Well, here we are in the first week of December 2024 and we know now who the next President of the United States is going to be, and since Donald Trump won the electoral as well as the popular vote by a big margin, evidently the majority of citizens in this country are happy about their choice. And it’s my understanding that Ben Carson, the famed Seventh-day Adventist neurosurgeon, will have a place in the upcoming Trump administration, and it’s believed that he’ll have Trump’s ear if and when a Sunday law is urged. Even Trump’s daughter Ivanka has followed the lead of her Jewish husband and is now keeping the seventh-day Sabbath, so Trump wouldn’t do anything to upset his own family, would he? Friends, if you’re counting on these two things to thwart a coming Sunday law that Bible prophecy says is going to happen when the mark of the beast is enforced, then your hopes are misplaced, because what God says is going to happen, will happen. Bible prophecy has a track record of 100% accuracy from creation till now, and that track record will remain 100% until the end of all things. So let’s not put our confidence in the arm of flesh.

Now, as you may or may not know, there are all kinds of voices today, declaring that within the next four years we’re going to see a Sunday law enacted by Congress, and that it will be the conservative Republican party that will bring it in. But I have to tell you that this is speculation at this point. It could happen, and the chances are pretty good that it might. But to say with any definiteness that this will be the case is to court fanaticism, which is simply going beyond what God says. Has God said the Republican party will be responsible for enforcing a Sunday law? No, He has not. Has He said it will be the Democrat party? No, He has not. And I think I can say with some certainty that it will be neither of the parties that will be solely responsible for it, because the general public themselves will play the larger part by demanding it of their government leaders because of some kind of terrible crisis that will come, hence the title to today’s sermon, “A Demand From the Bottom Up.” And we’ll see that clearly as we go along. But first let’s ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us as we look into these things.

Before we go any further I need to warn you about what some are now saying, especially since this last election, about a coming Sunday law, the close of human probation, the mark of the beast, the latter rain of the Holy Spirit, and things related to the final movements, by putting dates on these things, or by saying that these things are going to happen within a certain time frame, like the next four years. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that anyone who comes with that kind of message has run before he was sent.

Remember what Jesus said to His disciples in the parable of the talents? In Luke 19:13 He said, “Occupy Till I Come.” And what He meant by that was that we should stay busy with our work, or our business, or whatever it is that we do to make money, and if you’re in school, stay in school and in general keep on with life. Was that good counsel for His disciples 2000 years ago? Yes, it was, and it’s still good counsel for us today, because we cannot “say that He (Jesus) will come in one, two, or five years, neither are you (we) to put off His coming by stating that it may not be for ten or twenty years.” (RH March 22, 1892) As each day goes by, we know it’s one day closer than it was yesterday, and prophecy is fast fulfilling, but we still can’t say when Jesus is coming.

Years ago, I never thought things would continue on as long as they have, but they have, and I’m glad I followed this “occupy till I come” counsel 50 years ago rather than sitting in idle expectation because I didn’t think I had time to accomplish anything. Is Jesus coming soon? Yes He is, but we don’t know how soon, soon is. So in the meantime, we must keep busy and improve our living situation and our character for heaven as best we can and spread and support the truth for this time.

As we go through our study today I’m going to refer back to several sermons I’ve presented over the last few months, because we don’t have time to revisit each subject separately. And the first one I’ll refer you to is titled “The Dangers of Time Setting.” I presented that one in January of this year, and you can find it, along with any others I may mention, at gospel-workers.com by scrolling down the sermons page. But please allow me to read you just two short quotations about time setting and then we’ll move on.

This first one is from Manuscript Releases, volume 16, page 178.2 “Our position has been one of waiting and watching, with no time proclamation to intervene between the close of the prophetic periods in 1844 and the time of the Lord’s coming. (None!) We do not know the day nor the hour, or when the definite time is, and yet the prophetic reckoning shows us that Christ is at the door.”

This statement, if you believe Ellen White was the prophet the Bible said would come in these last days, and if you question that I would refer you my June sermon of this year titled “The Spirit of Prophecy.” But if you believe her to be inspired, then it’s crystal clear that there is to be zero time setting between 1844 and the Lord’s coming, period! We can know it’s “at the door,” and surely it is, but we don’t know when Christ will come through the door, do we? So, it’s logical from what we just read that we will not know when the Sunday law will come and what administration will be in power when it does come. So please don’t be fooled by anyone that comes with such a message! We have more important work to do before that time, and we must be about our Father’s business.

Just this past week I heard a well-known minister say that the end of all things is going to be within the next 40 years. What’s wrong with that statement? Well, there are several things wrong with it. Firstly, we’re not to say anything like that based on what we just read, and secondly what if someone believes it may not be for 40 years? That will mean just about everyone over 40 or 50 years of age right now will be dead, so their thinking might be, “what’s the use of preparation? I’ve got plenty of time.” If a person believes that, are they more likely to procrastinate? Absolutely! Would they be more likely to think they have plenty of time than they actually have? Yes! So let’s not be saying these kind of things, else we could get caught by surprise and lead others astray.

Now, it’s not my purpose to upset anyone because of politics, but it’s clear to anyone who’s paying attention, that the majority in the Democrat party support the LGBTQ+ community, that they are for a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body, as they say, which I am in favor of also, but I’m not in favor of choosing what happens to the other body that’s within her since it has a different DNA than her own body. The Democrat party is also for surgical mutilation by turning boys into girls and visa-versa, for allowing men to participate in women’s sports and to share the same locker rooms and bathrooms, and also for sidestepping our immigration laws, which have allowed deadly drugs to enter our country killing thousands every year; causing tens of thousands of children to be sex trafficked; and for open borders that have allowed murderers and terrorists to enter the country unimpeded. So you might want to stay tuned for another terrorist attack in the next little while that may rival 9/11.

When you look at it that way, is it any wonder Donald Trump won by a very wide margin? Because of this, it’s obvious that the majority of the electorate are against all the things I just mentioned, and so is the word of God, by the way. And so, I think we can say that the Republican party has a leg up when it comes to moral issues. However, the Republican party doesn’t get off scot-free either, because both parties are knowingly or unknowingly headed in the same direction when it comes to the enforcement of a national Sunday law; they’re just using different routes to get there, and Satan can use either one, or both at the same time for that matter, to do his bidding and to accomplish his purpose.

Perhaps you voted in this last election, and if you did, that’s nobody’s business but your own. According to the Spirit of Prophecy and the Bible there are arguments to be made on both sides of the voting issue, which I’ll not go into today. If you want to know more, you can listen to the sermon titled “Voting, should We or Shouldn’t We?” I did that one four years ago just before the 2020 election and you can go to my website and listen if you’d like. The only reason I mention it is because again, it’s not going to be one party in particular that is going to be responsible for the enforcement of a Sunday law, but the people that support all parties are going to demand it of their Congressmen and Congresswomen, be they Democrat, Republican or Independent.

Because you see, the Democrat party is for saving our planet through their climate change agenda and their green new deal, and using Sunday closing laws to help accomplish this, and the Republicans lean more toward the union of church and State to bring America back to God by encouraging rest and church attendance on Sunday as well. And as I said, Satan can use either one of these two avenues to accomplish his purpose, and should one fail, he has a backup plan.

And what is Satan’s purpose? A clear answer is given in The Great Controversy, page 582. This is my favorite Spirit of Prophecy book and my favorite statement from that book, because it’s a quote that puts the whole great controversy between Christ and Satan into perspective and tells us exactly what the issue is all about.

The Holy Spirit inspired Ellen White to write the following, “From the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven it has been Satan’s purpose to (do what? We ought to know this) to overthrow the law of God. (That’s what it’s all about) It was to accomplish this that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator, and though he was cast out of heaven he has continued the same warfare upon the earth. To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God’s law, is the object which he has steadfastly pursued. Whether this be accomplished by casting aside the law altogether, or by rejecting one of its precepts, the result will be ultimately the same. He that offends ‘in one point,’ manifests contempt for the whole law; his influence and example are on the side of transgression; he becomes ‘guilty of all.’” James 2:10.”

Now, we already know that the “one point” regarding the law of God that will be called into question in these last days is the seventh-day Sabbath; that’s the “one point” more than any other, that will be the final test for humanity. In a general sense we are not there yet, but all indications are that it’s not far off.

Yes, there are those who teach that the whole law should be cast aside since we are saved by faith without the deeds of the law, but that argument, for the most part, is hard to swallow for many, since most Christians believe nine of the commandments should still be followed and obeyed. And so, they pick on the one they believe has been replaced by the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, and of course there is no Biblical support for that view, but that best fits Satan’s fictitious narrative.

For six thousand years Satan has tried his best to cause the law of God to be disrespected by perverting what the Bible plainly teaches, and because of this, errors have crept into the faith of millions and millions of professed Christians who say they believe the Scriptures.

But based upon the statement we just read, and according to Revelation 14:12, the last great conflict between truth and error will be the final struggle between those who keep all ten of God’s commandments, and those who believe it’s not necessary in order to have salvation. However, as things escalate, they will change their tune in the end and will put forth the idea that Sunday sacredness is a salvational issue after all and will be willing to kill those who keep the seventh day of creation week.

Now, it’s hard for many people to believe that such an outcome could happen because of a day, and you may be thinking that all this seem impossible right now, that all the upset that’s coming will be over one day of the week, “but as the question of enforcing Sunday observance is agitated on a wide scale, the event so long doubted and disbelieved is seen to be approaching, and the third (angel’s) message (of Revelation 14:12) will produce an effect which it could not have had before.” You can read that in The Great Controversy, page 605. Really what it is, is a battle between God’s law and man’s law; between the plain teachings of the Bible as it reads, and that of fable and tradition.

Now just to be clear, one cannot obey the law of God in order to be justified, because what is justification? It’s pardon. “Pardon and justification are one and the same thing.” You can read that in Faith and Works, page 103. And so, we can’t be justified, or made right with God by obedience, that’s clear, or at least it should be. Once we have sinned, obedience can’t save us because it’s after the fact. Obedience makes a difference only after we come to Jesus for forgiveness. That’s why Romans 3:20 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is (what?) the knowledge of sin.”

So, once we are justified, or pardoned, and have a knowledge of what sin is, then comes the next step. After pardon the process of sanctification begins, and what is sanctification? It’s holiness, and holiness is what? Wholeness for God. (DA 555) And how long does sanctification take place? As long as we’re alive, because it’s the work of what? A lifetime. (COL 66) But here’s where many make a fatal mistake. Sanctification is not a lifetime of trying to get rid of sin, that’s what justification does, but it’s a lifetime of holy living through the power of the Holy Spirit in order to form a character like Christ, and that’s what we need in order to be able to walk through the pearly gates someday soon.

Once we receive forgiveness and are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we are then enabled to render acceptable obedience, why? Because it will come from the heart, because we’ve been born again, because we’ve been given a new heart by partaking of the divine nature. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is (what?) a new creature: old things are passed away; (the chains of sinful habits have been broken) behold, all things are become new.” We need to thank God for that experience friends, because without it there’s no hope of eternal life. Justification is our title to heaven, but we also need a fitness, don’t we? And that’s where sanctification, or holy living comes in.

When we have new desires, a new understanding, and a new purpose in life, we will want to please God, we will want to do what He says, we will want to obey rather than thinking we have to or else, and that makes all the difference in the world, and that’s the only kind of obedience that can form a righteous character. And now that we have a vital connection with Christ, we need to keep that connection through prayer, Bible study and loving obedience, and if not, we lose our connection and revert back to our old way of life, it’s just that simple!

And here’s the thing, just as there is a process to come to the place of being justified and sanctified, so there is a process that takes place in order to backslide into our old ways. Notice what it says in Patriarchs and Prophets, page 459, “A long preparatory process, unknown to the world, goes on in the heart before the Christian commits open sin. The mind does not come down at once from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. It takes time to degrade those formed in the image of God to the brutal or the satanic. By beholding we become changed. By the indulgence of impure thoughts man can so educate his mind that sin which he once loathed will become pleasant to him.” And obviously we don’t want that to happen to us, so let’s be aware of how this process works so we can avoid it.

I want you to think for a minute at what great cost and sacrifice the Bible has come down to us. Many people have died that we might hold it in our hands today, and it ought to be very precious to us for that reason alone, but that’s not the only reason, because it also shows us the way of life, and there’s no other book that has ever been written that does that.

People were buried alive, cut in half, burned at the stake, thrown to wild beasts, and cast into prison to starve to death, and many today think they’ve done their duty if they spend five minutes in the morning reading a few lines with their hand on the doorknob. Friends, that’s not good enough! We need to take at least a thoughtful hour each day, and more if you can manage it, especially now when we are nearing the culmination of all things with so much open sin and apostasy all around us. Great sacrifice has been made to put the Bible within the reach of every person today, but how many accept it as the rule and practice in their lives? Not many. Many pay it lip service, but not many who actually commit their lives to obeying what it says and doing what they can to make know to others what a precious friend they have found in Jesus.

I for one have found that precious friend and He has changed my life, and I am so grateful for a knowledge of the truth, because it has given me a peace that truly passes all understanding, and I know there are many others who are looking for that peace and answers in their lives as to why certain things have happened the way they have. And friend, if you are one of those, I encourage you to listen to my personal testimony, because if God could find me out of all the billions of people on this planet, and change me for the better, He can do the same for you. You’ll find that testimony on my sermons page by clicking on any one of the social media platforms listed there at the top of the page. You may have to search around a bit, but it’s there somewhere, and I think you’ll be blessed and encouraged.

It’s a fact today that just about every sin imaginable exists to an alarming extent, and that’s understandable when it comes to the world in general. But the thing is, it exists in the lives of those who claim to be Christians, and many deny the very pillars of the Christian faith. Creation has been replaced by evolution; the fact that marriage is between one man and one woman has become whatever people want it to mean today. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, queers and a host of others with perverted lifestyles, claim to be Christians, even within Adventism I’m sorry to say. And as I mentioned, it’s understandable that the world in general has gone this way, but it’s absolutely shocking that the church of Christ could fall for such lies when the Bible is so plain on these issues. But such are the deceptions of our great adversary.

One of the reasons this has happened is because many Christians consider it weakness to place implicit confidence in the Bible and spiritualize much of it away, and because they think their own wisdom is superior to what holy men of old were inspired to write by the dictates of the Holy Spirit. If we really want to know what the result of abandoning the plain words of the Bible, and what abandoning God’s law is like, we don’t have to guess, because it’s already been tried. It happened in France in 1793 when the Bible was banned, and atheism became the controlling power. You can read all about it in The Great Controversy beginning on page 265.

You see, when the standard of righteousness set forth in the Bible is set aside or ignored, the way is wide open for Satan to establish his power. Wherever the Bible is rejected, whether by a nation or by an individual, sin no longer appears sinful, and people become unfit to govern themselves and a lawless immoral state of society is the result. And isn’t that what we see going on in the world today? These kinds of things called down God’s judgments in the past, and do you think the present generation is going to escape when they’re doing the same thing? Obviously not.

Many people don’t understand this, but when God’s law is set aside, human laws will also be set aside, because man’s laws in a civil society are based upon what? God’s law. And whenever it’s set aside, it brings in a state of things that are little anticipated, and what happened in France is a perfect example of this. It only took 3 1/2 years for the people of France to find out they made a terrible mistake. And you know, France never has completely recovered from it, because it’s still a very promiscuous society that was on full display during the opening ceremony of the Olympics when they showed drag queens and queers and nearly nude dancers lining a long table in mockery of “The Last Supper.”

The problems that occurred in France back in the day were the result of rejecting the Bible that was given to the common people through the Protestant reformation, but instead of cherishing it and studying it and obeying it, the people of France choose the spiritual darkness that prevailed under the supremacy of the papacy, and they suffered the inevitable result of Rome’s suppression of the Scriptures.

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “knowledge is power,” and that’s especially true of the Scriptures, and Satan and the papacy understand this, and by withholding the Bible as they have done in the past, or by misinterpreting it as they do today, people are misled as to God’s requirements, and the result is ultimately the same, immorality and persecution; these two things always go together, and unfortunately this is going to be experienced once again on a world wide scale before the Lord comes and puts a stop to it.

Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his control by withholding the Bible as he has done in the past, he resorts to other means to accomplish the same purpose. How does he do it? By destroying faith in the Bible itself. Many people today believe that God’s word is just a bunch of fairytales, or a crutch for weak minded people that can’t accept that this life is all there is. And so, if there’s not going to be any accountability for sins committed, if there isn’t going to be a judgment of any kind, why not just live to please yourself and grab all the gusto you can? And by and large that’s what people are doing today.

We started out by reading a quote from The Great Controversy that states plainly what the issue is in these last days. Satan’s purpose is to overthrow the law of God, plain and simple! And the same rebellion he started in heaven, he carries on down here. Remember James 2:10, those who offend in one point, are guilty of all. And what is that “one point” that is especially controverted if not the seventh-day Sabbath? There’s no opposition to any of the other nine commandments in the Christian world, is there? No! But the devil has been very successful in replacing God’s holy Sabbath day by introducing a common working day in its place. Think about it! If you were the devil and wanted to cause people to sin and lose salvation, what commandment would you choose to cause people to forget? Wouldn’t it be the one God said to remember? And don’t forget this, Satan said he would become like the most high, and what better way to do it than to have people look to him and the day he has set aside rather than to the One to whom all authority and worship belongs.

The Sabbath is not looked upon as being a moral issue in the minds of most Christians today, but it’s part of the moral law of ten commandments just the same, and no man-made law can change that. Rather than the Sabbath verses Sunday being simply about two days, it’s really about two loyalties. Are we going to be loyal to a God who gave His life for us and has said, “if you love Me keep My commandments,” or are we going to knuckle under to a man-made law in an effort to save our own skin in order avoid the death penalty mentioned in Revelation 13:15?

“It’s just another day,” people say, “and one day of the week is just as good as another to come apart and rest from our daily labor and go to church. Why make such a big deal about a day? Jesus rose from the grave on the first day of the week, and isn’t that a more important day than some old Jewish Sabbath?” But the seventh-day Sabbath is not just another day, and it’s not the Jewish Sabbath, because it was instituted 2500 years before there was a Jewish nation and blessed and set apart on the seventh day of creation week for all of mankind for all time.

When you think about it, the seventh-day Sabbath is a test command, much like it was for Adam and Eve to not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As far as we know, there was nothing wrong with the fruit from that tree, but what was wrong was to listen to the serpent and disobey God. Are we going to be obedient to what God has established or are we going to believe a commandment of men. Are we going to believe what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, 18 when He said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (And to fulfill doesn’t mean do away with. Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law to give us an example of how it’s done, and not that His obedience is a license for us to ignore it) For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Why can’t people just accept that! Last I checked, heaven and earth have not yet past away, therefore the law is still fully intact.

You see, the same people who tell us we are idolizing the seventh-day Sabbath, are the very ones who do the same thing by idolizing Sunday and will soon tell us that the desecration of their so-called “Christian sabbath” is what’s ruining the morals of society and that the enforcement of Sunday observance would greatly improve things. That’s where this is all headed and is even now being urged by many government and religious leaders as a way to unify the country. But the unity they’re working toward is not the kind of unity God would have us unit with.

See if you remember this statement, “We have a testing message to give, and I am instructed to say to our people, ‘Unify, unify.’ But we are not to unify with those who are departing from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” Selected Messages, volume 3, page 412.

Remember when 9/11 occurred? We had great unity in this country for a little while, didn’t we? And when whatever crisis it is that Satan will cause to bring in a Sunday law, it will produce great unity, but because it will be connected with a law that is in opposition to God’s law, we won’t be able to unify with the rest of the country, and therefore we will be looked upon as the cause of the problem. And so, you see how this works.

Much has been said about the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” and if you don’t know what that’s all about you can go to my Website and listen to the sermon I presented in November of 2023, and also the one about “The Rise of Christian Nationalism” just this past April. And here’s what’s so tricky about “Project 2025”; if you take the time to do a little research into these things, as a Christian you would find that you could agree with about 99% of it, but it’s that 1% that makes it impossible for us to unify with that project.

As we already know, the effort to enforce Sunday as a sacred day of worship has already been tried back in the late 1800s with the Blair Amendment, which was defeated in Congress, but this next time, unfortunately, it’s going to succeed, and it’s going to succeed right here in America, because this is where the doctrine of the true Sabbath has been most widely preached. And what we’ve been hearing for some time now is that this urge to promote Sunday is being combined with what many people consider a good way to help save the planet by cutting carbon emissions and closing factories and airports and businesses at least one day a week. And of course, we know what day of the week that will be. And again, which party is it that’s promoting a global climate crisis? It’s the Democrat party. But the Democrat party will be out of power when January 20^th rolls around, so if that’s the party that’s going to bring in a Sunday law, they better hurry up about it, but it looks like time is not on their side this time around. So, will it be the Republicans and the Trump administration that brings about a Sunday law through a union of church and state since they are not big proponents of the climate change agenda? We’ll be coming back to that in a few minutes.

But friends, just because what many people consider to be a good thing, like helping the environment recover, like the Democrats want, or improving the morals of society like the Republicans want, is no proof that Sunday is now the Christian Sabbath. The fact that Sunday sacredness is connected with a work that might be good in itself, is not a good argument in favor of the error. Someone might sprinkle a little arsenic on a loaf of bread they’re baking and try to pass it off as wholesome food, but it makes it dangerous, doesn’t it? That’s the way it is when truth and error are mingled together. If it looks like bread and smells like bread, that little pinch of poison is more likely to be eaten unawares.

And so, the leaders of this Sunday movement that is being pushed once again today and will be more so in the very near future, might advocate reforms that may be good in themselves, and even principles that are in harmony with the Bible, but if there’s something in it that is contrary to God’s law, we can’t accept it , we just can’t.

Another one of Satan’s objects in these last days is to instigate the nations to war against one another, that’s what Jesus said would happen in Matthew 24. This is one of the ways Satan can divert the minds of the people from the work of preparing their characters for heaven. We have wars going on between Russia and Ukraine with Russia being supported by Noth Korea, and then there’s war between Israel and the Palestinians with Iran involved in the mix, whose supported by China, and over half a million people have been killed just this past year, many of which have been women and children, and people’s minds are all caught up with that, and with the possibility of World War III and the devastation nuclear war would bring.

And yes, Satan’s also working through climate change to keep peoples’ minds occupied with that, and with the dismantling of the U.S. Constitution and free speech and religious liberty and so forth, so people will be focused on these types of things rather than character preparation and the spreading of the gospel. And you know what? God is allowing it. Why would He do that? It’s because Christians and non-Christians alike have shown contempt for His law; and God is doing just what He said He do by gradually withdrawing the Holy Spirit from the earth, and by so doing He removes His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same. But there is some good news in all this, because there will be a minority who will see in all these calamities that it’s God’s purpose to wake people up, so they’ll realize that their only hope is in Him.

You see, as Christians, we don’t have to be worried about all these things, because when Jesus warned about wars and rumors of wars, He also said to His followers, “see that you be not troubled.” Rather than being troubled He said, “when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.”

Notice what it says in The Great Controversy, page 589, “While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he (Satan) will bring disease and disaster, until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations (or large fires), in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. (You see dear friends, here ‘s the real cause of climate change. It’s not because people are polluting the air with their cars and trucks and factories and airplanes and oil drilling and so forth, because in Genisis 1:28 God gave mankind dominion over the earth and to subdue it. Look up the word “subdue,” it means to be sovereign over, or to have unrestricted access to, or to have absolute control over. In other words, man is to have unrestricted access over all natural resources. To take care of it, yes, but to dominate and have unlimited access to the planet for our benefit. God is permitting Satan to do all these things to the weather in an effort to get our attention, because the end of all things is at hand, and He wants to save us) These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous.” (And they are! Do hurricanes Helene and Milton ring a bell?)

And notice what Satan will do when these visitations become more and more frequent and disastrous; he will persuade people that those who serve God are causing these evils when they themselves are at fault. Remember what Elijah said to King Ahab when the king accused him of causing trouble? Elijah said, “I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken (what?) the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim.” 1 Kings 18:18. By the way, Baal worshippers worshipped the S-U-N, but we are to worship the S-O-N on His holy day. Some things just never change. And so, history is going to be repeated, because Satan will do the same thing in the end, and those who are really responsible will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God’s commandments is a perpetual reproof, because they can’t refute it from the Bible.

The Great Controversy continues on page 590, “It will be declared that men are offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath; that this sin (which is no sin at all) has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced; and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity.”

Now, there may be some who are listening to me right now who are saying, that’s never going to happen; Sunday is never going to be enforced by civil law and people killed who refuse to obey. For those of you who may think this way, I’m telling you ahead of time, so when it happens, and it surely will, because Jesus said the Scriptures cannot be broken (John 10:35), you will remember what I said, and then hopefully you will know what you need to do about it if eternal life is of interest to you.

When these things begin to happen, we better understand what Paul wrote in Romans 13:1-5 about being subject to the higher powers of government, because it will be used against us by religious leaders who will declare that the laws of the land should be obeyed as the law of God. You see, the government has every right to enact laws that have to do with the last six of the ten commandments, because they deal with our duty and behavior toward one another, but government has no right to enact laws that deal with the first four, of which the Sabbath is a part, because they deal with our duty to God, and to Him alone. Under these circumstances we must say to the powers that be, the same thing Peter and the apostles said to both government officials and the apostate religious leaders of their day, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29)

The Great Controversy page 591 continues, “Satan’s policy in this final conflict with God’s people is the same that he employed in the opening of the great controversy in heaven. He professed to be seeking to promote the stability of the divine government, while secretly bending every effort to secure its overthrow. (Remember what we’re told about the papacy working silently behind the scenes until she’s ready to strike? (GC 581) It’s getting very close to that time, and the papacy will be working through apostate Protestantism, which has accepted her claim of Sunday sacredness) And the very work which he (Satan) was thus endeavoring to accomplish he charged upon the loyal angels. The same policy of deception has marked the history of the Roman Church. It has professed to act as the vicegerent of Heaven, while seeking to exalt itself above God and to change His law. Under the rule of Rome, those who suffered death for their fidelity to the gospel were denounced as evildoers; they were declared to be in league with Satan; and every possible means was employed to cover them with reproach, to cause them to appear in the eyes of the people and even to themselves as the vilest of criminals. (Are you ready for these kinds of accusations to be leveled at you, my friends? To be unpatriotic, to be traders, and accused as the vilest of criminals? That’s what the papacy has done in the past, and the prophet says) So it will be now. While Satan seeks to destroy those who honor God’s law, he will cause them to be accused as lawbreakers, as men who are dishonoring God and bringing judgments upon the world. . . . Those who honor the Bible Sabbath will be denounced as enemies of law and order, as breaking down the moral restraints of society, causing anarchy and corruption, and calling down the judgments of God upon the earth. Their conscientious scruples will be pronounced obstinacy, stubbornness, and contempt of authority. They will be accused of disaffection toward the government. Ministers who deny the obligation of the divine law will present from the pulpit the duty of yielding obedience to the civil authorities as ordained of God. (Romans 13) In legislative halls and courts of justice, commandment keepers will be misrepresented and condemned. A false coloring will be given to their words; the worst construction will be put upon their motives.

“As the Protestant churches reject the clear, Scriptural arguments in defense of God’s law, they will long to silence those whose faith they cannot overthrow by the Bible. Though they blind their own eyes to the fact, they are now adopting a course which will lead to the persecution of those who conscientiously refuse to do what the rest of the Christian world are doing, and acknowledge the claims of the papal sabbath.”

If you want to have some proof that the papacy is the responsible party for changing the Sabbath to Sunday, listen to the sermon titled “Identifying Antichrist” back in June of 2021.

The quote goes on, “The dignitaries of church and state will unite (here we see the union of church and state that conservative Republicans are beginning to push for. The word “dignitaries” means the very highest-ranking leaders of church and state) “The dignitaries of church and state will unite to bribe, persuade, or compel all classes to honor the Sunday. (But why? Why will they do this? We’ll find out as we keep reading) The lack of divine authority will be supplied by oppressive enactments. Political corruption is destroying love of justice and regard for truth; and even in free America, (Are you listening? Pay close attention to this next sentence, because it tells us how and why the Sunday law will be implemented) even in free America, rulers and legislators, in order to secure public favor (to secure what?), public favor, will yield to the popular demand (will yield to what? the popular demand of who? The public) for a law enforcing Sunday observance. Liberty of conscience, which has cost so great a sacrifice, will no longer be respected. In the soon-coming conflict we shall see exemplified the prophet’s words: ‘The dragon was wroth with the woman (the church), and went to make war with the remnant of her seed (or the few who remain faithful to the truth when the rest of the church bows to the Sunday sabbath), and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ Revelation 12:17.” And Revelation 19:10 tells us plainly that “the testimony of Jesus Christ” is “the spirit of prophecy.” In other words, the prophetic gift would live in God’s commandment keeping church once again in these last days and would help God’s people to navigate through all the winds of doctrine that will be blowing just before Jesus comes. Again, I encourage you to listen to the sermon titled “The Spirit of Prophecy.”

Now listen carefully, because here’s the punchline. The Sabbath/Sunday controversy will be agitated throughout the whole world and not just here in the United States. It starts here, but the whole world will be involved. And so, it’s likely that dignitaries of church and state in other nations will also chime in. Religious leaders everywhere will argue that all the disasters coming upon the earth are supernatural, and they will falsely conclude that they are God’s judgment for profaning Sunday, and the arguments of these “dignitaries” will persuade their people, who will then turn to their elected representatives and demand Sunday legislation.  In other words, in the final analysis a Sunday law will be more of a “bottom-up” event and not just a “top-down” event. And since this is the case, it will not matter so much who is President when these final events occur, because it will be the public that will demand it, and the legislator and rulers, in order to “secure public favor,” which means they will do what the public wants want to secure their position in government so they can be reelected next term and stay in power.

So don’t be counting on a particular political party to bring in a Sunday law, because it’s the people from all persuasions and parties who will demand it of their legislators, and besides, a lot of things could happen between now and January 20^th when a new administration takes over. We might have a crisis of sufficient magnitude while Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are still in power that will trigger Sunday legislation, or another assassination attempt on President Trump’s life could be successful next time, and who knows what JD Vance might do if he takes over. Nothing would surprise me at this point. And so, we need to be careful about who, what, where, and when it’s all going to happen, because we only know, through inspiration, the general outline of events and not the details. Our job between now and then is clear, Jesus said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.”

Evangelism, page 219 says, “In the days of the apostles the message that they bore wrought a real work, turning souls from idols to serve the living God. The work to be done today is just as real, and the truth is just as much truth; only we are to give the message with as much more earnestness as the coming of the Lord is nearer. The message for this time is positive, simple, and of the deepest importance. We must act like men and women who believe it. (Now listen) Waiting, watching, working, praying, warning the world—this is our work.”

So dear friends, let politicians do what they do, and let the apostate religious leaders do what they do; we have been given the mandate of “Waiting, watching, working, praying, (and) warning the world” that the end of all things is at hand.

So, I want to drill down on this one more time before we close. We can’t blame a Sunday law solely upon Trump or Biden or whatever administration is in power when these things happen, because the people themselves will want it so that the crisis they believe seventh-day Sabbath keepers have caused, can come to an end. If they can just get rid of us, all the disasters and calamities and wars will be stopped and all will be peace and harmony, and the temporal prosperity the world used to enjoy will be restored once again.

Notice what The Great Controversy, page 588 says will happen at this time. “Papists, Protestants, and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium.”

It’s coming friends; are you willing to lose everything over a day, even your life, if need be, in order to be one of the saints that are found to be keeping the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus when He comes? The great controversy is nearing its end, it surely is, and the signs are screaming at us today to get ready, get ready, get ready. Will these things occur under the Trump administration following the agenda of Project 2025 within the next four years? Possibly, very possibly, but we’ll have to wait and see.

And please, please, please; when I say we’ll have to wait and see, don’t think I’m telling you that we have plenty of time to prepare for what’s coming, because we don’t! We’ve been told that we don’t have a moment to lose when it comes to our readiness for the events that are about to break upon the world. Hebrews 4:7 tells us the day of salvation is when? Today, today! Written in the context of the true seventh-day Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God in these last days, the apostle Paul says, “To day if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”

I’ll leave you with this last quote from The Great Controversy, page 601, and then we’ll have prayer. “We are living in the most solemn period of this world’s history. (These words were first penned in 1851, and what would she say today?) The destiny of earth’s teeming multitudes is about to be decided. Our own future well-being and also the salvation of other souls depend upon the course which we now pursue. We need to be guided by the Spirit of truth. Every follower of Christ should earnestly inquire: ‘Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’ We need to humble ourselves before the Lord, with fasting and prayer, and to meditate much upon His word, especially upon the scenes of the judgment. We should now seek a deep and living experience in the things of God. We have not a moment to lose. Events of vital importance are taking place around us; we are on Satan’s enchanted ground. Sleep not, sentinels of God; the foe is lurking near, ready at any moment, should you become lax and drowsy, to spring upon you and make you his prey.”

A Demand From the Bottom Up