We Have Not Been Called to Convert
After all, we have not been called to convert people; God has not been calling us to convert people. No! It says we are to preach the message and to publish the message. That is what God has been telling us.
We put our ad in the Fresno Bee awhile ago, and a Roman Catholic priest wrote us a letter, dated April 4, 2000.
Look at the reasoning he gives for opposing this message, this ad. He says, “I am a Catholic priest who was engaged in interface dialog for many years. It always pains me to see the promotion of an anti-ecumenical divisive spirit such as displayed in your organization’s recent full-page advertisement published in the Fresno Bee.”
Brothers and sisters, when I read letters like this, I say to myself, what would the people today do to Christ if He were to come back to earth? Crucify Him again? He said it pains him—it gives him a lot of pain—because this is not ecumenical. But if you read the Bible, forget about the Spirit of Prophecy for a moment, let us just consider the Bible, where can we find the spirit of ecumenism in the Bible? The Bible says, to each one of us, to call God’s people to come out of her (Babylon) (See Revelation 18:4.) That is not being ecumenical. I think it is just the opposite.
Heritage Denied
And yet, the next day the Seventh-day Adventist pastor of a church of about 1,400 members, put a letter in the Fresno Bee. Now, by the way, this pastor happens to be a friend of mine. He has stayed in my home in the past. He has preached in my church before, and he is fully bilingual. He is the pastor of the English church in Fresno.
In the letter he said, “Oh, do not be alarmed. That is not a Seventh-day Adventist. We are the Seventh-day Adventists in Fresno. Those people are from Florida, and they are being sued already by our church.”
I do not understand it, my brothers and sisters. But do you know what? Praise the Lord!
To offset a letter like that, we got another letter from an ex-Roman Catholic Monsignor. He has not only accepted the Sabbath already, but he also spoke out on the radio program that we had a few weeks ago in South Florida. He said that he knew that something was wrong with his church. After 40 years working under the Roman Catholic Church as a priest and as a Catholic Monsignor, he knew something was wrong.
This man said that he read the ad a couple of years ago in the L. A. Times, and that for two years he was debating inside of his heart whether he was going to accept this or not. A couple of months ago he decided to give me a call. He had read The Great Controversy that we sent him.
He came on the radio program in Spanish, he is from Spain, and he publicly said that he has not only accepted the Sabbath, but he is also willing to start working with us. We have to pray for that man. He was revealing things on the radio program that shocked me! I thought we were talking plainly, but he was revealing things that made us tremble.
He said, “The sad part is that even the Seventh-day Adventist Church which God has called to give this message, does not realize that they are being used as an instrument of the Vatican by persecuting people like you.” That was a monsignor talking on the radio. His name is Raphael also. So now there are two Raphael’s giving the message in America!
Persecution About to Begin
The time is not far, brothers and sisters, when we are going to see a world criminal court being implanted on this earth. Look what the Roman Catholic newspaper, April 13, 2000, came out with in Florida. “Pope Urges United Nations to Promote Holistic Vision of Development.” There are pictures of John Paul II with the Secretary of the United Nations, and it says, “John Paul II greets United Nations Secretary General.” Then, at the Vatican on June 15, 2000, he opened a worldwide conference seeking to establish the first permanent global criminal court.
Do you know where the central criminal court is going to be? In Rome. They are not hiding it any more. They know that they even have the Seventh-day Adventist structure on their side. You can imagine who they are going to be trying.
The question that I want to put to you is, Do you see the urgency, brothers and sisters, to wake up the people? Wake up not only the media. I praise the Lord that the men in the media have been telling me, “As we see the development of this nation trying to repudiate the principles of our Constitution, we are going to be standing on your side very soon.” Men in the media! We are praying for those men. They are waiting to see the final development of all these things that are taking place today.
Suppressing the Message
And while this is happening, the church, the structure, the organization that God raised up to give this message, is trying to suppress the message. It is like in Jesus’ time. It is a mystery. No wonder Jesus was trying to draw His people away from the structure.
The disciples were trying to bring Jesus to the structure. Look at the structure! Look at the building! Look at the beauty of the building! It is the same thing today. Look at the structure. Look at Loma Linda. Look at White Memorial. Look at the Review and Herald. The same thing.
Christ Jesus is trying to tell us, “No, forget about the structure. Come to Me. Follow Me. I am the way. I am the life. I am the gate. Follow Me.” We are so far off, brothers and sisters. We have to ask the Lord each day for discernment. It is so deep, the apostasy, today.
In the Catholic newspaper, April 27, 2000, it says, “Pope calls for a New World Order. Surrounded by a multitude of Jubilee Year Pilgrims, Pope John Paul celebrated the holiest day of the Christian Calendar with a call for a New World order.” The pope is speaking more clearly than ever.
Who do you think the leader of that New World Order is going to be? The pope, of course. That has been their aim for many years. They have been waiting to give the last strike against people.
Remember when the pope went to Israel not too long ago? (March 2, 2000.) Two years ago we read his famous letter on the Sunday, Dominus Dei Domini. Now John Paul II, at Mount Sinai, calls for a return to universal moral law.
How Long Before We Wake?
What is the universal moral law to which he is trying to return? You know, brothers and sisters, when I read all these things happening today, I ask myself, How long are God’s people going to wait to wake up and give this message like never before?
People have been asking me, “Are you not afraid, seeing that even in Florida the Catholic Church leads? According to them, there are several agencies that they need to be watching in America. On the top of the list is the Eternal Gospel Church.
Do you know what, brothers and sisters? The Bible tells us that we should not fear man, but we should fear God. (See Ecclesiastes 12:13.) As long as we do God’s work and God’s will and surrender ourselves to Him every day, we have nothing to fear. All these threats are nothing. It does not matter.
That is why I can tell you, with a clear conscience, yes, we have to be wise as serpents. We are to take some precautions, you know. But the Lord is the one who has to be in control of our life.
God is in control. He has to be in control. In the meantime, we have to do His will, His work. Forget about what His enemies are trying to do to destroy us.
A few days ago I was given material from my brother who was researching the possibility of an environmental Sabbath. Remember 1992? There was a big meeting in Brazil, and the participants set aside an environmental Sunday for that weekend. This brother gave me some information that I was kind of skeptical of at the beginning, but he also gave me a phone number and he said, “I want you to call.” I guess he noticed that I was not too sure what he was telling me was the truth.
So he said, “If you want, you can call yourself.” The name of the organization was International Organization for Standardization. Have you heard of that? It is some kind of governmental agency that has to do with the calendar and the time, sun timing, and all those things. So I called them and I said to them, “Is it true that you have a web site in which you are presenting the idea of trying to implement a new calendar in America?”
The man said, “Well, if you want to check all our information, I can give you the web site.”
I said, “Okay, give me the web site.”
A New Calendar
So they gave me the web site, and I found that they are trying to bring in a world calendar. You see, most of the countries already have Sunday as the seventh day and Monday as the first day of the week. Spain and most of the Latin American countries are like that.
But they are trying to introduce the idea that Monday is the first day officially and Sunday is the seventh day. Even though we can go to the Bible and prove that Sunday is the first day, many people do not care about the Bible, you know.
Under this calendar—remember this is a government agency—it says, this PFC calendar object displays the days of the week, Monday through Sunday. According to the International Organization of Standardization, IOS, Monday is the first day of the week. The purpose for this extension is to allow the calendar object to comply with standardization.
And then it presents the new calendar. I was told by the brother who gave me all of this information, that the idea of the Y2K “scare” thing was just a smoke screen. They wanted time to have this calendar established.
It was interesting to see, on the web site of this governmental agency, that piece of information.
In The Keys of This Blood, Malachi Martin says (paraphrasing) that the Pope has to use whatever must be used to bring in this New World Order—even fixing the timetable. In the End Game, according to Malachi Martin, the End Game follows a new calendar.
Martyrs for Christ
You know, he died from a heart attack in 1999. I believe that this man was maybe revealing too many things that he knew were coming, things that the establishment did not want him to reveal. He died unexpectedly.
I had the ex-Catholic Jesuit priest, Alberto Rivera, on my radio program a couple of times, and we became quite close to each other. We shared information for a few years. One day his wife called me. She was crying; she was desperate. She said, “I am calling you to let you know what they did to my husband.”
I said, “What are you talking about?”
She said, “My husband was killed. He was poisoned a couple of days ago.”
I said, “What are you talking about? Who did it?”
She said, “Who else?”
I said, “But do you know where he was poisoned?”
She said, “We had an idea but . . .”
I said, “Well, if you had an idea, then why do you not start a legal action in this?”
“No, no, you do not understand”, she said. “You do not know; you do not understand yet how hard it is in the situation that we are in. I am just letting you know to please take care of yourself. I am going away to another state.”
This lady has been hiding since then. It is sad to see such happenings in a free country. This man was revealing too much.
If I can just accomplish one thing for you as you read this article, it would be that you feel the urgency of the hour, the need to see this work proclaimed unto the ends of the earth. If God does not give you the calling to go yourself, at least try to see the need for support that this work might move forward.
Tried for God’s Glory
I want to review with you a statement that I think is more relevant today than it was 100 years ago when Sister White wrote it. This is a matter of religious freedom. This is a matter of God’s Word being involved. She said, “We are not doing the will of God if we sit in quietude, doing nothing to preserve liberty of conscience.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 714.
Some sincere brethren have asked me, “Is it worth it to be involved in this lawsuit?”
Sometimes I answer; sometimes I stay quiet. But I have not started a lawsuit. I am being taken to court. It is different. When I think about Jesus, He could very well have prevented my being taken to court. But He did not prevent it. He Himself went to court.
And Paul not only allowed himself to be taken to court, but he appealed to the highest court. So, I do not know how we see all this, but God is telling us that we are not doing the will of God if we sit in quietude and say, “Okay, so they took you to court.”
You know they give you 20 days to answer, and one man even called me to say, “Do not worry about that. Throw that in the garbage.”
If you throw the summons in the garbage, like he was telling me, you will be picked up by an officer after the 20 days, because you will be in violation of the law. You have to answer this type of a thing. It is not a matter of choice. And we are called to preserve liberty of conscience.
We know that there is going to be trouble later; we know that. But can you think of how many people are going to come into the knowledge of the message by doing what God tells us to do?
Great Loss to be Suffered
Let me share this quote from Testimonies, vol. 5, 715, 716. It says, “If the leading men in our conferences [I want you to pay attention to this because this is a clear picture of what is going on today within the leadership of the conferences. They are not only denying the message but also persecuting the people who are giving the message.] do not now accept the message sent them by God, and fall into line for action, the churches will suffer great loss. [We have seen that for many years.] “When the watchman, seeing the sword coming, gives the trumpet a certain sound, the people along the line will echo the warning, and all will have opportunity to make ready for the conflict.”
Are we willing to come into line with the watchman to give the warning that God has for mankind? Or are we going to entertain ourselves and appease our conscience by saying, “Well, that is God’s work. Let me try to work out my salvation by myself or my little group, my little church, my little ministry?”
Again, the calling of God is more than that. “The people along the line will echo.” We need people who will be willing, for God’s sake, to come along the line and echo the cry of the watchman. All have an opportunity to make ready for the conflict.
“But too often the leader has stood hesitating, seeming to say: Let us not be in too great haste. [Let us pray first. I have heard people pray for seven years already, trying to start doing something, and they are still praying. Do you know what? The time of probation will close and we will still be praying, trying to get into line and do the watchman’s work.] There may be a mistake.” Ibid., 715.
“Well, we will see.” I had a man, not too long ago say to me that he took the whole afternoon, and after he reviewed the Earth’s Final Warning ad, he said, “You know what? I have to admit it to you. This is the first time I have read it all. It is 99 percent the Word of God.” The other 1 percent, of course, is quoting from the Catholic Church, so we put it over on a different page.
How long do we have to do God’s work? How long? Look at what it says:
“‘There may be a mistake. We must be careful not to raise a false alarm.’ The very hesitancy and uncertainty on his part is crying: “Peace and safety.” Do not get excited. Be not alarmed. There is a great deal more made of this religious amendment question than is demanded. This agitation will all die down. Thus he virtually denies the message sent from God, and the warning which was designed to stir the churches fails to do its work. The trumpet of the watchman gives no certain sound, and the people do not prepare for the battle. Let the watchman beware lest, through his hesitancy and delay, souls shall be left to perish, and their blood shall be required at his hand.” Ibid., 715, 716.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus spoke very clearly. The last sign, the specific sign that will bring the end to this world, is the publishing of this gospel. God is waiting for a people to be ready, yes, to be translated to heaven, but those people have to do a work in this earth. If we do not do it, who is going to do it? If we do not do it now, when are we going to do it? God help us to be faithful to the calling of the great watchman, who is Christ. We are just fellow watchmen with Him. God bless you as you prepare to meet thy God.