The Gospel of the Kingdom to Come

The Apostasy

Paul says that the day of the Lord will not come until an apostasy has taken place and "the man of sin, the son of perdition, be revealed." He gives us the following identification of him:

"Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God . For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him whose coming Is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all -might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."-2 Thes. 2:4-12.

That this apostasy does not refer to the apostasy of Adam goes without saying. Who is it that has gone into the temple of God and exalted himself above God and the worship that Christ founded there by word and example? The Lord calls him "the son of perdition"—the son who has received his good things in his life­time—of whom the cashier, Judas Iscariot, "one of the twelve," was a small prefigure. Paul calls him "the lawless one," who hates the spiritual meaning of the law of faith. This one is "Antichrist," and John says that he consists of many members; but the chief repre­sentatives of the antichristian body wear the linen and purple of the high priest—that is, wherever the chief members of this great body are found, they function as church heads, and prescribe how to worship by means of their ordinances. Their brethren are vested with all the privileged offices within the sanctuaries and the king­dom.

These scatter and clip the sheep, enclose them within confines so that God's property may be divided between themselves, slaughter and destroy the sheep according to desire, eat their flesh, and elevate themselves in riches and power at the expense of the scattered sheep. For this reason the religious "thieves and robbers" have placed their own names on the enclosures which separate the herd of one captor from the herd of another; and they make stringent rules in order violently to hinder the sheep from becoming liberated. They claim to be fathers and shepherds, but they compromise with the fold for a steady income, because they lack the least ac­quaintance with the Father of faith.

The dispute regarding sonship, which arose between those who called themselves "the children of Abraham" and Jesus, occurred in the Father's house. And it was the Antichristians, who boasted of being the children of Abraham, that deprived the Son of truth of his sonship. Jesus said to those who claimed to believe in him, "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard from God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God."—John 8 :39 41.

This shows that they looked upon Abraham as the steward of the house; and Jesus confirmed the thought, but showed, by extracting from them their ideas and thoughts, that their deeds testified of a wrong selection with respect to fathers, and that they fitted better in the father-house of falsehood. Therefore lie answered:

"If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there Is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that Is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?"—John 8:42-48.

When the spiritually erected Father's house became visible, the same confusion began to make its appearance within it. The spirit of lie controlled one person, and the Spirit of truth the other. The apostasy had already begun in the time of Paul, because the spiritual night, during which Christ had said no one would be able to work (John 9:4, 5), had followed the evening age of the day of the Lord. For this reason Paul made the following inquiry of those who manufactured sect names and divided the body of Christ by the construction of denominational partitions: "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul ?" (1 Cor. 1:13.) And he deplored the condition of the people, saying, "For I have no man like minded, who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." (Phil. 2:20, 21.) The false Christs worked upon this fundamental principle of selfishness, and boasted the name of Jesus and the names of all his faithful servants until the apostasy was complete. The result is mentioned by Paul:

"Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. For I think that God bath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place; and labor, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day."-1 Cor. 4:8 13.

This shows what the true servants of Christ have experienced in a greater or lesser degree since he left them. The glorious con­gregation, which constituted the crown of the gospel, 'kept its posi­tion of unity only a short time; and soon enough the hypocrites endeavored to steal past the guard, the Holy Spirit, which Spirit killed two of them through the words of Peter, of which incident we read in Acts 5:1-10. The saints were afterwards subjected to the oppression of those who were satanically saved, and about fifty thousand of the saints were slain during the first three hundred years. But in the year 325 A. D., the blood-stained Emperor of Rome, Constantine, assumed a ruling position over them, and the temple of God was incorporated with .houses of idolatry, thanks to the preparatory work of the Antichrists.

When Constantine in, 325 A. D. acknowledged the apostatized so-called Christians, and they him, he was in possession of the new Israel. And when they supported his throne with their weapons, he deprived Christ of the very territory of the temple, where David's throne had stood, and where the throne of Christ is finally to be established. Ever since then "the host of heaven" has been trodden down by the governmental power and throne of the serpent, and the Roman beast has removed "the place of his sanctuary." (Dan. 8:10, 11.) But the Word of God was a dangerous power, which continually threatened to destroy this throne, for which reason the blood of the faithful was continually made to flow. A new Christianized heathen priesthood was brought into being, which was fully in accord with the purple on the throne of property and wealth.

In the year 606 A. D., "the man of sin" in the papal chair—personifying Cain, the murderer, Nimrod, the founder of the king­dom of brick, and Judas, the betrayer—ascended the Christianized Constantinian world throne as the antichristian head, and was crowned as the father of the church. Their success in exchanging the God of Jesus Christ for the Nimrodian "trinity" by means of the heathenish traditions of men dates itself from that time. The children of apostasy had then, dethroned Jehovah with violence, killed the Messiah, murdered his disciples, captured the new spiritual kingdom, taken possession of the earth, exiled "to the land above" the very throne of inheritance, and placed a modern deity upon the throne of God the Father, which throne they set up over the mutilated bodies of the martyrs. No one was permitted to speak of Christ's right to the throne, to the people, and to the earth, without being punished. This is the condition of these children of apostasy even to-day.

In spite of being the head representative of the crimes of the concentrated power of property and wealth in, all its professions and occupations, the pope vested himself with the office of God and Christ, and wielded the sword with a zealous hand against all who refused to worship this father on his throne in Rome, who said of himself as all popes have said, "We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty." (Great Encyclical Letters, by Leo XIII, p. 304.) The popes maintained a standing army of eighteen hundred men for the continual pursuit of heretics. He who had professed to be the “father” of the people was their murderer, both naturally and spiritually, and would not permit the existence of the doctrine of Christ in the land ; therefore they sought to exterminate everything connected with Christ except his name. and no one was permitted to preach any more that. Christ was heir to the universal throne. If anyone was found possessing a leaf of the Holy Scriptures, he was burned to death, his children were taken away from him, and the murderers received their pos­sessions as a reward for service performed.

All they had to do was to teach and interpret Elohim's book in such a manner as to render it harmless to the Nimrodian king­dom of brick; that by means of this Word they could produce a new paradise where the people would consider it their greatest joy to die under the yoke which the new god would place on them in the name of Jesus.

Every trace of the original appearance of the true Messiah and his true congregation was carefully swept out of the way, so that "the man of sin," the pope, and his official brethren, should be able to sit undisturbed on the throne over the house of God. There they all lived, and still live, sumptuously every day. If they had been satisfied with all this and had not said that they represented Christ as his vicegerents, playing the hypocrite in Jesus' name in order to reach the hearts of the people, such a terrible punish­ment would not be in store for them. But they say, "We are God's elect. The one who opposes us, the anointed of God, opposes God." By this these leaders and authorized clergymen of Christendom, who function under their respective sect and church names, as­sume the same position in relation to the Son and people of the Abrahamitic house of God, and the obligations of stewardship therewith connected, as the Jewish priests in the time of Christ.

Imperial noblemen and royal lords approve of this clergy, defend and honor it; and at the latter's request, persecutions and executions are carried out on the servants of Jesus Christ. This now represents the so-called status quo, which has been the same since the Son was executed. Imperial palaces and the "eleven thousand rooms" of the popes loom before the minds of their hire­ling shepherds as the object of their efforts; therefore the wages they receive are never high enough, nor the residences they are given never elegant enough. Their expectations are so high they are often heard to say that they will receive "a house of their own in heaven having a hundred rooms."

To-day the temple of God is devastated to such a great extent that the people as a whole are beginning to think no God exists. There are no two families within a single one of the many sect enclosures of the so-called believers who are of one heart and one soul; much less is it possible for them to have everything in com­mon. Truth has been stolen away, and at every door, cannons, swords, and hirelings stand watch in order to hinder the people from getting enlightenment, and from becoming fraternized in the truth. Over all this misery the church patriarchs have created for themselves "three just as great" gods—and lords according to their own tastes. At their church meetings they choose their baptism, faith, new birth, and salvation to suit themselves. When it is a question of taxing their faithful, they find the Mosaic tithe regula­tions proper to use. On the other hand, if it be a question of their own moral conduct and the rights of their fellow men, they dis­card the moral law under the dictates of which was built the prefigure of the house of the Father. Be the righteousness that accompanies faith required of them, they have their own rules for becoming righteous; but they do not have as much faith as an irreligious farmer who sows in the hope that God will make his seed grow.

Authority to preach. By making their own rules they carefully avoid the cross of Christ, through which both the ceremonial and the moral law underwent a change and became the law of faith. The clergy is manufactured in the clergy factory of the sect. When a disciple is educated, he has learned to interpret the Word of God according to the accepted version of this or that denomina­tional pope, after which he receives "authority" to make proselytes for his sect by preaching the cult of this or that god. Like Paul he is then prepared with the "authority from the chief priests" to persecute Christ in his congregational body, formed "without the camp." As far as we know; Paul is the only one of all the servants of Christ who has made use of the authority of the chief priests for such a purpose. Concerning this, he, the converted erstwhile Pharisee, says as follows:

"I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being ex­ceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and com­mission from the chief priests," and so forth.—Acts 26:9-12.

Educated as he was to regard the sect of the Pharisees as the only true sect, he felt it his duty, like many of the clergy in our time, to protect "the congregation of God" from "strange doc­trines." The consequence was, and is, that the people of God had to be, and are still, sacrificed. The laws of Jehovah are a pro­tection for us against Cain's successors, who would otherwise slay us without being held accountable for their deeds; and the spiritual meaning of these 'laws keeps us fastened to the cross of self-sacrifice unto death. If we place ourselves above the laws of God, we place ourselves above him and become "lawless" Antichrists who destroy the Father's house. Christ sounded a warning against this, saying to his disciples, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple . . So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."—See Luke 14:26 33.

If we apply this rule upon the salaried clergy of our time, we shall find that they are not, nor will they on these conditions be­come, the disciples of Christ; they are of the world, and are con­sequently blasphemers of those who do follow the Master. It is of these the apostle Jude said, "But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core ... And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold, the Lord eometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."—Jude, verses 10, 11, 14, 15.

What do they do in the temple of God? Precisely the same as they did in the time of Christ. They make of it a house of feast­ing, and a theater, where they rob their fellow men by selling them merchandise. Hear the opinion Christ uttered: "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."—Mat. 21:12, 13.

"The spoil of the poor is in your houses," says Jehovah. (Isa. 3:14.) They beg millions of dollars for luxurious temples, for so-called "temples of God"—as if God had many temples—and the people stagger underneath the burdens, even though it is written, "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands."—Acts. 17:24.

From the Catholic feet up the Adventist head and. the Salva­tion Army crown on the religious denominational image, the same party feeling prevails, and they all stand armed in order to hinder any exodus to, or any aggressive conquest by, neighboring sects. The whole of this religious institution resembles the image of Nebuchadnezzar in the valley of Dura. At the sound of all kinds of musical instruments, the people fall on their knees and pray. The only difference is that the image of our time has life and is propelled by the spirit of Antichrist, And a fiery furnace will also be connected with this modern image when the final scene occurs.

Now the separate sections of this image are beginning to enjoy distinction as limbs in the same body. The power of Mammon in every country is the real husband of this harlot-image, and it sanctions and defends all her members. These members hold the same relation to the power of concentrated wealth as the first congre­gation held to the kingdom of God and its King. They embellish the heathenish thrones of the different countries with the promises of God, and decorate their temples of idolatry with Bible quota­tions, so that the nominal Christians will believe that Satan is God, and the ruler of the country the Prince of Peace.

In their worldly wealth, their royal ostentation, and their sump­tuous feasts, the so-called saved resemble a corporation queen of many names, who flirts with anyone that will drink and have enjoyment with her. And the power of concentrated wealth, which likewise consists of many corporative names, upholds her on its broad back. The harlot is thus portrayed in Rev. 17th and 18th chapters. This shows that the apostasy is now complete, because the harlot had this appearance on "the day of the Lord." Now when a people who assume the nameless and defenseless position of the true and pure virgin appear on the scene to meet the Bride­groom, this elevated dame must maintain her distinction, prestige, and dignity, because she claims to be "the bride of Christ."—It is in truth a horrible apostasy!

All of this signifies that the climax of the time of apostasy⁸ is now at hand. The combined struggle of the religious sects puts the political beast in a fighting mood against what the sects desig­nate as Antichrist. The innocent are again dragged in among malefactors to a shameful death. In this manner the scene of Golgotha is repeated, and the followers of Christ are made the common target of an armed dragon, which in the form of a chain consisting of thirty million men surrounds as it were the universal fortress of Christendom. There is now no free wilderness to which the brethren of Christ can flee, for which reason heaven will now open above them—they will be defended.

Israel must be led by the arm of prophecy back along the way that leads through the gates to Israel's Jehovah. Jehovah's King will come again to lead the lost ones, by means of the cooperating power of the host and the sanctuary, to the everlasting house of the Father, which is also called "The New Jerusalem."