FRIDAY MORNING MANNA
February 20, 2015
Nathaniel Fajardo
Biblical Numerology: NUMBER TWO – Part XXIV
ATHEISTICAL FRANCE’S WAR AGAINST THE TWO WITNESSES – Part V
And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendedth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them and kill them. 8 And their bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified. Rev. 11: 7, K.J.V.
“In the year 1793 . . . the gospel was, by a solemn act of the Legislature and the people abolished in France . The indignities offered to the actual copies of the Bible were unimportant after this; their life is in their doctrines, and the extinction of the doctrines is the extinction of the Bible. By the decree of the French Government, declaring that the nation acknowledged no God, the Old and New Testament wereslain throughout the limits of Republican France. But contumelies to the Sacred Books could not have been wanting, in the general plunder of every place of worship. In Lyons they were dragged at the tail of an ass in a procession through the streets . . . .
‘’On the 1st of November, 1793, Gobet, with the Republican priests of Paris , had thrown off the gown, and abjured Religion. On the 11th a ‘Grand Festival’, dedicated to ‘Reason and Truth, was celebrated in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which had been desecrated, and been named ‘the Temple of Reason ;’ a pyramid was erected in the center of the Church, surmounted by a temple, inscribed ‘To philosophy.’ The torch of ‘Truth’ was on the altar of ‘Reason’ spreading light, etc. The National Convention and all the authorities attended at this burlesque and insulting ceremony.’ [George Croly, The Apocalypse of St. John , pp. 175-177.]
“Spiritual Sodom . —“ ‘Spiritually’ this power ‘is called Sodom .’ What was the characteristic sin of [ancient] Sodom ? Licentiousness. Did France have this character? She did; fornication was established by law during the period spoken of. ‘Spiritually’ the place was ‘where our Lord was crucified.’ Was this true in France ? It was, in more senses than one. First, in 1572 was plot was laid in France to destroy all pious Huguenots, and in one night, fifty thousand of them were murdered in cold blood, and the streets of Paris literally ran with blood. Thus our Lord was ‘spiritually crucified’ in His members. Again, the watch-word and motto of the French Infidels was, ‘CRUSH THE WRETCH,’ meaning Christ. The very spirit of the ‘bottomless pit’ was poured out in that wicked nation.’”
NOTE: “Bottomless pit” also refers to the following: (1) “power from beneath” (Maranatha, 138. (2) this world, but not to the world that we can see and know with our senses (3) the invisible world that surrounds us, the world of demons, the abode of Satan. Responding to an individual trying to mesmerize (hypnotize) her, E.G. White said: “I told him that the Lord has shown me in vision that mesmerism wasfrom the devil, the bottomless pit.” (Early Writings, 21.) Thus we see that anything in the Holy Scriptures, the “two witness,” depicting as rising out of the “bottomless pit,” is either a being, a philosophy or power, that is making a transition from the unseen world to the seen world.
“But did France ‘make war’ on the Bible? She did; and in 1793 a decree passed the French Assembly forbidding the Bible, and under that decree the Bibles were gathered and burned, and every possible mark of contempt heaped upon them, and all the institutions of the Bible abolished; the Sabbath was blotted out, and every tenth day substituted for mirth and profanity. Baptism and the communion were abolished. The being of God was denied; and death was pronounced to be an eternal sleep. The Goddess of Reason was set up, in the person of a vile woman, and publicly worshipped. Surely here is a power that exactly answers the prophecy.’ –George Storrs, Midnight Cry, May 4, 1843, Vol. IV, Nos. 5, 6, p. 47.This point will be further developed in the comments on the next verse.”
And they of the people and kindreds and tongues [languages and dialects] shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put to the graves. Rev. 11: 9.
“The language of this verse denotes the feelings of other nations than the one committing the outrage on the witnesses. They would see what war infidel France had made on the Bible, but would not be led nationally to engage in the wicked work, nor suffered the murdered witnesses to be buried, or put out of sight among themselves, though they lay dead three days and a half, that is, three years and a half, in France. No; this very attempt of France served to arouse Christians everywhere to put forth a new exertion in behalf of the Bible, as we shall presently see.’- D & R, U. Smith, pp. 537, 538.
And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another’ because these two prophets [witnesses] tormented them that dwell upon the earth. Rev. 11: 10.
“This denotes the joy that those felt who hated the Bible, or were tormented by it. Great was the joy of infidels everywhere for a while. But ‘the triumph of the wicked is short;’ so was it in France, for their war on the Bible and Christianity had well-nigh swallowed them up. They set out to destroy Christ’s ‘two witnesses,’ but they filled France with blood and horror, so that they were horror-struck at the result of their wicked deeds, and were glad to remove their impious hands from the Bible.’ – Ibid.
And after three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. Rev. 11: 11.
“Witnesses Restored. – ‘In 1793, the decree passed the French Assembly suppressing the Bible. Just three years after, a resolution was introduced into the Assembly going to supersede the decree, and giving toleration to the Scriptures. That resolution lay on the table for six months, when it was taken up, and passed without a dissenting vote. Thus, in just three years and a half, the witnesses ‘stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them which saw them.’ Nothing but the appalling results of the rejection of the Bible could have induced France to take her hands off these witnesses.’- Ibid.
“On the 17th of June, Camille Jourdan, in the ‘Council of the Five Hundred,’ brought up the memorable report on the ‘Revision of the laws relative to religious worship.’ It consisted of a number of propositions, abolishing alike the Republican restrictions on Popish worship, and the Popish restrictions on Protestant.
“1. That all citizens might buy or hire edifices for the free exercise of religious worship.
“2. That all congregations might assemble by the sound of bells.
“3. That no test or promise of any sort unrequired from other citizens should be required of the ministers of those congregations.
“4. That any individual attempting to impede, or in any way interrupt the public worship should be fined, up to 500 livres, and not less than 50; and that if the interruption proceeded from the constituted authorities, such authorities should be fined double the sum.
“5. The entrance to the assemblies for the purpose of religious worship should be free for all citizens.
“6. That all other laws concerning religious worship should be repealed.
“Those regulations, in comprehending the whole state of worship in France, were, in fact, a peculiar boon to Protestantism. Popery was already in sight of full restoration. But Protestantism, crushed under the burden of the laws of Louis XIV, and unsupported by the popular belief, required the direct support of the state to ‘stand on its feet.’ The Report seems even to have had an especial view to the grievances of the Church; the old prohibitions to have public worship, to possess places of worship, to have ingress [access; entrance], etc.
“From that period the Church had been free in France . . . .The Church and the Bible had been slain in France from November, 193, till June, 1797. The three years and a half were expended, and the Bible, so long and so sternly repressed before, was placed in honor, and was openly the book of free Protestantism!” –George Croly, The Apocalypse of St. John, pp. 181-183/ D & R, U. Smith, pp. 539, 540.
Ah! Indeed! “The Word of God is quick [living], and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Hebrews 4: 12, 13, K.J.V.
“When reading the Bible with a humble and teachable heart, we are holding intercourse with God Himself. The thoughts expressed, the precepts specified, the doctrines revealed, are a voice from God of heaven. The Bible will bear to be studied, and the mind, if not bewitched by Satan, will be attracted and charmed. The light which beams from the Scriptures is light from the eternal throne flashed down to this earth.”- E. G. White, That I May Know Him, p. 196. (To be continued next week).