Waldenses I

in the fire and in the back kindly findyourseats for our call to worship thismorning for one thing we need reverencein ourSanctuary for our call to worship thismorning I would I'm going to read frompsalm103 which may not be associated with TheLast Day message but it certainly needsto be memorized during our time that welive right now listen closely if uh ifyou would like to really listen readthis uh word with me if you would likebut listenseriously bless the Lord oh mysoul all that is within me bless Hisholyname bless the Lord oh my soul andforget not all hisbenefits forget not all his benefits whoforgives all youriniquities and heals all yourdiseases who redeems your life fromdestruction who crowns you with lovingkindness and Tender Mercies you'rehearing these attributes of Godwonderful who satisfies your desires orit says here in King James your mouthwith good things so that your youth isrenewed like the eagles the Lordexecuteth uh righteousness and judgmentfor all that areoppressed he made known his ways toMoses his act acts to the children ofIsrael the Lord is merciful or lovingand gracious slow to anger and plenteousin love and mercy he will not alwayschideneither will he uh keep his angerforever he hasn't dealt with us afterour sins nor rewarded us according toour iniquity we can say praise God forthat for as the heaven is as high ishigh above the Earth so great is hisMercy toward those who fear Him as faras the East is from the West so far ashe removed our transgressions from us soimportant as we we are looking forwardto the time of trouble where we wonderdo we have that connection with the Lordthat we must have through to theend like as a father pth his children sothe Lord pth those who fear Him for heknows our frame he remembers that we aredust as for man our days are like grassas the flower of the field so weflourish for the the wind passes over itand it is gone in its place thereforeshall no know it no more or remember itno more but the mercy of the Lord isfrom Everlasting to Everlasting uponthem that fear him and his righteousnessto their children'schildren to such as keep his Covenantand remember to obey his precepts or hisCommandments and listen to this this issomething to remember right now todaythe Lord has prepared his throne is inHeavens and his kingdom rules over allamen the Lord has established his thronein heaven and his kingdom rules over allamen bless the Lord you his angels thatexcelleth in strength that do hisCommandments hearkening unto the voiceof his word bless ye the Lord all hishis host he Ministers of his that do hispleasure bless the Lord all his worksand all places of his Dominion bless theLord oh mysoul our call toworship there is another type of worshipthat we will be participating in rightnow and that is ouroffering uh the offering this morning isuh will be used for our local churchexpense also I want to remind those ofyou that would like to uh see our churchchch uh improve in so many ways and itneeds so many improvements we have abuilding and planning uh committee andwe are merely waitingfor some of the um externals to be dealtwith especially our sewer system beforewe can begin remodeling here so we havea building fund and a building plan uhthat we would like to remind everybodyto tribute too now you'll see there'senvelopes here for home word publishingMinistries it's okay to put something inthere for for them but the call for thiswill be this afternoon more specificallyour offering this morning at this timewill be for our local churchexpense so before the deacons wait on uswe'll have a word ofprayer thank you Lord for this timetogether what a wonderful valuable timetogether wehave and thank you for the opportunitythat we have now in worshiping youthrough giving and we pray that this uhthisgiving Will Bless The Kingdom of Heavenand glorifyyou our ultimate goal we thank you Lordfor your wonderful word for Psalm 103and the reassurances that we have WePraise You Lord in the name of JesusChrist Our God Amen am[Music]go[Music]h[Music]oh[Music]h[Applause][Music]all[Music][Applause][Music][Applause][Music]please turn on your hym notes now to 645and let's stand as we sing Our openinghymn god of ourfathers 645 sing all threestanzas excuse me four stanas[Music]God of our[Music]father he all the star land[Music]and before thy Throne[Music][Applause][Music]of I lovedivine thatus the[Music]night in this freeLand by thee are L iscast the ourrule guardan guide and[Music][Applause]state thy[Music]wayfromP be thy strongarm ever suredefend thy true Relin our hearts andfreeth isgoodness Nish us[Music]inacebe p on their toil somewh[Music]lead fromnight toNeverEndingday F all Allives with love and graceDivine and glorygod and praise beever Godamen please be seatedyes[Music][Music][Music]in[Music]thank you for that beautiful music it'sbeautiful I want to for those of youthat weren't here last night I'm goingto go ahead and introduce um ElderVine and just read a little short bioborn into a pastorial family Elder Vinegrew up with his twin brother and twosisters in homes across the UK aftergraduating with a business managementdegree in1995 he served in the UK Public HealthCare system before God led him to Adrain1996 initiallyserving inas he does a betterjob Elder fine served with addressthrough 2002 in a variety of rolesworldwide following Seminary training atnew bold College 2002 to 2004 he andLuda began their pastorial Ministry inLondon UK after serving as secretarytreasure in the Middle East Union theytransitioned to pastorial Ministry forfour years in Minnesota before ElderVine answered the call to serve as aspresident of Advent Frontiermissions Conrad and Luda were married inDecember1999 and regard their marriage their twochildren as a personal blessing from aloving heavenlyfather so we know we're going to beblessed this morning last night we wereblessed and look forward to your messagethis morninggood morning all right that works allright so it's a privilege to be with youhere today and uh it's a beautifulweekend yes yeah so um let me just sortmyself out here for a second um I got aPowerPoint can I show this on the slidehere if you were here last night yourealize that Satan was working overtimeto stop this from working but we serve agood God and when we prayed last nighthe fixed our problems for us amen sowe're going to trust gods do the samefor us heretoday andum all right let me uh find acable when I was growing up they saidnever work with animals orchildren and um I would add technologyto thatlistso there we are okay so our scripturereading today is um is actually takenfrom serving the church in thewilderness and our scripture today isgoing me looking at one verse in the NewTestament it's a verse that relates towhere we are in history today and Ithink it's important that we talk aboutthese things because we've just gonethrough an a global crisis in the lastfour years and it's important for us totake stock and to ask ourselves how didwe do what could we do better and are wereally ready for what is coming Upon OurWorld so um let's bow our heads we'llinvite the presence of the Holy Spiritand then we will get underway HeavenlyFather we thank you today for the giftof the Sabbath day we thank you Fatherfor the freedom we have Gather in thesedark hours of Earth'shistory and father I thank you that yourspirit has brought each one of us heretoday that the bride and the spirit saycome to all of humanity I want to thankyou Father that on Calvary you gainvictory over Satan I want to thank youFather that your first at the the firstappearing of your son Christ gainedvictory over sin and when he appears thesecond time will'll be to save those whoare waiting for him and so today fatheras we live between the shadows ofcalvary in the dawn of the second comingI pray that we will indeed walk in thelight that you've given us in scripturefather as as we look at these topicshere today and throughout this day andthis evening I'm asking that your holyspirit will bring conviction to us Lordwe're not gathered here merely to heardifferent speakers on different mattersand Lord we've been blessed sofar but Lord we're coming here becausewe want to be ready for Jesus and Lordthat involves a work of personaltransformationLord we read repeatedly in the spirit ofProphecy that our greatest need is forpersonalconversion and so I'm asking you Lordthat as I share today that your holyspirit will be working on the hearts ofall who are present today and all whoare watching online and you will bringus a fresh a sense of conversion ofconviction of sin and of our need forthe sin-bearing Savior so Lord speakthrough me now I pray that your spiritwill be present in our room in thishouse of worship I ask that uh anySpirit not of your kingdom will bedriven from this room right now I askthat your angels who excel in strengthwill guard this house of worship and mayall that is son done and said here todaybring honor and glory to our Lord andsavior thank you Father for hearing andfor answering this prayer we ask inJesus name amen soum where are we here there we are okayso a as we discussed last night uh mostof all the texts that I'm officiallygoing to go through will appear on onthe screen um if I go off down a littleRabbit Trail somewhere then you needyour Bibles with you and we're going togo down those passages together but umwe're going to all the texts will be onthe screen and um when I was when sisterGwen called me about this she said now Ineed three topics from you and it waskind of like short notice I thought whatdo you mean you want three topics youjust asked me 30 seconds ago if I'd comeyou know and you know it's not like ajukebox where you put in 50 cents outcomes three sermons you know umand so I said well well she says wellthis is a general theme so I said okaywe'll do this this andthis and um then sister Gwen sent me theprogram the flyer I wrote back to herand said oh just sister Gwen Gwen I'mreally sorry but my my topics have allchanged can you kind of change all theFlyers she says well it's kind of lateto change those flyers I said you pleaseyou know I'm not preaching on thosetopics so uh eventually um she agreedvery graciously and then um decided notto preach on thosetopics and so um I I I can tell you thatum that when you come to a place um andyou listen to the congregation you seethe Sabbath School discussions and youtalk with people in the foyer the holyspirit is always working on your heartshaping what you're going to say andsometimes you come prep prepared topreach a b and c and what comes out is Dandf and uh that's that's one of thejoys or the Terrors of being a preacherso um and as it's all caught on theinternet you can never Escape it thesedays so um I'm going to be talking uhthis morning and this this evening aboutthe church in the wilderness becausethey're important lessons for us becausewe are entering Earth's darkesthour and um I I've I've chosen to talkabout it in more like like a story formbecause we have a lot of childrenpresent here today and a talk like wedid last night is going to lose a lot ofchildren and I'm hoping that youngpeople you're going to stick with thisbecause it's stories that stick in inour hearts and uh we make sense ofHistory through the telling of story notthrough the telling of individual versesso um we're going to be looking to thisthis morning at the church in thewilderness and this evening I'm going tobe looking at the question of who arethe last day W denans um so you want tostick around for that so um we're goingto start out by just uh before we go toour introduction well this is ourintroduction I guess um we're going tolook at just just remind ourselves inRevelation 12 and verse 7 it says andwar broke out in heaven it's nointeresting thing yes there was war inheaven we think everybody wants to getto heaven nobody wants to go to a placewhere there is War and the text says warbroke out in heaven and that word forwar is poos we get the word pmic fromthat or something is pical and so ifsomething is pical it means that you aremaking an argument againstsomething and a pmic is an argument forposition a against position B and sofrom the from just from the use of theword that word we we understand that thewar in heaven um before um this worldbegan the war in heaven it may not justbeen a physical War but it was a warabout ideas and Wars about ideas areWars abouttruth there is a war about truth andwhat is more important than God's Thronebecause his throne is founded on truthand righteousness so therefore the warin heaven physical or not was a warabout the character of God and thecharacter and nature of hisjudgment and at the end of this chapterin what the Bible in Daniel 11: 40 callsthe time of the end end we read theyhave this other verse it says the dragonthat is Satan was angry with the womanthat is the pure Church went off to makewar the word there is poos the same wordagain on the rest of her children thosewho keep the Commandments of God andhold the testimony of Jesus and so westart out this chapter with war inheaven before this world begins and atthe end of this chapter before Jesuscomes we have another pmos a war goingon and once again it's a war about truthso truth mattersit's important to have the courage tospeak thetruth my wife once asked me what youwant to do for our 202 anniversary Isaid I'd like to go hog hunting in Texasit didn't get very far and I told thatas a children's story and the moral ofthe story was it's important children tobe able to tell the truth now that waskind of tangential to the story of thehog hunting but it is true today thatthe truth is no longer welcome in thePublicSquare and truth is increasingly nolonger welcome within localcongregations and so we are too as theas we studyed last week in our Sabbathschool lesson we are to contend for thefaith that has been passed on to us andto contend for the faith means we mustbe willing to stand up for the truth andstand up doesn't just mean give silencewhen when when truth is under attack andhope that somebody else picks up thesword and take enters the battle to be asoldier for Jesus Christ today meansthat wherever there is a battle that'swhere we are called to be and it's easyto preach sermons about Gideon's donkeybecause nobody cares about Gideon'sdonkey that's not where Satan isattacking the truth of God todaypreachers in the Pulpit need to speak towhere Satan is attacking the body ofChrist because that is what people aredealing with so we're talking abouttruth so there's a war in heaven thereabout truth and nature of God and hishis character and his government thereis a war at the end of time in the timeof the end and today we're going to lookat the war in the middle between the warin heaven and the war in the time of theend there was Another War and that wasthe time of the church in the wildernessand so this is the passage we're goingto be reflecting on today it says sowhen the dragon saw that he had beenthrown down to the earth that is Satanhe pursued the woman who had given birthto the male child but the woman wasgiven the two wings of the Great Eagleso that she could fly from the serpentInto the Wilderness to a place where shewas nourished for a time and times andhalf a time then from his mouth theserpent poured water like a river afterthe woman to sweep her away with theflood but the Earth came to the help ofthe woman it opened its mouth andswallowed the river that the dragon hadpoured from its mouth and so we want toreflect today on the this middle War andthe lessons that we learn from itbecause we're living in the middle ofthe third war of that chapter do youfollow me on this okay and sister whitewrites about this she says it would bewell for all our workers to study thehistory of the wenan missionaries and toimitate their example of sacrifice andself-denial it is well for us us tostudy the church in that middle era isan incredible story because there arelessons for us today as we Face the sameadversary that is Satan seeking todestroy God's kingdom whether it's inheaven or on Earth his goal is alwaysthe same so this is our journey todaywe're going to look at the AlpineFortress we look at the early wenseslook at how false doctrines enter thebody of Christ then we're going to lookat the light shining in the darkness andthe motto of the Wen scenes was thelight shining in the darkness that wastheir motto and it was their motto formany many centuries and before we cometo our conclusions and the conclusionsuh really directly relate to how do welive in the third world that we findourselves caught up in today so theAlpine Fortress so if you go to Italytoday and I've been to many countries inthe world and I've flown through Romeonce and my experience of Rome airportwas so bad I decided I never want to goback to Rome but um if you go to thenorth of Rome you see on the map thereon the screen and you see um Italy inthe bottom right you go to the north youcome up to the Alps just southeast ofSwitzerland and there's a major citythere called Milan Milan is one of themajor cities in Northern Europe it wasfor many centuries the home of Emperorsand of popes and it is in a beautifulspot because it is watered year round bymelting water from the Alps and the landis very very fertile and if you headwest of Milan you come to the city oftyin where the tyin Shroud comes fromand this is known as the pedmont regionand if you go west of chin then you cometo the pedmont valleys and the pedmontplain and then you come to the weninvalleys and so the wenin valleys there'skind of a general map of it we'relooking from the East we're looking Westand at the back of the screen you seethe Alps that are separating us fromFrance and you go through these narrowAlpine valleys and the this is the homeof the wenses for almost a thousandyears if not more than that now thereare seven valleys in total um but overtime there their land was was removedand and cut back in size by papaldecrees and by the rulers of the Jukesof seavo who ruled that part of Italyfor many years and there are there arebeautiful valleys there I'm just to giveyou a scale of some of them uh thelucerna the valley of light is 12 Milong and 2 mi wide and it's carpetedwith Meadows and it's watered from thepiche you have the valley of Jews aRound Valley 50 miles in circumferenceis clothed with Meadows with orchardswith corn forests corn fields and Forestthen you have the valley of groans andthere are three more four more valleysbeyond that and each Valley is afortress it has a narrow entrance and anarrow exit it is surrounded by Cliffsby caves and rocks it is impossible to amajor Army and it is watered year roundby the melting snow to live in this partof the world through those centuriesrequires very Advanced mountaineeringskills the ability to climb and Traverseicy Cliffs the ability to walkfearlessly along snowy paths Cut Abovethousands of feet of dizzying Abyss tosurvive the Alpine Winters you have tocoax sufficient food from those Mountainslopes to survive the following winterthere you see some pictures from theAlpine valleys there there's a church uhan Alpine well then scene there's aBible copy is table and so this is wherethis is the retreat that God hadprepared for his Faithful Servants forover a thousand years of papal crueltyand Papal tyranny and the attempt towipe out those who are faithful to Godnow if you go to the west of the of theuh of the The Valleys you come intoFrance and over there the true churchwere known through history as thealenes now they were slaughtered andwiped out almost completely um by theFrench rulers over a number of centuriesand then if you come down to themountains between Spain and France knownas the Pyrenees you also find remnantsof the W denes there as well so why dowe call them the W denes and so there'sa number of reasons why we call them theW denes and people dispute why do wecall them the wenses um one of thereasons is that they live in narrowremote valleys and uh the French referthem as Voda which means inhabitants ofthe valleys one papal author about 1200ad guy called EAD of bethon called themvalences or inhabitants in the valley ofteers um others refer to a man calledPeter Waldo who enters the historicalnarrative at about 1175 ad he lived inthe south of France he was a wealthy manhe heard the true gospel preached hedevoted uh he gave his money away to thepoor and devoted his life to spreadingthe teachings of the Apostles insouthern France uh other people thinkthey're called wenses um because theywere referred to as insati an Italianword because some said they wore sandalsin Imitation of the Apostles and theLatin word for sandals is sabbatum otherpeople think they were called sabatibecause they kept the Sabbath day sothere's a very there a variety ofreasons or theories of why they'recalled the wenses but the bottom lightis bottom line is this the church in thewilderness in these Mountain Retreatshas become known throughout history toher friends and enemies alike simply asthewenses their traditional motto which yousee in their churches is Lux lucet intenebrous which as Latin it means lightis shining in thedarkness John 1:5 says that the lightshines in the darkness and the Darknessdid not overwhelm it with which meansthat there is always conflict betweentruth and error and if we today wouldpreach truth we must be ready forconflict if we don't want conflict wejust give in and live by lies and so ifwe want to live by truth to stand up fortruth to preach truth we know before weeven open our mouths or live our livesas a sermon as Dr Hugo said this morningyou can preach often and if ifabsolutely necessary use words as Wesleysaid uh if we're going to stand up fortruth in these last dayswe must Harden we must GD up our loinsand stiffen our spines because there isconflict around us and don't enter thefry if you're not ready for thefry so those early W denes now how dothese W denes comeabout well we know from scripture and II pulled this slide off this morningfrom Mark Finley's revelation of Hopeseries it's a very good summary um inRevelation chapter 6 7 and 8 we havethese Four Horsemen of the Apocalypsethey actually run through the first fiveand six verses only of chapter 6 and theWhite Horse represents the pure Churchthe pure faith of the apostolic era andthat lasts all the way through to thedeath of the Apostle John about 90 to100 AD that is then replaced by the redhorse and that's when the Roman Empiredecided to try and persecute the earlyChristian Church out of existence and sothe red horse represents a bloodstainedfaith but then when the Romans could notpersecute Christianity out of existenceConstantine comes to the throne and hedecides that the best way to deal withChristianity is to merge Christianitywith paganism and then you have theblack horse which represents acompromised Faith um a white horse ifwhite represents purity of Doctrine thenthe black represents the dilution of thepurity of Doctrine and then finally youhave the Pale Horse The Pale Horse andafter the Pale Horse death and Hadesfollow him it says the Pale Horserepresents the time of papal Supremacyuh 538 to 1798 ad when the pope wasSupreme in Rome and the ruler Undisputedruler of Western Europe and thatrepresents a dead Faith uh but that wasalso a period of massive persecution soit's no wonder that the text says deathand Hell Followed afterhim so let's come back to Pope Sylvesterthefirst you see um paganism started tosweep into the church in the 2 and thirdcenturies and some held to the teachingsof the Apostles and some decided that itwas politic and it was politicallycorrect to blend the truth of the Gospelwith the theories of men and so acompromise started entering the churchfrom the second third and fourthcenturies onward and in ad 325 at theCouncil of NAA um Constantine theemperor he told the the the assembledBishops that they must give greatrecognition to Sylvester the first asthe bishop of Rome now the emperorConstantine decreed that the entireRoman Empire must conform to hisdecision and so the split became moreopen the polarization in the churchChurch like we see today it happenedback then there was polarization in thechurch between those who held to theteachings of the Apostles and those whoheld well this is what the the Civilrulers are saying and we need to blendpaganism with Christianity in order forChristianity to be more palatable forthe masses and so the wenses the peopleum in northern France and and SouthernFrance and Northern Italy they realizedthat they were heading for trouble andso he started to migrate to themountains not of Idaho but to themountains of the wensing valleys oftoday and as I was driving up yesterdayyou see these mountains covered in snowI think you know this is just like thewenses you know this is just like thewenses people living out here and so toescape persecution faithful Christiansleft the fertile PLS which means theyturned their back on economic o EconomicOpportunity in order to be faithful tothe gospel and they went where it washard and tough and isolated to livebecause that was the only way they weregoing to preserve the purity of theGospeland we need to think in the same waytoday we can't just say I'm going tolive by the by the as lot did by ThePlains of Sodom and Gomorrah knowingthere is Judgmentcoming we need to be asking ourselves amI am I now um cutting off all ties withSodom and Gomorrah spiritually my lifeam I moving out of spiritual Babylon amI following the Council of spirit ofProphecy to move out of the Cities intothe countryside we already have thislight giving to us and tragically so fewof us are following itand so the earliest known opposition tothe um these new Pagan doctrines camefrom a guy called helvidius and in ad 33383 he wrote a treaties against thedoctrine of the Perpetual V virginity ofthe Blessed Virgin Mary which wasalready coming into existence throughthe bishop of Rome and he wrote inparticular against this guy here a guycalled Jerome you've heard of JeromeJerome was one of the early churchFathers as the Catholic Church wouldtell us today he trans translated theBible into Latin for the Roman hierarchythat became known as The Vulgate you'veheard of The Vulgate and uh uh um it wasshown that his writings were usingcorrupted Greek manuscripts and Jeromehad a foul temper and a foul spirit andwe we'll come back to him in a fewmoments uh after helvidius comes jinian333 to 390 ad and his writings againstum the claims of the bishop of Rome wereso brilliant that the paple ChampionsJerome Augustine and Ambrose failed torefute his biblical arguments listen towhat he taught this was 1700 years agohe taught that the lives of marriedpeople are fully as acceptable in thesight of God as those who are notmarried that's because there was anonrush of monasticism and asceticisminto the church and people werecelebrating being an unmarried Monk andhe said no it's okay to be married aswell as single in the church he taughtthat eating with Thanksgiving is ascommendable before God as is fasting hetaught that all who are faithful totheir baptismal vows will be equallyrewarded in the final day of judgmentand because of jovinian writings Jeromesaid of her jinian quote he has thehissing of the old serpent end quotekind of ironic he said he speaks quotenauseating trash quote and quote thedevil's poisonous concoction end ofquote jovinian opposed the new Paganreligious system of self-imposed aausterity processions feast days selfflatulation and the sacraments arguingthat these have no part insanctification and we would say Amen towhat he wrote 1700 yearsago I want you to note something aboutthis we don't know the the names of thevast majority of people who are goingalong with this nonsense but we do knowin history the names of those who stoodup and when we get to heaven we want ournames to stand out in the anals ofSalvationhistory history records the names ofthose who stood up for truth not thosewho bowed and went who who went along togetalong we then come to vigilantius in8364 to 408 this is a Greek Orthodoxicon of him I don't think is what hereally looked like he was born insouthern France near the Pines mountainshis father was the owner of a relay postwhich means this is like um um a gasstation on an interstate and the RomanImperial couriers would carry the maaleacross the Empire and they would havehorses in these relay posts like thepony fresh used to have and the ImperialCourier would rrive would arrive get offhis horse take off the Imperial theofficial documentation and letters geton a fresh horse and ride on and becausevigilantius was living at a relay posthe got to hear the gossip of the Empireand he knew what was happening all overthe Roman Empire both east east and westand uh so he was introduced by hisemployer a man called sisia Severus whowas a celebrity in the Roman Empire afamous historian to a famous Bishopcalled Martin Bishop of Tours that's insouthern France and now Martin hadestablished a monastery and he waspromoting monasticism he lived in abjectpoverty he slept in ashes he starvedhimself almost to death he adoptedunnatural postures to pray and exposedhimself to cold hunger and thirst at thetime monasticism was all the rage acrossEurope and uh some monks lived in Wildspots in the wilderness they were knownas Aros we get the word Hermits fromthat um one very famous Bishop uh monkof Simon stylites he lived on top of acolumn in the desert for over 30 yearshe sat on top of a column in the Syriandesert and people would bring him hisfood and he lifted up with um with a umum a rope and he lived up there and hisname was Simon styes and people likethat were feted and made made intoHeroes all across the uh the eastern andthe Western Roman Empire and the earlyform of Christianity that Constantinewas bringing across the world and so umyou have uh the the onset of monasticismwith monasticism comes aasis andinflicting pain on your own body becausein the in the new theology that wascoming along in Isaiah 53 where it saysby his wounds we arehealed therefore these early theologianswere teaching that if it is by thewounds of Christ that we are healed andthis is in Catholic theology today it isthe suffering of Christ that is salvificnot the death and resurrection of Christthat is salvific therefore we weparticipate in the sufferings of Christby imposing pain on our own bodiesthat's where you start whipping yourselfit's where you start cutting your legsyou start cutting your arms and so forthand so asceticism and self flatulationwere very becoming very popularvigilante has traveled all the way toBethlehem to visit Jerome Jerome was wasviewed as one of the spiritual Giants ofthe early church but he had a foultemper he was according to contemporaryports reports pale and Haggard his eyeswere sunk in their sockets the bones ofhis face was sharp and his eyes werebrooding and uh he had some argumentswith vigilantius and vigilantius wentback to Rome um pretty disillusioned andwhat he saw in Rome disillusioned himeven more just like when Martin Lutherwent to Rome he left it feelingprofoundly disillusioned after his Tafter his visit to Rome and so um Jeromewent uh vigilantius decided to escapefrom the the the dogmas of the RomanChurch and from the attacks of the Romanhierarchy and where did he go he went toNorthern Italy to the wenin valleys andfrom there he started preaching sermonsand those sermons um went all across theWestern Roman Empire now Jerome wasFurious about this and this is what hewrote to a fellow monk he says he'swriting about Vigilantes he says I havemyself before now seen this monster asvigilantius I've done my best to bindthe maniac with texts of scripture ashypocrates binds his patients withchains but he went away he departed heescaped he broke out and taking Refugebetween the Adriatic and the Alps ofKing Kus that's the the the the Alpsjust south of Switzerland disclaimeddeclaimed in his turn against me so whatwas vigilantius preaching this is whathe was preaching we know this from hissermons he was preaching the pure Gospelof Jesus Christ he was opposingmonasticism and asceticism he wasopposing the inrush or the onrush ofpagan practices within the church heDeni he denounced the celebration ofcelibacy within the church umparticularly among the monks hedenounced the worship of Reliche denounced the the the the um practiceof lighting candles allight vigils andprayers to thedead and three Sundays ago I visited aGreek Orthodox Church um my daughter hada comparative religions class and shesays Dad should I go to a mosque a tempHindu temple or a Greek Orthodox Churchsaid well if that's your choice I'd goto a Greek Orthodox church and we wentto the Greek Orthodox church and becauseuh the Orthodox church and and thewestern church split over 1100 years agoum um Orthodox theology has not evolvedmuch because they say that God will onlylead the whole church when all theBishops are in Union and sit as equalsaround the table which of course won'thappen because the bishop of Rome claimsto be first among equals and so the thethe Church of the East has has focusedon what we call the smells and the bellsum they focus on the experience ofworshiping God that's why you haveincense it's why you have gold andsilver it's why you have you have iconsit's why people the the the the priestwalks by and people bend down they Touchthe Hem of His robe it's why people comeand they kiss the golden crusted Bibleit's why when you come into the churchthere are little candles that you lightit's why you stand for 3 hours duringthe whole service you stand for 3 hourswondering when you're ever going to sitdown and um there is a spot of about 10minutes when you can sit down but thenyou stand up again and the priest standswith his back to the congregation for95% of the of the service and half theservice is done in coin Greek and youdon't understand what's being said anyanyway and the service good news is thesame week after week after week it's thesame liturgy that goes back to to umJohn Chris Stone one of the early churchfathers and the only thing that reallychanges is the homy which lasts for 10minutes on the scriptures and um as Iwas listening to this liturgy time andagain um we were being uh we werepraying in the name of the BlessedVirgin Mary theotokos the Mother of Godand then there's antifonal singing s onS on off to one side and the antisinging is really beautiful actually umbut when you look at what they'reactually saying you realize this isbasicallypaganism it looks beautiful it smellsbeautiful it sounds beautiful but it'sbasicallypaganism and this is what happened inthe early churchthereso Jerome responded tovigilantius and he saidthis he said um his tongue should betorn out his eyes should be put outJerome demanded that vigilantius bedelivered over to the seed authoritiesfor banishment or death and ashistorians of Popes are want to pointout when the the bishop of Rome seek thelife of her opponents she often turnsthem over to the secular Tribunal forpunishment this is done in order todescri to disguise the enormity of theircrimes Jerome wanted vigilant's tongueto be torn out or he should be put undertreatment forInsanity thus the Church of Romesupported by the power of the Civilstate was abandoning the persuasion oflove for the brute argument of physicalforce and at this time uh the third andfourth centuries Sunday worship startedto be um not just celebrated but it wasbecome more and more imposed within theboundary of Rome itself and there was avery famous Archbishop in Milan calledAmbrose you've heard of Ambrose maybeand he was a Sabbath keeper up in upnear those wal denin valleys but he soonleared that when you went to for a visitdown to the bishop of Rome you had tokeep Sunday when you were in Rome that'sthe origin of the phrase of the pro theidiom in England today when in Rome doas Rome does so he would keep Sabbath upin the venian valleys and when he comesdown to Rome he starts to keep Sundayand that's why when in Rome you do asthe Romans do okay and uh that's umthat's the origin of that particularidiom in the English language and somore significantly at this time therewas a guy in North Africa called let meturn that back brother few at that timein North Africa there was a guy calledAugustine one of the brightest thinkersof all the the period of the Dark Agesand Augustine um was inventing thedoctrine of compulsion there's a pictureof Augustine there and for nine yearshe'd been studying the the theory ofmanism and he was arguing that that weshould have a union of church and stateand that the state should uphold Sundayworship and the coercion of conscienceand you say well why did Augustine arguethat well he argued that we are topersecute Heretics in order to compelthem to enter thechurch this is one of the heroes of theCatholic church this is one of the uhthe key thinkers in Catholic Cannon lawtoday is the writings of Augustine nowhow did he get this well if you turn inyour Bibles to you don't you don't needto do it now but I'll tell you Luke 14:16 through 24 you have the parable ofthe Wedding Banquet where in guests areinvited to come to the wedding supper ofthe Son and the master sends hisservants out to the streets at the endof that passage in order to compel orconstrain people to attend and this isthe passage here you see in Greek thereand it says then said the Lord themaster to the servant go out onto theroads and into the highways and thatthat bid in red is is the the key verbanag Kazo which means to compelconstrain orpersuade and Augustine argued that whatJesus was teaching was that the churchhas the right to compel people to enterthe church U and the last phrase therein order that my house might be fullthere in Co Greek and so Augustine saysthe church has a moral responsibility tocompel people by force if necessary toenter the church why because they alsotaught that extra eclesia non salestoutside the church there is no salvationso if there is no salvation outside thechurch you can only be saved inside thechurch that means the church is doingyou a favor by torturing you into thechurch because that's the only wayyou're going to get eternallife and as we see in in the SpanishInquisition um all of this was wrappedup in Beautiful s language beautifulsounding language when you were burnt atthe stake it was known as an out dafe oran Act ofFaith and when you weregted they tie a rope around your neckwith a A rod and they twist it aroundyou die um that was known as relaxingthe person so they all these euphemismsin in the torture of Heretics and soAugustine argued that the Hereticsshould be compelled by torture ifnecessary to enter the church becausethat was the only way they would findeternallife that interpretation when wed itsway through the centuries and it comesdown to Pope honorius in the 13thcentury who established the Dominicanorder you heard of theDominicans and he argued that the theDominican order had two purposes the Fbusiness of the first purpose was topreach the gospel that is what Rome wascalling the gospel and the second wasthey were to slay those that theycouldn'tconvert and those are the two foldpurposes for the order of Dominicans tothis day the business of the one was topreach that of the other was to slayThose whom the first was not able toconvert so hated by Rome and hounded byVigilant by Jerome vigilante hasFaithfully taught the gospel and hisspreading his teaching spread allthrough the wal Denine valleys andpeople Leed in the third fourth andfifth centuries that if you wantedLiberty of conscience you went to themountainvalleys just as in our scripture readingGod prepared a place in the wildernessfor his people to live during what wenow call the Dark Ages so then we cometo the next stage of our our journeytoday what exactly were some of thosefalse doctrines that enter the churchand we've already touched on some ofthem you know that paganism in generaland false doctrines that enter thechurch it's interesting this thatthroughout the centuy Satan has not hadmuch he hasn't done much in the area ofatheism because he knows that we allhave an innate desire to worship so hepresents false gods before humanity andso throughout the centuries you go allthe way back to the Tower of Babelpaganism has been Satan's main umdistraction for for the saints of Godnot atheism because he knows that wethat people have an innate sense thatthere must be a god out there somewhereso he gives us false gods and that isknown as paganism and so the first majorfalse doctrine that entered the churchwas the idea that lay people could notunder understand the scriptures forthemselvesthey had to accept the teachings of thechurch An Origin this guy in Alexandriain modern day Egypt he taught that thescriptures are of little use to thosewho understand them as they are writtencan you imagine that they are of littleuse if if you think you can understandit they are of little use to you and soof course who and who then is able tointerpret the scriptures few well themonks and the church now in the secondthird and fourth centuries there werethese internal disputes in EAS arananabout the nature of Christ was did Jesushave a divine nature and a human natureyes but was the human nature um was thehuman nature fallen or was it unfallenwas the human nature blended with thedivine nature or did they exist parallelto one another and did the divine natureexist before the human nature when Jesusgoes back to Heaven does he lose hishuman nature and go back to a purelydivine nature those were the discussionsthat were going on and they went to warabout this and they were justfellowshipping one another about thisand uh these the debates in second thirdand fourth and fifth centuries andeventually a monk called siral in thefifth century he he made a statement andhe essentially argued that theinterpretation of scripture is the isthe authority of the church and theright of the church and the church hasthe role and responsibility ofdetermining what the scripture says soinstead of the church the scripturecoming from God and we sit under thescripture so that the scripture hasauthority over us seriel swapped itround and said because there's so muchchaos Us in the in the church at thetime the church is going to determinewhat the scripture says and you'd betterbelieve it and so origin says that thescriptures are of little use to thosewho understand them as they written butit is the word of God that enlightensthe mind it's the word of God that freesus from Superstition and the bondage ofreligious tyranny but the clergy usurpedthe authority of scripture forthemselves over the members of thechurch and then you come the secondmajor heresy that enters the church wasthe doctrine of the mass the Eucharistit was introduced by a monk calledradbertus in the 9th century now theTeaching Ministry that Christcommissioned just before we went back toheaven the commission to the gospelcommission to the 11 disciples becamereplaced by a sacrificing priesthood inPagan worship the mass was a ritual bywhich the son God was worshiped throughthe symbolism of a round wafer now tobelieve that a priest can turn Bread andWine Into the literal body blood andBody of Christ is to deny the evidenceof the sensesthus it opens the minds of men and womento any Superstition or false doctrinethat is shoveled theirway that is why the doctrine of the massit opens up the mind to all kinds of umnonsensical ideas because it's it'sasking you to accept and believe thatwhich does not makesense and if you follow the the papacytoday you will know that in the uh thethe um paper and cyclical 2015 calledlaato C the Poke argued that we need tobe um resting on Sabbath on Sundayremember remember that for two reasonsone is to give the world a break fromthe endless cycle of economicconsumption it's going to save theplanet but the second reason is is thatthen the whole world can startcelebrating the Eucharist once againit's the heart of the Catholic processand it is a Blasphemous and a paganritual the third Pagan doctrine thatentered the church was the idea that menand women can be served by works of meMerit as well as by faith now when youaccept the doctrine that that you aresaved by works of Merit as well as byfaith that leads um the door open toreligious tyranny and why does it dothat because when salvation is Holybelonging to Christ then we only look toJesus Christ for oursalvation and when and because salvationonly comes from Jesus that means thisverse is very important for there is oneGod there is also one mediator betweenGod and Mankind that is Christ Jesus andyou know when I was in that OrthodoxChurch the the preacher gave a homy onyou know James and John one he sit atthe right and left hand of Jesus and thepreacher says well of course they can'twhy not because the Virg the BlessedVirgin Mary sits at the right hand ofJesus and the Apostle John sits at lefthand of Jesus and to prove the point youcan see it in the icon behind myback so the Bible teaches there's oneGod so there is one mediator between Godand man it is Jesus Christ and the Paganideas taught that the Saints willintercede for you you pray to the deadin order for them to intercede thoughthe dead know nothing and the BlessedVirgin Mary Mary as they call her she isnow the redemptrix in heaven and she hasreplaced Jesus Christ as the mediatorbetween man and God and so this was thethird Doctrine but why does the doctrinethat you can be saved by works of Meritstrip us of our religious liberty wellsimply this if a man is saved by graceand good works then why not compel himto do those goodworks conversion by coercion becomesjustifiable for those in religiousAuthority who now Define what good worksare acceptable and necessary forsalvation so once you acceptrighteousness by good works then thequestion becomes well what works arenecessary for salvation and if I and ifI want you to be saved then I'm doingyou a favor by compelling you to do theworks that I'm telling you todo the next doctrine that enters thechurch is the doctrine of the divineright of kings which evolves in thecenturies to something um that's knownas the doctrine of passive obedienceso we start out with Constantine he saysto the Bishops of Rome and around thechurch there were five patriarchic therewas um Rome in the west then there wasConstantinople then there was AntiochJerusalem and Alexandria the five Greatum Patriarchs of the ancient church hesays to them you are Bishops whosejurisdiction is within the church I amalso a bishop ordained by God tooverlook whatever is external to thechurch now he he he's articulating herethe the idea of the Divine right ofkings and this idea of the divine rightof kings it impacts ustoday okay John Lackland who signed theMagna Carta believed that he has aDivine had a Divine Right To Rule and hewas not subject to the wishes of hissubjects and when they fought againsthim because he was upholding theineright of kings and they forced him tosign the magnar in 1215 ad that is thefoundation of civil liberties and acommon law system which is in Americatodayso our liberties the Assumption of thepresumption of innocence in a trial andhabus Corpus all come frommagnata and the the the the Barons werepushing back against the idea of thedivine right of kings but let's comeback to Constantine here Constantinesaid this to the Bishops but when PopeZachary made Pepin King of the Franksthis divine right of kings Doctrine wasnow interpreted as the right of thepopes who represent God they are God onEarth they now have the right to appointKings and the right of the king in orderto govern in turn to govern the peopleso the pope then extended this doctrineof the divine right of kings to whatbecame known in history as the papaldoctrine of passive obedience thisstated that because popes could not makea mistake anyone who challenged a kingappointed by the pope was thereforeguilty of heresy was to be exexcommunicated at best and murdered atworst this doctrine of passive obediencewas then extended to protect priests soif anybody made a complaint of murder oradultery or pedophilia against a priestthat was by by now considered bydefinition treat treason against God andthat person was to be excommunicated andoften timeskilled and so even in our modern era thepapacy protects itspriests because to question theauthority of a priest is to question theauthority of thePope and to question the authority ofthe pope is to question God because thepope is as of innocent III he is God onEarthso you have a system that has noaccountability to it and so the decisionto merge church and state it was a slowdecision there were dozens and dozensand dozens of Bishops of Rome who whosought power at any possible opportunityand they took the opportunity Wheneverthere was a political discussion toextend their power So eventually theBishops and the priests and the monksall accepted the sole authority of thebishop of Rome in at least in theWestern World in the Eastern worldMediterranean there was the Schism inthe 11th century and they they rejectedthe idea of the the the the number oneposition for the bishop of Rome now theEmperors tried persuasion by converingthe convening the early churchescouncils and when they couldn't get umconver um conviction and conversion theystarted moving to physical force and tobolster their Authority the papacy cameup with two forged documents which todayare recognized as forgeries the firstwas this document here The Testament tothe emperor Constantine 776 ad and whatwas this this was a forgery and it wasallegedly um when the emperorConstantine died he allegedly gave to umthe bishop of Rome Sylvester all of thecivil and author religious civil andreligious authority of the old CaesarsofRome everything was given to them theBishops they got the Palaces they gotthe wealth they got the money andbecause Caesar had now moved from Rometo Constantinople there was now avacancy in Rome for civilruler and they said to the bishop ofRome you can have that civil power aswell as having the religious power andso the Bishops of Rome stepped into thevacuum that was created whenConstantinople moved the Roman Empirefrom Rome East to Constantinople thesecond document that they relied onknown as the decretal of Isidor theseare allegedly a collection of lettersfrom the early pastors ofRome and those two false um documentslike fake newsthose two falsedocuments became the Cornerstone ofpapal umPower and those were the two documentson which they based their claim to bethe sole civil and religious ruler notjust of the western world but of theworld and these documents are recognizedtoday widely as simply being umforgeries PopeGregory the high noon of papal powerissued um 18 maximsand he used these decretals to hisAdvantage among these maxims is the 11thit says the pope's name is the chiefname on Earth the 12th Maxim says it islawful for the pope to deposeEmperors his 18th Maxim is his decisionis to be withstood bynobody the 19th is the pope can bejudged by nobody the 25th the pope hasabsolute authority to remove and appointBishops the 27th the pope can anol theallegiance of subjects to Kings and wesay well that was in the Dark Agesthat's not the modernpapacy well um I was reading on theplane coming over here some of thishistory and um I forget which pope itwas but it was about 100 years ago apope issued the the index of ofheresies and one of the heresies hedenounced was the idea that the papacyhas ever transgressed its natural boundsof authority that is a heresy so whatthat Pope was saying just over 100 yearsago I forget his name now uh but in theindex of of of condemned beliefs is theidea that at any time in history thepopes overstepped their their legitimateAuthority what the pope was saying wasthat even today the pope has the has theclaim that he has the authority todepose presidents Kings and primeministers because he is God onEarth these are the Arrogant claims ofthe bishop of Rome so um this then isthe is what happened with these thesevarious false te teachings that comeinto the church and as you look throughhistory you realize that the schismaticswere not the W denans the schismaticswere the Bishops of Rome they were theones who abandoned the apostolicteaching and the pure gospel leaving itto the W denines to preserve the gospelthrough centuries of bitter persecutionnow overall the papacy had erected themost perfect blueprint for religioustyranny and if you know your history andyou should know your history and if youdon't know your history start readingyour historybecause history does repeat itself andthese are legal claims that still existtoday you'll realize that over thecenturies tens of millions of faithfulChristians perished for refusing toaccept these papal lies because theycherish the pure Gospel of Jesus Christand the light of the Gospel waspreserved by scattered groups acrossEurope such as in the third fourth andfifth century the Celtic Church inScotland and in Ireland if you arefamiliar with St Patrickhe's a famous Irishman actually he wasan Englishman and it's true he was anEnglishman he was taken captive soldinto slavery went into Ireland and heescaped from his captors he went back toAnglo-Saxon England he became aChristian joined the Celtic church andthen he decided to go back to his formerslave owners as amissionary and St Patrick went back toIreland and converted them from paganismto the Celtic church and if you travelaround Ireland today you still seeremnants of the Celtic Church you seeCeltic crosses that are 15 18800 yearsold in those an in those ancient Churchum cemeteries you still see evidence ofthe Celtic Church um the Celtic Churchin the fourth and fifth century startedsending out missionaries into what wenow consider Germany and then they werein turn wiped out by papal Bishops whocame through and turned the wholesituation up to upside down but the maingroup that preserved light through thisperiod of Darkness what we now call thewenin their motto was Lex lucett andtenis as you see it there which meansthe light shining in the darkness solet's come to the light shining in thedarkness itself and um I want to justshare with you hereum uh in 1655 we'll talk about this thisevening in more detail but essentiallyum there was a Duke of seavoy calledCharles and he was persuaded by his hismother-in-law who was a de deichi familywho were Fierce proponents of papalpower he was persuaded to attack thewenses and he did and he made a peacedeal with them and he said I just wantyou to recognize my authority byallowing my troops to enter your valleysfor 72 hours and then we'llleave and the wenses were they knewtheir faith but they weren't much goodat politics and just as God said to theIsraelites on entering the premised landyou are not to make any Covenant withthe people of theland so the wenses they had a vote voteand they decided they were going toagree to the demands of the Duke ofseavoy and they let down their theirtheir guard and they allowed the troopsto enter and for the first 48 Hoursnothing happened for 2days and on the third day at 4:00 in themorning the order was given and thetroops were stationed in every home ineveryHamlet and they slaughtered they rose upand they slaughtered the world denes menwomen and children and they didn't justslaughter them but they VI with eachother for cruelty in to killpeople and what they did was beyondbeyond human comprehension well whathappened was um thesurvivors we'll talk more about thisthis evening and why it applies to ustoday the survivors sent appeals acrossProtestant Europe and one of thoseappeals came to a man called OliverCromwell who was then the Lord protectorof England and he just fought a waragainst King Charles I first who wasaccused of popery and and Cromwell was aProtestant and he sent a knight called SThomas morand I think his name was andhe went to wenin valleys and he traveledaround and interviewed the survivors andfor the first time the world knew whatthe wal denines actually believed andthey wrote down the Creed of the wensesand you can read it there it's known asthe nobl lon and this morning I put itup on my website there's a there there'stwo websites there it's on both of thosebut if you go to Pastor Conor vine.compapers you can download there it's thetop of that page this is is the Creed ofthe wenses and if you ever wonder whatthe wenses believe you can now read itfor yourself because so Thomas Morlandhe wrote this down because the wenesknew it from memory an important pointfor us today know your scriptures and hetook it back to to London and the thesedocument and it's recorded today thereare four copies of it and they're inOxford University in the public librarythere so we know what the wensesbelieved and it's known as the NOAlesson which means the the noble lessonand you can download it there and it'sthis is how long it is so 2 4 6 8 it's10 pages 10 pages long and if you readit tonight well hopefully not tonightbut let's say Monday by the time you'rehome if you read it in the next 48 hoursyou'll realize that we agree with almosteverything written in this that theywere ancient Adventists you might saynow did they know about the sanctuary nobut what did they believe in this nobllesson it's basically the greatcontroversy theme they believed in theEternal moral obligation of the TenCommandments they believed in thegodhead as we'll be learning about thatthis afternoon just after lunch theylearned about the fall they spoke aboutChrist's Incarnation and sacrifice onCalvary they spoke about our need fordivine grace in order to do good worksas an expression of salvation but not asa condition for salvation they spokeabout the need for personal Holinesswhich is what Wesley picked up on 200300 years later they spoke about theinstitution of the ministry the layingon of hands for the Saints and andpeople setting them aside as evangelistsand pastors they spoke about the bodilyresurrection of the Saints when Christreturns so they believed in the state ofthe dead that's the implication of thatand they believed in Eternal Bliss inheaven now if you download this and readit for yourself you will find thatthere's almost nothing you woulddisagree with there's a couple ofphrases that maybe we would um thewicked depart to torment what exactly dothey mean by that but basically we couldagree with everything the W Den scenesbelieved and we have this historicaldocument now it's not generallyconsidered widely available but there itis there on the screen if you go tothose websites you can download it andread it for yourself those are thewebsites there now how did the Wenscenes function well they were behind inThe Valleys each Paris had its owntrained pastor with a board of lay menwho had govern the parish so they werelay L and that every Parish had a pastorand they met annually for a councilknown as a cnode they would discussmatters of communal and Theologicalsignificance and they would plann thisis interesting they planned theirevangelism you see they weren't justrunning to themountains they were intentional abouttaking the gospel to all of Europe fromthat mountain retreat they didn't justsay we're going to hunker down out hereuntil Jesus comes they said yes we'verun away from persecution but we're notgoing to stay in the mountains we'regoing to send the finest and theyoungest in our midst down into TheValleys down into the cities of Europeand they're going to share theEverlasting gospel and so they um theythey liveed lives ofSimplicity why they could not be boughtorsold why because they've been bought bythe blood of Jesus Christ and when welive lives of material wealth andpossessions we can be easily bought andsold the fear of loss so the waldensiansintentionally live lives of materialSimplicity and in the last four yearsmany people people took what wasmandated not because they believed itwas good for them but because theydidn't want to lose their materialblessings and so the wal denenes livedlives of Simplicity they sought topreserve the apostolic teachings intheir purest form they passed them fromGeneration generation withintentionality and great solity and theyrequired their young people to memorizetheirbeliefs they knew it byheart it was an oral culture and awritten culture young people leared whatthey believed now we think it'swonderful today if a young person canmemorize a two a two sentenceverse but if you are a Jewishboy throughout history you're expectedto memorize the entire Old Testament bythe time of your bar mitz at the age of12 or 13 that's what our minds arecapable of we've just dumbed down oursociety and so I want to you know as wereflect on this what does it mean for uswell we have 28 fundamental beliefs Ithink it's time for us to start startmemorizing our fundamental beliefsthey're not that long actually if youtype them all out it's less than this inlength the beliefs and the texts that gowith it it's important that we know whatwe believe why because there's going tocome a time when you're not going tohave access to this and there's going tohave come a time when adventist.org andamazing facts are taken down off theinternet and we need to know in ourminds what webelieve and so they they had this thisthe this um this nobl Leon and so hereare some quotes from it I thought I'dgive you three interesting quotesspeaking about persecution they said thetorments were great according to what iswritten only because they taught the wayof Jesus Christ but as for thepersecutors we we need not so muchWonder for they had not the Faith of OurLord Jesus Christ like those who nowseek occasion to persecute the Saintswhich men ought to be Christians that isspeaking about the papal inquisitors butappear not to be such and in this theyare to be blamed for that they persecuteand imprison the good for it is notfound anywhere that the Saintspersecuted or imprisonedany would would you agree with that yeahso compulsion and coercion of consciencehave no place in the waldenian way ofthinking and they shouldn't have anyplace in our churcheither uh this is another one heretalking about the pastors the theCatholic priests now after the apostleswere certain teachers who taught the wayof Jesus Christ Our Savior and these arefound even at this present day but theyare known to very few who have a greatdesire to teach the way of Jesus Christbut they are so persecuted that they areable to do but little so much are thefalse Christians blinded with error andmore than the rest they that are pastorstherefore they persecute and hate thosewho are better than themselves and letthose live quietly who are falsedeceivers but by this we may know thatthey are not good pastors for they lovenot the Sheep but only for theirfleeces that's pretty strong isn't itcould have been written in2021 they love not the Sheep they justwant the tithes fromthem the scripture saith and it isevident that if any man love those whoare good he must needs love God andJesus Christ such on one will neithercurse swear nor lie he will neithercommit adultery nor kill he will neitherdefraud his neighbor nor avenge himselfof his enemies now such a one is termeda wenan andw worthy to be punished andthey find occasion by lies and by deceitto take from him that which he hasgotten by his just labor and In thispassage here they're commenting on thefact that the papists would argue thatif somebody does not kill if somebodydoes not steal if somebody does not lieif somebody does not commit adulterythen they must be awarddanene and whatdo they say of the Adventist today thatif you do not lie if you do not steal ifyou do not purger yourself if you do notcommit adultery if you're not engaged inpornography Etc if you are um if you arehonest if your word is your bond thenyou must be a 7th Day Adventist wouldn'tit be wonderful if people said thatabout us today but this is what thepapists were saying about the wenan if aman does not lie he must be wenan if hedoes not kill he must be wens he doesnot commit adultery he must be waldenianetc etc and the impact of these wenanteachings was profound they live livesof such virtue that their papal enemieswould accuse anyone expected of honestyor virtue being a of w wenan and thusworthy of death and they capture this inthe in the in the Creed here theirenemies wrote about them and we knowmuch about what the wans believed otherthan this Creed which has come downthrough history we know also what theybeliev through the writings of theinquisitors so one uh rarus papalInquisitor from 1250 ad this is what heum he wrote about what the wensesbelieve these are the heresies thewenses taught there has been no truePope or Bishop of Rome since the days ofSylvester we would agree with that thattemporal officers and honors were notsuitable for gospel preachers absolutelythat if you're a gospel preacher youshould not you should not be seekingcivil Authority as well as religiousleadership positions because when youmix civil and religious you end up withpersecution they argued that relicsrelics were simply rotten bones whichcould have belonged toanybody and uh when Martin Luther pinnedhis 95 thesis on the door of the castlecastle door in vitberg that started theProtestant Reformation as we understandit today one of the things he wasprotesting about was the fact thataccording to the the the Catholics inthat church if you went in and you sawall of the relics in the castle Churchof vitberg you were released from yourtime in purgatory was released they'calculated it it was about 3.15 millionyears from purgatory and you paid yourmoney and you your time in purgatory wasreleasedand so before Martin Luther comes alongthe wenes are saying exactly the samething they argue thatpilgrimages um such as what many peoplego on today have no spiritual purposeother than to empty one'spurse as Jesus says there is coming atime when we shall worship God in truthand in spirit and that you don't need togo to Jerusalem or Mount gism or um thatplace in Northern Spain or Lords inorder to come closer to God because Godis everywhere and he can come close toyou in your bedroom they they argue thatmeat might be served any day accordingto one's appetite now this is notarguing against what sister Gwen saidthis morning what they were arguingagainst was the idea that only certainfoods could be eaten on only certaindays and that still is a Catholictradition today you don't eat meat oncertain days of the week and they saidno there's nothing in the scripturesabout this and Paul writing to Timothyhe says we are to avoid the doctrines ofdevils in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and thetwo doctrines that he specifically listsare the forbidding of marriage in orderto be saved and the eating of certainfoods on certain days so these theseheresies were already in the earlychurch even in the time of Paul theyargued that holy water was no moreeffective thanrainwater they argued that prayers in abarn were just as effective as prayersin a church we'd agree with that theythey decreed that the doctrine oftransubstantiation was utternonsense we say Amen to that and theysaid that Rome was the Harlot Babylon ofthe Book ofRevelation and they were arguing thisfor centuries before Adventists evercamealong so I'd encourageyou maybe there's somebody here who'sgoing to take out the nobler lesson thenoble lesson maybe at camp meeting nextyear wherever it is somebody's going torecite this frommemory but beyond that I want toencourage you to memorize the 28fundamentalbeliefs CU one day that's all you'regoing to have in your mind and if youcan memorize battingaverages for your favorite baseball teamand if you can memorize all the junk ofmodern society the the quarterbackpercentages and all the rest of it wecan memorize the 28 fundamental beliefsit's not that long it's not that hardhave I done it myself no you accus me ofbeing a hypocrite no I only wrote thisout three weeksago but the point is They Carried thegospel with them in their minds and soif you are found yourself in prison andthere are people today who findthemselves in prison without Bibles whatare you taking in their way with youwhat are you carrying in there with youthis is what the Bible says but you'renot quite sure exactly what the Biblesays that doesn't cut it these days andso we find that the W denans they didn'tjust memorize scripture and teach whatwe would agree with as Adventist todaybut they obedience the gospel Commissionin Matthew 28:18-20 and they sent youngmen as missionaries all across Europethose men had to memorize entire gospelsand Epistles before they were sent outthose men were told that before you canbe a Pastor among the wenan churches inthe mountains you have to serve aminimum of 3 years in the mission fieldthat's a good standard to have becausethose who went many of them did not comeback alive as they went across Europethey were caught and they were flayedalive and they were impaled and theywere gted and they had that their skinwas cut open and lime was placed intothe slice the sliced skin have you everhad lime on your skin or in your eyes isone of the most painful things there ishave you ever asked when I was a youngboy we had a farming Island I was askedone day to whitewash a bull um a CowShed and i' never dealt with lime beforethese big 50 lound bags of of whitepowder and I was told by my uncle whogave me the poultry sum of like £50 forwhole Summer's work I think he was aslave master and he said to me that's ajoke in case you're watching Uncle Alecand he said I want you to whitewash thisbuilding and I'd never dealt with limebefore so I just tipped it into a bucketof water and all the the smoke came upthe dust and you get lime in your eyesit'sAgony and so what what did the uh whatthey do to the wensi missionaries theywould slice their skin open like thisand they put the lime into their bodiesit was Agony they would fill theirmouths with gunpowder then set itoff they would Flay them alive and theywould compete to have the bloodiestcruestvthose who did come back in one peacewere survivors and they were Heroes ofFaith and what they did was they enteredthe universities and the cities ofEurope they enrolled in the Catholicuniversities from from Paris in in thein the west all the way to to um tomodern day Albania and down to Spain andPortugal and the the Friars soon learedthat if these mysterious young men whoenrolled in their classes decided tohave a dispute with you on a point ofscripture those young men would alwayswinthe Friars understood that these youngwaldenian missionaries they didn't knowthem at the time was waldensianmissionaries they realized that theywould all they knew their scriptures andthey would always Prevail in anydiscussion about what is true or nottrue they were sent to the Catholicuniversities and seminaries acrossEurope intentionally to drive backdarkness and to establish the light ofGod's kingdom wherever they could theytraveled in twos they were oftendisguised as merchants selling silks andother rare items they were alwayswelcome at palaces cattle um castles ormarketplaces why because they traveledacross the Western Europe and theyunderstood the times and the news ofwhat was happening they were they werefonts of Gossip you might say they knewthe news of the time and they would openspiritual conversations wherever theycould when they sensed an opening theywould share something from the gospelthey would carry portions of scripturesewn into their robes they wouldmemorize the scriptures and they wouldgo to the homes of educated Noble ladiesand say well why don't we can write thisdown together and then the noble ladieswould catch a glimpse of the gospel fromtwo or three verses and that Noble ladywould have that passage of the gospelfor the rest of her life and if you readthe stories of the W denines time andagain it was Catholic Noble women whodid come into contact with Malianmissionaries they had a glimpse of thegospel and they would protect the wdenscenes when they came to court they'dspeak to their husbands you let thesemen alone cuz what they're saying istrue just as this morning in dror HugoLeon'stestimony when that persecutor went tothat church to that house Church youshared with us this morning and yourealized what these people are saying istrue then he he was eventuallybaptized is that right yes Dr Hugo thatis right truth matters truth has a ringto it when you stand up and you speaktruth or you share truth people the HolySpirit goes before you and opens heartsand brings conviction the gospels spreadacross Europe many were caught andmartyred in the most brutal mannerpossible but the gospel spread in the10th 11th 12th 13th and 14th centuriesand it spread like like like this umlike ye leaven in in Loaf in loaf ofbread and the papacy realized thatsomething was going on and they neededto do something aboutthis we're going to come to whathappened later thisevening but suffice it to say thatbefore the light of the Reformationspread across Europe the wenan were towalk through the valley of the shadow ofdeath well not just one or two here andthere but onmass remarkably they turned wholeregions to the Gospel of Jesus Christ aman called Peter de brze he stirredsouthern France for Jesus Christ heemphasized Sabbath sacredness instead ofthe the papal Sundays Henry of Lozanpreached so perfect um powerfully thatBernard the Abbot of clerk clairo one ofthe most famous and greatest minds ofthe Middle Ages he had to confess thatpreachers like Henry were what he calledapostolical he said they do not comefrom any human teacher these men areteaching what the apostles taught andeven Bernard of Clore had to recognizethis uh when his in his reports to thepope one of the brightest lights in themiddle AESwhen the darkness of the Dark Ages wasit most profound was a man called Arnoldof breia a city in Italy and we don'thear about these people these days butthey stood up in their generation andthey were faithful to God and when youlook through the scriptures you willfind there are three kinds ofRemnant there's a historical Remnantmentioned in scripture such as theremnant of those who came back fromBabylon to Judea that's a historicalRemnant and it doesn't say anythingabout their spiritual quality it simplysays there was a remnant of people leftand then you find in the scripture timeand again when there is apostasy indarkness that God has a faithful Remnantin that generation great examples areElijah saying in First Kings 19 I only Iam left and God says no Elijah there arestill how many 7,000 who have yet to Bowthe KN to bail that means God had afaithful Remnant in that generationanother example of a faithful Remnant isNoah he alone was righteous eight peopleentered the Ark only one was righteousthat was Noah his wife his three boysand their three wives they were notrighteous only Noah was righteous readabout that in Genesis chapter 6 sothere's historical remnants there arefaithful remnants within each generationat the end of time in the time of theend God has an historical Remnant and afaithful Remnant mixed joined up it'soneRemnant those who keep the Commandmentsof God and have the testimony of JesusChrist there is a Remnant it's not justhistorical it's not just faithful it'san eschatological faithfulRemnant it's a small group of people wholike these W denes said we're not justgoing to run to the mountains like the Wdenings that's where they lived but theysaid from these mountains these aregoing to be a Launchpad for Mission Intothe Heart of theBeast we're going to go forth our lightisn't going to be quenched or hidden inthe mountains our light is going toshine across Europe So This Man CalledArnold of breia city of Italy he was adevoted scholar of scripture hispreaching was heard in Italy GermanyFrance and Switz land and far ahead ofhis time he attacked the persecutingUnion of church and state represented bythe papacy we've heard of atJones but there were people in thecenturies before him who argued exactlythe same thing when you unify church andstate then the church uses the state touphold the beliefs of the church the achurch sinnard was called by the popeand 1139 arold of breia was condemnedand expelled from his City his bookswere burnt publicly Council culture wasalive and well he preached againsttransubstantiationthat is the doctrine that that the breadand the wine become the blood and andthe body of Christ he preached againstSin from baptism he preached againstprayers for the dead Bernard Abbot ofclairo clo repeatedly pressed for hisexecution and one year when Rome was inpolitical turmoil and there was debatesin the church about who's going to bethe next Pope Arnold of breia took itupon himself to go down into Rome and tostart preaching publicly and calling foran end to the union of church andstate I mean talk about going into theof the the mouth of the Lion's Den orthe heart of the Beast the crowd wasfickle they liked him because they knewthe persecution of the pope of thepopees of the popes and their corruptionbut they were soon turned around by thePope the papacy he was arrested he wasburnt his ashes were thrown into theTyber River arold of breia was lookedupon as a key preacher by the laterwaldensians and his pre his preachingprofoundly shaped the culture even todayof Northern Italy and Switzerland onceagainwe don't know so much the names of thepersecutors or those who went along withthe false doctrines what we know are thenames of those who stood tall for JesusChrist and I want my name to shine foreternity and you want your name to standtall for eternity and our names willstand tall for eternity not because whatwe do when we get to heaven but what wedo here in2024 and so what do we say in conclusionin this passage here the church in thewilderness did not cower in fear herchurch was her motto was light shiningin darkness she Shone forth a lightacross Europe with humility she showed aholy boldness for God a determinationagainst the odds to shed the light ofthe Gospel into Hearts homes and roundhearts of the papal Empire of Darknessit was an intentional witness it wasfounded on the teachings of the Apostlesit was guaranteed and vouched for bytheir own blood as so many were capturedimprisoned tortured and cruy martyredand energized by the love of Christ forthe Lost not only did her witness thechurch in the wilderness not only did itstir the te the the love for Christacross Europe but it stirred up from theGates of Hell a fly cruel papalpersecution that was about to hit theworld denen valleys we'll talk aboutthat tonight in the darkest Gloom justbefore Martin Luther arrived those BraveW Den scenes and I get an emotional as Iread this and I talk aboutit they were about to walk through thevalley Valley of the shadow of death butas you look at these stories in theirdarkest moment God and His providentialinter inventions were closer to themthan everbefore theirs is this witness of Historywhat God can do through any group of menwomen boys and girls who are so givenover for love for Christ who are sodetermined to pursue truth and speak itno matter the cost who are focused dailyon the study of the word of God whoengage in loving Christian Communitywitness and service in their communitiesthat the Gates of Hell tremble at theirme the mere mention of their name we sawas we started out our time this morningthat there are two passages Revelation12:7 there was war In Heaven There waspolymos we weren't in that war and inRevelation 12:1 17 there's another warand we are in that war today and Satanis making war on the body of Christ ifyou don't believe me your eyes areclosed and your ears are closed and inthe middle period between the first warand the second war there was a third warright in the middle and we we've beentalking about these people today becausewith these things are given for ourinstruction not just as historicalcuriosity but that we may may not maketheir mistakes like enter into covenantswithAntichrist and that we may do what theydid right which was know the truth andlive the truth and Shine for the truthwith intentionality andcommitment so we were born as I said ina sermon last year this final conflictin Revelation 12:17 it happens in whatthe Book of Daniel calls the time of theend that's where we're living today wewere born in this time we were born intothis time you were born for thistime and God in his Providence hasordained that each one of us here todayis going to be the light shining in thedarkest in the deepest darkness ofEarth's history he didn't choose AbrahamIsaac and Jacob he didn't choose RebeccaSarah or Esther he choseyou that you would be living in thistime when truth is under attack likenever before when truth is denied in thePublic Square where right is wrong andwrong is right where it is going tobecomeincreasingly difficult to stand for thetruth though the heavens fall you wereborn into this time you were born forthistime so one of my I showed that quotelast night I won't read it again what doI what am I asking you to do here todayfirstly this learn thescriptures feed your mind with the wordofGod yesterday I mentioned last nightabout the average Adventist I've seenstatistics they spend four and five fourto five hours a day of secular influencein theirminds would it be wonderful if we hadfour to five hours of the word of Godgoing into our minds everyday ask yourself where does your mindwander when you're sitting in in atrafficjam that'll tell you the sanctificationstate of yourmind what what do you listen to whennobody else is around what do you watchit's time to ask God today torecalibrate our spiritual taste budsjust as we talk about the biome in thegut so you can reform the thinking ofyour mind you can be transformed by therenewing of your mind the word there ismetamorphosis that a a cocoon can turninto a beautiful butterfly that todayyou may see a spiritual desert but byGod's grace it can turn into somethingthat's beautiful and multicol and fliesaway so feed your mind on the word ofGodsecondly memorize the fundamentalbeliefs I we don't talk about this muchin our church but if one thing I'veleared from studying about the wardenscenes is that when they went into thosepalaces and into those seminaries andthose universities they didn't have the28 fundamentals PR printed by thegeneral conference with them Theycarried it with them in their minds theyknewit and we're going to have to do thatagain it's only a matter of time for theBible is banned for being homophobictransphobic or some other form of hatespeech it's only a matter of time forall our websites are taken down it'sonly a matter of time before certainbooks are no longer possible to be Ppurchased onAmazon we saw in Co how the governmentwas willing to censor informationbecause it didn't fit the dominantnarrative it's going to happen again ona spirituallevel so I'm sister Gwen asked me tocome and preach here I'm not here forthe good of my health I'm here becausewe're in in we're in the the end oftimes and we need to take these thingsdeadlyseriously and I wouldn't do be doing myjob as a preacher if I weren't talkingabout the seriousness of the timesmemorize what we believe know what webelieve be able to give a reason for thefaith that you hold am because it'sgoing to be tested and analyzed in waysyou can't begin to imagine I was in aCatholic Church many years ago and Ipicked up a piece of paper written by aformer Lutheran priest who was now aCatholic priest and he was usingtypology that's Adventist interpretationof scripture to justify the worship ofI said how does he do that well whenwhen when when um Solomon has his thronewho does he put on his throne to to theright of his of his own Throne baathSheba Second Kings there baath Sheba ison a throne to the right of SolomonSolomon is the sonof David and his mother is sitting on athrone beside him so therefore Jesus isthe son of David and in heaven who sitson a throne beside him Mary the Queen ofHeaven they're using typology Adventisthermeneutics to justify Pagan Catholicideas this tells us that we need to knowwhat we believe and to be able to give areason for what we believe thirdly liveas Disciples of Jesus Christ if the papenemies of God's people could say if aman is honest and he doesn't commitadultery doesn't lie or swear he must bea waldenian there's going to come a timewhen the world needs to say if this manor woman or child boy or girl is honestthey do not swear they're honest intheir taxes they don't commit adulteryetc etc they must be part of God'sRemnant people that's the kind ofethical standard God is asking of usfrom this dayforward so it's time to clean up ourlives and to stop living in the grayarea and thinking there's nothing inScripture that expressly prohibits thisno unless the scripture expressly allowsit we shouldn't be having thosethings we say in England there's an oldjoke in England everything ispermissible if it's not forbidden inGermany everything's forbidden if it'snot permitted in the Soviet Unioneverything was forbidden now that'slittle joke but expresses well thedifferences in mentality across thesethree nations in the last 50 years butorder your life and your finances andyour relationships transparentlyaccording to the teachings of JesusChrist as we said last night people needto be able to see the gospel and how yourelate to your spouse and how you relateto your children how you manage yourfinances and how you treat your neighborif they don't see the gospel in thatthen it's not that they're blind it'sprobably because the gospel isn'tthere prepare forpersecution reorder your lifespiritually emotionally andintellectually so there are no othergods between you and God we talk aboutthe fourthCommandment many people went againsttheir conscience in the last four yearsbecause they had other gods in theirlife theircareer their professional license theirmortgage their toysmaybe it's time for us to simplify ourlives anddeclutter so if we don't have them we'renot afraid ofloss prepare our lives for the realityof what's coming it's going to be takenfrom us one way or the other we're goingto learn this afternoon about cbdcs andtokenization tokenization will strip youof every personal proper all personalproperty in the near future and it'shappening as we speak at the bank ofinternational settlements we will ownnothing and we will not be happy we'llbe eating grubsthat's what's coming to oursociety so start to prepare now and as afather there may be a time when you areno longer with yourfamily is your wife ready to leaveFamily Worship if you're a mother ifyou're no longer around will your fatherthe husband be able to take care ofFamily Worship if you're a church Elderand the pastors and the elders are takenaway is the rest of the church equippedto be a Shining Light until Jesus comesagain it's time to be thinking about howto equip our brothers and sisters toshine for Jesus when the leadership ofevery family and church is takenaway and shine a light make missionarywork as did the wal denings a priorityin your life and that of yourcongregation if you cannot go somewhereyourself support a missionary working inunreached people among an unreachedpeople group we can't all march acrossthe universities ofEurope but we do have money that'sdisappearing in value day byday and we can support a missionary if astudent missionary wants to go from yourchurch support that student missionaryif somebody from Jesus FR Agia or AvenFrontier missions wherever it is isgoing overseas to an unreached peoplegroup you put your money to work andcreate Treasures in Heaven above becausethe dollars are dying in our pocketsthey're going to be worthless before weknow it and like Schindler's Listthere's going to come a time when weregret not spending our Earthly wealthon that which truly matters which iswinning souls for Jesus Christ sosupport a missionary doesn't matter whothey are I I lead AFM you support AFMpraise the Lord but I'm not appealingfor AFM now I'm just saying anymissionary and to be a faithful churchwe need to have a witness in Hayden Lakewe need to have a witness in Idaho weneed to have a witness in North Americawe have a witness among the unreached onthe other side of the world every churchneeds to have four components of missionand when every church has fourcomponents of mission everybody so busydoing mission that the problems in thechurch kind of fadeaway so here we are this is what welearned from the worlddenes it's quite a story isn't it it'squite a storylearn thescriptures memorize the fundamentalbeliefs live as Disciples transparentlyof Jesus May our enemies know that weare followers of Jesus by the purity ofOur Lives the purity of our speech thelove that we have one for anotherprepare for persecution simplifydeclutter Our Lives get rid of the falsegods in our lives because they're goingto be taken from us one day and shine alight it's my prayer that the HaydenLake Church and the Adventists of upperIdaho sorry not Washington ID Ido andwhichever State we may be from heretoday including Michigan is my prayerthat no matter how dark the darknessgets there will always be a lightshining from our minds from our homesfrom our marriages from our childrenfrom ourcongregations let that light never goout when Jesus comes again that lightwill still be shining that's my prayerfor all of us let's bow our heads andclose with a word of prayer HeavenlyFather we we have these examples inscripture these examples from historyand Lord these people paid for thegospel with their ownblood Lord they walked the talk theydidn't just talk thetalk I'm asking father that in Earth'sFinal hours during the time of the endyou will have a people on Earth who areso so who are so sold out for love foryou that even in the mind of Satan andthose who operate in his name they see apurity and a Hol and a courage that onlycomes because we spent time withJesus I'm asking you father that thiscongregation all who are watching thisprogram online today or in thefuture that you will so convict us ofour sins with your holy spirit that youwill so convert us in our hearts andgive us that newness of hard experienceof the New Covenant that the light ofthe Gospel will shine through our liveswherever you have called us to live andwork that even the enemies of God willtake note and give glory to our HeavenlyFather amen I'm asking father untilJesus comes again each one of us will befound faithful in whatever portion ofthe vineyard you've called us to serveLord if we've been given the gift ofpreaching or of music or of teaching orof encouragement may we be faithful inthe talents that you've given us andfather may your name be glorifiedthrough the lives of those who are heretoday may your name be glorified inIdaho and Washington and to the ends ofthe Earth because there is a people whoStand Tall for God in Earth's darkesthour so father we claim that promisethis afternoon that that of Jesus thathe will never leave us nor forsake us Ithank you Jesus that you will walk withus through those valleys of the Shadowsof death and that one day you will leadus by Still Waters and Green Pasturesbut until we get there father may we befound faithful to you in your holy namewe pray amenit is now time for our postlude I askthat you remain seated until after it'sfinished and then you will be usheredout let me just briefly introduce ourpostlude our postlude Embraces the firstAngel's message what is the firstAngel'smessage fear God and give glory to himfor the hour of his judgment is come andworship ship him that made the Heavenand the Sea and The Fountains of watersthe creation bronze Joseph heyen wrote awhole Monumental work the creation wherehe musically depicted each day ofcreation and this piece that we aredoing the heavens are telling um is thefourth day what did God make on thefourth day the sun moon and the stars sothe heavens are telling the glory of GodThe Wonder of his work displays thefirmament sometime listen to it it wasoriginally written for choir we're onlydoing the instrumental so Google MormonTabernacle Choir the heavens are tellingyou'll be for a doubleblessing just one quick announcementbefore you leave um when we come back inthis afternoon we will U be taking up anoffering to defray the cost of the campmeeting everybody that got a bulletinhas an envelope that you can put your umdonation in and um meals are free forthis afternoon and tonight if you'd liketo donate for that too it would behelpful thank you very muchright[Music][Applause][Music]ah the[Music][Applause][Music][Applause]your[Music][Applause]f[Music][Applause]f[Music][Applause]la oh[Music]l[Applause][Applause]oh[Music][Applause][Music]la[Applause]h[Music][Applause][Music][Applause][Music]amen amen am[Music]