The Second Advent Movement—A Message against the Beast and His Image

Notes

How wide-spread is the influence of the Papacy? Rev. 13:8. How wide-spread is the influence of the two-horned beast? Verse 14. How wide-spread should be the Threefold Message against the beast and his image?

A person or an organization may show disregard of, and even contempt for, God's law by refusing to obey it, but one exalts himself above God by attempting to change His law.

Worship and service are the same (Matt. 4:10), and therefore the call to the true worship of God means a restoration of the true service of God which has been displaced by the worship and service of the beast and his image.

The Son of God is God both in His character and in the very nature of His being. Read Heb. 1:8 and John 1:1. The union of His divinity with humanity constitutes the mystery of godliness. In the mystery of iniquity, the man of sin sets himself forth as God, claiming to be the vicegerent of the Son of God. This is Satan's great counterfeit.

A changed law can not witness to the righteousness of God. Perfect righteousness demands a perfect law.

The character and government of God are at stake in the message against the beast and his image.

"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. 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.' In order for the United States to form an image of the beast, the religious power must so control the civil government that the authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish her own ends. . . . 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.' So apostasy in the church will prepare the way for the image of the beast. And the Bible declares that before the coming of the Lord there will exist a state of religious declension similar to that in the first centuries."—" Great Controversy," pages 444, 445.

"After the warning against the worship of the beast and his image, the prophecy declares, 'Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.' Since those who keep God's commandments are thus placed in contrast with those that worship the beast and his image and receive his mark, it follows that the keeping of God's law, on the one hand, and its violation, on the other, will make the distinction between the worshipers of God and the worshipers of the beast. The special characteristic of the beast, and therefore of his image, is the breaking of God's commandments. Says Daniel of the little horn, the Papacy, 'He shall think to change times and the law.' And Paul styled the same power 'the man of sin,' who was to exalt himself above God. One prophecy is a complement of the other. Only by changing God's law could the Papacy exalt itself above God; whoever should understandingly keep the law as thus changed would be giving supreme honor to that power by which the change was made."—Id., page 446. The commandments of God are righteousness (Ps. 119:172), and the experience of keeping them is the experience of righteousness. Deut. 6:25. But it is by faith that the law of God is kept (Rom. 3:31), and therefore that which marks the distinction between the worshipers of the beast and the worshipers of God is the keeping of the commandments of God—righteousness by faith; and the message against the beast and his image must be the message of righteousness by faith.