Battle-Hardened
Conviction
“The Testimony of
Jesus is the Spirit of
Prophecy.” Revelation 19:10.
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Penn’s Trail
Changes World History
Penn became a national
hero in an England that needed a
champion. His trial, his great
defense of freedom of conscience in
the teeth of the law, his steadfast,
stalwart, indomitable power of
conviction joined with the doughty
conviction of the jury in the face of
judicial tyranny, changed the course
of world history. All around the
world, the freedoms he fought for
have been established in law.
Penn’s Trail
Turns the Tide of Law in England
Before Penn’s
trail, the legal tide had been
running against freedom of
conscience, with act after act
seeking to suppress freedom of
conscience. After his trial, England
took courage, the tide turned, the
judiciary at the appeals level sided
with freedom of conscience, the King
saw that his laws were fruitless
against battle-hardened conviction,
and February 1, 1673, three years
later, King Charles II ordered a
Declaration of Indulgence which
ordered “that the execution of
all and all manner of penal laws in
matters ecclesiastical, against
whatsoever sort of non-conformists,
or recusants, be immediately
suspended, and they are hereby
suspended.”
Then came some of the
finest laws England ever passed,
including the Habeas Corpus Act of
1679 and the English Bill of Rights
in 1689.
A Torrent of the
Finest Writing
The battle-hardened
conviction of those times produced
some of the greatest blessing that
man has known.
The times of
Nonconformity produced, a torrent of
some of the most glorious literature
mankind has ever produced, from John
Milton, and Bunyan, to a host of
Puritan writers.
John Bunyan, arrested
in 1660, spent the next twelve years
of his life in jail for being a
nonconformist. In 1665, Bunyan wrote The
Holy City; in 1666, he wrote Grace
Abounding in the Chief of Sinners; during
his twelve years of imprisonment, he
wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress,
and six years after his release,
his great masterpiece, The
Pilgrim’s Progress
was published.
Bunyan, Baxter,
Flavel, Alleine
Writing of Bunyan,
Ellen White declares, “In a
loathsome dungeon crowded with
profligates and felons, John Bunyan
breathed the very atmosphere of
heaven; and there he wrote his
wonderful allegory of the
pilgrim’s journey from the land
of destruction to the celestial city.
For over two hundred years that voice
from Bedford, jail has spoken with
thrilling power to the hearts of men.
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
and Grace Abounding to the Chief
Sinners have guided many feet into
the path of life.
“Baxter, Flavel,
Alleine, and other men of talent,
education, and deep Christian
experience stood up in valiant
defense of the faith which was once
delivered to the saints. The work
accomplished by these men, proscribed
and outlawed by the rulers of this
world, can never parish.
Flavel’s Fountain of Life and
Methods of Grace have taught
thousands how to commit the keeping
of their souls to Christ.
Baxter’s Reformed Pastor has
proved a blessing to many who desire
a revival of the work of God, and his
Saints’ Everlasting Rest has
done its work in leading souls to the
“rest” that remaineth for
the people of God.” GC 252, 253.
When I was in college,
a man, a trucker, invited me over to
eat Sabbath dinner at his house along
with some other theology students at
the time of the revival. He read this
quote about Baxter, Flavel, and
Alleine, and inquired about why we
were not studying the writings of
these men in our training, since the
Lord had recommended them. As the
result, I purchased the complete
works of Bunyan, Baxter’s
Reformed Pastor, and Flavel’s
works. They have been a wonderful
blessing in my life.
Compelled to Meet in
the Sheltering Depths of the Forest
At Midnight
Ellen White knew all
about this history. She wrote:
“In the seventeenth century
thousands of pastors were expelled
from their positions. The people were
forbidden, on pain of heavy fines,
imprisonment, and banishment, to
attend any religious meetings except
such as were sanctioned by the
church. Those faithful souls who
could not refrain from gathering to
worship God were compelled to meet in
dark alleys, in obscure garrets, and
at some seasons in the woods at
midnight. In the sheltering depths of
the forest, a temple of God’s
own building, those scattered and
persecuted children of the Lord
assembled to pour out their souls in
prayer and praise. However, despite
all their precautions, many suffered
for their faith. The jails were
crowded. Families were broken up.
Many were banished to foreign lands.
Yet, God was with His people, and
persecution could not prevail to
silence their testimony. Many were
driven across the ocean to America
and here laid the foundations of
civil and religious liberty which
have been the bulwark and glory of
this country.” GC 252.
The Battle For Liberty
of Conscience in the Face of State
Law
Thus, the history of
the Seventeenth Century provides us
with the picture of the battle for
liberty of conscience in the face of
state law for religious uniformity.
Such history has
lessons of greatest import for the
end-time picture of totalitarian
religious conformity presented in the
book of Revelation, when the demand
will be “That as many as would
not worship the image of the beast
should be killed. And he causeth all,
both small and great, rich and poor,
free and bond, to receive a mark in
their right hand or in their
foreheads.” Revelation 13:
15-16.
What enabled the
religious dissenters to maintain
their ground under persecution was
their deep, devout union with the
true Christ of Scripture.
During terrible
persecution, for instance, John
Flavel wrote volumes about the
mediation of Christ. Bunyan, in jail,
wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Those who gain the victory over the
beast and its image “keep the
commandments of God and have the
faith of Jesus.” Revelation
14:12.
The result of
battle-hardened conviction, of
conviction tested and proved in the
fire, played itself out in great
blessing for the Anglo-Saxon peoples.
Habeas Corpus Act
Passed 1679
In 1679, two years
after Pilgrim’s Progress
was published in 1677, the Habeas
Corpus Act was passed, forcing the
State to justify an individual’s
arrest with a recognized criminal
offence and produce them in person
before a magistrate within two days.
However, the days of struggle were
not over yet. The wicked Catholic
King James would rule from 1685-1689.
English Bill of
Rights, 1689
However, in 1688 came
the Glorious Revolution with the
setting of Protestant William III and
Mary II on the throne of England in
1689. That very year, 1689, the
English Bill of Rights was passed.
Sealed:
Settled With Battle-hardened
Conviction Into Unpopular Truth
Intellectually and Spiritually
That One will Convict
Conviction. What was
it that Jesus said? “And coming,
That One [the Holy Spirit]
will convict [expose,
convict, cross-examine for the
purpose of convincing or refuting an
opponent] the world of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment.”
John 16: 8 (Greek.)
Treasuring the
Convicting Voice of the Holy Spirit
How we must join the
faithful of all ages in cherishing,
treasuring, and obeying the
convicting voice of the Spirit of God
in the soul, in the conscience. That
conviction is the great barrier
against satanic power.
Over the centuries,
much has been written about the Holy
Spirit’s work in convicting of
sin. Much less has been written about
the Holy Spirit’s work in
convicting of righteousness.
Convicting of
Righteousness
Jesus said that the
Holy Spirit would convict ‘of
righteousness, because I go to My
Father, and ye shall see Me no
more.” John 16:10. When
Jesus was personally present with the
disciples, He taught them wherein
consisted righteousness-right doing,
and we have His Words recorded in the
gospels. Now that He was going back
to the Father, He was sending the
Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to define
and maintain the truth regarding what
righteousness is to His followers.
“The Comforter is
called “the Spirit of
truth.” His work is to
define and maintain the truth. He
first dwells in the heart as the
Spirit of truth, and thus He becomes
the Comforter. There is
comfort and peace in the truth, but
no real peace or comfort can be found
in falsehood. It is through false
theories and traditions that Satan
gains his power over the mind. By
directing men to false standards, he
misshapes the character. Through
the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit
speaks to the mind, and impresses
truth upon the heart. Thus,
He exposes error, and expels it from
the soul. It is by the Spirit of
truth, working through the word of
God, that Christ subdues His chosen
people to Himself.
“…Sin could
be resisted and overcome only through
the mighty agency of the Third Person
of the Godhead, who would come with
no modified energy, but in the
fullness of divine power. It is the
Spirit that makes effectual what has
been wrought out by the world’s
Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that
the heart is made pure. Through the
Spirit, the believer becomes a
partaker of the divine nature. Christ
has given His Spirit as a divine
power to overcome all hereditary and
cultivated tendencies to evil, and to
impress His own character upon His
church.
“Of the Spirit
Jesus said, “He shall glorify
Me.” The Savior came to glorify
the Father by the demonstration of
His love; so, the Spirit was
to glorify Christ by revealing His
grace to the world. The very image of
God is to be reproduced in humanity.
The honor of God, the honor of
Christ, is involved in the perfection
of the character of His people.”
DA 671.
Battle-hardened
Conviction Anchored in Unpopular
Truth
“Those who are
living amid the perils of the last
days, days which are characterized by
masses turning from the truth of God
to fables, will have close work to
turn from the fables which are
prepared for them on every hand, and have
an appetite to feast upon unpopular
truth. Those who turn
from these fables to truth are
despised, hated, and persecuted by
those who are presenting fables to
the people for their reception. Satan
is at war with the remnant who are
endeavoring to keep the commandments
of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Evil angels are commissioned to
employ men as their agents upon the
earth.” 2T 105.
God’s people will
have to be anchored in the
orientation of Scripture regarding
personal union with the true
Christ-the faith of Jesus, and the
convicting power of the Holy Spirit. They
will have to be anchored in unpopular
truth. The Spirit must burn unpopular
truth into the heart with blazing
conviction. Christ must baptize us
with fire. It is a brand, a sealing.
God’s people will need to
possess battle-hardened conviction. In
1911, the servant of the Lord wrote:
Every City is to Be
Turned Upside Down in Every Way
“The end
is near and every
city is to be turned upside down
every way. There
will be confusion
in every city. Everything
that can be shaken is to be shaken,
and we do not know what will come
next. The judgments will be according
to the wickedness of the people and
the light of truth that they have
had.
If God’s People
Mingled With the Egyptians They Would
be Destroyed With Them
“He [God] told
the children of Israel that when the
plagues should come they must go out
of the Egyptians’ houses into
their own houses, for if they
were found mingled with the Egyptians
they would be destroyed with them.
They must be a separate people…
Sealed in the
Forehead: Settling Into the Truth
Intellectually and Spiritually
“The work in the
Battle Creek is after the same order.
The leaders of the sanitarium have
mingled with unbelievers, admitting
them to their councils, more or less,
but it is like going to work with
their eyes shut. They lack
the discernment
to see what is going to break upon us
at any time. There
is a spirit of desperation, or war
and bloodshed, and the spirit will
increase until the very close of
time. Just as soon as the people
of God are sealed in
their foreheads—it is not any
seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling
into the truth, both intellectually
and spiritually, so
they cannot be moved—just
as soon as God’s people are
sealed and prepared for the shaking,
it will come. Indeed, it
has begun already; the judgments of
God are now upon the land, to give us
warning, that we may know what is
coming (MS 173, 1902).”
10MR 250-252.
Settled Into the Truth
of the Third Angel’s Message
God’s people will
have to be anchored in truth
regarding what the Bible, history and
the Spirit of Prophecy reveals about
Rome. Along with all the other
truths, they will have to be anchored
regarding the Beast and the Image of
the Beast, for that issue is
central to the Third angel’s
Message-Present Truth for our
time. They will have to be anchored
regarding every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God. We must be
sealed-settled into truth
intellectually and spiritually, or we
will be blown away by the storm and
tempest, and shock of the battle.
Know the Last Six
Chapters of the Great Controversy
Like the Back of Your Hand
I used to tell my
college classes that I was teaching, you
need to know the last six chapters of
the book Great Controversy like the
back of your hand.
That book, The
Great Controversy, is the
testimony of Jesus Himself, which is
the Spirit of Prophecy. “The
Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of
Prophecy.” Revelation 19:10. It
cannot be emphasized too greatly that
the orientation of Jesus Christ,
of the True Christ of
Scripture, is the
orientation of the books of Daniel
and Revelation, and the Great
Controversy.
Written At the Peril
of Her Life
Satan Tried to Kill
Ellen White Before She Could Write
The Great Controversy
The information in The
Great Controversy is so critical
that Satan tried to kill Ellen White before
she could write it. Ellen White
tells the story in Life Sketches:
“In the spring of
1858, we visited Ohio, and attended
conferences at Green Springs, Gilboa,
and Lovett’s Grove. At
Lovett’s Grove, the Lord’s
blessing rested upon us in special
power. On Sunday afternoon, there was
a funeral service at the schoolhouse
where our meetings were being held.
My husband was invited to speak. He
was blessed with freedom, and the
words spoken seemed to affect the
hearers.
“When he had
closed his remarks, I felt urged by
the Spirit of the Lord to bear my
testimony. As I was led to speak upon
the coming of Christ and the
resurrection, and the cheering hope
of the Christian, my soul
triumphed in God; I drank in rich
draughts of salvation. Heaven, sweet
heaven, was the magnet to draw my
soul upward, and I was wrapped in a
vision of God’s glory. Many
important matters were there revealed
to me for the church.
At
Lovett’s Grove Sister White Sees
a Vision of the Great Controversy and
Is Instructed to Write It Out
“In the vision at
Lovett’s Grove, most of the
matter which I had seen ten years
before concerning the great
controversy of the ages between
Christ and Satan, was repeated, and I
was instructed to write it out. I
was shown that while I should have to
contend with the powers of darkness,
for Satan would make strong efforts
to hinder me, yet I must put my trust
in God, and angels would not leave me
in the conflict.
“Two days
afterward, while journeying on the
cars to Jackson, Michigan. we
arranged our plans for writing and
publishing, immediately on our return
home, the book entitled, “The
Great controversy between Christ and
His Angels, and Satan and His
Angels,” commonly known as
“Spiritual Gifts,” Vol. 1.
I was then as well as usual.
Satan Strikes: Ellen
Did Not Expect to Live
“On the arrival
of the train at Jackson, we went to
Brother Palmer’s. We had been in
the house but a short time, when, as
I was conversing with Sister Palmer, my
tongue refused to utter what I wished
to say, and seemed large and numb. A
strange, cold sensation struck my
heart, passed over my head, and down
my right side. For a time I was
insensible, but was aroused by the
voice of earnest prayer. I tried to
use my left limbs, but they were
perfectly useless. For a short time,
I did not expect to live. It was
my third shock of paralysis; and
although within fifty miles of home,
I did not expect to see my children
again. I called to mind the
triumphant season I had enjoyed at
Lovett’s Grove, and thought it
was my last testimony, and
felt reconciled to die.
“Still the
earnest prayers of my friends were
ascending to heaven for me, and soon
a prickling sensation was felt in my
limbs, and I praised the Lord that I
could use them a little. The Lord
heard and answered the faithful
prayers of His children, and the
power of Satan was broken. That
night I suffered much, but the next
day I was sufficiently strengthened
to return home.
At First But One Page
a Day; Then Rest Three Days
“For several
weeks I could not feel the pressure
of the hand or the coldest water
poured upon my head. In rising to
walk, I often staggered, and
sometimes fell to the floor. In
this afflicted condition I began to
write on the great controversy. At
first, I could write but one page a
day, and then rest three days; but I
progressed, my strength increased. The
numbness in my head did not seem to
becloud my mind, and before I closed
that work [”Spiritual
Gifts,” Vol. 1], the effect of
the shock had entirely left me.
Satan Intended to Take
Her Life
“At the time of
the conference at Battle Creek, in
June, 1858, I was shown in
vision that in the sudden attack at
Jackson, Satan intended to take my
life, in order to hinder the work I
was about to write; but angels of God
were sent to my rescue. I
also saw, among other things, that I
should be blessed with better health
than before the attack.” –Life
Sketches 15, 161-163.
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