Persecution by Protestants and Catholics

Mon Jul 5 06:32:07 PDT 2004

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Ellen G. White Estate, Devotional for July 5
Visit us at http://www.whiteestate.org
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Persecution by Protestants and Catholics

Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to
the end shall be saved. Matt. 10:22. 

There is no necessity for thinking that we cannot endure persecution; we
shall have to go through terrible times. 

The persecutions of Protestants by Romanism, by which the religion of
Jesus Christ was almost annihilated, will be more than rivaled when
Protestantism and popery are combined. 

The commandment-keeping people of God erelong will be placed in a most
trying position; but all those who have walked in the light, and
diffused the light, will realize that God interposes in their behalf.
When everything looks most forbidding, then the Lord will reveal His
power to His faithful ones. When the nation for which God has worked in
such a marvelous manner, and over which He has spread the shield of
Omnipotence, abandons Protestant principles, and through its legislature
gives countenance and support to Romanism in limiting religious liberty,
then God will work in His own power for His people that are true. The
tyranny of Rome will be exercised, but Christ is our refuge. 

When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points
of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the state to
enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant
America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the
infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result. 

The Scriptures teach that popery is to regain its lost supremacy, and
that the fires of persecution will be rekindled through the time-serving
concessions of the so-called Protestant world. In this time of peril we
can stand only as we have the truth and the power of God. . . . The
prospect of being brought into personal danger and distress, need not
cause despondency, but should quicken the vigor and hopes of God's
people; for the time of their peril is the season for God to grant them
clearer manifestations of his power.

>From Maranatha - Page 194