From an email newsletter by Greg Bentley of Berean Beacon

Our nation’s founding Fathers knew exactly what was at stake in declaring independence in 1776. They knew the yoke of popery was heavy over England and they knew that real independence was in separation from the Pope of Rome.

On August 1st, 1776 Samual Adams delivered his famous speech “American Independence” on the steps of the State House in Philadelphia. Mr. Adams proclaimed ”He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all. Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion.”

On August 2nd the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The Adams family of New England was prominent in shaping America. Samuel’s second cousin and also the second President of the United States, John Adams, wrote to Thomas Jefferson on the 19th of May 1821, stating “Can a free Government possibly exist with a Roman Catholic Religion?”

In a remarkable correspondence sent to John Adams from Dr. Benjamin Rush dated 22 September 1808, Dr. Rush discusses the conclusion of a mutual friend, Jos Wharton, who saw prophetic fulfillment of portions of the books of Revelation and Daniel being fulfilled in their day. “He sees the fulfillment of the prophecies in every battle that is fought in that Country. He talks piously and learnedly upon the downfall of popery and Antichrist, of the dragon,—of the beast that came out of the Sea & of his ten horns, and has no doubt but Napoleon is to be the instrument for preparing the world for the righteous and peaceable government of the Messiah over the Nations of the earth.”

Clearly the protestant historicist view of eschatology held by early American Christians had not yet been compromised by Roman Catholic Jesuit Futurism and her offspring known as Dispensationalism.

Dr. Benjamin Rush was the surgeon general of the Continental Army and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is also the founder of the Sunday School movement as well as the first Bible society in America. He Stated: “Unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship … to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Science. All such laws are un‐American and despotic and have no place in a Republic … The Constitution of this Republic should make special privileges for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom.”

On this 4th of July let us be thankful for the brave Christian Founders of America who stood against papal tyranny and stood for liberty. Intelligent men who knew both their God and their enemy. Pray for the remnant in American that has not compromised the gospel nor caved into the doctrine of devils that flow from the Antichrist in Rome.

Pray against the Antichrist’s Eucharistic pilgrimages that are now sweeping America. This outward display of idolatry can only anger God who promises a generational curse on those who practice it. How can God bless America when these abominations continue?

Preface.

When I first designed to publish the following sheets, it was a matter of some doubt with me, whether or no I should put my name to them; for if I did, I considered that I exposed myself to the malice of a great body of men, who would endeavor on all occasions to injure me in my reputation and fortune, if not in my life; which last (to say no more) was no unnatural suspicion of a Spaniard, and one in my case, to entertain of some fiery zealots of the Church of Rome.

But on the other hand, I foresaw, that if I concealed my name, a great part of the benefit intended to the public by this work, might be lost. For I have often observed, as to books of this kind, where facts only are related, (the truth of which in the greatest measure must depend on the credit of the relater,) that wherever the authors, out of caution or fear, have concealed themselves, the event commonly has been, that even the friends to the cause, which the facts support, give but a cold assent to them, and the enemies reject them entirely as calumnies and forgeries, without ever giving themselves the trouble of examining into the truth of that which the relater dares not openly avow. On this account, whatever the consequences may be, I resolved to put my name to this; and accordingly did so to the first proposals which were made for printing it.

But, by this means, I am at the same time obliged to say something in vindication of myself from several aspersions (false or damaging accusations or insinuations) which I lie under, and which indeed I have already in a great degree been a sufferer by, in the opinion of many worthy gentlemen. The first is, that I never was a priest (meaning the first false accusation that Anthony Gavin was never a priest), because I have not my letters of orders to produce. This, it must be confessed, is a testimonial, without which no one has a right, or can expect to be regarded as a person of that character; unless he has very convincing arguments to offer the world, that, in his circumstances, no such thing could reasonably be expected from him; and whether or no, mine are such, I leave the world to judge. My case was this:

As soon as it had pleased God by his grace to overcome in me the prejudices of my education in favor of that corrupt church, in which I had been bred up, and to inspire me with a resolution to embrace the Protestant religion, I saw, that in order to preserve my life, I must immediately, quit Spain, where all persons who do not publicly profess the Romish religion, are condemned to death. Upon this, I resolved to lose no time in making my escape, but how to make it was a matter of the greatest difficulty and danger. However, I determined rather to hazard all events, than either to continue in that church, or expose myself to certain death; and accordingly made choice of disguises as the most probable method of favoring my escape. The first I made use of, was the habit of an officer in the army: and as I was sure there would be strict inquiry and search made after me, I durst not bring along with me my letters of orders, which, upon my being suspected in any place, for the person searched after, or on any other unhappy accident, would have been an undeniable evidence against me, and consequently would have condemned me to the inquisition. By this means I got safely to London, where I was most civilly received by the late Earl Stanhope, to whom I had the honor to be known when he was in Saragossa. He told me that there were some other new converts of my nation in town, and that he hoped I would follow the command of Jesus to Peter, viz. When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

Upon this I went to the late Lord Bishop of London, and by his lordship’s order, his domestic chaplain examined me three days together; and as I could not produce the letters of orders, he advised me to get a certificate from my Lord Stanhope, that he knew me, and that I was a priest, which I obtained the very same day; and upon bis certificate, his lordship received my recantation, after morning prayers in his chapel of Somerset house, and licensed me to preach and officiate in a Spanish congregation composed of my Lord Stanhope, several English officers, and a few Spanish officers, new converts. My first sermon I had the honor to dedicate to my Lord Stanhope; it was printed by Mr. William Bowyer, and was sold afterwards by Mr. Denoyer, a French bookseller, at Erasmus’s head in the Strand. By virtue of this license, I preached two years and eight months, first in the chapel of Queen’s Square, Westminster, and afterwards in Oxenden’s chapel, near the haymarket. But my benefactor, desirous to settle me in the English church, advised me to go chaplain to the Preston man of war, where I might have a great deal of leisure to learn the language ; and being presented and approved by the Bishop of London, the Lords of the Admiralty granted me the warrant or commission of chaplain. Then his lordship, though he had given me his consent in writing, to preach in Spanish, enlarged it in the warrant of the Admiralty, which license I shall take leave to insert here at large.

“Whereas the Reverend Mr. Anthony Gavin was recommended to me by the right honorable Lord Stanhope, and by the same and other English gentlemen, I was certified that the said Reverend Mr. Gavin was a secular priest, and master of arts in the university of the city of Saragossa, in the kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, and that they knew him in the said city, and conversed with him several times: This is to certify that the said Reverend Mr. Gavin, after having publicly and solemnly abjured the errors of the Romish religion, and being thereupon by me reconciled to the Church of England, on the 2d day of January, 1715-16, he then had my leave to officiate in the Spanish language, in the chapel of Queen’s Square, Westminster; and now being appointed chaplain of his Majesty’s ship, the Preston, has my license to preach in English, and to administer the sacraments at home and abroad, in all the churches and chapels of my diocese.

Given under my hand in London, the 13th of July. 1720.

Signed, JOHN LONDON.”

The certificate, license, and warrant, may be seen at any time, for I have them by me.

After that, the ship being put out of commission, and my Lord Stanhope being in Hanover with the king, I came over to Ireland on the importunity of a friend, with a desire to stay here until my lord’s return into England: but when I was thinking of going over again, I heard of my lord’s death, and having in him lost my best patron, I resolved to try in this kingdom, whether I could find any settlement; and in a few days after, by the favor of his grace my Lord Archbishop of Cashel, and the Reverend Dean Percival, I got the curacy of Gowran, which I served almost eleven months, by the license of my Lord Bishop of Ossory, who afterwards, upon my going to Cork, gave me his letters dismissory. (Letters given by a bishop dismissing a person who is removing into another diocese, and recommending him for reception there.)

Another objection raised against me is, that I have perjured myself in discovering the private confessions which were made to me. In one point indeed they may call me perjured, and it is my comfort and glory that I am so in it, viz: that I have broke the oath I took, when I was ordained priest, which was, to live and die in the Roman Catholic faith. But as to the other perjury charged upon me, they lie under a mistake; for there is no oath of secrecy at all administered to confessors, as most Protestants imagine. Secrecy indeed is recommended to all confessors by the casuists, and enjoined by the councils and popes so strictly, that if a confessor reveals (except in some particular cases) what is confessed to him, so as the penitent is discovered, he is to be punished for it in the inquisition; which, it must be owned, is a more effectual way of enjoining secrecy than oaths themselves.

However, I am far from imagining, that because in this case I have broken no oath, I should therefore be guilty of no crime, though I revealed every thing which was committed to my trust as a confessor, of whatever ill consequence it might be to the penitent; no, such a practice I take to be exceedingly criminal, and I do, from my soul, abhor it.

But nevertheless there are cases where, by the constitution of the church of Rome itself, the most dangerous secrets may and ought to be revealed: such as those which are called reserved cases,” of which there are many; some reserved to the pope himself, as heresy; some to his apostolic commissary or deputy, as incest in the first degree; some to the bishop of the diocese, as the setting a neighbor’s house on fire. Now in such cases the confessor cannot absolve the penitent, and therefore he is obliged to reveal the confession to the person to whom the absolution of that sin is reserved; though indeed he never mentions the penitent’s name, or any circumstance by which he may be discovered.

Again, there are other cases (such as a conspiracy against the life of Ike Prince, or a traitorous design to overturn the government) which the confessor is obliged in conscience, and for the safety of the public, to reveal.

But besides all these, whenever the penitent’s case happens to have any thing of an uncommon difficulty in it, common prudence, and a due regard to the faithful discharge of his office, will oblige a confessor to discover it to men of experience and judgment in casuistry, that he may have their advice how to proceed in it. And that is what confessors in Spain not only may do, but are bound by the word of a priest to do wherever they have an opportunity of consulting a college of confessors, or, as it is commonly called, a moral academy.

I believe it may be of some service on the present occasion, to inform my readers what those moral academies are, which are to be met with through Spain, in every city and town where there is a number of secular and regular priests. But I shall speak only of those in the city of Saragossa, as being the most perfectly acquainted with them.

A moral academy is a college or assembly consisting of several Father Confessors, in which each of them proposes some moral case which has happened to him in confession, with an exact and particular account of the confession, without mentioning the penitent’s name: and the proponent having done this, every member is to deliver his opinion upon it. This is constantly practiced every Friday, from two of the clock in the afternoon, till six, and sometimes till eight, as the cases proposed happen to be more or less difficult. But when there is an extraordinary intricate case to be resolved, and the members cannot agree in the resolution of it, they send one of their assembly to the great academy which is a college composed of sixteen casuistical (relating to the use of ethical principles to resolve moral problems) doctors, and four professors of divinity, the most learned and experienced in moral cases that may be had; and by them the casein debate is resolved, and the resolution of it entered in the books of the academy by the consent of the president and members.

Now after all that has been said upon this head, I believe I need not be at much trouble to vindicate myself from the imputation of any criminal breach of secrecy; for if the reader observe, that on the foregoing grounds, there is no confession whatever which may not lawfully be revealed, (provided the confessor do not discover the penitent,) he cannot in justice condemn me for publishing a few, by which it is morally impossible, in the present circumstances, that the penitents should be known. Had I been much more particular than I am in my relations, and mentioned even the names and every thing else I knew of the persons, there would scarce be a possibility (considering the distance and little intercourse there is between this place and Saragossa) of their suffering in any degree by it: and I need not observe that the chief, and indeed only reason of enjoining and keeping secrecy, is the hazards the penitent may run by a discovery, but I do assure the reader, that in every confession I have related, I have made use of feigned names; and avoided every circumstance by which I had the least cause to suspect the parties might be found out. And I assure him further, that most of the cases here published by me are, in their most material points, already printed in the compendiums of that moral academy of which I was a member.

As for the reasons which moved me to publish this book, I shall only say, that as the corrupt practices, which are the subject of it, first set me upon examining into the principles of the Church of Rome, and by that means of renouncing them; so I thought that the making of them public, might happily produce the same effect in some others.

I did design on this occasion to give a particular account of the motives of my conversion, and leaving Spain; but being confined to three hundred pages, I must leave that and some other things relating to the sacraments of the church of Rome, to the second part, which I intend to print if the public think fit to encourage me.

Continued in The Great Red dragon. Part I. The Roman Catholics’ Auricular Confession.

This is from a PDF file downloaded from LutheranLibrary.org. “Leo Herbert Lehmann (1895-1950) was an Irish author, editor, and director of a Protestant ministry, Christ’s Mission in New York. He was a priest in the Roman Catholic Church who later in life converted to Protestantism and served as the editor of The Converted Catholic Magazine. He authored magazine articles, books and pamphlets, condemning the programs and activities of the Roman Catholic Church.” – Source: Wikipedia article.

I consider former Roman Catholic priests turned Protestants to be some of the best resources for this website. You can consider all former priests to have been insiders in the largest secret society of the world!

AMERICANS had their first inkling of traditional Catholic anti-Semitism from the diatribes of Father Coughlin and other priest-leaders of the ‘Christian’ Front.

“Charles Edward Coughlin (October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the Little Flower. Dubbed “The Radio Priest” and considered a leading demagogue, he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. During the 1930s, when the U.S. population was about 120 million, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts.” – Source: Wikipedia article

They have yet to discover how deep-seated this anti-Jewish feeling has always been in the Catholic church. They have been loath to believe that Coughlin and his followers represent the official attitude of the Catholic church in this matter. But in his pronouncements about the Jews, as in those on other current Catholic topics — the danger of liberalism, the communist menace, the failure of democracy — Father Coughlin’s role has been that of the spearhead for the opening of the official attack.

The anti-Jewish preachments of the radio priest from the Shrine of the Little Flower were crude but faithful expressions of his Jesuit supporters. For example, in 1934, shortly after Hitler came to power, all that Coughlin has ever said against the Jews was proclaimed in a treatise read by the Jesuit Father F. X. Murphy before a gathering of Jesuits in convention at Manresa Island, Connecticut. Needless to say, this treatise could never have been read before such an assembly without official approbation of his Jesuit superiors. It was later published in the Jesuit periodical The Catholic Mind of October 22, 1934. The following excerpts from the treatise of this Jesuit historian will suffice:

And again:

A short time later another Jesuit professor, the Rev. Lawrence Patterson, refuting Herman Bernstein in a review of his book, The Truth about the Protocols of Zion, in the Jesuit magazine America of March 23, 1935, says in part:

Farther back, we have the prayer of St. Francis Xavier, second only to Ignatius Loyola himself in the Jesuit calendar of saints: “O God, put me some place where there are no Jews or Moslems!”

Catholic anti-Semitism, however, goes farther back than the Jesuits. It is part of the Catholic church’s doctrine of the outlawry of all unbelievers, and is most evident in the anti-Jewish decrees of the popes and enactments of Catholic church councils during the four centuries from 1200 to 1600 — after which it was carried forward by the Jesuits as the guardians of the universal Catholic mind. It is true that occasional popes restrained Christian outrages against the Jews, but the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council and of the Council of Basle, of Popes Innocent III, Innocent IV, Eugenius IV, Gregory IX, Pius V and Paul IV, compelled Jews to live apart in ghettos, to pay extortionate taxes, to wear an odious badge (the green hat or cape), forbade them to live in the same house or eat or trade with Christians, to practice medicine, to pursue high finance, to acquire real estate, to testify in the courts against Christians, and banished them at times, in whole or in part, from the Papal States. The exact replicas of these papal enactments can be seen in Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, so closely copied and applied by Mussolini in Italy, by Franco in Spain, by Msgr. Tiso in Slovakia, and later rigorously enforced in all Catholic countries in Europe, including ‘Christianized’ France under its clerico-fascist Petain-Laval regime.

The similarity between these anti-Semitic papal decrees and those enforced all over Europe by Nazi-Fascism can be seen from the following translations of some of the anti-papal decrees of the popes from 1200 to 1600:

Pope Innocent III decreed as follows:

Under this same PopeInno cent III, the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, which was one of the most important ecumenical councils of the Catholic church, officially decreed Canons Nos. 67-70 setting forth the Roman Catholic attitude towards the Jews:

The first of these Canons is financial, containing protective measures for Christians against the rapacity of Jews as usurers.

The second decrees that all Jews be distinguished for all time from Christians by color of dress and distinctive badge.

The third forbids Jews to have Christians as nurses, tutors and domestic servants, and forbids Christians to cohabit with Jews and Jewesses. Legal marriage with them was impossible.

The fourth forbids the acceptance of legal testimony of Jews against Christians, and orders preference for the testimony of a Christian against a Jew. An order is also added that all in authority in church and state must watch continually lest converted and baptized Jews continue to practice the rites of their former faith.

A few years later, Pope Innocent III reiterated and confirmed these edicts of the Lateran Council as follows:

“To The King Of France That He Must Crush The Insolence Of The Jews Residing In His Kingdom:

On Good Friday also, contrary to the law of old, they walk through the streets and public squares, and meeting Christians who, according to custom, are going to adore the Crucifix, they deride them and strive to prevent them from this duty of adoration. We warn and exhort Your Serene Majesty in the Lord (adding the remission of your sins) that you force the Jews from their presumption… and see to it that due punishment be meted out to all such blasphemers, and that an easy pardon be not given to delinquents.”

In 1244, Pope Inno cent IV ordered the burning of Jewish books. He exhorted the King of France as follows:

Pope Gregory IX sent the following to the archbishops of Germany:

Pope Eugenius IV, in 1442, issued the following decree:

Pope Paul IV, in 1555, reiterated the above restrictions against the Jews and added some new ones. He ordered Jews to pay an annual amount for every synagogue, “even those that have been demolished,” and decreed further that,

This Pope Pius IV permitted Jews to possess immovable property up to the value of 1,500 gold ducats. His successor, Pius V, however, in 1567, revoked this small concession, and ordered Jews to sell all their properties to Christians. Two years later, in modern Hitleresque manner, he ordered all Jews expelled from the States of the Church:

The penalties against Jews who should disobey this order were as follows:

Liberal Catholic apologists in America endeavor to save the reputation of their church by pointing to certain popes who tried to protect the Jews from excessive persecution by Christian princes. They lay the blame for anti-Semitism in the past on the undeveloped condition of society and trade rivalry. They overlook the fact, however, that the cause of all anti-Semitism springs from the denial of equal rights and citizenship to Jews in pre-Reformation Christianity. To this can he traced the condition of Jews to day in Europe. But this denial was dogmatized into Christian society by the popes, and is part of the universal Catholic church dogma of the outlawry of all unbelievers. It was revived in France immediately after the collapse of democracy there in June 1940, and was put into effect by the decrees of the ‘Christian’ Petain-Laval regime on October 18.

In reply to an article of mine on Catholic anti-Semitism in The Social Frontier of November, 1938, Emmanuel Chapman, professor at Fordham (a Jesuit) University, makes a well-meaning but futile attempt to defend his church in this matter. He says that even the popes who issued anti-Semitic decrees exerted every effort to prevent Christians from killing Jews and forcing them to become Christians. “The enforcement (sic) of the Church’s policy with regard to the Jew”, he says, “depended upon the secular power, as the Jews were not under the Church’s government and only the state could rule over them.” Here again is the admission that Jews were outlaws from Christian society. In other words, it was the duty of the popes to issue the decrees that Jews, for all time, must remain the slaves of Christians (“whom the death of Christ — in which the Jews evilly conspired at least by the effect of the deed — made free”), and it was the duty of the secular power to see to it that the Jews, without being actually killed, should never attain equal rights with Christians. Hitler and Mussolini carried out this relentless policy against the Jews in all countries within the orbit of the Rome-Berlin Axis. After ruthlessly demolishing the egalitarian structure of democratic countries, they immediately reimposed the hierarchical, authoritarian state, which is in keeping with the Vatican’s political ideology, in which the Jew as an unbeliever has no legal status.

Again, much is made of the late Pope Pius XI’s generic statement (in September, 1938, in an address to some Belgium pilgrims) that “spiritually, we are all Semites”. That was the time when Mussolini began to issue his anti-Semitic regulations. But about that same time, the Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, published a summary of the traditional attitude of the Catholic church towards the Jews. After explaining that many popes issued “protective” ordinances to prevent the slaughter of Jews, it went on to say:

This accurately expresses the fixed policy of Catholicism towards the Jews up till our time. There were many popes who were not anti-Semitic in the sense that they issued “protective” ordinances to curb hatred and violence against the Jews; they decreed that Christians should not deny to Jews what was “permitted” them by law. These protective ordinances usually incorporated the principle laid down by Pope Gregory I (590-604) as follows:

The Catholic laity in America, with the exception of the lunatic fringe, go even farther than the most liberal popes in their attitude towards the Jews; in keeping with the principles of our egalitarian democracy, they believe that Jews have equal rights with Christians. For merely to op pose violence against them and to insist that they should suffer no injury in those things which have been “conceded” them, would be little improvement on the Nazi-fascist attitude.

It must be admitted that Jews, as a whole, are an obstacle to the functioning of society as Nazi-Fascism and political Catholicism would have it. Whether by race or religion, Jews resist regimentation of all kinds. They are more at home in Protestant, democratic countries — where alone they are un molested and guaranteed equal rights with Christians. Dr. E. Boyd Barrett, who was a Jesuit priest for twenty years before he left the church, has the following to say about the Jews:

Herein may be found the answer to the whole anti-Semitic prob lem. Since both Nazi-Fascism and Jesuit Catholicism are sworn enemies of religious, intellectual and political freedom, the Jew must be either subjugated or banished if their plan for society is to become a reality. Since he cannot be subjugated, he must be banished so that the slavery of clerico-fascism may continue.

I’ve been having exchanges with a brother in Christ who is a Futurist. He believes the prophecy of Daniel 9:27 is an Endtime event, and I believe it was fulfilled in the past. The Devil has deceived many Christians today through ignorance of history and Jesuit false doctrines that have crept into the Church to think prophecies of Daniel, Matthew 24, II Thessalonians 2, and nearly all of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation are yet to be fulfilled in the future. And why would Satan do that? To stop Protestant Christians from calling Papal Rome “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” of Revelation 17:5, and to stop calling the popes of Rome “that man of sin … the son of perdition” of 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

Up till the beginning of the 20th century, sound eschatological doctrine among Bible reading Protestants still prevailed. It changed dramatically after C.I. Scofield published his Scofield Reference Bible.

Here are seven facts I shared with my friend about the Futurist interpretation of Daniel 9:27 which he holds, facts that I consider irrefutable.

1. It was my pastor who taught me the Futurist view of Daniel 9:27 and the 70th Week of Daniel about the Antichrist making a seven-year-covenant with the Jews and Israel to rebuild their temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. He taught me there is an undetermined gap in time between the 69th Week and the 70th Week. I first heard this from him circa 1974 when I was young and without knowing any alternate interpretations of the 70th Week. I had no reason in my mind to question him because he was more learned than I was. In 2005 an email friend told me there is no gap of time between the 69th and 70th Week of Daniel. I rejected the idea then due to my cognitive bias and because my friend was a SDA. I thought he was giving me an SDA-specific doctrine. It was 9 years later when I learned he was telling me standard Protestant interpretation of the 70th Week.
2. The very same pastor 19 years later in 1993 confessed that he got that interpretation of the 70th Week of Daniel from C.I. Scofield, a man who also taught the evil doctrines of Zionism and pre-tribulation secret rapture. These were two doctrines from Scofield my pastor threw out the window over 20 years earlier! The pastor also stated that his interpretation of the 70th Week is only a theory. In spite of that, I was not motivated at the time to search for alternative interpretations. I had no access to other resources because I was living in Japan then, a land with limited English libraries. The Internet was not yet popular. I didn’t start using the Internet to gain information until 1997, four years later.
3. It was finally in December of 2014 I learned from articles on the Internet that up to the 19th century, most Bible commentators taught that Daniel 9:27 is a Messianic prophecy that was fulfilled by Christ and His Apostles. One reason I think I received it then is because a couple years before that I learned that 19th century and earlier Protestant Bible commentators taught that the prophecy of the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4 is talking about the office of the papacy. I believed they were correct. That took me halfway to understanding Daniel 9:27.
4. Scripture interprets Scripture. Verse 4 of Daniel chapter 9 says, “keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him.” This is clearly the same covenant of verse 27! “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:” Notice the definite article “the” before covenant in verses 4 and 27? This is indicative that the covenant that was confirmed was already in existence. The covenant of verse 4 is the same covenant of verse 27, namely the covenant God made with Abraham, the covenant of grace through faith. Jesus Himself confirmed this covenant with the Jews when He preached the Gospel to them! Paul confirms this in Galatians 3:17 when he says “And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ…” It was Jesus, not Antichrist, who caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease in the middle of the “Week” or seven-year period when He was crucified on the Cross of Calvary. His Apostles continued to openly preach the Gospel for three and a half more years until major persecution of the believers and followers of Christ began with the stoning of Stephen, thus ending the 7-year confirmation of the covenant with Israel and the beginning of Paul’s ministry of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles.
5. Jesuit Francesco Ribera around 1585 concocted the Futurist interpretation of Daniel 9:27 to put the Antichrist into the unknown FUTURE, to stop the Protestants from calling the popes of Rome the Antichrist. It also diverted attention from papal Rome, the so-called “Holy See” of being “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” of Revelation 17:5.
6. The Futurist interpretation of Daniel 9:27 was largely REJECTED by Protestants until the 20th century when it was proclaimed by C.I. Scofield in his Scofield Reference Bible, a Bible filled with false interpretations of prophecy that blinded the Church as to who the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is. It and Scofield’s other dispensational doctrines such as Christian Zionism was and continues to be promoted by the prestigious Dallas Theological Seminary which wrongly influenced nearly all the popular preachers of today.
7. The false Jesuit Futurist interpretation of Daniel 9:27 is held by the majority of evangelicals today which is why many churches are apostate churches.

This is from The Secret Terrorists by Bill Hughes. If the Jesuits were that powerful in the 19th century, just think how much power they have now in the 21st! But they also failed many times. God foiled their plans and will continue to do so. As the scripture says, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31

CHAPTER 3 PRESIDENTS HARRISON, TAYLOR, AND BUCHANAN

William Henry Harrison was elected to the Presidency of the United States in the year 1841. He was already well up in years at 67, but he was very healthy and robust. All who knew him felt that he would have no problem going through his full four years in office. However, just thirty-five days after taking the oath of office, President Harrison was dead on April 4, 1841. Most, if not all, encyclopedias will tell you that he died of pneumonia after giving his inaugural address in the severe cold of Washington, D.C., but that is not correct. He did not die of pneumonia.

When Harrison came to office a very tense situation existed in the country. Trouble was brewing between the North and the South over the issue of slavery. There was contention over the annexation of Texas, whether it would be admitted free or slave. An attempt had been made on President Jackson’s life just six years before. Harrison took office a short twenty years before the Civil War. The influence of the Jesuits was weighing heavily upon America.

As we have already seen, the Congresses at Vienna, Verona, and Chieri, were determined to destroy popular government wherever it was found. The prime target was the United States and the destruction of every Protestant principle. The despicable Jesuits were ordered to carry out this destruction.

Andrew Jackson faced the onslaught of the Jesuits via the political mine fields of John C. Calhoun and the financial wizardry of Nicholas Biddle. William Henry Harrison had also refused to go along with the Jesuits’ goals for America. In his inaugural address he made these comments:

By that statement, President Harrison had just incurred the deadly wrath of the Jesuits.

For nearly a thousand years, the Roman Catholic popes felt that they ruled by divine right, that their power had come directly from God, and that all men were to bow to their authority and control. If a ruler would not submit his position and the country he ruled into the hands of the Pope, then that person had no right to rule. When Harrison stated that, “we admit of no government by divine right,” he was declaring that he and the United States were in no way going to submit to the pope’s control. To the pope and his heinous Jesuits, this was a slap in the face that they felt must be dealt with immediately.

It was not Harrison alone that had rejected Rome’s authority, for he was simply stating what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had declared before him. Our Republic totally refused the control that the pope and the Jesuits were trying to apply. When a nation, church, or individual, refuses to submit to the authority of the papacy, they are finished. Unless God intervenes, the lives of those opposing the papacy will be terminated.

This concept is completely foreign to the thinking of people who have lived under a free, constitutional government. The inalienable rights to worship God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience and a government without a king, are taken for granted in the United States today. We don’t realize that Harrison’s statement was a dagger aimed at the heart of the papacy’s existence. Another ruler who refused to be dictated to by the papacy was Queen Elizabeth of England. She was one of Henry the Eighth’s daughters and ruled England from 1558 to 1603. She ascended the throne following the death of her half-sister, ‘Bloody Mary,’ who ruled England from 1553 to 1558. Mary had been a Catholic sovereign, but Elizabeth was a Protestant.

Queen Elizabeth wisely rejected the assumed ‘Divine Right’ of the papacy to rule over and control the throne of England. Because of this there were at least five attempts to assassinate her. These attempts all failed because she had a superb secret service group, and her life was saved.

When the papacy realized that all their efforts to assassinate Elizabeth had failed, they turned to one of their Catholic sons, Phillip the Second of Spain. In 1580 the papacy arranged for Spain to invade England.

The famous Spanish Armada was sent to crush England because Elizabeth would not give her throne and kingdom to the pope. For thirty years, the Jesuits tried to kill Elizabeth, but failed. Finally, they conspired with Phillip the Second of Spain to annihilate her with the Armada.

Likewise, as William Henry Harrison took his oath to become the President of the United States, the Jesuits saw a man that openly opposed them and their plans. Unfortunately, President Harrison was poisoned just thirty five days into his term of office.

United States Senator Thomas Benton concurs.

William Henry Harrison became the first president to fall a victim of the Jesuits in their attempt to take over the United States, destroy the Constitution, and install the papacy as the supreme ruler in America. If any U.S. President or any other leader refused to take orders from the Jesuits, they too, would be targets of assassination. Zachary Taylor refused to go along with the destruction of America and he was the next to fall.

Taylor was known as a great military man. His friends called him ‘Old Rough and Ready.’ He came to the White House in 1848 and sixteen months later, he was dead.

Here is what would have happened if Zachary Taylor had invaded Cuba. There was Catholic Austria, Catholic Spain, Catholic France and England all waiting, ready to do battle with the United States of America if he had invaded Cuba. What chance would this young republic have had against the united powers of Catholic Europe at that time? The papacy well understood this and that is why they pushed Taylor so hard to invade.

Taylor committed another ‘crime’ against Rome. He spoke passionately about the preservation of the Union. The Jesuits were striving hard to split the nation in two, and the President was trying hard to keep it together. Jesuit agent, John C. Calhoun, visited the Department of State, and requested the president to say nothing in his forthcoming message about the Union. But Calhoun had little influence over Taylor, for after his visit the following remarkable passage was added to Taylor’s speech,

McCarty picks up the story from here,

Six years later James Buchanan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, was elected president. James Buchanan had wined and dined with the Southerners and it appeared as though he would go along with their desires.

James Buchanan didn’t have to wait long to find out what the Jesuits would do to him for double-crossing them.

James Buchanan was poisoned and almost died. He lived because he knew that he had been given arsenic poisoning and so informed his doctors. He knew that the Jesuits poisoned Harrison and Taylor.

The Jesuit Order fulfilled their oath again that they would poison, kill, or do whatever was necessary to remove those who opposed their plans. From 1841 to 1857, we saw that three Presidents were attacked by the Jesuits as outlined in the Congresses of Vienna, Verona, and Chieri. Two died and one barely escaped. They allow nothing to stand in their way of total domination of America, and the destruction of the Constitution. As they look at America the priests of Rome have stated,

When they say “Vicar of Jesus Christ” they mean the pope.

This is a sermon given in the 19th century by an English pastor. It alludes to not only the popes of Rome, but all the priests of Rome and even Protestants who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ’s Blood as being the only thing that cleanses us for our sins is an Antichrist. It alludes that anyone who is trying to take the place of Jesus Christ in our lives is an Antichrist.

Since 1971 when I got saved by our Lord Jesus Christ and began reading the Bible for myself, I have heard from preachers the terms, “that man of sin,” “the son of perdition” of 2 Thessalonians 2:3 used synonymously with “antichrist” of the epistles of first and second John. Notice that antichrist is not capitalized in John’s letters. The early Protestants all interpreted 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 to be talking about the popes of Rome, but “antichrist” is not necessarily referring to only the popes of Rome for John clearly says in 1 John 2:18, “even now are there many antichrists;”. That’s what this article is all about.

My dear Friends,

Suffering from temporary blindness, I have of late been obliged to preach without notes; but, at your request that it should be printed, I have dictated the substance of my Sermon on Antichrist. The above must be my apology for any inaccuracies. I make, however, no apology for my subject. Though redeeming love be the theme on which I delight to dwell, yet I feel it to be my bounden duty to guard my people against self-deception, and any prevailing error of the present day.

The signs of the times are not to be overlooked, and as the victory of the truth approaches, the enemy of the truth will assume every form to deceive the unwary. Happy are they who are preserved in the simplicity of the Gospel. My prayer for you is, that being justified by Faith, you may have peace with God, bear fruit unto holiness, and have for your end everlasting peace.

I am,
Your affectionate Friend,

WILLIAM MARSH.

ANTICHRIST.

“Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
“They went out from us, hut they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” I John ii. 18, 19.

WHEN this fair world rose out of chaos, and man, formed in the image of his Maker, was invested with dominion “over all the earth,” “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy;” (Job 38:7) even the Lord himself looked down from Heaven upon every thing that He had made, and “behold it was very good.” Had man continued holy, he would have continued happy; but an enemy was at hand. Satan, the leader of that rebel host of angels who kept not their first estate, beguiled Eve through his subtlety, and thus human nature became subject to the arch deceiver.

From that first offense in Paradise commenced the fearful conflict still carried on between the powers of light and darkness, that is, between Christ and Satan. I say between Christ and Satan, because, in the threatening against the tempter, and before our first parents were sent forth to experience the bitter fruits of their transgression, a deliverer was promised who should destroy the power of the enemy; “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”(Genesis 5:15)

The Most High, having thus revealed the plan of mercy, by which he could uphold the honour of his moral government, and yet provide salvation for rebellious man, it became Satan’s object, through deceit or violence, either to prevent the knowledge of that Saviour, or to corrupt and nullify the faith which would lead to salvation through Him.

It shall therefore be my endeavour to trace the Enemy’s path in his various forms of Antichrist, from the beginning until the period of his final defeat. Let me, therefore point out to you

I. The characteristics of the opponents of Christ.

II. The best means of detecting them.

III. The evidence they afford to the truth of Christianity.

I. The characteristics of the opponents of Christ.

“Yea, hath God said,” (Genesis 3:1) was the first suggestion of the Deceiver, by which he would raise a doubt in the mind of Eve. He then proceeds to a positive assertion that “they should not surely die,” and thereby instill unbelief. His next step is to present the idea of a greater good than they at present enjoyed, and thus was Eve, by degrees, deluded into the sin of disobedience.

Human nature having transgressed, and become liable to the penalty of death, God appointed a sacrifice, by which man is taught the desert of sin, and yet the way in which, through an innocent Substitute, he could obtain mercy. Abel, in faith, brings the firstlings of his flock as an offering for sin, but Cain, “who was of that wicked one,” rejects the typical atonement, and hating the faith and obedience of his brother, deprives him of his life. Thus early, to the penalty of deaths Thus early, the leading characteristics of Antichrist, deceit and violence, were displayed.

In the family of Seth, the worship of the true God was still continued, but in process of time it was so mingled with false worship, that at length, the light remaining only with Noah, the rest of the world was swept away by the flood. Again was the olive branch of peace held forth, and at the commencement of this new era of our world, Noah approached God with the appointed burnt-offerings; but, though the light continued to glimmer amongst his descendants, it seems to have been nearly extinguished, when it was again rekindled in the person of Abraham, and he, with his descendants, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, bore faithful witness to that light until it sank in Egyptian darkness.

After a time Moses appeared, and by him it pleased God to republish the law of love, and to establish a typical dispensation among the Jewish people. Then was the malice of Satan again stirred up to defeat this gracious purpose, and by the imitation of the miracles wrought by Moses, he contrived to keep the people of Egypt in their delusion, and no sooner had the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea, and escaped from the rage of their enemies, than they were led to corrupt their faith in the one true God, by worshipping Him under the symbol of a golden calf. The zeal of Moses soon put an end to this delusion, but the spirit of it seems to have remained amongst them, for in after time Jeroboam drew ten of the tribes aside to idolatry, and by substituting the calves of Dan and Bethel for the true worship at Jerusalem, provoked the Lord to cast them out.

In Judah was God still known ; but false prophets arose, “the priests bare rule by their means, and the people loved to have it so,” till at length the two remaining tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were sent to be purified in the furnace of Babylon. But the Most High delivered them from their captivity, because He had foretold, by the patriarch Jacob, that “the sceptre should not depart from Judah till Shiloh should come.” (Genesis 49:10) And he had also sworn by an oath to David, that He would raise up a son to set on his throne in whom it should be established for ever.

I need not dwell on the violence of the Enemy in the persecutions of Daniel and his companions; neither on the still more universal oppression of the Jews under Antiochus; nor enlarge on the opposition made by Sanballat and Tobiah, in order to prevent the restoration of the pure worship at Jerusalem. The prophet Zechariah informs us, that Satan was then seen in vision, as “standing at the right hand of Joshua to resist him.” (Zechariah 3:1)

At length the fullness of time arrived when the Son of God was to be manifested, to destroy the works of the Devil. No sooner was his birth announced than Herod, into whose hands the sceptre had now fallen, sought, both by stratagem and force, to take away his life. And when our blessed Lord was about to begin his ministry, the wily foe endeavored to lure him from his work, but in vain. Our great Deliverer in single combat foiled the Adversary, drove him from the field, and by suffering on the cross for the sins of men, virtually conquered him for ever.

But it was in the council of God, that his church should still carry on the conflict, and both the Acts of the Apostles and their Epistles to the churches bear ample testimony to the violence and deceit with which the enemy tried, both to oppose and corrupt the truth. Previous to the Roman Empire professing the faith of Christ, violence was the weapon resorted to, in order to subdue the early Christians, but when that weapon could no longer avail, by mingling error with truth, he beguiled his unwary victims. Ignorance and bigotry, with ambition and violence, ranged themselves on his side, and pure Christian truth was obscured for ages, when God, (who “chooses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty,” – 1 Cor. 1:17) called from his cell the monk of Wit- tenburgh, and placing in his hand the thunderbolts of Heaven, shook the system of corruption to its center.

Such are some of the various forms of Antichrist, under which the characteristics of Satan may be traced from the beginning of time until now. St. John, indeed, alludes to those which especially prevailed in his day, such as denying the sinfulness of human nature, and the divinity, humanity, and Messiahship of our Lord but, however various or numerous their forms may be, the Christian need never be ignorant of his devices. I will therefore proceed to point out—

In the execution of the great work of redemption, Messiah was to fulfil the threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King. Whatsoever, therefore, opposes itself to Him in either of these three offices is an Antichrist. Though our Saviour may be said to have exercised the prophetic office only during his personal ministry on earth, yet it was His Spirit which spoke by all the Prophets, “testifying before hand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory which should follow.”(1Peter 1:11) Every attempt, therefore, to set aside the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and every idea that would convey a doubt of their sufficiency, is opposed to His prophetic office; and every addition to them as an article of faith, or any omission by which a partial view only is taken, so that one truth is made to oppose or neutralize another, is anti-christian. “The law of the Lord is perfect, the testimony of the Lord is sure, the statutes of the Lord are right.” (Psalm 19:17)

Infallibility is to be found in the Scriptures alone; not in the (Church) Fathers, for they differed: not in Councils, for they have erred; not in any man, nor in any body of men, for they are all fallible, except the Prophets and Apostles, who never differ, never err, never deceive but are infallible, because they “spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2Peter 1:21)

As to the Sacerdotal office (priests and priesthood), whatever conveys the idea of human merit, or would add any thing to the obedience unto death of our Redeemer, as the meritorious cause of our justification, is anti-christian. Jesus is the only way to the everlasting mansions, the only door to the abodes of bliss; and as there is no other sacrifice for sin than that which was once offered on the cross, so there is no other Mediator between God and man, but the man, Christ Jesus. The Scriptures are as jealous of this truth as they are of the unity of the Divine Nature, therefore whoever proposes any other medium of approach to God, or whoever directly or indirectly undermines the true advocacy of our Lord, is an Antichrist. It is the incense of this High Priest alone which perfumes our prayers; it is his blood alone which cleanses from all sin. “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6)

As to the Regal (kingly) office of our Redeemer, whosoever would set aside the precepts of the Gospel as the rule of a believer’s Hfe, is an Antichrist; for “The grace of God, which bringeth salvation, teaches us, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” (Titus 2:12,13) It is by the discharge of personal, relative, and social duties that we let our light shine before men, and adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour. This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. This is true Christianity, and if our faith thus work by love, and manifest itself in obedience, we shall be prepared to meet Him whenever He appears, to put down every Antichrist, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Now let me shew you—

We have to admire that wisdom of God by which the wrath of man is made to praise Him. We might tremble for the truth, when we consider the number, the deceit, and the violence of its opponents, were we not assured that they do but confirm it; because—

First, Their rise and fall are foretold in Scripture. The book of Psalms, and all the Old Testament Prophets, very frequently allude to the opposing power; but in the New Testament, “the Spirit speaketh expressly that in these latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their consciences seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from meats.” (1 Timothy 4:1-3) Of these characteristics we have had a long and mournful display in Christendom, and they have prepared the way for “the scoffers walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming ?” (2Peter 3:3,4) and ” denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ;” (Jude 4) and thus are we entering upon “those last days, in which perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.”(2 Timothy 3:1-4) All this have we seen manifested during the French Revolution, and we see its continuance in the spirit of infidelity and atheism of the present day.

Beloved brethren, perilous times are come. What is Chartism (a 19th century English political and social movement), but opposition to all human government? What is Socialism, but opposition to all moral and religious control, or Infidelity under its most dangerous form, because, whilst it approaches its victims in the garb of philanthropy, it leaves unrestrained all the sinful passions of man, and then charges on religion the evils which religion alone could mitigate or remove. And, alas ! that I should have to add, that even among ourselves men arise, “drawing away disciples after them.” From whence come the unhappy divisions in the very bosom of our own Church, but from Him who knows that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Do we not discern, in these “signs of the times,” the “mystery of iniquity” distinctly at work? Is not Satan transforming himself into an angel of light, to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect?

Beloved brethren, there is no mystery in open ungodliness and sin. There is no mystery in the drunkard over his cups, the miser counting his gold, the voluptuary seeking his pleasure, or in the midnight robber, whose hands are stained with blood: but it is a mystery when error assumes the garb of truth, and when learned and pious men are allured from the Word of God to human traditions, from the power of religion to its forms and ceremonies. It is a mystery when learned and pious men, within the pale of our Church, uphold doctrines contrary to her Articles and Liturgy, and oppose the very principles they have sworn to protect. It is a mystery when learned and pious men, who would shrink with horror from doing any thing contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, are yet allowing themselves to be drawn and are drawing others from the simplicity which is in Christ. Satan well knows, that on minds like these, the darts of temptation to sin would fall harmless. Indeed, it is worthy of notice, that those who have introduced error in doctrine have not unfrequently been men ascetic and self-denying in practice, while it is also to be lamented that some who have been correct in doctrine, have held the truth in unrighteousness but the piety of the former should not of necessity recommend their principles, because “Angels abode not in the truth.”

Adam fell from a state of innocence, and the Apostle Peter was rebuked to his face because he erred upon this very point, the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Thus we see, that through deceit, old errors are creeping in under a new name, which threaten to undermine the foundation of our apostolic Church. Let the ministers and members of that Church rise up and protest against these errors, while they affectionately exhort their erring brethren to retrace their steps, and abide by the principles of Reformers and Martyrs.

I am thankful to be able to update this website today with this article. Yesterday for a good part of the day we had a power-outage. After the power came back around sunset, Internet data from our WIFI didn’t come with it. This is reason I wasn’t able to post an article the day before this. The power company apparently in their maintenance work cut a fiber optic cable which disabled our Internet. Now it’s afternoon the next day and I found a public WIFI, “PISO WIFI” that the locals use, and it worked for me.

Introduction from James

This is from chapter 4 of William Cooper’s book, Behold a Pale Horse.

How many Americans today know about the Monroe Doctrine?

“The Monroe Doctrine is a United States foreign policy position that opposes European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It holds that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers is a potentially hostile act against the United States. The doctrine was central to American grand strategy in the 20th century.” – Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

The reason for the Monroe Doctrine was because the so called “Holy Alliance” of the deposed monarchs of Europe, the “Black Nobility,” conspired to undo the constitutional government of the United States of America! The Black Nobility are Roman aristocratic families who side with the Papacy.

Please read the rest of the article carefully.

SECRET TREATY OF
VERONA

Precedent
and
Positive Proof of Conspiracy

1916

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD SENATE

Mr. OWEN:
I wish to put in the Record the secret treaty of Verona of November 22, 1822, showing what this ancient conflict is between the rule of the few and the rule of the many. I wish to call the attention of the Senate to this treaty because it is the threat of this treaty which was the basis of the Monroe doctrine. It throws a powerful white light upon the conflict between monarchical government and government by the people. The Holy Alliance under the influence of Metternich, the Premier of Austria, in 1822, issued this remarkable secret document:

AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC CODE, 1778-1884

The undersigned, specially authorized to make some additions to the treaty of the Holy Alliance, after having exchanged their respective credentials, have agreed as follows:

ARTICLE 1. The high contracting powers, being convinced that the system of representative government is equally as incompatible with the monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments, in whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.

ARTICLE 2. As it can not be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those of princes, the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to adopt all proper measures to suppress it, not only in their own States but also in the rest of Europe.

ARTICLE 3. Convinced that the principles of religion contribute most powerfully to keep nations in the state of passive obedience which they owe to their princes, the high contracting parties declare it to be their intention to sustain in their respective States those measures which the clergy may adopt, with the aim of ameliorating their own interests, so intimately connected with the preservation of the authority of the princes; and the contracting powers join in offering their thanks to the Pope for what he has already done for them, and solicit his constant cooperation in their views of submitting the nations.

ARTICLE 4. The situation of Spain and Portugal unite unhappily all the circumstances to which this treaty has particular reference. The high contracting parties, in confiding to France the care of putting an end to them, engaged to assist her in the manner which may the least compromit [sic] them with their own people and the people of France by means of a subsidy on the part of the two empires of 20,000,000 of francs every year from the date of the signature of this treaty to the end of the war.

ARTICLE 5. In order to establish in the Peninsula the order of things which existed before the revolution of Cadiz, and to insure the entire execution of the articles of the present treaty, the high contracting parties give to each other the reciprocal assurance that as long as their views are not fulfilled, rejecting all other ideas of utility or other measure to be taken, they will address themselves with the shortest possible delay to all the authorities existing in their States and to all their agents in foreign countries, with the view to establish connections tending toward the accomplishment of the objects proposed by this treaty.

ARTICLE 6. This treaty shall be renewed with such changes as new circumstances may give occasion for, either at a new congress or at the court of one of the contracting parties, as soon as the war with Spain shall be terminated.

ARTICLE 7. The present treaty shall be ratified and the ratifications exchanged at Paris within the space of six months.

Mr. OWEN:
I ask to have printed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD this secret treaty, because I think it ought to be called now to the attention of the people of the United States and of the World. This evidence of the conflict between the rule of the few versus popular government should be emphasized on the minds of the people of the United States, that the conflict now waging throughout the world may be more clearly understood, for after all said the great pending war springs from the weakness and frailty of government by the few, where human error is far more probable than the error of the many where aggressive war is only permitted upon the authorizing vote of those whose lives are jeopardized in the trenches of modern war.

Mr. SHAFROTH:
Mr. President, I should like to have the Senator state whether in that treaty there was not a coalition formed between the powerful countries of Europe to reestablish the sovereignty of Spain in the Republics of South and Central America?

Mr. OWEN:
I was just going to comment upon that, and I am going to take but a few moments to do so because I realize the pressure of other matters. This Holy Alliance, having put a Bourbon prince upon the throne of France by force, then used France to suppress the constitution of Spain immediately afterwards and by this very treaty gave her a subsidy of 20,000,000 francs annually to enable her to wage war upon the people of Spain and prevent their exercise of any measure of the right of self-government. The Holy Alliance immediately did the same thing in Italy, by sending Austrian troops to Italy, where the people there attempted to exercise a like measure of liberal constitutional self-government; and it was not until the printing press, which the Holy Alliance so stoutly opposed, taught the people of Europe the value of liberty that finally one country after another seized a greater and greater right of self-government until now it may be fairly said that nearly all the nations of Europe have a very large measure of self-government.

However, I wished to call the attention of the Senate and the country to this important history in the growth of constitutional popular self-government. The Holy Alliance made its powers felt by the wholesale drastic suppression of the press in Europe, by universal censorship, by killing free speech and all ideas of popular rights, and by the complete suppression of popular government. The Holy Alliance having destroyed popular government in Spain and in Italy, had well-laid plans also to destroy popular government in the American colonies which had revolted from Spain and Portugal in Central and South America under the influence of the successful example of the United States. It was because of this conspiracy against the American Republics by the European monarchies that the great English statesman, Canning, called the attention of our Government to it, and our statesmen then, including Thomas Jefferson, took an active part to bring about the declaration by President Monroe in his next annual message to the Congress of the United States that the United States would regard it as an act of hostility to the Government of the United States and an unfriendly act if this coalition or if any power of Europe ever undertook to establish upon the American Continent any control of any American Republic or to acquire any territorial rights.

This is the so-called Monroe doctrine. The threat under the secret treaty of Verona to suppress popular government in the American Republics is the basis of the Monroe doctrine. This secret treaty sets forth clearly the conflict between monarchical government and popular government and the government of the few as against the government of the many. It is a part in reality, of developing popular sovereignty when we demand for women equal rights to life, to liberty, to the possession of property, to an equal voice in the making of the laws and the administration of the laws, This demand on the part of the women is made by men, and it ought to be made by men as well as by thinking, progressive women, as it will promote human liberty and human happiness. I sympathize with it, and I hope that all parties will in the national conventions give their approval to this larger measure of liberty to the better half of the human race.

Author’s (Bill Cooper’s) Note: Anyone who believes that the monarchs, after being deposed, forgave and forgot, is not playing with a full deck. Most of these families are wealthy beyond belief and may be more powerful today than when they sat upon thrones. Today they are known collectively as the Black Nobility. Just because the secret treaty of Verona was signed in 1822 does not mean that the treaty is void. It is imperative that you realize that privately, the Black Nobility refuses to ever recognize any government other than their own inherited and divine right to rule. They work diligently behind the scenes to cause conditions whereby they might regain their crowns. They believe that the United States belongs to England.

Introduction by the webmaster:

When I was in my 40s though I had been a born-again Christian for more than 20 years, I was under the influence of Dispensationalism. I was ignorant of the fact that most Christians up to the end of the 19th century looked at the popes of Rome as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Man of Sin of II Thessalonians chapter 2.

When I met a group of young Seventh Day Adventists in a park, I told them that I think Pope John Paul II is a good man. They rolled their eyes at me! I didn’t know then that the SDA church held the same eschatological views of Antichrist as the early Protestant Reformers. They all called the Roman papacy the office of the Antichrist. I didn’t come to that knowledge until some time in the early 2000s when I was in my 50s. It was based on researching the history of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. I knew a little bit about the Protestant Reformation started by Martin Luther, but I had never heard of the Jesuit led Counter Reformation until I started to do my own research. It was never taught to me when I was a young Christian.

“Who Was Pope John Paul II?”

QUESTION: Who was Pope John Paul II?

ANSWER: Karol Wojtyla was born in 1920; he died in 2005. He was pope from 1978 to 2005. Upon assuming the office of pope, he quickly did two things: (1) he helped to cover up the murder of his predecessor (Pope John Paul I); and, (2) he protected then-Bishop Paul Marcinkus (who was, at that time, the head of the Vatican Bank) from the Italian authorities. (They wanted to question Marcinkus about “irregularities” at the Vatican Bank.) Pope John Paul II also presided over the greatest sex scandal in modern Roman Catholic Church history.

Author Milton William Cooper, on pages 89 and 90 of his book, “Behold A Pale Horse” (1991), tells us: “In the early 1940s, the I.G. Farben Chemical Company employed a Polish salesman [Ed.: i.e., Karol Wojtyla] who sold cyanide to the Nazis for use in Auschwitz. [Ed.: Auschwitz is a city in southern Poland that was the site of a Nazi extermination camp during World War II.] The same salesman also worked as a chemist in the manufacture of the poison gas. This same cyanide gas along with Zyklon B and malathion was used to exterminate millions of Jews and other groups. Their bodies were then burned to ashes in the ovens. After the war [Ed.: i.e., World War II] the salesman, fearing for his life, joined the [Ed.: Roman] Catholic Church [Ed.: in Poland] and was ordained a [Ed.: Roman Catholic] priest in 1946. One of his closest friends was Dr. Wolf Szmuness, the mastermind behind the…experimental hepatitis B vaccine trials conducted by the Center for Disease Control in New York, San Francisco and four other American cities that loosed the plague of AIDS upon the American people. The salesman was ordained Poland’s youngest [Ed.: Roman Catholic] bishop in 1958. After a 30-day [Ed.: sic; a 33-day] reign his predecessor [Ed.: i.e., Pope John Paul I] was assassinated and our ex-cyanide gas salesman assumed the papacy as Pope John Paul II.”

Dr. Ronald Cooke, on page 14 of his book, “The Death of the Pope of Rome” (2005), tells us: “Pope John Paul II presided over the second ‘pornography of the Papacy’. He presided over the greatest, most widespread, immoral scandal of sexual perversion in church history. Never in the annals of recorded history has such a scandal been displayed for the entire world to see. Documented case after documented case in the courts of the world, joined by thousands of other cases which never came to light as the BAG-MAN, as he was called, bought the silence of thousands of young men whose cases never came to the courts. Combined with other ‘faithful’ souls who, although sodomized as children, in their loyalty to mother church never even complained.”

Dr. Ronald Cooke, on page 15 of the same book, tells us: “The late pope [Ed.: i.e., John Paul II] was the voice of a religious institution which became the reservoir of the most egregious sexual perversion known to man: MEN CALLED PRIESTS PREYING ON THEIR HELPLESS LITTLE ALTAR BOYS [Ed.: Emphasis in original] to satisfy their lust which arose in part from their enforced celibacy, which the Scriptures call a doctrine of demons. So as the chief voice of this reservoir of unnatural perversion, the late pope of Rome was surely the spokesman of a ‘Church’ which was filled with immoral priests under his authority; the spokesman for all the false doctrines of Romanism; and a man who himself claimed to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, making him then without doubt the MOST INFLUENTIAL IMMORAL VOICE OF OUR TIME [Ed.: emphasis in original]. To have a REAL MORAL VOICE [Ed.: emphasis in original] one must proclaim true Bible doctrine and repudiate falsehood, false claims [Ed.: e.g., papal infallibility], and false practices.”

Let us never forget that Pope John Paul II – a man whom some in the Roman Catholic Church want to “canonize” (i.e., to make – to declare – a “saint” of the Roman Catholic Church) – participated in the cover-up of the murder of John Paul I; protected then-Bishop Paul Marcinkus (head of the Vatican Bank) from Italian authorities; presided over the one of the greatest sex scandals in Roman Catholic Church history; and, did as much as he could, with then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s help, to cover up the sex scandals involving Catholic clergy!

I have heard about Calvinism from time to time after I became a Christian, but I don’t think I truly understood what it’s all about as well as I do now thanks to the debate between Douglas Wilson and Steve Gregg that I just heard today. It was very interesting for me to hear both sides of either for or against the doctrines that John Calvin taught.

I think it all comes down to how one defines the keywords of the subject at hand. When I lived in Japan, I had an experience of a misunderstanding with a Japanese brother who defined an English word in a completely different way than I understood what that word meant. The result? Confusion and miscommunication!

This is my view. You could say I am not a Calvinist.

But I don’t call myself an Arminian because I don’t read or follow what Jacobus Arminius taught. I want to get my doctrines from the Word of God, the Bible, and not filtered through the mind of some theologian.

People with doctorates in theology don’t impress me. I talked to one recently, a professor of theology from Indonesia. He did not wholly agree with me or the Protestant view of the Man of Sin of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 being the popes of Rome. I would rather trust the views of the Protestants of the 16th through 18th centuries than what most 20th or 21st century Bible teachers teach. It was in the 19th century when the Jesuit-based false doctrine of an End-time 7-year Antichrist first infiltrated the Church.

Arminianism acknowledges God created man with free will, the majesty of choice. Calvinism teaches the opposite. Douglas Wilson elaborates greatly on that point.

In the debate, there is talk about the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The debate sounds as if it happened fairly recently after that.

Partial transcript of the debate

Douglas Wilson’s opening statement:

Thank you. It is good to be here. I’d like to thank Matt Gray and CRF for sponsoring this and doing the legwork. Thank Steve Gregg for coming up from Grangeville.

So, but overarching all things, I’d like to thank God who governs all things and in whom we live and move and have our being. And of course, we’re talking about what exactly that means, what is involved in that when we say we live and move and have our being in him. This first debate is on the sovereignty of God.

And of course, every Christian says, well, how can Christians debate the sovereignty of God? Well, what we’re debating is the definition of the word sovereignty, not the reality of sovereignty. Both I and my opponent would agree that God is sovereign over all things. But where we differ is what is entailed in that sovereignty.

In order to make clear what I’m arguing for, I want to maintain what I call the exhaustive sovereignty of God. That is, God is sovereign at the macro level, God is sovereign at the micro level. Nothing happens outside of his all-determining decree.

And this decree does not create a fatalistic machine that grinds us up like so much hamburger. This decree creates freedom for us. The more Shakespeare writes, the more sovereign he is and the freer Hamlet gets. Hamlet has freedom because Shakespeare writes. Hamlet’s freedom is not displaced by Shakespeare’s freedom. It is created by Shakespeare’s freedom.

So I want to argue for the exhaustive sovereignty of God. And of course, in the mind of an Augustinian or a Calvinist, if you want to use the contemporary nickname, in the mind of a Calvinist, to say exhaustive sovereignty is like saying sovereign sovereignty. We’re just saying, well, sovereignty involves sovereignty in the details, sovereignty in the great things and sovereignty in the lesser things.

So what I’m arguing for is exhaustive sovereignty. And I will let my opponent define his position, but his position is other than that. He does not want to say that God is sovereign in every detail.

He’s sovereign overall, but he’s not sovereign necessarily the way I am defining it in all, through all, throughout everything. When we first set this debate up, we had no idea that all of us here would still be reeling from the horrible events in New York and Washington, D.C. And we had no idea that we would have such a stark reminder of our own mortality and such a stark reminder of how great God is and how tiny we are in reference to his purposes and plans. But this is a wonderful exhibition of the sovereignty that we all affirm at some level.

These are not mere academic issues. These issues touch each of us every day at some level with every step we take, with every head check in the car, every plane we get on, get off of. We can see how a number of these people, the death toll is over 6,000 now in New York.

Every person who died in that tower made a series of trivial choices throughout the earlier part of that day. And all those trivial choices, no, I think I’ll go here first and then go to the sandwich shop. I think I’ll do this and not that.

All of those trivial choices were eternal choices, everlasting choices. There’s no such thing, I think we can see, as a small decision by a human being. There’s no such thing as a trivial move.

These are not academic issues. These are not arcane theological debates best tucked away in some book of theology in the times of the Reformation. This affects everyone.

It affects how we live our lives. It affects how we trust God. It affects how we pray. It affects how we respond to hard mercies. I first started grappling with these truths on a personal level. I’ve engaged with them on an intellectual level or a theological level in other settings.

But I first started grappling with these issues, or it might be better to say they started grappling with me, as a result of an automobile accident. It didn’t involve me or my family, but it almost involved me and my family. We were traveling on the East Coast and we decided to drive from Annapolis, Maryland into D.C. to go to the Smithsonian.

We borrowed a little crumpled car, the kind that wouldn’t take much, and we were driving into D.C. on Highway 50, and it started to rain and it got really nasty, and then suddenly this big car came across the middle strip from the other side of the highway. She had come on the on-ramp and lost control. I swerved and missed her by inches, a foot maybe, but just barely missed her, and she swerved around in the car behind us, T-boned her car, and she was killed.

I started thinking about how many life-and-death choices I had been making in the ten minutes prior to that. We have a tendency to say, well, you should really, really pray if you’re going to ask a girl to marry you, or you should really pray and get God’s guidance if you’re going to move to another state and change jobs and so forth, and it’s true, we should pray, because those are big decisions. But those are big decisions from our vantage point.

But it was born in on me with startling clarity that I hadn’t made a small decision that entire day. Moreover, I hadn’t made a small decision in my life. Every time I tapped on the brakes, every time I flipped the turn signal, every time I did a head check, every time I did these things, it was affecting what was going to happen down the road.

If I’d been five seconds faster, we may have heard sirens. If I’d been ten seconds slower, we would have been in a traffic jam, and if I’d been one second slower, we’d have all been dead. Not only would we have all been dead, but my grandchildren wouldn’t have been here, and their children wouldn’t be here, and their children wouldn’t be here, and all the tens of thousands of descendants that I hope God gives me over the next millennium or so, none of them would be here.

In other words, and all of it was riding on my lane change, and I didn’t have time to seek the will of God before I changed lanes, or moved here, or moved there. Well, the scripture says in Proverbs 16.33, the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. In Proverbs 16.1, it says the preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.

The Bible tells us that every step, what’s more random than the casting of lots? What’s more random than throwing a dice? What’s more random than just walking aimlessly down a sidewalk, or driving aimlessly down the road? Well, every bit of that is in the hand of God. I also have to confess, connected to this, that, and I’m not speaking for others, I’m not speaking here for every Arminian in the world, but I have to confess that before I came to grasp these truths, before I embraced them, I have to confess that I was deeply prejudiced against them. I also remember standing at one point in my living room and surrendering to God on the point.

The opening prayer I thought was appropriate and one that we should all affirm, and I think we do all affirm in principle, but I can assure you that there was a point in my life where I didn’t affirm it. I would affirm it on paper, but I didn’t want these truths to be true. I was not willing for them to be true, and I remember having to surrender to God on the point.

I did not become a Calvinist at that point. When I surrendered, I didn’t become a Calvinist, but I became willing to become one, and prior to that time, I was not willing at all. And this is the demeanor that we should all have here tonight and in the debates tomorrow.

Each of us, and I would include myself here, each of us should be willing to change, abandon the position that we believe to be the truth of God when someone shows us from the word of God that it’s not the case, that you’ve misread the scripture, thinking you understood it but you did not. All of us need to be prepared to submit to whatever the scriptures teach. So what is at stake in this debate? God is God over all things, through all things, and in all things.

He is God over how many hairs came out of my head this morning in my brush. And when Jesus says that the hairs of your head are all numbered, don’t be afraid. When Jesus says in the same breath that a sparrow can’t fall to the ground apart from the will of the Father, you can look out in the neighbor’s yard and you can see a cat stalking a bird.

You don’t have to say, you know, if that’s a sparrow, that’s in the Father, but if it’s a robin, he better watch out for himself because Jesus is using a figure of speech that invites us to spread the truth into the corners. He is not saying the hairs of your head are numbered, but the hairs on your chin aren’t, or the hairs of your head are numbered, but the hairs on your arm are. Gosh, I don’t know how many there are.

When Jesus uses that expression, he is inviting us to say the hairs of your head are numbered, the hairs on your arm are numbered. God knows how many little bits of gravel are in your driveway. He knows the number of hairs on the last yellow dog in the history of the world.

He knows everything, and moreover, he knows it with these details being dependent upon antecedent events that are also within his sovereignty. So when we say, when we as Calvinists maintain that God is sovereign over all things, it’s because, it’s not that we believe that God is a sovereign control freak and God cannot afford to let anybody else do anything or know anything, it’s that we believe that his relationship to us is like Shakespeare’s relationship to the characters in his play. His relationship to us is not like one of the characters in relation to the other character, and this is where we stumble.

We stumble because we assume that God’s will toward us is the same as my will toward another. If I push someone or if I offend someone or if I take someone’s life or sin against them in some way, as was just recently done on this grand scale, the exercise of will on the part of the terrorists displaced other wills. In other words, creaturely wills, created wills are like billiard balls.

One displaces another. If one billiard ball comes and occupies this place, then the other one has to move. And so when we act on one another, we act on one another by displacing one another’s wills.

When we act on one another the way we would describe it as coercively, when we do that, we move someone else’s will out of the way. But God’s will is not like that. It doesn’t make sense to say, now in this scene in Hamlet, how much of this is Shakespeare and how much of this is Hamlet? That’s a nonsensical question.

If two men are carrying a log, it makes sense to say, well, how much of the weight was borne by this guy and how much of the weight was borne by that guy? That’s a physics problem. But when we’re talking about the relationship of God to man, it doesn’t make sense to say, well, Shakespeare did 70% of that and Hamlet did 30%. It doesn’t make sense to go with the hyper-Calvinist and say Shakespeare wrote it all and Hamlet’s a bunch of nothing.

It doesn’t make sense to adopt the Pelagian view that says Hamlet, or the atheistic materialist view that Hamlet created himself. Hamlet writes his own play. That doesn’t make sense either.

I believe that we ought to maintain that Shakespeare does 100% and Hamlet does 100%. The more Shakespeare does, the more Hamlet does. The more God writes my life for me, the more life I have to make choices in to serve him and respond to him and love him.

We are saying that God is God over all things, including the hairs of our head, including the pebbles in our driveway, including the grains of sand on the seashore, and so forth. Our lives are lived along a razor edge. Our lives are lived along a razor edge because God has put eternity in our hearts.

Every decision we make, scratching your head, stopping for a drink at the drinking fountain, everything that you do has to be governed by God. We walk along a razor’s edge and there’s eternity on this side and there’s eternity on that side and we need the everlasting arms underneath and God’s protective hands around us in every detail because there’s no such thing as a trivial decision. There’s no such thing as a trivial act.

We’re created in the image of God and so consequently everything we do is filled with moment. Everything we do is filled with importance. Now I’ve said a lot by way of autobiographical information and definition.

I want to say a few things about what the scripture actually says. In Isaiah 46 verses 9 and 10, it says, remember the former things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there’s none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.

So of course we would both agree that God will do all that he wants to do, but I believe that it’s saying more than this. Not only will God do all that he wants to do, but he declares the end from the beginning. So when God creates the world, knowing the end from the beginning and declaring that he’s going to accomplish all his good purpose in it, then we know that when God creates the world, the world that comes into being is the world that God wanted to be here.

And this means that fundamentally I want to argue that every, you know, lots of folks won’t appreciate this, but I believe that every Christian who affirms creation from nothing, I want to, in overflow of benevolence, declare them all honorary Calvinists. Every Christian who believes that God created from nothing believes that the world is here because God put it here and he put it here because he wants it here and he wants it here this way. We can debate what his reasons are for wanting it here, but he put it here because he wanted it here and he put it here knowing what would come if he did it.

He knows the end from the beginning. In Psalm 139, verse 16, we don’t have to rest on speculation from a text like Psalm 139, verse 16, says, your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in your book, they all were written. The days fashioned for me when as yet there were none of them. God wrote my biography before I was born in God’s book.

They were all written. The days fashioned for me. Well, the days fashioned for me were not fashioned by me. The days fashioned for me were fashioned by God and written in his book. Isaiah 45, 7, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity.

I the Lord do all these things. Now, this is where we start to stick a little bit because we really want God to be, as scripture describes him, kind and benevolent and so forth, and he is, but he’s not benevolent the same way that we are. Because his action does not displace my responsibility the way my action on someone else would do.

So God can create evil, create evil in the sense of calamity. God can create evil, the evil day, and scripture says that he does. He creates darkness.

He creates light. He makes peace and he creates calamity. Amos 3, 6 says this, and it shows the sovereignty of God, not just the sovereignty of God over nice things, not just the sovereignty of God over sweet things.

Many Christians love to give glory to God when, if it involves baskets of kittens or pussy willows or nice things, but we have trouble with earthquakes and we have trouble with disasters or this enormous calamity in New York City. We say, what’s God doing? And we struggle with that because we don’t know. We don’t affirm with the scriptures that God has authority over this.

He has sovereignty over this, over the free choices of men, as I’ve already described, and over the wicked free choices of men. In Amos 3, 6, it says, if a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there’s calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it? And this is something we need to just submit to. If there’s calamity in a city, in this case New York City, will not the Lord have done it? This does not mean that the terrorists are not wicked men.

They are wicked men, and they’re not puppets. But God is in all, over all, and through all, and there’s not a hair on anyone’s head in that tower that perished apart from the will of the Father. And this is a wonderful source of two C’s, courage and comfort.

There’s a purpose in everything. God has a divine purpose in all things, and we can take courage in that, and we can take comfort from that.

Steve Gregg’s opening statement:

I want to begin by saying the admiration I have for Douglas Wilson and his wife, whom I only recently met, but I’ve read some of their writings over the years.

I especially like their writings about family life, and I was drawn to Douglas personally by reading his books. I knew we did not agree on this issue, but notwithstanding the difference we have on the matter of Calvinism, I was thinking of the many things that Douglas and I actually have had in common. We both were born the same year.

I realize he looks ten years younger than I do. I assume that’s due to clean living. We were both raised in Baptist homes, and both of us began, well, we preached our first sermons when we were teenagers.

Both of us played in Christian bands and have written music about the same time in our lives, actually. We didn’t know each other, of course. Eventually, we both went into full-time ministry, though neither of us chose to go the route of formal theological training.

Both of us were studious and studied on our own, and I know he got a formal education in philosophy, wasn’t it? I did not. But we did depart from our Baptist roots theologically in some ways. Both of us actually went in the direction of Reformed theology with reference to our eschatology.

He became a post-millennialist. I became an amillennialist. Both are Reformed views.

But we went in different directions for some reason on the matter of soteriology, the doctrines of salvation, the doctrines of grace. That’s something I have not understood very well, why people go that direction. But then some of the people here don’t know why I didn’t go that direction.

On my radio talk show, I had a Calvinist pastor call frequently and say, “Steve, you’re an odd bird.” He says, “You left dispensationalism to become Reformed in your eschatology, but why didn’t you embrace Calvinism too?” My answer is because I left dispensationalism when I found out it was a man-made system. I did not wish to choose another man-made system.

And that is what I believe Calvinism is. That’s why it took the church 400 years to come up with it. The Calvinistic doctrine of sovereignty is not the doctrine, my contention, is not the doctrine of sovereignty found in the Bible, and it is not the doctrine that anyone who is a Christian found in the Bible until Augustine, around the year 400 AD, Calvinist scholars admit this without any embarrassment.

They usually say, well, the church was persecuted during those early years, they didn’t really have time to think through some of these theological issues until Augustine’s time. Well, 400 years is a long time for the church to think through issues, it seems to me like during times of persecution are the times when the issues like sovereignty are particularly under scrutiny. I believe that’s the case in the book of Revelation, written to churches that were under persecution a book that presents the sovereignty of God about as strongly as any book in the Bible.

I do believe that times of persecution are the times when sovereignty of God is the most important issue to Christians, and it’s interesting that during the years that the church was persecuted, it never occurred to them that the Calvinistic or Augustinian view of sovereignty was found in the Bible. Augustine brought it in, as most are willing to admit, from his own mixture of his own philosophical background. He had been a Manichean (a follower of Manichaeism, a dualistic religious movement founded in Persia in the 3rd century ce by Mani, who was known as the “Apostle of Light” and supreme “Illuminator.”), but most would not admit that he brought Manicheanism into his theology, although it’s interesting that the Calvinistic doctrine of sovereignty, or the Augustinian view, is agreeable with Manicheanism, and although none of the church fathers before the year 400 ever heard of Augustine, well, maybe a little before 400 they did, they did recognize in the doctrine of total determinism Manicheanism, or they often had a hard time finding the difference between that doctrine and the pagan view of fate.

In fact, I have quotes from about a dozen of the church fathers who talk about what we call Calvinistic view of sovereignty. They didn’t call it that, of course, and they call it indistinguishable from the pagan view of fate. They call it indistinguishable from Manicheanism.

Some of the better refutations of Augustine’s doctrine came before Augustine was around by Christian fathers writing against Mani, the founder of Manicheanism. I suspect, though I couldn’t prove it, that Augustine probably had a tinge of his old Manicheanism ideas about sovereignty that came with him. Most of us bring some baggage into our Christian lives, and I suspect that that may have been the case because he introduced, for the first time, the view of sovereignty that God is all-determining.

Now, Christians all believe, as Douglas correctly said, in the sovereignty of God. I would even say that all Christians believe in the exhaustive sovereignty of God. But the definition of the word sovereignty is where we do not agree.

I have a quote from R.C. Sproul. In his book, Chosen by God, he defines sovereignty this way. He said, when we speak of divine sovereignty, we are speaking about God’s authority and about God’s power.

Well, if that’s really what Calvinists mean by sovereignty, then all Arminians would agree with them, and all Christians who ever lived would agree with them. If someone said, does God have all sovereignty, and what we mean is all authority and all power, those are the two things Sproul said actually constitute the doctrine of sovereignty. I’ve never met a Christian in my life who doesn’t believe that God has all authority or who doesn’t believe that God has all power.

Those are basic doctrines that Arminians can embrace, too. There’s another element, though, and this is what not all Christians will embrace, and it is what Augustine introduced. And that is in the same statement R.C. Sproul continues, and he says that God, in some sense, foreordains whatever comes to pass is a necessary result of His sovereignty.

That God somehow foreordains everything that comes to pass is a necessary element of His sovereignty. Why should we believe this? Because Mr. Sproul says so? Because Augustine says so? It certainly doesn’t agree with the dictionary definition of the word sovereignty. I encourage you to look it up.

If you look in the dictionary, you’ll find the word sovereign means a king or a monarch. It means one who has the highest rank and authority. It refers to a person who makes his decisions without being answerable to any other person.

That’s what the word sovereignty means. None of those things speak of absolute divine determinism, because kings are sovereigns but they don’t determine everything that goes on in their realm, do they? I’ve never known of a king that did. Now, some might say, well, kings don’t have omniscience and omnipotence like God does, and that’s why God’s sovereignty extends further.

I’m not so sure that that’s a good answer. That suggests that the only reason that all monarchs are not tyrants is because they have human limitations. And were they given the power to be tyrants, that’s what they would do.

They would determine every thought, word, and deed of all their subjects. And since God has that power, that’s what he does. But you see, when we talk about divine determinism, which is what Calvinism really means by sovereignty, we’re really not talking about what the word sovereignty means at all.

Because a father is sovereign in his home, a husband over his wife, a lord over his servants, a king over his subjects, these are all sovereign positions. But none of them determine every thought, word, or deed of those who are subject to them. There is no support from the dictionary, and there can’t be from the Bible, since the Bible doesn’t even use the word sovereign.

But when we say the sovereignty of God, if we use the word in its ordinary meaning, we mean that God has all authority, he can act unilaterally anytime he wishes to, he answers to none, and he has enough power to retain his rights and to defend his rights. But that word sovereignty does not tell us whether he determines everything or not, because that’s not part of the word sovereignty, and it’s not part of the teaching of Scripture about God. There is no place in the Bible that substitutes the concept of divine determinism for the concept of God’s sovereignty as a king.

In fact, since the word sovereignty doesn’t appear in the Bible, we have to derive it from the Bible from the ways that the Bible describes God as a sovereign. God is called a king. God is called a lord.

God is called a husband. He is called a father. All of these are terms that convey the idea of sovereignty, but none of them convey the idea of total determinism, because that’s not part of what sovereignty means.

That is the problem with Calvinism. They think, in many cases, that they are the ones who have the exhaustive view of sovereignty, where everybody who believes that God has total authority over all things believes in exhaustive sovereignty, and I believe that. What non-Calvinists do not believe is that the Bible teaches that God determines everything that happens.

Now, non-Calvinists do not put God outside his universe. To suggest that God determines how many of my hairs fall out today, or how many sparrows fall to the ground, is not a problem to the Arminian. And I use the word Arminian only as a catchword for non-Calvinists.

I don’t know if I’m an Arminian, because I’ve never read Arminius. But I would say this, I’m not a Calvinist, and that makes me an Arminian in the eyes of all Calvinists. So, an Arminian has no difficulty at all with the view that God knows the number of hairs on our head, that God orders many things in history to bring about results that he wants.

Virtually every affirmative statement that a Calvinist can say about God’s sovereignty, an Arminian would say without any hesitation, except that the Arminian does not extend the concept of sovereignty to total determinism. There’s no need to do that. No scripture teaches it.

The question we’re discussing is, is the Calvinist view of sovereignty biblical?

(End of partial transcript.)

What do you think? I agree with Steve Gregg’s view. It sounds a lot more solid biblically to me.

Audio of the debate

Note: If you wish to listen to the debate but it says, “Video unavailable” below on your phone, please click here.

This is the final section of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Appendix

I. Postscript to Preface of Fifth Edition of the “Horae Apocalypticae;” on the Pope’s own published Testimony to the Fact of the completed Expiration in 1867 of the 1260 Predicted Years of Papal Spiritual Dominancy in the Kingdoms of Western Christendom.

THE YEAR 1867 having passed, it seems fit that a postscript should be added to this book, in reference to any light that may have been reflected at its close on my exposition of that part of the Apocalyptic prophecy which I suppose refers to the present time; whether as confirmatory, or the contrary.

Very naturally there was kept watch both by men who felt reverentially about divine prophecy, and by others who thought of it only with contempt, to see if the years 1866, 1867, which had been so long looked forward to as years of crisis to the Papacy by Protestant prophetic expositors of the old school (this being the supposed ending epoch of the great prophetic period of the 1260 years), should really develop any such events of crisis. What then has occurred to justify such view?

It was in July 1868 that there was issued the Pope’s Bull for the Convocation of an Ecumenical Council to assemble at Rome in the December of next year. And in the terms of its address there appeared on one point a most remarkable variation from the terms of address which had been used in all former Bulls of the same character. The difference was this, that whereas in those former Bulls the secular princes of Western Christendom were always summoned to attend, either in person or by deputy, as well as Roman Catholic bishops and certain other high ecclesiastics of that Church, in the present Bull it was Papal ecclesiastics alone.

The omission was too remarkable to escape notice. It was remarked on, for example, by the editor of a well-known Popish journal at Paris, L’Univers, in the passage following: “The Bull does not invite sovereigns to sit in the Council. The omission is remarkable. It implies that there are no longer Catholic crowns; that is to say, that the order in which society has lived for the last 1000 years no longer exists. What has been called the Middle Age has come to an end. The date of the Bull is the date of its death, its last sigh. Another era begins. The Church [Romish Church] and State [that is, of Roman Catholic kingdoms] are separated.”

There are some little inexactnesses (errors) in this passage; for he speaks of the regime of Roman Catholic crowns spiritually subject to the Pope as if begun only 1000 years ago, whereas it had existed above 1200 or 1300 years. Nor, again, does he refer to the temporary interruption of that régime which was suddenly and violently introduced by the French Revolution; an event, I am persuaded, not unnoticed in the Apocalyptic prophecy. But the main fact that he refers to is justly observed on by him as a very remarkable sign of the times, — remarkable, as holding out before the world, under the Pope’s own sign manual, an admission of the full ending of the predicted period of the kings of Western Christendom spiritually subjecting the power of their kingdoms to him; that is, of the completed ending of the 1260 years. For thus it had been declared in the Divine prophecy, Apoc. 17:17: “God hath put into the hearts of the ten kings to fulfill his will, and to agree and give their kingdom unto the Beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled:” in other words (compare Dan. 7:25, 26), until the end of God’s appointed period of the 1260 years.

When was it that this period may be considered as begun? What the terminus a quo from which it is to be measured? It was during the course of the sixth century, as I have shown from history, that the then newly established Romano-Gothic kings of Western Christendom, one after another, recognized the Roman Pope as Christ’s Vicar on earth, and so subjected their kingdoms, in matters of religion, to him; the three last, viz., the AngloSaxons, Lombards, and Bavarians, so doing near about or soon after 600 A.D.2 And if, following the precedent of the Old Testament prophecies respecting Judah’s seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, and consequent return,3 we suppose (as I have done in the Horae Apocalypticae) a primary imperfect commencing epoch, with a correspondently primary imperfect ending epoch, and a secondary and more perfect epoch of commencement, with its own correspondent and more perfect epoch of ending — and, moreover, that royal decrees (like those of Cyrus and Darius, Ezra 1:1, 6:1) may have been had respect to by the Holy Spirit as epochal signs in his predictions respecting the great New Testament prophetic period of the 1260 years — then we have, for our primary solution of this period, the 1260 years from Justinian’s Pope-recognizing decree, about A.D. 530, to the French Revolution, about A.D. 1790; and for our secondary solution the 1260 years from Phocas’ decree, A.D. 606, according to the best modern chronologists, A.D. 607, to A.D. 1867.

After the ending of the great revolutionary and Napoleonic wars at the Peace of Paris, there had been a return on the part of certain of the kingdoms of Western Christendom to their old spiritual allegiance to the Pope, e.g., of the Italian kingdoms of Sardinia and Naples, those of Spain, Portugal, Bavaria, Austria, and indeed partially that too of France. This allegiance involved to a considerable extent the same intolerance of Protestantism, designated as heresy, and enforcement by the arm of secular power of the Pope’s decrees and laws of the Romish Church — especially with regard to Divine worship, marriage, education, and freedom of conscience and of the press4 — as had more fully characterized all the kingdoms of Western Christendom, excepting North Germany and England, in the times previous to the great French Revolution — all, in those earlier times, in fulfillment of the obligations to which the kings had subscribed by their deputies in the great Papal OEcumenical Councils.5 But within the last few years the Sardinian kingdom (not to speak of others of the re-Papalized States), after absorbing into itself Lombardy, Tuscany, Naples, Sicily, the larger part of the Pope’s own territorial domain (called Patrimony of St. Peter), and, finally, Venetia, and having so become the kingdom of Italy, dissolved everywhere tho old ties that had bound those several polities in religious subjection to the enforcement of the decrees of the Papacy. Then (the war which ended in the battle of Sadowa having, in 1866, prepared the way), Austria, so long the Pope’s main prop, found itself forced, in 1867, to renounce its Concordat with the Papacy, and to establish throughout its dominions religious liberty.

Finally, in Spain, — after that, in the autumn of 1867, there had been unsuccessfully made the first attempt at overthrowing the Bourbon Queen and dynasty, and therewith the Papal all-domineering religious power — the attempt was renewed, and with entire success, in this present year 1868. Neither the Queen’s Ministry nor the Pope were ignorant of the impending revolutionary storm, and, consequently, that. Spain was no more to be reckoned on when the Bull of Convocation was issued than the other kingdoms of Western Christendom. Hence the Bull’s omission of the Spanish Queen as well as other sovereigns. As the editor expresses it, “There are now no longer Catholic crowns in Christendom.” God’s appointed period for this having been fulfilled, the kings no longer give the power of their kingdoms to the Beast. The Pope’s own published Bull testifies to that effect, and therewith to the fact of the completed expiration of the 1260 years.

What remains between us and the consummation but the supplemental period of the seventy-five years of Dan. 12? Our present position is at the close of the sixth vial — a vial of which the fitting to our own times has been so strikingly marked, both politically by the drying up of the waters of the Euphrates, or decay of the Turkish and Mohammedan powers, and religiously by the outgoing over England and the world of the three predicted deluding spirits of Infidelity, Popery, and Priestcraft, united in the one object of acting against the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ — I say, our present era being thus marked as at the close of the sixth vial, or commencement of the seventh, with its vial-outpouring into the aerial atmosphere, significant, I conceive, of the vitiation of the very elements of thought and principle, religious, moral, and political, what remains for fulfillment under this Vial, and during the course of Daniel’s seventy-five years of the “time of the end,” but the progress of the last great predicted war of Armageddon? Hence politically a revolution is indicated as ere long to follow, more mighty than any that has occurred since the first establishment of the Romano-Gothic kingdoms of the Popedom in Western Europe, and resulting in their tripartition: the Gospel-voice meantime sounding forth everywhere throughout the world antagonistically to the everywhere sped forth spirits of Antichristian delusion (Rev. 14:6-10); and so both the gathering out of God’s election of grace from every people and kindred and tongue and nation, as ordained under the present dispensation, and preparation too of the Jews for their predicted national restoration and conversion;6 after which is to follow the fall of the seven-hilled Babylon; and thereupon Christ’s glorious establishment of his kingdom. “Blessed is he that cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days,” or years.

Two final observations: —

[1] Let me observe that, though the kings may not any more give their kingdom to the Beast, yet this does not imply their rejection of Popery. At the moment before its sudden fall Babylon is represented in the Apocalypse as exulting, “I shall not be a widow, or see loss of children;” and, moreover, the kings of the earth are depicted as contemplating her fall with something of sympathy as well as awe. A prediction this very agreeable with what we now see of the state of Western Christendom, and what we might thence augur as to the probable future.

[2] Let me also observe, with reference to the remarkable fact of the interval between the primary and secondary endings of the 1260 years being very nearly seventy-five years (viz, from about 1790 to 1866-67), the same length as Daniel’s time of the end — that this may have been ordered by the Omniscient Spirit with a view to keeping alive throughout that interval the expectation of the Lord’s coming as imminent at the end of it. Similarly, when Christ’s first coming was drawing near, I conceive that the accomplished ending of the seventy weeks of Dan. 9 (= 490 years), about B.C. 46, if dated (as was natural) from Cyrus’s decree, instead of from Artaxerxes’s eighty years later, may have thenceforward served to excite and keep up that lively expectation of his coming as near at hand which we know from that time did prevail among the Jews.
Sept., 1868.

It seems almost needless to suggest how confirmatory of what was above written have been the extraordinary events that have since occurred on the theater of the European world: — France, “the eldest daughter of the Papal Church,” and chief final support of the Pope’s temporal power, humbled to the dust; its military supremacy transferred to Prussia, the great Protestant Continental power; the withdrawal of all the other secular European powers from support of the Papacy continued and confirmed; Rome itself ravished from the Pope by the King of Italy; yet the words of the Papal “great mouth” still boastful and blasphemous as ever! Advance seems surely to be making towards the predicted impartition of the kingdoms of the old Papal European Christendom under the seventh Apocalyptic vial, and the mighty concurrent revolution; also to the final and most awful destruction of the Papal Antichrist “by the brightness of the Lord’s coming,” after having been previously “consumed and wasted by the breath of His mouth.”

E. B. E.
May, 1871.

II. The following paper by Mr. Bateman, affording a very striking posthumous corroboration of the truth of Mr. Elliott’s system, appeared (in the Rock, January 7, 1876) within six months of Mr. E.’s death: —

In his great work on the Apocalypse my lamented friend the Rev. E. B. Elliott thus explains the two principles on which his interpretation of that holy prophecy mainly depends: —

“In the divine foreshowing of its great subject I have felt,” he says, “persuaded, and have carried out my exposition on the persuasion, that the two following rules must have been observed: — First, that the epochs and events selected for prefiguration must have been such as are confessedly the most important and eventful; secondly, that the figuring emblems must have been, in some approved consistent sense, characteristic and distinctive.”

And there are few who will not agree with Mr. Elliott that —

“The direct evidence of truth hence arising will at once be felt by the intelligent reader, more especially when fixed by some local or geographical peculiarity strongly marked in the prefiguration” (Horae Apocalypticae, i. 112, 5th edition).

The latter principle may be illustrated from the Old Testament prophets, who borrowed the emblems under which Judah is represented, e.g., lion, vine, olive-tree, fig-tree, etc., from the plants or animals indigenous to the country in which he dwelt. According to the same rule, Pharaoh is likened to a dragon, Nebuchadnezzar to an eagle, “the Assyrian” to “a cedar in Lebanon,” etc., etc. But in the Apocalypse the local propriety of the symbols is still more striking. For not merely the animals, but the heraldic devices on the coins and other national monuments of the countries which fall within the scope of the prophecy, are all found to be marvelously appropriate, both in respect of time and place. The Roman “horse” of the first four seals, each with its peculiar badge; the Pagan “dragon” (12:3); Mohammed’s “key” (9:1); the Waldensian “candlestick” (11:4); the Roman harlot holding out the “cup” of her apostasy (17:4), or sitting on the seven hills (v. 9) — these are but a few of the multitude of objects which are figured in Mr. Elliott’s work, where they furnish characteristic vouchers for the truth of a system which they at once illustrate and confirm.

But amidst all this wealth of evidence one link was still missing. Like nearly all other commentators of repute, Mr. Elliott interpreted the “woe” of the fifth trumpet as that great irruption of Saracen hordes into some of the fairest parts of Christendom which formed the burden of the seventh century. They came from Arabia, and are therefore with strict propriety symbolized by swarms of “locusts,” which are bred in the countries watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. Here is the description of them as seen in vision by St. John: —

“And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails” (Rev. 9:7-10).

We must bear in mind that in this graphic picture of the strange battalions which appeared upon the Apocalyptic scene the symbol is a composite one — like the Nineveh man-headed lions and bulls now in the British Museum, and which accord so exactly with Daniel’s description (7:4) of the “great beast” under which the Assyrian empire is prefigured. But the Apocalyptic emblem is more complex, for it includes a general resemblance to “locusts,” combined with certain other peculiarities, animal and human. The locusts in the vision were “like unto ‘horses,’”they had the “teeth of lions,” the “tails of scorpions,” the “hair of women,” and the “faces of men;” they had also “iron breastplates” and “golden crowns” (or helmets), while the whirr of their “wings” was as the sound of battle hurtling in the air. But while there was an obvious general agreement between the chief features of the Saracen invasion and the emblems selected by the Holy Spirit to depict it, Mr. Elliott, unable to adduce any specific evidence in elucidation of the fact, was compelled to resort to what he styles (i. 432) “a sketch from imagination” to explain the possible combination of details in the Apocalyptic symbol. Judge, therefore, of my surprise and delight when in looking over the illustrations in Mr. L. Smith’s admirable volume (published shortly after Mr. E.’s death), “The Chaldean Account of Genesis,” I found the accompanying plate — described among the “List of Illustrations” as “Composite figures (scorpion-men) taken from an Assyrian cylinder!”

Here was the Apocalyptic emblem with marvellous exactitude! The wings and general form were those of the “locust” — itself likened by Joel (11:4), as by St. John to the “war-horse.”7 In the figures — especially if examined with a magnifying glass — the long “hair of women” is no less conspicuous than the “faces of men.” Still more extraordinary are the “scorpion-tails,” never before seen, I believe, in any similar configuration. The creatures have helmets,8 probably of gold, “on their heads,” while something like an iron girdle or steel breastplate appears on their chests. The “teeth of lions” are, it is true, not recognizable in the figure, but the “lion” element is represented in the legs and feet. With this slight modification the identification is perfect. And the “local appropriateness” or geographical propriety of the emblem is equally unmistakable. For in the famous “Legends of Izdubar” (Nimrod) that hero gives an account of his meeting with the “scorpion-men” in the desert of “Mas,”9 which stretches — at the foot of the mountain-chain of that name — from the Tigris to the Euphrates.

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

The Future — our Duty.

HAVING BROUGHT DOWN our remarks to that point of the Apocalyptic Visions which would seem to indicate the present position of the European nations in relation to the Church, we must pass over the remaining chapters of the Revelation of St. John as being beyond the scope of historical adaptation. Deeply interesting indeed would it be to the inquiring and hopeful Christian to search into the pages of yet unfulfilled prophecy, and, following up the principles of interpretation by which we have been enabled so accurately to trace down the course of events to this day, to investigate those speedy coming changes which would appear to arise out of the things that mark the times we live in. Having observed, by the light of God’s Word, the evil agencies now at work, and specially how they would seem but preparatory to the great political “earthquake” predicted in chap. 16:18, we feel almost tempted to venture further, and inquire whether the “angel’s pouring out his seventh vial into the air,” with the consequent “thunderings, lightnings, and voices,” may not denote the wider spread of the moral pestilence, and the renewal to a yet greater extent of those civil commotions which of late years have led to “rumors of wars,” to “men’s hearts failing them for fear,” and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth? Again, having before us the gradual wasting away of the Turkish strength, we would seem naturally led to the next inquiry, For whom is the way being thus prepared? The vast increase of commercial power and of political influence on the part of the great Protestant nations, Great Britain and the United States of America, tending to the extension of Christian truth; the advancement of science and of intellectual research and invention on the one hand, and the no less active and restless exertions of the emissaries of evil on the other, — suggest the accomplishment of the prediction indicative of the time of the end: — “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

And thus, as we proceed with the seventeenth chapter, we think that we see the several portions of the Christian Church uniting in opinion as to Rome being the “mystery of iniquity” — “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth:” for so St. John, in his representative character, is described as seeing her, and as having at this juncture the mystery unfolded to him by the angel.

The eighteenth chapter reveals the approaching destruction of the symbolic Babylon by fire, i.e., of the Papal ecclesiastical state, previous to which a remarkable warning is given: “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” From which we are led to expect a diffusion of great religious light, and the sounding forth throughout the world of strong appeals on the character and imminent doom of Rome and the Popedom, — a cry which as yet seems not to have been generally recognized or uttered, notwithstanding the decided movement out from Popery which is proceeding at this moment in Great Britain and Ireland, in Tuscany, and many parts of France. The first verse of the nineteenth chapter makes mention of a loud and joyous sound being heard, in which for the first time in this book is used the Hebrew word, Alleluia, as if intimating that the Jews, as a people, swell the chorus — uniting with the Gentiles in singing praise to Jesus. But though we earnestly mark the progress of the Jewish mind, and hail the frequent conversions from amongst that people to Christianity, we are left in ignorance as to the immediate instrumentality which is to’ act upon Israel as a body. Still further would we reach, though in perspective, and strive to fix before our view those pictures of light and glory which, like beautiful dissolving views, rise before us, and then lose themselves in others still more exquisite, wherein is pictured the Church adorned as a bride, and, clothed with spotless righteousness, awaiting the coming of her Lord; wherein is the glorious appearing of the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, amid hosts of his redeemed, going forth to the final battle and victory, and to the utter destruction of Antichrist and his adherents; and then the New Jerusalem, the abode of the blessed and risen saints, where all is union, peace, and love — no root of bitterness or discord, no cloud of sorrow, but all holy and beautiful, and bright and pure.

But into these scenes of transcendent glory, “surpassing fable and yet true,” it is not for us to look, save “through a glass darkly,” — not certainly with the degree of confidence which we have derived in the foregoing lectures from having had the support of historical evidence. While we read the concluding chapters of the sacred volume, it is however our privilege, as believers, to anticipate and appropriate all in hope; and, moreover, to take comfort in the assurance that “yet a little while, and our Lord himself will come, and will not tarry.” It is also our wisdom, seeing that all shall be fulfilled and speedily, to lay to heart the thought, “What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?” or, if a time of conflict must needs first come, “Who shall be found on the Lord’s side?”

When one of our most distinguished warriors would inspire his men with courage and confidence for action, he gave the word, “England expects every man to do his duty.” The gallant Nelson lived just long enough to know that the victory was won; but he left it to another to illustrate, on the battlefield, in the senate, and through a lengthened course of life, the sentiment he so well expressed. Wellington, too, now sleeps in the grave; but the saying, while England lasts, will survive. Let DUTY be the Christian’s watchword.

What, then, viewing our present circumstances by the light of fulfilled revelation, may we regard as our duty, — as a Nation, as a Church, as individuals?

Nationally, we find ourselves raised to an exaltation of power, possessions, and influence, which we can only account for as being designed, in God’s providence, to be the means of promulgating throughout the world the Protestant evangelic faith. Let us beware of being again seduced by any spirit of mistaken expediency, false liberalism, or religious indifference, — lest, in our efforts to soothe party faction, we identify ourselves with Popery, or further its views, or foster its Anti-christian tenets, either at home or in our colonies. Surely we have gone far enough already in this direction. The utmost toleration, consistent with our safety as a Protestant state, has been extended. Let us take care lest, in the vain hope of thoroughly conciliating her priesthood (a matter shown by reason and history to be impossible), we abandon our distinctive Protestant character, and therewith forfeit the protection of Heaven in the great coming struggle. And as regards our children, too, we must take heed of yielding up the principle of Scriptural education. It is alike their birthright and our policy. While we sleep the enemy sows tares.

As a Church, — now that we are threatened with divisions, owing to the subtle influence of Tractarianism (also known as the Oxford Movement), — is it not our duty, before all things, to hold fast by the pure Scriptural doctrines of the Reformation, and to repudiate every modification of that system which would make religion an ecclesiastical rather than a personal and spiritual matter; which would interpose the Church, with its priesthood, services, and sacraments, between the soul and Christ, instead of asserting their right use, and using them as the great instruments for directing the soul to Christ? We must firmly hold to the Scriptural doctrine of our Articles and Liturgies, the main features of which are justification by faith in Christ’s atoning blood, and sanctification by the Spirit given from God, with a constant and steady adherence to his written Word as our rule of faith. This will expel and keep away the most specious heresies; and at the last day, when God shall make up his jewels, the eulogy given of Zion may be pronounced of our beloved Church, “that many were born in her, and the Most High did establish her.” To those dissenting brethren who differ from us in non-essentials, may we not say, “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. If God have eminently blessed our Church hitherto, and if the Word of truth still be disseminated by his blessing on her instrumentality, instead of laboring to defame and overturn her, endeavor (and so a reflex light and blessing may in return be granted to you) to hold the fellowship of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Should it be that these pages ever meet the eyes of a Roman Catholic, may they not bring a lesson in the way of duty to him also? If what has been put forth in these lectures be a correct and sound exposition of the inspired Word, how awful is the position of the members of that apostate Church! “If any man worship the beast, and his image, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation: and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” We rather turn again and urge the invitation of God himself: — “Come out of her, my people (for doubtless there are some in her communion who know not the sin, and are not of her), — come out of her, my people, that ye be not partaker of her sin, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

But that which we have most need to press is the duty of each individual. The smallest aid can make a movement stronger either for good or evil. Let not the ill-directed though well-meant zeal of those who are in error put us to shame. It is not enough that we belong to the most orthodox Church, profess the most Scriptural faith, and even be warm in its defense and in opposition to the errors of the day. The question will still remain, — Are we, as individuals of Christ’s little flock, his true, faithful, obedient followers, to whom the kingdom is promised? Have we the evidence of belonging to it? Have we received of God’s Spirit to the sanctifying our hearts, and the infusing into them the love of God and of our brethren, and the inward life, light, and spirit of holiness and adoption, which he alone can give? Is our faith fixed upon Christ as the Lord our Righteousness? Do we hold to the Word of God in life as well as in doctrine? Do we witness for Christ in an ungodly world; and seek in the spirit of holy self-denial, spiritual-mindedness, and patient perseverance in well-doing, to follow the example of our Lord and Saviour, who pleased not himself, but went about doing good? Are we improving our talents, be they great or small, as those that must give account to God? Is the thought of Christ’s coming precious to us? Do we look for him, and long for our final union with him? Doubtless many can answer with assured comfort and hope to these and such-like questions. But who can doubt that there is much lukewarmness, and much of false profession, even in what is called the religious world, — the having a name to live, but being. in reality dead?

With all of us there is, in regarding the coming future, much cause for holy fear, humiliation, and repentance. Blessed be God, though the acceptable time remaining be short, it is not ended. Though the Master seem about to rise, he has not risen, — the door is not yet shut. The period of evil is still permitted: so is the period for good. “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” But the voice of mercy and love is also heard inviting sinners to salvation: — “Let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.”

So may it be that, — when, in answer to the waiting Church’s oftentimes-repeated supplication “that the Lord would shortly accomplish the number of his elect and hasten his kingdom,” the Saviour’s voice would seem to be heard, “Surely I come quickly,” — we may be able each one to respond with the inmost soul’s welcome, “Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

Continued in Appendix – The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

This is a transcription of a YouTube video from Steve Gregg entitled, “The Dangers of Dispensationalism.” Because not many Christians know the meaning of “dispensationalism” (even though they are under its influence) I used the first words of the talk for the title of this article. The video is one hour and 46 minutes long. I transcribed the first 30 minutes which basically has the message of the title of this article.

I felt inspired to post this because one of my email friends in America, Annie, says that she’s in hot water with her Christian friends for not supporting Israel in its war in Gaza. It’s sad indeed that so many American Christians today have been influenced by false doctrines of Darby’s and Scofield’s dispensationalism. Bible teacher Dr. Gene Kim calls dispensationalism “rightly dividing the Word of truth.” I call it propagating the lies of the Devil.

The emphasis in the text are mine.

Transcription

All right, we’re going to continue to talk about what does the Bible say about the future of Israel? Now, one thing we saw was the Bible really doesn’t have any unconditional promises to anyone. There are times when the promise is made without, on that occasion, mentioning the condition, but God doesn’t fail to mention the conditions on other occasions. He has said, there’s a general policy I have. If I make promises to you and you break them, I’ll break the promises. So that’s why it’s so irresponsible for people to say, “Well, if God doesn’t keep his promises to Israel now, he’s an unfaithful God.” Well, wait, He did keep his promises to Israel as long as He could, and they cast them off.

Now, by the way, they did inherit the land. That did happen in the days of Joshua. And he did make Abraham a great nation and the father of many nations. So, I mean, these are things that God did for them. He fulfilled those promises, but in order for them to continue in perpetuity, they had to behave. They had to be faithful. They had to keep the covenant because the whole basis for their existence as a nation was a covenant.

And as I was saying, the nation of Israel today has no such covenant. There are more atheist Jews in Israel than there are Jewish Jews who practice Judaism. The number of atheists, fortunately, has gone down. Right now, atheists in Israel, the atheist Jews, are only about 20% now, but there’s less than that of observant Jews who practice Judaism. But that number of atheists is down. Back in, I think, 2015, the number was 65%. So it’s really plummeted, but unfortunately, those who have ceased to be atheists have not ended up in the church, or if they did, the church was mighty small beforehand because there are still hardly any Christians who are among the Jews in Israel. That’s just the statistics. You can go to Google, look as many websites, look up government websites, whatever, Israel’s websites, and yeah, I’m not making this up. This is what you’ll find. I’ve looked at many, just to make sure that I was vetting my information properly.

Now, what else does the Bible say about Israel that might have something to do with the future? Well, I’m remembering now the things I was taught and that I repeated when I was a dispensationalist. One of those is that the Bible teaches there will be continual conflict between Isaac and Ishmael. Now the Jewish people, of course, descended from Isaac through Jacob, and it is thought that most of the Arabs, or many of them, descended from Ishmael.

I say it is thought because no one really has kept a complete record of this, but it’s generally believed that many Arabs, many Arab peoples descended from Ishmael, and I’ll accept that for the time being. So is there to be inevitably constant hatred and fighting between Israel and the Arabs because of this thing about Isaac and Ishmael? Well, where do we read, first of all, about this continual conflict between Ishmael and Isaac? I remember the first time I asked myself that question because I always had said, “Oh, the Bible says that the descendants of Ishmael, they’re going to be fighting against the descents of Isaac, and that’s just the way it’s going to be to the end.” Yeah, except there’s nothing in the Bible that says any part of that.

The verse they use, and there’s only one, is in Genesis chapter 16 in verse 12. This is spoken to Hagar about her son Ishmael, and God is telling her that even though he’s been rejected from being the chosen heir of Abraham’s line to bring the Messiah into the world, he’s not going to do that, but that he’s going to be blessed too. God’s going to bless Ishmael as well, and he makes this statement about him.

He says, “Ishmael shall be a wild man. His hand shall be against every man and every man’s hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Now, that same, he’ll dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Some people prefer to say he’ll dwell in antagonism with all his brethren. Maybe, I mean, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’m not a Hebrew scholar. It doesn’t matter to me which way it reads. The point is that he’s a wild man and he’ll be hostile toward all other people. That doesn’t speak specifically of hostility toward the Jews, though the Jews are other people, so I guess that would include them, but this is a statement about Ishmael, talking about what kind of man he’s going to be.

There’s not the slightest hint that all the descendants of Ishmael are going to be like him, and this is something that I think Americans often mistake, and I think it’s because, I hate to say it, because I don’t think this is consciously true, we think of people as ethnic identities. Now, I’m not of the view that this is a white supremacist nation or anything like that. That’s not my position. My position is when we say, “Well, Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and these heroes of ours, the prophets, they were Jews. So the Jews are good.” Well, that’s a non-sequitur. Whatever your ancestors may have been, doesn’t tell us anything about what you are, and Ezekiel 18 specifically says, a righteous father’s righteousness will not be imputed to his unrighteous son, or an unrighteous father, his unrighteousness will not be imputed to his righteous son. There’s no suggestion that if you have a good father or a bad father, that this somehow stamps your offering, even in the next generation, much less hundreds of generations, there’s not the slightest hint of this in the Bible.

Now, have the Arabs always been hostile toward the Jews? I don’t know. We don’t see a lot of evidence of it in the Bible. There are times when the Edomites, and times when the Ishmaelites, and time when the Midianites, all of which were descended from Abraham, by the way, when they did attack Israel in the period of the Judges, you know, these different pagan nations that were not the chosen people, they made war with them. That included Ishmaelites, but not particularly the Ishmaelites, not more than these others, there’s no particular hostility between Ishmaelites and Jews more than generic antisemitism that exists in many pagan nations.

And really, real problems between the Jews and the Arabs began largely when Jews started moving in large numbers from Europe, especially into Palestine. This was before Israel became a nation. They were moving in there for decades before it became a nation. And largely the Arabs and the Jews, many of them lived peaceably with each other.

In fact, I was listening to a YouTube the other day of an Orthodox rabbi. You may have seen it. Long bearded, orthodox, orthodox clothes. He was on an Al Jazeera interview, a Muslim woman was interviewing him, and he was saying, unbeknownst to Americans, Orthodox Jews don’t believe in Zionism. They don’t believe in the state of Israel because they believe that God said Israel has to repent first. And since Israel has not repented, they do not see this as a fulfillment of prophecy.

Now, I’m not sure if there are some Orthodox Jews that would contest that. I don’t know what every Orthodox Jew thinks, but he said there are tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews that that’s their way of seeing it. And he said he weeps for the Palestinians because of the injustice he’s done and that he’s anti-Israel, not anti-Jew. He’s not antisemitic any more than Paul or Moses were when they decried what the Jews did. But he’s anti-the-state of Israel because he knows things about it that many Americans don’t. I know some of them cause I’ve studied them in recent years more, but many Christians have no idea. And therefore Palestinians tend to be targeted or not, not as much now, but I think now too, yeah, definitely.

It happens now, just a couple of years ago, a Palestinian journalist, a woman, was shot by Israeli troops. And the next day when the Palestinians were carrying her coffin to her funeral, the Israeli troops came in and tried to bust it up because they didn’t like what she wrote. This is not a free country in all the respects that we think of a free country.

It’s true. Israel has been much more, I believe, open to the Arabs in their borders than we would have expected them to be. There are even Arabs on the Knesset. But there’s still harassment. If a Jewish (? I think he meant to say Palestinian) boy throws a rock at an Israeli tank, and there’s a notable case of this, he, his sister, and his parents are all put in jail. And, you know, it’s like the whole family’s punished because he threw a rock at a tank.

Now, was that tank endangered by a rock being thrown at it? No, they just were angry because he was hostile toward them. So they punished this whole family and took his home. This happens. This is not so long ago. Now, I do believe that we only hear about the injustices done by the other side. And there, and there may be more injustices done by the other side.

Certainly, in this recent conflict, the other side, I think, is inexcusable. I mean, punishing, killing civilians, babies, women, and so forth. I mean, there’s no question that Hamas doesn’t necessarily have the interest of the Palestinians at heart. Hamas is Palestinian in ethnicity, and Palestinians did vote Hamas into power, probably at, you know, gunpoint, but many people in Hamas or in Palestine are suffering. And many of them are Christians. I think I mentioned 7% of the Palestinians are Christians. That’s 14 times the percentage of Jews that are Christians in Israel. If you meet a Christian in Israel who lives there, the chances are 14 times greater that that person is going to be an Arab than that he’s going to be a Jew. Now, I mean, that should give us some perspective. We’re not talking here about a righteous, godly nation.

Now, this hostility between Ishmael and Isaac, there’s nothing in the Bible that says this is continual. It’s a statement about the man, Ishmael. It describes what kind of a man he was. There are no predictions that his offspring will or will not be that way.

We might say, well, there’s been some cases where it seems like the Arabs are a lot like that. Yeah, there are cases when the Jews were like that. There are cases like when Americans were like that toward the Indians. And there are certainly cases when the Indians were like that toward the European settlers. I mean, there’s been a lot of bad behavior to go around. There are no people who are always good.

But to say there’s a special hostility decreed by God, which requires us to take a stand against the Arabs because they’re from Ishmael and God predicted they’d be against Isaac and we’re on their side because that’s God’s people. That’s fabricated from whole cloth. There’s not a single scripture that would say that.

Now let’s talk about the restoration from the exile. Perhaps the most important verses that dispensationalism quotes are verses usually from Ezekiel, but there are some in Isaiah, and there are some in Jeremiah. There are some in some of the minor prophets where it says that God is going to restore the exiles from all the nations where they’ve been driven, bring them back to the land, and establish their nation again. No question. It does predict that. When were those predictions actually made? Well, when did Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel live? And the minor prophets, when did they live? They lived before or during the Babylonian exile.

In other words, Israel was already scattered or was soon to be scattered to all the nations by Nebuchadnezzar. And they spent 70 years in that condition. But before that even happened, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and then during the exile, Ezekiel predicted that God is going to gather his people back to the land and restore the nation.

He did. It was in 539 BC, a guy named Cyrus, a Persian ruler, conquered the Babylonians and gave all the nations that Babylon had taken into captivity, gave them permission to go back to their ancestral homes, including Israel. And of course, for us, the most important thing in Old Testament history is that Israel was given the right to go back in fulfillment of the promises God made. He fulfilled the promise. They went back. It was Zerubbabel and Joshua, the high priest that led them.

Later on, Ezra and Nehemiah, not very much later on, took a bunch of them back too. Only a remnant came back. But the prophets had said that only a remnant would come back. God never said all the Jews were going to come back. He said a remnant, the faithful remnant, would come back. And they did. Over 500 years before Christ.

Now, after that happened, the only predictions about Israel and geography that we read about are the predictions that Jesus made, that Israel is going to be conquered by the Romans, the temple is going to be destroyed, and the Jewish people will be scattered to all the lands. So we have the prophets in the Old Testament predicting the scattering of the people in the time of Nebuchadnezzar and predicting the return of the people in the time of Cyrus.

And then Jesus predicts they’re gonna be scattered again. And in my opinion, Zechariah predicted that too. He’s hard to interpret, but I think that’s what he’s talking about.

Now, when then, after that, was there a promise made that God would bring them back from that more recent scattering in AD 70, where’s the promise that they’ll come back from that? Jesus made none. Paul didn’t mention any. No New Testament writer did.

There’s nothing in the New Testament that speaks of them coming back again after 70 AD. So what if God does not bring them back in the end times? Is he unfaithful? No, he promised it in the days of Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel, and he fulfilled it 500 years before Jesus was born. No other predictions of any return of the people have ever been made in the Bible since that time.

Now, let me show you some of the scriptures that they like to use. I remember when I was growing weary of my dispensationalism because I kept finding that the Bible didn’t say what I was teaching it said, I began to wonder where are those scriptures that talk about God bringing the exiles back. Well, there’s in quite a few prophets, there’s a line here or a line there, but the main scriptures, and I found this to be true recently with every dispensationalist who’s now talking about the present situation, they always want to go to Ezekiel 36. That must be the best one for them. And 37, both of which do, in fact, talk about God bringing the Jews back and reestablish them in their land. I remember Ezekiel was along with the Jews in Babylon and in all the nations. They weren’t just in Babylon. Babylon had conquered all the nations of the region and the exiles were scattered among them. The Jews were in all the nations of the region.

And these prophecies come along and, let’s start here. Okay. In chapter 36 verse 19, God says,

Past tense. He’s not talking about a future scattering in the future from his point of view. He’s talking about a scattering that happened already, he’s using the past tense.

Now, where is the house of Israel at this time? He said to them, they’re in Babylon. Like him.

Now, did this happen? Yes. God brought them back. They had a new heart.

Now see, someone was arguing with, Oh, how do we know that the people came back with a Zerubbabel were repentant? Well, you want to read the Bible in Ezra 1:5. It says, “Sll whose hearts the Lord had touched came and went to Jerusalem.” They, they were moved by God. These were repentant people. That’s why they wanted to build the temple. That’s why they’re willing to make such a long trek through the dangerous wilderness to build their temple. And they were committed to that. Most Jews in Babylon were not. Most of them just stayed there, but the remnant came.

And now what about this pouring of spirit out? I’m going to get to that. But first, we need to look at chapter 37, because this is the other chapter that’s most often used. This is the vision of the dry bones. And we, we won’t read it all because it’s kind of a long narrative.

Ezekiel sees a vision of a wasteland, a desert, a wilderness, and there’s dry human bones scattered all over the place. And God says, “Son of man, prophesy to these bones.” And so he prophesied to the bones and they began to rattle and shake and assemble themselves. And they stood into full skeletons, and then flesh and skin and hair came upon them and they looked fully human, except that there’s no, no breath in them, the same word in the Hebrew. There’s no spirit in them.

Now here’s what God says to Ezekiel. “Prophesy now to the spirit, ruach in the Hebrew. It can be breath, it can be wind, or it can be spirit. In the previous chapter, “I will put My Spirit in you” probably means not wind or breath, but spirit. And this is prophesying the same thing that chapter 36 was, but with different images.

Prophesy to the Spirit, and then the Spirit came in and they came alive. And then God explains it. And it says in verse 11,

Not will be in the end times, are now while they are in Babylon, they are the whole house of Israel. They’re scattered away from their homeland.

That was the attitude that Jews in Babylon had.

This is figurative because they’re not literal bones. They’re people. “I’m going to bring you to life again as a nation.” He’s not talking about the resurrection of the last day here.

Now, these two prophecies, 36 and 37 of Ezekiel, say two things are going to happen. God says, “I’m going to take them from all the nations where they’ve been scattered, I’m going to bring them back to their own land.” That was signified by bones that are scattered being reassembled. They weren’t alive yet, but they were reassembled and looked fully human. There was nothing more to reassemble them. That was when Israel came back from Babylon to Israel and reestablished their nation, they were reassembled, but they weren’t alive yet spiritually. He says, “Then prophesy to the Spirit.” And he also says in chapter six, “I will put My Spirit on them. I’ll put my spirit in them and they’ll do my work.”

Well, when did that happen? Well, that happened at Pentecost. It was the returned exiles in Jerusalem that the Spirit was poured out upon on the faithful remnant who happened to be believers in Jesus Christ. Because only believers in Jesus Christ are faithful in any sense to God.

You cannot be faithful to God and reject the Messiah, the King that He sent. Jesus said, “Whoever does not honor me does not honor the Father who sent me.” You can’t honor God and reject Jesus no matter what John Hagee says.

Now, these people came back, God reassembled the nation and 500 years later, he poured his Spirit out on the remnant. It was the remnant who came back, and it was the remnant in Jerusalem that He poured His Spirit out on.

We call them the church. We call them the faithful disciples of Jesus. Only they can be called the faithful remnant remnant of Israel. The rest of Israel crucified him.

And so Ezekiel predicts a restoration of Israel in two phases. One, the regathering of the Jews to their land, which happened in the days of Cyrus, and the pouring out of His Spirit upon them subsequently, which happened at Pentecost. Now, the early Christians understood this kind of prophecy as being fulfilled in their time, because there are quite a few prophets that speak of God pouring out His Spirit, like a river in the wilderness and everything blossoming and budding and bringing forth fruit and so forth. There are lots of references, “rivers in the desert.” Isaiah especially, but other passages to talk about God pouring out His Spirit as rivers in the desert. Isaiah 35, I think it’s verses 15, 14, and 15 specifically say that these rivers of water are the Spirit poured out on them.

Well, God didn’t pour out His Spirit on the remnant when they came back from Zechariah. Maybe, maybe some of them, you know, they had a changed heart, but His Spirit was not poured out on the remnant until Pentecost. And the New Testament writers who quote verses about that outpouring in Ezekiel and Isaiah and Jeremiah, they apply it to their own time. That is the church in Jerusalem believed that they were seeing the fulfillment.

One of those prophecies was Joel chapter two, where God said, “And I’ll pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your old men and young, your old men will see, dream, dream dreams, or your young men will see visions. I’ll pour out my spirit on your maidservants and so forth and they’ll prophesy.” That’s Joel chapter two, I think it’s verse 28, but Peter said, “This is that!” He said it at Pentecost, “This is that!”

There’s one outpouring of the Spirit predicted again and again in the prophets, just like there’s one return of the exiles from Babylon again and again. It’s just a common theme of the prophets. God sends them into Babylon. He restores them from Babylon. Then he’ll pour His Spirit out of them. And Peter said, “This is that.”

Now we can disagree with Peter if we want to, or we can make up things in the Bible to say, “Yeah, but there’s going to be another outpouring on Israel and there’s going to be another regathering in the end times!” Really?

Now, some people say, “Well, Steve, you’re kind of on the wrong side of the cue ball here, because don’t you know that God has in these last days restored the Jews to Israel? I mean, your interpretation is that this doesn’t mean that, but it has happened against all odds. How could you not think that’s a fulfillment of prophecy?” Well, one reason is I can’t find any prophecy that is fulfilled by it. Even J. Vernon McGee didn’t think it’s a fulfillment of prophecy. He said, “No, they got to become believers first and then they can come back.”

Now, I don’t think that’s come back at all because they came back already 500 years before Christ, and there was never another prediction of them ever coming back after that. But the truth is, what has happened there is not a fulfillment of any prophecy because there is not a covenant nation called Israel anywhere on this planet right now. Not even in the promised land. They are not a covenant people. They don’t acknowledge God. They don’t keep His covenant. They have met none of the conditions for the blessing, but they have met all the conditions for the curses to remain upon them that Deuteronomy said would be upon , and I don’t wish it on them.

I have no animosity towards Jews. Again, I’ve had many friends who are Jewish. I think they’re some of the most witty and fun people I’ve ever known. I’ve never had a bad thought toward a Jew. I’m just talking about the Bible here. If you say you’re not a Zionist and that means you don’t necessarily think the Bible teaches that this is a fulfillment of prophecy, people say, oh, you’re anti-semitic.

I’ve heard Dennis Prager say that on a show. He said, “If you’re not a Zionist, you’re anti-Semitic.” I think, well, wait a minute, Dennis, you’re a smart man. I like to listen to Dennis Prager. He’s a smart man. I agree with him most of the time but wait a minute.

Isn’t anti-Semitism racism toward Jews? Okay. What is Zionism? It’s a political philosophy. Zionism means you believe that the people of the Jews should and will come to Jerusalem and own that property. Now I can doubt that and still not be a racist. I don’t think any of you have a divine mandate to inherit any particular piece of property. I’m not against whatever race you are.

Racism is an entirely different thing. Zionism is a political movement and it was not started by godly Jews. It was started by an atheist Jew, Theodor Herzl in the 1800s. But it really got some momentum when dispensationalists jumped on that bandwagon because they believed that was supposed to happen and they pushed and they pushed and they pushed and they pushed until President Truman finally gave in. And if you don’t think that’s a correct interpretation, read books on modern Jewish history written by non-Christian Jewish historians, every Jewish historian will admit that the modern nation of Israel is largely something brought about by dispensationalist American and British evangelicals.

And my Zionist friends said, “Well, yeah, but God could use that.” He could. The only thing is He gives me no scripture to give me that interpretation of the facts.

God has not promised to do this. And if we’re talking about these passages, he hasn’t done it at all. Not only not in fulfillment of scripture, but He just hasn’t done it at all.

(End of transcription. If interested you can hear Steve Gregg’s entire talk on YouTube.

For more about dispensationalism, what it means, and what its influence is, please see the many articles about it on this website.

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

The Spirits Of Infidel Lawlessness, Of Popery, And Of Priestly Tractarianism, A.D. 1830-1852.

SCARCELY HAD ENGLAND awakened to the consciousness of her proper position as the bulwark of Protestantism, and applied herself to the duty of disseminating the Gospel of Christ to the world, when the Satanic agency above described began, with an insidious but too successful effort to undermine the faith and to injure the repose of the Church.

By the very remarkable symbol of this vision there would seem to be intended some rapid, widespread, and influential diffusion of three “unclean,” i.e., unholy, principles, like in character to those from whom they are said to emanate — the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, — and resembling “frogs” in respect of the noisy and agitating agents employed to propagate them, by deluding and seducing the minds of men. As the sources thus indicated have been already explained as signifying the Devil, the Papal Antichrist, and the apostate Romish clergy, we are at no loss to deduce the three corresponding principles — 1st, of Infidel rebelliousness; 2nd, of Popery; and 3rd, of Priestcraft and Tractarianism, — three spirits of evil, which, like the lying spirit to Ahab, were to go “forth and gather” the powers of the world to the coming great day of conflict. Seeing, moreover, that these three spirits issue forth just at or after the incipient drying up of the Euphrates, do we err in regarding the last twenty years as the precise period marked out in prophecy for their development?

[I] Infidel rebelliousness. — Can we forget the furious outbreak of this unquiet spirit, when, having overthrown the reigning dynasties of France and Belgium, it exhibited itself in the great political agitations of England that attended the passing of the Roman Catholic Emancipation and the Reform Bills? How the public mind was blindly impelled, almost like the herd driven by the legion of spirits into the waters of Gennesareth! And how rank and property, Church and State, were alike endangered, till the Prime Minister himself quailed and fell before the tempest! How infidel and democrat too often united in the croaking frog-like cry, “Agitate, agitate!” Can we forget how certain legislators and peers, as men infatuated, stood in their places in parliament, some advising passive resistance to the law; others, with yet clearer token of the spirit of evil, suggesting physical force, and even murder? How the Established Church was marked out as a special object of attack; its property saved -with difficulty; its prelates insulted, and even within the House of Lords itself admonished to set their house in order? How many even of the more orthodox Dissenting body were infected with the same spirit; and, instead of confining themselves, like their predecessors, to the work of evangelists at home and the promotion of evangelic missions among the heathen, became strangely known as political agitators, and appeared as the partisans of infidelity? Much, we are persuaded, was said and done under a temporary infatuation; but this shows the more how great the spirit of delusion which had gone forth. The crisis may, for the present, seem to have passed. A reaction in favor of order has doubtless, to a certain extent, had place among the middle classes. But among the lower orders this “unclean spirit” is still active. Socialism and Chartism, political unions, and such-like revolutionary combinations, with all their machinery of agitation and inflammatory haranguings, give but too clear evidence that .the evil is still abroad in the land. Moreover, the present is preeminently an age of journalism. It was calculated in 1845 that the issue of stamped and unstamped newspapers and pamphlets of a decidedly pernicious tendency from London alone was 28,862,000 yearly! The present circulation of penny or three-halfpenny unstamped pernicious publications is 400,000 weekly, amounting yearly to 20,800,000! In addition to these there is a weekly importation of French prints and novels of so indecent a character, that at one time they could only be obtained by stealth, but now they may be purchased by anyone through the vendors of the above publications.”2 If then, what now? May not the lawlessness of the present time be the fruit of such seed thrown broadcast on a population uneducated so far as religion is concerned?

The Edinburgh Review for July, 1850, gave this statement: “The total (annual) issue of immoral publications has been stated as twenty-nine millions, being more than the total issues of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the Religious Tract Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Scottish Bible Society, the Trinitarian Bible Society, and some seventy religious magazines!”

Nor is the poison confined to these publications. The subtle appeal to human reason against the truths of Christianity is making its way. The German skeptical spirit, that has for a length of time past displayed the most open impieties in the mode of writing upon and criticizing Scripture, is infused into our works of literature; and German works of infidel tendency are translated and freely circulated and read amongst both the lower and higher classes of life.

In France the same character prevails, and to an immense extent tinctures alike its journals, its popular literature, novels, romances, dramas, and poetry. In Spain, Portugal, and Italy the infidel spirit is combined with Popery. Switzerland too has been agitated and revolutionized by the republican principle within it.

In truth, we may say it was the working of this spirit that prepared the mine by which, in the year 1848, the whole of Continental Europe was shaken as by an earthquake to its foundation. Nor was Europe only affected. The unclean spirits were to go to the kings of the whole world. A specimen of its “going forth” may be found in the efforts made by infidels to introduce into and inundate our Indian Presidencies with the works of Tom Paine and such-like publications. The immense injury thereby done was stated by Dr. Duff in 1837. Similar reports may be given from our colonies in all parts.

[II] Nor has Popery, “the spirit” said to come “from the mouth of the Beast,” been less active or less mischievous. We turn to the Papal States for the commencement of its recently revived progress. Since the year 1815, when, the peace of Europe being established, the kings and Pope returned to their kingdoms and thrones (the latter once again in his usurped character of God’s vicegerent on earth), Popery has exhibited restored energies. The Inquisition was in some places speedily re-established, as was also the order of the Jesuits. In France, Spain, Portugal, Bavaria, and Austria the revival was obvious, although not at first so clearly united with the infidel lawless spirit as has been since developed. In two places, Ireland and Belgium, this combination was evident and palpable, and though these countries were under Protestant Governments, the success was marked. After Ireland had been for years agitated to its center by Romish priests and revolutionary demagogues, the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed by our British Parliament in 1829 as a preferable alternative to civil war. The next year, through the united action of these kindred spirits, the Dutch Protestant king was expelled from. Belgium. In France the astute policy of Rome quickly adapted itself to the rule of the King of the Barricades, seeing that the latter was prepared to court Papal favor and extend its influence. Again in Switzerland the revolution of 1847 threw the Government into the hands of the so-called Liberal party; and great, consequently, has been there the increase of Popery. In the Pays de Vaud the Protestant Church has been divided, and the mass of faithful ministers obliged to leave the national established Church. And both there and at Geneva a strange political alliance has taken place between the democratic party and the Roman Catholics.

As to England, it may be well to trace its movements there more particularly. The passing, then, of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829 produced results little anticipated by the authors of the measure in strengthening the cause of Popery at home and abroad. At home the scale of political power came, with the help of the various sections of self-styled Liberals and demagogues, into the hands of the Irish Papal party, and the Government substantially devolved on its leader. Hence in the House of Commons the deference paid to Romish principles, and the discouragement of all upholding of the true principles of evangelical Protestantism. Hence the not infrequent assertion of the obscurity of the Bible, — of Popery and Protestantism being equally true, and the consequent propriety of each man following the way of his fathers, — and the approval of such assertions, shown by loud applause from both Popish and democratic members. As in the Houses of Parliament, so alike throughout the country, while Infidelity was strengthened on the one hand, Popery was upheld on the other.

The effect was soon visible. Romish chapels, convents, and colleges sprang up with increased and increasing rapidity. Conversions became frequent. The press gave its powerful aid to the cause. Romish reviews, magazines, and newspapers, — many characterized by great subtlety of argument and not a little display of learning, — as well as cheap periodicals, religious and controversial works, and tracts fitted for the multitude, obtained wide circulation amongst Protestants; and romances and novels, works on poetry, history, music, and architecture of like character helped forward the movement. Meanwhile in Ireland Popery was rampant. As the “unclean spirit,” breathing and speaking forth from the altars of Romish chapels, swayed and infuriated the blind multitude that worshipped before them, the Protestant clergy, in respect of their property and even of their lives, were treated as without the pale of the law. Nor was the merciless system exercised only against the Protestant clergy. Their institutions for education, from which Government support and Government charters were by the influence of the Papal faction withdrawn, were marked out as special objects of persecution, and forced oftentimes to give place to the unclean teachings of Popery. Incessantly the altar curse issued against teachers, parents, and children who persevered in attending Scriptural schools. Be it remembered also that a priest’s curse in Ireland is not merely “sound and fury, signifying nothing,” for it in reality exposes those against whom it is directed to personal insult, violence, starvation, and even death.

Yet again the opportunity was seized by this spirit of Popery of speeding forth in power to our distant colonies, to India, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape, Canada, Newfoundland; everywhere Romish bishops and priests, salaried by British funds but under the Pope’s instructions, seizing if possible on the education, influencing the press, and agitating for political power in conjunction with the revolutionist and the infidel.

Nor has France less prominently helped forward the unclean spirit of Popery. Wherever her power could be exercised she has protected Romish missionaries and upheld Romish influence. When lately Pius IX. was obliged to fly from his capital, the army of France under the Republican government speedily restored the Pope and re-established his authority.

Austria has thrown herself of late years into the arms of Rome, and given it a power unprecedented in modern history. In Tuscany the spirit of persecution is revived, and the recent accounts of the sentences, pronounced and executed in Florence against nobles and respectable families because of their having possessed or read the Scriptures are even now calling forth the sympathies of Protestant Europe. Exile, hard labor, if not death, is, in 1852, the judgment attached in Florence to such a misdemeanor! Witness the case of the Madiai and of Count Guicciardini. Well may it be asked, “Is Rome changed?”

[III] Yet again a “third spirit” is said in the text to speed forth “from the mouth of the false prophet” or apostate priesthood. Looking to our own country and our own Church, may we not find it in that spirit of clerical agitation and priestly dominancy which, issuing from Oxford, was known as Oxford Tractarianism?

Speciously putting itself forward in the first instance as the opponent of the two principles we have already noticed, this was looked upon with favor by many of the friends of order and religion. But its development has long since been sufficiently unequivocal.

The real object of Tractarianism is “to re-appropriate from Popery the doctrines which our reformers rejected, — to set up a Popish rule of faith, — a Popish doctrine of Apostolical succession, — a Popish view of the Church and Sacraments, — a Popish doctrine of sacrifice in the Eucharist, available for quick and dead for the remission of sins, — a doctrine on transubstantiation, invocation of saints, purgatory, and even on Papal supremacy, which, if not Popish, is at least so near it that it is like splitting hairs to draw a distinction between them.” Confession, as practiced at Rome, or even with more secrecy, and absolution following, is now not unfrequent in some of our churches. The Word of God is not, in the system, considered as the sole rule of faith. Reserve is recommended as to the atonement and other evangelic doctrines; and the Church of Rome is characterized as the “Saviour’s Holy Home.” The Articles of our Church are wrested from their original meaning; and a non-natural one forced on them, specially on the subject of baptism. The Reformation is considered as an unwise and unholy schism; its song, “The Lord our Righteousness,” and the glorious doctrine of justification by faith, are set aside. That the Tractarians have not yet, as a body, joined Rome, is from no want of sympathy, as their writings and practices show. Her monastic institutions and the celibacy of her clergy are the constant themes of praise. From the pulpit and the press, — in tracts, sermons, essays, reviews, romances, novels, poems, children’s books, and newspapers, — they are sounded forth. In music and paintings, in church decorations and architecture, the imitation of Rome is sedulously studied. All that can excite the imagination, captivate the senses, enchain the judgment, and mislead the mind, is at work in order to gain over all ages and classes, both the spiritual and the worldly, clergy and laity, — first to Tractarianism, and thence to Rome. Such has been the progress, that many of the original leaders in the movement profess to be surprised, and even pained, at the rapidity with which their pupils are outstripping them in the Rome-ward course. Can the extraordinary spread of doctrines so startling, so unwarranted, and in many senses so repugnant to common sense, be accounted for on any principle but that of a pervading spirit of infatuation?

The question of intensest interest, under these circumstances of the Christian world, and specially of the Church in England, cannot but recur solemnly to many, — What is to be the end of these things? That the hopes are high of all those who represent the three agitating spirits of the vision, Infidel-democrats, Romanists, and Tractarians, — that they boast of their success and anticipate triumph, is most evident. It was this confidence that induced and led the Pope and his advisers to that recent act of Papal aggression to which we have already adverted. The Bull of September 1850 expressly states it: — “That having taken into consideration the very large and everywhere increasing number of Catholics, and that the impediments that stood in the way of the spread of Catholicity are daily being removed, we judge the time come when the form of ecclesiastical government in England may be brought back to that model on which it exists in other nations.” It is the same confidence that at this time urges on the deep-laid plans and inspires the hopes and exertions of many amongst ourselves, who seek, however undesignedly, to revive the essence of Popery among us. But we may, I think, augur better things of the destiny of our long-favored land. We read in the Apocalypse of no reunion of that “tenth part of the great city,” viz., England, that was separated from Rome at the Reformation. Moreover, in the expressions of popular feeling that followed the aggressive act of Rome’s interference, — in the Protestant spirit that led to, and that manifested itself in, the numerous meetings that were held to denounce it, — in the high-toned English Christian sentiment that ever ranges itself on the side of loyalty and order, — that is loudly indignant at Rome’s persecuting tyranny abroad, and remonstrant at home against the encroachments of priestly artifice, — and, withal, that labors to extend at home and abroad the principles and teaching of a pure Gospel, which it is the object of those “unclean” and busy spirits to disfigure and destroy, — we still find ground of trust that better things are in store for England. We would adopt the language of the then first Minister of the Crown, who wrote these memorable words, “I rely with confidence on the people of England. Nor will I bate a jot of heart or hope so long as the glorious principles of the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great mass of the nation, which looks with contempt on the mummeries of superstition, and with scorn at the endeavors now making to confine the intellect and enslave the soul.”

However this may be, the time is critical, and calls aloud on all for Selfexamination, watchfulness, and prayer. The very fact that so many spirits of delusion are thus abroad should stir us up to seek strength against them. While the thought of the place which these occupy in the course of time, as marked in the sure word of prophecy, warns us with much distinctness of sound that the night is far spent, and that the day — the day of Christ’s coming — is at hand. If ever the solemn warning was suited to the Church, it is now, when we would seem to have arrived at the exact time and crisis where the next text follows: — “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.”

Continued in Revelation 17-22. Concluding Visions

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

QUESTION: Who were Dominic de Guzman and Sir Thomas More?

ANSWER: Dominic de Guzman (1170-1221) and Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) were faithful Roman Catholics who were later canonized (i.e., declared “saints”) by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. These two so-called “saints” have a whole lot of innocent blood on their hands!

Dominic de Guzman was born in 1170; he died in 1221. He became a Spanish Roman Catholic priest, and in 1215 he founded the Roman Catholic Dominican Order (a mendicant order of friars or nuns). Dominic de Guzman used to debate some of the Bible-believing Christian preachers of his day. Failing to persuade these Bible-believing Christians with his words and threats, Dominic de Guzman decided that the sword and the flame would be better “debate tools”. The Dominican Order that he founded was the first Roman Catholic religious order to run the “holy” Inquisition that tortured and butchered human beings made in God’s image!

Thomas More was born in 1478; he was executed in 1535. He is listed in various dictionaries as an English statesman and writer. One book describes him as an English humanist. As “lord chancellor” of England, Thomas More ran afoul of King Henry VIII for refusing to accept Henry as the head of a separate “Church of England”, and was executed in 1535. Sir Thomas More was canonized (i.e., declared a “saint”) in 1935.

David W. Daniels, on page 77 of his book, “Did The Catholic Church Give Us The Bible?” (2005), tells us this about Sir Thomas More: “‘Saint’ Thomas More (1478-1535) is honored by [Ed.: Roman] Catholics for his ‘godly fairness’, politeness, sense of humor and intelligence.

But he had only HATRED [Ed.: emphasis in the original] for Martin Luther, [Ed.: for English Reformer and Bible translator William] Tyndale, and anyone who loved Gods words! He burned Bible-believers at the stake and tortured them in his own house!

He [Ed.: Sir Thomas More] paid big bucks to get someone to betray [Ed.: William] Tyndale [Ed.: who was later executed in 1536 on the orders of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church]. In our money, it would be like a ‘million-dollar hit’.”

How could the Roman Catholic Church declare such evil monsters as Dominic de Guzman and Sir Thomas More “saints”? Can you believe the Roman Catholic Church wants to declare anti-Jewish, pro-Nazi Pope Pius XII – a man who (1) supported Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the other Fascist nations of Europe during World War II; and, (2) appointed Roman Catholic clergy to run the Vatican Ratlines, helping many Nazi and Fascist war criminals escape capture at the end of World War II – a “saint”? Can you believe the Roman Catholic Church wants to declare Pope John Paul II – a man who (1) helped to cover up the murder of his predecessor (Pope John Paul I); (2) protected then-Bishop Paul Marcinkus (then-head of the Vatican Bank) from Italian authorities concerning “irregularities” at the Vatican Bank; and, (3) did as much as he could to cover up the sex scandals involving Roman Catholic clergy – a “saint”? Torturing people, murdering people, protecting war criminals, protecting clerics accused of sexual abuse, etc. – are these some of the qualifications for “sainthood” in the Roman Catholic Church? What shameless audacity it is to declare such men “saints”!

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DOMINIC DE GUZMAN, SIR THOMAS MORE, AND OTHER ROMAN CATHOLICS WHO PERSECUTED BIBLE BELIEVERS:

1. Read the 317-page paperback book, “Rome and the Bible”, by David Cloud. To order this book via credit card, please call toll-free 1-866-295-4143.

2. Read the 159-page paperback book, “Did the Catholic Church Give Us the Bible?”, by David W. Daniels. To order this book via credit card, please call Chick Publications at 1-909-987-0771.

3. Watch the 3-hour color DVD documentary, “A Lamp in the Dark”, by Adullam Films. To order this DVD documentary via credit card, please call toll-free 1-888-780-5049.

This is the continuation of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae.

Religious Revival. The Era Of Evangelic Missions, A.D. 1789-1852.

HAVING FINISHED the account of the six vial-judgments, let us revert to the two passages, which we had passed over, in which is predicted the position of the true Church of Christ during the period of the French Revolution.

It was to England, we found, — insular England, — that living Protestantism seemed almost wholly confined, just before the time of that tremendous political outbreak. We observed also how lamentably, even in this country, religion during the eighteenth century had declined, and that, though still alive, the flame burned but feebly. Was England then to fall under the same righteous retribution as did the other nations? Not so. God in mercy at this very time poured out his Spirit upon our land: a religious revival took place, which showed itself in the renewed effort, — and that to a large extent, — as a missionary nation to hold forth the Gospel, and to take advantage of England’s maritime and political ascendancy in order to advance the kingdom of God. Circumstances, providentially ordered, concurred to favor the work. Fit instruments were supplied. Public opinion, public and private liberality, combination of men willing to act in union for benevolent purposes, these all forwarded the movement; and the outburst of missionary feeling, missionary action, and missionary anticipations is now among the most memorable historic facts of the era.

It was when the infection of French democratic and infidel principles had spread, plague-like, across the Channel, threatening the kingdom with similar revolutionary evils; when the sea, with its European Papal colonies, and the rivers and kingdoms of the European continent were dyed with blood, its most ancient thrones subverted, and chiefest lights in its political heavens eclipsed or darkened; when France, swayed by Napoleon, seemed with gigantic force (like Pharaoh with his Egyptian hosts on Israel’s track) ready to concentrate its efforts to overwhelm us; it was when the judgments of God were so obviously abroad on the earth, imperiling the land, that an eminent prelate of the day exclaimed, “Nothing but the interposition of Heaven can save us;”when her most distinguished statesman declared ” the commonwealth to be in extremity,” and almost in despair died of a broken heart;” it was even then that, spreading from the middle to the higher classes, amongst both clergy and laity, this wonderful outburst of missionary energy broke forth in our favored land — a land long before mercifully separated from the name, dominion, and connection of the Beast and his image.

Amongst the individuals ordained of God to be the instruments of this religious revival was one whose name will ever be remembered in connection with this interesting period — we allude to WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. He, too, like Augustine and Luther in former important junctures of the Church’s history, was, in a religious point of view, the man of the age. It was not so much his quick and varied powers of intellect, his eloquence, conversational charms, affectionate heart, and winning manners, that marked him out as one of more than common influence, and so fitted specially to lead in the work; nor yet his parliamentary elevation, his reputation as a patriot, and his friendship with the Prime Minister of the day. By themselves alone these were inadequate to the accomplishment of such an end. It was that he had experienced real conversion of heart, such as to lead him to consecrate the whole to God. This was, as he himself was wont to refer to it, the turning-point of his life.

So prepared, and viewing on the one hand the high standard marked out in God’s Word of what the life and practice of the professed Christian should be, compared with the prevailing ungodliness, worldliness, and infidelity of those around him, and, on the other, his own position and capabilities for improving them, he recognized his vocation. “God has set before me as my object the reformation of my country’s manners.” “Having accepted the commission,” says his biographers, “he devoted all his powers to its fulfillment.” His private and public life, his winning example, and unceasing efforts in the cause of truth, benevolence, and Evangelical Christianity, his oft-uplifted voice in Parliament, and the more lasting memorial of his opinions — his volume on Practical Christianity (all accompanied by intercessory prayers for his country, prayers full of devotion and humiliation) — all acted upon society with an influence and effect that can scarcely be over-estimated. The faithful ones of Christ — a little body, at the time much scattered, for the most part little known, and in general society misunderstood and despised; men such as Newton, Scott, Milner, Cecil, Robinson, Simeon, and others, members of the mystical 144,000, the “called, and chosen, and faithful;”who were all in their several spheres of duty busily taking part in the promotion of the same blessed work, — hailed with delight the influence of Wilberforce as a gift from God.

The revival of the Anglo-Irish Church also may be dated about the same time; while the efforts of John Wesley, Whitfield, and other eminent Dissenters, cooperated materially with the spiritual and enlightened of the Established Church in forwarding the cause of true religion. Higher views opened of Christian usefulness. The desire increased for united exertion toward extending the blessings now appreciated in our country. The old and waning Missionary Associations, which had feebly struggled for existence during the progress of the last century, were now revived; while new societies appeared, one after another, in quick succession, like the Swiss Alpine peaks at day-dawn, catching and reflecting on a benighted world the rays of heavenly light. The missionary angel, who at the time of the Reformation had received his commission, might now be said to ” fly through the midst of heaven with the everlasting Gospel to preach to every nation on the earth.”

It would far exceed our limits were we to enter into the origin and proceedings of these various societies which became the agents in the great work of evangelization. The Christian Knowledge, the Gospel Propagation, and the flIora’vian had been long in the field. At the close of the eighteenth century arose the Baptist, the London Missionary, the Wesleyan, and the Church Missionary. Then came that which was akin to all the rest, the British and Foreign Bible Society. By these the Word of life has, in every quarter of the world, been diffused and preached in the several native languages. Associations having similar but special local objects, such as the Irish Society, for bringing the Scriptures to that people in their own tongue, multiplied on every side. Powerfully did these combine in carrying forth to other lands the truth of Christianity; reacting again in their influence upon religion at home. And whether we consider the spirit that animated or the results that followed them, truly we must believe the judgment of Heaven to have favorably rested on their labors.

Neither must we attempt to recount the names and efforts of the several laborers themselves in the missionary field, — of Brainard, and Swartz, and Carey, — of Brown, Martyn, Heber, Morisson, Corrie, and others, of whom it may truly be said, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” How did the House of Commons itself bow before the moral greatness and evangelic spirit of one of these, when Wilberforce described Carey’s noble disinterestedness, who, having by his literary acquirements and moral worth raised himself to a highly lucrative position in the college of Fort William, devoted his whole yearly salary of £1000 to the mission at Serampore. The feelings of that man are not to be envied whose heart does not glow with admiration at the effects produced by their faithful and persevering exertions, whether in Greenland, in the West Indies, in our Eastern Empire, or in the islands of the South Sea.

It was coincidently with the rise of these societies that Wilberforce obtained from Parliament a sanction for the missionary work of evangelizing India. It was a battle hardly fought against much opposition, but eventually won. The position of England at this period was far in the ascendant above other powers, whether by sea or land. Every ocean and clime was open to her ships and her commerce. The East Indian Empire, founded by Clive and Hastings, and then under Lord Wellesley’s government, opened wide fields for the missionary enterprise of British Christians; while the increase of her wealth, as well as the progress of science, concurred to facilitate its execution. Never, in fact, since the apostolic era had there been such a spirit and such an opportunity for the work. The famous Romish missions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, albeit carried on with zeal and devoted self-denial, had but spread Popery — not the Gospel; the decrees of the Council of Trent — not the Bible; the supremacy of Antichrist — not of Christ. But now, in every quarter of the world, — in the East Indies and West Indies, in South Africa and West Africa, in New South Wales and New Zealand, in the South Sea Islands and in Madagascar, in Persia and Burmah, and incipiently in China, in the polar regions of Greenland and North America, — everywhere the Gospel was preached, the Scriptures circulated, schools instituted, churches opened for the heathen, and Christian lives offered in willing sacrifice to the work.

At the same time the Almighty Spirit, who had sent forth his angel to call the world to “fear God and give glory to him,” excited amongst the heathen the desire for instruction.

In these, in every country where a mission was attempted, the cry was heard, “Come over and help us.” The Jews, God’s ancient people, were not forgotten. A society for promoting Christianity amongst them was founded in 1809, and with considerable success. It is a remarkable fact that amongst. the clergy of our English Church we number at one time no less than fifty Christian Israelites.

The Church of England, too, has been extended by means of missionary labors, and has its bishops and regular ecclesiastical organization in India, Australia, and other colonies.

From the commencement of the terrific struggle on the Continent the faithful of the Church in England still cherished the belief that our country, with all her sins, had yet the “ark” of Christ’s true evangelical Church within it, and so would be preserved. As sign after sign appeared of the revival of religion, — and specially as the Bible and Missionary Societies progressed in the fulfillment of their high commission, whereby the ark bearing “temple,” with the Gospel, its sacred deposit, was more and more “opened” to the world, — they still with stronger hope rested on the assurance that the Almighty One was for and among them. So eventually it proved. Napoleon Buonaparte was stayed in the midst of his career; a general peace was proclaimed; and from every quarter arose the sounds of a nation’s adoration and praise. But chiefly did the faithful Church joy in the anticipation of a yet wider spread of Gospel light and truth, and, touching the ” sweet harp of prophecy,” hail the time as not far off when the promises of the latter day should be accomplished, the everlasting Gospel fulfill its commission, and all nations come and worship before God: — that blessed time when it shall be said —

“One song employs all nations: and all cry,
Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us.”

But was the Dragon to be thus cast down from his dominion, or the Beast from the throne of Anti- Christendom, without a fresh Satanic effort to uphold them? We have in this lecture seen the position which our country held, and still holds. We shall in the next have to consider her danger; and so shall we have an answer to this question.

Continued in Revelation 16:13, 14. The Three Frogs

All chapters of The Last Prophecy: An Abridgment of Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae

There are photos below the text.

On Friday, June 21st, I turned 74 years old. I’m thankful to my Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, for reasonably good health at my age, normal blood pressure, no arthritis, and no diabetes as my father had, and for being completely off medication of any kind. And I’m especially blessed to have a ministry of sharing God’s truth, His Word, and the true views that Protestant Christians used to hold before the Counter-Reformation of the Jesuits sidetracked evangelical Christians. And I’m super-blessed to have friends who value my work and the articles on this website. And I’m blessed to have a wonderful wife who supports my ministry. And I’m blessed to live in a land of peace and liberty with no crime in my area that I know of, a land where little kids walk the streets without danger of being abducted. It never gets cold but doesn’t get too hot either because of the proximity of the sea. I hardly see police anywhere. I see only armed guards at entrances to banks and any establishment where there is a lot of cash or goods at hand.

The Philippines is still a poor country as are many Roman Catholic nations. Signs advertising ice for sale are ubiquitous and are indicative of its poverty. We sell our neighbors ice for about 10 US cents a bag and use the money to buy filtered drinking water which costs roughly only USD 0.50 per 5 gallons. Our next-door neighbors do not have either a refrigerator or a stove. They cook outside over a wood fire. They do have a phone, however. A phone is the one appliance nobody seems to lack. They connect to the Internet through what’s called Piso WiFi. Put a 5 peso coin (about USD 0.10) in the slot and you get one hour of Internet. Haircuts are only about $1.00 or 60 Philippine pesos. I always give them more than they ask or about 100 pesos. This is still 7 times less than I would pay in Guam.

Households owning appliances:
Television 75%
Refrigerator/Freezer 50%
Washing machine 49.2%
Radio 35.4%
Aircon 16.1%
Stove with oven/gas range 14.2%
Microwave/oven toaster 10.5%

Source: Percentage distribution of households in the Philippines owning home appliances in 2022, by type

Photos of my area in the Philippines

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