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Omega Productions

All the World Marveled

G. Edward Reid

Preparing For the Lion’s Den

Unmistakable Signs Of the End

Preparing For the Last Temptation

What I'm telling you now, I'm telling you sincerely because I love you guys and I want you to be aware of what's happening and its significance.

So, I'm going to read a statement to you that you understand is true.

You can find it in 7th volume of Bible Commentary, 976, paragraph 9.

It's also in the signs of the times, May 6, 1897.

I'm going to read this statement 2 or 3 times this afternoon.

Trial and persecution will come on all who, in obedience to the word of God, refuse to worship this false Sabbath.

Now here's the sentence I want you to remember.

Force is the last resort of every false religion.

So you can understand that ISIS and that form of Islam is not a true religion or they wouldn't have to chop people's heads off.

The same can be said about the Roman Catholic Church and the millions of people that they killed, their only crime being they wouldn't bow to the Pope.

So it's a false religion, just from the start.

Okay, what we're going to look at this afternoon is something that will give you courage and confidence.

A lot of People are scared to their wits end when they hear about persecution, but I'm gonna show you reasons why it isn't and why God will be with us.

Has God promised to be with us in difficult times?

In the words of Paul, 2 Timothy, the third chapter, all that live godly in Christ will suffer persecution.

So how does a person prepare for such treatment?

I'm going to give you about 4 real quick stories so you can understand that people have gone through some very, very difficult times in the past.

Most of you have heard the story of Marie Duran, who was 15 years old.

She was honest, generous, and very much in love.

Now you must remember that in the days that Marie Duran was living that people typically got married about that age, girls that age, voluntarily, I must add, not forced into it by someone.

At any rate, she was looking for her wedding day with great anticipation, but the day never came because she rather spent her wedding day and many days after it in the most miserable prison in all of France.

Well, Marie's family had come under suspicion for being Protestants.

When soldiers arrived looking for her brother, he was not there, so they arrested Marie instead, and she was dragged off to the dreaded tower of Constance in South France, where she was to remain in stark isolation.

At any moment she could be free, rejoin her love, and begin the life that they had dreamed of together.

Instead, she etched in small letters on the rock walls of her cell, over and over again, the words, Resist.

Resist is precisely what she did, not for a day, not a month, or even a year, but for 37 years.

Even to that day, you can visit that prison and see those words on her cell walls.

By the way, it's kind of interesting that she was finally released in December of 1767, but her father and her husband-to-be had both been executed while she was incarcerated.

Belarus is a small country, formerly part of the Soviet Union, nestled between Russia and the Ukraine.

And from the Adventist Encyclopedia, we learn that Belarus Conference is a statement that says the work came to Belarus in 1924 with the establishment of the congregation in the country or county of Brest.

1 might wonder why they actually celebrated the 100th anniversary in 2006, because 1924 is not 100 years.

But we found something very interesting from this unique story, and it is this.

To human eyes, we don't always see what God sees.

And so happens the word did begin earlier in Belarus than is known by our records.

It was only after the breakup of the Soviet Union that there was access to government documents and historians were able to find out that the government files showed there were Seventh-day Adventists in Belarus as early as 1906.

1 of the reasons we don't have in our own archives the records of those early years is that it was during that time the Russian Empire, when anyone followed any kind of religion was a worshiper of God, he was put under such great suspicion and the leaders of our church and various parts of the Empire were often sent off to what they called reorientation camps in the far north of Siberia.

Apparently that's what happened to a number of our own leaders.

There's 1 little short story that comes from that period And it was a pioneer worker, Mr.

Lebsack, started to work in the area of what is now Belarus.

He set up a few small companies of believers, traveled around giving Bible studies and training people, always under the threat of being arrested.

1 day as he was meeting with a group of believers, the security forces came and took him.

As they were escorting him down the center aisle, he called back to the believers, Continue after I am gone.

Why did this man suffer persecution, separation from friends and family?

Why did he have to die far away from the notice of society?

He suffered indignity and death because of his religious convictions, but he stood firm for God.

That's what we're going to talk about this afternoon.

Jesus said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

So The words of the pioneer pastor from Belarus repeated the truth of that statement, the work of God is like a river, it cannot be stopped.

There's hardly a person in this room who has not heard of John Hus.

Very interestingly, 1 of the first reformers, Remember that Martin Luther was in the 1500s.

He became a Roman Catholic priest in Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic.

He was a reformer and a master or teacher at Charles University in Prague.

After John Wycliffe, the theorist, by the way, who was the ecclesiastical reformation leader, Huss is considered the first church reformer, and he lived, of course, before Luther and Calvin and Zwingli.

But he was a Protestant, and it's very, very interesting that when he began to preach that the just shall live by faith that struck terror in the hearts of the Roman church because that would take away people from their support and the doctrines of fear that they had.

The church, the Roman church has announced that next year will be a year of forgiveness and a year of mercy in the Roman Catholic Church.

I mean, this has been in the news and everything.

The most amazing thing about it is I just got in my last issue of Our Sunday Visitor that the year of our mercy has for sale indulgences.

So you can be forgiven of any sin and they're for sale.

Early on, Huss had stood alone in his labors, but finally he was joined by Jerome, who had been in England and accepted the teachings of John Wycliffe.

By the way, at this time in history there were 3 popes now contending for the supremacy and they strife filled Christendom with crime and tumult not content with hurling anathemas they resorted to temporal weapons by the way all 3 called the other the Antichrist the only time they've ever spoken the truth it's interesting the gifts the offices the blessing to the church were offered for sale And to cure the evils that were distracting the church in Europe, a general council was summoned to meet in Constance in Germany.

The council was called for the desire of the Empress Agusman by 1 of the 3 popes, John XXIII.

And interestingly enough, the chief object was to be accomplished in the council was to get out of the schism to have only 1 pope and to root out heresy.

So they invited John Hus to come because he was considered a heretic, and they wanted to hear about him.

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All the World Marveled

Preparing For the Lion’s Den

Transcript

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