of
Constantinople in 1204, many writers make plain the contrast between the high
culture and civilization of the nations in which were located Eastern and
Asiatic Christianity as compared to the barbarous conditions of the papal
nations of Europe. Thus, Arthur P. Stanley writes: There
can be no doubt that the civilization of the Eastern Church was far higher than
that of the Western. No one can read the account of the capture of
Constantinople by the crusaders of the thirteenth century, without perceiving
that it is the occupation of a refined and civilized capital by a horde of
comparative barbarians. The arrival of the Greek scholars in Europe in the
fifteenth century was the signal for the most progressive step that Western
theology has ever made.8
Adeney testifies to the same contrast when commenting upon the conversion
of the Russian church in the eleventh century by Eastern Christianity: Commerce
followed the gospel. Art and culture came in its train. A Christian civilization
now began to spread slowly through Russia. The consequence was that in the
course of the next century this country, which we are now accustomed to think of
as the most backward of European nations, became more advanced than Germany or
even France. She took a foremost place in the early part of the Middle Ages.
Byzantine culture was now at its height and incomparably superior to the rude
condition of the Western nations.9
In the middle of this same century, the thirteenth, occurred the
devastating conquest of nearly all Asia by the Mongols. They also overran
Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and Austria-Hungary, but were stopped on the eastern
border of Germany. France, Germany, and England were saved when the grandson of
the first Mongolian conqueror refused to pursue the conquest farther west. While
the Mongolian armies spread in their path the devastations of war, their
victorious march threw doors open through which were revealed to the eyes of an
astonished Europe not only the splendid civilization of Asia, but also the
widespread activities of the Church of the East. Consideration of these factors
discloses the attachments of this church to the Sabbath of the fourth
commandment.
Consideration of the great voyages which sent Columbus to the west and
Vasco da Gama to the east in the early years of the sixteenth century, reveals
more than the commercial motives of these expeditions. Commenting on the
splendor and civilization of the Orient in connection with the voyages of the
Polos, especially of Marco Polo, in the latter part of the thirteenth century,
Edward M. Hulme writes: The
contributions of the Polos to geographical knowledge completely eclipsed those
of all other previous travelers. They included the first extensive and reliable
account of the riches and the splendors of Indo-China, the Indian archipelago,
and China; and they included, too, the first actual information about Japan. So
picturesque was the account, so attractive the story, so marvelous were the
facts disclosed, that thousands read it with unabated interest for generations
afterwards. Columbus tells us that he found it an absorbing narrative. It
aroused in many a breast the desire to follow in the steps of the men whose
journeyings it recounted.10
The religious motives in undertaking the voyages of discovery were the
deepest. Now unrolls the history of how the Jesuits invaded and cruelly
oppressed Abyssinia in Africa, persecuted the Church of the East in India, and
plotted for dominion in China and Japan. The famous Jesuit, Francis Xavier,
exploring the church problems of the Orient, called in 1545 for the
establishment of the cruel and bloody Inquisition, which was set up in Goa,
India, in 1560. Adeney indicates why this horrible engine was considered
necessary: "In a letter written towards the end of the year 1545, Xavier
begged the king of Portugal to establish the Inquisition in order to check 'the
Jewish wickedness' that was spreading through his Eastern dominions."11 The
"Jewish wickedness" which the Jesuits undertook to fight in the Church
of the East meant, among other things, the observance of the seventh day as the
Sabbath. War on the Sabbath is precisely what the Jesuits made in Abyssinia,
which for centuries kept the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath.
The Mongolian conquest did not injure the Church of the East. On the
contrary, a number of the Mongolian princes and a larger number of Mongolian
queens were members of this church. It was rather the fierce opposition of the
fanatical Mohammedan conqueror, Tamerlane, a century later which brought great
grief to the Assyrian Church. Nevertheless, in spite of that and in spite of the
horrible work of the Jesuits, the Church of the East was strong enough in 1643
to send a director from its home base in Persia to daughter communities in
southwestern India. Let it be remembered that at this very time Europe was in
the convulsions of the dreadful Thirty Years' War. This was a fierce
unsuccessful effort of the Jesuits to destroy Protestantism on the Continent.
From the days of Luther until 1648, when the famous Peace of Westphalia
terminated the Thirty Years' War, Protestantism could not say that it had gained
a secure place under the sun. During this same period and prior to the
Reformation there were strong movements in Russia, Bohemia, France, England, and
Germany, seeking freedom to observe unmolested the seventh day as the Sabbath.
Yet intolerance reigned in Asia and Europe. But it is gratifying to note that in
the last period of the Thirty Years' War, for the first time in the history of
the world, a government granted religious freedom. This was the case of Roger
Williams in Rhode Island when he made a practical application of the great
teaching of Christ which called for the separation of church and state. The
spread of religious freedom was bound to be followed by a latter-day message on
the binding claims of the fourth commandment. Other Shortcomings of the Reformation
Other unfortunate deficiencies of the Reformation might be mentioned,
such as the union of church and state. Prophecy seemed to indicate, however,
that full return to primitive Christianity of the Bible would not come until the
church emerged from its subordinate position, or when the Church in the
Wilderness became the Remnant Church.
The following words from William Muir indicate the lack of stability
manifested by many believers in the Reformation prior to the days of John
Wesley. He writes: "In England the masses, who were never really
evangelized until John Wesley's time, changed sides as the monarchs changed and
were usually ready to shout with the biggest crowd."12 What was there
unusual in the message of John Wesley? It was the emphasis placed by Methodism
on redemption through the blood of Christ.13 The Scriptures teach that Christ is
the one and only divine sacrifice and that salvation comes through the
sufficiency of His death on the cross as our substitute and surety. The
substitutionary death of Christ as a divine sacrifice was not clearly emphasized
by the early Reformers.
The later Moravian movement, which swept through eastern Europe and later
established its missions in North America, was strong through its exaltation of
the Pauline, not the papal, attitude toward Christ's substitutionary death. It
is stated that when Zinzendorf in 1722 founded Herrnhut on his estates, he
preached the doctrine of salvation through the blood of Christ.14 Now, sad to
relate, many Protestants following in the steps of Rome, belittle the blood
atonement and ignore the substitutionary death.
Only when the church emerged from the wilderness to become the Remnant
Church was complete apostolic truth to be restored. The church would preach
again with power not only the substitutionary death of Christ, but also the
sacredness of the Ten Commandments, which were to be magnified by the death of
Christ - especially the fourth, sanctifying the seventh day. Can we not say that
in "the time of the end" the Sabbath would become a test? Thus, it is
written by the revelator, "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to
make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and
have the testimony of Jesus Christ." (Revelation 12:17.) The End of the Great Tribulation
The last of the four prominent dates under consideration in 1491,
when Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, was born. When it seemed as if the
Church of Rome were mined and crushed by the Reformation, the order of the
Jesuits was formed, the most powerful and cruel of all the orders within the
Papacy. It undertook first of all to capture colleges and universities, then to
climb to power in the state. It succeeded in dominating certain nations and in
persecuting with unspeakable cruelty that Protestantism which it was invented to
destroy. As Thomas B. Macaulay writes of Jesuitic cruelty: If
Protestantism, or the semblance of Protestantism, showed itself in any quarter,
it was instantly met, not by petty, teasing persecution, but by persecution of
that sort which bows down and crashes all but a very few select spirits. Whoever
was suspected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learning, or his reputation,
knew that he must purge himself to the satisfaction of a severe and vigilant
tribunal, or die by fire. Heretical books were sought out and destroyed with
similar rigor.15
The Savior made a clear distinction between the end of the days and the
end of the tribulation in the days. He said, "In those days, after that
tribulation." The days, as previously discussed, ended in 1798; but by 1772
every country in the world, even those which are called Catholic, arose in
horror and demanded that the pope abolish the order of the Jesuits. Finally a
pontiff was found who made a show of disbanding them, and they made a show of
getting out of sight. As one present-day writer says: Proof
of the subversive influence exercised by the Jesuits, in both spiritual and
civil affairs, throughout the four hundred years of their existence, is
plentifully evident by the number of times they have been disbanded by the
Catholic Church itself, by the Catholic people and by liberal and progressive
governments in Catholic and non-Catholic countries. They have been expelled, at
one time or another, (many times over in some countries) from practically every
country in the world --except the United States.16
Thus the 1260 years ended in 1798, but the great tribulation can be
considered to have ended in 1772. The date 1798 is worthy of fuller
consideration. The Accomplishment of the Indignation
"And 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. And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall
exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous
things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be
accomplished." (Daniel 11:35, 36.)
Here a persecution against the saints is foretold which would last until
"the time of the end." It has previously been shown that "the
time of the end" would begin when the 1260-year period ended, or in 1798.
In the above verses is predicted the appearance upon the scene of world action
of a willful king who would wreak God's indignation upon the persecutor of His
people. Since the persecutor was the Papacy, one must look elsewhere than the
medieval hierarchy to locate the willful king destined to put an end to the
1260-year period and to inflict a deadly wound upon the destroyer. What power
was swinging into strength, seized with a religious antagonism to the Papacy,
about 1798? What other nation could fulfill these specifications better than
France, the oldest daughter of the church, driven to atheism. Astonished
humanity suddenly beheld break forth in France a revolution, the like of which
the world had never previously seen. It engulfed the ecclesiastical tyranny of
the Papacy.
Napoleon, the product and the consummation of the French Revolution, was
in Egypt when, on February 10, 1798, General Berthier took the pope prisoner,
abolished the college of cardinals, and proclaimed on Capitoline Hill what had
been absent from Rome for 1260 years - religious liberty! This act struck down
the head of the system which had pursued the elect flock. But in the wreaking of
God's indignation as indicated in the scriptures above, the "deadly
wound" embraced more than this. A quotation from Lord Bryce will help show
how the French Revolution, the willful king or kingdom, through Napoleon
demolished the political regime of the Papacy. It
was his mission - a mission more beneficent in its result than in its means - to
break up in Germany and Italy the abominable system of petty states, to reawaken
the spirit of the people, to sweep away the relics of an effete feudalism, and
leave the ground clear for the growth of newer and better forms of political
life.... New kingdoms were erected, electorates created and extinguished, the
lesser princes mediatized, the free cities occupied by troops and bestowed on
some neighboring potentate. More than any other change, the secularization of
the dominions of the prince-bishops and abbots proclaimed the fall of the
old constitution, whose principals had required the existence of a spiritual
alongside of the temporal aristocracy.17 Inquiry Into the Prophecies
"But thou, O Daniel," said the angel, "shut up the
words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and
fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The Hebrew for the expression
"run to and fro," in its deepest sense, means "to study
diligently and minutely," or "to travel through." The German
Bible, as well as the French, translates this phrase thus: "Many shall
search thoroughly and knowledge shall be increased." What caused so great
an increase in Bible searching that it became a study on prophetic prediction?
When the delivering of the "deadly wound" to the gigantic
ecclesiastical dictatorship had lifted the ban on Bible study and the
termination of the wilderness condition of the true church had been so
strikingly fulfilled, the question "What next?" was in the hearts of
God's people This led to a sweeping wave of inquiry into the great chains of
prophecy.
At this very date a vast increase in the publication of Bibles began.
Bible societies, one after another, appeared. The British and Foreign Bible
Society was organized March 7, 1804. The American Bible Society came into
existence May 8, 1816. Copies of the Holy Scriptures poured from printing
presses by the hundreds of thousands, and have been sent out literally by
carloads and shiploads. This made possible the fulfillment of the prediction
that men everywhere would run to and fro through Holy Writ. In particular there
was intense interest to learn how much prophecy remained yet unfulfilled.
The 1260-year period was fulfilled. But there was left another remarkable
prophetic chain which extended to 1844, or forty-six years beyond the
termination of the 1260 years. This was the 2300-year-day chain in Daniel 8:14,
challenging special attention because it was, as the reading of the chapter
shows, the subject of celestial discussion between Michael (Christ) and Gabriel.
Many pages might be written concerning Bible writers and preachers who
now appeared prominently before the public, convinced by this 2300-year prophecy
that they were living in the time of the end. However, mention will be made
briefly of Manuel Lacunza, Edward Irving, Joseph Wolff, and William Miller.
Lacunza at the opening of the nineteenth century was a Jesuit of a
monastery in South America. Becoming a convert to many of the views held by the
Reformers, he diligently studied the Bible, giving special attention to
prophecy. He became so aroused over the 2300-year period as indicating that the
promised return of Christ was not far distant that he wrote a book on the
subject. This being known, it aroused religious antagonism, and he was driven
out of Chile. He continued his work in Europe, experiencing the same
persecution. Remarkable to relate, while the Continent was still in the death
struggle of ecclesiastical tyranny, he completed his volume entitled, La
Venida del Mesias en Gloria y Majestad (The Coming of Christ in Glory and
Majesty), writing under the name of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra.18
Approximately the same time Edward Irving began his astonishing labors
along the same line in England and Scotland. He too, after his call from
Scotland in 1812 to become the leading preacher in London, applied himself
unceasingly to the study of prophecy. Concentrating especially upon the
2300-year time period of Daniel 8:14, he arrived at practically the same
conclusion as did Lacunza. Tremendous crowds attended his lectures not only in
London, but throughout the large cities of Great Britain. Auditoriums were not
large enough to accommodate those who sought to hear him.19 His fame reached the
ears of Lacunza, who sent him a copy of his own book. Irving was astonished to
see how God had separately led a Scotch Presbyterian and a converted South
American Jesuit to recognize the commanding value of this prophecy and to
conclude from it that the time of the end had come.
Another remarkable preacher of prophecy was Ezra Ben-Ezra, who, after his
conversion from Judaism, took the name of Joseph Wolff. Of him D. T. Taylor
writes: Joseph
Wolff, D. D., according to his journals, between the years of 1821 and 1845,
proclaimed the Lord's speedy advent in Palestine, Egypt, on the shores of the
Red Sea, Mesopotamia, the Crimea, Persia, Georgia, throughout the Ottoman
Empire, in Greece, Arabia, Turkistan, Bokhara, Affghanistan, Cashmere, Hindostan,
Thibet, in Holland, Scotland and Ireland, at Constantinople, Jerusalem, St.
Helena, also on shipboard in the Mediterranean, and at New York City, to all
denominations. He declares he has preached among Jews, Turks, Mohammedans,
Parsees, Hindoos, Chaldeans, Yeseedes, Syrians, Sabeans, to pachas, sheiks,
shahs, the kings of Rgantsh and Bokhara, the queen of Greece, etc., and of his
extraordinary labors, the Investigator says: "No individual has,
perhaps, given greater publicity to the doctrine of the second coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ, than has this well-known missionary to the world. Wherever he
goes, he proclaims the approaching advent of the Messiah in glory.20
The converted South American Jesuit, the Scotch Presbyterian, and the
converted son of a rabbi were followed in the study and preaching of the same
pivotal prophecy by William Miller who was an American farmer, a veteran of the
War of 1812, and a converted infidel. Later he was ordained a Baptist preacher,
and he stirred to their foundations the churches of America during the years
1828-1844. He has never yet been surpassed in giving to the world an original
and generally correct analysis of the prophetic time periods. With respect to
his claim that the world would come to an end in 1844, this was a mistaken
interpretation of the event, but the accurate and substantial verification of
the date still stands. Later and clearer light upon Daniel 8:14 revealed that
Christ was speaking to Gabriel of the cleansing of the sanctuary, an Old
Testament expression applying to the Day of Atonement, which in reality is the
type of the day of judgment. (See Leviticus 16.) The World's Unparalleled Progress After 1798
When the 1260-year period ended in 1798, when religious freedom had
at last dawned upon the race, centuries of progress were crowded into a few
short years. Up to 1798 there were no railroads, no steamboats, no telegraph, no
electric lights, no reapers, automobiles, movies, airplanes, or radios. In fact,
up until that time man still had about the same level of material progress as
when Noah came out of the ark.
When religious freedom was granted, all this changed. The mind was free;
no one was compelled to believe. As Shakespeare wrote: "And this our life,
exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
sermons in stones, and good in everything." The mind must be free to learn
from nature, books, the Bible, or society; to believe according to the dictates
of conscience. When this freedom exists, material civilization increases. May
all the gains made by the Church in the Wilderness be preserved! God forbid that
civil or religious despotism should regain the ascendancy, reverse all that has
been gained since 1798, and send us back into the Dark Ages!
The French Revolution, following upon the American Revolution, delivered
to the Papacy a wound as it were unto death. For 1260 years Rome had entrenched
itself almost invincibly behind two theories: one, the union of church and
state; the other, the divine right of kings. It can be easily seen that if
monarchs believed that they ruled by divine right, they would favor and exalt
the head of that church who would perform the consecration service at their
coronation. That period was called the Dark Ages. It took centuries of blood and
suffering to open the eyes of men to the colossal evils inherent in these two
theories of government. Edgar Quinet, Protestant historian of the French
Revolution, believed that up to that event the history of France was not worth
writing. When in February, 1798, religious liberty was proclaimed by the French
army in Rome and the pope was taken prisoner to France, the cardinals, as they
drew their cloaks over their heads and abandoned the city, exclaimed, "This
is the end of religion!"
Nevertheless, the prophet predicted, "His deadly wound was healed:
and all the world wondered after the beast." Here was a demand for eternal
vigilance, lest defeated tyranny would regain its lost ground. "Democracy
is character," exclaimed an American statesman. As prosperity increased,
character declined. The fathers won freedom and happiness through blood and
suffering. The children turned back in their hearts to the vices and luxuries of
the Old World. The Oxford Movement arose in 1833, and rapidly growing in
strength and gathering these worldly desires of the next generation into an
organized society, began the glorification of the Dark Ages and the belittling
of modem freedoms, as well as of those who won them. The Papacy in its leading
publications gives credit to Dr. J. H. Newman, of Oxford University, who later
became Cardinal Newman, and the Oxford Movement for the present world-wide
Catholic revival. Of him The Catholic Encyclopedia writes: "No finer
triumph of talent in the service of conscience has been put on record. From that
day the Catholic religion may date its re-entrance into the national
literature."21
Why was it that in 1833 England believed that the Reformation was the
work of God, but fifty years later it believed that the Reformation had been a
rebellion, as was pointed out by the historian Froude, who was at Oxford during
those years of the movement; and that whereas in 1833 the pope was looked upon
as antichrist, in 1883 he was considered the successor of the apostles? The
deadly wound to tyranny was being healed and those who inflicted it were being
vilified. All the arts of tricky reasoning and of corrupting the records of
history reappeared in the Oxford Movement. Its leaders, many of them Jesuits in
disguise, began to build up a case for Romanism. This movement, assisted by gold
and by disguised agents from the Continent, spread through the Church of
England. It then entered the Protestant theological schools of America. Now is
being witnessed the de-Protestantization of the English-speaking world. The pope
has now been made king. The "deadly wound" is reaching complete
healing. The Approaching Age
In "the time of the end" stupendous and unprecedented are
the scenes through which the Remnant Church must pass. The Remnant Church will
occupy a position such as was never before occupied by God's people. Her message
will embrace all the messages of the past and bring them to final consummation.
She will fix her eyes upon the soon return of Christ as the next event in this
stupendous program. Of her amid the vast scenes of Christ's return, the
revelator writes: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the
faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:12.) While those who walk in the broad way are
losing their awareness of things eternal, God's final church will be alert to
things not seen. She will endure, like Moses, by seeing Him who is invisible.
She will take time to follow after holiness. These believers will behold the
momentous events leading up to, and constituting, the battle of Armageddon. Of
the steps preparatory to this catastrophe the revelator says: "The nations
were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be
judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and
to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldest
destroy them which destroy the earth." (Revelation 11:18.)
Paganism is symbolized in the book of Revelation by the great red dragon.
The war which paganism made upon the early church was bitter; and the long,
cruel persecutions carried on by the beast, that medieval union of church and
state which succeeded to the power of paganism in the European nations, was
still more bitter. But the church of the last days must endure the wrath and
persecutions of the image to the beast, which is the final colossal union of
church and state, or the healing of the deadly wound of the beast. (Revelation
13.) These terms are used because God uses them. And so offensive to the Eternal
is the stand of the image to the beast, into whose vast apostasy flow all the
deceptions of the dragon and the beast, that God proclaims to mankind in advance
a special warning along this line: "If any man worship the beast and his
image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall
drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into
the cup of His indignation." "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." (Revelation 14:9, 10, 14.) This
message proclaimed by the Remnant Church will take away blindness from those who
are willing to see.
The most dreadful language ever used in the Scriptures is that which
foretells the visitation of the seven last plagues, the last divine indignation,
the untempered wrath of God: "I saw another sign in heaven, great and
marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up
the wrath of God." (Revelation 15:1.) That the seven last plagues are
leveled against the beast and his image is plainly indicated. The long pent-up
indignation of Jehovah in His wrath against hypocrisy finally bursts forth. The
Bible says that "the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich
men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every
freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains,"
asking the mountains and rocks to fall on them and to hide them, "for the
great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"
(Revelation 6:15-17.)
When this is over, the revelator beholds that "the heaven departed
as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved
out of their places." (Revelation 6:14.) From now on there will be no dull
moments among the children of men. How solemn and how unprecedented are the
scenes through which the last church passes, preparing and perfecting a
character which will be acceptable to the Lord Jesus Christ when He returns!
The events of earth are now being agitated by the breath of the
approaching age. The world that now is, is passing; the arrival of the world to
come is imminent. The principalities and powers of darkness are making a last
effort to gain possession of souls. There is still power in prayer to resist the
increasing darkness. Remember the pleading of the apostle Peter: "Seeing
then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye
to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the
coming of the day of God." (2 Peter 3:11, 12.)
May that day, so vividly described in the following words, find all who
read these pages ready: Amid
the reeling of the earth, the flash of lightning, and the roar of thunder, the
voice of the Son of God calls forth the sleeping saints. He looks upon the
graves of the righteous, then raising His hands to heaven He cries, "Awake,
awake, awake, ye that sleep in the dust, and arise!" Throughout the length
and breadth of the earth, the dead shall hear that voice; and they that hear
shall live. And the whole earth shall ring with the tread of the exceeding great
army of every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. From the prison house of
death they come, clothed with immortal glory, crying, "O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" And the living righteous and the
risen saints unite their voices in a long, glad shout of victory.22
This consummation will truly be Truth Triumphant.
"Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of
Jesus." (Revelation 14:12.) |