It Forms an Image to the Papal Beast — Organizations That Are Now Fulfilling the Prophecy — Some Even Advocate Hanging Sabbath Breakers
By A. R. BELL.
This is the third of A. R. Bell’s articles on that portion of the book of Revelation which forecasts the religious despotism to arise just before the second coming of Christ.
Last week, he gave the first of three articles on the thirteenth of Revelation. He referred to the papal supremacy during the Dark Ages as foretold in the first part of that chapter. He showed how the papal power received its “death stroke.” Then he presented the prophecy that shows “another beast” coming up, which is to form an “image” to the papal beast. The “image” could not be the beast itself, and the one great power left to form such an image is the mighty organization of Protestantism itself. The great Protestant power of the United States, as he shows in this week’s article, is to become a persecutor.
Some of the things that leading Protestants are saying to-day are very striking in indicating the tendencies working toward an accurate fulfillment of this prophecy. It is truly startling to hear men who claim to be representatives of the great liberty-loving Protestant churches of the recent past, giving utterance to expressions that are worthy of the papacy itself. Yet this is what the prophecy predicts.
The article next week will deal with the subject of the “mark” of papal authority as given in this thirteenth chapter of Revelation.
EDITOR.
No other spirit in this world has ever shown the bitterness and hatred and cruelty that the spirit of bigotry has shown; and no other bigotry has ever shown the fiendishness and murderous hate that religious bigotry has shown.
Summed up in a few words, religious bigotry means denying to others the rights and privileges we ourselves enjoy.
RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY JUST OUTSIDE OF EDEN
So far as the history of this world is concerned, religious bigotry had its rise at the very gate of Eden, when Cain denied to Abel the rights and privileges he claimed for himself. That first manifestation of religious bigotry produced the first murderer and the first martyr, and robbed Adam and Eve of their first children. And in that awful tragedy, enacted practically at the birth of the world, the lesson was taught for all time and for every race, that the religious rights and privileges of men cannot be denied them without the denial of their civil rights.
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the rightful heritage, from God, of every man. When Abel’s faith and practice crossed the path of Cain’s perversion, the spirit of religious bigotry arose; and Abel’s right to worship God as he pleased, and his right to life, were denied him. From that day to this, the blood of Abel has been crying from the ground in strong protest against the doctrine which would deny to one the rights and privileges accorded to another.
CALVARY THE INCENTIVE FOR SOUL LIBERTY
The Author of liberty is the Lord Himself. The word of God tells us, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 2 Cor. 3:17. But when the testimony of Christ’s pure, faultless life and helpful ministry condemned the hollow mockery of His time, the hideous monster religious bigotry arose, and the carping hypocrites about Him falsely declared, “This man is not of God, because He keepeth not the Sabbath day.” John 9:16. And from Calvary, the blood of the Christ of God has been crying from the ground as an inspiration to men down through the centuries, spurring them on in the age-long fight for soul liberty.
As the crowning act of that long and bitter struggle, the United States arose. In the strength and power of her new life, this nation declared a doctrine, as a foundation principle upon which to erect the superstructure of her greatness, that startled the world.
For the first time since men had been upon the earth, it was declared that “all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;” and to the lawmaking body it was declared, as the will of the people, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Millions flocked to these shores. The nation grew, and men everywhere enjoyed and were protected in the right to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences.
The late Evangelist William Ward Simpson as he appeared in Chatham (Ontario) jail some five years before he died. He was sentenced to hard labor for forty days for the "crime" of having quietly worked on Sunday in the preparation of a church building. His labor disturbed no one, and only by spying and inquisition was it discovered. Thousands of men, not only in Canada, but throughout this and other nations, will claim, in spite of the enlightenment of the age and our boasted religious freedom, that such a sentence is just.
THE CHURCH COURTING THE STATE
But, alas, we are living in a day when men seem to have forgotten the past experiences of the church of God; seem to have forgotten the Reformation — the reason for it, and the object of it; and history is repeating. The church, shorn of her glory and power through sin permitted and practiced within her borders, turns to the state for help, and is found putting her confidence in the arm of flesh.
Turned, by the archenemy of all righteousness, from storming the throne of grace for Holy Ghost power, she is found sending her petitions to the halls of legislation of the various states, and storming the national government at Washington, for the making of laws, the enforcement of which means the realm of conscience again invaded, man’s inalienable rights denied him, and civil and religious liberty trampled in the dust.
IT IS ALL IN THE PROPHECY
And all this is in the prophecy of Revelation 13. The great God who inhabits eternity, and who sees the end from the beginning, and has declared it (Isa. 46:10), opens up before us, in this wonderful prophecy, not only the story of the failure of our nation, but also the very reason for her fall, and the specific thing over which she will fall.
We noticed, in our previous study, that an “image to the beast,” the papacy, would be made, and that life would be given to it, and that then the image would speak. When that voice is heard, it will be in the making of a decree of death to be passed upon all who will “not worship the image of the beast.” Rev. 13:15.
WHAT THE IMAGE WILL BE
The papacy stands before the world in all her teaching and practice, so far as she has been and is still able to do, as the very embodiment of the union of church and state, with the church ruling the state. This is her ideal, and her world-wide aim. The image of the papacy is an exact likeness of the papacy, a union of church and state, with the church ruling the state.
BEGINNING OF THE MODERN CHURCH-AND-STATE MOVEMENT
Is there in our land these days anything that would lead us to conclude that the fulfillment of this prophecy is right before us? Let us see. There is an organization known as the National Reform Association — an organization of Protestant churches, which had its beginning in 1864, whose avowed purpose, as set forth in their constitution, article 2, is: “To secure such an amendment to the constitution of the United States as will declare the nation’s allegiance to Jesus Christ, and its acceptance of the moral laws of the Christian religion, and so indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all the Christian laws, institutions, and usages of our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.”
This, dear reader, is the papacy in embryo. It means the union of church and state, with the church ruling the state; the state merely a tool in the hands of the church, to do her bidding.
PROTESTANT CHURCHES FALLING IN LINE
Numerous other church organizations have followed in the wake of this one. In fact, it would seem to-day as though nearly all the Protestant churches in America had forgotten or cast aside the principles of Protestantism, and were fixed in their purpose to have this government profess religion, and then “set up the moral law, and recognize God’s authority behind it, and lay its hand on any religion that does not conform to it.”
In regard to the “religious amendment” to the constitution, they have told us that “those who oppose this work now, will discover, when the religious amendment is made to the constitution, that if they do not see fit to fall in with the majority, they must abide the consequences, or seek some more congenial clime.”759
THE PROTESTANT PAPACY
They have asked the question, “What is the purpose of civil government?” and have answered, “Is it not to enforce the moral law?” They demand that the civil government “be placed under divine law, and that God’s spokesmen shall utter His will.”
Surely this means the papacy over again. The preachers are to be God’s spokesmen to the state. Claiming to be the voice of God, they will command the state to enforce the moral law. They will amend the constitution to demonstrate that this is a Christian nation; and then, woe betide any man who will not fall in with the majority! They are going to set up the moral law, and have the state lay violent hands on “any religion” that objects.
JUST WHAT THE PAPACY CALLS FOR
This is the very essence of what is called for in the papacy. When it succeeds, it is the “image to the beast.”
They tell us: “We propose to incorporate in our national constitution the moral and religious command, ‘In it [the Sabbath] thou shalt do no work’ except works of necessity; and by external force of sheriffs, we propose to arrest and punish all violators of this law.”
WOULD HANG SABBATH BREAKERS
At one of their conventions, at which the writer was in attendance, it was said: “We sometimes think the Pilgrim Fathers were too severe in their legislation against immorality. There was a law in the colonial statutes of New England that for a flagrant violation of the Sabbath, the offender should be hung. . . . I apprehend that we ought to return to that order of things to-day, and execute the penalty for a violation of the moral law.”
Thus would these “God’s spokesmen,” proposing to represent the Author of liberty, deny every principle of liberty, civil and religious, and trample the rights of conscience in the mire.
PERSECUTION AND THE DRAGON VOICE
This would mean religious persecution. It would mean the dragon voice. Rev. 13:11. It would mean popery under the misnomer “Protestantism.” It would mean the church again casting aside her robes of white for the purple of Cæsar. It would mean again the unsheathing of Peter’s sword. It would mean again religious bigotry, with all its Pharisaism and murderous hate. It would mean that religious liberty had come to an end in the republic of the United States.
It would mean all this, dear reader; but God still lives. Men may decree, but a divine Providence overrules. Though all the world shall worship the beast and his image, there will be found a faithful remnant, whose names are still in the Lamb’s book of life. Verse 8. “And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” Mal. 3:17.
