The European Union in Prophecy The EU in Prophecy I | Page 355

The European Union in Prophecy
in favor of a union based upon common points of doctrine. To secure such a union, the
discussion of subjects upon which all were not agreed-however important they might
be from a Bible standpoint--must necessarily be waived.
Charles Beecher, in a sermon in the year 1846, declared that the ministry of "the
evangelical Protestant denominations" is "not only formed all the way up under a
tremendous pressure of merely human fear, but they live, and move, and breathe in
a state of things radically corrupt, and appealing every hour to every baser element
of their nature to hush up the truth, and bow the knee to the power of apostasy. Was
not this the way things went with Rome? Are we not living her life over again? And
what do we see just ahead? Another general council! A world's convention! Evangelical
alliance, and universal creed!"--Sermon on "The Bible a Sufficient Creed," delivered
at Fort Wayne, Indiana, Feb. 22, 1846. When this shall be gained, then, in the effort
to secure complete uniformity, it will be only a step to the resort to force. 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 beast with two horns "causeth [commands] all, both small and great, rich
and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the
beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13:16, 17. The third angel's warning is:
"If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or
in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God." "The beast"
mentioned in this message, whose worship is enforced by the two-horned beast, is the
first, or leopardlike beast of Revelation 13--the papacy. The "image to the beast"
represents that form of apostate Protestantism which will be developed when the
Protestant churches shall seek the aid of the civil power for the enforcement of their
dogmas. The "mark of the beast" still remains to be defined.
After the warning against the worship of the beast and his image the prophecy
declares: "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."
Since those who keep God's commandments are thus placed in contrast with those
that worship the beast and his image and receive his mark, it follows that the keeping
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