Liberty

Gospel of Liberty

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We are told, in the book of Revelation, that someday soon, just before Jesus returns, religious intolerance will once again bear sway—not only in this country, but throughout the world. Liberty will be gone. The only liberty that will be left on the face of this earth is the liberty that God has put in the hearts of His people.

How does God liberate us? God wants to give us the liberty of the eagle. There is nothing more free than a bird flying, and God wants to help us experience that spiritually. Jeremiah 13:23 asks the question, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? [then] may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” The answer to that question is inferred—No! If the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin, neither can we become good of ourselves. We see here the predicament of all humanity.

David illustrates the predicament that we see in Jeremiah 13. He illustrates it with a solution. Praise God, there is a solution! The Bible says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, [and] established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, [even] praise unto our God: many shall see [it], and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:1–3.

The predicament, in which we find ourselves, is sin. It is illustrated here as a horrible pit. There is no hope for us without some outside help. Does this illustration bring to view the solution to the predicament? Oh, yes. “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock, [and] established my goings.” In these verses, who is doing all of the work? God is! But before we are through with our study, we will see that a cooperation needs to take place before we are lifted out of the horrible pit.

Crying out for Help

The psalmist says that he “waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” He was seeking deliverance, and he took the first step—crying out for help.

The Bible gives us a true-life experience depicting the predicament that man is in and from which he cannot, in and of himself, help himself. This is an experience of Jesus: “And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes. And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let [us] alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine [is] this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.” Mark 1:21–27. This situation was taking place right in the church! Here was a man in the church, crying out to Jesus, saying, Let us alone! It was really an unclean spirit crying out.

What a predicament! This man could not help himself; he was demon possessed. There was no way he could help himself, but outside help from Jesus relieved him from the demon. Praise God!

Self-possession

“The demoniac partially comprehended that he was in the presence of One who could set him free [he wanted to be un-possessed, and he recognized in Jesus someone who was able to help him]; but when he tried to come within reach of that mighty hand, another’s will held him, another’s words found utterance through him.

“The conflict between the power of Satan and his own desire for freedom was terrible. It seemed that the tortured man must lose his life in the struggle with the foe that had been the ruin of his manhood. But the Saviour spoke with authority and set the captive free. The man who had been possessed stood before the wondering people in the freedom of self-possession.” The Ministry of Healing, 91, 92.

Self-possession is self-control. That is what God wants to give to all of us. Prophecy tells us what the Messiah would do when He came, and what we have just seen in Capernaum tells us that Jesus was doing everything that prophecy foretold He would do. Jesus is the Son of the living God. He fulfilled the prophecy: “The Spirit of the Lord God [is] upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison [to them that are] bound.” Isaiah 61:1. This same message is recorded in Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor . . . .” It is only the meek, the poor, those who sense their need, that are going to receive the help of the gospel of Christ to set them free.

Greatest Obstacle

What is one of the greatest obstacles that Jesus had to meet here in this world, while seeking to save humanity from the predicament they were in regarding sin? “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, [then] are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?” John 8:31–33. It is an amazing thing that humanity finds itself in this horrible, miry pit of sin, yet the majority of humanity does not sense their need. They do not recognize that they are in bondage. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” John 1:11. Why? Because they did not recognize that they had a need. The greatest obstacle is that humanity is not aware of the predicament which they are in and from which they cannot, of themselves, get out.

Jesus tells the people what causes the bondage from which He came to deliver them: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” John 8:34. Sin brings us into bondage and keeps us from doing what God intends for us to do. It is as simple as that.

Awaken to Righteousness

God wants to awaken us to righteousness, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:34, that we might not sin. The apostle Peter says, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.” 11 Peter 2:19. Being overcome by sin brings us into bondage and keeps us from doing God’s will.

Let us look at what Jesus wants to do for us and what He is able to do for us. “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: [but] the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” John 8:34–36. What a wonderful promise! There is a solution for the predicament, and it is found in One person by the name of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ, the creator of this world, has become the Saviour of this world for those who are willing to wake up to their needs and choose to be saved in the manner that He has devised. He wants to save us from sin. He says the servant does not abide in the house forever. That is a warning. If we are only servants, servants to sin, God is telling us that we will not abide forever, but the Son abides forever. That is why God wants to make us His sons and daughters. He wants us to live through eternal ages with Him. That is why He created us. He loves us that much! He loves us so much that He gave us His Son to stand in our place and pay the penalty for our sins. Marvelous love!

“None have fallen so low, none are so vile, but that they may find deliverance in Christ.” The Ministry of Healing, 93. That is a marvelous, wondrous promise. No matter what your case is, no matter how bad you perceive yourself, and no matter how bad you really are, God wants to lift you out of that horrible pit. He wants to establish your feet on a Rock—Himself. Is He able to do it? Yes! He says, If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed! That word indeed means truly! You will truly be set free. God wants to help us fly spiritually; He wants us to be lifted up to His glory, honor, and praise.

Truth = Freedom

What is one of the means that Jesus uses to set His people free from sin? Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32. This is only one means by which Jesus sets us free, because truth needs a catalyst, if it is going to work in our heart. We can receive the truth of God in our mind, but that is not where God wants it to end. He wants the truth in our hearts. Jesus is talking more than theoretical truth, when He says we will know the truth, and that truth will make us free. God wants to set us free from sin so we will not be in bondage that keeps us from doing God’s will.

Our Choice

Upon what is our freedom from bondage ultimately dependent? The Bible says, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Romans 6:16. Ultimately, friends, for us to be set free from the bondage of sin, it is by our choice. If we do not make the choice, it will not happen. It has to be a constant, determined choice—it cannot be an occasional choice—to allow God to do the work that will set us free.

“In the work of redemption there is no compulsion, no external force is employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom. The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan’s control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God.” The Desire of Ages, 466.

Paul said it well, in Philippians 2:13: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.” It is up to us to submit to His will and His doing. When we submit, the expulsion of sin from our lives will take place. We will no longer be in bondage; we will be set free.

Law of Liberty

Being set free from sin is the same thing as being brought into obedience to God’s will. Obedience is what we see in Romans 6:16: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

We saw, in John 8:32, where Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” We noticed that if we choose to have sin expelled from us, it is only going to happen by way of obedience to God. Psalm 119:142 says, “Thy righteousness [is] an everlasting righteousness, and thy law [is] the truth.” So what is truth? It is the Law of God. When we refer to God’s Law, we are talking about the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20, upon which God runs His whole universe.

Jesus compressed the Ten Commandments into two commandments. (See Matthew 22:37–40.) Likewise, He can take the complexities of our lives and make them simple, if we are willing. If we allow Him to take the sin out of our lives, our lives will be much simpler than they are in the complexity of sin.

“But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” James 1:25. God calls His Law a law of liberty, but it is only a law of liberty to those who choose to obey it. To all who choose to dis-obey, it is a law of condemnation. It is the same with our civil laws. If we abide by the law, we have freedom, but if we break the law, then we are under the law of penalty and condemnation. It is no different with God’s Law.

Perfect Law

God calls His Law the law of liberty, but He also uses an adjective to describe it. It is a perfect law of liberty! There is nothing we can do to improve upon God’s Law. We cannot add; we cannot subtract; we cannot make it any better, because it is perfect. The psalmist says, “The law of the Lord [is] perfect, converting the soul.” Psalm 19:7.

God wants to change us by His Law. Liberty from sin is found only in obedience to God’s will. “When one surrenders to Christ, the mind is brought under the control of the law; but it is the royal law, which proclaims liberty to every captive. [Satan has the majority of the Christian world believing that the Law of God is a law of bondage.] By becoming one with Christ, man is made free. Subjection to the will of Christ means restoration to perfect manhood.

“Obedience to God is liberty from the thralldom of sin, deliverance from human passion and impulse. Man may stand conqueror of himself, conqueror of his own inclinations, conqueror of principalities and powers, and of ‘the rulers of the darkness of this world,’ and of ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ Ephesians 6:12.” The Ministry of Healing, 131. Do you have any trouble with your passions? Do you have any impulsive desires that are contrary to God’s will? We are all tempted in that direction, but God is able to deliver us.

God wants to deliver us from the power of sin in this world. He is able; He is willing; He is waiting for us to make the decision to cooperate with Him. Liberty is found only in obedience to God’s Law. Nowhere else will you find liberty.

Two Ways

What are the two great objects in the center of the way that leads to life and liberty? In Matthew 7:13, 14, Jesus talks about two ways that we can choose to go. One way is broad, and everything that we want to do we can do in that broad way. Then there is a narrow way. We are talking about the narrow way that leads to eternal life, and we are asking the question, What are the two great central objects in the way that lead to life and liberty? Jesus tells us, in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Jesus says He is truth, but we read, in Psalm 119:142, that God’s Law is the truth. God places the two great truths of Jesus and His Law in the way that leads to eternal life.

The Law of God is the center of the issue in the plan of salvation. In fact, it is the basis of the controversy between good and evil in which we are involved. Jesus died on Calvary to uphold the Law of God. If the Law of God could have been changed, Jesus need not have died on Calvary. But God’s Law is as changeless as is He, so Jesus came and died for us, making a way by which we can experience the truth that will set us free from the bondage of sin.

Law in our Hearts

It is not enough to have God’s Law in our minds; God wants to put it in our hearts. “For this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts . . . .” Hebrews 8:10. The law must first be in our minds. We must have an intelligent knowledge of God’s Word and of His Law before they are written in our hearts. When that happens, He says, “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” Ibid. Friends, we will never be the people of God until we choose to allow Him to write His Law upon our hearts.

The Catalyst

We have all sensed ourselves, at one time or another, as being out of sorts with God, of being in that pit from which we cannot extricate ourselves. Jesus is the solution.

Truth is one of the great parts by which God will set us free, but there is a catalyst that is needed for truth to get from our minds to our hearts. We find it in the life of Jesus: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14.

There is the catalyst—grace! God wants us to walk in the light that proceeds from His Word that has been there for centuries, waiting for us to make a choice. Grace is the catalyst that will send God’s truth to our hearts. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8, 9. We can never merit or earn this grace that is so much needed.

Gifts of God

The gifts of God are two-fold. James 1:17 tells us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” God has good and perfect gifts that He bestows upon His children in this world. Those good gifts are the physical gifts, the blessings that all humanity receives.

Do we merit the sun that shines upon us today? Do we earn the right to breathe the breath of air? No, those are gifts of God. Have we earned the right to eat the food that gives us strength? No, we have not earned that. God gives the blessings and good gifts to us, not because we have earned them or that we merit them, but because of His goodness. Jesus said that our Father sends the rain upon the just and the unjust. (See Matthew 5:45.)

Is God any different with His spiritual gifts, His perfect gifts? Can we merit a spiritual gift? Can we merit God’s grace? Can we earn God’s favor and His Holy Spirit? No, we cannot. We access the spiritual gifts by faith, by trusting and believing what God says. It is not by works; it is by faith. Works will not produce grace, but grace will produce works. Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Many in Christendom today are trying to manufacture something in their own experience to get out of their bondage state. But no amount of works that we can do will manufacture God’s grace or merit it. None! We must come to God as He has ordained for us to come. There is a way, but if we do not follow the sequential order that God has laid out for us in the plan of salvation—faith and works, not works and faith—we are stuck in the pit. When we follow God’s order, we are going to experience the blessing, and we will be able to fly like the eagles.

Bottom Line

What is the bottom line? God wants to save us from sin, but He is not going to give us His grace when we are trying to work out our own salvation. He will honor us with His grace only when we choose to access the plan of salvation in the order in which He has designed it. When we come into harmony with the two great center truths of the plan of salvation, Jesus and God’s Law, we will receive the gift of grace and experience true liberty.

Craig Meeker directs the Bible correspondence school for Steps to Life Ministry. 

Bible Study Guides – Religious Liberty

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December 6, 2003 – December 12, 2003

Memory Verse

“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” Romans 13:1.

Suggested Reading: The Great Controversy, 582–587.

Introduction

“ ‘When in 1529 the German princes assembled at the Diet of Spires, there was presented the emperor’s decree restricting religious liberty, and prohibiting all further dissemination of the reformed doctrines. It seemed that the hope of the world was about to be crushed out. Would the princes accept the decree? Should the light of the gospel be shut out from the multitudes still in darkness? Mighty issues for the world were at stake. Those who had accepted the reformed faith met together, and their unanimous decision was, “Let us reject this decree. In matters of conscience the majority has no power.” ’—Merle d’Aubigne, History of the Reformation, b. 13, ch. 5.

“This principle we in our day are firmly to maintain. The banner of truth and religious liberty held aloft by the founders of the gospel church and by God’s witnesses during the centuries that have passed since then, has, in this last conflict, been committed to our hands. The responsibility for this great gift rests with those whom God has blessed with a knowledge of His word. We are to receive this word as supreme authority. We are to recognize human government as an ordinance of divine appointment, and teach obedience to it as a sacred duty, within its legitimate sphere. But when its claims conflict with the claims of God, we must obey God rather than men. God’s word must be recognized as above all human legislation. A ‘Thus saith the Lord’ is not to be set aside for a ‘Thus saith the church’ or a ‘Thus saith the state.’ The crown of Christ is to be lifted above the diadems of earthly potentates.” The Acts of the Apostles, 68, 69.

1 To whom belongs all authority? Romans 13:1.

note: “Who, then, is to be regarded as the Ruler of the nations?—The Lord God Omnipotent. All kings, all rulers, all nations, are His, under His rule and government.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1081.

“Should representative men keep the way of the Lord, they would point men to a high and holy standard. Those in positions of trust would be strictly temperate. Magistrates, senators, and judges would have a clear understanding, and their judgment would be sound and unperverted. The fear of the Lord would ever be before them, and they would depend upon a higher wisdom than their own. The heavenly Teacher would make them wise in counsel, and strong to work steadfastly in opposition to all wrong, and to advance that which is right and just and true. The word of God would be their guide, and all oppression would be discarded. Lawmakers and administrators would abide by every good and just law, ever teaching the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment. God is the head of all good and just governments and laws. Those who are entrusted with the responsibility of administering any part of the law, are accountable to God as stewards of His goods.” Review and Herald, October 1, 1895.

2 For what purpose has the Lord established governments? Romans 13:3, 4.

note: “The safety of society, and the progress of reform, depend upon a clear definition and recognition of fundamental truth. The principles of God’s law must be kept before the people as everlasting and inexorable as the character of God himself. Law is defined as a rule of action. Civil law represents the supreme power of the State, regulating the actions of men, and restricting them from doing wrong under penalty of punishment. The good of society and the safety of man require that the law be respected. All enlightened law is founded on the law of Jehovah, given on Mount Sinai.” The Signs of the Times, October 17, 1878.

3 Should the Christian render conscientious obedience to the laws not conflicting with the Word of God in the government where he resides? Romans 13:6, 7.

note: “It is our duty in every case to obey the laws of our land, unless they conflict with the higher law which God spoke with an audible voice from Sinai, and afterward engraved on stone with His own finger. ‘I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.’ [Hebrews 8:10.] He who has God’s law written in the heart will obey God rather than men, and will sooner disobey all men than deviate in the least from the commandment of God. God’s people, taught by the inspiration of truth, and led by a good conscience to live by every word of God, will take His law, written in their hearts, as the only authority which they can acknowledge or consent to obey. The wisdom and authority of the divine law are supreme.” Testimonies, vol. 1, 361.

4 When there is conflict between the command of God and the requirements of any earthly government, what should the Christians do? Acts 5:29; 4:19.

note: “We have men placed over us for rulers, and laws to govern the people. Were it not for these laws, the condition of the world would be worse than it is now. Some of these laws are good, others are bad. The bad have been increasing, and we are yet to be brought into strait places. But God will sustain His people in being firm and living up to the principles of His word. When the laws of men conflict with the word and law of God, we are to obey the latter, whatever the consequences may be.” Testimonies, vol. 1, 201, 202.

5 Cite an instance where God vindicated servants of His in disobeying the command of an earthly monarch. How did the faithfulness of these three men influence the ruling monarch? Daniel 3:13–29.

note: “To bow down when in prayer to God is the proper attitude to occupy. This act of worship was required of the three Hebrew captives in Babylon. . . . But such an act was homage to be rendered to God alone—the Sovereign of the world, the Ruler of the universe; and these three Hebrews refused to give such honor to any idol even though composed of pure gold. In doing so, they would, to all intents and purposes, be bowing to the king of Babylon. Refusing to do as the king had commanded, they suffered the penalty, and were cast into the burning fiery furnace. But Christ came in person and walked with them through the fire, and they received no harm.” Selected Messages, Book 2, 312.

“The attempt to enforce idolatry resulted in bringing the knowledge of the true God before the assembled princes and great men of the vast kingdom of Babylon.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 453.

6 How was another king led to make a decree that interfered with the worship of God? What did Daniel do when he heard of this decree? Daniel 6:1–10.

note: “Daniel’s position was not an enviable one. He stood at the head of a dishonest, prevaricating, godless cabinet, whose members watched him with keen, jealous eyes, to find some flaw in his conduct. They kept spies on his track, to see if they could not in this way find something against him. Satan suggested to these men a plan whereby they might get rid of Daniel. Use his religion as a means of condemning him, the enemy said.” The Youth’s Instructor, November 1, 1900.

“As Daniel, according to his custom, made his supplications three times a day to the God of heaven, the attention of the princes and rulers was called to his case. He had an opportunity to speak for himself, to show who is the true God, and to present the reason why He alone should receive worship, and the duty of rendering Him praise and homage.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 453.

7 When Daniel’s accusers betrayed him to the king, what did the king do and what was the result? Daniel 6:11–22.

note: “Daniel was true, noble, and generous. While he was anxious to be at peace with all men, he would not permit any power to turn him aside from the path of duty. He was willing to obey those who had rule over him, as far as he could do so consistently with truth and righteousness; but kings and decrees could not make him swerve from his allegiance to the King of kings.” Testimonies, vol. 4, 570.

8 When Herod apprehended Peter and caused him to be chained in prison, how was he delivered? Acts 12:5–11.

note: “The heavenly sentinels, faithful to their trust, continue their watch. Though a general decree has fixed the time when commandment keepers may be put to death, their enemies will in some cases anticipate the decree, and before the time specified, will endeavor to take their lives. But none can pass the mighty guardians stationed about every faithful soul. Some are assailed in their flight from the cities and villages; but the swords raised against them break and fall powerless as a straw. Others are defended by angels in the form of men of war.” The Great Controversy, 631.

9 In what way were the plans of the magistrates at Philippi changed by the Lord? Acts 16:25–31.

note: “Through his long term of service, Paul had never faltered in his allegiance to his Saviour. Wherever he was—whether before scowling Pharisees, or Roman authorities; before the furious mob at Lystra, or the convicted sinners in the Macedonian dungeon; whether reasoning with the panic-stricken sailors on the shipwrecked vessel, or standing alone before Nero to plead for his life—he had never been ashamed of the cause he was advocating. The one great purpose of his Christian life had been to serve Him whose name had once filled him with contempt; and from this purpose no opposition or persecution had been able to turn him aside. His faith, made strong by effort and pure by sacrifice, upheld and strengthened him. . . .

“From the Source that never fails those who sincerely seek for divine power, he draws strength that enables him to meet and overcome temptation, and to perform the duties that God places upon him. The nature of the grace that he receives, enlarges his capacity to know God and His Son. His soul goes out in longing desire to do acceptable service for the Master. And as he advances in the Christian pathway he becomes ‘strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.’ [11 Timothy 2:1.] This grace enables him to be a faithful witness of the things that he has heard. He does not despise or neglect the knowledge that he has received from God, but commits this knowledge to faithful men, who in their turn teach others.” The Acts of the Apostles, 500, 501.

10 What instruction did Christ give regarding the Christian’s duty toward God and Caesar? Matthew 22:17–21.

note: “Holding in His hand the Roman coin, upon which were stamped the name and image of Caesar, He [Jesus] declared that since they were living under the protection of the Roman power, they should render to that power the support it claimed, so long as this did not conflict with a higher duty. But while peaceably subject to the laws of the land, they should at all times give their first allegiance to God.” The Desire of Ages, 602.

11 What shall be the nature of the reign in Christ’s eternal kingdom? What is said of His subjects? Hebrews 1:8, 9; Psalm 37:11.

note: “There is a day just about to burst upon us when God’s mysteries will be seen, and all His ways vindicated; when justice, mercy, and love will be the attributes of His throne.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 433.

“Those who receive the law and the testimony, and assimilate the truth of God, are partaking of the divine nature, growing up unto the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus, and the word of truth is working their sanctification. Though they make no boasting profession of holiness, but manifest a meek and quiet spirit, working the works of Christ, they will stand before the throne of God, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. They will be sanctified and glorified through obedience to the commandments of God, wrought by divine power, through the faith of the Son of God.” The Signs of the Times, April 13, 1888.

12 When oppressed unjustly by earthly powers, with what may the child of God comfort himself? James 5:7; Revelation 19:11–16.

note: “The time is coming when God’s people will feel the hand of persecution because they keep holy the seventh day. Satan has caused the change of the Sabbath in the hope of carrying out his purpose for the defeat of God’s plans. He seeks to make the commands of God of less force in the world than human laws. The man of sin, who thought to change times and laws, and who has always oppressed the people of God, will cause laws to be made enforcing the observance of the first day of the week. But God’s people are to stand firm for Him. And the Lord will work in their behalf, showing plainly that He is the God of gods.” Testimonies, vol. 9, 229, 230.

If the Foundations be Destroyed, Part II

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The Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy give us important information to let us know how near we really are to the close of human probation. As we continue this study, I encourage you to continually ask yourself, Am I ready for Jesus to come?

Coming Storm

This portion of the study will begin with Revelation 13. This chapter should be extremely familiar to each one of us, so this should just be a review of what the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy tell us about this chapter and what is happening right now. We are told that a storm is coming that is relentless in its fury, and that it is going to burst upon both Seventh-day Adventists and those in the world alike, as an overwhelming surprise.

To make sure that we are all on the same page, before we begin this study, look first at verses 1 and 2: “Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like [the feet of] a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.” About whom is this speaking? It is the papacy. The leopard-like beast is the papacy. It is the first beast of Revelation 13.

Eight Identifiers

Now, read verse 11, in which eight identifying marks of a second power are given: “Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.” Take a closer look at the identifying marks: (1) “Then,” meaning another power, or another nation, was arising at that time when the papacy received a deadly wound in 1798. (2) It is “another beast.” Remember that a beast in Bible prophecy is a nation or a power. (3) Not so readily identified is the mark of “coming up.” This is translated from the Greek word anabaino, which means, “to spring up like a plant.” Here is a nation that is growing into power. Unlike the other nations that conquered through war, it is coming up out of the earth. (4) The “earth” represents a sparsely populated area. The first beast (verses 1, 2) came up out of the sea, which represents people, multitudes, tongues, and nations. (See Revelation 17:15.) This “lamb” represents the United States of America. (See The Great Controversy, 440.) (5) And then the text says that this beast had “two horns.” These represent Republicanism and Protestantism. (See The Great Controversy, 441.) (6) This beast is “like a lamb.” The word lamb is used 27 times in the Book of Revelation, and 26 of those times it is used as a symbol for Jesus. In this text, it represents a Christ-like nation. (7) And, it says, “he spake.” How does a nation speak? It speaks through its legislation. (8) Then it is described as being “like a dragon.” From Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, we know that a dragon represents Satan! The two horns of this beast are going to speak like a dragon!

Exercise All Power

Laws are going to be framed in the United States to restrict liberty of conscience. We are told, in verse 12, that he, the lamb-like beast with two horns—Republicanism and Protestantism—shall exercise all the power of the first beast—the papacy, the leopard-like beast. And, this passage continues, “[he] causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.” Verses 12–14.

“An image” could be stated as “a likeness to.” It would be correct terminology to state that this beast, this image, is a likeness to the papacy. In other words, we are going to see the two horns, Republicanism and Protestantism, unite as they did in the Dark Ages, when the state gained control of the church and restricted religious freedom.

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak” through its laws, “and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Verse 15.

In 1780, Benjamin Franklin said, “When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” “Benjamin Franklin on Religion,” http://www.worldpolicy.org/.

Apostasy

Let us look at this image to the beast for a moment. Ellen White wrote: “It was apostasy that led the early church to seek the aid of the civil government, and this prepared the way for the development of the papacy—the beast. Said Paul: ‘There’ shall ‘come a falling away, . . . and that man of sin be revealed.’ 11 Thessalonians 2:3.” The Great Controversy, 443, 444. What is apostasy? It is when you turn your back on the truth. What do you accept when you turn your back on the truth? Error! This is what led the early church to seek the aid of the civil government, and it prepared the way for the development of the papacy, the beast.

When the church turns its back upon the truth, that means it is going to prepare the way for the image to the beast, and the image is going to speak “and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”

Continuing from The Great Controversy, 443, we read: “But what is the ‘image to the beast’? and how is it to be formed? The image is made by the two-horned beast, and is an image to the beast. It is also called an image of the beast. Then to learn what the image is like and how it is to be formed we must study the characteristics of the beast itself—the papacy.

“When the early church became corrupted by departing from the simplicity of the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs, she lost the Spirit and power of God; and in order to control the consciences of the people, she sought the support of the secular power.”

Did you take notice of what happens as a church departs from truth? It apostatizes, and it turns its back on truth and accepts error and fables in its stead. It loses the Spirit and power of God.

Lawlessness

If the early church would have remained faithful to God, the whole world could have been converted. But as a result of the church backing away from the truth, she lost the Spirit and power of God and the power to convert souls. The church lost the power to go out and preach, as did Peter on the day of Pentecost, when 3,000 souls were added to the number of believers. (Acts 2:38–41.) She lost that power, and any church that follows in that same path today will lose the power and Spirit of God. What, then, shall prevail in society? Lawlessness!

Just as Jesus said, iniquity, or lawlessness, shall abound. (See Matthew 24:11, 12.) We have been hearing from pulpits all around the land that the law has been done away. What do we expect to happen to society when the law has been done away? Lawlessness! That is the inevitable result of such preaching.

“The result was the papacy, a church that controlled the power of the state and employed it to further her own ends, especially for the punishment of ‘heresy.’ ” Ibid. That is a doctrine not sanctioned by the church.

“The ‘image to the beast’ represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their dogmas.” Ibid., 445. Is this becoming increasingly clear? We see those two horns coming together; church and state shall unite.

Common Points

Over a hundred years ago, Ellen White penned: “The wide diversity of belief in the Protestant churches is regarded by many as decisive proof that no effort to secure a forced uniformity can ever be made. But there has been for years, in churches of the Protestant faith, a strong and growing sentiment in favor of a union based upon common points of doctrine. To secure such a union, the discussion of subjects upon which all were not agreed—however important they might be from a Bible standpoint—must necessarily be waived.” Ibid., 444.

What is going to happen in the United States? Churches are going to unite on common points of doctrine and on those things that are not important; those doctrines that are not essential, they say, have to be waived.

Notice this: “When this shall be gained, then, in the effort to secure complete uniformity, it will be only a step to the resort to force.” Ibid., 445. Do you know how close we are to this right now? I believe that God is holding this wind back for just a little while longer, and He is allowing it to happen in little, tiny increments, because He sees that we are not ready.

We are not ready! We are not prepared for what is going to come upon this earth, especially in the United States.

“When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result.” Ibid., 445.

Is this happening today? Are churches uniting today? Friend, what are we still doing? If we know this, what are we doing right now to prepare for this crisis? Ellen White wrote about it over a hundred years ago, and we are still here today! This unification has been happening, increments at a time. It has been happening, and Seventh-day Adventists have not been aware of it.

Catholic Ascendancy

In 1963, the July 25 issue of Catholic News quoted from a former Catholic priest: “There is, ere long, to be a state religion in this country, and that state religion is to be the Roman Catholic. . . . The Roman Catholic is to wield his vote for the purpose of securing Catholic ascendancy in this country.” Frank Hecker, Catholic World, July 1870.

What do you suppose it is today? In 1964, Cardinal Richard Cushing, the renowned archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts, shook up the Catholic Church by praising Billy Graham! He encouraged Catholics to hear the evangelist. Cushing remarked that he would stop worrying about the Catholic Church’s future in America if they had half a dozen men like Graham. (Billy Graham, “We Are Brothers,” “A Christianity Today editorial,” Christianity Today, June 2005, http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/2005/june/17.28.html, posted May 24, 2005.)

Catholic and evangelical efforts towards fellowship have largely followed the Cushing-Graham model in unofficial individual and sporadic meetings. For this reason, Pope John Paul’s encyclical letter, in which he stated, “ . . . that they may be one,” is so important. Released in 1995, this teaching fueled the ecumenical movement and started at the second Vatican Council by inviting debate about Catholic doctrine. The document acknowledges for the first time in papal history that the Vatican authority hinders cooperation between such church traditions. (Graham, Christianity Today, June 2005.)

Do you realize that as far back as the 1960s Billy Graham never had a crusade without Catholic priests and nuns present in his audience? And whenever he made his famous altar calls, he would have every single card completed by those individuals who came forward given to the priests and the nuns. (Dr. Cathy Burns, Billy Graham and His Friends: A Hidden Agenda? Sharing, November 2001, 35.)

Billy Graham had never met a pope until John Paul II invited him to Rome in 1981. Ushered into the papal apartments by the Vatican’s swift guards, Graham marveled at the pomp. He and the Pope chatted like long lost friends for 30 minutes, swapping photos, gifts, and travel stories. Before Graham left, John Paul II reached over and clutched Graham’s thumb, and told him, “We are brothers.” Graham revealed nothing of the Pope’s message in 1981. At the time of their meeting, John Paul II had been pope for less than three years. An assertion of spiritual kinship would have been ill received by the bulk of their constituencies, both Catholic and Protestant, but by 1990, when Graham related this story to Time magazine journalist David Akman, the climate had changed considerably. Key to the thaw was John Paul II’s effort to beat back Communism worldwide. He became the hero of freedom. (Graham, Christianity Today, June 2005.)

From what we have read, as given in the Spirit of Prophecy, and from what has been given in the previous paragraphs, does the papacy ever change? No, she shall never change! She is the same despotic, cruel, persecuting power that she was during the Dark Ages. She is only waiting to spring into power.

Moral Relativism

The late Pope John Paul II has been lionized in evangelical eulogies and lauded by the United States President, George W. Bush, as a humble, wise, and fearless priest who became one of history’s greatest moral leaders and a hero for the ages. Why the sudden change? John Paul II offered a winsome face of Christianity to the world and leaves behind a Roman Catholic Church firmly opposed to moral relativism.

You may read more about this at the following web sites:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0504/02/bn.04.html.

Allow me to interject a thought here from the Spirit of Prophecy: “It is a part of her policy to assume the character which will best accomplish her purpose; but beneath the variable appearance of the chameleon she conceals the invariable venom of the serpent.” The Great Controversy, 571.

Graham, in his June 2005 Christianity Today editorial, stated, “He [Pope John Paul II] reinforced the Second Vatican Council’s commitment to seek renewal in the sources of classic Christianity, Scripture, and the church fathers. And while significant differences remain, examples include ecclesiastical authority, the means of grace, and the relationship of justification through sanctification. Evangelicals can confidently engage a Catholic Church committed to fundamental truths.” Are they committed to the truths of God’s Word? This is not what I read!

The ECT

Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) is a group comprised equally of Evangelicals and Catholics—40 altogether. If I named the members, you would recognize every single one. In one of its documents, “The Christian Mission In The Third Millennium,” it is shown what these Catholics and Evangelicals agreed upon when they met together. You may read the complete 25-page document on the Internet.

Upon what did the Spirit of Prophecy say Protestants and Catholics are going to unite? “Common points of doctrine,” and when this uniformity is secure, what is going to happen? “When this shall be gained, then, in the effort to secure complete uniformity, it will be only a step to the resort to force.”

Following are some of the points upon which the ECT agreed:

Number One: Jesus Christ is Lord. Do you suppose that Catholics and Protestants can agree upon that? Can they agree upon it when Catholics call the pope, “the Lord God” upon earth?

Number Two: Salvation is only in Christ. Can Catholics and Protestants agree upon those two things? From what I read, the Catholic gains his grace through the Mass, not through Christ.

Number Three: All who accept Jesus are brothers. “Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ.”

Ellen White wrote: “The Christian world has sanctioned his [the papacy] efforts by adopting this child of the papacy,—the Sunday institution. They have nourished it, and will continue to nourish it, until Protestantism shall give the hand of fellowship to the Roman power. Then there will be a law against the Sabbath of God’s creation, and then it is that God ‘will do a strange work in the earth.’ ” Review and Herald, March 9, 1886.

Protestantism is giving that right hand of fellowship to the Roman power.

To be continued . . .

Pastor Mike Bauler serves as pastor of the Historic Message Church in Portland, Oregon. He may be contacted by e-mail at: mbauler@earthlink.net.

Editorial – The World’s Great Need

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What does the world need today? The people of this world look at the skyrocketing statistics of crime, pauperism, and degradation of the environment. They see the erosion of civil and religious liberty and the hatred that has developed between various races, nations, and religions. They see the development of new diseases, the increase in the old diseases, and the natural disasters occurring all over the world.

They hear what the various statesmen and thought leaders who are seeking solutions to all these problems say, but, “The world needs today what it needed nineteen hundred years ago—a revelation of Christ.” The Ministry of Healing, 143. However, when a revelation of Christ is made, the world will not recognize it. They will cry out for the destruction of those people who make such a revelation. Why is it that the very thing that contains the solution to the world’s problems will be rejected by them and hated? Why did the world hate Jesus when He came the first time? The following is not an exhaustive list of reasons; many more could be given.

  1. He could not be persuaded to go along with the popular customs of society. “Jesus had come to teach the meaning of the worship of God, and He could not sanction the mingling of human requirements with the divine precepts.” The Desire of Ages, 84. [Emphasis added.]
  2. He called sin by its right name. “The world loved those who were like itself; but the contrast between Christ and the world was most marked; there could be no harmony between them. His teachings, and his reproofs of sin, stirred up its hatred against him.” The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 2, 337, 338.
  3. He always told the truth. “The very fact that Jesus spoke the truth, and that with certainty, is the reason why the Jews did not believe Him. He said, ‘Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not’ (John 8:45).” Testimonies to Southern Africa, 37.

Most people think that they want to know the truth but sometimes the truth is exactly what they really do not want to hear, and they develop a hatred against the one declaring a truth that is unpopular and unpalatable to the natural heart.

  1. Jesus taught that we must faithfully perform every duty. He did not commend any who were not faithful workers. (See Matthew 25:14–30 for example.) “Unconsciously every true follower of the Master will say, ‘Are there not but twelve hours in the day? and am I not working at the close of the day? I must walk in the light as one of the children of light. I must lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset, and run with patience the race that is set before me. I am striving for a crown of glory that fadeth not away.’ ” The Signs of the Times, June 3, 1903.
  2. Jesus could not be swayed from the right way even once, no matter what the risk or cost or loss involved in doing right. (See Matthew 4:3—10 for example.) “[Jesus] dwelt among men an example of spotless integrity. His blameless life flashed light upon their hearts. His sincerity revealed their insincerity. It made manifest the hollowness of their pretentious piety, and discovered iniquity to them in its odious character. Such a light was unwelcome.” The Desire of Ages, 243.

There will be a final and full revelation of the character of Christ in these last days, and it will be received just as it was received when He was here. (See The Desire of Ages, 680; Ephesians 5:25–27.) Are you praying and preparing to make such a demonstration, a revelation of the character of Christ to the world?

Life Sketches Series – Liberty for All in Jesus

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In the writings of the Decalogue by Moses you will find much instruction as to the expected behavior and diet of God’s chosen people—the children of Israel. The question remains, Is a Christian today under moral obligation concerning how he uses his body, or did the Christian religion do away with all the health laws written by Moses?

In the first Christian council held by the Christian church recorded in Acts 15, we find a record of the problems that the apostles were facing. Many people from all over the world were accepting the doctrines of Christianity, both Jews and Gentiles, but between them there were what seemed to be insurmountable barriers. Among the Gentiles it was the custom to eat the flesh of animals that had been strangled. However, the Jews had been divinely instructed in regard to the food that they used, and they had been told not to eat blood. In fact, throughout the Old Testament there is no place where God ever permitted the use of blood by His people for food.

The first time animal food was allowed by divine permission to the human race was after the flood. Genesis 9:4 reads, “But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

This instruction was repeated by Moses several times. He said, “This shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings; you shall eat neither fat nor blood” (Leviticus 3:17). Emphatically, he said (this time adding a consequence), “You shall not eat any blood in any of your dwellings, whether of bird or beast. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people” (Leviticus 7:26, 27).

The Jews considered this issue critical and never ate blood. The Gentiles not only ate it in the meat, but they often caught the blood and drank it, which caused great distress to the Jews. Their differing dietary habits made it impossible for the two groups to eat together.

The Gentiles also bought food that had been offered to idols. The apostle Paul makes it very clear that whether the food has been offered to idols really does not matter, because an idol does not know anything. However, by eating these foods it could give the impression of condoning idolatry, which is strictly prohibited in both the Old and New Testaments. Where the Jews were very strict in this, the Gentiles who had come out of idolatry didn’t think that much about eating this food.

Many Greeks had also become Christians. The Greek nation was an extremely licentious nation.  The Greek converts understood that it was a crime to steal another man’s wife but there were some who continued to practice fornication, which the Jews knew was forbidden.  This difference of understanding caused another barrier between the Jewish and Gentile Christians.

There were many Jews who believed that if the Gentiles were really sincere about accepting Christianity, they should be circumcised and keep all of the ceremonies commanded by Moses. So the apostles came together to discuss this question. The Bible says, “Peter rose up and said to them: ‘Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith’ ” (Acts 15:7–9).

The blood of Jesus is able to cleanse from all uncleanness. Whatever race, whether you are Jew or Gentile, whatever skin color or nationality you are, if you accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, your heart can be purified by faith. Peter continues, “Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they” (verses 10, 11).

Peter recounted the vision he had been given in Acts 10 and how he had been sent to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his house. He explained that God was no respecter of persons and He accepted every person who feared Him and worked righteousness from any nationality. That is still true today, “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 11:34 KJV). He does not practice partiality. If you surrender your life to Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, you will be accepted and you will receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will purify your heart and give you the power to live a new life. No one is to be regarded inferior to someone else because the blood of Jesus is capable of cleansing from all uncleanness.

Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Whether male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile, there is no difference with God who does not practice partiality; He is no respecter of persons.

In Galatians 5:1, 2 the apostle Paul says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.”

This yoke of bondage that both Peter and Paul spoke of was not the law of ten commandments which is spoken of in the Bible as a law of liberty. The apostle James says, “If you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty” (James 2:9–12).

The principles of God’s law are eternal and were laid down long before they were written on tables of stone. Adam and Eve broke the very 1st commandment, “You shall not have any other god before Me” (Exodus 20:3, literal translation), in the Garden of Eden. They broke the 10th commandment by coveting fruit which God told them not to eat (verse 17). The 8th commandment was broken when they stole the fruit which God said did not belong to them (verse 15). And in dishonoring their heavenly Father they broke the 5th commandment (verse 12).

Adam and Eve broke the law of God in the Garden of Eden. As a result of the law being broken, Paul says, in Galatians 3:19, “What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions [of the moral law], till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.”

A moral law was transgressed.  “Where there is no law there is no transgression” (Romans 4:15, last part).

The law was to point men toward the fact that a Redeemer was coming who would save them from the guilt and penalty of their sin. The only way they could be saved from their sin was if a sacrifice that was perfect would die in their place. Hebrews 9:22 says, “According to the law almost all things are purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (literal translation). The Bible says that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but might have everlasting life” (John 3:16, literal translation).

Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, in order that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:14, 15, literal translation).

For the 4,000 years before Jesus would fulfill this prophecy, it was kept fresh before the minds of men. Ever since the days of Adam and Eve, those who believed and had faith that God was going to send a sacrifice to pay the price for their sins and offer them forgiveness, manifested their faith in a Redeemer to come by offering a lamb, an animal sacrifice, for their sin. The whole purpose of the ceremonial law and the Levitical priesthood was to provide a sacrifice and an intercessory priest to have your sins forgiven.

When Jesus offered His life for our sins on the cross of Calvary He was our sacrifice. However, after He ascended to heaven He also became our High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary so that He, by virtue of His own merits, could take away the guilt of the sin of anyone who confessed and repented of their sins to Him (see Hebrews).

But, this law of ceremonies that involved animal sacrifices, a Levitical priesthood, an earthly sanctuary, and various other ceremonial laws that pointed forward to the Christian dispensation, was made null and void by the true sacrifice—the crucifixion of Christ. However, it took time for people to realize the significance of what really happened when Jesus died on the cross. The moment He died, an unseen hand tore the veil in the temple from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51, first part). Now that veil was not like just a common household curtain. It was more like a carpet or a rug, something that no human being, unless you were Sampson, could tear apart.

This act signified that no longer would believers need the services of an earthly priest to approach God. Jesus Christ was now our high priest. There is only one Mediator between God and man, as Peter said, “We are all priests who can come to our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man” (1 Timothy 2:5, literal translation). We see here that the earthly tabernacle had no more real significance because it was all a type of the reality that was to come. All of the earthly ceremonies connected with the sanctuary had no more significance, once Christ’s sacrifice was complete.

Paul describes these ceremonies both in his letters to both the Ephesians and the Colossians. In Colossians 2:14, he says, “… having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” Contrary to what some have thought, the apostle Paul is not here referring to the ten commandments, but rather to the ordinances that were handwritten by Moses.

Handwriting is something that humans do. We take hold of a pen or pencil with our fingers when we write. But when God writes, He does not need a pen or a pencil. Instead, He writes with His finger (John 8:6). God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger on tables of stone. They were not handwritten.

Paul says, “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it (that’s in the cross). So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:15–17).

The substance is of Christ; the body is of Christ. Don’t let anyone pass any judgment on you in regard to any of these ceremonial requirements, Paul said. That was the same decision that was made at the Jerusalem council—that the Jews were not to enforce these things upon the Gentile Christians.

At this first Christian council, after everyone who wanted to speak had the opportunity, the apostle James arose and said, “Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon [Peter] has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: ‘After this I will return and will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord who does all these things’ ” (Acts 15:13–17).

James continued: “Known to God from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogue every Sabbath” (verses 18–21).

Notice, it was James who led out at the council and made the final decision, contrary to the belief that Peter was the head of the church. The rest of the apostles agreed with what he said and the letter was written saying, “We have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, ‘You must be circumcised and keep the law’—to whom we gave no such commandment—it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well” (verses 24–29).

Notice, the Gentile Christians were not to be forced to keep all the Jewish laws, or any of the ceremonial laws, but they were to keep the moral law of God. They were to live righteous, holy lives, and they were not to eat blood or things that were strangled. It is interesting that out of only four things Christians were not to do we find that many Christians do today. In both the Old and the New Testaments, the use of blood as food is strictly forbidden. This is something we need to study if we want to be living in harmony with every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

At the council, the argument in question was decided by the Holy Spirit, as they say, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” That being the case, since the Holy Spirit is the leader, the guide, the king, the authority in the Christian church, our job as Christians is to know the way the Holy Spirit is leading us. At that first council the whole body of Christians was not called to vote upon the question.

The apostles and elders, men of influence and judgment, framed and issued the decree, and it was thereafter accepted generally by the Christian churches. Everybody, however, was not pleased with this decision. There was a faction of brethren called Judaizers, who assumed to engage in the work on their own responsibility and indulged in murmuring and fault-finding. They continued wherever they went to try to get Christians to keep the ceremonial law. The church has had such types of obstacles to meet ever since the beginning and it will continue until the end of time.

Even some of the apostles were not prepared to accept the decision of the council, remaining zealous for the ceremonial law. They regarded Paul with jealousy, thinking his principles were lax in regard to the obligation of the Jewish law. It took time for them to understand these things and there were times when the apostle Paul had to stand all alone. He was regarded by many of the Jewish Christians as a teacher of dangerous doctrines. However, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit taught them is still in force today. We still need to live by the principles that this first council passed if we want to be approved by the Lord in the Day of Judgment.

(Unless appearing in quoted references or otherwise identified, Bible texts are from the New King James Version.)

Pastor John J. Grosboll is Director of Steps to Life and pastors the Prairie Meadows Church in Wichita, Kansas. He may be contacted by email at: historic@stepstolife.org, or by telephone at: 316-788-5559.

Freedom

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There are a number of definitions of freedom, so before looking at this subject we must make sure we understand about what we are talking.

From www.dictionary.com we learn that freedom is a noun, defined as

  1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
  2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
  3. the power to determine action without restraint.
  4. political or national independence.
  5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.

True freedom from anything begins in the mind. Remember what Jesus said, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:28. In other words, a person may even be killed but no one can take away his freedom of soul, which comes from within.

First let’s look at freedom from the broad perspective and work our way to how freedom applies to each one of us individually.

God’s Government

God’s government promotes freedom. It can be seen from the very beginning of our world. God could have forced Adam and Eve to obey Him, but He did not; He gave them freedom of choice. God’s servants serve Him because they want to, not because they are forced.

“The earth was dark through misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be brought back to God, Satan’s deceptive power was to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God’s government; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authority. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan.” The Desire of Ages, 22.

“The government of God is not, as Satan would make it appear, founded upon a blind submission, an unreasoning control. It appeals to the intellect and the conscience. ‘Come now, and let us reason together’ is the Creator’s invitation to the beings He has made. Isaiah 1:18. God does not force the will of His creatures. He cannot accept an homage that is not willingly and intelligently given. A mere forced submission would prevent all real development of mind or character; it would make man a mere automaton. Such is not the purpose of the Creator. He desires that man, the crowning work of His creative power, shall reach the highest possible development. He sets before us the height of blessing to which He desires to bring us through His grace. He invites us to give ourselves to Him, that He may work His will in us. It remains for us to choose whether we will be set free from the bondage of sin, to share the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” Steps to Christ, 43, 44.

“In striking contrast to the wrong and oppression so universally practised were the mission and work of Christ. Earthly kingdoms are established and upheld by physical force, but this was not to be the foundation of the Messiah’s kingdom. In the establishment of His government no carnal weapons were to be used, no coercion practised; no attempt would be made to force the consciences of men. These are the principles used by the prince of darkness for the government of his kingdom. His agents are actively at work, seeking in their human independence to enact laws which are in direct contrast to Christ’s mercy and loving-kindness.” The Review and Herald, August 18, 1896.

Country

Righteousness promotes freedom—Proverbs 14:34. The prosperous countries of the world have all, at some recent time, followed religious principles. The United States of America was founded on the principle of freedom, which has made it a great nation. In contrast is the country that tried to stamp out religion, and the disaster that followed was the French Revolution.

“It was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the Pilgrims to brave the perils of the long journey across the sea, to endure the hardships and dangers of the wilderness, and with God’s blessing to lay, on the shores of America, the foundation of a mighty nation. Yet honest and God-fearing as they were, the Pilgrims did not yet comprehend the great principle of religious toleration. The freedom which they sacrificed so much to secure for themselves, they were not equally ready to grant to others.” The Great Controversy (1888), 292.

These early reformers, though they had rejected the creed of Rome, were still not free from the spirit of intolerance, ruling that only church-members should have a voice in civil government. This led to a State church being formed and the inevitable result was persecution to non-conformists.

It was not until Roger Williams came to the New World eleven years after the first colony was established that true liberty of conscience was promoted. He declared it to be the duty of the magistrate to restrain crime, but never to control the conscience. He regarded it as an open violation of their natural rights, to drag to public worship the irreligious and the unwilling. He said that no one should be forced to worship, or to maintain a worship, against his own consent.

For his stand on liberty of conscience, Roger Williams was sentenced to banishment from the colonies, and finally, to avoid arrest, he was forced to flee, amid the cold and storms of winter, into the unbroken forest.

“ ‘For fourteen weeks,’ he says, ‘I was sorely tossed in a bitter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean.’ ‘But the ravens fed me in the wilderness;’ and a hollow tree often served him for a shelter. Thus he continued his painful flight through the snow and the trackless forest, until he found refuge with an Indian tribe whose confidence and affection he had won while endeavoring to teach them the truths of the gospel.

“Making his way at last, after months of change and wandering, to the shores of Narragansett Bay, he there laid the foundation of the first State of modern times that in the fullest sense recognized the right of religious freedom. The fundamental principle of Roger Williams’ colony, was ‘that every man should have the right to worship God according to the light of his conscience.’ His little State, Rhode Island, became the asylum of the oppressed, and it increased and prospered until its foundation principles—civil and religious liberty—became the corner-stones of the American Republic.

“In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as their bill of rights—the Declaration of Independence—they declared: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ And the Constitution guarantees, in the most explicit terms, the inviolability of conscience: ‘No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under the United States.’ ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’

“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle that man’s relation to his God is above human legislation, and his right of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosom. It is this consciousness, which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle, which nothing can eradicate.

“As the tidings spread through the countries of Europe, of a land where every man might enjoy the fruit of his own labor, and obey the convictions of his conscience, thousands flocked to the shores of the New World. Colonies rapidly multiplied.” Ibid., 294, 295.

“The Bible was held as the foundation of faith, the source of wisdom, and the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently taught in the home, in the school, and in the church, and its fruits were manifest in thrift, intelligence, purity, and temperance. One might be for years a dweller in the Puritan settlements, and not ‘see a drunkard, nor hear an oath, nor meet a beggar.’ It was demonstrated that the principles of the Bible are the surest safeguards of national greatness. The feeble and isolated colonies grew to a confederation of powerful States, and the world marked with wonder the peace and prosperity of ‘a church without a pope, and a State without a king.’ …

“The great principle so nobly advocated by Robinson and Roger Williams, that truth is progressive, that Christians should stand ready to accept all the light which may shine from God’s Holy Word, was lost sight of by their descendants. The Protestant churches of America—and those of Europe as well—so highly favored in receiving the blessings of the Reformation, failed to press forward in the path of reform.” Ibid., 296, 297.

Business

Example of Daniel – by following God’s principles Daniel gained the freedom to worship God but not without trial. “Those who honor Me I will honor.” I Samuel 2:30.

Church

In looking at freedom in the church example of what it is not, would be the Pharisees. They thought they were free but in reality they were not. “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.” Luke 11:42. A Pharisee is a self-righteous, sanctimonious, hypocrite who makes outward observance to laws that cannot save him. The person who in a Pharisee’s eye is a very great sinner can be living a life of service to God, overcoming his/her sins and go to Heaven while the Pharisee is lost making the commandment of God of no effect by their tradition. Jesus told them that the publicans and sinners would go into the Kingdom of God before them. The irony was, while they were in bondage to the Romans and sin, they thought they were Abraham’s seed and free. Is it possible to think that you are free and yet be in bondage?

“Christ ever rebuked the Pharisees for their self-righteousness. They extolled themselves. They came forth from their religious services, not humbled with a sense of their own weakness, not feeling gratitude for the great privileges that God had given them. They were exalted to heaven in point of opportunity, in having the Scriptures, in knowing the true God, but their hearts were not filled with thankfulness to God for his great goodness toward them. They came forth filled with spiritual pride, and their theme was self—‘myself, my feelings, my knowledge, my ways.’ Their own attainments became the standard by which they measured others. Putting on the robes of self-dignity, they mounted the judgment seat to criticise and to condemn. But no human being has been authorized of God to do this work. It is the very essence of Phariseeism.” The Signs of the Times, December 17, 1894.

Notice that thinking you are better than everyone else and pointing out all the faults of others compared to you is the essence of Phariseeism.

“The soil of the hearts of the Pharisees is a hopeless and profitless soil, where the seeds of heavenly truth cannot take root. Oh, how self-deluding is this feeling of superiority that all Pharisees cherish!” Ibid.

Modern Pharisees

It will not help us to talk of people in the Bible unless we can make practical application to our lives. Modern day Pharisees are a very big problem today. The modern Pharisees are those who tell others that they are going to hell if they do not believe and follow what the Pharisee thinks is a major point of doctrine. People will tell you, if you eat that, you are going to hell. They make God out to be a cruel and hard taskmaster ready to strike with lightening if you do something “wrong.” Tests are often made of what God has never made a test. It would be more profitable to dwell on the real salvational issues, allowing God to change hearts and those little things that need change will be changed. We have not been called to be judge, condemning our fellow man. For clarification, this does not refer to some major point of doctrine or the eating of unclean food but about minor issues that people make into mountains. Jesus said, “Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” Matthew 23:24.

“Suppose a brother held a view that differed from yours, and he should come to you, proposing that you sit down with him and make an investigation of that point in the Scriptures; should you rise up, filled with prejudice, and condemn his ideas, while refusing to give him a candid hearing? The only right way would be to sit down as Christians, and investigate the position presented, in the light of God’s word, which reveals truth and unmasks error. To ridicule his ideas would not weaken his position in the least if it were false, or strengthen your position if it were true. If the pillars of our faith will not stand the test of investigation, it is time that we knew it. There must be no spirit of Phariseeism cherished among us.” Gospel Workers, 127.

“As soon as you gain a clear view of the power and goodness of Christ, your murmuring will cease. You will not pick at the faults of others. It is Phariseeism that leads men to exalt themselves by depreciating their brethren.” The Review and Herald, June 11, 1889.

There are a lot of people in the church who believe that if you do not see everything the way they see it you are wrong, and if you would just study you would see that they are right. Then something is thrown in to give it authority because they said God said it. The problem with that is, people are looking too much at others instead of looking in the mirror to see what needs to be changed in themselves. It is always a great marvel that those who are the most critical of others often have blatant faults themselves that are glaring to others. The spirit of Phariseeism is to look for faults in others as compared with themselves.

“You belong to God, soul, body, and spirit. Your mind belongs to God, and your talents belong to Him also. No one has a right to control another’s mind and judge for another, prescribing what is his duty. There are certain rights that belong to every individual in doing God’s service. No man has any more liberty to take these rights from us than to take life itself. God has given us freedom to think, and it is our privilege to follow our impressions of duty. We are only human beings, and one human being has no jurisdiction over the conscience of another human being. … Each one of us has an individuality and identity that cannot be surrendered to any other human being. We are individually the workmanship of God.” Mind, Character and Personality, vol. 2, 708, 709.

It is the spirit of Phariseeism in the church that does not allow a person freedom, the freedom to think and study a subject and come to a conclusion but forbids others that right. This is not referring to any major points of doctrine such as the Sabbath, but little things that people make into big issues.

Family

“Few have correct views of marriage. … Ignoring the personal rights of women, the husband becomes unkind and authoritative. The individuality of the wife is submerged in that of the husband. … He quotes texts of scripture to show that he is the head, and that he must be obeyed in all things, claiming that his wife must have no will separate from his. He acts the tyrant. But the same Bible that prescribes the duty of the wife prescribes also the duty of the husband. He is to be kind and affectionate, to love his wife as a part of himself, and to cherish her as Christ does His church.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 18, 312.

“In trying to force others to carry out your ideas in every particular, you often do greater harm than if you were to yield these points. This is true even when your ideas are right in themselves, but in many things they are not correct; they are overstrained as the result of the peculiarities of your organization; therefore you drive the wrong thing in a strong, unreasonable manner.

“You have peculiar views in regard to managing your family. You exercise an independent, arbitrary power which permits no liberty of will around you. You think yourself sufficient to be head in your family and feel that your head is sufficient to move every member, as a machine is moved in the hands of the workmen. You dictate and assume authority. This displeases Heaven and grieves the pitying angels. You have conducted yourself in your family as though you alone were capable of self-government. It has offended you that your wife should venture to oppose your opinion or question your decisions.” The Adventist Home, 225, 226.

“To direct the child’s development without hindering it by undue control should be the study of both parent and teacher. Too much management is as bad as too little. The effort to ‘break the will’ of a child is a terrible mistake. Minds are constituted differently; while force may secure outward submission, the result with many children is a more determined rebellion of the heart. Even should the parent or teacher succeed in gaining the control he seeks, the outcome may be no less harmful to the child. The discipline of a human being who has reached the years of intelligence should differ from the training of a dumb animal. The beast is taught only submission to its master. For the beast, the master is mind, judgment, and will. This method, sometimes employed in the training of children, makes them little more than automatons. Mind, will, conscience, are under the control of another. It is not God’s purpose that any mind should be thus dominated. Those who weaken or destroy individuality assume a responsibility that can result only in evil. While under authority, the children may appear like well-drilled soldiers; but when the control ceases, the character will be found to lack strength and steadfastness. Having never learned to govern himself, the youth recognizes no restraint except the requirement of parents or teacher. This removed, he knows not how to use his liberty, and often gives himself up to indulgence that proves his ruin.” Education, 288.

Another danger is to follow Eli’s example where there was no restraint at all. If a child in the family has committed a wrong, the child needs to be held accountable. Some people want to blame every adult around them for the problems of their children when really the child needs to be held accountable for their actions no matter what anyone else did or did not do.

Individual

  • This is the most important freedom because it affects families, churches, and nations.
  • Freedom involves responsibility – How does freedom involve responsibility?
  • Authority does not give the right to treat subordinates disrespectfully.
  • A ruler may have liberty to do an action but he does not always have the moral right to do it.
  • The blessing of freedom places you under obligation to pass on that blessing to others.
  • Freedom involving responsibility is a Bible principle. A man was forgiven a great debt, but himself refused to forgive a lesser debt. (See Matthew 18:23–33.)
  • Freedom does not give us the liberty to do anything that we please. Galatians 5:13, I Peter 2:16–19.
  • Those in positions of leadership are not to lord it over others. I Peter 5:2, 3.

“God will not vindicate any device whereby man shall in the slightest degree rule or oppress his fellow-men. The only hope for fallen man is to look to Jesus, and receive Him as the only Saviour. As soon as a man begins to make any iron rule for other men, as soon as he begins to harness up and drive men according to his own mind, he dishonors God, and imperils his own soul, and the souls of his brethren. Sinful man can find hope and righteousness only in God; and no human being is righteous any longer than he has faith in God, and maintains a vital connection with Him. A flower of the field must have its roots in the soil; it must have air, dew, showers, and sunshine. It will flourish only as it receives these advantages, and all are from God. So with men. We receive from God that which ministers to the life of the soul. We are warned not to trust in man, not to make flesh our arm.” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 366, 367.

“All our workers must have room to exercise their own judgment and discretion. God has given men talents which He means that they should use. He has given them minds and He means that they should become thinkers, and do their own thinking and planning rather than depend upon others to think and plan for them.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 9, 162.

Why does keeping God’s Law promote freedom? James 1:25 – if everyone kept God’s law you would not have to have all the papers that we have to have because everyone would keep their word. You would not have to lock your house. You would not have to worry about someone taking anything that belongs to you. You would not have to worry about anyone killing another person. Does that liberty mean you can do anything that you please? No, it makes you responsible to look out for your fellow human beings.

Where God’s spirit is there is liberty. II Corinthians 3:17. It is really a crazy thing that people want to put God in a box (not give Him liberty either). They will say God has to do it this way. Whoever said God has to do something a certain way? God is at liberty to decide what He wants to do.

The greatest freedom of all is that which we receive from Jesus—to be freed from our sins. Luke 4:18; Galatians 5:1; John 8:36.

We must remember that with freedom comes responsibility. We have a responsibility to forgive others because Jesus has forgiven us for more than anyone in this world could have sinned against us. We cannot be holding a grudge against anyone, no matter what they have or have not done to us, because Jesus has forgiven us for our sins. If we are holding a grudge against anyone for any reason, we need to ask Jesus to set us free. If you are not free, please ask Jesus and “Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” John 8:36.

(Unless appearing in quoted references or otherwise identified, Bible texts are from the New King James Version.)

A network engineer, Jana Grosboll lives in Derby, Kansas. 

Editorial – Liberty

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Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” II Corinthians 3:17.

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” Galatians 5:13.

One of the ways to distinguish the true Christ from Antichrist is that the true Christ brings liberty but Antichrist brings bondage:

“Only by terrible struggles has the right of religious liberty been maintained. When the stake and the scaffold proved ineffectual to destroy the Reformation in Germany, popery summoned her armies, the Catholic States banded together to crush out Protestantism, and for thirty years the tempests of war swept over these now fertile plains and populous cities. At the opening of the thirty years war, in 1618, the country had reached a high state of prosperity. It is said that at that time the methods of cultivation were fully equal to those of 1818. ‘Germany was accounted a rich country. Under the influence of a long peace its towns had enlarged in size, its villages had increased in number, and its smiling fields testified to the excellence of its husbandry. The early dew of the Reformation was not yet exhaled. The sweet breath of that morning gave it a healthy moral vigor, quickened its art and industry, and filled the land with all good things. Wealth abounded in the cities, and even the country people lived in circumstances of comfort and ease.’ Since the Reformation, a school had existed in every town and village in which there was a church, and a knowledge of reading and writing was generally diffused among the people. The Bible had found its way into their houses. The hymns of Luther were sung in their churches and their homes.

“But during the terrible years that followed, all this was changed. Foreign soldiery, savage and blood-besmeared, traversed the country, marking their course by pillage, fire, and murder. The greatest imaginable horrors were so common that it was a matter of surprise when they failed to be perpetrated. At the approach of the troops, the terror-stricken people sought safety in one-fiftieth of the population remained, and there were regions left without inhabitant.

“Such was the spirit of popery in the seventeenth century, and such is her spirit today. Let Rome but gain the power, and our own favored land would witness scenes like those that covered Germany with heaps of slain, and made her harvest fields a lair for the wild beasts.” Historical Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Seventh-day Adventists (1886), 176, 177.

Current Events – Affordable Care Act

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Christian organizations make a stand against the Federal Government on the moral issues hidden in the Affordable Care Act

“The banner of truth and religious liberty held aloft by the founders of the gospel church and by God’s witnesses during the centuries that have passed since then, has, in this last conflict, been committed to our hands. The responsibility for this great gift rests with those whom God has blessed with a knowledge of His word. We are to receive this word as supreme authority. We are to recognize human government as an ordinance of divine appointment, and teach obedience to it as a sacred duty, within its legitimate sphere. But when its claims conflict with the claims of God, we must obey God rather than men. God’s word must be recognized as above all human legislation.” The Acts of the Apostles, 68.

Four Most Important Questions

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the Hobby Lobby contraception case. But which arguments will have the most influence on the justices? Which four arguments are most likely to be important?

Cutting through the politicized hype about the Hobby Lobby, the Justices during oral argument focused on four serious legal questions, which deserve a serious answer:

  1. Could Hobby Lobby avoid a substantial burden on its religious exercise by dropping health insurance and paying fines of $2,000 per employee?
  2. Does the government have a compelling interest in protecting the statutory rights of Hobby Lobby’s employees?
  3. Would a ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby give rise to a slippery slope of exemptions from vaccines, minimum wage laws, anti-discrimination laws, and the like?
  4. Has the government satisfied the least restrictive means test?

The answer to all four questions is “no.” http://blog.acton.org/March 24

Supreme Court seeks compromise in contraception case

March 25, 2014

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration struggled Tuesday to defend the so-called contraception mandate in its fledgling health care law before a Supreme Court clearly sympathetic to religious objections raised by employers.

While the justices were predictably divided along ideological lines, it appeared that a majority of them did not want to force for-profit corporations to offer health plans that include birth control methods they claim cause abortions.

The decision could have a psychological impact, however, on a law that has suffered more than its share of website glitches and administrative delays. And it could have a political impact for the White House. www.usatoday.com

Hobby Lobby case goes before Supreme Court

Mar. 26, 2014 – 2:55 – The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s Lori Windham on the Hobby Lobby’s case on employer’s religious rights when it comes to health insurance being heard by the Supreme Court. http://foxbusiness.com

Eradication of Liberty

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“Romanism as a system is no more in harmony with the gospel of Christ now than at any former period in her history. The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done. Catholicism is gaining ground upon every side.” The Great Controversy, 565, 566

Rome has a great history behind her of 1,500 years of exercising supremacy and control over the nations of the world. At this moment, she is moving in Eastern Europe, in Russia, and in Mexico. She is moving in the United States. In one month, our President goes to meet with the pope at the Vatican. This President is Jesuit-trained; and from all indications, he is forming his policy, at home and abroad, in accordance with the general features of liberal Jesuitism that have developed since Vatican II. Rome is moving very swiftly. Through His inspired Word, Christ enables us to cut through the propaganda of the media of our day to get to the bottom of what is happening.

A Roman Catholic conservative author has written that the United States Civil War was a religious war. In her astounding book, The Star Spangled Heresy, Americanism, 110, Solange Hertz writes, “One aspect of the Civil War which has been studiously ignored by establishment historians is its character as a war of religion. Protestants found themselves pitted against Catholics and Anglo-Catholics in a death struggle over two incompatible ways of life.” There is no getting around the fact that the only foreign power to recognize the Confederacy and receive its envoys was the Vatican from whose vantage point in the already-threatened papal states the issues could be distinguished with excessive clarity. When the U.S. authorities remonstrated with the Vatican, Secretary of State Cardinal Antonelli, for providing asylum to Confederates, according to an official report, the Cardinal replied that he intended to take such rebels under his special protection. Mary Surratt’s son, John, sought for complicity in Lincoln’s assassination, was even admitted into the papal states.

A physician friend recently sent me a most significant document. It is an article entitled The Vatican and Russia, by Deacon Herman Ivanov Treenadzaty, of the St. Nicholas Parish in Lyon, France. It opens to us a field of view of Rome’s activity with reference to Russia for hundreds of years. You see, ever since the split with Eastern Orthodoxy in A.D. 1054, Rome has been the implacable enemy of Greek and Russian Orthodoxy. This man, obviously a Russian Orthodox cleric living in Lyon, France, delivered the lecture in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, at the 24th Russian Youth Congress in the Jubilee Year of the Millennium of the Baptism of Rus’. He states, “It appears to us that Roman Catholicism is a great danger, threatening both present and future Russia; more dangerous than communism which is already on the decline.” And I would submit that it would not be so much on the decline as might be thought. It is assuming a new form because Rome has, in its encyclical, indicated that she is not in favor of the Stalinistic type of communistic or the laissez faire capitalism, but wants a middle path between the two. Quoting from Dostoyevesky, a Russian writer. He states that, “Roman Catholicism is more dangerous than atheism since it presents to us a profane and desecrated Christ, usurping the earthly throne. The pope took the sword and added lies, intrigue, deception, fanaticism and villiany.” Ivanov then comments that Catholicism is dangerous precisely because it offers a counterfeit Christ.

Ivanov reviewed hundreds of years of Russian history with reference to all of the political, psychological, and diplomatic efforts that the Vatican has made to try to overthrow Orthodoxy in Russia, showing how the Vatican has tried to rewrite the history of the introduction of Christianity to Russia. He reveals how propaganda was introduced through the media in Russia to try to destabilize the situation and pave the way for the Vatican to increase its power there. And even this current pope, today, is part of this picture, he points out. Soon after the overthrow of the czar Nicholas II in 1917, the Fatima visions which have indicated that if certain conditions were fulfilled, Russia would be converted to the papacy. It is now believed that those conditions have been met and that Perestroika is the conversion of Russia to the papacy.

All this sheds light on the gigantic struggle between Orthodoxy and the papacy. It reveals that though historians believed that the Crimean War was largely a human, political, and inter-governmental war, the archbishop of Paris, at the start of the Crimean War, declared that “it is a sacred deed, a God-pleasing deed, to ward off the Orthodox heresy, subjugate, and destroy it with a new crusade. This is the clear goal of today’s crusade. Such was the goal of all the crusades, even if all their participants were not fully aware of it. The war which France is now preparing to wage against Russia is not a political war, but a holy war. It is not a war between two governments or between two peoples, but it is precisely a religious war and other reasons presented are only pretext.” And then he comments that the case could not be more clearly stated.

He pointed out that the Vatican found the destruction of the czar, who had been the protector of Orthodoxy, and the Bolshevik Revolution a great opportunity to gain control in Russia and how disappointed they were when things did not work out the way that they had expected. And yet, they felt that somehow communism could alter the whole picture in Russia so that ultimately the Vatican could move in and take advantage of the devastation wrought by communism.

Why is this so significant? Well, by the early 1980s, more than half of the Orthodox priests in Eastern Europe were prepared to accept the primacy of the pope; and Rome realized that the time had come to strike. Using the solidarity Labor Union, which had been largely developed and fostered by the papacy, she began a chain of evolution in Eastern Europe that toppled one government after another with breath-taking speed.

Rome wants to radicalize nations, to drive them into left wing and right wing, and then, out of the insecurity that develops because of the contending factions, she feels that she can take advantage of the situation to impose a new order. This is exactly what took place in pre-war Germany. The communists were fighting the Free Corps which ultimately became the Nazi Wehrmacht. Both national socialism in Germany and international socialism in Russia had the same common basis. Friederick A. Hayek, an Austrian-born author who was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974, has written several volumes exposing how the very principles that led to Nazism’s triumph in Germany and Stalinist communism’s triumph in Germany and Stalinist communism’s triumph in Russia are at work in the Western countries through socialism. We are now, in our nation, going into an enormous plunge of socialism based upon the thinking that has been developed in the Institute of Policy Studies. The social security card which was to be kept inviolately secret when it was introduced, never to be known publicly, has now essentially become our national ID card. Now, when through a health care program you have to fill out forms in order to get any medical assistance, delineating every aspect of your life, and the government can begin to control people from birth to death, all your privacy is gone.

The Russian constitution, under the USSR, made provision for religious liberty; but it also stated that if the security of the state was at risk, then those liberties could be suspended in the name of protecting the state. The very same thing happened in World War II in America when tens of thousands of Japanese were interned under the Preamble of the Constitution that it was for the common good. Socialism has, at its basis, the basic Jesuit principle that the end justifies the means.

The European Community is headed by Jacques Delors who is a devout Roman Catholic. When he took control about ten or eleven years ago, he took the European Community from a state of shambles and made it into a very dynamic force. Now we have the North American Free Trade Agreement which is similar in nature.

We have had in our country, for decades now, the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. This organization is now exerting enormous influence in this country. In his book, Secret, F. Stephen Powell documents how the Institute for Policy Studies, started by a communist a number of decades ago, has now found hundreds of front organizations for influencing American policy. It reveals that some of the top advisors to Bill and Hillary Clinton are some of the chief figures in this organization which has worked closely with the KGB for years.

Speaking of the treaty-making power of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I say the same as to the opinions of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution.” On April 11, 1952, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said, “Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Constitution, treaties become the supreme law of the land. Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example can cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.” What better way to repudiate the Constitution than to bring in a whole new framework of law. How acquainted are you with the North American Free Trade Agreement? It was written in such ambiguous language that there is a ninety-man commission that will be required to interpret it. Does that sound familiar?

Do you remember what happened to the Bohemians? When Rome wanted to subjugate Bohemia, she brought against them the greatest forces in Europe. She marshaled all of the nations of Europe, virtually, against little Bohemia. She gave the promises of paradise to thieves and murderers and brigands if they would only join and fight against Bohemia and subjugate it for the papacy. But as long as the Bohemians were faithful to the Lord, they could not be overcome, even by the most mighty armies. But there came a day when Bohemia decided to enter into a treaty with Rome. Rome granted all kinds of liberties, but they reserved the right to interpret this treaty. Bohemia was thrown into civil war, and it was a great catastrophe.

Now think of a ninety-man commission, with thirty from Mexico, thirty from Canada, and thirty from the United States. What is the religion of Mexico? There is a large portion of Canada which is French Canadian, which is what religion? Much of the rest of Canada is Anglican which is a step-sister; in fact, Solange Hertz calls them Anglo-Catholics. And then there is the United States. What is the premier school that produces foreign service personnel, the excerpts on international law? Georgetown University, the premier Jesuit university form which Bill Clinton graduated. The administration has chosen to keep secret the names of the people who will be on the commission from United States. They were going to release, them, but then they decided to keep them secret.

Meanwhile, from the Washington Post, Sunday, April 17, 1994, I read, “Clinton Policy Allows Public Housing To Be Searched Without a Warrant.” As you know, this has becoming a growing issue. “The Clinton administration yesterday introduced a new policy to permit police without warrants to raid and search apartments in gang-ridden public housing, but said the plan will not violate the constitutional rights of tenants.”

Harry Martin, editor of the Napa Sentinal, who has been editor and involved in at least six different defense intelligence magazines, has released the contents of a secret memo from the White House regarding the plans of the Administration to completely exterminate private weapons ownership and even camouflage clothing, ultimately, or anything having to do with anything that will enable the citizenry to resist a tyrannical government. This is the very reason, according to our founding fathers, why the Second Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights.

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John F. Kennedy conceived of the plan for all of the armies of the world’s nations to be downscaled gradually, while an international force, such as the UN, would be continually building up and increasing in power. Now, as our nation’s military is scaled back, there are reports of foreign vehicles, foreign military aircraft, and other troops pouring in.

At the same time, we see the UN decide to invade Somolia without being asked to come, setting a precedent for UN intervention. We see environmental laws blanketing the globe and a call for an environmental police force to enforce this internationally.

We know, according to Revelation 17, that ultimately there will be a grand unity of the nations. “The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour as kings with the beast. These are of one mind, and they will give their power and authority to the beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.” Revelation 17:12-14

Commenting on this passage, the Spirit of Prophecy tells us, that, “‘These have one mind.’ There will be a universal bond of union, one great harmony, a confederacy of Satan’s forces. ‘And shall give their power and strength unto the beast.’ Thus is manifested the same arbitrary, oppressive power against religious liberty, freedom to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, as was manifested by the papacy, when in the past it persecuted those who dared to refuse to conform with the religious rites and ceremonies of Romanism. In the warfare to be waged in the last days there will be united, in opposition to God’s people, all the corrupt powers that have apostatized from allegiance to the law of Jehovah.” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 983

The law of Jehovah is the foundational question. The law of God is the expression of His character. It is the foundation of His government, and rebellion against His law is rebellion against God. “In this warfare the Sabbath of the fourth commandment will be the great point at issue; for in the Sabbath commandment the great Lawgiver identifies Himself as the Creator of the heavens and the earth.” Ibid., So we have been warned that there is going to be a grand confederacy at the end of time. There will be a grand union, a grand harmony of all of the forces opposed to God’s law; and it will ultimately come down to the testing of spiritual loyalty to God and to His law or else unity with these forces that have confederated themselves against the government of God.

“Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, the excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah.” Psalm 47:1-4. He is awesome in His power. His glory, and His majesty. He will arise one day and vindicate the honor of His law which has been violated by puny man. These little specks of dust down here think to enter into rebellion against the great King of the universe.

God calls upon us to have spiritual loyalty in these last days, to know our King, and to act upon His principles. For the gospel of Jesus Christ provides a solution for every human contingency that we may be called upon to face in these last days so that we may emerge as overcomers—more than overcomers—triumphant in Christ.

The End

What is Freedom? Are We Free?

by

There are some people in the United States of America who do not know the reason for the 4th of July celebration and from whom they gained independence. Many Americans are ignorant of their historical roots.

The Bible deals with three aspects of liberty and it would be wise to consider whether we truly have liberty and freedom in our own lives. It is possible to experience liberty even in the midst of lawlessness when our civil liberties are taken from us.

God has told His church that what was not done when there was opportunity in times of peace would have to be done under terrible conditions and even persecution.

The two founding documents of the United States are the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Notice in the following quotation that Ellen White lumps these two together because the Constitution is based upon the principles in the Declaration of Independence. If you attack one, you attack the other. She says, “In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as their bill of rights—the Declaration of Independence—they declared: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ And the Constitution guarantees, in the most explicit terms, the inviolability of conscience: ‘No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.’ ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ ” The Great Controversy, 295.

We always think of the Bill of Rights as the amendments to the constitution, but here these rights are tied in with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Christians will have to exercise their freedom of conscience when challenged personally over what God’s law says and what saith the state, called the image to the beast. “It (freedom of conscience) is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate. Congressional documents (U.S.A.), serial No. 200, document No. 271.” Ibid., 295.

Liberties will be eroded, but true liberty comes from God. The psalmist said, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts” (Psalm 119:45). Here David is referring to God’s law. Those who seek to know truth and obey God’s law walk in liberty. Precepts here means commandments. In the book of Psalms, particularly Psalm 119, God’s law, His ten commandments, are referred to in many different phrases and words such as precepts, or testimonies, or a law, word, or commandments.

While a fugitive, being hunted by Saul like a wild animal, David could still walk at liberty in his own heart. He could have freedom, knowing he was right with God, even though his personal rights were being taken from him.

The apostle James said that true freedom, or liberty, comes from walking in obedience to God’s law. He said, “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25 KJV). The apostle James calls the law a law of freedom.

Why would God’s law be seen as or described as a law of liberty? An examination of the ten commandments reveals that they were divided and written on two tables of stone, the first four on the first table of stone and the last six on the second table. God knew that the principles governing man’s relationship to Himself and to each other would have to be distinct and separate from one another, just as state and church are to be separate from one another.

The state has been given the responsibility of enforcing the last six commandments that deal with man’s responsibility to his fellow man, but religion has its part in the first table of the law, which deals with man’s relationship with God. The government has no right to infringe upon the first four commandments, which is why they were put on a separate table.

We also notice that within the commandments there are eight commandments of omission and two of commission. In eight commandments God reveals behaviors that are to be eliminated from each life. Freedom would be experienced if adultery, lying, stealing, and coveting other people’s things were eliminated. Many people think that keeping God’s law puts you in bondage, but that is just the opposite of what the Bible says.

An illustration was given of a pastor who asked a man who was smoking for a cigarette. The man had previously accused the minister of being in bondage to the law. On receiving it he put it into his mouth and asked for the lighter. When the lighter was about an inch away from his cigarette he said, “Nah!” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and gave back both the cigarette and lighter.

Then he said to the man, “Now, you do the same. I want you to put it down and never touch it again.”

“Oh, I can’t do that,” said the man.

“No!” said the pastor. “Who is really in bondage?”

You see, if anything has control of your life that does not give freedom and peace in your heart, then you are not at liberty. God’s law is a law of liberty. He says that if you omit the disruptive things from your life and then add the two commandments of commission, the Sabbath and give honor to your father and mother, then your days may be long on the land which the Lord gives you. You will experience complete freedom in your life. No matter what outward force may come against you, you will walk at liberty.

We have been told and can already see evidence that God’s law is going to be challenged in our own country and around the world, but we need not fear, for God is sovereign over all and still in charge.

James 2:10–12, literal translation says, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He that said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ said also, ‘Do not kill.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but if you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.” God’s law, the law of freedom, will one day judge us. Though you have complete freedom to do whatever you want to in this world, there are always consequences to doing what is contrary to God’s law.

The book The Man That Couldn’t Be Killed is a true story of a man who became a Seventh-day Adventist under Mao Se Tung, the late dictator in China. In his attempt to eradicate all religion, Mao Se Tung sent him to Siberia where the prisoners were forced to make the own prison. While it was being constructed, their accommodation was in caves. There was no need of barbed wire fences because any escape would mean certain death due to their isolation. Refusing to eat the pork that was served, he gave his portion to another prisoner. When the guards found out that he was refusing it, they held him down and shoved pork down his throat. Returning to his room, he stuck his finger in his mouth and gagged himself until the pork was regurgitated.

It would have been easy for him to eat it, as there was nothing else, but he could not do that because, though he was a prisoner, he was walking in God’s freedom. God wants to put us in perfect, total control of ourselves, where, if offered something that is appealing to our sinful human nature but contrary to God’s will, we will not accept it. We must be able to be trusted to be taken to heaven. Unless tried, how can God know who will give Him allegiance under every circumstance.

When we acknowledge our sins and defects of character and turn to Christ for the remedy, we will find that the law is not a law of bondage, but a law of freedom. God’s law is good. “Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin’ ” (John 8:34).

Friends, if you are enslaved to anything you eat, or drink, or to some activity you are engaged in, whether it be your cell phone, your Facebook account and you can’t get away from them, you are not free. Just try laying it aside for a week or two and see how you feel. National Public Radio did a study of everybody in their office, charging them not to look at Facebook for a week. There were some who could not last a couple of hours. In fact, two days is the most any went. Friends, do not be enslaved to anything in this world but experience complete freedom in Jesus.

Jesus said, “ ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed’ ” (John 8:34–36).

There is freedom in Christ. Does your temper enslave you? Do you find yourself impatient, or are you enslaved to evil thoughts? The devil wants to keep you enslaved to the habits you have formed over your life. Many people are enslaved to the bitterness of their own hearts. All they can talk about are the wrongs that somebody did to them in the past. Are you enslaved to those past experiences? Paul said, “Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13, 14).

The bitterness connected to being enslaved to the past will defile your own heart. Jesus said, “The Son will make you free” (John 8:36). All desire liberty, but few understand how to get it. In John 8:31 Jesus told the Jews that believed Him that they were enslaved with unbelief. They had hatred in their hearts and harbored jealous feelings. They were envious of Jesus’ ministry. Are these same things also in our lives?

God wants to give us liberty. Speaking about the year of Jubilee, it says in Leviticus 25:10, “And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.”

The famous landmark in the United States with this text written on the very top is the Liberty Bell, which became a rallying cry for slaves. Liberty was being proclaimed throughout all the land and the slaves said, “Hey, we are not free, and this is what you are proclaiming from the word of God?” They also wanted freedom.

“True liberty and independence are found in the service of God. His service will place upon you no restriction that will not increase your happiness.” Fundamentals of Christian Education, 88. It is not going to create unhappiness in your life when you are restricted from eating or drinking something, or thinking something, or participating in some activity contrary to God’s will, but it will increase your happiness in the service of God.

“In complying with His requirements, you will find a peace, contentment, and enjoyment that you can never have in the path of wild license and sin.” Ibid. You can not have peace, contentment, and enjoyment when you give yourself up to your own carnal, sinful nature. “Then study well the nature of the liberty you desire. Is it the liberty of the sons of God, to be free in Christ Jesus? or do you call the selfish indulgence of base passions freedom? Such liberty carries with it the heaviest remorse; it is the cruelest bondage.” Ibid.

There are terrible consequences of doing whatever you want without restraint.

Another interesting dichotomy of liberty is found in Daniel 6. It was the envy and jealousy of the governors of Persia that caused them to find an occasion against Daniel to go and tell the king that this man was unfaithful. How much did they find with Daniel to substantiate their claim? Not even one thing. They had to find something Daniel did that would be contrary to the king’s law. So they made a law that no one could pray to any god except the king for 30 days. Daniel was not fazed; he did not change the way he prayed to his God.  Three times a day, as his custom was, he opened his windows toward Jerusalem, and there he prayed (see Daniel 6:10). Daniel experienced perfect freedom, even though there was a law in force to restrict it. He experienced liberty and was in perfect freedom with Christ.

Joseph in Egypt was a slave working for Potiphar. Resisting the advances of Potiphar’s wife resulted in his being thrown in jail. However, he was still free in his heart, even though he was incarcerated and his liberty had been taken away.

Another aspect of freedom is found in 2 Corinthians 3. This describes the difference between the Spirit of life and the spirit of the letter of the law. Notice in verse 17, it says, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

In John 16 we are told a few things the Holy Spirit does in our lives that sets us free. He says, “Nevertheless I [Jesus] tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper, the Spirit, will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He is come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and judgment” (John 16:7, 8). There is liberating theology within this one text.

When the Holy Spirit comes and convinces of sin and that sin is confessed, there is freedom and liberty. The Holy Spirit then convicts of righteousness, to do what is right, and of judgment. There are consequences for sin and there may be some fixing up to do. The new birth experience is a process of liberty; it is freedom.

There is another function of the Holy Spirit: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will tell you things to come” (verse 13). The Spirit will guide you into truth. Truth is liberating. The opposite of truth is deception—error and lies. Truth will set you free from old deceptions. You cannot deceive God.

God said in Genesis 2:15 and 16 that if you eat of this tree you will die. In chapter 3 verses 1–3, the devil says the opposite of what God said in chapter 2. That was a lie. Eve deceived herself into believing that what the serpent said was actually true, that she would become like God, knowing good and evil. It is amazing that the devil can tell us just the opposite of what God’s word tells us, and we believe it as truth.

People deceive themselves all the time. If God says, “Don’t commit adultery,” somehow people have a text of Scripture to back up why it is acceptable. If God says, “Don’t lie,” they have a reason why they need to lie, some using Rahab as a reason why it is acceptable to lie in certain situations, when the Spirit of Prophecy says there is no situation under the heavens where we can lie. Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

If you know the truth and obey it, you will no longer be deceived. In The Great Controversy, 277, it says, “The spirit of liberty went with the Bible. Wherever the gospel was received, the minds of the people were awakened. They began to cast off the shackles that had held them bondslaves of ignorance, vice, and superstition.” These were shackles of ignorance. There were people in the time of Martin Luther who believed that if they paid for indulgences they would receive a little piece of paper saying their sins were forgiven. Martin Luther was outraged at this and preached what the Bible says—that you have to confess your sins to Jesus and have faith in Him and be forgiven. But they said, “No, I like my piece of paper better.” They were deceived; they were bond slaves of ignorance, vice and many other things. When the Spirit of Liberty went with the Bible, it set them free from all their superstitions. No longer would they believe that their departed little loved one was floating out on the fireflies at night in the summer wind. “They began to think and act as men. Monarchs saw it, and trembled for their despotism.” Ibid.

In The Review and Herald, December 14, 1911, we are told: “It was not the apostle’s work to overturn arbitrarily or suddenly the established order of society. To attempt this would be to prevent the success of the gospel.” This was referring to the slavery in the Roman Empire. Two thirds of the population were slaves and the other one third were the owners of the slaves. Paul’s work to overturn this arbitrarily would not have worked. “But he taught principles which struck at the very foundation of slavery, and which, if carried into effect, would surely undermine the whole system. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’ (2 Corinthians 3:17).” Ibid.

When the Holy Spirit is withdrawn from this earth, slavery and bondage will take its place. Ignorance, vice, and superstition will return with falsehood, deception and lies. We see this happening today, which tells us that the Spirit of God is being gradually withdrawn from this earth.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus, quoting from Isaiah 61, described His mission. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim deliverance (liberty) to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed … .” Christ’s main reason in coming to this world was to give us freedom, freedom from sin and deception. He came to bring truth. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).

“Through yielding to sin, man placed his will under the control of Satan. He became a helpless captive in the tempter’s power. God sent His Son into our world to break the power of Satan, and to emancipate the will of man.” Our High Calling, 104. To emancipate is to give freedom.

Dare to be a Daniel or a Joseph. They determined to do right even though they knew the consequences were dire. They would rather maintain their relationship with God through prayer and be thrown into a den of lions or into prison. That is being free in this world. God wants us to be able to stand fast in the liberty that Christ has given us to make us free. It is up to you and me whether we choose that freedom or not.

Just think what it would have been if there were not some men who were willing to sign that Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin said, “Well, if we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately.” And there were some men who were willing to do that and put their names on the document, whether or not it would cost them their lives. That is what is at stake in our world. These brave men pledged everything and we must do the same if we are looking for an eternal inheritance.

All quotes NKJV unless otherwise noted.

Mike Bauler was ordained into the ministry in 2005 and serves as pastor of the Historic Message Church in Portland, Oregon. Prior to locating in Portland, Pastor Bauler served as a Bible worker for Steps to Life Ministries. His goal is to help give the gospel to the greater Portland area with an emphasis in helping his Bible students discover the truths in Bible prophecy, which are so often neglected today. His wife, Amanda, a family nurse practitioner, and their daughters assist him in his ministry.