Truth, Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise
Written by: Cary Rodgers, pastor
The reason why the majority of people are deceived is because Bible Truth pricks and disturbs the sinful flesh and calls for repentance, confession and conversion. They believe that a lie is the truth while rejecting the evidence that substantiates the Truth! They are comfortable in a lie because it pleases the sinful flesh and gratifies pride and selfish ambitions. What do you do when Bible Truth is clearly revealed to you? Do you look to others to see if it is acceptable to them first? Do you see how much it will interfere with your current lifestyle? Or do you submit and are obedient to it regardless what others say or do?
Remember, Bible Truth is absolute. It cannot be changed. Just like in math 1 + 1 will always be 2 throughout eternity. It is absolute. 1 + 1 will never be any other number besides 2. There are no philosophies or theories that can change that. How many ways can someone dial your phone number right? One, of course. How many ways can someone dial your phone number wrong? Many! God’s Bible Truth helps you dial the right “number” to connect to Jesus, holiness, and eternal life. Satan’s many lies lead you to dial the wrong “number.” There is only one Truth that is absolute and eternal, the Word of God. Jesus Christ says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” It does not matter if you believe it or not, God’s Truth is truth. God’s Bible Truth will never fade, get old, or pass away.
All of God’s last day remnant soldiers must have a great love for Bible Truth. It must be studied, understood, obeyed, and integrated in every breath of your life! If your love for the truth is not greater than Satan’s hate for it, he will take it from you. We are living in the final hours of earth’s history. We are in the final movements and they are rapid ones! This is not the time to be listening to “peace and safety” messages or messages that please our fleshly desires to stay complacent and sleep. “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11). You MUST be vigilant against the adversary of Truth at all times. You cannot let your guard down for one moment. Satan and his demonic imps are plotting and looking for that careless moment to seduce God’s people away from the Truth.
Can Truth and Lie ever have an ecumenical relationship? Can Truth and Apostasy have an open dialogue and bond like brothers? Can Truth and Compromise walk together? Absolutely NOT! This is totally impossible. If Truth has an ecumenical relationship with Lie it is no longer the Truth! If Truth bonds with Apostasy, Truth has become an apostate! If Truth is walking with Compromise, Truth has compromised the truth. Amos 3:3 says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” There is no where in the Bible or the ministry of Jesus where it teaches that those who are abiding in the Truth and teaching the Truth have to make any concessions with Lie, Apostasy, or Compromise. Jesus makes it clear that we are to live in the world but not to be a partaker of the sinful ways of the world. We are to give the invitation of mercy to Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise to repent, turn from sin and turn to Jesus and allow Him, Truth, to transform them into the image of Truth! We are to “cry aloud and spare not” and expose Lie, Apostasy and Compromise! We are NEVER ever to join them in any shape, form, or fashion!
Jesus warns us in the last days that there will be false christs and false prophets. He says, “Take heed that no man deceive you.”(Matthew 24:4). That includes family, friends, church leaders, pastors, or elders. Let “NO man” deceive you away from Truth. The Bible is your only anti-deception protection program. Remember what Isaiah 8:20 says, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” “No light” means deep darkness. It does not matter their name, title, or church affiliation if you walk with them you are also walking in darkness! We are not to determine that someone has the Truth, because they call themselves the “Truth”. Jesus says, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” (Matthew 24:5). In other words, many say that they are “Christians” but they have unified in brotherly fellowship with Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise! Jesus says, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20). Words coming from mouths of others is not enough. Look at the fruit! Don’t be fooled by the words. 1 John 4:1 says, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” It does not matter the robes that Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise wear, they will always wear robes that look like Truth’s. It does not matter what the sign says on the front of the church, test every spirit, actions, and belief with Truth, God’s Word.
Revelation 13:3, 4 says that “all the world” will admire and worship the beast, the Papal Roman power and the dragon, Satan, the inner core of the beast. The true remnant of God are the only exception! Instead of having any ecumenical relations with Papal Rome they expose their lies, apostasy, compromise, and corruption. They are not mesmerized by Papal Rome’s impressive ceremonies, the deep rich tones of melodious music, great cathedrals, golden cups, and beautiful robes that appeal and captivate the senses. They are not seduced by the papacy’s call for “Christian” unity, and peace for the “common good” for humanity. The papacy’s cup on the outside may look clean, “but within they are full of extortion and excess.” (Matthew 23:25).
Should God’s people who claim to have the whole truth of both the law and the testimonies have any type of ecumenical relationship with Rome? When you objectively inspect the “fruit” of the Seventh-day Adventist corp Church leadership, General Conference, and all its entities over the past several years they have allowed and promoted Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise to infest and pervert many local churches, unions, hospitals, schools and universities around the globe. Worldliness is gnawing away at the foundation of the SDA church. Lie is corrupting young minds at the universities in the name of “academic freedom.” The LGBTQ (homosexuality) movement now has the sympathetic ears and nods of approval from the church leadership. These plus other compromises are very disturbing and sad, but the “fruit” that really exposes this apostate condition is their ecumenical relationship with the beast, Papal Rome! Beware, beware, beware. They believe Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise and have been seduced into Satan’s trap. This is what Papal Rome has been working on for years.
In the garb of “unity and peace” the papacy has established the world’s most influential and powerful ecumenical movement with Protestant churches and many other religions since the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican that started in 1962. Even though the light of the seventh-day Sabbath has shined in the faces of many Protestant churches they have rejected that light and continue to embrace Sunday as the Day of the Lord. In their rebellion they have clung on to Sunday as a unifying doctrine that brings Catholics and Protestants alike together.
Since Protestant churches have made their peace with Rome many years ago by continuing to embrace Sunday worship, what is the true purpose behind the ecumenical movement of the papacy?
The main purpose of the ecumenical movement of the papacy was to get the church who keep and teach God’s true seventh-day sabbath to unite with them. This was Satan master plan and golden prize!
Beach meeting with John Paul IIFor years the papacy was trying to make ecumenical relationship with the Seventh-day Adventists church. As long as the corporate church stayed true to the principles of the Word of God, Papal Rome would have been unsuccessful. The sad reality is that the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist corporate church have made ecumenical compromises with the beast, Papal Rome for several years now. Ever since leaders from GC, Bert B. Beach and Pastor Arthur Maxwell famously known for his “blue book” Bible Stories volume sets, and other SDA officials attended the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and Pope Paul VI in 1965 the bridge to Rome has been built and crossed over. (Russel R. Standish & Colin D. Standish, Half Century Of Apostasy, Australia, 2006, p. 33). Maxwell commented how honored he was to sit so close to the pope in his sermon entitled, “Impressions of Vatican II.” In that sermon he reportedly said, “Nobody will ever believe me, that I sat so long, so near to His Holiness. But I had a wonderful view and I saw some fascinating close-up view.” (Ibid. p. 35). Maxwell was mesmerized and seduced by Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise that he called the pope “His Holiness.” Blasphemy! In an interview with Adventist Review, Beach, a retired director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty (PARL), said “the big event of his life was his attendance at the Second Vatican Council.” Then later in the interview he said, “I see myself as a bridge builder.” (Roy Adams, Adventist Review, “Bert Beach: Adventist Statesman”, November 8, 2001). He and other apostate SDA leaders have been active in building a bridge to Lie, Apostasy, and Compromise!
Let the “fruit” reveal itself. For example, Beach, gave Pope Paul VI a golden medallion as an official gift from the SDA Church as an “olive branch” of friendship on May 18, 1977. Again in 1997 Beach met with Pope John Paul II in support of their ecumenical relationship with the papacy. Most recently, in October 2016 Dr. Ganoune Diop, director of PARL for SDA world church met with Pope Francis during the Conference of Secretaries of Christian World Communions in Vatican. The Conference of Secretaries of Christian World Communions (CWC) is a collection of 20 very large international ecumenical associations in which Diop currently presides over as secretary-general. Matter of fact, an official SDA GC leader has presided over the CWC since 1970, Bert B. Beach from 1970 to 2003; John Graz from 2003 to 2014; and Diop from 2014 to present. Remember let the fruit reveal itself. Their actions speak louder than words.
As a result, many SDA liter
ature and books concerning the beast and the mark of the beast crisis have become vague, generic, or no longer
Diop meeting with Francis (official Vatican Picture) in print. Papal Rome as the beast and little horn is scarcely mentioned. In 2010 at the GC session in Atlanta, they made an urgent appeal to the members to raise money to print and deliver the “Great Controversy” to millions of homes. The members with great enthusiasm donated money to complete the mission. Instead of the full version of the Great Controversy, as many were led to believe, GC officials did a “bait and switch” and substituted it with an abridged version known as the “Great Hope” which barely speaks about the Protestant Reformation and omits many of the errors, deceptions, and atrocities of the papacy as the Anti-christ. Again, look at the fruit. GC defends the “Great Hope” project and its relationship with the papacy. The ecumenical relationship with Papal Rome and other apostates is reflected in the SDA’s exchange of the Three Angels’ Message logo to the ecumenical flame that is similar to other churches to show their solidarity to the ecumenical movement. Sadly, it goes even deeper than this and God’s people need to be aware or they will be swept away from Truth! This is not true revival and reformation, but a “reorganization” that Ellen White warned the church over 110 years ago. She said, “The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. ...The principles of truth that God in His wisdom has given to the remnant church, would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written.” (SpTB02, Testimonies for the Church, Ch. 10 Foundation of Our Faith, 1904.)
Remember, the Three Angels’ Message is the core of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, it is in direct opposition to Papal Rome in every way! We are to EXPOSE the lies of Papal Rome and not unite in anyway! Don’t forget, Satan is the inner core of Papal Rome. So can Truth and those who hold on to it have anything in common with the beast to unite? We should have enmity with the man of sin, the system of the papacy and call those who are in darkness to the marvelous light!
There are two key things that unite apostate Protestant churches to Papal Rome, Sunday sacredness and spiritualism! Ellen White says, “Through the two great errors, the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness, Satan will bring the people under his deceptions. While the former lays the foundation of Spiritualism, the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome. The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of Spiritualism; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power; and under the influence of this threefold union, this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience.”--The Great Controversy, p. 588.
If spiritualism and Sunday sacredness unite the Protestant churches, which one did the corporate SDA church compromise first in order to have ecumenical relationships with Papal Rome and other apostate Protestant churches, the image of the beast? Was it Sunday sacredness? No, not yet, but very soon during the mark of the beast crisis. The answer is spiritualism! The SDA church leadership became mesmerized with Satan’s first lie in order to compromise the Three Angels’ Message and unite with Papal Rome! This cannot be overlooked nor ignored. Why? “As the teachings of spiritualism are accepted by the churches, the restraint imposed upon the carnal heart is removed, and the profession of religion will become a cloak to conceal the basest iniquity. A belief in spiritual manifestations opens the door to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, and thus the influence of evil angels will be felt in the churches.” (Great Controversy, p. 603). This is extremely serious!
Next article will talk more about spiritualism and its adoption in many churches. What is spiritualism and the branches that is being taught and accepted in many SDA churches and institutions today? What will spiritualism lead to? Is puppetry linked to spiritualism? What logo are many SDA churches and their institutions using to show that they have not only embraced the spirit of ecumenism but also spiritualism? These and many other questions on this topic of spiritualism will be addressed.