BEYOND PITCAIRN 

Vance Ferrell

8: City of the Sun

 Constantine, the man who changed the way of life of hundreds of millions. And that includes millions around you right now.

Who was Constantine?

 Roman historians will tell you that he was the forty-eighth Roman emperor. But world historians will tell you that he was one of the most influential men in all history.

For he changed the entire future course of Christianity in less than twenty-five years.

Here is what happened, and why; By the time of the reign of Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 284-305), Mithraism had reached its greatest power in the west. Diocletian divided the empire into four sections, and then determined to forever blot out Christianity. Some of the most terrible persecutions took place at this time. Fortunately, the worst of it lasted only ten years. Edicts were issued demanding that all Christian churches be torn down, the land sold and the proceeds turned over to the State.

Here is what happened:

 It was clear to all that this internal turmoil only deepened the problems within the Empire. What was needed was peace and a strong unity.

On the retirement of Diocletian in 305, it was an uphill fight among several men for the coveted title of Emperor. But out of it, Constantine was to emerge as the sole ruler of the vast Roman empire.

 Constantine's family was especially dedicated to the Sun god. And Constantine himself recognized that there were only two strong religions in the empire, Mithraism, the worship of the sun, and Christianity, the worship of Christ. Constantine's objective was to strengthen the empire in order to better resist the growing number of enemies to the north. He saw that in order to weld the empire into a single, powerful force able to meet the demands of the hour, there must be a uniting of the major religions. We are told that the bishop of Rome counseled with Constantine and advised him of the best course to take in order to win everyone into a single imperial church.

The crucial battle took place in October 312 at the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Soon afterward, Constantine enacted the Edict of Milan, by which Christianity was given full legal rights, equaling that of every other religion in the empire. More favors to the Church were soon to follow.

Then, on March 7, 321, the long-awaited unifying edict was issued, destined to unite the two leading religions into a single powerful State Church. This was his famous Sunday Law Decree, in which he required the observance of the day of the lord Mithra--the Sun day--as a day of worship by all peoples throughout the empire.

Here is the text of this decree:

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

Constantine was not a Christian. At this very same time he was embellishing the Temple of the Sun in Rome. He continued to be a sun-worshiper until his death. The very next day after giving the Sunday law of March 7, 321, quoted above, Constantine enacted another law giving pagan soothsayers official acceptance in the Empire. In this law he stated that whenever lightning should strike the imperial palace or any other public building, the gods should be asked why it had happened, and that this was to be done through the heathen priests. They were to look at the entrails of beasts, freshly slaughtered in sacrifice to the pagan gods, and then tell the meaning of the lightning bolt.

Five additional Sunday laws were to be issued by Constantine within a very few years to strengthen this basic one of A.D. 321.

Sunday was the great day of the Sun-worship cults as well as of compromising Christians. In his Sunday law, Constantine does not mention Christianity or Jesus or the Bible. The day is called "the Venerable Day of the Sun" (verarabili die solis).This was the mystical name for the Day of the lord Mithra, god of the Sun. Both the heathen and the Christians well knew this. It is a recognized historical fact that when Constantine issued this first imperial Sunday edict of 321, enforcing the observance of Sunday, he was still a worshiper of Sol Invictus the "Invincible Sun" lord Mithra. And he was also the Pontifix Maximus (supreme pagan pontiff or priest) of all the Roman gods, which was the state religion.

In another of his six Sunday laws, he gave the order that all of the army troops be marched out on the drill field each Sunday in order to recite a prayer composed by the emperor for this purpose. It was worded in such away that it could be addressed to any god adored by mankind, and the soldiers were required to face the rising sun while uttering this prayer.

A French historian, Victor Duruy, explains the meaning of these weekly Sunday worship services:

"He [Constantine] sent to the legions, to be recited upon that day [Sunday] , a form of prayer which could have been employed by a worshiper of Mithra, of Serapis, or of Apollo, quite as well as by a Christian believer. This was the official sanction of the old custom of addressing a prayer to the rising sun: Victor Duruy, History of Rome, Volume 7, p. 489.

Constantine always favored the Sun god, but he was wise enough to know that he must unite it with Christianity in order to win all of the people to the worship of the Sun god on his day.

Although the True God had never appointed Sunday-keeping in place of the sacred Seventh-day Sabbath, yet Constantine, in counsel with the bishop (the "pope") of the local Christian Church at Rome, recognized that a combining of the principal features of the two dominant religions of the empire could bring peace and prosperity, both to the nation and to the religions within it. Unity based on compromise had the effect of bringing the world into the Christian Church in the Fourth Century, during the reign of Constantine. For before his death, Constantine had made Christianity the State Church of the Empire.

One excellent historical work tells us that Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (c. 260-340), was "the special friend and flatterer of Constantine" (Great Controversy, p. 574). Eusebius was one of those who convinced the emperor that Sunday legislation would unite the Sun-god worshipers (the Mithraites) with the followers of Jesus. In one of his statements, Eusebius clearly explains that the apostate church was responsible for what Constantine did, and then he tells why: to transfer Christian worship to the "day of light" the day of the holy Sun.

 "The logos [Christ] has transferred by the New Alliance [new covenant] the celebration of the Sabbath to the rising of the light. He has given us a type of the true rest in the saving day of the lord, the first day of light. In this day of light, first day and true day of the sun, when we gather after the interval of six days, we celebrate the holy and spiritual Sabbaths. All things whatsoever that were prescribed for the [Bible] Sabbath, WE have transferred them to the lord's day, as being more authoritative and more highly regarded and first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath. In fact, it is on this day of the creation of the world that God said, 'Let there be light and there was light.' It is also on this day that the Sun of Justice has risen for our souls." Eusebius, Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 91, in Patrologie Cursus Completus, Series Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, p. 23, 1169-1172.

Here are some comments by historians in regard to this momentous event, by which the pagan religions of the western civilized world were united with Christianity: "This [Sunday law] legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to Christianity. It appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in his capacity as Pontifix Maximus, was only adding the day of the sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in the Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred calendar." Hutton Webster, Rest Days, pp. 122-123. [Webster was an American anthropologist and historian.] .

"The [Catholic] Church made a sacred day of Sunday. . largely because it was the weekly festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy [at Rome] to take over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them a Christian significance." Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity, 1928, p. 145. [Dr. A.E. Weigall (1880-1937) was a high-ranking British Egyptologist in the Egyptian Government.]

"Remains of the struggle [between Christianity and Mithraism] are found in two institutions adopted from its rival by Christianity in the fourth century, the two Mithraic sacred days: December 25th, dies natalis solis [birthday of the sun], as the birthday of Jesus, and Sunday, 'the venerable day of the Sun: as Constantine called it in his edict of 321." Walter Woodbum Hyde, Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire, p. 60. [Hyde (1870-?) was an American ancient history professor and writer.]  

Certain historians agree that it was the pagan sun-worshipers, and not the Christians, who first gave the name 'Lord's Day' to Sunday. "The first day of each week, Sunday, was consecrated to Mithra [the most widely known sun-god of the early Christian centuries] since times remote, as several authors affirm. Because the Sun was god, the Lord par excellence, Sunday came to be called the 'Lord's day,' as later was done by Christianity." Agostinho de Almeida Paiva, O Mitraiomo, p. 3.

"The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a Divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early Apostolic Church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday." Augustus Neander, The History of the Christian Religion and Church, Roses translation from the first German edition, p. 186. [Neander is generally considered to be one of the most important of the Protestant church historians of modem times.]

"Unquestionably the first law, either ecclesiastical or civil, by which the Sabbatical observance of that day is known to have been ordained, is the edict of Constantine, 321 A.D." Chambers' Encyclopedia, article, "Sabbath. "

"This [Sunday decree of A.D. 321] is the 'parent' Sunday law making it a day of rest and release from labor. For from that time to the present there have been decrees about the observance of Sunday which have profoundly influenced European and American society. When the Church became a part of the State under the Christian emperors, Sunday observance was enforced by civil statutes, and later when the Empire was past, the Church in the hands of the papacy enforced it by ecclesiastical, and also by civil enactments." Walter Woodburn Ryde, Paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire, 1946, p. 261. [Ryde was an ancient history professor in several American universities.]

"Constantine's decree marked the beginning of a long, though intermittent series of imperial decrees in support of Sunday laws." Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast day Occupations, 1943, p. 29. [Catholic University of America dissertation.]

"What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees, during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday." Hutton Webster, Rest Days, 1916, pp. 122-123, 270. [Dr. Webster was an historian teaching at the University of Nebraska.]

"Concerning the power of the Mithras cult [on Christianity], we still have evidence in the fact that it is not the Jewish Sabbath that is the sacred weekday (which Christianity, coming out of Judaism, had nearest at hand), but Sunday, dedicated to the Sun-god Mithra." R. Lamer, "Mithras, Wurterbuch der Antike, 2nd ed., 1933. [Hans Lamer (1873-? ) was an archaeological writer and a student of ancient religions and civilizations.] ,

There is scarcely anything which strikes the mind of the careful student of ancient ecclesiastical history with greater surprise than the comparatively early period at which many of the corruptions of Christianity , which are embodied in the Romish system, took their rise; yet it is not to be supposed that when the first originators of many of these unscriptural notions and practices planted those germs of corruption, they anticipated or even imagined they would ever grow into such a vast and hideous system of superstition and error as is that of popery." John Dowling, History of Romanism, 13th edition, p. 65. [Dowling was a Protestant clergyman and historian of the early nineteenth century.]

 "It would be an error to attribute ["the sanctification of Sunday"] to a definite decision of the Apostles. There is no such decision mentioned in the Apostolic documents [the New Testament] " Antoine Villien, A History of the Commandments of the Church, 1915, p. 23.[Catholic priest and professor at the Catholic University of Paris]

"Rites and ceremonies of which neither Paul nor Peter ever heard, crept silently into use, and then claimed the rank of divine institutions. Officers for whom the primitive disciples could have found no place, and titles which to them would have been altogether unintelligible, began to challenge attention, and to be named apostolic." William D. Killen, The Ancient Church, preface, p. xvi. [Killan (1806-1902) was a Protestant church history professor in Belfast, Ireland.]

"In the year 321 the Emperor Constantine, who was not yet a declared Christian, but was still hovering between paganism and Christianity , issued a decree making Sunday a compulsory day of rest: but the fact that he speaks of Sunday as 'the venerable day of the Sun' [the pagan Sun-worship name for the day] shows that he was thinking of it as a traditional sun-festival at the same time that he thought of it as a Christian holy-day ..Sunday came to be observed throughout Europe as it is still observed by Roman Catholics, namely, as a day on which like our Christmas, people went to church in the morning and then gave themselves over to rest or to holiday-making and sports." Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity, 1928, pp. 236-237. [Dr. A.D. Weigall (1880-1927) was a British historian, Egyptologist and inspector-general of antiquities for the Egyptian Government.]

"The retention of the old pagan name, 'Dies Solis' [Day of the Sun] or 'Sunday' for the weekly Christian festival, is, in great measure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment, with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the 'venerable day of the sun' ..It was his mode of harmonizing the discordant religions of the empire under one common institution."-Dean Stanley, Lectures on the Eastern Church, Lecture 6, p. 184. [Stanley was an Episcopalian historian and church leader.]

"Constantine labored at this time untiringly to unite the worshipers of the old [pagan] and the new [Christian] faith in one religion. All his laws and contrivances are aimed at promoting this amalgamation of religions. He would by all lawful and peaceable means melt together a purified heathenism and a moderated [compromised] Christianity. .Of all his blending and melting together of Christianity and heathenism, none is more easy to see through than his making of his Sunday law. The Christians worshiped their Christ, the heathen their sun god; according to the opinion of the Emperor, the objects for worship in both religions being the same [the worship of the deities on a single day of the week] ." H.G. Heggtveit, Illustreret Kirkehistorie, 1895, p. 202. [Hallvard Heggtveit (1850-1924) was a Norwegian church historian and teacher.]

"The Jewish, the Samaritan, even the Christian, were to be fused and recast into one great system, of which the sun was to be the central object of adoration." Henry Hart Milman, The History of Christianity, Book 2, chap. 8 (Vol. 22, p. 175). [Dr. Milman (1791-1868) was an important historian of England and dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.]

And so it was, that Constantine turned Rome into the City of the Sun, and every passing century witnessed the passage of additional laws and decrees requiring the worship of Christ on the day earlier dedicated to Mithra, on pain of death.

And yet, ironically, Mithra himself was to pass away within fifty years after Constantine's time. For he wasn't needed anymore. Many of his errors had been made a part of official Christianity, and he disappeared from history. The same happened to the worship of Isis and Horus, the Egyptian Queen of Heaven and her infant son. Within half a century after the worship of Mary was required by Rome, the worship of Isis ceased. Its pagan devotees had switched over to Christianity and to the worship of statues of Mary of the sacred heart, holding an infant Son.

When Rome became the City of the Sun, a persecution of Christiansfar more bitter than anything they had experienced earlierbegan in earnest. And it continued for centuries.

More than fifteen additional Sunday laws were enacted and enforced by the State or the Catholic Church over the next several centuries. These laws restricted what could be done on Sunday, and forbade Sabbathkeeping. Each law became more strict, each penalty more severe. It is obvious that humble Christians were determined not to stop keeping the Bible Sabbath, the worship of God on the Seventh-day of the week. Sunday sacredness was responsible for the death of large numbers of Christians in the ages that followed.

Pope Gregory the Great (Gregory I 590-604), in his edict against Sabbathkeepers, declared that they were the preachers of antichrist. Here are his words:

"Gregory, bishop by the grace of God to his well-beloved sons, the Roman citizens: It has come to me that certain men of perverse spirit have disseminated among you things depraved and opposed to the holy faith, so that they forbid anything to be done on the day of the Sabbath [the seventh day] What shall I call them except preachers of antichrist, who when he comes, will cause the Sabbath day to be kept free from all work. .He compels the people to Judaize. . [and] wishes the Sabbath to be observed.

"On the Lord's day [Sunday], however, there should be a cessation of labor and attention given in every way to prayers, so that if anything is done negligently during the six days, it may be expiated by supplications on the day of the Lord's resurrection." Gregory 1, Epistles, Book 13, epis. 1, in Labbe and Cossart, Sacrosancta Concilia, Vol. 5, col. 1511.

Gregory well knew that the Bible Sabbath was given to mankind by the God of Heaven 1500 years before the first Hebrew was born (compare Gen 2:1-3-the Creation of the world, with Gen 12:1, the call of Abraham, the first Hebrew). It is an insult to the Creator to declare the Seventh-day Sabbath "Jewish." The Bible Sabbath came from God; it was not invented by the Jews.

Here are two other quotations from Catholics who lived in the Dark Ages:

"They do not hear the masses of Christians [Catholics] ..they flee the image of the Crucifix as the devil, they do not celebrate the feasts [Catholic holy days] of the divine Virgin Mary and of the apostles, ..Some indeed celebrate [keep] the Sabbath that the Jews observe!" Translated by J.J. von Doellinger, Beitlllege zur Sektengeschiechte des Mittelalters, Vol. 2, no. 61, p. 662.

"Convicted heretics should be put to death just as surely as other criminals." Thomas Aquinas. [Aquinas (1225-1275) is the most important Roman Catholic theologian in all history. He was made a saint in 1323, and in 1889, Pope Leo XIII decreed that Acquinas' writings be the basis of all Catholic theology and belief. ]

For centuries, Christians were persecuted to the death for worshiping God on the Bible Sabbath. And yet, they refused to compromise their faith. The Seventh-day Sabbath is clearly in the Bible; Sunday-sacredness is clearly not. And so they were willing to die for genuine Bible religion.

Surprisingly enough, the great majority of all Christians still kept the Bible Sabbath as late as the Fifth Century, a hundred years after Constantine's time!

"As we have already noted, excepting for the Roman and Alexandrian Christians, the majority of Christians were observing the seventh-day Sabbath at least as late as the middle of the fifth century. The Roman and Alexandrian Christians were among those converted from heathenism. They began observing Sunday as a merry religious festival in honor of the Lord's resurrection, about the latter half of the second century A.D. However, they did not try to teach that the Lord or His apostles commanded it. In fact, no ecclesiastical writer before Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century even suggested that either Christ or His apostles instituted the observance of the first day of the week.

"These Gentile Christians of Rome and Alexandria began calling the first day of the week 'the Lord's day.' This was not difficult for the pagans of the Roman Empire who were steeped in sun worship to accept, because they referred to their sun-god as their 'Lord.' " E.M. Chalmers, How Sunday Came into the Christian Church, p. 3.

Sozomen and Socrates Scholasticus were two historians who lived in the Fifth Century A.D. They clearly state that the majority of Christians everywhere (except at Rome and Alexandria which were more corrupt) steadfastly worshiped God on the Bible Sabbath:

"Although almost all churches throughout the world celebrate the sacred mysteries on the Sabbath every week, yet the Christians of Alexandria and at Rome, on account of some ancient tradition, have ceased to do this."-Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, Book 5, chap. 22. [This is a very important statement, for it shows that most Christians were still keeping the Bible Sabbath in the Fifth Century-one hundred years after Constantine's Sunday law. Socrates Scholasticus was a Fifth Century historian who wrote shortly after A.D. 439.]

"The people of Constantinople, and almost everywhere, assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the first day of the week, which custom is never observed at Rome or at Alexandria." Sozomen. Ecclesiastical History, vii, 19. in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. 2nd series, Volume II. p. 390. [This valuable statement reveals that Christians were keeping the Bible Sabbath in the Fifth Century, but were also trying to satisfy the requirements of Constantine's Sunday law edict by observing the first day also. Hermias Sozomen was a Greek Christian church historian. He wrote this after A.D. 415.

Don't let anyone tell you that Christ and the Apostles kept Sunday holy. They did not. And don't let anyone tell you that most Christians kept Sunday within a century or two after the Bible was finished. They did not. The great majority of Christians were still keeping the Seventh-day Sabbath holy unto God, as late as the Fifth Century (400-499) A.D. It was only by letting the streets flow with blood, that the apostate church of Rome was able to turn the City of the Sun into an Empire of the Sun.

But now, we need to go back in history, to a time before this corrupted Christianity, to a holocaust that Jesus said would take place.  

BEYOND PITCAIRN

9: The Forgotten Prayer

 For better than half a century the prayer was remembered. But in later centuries it would be forgotten.

Christ was nearing the end of His earthly ministry. Only a few days stood between Him and Golgotha. One day He was seated with His disciples on the summit of the Mount of Olives. Spread out before them, across the Valley of Kidron, were the massive battlements and pinnacles of the Temple at Jerusalem. Constructed of massive blocks of white marble, it was surrounded by outer walls, covered colonnades, terraces, stairways and gates.

His disciples, seated around Him, remarked on the immense stones that formed the foundation of the Temple. Josephus, a contemporary Jewish write, of that time, tells us that the temple was made of massive blocks of stone that were forty-two feet in length.

But, at that moment, they were numbed to the silence of utter shock as they heard Him say, "See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Matthew 24:2.

Slowly recovering from their amazement, His disciples pled with Him to tell them when this would happen, and to explain the rest of world history down to the end of time. "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" Matthew 24:3.

The reply of Jesus fills Chapter 24 of the book of Matthew. It contains warnings--serious warnings. It has information we need as we face into the future. And it also contains help--precious help--for souls trying to stay close to Jesus in these times that try men's souls.

All through history, crises have come to the people of God. In verses 15 through 20, Jesus describes what to do when the crisis comes and we must flee.

And then in verse 20 He gives us the prayer to keep sending up, in all coming ages till He returns to earth for His own:

"But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Matthew 24:20.

And then, speaking specifically about the final crisis, just before His return, He gives still further counsel in verses 21 and 22.

During His earthly life, Jesus had continually given an example of obedience to the Moral Law of Ten Commandments. And He told His disciples to obey it also.

And then having taught His followers how to live godly lives, He was crucified. At His death the disciples faithfully observed the Bible Sabbath, the Seventh-day Sabbath, and then came back on the first work-day of the week, the first day, to anoint His body. since they had not had time on Friday to do it. (Read Luke 23:50-24:4; Matthew 27:55-28:2; Mark 15:42-16:9.)

And they continued to keep it later during their missionary work (Acts 13:14-16, 40-46; 16:12-15; 17:1-4). They declared that we ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5: 29), and Paul could sincerely say of himself and his fellow believers: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law." Romans 3:31.

And all through those years the prayer that Jesus gave them was sent up by humble believers in the Word of God. As the crisis neared they prayed for help and strength to obey God and keep His Sabbath in spite of what might happen. And over and over again that prayer was answered.

Then came the first great crisis, the very first great crisis that Jesus warned in Matthew 24 was soon to come-the crisis of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. Thirty-five years after it had been predicted, the storm suddenly broke with a fury unimaginable. In the hills of Samaria and in the byways of Galilee where Jesus had walked and talked with His disciples, men by the thousands perished by the sword and engines of war. One by one the Jewish strongholds were reduced to smoking ruins. Even the lake that Jesus once ordered to be still of storms became, during the battle for Taricheae, bloody from the dead and dying.

But all through this time, men and women of God were praying the prayer that Jesus had given them.

The beginning of the end came to Jerusalem in August of A.D. 66. For the next four years Jerusalem was to know no peace as Jew fought Jew or Roman, within and without its walls. But the Christians continued to pray as Jesus had directed them to do.

Then came the day that a Roman regiment was cornered in Jerusalem and massacred, and Cestius Gallus, Roman legate of Syria, marched southward at the head of 30,000 troops. Burning Joppa and subduing Galilee and the coasts, he headed for Jerusalem. The siege of the capital city began, and the moderates within the walls were on the verge of handing the city over to him, when a strange thing happened: The Roman general, Cestius, suddenly retreated from the city, for no reason. This unexplainable withdrawal encouraged the Jews to rush out of the city after them, and to attack the retreating Roman forces so severely that history tells us only the coming of nightfall saved the Romans from annihilation. The Jews captured Cestius' siege engines and killed 5,300 Roman foot soldiers and 380 horsemen. "Running and singing," the Jews returned to their metropolis, ignorant of the terrible ordeal that awaited them before the next three years would be concluded.

Jesus had promised His disciples that they would know when to safely flee. And the promise was fulfilled. Praying the prayer given them thirty-six and a half years before, the children of God pled with Him to protect them and help them to escape, and not to do it on the holy Sabbath day.

When Cestius suddenly retreated, and the Jews sallied forth after him, the Christians knew that the time had come. The entire countryside was empty of warriors; all were engaged in the battle taking place north of Jerusalem. Immediately, every Christian left Judea and fled to Pella, in the land of Perea, east of the Jordan River. In answer to prayer, God had sent help. The flight was not on the Sabbath, and it was made safely. We are told that no Christians perished in the later destruction of Jerusalem. The date: October of A.D. 67. It was the twelfth year of Nero's reign.

And what did the flight save the Christians from? Come, let us see the power of prayer. This is what God spared His people from experiencing:

On May 10, A.D. 70, the shadow of Titus, general of the armies of Rome, fell across the walls of Jerusalem. Son of Vespasian, Emperor of all western civilization, Titus was thirty years old and a seasoned veteran of war. But his legacy was a difficult one: to capture Jerusalem.

When Cestius mysteriously withdrew from it in October of 67, the city was given a little more time. The following year, in July, Vespasian was about to surround it, when Nero committed suicide and Vespasian began a three-month fight to become the next emperor 

But now there was to be no more reprieve. It took Titus' army of 65,000 men 139 days to gain control of the whole city, and during that time every horror took place by Jew and Roman. Every tree within twelve miles of the city was cut down to make crosses to crucify captured Jews upon. But in spite of what was taking place outside the city, a terrible slaughter of Jew by Jew took place within it.

Finally, with the help of battering rams, banks, seventy-five-foot towers, and machines that hurled immense stones, darts, and javelins nearly five hundred yards, the Romans gained possession of the two outer walls.

So many were trying to escape from the harrowing scenes within the doomed capital, that Titus now encircled the city with a five-mile wall, and then went on with the siege.

On August 7, the morning and evening offerings at the Temple were stopped "for want of men to offer it." Titus pled with the Jews to fight with him elsewhere so that he would not have to defile the Temple. In reply, John of Gischala mounted his artillery on the gates of the sacred building and Titus was forced to continue attacking it.

But then fires were started in the Temple gates, and Titus, determined to save the Temple, sent soldiers to put out the fire. But they were attacked by Jews as they tried to quench the flames. The ensuing fight brought the soldiers alongside the Temple. Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived, at that time, tells us what happened next:

"One of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, being hurried on by a certain divine fury and being lifted up, by another soldier, set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were about the holy house on the north side of it. .The fatal day had come, it was the tenth day of the month of Ab, [the same day upon which it was formerly burnt by the King of Babylon.]" Josephus, Wars of the Jews.

 The end had come.

"Titus rushed to the place, followed by his generals and legionaries, and commanded the soldiers to quench the flames. His words were unheeded. In their fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the chambers adjoining the temple. . Titus found it impossible to check the rage of the soldiery; he entered with his officers, and surveyed the interior of the sacred edifice. The splendor filled them with wonder; and as the flames had not yet penetrated to the holy place, he made a last effort to save it, and springing forth, again exhorted the soldiers to stay the progress of the conflagration. The centurion Liberalis endeavored to force obedience with his staff of office; but even respect for the emperor gave way. .to the fierce excitement of battle, and to the insatiable hope of plunder.

"The soldiers saw everything around them radiant with gold, which shone dazzlingly in the wild light of the flames; they supposed that incalculable treasures were laid up in the sanctuary. A soldier, unperceived, thrust a lighted torch between the hinges of the door: the whole building was in flames in an instant. The blinding smoke and fire forced the officers to retreat, and the noble edifice was left to its fate." The Great Controversy, pp. 33-34.

All this happened because the chosen people of God would not obey the Ten Commandments and live godly lives. And so the God of heaven had to separate from them and call those who would hear and come and obey Him. Jerusalem and its Temple were destroyed, just as Christ predicted nearly forty years before, because a nation would not submit their ways to the Word of God.

"It was an appalling spectacle to the Roman, what was it to the Jew? The whole summit of the hill which commanded the city, blazed like a volcano. One after another the buildings fell in, with a tremendous crash, and were swallowed up in the fiery abyss. The roofs of cedar were like sheets of flame; the gilded pinnacles shone like spokes of red light; the gate towers sent up tall columns of flame and smoke. The neighboring hills h were lighted up; and dark groups of people were seen watching in horrible anxiety the progress of the destruction: the walls and heights of the upper city were crowded with faces, some pale with the agony of despair, others scowling unavailing vengeance.

"The shouts of the Roman soldiery as they ran to and fro, and the howlings of the insurgents who were perishing in the flames, mingled with the roaring of the conflagration and the thundering sound of falling timbers. The echoes of the mountains replied or brought back the shrieks of the people  on the heights; all along the walls resounded screams and wailings; men who were expiring with famine rallied their remaining strength to utter a cry of anguish and desolation." The Great Controversy. p. 34.

Josephus tells us that 1,100,000 Jews were killed in this siege and conquest of Jerusalem. And yet not one Christian died in that siege, because the followers of Jesus were praying the prayer He had given them, and all made their escape when Cestius suddenly retreated.

But that prayer of Jesus has yet to meet its climax. We are still living in a terrible world; every day it becomes more terrible. And today we must pray that prayer, that Jesus will  protect us in the days ahead and that we will be enabled to keep His Sabbath, the Bible Sabbath, on the Seventh day of  the weekly cycle. We know from historians and astronomers that this weekly cycle has never changed down through the ages. The Seventh day of the week today, is the same day that Jesus kept as the Bible Sabbath when He was here on earth 2,000 years ago.

And that prayer is for us today. For centuries men have forgotten it. The Church of Rome has been quite successful in blotting out the observance of the Seventh-day Sabbath. And yet God has not changed, and His Sabbath has not changed.

In Genesis 2:1-3 God gave the Seventh-day Sabbath to mankind when He first created our world. Indeed, we are to keep it in honor of His creative power. In Exodus 20:8-11, He included it as the fourth of the Ten Commandments. But following that time,-never has God declared in Scripture that He has changed the sanctity of the Seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday, the first day of the week. We can not obey God's Sabbath requirement by keeping a different day than the one He specified in His Word.

Although many have forgotten that prayer that Jesus gave us in Matthew 24:20, it is time for men and women to come back to it. Their own eternal safety depends upon it.

Will you and I--just now--begin praying that prayer again?

"And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?

"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars. .For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers [various], places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. I

"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall I kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets I shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall I abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. .

"But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day. For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. .

"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds." Matthew 24:3-31.

It is clear that Jesus was predicting the future all the way down to His Second Advent. We were to keep the Sabbath all through those long ages. And we are to keep it today.

Men are embarrassed because of the real reason that the Protestant churches keep the first day of the week holy. The real reason is because Constantine, in counsel with the church leaders at Rome, tried to change the Sabbath to Sunday in A.D. 321. But what Constantine and apostate church leaders attempted in that Sunday law is a little late: It came 290 years after the death of Christ on Calvary , and 226 years after the last book in the Bible was finished.

Sunday sacredness is simply not in the Bible-anywhere. It does no good to say that we know that the Sabbath has been changed to Sunday because the disciples ate a meal that day. And it does no good to say that we should keep Sunday instead of the Bible Sabbath "in honor of the resurrection of Jesus." The truth is that we are to do what God tells us in the Bible to do, not what we imagine we would like to do. Yes, indeed, please God, but don't do it at the cost of giving your approval to a man-made change in the Ten Commandments!

We want the living fire of the Holy Spirit kindled and burning within our hearts, in hearts dedicated to serving and obeying Him in every way.

Otherwise we may find a fire kindled in our gates that will destroy us. 

BEYOND PITCAIRN

 10: Fire in the Gates

It was late fall of 589 B.C., and Nebuchadnezzar left the Golden Metropolis, the greatest city of his time, to settle an account with a rebellious king. And, all unknowingly, to fulfil a prophecy of God.  

Down the Processional Way of Marduk, through the Ishtar Gate, and out of Babylon, first north and then west, this ruler of kings marched with his soldiers. Behind them lay the fabled riches of the capital of Neo-Babylonia, with its Hanging Gardens, Temple Tower, palaces, estates and pleasure groves.

Ahead of him lay Jerusalem and a people who had defied him; a people who had also refused to obey the God of heaven. But let us go back still earlier, to an amazing prediction given by the King above all kings. We find it recorded in Jeremiah 17:

"Thus said the lord unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem. And say unto them:

"Hear ye the word of the lord, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:

"Thus saith the lord; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.

"But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.

"And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of is city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work therein: "Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain forever.

"And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south. .

"But if ye will not hearken unto Me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." Jeremiah 17:19-27.

When Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, made a secret pact with Psamtik II, Pharaoh of Egypt, his doom was sealed. Learning of it, Nebuchadnezzar moved quickly. Devastating the land as he went, he arrived at the walls of Jerusalem in January of 588 B.C. The siege, beginning on the 15th of the month, continued for thirty months. The wall was broken through on July 19, 586 B.C. when the city was taken and looted.

 And then a fire was set by the Babylonians in the gates that went like an inferno through the desolated metropolis, and utterly destroyed it. That which God had predicted in 608 B.C. had finally taken place. When a people knowingly refuse to obey God, they are headed for trouble. Israel had refused to keep the Law of God and observe His holy Sabbath. And so the fire came and swept everything away.

 "Now In the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem. And burned the house of the Lord, and the king's house; and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire. And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about." Jeremiah 5 12-14.

The prophecy was given and the prophecy was fulfilled. But the Bible tells us more:

"Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord.

And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord, which He had hallowed in Jerusalem.

"And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling place.

"But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.

"Therefore He brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: He gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.

"And they burned the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia;

"To fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years." 2 Chronicles 36:11-21.

For hundreds of years the people of God had refused to keep His Sabbaths. Now the land was to lie desolate for seventy years because of their refusal.

When God speaks, we can do no better thing than to obey. God has given you and me, and everyone else in this world, the Seventh-day Sabbath as a day to come apart and rest and worship Him.

He gave us this holy day at the Creation of this world when He had finished making all things.