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Part 9 (LAST DAY EVENTS)
So far in this study of the order of last day events, we have noted that the Image of the Beast is a landmark in the unrolling of the prophetic scroll. It is accomplished when the churches, having secured the support of the power of the State, have the National Sunday Law passed and enforced. Such an act, we learned, would bring about national ruin. It will have brought the powers of church and state to the point of no return and there will be left only the calling out of the true children of God before the judgments on Babylon fall in deadly earnest and destroy her completely.
Such a point of disaster will not have been reached in a moment. Rather, it is the outworking of certain forces over quite a period of time and the object of our study at the moment is to understand this outworking, so that we can follow it as it develops and know that all things are at hand in the final finishing movements of this earth's history.
We are fortunate that already such an outworking has taken place as we have already seen from the words of The Great Controversy, 443,444, the development of the Beast before it. There we read, "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 of Rev.13:1-10. So apostasy in the church will prepare the way for the Image of the Beast."
The word "so" means, "in just the same way." This then is but to say that as the apostasy in the early church led to the rise of the papacy, so, in exactly the same way, apostasy in the modern church will lead to the rise of the Image of the Beast. This is the very thing that is happening and is in fact well advanced to the full outworking of the evil thing that it is.
Having seen then in our last chapter, the history of the development of the rise of the apostasy and the consequent rise of the beast in the early centuries, let us now study the step by step development of the rise of the apostasy in the modern church which will lead to the rise of the Image of the Beast in this our day.
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So far in this study of the order of last day events, we have noted that the Image of the Beast is a landmark in the unrolling of the prophetic scroll. It is accomplished when the churches, having secured the support of the power of the State, have the National Sunday Law passed and enforced. Such an act, we learned, would bring about national ruin. It will have brought the powers of church and state to the point of no return and there will be left only the calling out of the true children of God before the judgments on Babylon fall in deadly earnest and destroy her completely.
Such a point of disaster will not have been reached in a moment. Rather, it is the outworking of certain forces over quite a period of time and the object of our study at the moment is to understand this outworking, so that we can follow it as it develops and know that all things are at hand in the final finishing movements of this earth's history.
We are fortunate that already such an outworking has taken place as we have already seen from the words of The Great Controversy, 443,444, the development of the Beast before it. There we read, "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 of Rev.13:1-10. So apostasy in the church will prepare the way for the Image of the Beast."
The word "so" means, "in just the same way." This then is but to say that as the apostasy in the early church led to the rise of the papacy, so, in exactly the same way, apostasy in the modern church will lead to the rise of the Image of the Beast. This is the very thing that is happening and is in fact well advanced to the full outworking of the evil thing that it is.
Having seen then in our last chapter, the history of the development of the rise of the apostasy and the consequent rise of the beast in the early centuries, let us now study the step by step development of the rise of the apostasy in the modern church which will lead to the rise of the Image of the Beast in this our day.
ab