Helps to Bible Study

John Shuler

www.CreationismOnline.com

Author of

Christ the Divine One

Is the End Near?

1934

REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION
TAKOMA PARK, WASHINGTON, D.C.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

DIRECTIONS FOR MARKING BIBLE SUBJECTS IN YOUR BIBLE

THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
THE MILLENNIUM
GOD'S PURPOSE FOR THIS WORLD
THE NEARNESS OF THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST
ANGELS
HEAVEN
THE WAY OF SALVATION
THE CHRISTIAN'S RULE OF LIFE
THE LORD'S DAY
THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH
THE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED
THE MEANING OF HELL
WHERE ARE THE DEAD?
BIBLE PLAN FOR THE SUPPORT OF GOD'S WORK
BIBLE TEMPERANCE
THE MOST WONDERFUL PROPHECY IN THE BIBLE
THE WORK OF JESUS AS OUR HIGH PRIEST
THE GREAT DAY OF JUDGMENT
THE PRESENT TRUTH
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES
THE SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD
THE MARK OF THE BEAST
HOW TO KEEP THE SABBATH
CHRISTIANS IN DRESS
BAPTISM
THE TRUE CHURCH
GOD'S GATHERING CALL
PROPHECIES OF CHRIST'S FIRST ADVENT

Directions for Marking Bible Subjects in Your Bible

In this system each subject has its own distinct key letters; for example: is Second Coming of Christ. M is Millennium. NJ is New Jerusalem.
On the blank flyleaves at the beginning or close of your Bible, make a list of all the subjects as you mark them, with the key letter which stands for that subject and the first Bible reference with which that lesson begins. For example, you would write on the flyleaf: is Second Coming of Christ, begin Hebrews 9:28. M is Millennium, begin Revelation 20:5. And then on with each other subject in the same way, copying just the key letters and the first text of each subject on these flyleaves.
Then turn to the first reference of each subject and write in the margin near it the second reference. Then turn to the second reference and write in the margin near it the third reference, and so on to the end of the lesson. For example, on the Second Coming of Christ, after putting the key letters and the first reference on the flyleaf, turn to Hebrews 9:28, the first reference on the subject, and in the margin near Hebrews 9:28, write 2 John 14:1-3, which means that the second reference on the Second Coming of Christ is John 14:1-3. Then turn to John 14:1-3 and in the margin near this put 3 Luke 24:36-43, 50, 51, which is the third reference on this Second Coming subject. Then turn to Luke 24:36-43, 50, 51 and write in the fourth reference 4 -and so on to the end. When you come to the last reference write "End S
Each subject is to be marked in this same way. NOTE-Mark only those references in the lesson which are numbered, and always put the number of the text and key letters in front of the text. Put the reference on the margin in each case as near to the preceding text as possible, so you can pick it up quickly to continue the study with the person with whom you are studying. The additional references given in each lesson which are not numbered are not to be marked in your Bible, but are for your personal study as additional Biblical information.

1. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST

Hebrews 9:28. Just as certainly and surely as Christ was offered on the cross 1900 years ago, just so certainly He will appear the second time.
John 14:1-3. When Jesus was here on the earth 1900 years ago, He promised in just so many words that He would return to earth at the last day, or at the end of time, to reward every man according to his works. Matthew 16:27; 26:64. He said, “I go and 1 will come again." So as surely as He went back to heaven, just so surely we may know that He will return to this earth at the right time.
Luke 24:36-43, 50, 51. He had a real body of flesh and bones, with hands and feet, after His resurrection, and He went back to heaven with that real body.
Acts 1:9-11. He will come in like manner as He went back to heaven at His ascension. He went back to heaven literally, bodily, personally, and visibly. So when He comes in like manner at His second advent, we know that He will come from heaven bodily, literally, personally, and visibly. The second coming of Christ will be a literal, bodily appearing of Christ from heaven in the sight of all the people of the earth, and not any figurative or spiritual coming.
Revelation 1:7. Every person, every eye, will see Him when He appears in the clouds of heaven. Christ will not appear at His second advent in any secret way just to the elect, but all the tribes of the earth shall see Him coming on the clouds, with power and great glory. Matthew 24:30. His coming will be just as open and visible to all people as the lightning. Matthew 24:27.
Revelation 6:15-17. The wicked will see Him as He approaches the earth at His coming, and will try to hide.

Matthew 25:31. All the angels of heaven, countless millions (Revelation 5:11; Hebrews 12:22) of bright shining angels, will surround the Son of God as He comes down from heaven.
Matthew 24:30, 31. The angels are coming with Christ to gather all the good and pure people of all ages and from all lands to meet Christ and be forever with Him. The supreme purpose of Christ's second coming is to take His people to that wonderfully prepared place in heaven, the New Jerusalem. John 14:3; 17:24.
1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. Christ will not come down and walk around on the earth at His second advent, but will appear in the air above the earth in the sight of all the people, and the saints will be caught up from the earth to meet the Lord in the air, and go back with Him to the mansions of the heavenly Jerusalem. Christ will not come secretly, but with a mighty shout that will be heard all over the earth. That shout will cause the millions and millions of graves where the righteous are buried to open, and all the righteous dead will rise from the graves with immortal bodies. At the same instant the righteous who will be living on the earth at that time will be changed in a moment from mortality to immortality. 1 Corinthians 15:50-53. Then the angels take all the righteous up to meet Christ in the air, and they go back with Him to the mansions of the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
Philippians 3:20, 21. At the second coming of Jesus the righteous will have their bodies changed and made like Christ's glorious body. Then we will have a glorious, immortal body that will never have an ache or a pain, that will never become old, and will never die. The coming of Jesus means that we will say good-by to this world of sin with all our troubles, trials, hardships, and sorrows, and we will then enter into everlasting happiness and joy with Jesus Christ.

2. THE MILLENNIUM

The word "millennium" comes from two Latin words, mille, which means 1,000; annus, year. It means 1,000 years.

Revelation 20:5. This 1,000 years is bounded at each end, or marked off, by two great resurrections. The use of the word "first" in Revelation 20:5 proves that there will be two resurrections; for since there is a first, there must be a second resurrection.
John 5:28, 29. Jesus taught there will be two resurrections-a resurrection of life, when the good will be raised, and a resurrection of damnation, when the evil or unrighteous people will be raised from the dead.
Revelation 20:6. Since all the righteous are raised in the first resurrection, it must be that all the wicked will be raised in the second resurrection.
Revelation 20:4. Since the righteous dead are brought from the dead to reign with Christ during this 1,000 years, that proves that these righteous ones are raised at the beginning of this 1,000 years. The resurrection of the righteous takes place at the beginning of the 1,000 years. The resurrection of the wicked takes place at the end of the 1,000 years. Revelation 20:5. The millennium is this 1,000-year period between these two resurrections. As the righteous dead are raised at the second advent of Christ (1 Thessalonians 4:16), this proves that it will be the coming of Christ at the last days to gather His saints that will mark the beginning of this 1,000-year period of Revelation 20. At Christ's second coming the righteous dead are raised, the living righteous are changed to immortality, and then all the righteous leave the earth to meet Jesus, and go with Him to the prepared mansions in heaven. 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17; John 14:3.
Revelation 20:6. Hence the millennial reign of the saints with Christ is bound to be in the mansions of the New Jerusalem in heaven.

Jeremiah 25:30-33. The wicked who are alive on the earth at the appearing of Christ will be struck dead by His presence, and will lie here unburied on the earth. The wicked who may have died before Jesus comes will remain dead until the end of the 1,000 years. Revelation 20:5, first statement.

Isaiah 24:1. Thus the earth will be made empty of all living human beings at the coming of the Lord.

8. Jeremiah 4:23-27. The earth will be desolate without any living inhabitants during this 1,000 years.

9. Revelation 20:1-3. Satan will be bound on this earth during this 1,000 years, because all the righteous will be in heaven during this time, so that he cannot tempt them, while all the wicked will be dead, and he cannot deceive them. All chance for sinners to be saved is forever closed at the beginning of this 1,000 years, when Jesus makes His second advent. Revelation 22:11, 12. There is no such thing as any second opportunity for anybody during this 1,000 years. It is impossible for any of the wicked to hear the gospel during this time, because they are all dead. Revelation 20:5, first statement.

10. Revelation 21:2. At the close of the 1,000 years, the New Jerusalem will descend to the earth. This will be the time when the Lord will come with all His saints. Zechariah 14:4, 5. At the close of this 1,000 years the wicked will be raised, and this will loose the devil for a little season.

11. Revelation 20:7-9. This great army of resurrected wicked will attempt to capture the city of God which will then be resting on this earth on a prepared spot. They will surround this heavenly Jerusalem home of the saints to try to capture it. But God rains down on them coals of fire and brimstone. The earth itself will be melted into a lake of fire (2 Peter 3:10), the wicked will be destroyed everlastingly (Malachi 4:1-3), and then God will reconstruct the earth into a perfect, sinless paradise, with the New Jerusalem for its capital and center.

12. Revelation 20:15; 21:1. The new earth follows the lake of fire. The righteous will reign forever in this new perfect earth under Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords.

3. GOD'S PURPOSE FOR THIS WORLD

Everybody in the world ought to understand God's purpose for this world, how that great purpose will be accomplished, and how all can have a happy part in it.

Ecclesiastes 1:4. This earth will abide forever. This physical earth or globe on which we live will never be wiped out of existence or actually come to an end, but will abide forever. When the Bible speaks of the end of the world, it means the end of this present order of earthly things, or the end of this age.
Isaiah 45.18. The great Creator made this world to be inhabited by man.
Genesis 1:26-28. The fact that God made Adam and Eve pure and holy' and told them to multiply, proves that He made the earth to be inhabited by a race of righteous people just like the first pair He placed here. God's plan was for a perfect world, filled with a perfect number of perfect people. The entrance of sin prevented the immediate carrying out of this plan. Genesis 3:17-19. This earth has been spoiled, marred, ruined, and cursed by sin.
Isaiah 24:5, 6. The curse of sin has well-nigh devoured the earth today.
Proverbs 10:30. Things cannot continue as they are now, because God has decreed that the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. The time must come, the time will conic, when the wicked will no longer exist. Proverbs 2:21, 22.

6. Psalm 37:9-11. The wicked will be destroyed from off the earth, and then those who love and obey the Lord will have the earth to themselves.

2 Peter 3:10, 13. This will be accomplished by a devouring fire from God, which will melt the earth, and purify it from all sin and sinners; then God will remake, or reconstruct, it into a new earth, wherein the righteous alone will dwell.
Revelation 20:9, 14; 21:1. This will take place at the end of the 1,000 years of Revelation 20. The New Jerusalem will descend from heaven to become the glorious capital of this Dew earth. Revelation 21:1-3. The new earth will be as perfect and lovely as this earth would have been if sin had never entered. It will be restored to its Edenic beauty. The meek shall inherit the new earth (Matthew 5:5), and God's will shall be done on earth as it is now done in heaven. Matthew 6:10.
Revelation 22:1 The new earth will never be marred by sin. Nahum 1:9.
Revelation 21:4. There will never be any sickness, sorrow, pain, or death in the new earth.
Isaiah 35:5, 6, 10. Everyone who lives in the new earth will be happy forever.
Isaiah 65:17, 21-23. Each one of the saved will have, in this new earth, a beautiful borne.
Isaiah 66:22, 23. Everyone on the new earth will keep the Sabbath of the Lord. This earth is destined to be purified from sin and sinners by fire, and to be remade into a perfect new earth, where the righteous will dwell in perfect and everlasting happiness throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity. Everybody has a choice to make: he will either cling to sin and be destroyed with this evil world in the lake of fire, or give up his sins to Christ, obey Him, and be saved to spend the 1,000 years in the New Jerusalem, and then after that to live forever on the beautiful new earth. Let us choose to be among those who will survive the burning up of the things of this present evil world, and live forever in the new earth. Isaiah 24:6; 1:18-20.

4. THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST

Matthew 24:1 The disciples inquired how people could know when the end was near, and Christ would be about to return to the earth.
Matthew 24:36. It is impossible for anyone to know the exact date-the day, the month, or the year-of Christ's return.
Matthew 24:32, 33. But it is the privilege and duty of every Christian to know by the signs that Christ has given when His coming is near, even at the door. Those who understand the Bible prophecies will know what is to happen just before Christ conies; and when they see those things taking place in these days, then they know that the great day is approaching. God's people will thus be able to see when the great day of the Lord is approaching. Hebrews 10:25. They will not be in darkness and overtaken by His coming, as by a thief in the night. 1 Thessalonians 5:4.
James 5:1 Prophecy tells us that in the very last days, when the end is near, the rich will pile up great fortunes, and heap up great treasures and wealth. The piling up of great fortunes since 1900 exceeds that of all previous centuries. In 1900 a certain man who has since become a millionaire did not have enough money to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving. Today he has such great wealth that if it were put into one-dollar bills it would take 16,300 men to lift them.
James 5:7, 8. There was to be suffering on the part of the poor in the last days.

http://www.ThreeAngels.com.auhttp://www.ThreeAngels.com.auDaniel 12:4. In the time of the end knowledge was to be increased. The increase of knowledge during the last 100 years exceeds that of all previous centuries from the beginning of time. Anyone today who is sixty years old has during his lifetime seen an advance in knowledge which exceeds all that people of past generations saw from the time history began. In the day of God's preparation the chariots of men were to run like the lightning (Nahum 2:3-5), and this we see now in this great age of speed.

Luke 21:11. In the last days, Jesus said, there will be fearful calamities. We see this in the increase of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tidal waves, droughts, and heat waves of recent years.
2 Timothy 3:1-5. Paul prophesied there would be perilous times in the last days, with a craze for pleasure, and a marked decline in true religion. We see all this right now before our very eyes.
Matthew 24:12. Jesus said that in the last days lawlessness would abound; the land would be full of bloody crimes. Ezekiel 7:2, 23; Matthew 24:37; Genesis 6:5, 11. We see this in the great crime waves of our day.
Matthew 24:14. The supreme sign that the end is near is seen in the fact that God is now sending a special message to all the world to warn the people to prepare to meet Christ Revelation 14:6-14; Joel 2:1.
2 Peter 3:3-5. There will be many who will scoff at the idea of the end being near.
Isaiah 2:2-4. The nations in the last days will talk about putting an end to war. We see this fulfilled in the great peace movement of our day.
Joel 3:9, 10, 14. When the day of the Lord is near, the nations will prepare for war as never before, and this we see before our very eyes today.
Mark 13:29. When we see all these things we should know that the coming of Christ is at the door, and we should now be prepare to meet Him.
Hebrews 1:13, 14. Angels are ministering spirits sent forth by the Lord to minister to every person who trusts in the Lord and serves Him.
Genesis 3:24. Angels could not be the spirits of the departed righteous dead, because they were in existence before the first man died. The angels were in existence before even Adam or this world was created. Job 38:34. Adam was made a little lower than the angels. Psalm 8:4, 5.
Ezekiel 28:14, 15. Lucifer as one of the highest angels was created. As with him, so with all the rest of the angels. They are created beings. They were created by the Son of God before He made Adam, and this world. Colossians 1:16.
Ezekiel 10:12. Angels are not incorporeal phantoms, without form or parts, but they are real beings with spiritual bodies. 1 Corinthians 15:44. Angels appeared to Abraham and Lot as real beings. Genesis 18:1-8; 19:1-3. During Bible times angels appeared to men at different times, and in God's Word are found descriptions of their appearance. These descriptions show that angels resemble men in general appearance. (Luke 24:4; John 20:12; Acts 1:9-11); but with their spiritual bodies they are far more beautiful than men, and have powers far superior to those of men. Revelation 18:21; Ezekiel 1:14; Isaiah 37:36. At the last day when Jesus comes and our natural bodies are changed to glorious spiritual bodies (Philippians 3:20, 21; 1 Corinthians 15:44), then we will be equal to the angels. Luke 20:35, 36.

Revelation 5:11. There are many more angels in God's universe than there are people in this world. Hebrews 12:22.
Matthew 18:10. In speaking of the Father's watch care over His children, Jesus mentions "their angels," showing that to every child of God an angel is assigned, to take care of him or her-an attending, guardian angel. Thus the Scripture speaks of Peter's angel. Acts 12:15. Among those countless billions of angels, there is one assigned to you, to watch over you by day and by night.
Psalm 91:11, 12. This angel has been given charge over you, to help you in your journey to heaven.
Psalm 34:7. When danger threatens, and troubles come upon you, this attending angel, your angel, will deliver you (Daniel 6:22), provided you have rightly related yourself to God. There are two kinds of angels-Christ's angels, who compose two thirds of the angels created, and Satan's angels, who compose one third of those created. Every person will be under the control of either good or evil angels. When you obey God there are twice as many for you as ever can be against you. 2 Kings 6:16.
Matthew 25:31. All the holy angels will come to the earth when Jesus appears. The angels are God's chariots (Psalm 68:17), and they will come with Jesus Christ at His second advent to take the righteous to heaven, just as they took Elijah to heaven. Matthew 24:31; 2 Kings 2:11. Let us make sure that we live each day so that we will be ready for Jesus' coming, and may have a home among the “many mansions" which Christ has prepared for those who love God.

6. HEAVEN

1. 2 Corinthians 12:2. Since there is a third heaven, there must be a first and a second. So there are three heavens.

The aerial heaven, where the birds fly (Revelation 19:17), where the clouds form, and from which the rain and snow come down. This is the belt of air which reaches from the surface of the earth up into the sky. This first heaven will pass away some day, and God will make a new pure atmosphere, a new first heaven to surround the new earth which He will make. 2 Peter 3:10, 13; Revelation 21:4.
The stellar heaven, where the sun, moon, and stars move in their orbits. Psalm 19:1-4.
The third heaven is Paradise (2 Corinthians 12:2, 4), where the throne of God is, where Jesus is now.

2. John 14:3. Jesus said that He would prepare a place in heaven for His people.

3. Hebrews 11:16, 10. This place that Jesus has prepared is the city of God, or the New Jerusalem. A description of this wonderful city will be found in the last two chapters of the Bible.

4. Revelation 21:10-18. This New Jerusalem is 12,000 furlongs, or 1,500 miles, in circumference, or 375 miles to each side. It contains 140,625 square miles. North Carolina contains 52,426 square miles; South Carolina, 30,989 square miles; Tennessee, 42,022 square miles. So the city of God is larger in area than these three States. It has a wall of jasper 216 feet high, 12 foundations of 12 precious stones, 12 gates each of one solid pearl, streets of gold, and mansions of gold for the saints.

5. Revelation 21:4. It is a city where everyone will have a perfect immortal body, where there will be no sickness, trouble, or death, where His people will be perfectly happy through all eternity.

6. Revelation 21:1-3. This New Jerusalem will be the capital of the new earth. The New Jerusalem is now in, the third heaven, and the saints will all go up to that city when Jesus comes, to reign with Him there for 1,000 years. At the end of that 1,000 years, the earth will be made over into a new earth, free from sin and sinners, and the New Jerusalem will rest on this new earth as its grand capital. With Christ, the saints will reign forever over this new earth.

Revelation 22:14. We must keep all of God's commandments if we would ever enter that city.
Philippians 3:20, 21. When we go to the New Jerusalem we will each have a glorious spiritual body, just as Jesus has. 1 John 3:2; 1 Corinthians 15:44.
John 20:11-16. Just as Mary knew Jesus by His voice after His resurrection, so we will know our friends in heaven by their voices.
John 20:27, 28. Just as Thomas recognized Jesus by His appearance, so we will recognize our friends in heaven.
Matthew 17:3, 4. Just as the disciples on the mount of transfiguration recognized Moses and Elijah, men whom they had never seen before, men who had died hundreds of years before that; so with our glorious spiritual bodies we will have powers of recognition and cognition to know millions of people in heaven that we have never seen before.
1 Corinthians 13:12. We will know each other fully then, as God knows us now.

7. THE WAY OF SALVATION

1. Matthew 19:16. The supreme question before every person in this world is, What must 1 do to have eternal life? Eternal life in God's kingdom is worth more than all this world. Matthew 16:26. If we lose an eternal home in heaven, we have lost everything.

2. Revelation 21:27. Nothing that defiles can enter into God's city, and since sin is what defiles, that means we must get rid of every sin before we can be ready for a home in heaven.

3. John 3:1 In addition to having all our sins forgiven, we must be born again, have a change of heart, be converted. Matthew 18:3.

4. Hebrews 5:9. Eternal salvation will be given only to those who obey Jesus. So it takes three things to make a sinner right with God and fit him for a home in God's heaven:

The pardon or forgiveness of all his sins, which is justification.
Being born again, or the new birth, which is regeneration.
Obedience to all of God's instructions each day through the indwelling of Christ in his heart by the Holy Spirit, which is sanctification. This brings up six important questions:

A. How can 1 have all my sins forgiven?

5. Psalm 32:5. God forgives our sins on three conditions repentance, confession, and faith in the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior and Sin Bearer. Repentance is accompanied by a godly sorrow, which leads us to turn from all that we know is wrong. It is produced in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and will be given to everyone who yields to the convicting, drawing power of the Spirit. Confession is to be definite (Leviticus 5:5); we are to confess the very sins of which we are guilty.

B. How can I know that all my sins are forgiven this minute?

6. 1 John 1:9. Simply by complying with God's condition of repentance and confession. 1 must then believe that 1 am pardoned, and thank God for forgiveness.

7. Psalm 5:17, 10. Along with our prayer for pardon, we must ask God to give us a new heart, a clean heart, a new life from above.

C. How can 1 obtain this new heart and really be born again?

3. John 1:12, 13. Receive Jesus into your heart, and you will be born again. Surrender your will to Jesus, and He will create in you a new heart.

D. How can 1 know that 1 have been born again and have a new heart?

2 Corinthians 5:17. The supreme proof of the changed heart is the changed life. The old habits of sin have passed away, and we live in newness of life unto God. The things that we once did not care for, such as reading the Bible, going to church, praying, working for other souls, we now love; and the worldly things we once loved, we now do not care for.
Ezekiel 11:19, 20. God gives us a new heart, so we can obey His precepts. If you purpose to do just what God commands, you have a new heart.

E. How can 1 live a true Christian life?

11. Gal. 2:20. Living a Christian life is being so surrendered to Jesus that He can live His life in us each day. This is the only way anyone can ever live a true Christian life. After you receive that new heart, Jesus is to live in your heart every day, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight. Your part is to abide in Him by surrender, consecration, prayer, and feeding on His Word; then He will abide in you each day. John 15:4-6.

F. How can 1 know that 1 am living a Christian life?

12. 1 John 3:24; 2:3, 4. By a daily life of obedience to His commands.

8. THE CHRISTIAN'S RULE OF LIFE

1. James 2:8-12. Note three points in this scripture:

James is talking about the law of Ten Commandments, because in verse 11 he cites the seventh and sixth of the Ten Commandments.
This scripture shows that the Ten Commandments were not abolished at the cross, but were a binding code on all people in AD 60. Verses 9 and 11 declare that any who commit sin or disobey any of the Ten Commandments are transgressors of the law; hence the law of Ten Commandments could not have been abolished at the cross.
If the fourth of the ten, which commands the keeping of the seventh day, were not binding on Christians, that would be one point out of the ten where a person could go contrary to the ten and not be guilty of sin. But James 2:10 shows that he who disobeys any one of the ten is guilty of sin; hence every one of the ten, the fourth included, is binding on all people. God requires everybody to keep the seventh day holy.

2. 1 John 3:4. The transgression of any one of the Ten Commandments is sin.

3. Romans 4:15. Where no law is, there is no transgression. Hence the Ten Commandments, the transgression of which is sin, are binding as long as sin exists here. The Ten Commandments are recorded in Exodus 20:1-17. This is the only part of the Bible which God spoke direct from heaven with His voice to all His people.

4. Psalm 111:7, 8. These ten will stand forever just as God spoke them.

5. Psalm 89:34. God will never change any of the ten.

Their exact wording, just as they came from His lips, will always remain. Hence the seventh day is still the Lord's Sabbath. The Ten Commandments forbid idolatry, image worship, swearing, Sabbath breaking, dishonoring one's parents, hatred, murder, adultery, theft, dishonesty, lying, and coveting.

The ten teach us to worship God only, to worship God directly and spiritually, to keep the Lord's day, to be reverent, to honor one's parents, to be kind, pure, honest, truthful, and content.

Such duties are binding forever on all people; hence the Ten Commandments are still binding on all people. The ceremonial observances and typical ordinances of the Mosaic law were abolished at the cross (Ephesians 2:15; Colossians 2:14-17), but the Ten Commandments were binding after Jesus died, just as they were before. The apostles refer to the Ten Commandments as a binding code on Christians. Ephesians 6:2; Romans 7:7; 13:8-10; James 2:10, 11; 1 John 3:4.

Romans 6:14, 15. Paul declares that Christians have no right to sin (transgress the law) (1 John 3:4), because they are not under the law, but under grace. Being under grace, we are no more excused from keeping the seventh day of the fourth commandment than we are excused from being honest and truthful as required by the eighth and ninth commands. Being under grace does not give us the right to transgress any of the Ten Commandments.
Romans 3:31. Having faith in Jesus Christ does not make void any of the Ten Commandments.
Revelation 14:12. Faith in Jesus and keeping the commandments go together.
Hebrews 8:8-10. The same Ten Commandments that were written on stone under the old covenant, are written on the Christian's heart under the new covenant. Jeremiah 31:31-34. Hence the ten are binding under the new covenant. The New Testament shows that Jesus spoke the Ten Commandments at Sinai. (Compare Nehemiah 9:12-15; 1 Corinthians 10:4.) Hence the ten are the commandments of Jesus as well as of the Father. John 10:30; 14:24, 10. Hence to obey Jesus Christ includes obedience to all the ten, as He taught all the ten.
Hebrews 5:9. We must obey Jesus Christ if we are ever to be saved in heaven.
Matthew 19:16, 17. Obedience to the Ten Commandments is necessary for eternal life.

11. THE LORD'S DAY

Revelation 1:10. Those who say that there is no particular day for Christians to keep are wrong, because the Lord has a certain day for His people to keep holy. The first day of the week, Sunday, is not and cannot be the Lord's day, because the Lord Jesus Christ has never blessed, sanctified, nor appointed the first day of the week to be kept as a holy day.
Matthew 12:8. The Lord's day must of necessity be the day of which Jesus Christ is Lord. As Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath day, the Sabbath day is bound to be the Lord's day.
Exodus 20.10. As the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day, Saturday, is the Lord's holy day for us to keep. Since Sunday is the first day of the week, it cannot be the Sabbath or Lord's day, because God says that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, His holy day.
Exodus 20:11. The seventh day is the Lord's holy day for man to keep because of four facts: 1. The Lord made the world in six days. 2. On the seventh day, or last day of the week, He rested. 3. The Lord blessed the seventh day for man. 4. He sanctified, or set apart, the seventh day for man.
Ephesians 3.9. The Lord who did these four things was the Lord Christ, God the Son. Since Jesus Christ is the One who rested on the seventh day, and blessed and sanctified that day for man, the http://www.ThreeAngels.com.auseventh day is Christ's day, the Lord's day, the Sabbath of Christ. Full acceptance of Christ includes the keeping of the Sabbath of Christ, this seventh day which He blessed and hallowed for man. Since Christ blessed and sanctified the seventh day for us, we cannot refuse to keep the seventh day, if we obey Christ our Savior.

Luke 4:16. When Christ lived here on earth, He kept the seventh day, Saturday, as God's holy day. If we follow Christ in the matter of the day we keep, then we will keep the seventh day.
Hebrews 13X Christ is the same today. So if He were here on earth now as we are, He would keep this same seventh day which He kept when He was here 1900 years ago.
Genesis 2:1-3. Christ the Creator blessed and set apart the seventh day as a holy day at the very beginning, when He made the world for man. Hence the keeping holy of the seventh day is not some ordinance that was instituted by Moses and later abolished by Christ.
Mark 2:27. The Sabbath was not intended for the Jews only, but for all, just the same as the other nine precepts of the Ten Commandments.
Mark 16:1, 2. The Sabbath was past when the women came to the tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week, on the morning that Christ arose.
Mark 15:42-44. Jesus was crucified the day before the Sabbath.
Luke 23:54-56; 24A. The Sabbath according to God's commandment came in between the crucifixion on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday. So the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments requires us to keep the seventh day, or Saturday, which comes in between Friday and Sunday. The seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment was not abolished at the cross, because in Luke 23:56 this seventh-day Sabbath commandment is spoken of as being binding on the day after Jesus was crucified.
Ezekiel 20:12. The Sabbath was given to be a twofold sign of Jesus Christ as Creator and Redeemer. The Sabbath is a sign that Christ made this world in six days (Exodus 31:16, 17), and by keeping it, we show by our works that we accept Christ as the Creator of this world in six days. The Sabbath is also a sign of the power of Christ to save us from sin, and to sanctify us. Ezekiel 20:12.
Isaiah 66:22, 23. The seventh-day Sabbath will be kept forever in the new earth. The seventh day, God's sanctified day, reaches all the way from Eden lost to Eden restored, and hence there is no room nor need for any different rest day.

10. THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK

The first day of the week is mentioned eight times in the New Testament. If there is any proof for the keeping of the first day of the week, Sunday, it will be found in connection with these texts which mention the first day of the week. We will examine each of these texts. They are the first six, and the eighth and ninth texts in this lesson.

Mark 16:9. This text says that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, but there is not one word to the effect that anybody should keep the first day of the week as a holy day because Jesus rose that day.
Mark 16:1, 2. After the Sabbath was past, the women came to the tomb early in the morning on the first day of the week.
Matthew 28:1. This text in Matthew tells the same fact that Mark tells in Mark 16:1, 2.

Luke 23:54-56; 24:1-4. The women came to the tomb on the first day of the week, Sunday, to embalm the body of Jesus, something they would not do on the seventh day, Saturday.

5. John 20:1-4. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb before sunrise on the first day.

6. John 20:19. The evening of the same day that Jesus arose, He appeared to His disciples to convince them that He was risen from the dead. The disciples did not meet on the Sunday night of the day that Jesus arose, to honor His resurrection on that day, because they did not believe that He was risen, and Christ had to come and convince them that He was alive. Mark 16:9-13. They had assembled to cat their evening meal. Mark 16:14. The fact that these six texts mention the first day of the week as the day on which Jesus rose, and yet do not say one word about the first day of the week becoming a holy day at that time in honor of our Lord's resurrection, proves that the first day of the week was never appointed as a holy day by the Lord Jesus Christ. Three of these texts show that God's holy day, the Sabbath, the day that we ought to keep, was the day which came just before the first day of the week.

7. John 20:26-28. The second meeting of Jesus with the disciples after He had arisen was not to honor any day of the week, but to convince Thomas of His resurrection.

8. 1 Corinthians 16:1, 2. This was not an order for a public collection at church, but a private laying by at home on the first of each week of something for the poor saints at Jerusalem, which Paul was to carry up to Jerusalem when he came to Corinth.

9. Acts 20:7. This is merely the record of an incidental and farewell meeting that Paul held with the Christians at Troas. There is positive proof in the book of Acts that the first day of the week did not take the place of the seventh day as God's holy day. In eight different places, from thirteen to twenty-three years after Christ's resurrection, the book of Acts plainly refers to the seventh day, the identical day on which the Jews met to worship, as the Sabbath day. Acts 13:14, 27, 42, 44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:1-3; 18:1-4. The book of Acts could not and would not have done this these eight times, if the first day of the week had taken the place of the seventh as God's holy day. Baptism and the Lord's supper did come in as new ordinances under the new covenant, and they are fully explained and commanded in the New Testament. If the first day, Sunday, had come in as a new day to be kept, it would also have been fully explained.

10. 1 Corinthians 11:26. No one needs to keep Friday to honor our Lord's crucifixion on that day, because the Lord's supper is the divinely appointed way of commemorating the Savior's death.

11. Colossians 2:12. No one needs to keep Sunday to honor Christ's resurrection on that day, because baptism is God's memorial of the resurrection.

12. Matthew 15:13. God never planted Sunday, the first day, as a holy day, and it is certain to be rooted up some day.

11. THE CHANGE OF THE SABBATH

Exodus 20:8-11. The only weekly Sabbath or weekly holy day ever mentioned in the Bible is the seventh day, which Christ the Lord, as Creator, blessed and set apart for man at the beginning of this world's history. Genesis 2:1-3.
Psalm 89:34. Since the Lord will not alter what has come from His lips, the command to keep the seventh day, as spoken by His lips (Exodus 20:8, 10), must stand unchanged forever. God has never changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day. There is not one word in the New Testament about a change of the Sabbath. The book of the Acts of the Apostles contains positive proof that the first day, Sunday, was not substituted for the seventh as the divine day of rest and worship in the days of the apostles.

Acts 13:14, 42; 18:1-4. The book of Acts, in describing various events that happened from fifteen to twenty-three years after Christ's resurrection, refers to the seventh day, the identical day that the Jews met for worship in their synagogues, as the Sabbath day for twenty-three years after the Lord's resurrection. Acts 13:14, 27, 42, 44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:1-3; 18:1-4. If the first day had taken the place of the seventh as God's holy day at the resurrection of Christ, the book of Acts could not and would not have called the seventh day the Sabbath day for twenty-three years after the resurrection of Christ. This proves that the apostles regarded the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord. Since the transfer of the day of worship from the seventh to the first was not made in New Testament times, it must have been made by uninspired men later. Hence the change rests only on human authority. The first law ever made setting Sunday apart as a day of rest was made by Constantine on March 7, AD. 321. The first rule directing that Christians should rest on the first day of the week in place of the seventh was in the Council of Laodicea in AD 364.
Daniel 7:25. God foretold that the Catholic power would attempt to change the times and law of God. This must mean that the papal power would attempt to change the Sabbath, as the only place in God's Ten Commandments that mentions time is the fourth commandment, where God directs man to count time, devoting the first six days of the week to labor, and resting on the seventh, or last, day of the week. Under the centuries of the rule of the Catholic Church this arrangement was reversed, so that now men are resting on the first day of the week, and devoting the last six days of the week to their labor. Read Daniel 7:25, and note in the last clause that this substitution was to prevail for a time, times, and dividing of time, or 1260 prophetic days, or literal years (Revelation 12:14, 6; Ezekiel 4:6; Numbers 14:34), or from 538 to 1798. It is a fact that light on this wrong substitution of the first day for the seventh did not come to the whole world until after 1798.
Daniel 12:4. This truth from the book of Daniel would be made known when the end of time was near.
John 9:41. None will be condemned for keeping the wrong day in ignorance.
James 4:17. When this light is brought to us, and the seventh day. Saturday, is shown to be God's holy day, then if we do not keep it, it is held against us as sin.
1 John 3:4. To fail to keep the seventh day as God commands in the fourth precept of His Ten Commandments is sin.
Romans 6:16. Whomever we obey as supreme, his servants we are. We must now decide whether we will obey God as supreme and keep the seventh day as He has commanded, or obey the papal power, in keeping the first day, Sunday, which this power has attempted to substitute as the rest day in the place of the Lord's seventh-day Sabbath.
Acts 5:29. We should obey God rather than man.
Hebrews 5:9. We must obey Jesus Christ if we expect ever to be saved, and obedience to Christ includes the keeping holy of the seventh day, which Christ as Creator sanctified for us.

12. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE WICKED

2 Peter 2:9. The wicked are not being punished in hell-fire now, but are reserved in the grave (Job 21:29-32) till the day of judgment to be punished.
Mark 9:43-48. When the wicked go into hell-fire, they go there alive in bodily form with all their members, two feet, two eyes, two hands. Revelation 19:20; Matthew 5:30.
Revelation 2ES. The casting of the wicked into the lake of fire is the second death; hence they will not be cast into hell-fire until they receive a second life in the second resurrection at the close of the 1,000 years of Revelation 20.
Matthew 13:40-42. So Jesus taught that the wicked, the tares, would not be cast into the furnace of fire till the end of the world. In Matthew 25:31-41 Jesus plainly teaches that the wicked will not go into everlasting fire till the last day, when He comes and all people are separated into two great classes, one on the right hand and the other on the left, which separation will be at the close of the 1,000 years.
Revelation 20:7-9. Hell, as a place of punishment, does not exist at the present time, but hell will be this earth turned into a lake of fire at the close of the 1,000 years of Revelation 20, at the great day of judgment.
Zechariah 14:12. When the wicked are raised in the second resurrection at the end of this 1,000 years, they will come up in bodily form, and will march up to surround and capture if possible the New Jerusalem, which will then be resting on the earth. God will then rain down coals of fire on them, to punish them according to their sins. This fire will not perpetuate their existence, but will devour and wipe them out of existence. Revelation 20:9.
Isaiah 34:9, 10. In that day the dust of earth will be turned into brimstone, the land and rivers into burning pitch. Thus the earth will be melted into a lake of fire, and when sin and sinners have been forever destroyed, God will make this molten mass into a perfect new earth. 2 Peter 3:10, 13. The fact that this lake of- fire, or hell-fire, into which the wicked are cast, will be made into a sinless new earth, is positive proof that the wicked will not and cannot burn to all eternity.
Jude 1:7. The everlasting fire into which the wicked are to be cast will be this lake of fire. This does not mean (Matthew 25:41) that the fire will burn to all eternity, but rather that the fire will burn them up everlastingly. We have an example of eternal fire in the everlasting destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Jeremiah 17:27. To say the wicked will go into hell fire that will never be quenched, does not mean that the fire will burn to all eternity. But as in the case of the destruction of old Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the fire will not and cannot be put out until it has accomplished its work of destruction. 2 Chronicles 36:19-21. The never-quenched fire and undying worm that Jesus mentions in Mark 9:43-48 refers to the Valley of Hinnom. The word "hell-fire" in the Greek is gehenna, which is the Grecian way of spelling Vale of Hinnom. Into this Vale of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, the bodies of dead animals were cast. On these bodies the worms preyed constantly, and fires were also kept burning constantly to burn up these bodies. Jesus took this as an illustration of what that final hell-fire, or lake of fire, will do for the wicked at the end of the 1,000 years of Revelation 20. The never-quenched fire and undying worm are symbols of utter destruction and not symbols of eternal torment.
Malachi 4:1-3. The wicked will be destroyed, soul and body (Matthew 10:28), in this final lake of fire, and be reduced to ashes.
John 3:16. Nobody needs to perish or go into hellfire. All may have eternal life if they accept and obey Jesus Christ. Ezekiel 18:3-32.http://www.ThreeAngels.com.au

13. THE MEANING OF HELL

The word "hell" is used 55 times in the Bible, and comes from 4 different Greek and Hebrew words with 3 different meanings. Thirty-one times in the Old Testament it comes from sheol, and 11 places in the New Testament from the Greek word, hades. Sheol and hades are spoken of as identical one with the other. (Compare Psalm 16:10 with Acts 2:31.)

1 Corinthians 15:5S. One time hades is translated "grave" (margin, "hell") in the King James Version. The primary meaning of hades and sheol is the grave. One time in the New Testament "hell" comes from the Greek word tartarus (2 Peter 2:4), which means a dark abyss. In this particular text it refers to this dark world, to which Satan's angels were cast down when they were expelled from heaven to this earth. Revelation 12:9. Twelve times in the New Testament "hell" comes from the Greek word gehenna, which refers to that final lake of fire into which the wicked will be cast alive in bodily form with all their members after the second resurrection, at the end of the 1,000 years of Revelation 20.

There is no place in the Bible where "hell" means a lake of fire which is burning now, or where the wicked will be burned to all eternity.

2. Revelation 14:9-11. The disobedient are spoken of here as having no rest day nor night. This refers to their suffering during the seven last plagues before Christ comes. The smoke of their torment ascending forever does not mean that they will burn to all eternity, but that they will be forever burned up. (Compare Revelation 19:3 with Revelation 18:8, 21.)

3. 1 Samuel 28:2. The word "forever" is used in the Bible sometimes to denote just an ordinary lifetime. Exodus 21:1-6; 1 Samuel 1:22, 28; Genesis 44:32; 1 Chronicles 28:4.

4. Jonah 2:6. The word "forever" was used in speaking of the three days and nights that Jonah was in the belly of the great fish. So the word "forever" means limited duration as well as infinite duration.

5. Ezekiel 18:4. The punishment for sin is not eternal life in misery, but death-the second death, which will last to all eternity. Romans 6:23; Revelation 21:8. So the punishment of the wicked will last just as long as the eternal life of the righteous. The righteous receive everlasting life, and the wicked receive everlasting death, which is the everlasting punishment mentioned in Matthew 25:46.

6. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9. Destruction is called a punishment; hence everlasting destruction must be the everlasting punishment.

7. Psalm 37:9, 10. There is not and cannot be any such thing as an eternally burning hell, because the time is coming when the wicked will not exist and his place will not exist. The story of the rich man in hell and Lazarus in Abraham's bosom in Luke 16:19-31 was not told by Christ to show what happens to people when they die, because before He told this story, He had declared in plain language that the wicked would not be cast into the fire until the end of the world (Matthew 13:40-42), and that every man would be rewarded at His second coming. Matthew 16:27. This story harmonized with the idea which the Pharisees had of the hereafter, and was given to rebuke them for their covetousness in teaching that riches are a mark of God's favor, and that poverty is a mark of His curse.

8. Isaiah 47:14. When God gets through with the wicked, there will not be enough fire in hell to warm a man's hands on a frosty morning. When we ask the question: "What will happen to the wicked?" the Bible tells us in 15 places that they will die, which means that they will cease to live; in 12 places it says that they will perish, which means they will be brought to nothing, and be blotted out of existence; in 13 places it says they will be destroyed, which means they will be annihilated; in 5 places it says that they will be consumed, which means that they will be exterminated.

9. Revelation 5:13. God will have a dean universe, free from sinners and sin.

14. WHERE ARE THE DEAD?

Ecclesiastes 12:7. At death the body goes back to dust; the spirit returns to God who gave it. This spirit which returns to God is not some entity which is capable of a conscious existence apart from the body, but it is the breath of life (James 2:26, margin), which God gave to man to make him a living, conscious personality. Genesis 2:7. At death, that life passes into God's hands for safekeeping till the resurrection.
Acts 2:34. One thousand years after David had died, Peter declared that David was not in heaven. This proves that the righteous do not go to heaven when they die.
Psalm 17:15. David expected to go to heaven when he should awake from the sleep of death on the resurrection morn at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. The righteous do not go to heaven until the coming of Jesus Christ at the last day. 1 Thessalonians 2:19; John 14:1 All life after death depends on the resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:16-18. Without the resurrection, the good people who have died are perished. This could not be true if they went to heaven when they died. If the righteous went to heaven when they died, there would be no need of a resurrection. There could be no reason for Christ to come back to this earth the second time to gather His saints (John 14:3) if they had already gone to heaven at death. If the wicked go to hell-fire at death, and the righteous to heaven at death, there is no need of a judgment day at the end of time, or for Christ to come to reward every man according to his works. Matthew 16:27; Revelation 22:12. This idea of a person going to hell or heaven at death destroys the Bible doctrine of the resurrection, the coming of Christ, and the judgment at the last day. There is no text in the Bible which, when rightly interpreted, teaches that anybody goes to hell or heaven at death, because the Bible does not contradict its own teachings.
Ecclesiastes 3:20. All go to one place at death, and that one place is the grave, where all turn to dust again. Job 30:23; John 5:28, 29. The Bible never speaks of the soul or spirit going out of the body at death to maintain, or to become capable of maintaining, a conscious existence somewhere else. Eight times the Bible speaks of the soul as going into the grave. Acts 2:31; Job 33:18, 22, 28, 30; Psalm 30:3; 89:48; Isaiah 38:17.
Psalm 146:3, 4. When a man dies, his soul is unconscious till the, resurrection.
Psalm 115:17. If the righteous went to heaven when they died, they would certainly be praising God now, but this text says that the dead praise not the Lord.
Job 14:21. The dead do not know anything about what takes place on the earth after they die, because they are unconscious. In the Bible, death is called a sleep 54 times. Thus we understand that the dead are unconscious, just as a person is unconscious who is in a deep sleep. The breath of life from God made Adam a living soul, a conscious being, and when that breath of life was taken away at his death, it would necessarily leave him to be a dead soul, an unconscious being, till the resurrection, when that breath of life or spirit is put back into him again.
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6. The dead do not know anything. When a Christian dies, the next moment, as far as his sensations are concerned, he is with Christ to stay. The lapse of time between a Christian's death and Jesus' second coming, the glorious resurrection day, will seem to him like an instant. To him it will seem but the next moment after he closes his eyes in death when he awakes to be with his blessed Savior forever. The first righteous man who died will awaken and stand in Christ's presence at the same time as the last man who dies. To each the elapsed time between death and the resurrection will seem but a moment.

15. THE SUPPORT OF GOD'S WORK

There is only one right plan of church finance, and that is the plan of tithes and freewill offerings as laid down in the Scriptures.

Deuteronomy 8:18. We are to remember God in both earning and spending our money, for we are able to earn our money only as God gives us strength, breath, and life to work from day to day.
Leviticus 27:30, 32. All the tithe is the Lord's, and it is holy unto the Lord. Verse 32 says that this tithe is the tenth part, which is holy unto the Lord. (Compare also Genesis 14:20 with Hebrews 7:2) This means that one tenth of all the money we earn is the Lord's tithe. This one tenth is not ours, it is the Lord's, it is holy unto the Lord. This one tenth is God's holy portion of our money income, just as the seventh day of each week is the Lord's holy portion of our time. In order to obey His commandments, we are to render this tenth of our money to the Lord as tithe for the support of His work, just as we are to render to Him the seventh day of each week as the Lord's day.
Psalm 24:1. Everything in this world belongs to God. All the gold and silver is the Lord's. Haggai 2:8. All the cattle are His. Psalm 50:10. Each one of us, with all that we are and have, is the Lord's. 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20. When one lives in a house or on a farm that belongs to another person, he pays him rent for the use of his house or farm. In the same way, the one tenth, or tithe, is due the Lord as His rent money. All that we have and are, or ever shall have or be, is the Lord's. One tenth, therefore, is due Him for the use of His goods, for the breath, strength, and life that He gives us that we may earn our money from day to day.
Numbers 18:20, 21. God has decreed that this one tenth or tithe is to be used as a living or support for His ministers. No one has any right to use the tithe for helping the poor or the sick, etc. We should help them out of our nine tenths after the Lord's tithe has been taken out. The tithe is the Lord's, and He is the only one who has the right to say how that tenth shall be used. In Numbers 18:21 God has decreed once for all how this holy tithe is to be used, and that is for the support of His ministers.
1 Corinthians 9:13, 14. God has ordained that they who preach His Word shall be supported by the tithes or tenth of the income of those who accept His Word, in the same way as the Levites under the Mosaic system were supported.
Matthew 23:23. The Pharisees were very strict in tithing, even to giving a tenth of the little herbs that grew in their gardens, such as mint and anise. But they failed to obey the weightier matters, such as justice, mercy, and faith. Jesus said that they ought to pay their tithe even on these small items, but not to leave undone those other more important duties. So this means that Jesus Christ indorsed tithe paying, or the giving of the tenth, as a part of the duty of every person.
Deuteronomy 16:17. In addition to rendering to God the tenth as His special holy part of our income, we should give freewill offerings from the nine tenths, as we are able.
Proverbs 3:9, 10. The one tenth, God's part of our income, should be taken out first. Note in verse 10 how those will be blessed who will thus put God first.
Malachi 3:8. Those who do not render the tenth of their income to the Lord, and offerings as they are able, are guilty of robbing God, and transgressing the eighth commandment, which says, "Thou shall not steal." No thief or robber who persists in stealing will ever get to heaven. 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10.
Malachi 3:9, 10. Nine tenths with God's blessing is better than ten tenths without it.

Genesis 28:20, 22. If God gives us only bread to eat and clothing to put on, we should faithfully render to Him the one tenth of all He gives us.
Luke 16:10-12. If we are faithful in rendering to God His part of our goods in this world, He will give us true and everlasting riches in His better world, in the future.

16. BIBLE TEMPERANCE

1 Corinthians 10:31. Christians are commanded to eat and drink as will please God. The only way that we can eat and drink that will be pleasing to God, is to be governed in our eating and drinking by the principles laid down in the Word of God. A Christian is to be governed in his eating and drinking by the principles of the Bible, and not merely by appetite or taste.
Isaiah 55:2. God has commanded us to eat only that which is good, and we learn what is truly good to cat by the teachings of His Word.
Genesis 1:29, 31. The God who made man knows what is best for man to eat, and the original diet which God ordained for man was fruits, grains, vegetables, and nuts. God did not permit man to cat the flesh of animals until the time of the Flood. To Israel in the wilderness He made it very plain that man is not to cat the flesh of any unclean animal, fowl, or fish.
Deuteronomy 14:7, 8. God told His people not to eat the flesh of swine.
Deuteronomy 14:9, 10. Creatures in the waters which do not have fins and scales are not to be eaten. God's people should not cat catfish, eels, crabs, lobsters, oysters, or clams. This instruction cannot be set aside by Christians today on the ground that it is in the Mosaic law, which has passed away. This prohibition against eating unclean creatures was in force centuries before the Mosaic law was given (read Genesis 7:2), and this uncleanness is still recognized in the last book of the Bible, long after the ceremonial law had passed at the cross. (Read Revelation 18:2)
Isaiah 66:15-17. When the Lord Jesus comes, those who are found eating swine's flesh will be consumed by the fire of His presence, along with those who cat mice. God is love; He never deprives us of anything that is for our good. So when He tells us not to eat unclean creatures, it is for our good to obey.
Deuteronomy 14:2, 3. God's people are to be a holy and pure people; they are not to eat any unclean or abominable thing. Leviticus 20:25, 26,
Proverbs 23:29-32. There is plain instruction in the Bible against the use of alcoholic liquors. 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10. This means that when we drink as will please God, we will not drink beer, wine, whisky, gin, or any alcoholic liquor. Coffee contains a poison known as caffeine, which is injurious to the body. Tea contains two poisons, known as tannin and theine, which are injurious to the body. Cola drinks also contain injurious poisons or dope. Tobacco, snuff, and cigars contain a deadly poison known as nicotine, which is injurious to the body. Cigarettes contain nicotine and another poison known as furfurol. When we really eat and drink as is pleasing to God, as Scripture commands us, we will lay aside tea, coffee, cola drinks, and tobacco, or any narcotic habit, such as the morphine habit, paregoric or opium habits, etc.
1 Corinthians 6:19, 20. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and is to be kept clean from these harmful things, so it will be a fit place for the indwelling of Jesus by His Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18; 7:1.
1 Corinthians 3:17. If we defile the body temple with these unclean and harmful things, God will destroy us. True Christian temperance is a total abstinence from all that is harmful, and a moderate use of that which is good.

11. 1 John 3:2, 3. If we really have the true hope in Christ of being made like Him when He comes, we will purify ourselves now, even as Jesus is pure. Jesus never ate pork or any unclean creature. He would not use tobacco, tea, coffee, Coca-Cola, opium, morphine, etc. And if we purify ourselves as He is pure, we will leave off all these things. This is a part of the process of getting ready to meet Jesus at His coming and being prepared for an eternal home in the new earth.

17. THE MOST WONDERFUL PROPHECY IN THE BIBLE

Daniel 8:3-14. In Daniel 8 is recorded the vision wherein the prophet was shown the future under four mighty scenes. In the first, he saw a ram with two horns. In the second, a goat with a great horn between his eyes came from the west and completely overpowered the ram. After this Daniel saw this great horn broken, and four others came up in its place on the head of this goat. In the third scene he saw a little horn which came forth from one of these four horns, and in the end became a greater power than either the ram or the goat. In the fourth scene he was told that unto 2300 days, then the sanctuary would be cleansed.
Daniel 8:16. The angel Gabriel was commanded to explain the meaning of these things.
Daniel 8:20. The ram was Medo-Persia, which ruled the ancient world from 538 to 331 BC.
Daniel 8:21. The goat was Grecia, which conquered Persia in 331 BC, and the great horn on the goat was the first king of the Grecian world empire, Alexander the Great.
Daniel 8:22. The four horns which came up when the great horn was broken, were the four parts into which the Grecian Empire was divided after Alexander's death.
Daniel 8:23. The little horn that became greater than either the ram or the goat was the Roman power, which became greater than Persia or Greece had ever been.
Daniel 8:26, 27. Gabriel did not explain the 2300 days at this time because Daniel fainted when the angel reached that point in the vision.
Daniel 9:20-22. Shortly after this, Gabriel returned to Daniel to explain the 2300 days.
Daniel 9:24. Seventy weeks of the 2300 days were allotted to the Jews as their day of special opportunity. In prophecy a day represents a year. Ezekiel 4:6; Numbers 14:34. So 70 weeks would be 490 years, and 2300 days would be 2300 years. These 70 weeks would be the first 490 years of the 2300 years of Daniel 8:14.
Daniel 9:25, first part. This time period was to be reckoned from the time when the decree would go forth to restore and to build Jerusalem, which was then in ruins.
Ezra 6:14; 7:6-8. This decree, providing for the restoration of the Jewish state at Jerusalem, went forth in the autumn of 457 BC, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes.
Daniel 9:25. The Messiah was to appear to men 69 weeks, or 483 years, from the time when that decree for the restoration of Jerusalem would go forth. Four hundred eighty three years from the autumn of 457 BC, when the decree went forth, brings us to the autumn of AD 27, and at that very time Jesus Christ was baptized, and appeared to the Jews as the true Messiah. Matthew 3:16, 17. Thus Daniel foretold 565 years beforehand the exact time when Christ the Messiah would appear to Israel.

Mark 1:14, 15. Christ recognized that He appeared and began His work at the time that had been set or determined beforehand by the Lord God through Daniel.
Daniel 9:26, 27. In the middle of this seventieth week, which began with the baptism of Jesus, Messiah would cause the sacrifice of lambs for sin to cease, by offering Himself for man's sins. The middle of this seventieth week would be three and one-half years from the autumn of AD 27, when the 69 weeks ended. That would bring us to the spring of AD 31. And at that very time, just as Daniel predicted, the Messiah was cut off, or crucified for our sins. The remaining three and one-half years of this seventieth week, when figured from the spring of AD 31, when the Messiah was cut off, bring us to the autumn of AD 34, when the time of Israel's special opportunity expired, and the gospel began to go to the Gentiles. When you deduct the 70 weeks, or 490 years, from the 2300 years, you have 1810 years left. These remaining 1810 years, figured from the autumn of AD 34, when the 70 weeks expired, bring us to the autumn of AD 1844, to the end of the 2300 days, and to the time set for cleansing the sanctuary.

18. THE WORK OF JESUS AS OUR HIGH PRIEST

Daniel 8:14. Before we can understand what is meant by the cleansing of the sanctuary, which began in 1844, at the end of the 2300 days, we must know what the sanctuary is, spoken of in this prophecy.
Hebrews 9:1-5. Under the direction of God, Moses erected a tabernacle in the wilderness, which is expressly called the sanctuary. Its service continued from the giving of the ceremonial law on Mt. Sinai to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This tabernacle of Moses was later merged into the beautiful temple at Jerusalem. When Christ expired upon the cross, the veil in this temple was rent (Matthew 27:50, 51), showing that the service of God in that building had ended. This temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.
Hebrews 8:1, 2. A heavenly sanctuary has taken the place of this earthly sanctuary built by men. In this sanctuary in heaven Christ ministers for us as our great High Priest. Since this heavenly sanctuary took the place of the earthly sanctuary at the death of Jesus on the cross, the sanctuary that was to be cleansed in 1844 must of necessity be the heavenly sanctuary where Jesus ministers for us today.
Hebrews 9:23. The earthly sanctuary that Moses built was a type, figure, pattern, or shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. As the earthly sanctuary had its two apartments, so the heavenly sanctuary has both a holy place and a most holy place.
Hebrews 8:3, 4. The service of the priests in the earthly sanctuary in the former dispensation was a type or figure of Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary during the Christian dispensation. A careful reading of the book of Leviticus will show that the ceremonies in the earthly sanctuary consisted of two parts, a daily ministration in the first apartment (Hebrews 9:6) and an annual ministration in the second apartment. Hebrews 9:7. The service in the second apartment was carried on at the end of the religious year, at which time the sanctuary was cleansed, final disposition being made of the sins of the people for that year. Leviticus 16:6-22.
Hebrews 7:27. On the cross Jesus made an offering for sin once for all, an offering that is sufficient for the sins of all men for all time.
Hebrews 9:24. After offering Himself as our true Lamb and Sacrifice, He ascended to the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, to plead the merits of His shed blood for those who accept Him as their Savior.
Hebrews 7:25. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost because He ever lives to intercede for those who come to God by Him. 1 John 2:1. Just as surely as we accept Him, and are true to Him to the end, He secures forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life for us. Jesus Christ served as man's High Priest in the first http://www.ThreeAngels.com.auhttp://www.ThreeAngels.com.auapartment of the heavenly sanctuary until the end of the 2300 days in 1844. Then, according to Daniel 8:14, the time came for the cleansing of the sanctuary. In ancient times the high priest of the Levitical service cleansed the sanctuary once each year on the great Day of Atonement, also known as the day of judgment. On this day the high priest closed the yearly round of service by a special ceremony in the most holy place. So in the antitype Jesus must have passed into the second apartment of the heavenly sanctuary in 1844, to perform the closing ceremony of His priestly work.

Hebrews 9:28. When He finishes His work as priest in the second apartment, Jesus will appear without sin, to enter upon the divine program of actually making an end of sin forever, by taking all the righteous to heaven, slaying the living wicked, binding the devil, and then at the end of the 1,000 years wiping out sin forever by the everlasting destruction of the devil and all sinners and sin.
Isaiah 43:25. Let us make sure that all our sins are blotted out while Jesus is now finishing His priestly work, so that we may live with Him forever.

19. THE GREAT DAY OF JUDGMENT

Acts 17:31. The judgment is at an appointed time.
Revelation 14:6, 7. The hour of God's judgment begins in heaven and proceeds with its eternal decisions while men are going about their ordinary pursuits here upon the earth. This angel of Revelation 14:6, 7, preaching to all nations and people to fear God, because the hour of His judgment is come, is a symbol of a special message which God will send to the world in the closing age, just before the appearing of Christ at the last day as described in Revelation 14:14.
Daniel 7:9-11. This prophecy of Daniel, in harmony with Revelation 14:6, 7, shows that the judgment will be set in heaven, and will be carried forward during the closing era of this present age. This scripture also shows that in the judgment, certain books will be used-records will be investigated. There are two divisions to the work of judgment in human courts; first, an investigative phase, when the evidence is examined before a judge or jury, which ends in a verdict; second, an executive phase, when the decision is executed. There are these same two phases to God's judgment.
Ecclesiastes 3:17. There are three great classes to be judged, the righteous, the wicked, and the evil angels, who rebelled against God. Jude 1:6.
1 Peter 4:17. The judgment will begin with the righteous who are the house of God. When Christ appears, every truly righteous person in the grave will rise from the dead with an immortal body, while the rest of the dead will not rise until 1,000 years later. Revelation 20:5. When Christ appears, every truly righteous person among the living will be changed instantly from mortality to immortality, to live forever, while the rest of the living at that time will be slain by the presence of the Lord. This proves that before Christ appears at the last day, the decisions will have been made as to just who among the billions of dead are entitled to be raised to immortality at His coming, and just who among the millions of living are entitled to immortality at His appearing. Hence the judgment, in the cases of the righteous, is past when Jesus appears at the last day.
Leviticus 23:26-30. The Day of Atonement, on which the earthly sanctuary was cleansed, was a day of judgment on Israel as the professed people of God.
Daniel 8:14. So according to the type, the time set for the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary, from 1844 to the end, must be the time for the judgment of the professedly righteous. The cleansing of the sanctuary, beginning in 1844, and mentioned in Daniel 8:14, is equivalent to the hour of God's judgment as set forth in Revelation 14:7.

8. Revelation 11:18, 19. The time for the dead to be judged is the time beginning in 1844 when the ministration was opened in the second apartment of the heavenly temple, where the ark of God's testament is seen, and when the sanctuary is cleansed. The work of God's judgment may be grouped under four heads:

The hour of His judgment during the closing era of human history, between 1844 and the end, when the cases of the professedly righteous will be decided.
The executive judgment of the righteous at the appearing of Christ, when these decisions of the judgment hour for immortality will be carried out.
The great day of judgment during the 1,000 years that follow the second coming of Christ, when the amount of punishment due each of the wicked will be decided.
The executive judgment of the wicked at the end of the 1,000 years when they appear before Christ's judgment seat to receive their punishment.

9. James 2:11, 12. In the judgment men will be judged by the Ten Commandments.

10. Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14. It behooves us now to square our lives by these Ten Commandments, through the grace of the Lord Jesus, that we may pass the judgment for eternal life and have an everlasting home with the Lord in His kingdom.

20. THE PRESENT TRUTH

I. 2 Peter 1:12. We are to be established in the present truth. Then we need to study God's Word that we may learn what is His present truth for our time. Present truth for any certain age is the truth that is especially adapted and applicable to that particular time.

2 Peter 2:5. When the Flood was about to come, a special message of warning was sent to the world by the Lord through His servant Noah. That message about the impending Flood, and the essential preparation needed in order to be saved when it came, was God's present truth to those who lived just before the Flood. The salvation of those people depended on their obedience to that present truth. All who rejected that message of present truth were lost.
Matthew 3:1-3. When Christ was about to be manifested as the Messiah at His first advent, a special message of present truth adapted to that very hour was sent by the Lord through John the Baptist to prepare God's people to receive the Messiah as their Savior.
Matthew 24:33. We have now come to the time when that same blessed Christ is about to appear to all the world to complete His great work of redemption. As surely as God had a special message of present truth for Noah's time just before the Flood, and for John's time just before the appearance of Christ to Israel as the Messiah, He has a special message of present truth for our day.
Revelation 14:15. This describes the coming of Jesus at the last day to reap the harvest of the gospel, and bring an end to the wickedness of this present evil world.
Revelation 14:6-12. Just before Christ appears on the cloud, God sends a special message to all the world to tell men to fear God because the hour of His judgment is come, to tell men that Babylon is fallen and to come out of her (Revelation 14:8; 18:2, 4), to warn men against the mark of the beast, and to lead them to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Revelation 14:12. This prophecy of Revelation 14:6-12 cannot mean that visible angels will ever audibly preach this special message to every nation. This message is the everlasting gospel (Revelation 14:6), and the preaching of the gospel has been committed to men, not to angels. This prophecy therefore means that God will raise up men who will preach this special message to every nation during the closing era of earth's history just before the appearing of Christ as described in Revelation 14:14, which follows the proclamation of the message to all the world. This message of Revelation 14:6-12 exhorting everybody to obey God because the judgment hour has come, telling of the fall of Babylon, warning against the mark of the beast, and calling upon all to http://www.ThreeAngels.com.aukeep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, must of necessity constitute God's present truth for these last days in which we are now living.

Acts 10:5, 6. This message of Revelation 14:6-12 tells us what we ought to do at this time. The message of Revelation 14:6-12 is just as important for our day as was the message of the impending Flood in Noah's time, and the message of the impending manifestation of the Messiah in the time of John the Baptist. Above everything else, it is most important that we now give heed to this special message of Revelation 14:6-12.
Luke 1:4. When you accept this message of Revelation 14, you can be absolutely sure that you have the right message for this hour, because this is the very message that God has put in His prophetic word for these last days in which we are now living. In our study of Daniel 8 and 9 we learned how the hour of God's judgment is come. Our next lesson will show that the wrath of God without mixture, mentioned in Revelation 14:10, is the seven last plagues. Then we will follow on to learn the meaning of the warning against the mark of the beast, and what is meant by Babylon's being fallen, and by the call to come out of her.

21. THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES

Revelation 15:1. God will pour out His wrath without mixture (Revelation 14: 10) by sending on the disobedient seven terrible plagues just before Christ appears at the last day.
Revelation 16. The first plague will be a terrible sore on all the millions of people who have the mark of the beast on their forehead or in their hand. Under the second plague the sea will be turned to blood. Under the third plague the rivers and fountains, the source of man's drinking water, will be turned to blood, and for a time the disobedient will have nothing but blood to drink. This will be like the plague that came on the Egyptians when their water was turned to blood for seven days. Exodus 7:17-25. Under the fourth plague the sun will scorch men with terrible heat. Under the fifth plague will come a darkness that can be felt. Under the sixth plague, the devil's three generals-the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet-will attempt to marshal the whole world to fight against God in the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Under the seventh plague great hailstones will fall, weighing a talent each, which according to our systems of weights is 57 pounds. Nothing like this ever has happened; so it must be in the future.
Revelation 18:8. They will come in one prophetic day, which represents a year. Ezekiel 4:6.
Revelation 16:17, 20. When the time comes under the seventh plague for the mountains and islands to be moved out of their places by that last mighty earthquake, then Christ will appear through the opening heavens. Revelation 6:14-17.
Revelation 15:5-8. During the time when these plagues are being poured out, Jesus Christ, our High Priest and Mediator, will no longer plead the merits of His shed blood for sinners. During the time of these plagues there will be no forgiveness for sin. We must turn to God now to receive forgiveness and cleansing from every sin.
Revelation 22:11, 12. Before the plagues begin to fall every person's case will have been decided forever. Christ will pronounce this decree of Revelation 22:11 at the close of His intercessory and mediatorial work. He will cease to plead for sinners as man's High Priest. Then the first plague of God's unmixed wrath will fall upon the disobedient. These scriptures make it plain that the seven last plagues will come during the interval of about one year between the close of Christ's priestly work and His second coming.
Psalm 91:7-10. Those who are obedient to God and who trust wholly in Jesus, will be protected during all these plagues. Revelation 3:10; Joel 3:16; Psalm 46:1-3.

Revelation 14:12. The only way we can hope to escape the plagues and have the protection of God during this terrible time, is to turn to Him now in full obedience to all His commandments and the faith of Jesus.
Isaiah 55:6. It will be too late to attempt to prepare when the first plague falls. The decree of Revelation 22:11 will be pronounced by Christ before the first plague begins. No man knows when that decree will go forth.
Genesis 7:1, 4, 16. The door of the ark was closed seven days before the Flood came. All who were saved had to enter the ark on the seventh day before the Flood began. So all who will be saved in this great coming world crisis will have to turn to God in obedience before Jesus closes the door of pardon and mercy at the beginning of the year of the seven plagues.
Luke 13:24-28. Many will try in vain to enter when the door has been dosed and it is forever too late. Jeremiah 8:20.
Matthew 24:44. We should be ready every day now. 2 Corinthians 6:2.

22. THE SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD

Revelation 7:1-3. In the last days God will send a special message to all the world that will place the seal of God on the foreheads of His servants.
1 Kings 21:8. Every nation in the world has its seal. The seal of any nation is the sign of its authority. The seal of God is the sign of the authority of Jehovah, the only true God and supreme ruler of all.
Psalm 121:2. The Lord Jehovah is identified as the only true God and ruler of all by the fact that He is the Creator of all.
Psalm 96:5. We know that the God of heaven is the only true God because He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He alone has creative power, while none of the so called gods of the heathen have any creative power.
Jeremiah 10:10-12. Those false gods are the gods that have not made the heaven and the earth, while the true and living God is manifest and established forever as the One who made heaven and earth. Acts 14:15; Jonah 1:9. Since the authority of Jehovah as the only true God and ruler of all is based on His creatorship, the seal of God must be the sign of God as Creator.
Exodus 31:16, 17. God has appointed the seventh-day Sabbath to stand as the sign of His creative power in making the world in six ordinary twenty-four-hour days; therefore the seventh-day Sabbath is the sign of God as the Creator.
Exodus 31:13. Since it takes the same divine power to save a man from sin as it did to create him in the beginning, the seventh-day Sabbath, the sign of the Lord Christ as Creator of the world in six days also becomes the sign of the Lord Christ as man's only Savior from sin and as his Sanctifier. Since the seventh-day Sabbath is the sign of God as the Creator and only true God, and the sign of the Lord Christ as the only Savior and Sanctifier, the Sabbath then must be the seal of the living God.
Exodus 20:11. On a notary's seal you will find three things: his name, his tide as notary, and the territory where he is empowered to take acknowledgments. The fourth commandment is the only one of the Ten Commandments which contains these three things in reference to God. In the Sabbath commandment we find: (1) God's name-"Lord"; (2) His distinguishing title as the only true God-the "Lord" that made the heaven and the earth, the Creator; (3) the territory over which He rules-the heaven and the earth.

Ezekiel 20:12. God gave the Sabbath to be His sign as the only true God and Sanctifier, so it must be the seal of the living God. The keeping of the seventh day, instead of being opposed to God's saving grace, is actually a sign of His saving grace and sanctifying power.
Ezekiel 20:20. The Sabbath becomes God's sign or seal upon you only as you actually hallow it in your life from week to week. The seal is placed on the forehead. The forehead represents the mind. When you remember the Sabbath to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8), that will put God's sign or seal on your forehead. By keeping the seventh-day Sabbath we show that we worship the true God, who made the world in six days, and that we accept the power of that same Lord Christ to save us from sin and sanctify us to His service.
Revelation 14:1. The Father's name is His character. Exodus 34:5-7. Those who receive the seal of God on the forehead will be those who surrender all to do God's will, so that their heart and mind will be brought into conformity to the character of God.
Ezekiel 9:1-6. When the last plague came on Egypt-the death of the first-born-the only ones who were saved from that plague were those who had the mark of blood on the doors of their houses; so the only ones who will be protected from the seven last plagues will be those who have the seal of God on their foreheads.

23. THE MARK OF THE BEAST

1. Revelation 14:9-11, 14. In the closing era of earth's history just before Christ appears on the cloud at the last day to reward every man, God will send a special message warning every person not to receive the mark of the beast. The terrible punishment of which God warns should make us purpose never to receive the mark of this beast, even if our faithfulness to God should cost us our lives.

2. Revelation 13:18. This beast power, whose mark we are warned to avoid, is the Catholic power. The pope's leading title, VICARIUS FILII DEI, when counted according to the Roman numerical value of the letters, equals exactly 666. Since the beast is symbolic of the Catholic power, the mark of the beast must he some institution of Catholicism, which will distinguish those who adopt it as obeying her authority in preference to obeying God on that point.

3. Romans 6:16. Whatever power we obey in religion, his servants we are. Two questions will show plainly what is involved in this matter of the mark of the beast:

When a person keeps the seventh day, Saturday, as the Sabbath, whom does he obey? There can be only one answer: that person is obeying God, for that is what God has commanded in the fourth commandment of the ten. Exodus 20:8-11.
When a person keeps the first day of the week, Sunday, as a so-called Sabbath, whom is he obeying? He is not obeying God by keeping the first day, because God has never told anybody to keep the first day of each week. Whom then is he obeying? He is obeying the command of the Catholic power, which has attempted to substitute the first day as a holy day in place of the seventh day, which the Lord Christ sanctified or set apart for man in the beginning of time. Genesis 2:1-3. Thus it is made plain in the light of God's message that, when we choose to keep the seventh day, we are marked as worshipers of the Creator, the only true God (Ezekiel 20:12); while if we choose the Catholic Sunday in the place of God's seventh-day Sabbath we are marked as followers of the beast power.

4. Matthew 15:9. When we substitute a human ordinance in place of what God has ordained, our worship of Him is vain.

5. Revelation 13:16, 17. An attempt will be made to enforce the mark of the beast on all people. So each one will have to decide whether he will obey God and keep the seventh day, or obey the beast power and keep the first day, which this power has sought to put in the place of God's day.

Revelation 13:8. All the world will obey the beast power, except a few, who will be loyal to God, as the three Hebrews were in the vast throng of Babylon. The book of Revelation shows that in the testing time every person will have to choose whether he will receive the seal of God on his forehead, or whether he will receive the mark of the beast on the forehead or in the hand. Whichever mark we choose, either for God or for the beast, for Christ or antichrist, will seal our eternal destiny. God holds out the Sabbath as the sign of His power. Exodus 31:16, 17. The beast power holds out Sunday as the sign of its power. Which one do you choose?
Acts 5:29. We should decide now to obey God rather than man.
Revelation 14:12. The only way we can avoid the mark of the beast is to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. If you have made that decision, then stick to it. If you have not so decided, then put yourself on God's side this moment by deciding to obey Him and keep His day.

24. HOW TO KEEP THE SABBATH

Exodus 20:8. The essential thing about keeping the Sabbath is to remember to keep it holy. No matter how strictly any one may keep the first day of the week, Sunday, he really cannot keep it holy, because God has never hallowed or made holy the first day of the week. The seventh day is the only day of the week which God has ever hallowed or made holy (Genesis 2:1-3); so the seventh day is really the only day anyone can ever keep holy. When God makes anything holy-a day, a place, or any object-He expects us to be particular how we treat it, and to make a proper distinction in our actions between the holy and the common.
Genesis 1:23, 31. God measures the day of twenty-four hours from evening to evening, that is, from sunset to sunset. This means that God's holy day is from sunset Friday evening to sunset Saturday evening. Proper observance of the Lord's day means that we recognize and treat this portion of each week as God's holy time, and that we devote that time to Him.

3K8 Leviticus 23:32. The "even" which is mentioned here means sunset. Mark 1:32. This rule which the Lord laid down in reference to the ceremonial Sabbath of the Day of Atonement also applies to His weekly Sabbath of creation. The Sabbath is to be observed from even to even, that is, from sunset to sunset. We should follow the practice of having special prayer to the Lord at sunset Friday evening and at sunset Saturday evening, so as to mark off the Sabbath in our lives as the Lord's holy day.

Mark 15:42. The day before the Sabbath, Friday, is the preparation day, when we are to prepare for the Sabbath. On preparation day, Friday, we should take care of the cleaning, sewing, washing, ironing, and cooking (Exodus 16:22, 23), so that when the Sabbath begins at sunset Friday night, we are prepared to keep it holy. A safe rule is not to leave anything to do on the Sabbath that we can take care of during the six working days.
Nehemiah 13:15.22. There is to be no buying or selling on the Sabbath.
Isaiah 58:13. On the Sabbath we are not to pursue our business, and we are not to find our own pleasure, which means that we are not to use the Sabbath for joy riding or pleasure outings. This text also says that on the Sabbath we are not to speak our own words, which means that we should not use the Sabbath for worldly conversation or business discussion, secular reading, or worldly writing or business mail.
Exodus 34:21. No matter how busy we are with our work or business, we are to devote God's holy day to Him. God gives us six days for our business and pleasure. Each seventh day is to be devoted to the Lord's service.

Luke 4:16. Jesus Christ, when He was here on earth, went to the house of God to worship the Lord every Sabbath day. An essential part of keeping the Sabbath is to attend the Sabbath school and the church service on the Sabbath.
Matthew 12:10-12. Acts of mercy are lawful on the Sabbath.
Ezekiel 20:20. If we really keep the Sabbath holy, hallow God's Sabbath, it will be His sign upon us, that He is our God and that we are His people.
Isaiah 66:22, 23. Let us make the Sabbaths, as they come and go each week, lights along the way which leads to that glorious eternal home, where all the redeemed will come to worship the Lord face to face each Sabbath day throughout the eternal ages.

25. CHRISTIANS IN DRESS

1 Corinthians 10:31. Every Christian should make it his first and supreme purpose to please Jesus Christ in all that he does. When one accepts Christ as his Lord and Savior, this means that from this time on he is to live, not to please the world, not to please himself, but to live each day as will please Him whom he has chosen as his Lord.
2. Corinthians 5:14, 15. Being true Christians, we will eat, drink, dress, talk, sing, and act so as to please Christ. The only way we can please Jesus in all things is to see to it that we govern ourselves in all matters according to the principles He has laid down in the Guidebook, the Bible, and not according to the vain customs of the world.
1 Timothy 2:9. We are to adorn ourselves in modest apparel, and not to adorn ourselves with gold or pearls as ornaments. According to the Bible, our dress should be plain, modest, healthful, neat, clean, becoming, and appropriate. If fashion prescribes any mode of dress that is unhealthful, immodest, or extravagant, Christians should refuse to follow it, but should stand by the principles laid down in the Bible.
Genesis 3:7, 21. Any mode of dress that does not properly cover one's person is wrong. In harmony with this principle, Christian women should dress modestly. They should not appear in public with sleeveless dresses, or dresses that are too short, or any other form of dress that does not properly cover the body.
Deuteronomy 22:5. God has commanded that His people shall maintain a proper distinction between the sexes in the matter of their dress.
Ecclesiastes 9:8. Our garments are to be neat and clean. The Scripture rule laid down in 1 Timothy 2:9 makes it plain that God's people are not to wear jewelry for the purpose of ornamenting their bodies.
Judges 8:24. The Ishmaelites were distinguished as heathen people by the fact that they wore gold earrings.
Genesis 35:2-5. When Jacob's household gave up the worship of their idols, they also took off their ornaments.
Hosea 2:13. When the Israelites departed from God, they decked themselves out with jewelry like the people of the world.
Exodus 33:5, 6. God commanded His people to take off all their ornaments, such as earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, etc.

Exodus 35:22. Later on these golden ornaments were given to the Lord to be used in building the sanctuary or tabernacle in the wilderness. These texts make it plain that God's people should not wear rings, earrings, necklaces, beads, or any other kind of jewelry that serves only as an ornament.
1 Peter 3:3-5. God wants us to have the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, a pure, kind, noble Christian character, that will make us truly attractive, and which we can take with us into that better eternal world that He has prepared for us. When a tree dies, the leaves drop off, never to return; so when we really die with Christ to sin, and self is crucified with Jesus on the cross, then all these worldly adornments, such as rings, earrings, necklaces, beads, rouge, and lipstick, will drop off from us, never to return. Let us seek in the matter of our adornment to show that we love Jesus Christ best of all. Let us adorn ourselves in keeping with our profession as followers of the meek and lowly Jesus.

26. BAPTISM

Mark 16:16. To be baptized is a part of our Christian duty. Acts 2:37, 38.
Mark 1:9-11. Jesus was baptized by immersion in the river Jordan.
1 Peter 2:21. We are to follow Him as our example. If we follow Him in the matter of baptism, we will be baptized by immersion.
Acts 8:36-39. This is the only description we have of how the apostles baptized people. Note that in this act of baptism both the minister and the believer went down into the pool, the baptism took place when they were both in the water, then after the baptism they both came up out of the pool of water. This proves that the apostles baptized by immersion. If we are baptized in the right way, we will be baptized just as this man was.
Colossians 2:12. We are to be buried with Christ in baptism. To bury means to cover over. When a few drops of water are sprinkled on a person's head, or a cup of water poured on his head, he is not buried with Christ in baptism. The fact that baptism is a burial with Christ proves that immersion is the only right mode of baptism. Baptism is a divinely appointed memorial of the burial and resurrection of Christ, and there is nothing in sprinkling or pouring to symbolize or set forth the burial and resurrection of Christ. In single immersion a person is laid back in the water as Jesus was laid in the tomb, then raised up from the water, as He was raised from the tomb. This is the only mode of baptism that rightly sets forth the burial and resurrection of the believer with his Lord.
Matthew 28:19, 20. Before a person can have a true baptism, even by immersion, he must be taught to observe all things that Jesus has ordained in the Bible for a Christian to follow.
Acts 19:1-5. This scripture indicates that if, when you were immersed the first time, you were taught only a part of Christ's truth, when the true message comes to you and teaches you the full truth of Christ for the Christian, it is well to be rebaptized. According to Matthew 28:19, 20, we really must be taught to observe all things that He has commanded, before we can have a true baptism.
Romans 6:3, 4. When we are baptized we are to be buried with Christ, that we may rise to walk in newness of life. We cannot be truly buried with Christ in baptism unless before that baptism we make a full surrender of all to Jesus, to do His will in all things. No one is ready to be buried with Christ in baptism until he dies with Christ to the sinful things of the world. He cannot come up from baptism to live a new life unless he really buries the old life of sin with him in baptism. Before a person is ready to be baptized, he must have the victory over such wrong habits as the use of alcoholic liquors, tobacco, pork, tea, coffee, etc. He must have laid aside all worldly ornaments and jewelry. He must have turned from the sinful ways of the world, such as card playing, dancing, theatergoing, etc. He cannot be truly buried with Jesus in baptism until he is dead to all such things.

Galatians 3:27. When we are truly baptized into Christ, we put on Christ, to live henceforth for Christ.
1 John 2:6. After being baptized, we are to walk as Jesus walked; and having risen with Christ, we are to set our affection on heavenly things (Colossians 3:14) and live from that time on according to the will of God. 1 Peter 4:1, 2.
Revelation 22:14. If we follow on in the way of God's commandments after we are baptized, someday we will surely pass in through the pearly gates, to live forever in the wonderful city of God.

27. THE TRUE CRURCH

Revelation 12:1. This prophecy of Revelation 12 traces out in a few bold strokes the career of Christ's true church under the figure of a pure woman.
Jeremiah 6:2. God has compared the daughter of Zion to a beautiful woman.
Isaiah 51:16. Zion represents the Lord's people, His true followers, His true church. In Bible symbolism the true church is often compared to a pure woman. (Compare 1 Corinthians 1:2 with 2 Corinthians 11:2.)
Revelation 12:5. The man child that the woman brought forth is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who has been given authority by God to rule all nations. And He is the only one who was ever caught up from this earth to sit on the throne of God with the great Father. The woman, then, must have been in existence before she gave birth to this man child; hence the Lord's church must have been in existence before Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem as the man child of Revelation 12:5.
Acts 7:38. Ancient Israel, in their journey from Egypt to Canaan, are called the church in the wilderness. Then the church of God was in existence in the days of Moses, fifteen hundred years before Christ was born. The word "church," as used in the New Testament, means those who are called out from the world to serve God. In each generation, from the beginning of the world to the end, those who have responded to God's call to serve Him, constitute His church.
Revelation 12:6, 14. This woman, the true church, was to be in the wilderness, in a state of seclusion, for 1260 prophetic days, or years. Ezekiel 4:6. This was the period of the Dark Ages of Catholic rule and persecution from A.D. 538 to 1798.
Revelation 12:17. This twelfth chapter outlines the career of the true church to the end of time, and the last verse in the chapter describes the true church as it will appear in the last days. This verse speaks of the "remnant" of the church. The remnant must mean the last part of the church, and the last part of the church must be here on the earth in the last days, just before the return of Christ at the last day. If we can find this remnant church today, we will know the true church of God for these days, and the very one to which we ought to belong. Revelation 12:17 says that this remnant will be distinguished by the keeping of the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus.
Revelation 19:10. The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. To find the true church today, we must find the church which keeps the commandments of God and has the Spirit of prophecy. This church which keeps the commandments of God will keep the seventh day (Saturday) as the Sabbath, because this is the only day God has ever commanded man to keep each week. This church will also practice tithe paying and observe feet washing in connection with the Lord's supper, as these are two of the Lord's commandments. (See Leviticus 27:30 and John 13:12-15.) The remnant church will abstain from such unwholesome foods, and drinks as pork, tobacco, tea, coffee, all alcoholic liquors, and cola drinks, since one of the Lord's commands is that we should eat and drink as will please God, according to the principles He has laid down in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 10:31. The remnant will also refrain from adorning themselves with gold or pearls. 1 Timothy 2:9. As the Seventh-day Adventist Church obeys all these commands, it must be the remnant church of Revelation 12:7, the true church for these last days.

Revelation 14:12. They are the people who are preaching this true message for the last days, teaching that the time of God's judgment is come, calling attention to the fall of Babylon, and warning against the mark of the beast; hence they must be the true people of God for this time.
Revelation 15:2, 3. They will be victorious at the coming of the Lord. Be faithful to this true message, and you are sure to have eternal victory.

28. GOD'S GATHERING CALL

I. Revelation 17:3, 4. Note that this woman of Revelation 17 is just the opposite kind of woman to the one presented in Revelation 12. This would show that as surely as the pure woman of Revelation 12 is the Lord's true church, this impure harlot woman is Satan's counterfeit religious system. Revelation 2:9.

2. Revelation 17:5. God's name for this great counterfeit system is "Babylon the great." The word "Babylon" comes from the word "Babel" (Genesis 10:9, margin), and this word "Babel” means confusion. Genesis 11:9, margin. The name Babylon, which signifies confusion, is certainly a fit name for this present-day system of worldly churches and religions, which on many points are following discordant, unscriptural ideas and worldly ways in place of obeying the plain commands of the Lord, whom they profess to follow.

3. Revelation 17:18. This impure woman is declared to be the great city which dominates the governments of earth.

4. Revelation 16:19. This great city is divided into three special parts.

5. Revelation 16:13. These three special parts are designated as the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. The dragon of this combination is paganism. The beast is Catholicism (Revelation 13:18); and the false prophet is apostate Protestantism, which has proved itself untrue to the Bible which it took as its only guide at the time of its birth.

6. Revelation 14:8, 14. One part of the special message that God is sending to the world in the last days just before Jesus appears on the cloud is that this system of worldly churches constitute fallen Babylon. As we see how the churches have become worldly, having lost their spirituality, and how the Modernist section has repudiated the Bible, we see that Babylon-the popular churches-is indeed fallen, just as God said it would be in the last days.

7. Revelation 18:2, 4. This special message that Babylon is fallen will also call all of God's people out of this great worldly religious system of paganism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, into God's remnant church to keep all His commandments. God's call is, "Come out of Babylon, that ye be not partakers of her sins." As sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), it is evident that God is calling His people out of all these worldly churches (Babylon) in order that they may keep His commandments.

8. Revelation 14:12. Those who come out of Babylon in response to God's special message of Revelation 14:8 and 18:2, 4, are designated as those who keep the commandments of God.

9. Revelation 12:17. God's remnant church is distinguished by the keeping of the commandments.

10. John 10:27. God's people are an obedient people they obey His voice. This means that all of God's people will come out of these fallen churches, out of Babylon, into His remnant flock to keep His commandments.

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11. Matthew 12:30. There is, and will be, no neutral ground; either we will stand with Babylon, which will be destroyed at the appearing of Jesus (Revelation 18:8, 21), or we will stand with the obedient remnant, which will be victorious on the sea of glass. Revelation 14:1; 15:2, 3. Choose this day on which side you will stand. The seven last plagues are coming. God's call for this hour is, "Come out of her [Babylon], My people, that ye receive not of her plagues." Revelation 18:4. It is just as important for us to come out of Babylon as it was for Lot to flee from Sodom before the fire of God fell on that city, or for Noah and his family to come out of the world into the ark before the Flood came. If you have not responded to this call to come out of Babylon, decide this moment that you will come out and surrender all to Jesus Christ to obey Him.

29. PROPHECIES OF CHRISTS FIRST ADVENT

"ALL this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." Matthew 26:56. "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name." John 20:31.

The Fact

Genesis 3:15; Deuteronomy 18:15; Psalm 89:19, 20; Isaiah 28:16; 42:6; 49:1; 55:4.

The Time

Genesis 49:10; Numbers 24:17; Daniel 9:24-27; Luke 3: 21, 22; Acts 10:33; John 1:41, margin.

His Divinity

Psalm 2:7, 12; 45:6, 7, 11; 72:8; 102:24-27; John 1:1-3, 14; Psalm 89:26, 27; 110:1; Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; Malachi 3:1.

Human Generation

Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 21:12; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; 49:10; 2 Samuel 7:12; Psalm 89:4, 29, 36; 32:11; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15.

His Forerunner

Isaiah. 40:3; Matthew 3:1-5.

His Nativity and Early Years

The Fact Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18-23.

The Place Numbers 24:17, 19; Micah 5:2; Matthew 2A, 4-6.

Descent Into Egypt Hosea 11: 1; Matthew 2:13-15.

Massacre of Innocents Jeremiah 31:15; Matthew 2:16-18.

His Mission and Office

Mission Genesis 12:3; 49:10; Numbers 24:19; Deuteronomy 18:18; Isaiah 59:20; Jeremiah 33:15, 16.

Priest Like Melchizedek Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:5, 6.

Prophet Like Moses Deuteronomy 18:15.

Conversion of Gentiles Isaiah 11:10; 42:1; 49:6; Hosea 2:23; Joel 2:32.

Ministry in Galilee Isaiah 9:1, 2.

Miracles Isaiah 42:7; 53:4; John 11:145.

Spiritual Graces Psalm 45:7; Isaiah 11:2; 32:1; 53:9; 61:1, 2.

Preaching Psalm 78:2; Isaiah 61:1.

Purification of Temple Psalm 69:9; John 2:13-17.

http://www.ThreeAngels.com.auHis Passion

Rejected by Jews Psalm 22:12, 13; 118:22, 23; Isaiah 6:9, 10; 8:14; 53:1; 65:2.

Persecution Psalm 22:6; 35:7, 12; 109:2; Isaiah 49:7; 53:3.

Entry Into Jerusalem Psalm 8:2; 118:25, 26; Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:1-11.

Betrayal by Own Friend Psalm 41:9; Matthew 26:14-16, 47-56.

30 Pieces of Silver Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:14, 15.

Purchase of Potter's Field Zechariah 11:13; Matthew 27:3-10.

Desertion by Disciples Zechariah 13:7; Matthew 26:56; Mark 14:27.

Accused by False Witnesses Psalm 35:11; Matthew 26:59, 60.

Silence Under Accusation Psalm 38:13; Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 27; 12-14.

Mocking Psalm 22:7, 8, 16; 109:25.

Wounded and Bruised Isaiah 53:5.

Insult, Buffeting, Spitting Isaiah 50:6; Matthew 26:67; Luke 22:64.

Patience Under Suffering Isaiah 53:7-9; Matthew 27:12-14.

Fell Under the Cross Psalm 109:24; John 19:17; Luke 23:26.

Crucifixion Psalm 22:14-17; Zechariah 13:6; Luke 23:33.

Prayed for His Persecutors Isaiah 53:12; Luke 23:34.

Offer of Gall and Vinegar Psalm 69:21; John 19:28, 29.

People Shook Their Heads Psalm 109:25; Matthew 27:39.

People Ridiculed Him Psalm 22:8; Matthew 27:41-43.

People Astonished Psalm 22:17; Luke 23:35.

Cries Upon the Cross Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46.

Committed Himself to God Psalm 31:5; Luke 23:46.

Death With Malefactors Isaiah 53:9, 12; Mark 15:27, 28.

Casting Lots for Vesture Psalm 22: 18; John 19:24.

Heart Broken Psalm 22:14; 34:20; John 19:33-36.

Piercing Psalm 22:16; Isaiah 49:16; Zechariah 12:10; 13:6; John 19: 34-37.

Darkness Over the Land Amos 8:9; Matthew 27:45.

Voluntary Death Psalm 40:6-8.

Vicarious Suffering Isaiah 53:4-6, 12; Daniel 9:26.

Burial in a Rich Man's Tomb Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57-60.

His Resurrection Psalm 16:8-10.

His Ascension Psalm 16:10, 11; 24:7; 68:18; 110:1.

The Sunday School Times, adapted.