Order of Last Day Events

Parallels to the last day events in Bible history:

  • Death decree in Persia - Est. 3:12-15; 8:10-12; PK 605, 606
  • The closing scenes of Christ’s earthly ministry – GC 615, 616

What will bring about the persecution against the faithful during this time?

  • Repeated rejection of the truth – GC 603
  • The protestant clergy do everything possible to stop their congregations from hearing the truth – GC 607
  • Unsanctified SDA’s leave the church and become its most bitter opponents – GC 608
  • Resistance to Sabbath reform – GC 587, 4SP 404
  • Wicked all united under Sunday sacredness and the immortality of the soul – GC 588
  • Satan increases disasters blaming them on the faithful – GC 590
  • The clergy strain to shut the light from shinning on their flocks by appealing to Rome to help them force the state to enact a Sunday law to persecute SDA’s – 4SP 425
  • Corrupt people in the government will be bribed, and yield to the pressure of the people – 4SP 403, 410

How will the Sunday law be enacted?

  • “Not blindly” – GC 605
  • The real issues will be concealed – 5T 452
  • The churches unite to pressure the state to enforce their decrees – GC 445
  • Apostasy of the church will prepare the way for the image of the beast to be set up.GC 444
  • The religious power will control the state – CG 443
  • The Sunday law will be enacted because congress will yield to the popular demand for it – GC 592 (parallel to the way the priests, Pharisees and rulers stirred up the people to pressure Pilate to crucify Christ Matt. 27:20; Mark 15: 11, 14, 15)
  • Former SDA’s stir up the rulers against the faithful – GC 608

The following sequence of events is taken from Early Writings 269-272:

“I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent.” - Rev. 3:18, 19

The following sequences reveal the polarization of the wicked and the righteous:

Some History of Sunday Laws

  • The first know Sunday Law was enacted March 7. 321 A.D. by the Roman Emperor Constantine –Civil Government and Religion p. 91, by A.T. Jones
  • Since the Roman people were forbidden by Constantine’s Sunday law to work on Sunday they used that day for amusements. This led the Church to pass further Sundays laws (386, 401 and 425 A.D.) that not only forbade labor on Sunday but forbade any activity that “disturbed” worship, this transferred the circus and theater to other days than Sunday so they would no longer be in competitionibidp. 92-95
  • Constantine did not force the rules of Christianity on non Christians expect in the Sunday Laws, these were universal, to be obeyed by all. –ibidp. 96-
  • Sunday laws were being agitated in the USA in the 1880’s and 90’s – From 1888 to Apostasy p. 78
  • Aug. 5, 1892 President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill for the first national Sunday law – ibid p. 78
  • Feb 29, 1892 the US Supreme Court in “The Rector, Church Wardens and Vestrymen of the church of the Holy Trinity, plaintiffs in Error vs. the United States” Declared the USA to be a “Christian Nation” and used the sacredness with which Americans held Sunday as evidence – Ecclesiastical Empire p. 834-839
  • The National Reform Association; National Women’s Christian Temperance Union; The National Prohibition Party; The American Sabbath Union; The Methodist Episcopal Church; The Presbyterian General Assemblies North and South; The Baptist Home Missionary Convention; The Synod of the Reformed Church; The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church and the Roman Catholic Church united in 1888 for the purpose of pressuring the government to enact certain religious legislation, among which was a national Sunday law – ibid p. 843
  • April 1892, The President of the American Sabbath Union appealed to the US Senate to force the World Fair in Chicago to be closed on Sunday. The 52nd Congress of the USA defined which day the Sabbath was.

“The combined ‘evangelical’ churches, joined with the Roman Catholic , as a united body on this question, did dictate under threats that this law should be passed. Congress did permit, and did yieldto the dictation…” ibid p. 855

  • 1892, The people of the Sunday movement used “political blackmail” by causing their church members to vote against any member of congress that would oppose their agendas – 1888 to Apostasy p. 85

“Congress, Jones noted, ‘caved into the wishes of the churches’ because it was demanded with threats”

  • With only two exceptions, all people who were convicted of breaking the AR state Sunday blue laws between 1885-1887 were SDA’s – The Two Republics p. 787
  • Almost all the people who testified against SDA’s for Sunday breaking (in AR from 1885-1887) were themselves working on Sunday. – ibid 788
  • The whole purpose of the Sunday Blue Laws was to persecute Seventh-day Adventists.
    – Civil Government and Religion p. 142-152, by A.T. Jones
  • “Southern and mid-western states also passed numerous laws to protect the Sabbath during the mid to late nineteenth century. Laws targeted numerous groups including saloon owners, Jews, Seventh-day Adventists, and non-religious peoples. These Sunday laws enacted at the state and local levels would sometimes carry penalties for doing non-religious activities on Sunday as part of an effort to enforce religious observance and church attendance…” - Wikipedia entry: “blue laws”
  • “The Supreme Court of the United States held in its landmark case, McGowan v. Maryland (1961), that Maryland's blue laws violated neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It approved the state's blue law restricting commercial activities on Sunday, noting that while such laws originated to encourage attendance at Christian churches, the contemporary Maryland laws were intended to serve "to provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens" on a secular basis and to promote the secular values of "health, safety, recreation, and general well-being" through a common day of rest. That this day coincides with the Christian Sabbath is not a bar to the state's secular goals; it neither reduces its effectiveness for secular purposes nor prevents adherents of other religions from observing their own holy days.[27] The status of blue laws vis-à-vis the Free Exercise Clause conceivably would have to be re-evaluated if challenged by an adherent of a religion which required the conduct of commerce on Sunday.[citation needed]” - Wikipedia entry: “blue laws”