Rather than worshiping the beast, God’s people find their greatest joy and highest delight in worshiping Him. Their obedience springs from their heart of love. They are committed to Him because they know how committed He is to them.
Read Revelation 13:5. Write this identifying characteristic in the space below.
Recall from lesson 4 that God gives us a key for understanding prophetic time—one prophetic day equals one literal year (Num. 14:34, Ezek. 4:6). Calculating the time period of 42 months mentioned in Revelation 13:5 using the 30-day Hebrew month equals 1,260 prophetic days or literal years.
The Papacy exercised great influence from A.D. 538 to A.D. 1798. But when Berthier, Napoleon’s general, took the pope captive in A.D. 1798, the prophetic period of papal supremacy ended, and Revelation’s prophecy was fulfilled: “He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity” (Rev. 13:10, NKJV). The blow to the Papacy was extremely serious but not fatal. According to Revelation 13:12, the deadly wound would be healed. The Papacy’s influence once again would be felt worldwide.
Today, world leaders welcome the pontiff as an ambassador of the church of Rome and visit him regularly at the Vatican. In a world of unprecedented instability, the scene is being set for the Roman pontiff to become the acclaimed moral leader of the world who can bring people together. During his speech on June 6, 2012, to more than 15,000 people gathered in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI declared, “Sunday is the day of the Lord and of men and women, a day in which everyone must be able to be free, free for the family and free for God. In defending Sunday we defend human freedom.”—https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20120606.html (accessed October 10, 2022). The Great Controversy clearly reveals where this movement will one day ultimately lead: “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. . . . 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. In legislative halls and courts of justice, commandment keepers will be misrepresented and condemned.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 592.
However hard it is now to see something like this happening, look at how quickly our world can change. What should these changes tell us about how quickly end-time events can come upon us?
Additional Reading: Selected Quotes from Ellen G. White
The apostle Paul warned the church not to look for the coming of Christ in his day. “That day shall not come,” he says, “except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed.” 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Not till after the great apostasy, and the long period of the reign of the “man of sin,” can we look for the advent of our Lord. The “man of sin,” which is also styled “the mystery of iniquity,” “the son of perdition,” and “that wicked,” represents the papacy, which, as foretold in prophecy, was to maintain its supremacy for 1260 years. This period ended in 1798. The coming of Christ could not take place before that time. Paul covers with his caution the whole of the Christian dispensation down to the year 1798. It is this side of that time that the message of Christ’s second coming is to be proclaimed.—The Great Controversy, p. 356.
Satan as a powerful general has taken the field, and in this last remnant of time he is working through all conceivable methods to close the door against light that God would have come to his people. He is sweeping the whole world into his ranks, and the few who are faithful to God’s requirements are the only ones who can ever withstand him, and even these he is trying to overcome.
Go to God for yourselves; pray for divine enlightenment, that you may know that you do know what is truth, that when the wonderful miracle-working power shall be displayed, and the enemy shall come as an angel of light, you may distinguish between the genuine work of God and the imitative work or the powers of darkness.
A world is to be warned, and when the third angel’s message goes forth with a loud cry, minds will be fully prepared to make decisions for or against the truth.—Selected Messages, book 3, p. 389.
The Bible declares that before the coming of the Lord there will exist a state of religious declension similar to that in the first centuries. “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5. . . . Satan will work “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.” And all that “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” will be left to accept “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11. When this state of ungodliness shall be reached, the same results will follow as in the first centuries.—The Great Controversy, p. 444.
