RELIGION IN AMERICA.

When the last page in the Bible was written many centuries ago, an amazing story began. It is a story of faithfulness amid apostasy and persecution. While a remnant of the disciples of Jesus followed his simple yet powerful gospel message, there were others who followed the traditions of men. Apostasy was serious. Pagan ideas and teachings were rapidly coming into the church. By A.D. 250, worldliness was sweeping into the early church in an ever-increasing flood.

John Wesley once wrote, “Condemn no man for not thinking as you think. Let every one enjoy the full and free liberty of thinking for himself. Let every man use his own judgment, since every man must give an account of himself to God. Abhor every approach, in any kind or degree, to the spirit of persecution. If you cannot reason or persuade a man into the truth, never attempt to force him into it. If love will not compel him to come, leave him to God, the Judge of all.”

The beginning of the end came March 7, 321 A.D., when Emperor Constantine issued the first National Sunday Law in history. This was the first “blue law” to be issued by a federal government. Here is the text of Constantine’s Sunday law decree:

“Let all judges and townspeople and occupations of all trades rest on the venerable of the sun [Sunday]; nevertheless, let those who are situated in the rural districts freely and with full liberty attend to the cultivation of the fields because it frequently happens that no other day may be so fitting for plowing grains or trenching vineyards, lest at the time the advantage of the moment granted by the provision of heaven be lost. Given on the Nones (seventh) of March, Crispus and Constantine, being consuls each of them, for the second time.”– The Code of Justinian, Book lll, title 12, law 3.

Five additional Sunday laws were to be issued, within a very few years, to buttress this, his basic one. It is of interest that, at the very time that Constantine was issuing these Sunday laws, he was embellishing the Temple of the Sun in Rome: and, in the same year that he proclaimed his first Sunday law, he made several decrees maintaining pagan practices. Pagan priests decided the most superstitious practices. The day after enacting his first Sunday law, quoted above, Constantine decreed that priestly examination of the entrails of freshly killed chickens should help determine government decisions. It is also significant that a close examination of this first Sunday law, of Constantine, does not mention Christianity but does use the Mithraic expression, “venerable day of the sun” (venerabili die solis), which was one of the hollowed Mithraic titles for their sacred day, Sunday, the first day of the week. It was one of the mystical names for the day of the sun god. Both the heathen and the Christians understood this.

Constantine was a compromiser, determined to bring the religions together while, at the same time, maintaining close ties with all of them. The objective was ecumenism, to unite the various religious beliefs in the most acceptable way. In Sunday keeping, he hoped to unite the nation in an enduring religious unity. The first step was to require by a national decree, one day in the week when worship would be offered to the various gods. Although this first Sunday law spoke of a weekly rest day from employment and did not mention religion or worship, yet the purpose was clearly there and the objective was fully met.

It was several decades before the faithful believers fully realized what had taken place. But, by then, it was too late. Constantine had won, the faithful had lost, and the church was taken over by the world.

This now brings us to the next step. Persecution of believers on a scale never before imagined possible. Beginning slowly at first, it gradually swelled with the passing years, and continued for centuries. In fact, by the time of Martin Luther, nearly everyone in Europe was Catholic. For more than a thousand years, the leaders of the established church had worked intently to crush anyone who had differing views. And they very nearly succeeded.

In the Bible, Jesus warned His followers to beware of “tradition”. Tradition is man-made inventions that have no warrant in Scripture. It is only as we stay by the teachings of the Bible that we are safe. By the beginning of the third century, tradition was already reshaping and misshaping apostolic Christianity.

This same pattern has been repeated several times in history. And it will be repeated again. Now, amid deepening corruption and apostasy in our nation, we are rapidly moving in that direction ourselves!

Back in the Dark Ages, men and women were willing to die for what the Bible said. Are you willing to stand today for the same truths? Will you stand for the faith of your fathers, the faith given you by the Creator of the heavens and the earth?

Consider for a moment if you will the Preamble to the United States Constitution.

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity to ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It was done! It was grandest of all human documents. But then our founders realized that something was missing! Thomas Jefferson, writing from France, declared that the Constitution was incomplete. A “bill of personal rights” must be added, guaranteeing to each citizen certain inalienable rights that the government could never be allowed to take from him! Other leaders agreed. They knew past history well. Indeed, they had only but recently come out of intense personal and religious persecution of the American Colonies. They were the children not only of the persecuted but also of those who had persecuted them.

God has given a clear blueprint of the things to come yet there remains but a chosen few who believe the true gospel message. Soon this world will be thrown into a time of great tribulation. God’s word tells us that before the end, there will only be a small number who will stand firmly on the Rock of Truth as the events described in the Bible by the Prophets of old will begin to take place. In that day, Christ will leave the sanctuary at the right hand of God and will gather the believers from the earth. It is at this time when the spirit, which has restrained the mystery of iniquity, will gather the faithful from this earth and the time of the end recorded in the Bible will begin.

When He leaves the sanctuary, darkness will cover the inhabitants of the earth. The restraint that has been upon the wicked is removed, and the spirit of the world has unhindered control of the entire earth. God’s long-suffering has ended. The world has rejected His mercy, despised His love, and trampled upon His Word. The wicked have passed the boundary of their probation; the spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last withdrawn.

Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one. The great spirit of the world will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble. As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. The whole world will be involved in ruin more terrible than that, which came upon Jerusalem of old.

Israel and the rest of the world will then be plunged into those scenes of affliction and distress described in the Bible by the prophet as the time of Jacob’s trouble. “Thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. All faces are turned into paleness. Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jeremiah 30: 5-7.

“At that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.” Daniel 12:1.

When God’s presence was finally withdrawn from the inner sanctuary of the temple in Israel, and replaced by the gift of holy spirit on the day of Pentecost, the priests and people knew it not. Though under the control of the spirit of the world, and swayed by the most horrible and malignant passions, they still regarded themselves as the chosen of God. The ministration in the temple continued; sacrifices were offered upon its polluted altars, and daily the divine blessing was invoked upon a people guilty of the blood of God’s dear Son and seeking to slay His ministers and apostles.

So when the irrevocable decision of the sanctuary has been pronounced and the destiny of the world has been forever fixed, the inhabitants of the earth will know it not. The forms of religion will be continued by a people from whom the spirit of God has been finally withdrawn; and the  zeal with which the prince of evil will inspire them for the accomplishment of his malignant designs, will bear the semblance of a zeal for God.

Many scoff and say this will never happen in our lifetime. When the founding fathers of America envisioned their new nation, they never in their wildest imagination foresaw the religious indifference that has now gripped her within 6 generations. The story of Religion in America is true. This Earth is covered in a great Fog of Religious deception and my hope is that there are some left who will awaken in these last days and allow the spirit which is from God to enlighten the eyes of their understanding and as Paul so desired, so do I also Pray: From Ephesians 1: 17

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of HIM.”

Yours in Friendship,

Maurice Goulet