p. 7 | A SIGNIFICANT DEMAND

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 15, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 24.

A SIGNIFICANT DEMAND.

Some Americans who have visited the Vatican recently have refused to worship the pope by kneeling when he appeared. But hereafter no one will be permitted to attend the audiences given by the pope unless they promise beforehand that they will kneel when he comes forth. Not only must they kneel, but they must kiss his hand as well. Evidently there are still some Americans who will not sacrifice principle in order to satisfy the hunger of a pseudo-theocratic system for the adoration, homage, worship, of its chief. But that system would subjugate that principle as it has subjugated or sought to subjugate every other principle of human liberty. Admittance will be denied to every person who chooses to refrain from bowing in veneration before the self-styled vicar of Christ, tho that person be arrayed never so gorgeously in the habiliments of royalty, bedecked with the rarest rubies and pearls and diamonds. It is their right so to choose; but that system can brook no such liberty of choice.

In this matter how different is that system in spirit from the principles that actuated the life and composed the character of Christ. When men would have taken Him and made Him King, He put away the gaudy bauble, and fled from them. He would accept no kingship save that over a kingdom of willing hearts. The Papacy demands that even the unbeliever and the unwilling shall worship him who sits upon its throne. But that is the principle which the Word of God declares would be found ruling that system. That is the system which was to exalt itself “above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thess. 2:4.

One of the duties that we owe to God is to worship Him; but here is a power that is to be found putting itself even above God. It will, then, demand worship. This the Papacy has been doing for centuries, is doing now, and will continue to do till her end, divinely decreed, shall come. According to prophecy there will come a time when all the world will worship that power save those only whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Rev. 13:3-8.

It is against the demands of that very power that the Third Angel’s Message is warning the world to-day. The time is fast approaching when there will be but two classes upon the earth; a great multitude who “worship the beast and his image,” and a small company who “fear God, and give glory to Him,” and who “worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Rev. 14:7. Against that very demand of the Papacy that same message declares: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation.” Verses 9 and 10.

It will be a fearful thing to be found on the wrong side of that question. No man can afford to turn a deaf ear to that warning. There is a culmination there beyond which no act of man’s can save him. It is finished then, and every man and woman upon the earth will have decided where they are going to spend eternity. It will be a fearful thing to fall, unrepentant and unforgiven, into the hands of the living God. But it is not necessary that any person in the world should be in that condition. God is yearning to save men. But He can not save, and give immortality to, any human being, who chooses to worship a power in opposition to Him and His government—a power that has sought to usurp His place and secure for itself the worship of the world.

It is not a difficult matter, however, to know whether you are worshiping the wrong power. Those who are on the right side have these words said of them: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. It is impossible, for those who are doing that to be worshiping “the beast and his image.” On the other hand, it is impossible for those who “worship the beast and his image” to “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” All the world will do one thing or the other, and, in consequence, will receive either the wrath of God or the reward of God. Our attitude toward the commandments and the faith is the determining factor. The demand of the papal power for worship will become more and more insistent. He who would stand with God through eternity, must stand against that dangerous tide now, and from now on, in all the strength of Christian fortitude, keeping “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”