For the first two reasons one might want to share the message of Revelation 13, please see the previous blog.

3) A third reason to share this truth at the right time and in the right way is that it is liberating to many people. The truth about the Papacy as a system can bring tremendous freedom to people who have assumed the Papacy was God’s vicar on earth and thus followed every teaching in detail, even those that are disturbing and questionable on the very face of it. Think of the Scala Santa, the holy stairs in Rome. The faithful ascend the stairs on their knees saying an Our Father on every step. Why? Because, as the plaque on the wall says in several languages: “The following indulgences may be received, in accord with the usual conditions: PLENARY INDULGENCE– on all Fridays of Lent, and once more each year on an occasion of one’s choice. PARTIAL INDULGENCE– on all other days of the year, as long as one is sincerely repentant of one’s sins.” This is the very thing that Martin Luther and so many others sought to overthrow 500 years ago. For some this leads to a slavery of righteousness by works. To others it paves the way for  a “do whatever you like” permissiveness. What kind of monstrous picture of God requires sinners to evaluate their salvation by the depth of the callouses on their knees? And these specific indulgences were ordered by the direct authority of various popes.
    I received a taste of the power of indulgences for myself when I was young. After a visit to the Scala Santa, I went to Vatican Square to hear the Easter address of Pope Paul VI on April 4, 1969. To my surprise I heard him say in English (the message was repeated in several languages) that all those present would receive a complete indulgence for all sins past, present and future. So I guess in some sense I’m covered. While that was a whole lot easier than climbing the Scala Santa on my knees, I have to admit that it involved no heart commitment on my part. So if I had taken it as seriously as some in the square probably did, it would likely have led me to a life of carelessness and self-indulgence. Salvation simply by being in the right place at the right time.
    To me it is shocking that in the name of Christ a system that governs the actions of a billion people reduces the gift of the cross to something that can be earned by actions or money. Yet the core teachings of the system they adhere to are seriously flawed. The public face of Catholicism has softened since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, but it has never changed its fundamental teachings on salvation. Notice the following Papal actions in the last fifteen years: 1) expansion of the ways in which believers can earn indulgences, 2) elaboration on the punishments to be meted out to apostates and heretics (those words could well include you and me), 3) exhortation to believers to make sure that civil legislation respects the duty to keep Sunday, and 4) reaffirmation that priests have the power to forgive sin and to re-create their Creator in the mass. This doesn’t sound all that different from the church of the Middle Ages. I’m sure that the people ascending the Scala Santa include some of the nicest and kindest people on earth. But don’t nice and kind Catholics deserve to experience the freedom of the gospel as much as anyone else?
    It remains official teaching that salvation comes only through the Catholic Church and believers can only receive salvation by participating in the sacraments of the church. Those who refuse these sacraments will suffer eternal damnation, no exceptions. It can be such a relief to Catholics to learn for the first time that Jesus died for them personally, that they can go directly to Him without a human intermediary, that they don’t have to earn the love of the Father. As Jesus Himself said, “I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you.” (John 16:26-27)  If people are being freed by a message, we cannot let embarrassment prevent us from this sacred work. Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that Vatican II did not make any changes to the historic Catholic doctrine concerning salvation. Ironically, a sizable and growing segment of Catholics now believes that the end-time antichrist will arise from within the Catholic Church, probably a pope.

4) Finally, a good reason to share even unpleasant truth is the fact that Jesus is coming. Oddly enough, since September 11, 2001 many Seventh-day Adventists have lost a sense of the nearness of Christ’s coming. They are losing confidence in prophecy at exactly the time when prophetic events seem closer to fulfillment than ever before. If you want detail on this read my book Armageddon at the Door for a detailed picture of the intersection between Bible prophecy and the kind of events that went down in the context of September 11. What an irony. Losing confidence in prophecy at the very time end-time like events are happening. More and more Adventists today see prophecy as antagonistic rather than liberating. They reason that people have enough fear in their lives already. Why burden them with more by studying scary prophetic beasts?
    The best answer I can think of is this: Being prepared for the end of time is better than not being prepared. Jesus is coming back whether we are calm or nervous. The heart of the end-time gospel is Revelation 14, and it includes a warning against counterfeits. Adventists must present Jesus clearly. That is the heart of our mission. And many people won’t see Jesus clearly or be ready for His return unless the truth about counterfeit forms of salvation and other real issues of the end-time are presented in detail. So that is a fourth reason for sharing this message even though it might not be popular to do so.

The early church faced an interesting situation in Acts 15. Leadership was pressured to choose between structural unity and pragmatic diversity. Structural unity could easily have been achieved had the church remained a sect within Judaism. All Gentile converts would have had to become Jews in order to receive Jesus. The end result would have been a unified church that would have had little impact on the massive Gentile world.

There were many in the church who wanted to go in that direction. Representatives of that group went to Antioch and insisted that salvation was dependant on circumcision according to the laws of Moses (Acts 15:1-2). At the Jerusalem Conference, as recorded in Acts 15, Christian Pharisees insisted not only on circumcision but entire adherence to the law of Moses (Acts 15:5). In essence, Gentile Christians were to be treated the same as Jewish proselytes. Peter, Paul and Barnabas argued against this position on the grounds of God’s acceptance of Gentiles through the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:8), the role of grace in salvation (Acts 15:11), and the abundant evidence that God was working miracles in response to the Gentile mission (Acts 15:12).

James, the half-brother of Jesus, added to these arguments the sense that the Gentile mission was a fulfillment of prophecy (Acts 15:13-18). He argued that Amos 9:11-12 predicted a time when a descendant of David would create circumstances in which large numbers of Gentiles would seek the Lord. If that prophecy was being fulfilled in the mission of Paul and Barnabas, then the church should put no unnecessary barriers in the way of Gentiles receiving Jesus: “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19). The strictures of Acts 15:20-21 were designed to make fellowship possible between Jewish and Gentile Christians. So unity in diversity was preserved.

In other words, the fundamental issue addressed at the council described in Acts 15 was less theological than a matter of community identity. Many feel this situation has a parallel in the outpouring of Muslim interest in Jesus today. They feel that the church of our day needs to make accommodations similar to those of Acts 15 in relation to this new work of God.

Perhaps we could apply the situation of Acts 15 to the current situation in the following way. The issue of Acts 15 was: Does a Gentile have to become a Jew in order to become a Christian? The early church leaders answered, “No.” In a Seventh-day Adventist context the issue today could be expressed: Does a Muslim have to become a “Christian” in order to become a Seventh-day Adventist? When becoming a “Christian” in the Islamic world includes eating pork, drinking alcohol, dressing immodestly, and having a lax attitude toward obedience, what does becoming a “Christian” have to do with Adventist faith?

Obviously, the word “Christian” can mean different things to different people. To some the word “Christian” means “culturally Western” more than a spiritual concept. To Muslims the word has political connotations more than religious ones. A Christian is one who opposes Muslim faith with smart bombs, Playboy magazines, and economic sanctions. Ideally, the word “Christian” means one who is a genuine follower of Jesus, but how many of these do you know? Even the best of labels can be more confusing than helpful sometimes. An unpredictable God often turns our labels on their heads.

Sorry for the long silence. I’ve been in Australia and didn’t have the kind of robust internet feed needed to get this blog out. I’m not saying Australia is behind the times (it is not), but the kind of places I was staying were not kind to my internet habits. Anyway, here goes!

In an earlier blog I argued that the God of the Bible is unpredictable, at least from the human perspective. Over and over again, the Bible tells stories in which God acts in ways we would not expect. His ways are not our ways (Isa 55:8-9). The awareness of this biblical theme has enormous implications for the way we do mission and the way we relate to God and to other people who are trying to understand and follow Him.

Another startling story is found in 2 Kings 5. Naaman, military chief of staff to the Syrian king, is afflicted with leprosy. Upon the advice of an Israelite servant girl he goes to Israel to find healing. After washing seven times in the Jordan at the instruction of Elisha, he is healed and returns to the prophet with a strange request for two mule-loads of earth from Elisha=s property. He then declares his intention to worship no other God but Yahweh while asking for an exception. Would it be all right for him to bow down in the temple of Rimmon when he escorts the king of Syria there? “Go in peace,” is Elisha’s surprising reply.

There is a connection between the two mule-loads of earth and ancient religious beliefs. In all of known human history the era of the most radical religious change occurred in the first millennium B.C. During this period people in general moved from a devotion to what we would call heathen religions, where religion was associated with the land and the forces of nature, to the philosophical or world religions we are familiar with today.  All the great world religions of today either had their origin between 800-200 B.C. (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism, Taoism) or are directly dependant on those that did (Christianity, Islam, Sikhism). These religions have largely displaced the primal religions although the primal religions still have influence below the surface in many parts of the world.

For the primal religions of Naaman’s day, all gods were associated with one land or another. That meant that Naaman could not worship Yahweh, the God of Israel, in Syria unless he brought with him Israelite dirt to spread in his garden. As noted in the SDA Bible Commentary, volume 2, page 878: “Although Naaman had recognized the fact that outside of Israel there was no God, he had not entirely divested himself of the view that the God of Israel was in some special way attached to the land of Israel, and in his own country he wanted to worship that God on Israelite soil.” So when Naaman wanted to worship Yahweh, he would kneel on the Israelite soil. When he entered the temple of Rimmon with the king, he would bow his head but not his heart. Elisha agrees with this arrangement, somewhat to our surprise.

Many godly people love to exalt the Bible as the rule of all faith and practice. We must not come to the Bible in a critical or suspicious spirit. Instead, we must bow before the Word of God and submit ourselves to its teachings. And I agree totally with these sentiments. But truly submitting to Scripture can be a lot more challenging than merely a verbal assent to its superiority. It sometimes means discovering a God we didn’t know about before, or One that we didn’t believe in. Then our level of submission to Scripture is truly exposed.