INIQUITY WILL ABOUND,

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 16, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 49.

INIQUITY WILL ABOUND,

and instead of a great spiritual reviving there will be a great spiritual declension, the love of many will wax cold, and false prophets will arise and shall deceive many. Matt. 24:11-14, 24-27. Paul says that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." 2 Tim. 3:13. In verses 1-8 of the same chapter he presents a vivid description of the professed people of God in the last days. He enumerates the prevailing sins of which they will be guilty. They are declared to be selfish, covetous, proud, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, and they not only are not good themselves, but they despise those that are good, and the secret of it is that they have the form of godliness but deny the power thereof. Verse 5.

It should be remembered that this scripture describes the real moral condition of Christendom in the last days. Here we have portrayed the great Protestant apostasy, having the form of godliness, but actually denying its power, and even despising those that are good. Did apostate Israel or apostate Rome ever depart from God more fully and reject the gospel and its Author more completely? Let us see. Where do we find the power of godliness? It is in Jesus Christ and his gospel. Christ is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:24), and the gospel is the power of God (Rom. 1:16). Through Christ and his gospel we secure the power of God, by which we are made righteous, holy, godlike. To deny the power of godliness, then, is to deny Christ and his gospel.

HOW CAN THIS BE DONE?

When the church goes to the State for power,

does she not in that very act deny the power of God? Is God's arm shortened that he cannot save? Why go down to Egypt for help? "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord." Jer. 17:5.

This is what ancient Israel did and God rejected her. This is what the Church of Rome did, and her history is traced in blood. When the Protestant churches seek an alliance with the State, they not only confess that they do not have the power of God, but they deny it, and thus deny and reject the Lord and his gospel. This has already been done, and the church has gained a control over the nation, which she will never relinquish. She has laid down the sword of the Spirit, and grasped the sword which the Saviour told Peter to put up, declaring that those who take it will perish by it. Matt. 26:52. The success which the Protestant churches of our country have recently had in controlling legislation, has flushed them with victory, and they will soon secure possession of it so fully that the good whom they even now despise, will suffer persecution for conscience' sake, for thus saith the Scriptures. Rev. 12:17; 13:11-18.

The great Romish apostasy is called in the Bible, "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots" (Rev. 17:7), while the churches that have come out of Rome, and retain her principles, her doctrines, her institutions, and her spirit, or go back to them again and unite with earthly governments to secure power, compose the daughters of Babylon, the mother, and are brought to view in Rev. 14:8, as fallen. This reveals apostate Protestantism, and her fall takes place in the last days, when the judgment is due and the Saviour's coming is at hand. See verses 6, 7, 14. This corresponds in time to the great spiritual declension mentioned by Paul in 2 Tim. 3:1-6, and hence is the same.

In Rev. 18:1-8 we have the whole Babylon family, mother and daughters, brought to view, just before God's judgments are visited upon her, and in mercy God calls upon his people to come out of her lest they partake of her sins and receive of her plagues, for her sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities.

These are the sins mentioned in 2 Tim. 3:1-5, and there we are commanded to "turn away" from those who have the form of godliness but deny its power. Apostasies of the church are never curable; the church pursues her downward course until she is fully separated from God, and when she seeks an alliance with earthly powers, and unites with the State, she commits spiritual fornication, denies her Lord and his power, and thus she becomes a part of that Babylon family, of which Rome is the mother, and with her she meets her fate.

Many earnest, devoted Christians are in Babylon, and God calls them his people (Rev. 18:2-4), but the only way they can avoid partaking of her sins and receiving of her plagues is to "come out of her," for although she glorifies herself and lives deliciously, and says in her heart, "I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow," yet "she shall be utterly burned with fire." Verses 7, 8. Although she is established in the tops of the mountains (governments with which she is allied) and exalted above the hills, and prophesies a time of universal peace (Isa. 2:2-4), she makes an image to the beast and by her false prophesying and miracles she deceives the people (Rev. 13:13, 14), and hence is called the false prophet, which, with the beast, goes alive into the lake of fire. Rev. 19:20.

The prophecy concerning this last-day apostasy is clear; the Scripture testimony concerning it is abundant; its words, its acts, and its fate are faithfully portrayed, and it stands before us a living image of the Papacy, or the first beast, boasting of its power, and preparing to do its cruel work, against the humble few who keep the commandments of God (Rev. 12:17), and refuse to worship the beast and his image, or receive his mark (Rev. 13:14-17 and 14:9-12). God's faithful people who separate from Babylon are delivered from her power in that fearful time of trouble (Dan. 12:1), by the coming of the Lord (Rev. 14:14). They have a glorious victory over all their enemies (Rev. 15:2), and sing the song of deliverance upon Mt. Zion after passing through the fiery ordeal described in Rev. 13:14-17. Compare Rev. 14:1-5 with 15:1, 3.

Thus will close the scene of the last great apostasy. Apostate Protestantism after denying her Lord, by making an unholy alliance with the State, to secure her power, undertakes to use that power against the loyal people of God who will not bow the knee to the image she sets up, and then God's judgments overtake her, and his people have a glorious deliverance. If we heed the heavenly message and respond to the call to come out of Babylon, we shall escape her ruin, and share in the deliverance of God's faithful people.

May God grant that we may have understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do, and know in this our day the things that belong to our peace, and the time of our visitation, that we may escape the things that are coming on the earth and stand before the Son of Man. Those who obey the word of God and reject the traditions of men will stand in that day.