- Righteousness
by Faith
- 1895 General Conference
Sermons
- by A. T. Jones
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- Sermon 8
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The lesson tonight will be directly connected
with the lesson that closed on page 33 of the Bulletin, that
is, the close of the second lesson, the one on the position and
aims of the papacy, and that you may get the connection clearly,
I will read a few lines from the last of it, taking again the
sentence that was quoted from the letter from Rome, that what
we do know is, that a world is in its death agony, and that we
are entering upon the night which must inevitably precede the
dawn, and that in preparation for this agony of death of the
world, the papacy is casting off the old slough, putting on a
new form in every conceivable way in order to fulfill her mission
in these times that are to come, as was read.
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[Here was read on page 33 from the quotation,
"What we do know is that a world is in its death agony"
to the end of that lesson.]
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- Now we will study that a little while
in the Scriptures. And these scriptures, like all others that
we are quoting and studying here, are scriptures with which we
are all perfectly familiar; scripture which all have often quoted
and of which we expect the fulfillment. And the first one is
in Rev. 13:8:
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- All that dwell upon the earth shall worship
him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world.
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- That shows that the papacy is to have
control of this whole world and all that is in it, and of everybody
that is in it, except only those whose names are written in the
book of life of the Lamb--those who belong to the kingdom of
God and are separated from this world. So that, as an actual
fact, the papacy does--that Scripture shows it, too--have possession
in the times when these things shall culminate, of all those
of this world, because Christ's disciples are not of this world.
There stands the word--not that God wants it so, but it will
be so in spite of all that He wants to the contrary--that all
whose names are not in the book of life and retained there will
worship the beast. They will do it; it matters not what they
have their minds made up to do or not to do; that thing they
will do. They cannot help doing it, because not having their
names in the book of life of the Lamb, they will be of this world
entirely and therefore will be of the papacy entirely, because
whatsoever is of this world is of the papacy in the times in
which we live. This shows that the power of the world is brought
once more into her hand.
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- Now a verse in the 7th chapter of Daniel.
This power will be used by her for the only purpose for which
she ever used any power in the world or for which she ever shall
use it--to compel all to do her bidding. All that she ever used
any power for was to force upon everybody her dictates. All that
she wants with power now is to do that, and everything that she
is doing anywhere on the earth is devoted to that one point of
getting back her power over the world. The evidences of this
that have been given in the lessons we have already had are before
all, and I need not cite any of these.
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- And so it is written, 21st and 22d verses:
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- I beheld and the same horn made war with
the saints and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days
came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High,
and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.
- That is at the coming of Christ, of course.
So that when it is written that "all that dwell upon the
earth shall worship him," it is also written of the same
time that this power which she shall have gained and is now gaining
over the world and in the world is used for the purpose of compelling
all to do her bidding--to compel all to worship the beast. And
those who will not do that, she makes war against, till the day
that they enter into the kingdom of glory at the coming of the
Lord.
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- Another verse or two: Rev. 17:1,2.
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- And there came one of the seven angels
which had the seven vials and talked with me, saying unto me,
Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great
whore that sitteth upon many waters.
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- Now before reading the second verse, I
wish to call a little more attention to the first verse. The
angel that reveals this judgment and explains it and the time
in which it comes is one of the angels that has the seven last
plagues to be poured out. This shows that the revelation of this
judgment is in the time immediately preceding the plagues, for
it is one of the angels to whom was given one of the vials of
the plagues to be poured out. So that when the time comes that
the plagues are imminent and are as it were hanging over the
world, then this chapter will be understood, then it will shine
forth by the revelation of Jesus Christ, the revelation of the
angel which he sends.
- This, being one of the angels having the
vials, he does not say, Come here and I will show thee the woman;
he does not say, Come here, and I will show thee the great whore;
but "Come hither; I will show thee the judgment of the great
whore."
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- Then again: As it is one of the seven
angels that have the seven last plagues who reveals this, that
shows that the revelation will be in the time when the plagues
are just hanging over the world and are ready to fall. And as
the revelation is the judgment of her and not the revelation
of herself that shows that the revelation and this chapter which
describes it and the times which are connected with it--that
there and then will be the time of the revelation of these things
that the angel has to tell.
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- Now I am not starting on a study of the
seventeenth chapter of Revelation, nor undertaking to explain
that chapter. I am reading this simply to get the time when the
thing is to be, and now for the second verse:
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- The judgment of the great whore that sitteth
upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed
fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made
drunk with the wine of her fornication.
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- When? When does this angel appear? Just
before the judgment of her falls. Who is he? One of the seven
that have the plagues. So that, by this double count, this is
plainly just before the judgment of her. When is it, then, that
the kings of the earth are referred to in this verse? At the
same time, assuredly. At that time what will be the condition
of the kings of the earth--not some of them, but them--as respects
this great harlot? O, they have all held illicit connection with
her. And the inhabitants of the earth at that time have all been
made drunk by her. Then that tells the same thing that the other
verse does, that "all that dwell upon the earth shall worship
him, whose names are not written in the book of life."
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- Well, after the angel goes on describing
this judgment of her, or rather the events that immediately precede
the judgment, then another angel joins. Rev. 18:1:
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- After these things I saw another angel
come down from heaven, having great power and the earth was lightened
with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying,
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation
of devils and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every
unclean and hateful bird. For all nations--
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- How many of them? All. When? In this time
when one of the seven angels with the seven plagues appears and
tells of the judgment of Babylon.
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- For all nations have drunk of the wine
of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have
committed fornication with her.
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- How many of them? All of them.
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- And the merchants of the earth are waxed
rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another
voice from heaven.
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- Do not forget then; it is a voice from
heaven saying it.
- Saying, Come out of her my people, that
ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her
plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven and God hath remembered
her iniquities.
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- What has she remembered her iniquities
for? What does that mean, that God hath remembered her iniquities?
Back in Egypt it was said of the Lord, "I have remembered
my covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I have remembered
the promises I made to your fathers. And I will deliver you with
a stretched out arm and with great judgments." Ex. 6:5,6.
When he "remembered" that the thing was done that had
been promised formerly. "God hath remembered her iniquities."
And this shows that this remembrance of her iniquities means
the visiting of the judgment upon her iniquities.
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- Reward her even as she rewarded you and
double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which
she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified
herself and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give
her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen and am no widow
and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in
one day, death and mourning, and famine. And she shall be utterly
burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
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- This is still the description which the
angel gave when he said, "Come hither; I will show unto
thee the judgment of the great whore."
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- And the kings of the earth, who have committed
fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her,
and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,
standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, alas,
alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour
is thy judgment come.
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- Thus when Babylon triumphs, she is destroyed
"in one hour," the shortest period of time that is
measured in the Bible, aside from the resurrection moment, which
is the "twinkling of an eye." So that when this judgment
does fall, it falls in that way, and before it falls, these warnings
are given, and God gives us signs by which we may know and mark
the way up to the time when that is the thing, and the one thing,
that comes next.
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- Now before our eyes in the daily papers,
in the situation even as we have examined it in the previous
lessons, the papacy is now carrying on the very movement that
is here marked out and is succeeding at every step. In former
lessons we have merely touched evidence as relates to the United
States. Brother Robinson gave me a copy of Present Truth a day
or two ago, and there, on the first page, are quotations from
Catholic papers of London, touching the nations of Europe that
are counted as not being exactly Catholic and how that these
are falling more and more and one by one back into the hands
of the papacy.
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- In the American Sentinel two or three
weeks ago you had the evidence, taken from Catholic papers, as
to Germany and Switzerland. The Catholic Church holds the balance
of power in Germany--a Catholic for Chancellor of the German
Empire, and the Catholic Church party in the Reichstag holding
the balance of power, so that the government cannot do anything
it wants to without their will and permission and they hold for
the repeal of all the laws that have been enacted against the
papacy or else nothing goes. And they are getting what they want
as the days go by.
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- Switzerland has a Catholic for a president,
and of him the London Universe says that he "is as papal
as a Swiss guard." It is not strange therefore that the
experiences which we have heard from brethren in Switzerland
should be manifesting themselves against the truth of God and
against the Lord.
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- The other day I saw a German paper in
which the editor and proprietor spoke of a trip he had taken
through Europe and, passing through Holland, he saw the parade
of Catholics in celebrating the recovery of Holland to the Catholic
Church.
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- In England, for the papacy to get control,
only one thing remains of all the things that were done in making
England a Protestant country and establishing the succession
of sovereigns--all that remains is just that one requirement,
that the sovereign shall be a Protestant. The oath to sustain
the Protestant succession is gone. And the one remaining point
that requires a Protestant succession has become so weakened
that the papacy herself is in expectation that even this will
soon be so modified that it may be at a moment set aside and
she have control once more. About a year ago, the pope, in receiving
a band of pilgrims from England and giving them his blessing
said to them that there were many signs in favor of England's
once more returning to the Church.
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- These are simply--well, they are more
than signs of what is going on; they are the actual facts in
the proceedings themselves of what is going on. We cannot count
them as signs; they are the thing itself.
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- In these extracts from the Catholic papers
that were printed in the Present Truth, the United States was
mentioned among the countries where the papacy is having its
greatest success; and directly in the line of these evidences
that we have presented already in the lessons is the fact that
the United States is to be used, as the pope says, in the molding
all the other nations and that this country is to shape the destiny
of the other nations, and the destiny of the other nations is
always intended to be simply the return of the world to the papacy
and to do her will and to promote her interests in the earth.
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- So then we stand in the presence and a
long way forward, too, in the presence of the events that are
bringing the fulfillment of these prophecies to the point when
all nations indeed shall be actually joined once more to her.
And when she shall have succeeded in all this movement that is
being carried on, when these things are fulfilled, then her judgment
falls. When that point is reached, when that time comes, in which
she stands at the place where she can congratulate herself that
all these nations are joined to her once more and she has lifted
herself to the supremacy out of the turmoils and the agonies,
the anarchy and the violence of every kind, to the supremacy,
as she did once before, when this is fulfilled, that is the last
thing that we shall see before her judgment falls.
- A few years ago we preached the coming
of the Lord, as we do yet. We preached everywhere the coming
of the Lord, the soon coming of the Lord, even in the generation
that is upon the earth and that generation a long way forward
in its life. Yet at the same time we told all the people to whom
we preached that the Lord was coming, that He could not come
until the United States government had recognized the Christian
religion and had set up Sunday instead of the Sabbath. We told
them, in other words, that he could not come until this government
had made the image of the beast. Then, after having told them
that the Lord is coming and coming soon and that the generation
is far spent in which He will come, we had to tell them that
this thing had to come before He could come, and then we turned
to point out to them the steps that were taken and the progress
that had been made toward that recognition of religion in the
United States and the setting up of Sunday instead of the Sabbath.
These things we told them were the signs by which they might
mark the way up to that thing that should be done, and as soon
as it should be done, then we would know the coming of the Lord
was to be looked forward to as never before.
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- Now that has been done. We cannot in truth
tell the people that the United States is going to recognize
the Christian religion. We cannot tell the people any more that
the United States government is going to put away the Sabbath
of the Lord from the fourth commandment and put Sunday in its
place. No man can do that and speak truly. Everyone that speaks
the truth on that has to say that has been done and point the
people simply to the official record in the proceedings of the
government that shows it and there it stands. Therefore, as this
is truly so, this text applies as never before, "Now is
our salvation nearer than when we believed."
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- We also told the people that when that
thing should succeed, the papacy would rise in triumph at the
expense of the Protestants who were doing that and without their
expectations and put herself in the place and would receive strength
and influence and power from it to mold the world once more to
her hand.
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- Well, we cannot say anymore that the papacy
is going to do that. The only thing we can now say is. She is
doing it, and point the people now to the facts which show that
she is doing it and that that is her one grand scheme for the
whole world, to be worked through this power which she already
has upon the United States.
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- But the success of that scheme, the completion
of that plan of hers, is simply the fulfillment of this prophecy
that we have read, that all the nations would be joined to her;
all would be worshiping her; the inhabitants of the earth connected
with her; all the world under her hand; all worshiping her, and
the power of all the world in her hands to pour out in wrath
against those who fear God. The Scripture sets forth in prophecy
precisely the thing that everyone of us sees and cannot help
seeing, that the papacy is doing. And the very point that the
prophecy sets out is the very point at which the papacy aims
and toward which she is working and which, when she reaches it,
will see the prophecy fulfilled, "I sit a queen and am no
widow and shall see no sorrow." And when that plan of the
papacy is completed and the prophecy and the papacy meet at that
point, then, says the word, "In one hour" from that
point her judgment comes; "She shall be utterly burned with
fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her."
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- Where then are we but in the very days
when the judgment of the great whore in the plagues of God are
hanging over the world? There is where we certainly stand.
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- Then see this: As at the first we were
obliged to point the people to the signs that marked the coming
of the image of the beast and as we are now beyond that and can
cite those things no more; so now we are in the time when event
after event simply marks the steps which we are to take in passing
to the coming of the Lord; and a good many of those steps are
taken and we are beyond them.
- And in this time what word has the Lord
put there to be given to the world? "Come out of her, my
people." What for? Why, "that ye be not partakes of
her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues."
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- The success of this movement of the papacy
that is being carried on is its ruin; her success is her ruin.
Her triumph is her destruction, in an hour. Then whoever would
not be ruined must separate from her, leave here entirely. And
whosoever would not see his fellowmen endangered and ruined must,
in the fear of God and the love of souls, say to them, "Escape
for your life; for ruin is about to fall."
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- Her ruin will be how widespread? How much
does it embrace? How much is under her control? How many are
worshiping her? How far does her wrath extend? And how many are
made drunk with the wine of the wrath of her fornication? All
the world. Then when the judgment falls upon her, how widespread
will be the judgment? worldwide. When the ruin falls, how complete
is the ruin? Utterly. It is said that he cometh up out of the
bottomless pit, and "goeth into perdition." "Perdition"
means utter destruction; she goes into utter destruction.
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- Then as certainly as her influence is
worldwide; as certainly as all nations are joined to her and
the inhabitants of the earth are drunk with the wine of the wrath
of her fornication and as certainly as that all that dwell upon
the earth are worshiping him, whose names are not written in
the book of life of the Lamb; so certainly all this shows that
everyone will fall in the ruin and will be ruined by the ruin,
whose name is not in the book of life.
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- Then, also as certainly as we stand here,
so certainly God has given a message to us in the midst of these
events and that message is to warn the world that it is indeed
"in its death agony," that out of that death agony
the papacy triumphs, that her triumph is her certain ruin, and
that whoever will escape must "come out of her."
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- Now I think we have time to bring a word
here that will illustrate this thing so forcibly that all can
see it. There was a Babylon of old. God caused the prophet to
write out her judgment. In the 50th and 51st chapters of Jeremiah
there is written out, in prophecy, the judgment of Babylon. I
am not going to read a description of it; all can read it at
your leisure, because there is a great deal in it for us even
now, but we will read the last verses of the 51st chapter, beginning
with the 59th verse:
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- The word which Jeremiah, the prophet,
commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Maasciah, when
he went with Zedekiah [margin: on behalf of Zedekiah] the king
of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And this
Seraiah was a quiet prince. So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the
evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that
are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When
thou comest to Babylon and shalt see and shalt read all these
words; then shalt thou say, O Lord, thou hast spoken against
this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither
man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever. And it
shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that
thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it in the midst of Euphrates;
and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise
from the evil that I will bring upon her, and they shall be weary.
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- Look at Rev. 18:21, in connection with
this, in the judgment of Babylon, the description of it:
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- A mighty angel took up a stone like a
great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence
shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and shall be found
no more at all.
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- Is there any correspondence between these
two stones? Assuredly there is. Then that sinking of old Babylon
pointed to the sinking of Babylon now; the judgment of Babylon
in old time pointed to the judgment of Babylon in this time.
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- Now we notice Jeremiah 51:45: "My
people, go ye out of the midst of her." God's people were
in that Babylon; he had a people there. He did not want them
to be there when the judgment of Babylon fell and caused her
ruin; therefore, he said, "My people, go ye out of the midst
of her and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger
of the Lord."
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- What is the word now? As the angel is
about to cast that mighty stone into the sea and say, "Thus
with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down and
shall be found no more at all," the call is, 'Come out of
her, my people, that ye be not partakers of here sins and that
ye received not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto
heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. . . . For strong
is the Lord God who judgeth her.'" Reading again in Jeremiah
of the old Babylon: And lest
your heart faint and ye fear for the rumor that shall be heard
in the land; a rumor shall both come one year and after that
in another year shall come a rumor, and violence in the land,
ruler against ruler.
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- The people in Babylon were to have two
rumors as the sign for leaving Babylon. Two rumors of what? Two
rumors of her fall, two rumors of her destruction. A rumor was
to come one year that the armies of the Medes and Persians were
on the way! But were they to be afraid that the ruin would be
then and was everyone to go as quickly as he possibly could?
NO. He could go if he chose, but the ruin was to be in another
year. So when the first rumor was to come, then was "the
preparation" to "get ready" to go, so that when
the second rumor should come, then they had to go or her ruin
would be their ruin.
- Accordingly, the Medo-Persian army started
from Ecbatana in the spring of A.D. 539--the year before Babylon
fell--and went partly on the way and then stopped and stayed
until the next spring. When the army started, of course the first
rumor spread rapidly to Babylon. That was the first sign that
everybody there should prepare to get away just as soon as they
could. They could in a sense take their time for the actual going,
but they must prepare and be ready at the second rumor, for when
the second rumor came they must go or perish. When the next spring
came, the "other year," the armies started again on
the way to Babylon. Then came the second rumor of Babylon's ruin,
and the ruin came with the second rumor, and whoever would escape
the ruin had to flee when the rumor came.
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- Now look at modern Babylon and the two
rumors of her fall. In 1844 there came the first rumor of the
fall of Babylon. Rev. 14:6-8:
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- I saw another angel fly in the midst of
heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that
dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue,
and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory
to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him
that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of
waters. And there followed another angel saying with a loud voice,
Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment
is come, and worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea
and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel,
saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because
she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
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- There was a rumor of the fall of Babylon;
that was the first rumor. Now read Rev. 18:1-4:
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- I saw another angel come down from heaven,
having great power and the earth was lightened with his glory.
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the
great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils
and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean
and hateful bird. . . . And I heard another voice from heaven,
saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers
of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues.
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- When that second rumor comes, the rumor
ceases only with the judgment which is her ruin. Are we in the
time of the second rumor of the fall of the second Babylon? Oh,
we are; we certainly are. Then as certainly as that second rumor
of the Medo-Persian army in ancient Babylon meant her certain
ruin, as certainly as that is true, so certainly we are in the
midst of the second rumor now; and whoever will escape that ruin
must go. "Come out of her, my people."
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- And therefore, as certainly as we to whom
that message has been given have any care for the souls of men,
any fear of God, or any love for the message which Jesus Christ
has given us, what is there alone for us to do but to tell the
people what is going on; what Babylon has done, what she is doing,
how ruin hangs right over her? Tell them the ruin is there, the
second rumor has come, she is to sink to rise no more, nor be
found anymore at all. But God does not want any man to sink with
her. He would have every soul turn away from her and turn to
him for the life and salvation there is in Him; therefore, He
calls, "Come out of her my people, that ye receive not of
her plagues."
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- That is where we are; there is the rumor
abroad. Oh, is it abroad? That is the question. Is it abroad?
Have you been sounding it abroad? How long have we been in the
time of the loud cry? More than two years. Have you been sounding
that rumor these two years, brethren? Have you all been giving
the message which has been given you to sound, urging the people
to escape from the ruin that is impending and that they must
flee to God if they would escape the ruin?
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- Well, then, shall we not go from this
Conference to sound that rumor with the loudest voice that God
can give? Is there anything else to do? How can there be anything
else to do? And of all things how can there be anything else
thought of by those to whom God has given the message and upon
whom He has laid the responsibility of sounding that rumor? "Come
out of her, my people."
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- [1895 GC Sermons Contents]