August 7, 2024 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Ted N.C. Wilson, President, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
Greetings, friends. Today, I would like to take a moment in gratefulness to the Lord for the religious freedom that many of us experience today. While there are some countries where people are not free to follow their own consciences, many other countries, including the United States, still offer religious freedom for all.
However, as history reveals, religious freedom is a relatively new concept. For centuries, Church and State were united, with the State often being dominated by the Church.
As we have been reading through that marvelous book, The Great Controversy, we have seen how persecution comes when the State becomes an instrument to enforce the Church’s teachings and dogmas. This was most clearly portrayed during what has aptly been called “The Dark Ages,” when, for more than 1,000 years the Roman Catholic Church had great power to enforce its dogmas.
To gain more adherents during its early years, the Roman Church adapted several pagan practices, including the worship of images, and sun worship. As the Church continued growing, it worked to establish “the venerable day of the Sun”—Sunday—as the “Lord’s Day,” attempting to replace the seventh-day Sabbath of the Bible.
We read in The Great Controversy that “Royal edicts, general councils, and church ordinances sustained by secular power were the steps by which the pagan festival attained its position of honor in the Christian world” (p. 574).
The Roman emperor Constantine, a nominal convert to Christianity, introduced the first public measure enforcing Sunday observance in 321 A.D. This law required everyone to rest on “the venerable day of the sun,” but allowed farmers in the countryside to work, if necessary.
As time rolled on, however, and the papacy became more firmly established, the work of exalting Sunday continued until all were commanded to rest on the Church’s appointed “holy day.”
The Roman Catholic Church, then, as now, saw this transfer of God’s holy day from the seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday as a mark of its authority.
In explaining the Church’s power to make this marked change, the historian Eusebius who was a Catholic Bishop and special friend to the Emperor Constantine, stated, “All things, whatever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s Day” (The Great Controversy, p. 574).
Centuries later, a papal council plainly declared: “Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord’s Day” (The Great Controversy, p. 577).
Another unbiblical practice instituted by the Roman Church was requiring people to confess their sins to a priest for pardon, rather than to God alone. This practice led to several negative consequences.
“The church’s claim to the right to pardon leads the Romanist to feel at liberty to sin;” writes Ellen White, “and the ordinance of confession, without which her pardon is not granted, tends also to give license to evil” (The Great Controversy, p. 567).
Furthermore, she writes, “He who kneels before fallen man, and opens in confession the secret thoughts and imaginations of his heart, is debasing his manhood and degrading every noble instinct of his soul. . . .His thought of God is degraded to the likeness of fallen humanity, for the priest stands as a representative of God” (The Great Controversy, p. 567).
The change from Sabbath to Sunday, and the Sacrament of Confession are just two examples of the many man-made traditions of the Roman Church, which it enforced religiously through the power of the State. Another example is the selling of indulgences, which allowed people to “pre-pay” and receive absolution for whatever sin they planned to commit. The teachings of purgatory and an everlasting hell brought terror to the hearts of many. Capitalizing on this fear, the Church raked in huge sums of money from family members hoping to pay enough to get their deceased loved ones out of misery and into eternal bliss.
Sadly, hardly anyone had access to the sacred Scriptures, so were not aware that these practices were against the Word of God. However, down through history, God has always had a group of people who stood for His truth. In The Great Controversy we have read about these heroes who, down through the centuries, have been faithful to God, no matter the cost. These faithful ones exemplify those Jesus spoke about in Revelation 2:10 when He said, “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (NKJV).
In our next video, we will review what happened to some who, in the past, refused to follow the Church’s commands, and how the Bible foretells the return of the power of a united Church and State.
In the meantime, I encourage you, if you have not already done so, to download your own copy of the amazing book, The Great Controversy, where you can read more about the incredible events that are soon to take place. Get your free copy now, available in multiple languages at thegreatcontroversyproject.org [Insert: thegreatcontroversyproject.org].
Let’s pray together just now.
Father in Heaven, thank you so much. In so many places in this world where we have religious liberty and freedom of conscience. Lord, help us never to take these for granted. Help us to focus upon the use of our minds to make appropriate and helpful decisions about how to follow completely the Word of God and your instructions. Lord, bless those places where they do not have religious freedom. Give them encouragement and help them to focus completely upon you and your power to carry each of us through difficult times. Thank you, Lord, for the biblical understanding of truth. Help us never to be pushed or persuaded by man made inventions, but rather look to the Word of God and adhere completely to the instructions from heaven. Thank you for hearing us in Jesus name. Amen.