How to have salvation in Christ during the future persecutions of God’s church.

<p>How to have salvation in Christ during the future persecutions of God’s church.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Eric Walsh

The Pandemic of Persecution - Part 2

Father God, we thank you Lord for this opportunity to just to study your word today.

We know Lord what is going on in the world, and we Lord understand the times that we are in.

But Lord, we are asking today for an extra outpouring of your Holy Spirit.

Instead Father God, I pray that you, Lord just give a word, and this is our prayer in your precious and holy name.

I'm making sure that everyone that we've invited is on.

I think everybody's doing good on that end.

Revelation 6 in verse 7 says, and when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see.

And I looked and behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was death and hell followed with him.

Power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth.

In part 1, we talked a bit about the seals.

This fourth seal represents the condition of the church during the Dark Ages.

It would cover into Thyatira and even Sardis and some scholars would argue.

And we can see that only destruction is coming at this time.

At this point, papal Rome has also become temporal Rome, meaning that the little horn power now has political power as well as religious power.

And what the Bible says here, John writes, is that in fact, they're given power over the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword and with hunger and with death and with the beasts of the earth.

What's fascinating about this is that when it says and with death, that word death in the Greek is thanatos.

It is interesting because it is the word for death.

So it says that this pale horse kills with death.

What also is interesting is that that word thanatos is where Marvel Comics got the word Thanos from, which is their major villain that they've had for many of their movies.

And here you can see that this concept, this idea of death riding a horse was very important in understanding the seal.

So when we look at a little bit more about what the conditions were during this time, 2 Thessalonians 2, 3, 4, and 7 says, "'Let no man deceive you by any means, "'for that day shall not come "'except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Paul says in verse 7 of 2 Thessalonians 2, for the mystery of iniquity doth already work.

Only he who now let us will let until he be taken out of the way.

And remember in the first seal is a white horse and it goes forth conquering to conquer.

And this is the early church up to around a hundred AD as the gospel is spread like crazy.

But even then Paul was warning them that iniquity, the mystery of iniquity was already beginning to work in the church.

And he was warning that 1 day it'd be this great falling away.

Revelation 6 and verse 9 says, and when he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar, the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.

And they cried with a loud voice saying, how long O Lord, holy and true, thus thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth.

When the fifth seal opens, something powerful has begun to happen.

Just as the blood of righteous Abel cried out to God for justice in Genesis.

And this time, you can hear, as it were, those that were slain.

And this is not that there are ghosts floating around, but this is the principle that when injustice is done, God hears and understands the circumstance and God wants to deal with that injustice.

And the scripture says that they cried with a loud voice, how long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth.

Prophetically, 1 of the things that happens is the Protestant Reformation.

We have an image here of Martin Luther, who is credited with starting the Reformation.

But actually, there were reformers before him.

And all of a sudden, there is a certain amount of vindication that begins to happen for those who have been martyred under the papal rule of the Dark Ages because all of a sudden they begin to realize that in fact, as we studied in Sabbath school this morning, it is sola scriptura.

And once we start to hold up the Bible, the falling away and the lies and the erroneous teachings begin to become more and more evident.

But of course, we know that there was a deadly wound that was given to this little horn power, to this beast.

And that was when in 1798, the Napoleon's general birth year, arrested Pope Pius VI, took him into captivity where he died, and established a republic in Italy.

Napoleon saw the world a bit differently, and there's a lot of conversation that it's had about that, but it was the prophetic time for it to happen.

This was the official end to the Dark Ages, as many historians would say, but it was also a time that transitioned things in the world, as we're about to see.

So 1 of the things that's interesting is that during that dark age, is the 1260 years that we talked about in the first part of this message, last week I talked about it, is that the Pope has now come out and apologized for killing Protestants.

This is from the Trumpet Magazine, the journal, out of the Pope has said, listen, you know, we're sorry.

After 500 years, this is basically on the anniversary of the Reformation.

After 500 years, the Pope aims to end the biggest split in Christendom, a development that would radically expand the prestige and reach of the Catholic church.

And so people say, well, you know, this is benevolence, but these authors say, no, This is about expanding reach and power.

From this article, there are 2 people talking.

There's the writer and then he's quoting a lot, Herbert Armstrong from a July 1961 Plain Truth magazine article.

Hard to toggle back and forth and understand it all, But here's what it says.

It says, the trumpet has long said that the Catholic church would play a major role in unifying Europe.

Once again, the only unifying authority which the coming 10 nations of Roman Catholic Europe can accept is the Pope of Rome.

And that was written by Herbert Armstrong, that quoted part back in 1961 in Plain Truth magazine.

And then the author of the Trumpet magazine article says, even back then, Mr.

Armstrong saw the potential for religious unity and political unity to be linked.

This was even before the Vatican II Council, the famous Catholic meeting that revolutionized the church's approach to outside groups and began laying the groundwork for the type of unity the church is seeking now.

So they had been working on this for decades.

The nations of Europe want to go together, yet they are competitive against each other.

The common market is knocking down the chief competitive barrier trade.

He wrote in the same article, speaking to the 1963 article, another serious barrier has been religion.

Protestants have been unwilling to submit to the authority of the Pope, but that barrier too is fast crumbling.

Everywhere there is a relaxing of Protestant opposition against the Roman Catholic Church.

And so they start to talk about what was happening, this is back in the 60s, in the move towards ecumenicalism.

Today, both economic and religious barriers to a united Europe are greatly weakened.

He wrote way back in the 60s, the Pope is the 1 political leader who can demolish the political barrier, the stage is set.

All that is needed is a new fear for their common safety from Russia.

And what I want you to see is fear is used to move forward agendas.

In a pandemic of persecution, fear, a tidal wave of fear will sweep over people.

And what will happen is that because of fear, you can get people to give up their rights, to unify with folk they otherwise wouldn't unify with.

And I want you to understand as Christians there's a reason 2nd Timothy 1 7 says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

And the reason that the Bible says this is Because the Bible, God is trying to get us to understand through the scripture that if we allow fear to rule in us, we give the devil an advantage.

And even as this pandemic rages across the world, and even as the deaths pile up, we must not live in fear.

Because fear is not just the anti-thesis of faith.

The Bible says that perfect love casts out all fear.

We are experiencing God's love, we don't live in fear, because fear is what the devil is gonna use to move forward his agenda in these last days.

The super state that the European Union at least want to create is not possible without some kind of heritage.

And this is from the article, the more modern article writer, which is why we see it on the brink of collapse today.

Only the Catholic church can provide that heritage, having close relations with Europe, other major churches is a necessary precondition.

Armstrong pointed out, That is already in place.

No major religious, I want you to hear this clear at 7.30 minutes.

No major religious group in Europe opposes the Catholic Church or the Pope in principle.

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The Pandemic of Persecution - Part 2

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