FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
THE SIMPLE AND PURE BIBLE-BASED FAITH OF THE WALDENSIAN CHRISTIANS
“The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures. Hundreds of years before the Reformation, they possessed the Bible in MANUSCRIPTS in their native tongue [dialect, language]. They had the TRUTH UNADULTERATED, and this renders them the special OBJECTS of hatred and persecution. [Here’s particularly why]
“They declared the Church of Rome [in contrast to the church of Christ] to be the apostate Babylon of the Apocalypse [Revelation], and at the peril of their lives they stood up to resist her corruptions.
“While, under the long-continued pressure of persecution, some compromised their faith, little by little yielding its DISTINCTIVE principles, others held fast the truth.
“Through ages of darkness and apostasy, there were Waldenses who DENIED THE SUPREMACY OF ROME, who rejected IMAGE WORSHIP as idolatry, and who kept the TRUE SABBATH. Under the fiercest tempests opposition they maintained their faith. [can this be also said of us today when the prophesied persecution hasn’t yet come?]. Though gashed with the Savoyard spear, and scorched by the Romish fagot, they stood UNFLINCHINGLY for God’s word and His honor.
“Behind the lofty bulwarks of the mountains,—-in all ages the refuge of the persecuted and oppressed—-the Waldenses found a hiding-place. Here the light of truth kept burning AMID THE DARKNESS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Here for a THOUSAND YEARS, witnesses for the truth maintained the ANCIENT FAITH.
“God had provided for His people a SANCTUARY OF AWFUL GRANDEUR, befitting the MIGHTY TRUTHS committed to their trust. To those faithful exiles the mountains were an EMBLEM of the immutable RIGHTEOUSNESS of Jehovah. They pointed their CHILDREN to the heights towering above them in unchanging majesty, and spoke to them of Him ‘with whom there is no variablemess nor shadow of turning’[James 1:17], whose word is as ENDURING as the everlasting hills. God had set fast the mountains, and girded them with strength; no arm bug Infinite Power could move them out of their place.
“In LIKE MANNER He had established His law, the foundation of His GOVERNMENT IN HEAVEN and upon earth. The arm of man might reach his fellow-men and DESTROY THEIR LIVES; but that [mortal, finite] arm could as readily uproot the mountains from their foundations, and hurl them into the sea, as it COULD CHANGE one precept of the Law of Jehovah, or BLOT OUT His promises to those who DO HIS WILL. In their FIDELITY to His law, God’s servants should be AS FIRM as the unchanging hills.
“The mountains that girded their lowly were a constant witness to God’s CREATIVE power, and a never-failing ASSURANCE of His protecting care. These pilgrims learned to love the SILENT symbols of Jehovah’s presence. They indulged NO REPINING [complaining, grumbling] because of its hardships.of their lot. What a rebuke to Christians who are constantly complaining over little or even imagined, self-induced difficulties and problems!].
They were never lonely amid the mountain solitudes. [Instead] they THANKED God that He had provided for them an ASYLUM from the wrath and cruelty of men. THEY REJOICED IN THEIR FREEDOM TO WORSHIP BEFORE HIM. Often when pursued by their enemies, the strength of the hills proved a sure defense. From many a lofty cliff they CHANTED THE PRAISE OF GOD and the armies of Rome could not silence their SONGS OF THANKSGIVING.” Great Controversy, 1911 ed., pp. 65, 66.
During this pandemic, how many words of complaint, murmuring, accusations, lying versus word of praise, versus words and songs of praise and gratitude to God in Christ have been entered by our guardian angels into our books of record in heaven? Remember that “by our words we are either condemned or justified.” Ponder prayerfully, humbly, and thoroughly. God is mercifully righteous and just, NMF.
