FRIDAY MORNING MANNA
Lest Christianity Forget ‘The Blackest in the Black Catalogue of Crime’
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
“Not Enoch, who was translated to heaven, not Elijah, who ascended in a chariot of fire, was greater or more honored than John the Baptist, who perished alone in a dungeon.”
-E.G. White, “Death & Imprisonment of John” chapter, Desire of Ages, p. 225.
Jesus gave His disciples the brightest hopes and the greatest promises, including eternal life and a seat with Him in His throne of glory. But He also gently unfolded to them the unpleasant yet vital prophecies of what they would experience first. Included are all those following them, down through the ages of earth’s history from the fall, to the closing hours of its probation, including “the eleventh-hour workers” (Matt. 20: 1-16, in the following Scriptures:
“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘a servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecute Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also . . . ‘These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues [condemned as heretics], yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service . . . . But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” John 15: 20-22; 16: 1-4, N.K.J.V.
Everyone who claims to be Christ’s disciple today must remember what Jesus declared in His Sermon on the Mount concerning persecution: who will persecute who, and for what reason. Study Bible prophecy, not politics. To be forewarned spiritually is to be forearmed in our daily struggle not against “flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Eph. 6: 12. The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation reveal the main actors in the stupendous final chapter of the conflict of the ages presaged by the record and lessons taught in all previous persecutions of note, including St. Bartholomew Massacre in France. All who teach classes for discipleship are under solemn obligation to make this clear to their students: killing Christ’s followers, “thinking he is offering God a service” is, without doubt, the frightful height of ignorance as to who God and Christ are, and what the gospel and the plan of redemption comprehends. Such are not under the control of the Holy Spirit and the holy angels but of “the spirit of antichrist” (2 John 1: 7) and his satanic agencies.
In His Sermon of the Mount, recorded in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, “God Creator incarnate” declared the Beatitudes familiar to all Christians and Bible students. It includes a Beatitude as blessed as the rest of the nine are, yet receives little notice much less proper emphasis, explaining why becoming a disciple appears to be deceptively “easier” today. It says:
“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matt. 5: 11, 12.
Thus all persecuted for Christ’s sake, “as the truth is in Jesus” (Eph. 4: 21)—which is never an “alternative fact” and only the “truth can set us free” (John 8: 30-36)–repeat, for Christ’s sake alone, are in good company: the prophets of old! However, instead of humbly accepting the prophets, seers, and messenger sent by God to save them for their repetitious apostasies, idolatry, and slavery to thralldom of sin, they persecuted and killed the prophets.
Charles de Gaul was the Leader of the Free French in World War II, and first president of the Fifth Republic of France. I don’t really know who this great French man “indispensable men” when he wrote/said these: “The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.”
In what countless others now consider the handbook for the last days, Ellen G. White wrote in , The Great Controversy (1911 edition), pp. 272, 273, the following:
“[But] the blackest in the black catalogue of crime, most horrible among the fiendish deeds of all dreadful centuries, was the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The world still recalls [if it still does!] with shuddering horror the scenes of the most cowardly and cruel onslaught. The king of France, urged on by the Roman priests and prelates lent his sanction to the dreadful work. A bell, tolling at the dead of night, was a signal for the slaughter. Protestants by thousands, sleeping quietly in their homes, trusting to the plighted honor of their king, were dragged forth without warning and murdered in cold blood.
“As Christ was the invisible leader of His people from Egyptian bondage, so was Satan the unseen leader of his subjects in this horrible work of multiplying martyrs. For seven days the massacred continued in Paris, the first three with inconceivable fury. And it was not confined to the city itself, but by special order of the king was extended to all the provinces and towns where Protestants were found. Neither age nor sex was respected. Neither the innocent babe nor the man of gray hairs was spared. Noble and peasant, old and young, mother and child, were cut down together. Throughout France the butchery continued for two months. Seventy thousand of the very flower of the nation perished.” Those yet unfamiliar with the history of specific nations and powers based on Bible prophecy, will find it hard to believe what follows next, but are factual, recorded histories of France and the papacy [emphasis mine]:
“When the news of the massacre reached Rome, the exultation among the clergy knew no bounds. The cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the messenger with a thousand crowns; the cannon of St. Angelo thundered forth a joyous salute; and bells rang out from every steeple; bonfires turned night into day; and [Pope] Gregory XIII, attended by the cardinals and other ecclesiastical dignitaries, went in long procession to the church of St. Louis, where the cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te Deum. . . . A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre [hard evidence and proof of the massacre], and in the Vatican may still be seen three frescoes of Vasari, describing the [who is Vasari?] the attack against the admiral, the king in the council plotting the massacre, and the massacre itself. Gregory sent Charles the Golden Rose; and four months after the massacre, . . . . he listened complacently in the sermon of the French priest, . . . who spoke of ‘that day so full of happiness and joy, when the most holy father received the news, and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.”- Henry White, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, ch. 14, par 34.
“That same master spirit that urged on the St. Bartholomew Massacre led also the in the scenes of the Revolution. Jesus Christ was declared to be an impostor [as did the Sanhedrin in Christ’s time], and the rallying cry of the French infidels was, ‘Crush the Wretch,’ meaning Christ. Heaven-daring blasphemy and abominable wickedness went hand in hand, and the basest of men, the most abandoned monsters of cruelty and vice, were most highly exalted. In all this, supreme homage was paid to Satan; while Christ, in His characteristics of truth, purity, and unselfish love was crucified [again].
“’The beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them’—the Bible [Rev.11: 7]. The atheistical power that ruled in France during the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, did wage such a war against God and His holy word as the world has never witnessed. The worship of the Deity was abolished by the National Assembly. Bibles were collected and publicly burned [AKA auto da fe] with every possible manifestation of scorn. The law of God was trampled underfoot. The institutions of the Bible were abolished. The weekly rest day was set aside, and in its stead every tenth day was devoted to reveling and blasphemy. Baptism and the Communion were prohibited. And announcements posted conspicuously over burial places declared death to be eternal sleep [no resurrection/no eternal life!].” – Great Controversy (1911 ed.), pp. 271-274.
Past Persecutions of Note
“The story of the medieval persecution is frightful one, and we dread to dwell upon it in detail. Yet for a proper understanding of this passage [“little horn to wear out saints of the Most High’] it is necessary that we recall some of the happenings of these unhappy times. Albert Barnes in his comment on the passage, remarks: “Can anyone doubt that this is true of the papacy? The Inquisition, the ‘persecution of the Waldenses;’ the ravages of the Duke of Alva; the fires of Smithfield; the tortures at Goa—indeed, the whole history of the papacy may be appealed to in proof that it is applicable to that power. If anything could have ‘worn out the saints of the Most High’—could have cut them off from the earth so that evangelical religion would have become extinct, it would have been the persecutions of the papal power. In the year 1208, a crusade was proclaimed by Pope Innocent III against the Waldenses and Albigenses, in which a million men perished. From the beginning of the order of the Jesuits, in the year 1540, to 1580, nine-hundred thousand were destroyed. One hundred and fifty thousand perished by the Inquisition in thirty years. In the Low Countries [Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg] fifty thousand persons were hanged, beheaded, burned, and buried alive, for the crime of heresy within the space of thirty-eight years from the edict of Charles V against the Protestants, to the Peace of Chateau Cambreses in 1559. Eighteen thousand suffered by the hand of the executioners in the spaced of five years and a half during the administration of the Duke of Alva. Indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the history of the papacy will convince anyone that what is here said ‘making war with the saints’ (verse 21), and ‘wearing out the saints of the Most High’ (verse 25), is strictly applicable to that power, and will accurately describe its history.’- Albert Barnes, Notes on Daniel, p. 328, comment on Daniel 7: 25.” – Uriah Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 130, 131.
“These facts are confirmed by the testimony of W.E. H. Lecky. He declares:
“That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be questioned by no Protestant who has a complete knowledge of history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite certain that no powers of imagination realize their sufferings . . . . These persecutions were not perpetrated in the brief paroxysm of a reign of terror, or by the hands of obscure sectaries, but were inflicted by a triumphant church, with every circumstance of solemnity and deliberation.”- William E.H. Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. II, pp. 35, 37.
“It makes no difference that in numerous instances the victims were turned over to the civil authorities. It was the church that made the decision upon the question of heresy, and it then passed the offenders over to the secular court. But in those days the secular power was but the tool in the hands of the church.” – Uriah Smith, Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 131, 132
What to anticipate: The U.S. Bill of Rights are the fundamental liberties guaranteed by the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. The first and foremost foundation of all these liberties is the First Amendment that guarantees the Freedom of Religion—to worship God according to the dictates of conscience only, not according to any religious law/s proposed by any religion and enforced by the civil government. According to the specific prophecies of Revelation 13, we can expect increasing attention and activities that will eventually “justify” its amendment.
(Continued next week)