In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” And today we are gathered in the name of Jesus, are we not? Whether we are here physically or online or listening to a CD. And so we can be sure that He is with us right now, even though we cannot see Him with our eyes, but nonetheless, through faith we believe what Jesus says, and I’m happy that you’ve decided to be part of this study today.

You’ll remember last time I said we were going to do a recap of what we covered last month and then see how it applies to the great Advent movement, and today my purpose is to keep that promise.

I know it’s not easy to keep all the facts and figures straight when studying this 70-week prophecy in Daniel 9, and it would be nice if we had a chart or a white board to look at, but we don’t, and besides, this should be something you’re already familiar with, but maybe not if you’re still attending a conference church, because they rarely, if ever, preach about such things. But they are good at presenting the kind of sermons you can hear in just about any church on Sunday, and it doesn’t give me pleasure to say that, but it’s true.

I’d like to begin by reading the same statement I read last time in order to set the stage, and then we’ll get right into that short summary of the 70-week prophecy. Again, this is from Early Writings, page 63,  “Satan is pressing in on every side, (he leaves nothing to chance and no stone unturned in order to trip us up. If we could say one good thing about Satan, it’s that he is very thorough) and unless we watch for him, (are you watching) and have our eyes open to his devices and snares, and have on the whole armor of God, the fiery darts of the wicked will hit us. (And friends, he always aims for a vital spot) There are many precious truths contained in the Word of God, but it is present truth that the flock needs now. . . (And if it was true in 1851 when this was first written, we need it more today than ever, don’t we?) Satan will here take every possible advantage to injure the cause. (And before we’re through today, we’re going to see just how much Satan has injured the cause) But such subjects as the sanctuary, in connection with the 2300 days, (of which the 70 weeks are a part) the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, are perfectly calculated to explain the past Advent movement and show what our present position is, establish the faith of the doubting, and give certainty to the glorious future.” And that glorious future is what I’m looking forward to and working toward, how about you?

Daniel 9:25-27 is what we’ll be looking at today, and there are, what I would call, a couple parenthetical sentences in these verses that make it a little tough to understand, because it doesn’t flow very well, but hopefully we’ll be able to make sense of it. The angel Gabriel said to Daniel, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem (starting when? 457 BC) unto the Messiah the Prince (capitol “P”, which represents Jesus), shall be seven weeks (that’s 7 X 7 equaling 49 days or years using the day for a year principle), and threescore and two weeks (or 62 weeks totaling 69 weeks, which equals 483 years): the street (of Jerusalem) shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times, (that was completed at the end of the first 7 week period in 408 BC under Nehemiah, or 49 years after the starting date of 457 BC, and it was a very troubling time. Because of the opposition from the Samaritans it delayed the rebuilding and restoration process, which you can read about in Nehemiah chapter 4. Then it says) and after (“after” is an important word here) and after threescore and two weeks (or after the total of 7 weeks it took to build the street and the wall + 62 weeks that followed equaling 69 weeks or 483 years) shall Messiah (or the anointed One) be cut off (and when was Messiah cut off? 31 AD, and that’s a fact of history. It’s interesting also that Isaiah 53 uses this same terminology where it says, “he was cut off out of the land of the living.” So we know what that means, don’t we? He was crucified in the midst of the 70^th week in 31 AD, or between 27 AD when Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at His baptism and began His public ministry, and 34 AD when Stephen was stoned) and after threescore and two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off,  but not for himself (Jesus wasn’t crucified for His own sins, because He never sinned, but it was to save us that He laid down His life. And then here comes one of those parenthetical sentences that speaks of what happened after the 70 weeks ended in 34 AD, but we’ll be back into the 70^th week when we get to the next verse) and the people of the prince (small “p” this time) that shall come (who was that? It was Titus, the Roman Emperor’s son, which made him a prince) and the people of the prince (or the Roman army headed by prince Titus) that shall come (sometime after the end of the 70^th week) shall (do what?) destroy the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (or the temple, and that’s exactly what happened in 70 AD); and the end thereof shall be with a flood (a flood of persecution), and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he (back to Jesus now. The previous parenthetical sentence make us back up into the prophecy) And he (Christ) shall confirm  the covenant with many for one week (or 7 years, bringing us again to the end of the 70^th week in 34 AD): and in the midst of the week (31 AD) he (the Messiah) shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease (signified by the curtain of the temple being ripped in twain from top to bottom when Jesus died), and for the overspreading of abominations (or because the whole system was brought to an end because sin became so rampant) he shall make it (the sanctuary, or Jewish temple) desolate (meaning to make waste, and in Matthew 24:2 that‘s what Jesus said would happen, not one stone was to be left upon another), even until the consummation (or until the complete destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD as already mentioned), and that determined (or that accomplished) shall be poured upon the desolate.” Or the “the desolator” as the Bible margin reads. Why “desolator” instead of the word “Desolate?” Well, it’s because just before this it says, “he shall make it desolate.” So who is the “he”? It was prince Titus and his Roman army.

You’ll remember also that Jesus referred to the book of Daniel in Matthew 24:15, 16, and taught His disciples to understand that when they should see the destruction of Jerusalem coming, they must make their escape if they wanted to survive. Jesus said, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.” And that’s exactly what they did, and not one Christian lost their lives. Now that’s all well and good, but what does that teach us today? #1, it teaches us that we better do exactly what Jesus says if we want to live when the final destruction comes upon this world. And #2, it also has significance for Seventh-day Adventists, which we will see before we’re through. When Jesus said, “whoso readeth, let him understand,” that means we should do a little investigating about how this might apply to us, and we’ll get to it, so hang in there and it will come together.

Last time I said I would read you a few inspired statements from the Spirit of Prophecy about when probation closed for the Jewish nation, was it at the end of the 70 weeks of Daniel 9 in 34 AD when Stephan was stoned? Most people think so. Or was it before that when Jesus was crucified in 31 AD? Well, today I’m going to allow inspiration to answer that question, why it’s important, and how it applies to the Seventh-day Adventist denomination.

In The Great Controversy, page 328 it says, “The 70 weeks, or 490 years, allotted to the Jews ended in A.D. 34. At that time, through action of the Jewish Sanhedrin, (or through the action of the religious leaders) the nation sealed its rejection of the gospel by the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution of the followers of Christ.” By whom was the gospel rejected? By “the action of the Jewish Sanhedrin,” not through the action of individual Jews. There’s a distinction.

And so, the rejection of Christ at His trail and crucifixion and the final rejection of the gospel 3 ½ years later  are not counted as the same thing. We’re going to see that the rejection and crucifixion of Christ is what ended the probation of the nation as God’s chosen, but the rejection of the gospel that came afterward to individuals Jews ended the special labor that was put forth to save all who would listen and accept Christ. That’s the difference. The work of Christ while He was here was by and large for the Jews, after all, He was a Jew Himself, and that’s where His labors had been focused, so it’s natural that it should go to them first, but when a sufficient amount of time went by, namely another 3 ½ years after the crucifixion, then the disciples were free to go to the Gentiles with the gospel.

Matthew 10:5, 6  is where Jesus commanded His disciples, saying, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to (who?) the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Who were “the lost sheep” and what was “the house of Israel?” This is important. The “lost sheep” were individual Jews, and the “house (or the descendants) of Israel” is the nation. Jesus didn’t tell His disciples to go and try to save the nation, but go rather to the individual “lost sheep” who were within the nation. In other words, during the last week of the 70 weeks, between 27 AD and 34 AD, Jesus told His disciples to focus on presenting the gospel to the Jews, not because there was still hope for the nation, but because there was hope now only for the lost   sheep that were within the “the house of Israel,” and once that time limit was accomplished, were the disciple supposed to leave those individual Jews that accepted Christ where they were? No, they were to call them out. Why? Because there was another class Jesus was working with from that point forward. Jesus wanted His disciples to do their best to rescue individual Jews, or the lost sheep, by calling them out of a corrupt and apostate church, and similarly, now listen carefully, similarly God wants us to rescue the lost sheep within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, and not try to save the denomination. That’s where we are today, and you’ll see why I say that in a few minutes.

Notice what it says in The Desire of Ages, page 232. “The Sanhedrin had rejected Christ’s message and was bent upon His death; therefore Jesus departed from Jerusalem, from the priests, the temple, the religious leaders, the people who had been instructed in the law, and turned to another class to proclaim His message, and to gather out those who should carry the gospel to all nations.”

Have you ever wondered why Jesus told His disciples to confine their labors to the Jews? Was it because Jesus didn’t care about the Gentiles? Obviously not, He died for all! In Review and Herald, March 23, 1897, it says, “The disciples were to avoid, as far as possible, stirring up the prejudices of the religious leaders. (who had disdain for the disciples and the Gentiles by the way) Therefore they were to confine their labors to their own nation.” And so, again, not because there was hope for the nation, but because there were still individual Jews, church members if you will, who had not rejected the truth. Remember this, because we’ll be coming back to it in a few minutes.

But before I do, let me continue on a little further in The Desire of Ages, page 232, “As the light and life of men was rejected by the ecclesiastical authorities in the days of Christ, so it has been rejected in every succeeding generation. (Including ours) Again and again the history of Christ’s withdrawal from Judea has been repeated. When the Reformers preached the word of God, they had no thought of separating themselves from the established church; but the religious leaders would not tolerate the light, and those that bore it were forced to seek another class, who were longing for the truth. In our day few of the professed followers of the Reformers are actuated by their spirit. Few are listening for the voice of God, and ready to accept truth in whatever guise it may be presented. Often those who follow in the steps of the Reformers are forced to turn away from the churches they love, in order to declare the plain teaching of the word of God. And many times those who are seeking for light are by the same teaching obliged to leave the church of their fathers, that they may render obedience.” And friends, that’s where we are today. History is being repeated once again, and that for the last time.

Even before the crucifixion of Christ, notice what Jeremiah 50:6 says, “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray.” And so again, this experience has been going on in generation after generation, and so we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s happening to ours as well.

Notice also what Sister White says about the whole church being affected by what the leaders do. Testimonies for the Church, volume 4, page 210, “The great heart of the work is at—–; (that would be Battle Creek at the time) and, as the human heart throws its living current of blood into all parts of the body, so does the management at this place, the headquarters of our church, affect the whole body of believers. If the physical heart is healthy, the blood that is sent from it through the system is also healthy; but if this fountain is impure, the whole organism becomes diseased by the poison of the vital fluid. So it is with us. If the heart of the work becomes corrupt, the whole church, in its various branches and interests, scattered abroad over the face of the earth, suffers in consequence.”

And that makes sense, doesn’t it? If a person gets cancer in their big toe and they don’t do anything about it, it spreads everywhere, and the cancer of apostasy has been doing that very thing for many years now within Adventism, sad to say.

In Manuscript Releases, volume 12, page 319 the prophet says, “I think of His great sorrow as He (Christ) wept over Jerusalem, exclaiming, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not.’ God forbid that these words shall apply to those who have great light and blessings. . . When Jerusalem was divorced from God it was because of her sins. She fell from an exalted height that Tyre and Sidon had never reached. And when an angel falls he becomes a fiend. The depth of our ruin is measured by the exalted light to which God has raised us in His great goodness and unspeakable mercy. Oh, what privileges are granted to us as a people! And if God spared not His people that He loved, (the Jews) because they refused to walk in the light, how can He spare the people whom He has blessed with the light of heaven in having opened to them the most exalted truth ever entrusted to mortal man to give to the world?”

And that exalted truth friends, are the three angel’s messages especially. I say this because of what we’re told in Evangelism, page 120 where it says, “In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light-bearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the Word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import,—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention. The most solemn truths ever entrusted to mortals have been given us to proclaim to the world. The proclamation of these truths is to be our work. The world is to be warned, and God’s people are to be true to the trust committed to them.”

Now let me shift gears for a minute and read a few statements that state plainly when Probation closed for the Jewish nation, and then we’ll come back and find out why it’s the rejection of the three angels’ messages that closes the probation of the Seventh-day Adventist church and how it’s connected to the 70 week prophecy we’ve been studying about.

In Youth Instructor, February 1, 1900, par. 13 it says, “What was Christ’s   grief to see the Jews fixing their own destiny beyond redemption! He alone could comprehend the significance of their rejection, betrayal, and condemnation of the Son of God. His last hope for the Jewish nation was gone. Nothing could avert her doom. By the representatives of the nation God was denied as their Ruler. By worlds unfallen, by the whole heavenly universe, the blasphemous utterance was heard, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ The God of heaven heard their choice. He had given them opportunity to repent, and they would not.”

So very clearly here, “the Jews fixed their own destiny beyond redemption” it says, when they said, “We have no king but Caesar.”

Manuscript 110, 1897, “When the Jews appeared before Pilate to secure Christ, they said, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ By this they confessed that the scepter had indeed departed from Judah.”

Signs of the Times, July 12, 1899, “The world’s Redeemer heard the people taking the oath of allegiance to a rival sovereign. He heard them divorcing themselves from God, refusing to obey His rule, saying, ‘We have no king but Caesar’.”

Manuscript Releases, volume 12, page 388, “Virtually Caiaphas was no high priest. He wore the priestly robes, but he had no vital connection with God. He was uncircumcised in heart. With the other priests he instructed the people to choose Barabbas instead of Christ. They cried out for the crucifixion of Christ and, as representatives of the Jewish nation, placed themselves under the Roman jurisdiction, which they despised, by saying, ‘We have no king but Caesar.’ When they said this, they unchurched themselves.”

Review and Herald, October 12, 1897, “Again and again he (Christ) would have been killed had it not been for the heavenly angels who attended him and guarded his life until the time when the case of the Jews as a nation should be decided. This human life must be kept by the power of God until his day of work was ended.”

When did Christ’s day of work end for the nation? When His human life ended. And what would happen when that happened? “The case of the Jews as a nation should be decided.”

Signs of the Times, February 27, 1896, “The sheep gate was before Christ, and the path which led to the temple, and for centuries the victims had been conducted thither for sacrifice. The lambs that had been slain had been a representation of the great anti-typical sacrifice that in a few hours would be made for those who rejected His grace and compassion, the refusers of His offers of mercy. The only-begotten Son of the Infinite God would be led through the sheep gate as a lamb to the slaughter, while through the priests and rulers and through the common people would be manifested Satanic attributes. For a few moments the Son of God stands upon Mount Olivet, expressing the intense yearning of His soul that Jerusalem might repent in the last few moments before the westering sun shall sink behind the hill. That day the Jews as a nation would end their probation. Mercy, that had long been appointed as their guardian angel, had been insulted, despised, and rejected, and was already stepping down from the golden throne, ready to depart.”

Notice the words, “ready to depart,” which means not yet departed. That would happen in just a few days when the Sanhedrin said, “we have no king but Caesar.”

And one more from The Desire of Ages, page 737, “Thus by choosing a heathen ruler, the Jewish nation had withdrawn from the theocracy. They had rejected God as their king. Henceforth (or from that moment forward) they had no deliverer. (Why? Because the nation’s probation had closed.) They had no king but Caesar. To this the priests and teachers had led the people. For this, with the fearful results that followed, they were responsible. (Now listen carefully to this last sentence) A nation’s sin and a nation’s ruin were due to the religious leaders.” And likewise, my dear friends, the denomination’s sin and ruin are also due to the religious leaders, because as we have seen, history is being repeated.

Now let me try to pull all this together for you so it all makes sense and how it applies to the Seventh-day Adventist church today. Over the recent past I have talked with more than one independent ministry leader who told me that, like the Jewish nation whose probation didn’t close until Stephen was stoned in 34 AD, so probation will not close for the denomination until some future time, probably when a Sunday law is enacted. However, we already found out that probation closed for the Jewish denomination when Jesus was crucified, and not 3 ½ years later when Stephen was stoned. Why does that make a difference? We’ll find out in a minute.

These same independent ministry leaders have also said that the reason they don’t close probation on the church and call it Babylon is because the prophet didn’t close probation on the church and call it Babylon, and whenever I have heard that argument I have always thought that that was a pretty lame excuse. Because dear friends, the prophet has been dead for over 100 years, and were she alive today to see what’s being taught, or maybe I should say what’s not being taught, i.e., the three angels’ messages, and what the church is doing and allowing, would her assessment of the church be the same today as it was when she was alive? I say absolutely not, and that’s based on her own writings! Let me share a few with you.

In several places she wrote, “If” the church would do thus-and-so, it would indeed become Babylon. That little word “if” is very important, because it implies a condition. No individual is saved without conditions, and no church will continue to be God’s church unless it meets the conditions set forth by inspiration, agreed? For example, in Manuscript Releases, volume 19, page 176 it says, “If the church of God becomes lukewarm, it does not stand in favor with God any more than do the churches that are represented as having fallen and become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” That’s a direct quote from Revelation 18:2 where the apostle John says “Baylon the great is fallen is fallen” and to come out of her. So one has to ask, “Is the Seventh-day Adventist church of today in a “lukewarm condition?” Because according to what we just read, that’s all it takes for her to become a fallen church.

Back in 1889 in Notebook Leaflets, volume 1, page 99 she said the following, “The church is in the Laodicean state. The presence of God is not in her midst. If Christ were formed within, the hope of glory, conformity to His image would be seen, and the church trials which separate the members from Christ would disappear.”

And in Review and Herald, August 19, 1890, it says, “The state of the Church represented by the foolish virgins, is also spoken of as the Laodicean state.” And what happened to the foolish virgins?

And again in Spaulding and Megan, page 45 it says, “I tell you, my brother and sister, we are living in the Laodicean state of the church. If any ever needed to fall upon the rock and be broken, it is the people of California and all through our church in America.”

Now, I always find it interesting that when Ellen White says things like this, you never seem to find statements where she corrects herself and backtracks on such statements. What does that tell us? It tells us that the leadership of the church is unaware of their spiritual poverty and has never made a course correction and that the church is still in the Laodicean state! Listen to the sermon titled “Escaping Laodicea” if you don’t already know that we must have characters like those in the church of Philadelphia in order to be saved.

I’ve also had some of these same independent ministry leaders tell me that there’s nothing to point to as proof that the Seventh-day Adventist church is a fallen church, so we can’t call it Babylon. And my response has always been that when you see a pregnant woman walking down the street, you don’t have to know the day she conceived to know she’s pregnant. And it’s the same with the church.

When you read statements like I just read, it sounds like she referred to the church as Babylon even while she was alive, doesn’t it? And how do we know that the church is in the Laodicean state today, and therefore a fallen church?

Well, for one thing church leaders themselves will tell you that the Seventh-day Adventist church is represented by the Laodicean church, because it’s the last of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 3  with no more to follow, but what they fail to recognize somehow is that Jesus is on the outside, isn’t He? Which means that, “The presence of God is not in her midst.”

And how about church trials separating the members from Christ as we read? That’s been going on at least from the time of the Barnhouse and Martin evangelical fiasco with the book Questions on Doctrines in the mid-1950s to the more recent Covid-19 debacle with Conrad Vine and the Michigan conference with the defrocking of pastor Ron Kelley. And I just heard the other day about 19 Adventist pastors in the Central Rift Valley Conference in Africa that were fired because they failed to follow the church manual and properly constituted church authority. Whatever happened to the Bible as our creed?

Now, it’s not my place to say that pastors Vine and Kelly, and a few others like them, aren’t doing what God would have them to do, albeit they are coming a little late to the realization that the church is in apostasy, because different ones have been saying this for many decades. They’re probably doing some good by exposing what’s going on, but here’s the problem, they’re trying to call a church to repentance that’s never going to repent, and by the way, if you’re old enough to remember, it was pastors Robert Wieland and Donald Short who at the 1950 General Conference Session were calling for corporate repentance so the latter rain could be poured out, and what was the result? They were labeled as trouble makers for being too critical, and things continued on with business as usual, only worse.

So how can I say that corporate repentance will never come to the denomination? I can say that because in Special Testimonies, series B, volume 7 page 57 it says “One thing it is certain is soon to be realized, (notice the word “certain,” which means it’s going to happen whether we like it or not) “One thing it is certain is soon to be realized,—the great apostasy, (this is in the context of the alpha omega apostasy that was developing within the Seventh-day Adventist church in the early 1900s with Doctor Kellogg’s pantheistic theory that God lives in the sinner, when it’s actually the devil who abides there. Today we call it salvation in sin, which is the same lie the devil told Eve in the garden and is running rampant in the church today) the great apostasy, which is developing and increasing and waxing stronger, (even back in 1906) and will continue to do so until the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout.” In other words, things are not going to get better, and certainly they haven’t since this was written.

In Selected Messages, volume 1, page 122 it says, “Are we hoping to see the whole church revived? That time will never come.”

I can also say that the church is not going to repent because Review and Herald, March 18, 1884, says, “The Lord has a controversy with His professed people in these last days. In this controversy men in responsible positions will take a course directly opposite to that pursued by Nehemiah. (Who was a Sabbath reformer, but these “men in responsible positions” will do “opposite” and be Sabbath destroyers) They will not only ignore and despise the Sabbath themselves, but they will try to keep it from others by burying it beneath the rubbish of custom and tradition. In churches (Adventist churches) and in large gatherings in the open air, (camp meetings) ministers (Adventist ministers) will urge upon the people the necessity of keeping the first day of the week.” It’s coming friends, and it will be promoted by some of those who are today being supported by your tithes and offerings if you are still attending and placing money in the offering plate as it’s passed around Sabbath morning.

I can also say there will be no repentance because Selected Messages, book 1, page 205, which was written in the context of the Alpha Omega apostasy, as early as 1903 says, “nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement,” and I could go on and on, but how much do we really need in order to make an intelligent decision?

If you’re still attending a conference church, it’s your duty to be a true protestant and protest error when you hear it, and I guarantee that you will not be there very long, because the leadership cannot tolerate anyone that questions their authority. Ask me how I know that?

Rather than allowing nothing else but the three angels’ messages to absorbing their attention, the denomination holds “observer status” with the United Nations and COP 27, which stands for “Conference of the Parties,” which is an annual meeting of countries under the United Nations framework to combat climate change. Is that what the Seventh-day Adventist church was raised up to do, which involvement compromises the church’s distinct identity and prophetic mission, and where a Sunday rest day is being urged to help save the planet? And guess whose behind that? The papacy of course.

In Testimonies to Ministers, page 265 it says, “The world must not be introduced into the church. And married to the church, forming a bond of unity. Through this means the church will become indeed corrupt and   as stated in Revelation, a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” Friends, by forming a bond of unity with the worldly United Nations and the “Conference of the Parties,” worldly elements have certainly been introduced into the church and married to the church.

We should be able to see by now that the Seventh-day Adventist church of today has essentially crucified the messages of Revelation 14 just as the Sunday churches did in 1844, and what was the result back then?  In Early Writings Sister White likens rejecting those messages to crucifying Christ, and remember, when the  Jews said, “we have no king but Caesar,” their probation closed. On page  260 she writes, “I saw that as the Jews crucified Jesus, so the nominal churches had crucified these messages.” Do you see the connection between these two things? Crucifying the first and second angel’s messages back then, and eventually the third, is the same as crucifying Christ, because they are His messages that are fraught with eternal consequences, and that’s why we are to give the three angels’ messages and not get absorbed with other things.

I joined the Seventh-day Adventist church in 1973, and at that time, and for about 10 years afterward, the church’s logo was a picture of the earth with three angles flying in the midst of heaven like it says in Revelation 14:6-12, but not long after that a new logo appeared with an open Bible, a cross and a double set of three wavy lines. Symbols have meaning friends, and if you look around at many of the other churches you’ll find very similar wavy line logos. What happened in the 1980s that changed the church’s logo? Have you ever thought about it? In 1982 the Seventh-day Adventist church signed an ecumenical document called the BEM document, BEM stands for Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, and if you’ll look at the bottom of my sermon notes you’ll see a picture of this document and you’ll notice that it also has a logo with three wavy lines. What does this mean?

This BEM document is a product of the World Council of Churches that was signed by a representative of the Seventh-day Adventist church in 1982. Now what’s significant about that? During the time of the Protestant Reformation people died because they refused to accept the principles in the BEM document regarding how a person should be baptized, how they should observe the Lord’s Supper, and how they should evangelize, because the principles in this document are Catholic principles. But today we have the Seventh-day Adventist church, the church that was raised up to proclaim the three angels’ messages, signing a document that shows they are now in agreement with this Babylonian BEM document that says we should not try to convert people in other churches, that we should accept that there are churches that claim to be able to create the Creator in the little communion wafer, and that sprinkling infants is an acceptable form of baptism. Is that what you believe? If so then by all means, stay in the church!

Again, this shows that the Seventh-day Adventist church has crucified the three angels’ messages just like the Babylonian churches did in 1844. Any Seventh-day Adventist that knows what the three angels’ messages are all about could never agree with the BEM document, but the church leaders signed it nonetheless, and that reminds us of what the Jewish Sanhedrin did when they said, “We have no king but Caesar.” With the signing of this document in 1982 and the change of the logo shortly afterward, shows that the Seventh day Adventist church agrees with all the other Babylonian churches that rejected the three angels’ messages over 170 years ago.

A man by the name of Dr. Raoul Dederen, the influential Jesuit, I mean Adventist theologian and educator, was the man who signed this document with full knowledge and approval of the rest of the denominational leaders.

You’ll also notice if you look carefully that there is an upside down cross in the new logo. Now, there are two reasons for the use of an upside down cross. I did a search on the Internet about this and I found that these two reasons are as follows: the first one is because it can symbolize Peter who requested to be crucified upside down, because he felt unworthy of being crucified in the same manner as his Lord. And secondarily the upside down cross symbolizes the papacy, because the Pope is considered Peter’s successor as the Bishop of Rome and sits on a pontifical throne with an upside down cross at his back, and I’ll let you decide which one you think fits the best.

Dr. Raoul Dederen is deceased now, but he was professor of theology at Andrews University. He was the author of numerous articles, and also served some twenty years as a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, hence his signing of the BEM document. He was mentor and doctoral advisor who guided PhD students in their research and writing of their dissertations, and teacher of many future leaders in the Seventh-day Adventist church. While at Andrews Seminary he taught major courses dealing with revelation and inspiration, the doctrine of the Church, the doctrine of Christ, Roman Catholic theology, and ecumenical trends. He also believed that women should not be prevented from exercising their spiritual gifts and should thus be allowed to function at all levels of ministry in the church, which includes ordination.

And now we know why, under the tutelage of Dr. Raoul Dederen, that young men who graduate from the seminary hold unbiblical views on so many things. All this information is readily available on the Internet, and as you can see he was perfectly suited to be the one who would sign the BEM document, officially bringing the Seventh-day Adventist church into alignment with the ecumenical movement. He also showered praise on B. B. Beach for giving a gold medal to the pope in 1977. And remember, it’s always an inferior that gives gold and kneels or bows in homage to a superior.

Also you may have heard of a man by the name of Doctor Jon Paulien. He was professor of New Testament Interpretation at Andrews University for over 20 years as well until he became professor at Loma Linda University School of Religion. At a recent church-sponsored symposium about end time prophetic events, Dr. Paulien said that Sunday Laws are not coming, the Great Controversy is outdated, there are other options for the mark of the beast, and Ellen White, were she alive today, would have to rewrite The Great Controversy.

These two men who are still held in high esteem and in good standing in the church have written literally hundreds of books and articles that have shaped the thinking of thousands of young Adventists in the wrong direction.

And we could go on and on with things like the General Conference President, Neal C. Wilson back in 1975, when he said, “Although it is true that there was a period in the life of the Seventh-day Adventist Church when the denomination took a distinctly anti-Roman Catholic viewpoint, and the term ‘hierarchy’ was used in a pejorative (or derogatory) sense to refer to the papal form of church governance, that attitude on the church’s part was nothing more than a manifestation of widespread anti-popery among conservative Protestant denominations in the early part of this (20^th) century and the latter part of the last, and which has now been consigned to the historical trash heap so far as the Seventh-day Adventist Church is concerned.” {Neil Wilson: EEOC vs PPPA and GC, Civil Case #74-2025 CBR 1975}

And how about Ganoune Diop, director of public affairs and religious liberty for the General Conference who recently said, “I only preach Jesus, not the Three Angels’ Messages.” He also said, “to be fair to the Catholic church, it changed in 1965 when they had the second Vatican Council, because they made a declaration toward religious liberty.” However, in The Great Controversy, page 581 it says, “let it be remembered, it is the boast of Rome that she never changes.” Who are we going to believe friends?

Now, what about what Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24:15, 16 when He said,  “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains,” or to a place of safety. What did Jesus mean by the abomination of desolation, and how does that apply to us today?

In The  Great Controversy, page 26 it says, “When the idolatrous standards of the Romans (or the Roman flag) should be set up in the holy ground, (in and around Jerusalem) which extended some furlongs outside the city walls, then the followers of Christ were to find safety in flight. When the warning sign should be seen, those who would escape must make no delay.”

Perhaps you remember, at the 1995 General Conference Session in Utrecht, Netherlands, when a delegate of the Vatican came up on stage proudly displaying the Vatican flag during the parade of nations. What was that all about? And they did it again as recently as 2022 when the Vatican flag was flown at the 61st General Conference Session in St Louis, Missouri on June 11. Again, what does this signify?

Let’s think this through for a minute. It has always been my understanding that when all the various countries walk across the stage carrying their countries flag, it means that the Seventh-Day Adventist church has a presence in that country. Was the church saying that they have a presence at the Vatican? Do they have a mission work there? Are they giving the pope Bible studies? Or does the Vatican have a presence in the Seventh-day Adventist church?

Well, it’s the latter friends, testified to by the fact that the church has had an alliance with the United Nations since 1985, with the papacy being the main influencer there, and the Seventh-day Adventist church is an NGO of the same, meaning through ADRA they receive funds from the UN to help facilitate illegal immigration into America. Perhaps you didn’t know that. They’re also involved with the Climate Change Conference hoax where Sunday sacredness is being touted, and they’ve signed the BEM document and changed their logo to reflect that fact.

And who can forget when the denomination used tithe money to pay a Catholic lawyer to sue Raphael Perez and jailed a few others because they believed they had the right to call themselves Seventh-day Adventists. Does the real church of God do such things? If your answer is yes, I advise you to read Selected Messages, volume 3, page 299.

I don’t know about you, but it makes me angry to see what the devil has been able to do to the movement that was raised up to expose the man of sin as the antichrist of the last days, but is now in lock step with him.

There are a lot of independent ministries today that do an excellent job of exposing the fact that the Seventh-day Adventist church is in apostasy, but at the same time they refuse to call it what God calls a church in apostasy, why is that? I find that very hypocritical when The Great Controversy, page 38 says, “The term ‘Babylon’ is derived from ‘Babel,’ and signifies confusion. It is employed in Scripture to designate the various forms of false or apostate religion.”

You can’t have it both ways friends. If the church is in apostasy it’s Babylon, and if it’s lukewarm it’s a fallen church, and the longer people try to dance around these inspired statements because they’re afraid they’ll lose support, or for whatever other excuse they may have, then the longer it’s going to take for people to make an informed decision, and that delays the coming of the Lord when we ought to be hastening that great day. You see, that’s what it’s all about! Just like the disciples of old, we are to take a message to the lost sheep of the house of modern day Israel and call them out, because there’s another class Jesus is working with now, it’s called the remnant, and it’s made up of those who have heeded the message to flee to the mountains.

We’re told in The Great Controversy, page 30 that those who fled Jerusalem when the sign foretold by Jesus was given, fled to the city of Pella, meaning a “rock,” and “a city of refuge,” and that’s what it was, and similarly our rock and city of refuge is Jesus Himself and His truth and doing exactly what He says to do as soon as we understand that the Roman standard is “standing (today) where it ought not,” just like Mark 13:14 says about the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.

Well, what more can I say? I’ve already kept you longer than I intended, and I know you probably have lots of different thoughts swirling around in you minds right now, but I hope you’ll check these things out for yourself.

In The Great Controversy 598 it says, “It is the first and highest duty of every rational being to learn from the Scriptures what is truth, (and I would include the Spirit of Prophecy here) and then to walk in the light and encourage others to follow his example. We should day by day study the Bible diligently, weighing every thought and comparing scripture with scripture. With divine help we are to form our opinions for ourselves as we are to answer for ourselves before God.”

70 Weeks Are Determined Upon Thy People Part 2